Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  As he grabs my hand, his fever hot skin grinding against mine and his grip like steel shackles on my wrist, I know the score. I know I’m going to die here like this, lying on my back still half blind with my pants pinned to my shins and my junk exposed to the world. It’s not dignified and it’s not right, not by a long shot. I’ve come so far and to go out now like this? What the hell kind of justice is that?

  In an instant I’m burning with rage, growing hotter than the infected SOB drooling on my hand. I know that I’m not dead yet, I’m not done and I will do whatever it takes to keep it that way. I cry out when he sinks his teeth into my hand, but it’s not with pain. It’s anger, pure and simple. I let it take the wheel. My arm, my free arm with my sharpened blade, is already making an arc across my body. I close my eyes and picture Ali by the firelight. Then I do as she told me.

  I do what I’ve gotta do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Al! We got a problem! Get out here!”

  I hear the door to the RV bang open, feet pounding across the dry earth. My hearing is crystal clear for a moment, my sight spot on and crazy sharp. The stars in the sky are poking through the clouds, shining down right into my eyes. I can feel their heat. I wince against the light. Then it’s fuzzy again. Underwater and weird. The stars go from white to yellow to red. I hear voices but I can’t understand what they’re saying. It sounds like Syd and maybe like Ali, but both of them are in slow motion, their voices too low or strange to make sense.

  My body is slammed onto the ground and I open my eyes wide in shock.

  “—happened? Is he alright?” Ali asks, her voice becoming high and strained.

  “No. He’s been bitten.”

  “What?!”

  I struggle to look at her, to find her with my eyes to show her I’m okay, but I can’t focus. The second I find her face it blossoms into three and I lose it again.

  “No, no, no, no.” She’s chanting nearby but I still can’t see her. I think she’s holding onto my hand. I can feel a tugging on it. It’s too hot. I want to tell her to let go but I can’t find my tongue to make it work.

  “Al, look at me,” Syd says sharply. “He’s been bit and he’s in shock. We need to stop the bleeding now.”

  Alissa says something that I can’t understand. I start slipping again, the world fading out. There’s silence for a while. It could be a minute. It could be an hour.

  “I need you—me the skill—off the fire.”

  “Are y—can’t—pain.”

  “Now.”

  There’s silence again. I begin to float into darkness, which is alright. The heat on my hand is gone and I’m grateful. All I want to do is sleep. I’ll sleep it off and wake up in the morning to try again. Reset. Reboot. Retry.

  “Look away, Al,” Syd says loud and clear.

  I wonder briefly if he’s talking about me. Are my pants still down?

  Then I’m screaming. Whether in my head or in the world I don’t know but the pain is so strong I can’t begin to care. I just need to find a way to escape it. To let it out of me or run away. My hand is burning again, way worse than before. I thrash wildly, trying to pull it away from the heat, but I’m trapped. A weight drapes across me, a sweet smelling, softness that pins me to the ground and lets my body burn into agonizing ash. My breath runs out and the screaming stops though the pain carries on. I’m whimpering, trying to pull in air to scream again but I can’t find it. My throat has closed off and my brain is hitting eject over and over and over. Why am I still conscious?!

  “What now?” Alissa asks, her mouth near my face. Her body is still pressed heavily over mine.

  If she’s talking to me, I don’t know what to tell her. I’m thinking the sweet release of death wouldn’t be so bad right about now. The pain pulls back for a moment, allowing me to get a breath in. I’m going to ask her what happened, how to stop the pain, but then it rolls back in, slamming against me and destroying my mind. I let my head roll to the side and I vomit, hoping some of the agony goes with it.

  Alissa lifts herself off me to roll me to my side. I vomit again, harder this time, but at least I’m not going to choke on it now. I finally feel my mind begin to slip again. I lie perfectly still, willing it to tap out. For the dark to take me.

  “Now,” Syd says solemnly, “we wait.”

