by E. E. Borton
The wounds were enough to motivate me to backtrack a few miles, separating me and the aggressive group. I had no idea how many more were stationed on the other side of the camp. More than likely at least a few of them had more powerful weapons that could finish what the others had started.
Walking with a limp, wiping the oozing blood from my face, I found more reasons to be pissed. As soon as I saw the fire, I knew I had already entered the kill zone of the group that lit it. If I had kept moving forward, I would’ve found nobody sitting around it. They were all in position to shoot once the firelight exposed me. It was a simple trap that I was walking into because my mind was somewhere else. Sam nearly got me killed again.
When I was a safe distance from pursuit, I tried to pinch the pellets out of my arm with no success. I became pissed for a new reason. I had just blown up the one place I could use as an infirmary to extract the lead in a clean environment.
All others aside, I knew the most dangerous reason I was pissed was that, the longer the holes were exposed and the foreign objects were in me, the faster the deadly infection would come. Without proper treatment, even the smallest cut can become infected and kill the host. I had no choice but to extend my route around the trouble and keep pressing on to my uncle’s house.
Reading my map by match light, I saw I had added over six miles to my trip. With a limp and extra distance, there was no way I’d be making it to the river by sunrise. I still wasn’t comfortable being so close to the hornet’s nest I just kicked, so I kept walking, keeping my eye out for shelter. As the adrenaline faded, so did I. The full force of the pain was hitting my nerves, especially in my face. With every heartbeat, I felt it swelling.
After two hours of walking I noticed the black outline of a rooftop on a ridge. As I moved closer I saw that there were no other houses in sight. I took my time walking the perimeter, looking for any signs that it was inhabited. My next round would be close enough to peek into the windows.
The back door gave in without a fight, and I stepped inside with the shotgun leading the way. (I was relieved not to be met by the odor of decomposing flesh.) It was a small house with a total of five rooms I needed to clear. The adrenaline returned as I made my way through the darkness, but subsided quickly when I finished.
I used one of the handful of ChemLights I had left to illuminate and dress my wounds. I sat on the couch in the living room, working my way up from my ankle. I dabbed antibacterial ointment on my finger, pressing it into the hole. Clenching my teeth from the burning pain, I covered each with a sterile bandage. I was hoping the first aid I was giving myself would buy me a few more days before the infection flared.
When – not if – it came, I knew gangrene would soon follow. After that, parts would start dying and falling off. That’s if the sepsis didn’t kill me first. In my book, dying by wound infection is one of the worst ways to go. I was taking my situation very seriously. I had two full doses of a broad-spectrum antibiotic, but that was only a temporary fix for a problem that would return. And antibiotics were far too valuable to use as a temporary fix. Bottom line, I had to get that metal out of me.
Tending to all the holes but one, I walked into the tiny bathroom. When I held the ChemLight up to my face, I couldn’t help but laugh. It looked as if somehow I had managed to stuff an entire plum into my cheek. (And it was damn near the same color.) My upper and lower eyelids were puffing up like I’d been crying for days. Any hopes I had of digging out that particular pellet was lost in the swelling. I’d have to find a way to reduce it before I started cutting on myself to remove it.
After stuffing and covering the hole, I went looking for the room that would allow me some much needed rest. Each had at least one window with easy access to the ground. Unfortunately that easy access went both ways. The best choice was the small room on the back corner of the house. But when I raised the light to inspect my surroundings, I knew I couldn’t stay in there.
Plastered over every wall were posters of boy bands and starlets. Pastel colors from the bed sheets to the ceiling made me think of Easter. When I stood in front of the vanity, I noticed photographs of a young girl, not so different from the one I just killed. In all of them her smile was bright and her arms were around her friends – and theirs around her.
