Market Day Part 1, Bekka’s Story

By Richard Siers and Kimberly A Yearyean-Siers

Bekka was having a good day. The shaking of the building was the first clue life was about to change, not just for her, for everyone. What started out as an average fall afternoon for everyone shifted in the blink of an eye into a fight for survival. The earthquake shook the entire west coast shattering everything in its way. The walls of water that followed doomed any hope of recovery anytime soon. Everyone was left to fend for themselves against the elements. Worse they  had to worry about those who would try to take advantage of the situation to prey on the weak and defenseless. Bekka, her husband, and their friends were just trying to ride out the storm and survive. They weren't sure how it would all play out, or if they would remember enough of their old skills to make it through. One thing they did know. They refused to quit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Siers
• Release date: Mar 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224861736

Richard Siers

Mr. Richard N. Siers, USAF (Ret.) AAS, TX EMT-P, NRP, Mr. Siers is currently an Advanced Course Instructor for the Defense Health Agency at the DOD Medical Education and Training Center's Combat Medic Specialist Training Program (CMSTP). Mr. Siers has operated in Emergency Medical Services since 2000, working and volunteering with various large and small EMS agencies.  He was a volunteer with the Davis County Search and Rescue team helping in mountain rescues. He holds instructor certifications in the Air Force, Army, DHA and credentialed in over a dozen different EMS education courses.  He is currently certified as a Remote Paramedic, NRP, and Texas Paramedic. Before Emergency Pre-Hospital Medicine took over his life, Mr. Siers retired from the U.S. Air Force, serving over 20 years, included ten combat and humanitarian deployments working in the Joint and Combined Joint environment with a camera. From motion picture to video tape to direct hard drive capture, his experiences spanned the gambit. Studio production? Check. Instructional products? Check. Field documentaries? Check. Home station? Deployed around the globe? Check and check. On the ground and in the air, he got the opportunity to see and do a lot. One of his big passions was flying.  He spent years teaching other cameramen how to be aircrew. He ended his military career at the peak as an Aerial Instructor/Examiner Combat Videographer. Writing fiction started from the desire to read something different, something other than the standard 'prepper fiction' formula. He wanted it to not be a technical manual. His heroes had to have flaws, be human, not always be right, have the right answer, and the right tool and everything right there when they needed it. He wanted the women to be strong and do more than be just a pretty face having to be explained to.  Good thing, otherwise, his wife would not help him.

Book preview

Market Day

Part 1

Bekka’s Story

––––––––

I guess with the third anniversary of the Great Seacouver quake coming up, I’ll go ahead and tell you our story.

It was a simple late autumn workday like any other. I was in town picking up some groceries at the new market down by the waterfront.

The groceries were paid for, but I was still putting them in the cart and talking with the cashier about her calico cat. The whole building began to tremble and shake. I grew up in Southern California, so I know an earthquake when I feel it, but this one felt different than any other I had felt before; far bigger and longer, giving me a real bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I guess a 9.2 Richter scale quake will do that. The building creaked and groaned, some shelves emptied themselves and the lights went out then the shaking stopped. With the light coming in the windows, I made my way to the door.

I pushed the cart to the car and loaded the bags in the back, all the while something was nagging at me in the back of my head. Something still wasn’t right. Finally, I realized what it was. I didn’t hear the waves like I did when I drove up. When I looked across the street to the water, it wasn’t where it should be. The water was receding out to sea. I hopped into the car and pulled up to the door of the market where people were gathering.

You guys need to get in your cars and head out of here right now! Go uphill! It looks like there might be a tsunami!

A tsunami. All those years in the Air Force, the PFE, one of those pesky promotion study guides we had to study all those years, kept telling us If you can see the wave of a tsunami, you’re too close! Now, here I am, wondering if I will prove this axiom true. I remembered all the stories out of Thailand of people walking out onto the newly exposed beach right before the tsunami hit, and all the devastation in Japan from the tsunami.

I had to get to high ground. My mind raced to figure how to get past all the elevated roadways and avoid the highways, knowing these will be bottlenecks even if there are no bridge or roadway failures. I knew if I went north, I could go through some of the older residential areas.

I’m glad I was in my little Subaru. It’s much nimbler than the husband’s truck, and its all-wheel drive plus lifted a little bit, which would let me crawl over more stuff if I had to. It is a classic example of hidden potential.  It’s over 15 years old, but it’s a rock-solid little SUV. It can get places most people wouldn’t believe yet it doesn’t draw a single extra look. I’ve seen plenty of outdoor enthusiasts with all the stickers on their typical jacked up 4x4 jeep who end have it broken into several times a year; all their stuff stolen.  

No one would suspect I have, courtesy of my husband’s CDO (real OCD’s must have it in alphabetic order, so I am told), water, food, aid bag, sleeping bag, tarps, axe, and who knows what else he tucked in there when I wasn’t looking. I have maps, compass and GPS up front for standard navigation. GPS can fail, and electronics loose power, but a map and compass is still good as long as you can read it, a skill I learned several years ago in survival school. I hoped I wouldn’t need any of this.

I checked my cell phone. No signal, of course. Crap! At this point, it becomes an ‘I told you so’ moment. My husband and I always preached to all who would listen about how in any real disaster, the cellphone would become a paperweight. This is why I kept insisting and harping on getting some small handheld HAM radios. They were smaller than our first cellphones and had great range and battery life. However, if you don’t have it with you, it is not much good, so he insisted I carry a bailout bag for such things with me at all times when I am away from the house.