  ***

  The last thing I knew when I passed out was pain and it’s the first thing I experience when I wake up. I try my hardest to go back under, to pass out again and run away from the hot agony in my hand. It’s no use. The harder I try, the more awake I become and the more pain I feel. As far as I can tell, I’m clenching burning hot embers in my right hand. I start to groan and writhe as I come to. I can tell from the smell and sounds that I’m in the camper. We’re on the move. I find it odd that we’re leaving our spot. It’s something we agreed we wouldn’t do until late the next day. Unless I’m Rip Van Winkle, I haven’t been passed out long enough for it to be that late.

  “Jordan?” I hear Alissa call from far off. She must be sitting up front. “Are you awake?”

  I try to answer but it comes out garbled and incoherent. My mouth is a barren desert, my tongue sticking to the insides of my cheeks.

  “Hey,” Alissa says softly.

  I feel the cool skin of the back of her hand drift across my sweating forehead. It’s heaven. I try to open my eyes or form words to tell her how good that feels but nothing is coming easy. As I become more aware of my body, I’m noticing more aches and pains than the fire in my palm. My entire body is clammy and I feel sick to my stomach like I have the flu. I struggle to remember the last thing I ate but I can’t think of it.

  “Here. It’s water. Drink it slowly if you can, alright?”

  The thin plastic of a straw touches my lips. I peel them apart painfully. They’re chapped and bleeding and when I form them around the straw, I feel them crack. I suck in the lukewarm water and nearly vomit on the spot. I start to cough, the water cascading out of my mouth, spilling down my chin and spraying out in front of me. I probably just drenched Alissa in spit but she’s dabbing up the water off my incompetent face like nothing happened. I’d be embarrassed if I wasn’t so worried about dying.

  “Wh—“ I try to ask. I lick my lips and taste copper. “What’s wr—“

  “What’s wrong?” she supplies, trying to save me the unbearable effort of speaking through my parched throat.

  I nod.

  “We’re worried you’re forming an infection.”

  “Considering the circumstances,” Syd calls quietly from up front, “there’s no way you wouldn’t be.”

  My eyes finally manage to open. It’s dark in here. It must still be night outside. I can see Alissa’s outline kneeling beside me on the bench seat. I struggle to make her clear.

  “The Fever?” I croak, panic welling in my chest. They need to kill me now. Why am I still with them? They can’t cure this!

  “No, not The Fever,” she answers quickly, pressing her hand lightly on my chest. “You were bitten but you don’t have The Fever. I promise you. We waited it out to see if you’d get it but you didn’t.” She smiles at me. It’s beautiful but it’s strained. “You survived, Jordan.”

  “How?”

  Her smile falters. She casts a glance at Syd. “You don’t remember?”

  I shake my head, swallowing hard. “No.”

  “Alright.” She takes a shaky break but looks me in the eyes. She’s in focus now, acutely and painfully. I can see every crease of worry. Every pinch of concern. “An infected attacked you in the woods. He bit you on the hand. You—you saved yourself by removing the hand.”

  Removing the hand. Like taking off a hat or shedding a coat when it gets too warm. It sounds so simple. So sensible. Logical. It was bitten and infected. Time to take it off.

  But unlike a hat or a coat, you can’t put it back on.

  I don’t look at it. I already know, I don’t need to see it. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the last thing I need
right now. The absolute pure hellfire radiating from that hand, a hand that doesn’t actually exist anymore, is confirmation enough that she’s telling the truth. And why would she lie? No, I know it’s true. I’m starting to remember it now. Bits and pieces, flashes and memories, all of them leading up to a crowning moment that I can’t quite reach. I can’t relive it, not yet. Maybe not ever.

  My body begins to tremble uncontrollably.

  “I’m so sorry, Jordan,” Alissa says, taking my existing hand in hers.

  I nod my head, feeling my throat closing off and my eyes sting with tears. I’ve lost my hand. Now I’m about to lose my dignity because I’m going to start crying. I don’t know if Alissa sees it or senses it, but when I look at her again she’s beat me to it. Tears are falling down her face like rain. A shuddering whimper escapes her lips.

  “Ali?”

