by Aborn, A. L.
It seems that the whole world is asleep. The snow blankets everything; here and there, I see tracks in front of houses or smoke from an occasional chimney. But for the most part, the edge of town seems deserted. My heart is pounding; I am imagining dead boys and men running at us. I can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that this ride is uneventful.
This route will not take us through the middle of town. I am glad. I do not know what I dread more: to find the town overrun by people I knew, or to be empty of the people I knew. Either way seems like death to me.
We make good time getting to the highway. The empty sled twists in the wind behind us, but the rope holds. I clutch onto Adam as hard as I can. The last thing I want is to be blown off the back. What would happen if I got injured? Who would fix me?
It can’t have been more than twenty-five minutes since we left, but it feels longer since my brain is in overdrive.
There.
I think I can make out the shape of a car in the ditch, covered in snow.
My car.
My sense of uneasiness returns. I try to push it away. This is necessary. What kind of person would I be if I don’t try to save a child? I try to make a list to calm my racing heart. First aid kit, dog food, food. First aid kit, dog food, food. First aid kit, dog food, food.
The cars that were blocking the road the last time that I was here are no longer in the street. There are no fresh tracks either. Just a lonely patch of highway.
I’m kind of surprised that my car looks untouched. I half-expected the windows to be broken and my first aid kit gone. But, no, it’s still there where I abandoned it. My keys are in my jacket pocket. Part of me had hoped to drive my car back to Ally’s instead of riding with Adam, but that hope seems ridiculous now. Yeah, it has all wheel drive but there’s no way it’s making it through this much untouched snow, let alone out of the ditch.
Adam pulls alongside my car and kills the engine. The silence is deafening. Pulling my helmet off as I climb off the snowmobile, I find myself wanting to ask Adam where he has been these last forty-seven days. Where does he live? What has he had to do to feed his son? Who is wondering where they are right now? Will he lead them back to us, now that he has seen what we have?
I would like to think no to the last question, but there’s no telling what someone will do to protect their family.
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
I walk toward my car and hit the button on the fob to unlock it. As I turn to face the hatch, Adam is still sitting on the snowmobile with his helmet hanging from one handlebar. He is watching me. It sends a thrill through me. He is kind of handsome, though I had never thought of him that way before.
Wait, what?
We need to hurry. Grab all your shit, put it in the sled, and go. Am I really considering what Adam looks like? I guess I have been away from other people for too long. I shake it off and open the hatch of my car.
Wow.
I packed a lot of crap into this car.
Picking through the bags, I search for the one with all my first aid materials. My searching is interrupted as Adam joins me. I refuse to look up at his face.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asks.
“What? No.” The words sound rushed, even to me.
“Do you want to know what happened? That first night?”
I pause. Do I?
Pressing the first kit into his arms, I nod. I continue rounding up items and bags while he starts. “It was crazy. Like, no one expected the power to be out this long. We had a big bonfire over at John’s house. Everyone was drinking and then it just got crazy. Mitch started going on about the end of the world and that we needed to protect our town. The guys started moving vehicles to block the road. Another guy starts yelling about robbing a store. Somebody else pulled out a gun, and the next thing you know, that kid got shot.”
He stops, lost in thought.
I layer the fifty-pound bad of dog food, two plastic bags of food, and the first aid kid into the sled. Adam helps me secure everything with the bungee cords before beginning again. “We didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t call the police. So, I put his body into his car. It didn’t seem right, leaving him in the snow. When I saw the lights of your car, I didn’t know what was happening. It still seems like a blur. I only knew that you needed to get away from us; the mood was ugly. Who knows what they might have done to you?”
Swallowing, I’m not sure whether to feel relieved or disgusted. That night, panic was pounding through me. I felt like it was the end of the world; that everyone was after me. Even people I knew scared me. In a way, I was right. But on the other hand, was it just a group of guys I knew at a party that got out of hand? That they also shared my panic? I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. “Thank you. For sending me away, I mean.”
