THE LIFE LEFT: A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER Read online

  THE LIFE LEFT

  L.W.WEDGWOOD

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Publisher’s Note:

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and events are the work of the author’s imagination. Any

  resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.

  Copyright 2021 L.W.Wedgwood.

  I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my late father for his inspiration and to Anna for her limitless help. Without you both, this book would have never been possible.

  CHAPTER 1

  July in Mosul…

  “Lieutenant! You’d better get in here.”

  Lieutenant Jane Bradley turned from the driver of the armored Humvee, who’d been giving her an update from command. As she looked around, she found Sergeant Gray standing in the entrance of what was left of Mosul’s Republican Hospital. “What is it?” she yelled.

  “I don’t know,” called Grey. “I’ll let you decide.”

  Jane had dropped into Mosul with the 101st Airborne six months earlier. In that time, she’d seen things that would deny her sleep for years to come. But something in the Sergeant’s expression told her that he would probably never sleep again.

  The battle was supposed to be over. Most of the remaining ISIS fighters had been killed, captured, or escaped. She hadn’t heard a shot fired in days. There wasn’t much left to shoot at anyway. Most of the city had been reduced to rubble. However, as Jane walked toward the hospital entrance, she unslung her M14 rifle and prepared for anything.

  “You’re not going to need that,” Gray said.

  “What do you mean?” She asked as she faced the Sergeant and placed her finger back over her trigger guard.

  “Follow me.”

  Glass crunched underfoot where a door had been as Jane stepped into the hospital lobby. For the life of her, she had no idea why Gray had bought her inside the building. The ground floor appeared to be all that remained. The upper floors had been there once, but how long ago was anyone’s guess.

  As she followed Gray, she warily studied the ceiling. It appeared intact, solid and unthreatening. That said, anyone in their right mind would stay well clear of the building and they certainly wouldn’t enter it. Total collapse of the structure was imminent; it was just a matter of when. But this was war. Risk was part of every second of every deployment. So, her thoughts didn’t tarry long on the fragility of her surroundings. Instead, she focused on stepping on each and every spot where Gray’s boots traveled.

  The fighting had ended, but mines and IED’s remained hidden everywhere.

  Gloom consumed them as they stepped deeper into the building. There were no lights here. The city’s power grid had been down for months and she guessed that any fuel in the hospital’s generator had been either exhausted or ransacked.

  Noticing Gray activating his headlamp, she followed his lead. A moment later, they entered a stairwell. Her curiosity piqued further as Gray led the way down.

  “You’re taking me to the underground carpark?” She asked.

  With one hand on a door handle, Gray looked over his shoulder. “Yes,” he said.

  “You found some nice cars. Is that it?” she jested.

  Gray didn’t smile at the joke. His face remained as impassive as ever as he reached the bottom of the stairs and glanced back at her. She didn’t like what she saw in that look. A second later, he opened the door that led into the carpark.

  She followed Gray through, but even before she stepped into the cavernous interior of the underground carpark, she had a suspicion of what they would find. The stench of death filled the air here. The beam of her headlamp confirmed what her nose suspected. The first bed stood only feet from the door they’d entered. Upon it lay a dead soldier. Blood covered much of his body. The bed he lay on was little more than a few wooden planks elevated off the ground with crates.

  “They were using this carpark as a hospital?” she said.

  “At one point, maybe,” Gray said. “It makes sense. It had great protection from the battle above. But hospitals are supposed to keep people alive, aren’t they?”

  “You found no one alive here?” she asked.

  “Look around. See for yourself.”

  She did as he asked. Following him further into the carpark, she kept her rifle at the ready. Something in this action gave her a degree comfort as she examined each bed they stepped around. Evidently, the carpark was sizeable; at least football field sized. And the space hadn’t been wasted. There was only just enough room to step between the makeshift beds.

  Breathing suddenly felt difficult for her. She lifted her head from examining another corpse. Only her training stopped her from falling into panic as her headlamp exposed the magnitude of the surrounding carnage.

  “My god,” she said. “There must be at least a hundred of them here.”

  “Look here!”

  She forced her breathing to calm as she stepped in beside Gray, near one of the beds. “What am I looking at?” she asked, unable to determine any difference from the first body she’d seen.

  “His temple. Look at his temple.”

  She knelt beside the bed and examined the man’s head in the intense glow her LED lamp. “He’s been shot?”

  “Look closer. Bullets tend to leave an exit hole, opposite to where they entered.”

  She stretched over the body and saw that Gray was right. “He’s been stabbed?” she said.

  “It looks like it. But with what?”

  “A knife?”

  “Look again. The hole in the temple is too fine for a regular blade.”

  Jane didn’t want to look again. It wasn’t her job to look again. Her orders were simple; clear this area and move on. As far as she was concerned, this area had been cleared.

  “Call this in,” she said. “We’ll let Intel determine what happened here.”

  “Of course,” Gray agreed.