  “I’m so sorry!” she cries. “It’s just so—“

  “I know,” I reply, squeezing her hand. Tears fill my eyes, blurring my vision again. “It’ll be worse than before. Without my hand I’ll be nearly useless and—“

  “Fuck your hand!”

  I blink. “What?”

  She throws herself onto me, covering my feverish body with her own. She’s holding onto me so hard it hurts. Her body shudders against mine with each sob.

  “You’re alive,” she breathes. “You’re alive. You’re alive. I don’t care if you have one hand or a hundred, Jordan, you’re alive. You’re alive.”

  She chants it over and over again as her tears seep into my skin. As her words seep into my mind. Alive. Alive. Alive. My own tears dry in my eyes as she sheds them for me in a different vein than I could have imagined. Joy. She’s joyful and rapturous, pure hope as she holds me. As she kisses me. As she tells me again and again that I’m alive.

  “I love you,” she whispers, “and you’re alive. You’re alive.”

  And for the first time in a long time, I think I really am.

  ***

  It doesn’t take long to figure out where we’re going. It’s where we were always going, only now we’re heading there a lot faster. I groan as the RV skids to a halt, the motion throwing me forward and cracking my head against the wall. Syd lays on the horn again, three long beeps, then he and Alissa jump out and run to the gate. They’ve left the doors open. I can hear them screaming.

  “Help! Help us! Please!”

  “We need a doctor! Help!”

  It feels like they’re screaming forever. I start to wonder if the good people of Warm Springs are actually as hospitable as they seemed or will they ignore our pleas and leave us out here to die. Then I hear the roar of engines. Headlights flash inside the RV, illuminating it harshly. I hear them skid to a stop as we did. The creaks and bangs of doors opening and closing.

  “What’s happened?” an unfamiliar male voice barks.

  “Our friend has been hurt and he needs a doctor,” Alissa calls out, her panic quivering in her voice.

  “Why? How is he hurt?”

  “He’s lost his hand,” Syd shouts, cutting Alissa off as she began to speak. “He’s in shock. Lost a lot of blood. He probably has an infection from the axe.”

  “Is he running a fever?”

  Syd hesitates only a heartbeat. “No.”

  There’s a long tense silence.

  “Please, he’s in so much pain,” Alissa calls out, openly weeping. “He doesn’t have The Fever, I swear to you. Just look at him and you’ll see that.”

  Another pause. Another year of my life disappears in the roiling hot agony of my existence. Then I hear chains moving. Metal clinking against metal.

  “You two step aside, over there. Anders, you and your team cover them while I go in.”

  I hear the yawning moan of the gate as it opens. Footsteps slowly approach.

  “There better not be any surprises in here,” he mutters.

  “There’s not,” Alissa promises. “Just him lying on the bench. He’s the only one in there.”

  The RV rocks gently to the side as heavy feet come up the small stairs. I open my eyes again, wondering when they closed, to find a tall shadow standing over me holding a gun. I can’t see his face but he looks down at me for a long time, watching and waiting.

  “What’s your name?” he demands.

  I lick my lips gingerly. “Jordan. What’s yours?”

  Silence.

  “If you’re expecting me to shake your hand,” I tell him, “I’m afraid you’re outta luck.”

  “How’d you lose that hand?” he asks quietly. His voice is emotionless. Empty.

  “I—“ I have to take a deep breath against the pain. The mere thought of what I did to myself is sending tendrils of red hot agony through my arm, up into my chest where it squeezes my heart near to bursting. “It had to go.”

  “You cut it off yourself?”

  I nod as I let my eyes fall closed again. The room is starting to tilt.

  “Were you bitten?”

  I force a chuckle. “See any marks?”

  “That isn’t what I asked.”

  “I don’t have The Fever. Feel my head. I’m freezing.”

  “Still not what I asked. Have you been vomiting?”

  I don’t respond. I’m fading out. I can’t reopen my eyes and I feel my limbs going slack.