I love him, but he can be annoying. He was like a cross between Bear Gryls and Sheldon Cooper. It makes sense for him to carry a bag all the time like that.  He still goes to work but I’m retired and don’t go many places. He insists, so I made him make the smallest version he could. With another excuse to spend money, he built me a small butt pack with a few items like a water purification straw, space blanket, fire starter, Swiss Army knife, first aid stuff, compass, and some other stuff I don’t remember, and that’s where my keep the radio when I am out and about.

The butt pack is a pain in the ass sometimes, but I promised him I would take it with me whenever I left the house without him.  With all of this, in addition to the survival bag and medical kit in the car, I knew I would be fine as long as I could get enough distance and altitude from the shore to not get hit by the wave itself. I still remember my lessons from Survival School, and our house is a good 20 miles from the coast as the crow flies, and several thousand feet higher. My main concern was getting word to my husband about seeing the water go out and the Tsunami was eminent. If I could get him on the radio, everything else would be workable.

He was in the city teaching at the Center located not far from the coast. His main area of expertise is combat and medical courses. He uses this as an excuse to buy a bunch of survival gear, combat gear and any other shiny toy which catches his eye. His latest toy is the one he drove to work. He convinced me the price for the BMW Adventure bike he found used was now low enough to be affordable. The 7.9-gallon tank gives it tons of range and the giant aluminum panniers were big enough to swallow all the piles of necessary gear he absolutely must have just in case he drags to work with him. He even added an audio system to combine his GPS, iPod and shortwave radio, piping it all into the helmet like he has on his Goldwing.

He spent a week figuring out all the stuff he wanted to pack in the bike. Tools, survival shelter, rain gear, extra ammo, food, water, medical kit, the list goes on and on. This doesn’t count his every day carry bag. I don’t even know what all is in that go to work bag; axe, tent, wood burning stove, Ark of the Covenant, there’s no telling. One of these days I figured to make him pull it all out and show me just to sanity check him.

I powered up my radio, making sure it was on the right frequency for him. I finally hear his reply. First, I tell him to get the hell out of the city the tsunami is coming!  Next, I let him know I’m safe and headed back to the house via the north residential area. He tells me he is heading out in about 2 minutes, going south and coming in via the National Forest to the east of the house. He said it may take him a day, or three days. It all depended on how far he had to go. He said he would call in when he gets free of the city into the woods. He reminds me since he is coming in from the forest, not the road, I should shut and lock the road gate when I get to the house.

Going north and inland towards the older residential neighborhood, I started thinking of the hazards and problems I might run into. It has a bunch of older brick homes with deeply rooted trees. The trees were my main concern, not people. Most of them should be in the city working since it was a weekday. I keep looking over to my left out to sea every now and then, trying to see when and how bad the wave will be. It doesn’t take too long before I lose sight of the shore as I drive further into the tree lined streets.

The drive went ok with only a few minor hiccups. The stoplights at the intersections were out, and evidently no one learns in driver’s education any more what to do in this event (hint: it turns into a four way stop). There were several small fender benders at some of the intersections. I was able to get around them, only driving down the wrong side of the street two or three times.

I was more worried by a couple of huge tree branches in the road. I crawled over them slowly, all the while working my way upward and away from the sea. My biggest roadblock turned out to be a tree which fell into the road, crushing a little hybrid. I jumped the curb, skittering across somebody’s lawn, getting around it with no real problems.

The other main obstruction I ran into was a large group of people gathering in the streets. I wasn’t sure why they were in the street, or why they wanted me to stop but I wasn’t going to find out. My husband was in Southern California for the Rodney King and Reginald Denny riots in L.A., a situation we discussed often, so I already knew stopping was not an option.

Another thing I promised him was I would take my little Glock with me when I went out. He is a worrier sometimes but once again I was sure I was going to hear an ‘I told you so moment’ but I was glad for it and the conceal carry permit I have.  With all these people gathering and what I knew can and has happened with disasters and civil unrest, I kept it accessible, but I realized my best defense was distance and horsepower. I nimbly slid around a few clumps of individuals and kept moving up and inland. I finally made it up to the old state road.

Once I got there, I breathed a little easier. I was now able to put the town and the coastline behind me. I stopped at one of the scenic pullouts and looked at the town below. The sight I saw was stunning. The wave hit while I was clawing up some of the backstreets. It looked like some of the videos from Japan, with boats and cars floating inland between houses and buildings.

I grabbed my old school rangefinder camera, snapped some pictures and climbed back into my faithful little Subaru heading toward the house. More than twenty miles inland and over four thousand feet above sea level, where I know, because of hubby’s over planning, location, building, stock piling and Garen’s rule number 3 ‘anything worth doing is worth overdoing’, I should be safe.

I finally rolled up to the gate to the house. I know it’s not what many would suspect as the driveway to a house, but it’s designed that way. A small turnoff from the road was labeled with an old rusty sign- Coming Soon-Cephalopod Inc. Industrial Park Medical Coding TRNG Center. This was home.

I know, a strange sign for a house but once you know the why, it works. From the highway, all you see is the sign going up the overgrown turn off. The driveway winds around and twists through some shrubbery to the actual gate then, from there, all you can see is some kind of a small industrial or office building sitting on what looks to be the back edge of an expanse of unkempt lawn. With the sign advertising what it did, there should be nothing to entice break-ins. The little bit of subterfuge is the classic camouflage concept of hide it in plain sight, which frequently works best.

––––––––

Bekka and Garen’s Home

––––––––

Coming through the outer gate, everything looked normal as far as I could tell. I stopped the car and closed the gate, just like normal. I put the chain and padlock on it which we didn’t do very often.