I only saw the dying girl’s face for a moment, but it was burned into my memory with the intensity of the sun. Blood was pouring into her long, blonde hair as she stared up at me. I leaned in closer to look at a larger photo of the girl. The chances of it being her were remote, but there was still a chance. I didn’t care how tired or how much pain I was in, there was no way I could stay in that house a minute longer.
I’m sorry.
I turned to look at the dead home when I passed their mailbox. I knew that girl was trying to kill me and take whatever I had. It didn’t make being the winner any easier. If I had known she was a young girl, would I have pulled the trigger? The answer came too fast.
Yes.
Chapter 34
(Day 30)
Earth, Wind, and Fire
I woke up groggy and disoriented from the painkillers I took before I climbed up into the hay loft of a dilapidated barn. It wasn’t the Hilton, but it offered good cover from the elements. As soon as I rolled over onto my left side, the pain returned, reminding me of the events of the night before.
There was still daylight, but the sun was low in the sky. I crawled over to a window to scan my surroundings. All was quiet.
After a potluck breakfast of an oatmeal pie, candy bar, and a handful of trail mix, I lowered the ladder to the barn floor. As soon as my injured ankle flexed on the rung, a lightning bolt shot up my spine. It was going to be a long night on the road.
When the last rays of sunlight faded into the shadows, I opened the door with the AR leading the way. (I was a little more sensitive to ambush.) After memorizing the route I needed to take to the river, I was determined to make the six mile hike in good time. It took a few minutes for my legs to loosen up, but they were responding well to my commands.
It didn’t take long for me to find the railroad tracks that would lead me to the bridge spanning the Tennessee River. If all my parts continued to work properly, I’d be crossing it in two hours. After that it was only ten miles to my uncle’s house.
Well into my journey, looking up at the late evening sky, I had never seen the stars so bright. Even with only a half moon, the rails and crossties in front of me were easy to see and avoid tripping over. It was a bit warmer than the night before, but not enough to slow me down or cause me to deplete my water supply. In spite of a throbbing ankle and burning face, I was making good time. I should’ve knocked on some wood.
I heard it before I felt it. It sounded like a million metal trashcans were being thrown up the tracks from the river. My first thought was another two-mile-wide tornado. But as I stood there not feeling the slightest breeze or seeing a single cloud, my theory quickly changed. The recent memory of being rudely awakened by a flash flood fired through my head. There was no doubt in my mind I was about to endure another.
If a flood was coming, it had to be biblical. I was still miles away from the river on the high side of the valley. Whatever Mother Nature was about to throw at me, she was pulling out all the stops. I was terrified.
Looking around me, I noticed the only things that could get me off the ground were the trees. I shot into the woods off the tracks to find one I could climb. The pain in my ankle wasn’t going to be an issue for this escape.
My gear was too heavy. Pulling the ripcord to release my pack, I extended the straps and wrapped it around the tree I was going to scale. I made quick work of the knots I tied in both the lanyard for the shotgun and the sling for the AR. I was hoping they would withstand the impact of the water once it reached them. (If everything was lost, at least I still had my pistols on my belt.)
With adrenaline giving me a reprieve from the pain of my injuries and fueling my climb, I headed for the top with haste. Judgi
ng by the sound of the roar, I figured I only had a few seconds before everything beneath me would be under water. Once again my survival was now out of my hands.
When Mother Nature revealed the source of her rage, I realized I couldn’t have picked a worse place to ride it out. It wasn’t a huge wave of water barreling up from the river. It was a wall of freezing wind.
It was as if a lion were an inch from my ear, roaring with all its might. Instead of hot breath, it exhaled bone chilling air that shocked any skin that was exposed. It seemed like I was getting pelted by debris from every direction as the tree was being pushed to the ground.
The initial blast from the wind front had to be moving at least seventy miles per hour. After ten seconds of straining against the attack, the tree gave up. All I could do was hang on and ride it down.
Before its base exploded, the large limb I was clinging to was thirty feet above the ground. I wasn’t concerned about the fall since I was riding on top of it and not under it. I was hoping the extended branches would absorb most of the impact.
