Blackout

Chapter 5

Imaia Island

Max

Three months later…

“When is the military unit coming to pick us up?” whined Rosie by my side, fanning her reddened face while our group tried to stay together under the punishing sun of the tropical island. I looked around the deserted hangar and up to the bluest sky I'd ever seen. It was hot on the island, which would be our house for the next six months. 

How exactly did I end volunteering for the Medical Emergency Relief Army? I still wasn’t sure. After the robbery at the mall something had changed in me. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I had this strange need of doing more than what I’d been doing. Helping at the local hospital wasn’t cutting it anymore. There was a need for the same rush I’d experienced helping that pregnant woman deliver her baby at the mall. There was a need for action and a change of scenery, something I never experienced before.

If I was completely honest to myself I needed to admit that the strange encounter with the army man had changed me irrevocably. His offer had shaken the foundation of my moral compass. After him I’d started questioning if not accepting his offer had been a terrible mistake. There had been this...compulsive attraction between us and I had put a stop to it so fast, and so hard, that we hadn’t been able to explore where that attraction could lead us. For the first time in my life I regretted making that promise to my grandma. I was confused, a little bit lost and angry at myself for letting a complete stranger question my very core.

The last couple of weeks have passed in a constant maddening routine of boring days and even more boring nights that I spend alone at home or working at the hospital. By the time the hospital started offering applications to be transferred to Imaia I didn’t even question myself before signing my name down and hoping for a change. And a change had come. 

There I was, standing in the middle of an old hangar with a destroyed roof above me, holding the only suitcase I’ve brought  in one hand and a sheet of paper with our Medical Unit information in the other. We were supposed to meet a military unit called D-100 in twenty five minutes, but nobody had contacted us to give us any more details. We were sitting ducks, waiting and waiting. D-100 will be stationed in a military base near our Medical Unit # 14, the furthest medical unit to the coastal limits of the island. We were supposed to work amicably with the military but I was already losing my damn mind over the fact they hadn’t come to pick us up yet. Were they really going to let us wait twenty more minutes under the sun? Bastards. I f*****g hated military men. I really, really did, and maybe, if I repeated it enough times I would be able to believe that lie.

Twenty minutes later and Dr. Spencer was cursing under his breath. He was our senior Cardiologist. A man with a God Complex who had already insinuated in too many words that he would like to take me out. I’d refused, abundantly, but the man still smiled at me as if we shared a secret. I didn’t smile back at him when our eyes met under the sun. I was tired, covered in my own seat and thirsty. I had no energy left to smile emptily.

“How are you holding up, rookie?” He asked me with a big smile. I shrugged at his question, letting Rosie rest her head on my shoulder. I was the youngest member in our medical unit and the only one doing her first year of residency. I was by all intents, the only rookie of the team. 

“Water would be nice,” murmured Lidia, the blonde bombshell who clearly had eyes on Dr. Spencer and who clearly resented me for his attention. If not for the fact she clearly despised me I would admit she was one of the best residents of the cardiology department I’ve met so far. I tried my best to ignore her, but she was giving me the evil eye behind Dr. Spencer, annoyed at his display of attention.

“They should be here in a couple of minutes,” said Nathan to the group and we all moved our heads back to the male nurse. He shrugged at our questioning expressions, “The military is extremely punctual. They will be here probably on the dot.”

“I need water,” stated Rosie and I nodded. Yeah, water would have been nice...an hour ago. Now it was primordial. We were dehydrating under the sun and if this D-100 unit didn’t arrive soon I was looking for the next airplane back home and saying goodbye to my volunteering career. 

 It was then that I saw it. A large, army truck with a soft cab top made of green fabric. Followed close were two large military humvees, both green and covered in mud. It dawned on me that this place would be hard to adapt to. Hangars didn’t have roofs, cars were covered in mud and punctuality was a fault and not a virtue. Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore...this was Hell and the worst part was that I’ve signed for this. Why did I sign up for this again? Dr. Spencer waved a hand at me to move to the front of our group. I had the papers with our info and I was supposed to pass it over to D-100 Captain, a soldier by the name of...what was it again? I looked down at the papers in my hand and squinted under the sun. There, his name was right at the top of the front page. Captain Connor. I wasn’t sure if that was his surname or first name. Did I call him captain of just Connor? 

I pushed my hair away from my face and watched as the large entourage parked perfectly in front of our group. Just for fun I checked my watch and sure enough it was two o’clock. Nathan hadn’t been joking. The military was indeed punctual. There were the sounds of car doors opening and then heavy boots hitting the floor. Four huge men started walking in our direction. They were dressed in yellow-brown fatigues, black beret caps and aviator sunglasses. Rosie gasped, taken aback by their good looks. One glance to the rest of our group assured me she wasn’t the only woman surprised by them. All of our nurses were fanning themselves and it wasn’t because of the heat. They didn’t surprise me though. I’d been thoroughly unsensitized to the military charm after meeting the mysterious army man three months ago.

The moment they were closer I moved a step forward and all four of them seemed to share a strange look between them. It was maybe my imagination but the soldiers walked a little bit slower after seeing me. One of them, the thinnest of the group, even smiled, tapping the arm of the serious guy at the front of the group. Weird. I checked the papers in my hands one more time and then faced the serious guy with the deep frown who had just reached us.

“Captain Connor?” I asked and the man nodded once, accepting the documentation I passed him. He eyed the papers, extracted a black pen from his chest pocket and then stared at me from above the rim of his sunglasses.

