by Tom Larcombe
“Okay, the two of you are going to take that end of the blanket, I'll get this one. We'll carry him in and lay him down on the couch.”
Once again, Rynn counted down and they lifted. The blanket held as they slowly moved across the lawn and up the porch. Once they had Todd on the couch, Rynn knelt down beside him.
“Andi, go get the woman out front. Have her come inside. She should know if there's a first aid kit around here somewhere. I'm going to check the wounds for infection and clean them out. Eugene, find something to cover this broken window with. I think Todd will be on the couch for a few days, so we need to replace the window with something.”
Rynn sent her consciousness back into Todd's wounds. She was looking for foreign matter inside the wound channels, especially in the one that hadn't exited. She found lots, bits of the material from Todd's shirt, dirt, and other things she couldn't identify. She slowly eased as much of it out of the wounds as she could. When she was done she was exhausted.
She came back to herself with a sigh. Andi was standing nearby, a first aid kit in her hands.
“Debbie said this was the only one she knows about,” Andi said.
“Go get me some cool water and soap if you can find it. I'll see what's in here to use.”
Rynn opened up the first aid kit and set items aside that she thought she might need.
Anti-bacterial ointment, large sterile gauze pads, tape, that's about all I can use out of here.
She waited while Andi returned with the soap and water, then she cleaned each wound as well as she could. A fair amount of anti-bacterial ointment went around the outside edges of the wounds, then they were covered with a gauze pad and taped in place. When she was done, she sat back and rested for a moment.
That's nowhere near what he's going to need to recover. If I have to, if there's more bleeding, I'll go in and try to cauterize whatever's still bleeding later on. I have no idea what to do beyond what I've already done. I wonder if any of the older kids have taken the basic healing classes. I never did well with that, hardly any water magic to speak of. Maybe one of the kids has it though.
* * *
Andi just shook her head when Rynn asked her if she'd taken the healing class. Eugene wrote that he had, he just hadn't done very well in it. Rynn almost didn't ask Cindy, but when she did Cindy told her that she'd taken the course. Rynn led Cindy into the living room and the girl's demeanor shifted abruptly. It was a drastic change, from Cindy being uncertain and whiny to being brisk and businesslike.
“I'll need water, salt, and sugar,” Cindy said.
Rynn, taken aback by the abrupt change, was caught off guard. A moment later she went to get what Cindy needed.
When she returned with it, Cindy gestured distractedly to the coffee table behind her. Rynn set the items down, sat down in the chair on the other side of the room, and watched.
Cindy was in a trance state. Rynn was familiar with that, it was the same state she'd used when working on Todd earlier. Cindy stayed in the trance for almost half an hour but when she came out of it, Todd seemed to be breathing easier and his color was better.
Cindy immediately mixed some of the water, salt, and sugar together, then drank it down.
“I hate that,” Cindy said, “I use too much energy and have to replace it with this stuff. It tastes nasty though. I'll make some of it for Todd later on also, when he can drink it. It's good to replenish energy when the body's working hard. Keeps you from dehydrating also. For now though I need to get something under him so I can drain the wounds. I'll pour water into the wounds and agitate it to clean them out as well as possible. It'll have to come out the back on the two that passed through him. The other one will be more difficult, but I can probably get that much water back out after I've rested some.”
Rynn blinked. This was a polar opposite from the crying, helpless child she'd considered Cindy to be.
I guess she had no way to deal with the other things that happened. A problem came up that she could handle and she grabbed onto it as a way to cope.
“Just tell me what you need and when you need it. I'll get it for you,” Rynn said.
“For now, I just need to rest some. I used up all my energy on him already.”
“My dad always said he rested and recharged better in the sun,” Rynn offered.
Cindy's face turned green.
“No thank you, I already looked out front. I don't think it would be very restful out there.”
Rynn had forgotten that there were corpses out front.
“Well, go out back then? I'll go clean up out front.”
Cindy nodded and stood. She swayed slightly before getting her balance and heading for the back door.
Rynn stood up and went out the front door. She blanched slightly at the sight of the corpses and steeled herself. She walked over and used her foot to push the corpses closer together. At the sight of the guns she paused for a moment.
No, I'm not going to trust those after the heat I exposed them to, who knows what might happen.
She prepared another fire spell and used it to incinerate the corpses. When she was done, there was a greasy, blackened circle in the grass that contained a large pile of ashes along with some blobs of metal that had melted but not burned.
She went back into the house and collapsed onto the chair.
I'm spent for the day. I should go out with Cindy and get some sun, she thought. Then again, maybe I'll just rest here for a little while.
Before she gathered the will to stand and head outside, she slumped in the soft chair and fell asleep.
* * *
Rynn woke to the sound of hammering. She straightened up and glanced around. Part of the broken window was covered with a board, and it was vibrating in time with the sound.
Good, Eugene found something to board the window up with. I wonder how long I was asleep? Couldn't have been that long, it's still light out.
Another board was placed over the broken window and a fresh spate of hammering rang out. Rynn stood up and walked outside. Eugene had two more boards beside him and a box of nails rested on the porch at his feet.
