World's End by D B Green

Author:D B Green [Green, D B]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orlando House Publishing
Published: 2019-07-18T22:00:00+00:00

11:48 GMT

LUTHER STONE

RUTLAND HOSPITAL | NEW BAKEWELL

“No!”

The scream reverberates through the camper van from outside, sending my mind back to the Gulf War. I close my eyes, but I can’t block it out. The town of Khafji. The screams. The explosion. My leg…

“Snap out of it, Luther!”

My eyes spring open at the panic in Nicci’s voice. I rub my knee and then reach further down. There’s excruciating pain where my calf should be. This soon disappears as I press into the cold metal rods underneath.

Kathy’s last words in the journal fade away, leaving a blank page. “No… not again.” I push open the door and step out of the van. My hands shake as I pull my Berettas out of their holsters.

Nicci grabs my shoulder, pulling me back. “What the hell just happened?”

“Kathy… She’s gone.” I twist away from her grip and run up the parking ramp into the glaring sunshine.

Dizzy.

Pain shoots through my knee with every step. I shift more weight onto my good leg. I don’t want to pass out.

A whirring noise, like helicopter blades, buzzes close to my head. I drop to the ground and scramble behind a metallic blue car. Shielding my eyes, I look to the sky for the source of the noise. A soldier flies over me, blocking out the sun. It’s like a giant, invisible hand is twirling him by his leg. He fires his MP5. Bullets thud into the asphalt next to me. He continues firing as he spins. A curved line carves through the car bonnet and across the windscreen.

The fuel tank.

I dive behind another car as the metallic blue one explodes. Chunks of burning metal pepper the side of the silver car protecting me. It rocks sideways under the impact. Another smaller explosion sends a plume of black smoke high into the sky.

The smell of burning metal is overpowering.

Libby.

Think of anything. Anything but that… Think of Khafji.

I shake my head, but worse memories force Khafji aside in my mind. They attack my soul.

No. Please, no.

My mind jumps back to Pennsylvania Avenue. Our car. Black smoke. Burning metal. The melted purse. Libby…

I jam my knee down into the socket of the prosthetic leg and turn what’s left of my limb.

Intense pain.

The nerve endings scream as I rotate my knee. But the pain drives the car bomb memories away.

Dizzy.

I stop turning the joint as the first stings of dizziness creep into my mind. I can’t pass out, not now.

The soldier’s helmet falls, bouncing off the car hood onto the asphalt. The attached radio earpiece hisses. “Report. Report.”

I peer over the hood. Another soldier rises into the sky from the far side of the parking lot, like a marionette on invisible strings. Then three more rise from their hiding places. They crash together in mid-air and rise even higher, like a distant flock of birds in the sky. Then they drop. Fast. Crashing against the stone corner of the hospital and landing in a heap on the sidewalk.

I head past the smoking blue car, to the pile of broken bodies.

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