365 Days At War

by Nancy Isaak

  When we’d ridden a good two miles and the hospital had disappeared behind us, I finally called a halt. We stopped next to a small strip mall—panting—trying to catch our breaths.

  “You okay?” I asked Rhys.

  My brother nodded. “Brain fart’s over, bro. Everything makes sense again.”

  “Good,” I said, relieved. “But we’re still going to find a place where you can rest, though.”

  “Bro, seriously…I’m fine.”

  “And, seriously—you’re going to get some downtime. When Connor says it’s okay to continue, then we’ll move on.”

  On the other side of Rhys, Connor was struggling not to puke from over-exertion. “Did you even see who was doing the shooting back there?” he gasped.

  I shook my head. “Just shapes. Could have been two guys…could have been twenty.”

  Cherry, meanwhile, leaned over to check the air in one of her tires. “We didn’t get the medicine we needed. What are we going to do about that? And don’t tell me that we’re going back to that hospital!”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “We’ll just have to find another source.”

  “There’s a hospital in Ventura,” suggested Topher.

  “Or we could just hit the pharmacies along the way,” said Jude.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” I admitted. “We’ll check out every drug store we come across. By the time we hit Topher’s library, if we haven’t gotten what we need—then we’ll head to the Ventura hospital and search there.”

  Above us, the sky suddenly rumbled; a jagged flash of light strobed on our far right.

  “Oh great,” I moaned. “Thunder and lightning…another storm is coming. Could this get any worse?”

  Apparently…it could.

  * * * *

  Andrei and Ian were lagging behind the rest of us; they were pedaling slowly, as if they were tired.

  Which should have been my first clue.

  I don’t know if Ian knew that he had been shot, or if he was just trying to be brave. Either way, he’d biked only a half mile before he suddenly keeled over, landing on a soggy patch of vegetation at the side of the road.

  “Ian!” yelled Andrei, immediately jumping off his bike to kneel beside his friend. “Jacob, he’s bleeding…Ian has blood on him!”

  Thinking that Ian’s bike had somehow skidded on a wet patch and gone down, I took my time circling back. When I reached the two of them, however, I saw how serious it actually was.

  “Go get Connor!” I ordered Andrei. “Tell him that Ian’s been shot!”

  “Wha—at?” Andrei bleated, looking horrified.

  “Don’t just stand there—go get Connor!”

  Without another word, Andrei jumped back on his bike and took off pedaling. The rest of our team wasn’t too far ahead. I could see them a few blocks up, moving steadily northward.

  Hopefully, Andrei would catch up to them quickly.

  “Trying to impress the girls, huh?” I murmured, bending down beside Ian. At the same time, I took off my shirt and pressed it against the front of his shoulder. There was a small, bloody hole there—not much more than a half an inch in diameter.

  “Don’t feel so good,” Ian confided to me; his face was pale and he was starting to sweat.

  I tried to reassure him. “Connor’s coming. He’ll fix you right up…you’ll see.”

  “But we need to go,” he insisted, trying to sit up. I held him down gently, but he still struggled against my hand. “Can’t stay here, Jacob…bad guys will come.”

  “You let me worry about that. Now, stay still, Ian.” His eyes suddenly began to roll in his head. “Ian!” I yelled. “Ian, can you hear me?!”

  “Too…loud,” he gasped, focusing his eyes on me again.

  * * * *

  The tick-tick-tick of bike chains spinning around their gears told me that the rest of the team had returned. Connor practically flew off of his bicycle, racing toward Ian.

  “Where’s he been shot?”

  “Upper shoulder,” I said. “The wound doesn’t look too big, but he’s having trouble staying awake.”

  Kneeling down, Connor started digging through his backpack. “Don’t stop pressing down on that bullet hole,” he told me. “And have you checked for an exit wound?”

  I shook my head. “Didn’t even think of it…sorry.”

  Snapping on a pair of latex gloves, Connor moved over to Ian’s side. “I need you to pull him up,” he instructed me, “just enough so that I can look at the other side of his shoulder.”

