Salazar

by Chariss K. Walker

  "Come back," Freddy weakly called, secretly glad that Phillip paid no attention.

  "Phillip, it's too dangerous," Miki advised. "Can't you hear the water? It will make the rocky pathway very slippery. We need to wait for more light. It's for everyone's safety."

  "You mean you want to wait for him," he snarled as he began the descent, "well, I'm not waiting on him anymore. I don't need him."

  After several moments, they heard Phillip take a rough tumble as his feet slipped on a slick spot. "Ow," he cried as he dropped the lantern in an effort to break his fall. The light from the torch went out and he was injured and shrieking, alone in the dark.

  "It's his own damn fault," Tereese concluded. "Damn fool!"

  "It is," Miki agreed, "nevertheless, someone has to go help him."

  "Why?" Tom queried. "He just makes life miserable for the rest of us."

  "Be that as it may," Miki allowed, "he is still part of our group and we need to help him." She stood up to make the effort, but Freddy intercepted.

  "I'll do it. Salazar told me to watch out for everyone and I let that prick go off alone without much of a struggle," Freddy openly confessed. "I can't stomach him; however, I'd rather go after him than let you go down there with him, Miki. I think I'm the only one who could support his weight anyway."

  Freddy took a small flashlight and after a few minutes, he returned with the torch. He handed it to Tom, the engineer, and politely said, "See if you can fix this, please."

  Then, he returned for Phillip.

  If Phillip had been a pain in everyone's ass before his injury, he was thrice as bad when he returned with a severely broken wrist and a large jagged cut on his face. Miki moved forward to attend to him, even though he was belligerent and ordered, "Get away from me. Just leave me alone, all of you!"

  "I know you don't want to hear this, Phillip," Miki tried to offer her support to him as she directed her flashlight to his injury; "but you have a compound fracture. I can see your bones sticking out. At the very least, we need to wrap it in an effort to keep down any infection."

  When Miki directed the light on his injury and Phillip saw it, he screamed and almost fainted. Miki moved closer in an effort to help him.

  "I said get away from me!" Phillip growled. He was completely humiliated by his failure to lead everyone to their new home and he was angry that he would never get another chance to show them how capable he was… if they had only given him a chance. "Get the hell away from me right now!" He yelled, gritting his teeth to emphasize the point.

  The hair on the back of Miki's neck stood up in warning and she quickly stepped away from him and said, "OK, I'm stepping back."

  The crowd grew dismally quiet while Tom worked to restore the torch. He successfully fixed its loosened power source and the renewed glow of the light revealed to the others how seriously Phillip had been injured. The gash on his face leaked like a faucet, dripping blood onto his shirt. His hand hung limply from his wrist as if the only thing holding it there was the still attached flesh on the backside of his wrist. On the topside, they could see the jagged, broken bones and torn flesh.

  It was awful.

  A few gasped in surprise and that only served to make Phillip more irrational and angry. In a huff, he turned his back to everyone and faced a corner while he sulked about his failed attempt to gain their respect. He tenderly held his forearm with his other hand as he painfully sucked in breath through still gritted teeth.

  Each of the others felt sympathy for his injury; it was dreadful. Nevertheless, he had made it clear that he didn't want their concern or help so they left him alone to deal with his own foolish self-injury.

  Still, it was nerve-racking. While they waited for Salazar and the other men to return, all they could do was listen to Phillip's suffering.

  With the group in an already fragile state, Miki worried. She realized that if anyone was going to snap, it was such conditions as this that could send a person over the edge. After all they had been through; this might be the issue that broke through their reserves. She looked at Sondra and realized that the young woman was also aware of the delicate nature that affected everyone.

  Sondra sat in stillness with her ankles crossed and her hands resting on her knees just as Henry had taught her. Her middle finger touched her thumb as she softly chanted, "OM," over and over again, sounding out each syllable as A-U-M, and then she began again.

