D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

“I guess we’re getting this at a bargain,” Miguel said.

“It’s a sale,” another one of them said. They all started to laugh as they loaded the pot into their idling car and sped away down the road.

The dark lumps of the dead men lay in the road.

“What the hell,” he muttered as he stood up noticing for the first time the sharp pain in his left arm. The adrenaline rush had numbed it temporarily but now an intense pain flared on his forearm – a jagged edge of his ulna or radius protruded through the skin, blood ran from the wound. His knees weakened as he felt the sharp edge of bone. Damn.

The sounds of tires sliding on dirt and the low rumble of a powerful engine drifted through the woods. A car sped down the dirt road. It skidded to a stop just before running over the bodies, and machine-gun fire erupted from the vehicle into the woods all around him. Miguel and his boys had come back to see if he had gone up to the road. Falling to the ground, trembling, he listened to the bullets tearing through the woods.

After a few seconds, the car drove over the bodies, spun around, and drove over them again as it sped away with its occupants hooting and cheering.

Paranoia gripped him. Would they be back? He hurried deeper into the woods. He wanted to get as far away from those bodies and the road as possible. His arm throbbed with each step. What had he gotten himself into? How could this all be happening at once? David Rose, Sara Burns, Pell, Karen, The Banker and Miguel – it was too much, too coincidental, as if fate had somehow chosen him to see how far one man could be pushed before snapping.

As he staggered along, he ripped a piece off his shirt and wrapped it around his forearm to control the bleeding.

“Weren’t we going to play some cards?” Sarah asked.

“Yes,” Camilla said as she sat back down at the table and sloppily refilled their glasses “Let’s have some fun.”

Mike finished dealing the cards and they got down to another game. Sarah watched as Camilla and Mike finished off the wine getting louder and drunker as the night progressed.

“Let’s change this music and dance,” Camilla suddenly yelled as she slammed the table, stood up and started dancing over to the iPod dock. Mike laughed and got up to follow her, almost falling over his chair as he went.

Chris stumbled to the ground again, slamming his arm into the decaying remnants of a tree trunk. Pain tore through his arm. He rolled over onto his back and screamed. The dark, dense woods consumed his weak howl – nobody was going to hear him.

Brilliant patches of star-filled sky peaked through the forest canopy. The air was warm but uncontrollable tremors still shook his body. He was in shock and needed medical attention.

He lay on the mossy forest floor drifting in and out of consciousness. Everything was going wrong. The emotional rollercoaster of the past few days caught up with him and he started to cry. In shock, lost, emotionally drained, he didn’t have the strength to go much further.

The faint sound of a guitar drifted through the quiet woods. Moving on pure will power, he rose and stumbled in the direction of the sound. All he wanted to do right now was lie down and sleep, but that would be the worst thing he could do.

Camilla and Mike swayed together in the middle of the floor, singing along to some pop song and laughing like teenagers. Sarah got up to leave and head to bed. A loud crash on the back porch stopped her in her tracks.

“What was that?” She exclaimed trying to peer through the window into the darkness. Mike and Camilla both giggled.

“It’s probably a grizzly bear come to join in the fun,” Camilla laughed.

Sarah glanced at the door that was at the back of the kitchen and led out to the porch. She couldn’t see anything. As she reluctantly turned to head to her room, she saw some motion out of the corner of her eye. A man stood there, staring wildly at her.

She screamed.

Mike and Camilla both followed her gaze and saw the man there in the window. He was motionless for a moment, then fell against the door, and slid down out of sight.

“What the hell!” Mike said as the three of them rushed toward the door. Mike flipped on the light, and they looked out the window at the man lying on his back on the porch, apparently unconscious.

“What do you think?” Camilla asked.

Mike yanked open the door and stepped out onto the porch, moving cautiously. “Look at his arm!” Mike said as he tapped his foot into the man’s side. “He’s out.”

“What should we do?” Camilla asked.

“Let’s get him inside,” Sarah said as she walked out onto the porch.

The three of them picked the man up, carried him into the house, and placed him on the couch in the living room.

Sarah sat down on the couch next to the man and slowly unwrapped the blood-soaked rag from around his arm.

“There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen,” she said to Mike. “Can you get it?”

Sarah gasped. One of his forearm bones poked through his skin. A viscous substance, probably marrow, oozed from inside the bone. “That’s not good,” she muttered as Mike placed the first-aid kit next to Sarah.

He caught a glimpse of the arm as he leaned over her. “Oh my God,” he said almost gagging. “That looks terrible.”

Camilla watched silently, tugging on her lip.

“It’s a bad break,” Sarah said as she touched the man’s forehead. “He’s in shock. Grab me some blankets, will you?”

“Sure,” Camilla said.

“What are we going to do with him?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “Seth’s set broken bones before, but I think a break like this is going to require a hospital and doctors.”

Camilla came back into the room carrying a couple of thick blankets. Sarah poured some hydrogen peroxide on the wound and wrapped it in fresh gauze.

As she secured the end of the gauze, she said, “This is a big problem.”

“I’d say it is,” Camilla agreed. “I thought you said this place was so remote no one would ever stumble by. We’ve been here six hours and we’ve already got an injured stranger lying on our couch.”

Sarah motioned for them to follow her into the kitchen. “Someone now knows where we are,” she said. “This was obviously not part of the plan but we need to decide what to do with him.”

“He doesn’t know who we are though?” Mike said.

“But he knows we’re here! We don’t want anyone knowing that, or that I even exist. The last thing we need is attention,” Sarah said.

“What do you think happened to him?” Camilla asked.

“I don’t know. Car wreck maybe?” Sarah replied.

“If it was a car wreck, why was he behind the house?” Mike asked.

“How would I know?” Sarah snapped.

“Maybe he was hiking and got lost – took a tumble,” Camilla offered.

“Could be,” Mike said. “I wonder who he is.”

“Go check if he has any ID on him,” Sarah said.

Mike turned and left the room to check.

“We can’t keep him here, Camilla. We have to get rid of him before he wakes up and sees where he is and who we are. Christ, he’ll recognize you for sure.”

“I know,” Camilla replied. “So we get rid of him?”

“Definitely.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Why not? It’s simple.”

“Wait a second, are you saying we should we kill him?”

“No. Jesus, I’m not saying that,” Sarah looked at Camilla amazed that she would suggest that. “What do you think I am, a monster? He needs to get to a hospital. I’m saying we drive him up to the highway and drop him off someplace where he’ll get found, preferably before he wakes up and certainly before it gets to be light out,” Sarah said.