Deadrise

by Steven R. Gardner

  “Easy my friends.” the doctor said with a tired smile. “I know what is going on in the city; nothing but zombies and madmen, and the innocent victims that fall prey to them. We’ve treated many gunshot wounds these past weeks.”

  “We were just trying to fill our gas tank.” David said.

  “No need to explain.” the doctor repeated, turning back to Zack. He opened his shirt, looking at the bandage they had wrapped. With steady hands he unwrapped it.

  “Good work.” he said absently, as if to himself. “You probably saved his life.” He set the bloody pad aside and bent closer to look at the wound. He probed it, causing it to begin bleeding again and producing a scream of pain from Zack.

  “You see the bubbles?” he pointed. “The bullet has nicked the lung. If we do not remove the bullet and stop the bleeding, he will drown in his own blood.” The doctor pulled himself wearily to his feet.

  “So what now?” Susan asked.

  “We take him over to surgery and they will remove the bullet and stop the bleeding.” The doctor left the bus.

  “STRETCHER!” they heard him call.

  “That guy looked like he hadn’t slept in a month.” Susan said.

  “He probably hasn’t.” Matt answered. The soldier who had first spoken to them entered the bus.

  “Once they remove him, you have to take your vehicle back down the hill.”

  “But how will we know his condition?” Matt asked.

  “You can return in the morning.” The guard had said this a thousand times. Would say it a thousand more.

  “Can’t one of us at least stay with him? To let him know what is going on when he wakes up?” The guard looked as if he was going to say no.

  “Please?” Susan sounded so pleading, gave him her most pouting look.

  “Just stay out of the way.” The guard said, smiling at her.

  Men. It works every time.

  Two men came aboard the bus, carrying a field stretcher, followed by the Doctor.

  “Quickly.” the Doctor said. He turned to Matt. “If you would care to return here tomorrow, I’m sure someone will help you locate your friend.”

  “The guard said I could stay with him.” Susan said quickly. Matt cast her a sharp glance but remained silent.

  “Did he?” the Doctor said, looking at the guard. The guard just stared back, unblinking. “Very well.” The Doctor exited the bus. The two men set Zack on the stretcher and lifted, carefully maneuvering him off the bus.

  “Are you sure you are up to this?” Matt asked Susan.

  Susan didn’t answer for a few moments, but finally she nodded.

  “Yes.” she said. “I’m sure.”

  “Be careful sis.” David said, hugging her tight.

  “Don’t worry little brother. Remember who my boyfriend was. I can take care of myself.”

  “Here, take this.” Matt held Franks .357 in his hand. “Its loaded, and here’s an extra box of shells.” she put both the pistol and box of shells in her purse. You be right here six AM tomorrow morning.” She nodded agreement.

  “Watch you ass.” Matt said.

  “That’s your job.” she said, flashing him a smile and hurried off the bus.

  “Here we go again.” Matt said, closing the doors, and starting the engine…

  Chapter 7

  Friday, June 22 2001

  University Of Utah Hospital

  Salt Lake City UT

  7:35 AM

  Susan looked around for the stretcher-bearers, and was surprised to see they were already fifty feet ahead of her, disappearing into the throng of people that buzzed about madly. She ran to catch up, holding her purse tightly to her body. On both sides of her lay wounded people. Broken legs, arms, and lacerated scalps, gunshot wounds, all being treated right there in the parking lot. Someone screamed in pain as a broken limb was set. She turned away as a nurse began stitching a young woman’s head closed. She passed between two parked army trucks, right behind the stretcher bearing Zack. They emerged into a new area, where everyone here was laying on a table. She could see that every one of them was seriously wounded. Most, like Zack, had been shot. There were four doctors here, moving from patient to patient. They wore white masks, and were covered in blood, fresh and dried. The stretcher-bearers lay Zack on the ground near a table, then bent and lifted him quickly to the table. Without another word, they gathered up their stretcher and were off. Susan looked around for a Doctor. The one who had seen Zack aboard the van was there, talking to one of the free surgeons and pointing towards her. They parted and the surgeon approached.

