Endless Winter Box Set: Books 1 - 4

by Theresa Shaver

  There’s a huge metal animal trap embedded in his lower leg. The teeth on the trap have to be at least two inches long and knowing that multiple teeth are embedded in my friend’s leg is sickening. Jackson grabs and lifts Marsh’s leg causing him to scream again even louder. He tries to pry the trap open to release Marsh’s leg but he can’t get it. I’m kneeling beside him with my hand hovering over his leg trying to figure out where to grab or pull when I finally find my voice and yell.

  “Leave it! We need to get him inside to Ethan. We have no way of knowing what that trap has punctured inside his leg. If we pull it open he could bleed out if it hit a main artery or vein. We need to get him up and into the cart so we can get him back to the camp.”

  Marsh’s screams have tapered off into agonizing grunts of pain as I run my hands over the trap looking to see if it’s connected to a chain. I find the links and give a tug on them and breathe out a sigh of relief that the end of the chain isn’t connected to anything like a stake driven into the ground or a nearby tree. I take the chain and wrap it around Marsh’s leg so it won’t drag and cause even more tension on his wounds.

  Jackson rushes to the cart we had been pushing and turns it to point back toward the camp before backing it up next to Marsh. He throws the saws and axes that were in the cart out onto the forest floor before coming to stand on the other side of Marsh. He looks at me and swallows with a gulp.

  “Are you ready to do this?” I can see the fear and concern in his eyes when he looks down at Marsh and then back up to me.

  I nod slowly and then focus down at my friend. “Marsh, Marsh look at me!”

  There’s so much pain in his eyes when he finally turns his head my way that I feel tears welling up into my own in sympathy. I shove them back and try and keep my voice steady.

  “Okay, you’re going to be fine. We’re going to take you back to the camp so Ethan can fix you right up and get that thing off your leg. But first, we need to get you into the cart. Buddy, I’m not going to lie to you, this is going to hurt a lot.”

  Marsh clenches his teeth until his expression looks like an animal snarling and grits out, “Do it! Just do it!”

  Jackson kneels down on the other side of him and we both get a tight grip under Marsh’s arms before heaving him up to his feet. I have to force myself to ignore his cries of agony because I know the longer this takes the more pain he’s going to experience. We both get a hand underneath his thighs to lift him over and into the bed of the cart being careful not to jam his leg up against the side of it. By the time we’ve got him settled in, he’s delirious and incoherent from the pain the movement caused him.

  “All right. Jackson, you guide the front and I’ll push from behind. We’ll go as fast as we can but we don’t want to tip the cart.”

  He gives me a scared nod and then focuses on keeping the front end of the cart straight as I push. I’m so thankful that we hadn’t made it very far down the path into the forest when this happened so we don’t have as far to go to get back to the gate. As soon as we leave the trees I send Jackson ahead to start yelling for someone to open the gate for us because the path the rest of the way is fairly level and I don’t have to worry as much about the cart tipping. I can’t stop myself from glancing down at Marsh’s face every few seconds. I think he’s fallen unconscious because he’s not making those horrible painful noises anymore and I think that’s a good thing. If he’s unconscious, he won’t be feeling the pain from every bump and jolt the cart makes.

  I catch up to Jackson fairly quickly and stand at the closed gate while he pounds on it and screams at the top of his lungs for someone to come and open it up for what feels like an eternity. I lean over Marsh while we wait and check his pulse and then the wound itself which has a pool of blood collecting under it in the bottom of the cart. Cursing myself for being a panicked idiot, I do what I should have done right from the start and whip off my shirt and use it to wrap around the wound to try and contain the bleeding. It only takes seconds for the fabric to become saturated with Marsh’s blood so I undo my belt and pull it free from its loops and use it to create a tourniquet just above where the trap is embedded in his leg. That’s the extent of my first aid knowledge so all I can do now is hope that somebody opens the damn gate soon so we can get him to Ethan.