We found this property shortly after one of the real estate crashes. A speculator from Southern California had bought a huge plot of land next to the National Forest. They were planning a high-end subdivision like the kinds they were making outside of L.A. and over in Utah. They put up a building for all the equipment to build the infrastructure. It was huge, with a big roll up door at one end, an overhead lift, and a generator.

Originally a small bank of offices filled the front of the building for the realtor selling properties. It was modeled on the outside to look like a small two-story office building. The rest of the subdivision was already laid out, lots designated and the streets in place. They were fairly large lots. The entire subdivision covered several hundred acres.

Once the speculator went bankrupt, the local company defaulted. The property here was abandoned, weeds grew up, and we picked it up at a poorly advertised county auction for back taxes. It slipped through the cracks because it was just across county lines. It took six months for us to figure out which plot to use for our house and how to design it. The lot we chose was in the back of the subdivision, out of site from the road and backed up against the National Forest.

Shortly after we purchased the property, my husband retired. It seemed I was going to finish my last few years at our current location. We started to settle in and make plans. Well, as they say, Hitler had a plan.  Things changed when I got orders to England. We decided I would take the orders while he continued to build the house. We burned up the Internet during the whole time I was gone. He lived in an Airstream trailer and in the ‘office building’ on site while he supervised the construction.

We looked at a bunch of ways to cut bills and plan for the weather here, which could be harsh, especially during the winter. Power outages, heavy snows, bad roads making it hard to get out, reduced funds being retired, all of these were factors we talked through and used to drive our plans for the house. Tiny homes, earth sheltered homes, off the grid homes, green homes, we stole ideas from them all.

Pulling up to the big wooden gate in the wall around the house, I could see some of the results of all the scattered brainpower we expended. The whole thing would give an architectural student fits trying to identify all the styles we blended. The gate in the hacienda wall still worked from the opener,

The outer walls were fieldstone, but the lines were Spanish. As I drove into the courtyard, the rest came into view. The stone walls of the house were topped with a clay tile roof, more Spanish influence. I parked in one of the spots in the carport down the right-hand side of the courtyard and brought my groceries into the house.

I put the groceries on the island in the kitchen so I could go through the rest of the house looking for any damage from the quake. The kitchen was fine, no damage. Looking over the bar, I could see the Great Room didn’t seem to have much out of place that couldn’t be accounted for by the rampaging kittens. The TV was still bolted over the mantle of the main fireplace, the lamps are still on the end tables, and all looks ok.

I walked down the hallway towards the back of the house. I figured to check the butler’s pantry and laundry at the end of the hall before checking the two bedrooms to either side of the hallway. A few things were on the floor in the pantry, but nothing broken.

The two bedrooms were fine as well. Nothing broken, just rearranged. Our four rambunctious cats have taught us to cut down on breakables and such anyway. Speaking of them, they were still skittish from the quake and haven’t come out to greet me yet. I can’t blame them, so am I. 

As I went room to room, I also checked the windows. None broken and the huge wooden shutters were still latched open. I remember when we got them. They look like something from the 1800’s. The big slabs of wood, complete with decorative cross shaped firing slits for arrows, they wouldn’t be out of place in medieval times or the early days of the west to protect you from marauding Indian tribes. The wood and iron look great and proper with the walls being as thick as they are with all the insulation we have.

Out the door from the bedroom to the little greenhouse room with the hot tub swim spa. This was one of the things I was most worried about. I thought we might have some panes of glass pop out or crack. We were in luck. No problems out here.

With the upstairs checked, I put away the groceries. It didn’t take long to check the main part of the house. It’s pretty small. All the stuff that takes up space, we put in the basement, which was my next stop.

Down the stairs I went.  The winter larder and the deep freeze were both fine, no problems there. I looked over the huge water cisterns thoroughly.  I was worried about leaks at any of the fittings coming from either the rain catchments or the well. Everything was dry, no problems found, Thank God! I hate to think of that much water looking for somewhere to go!

The electrical room with all the batteries and controllers was next. This is where most of the stuff normally taking up space in a traditional house was tucked. The battery bank, solar panel controllers, the in-floor heating system and the air conditioning equipment were all in here. All of this, plus the cistern, the deep freeze, the larder, all took up space. That’s why the basement is easily twice the size of the house above.

The workshop room was easy to check. Both of us recently cleaned and straightened up this space, putting all our tools and projects away. The workshop was for all the little tinkering with firearms, cameras, fly tying, pinball machines and such we each do. The walls were lined with cabinets and toolboxes. In the middle of the room were two big solid tables to work on. Nothing was out right now and none of the cabinets had fallen over so all should be good. Now I needed to check the tunnelway and the garage.

Some of the things about the house really wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to most people. At the time we built it we weren’t sure each other even understood why each of us wanted what we wanted. Boy did Garen and I have some long, animated discussions about including some of them in the design of the house but as I walked by them all now, I am glad we did them. Some were things I wanted added; some were his. I smiled as I walked through the 30 feet of 12 feet tall square concrete culvert going from the back wall of the basement to underneath the garage. It was amazing how we were able to use this space for so many things.

The first one was an underground target range (the original primary purpose or my excuse for it) both keeping the noise down and making it convenient to do a little airgun and handgun practice despite bad weather. The decision and architectural design of placing it off the basement leading to the garage was so we wouldn’t have to go outside and trudge through snow to get to the garage.