  Miki, unsure about what Sondra was doing realized that it didn't really matter if she understood it or not. It was helping. The results of Sondra's chanting caused a peacefulness to settle over the crowd. Miki was relieved that a crisis had been averted.

  The others remained calm, all except for Phillip. His anger and pain blocked the soothing energy that Sondra sent forth. Phillip was in such a dark place that he couldn't be reached by its calming effect.

  25| New Discoveries

  On the surface, Joshua and Jesse found Sue Ellen exactly where she was supposed to be in a street clinic not far from the entrance to the tunnels. She'd had the good sense to take cover under a sturdy counter; however, part of the ceiling had caved in on her hiding place.

  She was trapped, but alive, even though she was unconscious and buried under a good bit of debris. Jesse noticed that the client she had been serving at the time was not so fortunate. His body had been pinned by a crumbling exterior wall when he had tried to flee.

  On the street near the entrance to the clinic, other bodies were found in similar condition. Crushed by debris and all dead. Jesse had seen dead bodies before although now he couldn't help wonder what state he would find his mother in when he went to look for her.

  Joshua and Jesse worked to free Sue Ellen and Joshua was ecstatic when her eyes fluttered before she finally opened them. When she did, Joshua joyfully cried, "Oh, you're alive!"

  "And so are you," she lovingly placed a hand on her husband's cheek. "How can it be that we both made it and we're apparently unharmed?"

  "Oh, I love you so much, Sue Ellen. I'm so happy that you're alive. I'll tell you all about it," he promised, "after we get you up and make sure you don't have any hidden injuries. Oh god, I was so worried. I didn't know if I would ever see you again. And, there I was safe and sound underground while you were all alone out here. It made me so sad, so worried, and so ashamed."

  "What verbiage!" Sue Ellen teased as she once again patted her husband's cheek. "I know."

  Jesse rolled his eyes as he watched the happy couple's reunion. Then, he turned away. He couldn't bear to watch them. He doubted that he would be so lucky as to find his mother alive.

  Determined to make himself useful, he began to look around the clinic to determine what could be salvaged. He was amazed that there wasn't more destruction. Surprisingly, only part of the roof and the front wall had collapsed. Most of the building was still intact. Jesse counted that as fortuitous because it made finding medicines and medical supplies a lot easier than having to dig them out of the rubble.

  After Sue Ellen caught her breath and found her balance, Joshua was finally convinced that she was all right. Together, along with Jesse, they raided the clinic for any medical supplies that they would need. Iodine tablets, antibiotics, pain medication, and other medicines were in abundance. Joshua found a very large plastic basket that was still serviceable even though it was bent on one side.

  "It seems that plastic, if it isn't melted, can survive anything," he joked for Jesse's benefit as he held the bin up for his wife to see. At her nod of approval, he scooped the entire lot of drugs into it even picking up unbroken bottles that had fallen to the floor.

  They also found suturing supplies, bandages and tape, wrist and ankle braces, splints and eye patches, and ointments, salves, and tinctures of all kinds.

  "Yes," Sue Ellen insisted when her husband looked at her for confirmation on how much of it they should take, "We will need all of that too."

  The couple had been together for so long that they didn't need a lot of words to communi
cate. They used gestures and expressions to get their messages across to each other.

  Jesse felt left out.

  A sob of despair threatened to explode from his chest as he thought about his frail, little mom. Like Sue Ellen, she'd had to go through this terrible ordeal alone and he wasn't sure he could forgive himself for that.

  He reminded himself that the life expectancy in the United Sectors was only sixty-five-years-of-age and that his mother had already lived longer than most old people in August City. He also knew that she wouldn't mind if it was her time to die. In her late sixties, she had often joked that her days were numbered even though neither of them had expected that she would go like this.

  His eyes once again gazed at the body of the man under the collapsed wall and he could imagine that his mother had died in a similar condition. Jesse swallowed his sadness and continued to do the work he had to do.

  It was what he had always done. It was the way he had always dealt with the helplessness he had lived with on a daily basis as a resident of August City. It was also the way he had dealt with his mother's health problems.