  I’m about to start screaming alongside Jackson when I hear the thick board we used to secure the gate scrape against the wood so instead, I race back behind the cart and get ready to push it through as fast as I can. When the gate finally swings open, it’s Lance standing there with a confused sleepy expression on his face that quickly morphs into horror when he sees his son in the cart. When he just stands there in the way I start to yell.

  “Lance, get out of the way! We need to get him to the clinic right away. We need to get him to Ethan!”

  He flinches and backs up a few steps, which is all the room I need to push the cart through the gateway and past him toward the main building. Jackson sprints past me to get the door open and yell down the hallway for help while I can hear Lance’s pounding footsteps following behind us. We’ve barely made it into the hallway when everyone converges on us. Skylar comes flying down the hallway with Ben and Matty on her heels from the direction of their rooms. Belle and Sasha rush out of the dining room but are quickly pushed aside by Ethan who takes one look at his son in the cart and starts barking orders.

  “Everybody get out of the way! Rex, straight into the clinic, no stopping. Jackson, I’m going to need you with me to assist. Move! Move! Move!”

  Everyone either scatters back into rooms off of the hallway or flattens themselves against the walls so that I can get the cart past them and into the clinic that Ethan has set up in one of the offices. As soon as the cart comes to a stop beside the table he has set up for treatment, he shoves me out of the way so that he can get Marsh’s vitals. Once he has what he needs, he stands back up, brushes a loving hand over Marsh’s hair, swallows hard and then looks from Jackson to me.

  “Okay, we need to get him out of this cart and onto the table. I’d like you two to do the heavy lifting while I keep his leg stabilized.”

  As soon as we’re both in place he counts us down. “All right, on three. One, two, three.”

  I hadn’t even realized Lance had followed us into the room until he pulls the cart out of the way once Jackson and I have taken Marsh’s weight off of it. As soon as we lay Marsh gently onto the table, Jackson and I back out of the way so Ethan can go to work. We stand there quietly as he uses sharp scissors to cut the pant leg off of Marsh’s wounded leg, waiting for any instructions he might give us to help. He studies the wound closely and then starts running his hands over and around the trap before turning to face us.

  His glance meets Lance and holds there for a few seconds. I can see them communicate silently, as only a long-married couple can, before he looks our way and speaks.

  “I can’t see a lever mechanism to release the tension and spring the trap back open so we’re going to have to pry it apart. Ideally, we will pull it apart in one smooth motion and then get it off his leg. I don’t want the metal teeth inside his leg sawing back and forth as we try and remove it. That will just cause even more damage. This is how I want to do it. Rex I want you at the end of the table. We’re going to lift Marsh’s leg about a foot off the table and I want you to brace his foot flat against your stomach and keep it immobilized. Lance and Jackson, I want you two to pry apart the trap and then you’ll have to hold it open. I’m going to support Marsh’s leg with a hand underneath his calf. Once the trap is open, I will give the word and Rex, you will push the leg toward me carefully so his knee will bend - moving it out of the trap. Lance, Jackson, be very careful you don’t let the trap closed again before the leg is out of the way and watch Rex’s hand as well. Also, make sure you don’t get your own hands snagged in it. I can only work on one patient at a time!” He tries a half-hearted joke.

  When no one even cracks a smile he focuses back on his son and counts us
down again. Thankfully, it goes smoothly. We get the evil piece of metal off of Marsh’s leg without doing any more damage to it or us. As soon as everything is clear, they allow it to slowly close again. Lance throws it down on the floor in disgust.

  A breath of relief whooshes out of Ethan. “All right, good work guys. Now I need you to back out of the way so Jackson and I can get to work on him. Jackson, get some gloves on and grab all the sterile solution we made. We’re going to need to clean out each one of these wounds to make sure there’s no dirt or pieces of fabric lodged in them before we can start stitching them up.” He leans over the leg and mumbles under his breath as he works, “What I wouldn’t give for a proper operating area not to mention an x-ray machine to check and see if his bone was fractured.”

