by Max Lockwood
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Evening drew in and Felicia stopped Clara when she was moving on to a different patient. It took her a second to realize there was someone blocking her way, another second for her brain to move out of the state of focus she'd put it into. She looked at the other woman, confused.
"Have a short break to get some air. Come back when you feel like you can."
Then she was gone, leaving Clara blinking, her mind taking a moment to register what the woman said. When she did, though, she felt relieved for a chance to get away from the stench of the place. Somehow, now that she wasn’t so focused on work, it felt like the smell had grown stronger. She removed the gloves off her hands and dropped them with the rest of the waste and made her way outside. The crying didn’t stop, but she avoided looking at anyone as she stepped outside, feeling a little guilty for taking a break when there were still so many people that needed help.
Once outside, she kept her breaths shallow until she was a distance away, before taking deep breaths like she was starving for air. In a way, she was. She'd put the smell out of her mind as she worked, just as mindlessly and efficiently as she did when she taught her students, no matter how different the two situations were. The smell had still been there, but while she was lost in her mind, in her focus, she could stand it.
Now that she was back to herself, it was as jarring as it had been the first time she caught it.
As she stood outside, she suddenly wished she had a cigarette. Though she'd never smoked herself, she knew her mother used to smoke when she was upset to calm herself down. It was something she kept to herself, but the smoke was hard to miss, especially because her mother was a touchy-feely person. She'd give them hugs when they got home, when she got home, when she was happy or had good news to give, or received good news. Clara longed for the smell of them, since it reminded her of her mother.
Thinking of her mother made her think of her father, how happy they both had been, how amazing they were as both parents and friends. After leaving the makeshift hospital, thinking about them made her eyes tear up and want to cry. She hadn't let herself cry for them after the funeral, when she grew so busy until she didn’t have time for anything else.
She had been fifteen, Tessa nineteen when they passed away. Grandmother took to caring for them so they wouldn’t be separated. For some reason neither of them had ever been told, Viola didn’t get on with her daughter, and Clara always thought after their deaths, Viola decided to look out for her granddaughters to make up for her motherly failings with her own daughter.
Clara hadn't cared, she was just thankful to have someone older she could rely on. But Viola was old, and after Clara cleared high school and went to college, she'd had the older woman retire so she could stay at home, and the reliance had fallen on her shoulders, with her sister refusing to even leave the house, let alone that she'd already been declared unfit for employment.
Feeling her limbs shaking, she looked for a patch of wall to lean against. She clenched and unclenched her fists, leaning her head back and staring up at the sky as she fought to hold back the tears that wanted to flow out of her now. If she broke down, it would be all over. When she started crying, she didn’t stop, and it would be like the world had ended for her.
She got even worse than her sister, falling into a state of depression that very little could drag her out of. She had Cooper stay with her that night of the crash in her room before she'd had time to think herself into true depression. If she broke down here, she would be less than useless, and she would go home with that feeling, and it would only make the overall situation so much worse, until she overwhelmed herself.
When staring at the sky didn’t help, she closed her eyes and regulated her breaths. Instead of trying to think about nothing, knowing that would fail, she focused her mind on Viola, on Cooper. Even Tessa. The people that needed her to hold on, the reason she kept on fighting no matter what punches life threw her way. She calmed down enough to open her eyes, her gaze drifting over to the makeshift hospital.
She wasn’t so far away she couldn’t hear the cries of the hurt and the dying. She wondered how many had lost their lives in the time she'd been out here. It couldn’t have been more than a couple handful of minutes.
Then, she remembered the exact words Felicia had used.
"Have a short break to get some air. Come back when you feel like you can."
Go back when she felt she could? If she changed her mind about this, was she free to leave? She'd feel like a coward for doing it, and she wondered how they would think of her for it. Then she wondered why that even mattered. The decision was hers, wasn’t it? But more than what she felt, going back when she didn’t want to be there would only make her a hindrance.
Clara did consider it, though, just leaving and going back home. She might never meet any of the people there again, if she just went back to the station tomorrow and picked another task. What they thought of her wouldn’t matter, and she could pretend she hadn't seen anything.
Her heart lurched in something like guilt just for thinking of it. She wanted to have peace of mind, but she knew people indoors were relying on her to keep them going a little longer. So what if it gave her nightmares, she was going to have them anyway. She'd been gifted with calm nights sleeping next to Cooper, and that might continue, or it might not.
But she couldn’t just give up on those people. She was relieved that no one in her section had died yet, and that their wounds had mostly been minor and treatable. The lucky streak might not last, and she couldn’t say it wouldn’t get to her. But for every one that passed away, there was another fighting for their life, and she'd just have to focus on them.
Just go back. Curfew can't be too far away, so it won't be long before you can leave officially.
She wondered if the other nurses went home; she was pretty sure not all of them did. There was no way she would last the night, though.
Clara took a last breath to fortify herself and went back indoors. As soon as she got in, she realized something was happening. She saw a group of men coming in, and she drifted closer to see what was going on. They were bringing in new patients.