  “Dr. Miller said this man was to be operated on immediately.” Susan stepped aside and let the doctor take a look at Zack’s wounds.

  “The arm can wait.” the Doctor said. “But we have to get that bullet out of his side and stop that bleeding.” He turned and waved to a nurse, who hurried over. “I’ll need some help here. Get me a tray over here and prepare a penicillin injection.” he paused and looked at Susan. “Is your friend allergic to penicillin?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” she said. He shook his head, dismissing the question, and reached into his robe and pulled out a pair of latex gloves.

  “You’re just going to operate right here?” she asked, appalled.

  “The hospital facilities are being used for the most serious cases… Don’t get me wrong. Your friend’s wound is serious, but his lung is only nicked. Once I remove the bullet and stop the bleeding, he will recover.”

  “Don’t you need an x-ray to find the bullet?”

  “The x-ray machines ran out of film weeks ago. Don’t worry, I’ve done it the old fashioned way dozens of times.” He gave her a smile that was anything but reassuring. Susan looked around, stunned. Surgery, right here in the parking lot! She saw a doctor and two nurses step away from one table, a man lying still on the table, his belly splayed open. Susan caught a glimpse of the man’s gleaming red innards before a nurse pulled a sheet over the man’s body. The doctor slowly peeled his gloves away, sorrow across his face. She watched, even more shocked, as a soldier stepped up to the corpse and pulled the sheet away from its head. He held a cordless, electric drill in his hand. He grabbed the corpses head, and raised the drill, squeezing the trigger. Over all the noise she could hear the grating whine of the drill. Her shock went to horror as the soldier put the spinning drill bit to the corpses forehead and pushed the bit into its skull. Susan turned away, in revulsion, stifling a gag, not wanting to believe what she was seeing. A drill or bullet through the brain, or being damned as one of the walking dead; was that what awaited her? Her family? Every living person when they died? The nurse had returned with a tray on wheels. The doctor had donned the latex gloves.

  “Penicillin.” he said, holding his hand out. The nurse handed him a syringe full of a clear liquid. He swabbed Zack’s arm with a gauze pad, and injected the penicillin. He set the syringe aside.

  “Novocain.” he said. The nurse handed him another syringe full of another clear liquid with the slightest hue of red. This he injected around the rim of the bullet wound several times, each time squeezing a little bit of the painkiller into the wound. He waited perhaps twenty seconds, before he started prodding the wound with his fingers. Zack writhed, groaning in pain.

  “As long as you’re standing here why don’t you help by holding his legs?” Susan realized the doctor was speaking to her. She stepped up and laid her upper body across Zack’s thighs. Once he was satisfied that she held him properly, the doctor went back to work. Zack’s legs bucked, and he screamed in pain, but his struggles were feeble.

  “The bullet is about an inch and a half deep.” The Doctor said. “I can feel it with my finger.” Susan was glad she couldn’t see what the Doctor was doing. “Hemostats.” he said. A few seconds later, Zack’s entire body lurched, and he screamed aloud, bursting into coughs.

  “Hold him!” the Doctor barked. “Nurse, his shoulders!” Zack’s feet drummed on the end of the table. His knees slammed p
ainfully into Susan’s ribs. His screams were so pitiful that Susan nearly burst into tears herself.

  “GOT IT!” she heard the doctor say triumphantly. She heard a wet, meaty tear, and Zack’s body gave one final heave before he collapsed into unconsciousness. Susan looked up to see the doctor holding a large deformed bullet in the Hemostats.

  “Quite the souvenir.” he said with a tired smile. He dropped the bullet on the tray with a plink! Susan looked at Zack’s side. It was covered with blood, and the wound was flowing freely. “On your side my friend.” the doctor said, rolling Zack onto his uninjured side. He gagged, spitting up a large semi-coagulated mouthful of blood.

  “Is that all?” Susan asked, barely able to find the words.

  “That’s all,” the doctor said. “Now we just have to stop the bleeding.” He turned to the nurse. “Bring me a cauterizing unit.” She moved away quickly.