  I lean against the wall and look away from what they’re doing to meet Lance’s exhausted, worried eyes. I can tell he wants to ask what happened so I just launch right into it.

  “We’ve walked that path at least twenty times or more since we settled here. Any of us could have sprung it at any time.” I rub my face in frustration before dropping my hands to my sides and shaking my head. “I can’t believe this! It’s like we’re cursed all of the sudden. First, we lose some chickens, then the generator and gas go, and now this!”

  A harsh gasp from the doorway has both Lance and me looking that way to find Joslin standing there. I know her and Marsh have been feeling each other out in a relationship so this is going to be hard on her. The weird thing is, she’s not looking at Marsh in horror but at the trap on the floor. When she lifts her eyes away from it and meets mine, I see pure panic in them.

  “No, not cursed. Sabotage! This isn’t bad luck at all. I’ve… We’ve seen this before. This trap, this trap came from the back of one of the military trucks we left back at the bunker. Someone’s found us and they’re toying with us!”

  Chapter Eighteen … Joslin

  Lance is across the room in a split second to grab my arm and give it a shake.

  “What are you talking about? That trap could have been left in place from before the bombs dropped!”

  I shake my head in denial. “No, I’m telling you, someone’s found us! Think about it, they came over the wall to scout us out and couldn’t resist taking some of the chickens. Then they start the fire that takes out our main power source and fuel. Now this! It makes perfect sense. I know it’s true! For the past few days I’ve felt edgy and tense. I think it’s because they’ve been watching us and I felt it.”

  Everyone is looking at me with doubt, so I continue, almost choking with the urgency I feel. “Listen to me! On our way here from the East, the General stopped at every sign of survivors. We were going through northern Ontario when we saw signs of cook fires in the distance. He sent a team of scouts to check it out and only three of them came back. Two of them came back carrying the third who had that exact trap on his leg! Our doctor had to amputate the injured soldier’s leg when infection set in, but it didn’t matter in the long run, he died. The General kept the trap because he said it might be useful in the future.”

  Lance stares hard at me for a few seconds before turning his head to look at Marsh on the table and then whips it back toward Rex.

  “Gather the others and let them know what might be happening. Bring the two little ones back here. Then, weapons! Everyone needs to load up on weapons and ammo. If what she says is true, then now is the perfect time for them to hit us while we’re distracted with Marsh’s injury. You, me and Skylar need to get out to the fence. Two up in the lookout towers, one walking patrol of our perimeter.” He turns and speaks to Ethan’s back. “As soon as you can free up Jackson, I’m going to need him out there as well.”

  When Ethan just waves a hand without turning around, Lance turns toward the door with a grim expression. I step forward into his path.

  “What about me? I have training. I could help out there!”

  He shakes his head. “No, I want you to arm yourself and stay here to protect this room and the boys. Who knows if they’ve breached us already. If they’re coming after us they could already be inside the fence hiding in any of the cabins or even hiding in this building waiting to strike!”

  He’s about to step past me when there’s a huge crash and the building shakes around us and dust rains down from the ceiling. Lance, Rex and I all immediately crouch down and when I look toward Marsh I see both Ethan and Jackson leaning over him to protect him from any falling debris that might come. I turn back toward the doorway ready to launch myself out of it to go check on the others when a second huge crash hits us causing me to drop to the floor.

  Lance and Rex both clamp an arm on either side of me and pull me back up to my feet. After another quick look toward Marsh to make sure he’s okay, Lance coughs away the dust in his throat.

  “This is it! Whatever those two crashes were they came from the atrium. We need to get to the others and start forming up a defense before they walk in here and take us all out!” He yells, before flying out the door.

  Rex and I are hot on his heels out of the room but instead of following Lance toward the front of the building, Rex turns to the right and takes two steps before coming to a quick stop. I look in that direction and find my mouth dropping open at what I see. The end of the hallway is completely blocked with tree branches and debris. Quickly, I come to the conclusion that whoever is attacking us somehow managed to cut down at least two of the huge trees just outside the fence and direct their descent onto our building. The atrium must be completely destroyed but what concerns both Rex and me is that the damage debris and tree branches extend into the hallway and through the rooms that Skylar and the boys have been using as their own.

