The Storm and the Darkness

by Sarah M. Cradit

  Deciding some action was better than no action, Oz approached Door Man. “Who are you?” Oz inquired calmly. “And who is that?”

  Not looking up, consumed with the blonde guy’s injuries, the man responded in a clipped, yet somehow still professional, manner, “Jonathan St. Andrews. This is my brother, Finn.”

  Oz nodded. They were brothers, which would make calming Jon down harder. “I’m Oz Sullivan, and that’s Nicolas Deschanel. We came to help Ana.”

  Jon grunted something unintelligible, still focused on his brother. Oz took a deep breath.

  “Jonathan,” he said firmly. “I need to know if there is a doctor anywhere nearby on this island that we could get them to, or that we could bring here.”

  Jonathan did not look up from his brother, but he said, “I am...kind of a doctor.”

  Well, this was a convenient turn of events. Kind of a doctor was certainly better than no doctor at all.

  Finn’s eyes were closed and there was blood bubbling at his lips. Oz didn’t know much, but he knew that was not good. “Jonathan, I need you to look at me.” He waited and when Jonathan did not, he put his hand on the man’s shoulder. There were tears coursing down the man’s cheeks. “If you’re a...kind of doctor, then you should have training in how to remain calm in situations like this. I really, really need you to do that for me right now. You’re the only chance we might have of saving these two.” Oz gestured to Ana, and Jonathan’s eyes followed. Oz realized he was probably realizing her injuries for the first time. Jon’s mouth dropped open and the tears rolled down harder.

  “Do you understand?” Oz asked, forcing Jon to make eye contact. “I need you.”

  Jonathan looked slowly down at Finn, his lips parted in grief; he shifted his gaze to Ana, his mouth slightly open, his throat moving up and down as he swallowed hard. He’s in shock, as I probably am. He turned back to look at Oz with tortured eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I understand.”

  “Good. Now I need you to tell me in the plainest of terms–no medical jargon–what the situation is with these two. I need to know how badly they are injured, if we can save them, and if we can, what we are going to need to do.” Jonathan nodded, but still looked dazed, and so Oz added, “Right now.”

  Jonathan reached over his brother and said in a shaking voice, “Shot to the abdominal cavity, may have punctured a vital organ, probable massive internal bleeding. I don’t know if he can be saved.” Jonathan put his arm on his sleeve to wipe the tears, but then began to sob with silent shakes.

  Oz put his hand out, firmly but kindly. “Jonathan, please.”

  Jon lifted his head, nodding again. “I have…some equipment here...I don’t know anymore what’s there.” He looked upward, thoughtfully. “He will need a blood transfusion…”

  So, Finn’s situation was not good, but at least Oz understood it better. “Now Ana,” he said. Jonathan hesitated to rise, loathe to leave his brother. “Put your hand here,” he said to Oz, gesturing to where Jon was trying to subdue the abdominal bleeding. “Don’t let up pressure, not for a second.”

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  Jonathan used his bloody hands to lift himself up off the floor and make his way to Ana. Nicolas was holding her hand, crying. “Heal,” he was whispering. “You can do this.”

  “Ana…um…” Jon took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling again to collect himself, then looked back down. “Ana has sustained a head injury that will need to be tended to fast. She is bleeding a lot.” He stopped, took his shirt off, and wrapped it around her head, tying it tightly. He looked at Nicolas to ask for his help, then thought better of it. He delicately lifted her arms and legs, and a choked sob escaped from his chest. “She has sustained cuts over multiple parts of her body. Most are superficial, several are deep. The bleeding is almost uncontrollable.” Jon continued to examine her, tearing off pieces of his shirt to tie up the wounds and slow the bleeding as he did. “Deepest cuts are: one near her liver, one in her upper right thigh, and one in her shoulder.” He looked at Oz. “She will also need a blood transfusion, and I don’t know if I have the tools...I don’t know if I can do this...I’m a vet…”

  “Jon,” Oz said, “they are dying now. Anything you can do might save their lives. Doing nothing will surely be the end of them.”

