by AJ Powers
It was still early in the morning—he didn’t have to meet Kelsey for another four hours—so he took his time harvesting the meat. He took the hide, which always fetched a fair price with traders, and stuffed it into a separate trash bag. He guessed more than 50 pounds of meat in all. The deer combined with the food he was able to get in Liberty a few days before would last the family quite some time. Immediately, Clay felt as if a colossal burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He considered trading a few pounds to get some dairy but was apprehensive whether or not Watson would still be interested in doing business with him. The last two times he attempted a trade, they both walked away angry at each other; the relationship had become quite strained. It bothered him that Kelsey and Dakota were tangled up in that mess, and he wanted nothing more than to get them out of there and put that place in the rearview mirror, even if it meant the loss of a good trading post.
After collecting everything of value from the trophy buck, he packed up and made his trip home. The haul, which was close to 70 pounds everything included, was hardly noticeable. His renewed energy from the kill was greater than he could remember, and he barely felt the added weight.
On the trip home, he decided he was going to make venison burgers. It would take several pounds of meat—a bit of a splurge—but it would indeed be a celebration. Plus, many of the kids, as well as himself, were looking quite underweight since winter ended. A good hearty meal would do a lot of good for the family. He would invite Kelsey for the meal too. It would cut into their scavenging time, but Clay thought she would enjoy the classic American cuisine.
When Clay reached the garage door, his stomach sank. The padlock was lying on the ground, broken, and the door hanging open. He swiftly moved down the ramp to the door, his Scout at the ready, and entered the garage. He swung the rifle to the left, then the right, clearing the room. He stashed his pack of food in a dark corner and made his way to the stairs. His hopes that someone had broken in but not found their way to the stairwell was dashed when he saw muddy boot prints that trailed off by the second floor. The prints suggested there were at least three people, but he couldn’t be sure there weren’t more.
He darted up the steps as fast as he could, his mind raced as fast as his heart. Of all the years they had lived in the building, Clay had never once been in such a vulnerable position. It was uncharted territory for him, and he had no idea what to expect.
He had reached the sixth floor when he heard the first shot ring out, followed by a hail of gunfire exchanged for several seconds before he heard some shouting and a door slam.
Charlie!
Clay ran even faster. As he reached the 12th floor landing, he saw a man on the ground leaning against the wall, a devastating wound to the head. He didn’t recognize the man, but it was clear that Charlie had gotten the drop on the group.
There was blood leading up the stairs, and Clay was hopeful that Charlie had wounded one or more of the other assailants. Clay followed the trail up another flight and through a door into a large open office pit. The attackers were scouring the room in search of Charlie. Their attempts to lure him out with promises not to hurt him were unsuccessful. Had it not been for the gravity of the situation, Clay would have found it funny that the group was actually using such a tactic.
The office space, which was a sea of cubicles and filing cabinets, provided Charlie with a plethora of places to hide. It also gave Clay plenty of cover to sneak across the massive room without being detected. Towards the center of the office, he approached a man who was searching a series of partitions. Though the room was somewhat illuminated from the windows, the man clicked on a flashlight to look beneath the desks. He could hear at least two others on the other side of the room that took up nearly the entire floor and another man searching a row of private offices by the windows.
Clay laid his rifle along the edge of a cubicle wall and crept towards the man searching beneath the desks. Staying low and keeping his hand on his holster, he slowly bridged the gap between him and the stranger. He was just two desks down when he removed his knife from its sheath and grasped the handle firmly. It was a small blade, not even four inches, but it was razor sharp and extremely light. Clay was just outside the cubicle the man was searching. He waited.
“Got anything, Taylor?” a man on the other end of the room shouted.
“Just staplers and paperclips, Silas,” the man in the cubicle shouted back.
Clay remained still and did his best to suppress his anxious breathing. The man walked out of the cubicle, and Clay sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, grabbing the man by the face, covering his mouth, and pulling him down to the ground on top of him. Before he realized what was happening, Clay swung the knife around and drove it deep into the man’s chest. The muffled cries were brief, but horrific—a sound that would haunt Clay for a long time. Within seconds, the man’s body relaxed and Clay could feel that his breathing had stopped.
He rolled the body off of him and peaked over the short walls to see if anyone had noticed. They had not. He returned the knife to the sheath and retrieved his rifle. The other two men that had been searching the large room were much closer together, and Clay was certain a similar take down would be impossible. If he hadn’t missed anybody, there were just the three men left. If he played his cards right and if the execution was flawless, he could dispatch both men and move back into hiding before the last could exit the private offices.
The man they called Silas headed towards a hallway at the far end of the room while the others continued to search. With Silas out of sight, Clay crept towards the remaining bandit in the large room. He had to act fast because the man searching the offices was checking the last one.
As Clay stalked his next target, gunfire erupted from down the hallway. Clay’s target started running towards the action, weaving in and out of narrow hallways formed by the cubicle walls. Clay popped up and took the shot.
The sound of the powerful .308 Winchester dominated the other gunfire which caused a pause from down the hall. Clay’s shot hadn’t been fatal as the man he hit was on the ground screaming. But the impact was catastrophic.