  I get moving faster than Rex and I give him a small shove to get him moving until we’re both racing toward what’s left of the offices to check to see if anyone is in there. The door to Skylar’s room is completely impassable with debris and branches so Rex spins on his heel and pushes his way past me to the door leading into the boy’s room that we’ve kept locked. He’s about to lift his leg to kick it in when his name is yelled from down the hallway.

  We both turn to see Skylar racing toward us hauling both the boys by their arms. She looks past us at the damaged hallway and her face goes white in shock. When she reaches us, Matty throws himself sobbing against Rex. Rex uses one hand to grip him around the shoulders and another to reach out and pull Skylar and Ben against him briefly.

  I’m relieved to see that they’re all okay but we need to move so I interrupt them. “Guys! Come on we have to go! We’re being attacked, Skylar. The boys need to go into the clinic with Ethan and Jackson and you two need to get outside to back up Lance!”

  Rex lets go of Skylar with a nod of agreement. “Yes, you’re right. Come on boys, I need you to stay in the clinic with Ethan and don’t leave no matter what happens or what you hear unless he tells you otherwise. Bad guys are attacking us so it’s important you do as he says.” When their little faces fill with terror, he tries to assure them. “Don’t worry, we’re going to stop them!”

  I rush past the clinic’s open door as Rex and Skylar go inside with the boys. I don’t even let myself look to see how Marsh is doing as I race down to the storage closet we’ve been using for an armory. The door is standing wide open telling me that Lance has already been and gone as I run in and start grabbing as many rifles as I can. We’re all carrying handguns and holsters but this battle is going to need more than that if we have any hope of winning. I stuff my pockets with extra pre-loaded magazines and once I’m out of space in my pockets I run back out and down the hall toward the clinic. Skylar and Rex run out and meet me partway there and quickly relieve me of half my load. Rex pushes past me and dashes toward the front door but Skylar stops and puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes hard.

  “Nobody gets past you! Joslin, I’m trusting you to protect him with your life.”

  I don’t have time to answer her because just then the first gunshots ring out f
rom the front of the building and she shoves past me and runs toward them. She yells at Rex who’s standing beside the glass front door trying to peek around the frame.

  “Go out low and don’t stop moving until you find shelter!”

  He glances back and nods once before crouching, shoving the door open and disappearing from my view.

  This is moving so fast and I can feel my hands shaking. It’s one thing to train with other soldiers at the firing range but a completely different thing to actually be in a real-life gun battle. I watch Skylar slip through the front door and out of sight and stare at the closed door for a minute before turning away and moving into the clinic's entrance where I plant my feet half in, half out. This is my post. I won’t leave here until this is over. My head feels like it’s on a swivel as I track from the front door at the end of the hallway to back into the room where Ethan and Jackson’s hands are moving so quick over Marsh’s leg that they almost seem to be blurred. My head swings back to the front door when the gunfire intensifies out there. I keep my eyes on the door, expecting any moment for some stranger to burst through and open fire as Ethan gives Jackson instructions inside the room.

  “Okay, that’ll have to do for now. I’ve stitched all the main bleeders but we’re not going to have time right now to stitch up all these wounds. Hand me the glue, I’ll just close them temporarily and bandage his leg up until this is over. You need to get out there and back up everyone else. I can do the rest myself. And Jackson…be careful out there!”

  I glance into the room and see Jackson removing the sterile gloves he was wearing and tossing them into a trash can before grabbing one of the rifles I had left in the room for him. He meets my gaze and I have to take a step back from the pure fury I see in his eyes.

  “Why can’t he just leave me alone?” he asks me through gritted teeth.

  I shake my head in confusion. “What are you talking about? Who?”