The Lost and the Damned by Dennis Liggio

I looked out to the parking lot. I couldn’t see the trees at the moment. The light was coming from a long line of floodlights that were set up just inside the tree line. It was difficult to see due to the lights, but it appeared like there were some dark figures and maybe some cars. Cops? I couldn’t tell. With what happened to the hospital I’m not surprised that someone came to check it out. The ache in my muscles reminded me I would be very glad to see cops here. With the shockwave, there could be damage to the hospital, and therefore possible harm to Katie. I’d take the trespassing charge for her to be safe.
    For a while, nothing happened. I expected them to send people in to the hospital to check for survivors, secure the area, look for structural problems, something. But they didn’t do anything. They simply waited there, watching. The longer they did nothing, the more I got a bad feeling. Why weren’t they doing anything? What happened to protect and serve? Were they really the police?
    The silence was broken by the sound of something clattering to my right. The noise was outside, so I moved so I could get a good glance. As I pressed against the window, I could see that the noise came from the hospital entrance. I saw a nurse barely holding a very bloody patient up with her shoulder. The clatter came from the door they must have knocked off its hinges.
    The nurse carried the patient a few steps, limping on her own wounded leg. She must have seen the line of floodlights, because she called out. “Please! We need help!”
    For a few moments, there was only silence, marred only by the faint buzzing of the floodlights. Then a response came from the tree line. The voice was slightly distorted by the bullhorn: “Stop! Please return to the hospital.”
    “Help!” screamed the nurse, “He’s injured! We need help!”
    “Please return to the hospital. Do not approach the barrier. If you continue to approach, we will have to take appropriate measures.”
    “Please!” she pleaded. “Help us!”
    “Stop! Turn back. This is your only warning. We will open fire if you continue.”
    Open fire? Were they serious? What was going on?
    “Please!” screamed the nurse, her voice rasping, tears streaming from her cheeks, stumbling forward. “Just help us! Please!”
    She had stumbled forward just a few more steps before an order was shouted at the tree line and they opened fire.
     
    Before this, I had never seen anyone die, not in real life. I’d seen news clips of deaths and documentary films, but that wasn’t the same. In person I’d seen people beat up, stabbed, and once shot in the shoulder. At least while I was there, nobody died. They might have died afterwards, from blood loss or shock, but not while I was there. Seeing someone die before you is a more immediate experience, more disturbing. It’s a very clear shift from someone full of life, animated, emoting, walking to suddenly a lifeless corpse, limbs slack, expression rubbery. I didn’t even know the nurse or her patient but my heartfelt a sharp pain just watching it.
    It was overkill. Disgusting, dehumanizing overkill. The nurse was limping and her patient could not stand on his own. Yet the amount of bullets that were fired into each of them… It must have gone on for thirty seconds, but for me it seemed an hour. I saw each bullet strike their bodies, most exiting on the other side. The bullets came so quickly, one after another, that their bodies were tossed around by the successive forces of each bullet like rag dolls. The noise was so deafening I could not hear if they screamed out, if they pleaded to God, or if their end was instead spent stoically staring into countless muzzle flashes in the darkness. When the final shout of “Cease fire!” was called, there were two limp and contorted bodies lying on the ground in a steadily growing pool of blood.
    And then there was silence.
    I turned around and slid back down the window, my back resting