“I shouldn’t have let you run off into the woods. I should have put you in my truck and driven you to Ally’s. I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok. It worked out, I guess.”
I think back to that first frozen night in the woods. A ride would have been nice. But I was so scared, I probably would have run anyway. I tell him so.
“We should go.”
He nods and starts the snowmobile. I climb onto the back, we make a wide U-turn, and head back the way we came.
We turn off the highway shortly after and make our way toward the farm store. Still nervous that we will run into other people, I let my mind wander. That first night has a new light; how much was real and how much was in my head? I guess I’ll never know.
The farm store is perhaps eight miles from where my car was stranded. We make the journey in less than twenty minutes. My stomach is growling, and the afternoon light is fading toward dusk. The farm store sits in a parking lot of untouched snow. One nineties style pick-up truck sits in the clearing but is covered in snow. Pulling us right up to the front doors, he kills the engine, and we listen for a few moments. No other sounds but the wind through the bare trees. There are no houses near here, and we would see tracks in the snow, but still, my nerves eat at me.
The farm store isn’t a big warehouse building; it’s more like a log cabin-turned-store. Long, informal aisles wander the length of the store. The doors are locked and there are few windows. After a minute, Adam pulls out his gun and aims at the knob. I plug my ears and look away. The sound of the gunshot slams through my chest. When I turn back to the door, the wood is splintered where the deadbolt would be. He picks at the wood and gets the door open.
In the dwindling light, the store is mostly dark. And cold. Adam pulls a flashlight from somewhere in his jacket and aims the beam ahead of us. Some of the shelves have empty space, but it’s not picked through. Near the front of the store, by the registers, is an area advertising a variety of medications. They are in a locked glass cabinet. Adam uses the flashlight to break through the glass and then holds the light for me to look at them. I don’t immediately recognize the names, but they must be similar to those used in humans. There are tablets and injections. I don’t know what to grab. “I’m not sure which one is the best.”
Spying a rack of backpacks, I grab one and bring it to the medication case. Shrugging, we use our arms to sweep as many as possible into the bottom. A sweatshirt from another rack gets packed on top of them to keep the glass vials safe.
Once the medicine is safely in hand, I feel some of the tension in my shoulders drain out of me. We did it. We are doing it. We can save Jake. I feel a smile prick the corners of my mouth. I kneel to zip up the backpack. “Let’s grab some feed and get out of here,” I say.
Adam moves close to me. His boots are only inches from mine. Looking up, I see that his hands are extended to help me up. Tentatively, I take one of his hands. It’s warm and the skin a little rough. My hand feels tiny in his. Pulling me up, I find myself pressed against his chest. Our eyes are locked. I don’t know what’s happening except that my heart is pounding in my ears.
The moment ends. I find myself smilin
g. “Come on,” he says, grabbing my hand to lead me deeper into the store. As we move, I feel most of the awkwardness between us melt away.
As we near the rear of the store, looking for the animal feed, the smell of stale smoke greets us. In one corner, a door to what I assume to be the office sits open. There is a cleared area where shelves and displays have been pulled out of the way. A sleeping bag lays open against the back wall and the blackened bowl of a portable fire pit is nearby. “I think someone was living here,” Adam says into the dark. He moves closer to the office door.
Beside him, I can just see inside the doorframe. There in the office chair is the body of a large man. The top of his head is missing. I look at the floor. A gun lies on the floor where it must have dropped out of his hand. By his feet lies the body of a dog. A German shepherd, I think. My stomach turns and I look away.
The pleasure of just a moment ago evaporates instantly. The grisly scene snaps me back to reality.
Adam wordlessly grabs the gun and shuts the office door quietly.
Silently, we locate the feed bags. I estimate how much we need. Adam goes outside, unties the sled, and drags it back into the store. Grain, chicken feed, and dog food get piled in. It’s too heavy for us to drag back out. He takes half out, drags the sled out, and then we each make a couple trips to get the rest.
It’s now fully dark. In the light of the flashlight, we pack the sled and secure it as best we can.