  “Jordan!” the man shouts. I’m being moved, shaken roughly. “Open your eyes, kid. Hey! Open your eyes!” Fingers press into my neck, feeling for a heartbeat. I really hope he finds something because I’m beginning to wonder if I have one. I hear the man mutter a curse then he’s gone, out of the RV like a shot out of a gun. “He’s fading! Get him in the back of the Jeep! Call ahead and tell them to wake one of the doctors. Not the quack, get the real one. One of the nurses couldn’t hurt either.”

  “Is he infected?!”

  “No bite marks!” the man calls back vaguely. “But he’s lost a lot of blood. He’ll probably need a transfusion. Do either of you know his blood type?”

  “No,” I hear Syd reply from the doorway.

  He and several other sets of feet leap into the space with me. Hands are lifting me up quickly. I hear grunts and grumbling as they haul me out of the RV out into the night. I’m fighting to stay awake because even though I prayed for oblivion before, I know from their reactions to my condition that I need to stay awake. Otherwise I may never wake up again.

  “I’m O positive,” Alissa says, her voice coming from a shadow near my head.

  “Good. You’ll ride with him in the Jeep. The doctor will need you.”

  “Being a universal donor,” a woman running beside us says, “he’ll probably want you to donate more than just this once.”

  “He can have as much as he wants so long as he helps Jordan,” Alissa tells her.

  “You’ll have to sit up, son. There’s no room to lay down.”

  “I’ll sit beside him,” Alissa says quickly. “He can lean on me.”

  I’m hoisted up into a sitting position beside Alissa. I have the strength to sit up straight but I lean against her anyway, resting my body against hers. She carefully takes my left hand, threads her fingers through mine and holds on tightly as the doors close. We take off immediately. This ride is smoother than the one in the RV. I suspect we’re on a true road or at least a good imitation of one instead of bounding across the open terrain. I wonder briefly where Syd is, but then my injured arm bumps against my leg and I feel like screaming. All thought rushes out of my head in a fierce burst of air through my teeth.

  “We’ll be there soon,” Alissa coos in my ear. “If they could get my meds, they have to have pain killers. They’ll be able to help you.”

  “Yeah,” I say through gritted teeth, feeling sweat rolling over my cold, clammy skin. I’m trembling again. “If they don’t put a bullet in my head first.”

  She doesn’t respond to that because what is there to say? I’m lucky that I’ve gotten this far inside. The guy who told them to load me knows I was bit. He knows what I did to m
yself. I’m not sure why he let me in anyway. Maybe he wants to see if it worked. I know I’m curious. But once I hit their quarantine area where people are trained to watch for fever and to cure it with a bullet, I’m as good as dead.

  It’s not long before we come to a stop. Before the doors are thrown open and Alissa and I come face to face with a large tent that looks like one of the ones in the makeshift village across the river. Exactly like one of the tents across the river, in fact. A stretcher comes rolling out of the doorway followed by a middle aged woman with a stethoscope around her neck and pink, flowery scrubs.

  “The doctor is on his way,” she tells the people pulling me from the Jeep. “Did I hear right? He’s missing a limb?”

  “His hand,” Alissa tells her, sounding suddenly calm.

  “And how’d that happen?”

  “He’s a clumsy woodcutter.”

  There’s a disbelieving pause. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Uh huh. Fingers I’d believe, hon, but his whole hand?”

  “He has terrible depth perception.”

  “I was drunk,” I mumble, trying to help.

  “Plus he was drunk,” Alissa agrees.

  Another pause. “Well, we’ll check his eyesight and liver while we’re at it.”

  “Hand first,” I groan.

  They ignore me as I’m whisked inside the tent.

  I’m blinded by the lights hanging from the ceiling, glaring like several small suns burning into my retinae. My head is suddenly throbbing to my heartbeat, something I can feel in the ebb and flow of pain in my hand as well. I hear the nurse talking to Alissa about what happened. Not how it happened, we’re over that apparently, but more of what it happened with and what they did to treat it on the scene. I try not to listen because I’d rather not hear it right now, but I hear Alissa’s account anyway.

  “My dad cauterized it to stop the bleeding,” she says evenly.