They didn’t. I did.
Even with the roaring I heard the bone in my arm snap above the wrist when I hit the ground. It happened at the same time the right side of my face crashed into the bouncing limb coming back up to kiss my cheek. When the tree stopped kicking my ass, the wind started again. It came in waves like an invisible tsunami every ten seconds. All I could do was lie there waiting for more trees to join the party I took to the ground. They were toppling like matchsticks in every direction.
The initial chaos lasted five minutes before diminishing enough for me to stand. It wasn’t easy as the sustained winds were still strong enough to push me around. As my arm throbbed and blood streamed down the side of my neck, I found my gear still attached to the base of the tree below the break. With my injured right arm pressed to my chest, I used my only good appendage to drag my gear back to the tracks. In both directions downed trees and debris cluttered my path. Any hopes I had to make good time to the river were gone with the wind.
As I sat on the rail, I knew it was a good sign that I could move all the fingers on my broken arm. I also knew it was a bad sign I could see the bone pushing up the skin on my forearm. I couldn’t move my wrist at all without searing pain.
It must have taken me ten minutes to maneuver the straps of the pack over my shoulders. I burned another ten immobilizing my right arm with the sling from the AR. I slapped a bandage over the gash on my right cheek and popped a couple of painkillers. (I wasn’t worried anymore about being groggy.) Carrying the rifle with my left hand, I headed down the tracks for the four longest miles I’ve ever hiked in my life.
Things changed quickly in those days. I had survived a month in this crazy world since 8:13. I had a few challenges along the way, but for the most part I had avoided serious injury. In the twenty-four hour period after I blew up my home, I got shot in the face, left arm, rib, and ankle. I had just broken my right arm, head-butted a tree, and tore open the only good side of my face. When it rains, it fucking pours.
The painkillers took off the edge, but the blunt side of my condition still hurt like hell. With every step on my bad ankle, my bad arm responded in protest. I didn’t need my fingers to feel my face inflating to the size of a basketball. My vision was reduced by half from the swelling around both of my eyes. Add the temperature dropping by forty degrees in five minutes and it was a miracle I was still on my feet, let alone putting miles behind me.
The cherry on top of my evening materialized in the form of a foul stench two hundred yards from the bridge. It was the same smell from the body decomposing in the cabin, but multiplied several times. I learned my lesson from the campfire ambush and continued my trek while concealed in the woods flanking the rail line.
Thirty yards from the edge of the bridge, two bodies were lying next to each other. They had been there for a while. There were seven more in various stages of decomposition on the bridge itself. As I maneuvered to a pile of crossties for cover, I used the scope to survey the other side of the river.
Through the crosshairs I saw a man sitting in a chair next to a barrel with a pair of binoculars around his neck. A group of six more men were a few feet behind him talking in a circle around a fire. (They were probably conversing about the fit Mother Nature just threw on us.) All seven were armed with hunting rifles.
After a few minutes the spotter raised the binoculars to his eyes, scanning for movement in my direction. I read the signs lying on the ground with perfect clarity. Take a step on that bridge and you’d be dead before you took another.
I wasn’t surprised there was an armed group at a prominent chokepoint for foot traffic to enter their town. I was a little surprised that the fine folks of Bridgeport were so aggressive with their stranger policy. The people they killed never had a chance to announce their intent or turn around after a warning. There was no sign posted letting them know to cross the river somewhere else. They were gunned down before they knew there was trouble on the other side.
Backing away from my position, I was in no shape to challenge that policy. My new plan was to skirt the river bank and look for a boat to borrow. It had to be something small that I could propel and control with an arm that had two lead pellets in it. I shook my head in disbelief when it appeared a short walk down the riverside trail.