I climb behind Adam and snuggle in close to his back in the cold. He reaches back with one gloved hand and gives me a comforting pat on the knee.
We are forced to go at a much slower pace on the way back to the house. There must be at least three hundred pounds in the sled. Before we’ve made it a mile, the snowmobile skips ahead unexpectedly. Looking behind us, the sled is being left behind on the trail. I move to tap Adam’s shoulder, but he’s already slowing to a stop. We get off and walk back to the sled. It looks like the knots of the rope untied and pulled through the holes of the sled. In minutes, he has the knots retied and we start again.
Only minutes later, it happens again. “There’s too much weight,” he says.
I try to think quickly. We need everything in the sled. “What if I laid on top and held the rope?” I ask. He considers this and shrugs.
“It will be hard.”
“I know.”
Quickly, I arrange myself across the sled, belly down on the hard bags of food. It’s awkward. I try to use my knees to get some sort of grip behind the food. Adam ties both ends of the rope to the back of the snowmobile and hands me a wide loop to hold on to. Once back on the snowmobile, he turns back to look at me again. I nod.
It’s hard. Way harder than I expected. My lower back hurts from pressing my legs into our precious goods and my shoulders hurt from the pull of the rope. I hold out for as long as I can but have to let go when we are barely halfway back to Ally’s.
“We have to leave it,” I grudgingly say to Adam when he rejoins me.
“We’ll bury it in the snow. We can come back for it tomorrow.”
“Good idea.”
Pushing the sled off the side of the road, I’m almost too tired to help pile the snow on top of it. We use the trees to help cover it but, in the end, anyone who goes by will probably be able to see it. We’ve already wasted too much time with this sled. We have to get back to Jake. I take the sweatshirt out of the backpack and stuff my first aid kit in its place.
Exhaustion leaves my limbs weakened. It feels good to be back on the snowmobile with my arms wrapped around Adam. The backpack full of medicine is pressed between us for safety. I am cold and hungry and just want to be home in front of the fire. With the weight of the sled gone, we speed back toward the house.
Brad is waiting for us on the porch. Adam vaults off the snowmobile. “Is Jake okay?”
“Yeah, he’s sleeping.”
Adam pushes by him into the house. Brad takes the backpack from me and looks around for the sled. “We had to leave it. Too much weight. We’ll go back for it tomorrow. It’s only a couple miles away.”
Brad nods and walks ahead of me into the house. The warmth of the woodstove envelops me like a warm blanket. I shiver in pleasure. My sweet Meekah bounds across the room to me. I squat down and hug her body to me. Her whole body is wagging as she tries to lick my face. Stripping my cold weather gear off, I see Adam bent over Jake on the couch. Ally comes over to me and grips me in a tight hug. “You okay?”
I smile. “Yeah. How’s Jake?”
“He slept most of the time. I’m glad you’re home.”
Joining Adam at Jake’s side, I lay the back of my hand on his forehead. He’s burning up. “Let’s get started.”
I cross the room and grab the backpack from where Brad still holds it. Opening it, I analyze the contents trying to decide what to take out. At the least, he’ll need Tylenol and the antibiotics. Laying the thermometer on the counter, I silently thank God that I wanted to pack everything I owned. Next, I direct my friends: Ally for clean towels and hot water and Brad to clear the dining room table.
Once the table is clear, Adam carries Jake over. “He’s not going to like this. I need to set the break and clean the wound. Then, we can see what we’re dealing with.”
Adam tenderly cradles his son to his chest. Ally brings the towels and starts heating water on the woodstove. We try to make Jake comfortable with some pillows and a blanket. “Can he take pills?” I ask.
“Kind of. Not well.”
Placing the thermometer in his mouth, I get a baseline temperature before we start. It’s 103.2. I take one of the acetaminophens from my bag and cut it into four pieces. Propping Jake up, we slowly feed him some water and the pieces. The water boiling, Ally takes it off the stove and pours it into a cold pot. I want it clean, not hot. Spreading out my supplies, we sit in silence while we wait for the water to cool. “How’s he doing?” I finally ask.
