At the end of the second day there was still plenty of water left, he was afraid to let Vasquez drink too often. Just small sips every now and then to keep her from dehydrating. For a while she had been in better shape, even walked, leaning against him, but there was no way he could avoid rank stench of sickness wafting from the wound on her side. Now she was barely conscious, lolling on his shoulder and talking. Talking constantly to people that weren’t even there. Fallen comrades, family members and friends.
He kicked the sand and cursed softly. He had thought about almost everything. Almost. What he hadn’t taken in to consideration when they had abandoned the truck was that Vasquez was severely wounded, and would have needed fresh bandages, antibiotics and antiseptics to clean the wound.
He’d get through. Hell, if he left Vasquez behind, he would probably reach the base at dawn. But he couldn’t very well just abandon the only survival from his team now. When he stepped on to something sticky and squishy in the darkness his first instinct was to jump aside and squeal from the surprise. Stench of rotting flesh skyrocketed.
Vasquez wasn’t the only source of the foul smell. His nose told him that there was in fact a rotting carcass at his feet. Still warm from when sun had been boiling it earlier today.
He had discarded his boots earlier for the sake of the balance. It was easier to stay on your feet on the sinking sand when you could spread your toes and finding good solid surface to walk was piece of cake. Now there was something slimy and sticky squirming between his toes.
For a moment he just stood there. It took few minutes to add everything, but suddenly he knew what to do. He knew how to keep Vasquez from dying to gangrene.
He lowered the woman on the ground carefully and turned his attention to the rotting carcass at his feet. Some kind of small, hairy critter. Died earlier that day. And already squirming and wriggling from the sheer amount of bugs. He poked it with his finger, and found instantly what he was looking for. Small white larvae, crawling in and out through swollen side of the carcass, filling now empty eye sockets.
“You’re in luck, Vasquez…” He murmured, collecting as many small and fragile larvae he could reach to his palm, grimacing when he closed his fingers to a loose fist around them to prevent them from escaping and could feel them squirming and wriggling around wildly.
“Commander… What… What’s going on…” Vasquez sobered slightly when he started to unwrap the bandage from around her.
“You’re starting to rot. Have to stop it. Found some small buggers, hungry as hell, all ready to help you out. Come on; sit up a bit, lean on to me. Have to keep this gauze as clean as possible…”
“Bugs? You’re… You’re giving me maggots?”
“Yeah. Don’t say I never give you anything. Keep still, these will fall off if you start twitching.”
He wrapped the gauze carefully over the wound. Vasquez let out a low chuckle.
“I guess… I guess it’s better than what the last guy gave me… Took fucking three weeks to get rid of those critters…”
“Jesus, woman. Too much information there.”
“Sorry, commander…”
“Don’t fret over it. So, ready to walk?”
“I don’t know… Let me think about it…” Vasquez whispered, licking her dry lips and closing her eyes.
“Think fast. I’d like to see my wife again before we’re both old and grey.”
“Wife-smife… Why the fuck do… You keep calling her that? Commander?” Vasquez added the commander out of habit more than out of respect, he could tell it from her tone. It didn’t matter.
“I call her my wife because that’s what she is. My wife. My life.”
“You’re freaking me out… Help me up, I think I can… I think I can walk for a while…”
At dawn he was dragging Vasquez behind him on a makeshift harness he had made by cutting the jacket of his borrowed uniform to straps. It had been tricky to adjust it so that it wouldn’t squash the maggots crawling in the wound on her side, but he had managed to figure it out. He had tried to cover her face with a piece of cloth to prevent her skin from burning in the sun, but in the end he had settled to turning her face down instead.
“Has anybody ever… Told you what a… Nice ass you have, commander?” Raspy whisper reached his ears just before he could feel Vasquez pinching his left buttock weakly.
“I could sue you for harassment, you know.”
“Aww, come on… You even gave me maggots…”
“It’s not like we’re engaged or anything. I’m not in to polygamy.”
“You know… You’re pretty much only guy that… That hasn’t tried to get in to my pants yet… Why?”
“Huh?”
“Is there something wrong… With me?”
“Truth to be told, darling, you kind of reek right now. Stench of rotting flesh has never been a turn-on for me.”
“And there’s your wife…”
“Yeah.”
“No… I really mean that…”
“Yeah. I do have a wife.”
“She’s standing over there… Those dunes on our right side…”
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