Ryan Westfield - Pushing On

“Look! Sugar! I can’t believe it. Maybe Derek used it. Who cares?”

Cynthia took the book in her hands again, to reread the instructions.

“I don’t think eating it…” said John. “…Going to do any good.”

“You’re not going to eat it, idiot. Now shut up and let me concentrate.”

Her fear of losing him was turning into mild hostility. John was OK with that.

“OK,” said Cynthia, trying to get the idea straight in her head. “I’m going to pour this on your wound, and it’s going to form a syrupy mixture and help the blood coagulate.”

John was feeling detached from the whole thing. Probably not a good sign. He watched with mild interest as Cynthia poured the sugar carefully onto his wound.

“I don’t know if it’s getting on there,” she said. She used her fingers to try to push the sugar into the wound.

It stung, but John had lost too much blood to care.

“It says you need a lot of sugar on there,” said Cynthia, examining the wound before carefully adding more sugar. “Let’s hope this works.”

Suddenly, John realized how serious the situation was. The loss of blood had been affecting his rational thought process. But he knew now that he was close to death. If the sugar didn’t stop the bleeding, it might be the end for him.

James and Chad were alone in one of the men’s quarters. James felt pretty good. He was full for the first time in a long, long time. He’d eaten and eaten and eaten, countless portions. They’d told him he could have as much as he wanted, and he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Max had been brutal with the rationing, allowing them all only certain quantities of food and water.

James was relaxing on his bunk. His gear was partially unpacked from his pack, spread out around him. He was wearing a change of clothes. They were the clothes that he’d kept clean in the bottom of his pack, never putting them on. It was something psychological, in some weird way comforting to know that he had a change of clean clothes.

And now he got to wear them.

There was a weird little rattling noise from Chad’s bunk.

“What’re you doing, Chad?” said James, looking over.

“Nothing,” said Chad vaguely.

“What’s the orange bottle?”

James had only seen a flash of it. Chad had put it away quickly when James had looked over.

“What bottle?”

James knew that he was just a kid in comparison to Chad. But Chad had been acting really weird ever since Albion. James felt that he had some sort of responsibility to take care of Chad, especially since none of the other adults were around.

Where was Max? He’d been gone for a long time. The thought occurred to James suddenly.

Maybe Mandy was right. Maybe Chad was taking something. James was well aware of Chad’s addict past.

James got up and moved swiftly over to Chad. Chad was concealing something in his right hand. His large fingers were hiding whatever it was. Probably the pill bottle.

“Hey!” said Chad, trying to pull his arm away from James.

But James was too fast and strong for him. He seized Chad’s hand and pried his fingers open.

“Give me that!”

James dodged Chad’s slow moving hands, got out of his reach, and moved out to the middle of the room.

“Vicodin,” muttered James. “Isn’t this the stuff you were taking before? This is why you’ve been out of it, putting us all in danger.”

“Whatever,” said Chad. “You don’t know how hard I’ve got it.”

“I know you’re full of shit, that’s what,” said James. He was angry. Chad’s decision could very well have put his own family’s life at risk.

“You’re just a kid. You don’t know shit. Now shut up and let me enjoy this.”

“You’re an asshole, Chad.”

“That’s what they’ve been telling me all my life. It hasn’t stopped me yet.”

“Just wait until Max hears about this.”

“Screw Max.”

“How can you say that? He’s done so much for us. Mandy told me how he risked his own life to save you from that mob.”

“I would have been fine. Max thinks he knows everything. We would have been better off if we’d just stayed at the farmhouse.”

“We’d be dead if we stayed there. You know that.”

“Pffft. It’d be fine. Max thinks everything is like a life or death situation. But it’s not that… You’ve all got to take a lesson from me and try to relax more. There’s no point in worrying about what you can’t change.”

There was a loud knock at the door.

Maybe that was Max now.

“Max?” called James.

“Shit,” muttered Chad. For all his big talk, James knew that Chad was still worried about Max finding out about his little secret.

The door swung open. And with some force.

A man appeared. It wasn’t Max.

It was a tall stranger. He had a big build and towered over James, who was standing there with the bottle of Vicodin.

“What’s that?” said the man. His voice was stern and deep.

“Uh…”

“Hand it over.”

James did.

“Vicodin,” said the man, examining it. “I don’t know what you’re doing with this, but drug use is not permitted here.”

“I was just trying to…”

“I don’t want to hear explanations. This is going to the pharmacy stash.”

The man pocketed the pill bottle. James had a funny feeling about the way the man did it. He had a feeling that maybe the pills weren’t going to a medical stash after all.

“Sorry,” said James. “I didn’t get your name.”

The man just stared at him, still not introducing himself.

“Here’s the deal. You’re all going to join up with us.”

“What?” said James. “Did you talk to Max already? He only wanted to stay for a little while to see how we liked it.”

“Don’t worry about Max.”

“What? What happened?”

The man ignored James’s question.

“As you may have noticed, we’re mostly men here. And we need more women if we want to grow and continue.”

“More women?”

“No one told you about the birds and the bees yet?”

James blushed. He was plenty old enough to understand.

“So obviously we’re more interested in your female companions, but we’ll let the two of you stay here too. We need men too. There’s plenty of hard physical work to be done. So you can stay if you’re willing to do it. And you’re newcomers, so you’ll be working twice as hard as those of us who set this place up. You’ve got to repay your debt somehow.”

James didn’t like the way this was sounding. Where was Max? Had something happened to him? Had they done something to him? And what was he saying about the women? They weren’t merely James’s “female companions.” They were his mother and sister, and he was quite fond of Mandy too.

James felt anger rising in his chest as the tall man stared him down with a stern gaze, just daring him to say something.

Chad, who hadn’t said anything, suddenly stirred from his bed. He stood up, and walked towards the man silently.

James stepped back to make way for Chad.

Chad had lost some weight since the EMP, but he was still a big guy. Sure, a lot of it was fat. But there was some muscle there too.

“You’re trying to kidnap Georgia, Mandy, and Sadie? What the hell’s wrong with you?”

James was surprised. He would have thought that Chad was too out of it to speak up.

Chad had slurred his words badly, but the meaning was still clear.

“It’s none of your business,” said the man. “You can make it easy or you can make it hard. It’s up to you.”

“I’m going to make it hard.”