  But then she heard it. No noise could evade the hearing of those left alive in the coffin surrounding them. She raised a hand to stop Gray as he reached for the transmitter button on his radio. “What’s that noise?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Quiet! Listen!”

  At first, Jane could only hear their own breathing, which may as well have been two giant sets of bellows in action, all things considered. But her ears soon adapted around the sound interference. Shorter puffs for air stretched through this silence. These puffs were different sounding. She almost panicked. She suddenly feared that they were not alone. A dog may be lurking in the darkness surrounding them. There were thousands of strays in every war-torn Iraqi city. Was that the source of the panting? Was a dog preparing to attack? She’d seen some of her friends get mauled by strays before. It never ended well.

  “It’s coming from over there,” Gray said.

  She looked to where Gray’s finger pointed between the beds. No movement pierced the darkness at the edge of her view. No threat whatsoever surfaced. But the tinny puffs, now identified as panting, continued.

  “What do we do?” Gray asked.

  Part of Jane wanted to raise her rifle and unload a clip, just to show that they weren’t there to mess around. But this wasn’t the way she led her men. It just wasn’t the way she did things. Instead, she sucked up her courage and began making her way northward between the beds.
“On my six,” she said.

  “Yes, Ma’am!”

  Jane led the way between twenty or so beds, stepping over discarded bandages and other medical waste as she went. Without mishap, she reached what appeared to be a large medical storage cabinet on wheels. Atop this cabinet, upon a raw stainless-steel surface, lay an array of medical instruments. But what captured her attention most was the double doors fronting the cabinet and the padlock securing them.

  “Jesus!” she said. “Someone’s in there.”

  “Or something,” Gray said.

  Somewhere overhead, she heard a thump. It was the first time since entering the underground carpark that she had thought about what was happening back on the surface. But her attention quickly returned to the cabinet. “Cover me,” she said.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m opening this thing. Whoever, or whatever is inside must have been in there for days. They’re probably starving and close to death.”

  Gray raised a hand of restraint. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said.

  She flashed a glare at him as she raised the stock of her rifle. “It’s not up to you,” she said.

  It took her a couple of hits before she managed to knock the padlock free. Hesitating just long enough to check that Gray had her covered, she twisted the handle of the double doors and pulled them open.

  The stench hit her before the view did. Her nose told her that she’d been right with her earlier suspicions—whoever was inside the cabinet had been locked up for some time. She reeled with shock at what they’d found. A half-starved boy, dressed in rags, crouched in the back of the cabinet, cowering from the intruders. An empty Coca-Cola bottle lay next to him. She guessed that he’d at least had some water for a short while.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re safe.”

  Another thump resounded overhead. She watched as the boy’s body jerked in shock. But he didn’t move from where he sat. His only sign of life was his short pants for breath.

  She turned to Gray. “You speak Arabic. Tell him we’re here to help. Tell him we’re friends,” she said.

  Gray lowered the barrel of his rifle and knelt next to Jane. “Ant amin. Nahn huna lilmusaeadat,” he said. “Ant amin. Nahn huna lilmusaeadat.”

  She saw that Gray’s words promoted no reaction from the boy. She tried another tactic and pulled her water bottle from her belt. “Ma’an,” she said as she said stretched the bottle toward the boy.

  With great relief, she watched as two dark eyes looked from beneath an arm and examined the offered water. A moment later, a frail hand reached out and took the bottle.

  “I didn’t know you could speak Arabic,” Gray said.

  “I know how to say water,” she said.

  She watched the boy drink from the bottle. His movements appeared frail, weak, lifeless. But at the same time, he somehow gave an impression that he was anything but close to death.

  “Lays kathiranaan,” Gray said.

  “What did you say?” Jane asked.

  “I said, don’t drink too much. If he’s dehydrated, too much water too quickly could kill him.”

  Jane watched as the boy pulled the water bottle from his lips after several swallows.

  “I can speak English,” said the boy.

  “Holy crap!” Gray said.

  Jane flashed a glare at Gray. “Shut up!”

  Gray raised his palms in defense and stood back. “Okay… Okay…”

  “Do you understand us?” she asked.

  “Of course. I can also speak French, German, Spanish and Latin,” said the boy.

  Despite the boy’s apparent display of strength, Jane could hear how dry his throat sounded. However, the immediate risk had been averted and she appraised him further for a few seconds while he sipped at the bottle. He appeared to be no more than ten years old. A thick mop of black hair spilled around his shoulders and the olive skin of his cheeks stretched over a well-defined jawline. She decided that despite everything, he appeared to be in fair enough condition. But as she came to this conclusion, a sudden volley of thumps overhead caused their surroundings to tremble.

  “Jesus! That’s artillery fire. We’re being shelled,” Gray said.

  Jane looked away from the boy for a moment as the thumping overhead continued. Her headlamp cut through the darkness and illuminated dust and debris falling from the ceiling. The sight was somewhat unnerving.

