The Island - Part 3

by Michael Stark

  Keith scratched at his newly forming beard. In a few days, he’d start looking like Joshua. “When do we start?”

  “Now,” I told him. “I’m going out back. Elsie’s friend said there’s a tank out there with kerosene in it that we can use in the extra stove in the kitchen. There must be a cut-off somewhere. The stove wouldn’t light when she tried it.”

  The heavy set man nodded. “I think I saw the tank. There’s a big square box-looking thing up on top of the shed out back.”

  “I’ll check,” I said. “You find a big pot and fill it up with water.”

  I turned to find Elsie still in the kitchen. “We should do it down here, don’t you think? We’re close to the stove and lights.”

  She looked up and nodded. “We’re going to need as much light as we can get. You might as well fire up the lanterns too. But yes, the bar is flat. We can lay him out.”

  “Good enough,” I said. “Then let’s get busy and get it done. It would be nice to sleep a little tonight.”

  I took one of the lanterns and went out back. Sure enough, a foot below the box-like structure mounted on top of the shed, gleamed a brass fitting. The knob on it had three settings. Next to the little marks rising like brail dots on the housing, a neat little letter had been stamped. One said K, another S, and the final one read OFF. The indicator on the dial pointed to the off position.

  Figuring K stood for kitchen, and S for the station, I rotated the knob to the S setting. Liquid hissed through the tubing below.

  Back inside, I tried the stove and quickly brought it to a flame. Keith had the biggest pot in the kitchen ready with water and sat it on the burner.

  By the time the water came to a boil, the impromptu operating room was as ready as we could make it. I had the first dose of anesthetic ready to go. Charlie’s notes left much to be desired on the topic, basically indicating the dosage. Next to the numbers he had written a simple “as needed” - which didn’t help. As needed might be every ten minutes or every two hours. I laid three more syringes next to the bottle of Ketanest just in case we needed them.

  Keith had the meat cleaver, bone saw, and scalpel stuffed inside the pot. Elsie had pulled out a tiny sewing kit not much larger than a book of matches. It looked like one that had lain inside Angel’s sink drawer for years. She strung a needle as I watched and slid it down in the steaming water to sterilize.

  Tyler came up with me to administer the first shot. Joshua and Denise stood just outside the sick room, silhouetted in the yellow light pouring through the open doorway. Given his height, and the wild tangle of hair venturing over into Rastafarian realms, Joshua seemed huge. Had I been sleeping and woken to the sight of his wide figure framed in lantern light, I might have sworn a troll or ogre had stood at the end of the hall.

  Gabriel lay limp and sweating, the bandage on his lower leg sodden with discharge. I tried to wake him. The most I could get out of him were a few incoherent words. That was enough. I needed a gauge. If the man didn’t babble after a few minutes, we’d at least know the drug had taken effect.

  I’d been on the receiving end of enough shots to know the basics. At least, that’s what I thought. I knew the drug needed to go in a vein to take effect quickly. That’s where life grew complicated. It took forever to find one. I ended up fetching the tourniquet and tying it tightly around his upper arm.

  Nurses made the process look easy. They leaned over, picked a spot, and slid the needle in. I followed the same steps, terrified of poking a hole all the way through and blowing the vein. Blood trickled down his forearm when I pulled the needle out. When it was finally done, I stood up, not knowing if I’d just killed the man or put him under.

  Tyler, Joshua and I carried him down and stretched him out on the bar. Elsie had put down a clean sheet. Keith had fork in hand ready to fish tools out of the steaming pot. I felt like laughing at the absurdity of it all.

  I don’t want to make light of the procedure, but all in all, it turned out to be fairly simple. I placed the tourniquet a few inches above his knee and pulled it as tight as I could. We used the Betadine around the area where the cut would take place. The scalpel slid through the flesh with little resistance. I worked my way down to the bone in a circular motion around the leg rather than trying to cut straight through it. The tendons were the worst. Even with the tourniquet, blood went everywhere, oozing and sometimes squirting from the open wound until my hands and the sheet were soaked. The bone saw made short work of the bone. All in all, half an hour after we’d started, Gabriel laid one leg short.

  Cauterizing the stump was, to put it mildly, horrible. The smell that rose from the steaming flesh could have gagged a corpse. I also had no idea if I was burning it enough or not. In the end, I prayed silently that the process would not be one I’d ever have to repeat.