  With one hand on the wound, I used my other to try and lift Ian. When I faltered, Jude was suddenly there, taking Ian’s weight in her arms.

  Meanwhile, Andrei and Cherry came running up. They both look terrified, especially when they saw the bright wet blood seeping through the back of Ian’s shirt.

  “There’s so much blood!” cried Andrei, close to hysteria. “Is Ian going to bleed to death...is he going to die?!”

  “Cherry!” I barked, motioning toward Andrei with my chin.

  Immediately, Cherry took Andrei by the arm and started pulling him away.

  “But I want to stay!” Andrei insisted.

  I didn’t hear what Cherry whispered into his ear, but it was enough for Andrei to lower his head sheepishly. With an arm around his shoulder, Cherry steered Andrei toward their bikes. When they reached them, she looked back toward me.

  “Jacob…we’re going to find a house for us to stay in—one that’s close by.”

  “Good idea,” I told her. “Topher, go with them and keep an eye open for bad guys.” I looked over at Rhys, who was standing off to the side. “You cover us here.”

  Rhys nodded. “I’m on it.”

  As my brother trotted off to find his ‘high ground’—a place where he could see what’s coming—I turned my attention back to Ian. Conner was cutting away his shirt, pulling it back to expose the wounds.

  “The front hole needs sterilizing and probably just a single stitch,” Connor told me. “The back hole’s more complicated, though. That might take some time.”

  “Can you do it here?” Jude asked, looking worried.

  “I’ll do it wherever I have to, but I’d rather we get inside somewhere.” Connor looked up at the darkening sky. As he did, two fat drops bounced off of his forehead. “It’s already starting to rain again.”

  “What’s the least amount you need to do to make Ian ready to be moved?” I asked, concerned about being stuck out in the open.

  “Sterilize his wounds and put pressure bandages on,” Connor said. “But that’s only if we’re taking him a short distance.”

  “Let’s get those things done, then. As soon as Cherry and the guys are back, we need to be prepared to move Ian.”

  Connor nodded and, opening up his first aid kit, he took out supplies and began to clean and sterilize the gunshot wounds. As he did, Ian’s eyes began to flutter; he looked even paler than before and there was a tremor in one cheek.

  “He looks so white,” murmured Jude. “And he’s clammy. Are you sure that he doesn’t still have a bullet in him?”

  “I’m pretty sure,” said Connor. “It’s just that he’s lost a lot of blood. Plus, I would guess that he’s probably going into shock.”

  Jude and I shared an unhappy look.

  Before we could say anything, however, Cherry and Topher came pedaling back. “There’s a housing complex one block over,” Cherry told us. “Pretty much all the houses are suitable. We’ve got Andrei waiting in one now.”

  “Connor’s just sterilizing Ian’s wounds, then we’ll be ready to go,” I explained.

  “Well, you need to hurry up, Connor, because we need to go now,” said Topher. “I think we have visitors coming. Cherry and I saw them from the second floor of the house we chose. There are walkers, a group of them…about a half mile away. And they’re definitely heading in this direction!”

  “Dammit! We’ll have to make a run for it now,” I said, unhappy. “And we can
’t let them see where we go!”

  “If you can get Ian onto a bike,” Topher suggested, “Cherry and I can take you guys through a back way into the housing complex.”

  “The walkers won’t be able to see us?”

  “As long as we move quickly, we should be okay. There’s a hedge that goes along the road. We’ll travel behind that,” Topher explained. “Then, once we’re behind the corner, we’ll be out of sight and can cross the road. From there, it’s only half a block until the house where we parked Andrei.”

  I turned to Connor, who had already stitched up the front of Ian’s chest. “We need to move him!”

  “Just a second,” murmured Connor, attaching a pressure bandage to Ian’s back.

  “We can’t wait, Connor…we need to move now!”

  “Almost there,” he said. “I can finish this at the house, but I’ll need to maintain pressure or he’ll lose too much blood.”