With no time to retrieve and chamber a new cartridge, Clay threw the sling over his shoulder and reached for his Sig. He ran past the man he had just shot, who was still howling in pain. He thought about a mercy kill, but with only 25 pistol rounds and at least two other armed men to engage, he couldn’t waste the time or ammo. He picked up the wounded man’s shotgun as he passed, and headed for the hallway.
Clay peeked around the corner of the wall. About 15 feet down, the hallway turned, providing the two robbers with decent cover. One of them continued to exchange fire with Charlie at the opposite end of their hallway; the other was peering around the corner, waiting for Clay. Their eyes met briefly before the man moved back behind the corner. Since he wasn’t shooting, Clay knew that he, too, must be low on ammo, if not completely out. Clay swung his body around, then immediately back to get behind cover. The aggressive move caused the bandit to also leave his cover and blast both barrels of his shotgun towards Clay. Several pellets struck the wall near the corner causing an explosion of drywall fragments that peppered the side of Clay’s face. It stung his flesh, but the bigger concern was the dust flying into his eyes that caused his vision to blur.
Knowing the man had to reload, Clay whipped back around and responded in kind, unloading both barrels at the corner of the wall the man was hiding behind. He dropped the shotgun and took his pistol back out. He emptied the magazine in a flash and had the next one ready to go by the time he dropped the depleted one. With a fresh mag chambered, Clay began to run down the hallway.
“Let’s go!” one of the men shouted followed by the sound of feet tromping down the hallway.
As Clay rounded the corner, he raised his pistol and took aim. Between his fuzzy vision and the heavy smoke in the air, he could barely make out two silhouettes fleeing. Clay rapidly pulled the trigger until the slide locked back. He hit one of
the men for sure, but they both escaped to the stairwell on the opposite side of the building than they came up. Clay chased after them, but by the time he got to the stairs, they were already down several floors, so he halted his pursuit.
He inserted his last magazine and holstered his pistol. He rubbed his eyes in a feeble attempt to clear the haze when he heard Charlie.
“Clay!” a faint cry called out.
“Charlie!” Clay yelled as he ran back in and discovered the boy laying on the floor a few feet from the hallway. Clay had run right past him and hadn’t realized it.
The sight was dreadful. Charlie was already coughing up blood, and his breathing was labored. An expanding pool of blood began to encompass the .30 carbine casings that littered the floor around him.
“Are they gone?” he asked before giving a fluid-filled cough.
“Yeah,” Clay said and knelt down next to him to examine the injury on his stomach. Silas was carrying a revolver, so Clay assumed it was a .38 or .357. But after looking at the size of the hole, he thought maybe something bigger. “Hang in there, Charlie. I’m gonna get you upstairs, and Megan will patch you up, okay?” Clay said as calmly as he could.
Charlie gave a subtle nod. His pale face was a grim backdrop for his dark brown eyes. Clay slid his left hand beneath Charlie’s head and his right under his legs and carefully picked him up. Charlie’s groans were brief as he could not sustain the energy to cry. As Clay walked up the steps, he began shouting for Megan.
“Clay?” Megan screamed from the other side of the door, “Is that you?”
“Open the door! Charlie is hurt!”
The door launched open, and Megan jumped out, her knuckles were white from clutching her pistol. She saw Clay holding Charlie, both of them covered in blood, all of which was Charlie’s. “Charlie! What happened?” she cried.
“They shot him!”
Megan holstered her pistol, pushed the door all the way open and held it, giving Clay as much clearance as possible. “Get him to the infirmary!” she ordered.
Clay carried Charlie to the infirmary and lay him on a conference table that would serve as an operating table. Charlie closed his eyes and started to doze off. “Charlie!” Megan cried, “You need to stay with us, stay awake, okay? Do you understand?”
His eyes were barely more than a squint; he attempted to acknowledge her but couldn’t.
“What do we do?” Clay asked frantically. “What do you need me to do?”
Megan paused for a moment and started stammering over her words. She was still battling the cold that had been plaguing her for the past week, and her head was in a deep fog. She didn’t have experience dealing with such severe trauma, let alone while ill. The world was spinning. She froze up.
“Megan!” Clay screamed, snapping her out of her daze.
“I’m sorry, Clay, I’m trying! I-I-I just can’t think straight,” she said with frustration. She looked over at Lona who was standing just inside the door, blocking the view from the other kids watching from the hall. “Lona, I need you to find every single towel or rag you can find and bring them back here right away!” Lona tore off down the hallway revealing the other kids who were sobbing just outside the door. Megan grabbed the only towel in the room and put it on the wound, pressing down firmly. “Clay, get me the med bag and vodka from the cabinets in the bathroom.”
While applying pressure with her right hand, she checked Charlie’s pulse with the other—it was weak. Though she didn’t have a functioning sphygmomanometer, she knew his blood pressure was falling. Maya began to cry hysterically from the door, adding to Megan’s stress. “Blake, get them away from here right now!”
Blake was the next oldest after Lona and Charlie, but since he and Courtney were the newest to the group he had never really been given much responsibility. “Where?” he asked with a tremble in his voice.