  Once Elsie had the bandages in place, I drew up a shot of the Gentamicin. I knew he needed the constant flow of antibiotics that an IV would provide, but had neither the skill nor the proper equipment. The shot wouldn’t be ideal, but at least it would get the drugs in him.

  With the leg gone, we set about cleaning up. Keith and Tyler took him back upstairs. I pulled the corners of the sheet up, wrapped the amputated member inside, and carried the whole mess out the back door. Elsie used the Betadine and boiling water to scrub the bar top down. Once we were done, aside from the medical supplies still scattered across the table and the faint stink of burned flesh drifting in the open room, no one would have suspected that we’d just cut off a man’s leg.

  The clock read 3:32 when Elsie and I opened the back door and sat in the enclosed landing to smoke. She’d brought two glasses with an inch of amber fluid swirling in the bottom. One sniff told me that Johnny Walker would be keeping us company.

  Tyler went to bed first after washing himself with the steaming water from the pot. Keith soon followed. I’d already cleaned the blood off my hands, but still felt nasty enough to head for the shower and its cold water. Elsie still sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee when I emerged. She waved at the clock and said she’d just stay up. I looked at it and saw nearly an hour had passed since we’d taken Gabriel upstairs. I could see her point. The old woman was usually up by five am. Thirty minutes of sleep wouldn’t make much difference in the grand scheme of things.

  I had no intention of staying up. Exhausted didn’t quite describe how wasted I felt. Other than a couple of hours in the hammock the afternoon before, I’d not slept much in two days. I stood in the weak light, studying the room and swaying on my feet. My sleeping bag still lay crumpled in the corner where I’d left it after my nap. The thought of the bag rolled out and me in it seemed heavenly.

  “I’m going down the beach again tomorrow. We have to get those people up here. I’ll take the dune buggy and go as far as I can.”

  Elsie raised tired eyes.

  “Tomorrow is already here. I think you should stay here and rest up. There’s plenty to do around this place and one day isn’t going to make that much difference.”

  Aside from the fact that she was right, I didn’t feel like arguing.

  “We’ll see,” I told her as I headed for the sleeping bag. The cloth felt wonderful. I could have been settling into a king sized bed cushioned by clouds for all the thought I gave to the floor under me.

  Sleep came quickly, and thankfully, the dreams stayed away. I slept until 10 a.m. the next morning. Even then, I didn’t come awake on my own, but by the sound of screams piercing through the old building.

  I bolted upright, fighting with the covers to get on my feet. My mind refused to work. I could hear the wails echoing through the wooden halls, but couldn’t figure out which direction to turn.

  Elsie solved that problem when she rushed out of the little bedroom near the bath and flew up the stairs. I took off after her and hit the stairs running. My mind still hadn’t engaged enough to process rational thought, but my feet seemed to understand that my body needed to be elsewhere.

  At the top, Elsie stoo
d next to the sickroom. Kate leaned against the door outside, shaking and crying. Denise walked past me, her face pale. Beyond the old woman, I could see Joshua and Keith standing inside.

  I pushed my way through them. When I passed the door and turned, my mind struggled with the scene laid out in front of me. Gabriel lay face down on the floor. A perfectly round and familiar looking piece of wood had been driven straight through his body.

  “He was fine this morning,” Kate sobbed. “I checked on him. He was awake. He wanted me to sweep out his room.”

  I stared at her, confused. Nothing she said made sense.

  “I did it. He said to leave the broom.”

  At the last sentence, a light clicked on. I turned and looked around until I found the bottom half of the broom. The handle had been broken in two.

  “What the fuck?” I said out loud.

  “When I came back,” the girl cried, “he had snapped the handle off and had the pointed end against his chest. He grinned at me and said, ‘I started growing claws.’”

  Her voice faltered.

  “Then he fell on it. Oh my God, he fell on it.”

  “Easy girl,” Elsie said and put her arm around the younger woman. “That infection had his mind confused. It’s not your fault.”

  I walked over, careful not to stumble across his one good leg splayed out on the floor.

  Gabriel hadn’t been confused or hallucinating. I’d seen fingers like that the night before, on a frail old woman who had turned into a snarling beast right in front of me. I eased him over enough to see what lay underneath. Blood pooled black and thick against the wooden floor.

  “No,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t the infection. At least, not the one you’re talking about.”

  I looked up into staring and expectant eyes. I had a lot to tell them. They weren’t going to like any of it.