"None of them will make it."
She startled at the whisper in her ear and looked to see Felicia standing beside her, staring at the men bringing people in. Then she registered the words and felt her heart clench. She didn’t doubt her words, recognizing the other woman's experience.
"Nothing can be done for them?"
Felicia shrugged her shoulders. "For some of them, if we had proper hospital facilities, they would have had a chance. But not in the current situation, not when it took nearly three days to pick them out of the wreckage. But we should sit with them until they pass, it's all that we can do for them."
Clara was horrified, but didn’t argue. Even she could see it, as the men cleared out and she got a good look at the people they'd brought in. None of them were in the best of shape, the ones conscious were screaming louder than the injured already there, making everything louder than it had been minutes ago.
The horror was enough to give her second thoughts again, but she went to sit with a woman whose legs had been cut clean off. She was wrapped in bloody bandages, and somehow awake, though Clara thought it would be a mercy if someone had knocked her out. She wondered how long the woman had been like this before she was found, where she had been found. She held the woman's hand, surprised at the strong grip that cut off circulation to her fingers.
She was crying, wracking sobs that shook her frame, and Clara felt like crying along with her. Then she realized the woman was trying to speak, and she soothed her as best she could, leaning closer so she could catch the words, wheezed out on a harsh breath.
"Where are my children?"
Then, she understood. This woman wasn’t just crying for her own pain, she was crying for the loss of her children. Clara didn’t know how to answer her. She didn’t know who this woman was, what her life had been before all
this, where her children could possibly be. Did she leave them home on her way to work? Or drop them off at school first? Or had they been with her? Clara had no way of knowing, and she thought it would only hurt the woman to ask her.
Instead, she tried to calm her down, but she was inconsolable.
She stuck with the woman, even though her head hurt from the cries of the new people in the room. She was going to be walking home with a headache, but she didn’t dare move her hand, even if the woman actually let up long enough for her to pull her hand away. Even when she lost feeling in her hand, she didn’t try to tug away. She imagined her mother in place of this woman, hurt, dying, and pulled out of an accident, and all she thought about were her children.
Then the woman grabbed her arm with her other hand, the grip just as tight as the one on her hand, trying to pull herself up, or Clara down. She leaned down so she could hear what the woman wanted above the noise.
"K—ki—k—"
She frowned. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Please, tell me what you need.”
There was a harsh sob, and then she dug in with her nails on Clara's arm, making her wince.
"P—please. K—kill me."
Clara sucked in a sharp breath, feeling horror, yet again, climb up her throat, and wondered if it would ever go away after this. Instinctively, she wanted to shy away, pretend the woman had never said anything and listen to the screams instead. They were mindless, but in a way so much easier to take than this woman's begging.
"I'm sorry, but—"
She cut off when the woman seemed to finally break down. She'd been crying before, but it was nothing compared to the shuddering of her body now. Clara didn’t know what to do, her heart beating frantically in her chest.
"Please!" the woman sobbed, tugging hard on Clara's arm, though she'd seemed to regain some of her voice and Clara could hear her perfectly now. "Please just kill me! Please."
No, she cried out, in her mind. Ask for anything! Anything else but that. Even if whatever she asked for was the impossible, no matter how bad it could be, nothing was as heartbreaking as hearing someone asking for her death.
This, though, wasn’t something she thought she could do, even for the sake of mercy. But the way the woman was acting, she was going to hurt herself and would probably bleed out, because the bandages she had on were already stained dark, though they'd been at least partly clean, almost fresh. She remembered Felicia's words and agreed with them, the woman wouldn’t last the night, there would be no miracles to save her.
But that didn’t mean Clara could just end her life, even on request.
She looked to Felicia for guidance, the other 'nurse' having drifted closer at the commotion. By the grim look on her face, she'd heard. Clara wondered why she didn’t look as horrified as Clara felt, but her throat wouldn’t work out any words.
"You should carry out the woman's wishes, discreetly."
What! She wanted to scream the word, but it got stuck in her throat. She shook her head rapidly, making her headache worse.
"I can't," She said instead, her voice breaking.
Felicia gave her a look then, and there was something close to pity in her eyes. She moved forward and relieved Clara, pulling a small knife from her pocket. The woman seemed to calm a little, sensing she was about to get exactly what she was asking for. Felicia kneeled by the woman and bowed her head, Clara could hear her saying a short prayer, before slitting the woman's throat.
Clara just stood aside, not wanting to, but unable to stop watching. Her mind whited out what she was seeing, didn’t want to accept it. But there was no way she could run away from it. She watched the woman's body seize up and shudder, slowing down to twitching before she was still. There wasn’t a lot of blood, it didn’t look like when it happened in the moves, blood spraying out of the cut. A lot of it must have bled through what was left of her legs.