  “Which means Ian can’t go on a bike,” I moaned.

  “Wish we had the bike trailer already,” said Topher. “We could have put him in that.”

  I heard a distant shout, a muffled laugh; whoever was coming up the road was getting close.

  “We need to go!” urged Cherry, looking scared.

  Jude tapped me on the shoulder. “You and me, dude. We’re the two biggest. We’ll piggy-back him.”

  “Topher,” I ordered, “you get Connor to the house. Jude, shove our bikes over that fence there where they’ll be hidden. We’ll come back for them later.”

  I waved to Rhys, who was lying flat on top of a bus shelter, his rifle aimed down the road. Quickly, he shouldered his weapon and shimmied down to the sidewalk.

  Rushing over, he kneeled down beside me. “Five guys—all armed,” he reported. “Can’t be certain, but I think they might be Crazies. From what I can see, they’ve got a lot of tattoos, you know. Plus, I think they might be drunk.”

  “How close?”

  “A lot of pushing and shoving between them—stupid guy stuff—so they’re coming slowly. But they’ll be here in the next five minutes, I’d guess.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. “I need you to have our six on this. Cherry will take the lead. Meanwhile, Jude and I will be piggy-backing Ian. Fast as we can—one carries, the other puts pressure on the wounds.”

  The rain was increasing. Because of this, when Jude came back from hiding our bikes, it made her look like she had tears on her cheeks.

  “Done and done,” she told me. “I’ll take Ian first. You’re probably stronger, so you should save your strength in case we have to run with him.”

  Cherry helped me lift Ian up and onto Jude’s back. He was unconscious now, his head lolling back and forth. Jude took his legs—one arm around each—and pulled him close. I helped to hold him in place, at the same time, keeping pressure on his wounds.

  We must have looked ridiculous—two kids trying to maneuver an unconscious boy down the road by piggyback. Not to mention, Rhys—walking backwards behind us—rifle to his shoulder, prepared to shoot the first guy who was unlucky enough to come around the corner.

  When we reached the hedge Cherry had told us about, I heard more laughter and hoots from the guys closing in on us. Their voices were louder now and I could make out a word here and there.

  “Hurry!” urged Cherry. “We have to get across the road now or they’ll see us!”

  “Jude, give Ian to me,” I ordered.

  Instead of obeying, she held on tighter to Ian’s legs.

  “Keep up, children!” she chuckled, and she took off running.

  * * * *

  We spent the next four days, hidden in the house Cherry and Andrei had chosen. It was a 2-storey, with a pool half-full of green water and an ivy-covered children’s playset languishing in the backyard.

  Inside—thankfully—the house had survived almost a year and a half of neglect with only a musty smell and a half-inch of dust to show for it. There was a fireplace in the living room that we used sparingly—to heat our meals and to warm the house when the rains outside chilled our bones. We kept the heavy drapes closed and our lanterns on ‘low’. While we didn’t think the five ‘possible’ Crazies had remained in the area, we still didn’t want to take the chance on being discovered.

  Meanwhile, Topher, Rhys, Jude, and I had been making daily trips to a pharmacy we had found a few blocks away. We were slowly emptying it of all its medications—and anything else we thought might be useful. After categorizing the meds, we boxed everything up, adding the boxes to one of two growing piles in the house’s empty garage.

  One pile—antibiotics and other meds that Porter wanted immediately; those we would pick up on our way back to Point Dume.

  The second pile—whenever.

  * * * *

  On our fourth day at the house, I was standing at the front window—staring out at the rain—when Connor came up beside me.

  “How’s Ian doing?” I asked.

  “Feeling stupid. He thinks it’s his fault that we’re stuck here.”

  “That’s dumb,” I snorted. “Not like he shot himself.”

  Connor shrugged. “Cherry’s cleaning his wounds right now.”

  “How do they look?”

  “Really good. I was worried that they might get infected. Heck—I expected it, considering all the muddy water we were biking through. But both wounds look just fine.”

