The harsh beam of a flashlight illuminated the horrific scene. Jack was on his back, a knife buried in his chest. The Chinese soldier Eva was on her side, a puddle of blood and flecks of gray forming a spreading halo around her head. Jen was standing on shaking legs, a heavy gun that he assumed belonged to someone in Jimmy’s crew, wobbling in her hand. Jack raised his head briefly, looking at Jen, then it dropped heavily back to his pillow as he lost consciousness.
Jen fell to her knees by Jack before the beam of the flashlight moved on, revealing the true extent of Eva’s killing spree.
“Robert, help me. We need a towel for the blood, hurry!”
Robert looked around frantically as cries of anguish rang out from Jimmy and the other two survivors of his gang. He didn’t find a towel, but whipped up what looked like a woven blanket, similar to what they use in hospitals, and ran over to Jen with it.
Jen was crying and looked to him for guidance.
“Should we pull it out or leave it in?” she asked.
Robert inspected the site of the trauma. The knife protruded from about midway down his chest and to the right, almost directly under his pectoral muscle. He really had no idea what they should do but felt leaving it in would only lead to other problems.
“We’ll pull it out. Here, let me. Get ready to compress the wound.”
Robert wiped the blood-slick handle of the knife with the blanket, then rested his left hand on Jack’s chest and gripped the handle with the other. He eased it out slowly and Jen immediately pressed the blanket against the leaking wound. Jack didn’t flinch. He was out cold… or worse.
Jen must have considered this too, and, still holding the blanket against the wound, reached up and felt for his pulse.
“He’s alive. But it’s beating real fast. I’ll hold it on, you should see if you can help the others.”
Dawn was breaking outside, and Robert was able to see more clearly. It was a bloodbath. Jimmy was bent over the girl Selma, holding her head off the floor. Robert realized that even though they hadn’t been introduced as girlfriend and boyfriend, Jimmy obviously had feelings for her. His heart went out to the other boy.
The other two survivors, the one called Hector and another slighter boy whose name he didn’t know, stood around unsure how to react.
“We should cover the dead with blankets,” Robert said gently, and the boys gladly followed his suggestion. He went across to Jimmy and put his hand on the kid’s shoulder.
“Sorry for your loss, man.”
Jimmy nodded and wiped his nose with a bloody sleeve.
“It’s alright. It was quick at least.”
He eased Selma’s head to the floor and closed her eyes before leaning across and dragging her blanket over her face. He grabbed his flashlight and stood back up before turning it off.
“How are your guys?” he asked Robert.
“Jen is good, physically at least. But Jack got stabbed.”
“Show me,” said Jimmy. “I seen plenty of stab wounds.”
They went back to where Jen was tending to Jack, and Jimmy, all business now, knelt next to her.
“Let me, okay?” he said, putting his hand next to Jen’s and grasping the blanket.
Jen nodded and pulled her hand away. He gave her the flashlight and told her to shine it on the wound when he pulled the blanket up. The blanket stuck for a second then came free, causing a small amount of blood to leak from the wound.
“That’s good, its not bleeding too much now. It means it’s clotting and that it didn’t hit an artery or anything.”
Jimmy looked closely at the wound then pushed a clean spot of the blanket against it. Still pressing the blanket down with one hand, he took the flashlight from Jen and looked around until he found the discarded knife.
“Is this it?” he asked, holding it up.
Robert nodded.
“Oh man, your boy is lucky. I think it punctured his lung, but it’s too short to have done any deeper damage where it went in. My cousin got stabbed in nearly the same place with a longer knife and they didn’t even do surgery cos the lung heals itself after a while. You gotta keep the wound clean though and we need to wrap his whole chest real tight. We got a medical kit, I’ll give you alcohol and stuff to look after it.”
“Are you sure?” asked Jen.
“Well I’m not a doctor, but if you know one still alive, you’re welcome to give them a try.”
With Jimmy’s help, they dressed Jack’s stab wound, and then completed the more difficult task of wrapping a whole roll of bandaging around his chest. Jack didn’t wake up but moaned as they turned him from side to side to get it around and under him.
“Shouldn’t he have woken up?”
Jimmy shrugged. They’d exhausted the depth of his medical know-how.
“Maybe he’s in shock? What are you guys going to do now. You’re welcome to stay till your boy’s better if you want.”
“Well we want to help you… clean up,” said Jen, not really sure how to say, ‘bury your dead’. “But we’ll probably continue and head to Texas. I’m pretty sure Jack would want to stick to the plan. Right, Robert?”
Robert wasn’t convinced that moving Jack was the right thing to do, but he supposed that even though Eva didn’t run for help – their original reason for getting on the road as quickly as possible – once the attack at the school was discovered, even Fresno wouldn’t be far enough away if they began a big manhunt.
“Yeah, he would.”
They spent the next two hours transporting the dead to the baseball park in an old pickup truck Jimmy had found in week one. Except for the freshly turned earth near where the pitcher’s plate would be, the grass of the ballpark was lush and green. They lengthened the existing graves so that the three recently deceased could be laid to rest near their friends. Jimmy said a prayer over them when they were done.