Once her body went completely still, Felicia held a hand over her eyes for a few second, then cleaned her knife on the woman's clothes, put it back in her pocket and stood up. Then turned to Clara who still stood there, frozen.
"Don’t beat yourself up over it, it would be a waste. You need to adapt to the environment and get used to death. If you don’t, it might just drive you insane."
"But…"
Clara wished she could unsee the past few minutes—hell, the entire day. What had she been thinking, that she could actually handle any of this and not come out unscathed? She wanted to wash her eyes out with bleach, even knowing it would hurt, and she wondered, a little hysterically, if Cooper would let her do it.
Felicia seemed to notice she was becoming a little unhinged. The pity was back in her eyes, though Clara could see more than that. This was a hardened woman that had obviously done this kind of work before, Clara assumed she was a qualified nurse. Because the unidentifiable emotion told Clara that the other woman had seen illness, injury and death so many times before, but she was devoted to her job, her patients. But Clara could also see that the stress weighed on even her.
She neared and put a hand on Clara's shoulder, squeezing hard until Clara met her eyes.
"I'm sorry that you've led a mostly sheltered life. I'm not old enough to be your mother, I'm only thirty nine, but I'm twice divorced with three kids, I know an innocent when I see one. I am so sorry you had to see that, Clara. The world is a screwed up place. The only way not to let yourself go crazy, is to not let it get to you. I'm asking a lot, you don’t need to like what I just did, but death is a fact of life that won't go away by burying your head in the sand."
She said that, but Clara didn’t think she was. She hadn't thought much about her death until the crash, when she evaded it. It was something that existed that a lot of people didn’t pay particular attention to, but she knew it was there, just waiting for all of them.
Clara remembered that couple in the car, the one she'd gone to help, only to run when the plane rolled over. They must have died, Clara just hadn't gone back to check on their car. But that was different, she hadn't heard them scream, hadn't watched them die right before her eyes.
Clara realized it was a completely different thing, to know, and to see it firsthand.
"Go home for the evening, try to hurry back before curfew. Come back in the morning if you still think you can handle it."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was just growing dark by the time she made it to her neighborhood, though she hadn't been paying much attention. She could have walked herself right into a ditch, her body moving on muscle memory to get her home. Anything could have happened, but she just felt apathetic right then, like nothing mattered.
Clara arrived at home, and the first thing she saw when she let herself in was Viola. It hit her first that she could see, realizing as she glanced around that some candles had been lit and placed around the room. She wondered where they'd come from and how long they would last. They didn’t seem to be the scented ones her sister was always using, though.
Her grandmother seemed to be confused again, but the look cleared before Clara had to go through the routine of reminding her grandmother of who she was and the situation going on around them.
"Ah, Clara. There you are. Did you know there aren’t any lights on anywhere?" Then she smiled. "Oh! How was your day at school?"
Viola kept forgetting. It was the nature of her condition, she forgot random things, sometimes she would remind her but the older woman would act as if she didn't know what Clara was talking about. She was lucky this time, Viola had recognized her without prompt, but she'd forgotten everything before the accident, and Clara wondered just how much. She wondered if she was going to have to tell her about all of it, explain everything that had happened to her, as if living through it hadn't been bad enough.
No.
The word quivered in her mind, not strong enough to be a thought. She didn’t want to, but after the awful day she'd just had, she burst into tears.
She had been trying so hard not to think about it, but
she couldn’t handle her grandmother right then. It wasn’t the older woman's fault, and when she saw, through her stream of tears, the older woman's face crumpling in concern, she only cried harder.
Somewhere inside the house, Cooper must have heard her, because Clara could suddenly hear loud, thumping footsteps through the sound of her loud sobs. He came running, and Clara was suddenly enveloped in warm, strong arms, like so many times before. Forget trying to be strong, she let herself fall into his embrace as she continued crying her eyes out.
He was saying something, rather than hear it, she could feel it where she pressed against him, vibrating through his chest. They stood like that for several moments, but then he pushed her away. She felt panic spike her chest, but he didn't let her go, keeping his hands on her arms and shaking her a little.
Clara wiped at the tears flowing from her eyes until she could see his face. The twisting of pain and concern in his own face made her try to calm herself down. After a moment, she managed to calm her near hyperventilating to ragged breaths. Her body gave one hard shudder, and she could see his concern ratchet up a notch. Once she calmed down a little, he was speaking again, and Clara heard him this time.
"Clara, what is it? What's wrong? Did something happen to you?" he fired rapid, frenzied questions at her, asking them too fast for her to answer even if she could have.
But the itch in the back of her throat wouldn’t let anything out. So she just shook her head, but for his sake, she tried not to lose herself again. As long as she wasn’t alone, she would have to be okay.
He stopped the questions, seeming to realize she couldn't answer and he wasn’t making anything easier acting so panicked. He led her farther inside the house and she followed to the living room where he sat her down on a seat. The candle in the room was somewhere out of her vantage point, and she remembered the night he walked into her room with a candle and noticed it was irritating her eyes.