  Neither Jesse nor his mother had insurance or any other type of medical care except for the free clinics. In those places, the staff treated minor injuries and freely handed out any type of medication a person wanted or needed, including drugs.

  No prescriptions were necessary.

  Without preventative or maintenance care, the free services were lacking. Treatments such as those weren't available to the poor. Once diagnosed, the system simply tried to make a person comfortable, especially if one was elderly or poor. Only the rich could afford the best doctors who then prescribed the best of care for their patients… The rich folks had it made. They always got the best of everything else too.

  That had always irked Jesse.

  Now, Jesse considered that he had never had any real power, any true control over his own life or his mother's. As the head of household, he had never been able to do a damn thing to make his mother's life easier or more comfortable either. His employment had paid for the essentials such as food, shelter, and clothing, however, there had never been anything left for anything more.

  The sadness of that situation had often overwhelmed Jesse. He had often supposed that, if he ever had real money, he would want to spend it on the people he loved most, not hoard it away or buy lavish goods.

  He considered that it was human nature to want to provide for your loved ones, to take care of their needs and even their desires. For him, giving and sharing with your family made life worth living. However, Jesse also knew that only those with real money could supply the needs and desires of their family.

  The system was weighted that way.

  Even as a Cop, he had never had any say about anything. He merely followed someone else's orders even when it went against everything he personally believed. Even when he considered it immoral and illegal.

  Choke it down, man-up, get a grip! He heard his training officer's voice in his head. All well-meaning directives and all designed to keep a man from thinking, from getting too emotional or dealing with his feelings.

  Jesse tried to stop thinking about his own life. He looked at Joshua and Sue Ellen again and realized that it was a wonder that Joshua had found his beloved wife. He wondered about the odds of such a thing actually happening.

  He mentally scoffed as he considered that Sondra would likely have an answer for that question. That girl was loaded with facts, figures, and statistics. Then, for a brief moment, he thought about Tereese. She was a real spitfire and he liked her, except that there had never been any time or money to pursue a relationship. He didn't see how things could have changed much now so he pushed those thoughts aside too and continued to wonder about the possibility of a miracle. If the odds were one in a million, then he would have to consider that a miracle.

  Jesse had never been privy to any miracles and he certainly couldn't imagine that he would now be fortunate in that regard. He also doubted that Salazar would be lucky enough to find his father alive either.

  It was Jesse's belief that there were only so many miracles allowed to a person, group, or community. Joshua had just claimed one of those by finding Sue Ellen alive. Jesse personally counted finding Salazar and Miki as another. He felt certain that two or three in such a short span of time was all they would get.

  Maybe all they would ever get.

  26| Fifth Wheel

  While they worked, Joshua used their short code to explain to Sue Ellen about the survivors and the shelter under the city. Then, for Jesse's benefit, he encouraged her in a language that all three could understand, "Hurry hon, I must get you and the emergency supplies back to safety. Jesse, let's take two tablets like Salazar suggested," he said as he passed out the iodine pills to all three of them. "Then, you can take the iodine to Salazar and Sam."

  "I'm on it," Jesse quickly agreed. He'd felt like a fifth wheel with the married couple and their terms of endearment, their joy at finding each other, and their 'pig-Latin' love language. He was happy for them even though he still couldn't wait to get away from the two lovebirds and the uncomfortable feelings they evoked in him.

  "Iodine tablets?" Sue Ellen asked with concern. "Did they hit us with a dirty bomb too?" Her eyes were wide with fear and mirrored her husband's earlier concern when he had questioned their young leader.

  "It's just a precaution," Joshua repeated Salazar's words.

  Jesse took off right away to find Salazar and Sam while Joshua and Sue Ellen headed back to the shelter. Once they were outside, she pointed at the fumes and advised, "This isn't fallout, Joshua. This is some kind of poisonous gas."

  "You think so?"

  "I'm pretty certain of it. I've never seen fallout in person, but I have seen pictures of it in training seminars. The iodine tablets won't help with this. We'll have to wait and see what symptoms develop from this before we can know how to treat it."