They wheeled Eva as far into the outfield as they could and buried her without ceremony. No prayer, no words, no looks back over their shoulders.
“Better than she deserves,” said Jimmy on the way out.
They ate some breakfast mid-morning with Jimmy and his last two gang members and then Robert went back and got the Mengshi and drove it back. It was a struggle getting Jack down the stairs and he woke up once on the way down, his words unintelligible.
“He’s got a fever,” said Jen, looking at Jimmy worriedly.
“It’s cool, it could be a bit of an infection. Just keep the wound clean and give him three of these with water every four hours.”
He handed her two packets of ibuprofen.
“It’ll keep his fever down till his body gets better.”
“Well, thanks for letting us stay and helping with Jack,” said Robert, awkwardly shaking Jimmy’s hand. “Not sure what we would have done without your advice.”
Jen came forward and hugged him.
“I’m sorry we brought her here. If we hadn’t, well…” Jen’s voice hitched, the emotion of the morning finally catching up with her. She let out a sob.
“It’s K little lady,” said Jimmy, hugging her back. “It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault but hers and the rest of them for killing our country. You be safe, hear?”
“You sure you won’t come with us?”
“Naw, this is our turf. We’ll be okay.”
Jen wasn’t convinced that Jimmy believed that at all.
46
When Jack drifted into consciousness, the Earth was rumbling under him.
No.
Not the Earth. The floor. He opened his eyes, his vision was fuzzy, but he could make out sunlight low in his sight and something dark overhead. A roof?
“Katie…?”
A hand grasped his and he heard sounds like someone speaking but couldn’t make out words. He drifted into the blackness again.
The next time he awoke, it was because the rumbling had stopped. He felt a cool breeze on his face and tried to sit up. The jab of pain in his chest immediately caused him
to drop his head.
“Don’t try to sit up,” said a girl.
A hand took his.
“Katie?”
“No, it’s Jen…”
He drifted off again.
The next time he awoke, the rumbling was back. He opened his eyes. His vision had cleared, and he saw he was looking at the ceiling of a vehicle. He craned his neck to look above him and saw a blond head over the top of a seatback.
“Jen,” he croaked.
She looked over and immediately kneeled on the seat putting her arms over and placing a cool hand on his head.
“Jack, you know me?”
“Yeah,” he said, puzzled at the question. “Where are we?”
“What’s going on?” asked a voice from the front of the vehicle.
“He’s awake and he knows who I am this time,” said Jen excitedly over her shoulder.
“Oh good, I’ll pull over soon.”
Jen looked back at Jack.
“We’re in Arizona. Robert thinks we should be at the border of New Mexico in an hour.”
As Jack processed this, he placed his hands on his chest, his hands encountered tightly wound bandages, his fingers tracking lightly over the place he’d been stabbed. Now fully awake, he realized he was in the cargo area of the Chinese Hummer. Against the wall to his left were six five-gallon jerry cans.
“Hector’s dad was a mechanic, he had a tank of diesel and filled those up for us,” Jen answered his unasked question. “I’m so glad you’re not dead. Jimmy said if you were going to die it would take less than a day, but I was still worried.”
“I’m glad too. I mean, I’m not sure why I am, but I’ll take it.”
“Well, Jimmy’s cousin got stabbed in the lung once, he said they didn’t even operate because it hadn’t done any other damage and the lung would fix itself. So, they just stitched him up. Robert did that for you too – he used to do leatherwork at school – and then we just prayed...” Jen clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I’m babbling, aren’t I?”
Jack smiled.
“It’s okay. Thank you for saving me.”
A cloud passed briefly over her sunny features.
“You’re welcome. I know you would have done the same for me.”
“So, I take it we’re still headed for Houston?”
“Yep, and Robert’s trying to keep to the backroads. He says it’s a big country and it will take years before they have enough boots on the ground to prevent all movement around the place.”
Robert’s stock kept going up in Jack’s estimation and again he thanked his lucky stars he’d met them when he did. He was pretty sure he’d have been worm food back at the school if he hadn’t.
They stopped not long after he woke and ate some canned food washed down with warm soda. Jack thanked Robert for everything he’d done and praised how far he’d managed to get them so far. They briefly looked over the map and Jack nodded approvingly at the route Robert had sketched out. It traveled on the major roads but took alternative routes around any larger cities and would still probably be quicker than it would have been traveling directly with traffic back in the old days.
By the time they climbed back in the Mengshi, Jack was exhausted.
“You should get more sleep,” said Jen as Robert steered the truck headed back onto the hot asphalt of Route 40.
“Okay, wake me when we get to Texas,” he joked.
Jack closed his eyes, worse for wear and lucky to be alive but feeling happier than he had any time since America fell.
The End
Book 2, Texas Down will be available in Fall 2019, to be notified you can sign up to Scott’s newsletter at scottmedbury.com
If you are new to the America Falls world, you may enjoy the original 6 book series. Book 1 Hell Week is available here on Amazon.
Lone Wolf: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (America Falls - Occupied Territory Book 1) Page 15