  “Cauterize?” Susan couldn’t believe her ears. “Why don’t you stitch him closed?”

  The doctor looked at her as if she were an insignificant child.

  “His lung has been nicked. If I sew him shut without stopping his internal bleeding, he will drown in his own blood. And since I don’t have the time or facilities to open him up and fix him proper, cauterization will have to do.” The nurse returned, carrying something that looked like a screwdriver, with an oversized handle and shaft.

  “Its hot doctor.” She said as he took it from her hand.

  “Thank you.” he replied. He held the thing shaft down, like a knife. He looked at Susan. “Hold him tight. Real tight.”

  “What is that thing?” she asked.”

  A cauterizing laser.” Her eyes grew wide, and he could see her about to reply. “Its exactly the same kind we used in the hospital back when…everything was normal. Only difference is this one is portable. I’ve done this hundreds of times. It is safe, but painful. I need you to hold him again. Just a couple of minutes, and then we’ll be done. Ok?” He held her gaze until she nodded in agreement. “Now lay on him as you did before. And hold him tight.” He turned his gaze to the nurse. “And you as well. If his arm hits me, knocks my hand aside, I could fry his lung instead of cauterize it.” The nurse pinned his arm above his head under her own arm, keeping Zack on his right side. The doctor bent low and began working.

  Susan heard a sound like frying bacon, and Zack began to thrash anew. His screams had become gasping coughs.

  “Keep his face down!” the doctor barked. “He’s gagging on blood!” The nurse used her elbow to push his face to the side, clearing his throat. A sweet, burning smell came to Susan’s nose, nauseating her. She realized with disgust that it was the smell of burning flesh, being cauterized by the laser. Zack’s struggles grew stronger and stronger, as though he had found some deep reservoir of strength.

  “Almost.” the doctor said. Seconds later he stepped back. “Done!” he exclaimed. Susan rose up. “Hold him!” the doctor said. He looked around, spotting another nurse watching nearby. “Morphine! Quickly!” The nurse scampered away. The doctor reached to the tray and grabbed a bottle of warm water. He squirted it across Zack’s side, rinsing the blood away from the wound. The doctor pinched the side wound closed with his free hand, grabbed a medical stapler from the tray and quickly, if not neatly, used two thick metal staples to clamp it shut.

  Susan’s mind reeled from the primitive conditions she had witnessed. People came here to be treated for wounds, not receive more. She closed her eyes lowered her head, feeling Zack’s struggles ease. Coughs still wracked his body, but they sounded clearer now, not full of liquid. And in between coughs he was breathing, not gagging.

  “You can release him now.” the Doctor said. Susan raised her head to look at the doctor, eyes wide with amazement.

  “Easy now.” the doctor said, patting her on the shoulder, helping her to her feet. “Everything will be ok now. The internal bleeding has stopped and he has coughed most of the blood out of his lungs. Now he needs rest.” The wound in Zack’s left arm had broken open and was bleeding profusely

  “What about his arm?” Susan asked. But then she saw that the nurse had already begun attending to that. She was cleaning the wound and preparing to staple the ragged hole on either side of his arm closed.

  The other nurse returned with a fresh syringe and a bottle of Morphine. The doctor removed the cap from the needle, inserted it into the plunger, and drew an amount that left the syringe 3/4 full. He injected Zack in his uninjured arm, then returned the cap to the syringe and placed it on the tray.

  “Come morning will you have someway to transport him?” the Doctor asked Susan.

  “Will he be able to travel?” Susan asked.

  “Yes.” the doctor nodded. “If times were better, two or three days good hospital care would have been the cure, but now…” he paused, looking around. “We can barely spare the room for one a few hours.”

  “Why not just move him now? I could go find My-” But the doctor was already shaking his head.

  “No. Even though we can barely spare the room, we keep them for at least twelve hours. Just in case.”

  “In case of what?” Susan asked, suddenly weary.

  “In case he dies.” Susan’s eyes widened. But the doctor continued. “The first few hours after surgery are the most crucial. If he is going to die, it will most likely be within that time.”