  “They must still have some Howitzers somewhere. 155mm by the sound of it. But how many do they have? And for how long can they keep up the barrage?” she said.

  “We need to get back to the unit,” Gray said.

  She knew he was right. They needed to move now. Turning back to the boy, they locked eyes. “Can you walk?” she asked.

  “I think so. I will try,” said the boy.

  “You need to come with us. We can take you to safety,” she said.

  She could tell that the boy doubted her words. His eyes showed a certain level of restrained terror only known to those who were well experienced at living around artillery fire. All the same, she felt an odd pang of hope as she watched the boy set aside his reservations and uncurl onto his feet in front of the cabinet. She could see his legs trembling with the effort, but he remained upright, determination defying his condition.

  “When was the last time you ate?” she asked.

  “I do not know,” said the boy. “A few days. Quite possibly longer.”

  “Gray!” she said. “Got any food on you?”

  Gray patted down his kit for a few seconds before pulling something from a pouch and holding it up in front of his headlamp. “I got one last Snickers bar,” he said.

  Without hesitation, she snatched the bar from Gray, peeled back the wrapper and handed it to the boy. “Here, eat this in between sipping on that water,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s chocolate.”

  “Oh, I have heard of that.”

  She didn’t feel surprised that the boy hadn’t tasted chocolate before. He had probably never eaten anything more than the bare essentials. “Just eat a little. You will like it,” she said.

  She watched the boy bite into the bar. His face light up in delight at the taste. She felt no small amount of gratitude that he trusted her enough to eat. There was no telling what he’d been through. It would be a miracle if he ever trusted anyone again.

  They only moved a few yards toward the carpark exit before Jane heard a gasp from the boy. In the glow of her lamp, she looked around and found him crouched beside a fallen body. She moved in beside the boy and bent down. “What is it?” she asked.

  “It… It… It is the Doctor…” said the boy.

  She took in the view of the corpse on the floor. This man appeared different from the others. He was dead, yes, but it was a bullet that had killed him. His mutilated head insisted so. And the discarded revolver laying on the floor only inches from his hand, hinted that he hadn’t been executed.

  “You knew him?” she said.

  “…He was like a father to me,” said the boy.

  “We have to move!” Gray called from the exit.

  “Wait!” she said, trying to ignore the sound of the ever-increasing artillery.

  “He saved my life,” said the boy.

  “Down here, you mean?” she said. “He saved your life down here?”

  “He saved my life many times.”

  The grief in the boy’s words sounded odd to Jane; unlike regular grief. She had a sense that grief was something he wasn’t accustomed to, something that he didn’t react to naturally. But she didn’t tarry on this detail for long. Placing a hand gently upon the boy’s shoulder, she tried to coax him from his shock.

  “We have to go. If you want to honor him and live, then we have to go now,” she said.

  A moment later she felt a wave of relief and admiration flood through her as she watched the boy stand up.

  “Okay,” he agreed.

  Seconds later, they
were on the move. She kept her hand upon the boy’s shoulder, partially because she felt the need to comfort him and partially to guide him on his way toward the exit.

  Ahead, she could see Gray standing in the doorway. But as they came within ten feet of Gray, a massive explosion boomed overhead. Even the ground beneath them shook. And a fraction of a second later, she watched in horror as the doorway Gray stood in collapsed around him. Debris from the ceiling and stairwell consumed him like an encircling torrent of water. All view of the area vanished in a thick cloud of dust.

  Jane didn’t hesitate, she surged forward around the boy, coughing and spluttering as she went. She’d only gone a few feet before she bumped headlong into the pile of rubble. She couldn’t see a thing. Her eyes stung and her lungs burned as she scratched at the ground and called, “Gray! Gray! Say something. Where are you? Gray!”

  She continued to scratch at the ground like that; crawling blindly around, calling out Gray’s name; her voice becoming hoarser by the second. She lost track of time. She had but one focus, one meaning; to get Gray out. Only when breathing became difficult did she begin to question her sanity. And only then did she realize that someone was talking to her.

  “He has gone,” said the voice.

  “No,” she rasped, “I can get him out. He could still be alive.”

  “He is buried under a ton of rubble. He is gone.”

  She felt the tug of a hand on her shoulder through the surrounding cloud of dust. From somewhere inside of her, a sliver of sanity mixed with the need to survive breached her shock. She let the hand on her shoulder have its way. She yielded to its tug and moved from where she crouched.

  “Come with me. You will die if you stay here.”

  Only after moving some distance away from the rubble did Jane realize that it was the boy who’d been speaking. But as she realized this, another explosion shook their surroundings. She suddenly had a sense that the entire building was about to collapse upon them.

  “Come with me,” said the boy. “Look this way. We need your light.”

  Jane squinted through the dust to where she thought the boy was. She followed the tug of his hand. She had no idea how he knew where they were going within the midst of such chaos.