  Jonathan seemed to respond best when Oz was as direct as possible, and Oz made a mental note of that. “I have two very important questions for you. The first is, if we had the blood available to us, do we have a way to transfer the blood? Second is, there are two of them and one of you. You’ll need an extra set of hands. Can you give me instructions so that I can help?”

  Jonathan thought for a moment about both things, and then said, “I might still have something of my father’s, but that only helps Finn because I don’t know Ana’s blood type and the wrong one will kill her. As for the instructions, yes, I believe I could, on at least some of it, maybe.”

  “Nic,” Oz said, and Nicolas cocked his head slightly as he registered the sound of his name. “I need you for one very important thing. To save Ana’s life,” he added.

  “Tell me,” Nicolas said. His voice was cracked, distant.

  “I need to know if you know her blood type. Not a guess, but actually know it as giving her the wrong kind could-“

  “A positive,” Nicolas said confidently, without looking up. “Not a guess.”

  “What else do we have here Jon? What are you?”

  “We are both B negative. I can give Finn my blood, but not Ana.”

  Oz was B positive. “Nic?”

  “I am a universal donor,” he said, and he looked at them finally. He gazed at Oz like he was a stranger. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

  Jonathan said moving them could cause more damage, so they would have to do everything on the floor. He gave Oz a list of things he needed him to retrieve, from sheets, to blankets, to boiling water, and random kitchen utensils. Now that they had a plan, Jon seemed to calm some, and had a sense of purpose about him. Oz quickly retrieved all of the items on the list, and by the time he came back, Jonathan had finished tying up all of the open wounds with kitchen cloths. He had also procured some additional equipment that looked as if it had been taken from a hospital. There were two machines for IVs, bags of saline, gauze, needles, and many other things that Oz did not recognize but knew were not found in an ordinary home.

  Don’t ask, he thought. There’s probably an interesting story here but now is not the time.

  Jonathan told Oz how to sterilize all of the items in the bowl, and Oz did. He watched as Jonathan worked to set up the transfusions, moving quickly, but deliberately. Finn and Ana were both still unconscious, but he had slid Ana next to Finn so that he could work on them together. He saw that Finn and Ana’s hands were atop each other.

  “Don’t tell them about her,” Nicolas whispered to him, without looking up. “She wouldn’t want them to know.” He was looking at Ana and Finn’s hands, and Oz realized it had been Nicolas who arranged the contact. He thinks she can heal him; heal them both.

  Oz nodded, saying nothing. He did not want to voice his fear that she may be too injured even to heal herself, this time. For purposes of what we are doing here, I’m operating on the assumption that medicine is the only way to save her. We can’t count on her unreliable ability.

  Jonathan chased Nicolas off, and assigned him to ripping apart sheets for more bandages. Good thinking, Jonathan. Keeps him busy, and we will need them later.

  When Oz brought him the bowl of now sterilized equipment, Jonathan announced, “I need to remove the bullet from Finn.” Oz nodded, and came to his side to assist. Jon extracted a thin pair of tongs from the bowl. “Once we do this, I need you to re-apply the pressure for me. I am going to start drawing blood from Nicolas. While I am doing that, you need to keep Finn’s bleeding down. Once we have enough blood for Ana and Finn, I am going to stitch up my brother. I need you to watch carefully because I am going to need you to do exactly what
I do, to Ana. Okay?”

  Oz nodded again. Jonathan was starting to sound like him. Rational. Oz suddenly did not feel so alone. “Okay, go.”

  It did not take long for Jon to remove the bullet. He found it quickly, and Finn let out a small gurgling cough but did not wake up. He dropped it on the kitchen floor, and it rolled slowly away, under the counter. “Okay, apply pressure.” Oz did.

  Jonathan called Nicolas from his sheet ripping and had him sit in a chair placed nearby. After sliding the needle into Nicolas, the blood moved through the thin tubes and into a large clear pouch. Jon decided that all of the blood would need to come from Nicolas, as Jon needed to be strong and alert enough to handle the medical needs. Nicolas would be left very tired, and weak, but would recover.

