Joseph Love - Kill Town, USA

I woke abruptly and rubbed my eyes with a numb hand. I brushed the tent wall and ice sprinkled my face. I wiped my face clear and carefully lowered my arm.

Like so often in the woods, there was no sound except the breathing directly in my ear. The soft snoring. I closed my eyes but I couldn’t sleep. I focused on Audrey’s breath. I caressed the bolt on the rifle.

At daybreak, I fell asleep. We slept until almost noon.

We melted handfuls of snow in the pot and drank the remaining coffee. There was little food left. We split half a bear claw and smoked two cigarettes apiece. Then, we packed up camp and headed west.

The shadows of the trees grew longer as we progressed. By then I’d say we were both skeptical of the old man’s directions, but we had nowhere else to go so we kept at it.

We couldn’t see the floodplain. It was covered in snow. The mud was only partially frozen but as soon as my boots cracked the ice I darted backward, dragging Audrey with me. The mud was thick. I hobbled left and right, desperately throwing my body around for balance. As I caught myself the last time, the earth under my foot exploded. There was a snap like a bullwhip. My ankle throbbed sharp and ruthless. I gasped, fell to my knees, and shut my eyes. I couldn’t look at my ankle. I didn’t have to look. I felt the cold pressure of the steel jaws clamped there. I couldn’t look because that would make it hurt worse. Audrey screamed. I felt her fingers pry at the rusty clamp.

The bear trap was chained to a wild cherry tree six feet away. I judged by the thick grease it had only been set a week.

I was victim to a racing heart. I couldn’t focus. I counted my breaths. The pain gave me the tunnel vision. I started over. One. Two. Finally, my lungs followed. The heart reined in.

It is hard to delicately remove a bear trap. Once you open the jaws, blood rushes to the area and magnifies the pain twenty-fold. And when you have opened the trap, it is quite another matter to keep the jaws apart without letting them slip and re-clamp anew. The worst step is removing the foot from the trap. Your instinct is to bend the foot, but you can’t. You’re likely to panic from the pain, release the trap, and do even more damage. You never move the foot.

My foot felt severed. We managed to remove the black steel trap in one go. We packed snow around my ankle. You have to let it throb to let the pain pass. I stared at the snow as it slowly turned red and melted away.

We made a splint with some hickory sticks and long wool tube socks. The skin was broken deep where the small teeth bit, half my shin was bruised. The pain made me nauseated, but the cold did well to numb it.

The only option was to hike on the splint, clutching a walking stick and the rifle. We came to a stream and followed it. Frozen, delicate moss still held its bright green color. The water was winter clear, every rock magnified, crystalline and bright. The stream came to a rusty length of barbed wire and a trampled fence section. We walked up the bank ten feet where the fence was bent even with the ground. The stream weaved sharply left and flowed into a clearing. We followed the water. After the bend, we saw a barn, decrepit and rotten.

The barn was forgotten by generations. Worm-chewed fence posts stood all around, the grass had grown up and died so many times it was like walking on a sponge. There were old hay bales in the stalls. Colorless, formless. The twine had rotted away and left black streaks.

We climbed to the loft. I flopped onto the thick, dusty boards and kept the splinted leg stretched out. The pain caught up to me and churned my stomach. I shut my eyes and kept still. Audrey knelt next to me.

“You have to rest. You have to stay off that foot. Do you agree?”

“Yes. For a while.”

“For as long as it takes. You can’t walk.”

“I can walk.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“We can’t just stay here.”

“They won’t find us.”

“Not here, maybe. But out in that field they’ll definitely find us.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“I don’t feel up to arguing.”

“Good, don’t argue. You can’t walk.”

I opened my mouth, it flooded with hot sweat. She was right. I couldn’t walk.

“Did you pack any meds?”

“There is a large medicine bottle in the front pouch. It’s only for emergencies.”

“I think this qualifies,” she smiled. Audrey unzipped the pack, took out the medicine bottle, and slowly emptied the contents onto a folded t-shirt. Ibuprofen, a needle, thread, alcohol pads, iodine swabs, and a bottle of morphine. She handed me the morphine.

“We need to save this.” I gave the bottle back to her.

She hesitated and counted six ibuprofen for me. I chewed the tablets, staring at the rafters and ignoring the hot bitter powder as it clung to my throat. I looked back to Audrey. The threaded needle dangled from her fingers.

“You need it,” she said.

I nodded. I was bleeding through the wrappings on my leg.

I watched as she untied the wet and bloody socks. Steadily, blood pumped to the dusty planks.

She put the needle against my skin.

“Give me a shirt or something.”

She tossed me a pair of clean socks from the pack. I put them in my mouth, clamping as she swabbed the meat with iodine. Without warning, she stuck the needle into my skin and fed it through. I bit the socks. My pulse trembled behind my eyes. Slowly, the pain faded, replaced by a slight burning. I watched as she weaved the needle in and out of my flesh, pulling the gashes together. She made crescent moons with the thread.

“Done,” she smiled at me. “And we’re both alive.”

Audrey curled up next to me as I slowly pulled the wad of socks from my mouth.

“We can both use more rest,” she said. “You especially.”

“I need the sleeping bag,” I shivered.

She rolled over, pulled out the sleep sack, and covered me with it.

“You’re not burning up? You have on so many layers.”

“I think it’s the leg.”

Ice moved through my legs and chest. I shook uncontrollably.

“The emergency blanket,” I pointed to the pack. She found the foil blanket and helped me wrap in it. She also covered me with the sleep sack. She hugged me, her chest pressed against my back. She pressed her hands flat on my chest. She didn’t stop the shaking, but she took my mind off the pain.

I WOKE HOURS LATER WITH VOMIT IN MY MOUTH. I rolled over and heaved, but there was nothing to throw up. I shook it off. Audrey sat cross-legged several feet away, staring at the ground and shaking her head. She held the Winchester across her lap.

“How long have you been up?”

She turned to me. Tears ran down her cheeks. They fell quietly to the planks.

“What’s wrong?”

“You have to wait. You have to give me time.”

“Time?”

She choked back a sob. “Please just give me time.”

She rolled up her sleeve, revealing a dark bruise and deep bite marks on her forearm, streaks of dried and oozing blood curling around her elbow. It was impossible to tell how old the wound was.

I crawled toward her, my ankle screaming. “Where did you go?”

“I just went down there,” she pointed down the ladder. I scooted to the edge and looked over. There was a swarm of pale, decaying bodies shuffling around and falling into the stalls.

“I was just looking for—I don’t know. I was just looking. There was one in a stall. I didn’t see it.” Her voice cracked. “I had to beat it with a shovel. That one,” she pointed to a man in plaid pajamas, head snapped back, staring up at us with empty eyes. His neck skin was torn. I looked down into his windpipe.

Audrey collapsed next to me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”