  “So why should you keep them?”

  “We dispose of them,” he answered. “Something friends and family have a hard time doing when necessary. Quickly…Cleanly…Unclouded by emotion. It is a service.” She remembered the soldier drilling into the fresh corpses head.

  A shudder ran through her body.

  We have to get out of the city, away from this madness.

  She closed her eyes and could see the face of her father, looking upon her. Fresh tears clouded her eyes, but she blinked them away. You have to stay strong. She could hear his voice, soothing, comforting.

  “Once the nurse is done, they will move him to a bed inside. You can accompany him.” the doctor smiled at her then turned away, peeling off his bloody latex gloves.

  Susan turned her attention to the nurse at work on Zack’s arm. It was disgusting, but she paid close attention anyway. She would have to learn all she could about survival if she was going to see her family to safety. When it was done, the nurse bandaged his arm, and put a large patch over his side. Without a word she went away. Minutes later, two different stretcher bearers came along with a solid wood field stretcher. They careful slid it underneath him, and carried him away. Susan followed. As they left the surgery area, Susan looked back and saw that Zack’s table had already been replaced with a fresh patient…

  Chapter 8

  Friday, June 22, 2001

  University of Utah Hospital

  Salt Lake City, UT

  8:00 AM

  It took Matt nearly an hour of creeping back down the winding road, choked full of refugees, before he finally found an area big enough to back the bus in. It was near the bottom, not fifty yards from the nearest hill with a spotlight. He spent the next five minutes making a fifteen-point turn to back the bus into the slot. If he had to get out of there in a hurry, he didn’t want to be hampered by backing the bus out. He killed the engine and ran his fingers through his hair, stifling a yawn. He was exhausted!

  “I hope a doctor is helping Zack.” David said.

  “They are.” Matt sounded unsure himself. “This is a hospital. The radio is broadcasting medical help here. They wouldn’t send people to a rescue station if they couldn’t help them.”

  “You hope.” David said.

  “Where are we?” He was startled by his mothers voice behind him. Her sagging, disheveled hair, and her flushed, tear streaked face stabbed a knife of agony through his heart.

  “I’m so sorry Mom.” he said, falling into her arms. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, and fresh sobs overcame David. There were no more tears left in Sharon. She just closed her eyes and
held her boy tightly.

  “I know.” she said softly. “I know.” Matt took that as his cue to leave.

  A myriad of aromas assaulted Matt’s nose as he first stepped off the bus. The smoke from the cooking fires, overlaid with the mouth-watering scent of real food. He realized with some distaste that he had eaten nothing but spam, sardines and Pork and Beans since they had first took refuge in the bomb shelter under the high school. If he never ate them again it would be to soon.

  We have got to get out of this fucking city.

  It was all he had been thinking about since Frank had died the night before.

  Two men walked around the front of the bus, one of them the man in the blue vest and Levis, with the shotgun slung over his shoulder.

  “Did you get your friend to a doctor?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Hopefully they’re operating on him right now.” Matt said.

  “Don’t know if that’s good or bad myself.” the man said.

  “What do you mean?” Matt asked.

  “I don’t know if I’d call what they do up there surgery.” there was the hint of a smile on the mans face. “But I guess beggars can’t be choosers now can they?”

  “No. I guess not.” Matt answered. He was still wondering what the man’s last statement had meant. “Those are real doctors up there? Right?”

  “Oh sure they’re real doctors.” the man said. “But even real doctor have their limits when they see hundreds of patients per day and no longer have the proper medical supplies to treat them. They’ll do what they can for him. You just pray it’s enough.”

  Zack better live! First Frank, and now this? I can’t do this by myself.

  He remembered Franks dying gasp.

  Take care of my family.

  They were Matt’s responsibility now. He may not like it, but he could never walk away from them. In their short time together, they had grown close, relying on one another to survive. He had to get them to safety. Out of the city, and up to Adam and Kelly’s property up on Rainbow Lake. The man saw the grim look cross Matt’s face.