  Oz tried not to look at Ana. He could still feel the rise and fall of Finn’s heartbeat, but he was afraid he might look over at her see her lying still. She had been alone and unattended for a while now. I can’t think about her. I have to focus on what is immediately in front of me.

  “There is a bottle of water in the fridge, and crackers in the pantry. Take both and go lay on the couch for now,” Jonathan advised Nicolas when they were done with him.

  Nicolas looked at Ana wistfully, then nodded and went to go do as Jon asked.

  Jonathan came back over to this two patients on the floor. He set the pouch of blood on the sheet and checked both their vitals. “Okay, we need to do this fast,” he said. “This isn’t nearly enough, but we couldn’t take anymore than this without hurting your friend. So it will have to be enough for now.”

  He handed Oz a thin needle and a box of threading. When Oz looked surprised, Jonathan said, “It’s not as hard as it looks.” He positioned himself on Finn’s left side and motioned Oz to sit between the two. “Watch me very carefully. I am going to start stitching up Finn, and I need you to do the same for Ana. Once I finish with his abdomen, I am going to move over to help you finish hers. Start with her head, then her abdomen, then her thigh, then shoulder, in that order. Keep it shallow.”

  “Will she feel this?”

  “If she wakes up, yes,” Jon said. “I didn’t have time to dig through boxes for pain medication, and they don’t have a lot of time.”

  He handed Oz a thick wooden handled spoon that Oz had sterilized earlier. “Put this between her teeth,” Jon said, a he demonstrated with Finn. “So she doesn’t hurt herself if she wakes up.”

  Oz felt the fear rise in him, but he fought it back down each time. He watched Jon carefully, and his hands shook as he went to tend to Ana, but after the first few stitches, he found it was not so hard. She did not wake up, but did wince a few times, so the handle of the spoon turned out to be useful.

  Jon was good as his word; he switched to help him with Ana after finishing with Finn. He was much quicker than Oz and finished each closure twice as fast. When they were done, Jonathan started hooking up the IV needles to each of them, and then the blood quickly started flowing through the tubes.

  “You said it won’t be enough?” Oz asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “We’re going to have to figure out a way to get them to a real hospital as soon as we can. But I don’t know yet how we’ll be able to without working phones.”

  “So now what?” Oz asked.

  “Now we wait,” Jonathan said. “And hope.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight: Jonathan

  Jonathan had taken Oz’s lead. His emotions were running high at the sight of at first his brother, and then Ana. Although he was the only one there qualified to help them, his state of mind made him highly unsuited for the task. Oz had known that, and had understood what he needed to say to get Jon’s focus.

  He was amazed at how well he had done, “operating” on those two. His father would have been proud of this. It was not perfect, by far. Both of their wounds were grievous and potentially mortal. The equipment he used was old and dusty, and he only hoped Oz had sterilized everything properly because he hadn’t had any time to check. Even a little bacteria getting in could cause infections that could kill them in their present state. And they would definitely need a blood transfusion, a better one, soon.

  They cleaned up the area and gently moved both patients on top of layers of blankets, laying even more covers on top of them. They were both resting now, and stabilized–for the moment. They would have to be watched closely as this would be the most critical point of their recovery. Jon tried not to be overly critical of his work. To not worry that all he did might not be enough, and that one or both could still die. Neither was out of the woods. Infection was still a high likelihood, even if things had been sterilized correctly.

  He glanced at Ana, wondering if her wounds would be healed as miraculously as they were before. He had seen many things in his career, but never anything like that. If she makes it, I will have to ask her…

  As he had told Oz, it would be a waiting game. Watch closely, wait for things to pass, and hope that soon they could get out of the house and off the island. The phone lines were still down, and their old radio stopped working years ago. The internet went out before the phones.

  Jon asked Oz how they had come to the island, and all Oz had said was, we can’t get back the same way.

