Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Persuing Front Continued


This picks up right after the last sentence of the first post. The grammar may be awful, I didn't edit much. Hope the story isn't awful.


Rob lay there for sometime weeping. He lay in the somber reality of a tangible cost his life had taken out of the world. He had cost Amanda everything. He had cost Anna Amanda and probably more. He shortly became exhausted and slept again.

When he woke Anna was sitting on the left side of his bed looking over his legs out the window. Evening was in full swing and the light was clean and clear coming through the window. He moved his fingers to let her know he was awake. She noticed and leaned back in her chair as she turned to him.

“When I left I made it to the side exit and realized I couldn’t go home. I live with Amanda’s husband and child.” Tears began to come slowly down her face but her body had finished with crying.

“Her husband was informed of what happened when I was getting my leg casted. He waited for me in the waiting room, but I couldn’t go to him, not then. I waited until he left and then went as far as the exit, and I still can’t go to them. I came back here because you were there when everything happened. You are the only other person alive who was there. I just don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve slept here for the past three nights.”
Not knowing what else to say Rob whispered “I’m sorry”.

“I know. I’m sorry too”

“Are you doing any better?”

Anna shook her head no. “I can’t stop shaking, my hands shake off and on all the time. I can’t sleep. I cry a lot.”

They sat in each other’s company for a few minutes when Anna continued, “We wanted to get a hold of your wife but you didn’t have any info on you, and we can’t find you in our computers and the police are too busy to check theirs.”

Rob’s face became tense and he began to worry about Rachel. Noticing his tension Anna leaned forward and said, “Do you know where we might try to reach her? Do you have family nearby that we could contact? With all the shootings that took place there is no telling where anyone might be. Everything in the city has been locked down. The police and investigators are looking for people who were involved. There is National Guard in all the streets. It is hard to get anywhere or a hold of anyone.”

Rob’s face tensed into more worry, “How many shootings was there that day?”

“There were six outbreaks of shooting. Four of them were quite large. Over five hundred reported casualties. The one we were involved in was the biggest. They were targeting an old storage warehouse around the corner from where we were. You were just in a bad spot that morning.”

As frantic as his voice could be Rob asked, “What about the people in the warehouse, did any of them survive?”

“People? That warehouse was storage for imports from Asia. All of the outbreaks were centered around similar warehouses. They think it was some terrorist group from Texas trying to make a point about the U.S.’s foreign relations.”
Rob shook his head and grabbed her hand.

“You don’t understand. That warehouse around the corner was a housing unit for refugees from Texas, political refugees. All of those people were on a death list compiled and issued by the militias in Texas. There were a number of them around the city, five or six, and more in other U.S. cities. It’s important…” Rob’s voice gave out and he began to cough. His felt ripped to shreds and he started coughing up blood.

Anna rose and held one of his shoulders down to steady him and a rag to his mouth.

“You shouldn’t talk so much. You’ve had two operations on your throat and one of your vocal chords is gone. You really can’t handle talking this much. They were just warehouses, you must be confused.”

Rob pushed her hands away and started to speak again. “No, those warehouses were full of people. Think about it. I was shot by a sniper. Why would there be snipers if all they wanted was to blow up a building full of imported goods? Were people shot in the streets at the other attacks? Or at any other…” Rob started coughing again and couldn’t finish.

Anna held the rag back to his mouth and sat down on the edge of his bed.

“Yes there were. Actually, once it started there were shootings all over town. Everyone has said it was just people panicking and things getting out of control. The bombs stopped after an hour or so, but there were shootings up until the National Guard showed up eight hours after it all started. Why were they shooting people in the streets though if the refugees were in the warehouses?”

When Rob could speak he continued.

“Some targets are higher profile than others. They would have wanted to make sure those targets were taken out.” Rob barely got the last word out before his throat seized up and he started coughing again.

Anna paused for a moment and then looked at Rob as if he were morphing into someone else before her eyes.

“You were one of the targets weren’t you? And the woman the street next to you.”
Rob shook his head no, but he couldn’t speak.

“The woman wasn’t a target?”

Rob shook his head no.

“But you are a target on these death lists.”

Rob slowly shook his head yes.

Anna slowly sat down staring at him. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes to think, to try and take it all in.

Rob reached out and grabbed her hand firmly. She opened her eyes to find him intently looking at her.

Rob croaked out the last words he had in him.

“My wife is on that list too. Please find her.”

Anna started to get up but paused to look at him a moment longer. She nodded her head as if she had just come to some conclusion about everything she had just learned and got up and started towards the door. As she reached the door she looked over her shoulder and said.

“I’ll try again to see if I can find your wife.”

He wanted to warn her to be careful, but his voice failed him, and she left the room.