“We will not waste your time by giving you an intensive course of what to expect at Imaia. You are supposed to learn that on your own. The hurricane season started a week ago and we are upon our necks with work so I would highly recommend you don’t come to us with stupid questions. Our Major gave us the task to take your Medical Unit to your base and let you get familiar with your new workplace. Breakfast is served at six in the morning, lunch by twelve pm and dinner by nineteen pm,” Captain Connor checked his military watch and his frown deepened, as if this was a waste of time for him, “ do you have any questions?”

“Oh, do you mean not stupid questions?” I fought back, too angry to be calm after waiting a whole hour under the sun and receiving the shittiest excuse of a speech I’ve ever heard. Captain Connor fixed the bridge of his sunglasses, blatantly ignoring me and then moving on to call all of our team members by our names. The moment our names were called we were supposed to say “aye” and get inside the big green truck. Since the list had been organized alphabetically I didn’t have to wait too long.

“Dr. Max Cruz,” called Captain Connor and I lifted a hand.

“Aye,” I said, pushing my suitcase behind me on my way to the truck. The moment I passed the Humvees the other three soldiers started whispering, making me pause and look back at them with a frown. They stopped talking at once, turning around and making me feel a little suspicious about this entire situation. Did I know them or something? If I ever treated them before I would have remembered them, right? Titling my head in confusion I accepted Nathan’s hand and climbed the back of the truck. I sighed in relief when I finally sat under the shade of a roof. It was still hot but at least we weren’t under the sun anymore. 

Rosie came in next, already smiling from ear to ear and running to my side.

“Did you check those men? Oh my God and baby Jesus with his sandals! They are hot, hot, hot!” she started fanning herself while I only smirked, checking my phone’s connection. As expected, no internet bars. We had been warned that it would probably take days before we got to communicate with our loved ones but the last medical team from our hospital had assured us we would be able to send emails once we reached the base. I’d already given my tablet to my grandma and taught her how to navigate around so we could email each other. I only hoped she remembered to charge it. Rosie tapped my shoulder, smiling widely, “there’s definitely something to be said about a man in uniform.”

“Do you mean, like me?” joked Nathan by our side, while fixing our suitcases under the benches. Rosie rolled her brown eyes.

“You are a nurse Nathan, your uniform is considered baby wipes for germs,” fought back Rosie and Nathan laughed under his breath. They were always like that. I’d thought there was something romantic between them from the first moment I met them at the hospital but Rosie assured me the only romantic feelings they felt for each other was their mutual dislike for unflattering Crocs shoes. 

“You have a way with words Rosie,” murmured Nathan, shaking his head at her.

“Is it everybody here?” interrupted Dr. Spencer and we all answered at once while he stood by the middle of the truck, watching our team while he rubbed his hands, “As you all heard our task for the day is to get acquainted with our new workplace. Unpack, change into scrubs and come meet me at the main building of our base so we can start organizing our work and making our schedules for the week. Is that clear to everyone?”

“Yes doctor!” a moment passed by and then our truck was moving. Rosie and Nathan started fighting about who had more Gs on their phone and trying to get a signal while I rested my back on the metal structure of the truck, staring at the road ahead of us. The island was beautiful, full of green hills with wild flower beds and sunny horizons wherever I looked. It was hard to believe Imaia was a third world country at a first glance, considering it’s beauty would have made it a tourist attraction if not for the fact their falling government couldn’t control the guerrillas battles going on between criminal groups. The island was dangerous, hence the reason so many military troops were deployed all over the place, trying to keep peace between the government and the criminal activity.

We had been alerted to never leave the medical base without the soldiers tasked to guard us. One look at the destroyed cities surrounding the coast line and I had a better understanding of why we shouldn’t. The place was chaotic, full of vagabond children who ran shoeless down the dusty streets. Houses had been made of wood and palm thatch roofs with no proper engineering. If I had to guess I imagined the plumbing system in this place was rudimentary at best, non-existent at worst.  Which made me list an entire text book of possible infections, bacteria and germs that could spread on stagnant water. I made a mental note to keep mineral water bottles with me at all times and passed them to my future patients. It would not help them much, but at least I would feel a lot better if I knew I was giving them fresh water.

The road started to turn muddier and muddier the furthest we moved inland. I was bad at Geography and couldn’t tell North from South to save my life but I’d studied the island map on Google before leaving, so I knew at least how the island looked like in a map. I knew our base would be located at the opposite side of the airport. Around...ninety miles from the capital? Or was it fifty miles? s**t, I needed my GPS to work ASAP.

After two hours of traveling down muddy roads we finally made it to a campsite. There were military tents in green camouflage, organized in horseshoe structure. By the end of the camp I could see a white building which had seen better days. The mark of a red cross was displayed in the main tower of the old Spanish colonial building. It was a two floor building with a red tile roof and a large tower with a bell dome that hinted the place could have been an old church in the past.

The truck moved to the back of the building, to where I could see two simple houses that had been built side by side. Around the houses were chickens and roosters roaming around the wood fence that isolated the houses from the backyard of the medical building. Rosie and I shared a worried look. We weren’t exactly expecting to stay at the Hilton but this place was...well, charming, and small, and…was there even electricity and hot showers available?

I sighed, taking Rosie's hand while we both stared at our next home for the next upcoming months.

“Home sweet home,” I whispered and then took a deep breath before getting on my feet and following the rest of our team down the truck, to the muddiest, murkiest, backyard I’d ever stepped on.