by A. R. Shaw
Macy arrived and clung to her twin’s side, unable to say more than, “Marcy, Marcy, Marcy,” a ragged chant filled with anguish.
Bang sidled up, seeking Graham’s attention; he wrapped his arm around Graham’s long leg and leaned into him. Nothing more needed to be said. Bang and Macy had watched from afar, and they knew that Graham had done what needed to be done.
Silently, they stood for a moment more and watched as Sheriff sniffed over the body. Graham stepped forward, knowing he needed to pass the man to take Marcy inside to care for her wounds.
“No, don’t go near him!” Marcy cried, too scared of what might happen and grabbing at Graham.
“He’s dead, Marcy.”
“Still, I’m afraid.”
Without another word Graham lowered the girl to the ground and motioned for Macy to hold her up.
Sheriff stood over the man. Graham lowered Campos’s lids over his bulging eyes, and then started to drag him away toward the side of the store.
Marcy broke her silence and yelled, “No, don’t! He does not like bugs. Burn him. He would want that, I think.” Graham understood she meant it for the good man, not the mad one.
“Turn around, all of you,” Graham said, not wanting an image of what he was to do next to be etched into their young minds. They did, and his only witness was Sheriff; to Graham, a police dog seemed a fitting accomplice. He hoisted Campos’s body into the Dumpster. He retrieved the gas can, poured in the remaining fuel, and reignited the fire.
“It’s done,” he said as he walked over to retrieve the girl. Macy and Bang collected the rifles along the way and they all walked back into the market together.
22 Contrition
The store looked very different with the lights on. Now Graham could see how few items remained on the shelves and how lucky they’d been to discover the ones he had. He chose another checkout counter to set Marcy down on, since the first was a bloody mess. He covered her shaking body with his jacket. Macy clung by her sister’s side as Sheriff stood guard at the open doorway.
Graham went over to the first counter and used the uncontaminated ice to clean the blood and sweaty death off as best he could. With the last several minutes replaying in his mind, the stinging cold of the ice water snapped him out of his own shock. He grabbed a fresh bag of ice and several more rolls of paper towels to clean Marcy, having Macy apply pressure to her twin sister’s leg wound. After Graham had retrieved his rifle, he and Bang gathered the supplies he’d dropped earlier. “Look for anything you think we might need, Bang,” he said, and then searched the store for a sewing kit as Bang trailed close behind him. Graham wasn’t looking forward to treating Marcy’s wounds.
Bang noticed on a low shelf a half dozen juice boxes with happy smiling green apples staring up at him. The boy stopped to pick them up while balancing Campos’s rifle. He managed well enough and then caught up with Graham, who turned and realized he’d left a five-year-old in charge of the heavy weapon. Graham took it from him and silently chastised himself for the oversight.
He would never again be without his own firearm. If he’d had it earlier, he could have simply shot the man again. He would carry the cost of his mistake now and forever.
After retrieving a bottle of alcohol and antibiotic ointment, he went to the housewares aisle. Along with bleach, he looked for the sewing kit, something always present when not needed. He found one on a plastic hook, then decided they might need more in the future and took the other three as well. After looking at the dinky thread in the kit, he looked around for something sturdier and found a spool of black upholstery thread. He took that too.
“Okay, Bang, now we need a lighter,” he said; he remembered they were usually up by the checkout counters near the cigarettes.
Back at the counter, Macy was still holding pressure on Marcy’s leg wound as she stroked her sister’s hair away from her bruised forehead.
“Is everything all right, Macy?” Graham asked
“Yeah, we’re fine,” she said.
He put down the items and noticed both girls quietly watching him with four blue eyes. It began to rain outside, which he welcomed because it would help clean away what had taken place earlier.
Marcy was shaking now, either from shock or the cold, he didn’t know which, but he asked Bang to close the open door.
“Macy, go look for jackets or blankets; something to wrap her up in,” he asked.
“Sure,” she said, and wandered off to plunder the aisles.
