Robert Walker - Final Edge

"No, no! Damn it, she's dead. Hurry, please!"

"You're on a cell phone, ma'am. I'm Larry. Remain calm and give me your address, and stay on the line, please."

After giving the dispatcher the address and the Brody address, Meredyth snatched up the space-aged bandaging that now must save Lucas's life. She grabbed a blanket and a robe as well, and she then raced down to where Lucas had gotten to his knees and had slumped against a tractor, his eyes glazed, in trauma, unable to coherently answer her.

As she neared him, she saw the horrible exit wound in the middle of his back, between the shoulder blades, just below the neck. She feared she didn't have enough bandages left, and cursed herself now for having wasted them on Lauralie.

She then saw that Lucas had also been hit in the right side, lower abdomen, and there was no exit wound there. She imagined the bullet having careened about inside him, exploding into various deadly shards that had likely ripped at his organs. She feared the internal blood flow would kill him, that the NASA-developed super bandage could not save him if she'd had a mile of it. He needed emergency medical attention; a team of surgeons and experts might have a chance to save his life. She shouted into the phone at the dispatcher, "He's in shock! He's dying! Hurry!"

"Tell me your name, ma'am. Calm down and tell me your name."

"What?"

"Your name."

"Meredyth…Meredyth Sanger. We need an airlift for Lucas! Officer Stonecoat. He's been shot twice! He's suffering internal wounds, and he's hemorrhaging and in shock."

"I'll relay that, Meredyth."

"Doctor! I'm a doctor. I know what I'm talking about! Get a chopper out here, a medevac chopper! Stat!"

She looked into Lucas's eyes, rolled back in his head. He looked ready to faint, in need of medical assistance fast. He'd made it to the barn and the horses, but at what price? "Lucas! Stay with me! Hold on!" She'd thrown the blanket over his legs, and she worked the Fresh Flesh into his back to staunch the blood flow there. She talked as she worked, telling him he was going to be okay. She didn't have enough of the bandage to reach around his wide chest, so she held it in place until the blood was absorbed into it, the absorption creating enough glue to hold the bandage. She got up, raced to the stable, and located the sports-wrap bandages used for binding the legs of horses, and returning, she dressed the back wound with the sports wrap.

"Grandfather…calls me," muttered Lucas.

"I've called for a medevac chopper, Lucas! Hold on! Don't you go anywhere! Don't you listen to that old man either!"

He tried to get up.

She forced him to remain sitting, taking him now into the folds of the robe she had thrown on herself. She kept talking to him. "We must look like a couple of aliens in all this mud and dirt. No telling how long our hideaway is going to be a crime scene. They'll have to process the house, the stable, the grounds, the damn rowboats, not to mention the Brody house." She kept talking to him, trying to keep him conscious.

She heard a car drive up behind them. "Oh, dear God…it's Janie Farnsworth… come looking for her boys. How am I going to deal with all this, Lucas, without you… without your help? You can't leave me, Lucas! I won't let you, damn it! Not now…now that we've finally discovered we can't live without one another. What the futz! It's not fair. Tell your grandfather to go back to the Great Spirit or wherever he came from! Doya-hear- me. doya? I need you in this life; I need you here."

Lucas's glazed look signaled his slipping into some invisible place ahead of him. Again he tried to get to his feet. She struggled to keep him down as a concerned Yesyado sniffed and whinnied at the pair of them. "Damn it, Lucas, stay down! Don't fight me! Stop it! Don't move! You'll only cause more blood loss!"

He's dying. Get used to the idea. Nothing you can do about it, a nagging ugly voice said at the back of her head, sounding like Lauralie, and then she heard Janie Farnsworth standing over them and saying, "My God, Meredyth, what in the name of heaven and hell's happened? Where's my Tommy? Where's Jeff?"

She looked up at the middle-aged single mother of two, unable to tell her what had happened, but her eyes spoke clearly enough. Mrs. Farnsworth gasped and raced for the bam to locate her boys, calling out their names and getting no answer. "Where's their truck?" she finally asked, and looking up at the house, she got her answer.

"Those boys didn't do anything wrong, did they? Who shot your man, Meredyth? Talk to me, damn it!"

"Jeff and Tommy're…"

"Spit it out!"

"…are dead, Janie. I'm sorry. A maniac got hold of their rifle and used it on them. She shot Lucas too."

"My boys…are they badly hurt?" She didn't want to hear the word dead. "Where are they? Where are my boys?" Tears flowed freely now.

"Out on the lawn, halfway down to the lake."

She climbed back into her car and raced up the path to the house, plowing over the lawn in her car to get to where her boys lay. Meredyth's heart, once more, was ripped apart.

She heard the dispatcher on the phone calling to her. "Meredyth… Doctor…are you still there?"

"Where the hell's the help we need?"

"You're in a remote location. They're on their way!"

"I need blood plasma, maybe a transfusion; he needs stabilizing now!"

She saw that Lucas's normal red pallor had a skein of ashen white painted on now. His usual vigor and bravado had been replaced by a limp body and a lethargic malaise. He no longer fought her, allowing himself to be enveloped in her arms. She feared he would die here in her arms at any moment. "Don't do it, Lucas. Don't leave me! Please, don't."

She got no response from him. Lucas Stonecoat lay in her arms in a hemorrhagic coma.

In the distance, she heard the sirens that could not get here soon enough to suit her. In another three minutes, her tree-lined drive around the lake was lit by a parade of fire engines and paramedic vans followed by police cruisers.

"Where's the damned chopper!" she called out through the phone. "He's gone into coma!"

"The chopper's on its way, Meredyth. It's on its way," replied the calm voice of the 911 emergency dispatcher. "It's in the air and on its way."

She heard the faint sound of chopper blades-chomp- chomp-chomp-chomp-competing now with the ambulances and fire trucks that'd pulled down to the stables, encircling them. Over the blackened horizon, she saw the helicopter come into view. On its side, she read the luminescent logo-2NEWS. It was a damned news crew chopper!

It's too late…too late, came the evil voice in her head. And it's all your fault for wasting time on that lunatic bitch.

Paramedics flooded round them, and someone tugged her away, freeing the medics to attend to Lucas's wounds. They'd come from nearby rural Harris County Memorial Hospital, their emergency response unit. They immediately put Lucas on a plasma-and-glucose hookup, attempting to stabilize him for transportation. They examined the bandages Meredyth had wrapped him in, and these were replaced with sterile wraps. In what seemed a lifetime for Meredyth, they finally had him on a stretcher and into the waiting ambulance. Meredyth jumped into the rear with him, and they drove out into a field, and from overhead, a medevac chopper appeared, setting down, ready to take Lucas aboard.

Meredyth insisted on taking flight with him, certain it might be the last opportunity to see him alive. He remained in a coma.

Dr. Leonard Chang shakily balanced himself atop the tin-roofed shed, having left the safety of the ladder he'd ascended, and now he cautiously made his way to the impaled body. The sight stopped him, so chillingly ironic, the proud head of the metal greyhound protruding out of the woman's abdomen.