He was trying to hold the board in place with his knee while using his hands to hammer so Rynn walked over and held the board in place. The process went much faster with two of them and a couple of minutes later the rest of the boards were in place. Eugene pulled out his pocket notebook.
'Sorry it took me so long. I had to measure and then cut some wood down to size.'
Rynn shook her head.
“No need to apologize, you got it done. There wasn't any sort of rush to it, I'm sorry if I made you think there was. I was a little tense at the time.”
He glanced out at the charred circle in the grass and nodded. His expression was slightly queasy when he looked back at her. He wrote on his pad again.
'I guess we're not getting out of here today then?'
“No, we aren't. I think we should try to make sure Todd is as well as we can before we leave. Cindy, of all people, seems to have some talent with healing. We'll see what she can do for him.”
'Keep the little kids out of the barn from now on, okay?' Eugene wrote.
“Why?”
'Todd has a grow operation set up in it. There's a separate building inside, butting up against the southern wall. Sunlight gets in through plastic panels on the wall and roof. He has a small stove in there for heating. Plus there's a lot of old farm implements in the barn, some of them sharp, all of them rusty.'
“You're right, we'll keep the younger kids out of there if we can.”
'What do we do now?' Eugene wrote.
“Rest. We'll get moving again as soon as we can, but Todd was nice enough to help us out, we should do the same for him.”
Eugene nodded and the two of them went back inside the house. Rynn noticed that the living room was much dimmer now. All the light in the house earlier had been coming in through the windows. Now that half of them in the living room were boarded up, it was nearly dark
inside.
Rynn went back into the kitchen and looked through the window for Cindy. She found her lying on a blanket in the middle of the backyard.
“Cindy, can I talk to you for a minute?” Rynn asked.
Cindy opened her eyes and sat up.
“Sure, what's up?”
“I was just wondering, since you seem to have a better grasp on healing than I do, how's Todd doing?”
“If he makes it through tonight and I can work on him again tomorrow, I'd say he's got a very good chance of pulling through. He may lose some function in his arm and leg, unless he works on them a lot, but as long as there's no major infection I think he'll make it. I did my best to ensure that everything that might cause infection was out of the wounds but...”
“I know. You aren't a healer or a doctor. You just had the basic healing course. I'm guessing you did well in it?”
“Well enough that I was offered the more advanced healing course earlier than it should have been available to me. I was going to take that one next semester.”
“Good then. I never had much talent for healing, except for things like viruses or infections, things that you could burn out of the body,” Rynn said.
“Andi said something about that, about your fire skills I mean. Or at least about the results of them. She's very... upset. That's not really strong enough though. Distraught might be better.”
Rynn thought for a moment.
Cindy seems to be pulling out of her funk more and more. I think being involved is what's doing it.
“Do you think I should go talk to her?” Rynn asked.
“I sent her to talk to Debbie. I saw what Debbie looked like and thought that maybe knowing what she went through might help Andi get over what you did to those guys. Plus it would be good for Debbie to talk about it before she tries to bury it away and it starts festering inside of her.”
“I don't want to offend you, but I thought you were just going to be dead weight on this trip. I'm willing to admit that I was wrong though, and glad to be that way.”
Cindy winced and looked down at the ground.
“That's okay. I wasn't reacting very well. I think I was in some sort of shock, or denial. I couldn't believe what my eyes were telling me was happening and thought I could just make everything normal again by acting as though it were. When I saw what happened to Todd and found out that I was his best chance of survival, well... that kind of got through to me when everything else wasn't.”
“You reacted well to pressure. Once there was something you could do about the situation it was alright to admit what was happening?”
“Probably, I don't really want to analyze myself right now. I do promise to be less of a dead weight though.”
“In case Todd doesn't get a chance to say it, thank you for pitching in when he needed you. I don't know how much longer we'll stay here, but I promise you'll get to work on him tomorrow. If you need it, I should be able to feed you some energy if there's more to do with him than you can handle on your own.”
“If we're only going to be here one day, there's certain to be more that I could do with extra energy. Even if we stay for two days I'll take you up on that. I can help him heal faster that way.”
“Well then, we'll both need to eat well and get some sleep. Help restore our energy that much faster. I'll go track down the other kids and see what we can do about dinner.”
Cindy laid back down.
“You were right about lying in the sun. I'm just going to rest here in the sun until it's ready, if that's okay.”
“That's fine. I'll call you when it's done.”
Rynn went back inside the house. She found Eugene with Sean and Randall, exploring down in the basement.
“Rynn, look at all these hand tools down here,” Randall called.
“Looks like Todd likes to build things,” Sean added.
“Well, those are his tools, not ours. So I hope you aren't messing with them,” she said.
Eugene scribbled on his pad.
'I was trying to see if there was a drawing knife or something like that down here. I thought if we'd be here a day or two, I'd try to make Todd a crutch. He'll probably need some help getting around for a bit.'
“Did you find anything?”
'Yeah, he's got one that's larger than I'd like to use for this, but I can make do with it. There's some long sections of wood in the barn that I can use. If he's got a hand drill, I can do this. That's what we were looking for right now.'
