Ryan Westfield - Pushing On

He hit the ground heavily, and Cynthia rushed over to him.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Maybe I should go get the packs myself. We can make camp here.”

John shook his head. “Those others might be around. They’ll find us if we stay here.”

“They’re probably long gone. They just want to get out of here with the loot.”

“Maybe they want more,” said John. “We’ve got to keep moving. Help me make a crutch and I’ll be fine.”

John handed Cynthia one of the pocket knives that he’d taken from the gear at the farmhouse. Cynthia took it, and had to study it to figure out how to open it. She wasn’t used to modern folding knives.

“Like this,” said John, taking it back from her, and opening it for her. “I’ll do it. There’s a branch over there that could work.”

“You’re crazy,” said Cynthia. “Do me a favor and try not to exhaust yourself to the point where you’re no longer any use to yourself or to me.”

John got the point, and let her take the knife.

“Cut diagonally. Rock the blade back and forth to get it deep. One single cut,” said John, instructing her based on something he had seen once, long ago, on the Discovery Channel. “Then you should be able to bend the branch and it’ll snap cleanly off.”

Cynthia did it and it worked. “Not bad,” she said.

John stood up with Cynthia’s help. She handed him the stick and he tested out different positions to hold it in.

“It’s not like my leg’s injured. Maybe I’ll just use it as a walking stick. I just need a little more support.”

“It’ll help keep you from getting so fatigued,” said Cynthia. “Let’s keep an even pace. Slow and even.”

“But we’ve got to get those packs. As quick as possible.”

“I get that. But listen to me. We’re not going to get anywhere if you fall down again, or get too tired. You’ve been shot, and you’ve got to take that into account. Pushing yourself is good, I get that. But sometimes, you’ve got to work with what you have. And what you have now is a gunshot wound and a weakened body.”

“You’re right,” said John. “Sorry. I could get us both killed like this with my stubbornness.”

“Have you always been like this?”

“Sort of. I think I’m getting a bit of a hard head from all of this.”

“We’re adapting,” said Cynthia. “These experiences are changing us in indefinable ways. Our brains and our bodies are adapting as best they can to the new circumstances.”

They began walking again, and they went slower this time. John made it.

The packs were where they’d left them, no worse for wear, except for some extra dirt on the outside.

Cynthia dug into her pack and drew out a full water bottle, handing it to John. He drank it down with delight. Plain old water had never tasted so good. Cynthia handed him some packets of dried fruit, telling him that he’d feel better once he got his blood sugar up.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Same goes for you.”

“Well, let’s keep it that way. We’ve got to keep our eyes open and our guns ready. Those others could be out here.”

“Not to mention anyone else that’s here,” said Cynthia.

“Too true.”

“You’re going to have to rest,” said Cynthia, who was busy breaking out the emergency kit. She was examining the different ointments and bandages and trying to figure out what was appropriate for a chunk of flesh that had been ripped away by a bullet.

John shook his head. “You’re right about taking our time,” he said. “But we’ve got to get out of this area.”

“It’s almost night.”

“Even more reason to get a move on it.”

“You really think they’ll be able to find us in the dark, if we don’t make a fire? We can get in the sleeping bags and cover ourselves with leaves. We’ll be practically impossible to see. Plus, we have no more batteries and it’s going to be hard to move effectively at night.”

John thought about it for a moment. “Once again, you’re the voice of reason. You’re right, we’ll stay here tonight.”

“Damn right we’ll stay here tonight. You’re crazy if you think you’re going to make it far with that pack, not able to see a couple feet in front of you.”

She was leaning down over John’s injury again.

“Has it stopped bleeding?”

“Let me take the cloth off of it.”

John felt the tension releasing around the wound as Cynthia got the stick out of there. She unwrapped the piece of shirt slowly.

“Shit,” she muttered. “It’s still bleeding.”

John glanced down. It was bleeding all right. The sight wasn’t exactly stomach-churning, but it wasn’t pleasant either.

The blood flowed freely now, without the bandage stopping it at all.

“It should have coagulated by now.”

“There’s too much missing. Too much surface area, compared to a cut into the flesh, where the two sides can sandwich together.”

Cynthia looked nervous. She was tossing aside items from the medical kit, muttering to herself.

“Nothing in there?”

“No, and we’ve got to get this to stop bleeding. How are you feeling?”

“Uh, tired. And a little…”

“Woozy?”

“Definitely.”

“You’re losing too much blood.”

“I think so…”

John was feeling strange. Pretty odd. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but things were starting to flip past him. He still knew where he was, and who he was. And he didn’t think he was in any danger of dying soon.

That was what he thought, at least. But Cynthia’s increasingly concerned attitude was starting to make him think differently. She wouldn’t, of course, come out and say that she thought he’d die soon. But it was all in the way she moved, and the way she was rummaging through the packs, looking for something to stop the bleeding.

She pulled out a little laminated book, an emergency guide to dealing with injuries. “I’d forgotten that Derek lent me this.”

She started flipping through the pages.

“We may have to do a tourniquet. But that’s a short-term solution. And it can result in the loss of limb. I don’t think I can amputate your arm…”

“Amputate the arm?” said John vaguely. He was feeling stranger by the minute.

The pain seemed to have gone away. Or at least he wasn’t registering it anymore. He didn’t know how much time had passed, and he wasn’t sure where the sun was. It wasn’t as bright as it had been before, but it wasn’t night yet… His mind was full of vague impressions…

“OK, here’s something,” said Cynthia. It sounded like she was trying to keep her panic in check. She was trying to keep her voice calm. “It says sugar can stop bleeding. Do we have any sugar?”

“Sugar?”

“Yeah. John, come on, stay with me. Do we have any sugar?”

“The regular white kind?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know…”

John didn’t think they’d brought any sugar… He didn’t remember anything like that. But it didn’t seem to matter. After all, sugar wasn’t going to stop the bleeding. That was crazy. Maybe it would be better if he just laid down and went to sleep for a while. Maybe that would fix everything.

John felt his eyes closing as he lowered his body to the ground.

“John! What the hell are you doing? Keep your eyes open.”

John opened his eyes. Cynthia was in front of him, rooting through the packs again. “I was carrying some of Sara’s stuff, since she was getting tired easily. Here it is, maybe she had sugar in this bag…”

Later on, John remembered vaguely thinking that there wasn’t any point in looking for sugar, and that there was no way a formerly health-conscious person like Sara would use sugar for anything, even though the four of them had enjoyed some organic instant coffee that Derek and Sara had been fond of from their trail days.