CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Sean
There is really no way to describe what goes through your mind when you think you’re about to die.
My life doesn’t flash before my eyes. I don’t see any “light.” There’s no time for any of that.
The blast consumes the right side of the truck, causing all of the doors to blow open.
It must compromise the buckles on the left-side seatbelts, because both Wolfe and I are ejected onto the dusty barren road, I think I hit my head and then I slide.
For a full seven seconds, I slide. When I’m able to open my eyes, I can see Wolfe through the clouds of dust maybe fifty feet away.
A crippling groan leaves one of us, or both of us, as I raise my head trying to see our Humvee through the haze.
A small part of my brain understands that my side is torn to shit from road rash, but I can’t feel it yet.
Wolfe is calling something. His words echo, I can’t make them out, but I see him already up and running to the truck. I force myself to try to stand.
Yup, my back is fucked.
Pain radiates down my leg and makes it feel weak as I stand.
I probably shouldn’t run, but it’s either that or risk being shot.
There’s so much adrenaline pumping through my blood that I use it and just go, patting myself down as I run to make sure I still have all my limbs.
My Staff Sergeant, Keenan, is alive and seemingly okay.
Blood leaks from his left arm and his forehead has a nasty gash from the glass.
I can hear him on the radio as I frantically search for Buck.
It’s been seconds, maybe a minute, but it feels like an eternity before I hear him moaning.
Fucking Christ. His body is partly pinned under our Humvee, face down in the dirt, but I can see the bottom half of his leg and his toes are pointing toward the sky.
My vision tunnels as the opening strings to that fucking Clapton song start all over again; it’s on repeat.
I try to comprehend how Keenan’s makeshift sound system is even still working as I skid into the dust beside Buck’s broken body.
My shirt is sticking to my arm, soaked in blood.
I ignore the pain that starts to shoot through me. I can’t feel it fully yet.
I always sit right. But I chose left so I didn’t have to sit behind Keenan’s beefy body like a sardine and smell his rank chew on the drive. It should be me pinned under this thing with my hips rotated one hundred and eighty degrees, not Buck.
“Chhh-cchhheeseburger,” Buck says, his face half in the dirt, as I lie face down, covering him with my body. There is hardly any part of him still intact. My guts churn and pain shoots through me like multiple daggers are being thrust into my back all at once.
“Cheeseburger, bud?” I say, my voice shaking with shock, but I understand him. “That’s your first choice for dinner?” I whisper, talking to Buck like he isn’t gonna die right here in my arms.
But he is. There’s no question. He’s ripped wide open and I’ve never actually seen a living human body this fucked up before, and after almost three full tours out here, that’s saying a lot.
“Aaaand f-fries,” he stutters.
“Cheeseburger and fries it is. Just gotta get you out of here first, you hang tight. Help is on the way.”
“Three minutes out!” Wolfe echoes in a grunt as he assesses his own injuries.
The sound of a chopper can already be heard in the distance. I flip over onto my back and bite into my lip so hard it bleeds as my teeth chatter and the adrenaline from moments ago starts to leave my body. My arm is ripped open for sure, it’s definitely broken, and I’m skinned alive with road rash.
One of the tires spins slowly above us on our upside-down vehicle.
I let my head fall back to the earth, my hand still gripping Buck’s shoulder, whispering to him to hang on as I look toward the clear blue sky.
I might fall in and out of consciousness for a short time, I’m not sure.
Ringing and the muffled sounds of the music fill my ears as I focus on a lone dove that has just landed on the truck; its wings settle and the lyrics of the song play on.
The dove is calm, looking around from the top of the truck as if our world wasn’t just blown to all hell.
Nature versus carnage. The shade of the dove’s feathers is almost the same shade as the doors of our now mutilated truck.
I don’t know how long I watch the bird for, and I wonder why it doesn’t leave.
It can simply fly away at the sight of danger.
It should fly away. It should get the fuck out of this desert, but it doesn’t.
The dove stays, looking down on me, and I use it to keep my focus as long as I can.
The chopper gets closer. Buck groans beside me, the garbled sound of certain death.
“You fuckin’ stay with me, Buck,” I mutter.
He groans again, and I feel my stomach lurch, knowing these are his last seconds.
He’ll die out here, and for what? They won’t know he had a wife.
A daughter he’s never met. That he loves the Detroit Lions and Bud Light.
They won’t know that when all of us are tired he tells us the stupidest fuckin’ jokes, just to keep our spirits up, until someone starts throwing shit at him to get him to stop.
Numbness spreads through my right leg and I do my best to stay awake as the song continues, and the guardian dove keeps a watchful eye.
“Stay … please stay,” I whisper to it, fighting to hold on.
Peace spreads through me just as I realize that I have no idea what my internal injuries are.
I could die any time now, but I’ll hold my focus for as long as I can, talking to Buck or no one and focusing on the dove as long as I can.
It’s not until I feel the gust from the chopper that the dove finally takes flight.
I close my eyes and let the darkness swallow me as the lyrics echo around us …
“Sean.” I blink and see her eyes just as the dove flies overhead. She’s reaching for me but I can’t sit up. The pain is too much.
“Sean.” I feel a hand on my arm and adrenaline rushes through me as I rear up, ready to kill whoever is touching me.
“Sean!”
My eyes snap open, and hers come into view, only she’s under me now, and I’m pressing my forearm against her throat.
It takes me a second to realize this is here and now.
I’m not in the desert. We’re naked in her bed.
I let her go right before I cut off her airway completely and I bend down to kiss her.
My whole body trembles. I don’t even know what I’m saying besides, “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,” as she struggles to get her breath back.