The Jericho Files #5.5

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The Jericho Files #5.5

"Call it" one of the doctors said to the other. The other doctor, weary and beaten, pulled off his gloves and looked at the clock
"time of death, 3:34am" the tired doctor sighed and slowly walled from the room while the nurses tended to the now dead body.

That dead body was me. Jericho Carey. What seemed like days ago, I was injected with something that was supposed to help me escape my captors. What it ended up doing was killing me and forcing my captors to drop me off near a hospital. I was ready to move on until I heard the doctors say I had a faint pulse. I was certain that this would not be the end for me.

Now the doctors, who fought valiantly as they are called to do, were calling it. Meaning that the fight was truly over. Maybe now I could pass on and go be with my family.

The nurses removed all the equipment that was hooked up to me. I could hear them talking clearly now, which was strange, since shortly after my death all I could hear was muffled noises and dull sounds. Why would my hearing return clearly now?

I guess I could consider this new territory for anyone, including myself. It's not everyday you get to experience the moments after death. I occupied myself with this concept while the nurses finished cleaning me and wheeled me out out of the emergency room and down the hall. Every once in a while, I could feel the thud as the stretcher would run into doors, opening them up for us to pass through. As I was being pushed, I wondered how much longer I had before it was over. Just about that time, I passed by a sign that read "autopsy". It seems that they wanted to find out what happened.

They wheeled me into a room that was significantly dimmer than the others and left the stretcher in the middle of the room, locking the wheels. I could hear the nurses chat as they left the room, leaving me in silence.

Shortly after that, I heard some more people enter the room. They approached the stretcher and leaned over it, looking into dead eyes. There was a male and a female, both were wearing surgical gowns and caps, but you could see the military bars and medals beneath the gowns. I had a feeling my time with the opposing military was not over. I could only hope I would pass before their exam began.

They pulled back from my face and stepped away, I could hear the sound of water and assumed they were scrubbing in for the autopsy. I could hear they were discussing my altercation with Farid and the aftermath. It seems that Farid lied and said he was trying to inject me with a small amount of truth serum, when I grabbed the needle from him and took the entire syringe.  Truth serum in that dose, they said, was the official cause of my death. They were going to perform an autopsy to try and prove if Farid was lying.

They returned to the table with surgical masks on. They stepped to end of the table and began to cut the remainder of my clothes off. As they did that, I could feel the cool air of the room touch my legs.

Then something strange happened. The cold feeling in my toes began to turn warm. I at first thought it was just my imagination, but quickly remembered this was the same feeling I had whenever I injected myself with Farid's syringe. It slowly began to get warmer at my feet and slowly began to work it's way up. The man and woman were working near my head now, and I noticed they were armed. They apparently were expecting to be interrupted by whomever I worked for.

Slowly the warm feeling crawled up to my ankles. I felt my toes twitch a little. From the looks on their faces, they had not noticed. This was incredible. It seems that my body was coming back to life. After all the torture I had endured, it seems the hope Farid had promised me was coming true. The warm feeling was flowing thorugh my calves now. I did my best to keep my toes from twitching, so the doctors would not notice what was happening. I had decided that these people were not on my side.  And if I was truly coming to back to life, I would not be welcome in my present company. I began to devise a plan of escape. I was fully prepared to fight my way out of here.

"Prepare the formaldehyde, once we examine his internals and get a tox screen, we'll prep the body for burial" the female doctor said. The male doctor left the side of the table to manage this task. The female doctor pressed a button on a voice recorder and began to take notes. The warm feeling was up to my waist now. I could feel the muscles in my legs twitch as they had feeling return to them.

"subject is a Caucasian male, approximately 6 feet and weighing an estimate of 190 lbs. He was detained for questioning when he received an overdose of sodium amatol. The subject apparently had an adverse reaction to of the sodium amatol and suffered a heart attack. That is the initial analysis, an autopsy will provide us with more information. We will begin with an incision along the length of the chest cavity."

She reached for an instrument on her tray, and I felt the warm feeling reach my heart. The familiar feeling of my heart beating began to return to me. I wasn't exactly sure how, but my body was returning from death.

She grabbed a scalpel and pressed it against my chest and stopped suddenly. She felt my skin and then grabbed her tape recorder.

"subjects skin is warm to the touch, this abnormality is very uncommon and will require some deeper investigation. We will have to drain the blood before we continue this---"

I did not give her time to finish that finish sentence, my arm had regained feeling so I made a lunge for the doctor. I had not taken into account that after a long time of non movement, my muscles would not be as strong as before. I had enough strength to push myself off the table, but enough to stand. As I fell to the ground, I wrapped an arm around the surprised doctors neck, dragging her to the ground while having an effective grip on the doctor.