We chose this size and shape because he came across some 12-foot square culvert left over from a local civic works project. The width worked out. We put some pretty big industrial shelving down one side. As I walked down the tunnelway, the labels on the bins and boxes on the shelves caught my eye. ‘Camping stoves’, ‘Christmas Lights’, ‘spare dishes’, ‘train set’, ‘backpacks’. One of these days we need to pull it all down and organize these bins right. I’m sure Garen knows where each bin is, but it could take forever trying to find something specific. Oh well, at least it’s not in one big pile in an attic to sort through!

I trudged up the stairs into the garage. That was one problem coming this way-stairs! Flipping on the lights, I am relieved to see no huge mess from the quake. Mess, yes, but not from the quake. Kayaks, canoes, motorcycles, the little dune buggy, they all live here as well as my car and his truck when the weather is too bad. It’s all here and in its normal disarray.

One more set of stairs to climb out here. In the back of the garage was a narrow staircase to a tiny studio apartment space. We mainly used it for a library of all the manuals and such for our various toys, vehicles and such. A bookshelf was stuffed with car repair manuals, folding kayak instructions, and who knows what else.  A bathroom with shower, a set of kitchen cabinets on one wall and a futon couch all make this a cozy little space to study a project as well as get cleaned up so you don’t come back in the house greasy and grimy from working on things in the garage.

I came up here, worried about the ratty bookshelf. Overloaded and not great to begin with, I figured the quake might have done it in. I was right. The shelves had dumped the books all over the floor. Well, we are going to need to build a new set of shelves before I could put the books away. I’ll come back later and at least put them into like piles of books.

With everything checked out here, back down the stairs to the house I went.  

With all the adrenaline and not knowing the status of my husband Garen, now was not the time to sit down to do the New York Times crossword puzzle.  I was too amped up to sit still. I fired up my main radio, hoping in vain to hear from him.

I figured to give the internet a shot too, but really did not expect it to work, and I was right. I decided to wait until later to dig under the desk to plug the satellite internet cable back into the computer if the other doesn’t come back up. It is set up as a pay as you go backup for the fiber cable but it’s a lot slower and weather dependent. Well, at least the TV should work since it is satellite, I hope something is on besides 24/7 in-depth coverage of the effect the tsunami on the latest internet socialite.

All I could do is trudge along and wait, something that annoys me greatly. I figured to busy myself while waiting for Garen by going through the house again mentally, checking all the things I could think of we will need for an extended period of isolation. A tsunami of the magnitude I saw would shut down most everything for at least a hundred miles or more for the foreseeable future.

As I went ­­­­down the mental checklist, I was fairly confident we would be fine for a long time since the house was designed for being weathered in for weeks.  We had plenty of water stored in the cisterns and the deep freeze and refrigerators would stay running without issue.

The power for our little subdivision of one came from the landward direction, not the seaward so it has a chance of remaining on. If it fails, there are the solar panels along the roofline of the sheds and the garage feeding the big battery bank in the basement. If those get too low, then the propane powered generator feeding from the humongous tank installed for the subdivision will kick on.

We could slow the drain on the electrical system by heating the house with the fireplaces. After all, that’s why you have them. Garen has at least 4 cords of split wood in the woodshed down the left side of the outer wall. No reason to waste it. It might as well warm the house instead of being a fire hazard.

The pantry is fully stocked with our normal food. Garen uses the tunnelway to stash leftovers from trying and experimenting with a bunch of different types for work and as an ‘in case of’ batch of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. So, I guess we have more than enough food for a while. I tease him a lot, but he is a good planner for things like this. It’s where Rule 6 comes from.

Still no word from Garen. I was too anxious to sit so, I grabbed my portable radio, expanding my walk about to check out the ‘training building’ and some of the larger areas of the grounds. As I walked up, I made sure the hurricane storm shutters were still pulled down tight over the windows and doors of the ‘training building’. I went inside to check for damage.  

After the remodel, this building has bunkrooms on the upper floor with his and her gym style locker room complete with showers and toilets, as well as a decent-sized kitchen.

I figured, a few of our friends in the area might need a place to take refuge and it was best to be ready.  If they survived and could make it here, we would welcome them. Several of the home sites had water and electric feeds capable of being converted to RV pads as well. That’s why I turned the HVAC from vacation mode to inhabited mode.

The Training Center in Town, Earlier

The school was created by several very special DoD and three letter agency direct action and intelligence agents who retired in the local area just in time to get in on the ridiculously high paid contract work following 9/11.

The Training Center wasn’t located in the best part of town one might even say it was in one of the least desirable. Originally it was a car dealership with a multistory parking garage next to it.  Now it’s transformed into a schoolhouse and training center. The ground floor has classrooms, and the vehicle service area became a simulated shoot house with high fidelity trauma mannequins and everything else needed to create a realistic environment.

The second floor was used by the owners as a garage and storage area. It also housed the offices for the schoolhouse. The third floor was where the onsite owners’ apartment and more storage connexes were. The fourth floor was the roof of both buildings. The top of both structures was one large parking platform. An old helicopter fuselage was bolted down to the back edge to provide a place for fast rope, hoist ops and repelling training evolutions.

As operations built up with the increase of course loads along with the needs of everyday operations, the original crew realized more staff was necessary. They reached out to friends still on active duty to get names and contacts for good candidates who would fit in with the organization, had some real-world experience and most importantly, could teach and teach well. One name kept coming up over and over.  Garen.

Most of the courses the training center held were for a bunch of different government and non-government agencies who required there to be no publicity and plenty of non-disclosure agreements. There wouldn’t be a social media page to find about the Center, much less anything about any of the classes or who attended. It was this sort of tight-lipped focus that enabled this group to survive the hostile events and media circus feeding frenzy consuming Blackwater Agency and many others.

