THEM (Season 1): Episode 3 by M.D. Massey Page A

That’s how I got hooked up with this circus.” As he said it, Ratcliff gave me a look that said he wished he hadn’t.
    I paused for effect, then eyeballed him. “So if you don’t like it, why do you stay?”
    He crossed his arms and leaned back with one foot against the wall. “Shit, man, where else am I going to go? We’ve been all over this damn post, and down to what’s left of Lackland—it’s a wasteland down there—even spent some time searching Fort Sam Houston for med supplies. And let me tell you, there ain’t nuthin’ left. It’s all gone, man, and I can’t tell you how many people we lost fightin’ them things while we were runnin’ all over creation trying to find out if there was any command structure left.”
    “And what’d you find?”
    He smirked at me. “What d’you think? Nuthin’, not a damned thing. We’re all that’s left of the military, at least around here. No idea what’s happening anywhere else.”
    “So, you know about this plan of the colonel’s—Operation STANDUP?”
    He shrugged. “That’s above my pay grade, man. I just run the supply shed, make sure we got the things we need.” He looked off down the hallway. “Hey, I think that hot-ass Mexican doctor is coming. She fine, but I gotta split—got work to do. But, come by the Swamp later tonight—we always got a card game going on, and some of the boys and I make a mean hootch.”
    “The Swamp?”
    He smiled a toothy grin. “Hey, man, gotta hang on to some memories, right? Anyways, stop on by, some of the guys’ll probably want to congratulate you on stomping Jones a new asshole. Ain’t nobody likes him around here.” Ratcliff tipped me a two-fingered salute, then slipped out the door just as the doc walked in.
    The doc glanced at Jones and acted as if it were nothing peculiar to see me standing there in the treatment room. “So, what happened to him?” She nodded at Jones, who was still moaning on the table.
    “Acute testicular compression, followed by repeated blunt trauma to the mandibular and left orbital region.”
    She continued to examine Jones as she spoke. “Your handiwork?”
    “He started it.”
    She chuckled. “It sounds like you have some medical experience.”
    “Ranger First Responder training. Plus, I cross-trained as a sixty-eight whiskey.”
    The doc nodded. “I could probably see about getting you assigned to the clinic. It’d keep you from digging trenches.”
    “I wouldn’t object, but that might not make me too popular with the rest of the enlisted around here. New guy, getting a cush job and all.”
    She gestured around her. “You can see what I have to work with, and we are short staffed. I have one nurse here to help me, and that’s it. Let me talk with the colonel and I’ll see what I can do.”
    I nodded at Jones. “He going to make it?”
    She pulled his pants down and took a look inside his boxers, then grimaced. “Well, let’s just say the outlook for the future arrival of a Jones junior isn’t looking good.” Then she muttered under her breath, “I’d watch your back if I were you.”
    I looked around, then leaned in and whispered, “Anybody giving you any trouble?”
    “Just some soldiers playing grab-ass. But, the colonel thinks I’m too valuable to let these savages loose on me, so for the moment, I’m safe. But you—if they find out what you’re up to, they’ll string you up for zombie bait.”
    I winked, and then whispered back, “Don’t worry about me. Just be ready, and play along with it when it happens.” Then, in a conversational voice, “I gotta go get cleaned up, Doc. Let me know what the colonel says about getting me assigned here.” She nodded once, and went back to treating Jones, who looked so bad I almost felt a twinge of guilt about putting him down. Then I caught a whiff of myself and thought better of it.
    - - -
    I knew they wouldn’t assign me to the med station, since I was more valuable to them for my combat experience than