Military Doctor

The young man's tale took me closer to take a look at the creatures that were before me, he then warned, as I approached one of them.

"Don't move closer, ever since this happened to this village we named them the cursed," I heard him but the assignment was mine to examine and cure whatever it was. I then took a scalpel and cut a shallow opening on one of the patients.

There was no blood, I then tried looking for his pulse and none could be found either. On the other hand, his body felt like a corpse six feet under with no warmth on his skin. His wounds did not shed a dash of blood neither did he scream of pain.

As I knelt there right next to him he could sniff my movements without even looking. His vision one could tell was very blurry from the colour of his eyes balls but that was just an assumption which I hadn't researched about.

The movements on his body as I touched him with my gloved hands made him hostile, constantly snapping at me and growling in a course voice. You could tell his heartbeat had stopped long ago; it was like he was not there at all but a body programmed to sniff blood and feast on it.

I quickly went out to take in a breath of fresh air from my facemask and went back with a pair of plastic bags and a syringe to take some samples out from him for further examination back at the lab.

He was difficult to contain and by the looks of my assistant who apparently was a doctor for a while, he wasn't ready to help me pin him down. His belief of the so called curse on the affected was much stronger than the biological aspect. I then took a deep breath and plunged in the syringe on his left thigh since it was the most stable part of his body that I could see.

His skin was so dry and pale I could feel the syringe breaking the barriers of his skin as it sunk in. The creature did not even react to the pain I had inflicted on him. His eyes sat deep in their sockets, and his body fidgeting as he attempted to reach for my flesh with his bound hands.

I sucked in the blood only to extract a mucky substance deep brown in colour from his gray body. He was lifeless for all I thought.

The doctor behind me a few steps back was joined by two other locals who bowed their heads before him and begun to whisper in his ears. I could tell from their gestures that they were talking of how I was risking my life with the *Cursed* patient which I found it rather cringe to me.

I could put their muscles to use but since I was not back at camp I was in no position to bark orders especially to a group who had already branded the patients as cursed. For all I care they were not part of my crew; but I understood the danger that was before us. The creature was more powerful and I wasn't ready to fight it by myself.

The sample I had taken was going to be useful but more would have been even better. I then thought of cutting off his flesh from his body, but my emotions got the better of me. I still believed that he could be in there and was still viable for a cure; and the pain from the hundreds of cuts on his body would eventually ail him once he begun to recover.

I wasn't ready to add to the numbers of injuries on his body. I packed the blood sample on my porch which was properly protected and sealed incase it was infectious when in contact which the normal human skin.

I walked out and the doctor behind me followed closely and locked the door to prevent their escape. I wondered how long the shelter of its structure could contain a force of abled creatures with merely a wooden door and a shelter made of papyrus reeds and long dried grass.

I am not fond of cultural ways when it comes to practical things, and trapping them in mad house was definitely not a good idea.

Outside the shelter, the villagers had gathered into small groups as they whispered among themselves. They were basically terrified but there is nothing horrifying they had not gone through before.

Three children in the company of their mother were crying in the crowds that had come out to stare at me. I could tell that one of their beloved ones was among the ones infected. Their tears took me back to the days in the battle fields. The days that were still vivid to me as I served in the military as a doctor, to save lives of our brothers as our forces were being hammered with powerful artillery from our attackers.

The border clashes were something like never before, constantly on the frontline to protect and conquer. The sounds of explosives and breaking grounds were a constant music with numerous tunes in our ears. My colleagues had to survive and I was there attending to their wounds, some with torn stomachs almost pouring their intestines to the ground we stood to defend.

Their hands held on to mine as they whispered messages to take to their beloved. The sky was nonetheless full of smoke like clouds in the mountains; fighter jets dropping missiles but we couldn't tell whose side they were on.

We were all in a blind spot hoping to get back to our mothers and dine to their delicious meals.

I then took my tablet and voice called my superior; Sergeant Burrows. His attitude was strict and sharp to the core, but this was who I was dealing with for the past 10 years of my career. I then explained everything to him and before I could hang up and wait for my next orders, I heard vigorous movements inside the shelter.

The growling and writhing had intensified, the door welcomed a few bangs and I thought to myself they wouldn't be long before this place turned upside down with zombies.