She did not struggle much. I guess the shock of seeing a dead body come to life was a little too much for her. I took the opportunity to grab her sidearm, and promptly pistol whipped her in the head, knocking her out. I then gripped the table and struggled to stand. As I struggled to stand, I began to notice my own breathing, I realized that I was really once again alive. I wanted to celebrate, but I knew better. I was in a hospital full of the enemy, I would surely die again if I didn't get out now. I knew of her associate, who would be returning shortly. The strength in my legs was returning quickly, so tried to stumble across the room. I heard the sound of footsteps and quickly limped to a door, hiding behind it. The owner of those footsteps entered the room talking about iv kits, then immediately stopped when he noticed the scene. The body was gone and his partner was on the floor, unconscious. He took half a second to survey the situation, then ran towards the door to get help. As he ran towards the door, I swung it closed right in his face. He stepped back, confused. That's when he noticed me and feel backwards in fear. I approached him calmly, with a smile on my face. I cocked the pistol and aimed it at his head. He literally shook in surprise at the change of events. I asked him to state his name, rank, serial number, and outfit name. Which he did. I had gotten the information I needed all along. I told him to stand up and get up against the wall. My brain, finally awake, was devising a plan to get out of here. When he was against the wall, I told him to strip. He appeared to be the rank of a major, according to his military decorations. This was an advantage to me because majors were rarely questioned about their intentions, so as soon as I assumed his identity, I could leave here quietly, wherever here was.

As he stripped, I took his clothes and put them on. They were slightly loose, but a good fit. I took his sidearm as well, for extra firepower. I then put the gun to the back of his neck and asked him where we were. He eyes shifted from side to side. He intended to lie to me. I decided not to waste my time, and clocked him in the back of the skull with my pistol. He fell to the floor in a heap. I straightened my hat and began to walk out the door. I stopped briefly to consider if I would be recognized by others in the hospital.  I looked back at the table and noticed and noticed a pack of surgical masks. I quickly grabbed one and put it over my face. It was time to go home.

I stepped out the door slowly and took a left. The best thing during my death, if there is such a thing, was that my eyes were always open. I saw everything, and my memory seemed to be working very well. I quickly was able to retrace my steps back to the front door and was halfway out the door when I heard the major's name being called. I turned around slowly. A slightly younger man approached me and asked me how the autopsy had gone. I calmed myself and explained that I was being called away to something else and that I had left the autopsy in the hands of my colleague. When he inquired about the mask, I explained that i was feeling slightly ill and I did not want to run the risk of infecting others. He seemed to buy it and offered to go assist in the autopsy. I did not want to alarm him, so I stated that he should, but first he would have to prep and find a iv kit and prep it for a formaldehyde transfer. He saluted and walked away to tend to the task. I turned to leave and walked outside. The sun was just coming up on the small town area where this hospital stood. I quickly moved down the street, as I figured I only had 5 minutes to get away before the truth was discovered.

As I walked, I noticed a parking lot off to the side, which contained several civilian cars and a military jeep.

I fished in the major's jacket and discovered a key. I took a chance and hopped into the jeep. I pushed the key into the ignition and turned it.

The engine roared to life and I was off. I still had no idea where I was, but drove anyway expecting to find something to jog my memory.

As I was driving, I noticed there was some chatter from the radio regarding my description. It appears the enemy has discovered my absence and was now on its way to find me. I sped up slightly and headed for the city limits. I had little time to get away.

As I left the city, I grabbed the radio and messed with the dials and tried changing the frequency to match that of my platoon. As i was changing knobs, I heard a brief whoosh and looked up in time to see an RPG heading towards my vehicle, I swerved to avoid it. As the RPG just barely sailed past me, i had steered too much and felt the jeep begin to flip. As it tumbled over, I heard gunfire begin to rattle the bottom of the jeep. I grabbed my sidearms and crawled out of the jeep, using it as cover.
 I loaded my sidearms and moved out of my cover to fire. As I fired off a few rounds, I noticed the insignia on one of their vehicles. It was the symbol of my neighboring platoon. They knew me just as well as my platoon did. I shouted at them to stop and stepped out from behind the jeep. I threw my guns to the ground and got on my knees with my hands behind my head. They quickly moved to secure me as a hostage. The put my hands behind my head and tore my hat off. They quickly stopped to study my face, then let out a shout of joy. They had recognized me and quickly untied me and helped me to my knees. I explained in the briefest terms what had happened and then suggest we leave because I was being looked for. I gathered my things and followed them to their vehicle. Before we left, I grabbed a grenade from a comrade and threw it at the jeep. As we sped away, the grenade exploded, engulfing the jeep in flames. With that, I had removed every trace of myself being there. My name had never been uttered, and people were not sure who I was.

As we drove back to our base, I was asked countless questions by my fellow soliders. They had received word that I was MIA, and that I had been missing for over a week. The time didn't seem to have passed that long.

Several hours later, we arrived at our base and I met with my superiors for debriefing. I explained to them my story and what I experienced. They helped fill in the blanks of some information I had missed. We were able to determine the actual outfits name that had captured me. I left it to the commanders to make plans for retaliation. I asked them for permission to organize a special ops squad in the near future. They asked for my reason, and I confidently stated that there were some personnel currently being forced to work for the opposing army that I'd like to capture and “convince” to work for us. I left it at that, and let them decide.

I walked out of the tent and headed to my platoons tent. I had to plan out this special ops mission.

I wanted to have a little chat with Farid......

THE END