  "If it can be treated," Joshua doubtfully speculated. Even though he had found his wife alive, he was overcome with worry about the death and destruction that surrounded them.

  "Come now, dear. We made it this far. Together, we can make it a little further," Sue Ellen comforted. As their roles reversed, she was now the one to encourage and soothe her husband.

  That was the most endearing detail about their relationship. Joshua and Sue Ellen had been together since their early teens. They had mastered the art of easily switching roles. When one was down, the other lifted and encouraged. When one was sad, the other cheered. When one was hurt, the other healed. It was the reason their love had endured for more than thirty years.

  "Tell me about Salazar and Miki," Sue Ellen encouraged, hoping to help her husband focus on something more positive.

  "They are both amazing. He is a courageous leader and she is his mother. If not for them, I have no doubt that I would be dead right now," he began and continued to tell his wife all that had occurred during the last three days.

  Once underground, Joshua and Sue Ellen easily found the others waiting in the passageway where they were supposed to be, however, the moment Joshua entered the secluded area, he sensed that something was terribly wrong. Phillip was in one corner and his moans seemed to evoke a tangible disturbing emotional static even though everyone around Sondra were amazingly peaceful and calm.

  When Joshua made his presence known, everyone started talking at once. As the eldest of their group, they unconsciously looked to Joshua as a father-figure. Many voices tried to explain about Phillip's accident, however, that only served to make Phillip more agitated and volatile. He tried to cover his ears with both hands and that only caused him more pain as the broken bones gouged his temple area.

  "Ow!" Phillip screamed in response. Always blaming others for his own misfortune, he cried out, "Look what you have done now! You made me hurt myself again."

  Sue Ellen, a natural healer as well as a medical professional, rushed to Phillip to offer her assistance. He shoved her away with his
good arm. She slipped in the pool of blood that surrounded him and almost fell, but Joshua caught his wife before she was injured.

  "Phillip," Joshua's stern voice reprimanded, "There is no need for you to act an ass. You're injured. My wife is a nurse. She only wants to help you. Let her help you."

  "Just stay away!" Phillip continued to shout. "All of you just leave me alone! I don't want anything to do with any of you! I wish to God I had never followed you in here to this deathtrap."

  "You don't mean that," Joshua admonished. "You're alive right now because you followed Salazar and Miki here."

  "I do mean it!" Phillip screamed. "I'd rather be dead than in here with all you kooks. Now, leave me alone!"

  Without any other recourse and not wanting to make things worse than they already were, Joshua led Sue Ellen to Miki to introduce her. That left Phillip to his own self-torture.

  "We have sedatives," Sue Ellen confided to Miki. "If we can get close enough to him, we might be able to put him to sleep."

  "Just try it and I'll kill anyone who comes near me!" Phillip threatened.

  "That settles that," Joshua advised. "I'm unwilling to risk any more injuries to help his crazy ass."

  "Joshua!" Sue Ellen scolded.

  "It's true," Miki added. "Phillip has been a bad apple the entire time. No one should get hurt in an attempt to save him. The man is his own worst enemy and his injury is self-inflicted."

  Phillip heard what Miki said and it was as if his own mother was standing there criticizing him once again. He wanted to snap Miki's scrawny neck just like he had done to his mother during the first few minutes of the bombing.

  That scene briefly replayed in his mind as he once again saw his mother irritating him to distraction just like she always did. When a bomb fell on their neighbor's home, his mother warned Phillip that they should get to the basement. The blast was forceful and soon their small home was filled with dust and weird pink gases. However, he had refused to listen. He had discounted everything she said, the same as he usually did, but she refused to stop her urgings. She had nagged and nagged and nagged until Phillip saw red. He recalled how skinny his mother's neck had felt between his hands as he choked the life from her. He wanted to feel that terrible and awesome sensation again. He wanted to feel the life leave someone else's body. It had felt so good to be free.