After being contacted and taking a tour, Garen was definitely impressed. They convinced him. He accepted the offer for a provisional position on the instructional staff, pending his conversation with the wife. He thought this would be an opportunity to continue doing the parts of his old job he loved without a whole lot of the crap he hated.

After a long conversation with Bekka, they came to the conclusion it would be a good thing for both of them. He would get to teach along with opportunities to stay current with emergency medicine advancements, without the deployments and hazards they were both wanting to retire from. With the added income, they could make more improvements to their private oasis faster. This was one of those decisions, even though they did not seek it, the fates placed it in their lap. It felt right to them.

Garen started at the bottom and steadily moved up in the company, He began with teaching in simple courses. The senior instructors observed his work, drive and ambition and he moved up the ranks within the company. It did not take long before Garen became a junior manager and a part owner.

Several years in they were faced with an instructor shortage. Along with the others, Garen worked hard trying to find more instructors for them. Most of the ones he found worked out great. ‘Rule number 15: No good deed goes unpunished’ so the senior bosses gave him the additional job of Recruiter of Instructors. This meant more work but not more money. He spent many hours trying to think and find people.

Late one evening while Garen was vetting applications the phone rang. Both Garen and Bekka jumped. They knew anytime the phone rings after 2100 hrs, almost nothing good comes of it.

Hello? Yes, this is her, I understand. Yes...Yes... Yes. How much... OK.

Garen listened and with what he heard he figured it was bad news. There were very few people it could be about and since there were tears in Bekka’s eyes... Could it be Kara? They had not heard from her in a while.

Is it Kara? What’s wrong?

Bekka was obviously annoyed at Garen’s questions in the background. She slid him a piece of paper with notes on it. She probably hoped it would give him enough information to shut him up and perhaps get him started on travel arrangements. 

It worked well as he returned to his computer, fingers and mouse flying.

I’ll have plane tickets, hotel reservations and rental car ready by the time you get to the airport. Your fly-away bag is still packed and in the top of the closet. Winter weather there, grab a heavier coat.

Bekka was nodding at Garen’s comments as she finished on the phone.

I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thank you, Sherriff.

A kiss on his forehead and Bekka was gone like the wind. Kara was in trouble and come hell or high water, she would be there by her side.

Call me the moment you know what is going on Garen said as she rushed towards the door.

He knew Bekka would do whatever she could. She would bring her home.

Garen knew he could also do more in the long run. Unless she was too far gone; he knew Kara would be able to teach. He could give her a job. He knew whatever was wrong with Kara, she would do better with something to focus on, something to put her mind towards. With all she knew and had been through, teaching might be what she needed. Hell, even if it wasn’t Kara, it would be a waste to not pass on those lessons. The only roadblock he might have with Kara might be the vetting.

For Kara, he would blatantly break a few company rules, bend a few more and stretched his envelope of power. He wouldn’t lie to the company. He wasn’t sure if she could get a TS anymore with her PTSD Med Retirement, but he would tell them she would rather go to the grave than break her word. He would tell them if anything went wrong with her on the staff, he would fix it, and if he couldn’t, he would resign, taking all the blame with him.

Garen waited and waited for Bekka to call. He was worried about both of them. He knew Bekka would throw herself into helping Kara and forget to take care of herself. Finally, the long-awaited call came in. Everything started to make more sense. Hurt, angry and rough, Bekka’s description of Kara’s condition was painful to him. They agreed, it was time to bring her home. He had some preparations to make before he drove out.

Arriving late at night a couple days later in a new company truck, he met Bekka at the hotel. He was right. She had not been taking care of herself. She fell into his arms, exhausted and crying, torn up by what was done to Kara. She blamed herself for abandoning Kara, she blamed the service for abandoning Kara, and she was mad at the universe for screwing over their friend. He promised Bekka they would help make Kara better again if it could be done, whatever it took.

Bekka had Kara in the other bedroom of the hotel suite. Garen was stunned when he first saw her. Kara had a thousand-yard stare so common in the pictures of the Marines in the Pacific in places like Guadalcanal and Tarawa. Her clothes hung like sackcloth on her far too thin frame. All of Kara’s possessions fit in one small gym bag and an assault pack, the last visible possession from her military time other than the dog tags around her neck and the KIA bracelet on her wrist.

He hadn’t seen Kara this bad since they stopped in Germany when she was recovering from the IED ambush and firefight that almost killed her and left an indelible mark on the three of them.

In the morning they threw the luggage into the truck and started back toward Seacouver.

Along the way home, Garen filled Kara in on the job he was offering, what she would be teaching, and how much she would get paid. These, along with a hundred other things and details filled the silence. By the end of the three-day drive, there was a glimmer of life showing in her, every now and then.

When Garen and Bekka got her home, they moved Kara into the spare bedroom. Over the next month they worked hard at getting her back to feeling safe and secure. To help with this, they helped her start training for the job again. Like a physical therapist helping someone recover from surgery, they worked her back into ‘fighting’ shape, both physically and mentally. By the time she was ready to start work, she was in many ways back to her old level of skill, but with a more mature mindset. Her laser focus was infectious in the classroom.

Kara proved to still be an excellent teacher. This was no surprise considering her background and training. She spent over two years at the military schoolhouse teaching after the fiasco of her and Bekka’s last deployment out of England. It was her passion and commitment while teaching that led to her psych medical retirement.

They helped Kara get some land by the sea along with an old beat-up Airstream trailer she could live in once it was rebuilt. The thing was meant to be something to keep her busy but quickly became a group project.  She was content, maybe even on the verge of almost happy at times.