The next day Rob began choking. He choked for an insufferable ten minutes before Anna happened to walk into his room and find him feebly gasping for air.
He saw her enter the room from what seemed a long distance. He saw her pause and then rush to his side. He met her eyes once briefly as she surveyed his throat and chest wounds. He was comforted that there was no panic in her eyes, not even frustration. He calmed down even though he was still choking. Her hands and presence were enough for the moment.

A moment was really all he had left. He blacked out very quickly after Anna arrived. He was rushed into surgery where the surgeons found a tiny piece of bone fragment in his throat that had become infected and swollen, restricting his already compromised trachea. The surgeons successfully removed the fragment but the stress put further stress on his vocal chords.
Rob woke two days later. One of the regular nurses was leaning over him replacing and empty IV bag. She noticed he was awake and explained some things to him.

“Well, hello Mr. Carter. You had a little bit of a complication the other day but we fixed you up pretty quick. You had a bone chip in your throat that the surgeons missed in the first surgeries. They followed the infection to the source though and removed it. You’ll recover but it’s very important that you don’t speak for a while at all.”

The nurse kept speaking until she finished her duties and then headed for the door. As she turned to leave she finished.

“You won’t be able to make a sound anyway for at least a couple of days, but don’t push it anyway ok.”

How many times am I going to almost die?

Rob lay there unable to think about anything else and eventually fell to sleep.



Sometime late that night Rob woke to a full moon peeping through his window. He stare at the moon for a minute and then surveyed his room. In the bed next to him, which had previously been empty, Anna lay sleeping. She was facing him and could see a strand of hair that had fallen across her face stir with her breathing.

What a mess we are.

As his eyes drifted they settled on a pair of boots sticking out from behind the privacy curtain between the two beds. Black military boots resting casually crossed on the end of two legs covered in course green wool pants. The legs disappeared behind the curtain into a chair usually empty except when Anna would pull it up to his bedside and sit with him.

He strained to see an outline or shadow through the curtain. There was no light coming from the other side to help his eyes. He looked down where the bottom of the curtain floats a foot and a half above the floor. Coming from the curtain to rest on the floor was the butt end of a rifle. He could see the butt, the bolt, the trigger, and the beginning of a high power scope.

Rob began to silently cry. He helplessly cried out with no effect. He lay there crying and terrified. Angry that all the suffering should end like this, and with Anna here too. The silence he lay in deafening in his own head.

From the other side of the curtain a sharp in-take of breath startled Rob. He heard the boots slowly slide across the floor towards the chair. A moment later the curtain moved as someone stood and the butt of the rifle disappeared up into the curtain.

A young man took a few steps out from behind the curtain with the rifle slung over his shoulder rubbing his eyes and yawning. He looked over and stopped when he saw Rob staring at him terrified. They stared at each other for a minute surprised to see each other.
The young man was not tall and had long straight heavy blond hair, thin lips, and steady blue eyes. He had a strong bone structure to his face and a sturdy build. He cast a pleasant smile with perfect white teeth at Rob.

The young man raised his finger to his lips and motioned towards Anna closing his eyes and laying his head down on his hands. Rob looked at Anna quickly and looked back at the young man. When the young man thought Rob understood to be quiet he smiled again and with exaggerated sneak, like a kid playing at sneaking, he moved the chair he had been napping in to the opposite side of Rob’s bed from Anna.

Rob was confused by this young man, and completely terrified. He wanted to run, but he could barely move, He craved to scream but he could feel blood trickling down his throat from his crying and knew it would be useless.

The young man sat down in the chair next to him carefully leaning his rifle against the wall behind him. He leaned in to talk quietly.

“Rob hi, I’m Kevin. I know ya can’t talk, I read yur chart, but I just wonted to introduce myself as if we was just meeting like normal folks at a bar or somethin.”
He smiled and nodded his head to some pleasantry he imagined Rob responding with. He scrunched his face up and squinted at Robs wounds lifting himself out of his chair to survey his throat and chest closely. Rob flinched in fear as Kevin leaned over him, but Kevin didn’t seem to notice. He sat down in the chair shaking his head.

“That’s bad shootin man. I heard he hit a bystander too, a young woman. Tragic. She wasn’t marked or nothing for killin.”

He saw Rob’s face distort into a deeper terror and disgust. He slid in closer and touched Rob’s arm comfortingly.

“I’m not here to finish you off, don’t you worry bout that, and I’m definitely not the one who did this to you. I passed it off once I scouted you out, shame whoever got it wasn’t a better shot. Not that it matters for you none, you’d a survived anyhow, but that poor young woman got her head shot out all over your coat might still be alive. I saw the whole thing, wanted to see how you’d make it.”

