TEASER: Thru the heart

by Aphrodite J. Ransom-Cattle and Paul Bond

„Scalpel, quick!“ Dr Braxton Lake barked at the nurse.
He had never lost a patient, but this was a patient he couldn’t afford to lose. The face of Casey flashed through his mind.
Cold sweat was stinging his eyes. It was the nurse’s job to prevent that from happening, but she was trembling with fear. Lake glanced nervously at the armed guards blocking the doors, their faces hidden behind dark beards. He could feel the stare of their cold eyes piercing his back.
With a firm grip he took the scalpel from the nurse’s shaking hand. He was a pro, and he never lost his cool, even under the worst conditions. He never had. But inside, he was slowly brushing insanity out of fear for his daughter. The scalpel slid into his hands. Today the precision instrument felt like a sledge hammer.
Carefully, he checked the state of his patient. He seemed stable, but Lake knew that his life was hanging on a thread. He had to act fast and concentrated. The conditions of the operation were not the best ones, to be honest. He was on a cargo ship in the Pacific, the operating room a kitchen, hastily cleaned from filth, and he had to use what he could find for the surgery. The lighting was low, the air damp, and the ship rolled heavily through the waves. Right now, Lake was trying to get hold on the upper ganglia just below the patients’ chest with an old silver spoon. The cable he ripped from the communications room did its best to stop the bleeding, but succeed it did not.
He had tried to get more blood bottles to stabilise the patient, although the guards had not been keen on taking on their role as blood donors. They were no fucking Samaritans, were they? On the other hand, it was their boss that was lying there naked on the table, helpless like a wounded animal. They had a good job, he paid well, he cared for his family. These were hard facts, and so they finally agreed to let the Doctor suck some blood from them.

He could only hope they had matching blood types. The situation was bad enough.

This is the beginning of the true story of Dr Braxton Lake. Some day it will be finished