Garen had things running well at the Center as the Operation Manager. He had a smooth and talented teaching staff and with Kara on board, things were definitely looking up. Then the Earthquake hit.

––––––––

The Training Center in Town Afternoon of the Earthquake

––––––––

The day of the Quake, several of the instructors were standing on the second floor of the parking area testing and prepping gear for new students arriving next week. It was one of the longest classes the Center was having this year. Garen, Kara, Logan and Allyson were going through the weapons load out, night vision gear, and med bags when Logan piped in.

Hey Kara, is it time for Crazy Naked Girl?

Kara’s reply was fairly flat and matter of fact. 

Not this day, not this crew. They seem to be focused on the certain aspects they need and aren’t getting near that level of training.

Garen turned toward Kara, knowing it hurt her deeply to talk about this and the tone was not what it seemed. She had done what she did out of a sense of necessity, not showmanship. It came from somewhere very deep and personal. Only Garen, Bekka and she knew the real pain behind it. Garen wanted to strike out at Logan for bringing it up but held back. He never would have hired him, given the option, but bygones are bygones.

Allyson, the new girl hired away from a large city SWAT team, was suddenly interested.

What is this ‘Crazy Naked Girl’ thing I keep hearing rumors of? with a look of concern and curiosity.

Kara turned to Allyson.

Nothing for you to worry about. We had one of our advanced remote program classes who had gotten complacent near the end of their course. They hadn’t met me yet and I ambushed them in their team room a couple hours early for a prolonged trauma field care scenario, all moulaged up, and was more vocal than they anticipated as the real casualty they had to treat. They weren’t as prepared as they thought they were, and my Assistant Instructor was unaware of my plan at the start.  Don’t worry, it was completely voluntary, my idea, my plan, me as the patient. You won’t be required to go as far as I did. My Assistant Instructor was flustered, and stories are better when you turn them up to eleven.

Garen shook his head as Kara was telling her half of the story. He had a hard time matching Kara’s description accurately to the events of that day as he remembered it. She made it sound like she jumped out of a locker and said ‘boo’ and startled them with the early start time. The reality was significantly different.

Garen had mentioned earlier to Kara about how that class of four students from some unnamed agency who were here getting the full gambit of courses in preparation for a trip to a foreign land had seemed to get really cocky and complacent and were now just walking through the motions.

It was a small class, three men and a woman. They had been trained in a long laundry list of healthcare procedures for the field. They were all Paramedics prior to coming to the course and had a rude awakening to the differences of real combat and remote medicine, but their swagger was on now and they would soon be finishing this phase. The problem was they didn’t know what they didn’t know.

––––––––

They had already been through the various training environments in-house several times for different lessons and, while their skills were technically correct, they seemed to be at the stage where it was all an elaborate game to them now.

Kara told Garen. Leave it to me I might be able to come up with a way to remind these cocky little runts it’s not a game, there are no timeout, no do overs, no instructors with the answers, no cheat codes or scenario cards.

If you think you can do it, go for it. I don’t want them leaving here with that attitude. 

Good. To do this though, I need to change some things around to start in the morning instead of the afternoon. No restriction on how I do this, OK?

You know the rule ‘All ass or no ass no half ass.’ If you go down, we go down together Bekka’s got a honey-do list at the house for us anyway if we end up unemployed. Just use Ed as your Assistant Instructor, he has been with these yahoos most of the course. I’ll let him know about the changes.

The next day, Garen was on the roof helping rig the new hoist into the helicopter body when Eddie came running up to him.

Garen, you got to do something. Your girl’s Fuken nuts!

Garen could see Eddie was visibly shaken and wound up like a two-dollar watch. He set down his tools so he could give Eddie his full attention.

Alright, Eddie, what did Kara do?

She set up for the prolonged scenario in their team room. She made me promise four times to only observe and provide adjusted vital signs for the casualty, since hers probably wouldn’t match the real casualty all jacked up like the one she is simulating would have, and to come get you at the five hour forty-five-minute mark for the debrief at the six-hour mark.

What’s the problem with that, Ed? Garen wasn’t understanding the problem yet.

Well, she moulaged herself up with a bunch of injuries and slipped into the room while the students were getting their gear together for this afternoon’s training, just like it said on the schedule. When she walked in the far end of the room, they didn’t get a good look and since they didn’t know her, they went back to what they were doing.

She suckered them as I expected. Still not seeing a problem. Go on.

Well, she flipped one of those baby flashbangs in the corner of the room as she killed all the lights. She dropped a strobe on the floor at the same time a boom box in the corner started blasting God-awful battle sounds. She started crying and screaming bloody murder in at least two or three different languages, at the same time cranking off at least one mag of blanks from a pistol like she was being overrun by a hoard of zombies.

She started screaming like she was torn to hell ‘don’t let me die, oh god it hurts’, ‘don’t let them get me’ and such. She had a bunch of wounds glued on and had me only able to tell them ‘Treat what you find as you would, all live interventions. I’m telling you; she is fuken loony toons and she’s been in there with them for almost six hours. Eddie seems to have calmed himself down some in the telling.

Garen wasn’t sure what to think from Eddie’s description, but he got nervous since he was the one who told Kara she had a free hand. He wasn’t really worried about what she might be doing as far as whether it was being effective at training. He was more worried about Eddie having a heart attack. He didn’t take change well. He knew he probably better take over anyway.

Ok, Eddie, I guess I better go in for the debrief. You better join me since you saw how they did the interventions. You can do some of the technique elements critique and tuning, but I guess I need to see what she needs from me. Garen replied, following him to the classroom.