“Marcy, I’m Graham. I met your sister and Sheriff early this morning. I tried to help you earlier before . . .” He chose not to continue the thought. He looked up at her that her teeth were now chattering too. “It’s okay. We’re going to get you warmed up and fix your leg. Then we are all going to get out of here,” he said as Macy ran up holding an armload of XXL-size heather gray sweatshirts. She’d found them somewhere in the store. They were huge and bore the logo of the town’s name across the chest.
“These are all I could find,” she said as she rushed over.
“They’re perfect,” Graham said, and sat Marcy up to pull one over her. Then he balled up another one and put it under her head as a pillow. He laid the others, layer after layer, over the girl. He overlapped them and tucked them under her sides as if folding a burrito. “We’ll get you warmed up in no time,” he said, then added, “We need to get something warm into her too.” He was afraid Marcy might be going into shock. He looked around for an answer and then remembered that there was a microwave to warm fast food next to the deli.
“Macy, you and Bang go see if you can find clean cups, bottled water and teabags or hot chocolate. Use the microwave by the deli to make her something warm to drink, but make sure the water’s clean,” he said as he sterilized several sewing needles with the flame of a cigarette lighter. He sat them on a clean paper towel to cool, and then decided that the larger thread would be the best way to go since it was sturdier and had less lint than the other. Luckily, one of the needles had a fairly large eye he hoped the wider thread would fit through.
He checked under the compression and saw that the hatchet cut had stopped bleeding but the swelling had increased. Graham knew it needed to be cleaned and dressed as soon as possible.
Bang and Macy must have found something appropriate because he and Marcy could hear the microwave humming. “Looks like they’ve got something for you,” he said to her. She smiled a little, but her teeth continued to chatter.
“I need to rip your pants leg open more,” he said to her, and she nodded. He grabbed each side and ripped the edges all the way down as cleanly as possible. When he got to the hem, he gave a little more effort and then just slipped it over her shoe. After he had moved the blood-stained excess out of the way, he wetted several paper towels and gently tried to clean off the dried blood from her calf.
Macy and Bang showed up smiling and bearing a steaming cup of cocoa. Bang carried the remnants of their excursion: a few unopened bottles of water, paper cups, plastic spoons, and an opened package of Swiss Miss. Where they had found water was a mystery to Graham.
“Perfect,” Graham said as he helped Marcy sit up. They all watched her, so she grinned weakly and a little sheepishly, but she drank it all down.
“Feel a little better?” Graham asked. At least she’d stopped shaking so much. He took a deep breath and said to the girls, “I’ve got to get this cleaned out and closed. I’m sorry, Marcy, it’s going to hurt.” Both girls looked ready to cry. “It has to be done. The sooner we finish it, the faster we can get out of here,” he said, trying to help them understand.
Macy reached over to help her sister roll to her side. “Just hold on to me, Marce,” she said.
Bang appeared silently on the other side of the counter, pulling the makeshift sweater blanket over the girl to help cover her back. Graham nodded at him and the boy reached over and opened the various items they needed for the job, getting them ready for Graham.
Graham opened one of the
water bottles and dampened several more paper towels. He cleaned up around the wound. Bang struggled to open the heavily sealed saline bottle while Graham used the alcohol to clean his own hands. Watching Bang wrestle with the bottle would have been funny in any other situation, but not now.
After smelling the alcohol in the air, Marcy started to whimper a little. “That smells like the doctor’s office,” she said. Macy held onto her sister, trying to soothe her. Graham would almost rather kill another man than do this—but only almost.
When Bang handed him the opened bottle triumphantly, Graham grinned at him, showing his appreciation.
“Okay, Marcy, the first thing we have to do is clean this out. It’s going to be cold and it’s going to sting. Just hold onto Macy and breathe. Don’t hold your breath. I’ll go as fast as I can,” he said.