It was perfect. I looked around trying to spot the angel that just dropped it in front of me on my path. After a quick inspection to make sure it was seaworthy, I dragged it to the river’s edge. Before I took the helm I checked the map, counting the number of bridges I needed to float under before reaching the road that would take me into Stevenson. At that point I realized a river route would cut several miles of walking off of the trip. When my feet hit dry land again, I’d be three miles from my Uncle’s house.
Launching the boat, I positioned myself at the oar. I then had another favorable realization. I no longer had to worry about propelling the boat as the more reasonable wind and swift current were doing it for me. All I had to do was occasionally man the oar and work my yacht to the other side of the river. It was looking good that the end of my trip was going to turn out much better than the beginning or the middle. (This time I knocked on the wooden rail right after the thought.)
It was chilly but no longer to the bone as the wind decreased as the minutes past. I wasn’t thrilled to be in a tiny rowboat at night on the mighty Tennessee River, but options were something I didn’t have. Even through the pain of my injuries, I smiled, knowing I was covering ground without having to take those painful steps.
Navigation was simple since all I had to do was keep the stern pointed at the bank I was leaving behind. I’d look over my shoulder every few minutes for the bridges that would indicate my position on the river. It was wide, but I had already managed to pass the halfway point across the middle. I liked the idea of being ahead of schedule for once. I also liked the idea of moving closer to land just in case something happened.
As usual, I didn’t see it coming.
Chapter 35
(Day 31)
The Island
Giving myself a tiny shred of credit, I did see something. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, but I did see it.
Rolling in the swift current, the limb rose out of the water like it was the Loch Ness Monster. The problem wasn’t the limb; it was the giant trunk a few inches beneath the black surface that was the issue. The Tennessee River version of an iceberg torpedoed my flimsy craft, poking a hole the size of a bowling ball along the water line. (When I say poke, I mean ramming me and nearly launching me into the drink.)
My initial reaction from the impact was to reach out with both hands to steady myself against the rails. When I did, I thought I was going to cry from the pain of jerking my broken arm away from my chest. Water was up to my ankles by the time I started laughing.
Of course I’m going to sink.
I worked the oar as best I could to move me a few more feet closer to the b
ank before she went under. I still had a good fifty-yard swim when she did. (At least my vessel was polite enough to stay afloat while I secured my gear.) I wasn’t worried about going down with the ship because my pack was designed to float. With two good fins and two good flippers, the swim ashore would’ve been a piece of cake. I had half a fin and one and a half flippers. There would be no cake eating today.
I knew the only way I was going to be able to swim was with a sidestroke. As soon as I extended my left arm, my broken arm caught fire. I tried rolling onto my back and using my legs for propulsion and steering, but the pack would have none of that. Every time I leaned, the pack would right itself, rolling me back onto my stomach. I didn’t like the idea of removing it, but if I stayed in that position, I was at the mercy of the river. I had time before the last bridge, but I really wanted to get out of that water. (I didn’t want to get ripped open from a treeberg like my dinghy.)
As soon as I released the buckle on the right strap, the river tried to steal my gear, but I was able to hold on to it and roll onto my back. With a white knuckle grip on the straps, I started kicking. After a few minutes I paused to get my bearings. There was no wood to knock on – not that it would’ve helped anyway – but I was making good progress to the bank. It motivated me to kick harder through the pain.
When I went overboard, the water was warmer than the cold air above it. Not much warmer, but enough to delay the inevitable hypothermia that was on its way. There were many reasons why I was concerned about surviving, but I had to focus on the immediate task of getting onto dry land. At least I was moving in the right direction. After kicking for what seemed like hours, I felt my heel hit something solid. At a turn in the river, I was gently deposited onto a sandbar.
Struggling to get to my feet, I was able to walk the last ten yards to the riverbank in knee deep water. The personal celebration for making it to land didn’t last long. I started shivering violently, rattling the broken bones in my arm. I had no choice but to break protocol and build a fire. I wasn’t about to die of exposure after working so hard to stay alive.