Kevin leaned back in the chair and shook his head thinking about the tragedies of poor shooting,

“Poor shooting, man.”

“I aint ever miss, God has steadied my hand when there’s a painted person in my sights. I used to git scared as a kitten when I’d go huntin.”

He picked his rifle up and brought it to his eye and started casting about the room hunting in his childhood again. He got to Anna and stopped to sight her in. Everything in Rob’s body froze.

“As soon as I’d zero in on some kinda game I’d start shakin like a earthquake”.
At this he started to tremble with his rifle and looked to Rob smiling to see if he was getting the joke. He stopped smiling when he saw Rob’s face. Kevin leaned back gritting his teeth and shrugging his shoulders as if he had caught himself committing and embarrassing faux pa. As he slowly put the rifle against the wall again he turned to Rob and said, “I am so sorry. Guns probably make you nervous as hell after bein all shot up and stuff huh? It’ll stay against the wall as long as I’m here.”

Rob was now certain that this young man was crazy.

Kevin leaned in looking thoughtful and continued, “Rob, I shot your wife.”

They stared at each other. Rob had stopped crying and trembling. He lay still silently watching suddenly completely removed from the room. Far beyond his world he sat watching the whole scene no longer able to grasp it as real.

“It was good shootin I promise. She’s dead before she hit the ground. Got her walkin out yalls little hide out apartment. I was eighteen floors up and two hundred yards away but was dead on. Went down through her heart and right lung. She died before she had time to realize what happened, before she could feel any pain or fear.”

Still leaning forward Kevin was speaking to Rob like a surgeon explaining the death of a loved one that was expected to die despite treatment. Still leaning close to Rob and whispering Kevin continued.

“Originally I’s sposed to come after you. I got my assignment and came on up. I scouted you for a week, but you wasn’t painted. You were on the death list alright, but death wouldn’t gonna find you no matter how good a shot you are. Rachel was painted though,” at the sound of his wife’s name Rob could see his body shudder at the repulsive nature of this boy saying her name so intimately.

“She had the fog of death comin out her nose and mouth the first time I saw her.” Kevin leaned back in his chair and began to speak softly staring at nothing next to Rob’s legs.

“Once you breathin in death like that there aint no stoppin what’s comin. There’s no stoppin it anyhow. I used to get scared when all the fightin was going on. Bullets suddenly flying around buzzing your ears, whippin off the pavement at your feet. I’d run so fast from those buzzers and whippers, and I’d always make it. The boys next to me though, they weren’t makin it like I was. I was hidin one night in a bombed out city building in Port Arthur, when a man walked right into the room with me. Unarmed and strangely clean he walked right up to me. He said ‘Why you hidin?’

“I said, ‘I’m scared’. He shook his head and said. You have no right to be afraid. I have told you before if you live like this you will die like this. Your days are numbered, you can’t hide from that. He helped me up and walked out. I aint never seen him again. Ever since then though I’ve seen death on those I kill. I figured if they was saturated with that much death they wasn’t gonna live much longer anyway. I aint missed yet shooting at those who been marked, and I won’t shoot at no others.”

Kevin’s eyes began to refocus into the room. He smiled at Rob and leaned in again. “Anyway, I originally just wanted to make sure you were ok, but when I walked in you’ll never guess it but that very man who picked me up off the ground in Port Arthur was sitting in this very chair, watching the two of yall sleep like babes. When I walked in he got up and he walked up to me and said, ‘Your numbers are coming to an end, but before you die you will return to him everything that was taken’, then he walked on out the door”.

By his last word Kevin had become so excited he was shaking and holding Robs arm. “I aint never thought I’d do nothin good like that ever. I never been particularly mean or nothin, but I aint no angel either you know. Now I’m gonna do something good for you sometime before I die.”

Robs lack of reaction put Rob back in his seat reaching for his rifle. Uncomfortable with Rob’s lack of excitement he got up to leave.

“Anyway, I just thought you might want to know. See ya Rob”, came over Kevin’s shoulder as he shuffled quietly towards the door.


Ten years later the last American owned harbor on the main land United States was sold to the European Union. The United States of Texas had vehemently protested the pending sale. When the sale went through the reaction was bloody.

Rob was now living in Vancouver. He had begun to write books about the nature of the spirit of rebellion in political revolutions. Unintentionally, and unknowingly he was back on a death list at the urging of Texas Baptist preachers, notoriously connected with the far right Liberty Party.
Canada was in summer when Rob was walking home with his wife and five year old daughter from a lunch with friends from the magazine he was writing a periodical for. As he would pass a store front he would look in the reflection at his family and wonder how life could be so different from one moment to another.