  Nicolas was resting on the couch. Jon had not been sure what to make of his display at Ana’s side. Jon felt protective of Finn when he saw this new man fawning over Ana, but it had hardly been the time to figure things out. Later, as they were cleaning up, Oz did explain beyond the brief earlier introduction. Nicolas and Ana were cousins.

  “Aren’t they a little bit…” Jonathan let the question trail off.

  “Close?” Oz finished. “I don’t know how well you know Ana, but she doesn’t open up very easily to others. Nicolas is her best friend.”

  Still pretty odd, Jonathan thought, but didn’t say it. He had been judged long enough to know it was a hurtful and unfair practice. He had certainly judged Ana quick enough. And then I slept with her. What a mess.

  They were done cleaning up, but there would be no relaxing. Jon prepared to start his vigilant monitoring of the two patients, when Oz reminded him of one huge, glaring, important detail that would have to be dealt with.

  “Oh Christ...Alex,” Jon said, hanging his head. He had been aiming for him when he hit Finn instead. Oz had finished it with one of the cleanest shots Jon had ever seen. Alex had likely died immediately. “What should we do?”

  Oz’s look said, how should I know? But then he asserted, “I’m the one who killed him. I’ll take responsibility.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “No,” he said. “You would not be in this mess if it were not for us. If I hadn’t been such a terrible aim, it would have been me, not you.”

  Oz didn’t argue. They were both clearly tired; the strong ones. “We can’t leave him here in the house. I don’t want Ana waking up to this,” Oz said. “Is there anywhere we can…put him? Until the storm passes?”

  “We can try the boathouse. It’s a little worse for wear after the storm, but I imagine it will be good enough for this.”

  Oz nodded. “I imagine so. Though I have to admit, I’ve never had to give much thought to proper methods of storing a dead body,” he said, and then surprised Jonathan by letting out a small chuckle. We’re both so stressed, but we are repressing it.

  Nicolas appeared in the doorway. The color was drained from his face, but he looked calmer than he had earlier. “I want to help.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine: Nicolas

  They didn’t want him to help. They said he should be resting, that he was too weak to be up and about. He argued, and they argued back. Finally, as a compromise, he was allowed to help by cleaning the kitchen after they removed Alex. He didn’t mind that so much, because it meant he could still be near Ana. No one knew yet if she was going to be okay.

  Oz and Jonathan put on their snow clothes, and sloppily wrapped Alex in a handful of trash bags. Nicolas could hardly register the fact that there was a dead b
ody in front of him, or that Oz had been the one to kill him. It should have been me. I should have pulled that trigger, and then kept pulling it.

  He cleaned up as much of the blood as he could, but ruined most of the dishtowels in the kitchen doing it. He hadn’t realized until now how much blood was in the human body. And this had only been Alex’s. They had cleaned up after Finn and Ana earlier.

  Nicolas threw the dishtowels away and looked toward the dining room. Ana and Finn were asleep in a sea of blankets. Above them, Oz had taped garbage bags over the hole the stained glass skylight had left, but the cold wind slipped through anyway. We’re going to have to move them before long.

  Jonathan had been over to check their pulse fanatically, every few minutes, and each time he had come back with relief on his face. But now Jonathan was outside with Oz, attempting to figure out what to do with Alex.

  Nicolas started to take Ana’s pulse, but realized that he would not know what normal was. Her chest rose and fell with each soft breath, and she looked peaceful, although he doubted that she felt that way. He prayed that she was healing herself; she had never made it work on another, but her ability had saved her own life several times.

  When he had made up his mind about coming to Maine, he wasn’t sure what he had expected exactly, but he could say confidently that it was not this. He never made predictions about outcome. As with everything in his life, Nicolas Deschanel had simply confidently forged ahead, assuming that everything would work out.

  We might have actually saved her. When we came to the house, the situation was already dire, and Alex could have killed all three of them. Instead of lying on the floor in critical condition, Ana could be dead. I probably could have fucking planned a bit more, but the fact of the matter is, if we hadn’t showed up when we did, this would have been a completely different kind of party.