Marcy didn’t look up or acknowledge him. She only held onto Macy and buried her head into her sister’s neck. Graham began to spread the wound open, as gently as he could with his left hand. She made no sounds of discomfort yet. He popped open the bottle top and squirted a test stream, arching it across the floor. “Okay, Bang, I need you to come over here and hold onto her leg to help keep it still.”
Macy tightened her hold on her sister as a warning of what was to come. Graham started the stream at the higher end, working as deeply as he could and flushed more blood out of the wound. Marcy moaned and her leg shook involuntarily. “I’m sorry, Marcy,” Graham said to her, hoping she knew it was true.
He picked up the pace to get it over with quicker. The girl moaned louder and Macy tightened her grip. Big tears streamed down Macy’s face as she repeatedly said, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Graham focused completely on the task at hand. He used up the entire bottle of saline and then took most of Bang’s pile of gauze, pushing on the wound in hopes of stemming the new flow of bright red blood. Graham held the pressure on Marcy’s leg, and her moans subsided a little. He noticed she gulped air now and then, and held her breath. “Don’t do that, Marcy. Breathe normally, or you’ll make it worse. I’m sorry, but we’re halfway there now. You’re a brave girl.”
The rain outside got heavier and made plunking sounds against the pavement so loud it could be heard inside. Occasionally Sheriff was distracted by it when he wasn’t fixated on the people doing what must be done. Once he whined, when he knew the girl was hurting, but stood where he was, alternating between watching his companions and guarding the door of the store.
Graham wiped dry the injury and then the area around Marcy on the counter. He put several more paper towels under her leg, getting it ready to sew up. He reapplied alcohol to his hands, hoping this would help keep infection down, then wiped carefully around the wound and let it dry. He threaded the needle, knotting one end, and glanced at Bang, who gave him a sympathetic smile.
Graham had no idea what he was doing. He’d only seen it done once before, and he hoped that was enough direction to get him started. The gash was about four inches long, with the worst part about an inch and a half deep. He thought it would be best to just start at the right end and pull the sides together as he went along. He would try to space the stitches evenly and use enough of them to close the wound. He wanted to do it right the first time.
“All right, Marcy,” he said, “We’re almost done. This last part is going to hurt again but then we’ll be done and we can get out of this place. Are you ready?”
“Yes, just do it,” she cried from under her coverings. Macy nodded at him.
“Good girl,” he said.
Graham first held the two ends together and pushed a clean ice cube against the skin to help deaden the nerve cells, then started sewing in the middle. As he pushed the needle through the skin, he worked his way down and then tied it off. He continued from the middle up, again using ice cubes to help numb the pain as much as he could. Marcy began to scream. By the time he pulled the last one through, he was shaking and his eyes were tearing up. He wiped the site clean and applied antibiotic ointment. Bang looked sheet white as he handed Graham a large bandage to cover it up.
He pulled Marcy into his arms and held her, whispering, “I’m so sorry I had to hurt you, but it’s over now.” He let her go, and on his way to the pharmacy area wiped away his own tears. He thought he would have to break into the pharmacy, but as it was, the door was already open. Graham tried to remember what he’d been prescribed for the finger incident, but he could only remember it started with a D.
There were rows of white shelves behind the main counter with large bottles in alphabetical order. He found the D’s: Demerol, Depakote, Depo-Provera . . . dopamine, doxazosin, doxycycline. “That’s it, doxycycline!” he said, and then thought to himself, God, this could be dangerous; how much do I give her? He looked around for some kind of guide and saw a stack of rather thick books on the counter; one was titled Merrill’s Drug Encyclopedia. He turned quickly to doxycycline and it read:
Doxycycline is a tetracycline antibiotic. It kills certain bacteria or stops their growth. It is used to treat many kinds of infections, such as dental, skin, respiratory, and urinary tract infections. It also treats acne, Lyme disease, malaria, and certain sexually transmitted diseases.
“Bingo!” he said, but then realized it didn’t tell him how much to give her. He remembered taking one twice a day, and thought he’d just go with that for her as well.