Commotion broke out down the street. Skittish from a life of avoiding threats Rob instantly brought his daughter under him and his wife close. As he turned them to walk the other way he was met with an almost empty street with only to older gentlemen sharing the sidewalk and walking towards the commotion. He began to walk away when someone yelling his name behind him brought his attention back over his shoulder. Running up behind them frantically was a smiling, excited young man waving a pistol in the air and yelling out is name.

“Mr. Robert Sullivan! Rob Sullivan!”

Rob turned to see that blond boyish demon from his hospital room sprinting towards him.
He reached for his wife and found her desperately reaching for him. He turned to her as she turned to him. She had not been watching what he had but she looked terrified. He turned to find her terror. The two older gentlemen had raised pistols in their hands and for coming for his family.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

By the last shot Rob had been pushed with his wife and daughter through a storefront door and somehow found himself huddled in the corner with them clinging to him. He was clutching them both finding blood on both of them. Everyone had blood on them. Rob suddenly couldn’t speak.

“Rob are you ok? Rob! Baby!? Are you ok?!”

His wife was feeling all over him for wounds. Rob could see very little over her. He could feel his daughter crying and trembling in his arms. The scene was just now playing is Rob’s mind. As he turned to find the two gentlemen facing him with raised pistols he heard the first two shots.

Bang! Bang!

He heard the discharge just behind him before he saw the flash at his face. Then the second discharge hit him loudly and with force. A rushing wind went by his ear so violently that his left ear felt turned inside out. The man in front of him to the left caved in at the chest and fell back to the pavement with flapping useless hands.

He was struck from behind as the next two shots sounded.

Bang! Bang!

As he was falling through the door he saw the man in front of him to the right fire at Kevin falling through the store front door on top of him. His wife frantically helped him crawl out from under Kevin as the man fired at Kevin. Immediately the second shot sounded and the man stranger’s throat split down the middle like a dilating pupil, erupted with blood just outside the store front.
Kevin slid up to the door and checked his pistol. He looked up and found Rob staring at him,

“Hey there man, surprising aint it. Best keep them wife and kid away from the door. I can promise you they aint in any danger, but they are scared. Man you look good; it’s been a long time huh.” Kevin shook his head and went to pull a mirror out his pocket and began to study the street outside the store front.

“Robert look at me!”

He turned to his wife to see her hysterical and crying. He looked down at his daughter, she was crying too. He looked back to his wife to see her flinch at more gun shots.
Kevin jumped back from the doorway. The last gunshot was followed by a sharp snap in the pavement by Kevin’s leg. Kevin jumped, startled by the impact. He clutched his chest and looked at Rob stunned.

“Well aint that something! I woke up this morning breathing death. Breathing it so thick it was fogging up my mirror as I shaved and I thought for sure one of those to men were gonna shoot me dead point blank. Bullets been missin me by millimeters for years, comin so close to give me wind burn. Thought I cheated death there for a moment, you know a little grace for me. But don’t you know the one that misses me by a good ten inches hits the concrete and jumps backwards right up to git me. That’s irony right? I read your book you know, first book I ever read in ten years, I like it.”

He looked down as he pulled his hand away from his chest. Cupped in his palm was a little pool of pink bubbly blood. Kevin turned back to Rob.

“Man, right in the lung.”

Kevin took on an introspective look and tried to take a deep breath but winced and ceased at the effort. Now dazed and wobbly he mumbled to Rob, “Yep, I can feel em filling up as I breath”, he chuckled frightened, “guess the fog on my mirror was death after all huh?”

He looked over the Kevin’s wife and waved with his pistol, “Howdy, Mrs Sullivan I’m Kevin. Rob’s probably told you all about me, we’re friends from way back. I’d shake your hand but I been shot.”

He truly looked apologetic about the hand shake. Rob began to him change into this helpless child slumped there in the doorway still holding his pistol, waiting to drown in his own blood. Kevin face suddenly distorted with pain and he began to cry.

“It’s startin to hurt Rob, real bad.”

He looked to Rob pleadingly.

“Does it keep hurting worse when you get shot Rob? I aint never been shot before.”
He groaned and brought his knees to his chest, blood started to trickle out of his mouth.
He looked to Rob as he slid over on his side weeping as he died.

“I aint got no one to tell me they love me as I die. Alls I got is Jesus to say I love you to. All I have for years. Rob I liked you a lot man, I wanted to be friends with you so bad.”
Kevin was blubbering at this point and coughing up pink bubbles of blood gurgling his words.

“Do you think we might have been friends Rob, you know after some time? I woulda like that so much…We could have been friends right?”

Kevin screamed in pain curled up tighter. He lay there wheezing, looking at Rob and his wife. Rob could see him trying to form words with his mouth but nothing came out. Rob and his wife watched him die alone by the door.