“Well, we need to make some dinner. I wanted to ask if you had any of the beef jerky left and if you'd be willing to part with a package of it.”
“Sure, Rynn,” Sean said.
He raced off up the stairs and Rynn followed at a slower pace. Sean gave her two packages of beef jerky before heading back downstairs. Rynn went outside and pumped water. She poured half of it into a pan, added the jerky, and put it on the stove over a low flame.
I'll see what else Todd has in his garden that we can use. He never did finish harvesting earlier. Meanwhile I'll soak some of the salt out of that jerky.
She gathered some radishes, early peas, green onions, and a few greens from the garden. Then she went inside and cleaned them. She chopped up the radishes and their tops, the peas, and the onion then dumped them in another pot of water that went on the stove on a medium flame. She emptied the water from the beef jerky and added the meat to the pot with the vegetables. The spinach and lettuce went to the side, to be served separately.
She let the whole mess simmer for a while, occasionally testing the jerky to see how much it had softened. After about an hour, she added in a cup of unflavored oatmeal from her pack to thicken the stew. Then she let it simmer a while longer.
She went out to get more water for them to drink and let Cindy know that dinner was almost ready. When she got back inside she went looking for Debbie and Andi. They were upstairs in a bedroom and Rynn told them there would be food ready shortly. Then she headed back downstairs. A few minutes later the boys came up from the basement. Eugene was carrying several tools, and it looked like he'd found the drill he was searching for. He set them aside when she told him it was dinner time.
Dinner was not optimal, but at least it didn't taste bad, and it was filling. The high point was Rynn giving in and mixing up some fruit punch out of the drink mixes they'd brought along. When they were done eating, it was getting dark out.
“Debbie, you said you were here before? Does Todd have some candles or oil lamps or something?” Rynn asked.
“He's got some emergency candles over in the pantry. Let me get them.”
The small box held twenty candles. Rynn removed two, leaving the rest for later on.
“I think we should have some light in with Todd, and maybe out here also. When people go to bed later on, I can walk them to the rooms with one of the candles, if they last that long.”
With no power and not much to do, they all ended up in the living room with Todd, who was still out cold. Cindy checked him over and told Rynn that there was no sign of infection yet.
By the time the single candle they lit had burned down to a stub, everyone was ready for bed. The candle didn't give enough light to play cards by so they'd just been talking. By unspoken consent, no-one spoke about what had happened earlier in the day. Rynn was glad for that since she noticed that Andi kept placing herself as far away from Rynn as she could while still staying with the group. Debbie was acting the same way and kept ending up beside Andi.
* * *
Rynn was burning up. She felt the flames consume her and spread out from her. Everything and everyone burned. First Eugene and the younger students, then Cindy. Andi was standing far away from her, pointing and yelling.
“Monster, you're a monster, I knew it!”
Rynn tried to stop the flames with her power, but they fed on it and grew. She dropped to the ground and rolled, trying to extinguish herself. The grass and dirt she rolled across burst into flames. Finally she felt herself f
alling as the ground beneath her burned away to nothing.
She woke when she hit the floor. Her thrashing had driven her out of the narrow bed she'd fallen asleep in. Her stomach roiled and contracted. This time, she knew she wouldn't be able to hold it back, there was nothing else to focus on in the darkness.
She clamped her mouth shut and raced the four paces across the small room. The window opened with a thrust of her hand and she leaned her head out between the curtains and vomited onto the grass.
I burned them up, she thought. I burned them to ashes and it felt right. What's wrong with me? Maybe Andi's right, maybe I'm a monster. But what else could I have done?
She spent the rest of the night awake, sitting in bed. Her attempts at calming herself, at resolving her distress, were only partially successful. By the time the sun rose, she knew that she could maintain a poker face and not let anyone else know how disturbed she was.
I'm so not going to cook this morning. Energy bars it is for breakfast.
Rynn dug a box of energy bars out of her packs and placed them on the table. Then she went out to check on Todd. She sent a small portion of her consciousness into his wounds, examining them.
I don't see any signs of infection. There's some inflammation, but less than I expected. Cindy does good work.
Over the next half hour, her charges showed up downstairs. The three boys had bunked together in one room. Debbie, Cindy, and Andi were in the main bedroom, and Rynn had taken the tiny guest bedroom on the ground floor.
Randall announced himself with a classic.
“I'm hungry, what's for breakfast?”
Rynn settled the students in with a pair of energy bars each, along with some water. She took two of her own before noticing that Debbie was nowhere to be seen.
“Andi, Cindy where's Debbie?”
“She didn't sleep much last night,” Cindy said. “She finally settled down only an hour or two ago. She kept having nightmares and waking up.”
“She did,” Andi added, “and I need to apologize to you. She kept telling me yesterday how seeing you take care of those men had scared her as much as the men did. From the sound of it, all of her nightmares were about the men, not you. So, I think that what she told me wasn't true. At least not deep down. We finally got her to stay asleep by reminding her that those men were gone and wouldn't be back, ever.”