Wild with All Regrets by E.L. Deards

Author:E.L. Deards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press

1918

Lucas didn’t remember anything after watching Jamie fall to the earth, but the story came out little by little in what he could hear the nurses whispering through his drugged-up stupor. Apparently, he had gone berserk, would not stop screaming, and shoved his gun in his mouth. It was coming back to him, little by little. Jamie’s blood still hot on the muzzle. It was salty in his mouth, but he didn’t dare to spit it out. The metal clacked against his teeth as his hands shook in desperation, but Lucas had no bullets left. That was the only thing that had saved him. At the back of his mind, he could remember the maddening clicking of the trigger as he pulled it again and again to no avail.

“I have to be with Jamie! I can’t let him go alone! I have to fucking be with Jamie!” His voice cracked.

The others didn’t know what to do, and their eyes darted around like the flies that were coming for Jamie’s corpse.

Tears were running down Lucas’s face, and he scrambled to get Jamie’s pistol from where he’d thrown it earlier. He crawled along the ground like an insect, Jamie’s blood sticky and warm on his hand. Lucas just managed to grab it, pull it toward his face again . . . I’ll be there soon Jamie, wait for me, wait for me. But two other soldiers found their mettle and tried to wrestle the gun off him, and he’d lashed out so violently with it that he cracked the eye socket of one of the poor sods.

Eventually help came, and they were able to overpower him, perhaps his grief made him weaker. In retrospect, Lucas was lucky they hadn’t shot him right then and there. He woke up in the casualty clearing station with a sore head and an empty heart, awaiting medical and psychological evaluation. As soon as he was awake, he began thrashing around, striking out at the nurses and physicians who were trying to assess him.

“Jamie! Jesus Christ, I have to go back for him, we can’t leave him there, we can’t fucking leave him—he hated it here, he hated it so much! I promised him I’d protect him. I swore to him—I—!”

They had to sedate him and tie him down to the bed with restraints. He cried out in frustration, tears running down his face.

“Fuck you! Fuck all of you fucking cocksucking piece of shit motherfucking assholes! Let me out of here, I have to get to Jamie, I have to get him back . . . please . . . I promised him! I promised him!”

His mind was a blur. Jamie was breaking, Jamie was losing himself, No, Lucas was losing Jamie. But in that last moment Jamie had come back. He was himself; he was whole— was it a mercy? God damn it! He had to get him back. What had he done? What had—

He went limp as the sedatives took hold of his muscles. In his dreams, Jamie died over and over and over again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.