Ryan Westfield - Final Chaos

“Keep a good lookout, Rob,” said Jim. “Head down to the end of the driveway. See if they’re coming back. Take the rifle.”

Rob was off, his heavy tread crunching on the gravel.

“You find the wound?” said Jessica, kneeling down next to Jim, and unpacking some of the supplies she thought might help stop the bleeding.

She’d never done anything more to a wound than apply a bandage. The closest experience she had was patching up puncture bicycle tubes. And she knew that wasn’t really even in the same ballpark.

“Yeah. Right here.”

He lifted Aly’s shirt and showed her what looked like a small wound in her abdomen.

“It looks small.”

“It wasn’t a large bullet, but these smaller wounds can be just as deadly.”

“Did the bullet exit?”

“Yeah. It’s there on the ground. That’s good.”

“That’s good?”

“Yeah,” said Jim. “The worst injuries come from when the bullet stays inside the body, rattling around in there and causing damage to the internal organs. She’s bleeding a lot. I want to get this done out here before moving her.”

Jim was working rapidly, unrolling a large roll of bandage material and grabbing a bottle of alcohol.

“What can I do?”

“Hold her down.”

Aly wasn’t moving. Her eyes were completely closed.

But she was still breathing.

Rob stood watch, Jessica held onto Aly, and Jim worked rapidly, getting a rudimentary bandage onto the wound.

When he was done, the three of them carried Aly gently into the house and laid her down on the large bed in the master bedroom.

Jim sat next to her on the bed, and used his hand to apply pressure.

“Don’t blame yourself, Jim,” said Jessica, standing nearby in the small, cramped room.

“I’m the one who made the decision,” said Jim. “And now Aly has to live with the consequences.”

The minutes passed slowly, and they gradually became hours.

Jim didn’t leave her side. But he couldn’t keep up the pressure himself, so with Jessica’s help, he devised a way to wrap one of the long cloth strips completely around her, tightly enough that pressure would stay constant on both the wounds.

Aly opened her eyes once or twice, but only for brief moments in which she looked confused. She closed them again rapidly.

Her breathing remained faint and ragged.

“What do we do now?” said Jessica.

“Sew up the wound,” said Jim. “But you’re going to have to do it. My hands are shaking too much. I can’t believe I did this to her.”

“I’ve never done anything like that, though,” said Jessica.

“What did you do for work?”

“Bike mechanic.”

“That’s perfect. You’ve already got the delicate touch.”

“It’s not the same.”

Rob was outside, keeping guard.

Neither Jim nor Jessica spoke a word, and the house was deadly silent, except for Aly’s breathing.

Jim had all the supplies, a delicate yet strong thread for stitching the wound, antiseptic ointment to apply, and even gloves to work with.

“We’ve got to do everything we can do avoid an infection,” said Jim, disappearing from the room for a moment and repairing with a bottle of Aly’s uncle’s vodka. “This’ll work better than water.”

Looking back on it later, Jessica didn’t know how she did it. She worked diligently, with Jim, whose hands shook almost violently, handing her the supplies.

They sterilized everything and worked carefully to keep the surrounding environment as clean as they possibly could.

Aly opened her eyes the first time the needle pierced her flesh, and she screamed out.

Jim found a wooden spoon in the kitchen for her to bite down on, and gave her a couple drinks of the vodka for the pain. He offered her one of the bottles of her mother’s prescription opiates, but she shook her head wordlessly, and he nodded in agreement. It was her decision, after all.

Jessica sewed Aly’s wound up as if she was working on sewing up a torn pillow that had stuffing coming out of it. She tried to keep the stitches close together, since she figured the thread she was using wasn’t going to be as strong what was used in typical hospital sutures. They had no other options, so she had to just do the best she could.

It seemed to take forever. Aly’s groans of pain, through her spoon clenching teeth, didn’t make it seem any shorter. Jessica was painfully aware of how much pain she was causing her.

But it had to be done.

When it was all over, Jessica nodded at Jim, and they both retreated into the living room to discuss in hushed voices the prognosis.

“You think she’s going to be OK?” said Jim.

Jessica nodded. “She lost a lot of blood. But the bleeding seems to have stopped for the most part.”

Jim put his hands to his face and covered his eyes, letting out a painful groan. “It’s my fault,” he said.

Since they’d met a week ago, he’d always seemed like a strong willed person, like a guy who knew what had to be done and didn’t hesitate to do it.

But in her pre-EMP life, Jessica had seen other strong men fall prey to self doubt and guilt. She knew that something like that could rip him apart and leave him doubting everything he did.

And this new post-EMP world wasn’t a place for people like that.

So she didn’t offer words of comfort. She didn’t put her hand on his back and tell him that everything was going to be OK.

“Jim,” she said, in a strong, clear voice, not carrying if Aly heard her from the next room. “You’ve got to pull yourself together. What happened happened. I don’t care if it was your fault or not. But if you start going down this rabbit hole, you’re never going to come out. And we need you. If you get absorbed in this, you’re not going to be effective here. And that means you’ll be putting the life of me, your wife, and your friend all in danger.”

Jim stared at her with an unreadable expression.

“You’re the one who convinced me this was a serious situation,” said Jessica. “And if you hadn’t hit me with your car and then taken me in, who knows what would have happened to me. So you don’t owe me anything, the way I see it. But you do owe your friend and your wife something…”

Finally, Jim spoke, cutting her off mid-sentence. Which was good because she was running out of the right words to say.

“Got it,” he said, leaving his words simple. “You’re right. I’ll go check on Aly, and then we’ll meet in the living room to discuss a new strategy.”

And that was that.

With Aly’s groans of pain coming sporadically from the bedroom, Rob, Jessica, and Jim sat in the living room while Jim laid out the new watch shift.

It was a rough schedule. Two people on duty at all times. Fully armed. Not just firearms, but knives as well. One of the two would have the rifle as well.

The new schedule meant less rest for all of them. Four hour shifts of sleep, rotating around the clock.

But it was necessary.

Who knew what the Carpenters were planning. But for now, at least, it seemed not a question of when they would return, but when.

After all, the way Jim and the rest of them saw it, Jim had given the Carpenters a chance for an honorable truce. And they’d turned around and shot his wife. A cowardly move. And one that signaled their ongoing intentions as clear as day.

There wasn’t any time to waste.

Rob and Jessica insisted that Jim take the first rest shift. He eventually agreed, but instead of sleeping he spent the entire time with waiting by his wife’s side.

With the rifle, Rob patrolled the outskirts of the lake house, while Jessica stayed close by, keeping a watchful eye and cautious ear out for the Carpenter’s return.