The nonsensical thought of dispensing a few into one of those honey-colored pill bottles occurred to him. But things are different now. I need to think like it, Graham said to himself. Their lives depended on him thinking in this new world, not the old one.
He grabbed the entire bottle and looked around for ibuprofen too. Then he looked at the book in his hands, and decided it needed to go with him as well. He searched around for something to carry all of this in and found a bright red empty cooler lying against the wall. He laid the jumbo bottle of antibiotics in along with the pharmaceutical encyclopedia. The thought crossed his mind just to take all the drugs on the shelf, but he knew there would be pharmacies along the way. What mattered now was just to get everyone out of here. He grabbed a bottle of Tylenol with codeine, knowing that it could come in handy.
Graham stopped at the first aid aisle once again and picked up more tubes of Neosporin and their generics and as much gauze and bandages as he could see. Keeping Marcy’s cut clean would be a real problem.
As he approached the kids he noticed that they looked a little stunned after the morning’s events. “Hey, Bang, let’s all have one of those juice boxes! Here, Marcy, I want you to take one of these. You’ll need to have one twice a day. And one of these painkillers”—he handed her the bottles—“every six hours.”
“I think I need to eat something before I do,” she said.
“That’s probably a good idea. Macy, see if you can find her some crackers or something to eat. In fact, you and Bang take carts and load up as much on edible food items as you can find. I need to find a truck we can use to load this stuff up. We’ll go to your dad’s apartment first and then make plans from there. I don’t want to stay here tonight and I’m sure you guys don’t want to either.” They all nodded in agreement.
“Graham, I . . . uh . . . need a bathroom,” Macy said as she pulled one of the oversize sweatshirts on. It fell nearly to her knees.
“Please hurry and don’t go far,” Graham answered.
He needed a bathroom too. He picked up his own jacket lying on the table and put it on. “You guys stay right here. I’ll be right back. Sheriff, you stay here and watch these guys.”
The dog looked up at Graham as if he knew exactly what he meant.
23 Scouting Around
Graham stepped out into the dampness of the empty parking lot. It was past noon, and he was thinking about lunch but, noticing the smoke rising out of the blue garbage bin, he did not have much of an appetite even though he’d not eaten since the day before.
Graham stood still, one hand on his rifle, scanning the horizon
for usable vehicles. He headed across the street where several residences lined the streets and apartment complexes lay beyond. Graham saw a few cars in driveways and along the street, but he saw no trucks. He knew he’d need something with four-wheel drive where he was going. To the right, he noticed a reddish Toyota SUV, but he had no idea if there were keys in it.
He set off in that direction when he heard a rustling. Farther down the road, he noticed three deer pulling at the green lawn of a yard. It was yet another reminder of encroaching wildlife and the need to get somewhere safe from their predators. Camping out in a festering grocery store held no appeal for him, knowing the smells would bring in more than just the deer looking for tender grass.
Graham approached the truck and tried the door, but it was locked. He took in a deep breath, knowing he’d have to go inside the home to see if he could find the keys.
With a peaked roof and matching doorway, the little white house was edged in green. “It must have been built in the forties or fifties,” he said under his breath. These little postwar houses had been put up quickly to accommodate the troops coming home after the Second World War.
Whoever lived here took pretty good care of the place. Even the concrete walkway had recently been power-washed. He did not bother knocking, but simply tried the door and found it unlocked.
The darkness of the interior seemed daunting. He opened the door farther, but slowly, as if someone might come to meet him, which Graham knew was not likely. The only smells he encountered were mild, musty and moldy but not of death or decay. It was just like some grandmother’s closet or basement filled with mothballed coats.
He had looked first by the door before he stepped in, hoping there would be a set of keys on a nearby table or on the wall. He looked around the small living room as the light shone in and revealed a brown moleskin sofa facing the blackened screen of a TV no longer needed. The back of the sofa created a hallway that extended beyond to what Graham figured must be the kitchen.