“I don’t care!” Megan shouted, causing them all to flinch. “Just get them away from me right now!”
The kids stormed off; the cries and sobs faded. Clay returned with the bag and vodka and set them on the table just above Charlie’s head. “Now what?” he asked.
Megan instructed Clay to take over for her, keeping pressure on the wound while she started to pull out tools and equipment from the bag. The towel had quickly saturated with blood. He looked over at Megan, but her expression didn’t have the reassurance he was looking for.
Lona returned, her arms filled with an array of towels and clothing, a lantern sitting on top. It was quick and incredible thinking for such a young woman—the room was dimly lit, especially for surgery, and it would be crucial for Megan to have proper lighting to work.
Lona turned on the lantern and held it up while Megan examined the damage more closely. As soon as Clay removed the towel, blood poured out of the hole. The wound was just above and to the right of his belly button.
“Clay, can you lift him up a little bit? Very slowly and very carefully.”
Clay obeyed and lifted him, causing Charlie to give a fading moan. Megan leaned down and saw an exit wound, which was what she was hoping for. She was ill-equipped, both in training and tools, to be digging around in his stomach looking for a hunk of lead. Even so, Charlie was facing an uphill battle at best. Judging from the angle of the exit wound, she was confident no major organs were hit, but he was losing a lot of blood—too much blood—and she couldn’t be sure of the extent of the damage inside.
Clay looked at her hoping for good news. “The bullet went through, which is good, but,” she started to shake. She looked at Charlie then back at her brother. “Clay, I just don’t know what to do.” Without advanced medical imaging, Megan would have to feel for any internal damage. Though she had read many medical and trauma books, there was no substitution for hands-on experience, of which she had none. There was a real possibility she could do more harm than good, and she knew with certainty that it would put Charlie through a tremendous amount of pain. She reached over and grabbed the bottle of vodka and told Clay to reapply the pressure.
She dumped some vodka on her hands and rubbed them together. She started to pray aloud. “Heavenly Father, please give me wisdom and steady hands. Let me find nothing wrong.”
“Amen,” Clay added.
Megan turned and looked at Charlie who was narrowly conscious, “Charlie, honey, this is going to hurt more than anything you could imagine,” she said with tears streaming down her face, “but I promise, it won’t hurt for long.”
Charlie’s expression was almost indifferent to her words. “Am I going to be okay?” he whispered.
“Yeah, you’re going to be just fine,” she said as she stroked his hair, knowing she was probably lying. She looked over at Lona and had her move to where Clay was standing and had Clay move to the other side of the table. She wadded up a rag and told Charlie to bite down hard when he felt the pain.
Megan motioned for Clay to lean across the table. “You’re going to need to hold him down,” Megan whispered into his ear.
An ominous silence filled the room which was broken when Megan took a deep breath. She removed the soaked rag and inserted her fingers into Charlie’s abdomen. The initial scream was deafening and caused everyone to cringe. His back arched and his legs kicked as Clay struggled to keep him down. Charlie clenched down on the rag in his mouth and gave a deep, throaty groan. Then silence.
“Megan! What happened?” Clay asked distraughtly.
Megan checked for a pulse. It was weaker than before, but still there. “He passed out from the pain. Now shut up! I need to concentrate.” She said. Frustration permeated her voice, not so much with Clay, but because her mind was drawing a blank. She struggled to recall anything from the books she had read cover-to-cover numerous times. She decided to just start feeling around, hoping she would know if something wasn’t right. Suddenly, her studies rushed back to her mind as if she had the book open on the table right in front of her.
The anxiety in the room was palpable as Megan felt around in
side his stomach; the occasional sound of blood slushing around her fingers broke the silence in the room. After several minutes of exploration, Megan slowly removed her fingers and placed a fresh towel on the wound.
“So, is he okay?” Clay asked.
“Well, a bullet just punched through his stomach, so no, not really, Clay,” she said, instantly feeling remorse for the cold, cynical response. She sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. The fact is, I just don’t know. I couldn’t find anything wrong other than the obvious. It doesn’t look like it hit any major arteries, and there are no organs in the area, but the shockwave from the bullet could have done damage that I just can’t know about.” Megan had Lona take over applying pressure, and she cleaned her hands with one of the towels, but it did little good. “If he were in a hospital, I’d say his chances of living would be decent,” her face went grim, “but he’s not in a hospital.”
“What are you saying? Is he going to die?” Clay asked.
“At this point, any number of things could happen, but my immediate concern is blood loss.” She motioned around at the bloodied towels all over the table, as well as Charlie and Clay’s clothes. “That is a lot of blood. How much did he lose downstairs?”
Clay recalled the bloody scene and remembered it being a good amount, but then again he wasn’t sure what qualified as “a lot” in medical terms. “I don’t know for sure.”
“I need to go see,” Megan said.
The two left the room, leaving Lona to keep pressure applied to the wound. Before heading down, Clay grabbed his M4 and extra magazines.
Clay walked into the large room and cleared it before motioning for Megan to come in. Though Clay wasn’t expecting resistance, he didn’t want to be surprised. Megan walked in holding her pistol with unsteady hands.