The site greeting him when he walked in assailed his senses, and not necessarily in a good way.

Kara’s bloody clothes were cut up and in a pile on the floor, along with a bunch of bandage wrappers and medical waste. She had battle dressings, chest seals and tourniquets on her bloody, naked body. There were two IVs, one in each arm. Her head was bandaged, she had EKG wires snaking all over her body, a pulse oxy on one hand and an End-Tidal-CO2 monitor attached to a nasopharyngeal airway in her nose.

The room was over a hundred degrees and stank of cordite, blood, sweat, urine, feces, and fear, lots and lots of fear. The only illumination in the room was provided by their headlamps and some Cylume sticks hung from the ceiling. The CD in the boom box had switched over to night jungle sounds of insects with wind and trees moving.

The students were so focused on their patient and their monitoring equipment they didn’t even see Eddie and Garen slip into the room. A bell rang out from the podium.

Garen’s voice rang out through the room. Endex! Endex! Leave all your interventions in place. Eddie, hit the lights.

As the lights came on, the students seemed to come out of a daze. Once the students stepped back from the table, Garen got a better look at Kara. Garen walked over to Kara and helped her stand up. Garen’s inputs were slower and softer spoken compared to his normal exuberant classroom self as they started the debrief. He had them first describe the wounds found, both in type and seriousness, the initial treatments, the stabilizing care then the extended care implications and treatment considerations. All the while, Kara stood next to Garen, naked except for the bandages and interventions, spread eagle like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian drawing, staring over everyone’s heads, eyes fixated on the back wall.

After each treatment was completely described, they removed their interventions to reveal the moulaged wound they had addressed before they moved to the next. Garen made minor corrections and adjustments to their treatment choices and concepts, indicated things they missed and or should have done.

At this point Garen was still in a daze, letting the teacher part of him do the work on autopilot while he tried to get himself together. He pointed out the lack of a Foley Catheter for the bladder, the missed incontinence, and the frank visible bleeding from the vagina as evidenced with his gloved hand.

He handed Kara a large towel. As she turned her head toward him, she looked him in the eye. An unspoken but clear stream of thoughts passed back and forth between them, an entire soul’s worth in a millisecond. He took a step forward and slightly in front of her to address the students as she used a couple of towels to wipe down and peel off the moulage.

Garen took a few moments to calm himself thinking of what his friend had just put herself through just to try to teach these students some humility. She tore open wounds he was not sure the students earned the right to see. One thing he was sure of, they did not understand the magnitude of the gift she gave them to make sure not only would their patients come home alive but so would they minus some of the scars.

His voice startled the student and Ed. It resonated through the room full of passion, sorrow and intensity It seems we NOW have your attention. Casualties don’t happen according to a script, they don’t happen on a timetable, the injuries don’t happen in the perfect place you have practiced addressing them. The numbers, the stats, the nice safe classroom is to give you tools. If you do not think hard about what you will do, and train as if your life depends on it, you will not make it home, your friends might not make it home. This is not a game. If this hasn’t become clear by now, maybe this will help.

Garen stepped aside and gestured to Kara who had wiped all the moulage off and was now standing in the same position again, her stark white scars visible on her tanned body, exactly where she had placed the moulage ones. Tears were silently running down both her face and Garen’s as he spoke once more.

All of the wounds she portrayed were her own. I got to her a couple of minutes after the IED started the ambush and worked on her for over 9 hours waiting for evac with a lot less gear than you had here, with fewer trained people. Oh, if that wasn’t enough, we had a second casualty, just as bad off. Three other teammates were killed in the same attack, so we had their loss in our heads. It can be survivable, if you do your part as well as you can. It takes training and focus, every time all the time. Eddie, break down their individual techniques and take over.

Eddie waved them over to where he was so they could talk about the interventions.

Garen stood there waiting for Kara to be ready to walk out as the memories and emotions rolled over him now that he didn’t have teaching to hold them back. When he saw what Kara had done, what she had recreated in the training room, it was like a being hit in the face with a brick. His memories of that day all came flooding back at the sight of her wounds.

The team was in the village working with the local leaders. The bad guys laid an ambush. It was initiated with a command detonated IED. Out of the six people on the team Kara was part of, three were killed outright immediately and two more were injured.

In the ensuing firefight, the survivors were able to hold them off for the ten-ish minutes it took the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) to get to them. The 6-person team Garen and Bekka were a part of was all the QRF that was available.

Kara was one of the injured. She was covered in blood, bleeding from several shrapnel holes in many places and had taken two rounds in the ensuing firefight, one in the hip and the other in the ribs high up near the armpit. She had continued to fight as best she could until the QRF got there. Garen didn’t know how many, if any, they hit or the team survivors hit, but at least they drove the bad guys back for long enough to get to them and get them out.

Garen was the one to treat her on the point of wounding after the bad guys were pushed back far enough, they could get to them. Two tourniquets on the leg, pack the inguinal, pelvic binder/junctional tourniquet, chest seals on the holes in the chest, occlusive wrap for the abdominal wounds, IV with TXA, antibiotics and a load of Ketamine. This was followed back at camp with a chest tube and blood among other treatments.  Her scalp wound had bled sufficiently to blind her in one eye during the firefight, but fortunately, the eye itself wasn’t damaged.

He and the other team’s medic worked on her and the other casualty back at their basecamp, stabilizing them during the nine hours it took for the medevac to get there through the weather. As the evening slowly wore on, two units of blood were syphoned from each of the four of the team members who were O+ and O-. This helped ensure the casualties made it through the night.

