Райан Уэстфилд - Finding Shelter

She’d been too exhausted at the end of her watch shift and had just hit the sack right away.

Suddenly, a cry of pain pierced the air. A female sound. Higher pitched than a sound a man would make. Probably, at least. No way to know for sure.

Georgia’s heart started to beat rapidly. Her head snapped around, towards the direction of the sound.

Her hand went to her handgun. Fingers wrapped around the grip. Flicked the safety off.

Sometimes, safety meant shooting the enemy dead as quickly as possible.

Her legs were already moving, and she sprinted her way towards the other end of camp, weaving through the scattered trees.

A noise to her right. Heavy footsteps. Panting.

Georgia’s head turned. Eyes shifting to the right, her gun reflexively followed her eyes.

“Georgia! It’s me!”

It was John. Running alongside her. Running for the same reason she was. Headed towards the source of the noise.

Georgia didn’t answer. Her gun went away from him.

They kept running.

“I think it’s Mandy,” John managed to say, breathless.

Georgia’s mind went right to the baby.

She could tell that John was already thinking along those lines.

Out of nowhere, Cynthia appeared. “Was it Mandy?” she said.

They’d almost reached her.

Max and Mandy shared a little hut that could almost be called cute. They’d worked hard on it together.

Now Mandy lived there alone, waiting for Max to return, getting ready for the birth of their baby.

Of course, no one had any idea what the sex of the baby would be. Those days were gone. And, more disconcertingly, no one knew if the baby would be healthy.

All they’d been able to do was to make sure that Mandy got as much food as she wanted. And that she got a good variety of food. That way she hopefully got the vitamins, minerals, not to mention calories that were so crucial for the development of another human.

Georgia could see the little hut up ahead. Mandy was nowhere to be seen. But her voice had definitely come from this direction. She was inside. That was the most likely scenario.

As Mandy had gotten farther along in her pregnancy, Georgia and the others had requested that she stop doing her normal duties. They’d wanted her to stop doing her watch shift, gathering firewood, and going on expeditions.

Mandy had been a tough sell, to say the least. It had been almost impossible to get her to give up even the watch shifts. And no one really liked taking a shift. Especially not the ones in the middle of the night.

But Mandy was tough. And she wanted to remain useful for as long as possible during the pregnancy. The way she told it; she was only trying to help the group. And helping the group was really selfish, because it wasn’t like her kid was going to live very long without the support of everyone else.

Another scream came. Definitely Mandy’s. And it definitely came from the little hut ahead.

Georgia’s long legs gave her a good advantage when running. She may have been older than John, but not by much. And she could still outrun him. Especially now that she’d recovered so well from her injuries.

She pulled ahead of John and reached the hut first.

There wasn’t really a door, so much as a blanket that had been hung up like a curtain.

Georgia didn’t bother to knock as she normally would. She just dove right in, crouching down so that she didn’t knock her head on the ceiling or the doorframe.

“Mandy!” she cried out.

There was no one else inside the hut.

Just Mandy.

Just Mandy with her back against the wall, sitting. Her knees were pulled up around her large belly.

There was an expression of pain on her face. Intense pain. Her mouth was puckered. It looked like she was breathing heavy.

Georgia tucked her gun away. There was no need for that which was good. She was glad someone wasn’t there, threatening pregnant Mandy.

But Mandy had screamed. Now that the other option was eliminated, what else was there?

Evidently the pregnancy itself. And it’d be an early one, if that were the case. Which meant that, without a hospital, the baby wasn’t likely to survive.

The other option was that it was some other complication of pregnancy.

It wasn’t a subject that Georgia knew much about. Or anything about at all. For her own pregnancies, she’d gone to the hospital, just like every other woman she’d known. There hadn’t been any complications, but the doctors and nurses had been there around the clock. They’d given her an epidural, and they’d been there to soothe her and tell her that everything was OK.

Georgia didn’t feel like she could do the same for Mandy. Because, here in the woods, there weren’t any machines or devices that would tell Georgia that everything was OK.

Georgia put her arms on Mandy’s shoulders.

“What is it, Mandy?”

John entered a moment later, ducking down. Cynthia followed him.

Both had their guns drawn, and both holstered them upon evaluating the situation.

“We thought you’d been attacked,” said John.

“You’re not going into labor, are you?” said Cynthia.

“Something’s wrong,” said Mandy. “Something’s not right…”

“Tell me what you’re feeling,” said Georgia.

Mentally, Georgia was anything but calm, but she made sure to keep her voice as calm as she possibly could.

If there was anything she’d learned from her own pregnancies, with James and Sadie, it was that having someone freaking out next to you did not help.

For a second, she had a flashback to her ex-husband. He’d been there for James’s birth, but not Sadie’s. By that point, he’d been long gone. A total loser. And she’d known it all along. She should have just left him from the beginning.

But, then again, she would not have been blessed with James and Sadie. She may have had a tougher exterior than just about anyone else, but inside, she could be a softie. At least when it came to her children.

If anything ever happened to them, she knew that she’d hurt too much. She knew that she’d have to bury the pain, and the only way she’d be able to do that would be with violence. Extreme violence directed at whoever was responsible.

Her ex-husband’s dumb obnoxious face seemed to hang in her mind’s eye for a moment.

Then she shook it off.

“I’m feeling weak,” said Mandy. “Really weak. Like I couldn’t stand up anymore.”

“You couldn’t stand up?” said John, his voice rising. His distress and worry were plainly evident in his tone.

Cynthia tugged on his arm, giving him a look to tell him to shut up. Georgia supposed that as a woman Cynthia understood more what pregnancy meant.

It was strange, she suddenly realized that she’d never talked to Cynthia about whether or not she’d had children. For all she knew, Cynthia did have kids, and understood well the process of childbirth.

If she did have kids, it seemed more polite not to ask about them. After all, who knew what could have happened to them. Georgia did remember that Cynthia had had a husband who’d died right after the EMP. But she’d only heard it secondhand from John one night.

“I’ll take care of this,” said Georgia, turning to address John. “Why don’t you wait outside. We’ll let you know if we need you. Plus, the others might want to know what happened, if they heard the screaming.”

Mandy suddenly let out another scream. Georgia saw the pain on her face. It was definitely real.

Cynthia muttered something under her breath.

There were beads of sweat on Mandy’s brow. Some of her hair had come loose from the bun she’d had it in, and it was plastered wet against her forehead.

John gave a nod and disappeared out the door.