Adam props him up and whispers to him again. “Jake, how are you feeling buddy?” He just tries to snuggle in close to his dad.
“Okay, let’s do this. Adam, I need you to hold him still. I think that he will probably pass out after I set it.” I look up at Adam’s face; he’s pale. “Can you do this?”
His jaw tightens before he nods.
Ally retreats into the bedroom with the dogs. Probably better if she stays away; the last thing I want is for her to faint.
Quickly and firmly, I cut the shirt and dressing away from Jake’s arm. I press it into Brad’s hands and tell him to burn it. The arm is red and angry looking, but it hasn’t spread anywhere. There’s also no black tissue, so all of it should be salvageable. I draw up some of the now warm water into an empty syringe. Carefully directing the stream of water into the wound to wash it out, the extent of the gash becomes a little clearer. Jake struggles but Adam holds him firmly.
When the wound looks reasonably clean, I ask Brad to come help me. He joins me at the table. Gently, I lift Jake’s arm and place his little hand into Brad’s larger. “I need you to hold his arm up, like this. Tightly. Can you do that?”
Always a man of many words, Brad nods again.
“I’m going to set his arm. Are you guys ready?”
They both look away in response.
Firmly, I grasp Jake’s forearm below the wound and dislocation. Taking a deep breath, I pull quickly and steadily straight down, toward the table. A satisfying crunch answers me. As predicted, Jake goes limp as he passes out.
“Lay him down.”
Brad and Adam lay him flat on the table. The disfigurement in the wrist is gone, but I explore the area with my fingertips, looking for abnormalities. “I think it worked.”
“You think?”
“Well, it’s not like I’ve ever done this before. But, yeah, it looks good. Better than it did, at least. Brad, do we have any honey?”
In a moment, he returns with a jar. I liberally spread the honey on the wound before applying a bandage from my kit. Ripping up a clean, old shir
t creates a makeshift sling. Now, for the antibiotics. I take them out of the bag and read the labels and compare. I’m hoping for something broad spectrum and for one of the names to jump out at me. Recognizing one that I think will work, I hesitate. I’m going to have to guess on the dosage. Adam tells me that he weighs around forty-two pounds. Some quick math in my head comes up with a number that seems reasonable. I decide to split the dose into two. Hopefully this is okay, and it works. Please please please let it work. Adam and I feed him the first dose the same way that we did the Tylenol.
When our work is done and my adrenaline spent, I’m so tired that my eyes are drifting shut. Ally serves us all a dinner of stew while Jake sleeps on the couch. Meekah must be worried that I will leave again; she insists on following me everywhere, even the bathroom. Today has been a whirlwind and my mind is spinning with it.
Is something happening between Adam and me? Do I want it to? I find myself smiling into the mirror. I feel like a teenager. It’s been so lonely over the last few months that the idea of more intimate contact leaves me feeling buzzed. But then I remember Jake and it sobers me. I feel like I have done everything in my power to save him.
Before going to bed, I check on Jake again. He seems to be sleeping peacefully. I don’t want to wake him, but I do want to take his temperature again. It’s a little lower, probably just from the Tylenol. At least it’s moving in the right direction.
After saying my goodnights, Meekah and I head up to bed. It feels good to lay down and get off my feet. I haven’t had such an active day in a long time. I’m thinner, from the food rationing, but definitely not in better shape. Thinking about what I can do for Jake tomorrow, I fall asleep.
***
I don’t know what time it is, but the when I awake the house is dark and quiet. Meekah is growling softly beside me. What is it? I hear muffled footsteps on the carpeted stairs leading up to my loft bedroom. Adam?
Yes. I can barely make out his silhouette in the darkness. “Are you awake?” he whispers.
Okay. Now I really feel like a teenager.
I sit up in reply. He sits on the bed beside me. Meekah has stopped growling and relocates herself to the floor. “Thank you.”