He remembered all of this as he described the injuries to these trainees who had no idea what it meant for Kara to have tried to drag them into the chaos and tragedy of that day, just to train them. When he tried to explain it to them just a little at the end, he thought he saw a bit of the light come on, but he knew they still didn’t get it. What had possessed her to go there?

He wrapped his arm around Kara and walked her out of the room. Once they were in the hallway, the last of Kara’s resolve and bearing finally cracked and a few sobs broke through. They stood holding one another, motionless for some time. He took off his shirt, draping it over her shoulders as she stood shivering. She clasped the edges of the shirt as she turned and faced him fully as she spoke to him for the first time.

Garen, you saved my life at least twice. Without you I would have died downrange, and later you and Bekka pulled me back from the abyss I had fallen into. Anything you ever need including my life is yours. She pulled his shirt closed and walked towards the stairs up to the second floor and the locker room to get a shower.

Garen’s question stopped her halfway up the stairs.

Why? Why did you do that for them?

I don’t know if it was for them. Kara said in a voice full of pain and sorrow.

Garen didn’t know what to say in answer to that. When he found his voice, he instead asked What is the deal with the tattoo on your shoulder? That’s new.

Kara stopped again and looked back over her shoulder at him her voice a whisper of exhaustion as she replied.

I woke up in the middle of the night with an image of it in my head. I had to draw it right then. I didn’t understand why but it felt right when I was done. Once it was drawn, I had to make it a part of me. It seemed to help me bring things into focus.

So, Kara. What does it mean?

It’s a combination of two Nordic Runes. Part of it is a type of compass and the other part is the rune for the Valkyrie She then turned and walked off.

All of this was flashing through his head as he was standing there in the parking structure. The Earthquake snapped him out of his revere. All four of them locked eyes as the structure began to shake and sway.

––––––––

Crazy Naked Girl

––––––––

Kara cringed when Logan mentioned Crazy Naked Girl. She hoped after Eddie left; the incident would go by the wayside. She wasn’t going to bring it up. She KNEW Garen sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up. The bad part was the moniker was far more accurate than she wanted to admit. She was more than a little whacko to do it, and with how far she went? Well, looking back, everything she did that day kinda shocked even herself.

She knew instinctively she could make an impact, break their training block.

She originally figured she could just do the drill ‘instructor yell and intimidate’ since they had not met her. She discarded this as soon as she thought of it. The biggest problem with training most of the time is getting people out of training mode and taking it seriously, treat it like it’s real to get the most out of the events. It always made her angry to see students half-assing things as if it was a game. As her anger built, she kept telling herself again and again.

If I could get them to feel what it was really like, they would understand.

She could barge in and shoot one of them with Simunitions, but after the first 30 seconds, it would just turn into any another exercise. The problem was, they needed to be pulled out of their safe, phony environment and have a real patient to work on, with all the reality she could provide.

They need to be there and feel what it’s like, just like I have. As soon as she spoke the words to herself, the idea burst in her head like the rising dawn.

She started to think through the logistics. They had the resources. She knew she could do it. She started right away. She had so much to do and not a lot of time. Every step of her preparation led to having three more ideas to push the envelope even farther. They already had all the moulage pieces she would need at the shop, with the glue to adhere them. She started working on all the other bits she needed at a frantic pace.

This presented another element for her to push the realism. She began drinking a huge energy drink every hour or two. This would definitely make her heart rate fast and erratic. Staying up all night prepping for this would give her the worn out and altered mental status of shock.

As she went through all her preparations, a part of her was still questioning why she was doing this. Why was she was going to replicate that day. It broke her body and shattered her soul. Why was she ripping her whole tragedy open again just for some training evolution?  She didn’t know why, but she kept going.

She spent some time cutting a six-hour soundtrack mix disk, starting with battle sounds, tapering off after about 15 minutes to nighttime forest and insect sounds. She had the type of insect and forest sounds change every hour so she could gauge her time without looking for a clock.

She grabbed a trashed set of clothes, cutting and tearing them in the right places for her wounds. If she didn’t have the holes right, they wouldn’t know where they should look.

She put some remote camera strobes in several places with colored gels where they would be triggered by the rescue strobe, or the muzzle flash of the blanks or even the errant headlamp flash. This would help keep them disoriented, seeing things that aren’t there, frightened by the shadows made by the trees like when they were younger. They would see ghosts, not sure if they were real but Kara knew they would be real because she was bringing them, lots of ‘em. With what she was doing they would come whether she wanted them or not. 

She kept getting more nervous and committed to taking it to the next level. She knew there must be more she could do. It had to be perfect. When most of her prep work was done, she briefed Eddie and went to complete the last steps.

Kara mixed some anticoagulant with about 60ml of her own blood she had drawn up. Some of it she then mixed with lubricant and placed inside her. The rest she placed in a small packet she could burst on her face and scalp for the wounds there. The rest of the wounds got standard moulage blood. She even held off on going to the bathroom in the hour before she was to start the scenario. She would push them to the limits. There could be no question of the realism this time.

She emphatically reminded Eddie of her rules for this scenario and the need for Garen at the six-hour mark for debrief. She knew Garen would understand.

Once Kara slipped into the room, she started the timer, killed the lights and tripped the flash bang. She threw herself against the furniture and onto the floor, at the same time triggering a dozen rounds of blanks to punctuate her initial screams. Her screams of pain, fury, and helplessness were ear shattering. Her sobs were bleak and devoid of hope. Her pleas for rescue were heartfelt and crushing.

She let her bladder go just before they got to her, followed by a Kegel to push the blood and goo from her groin.