T Connor - Bitter Cold Apocalypse 2

The surgical room was right where I remembered it to be, and looked exactly the same, with the counters running along the sides and the cupboards all carefully and neatly shut. The last time I’d been in here the place had been cluttered with the tools he’d used to stitch Angie up, but he must have gone through and cleaned everything up while Angie and I were otherwise engaged, because the place now looked as if no one had ever so much as stepped in here.

It took him next to no time to fix that. He laid Zoe carefully on the table and swept around the room like a hurricane, gathering tools and supplies from various drawers and cupboards. Within minutes, he was standing next to her and very carefully spreading her out on the table, stretching her arms down to her sides and straightening her legs.

I grimaced at what I could see of her wounds, though I’d been wondering for some time how bad they actually were. Looking at them now, I realized that they were a milder version of Angie’s own wounds. One of Zoe’s legs had been ripped open from her knee to her ankle, and though the wound didn’t look horribly deep, I could see the layer of fat that meant it was deep enough to be incredibly painful. Her arm had been mauled as well, but that wound was smaller.

I still didn’t think she’d broken any bones, but Marlon was testing for that as I watched. He stretched her arm a bit, then rotated it back and forth, watching her face closely.

“Does this hurt?” he asked. “Does it feel like something’s not working right?”

“It hurts,” she moaned. “But I don’t think it’s broken.”

He tipped his head at that, surprised, and she gave him the ghost of a grin.

“I’ve had broken bones before, mister. I know what it feels like.”

Marlon came quickly back into himself and nodded. “I’m going to give you something to make it stop hurting, and then I’m going to give you some stitches. Once I’m done, you’ll be as good as new. Okay?”

She agreed quickly, and he got to work.

We left Zoe sleeping afterward, covered her with a blanket, and even left a note telling her where we’d gone, in case she woke up. I didn’t think it likely, given how much she’d been through, but I didn’t want her to wake up and think we’d deserted her or something.

Then we pounded back up the stairs, grabbed our jackets from off the ground, and rushed back out into the freezing world.

“She’ll be out for an hour, at least,” Marlon said as we strode forward into the open area around his house. “I would guess that she’ll sleep until dinner and wake up ravenous.”

“And she’ll be okay?” I asked for the thirteenth time. “She’s not going to have blood poisoning or anything like that?”

“She’ll be fine, John,” Marlon told me for the thirteenth time. “I was able to disinfect both areas, and I didn’t see any signs of necrosis. No tissue death, no wolf teeth left in her flesh. The wounds stitched up very cleanly. I can’t guarantee that she won’t have scars, but I can tell you that I think she’s going to heal just fine.”

Right. He’d told me that already. I just wanted to make sure. Again.

And then I realized I had other questions. And that right now was the ideal time to ask them.

“Were you ever really a doctor?” I asked. “Before you went into whatever service you ended up in, I mean.”

He paused at that, and for a long moment, I didn’t think he was going to answer.

“I was,” he finally said. “I’ve wanted to be a doctor ever since I can remember, so I worked hard in high school to get the grades to get into a good school. I was pre-med, of course, and then went to the best medical school I could afford. I practiced for ten years before I realized that I wanted to do even more with my life. Even more to help humanity.”

Well that was more than I’d ever heard from him about his background. But it still wasn’t the whole truth. And I wanted to know the whole truth. Because I was starting to think that that whole truth might have something to do with what was going on around us.

“And then you…” I said, trying to lead him into the rest of the story.

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and cast me a quick grin. “And then I took the next step,” he said slyly. “But that’s a story that needs to be told to people beyond you, and I don’t want to tell it twice. Come on. I promised Bob that we would get out there and find them before they got lost and before darkness fell, and we’re already going to be walking a very fine line in that regard.”

He darted forward before I could say anything in response, and I was left to clamber after him, slogging through the snow at a run for what I prayed would be the last time today.

We found the group of townspeople relatively quickly, to my surprise, since they’d made faster progress than I’d expected. We’d been running for what I thought must have been a mile through the woods when we were suddenly surrounded by the sound of people. People talking, people laughing—a little bit—and people crunching through the snow, seemingly stepping on every stick they could find.

It could have been the silence of the world around us, or the fact that sounds were magnified by the presence of the snow, but I snorted in frustration.

“God, if Randall is truly chasing us then he’ll be able to hear them from a mile away,” I muttered. “We should have told them to at least try to stay quiet on their way here.”

“And scare them even more?” Marlon asked quietly as we moved toward the sound. “You know as well as I do that they don’t understand what’s going on or why. They’ve just been attacked and forced out of their homes by people who actually shot at them. Now they’ve been marched through the woods to a stranger’s house, on the promise from their mayor that they’ll find shelter there. I’m shocked that we haven’t had more trouble from them. We don’t need to frighten them by telling them that they need to be quiet or they’ll risk the very man who just shot up their town finding them again.”

“Right. Good point,” I agreed, giving myself a mental slap for not having thought of it from that angle.

Then I saw the first of the group, and among them, I saw a woman with a leg that glowed in the sunlight. A leg that was currently encased in metal. My eyes flew from that leg up to her face, and I felt my heart seize up at the sight of her.

I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been about her—about our daughter, and their safety—until the moment when I saw her again. And then I was running, my feet barely hitting the snow in their hurry to get to her. I swept her into my arms and buried my nose in her hair, inhaling her scent in pure relief at her presence.

“Angie,” I whispered. “Thank God you’re here.”

She dropped to the ground and pulled back, her gaze meeting mine. “How’s Zoe? What happened? Did you get her back in one piece?”

“She’s fine,” I told her. “Marlon got her down into the surgery, checked her for broken bones, did some disinfecting, and stitched her up. She’ll be as good as new in no time. She’s a tough one.”

I saw Angie’s shoulders sag in relief, and realized that the entire group must have been on pins and needles, waiting to hear what had happened to the little girl. We’d run right past them without even thinking about stopping and left them in horrible suspense.

“How did she get away from her family?” I asked. “Where were her parents?”

“Danny was asleep, and Rhonda was so busy with the other kids that she didn’t even notice Zoe was gone,” Angie said. “And don’t say anything to her about it. She already feels bad enough that she’s been throwing up ever since. She doesn’t need you piling on as well.”