  “So, you think he’ll be good to travel today?”

  “Absolutely,” Connor nodded. “But we’ll take it slow, right? It might be hard for him at the beginning.”

  I sighed. “We’re days behind schedule. Kaylee’s going to be so worried.”

  “This is a different world,” Connor shrugged. “Schedules are only suggestions these days. Kaylee knows that.”

  Outside, a sheet of lightning lit up a darkened bank of clouds in the distance. A few seconds later, a deep rumble thundered through the house, rattling windows and shaking knick-knacks on their shelves.

  “Do you think it’s safe to travel out there right now?” asked Connor—nervously eyeing the clouds.

  “No, dammit,” I growled. “It hasn’t been safe for a long time.”

  * * * *

  In truth, Ian needed at least another day to recover; his wounds might have been mending, but he was still pale and weak, and he tired easily. As we biked along that next morning, I noticed that his pedaling was becoming labored. I worried that we were going too fast for him and, when I saw a pharmacy down a side street, I jumped at the chance to give him a rest.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been in it,” said Connor, as we broke the glass in the front door.

  “How can you be so sure?” I reached in and turned the lock, motioning Rhys and Topher inside. They entered quickly, moving up and down the aisles—their weapons at their shoulders. “Someone could have been here and simply locked the door after them. Like maybe they had the key.”

  “I don’t think so,” Connor said. “Look at all the food and booze. If someone had been here, I’m pretty sure they would have stocked up on candy bars and beer.”

  Rhys and Topher came forward, their rifle barrels hanging down.

  “Nobody,” Rhys announced. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s been here. A lot of dust on the floor and we didn’t see a single footprint.”

  “It’s down a side street,” offered Topher. “Most likely nobody even knew it was here.”

  Beside me, Connor grinned.

  I reached out and pushed him. “Nobody likes a smart ass.”

  “Would you rather I be a dumb ass?” he smirked.

  * * * *

  It wasn’t a big pharmacy; still, the shelves were lined with medications. From aspirins and antihistamines in the front of the store, to antibiotics and single-dose anesthetics in the back—we had stumbled onto a real treasure.

  “This is amazing!” said Connor, rummaging through a drawer of penicillin packs behind the pharmacist counter. “There’s enough here to last us at least a year
, maybe more.”

  “And that’s not even including all the other stuff in the store,” said Cherry. She ran her hands down the new jacket she had just chosen from a rack in the front window. “Plus, the storeroom is full of boxes that have never been opened.”

  “We need to catalogue everything,” Connor decided. “Then, we can decide what to take back first. The rest we’ll store for later.”

  Rhys came down an aisle, chewing on a chocolate bar. “Are we going to leave everything here? If we do, Topher and I will find some wood to nail across the door—help keep the rain and critters out.”

  I shook my head. “We can’t be sure that someone else might find this place after we’re gone. It’d be better if we simply move everything to a safe house.”

  “The one we just came from,” asked Rhys, “or are we picking a new one?”

  “New one,” I answered. “The old one is too far back.” Nodding toward Ian, who was sitting on the ground, quietly reading a comic book, I added, “Why don’t you take Andrei and Ian with you? Find the closest place you can and get Ian lying down. Andrei can stay with him and keep guard.”

  Rhys nodded. “Understood.”

  * * * *

  “Pile everything Connor wants at the back door,” I told Topher, Cherry, and Jude. “The medicines on his list are our first priority. We’ll get them stocked away and then come back for everything else.”

  Connor moved between us, distributing hand-written lists. “Make sure you check the dates on everything,” he ordered. “If it’s expired or close to its expiration date, put it on the counter over there and I’ll look at it later—see if it’s still okay to use it.”

  “We going to empty the place?” asked Jude.

  I nodded. “Rhys and Andrei are prepping a place two houses down. They’ve got a garage that’s empty. We’ll store everything we want to take back immediately at the front of the garage, so that we have easy access to it—everything else will be boxed up and put at the back.”