by Connor Mccoy
On the way, he thought about the best ways to end a pregnancy. He could perform a D&C if necessary, but he’d rather not. He considered the medications he’d stockpiled and the plants that still might be thriving next to the river. Then he remembered the medications he’d gotten for Sarah before they had decided to keep the baby. He had never disposed of them. They probably were past their expiration dates, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be effective.
It was dusk when they returned to the cabin. Glen put together a meal of baked beans and bread. Brian ate like a boy who hadn’t seen food in a year, but Margaret merely picked at her food, offering Brian most of what was on her plate. When they had finished eating he showed Margaret the bedroom and told her to put the boy to sleep on the couch. She was going to need the bedroom for privacy and her medical needs.
They did the dishes together in companionable silence, neither one displaying any impatience, both slightly anxious about what was to come. With the dishes cleaned, dried and put away he fetched his first aid kit from the cabinet in the bathroom. Then he sat on the edge of his coffee table so she would have access to the back of his head.
“I need you to make sure the wound is clean, and I’d ask you to stitch it, but unless by some small miracle you’re a nurse, I think gluing is probably better.”
“Not a nurse,” she said, “so gluing is probably it.”
She was efficient and the pain was minimal. She’d cleaned and glued, and then she was doing something else.
“What’s up?” He asked. “What are you doing?”
“I read how doctors are twisting, weaving and gluing hair across head wounds to keep the edges from splitting apart. That’s what I’m doing.”
“Where’d you read that?” he asked. She was right, of course, he had done it himself. They used to shave the area around an incision before neurosurgery, but someone had introduced the new technique and it worked well.
“There,” she said. “That looks pretty good. I mean, I’ve never done it before, but it looks like it’ll hold.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Now you.”
She suddenly looked nervous, hugging her arms tightly across her body. “This won’t kill me, will it? Brian needs me.” She looked about ready to flee.
“No, it won’t kill you. When my wife got pregnant she wasn’t sure she wanted to keep the baby, so I obtained some drugs. We didn’t use them.” He returned the first aid kit to the bathroom cupboard and rummaged around until he found what he needed on the top shelf, in the back. Just where he’d left them.
He sat on the edge of the tub remembering how he and Sarah had come here to decide. And how he hidden the pills so she wouldn’t take them on impulse until they’d come to their joint decision. The memories of the joy and the sex washed over him, taking his breath away.
“Where’s your wife now?” Margaret was standing in the doorway, watching him with concern on her face.
“Dead. They are both dead.”
“At the end of civilization?” she asked.
“No. Before that.” He avoided looking directly at her face. He couldn’t deal with pity. “Car crash. They died, I lived.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But at least they aren’t having to live through this.”
“True,” he said, but it had been difficult thinking that it was better to be dead. What if he’d died, and they were here by themselves? That might be worse.
“Can we get on with it?” she asked, motioning to the pills in his hand.
“What?” He was momentarily confused by the change of subject. “Of course.”
He followed her into the main room.
Chapter Five
Christian was out cold, lying face up on the coffee table with a fractured wrist and a huge gash in his stomach, but little else was seriously wrong with him. Small cuts and scratches and some bruising, but nothing life-threatening, although that gash was bad news. It was ragged and black with blood. Who knew what germs were festering there?
It didn’t look as though any internal organs had been damaged, but how could he be sure? His living room was not an operating room. Although the large sturdy coffee table served as a makeshift surgical table, the light barely was adequate. It wasn’t sterile and there was no nurse to hold the edges of the wound apart while he poked around inside. Would he even remember what a normal liver or intestine looked like? He supposed he would know if they’d be sliced by a claw. That would be obvious enough if he actually could see anything in there.
He doused the area with antiseptic and antibiotic powder and began stitching the torn edges of muscle and skin together, layer by layer. The man groaned, but didn’t regain consciousness, thank God. All he needed was his patient thrashing around while he was trying to close his wound.
The mousey woman was over by the window, weeping, the other was watching him intently as he worked. Was she trying to learn how to stitch wounds or making sure he didn’t intentionally kill her friend? Maybe a bit of both.
It took a long time to complete the job. By the time he was satisfied with his work he sat up to find he was stiff. The weeping woman had stopped, thank God. Hopefully, she could keep her shit together until they could leave.
But that wouldn’t be soon. The young man would need rest and time for healing. If he started off too soon, the chances of tearing open the stitches would be high.
“Help me,” he ordered the women. “I need to tape a dressing to this wound, and then we should move him to the couch.”
“Okay, what do you need me to do?” the one who had been watching stepped around the couch. Mia, he thought.
“Wash your hands in the sink there.” He pointed to the kitchen. “Then you can cut medical tape for me. There’s a towel in the drawer to the left of the sink.”
Glen set out the sterile dressing while Mia did as she was told and came back with clean dry hands. She took the tape and scissors and made precise cuts just where he told her. He took the tape from her and sealed the dressing to Christian’s abdomen.
When he was done he said, “We need to move him to the couch, and it’s going to take all three of us.”
Sally threw him a startled look and he thought she might bolt. But she pulled herself together and approached.
“I need two clean sheets from the hall cupboard,” he said. “Top sheets.”
A moment later he could hear her rifling through the cupboard and she came back with two sheets.
He nodded to the couch. “Put one of them on there, give me the other.”
She handed him a sheet and set to work tucking the other around the cushions of the couch.
Glen unfolded his and smoothed it onto the coffee table next to Christian. “You,” he said to Mia, “come here and help me.”
“I guess what they say about doctors is true,” Mia said.
“What you mean by that?” Glen asked.
“So full of their own importance that they don’t think to use basic courtesy.” She raised an eyebrow at him.
He felt his cheeks flush and was annoyed that she had gotten to him. “I’m going to roll Christian onto his side,” he said. “Can you please,” he emphasized the please, “shove that half of the sheet as far under him as you can? There needs to be an excess under him. Okay?”
She nodded, and he rolled the man up onto his side. Mia gave a startled look at his biceps and then quickly and efficiently bunched the sheet up under Christian.
“Okay, good, thank you.” He said, annoyed at how self-conscious he’d become about his language. “Now I’m going to roll him onto his other side and I need you to pull the sheet out from underneath him and across the coffee table. Not the whole sheet, just enough that we easily can move him from the table to the couch. Am I clear?”
She nodded and he felt his biceps bunch again as he rolled Christian onto his other side. The boy groaned and tried pushing Glen away, but Mia shushed him as she pulled the sheet across the table.
“This next part is going to
take all three of us,” Glen said. He walked around the back of the couch and pushed it up against the coffee table. “Christian is a big guy. This isn’t going to be easy. I will take his shoulders. Mia and Sally, you each can take a corner of the sheet at his feet. We will lift him up as much as we can and slide him onto the couch. Do you think you can manage?”
“Of course,” Mia said.
Sally nodded, but looked doubtful.
“You can do it,” Glen said to her. “It’s just a moment of effort. That’s all. You just have to focus and try not to drop him.” He gathered the sheet in his hands near Christian’s shoulders, twisting the corners to create a sling for his head. The women each wound their hands in their end of the sheet and looked at him expectantly.
“Okay, on three. One, two, three.” They lifted and slid Christian over onto the couch. There was a sticking moment when his butt, being the low point, caught in the space between the table and the couch. But Glen heaved upward and they were able to get him settled.
Christian made noises of complaint and then subsided.
Glen took a moment to clean the blood from the coffee table and then motioned to the women to join him in the kitchen.
“He’s going to need antibiotics,” Glen said. “I think I have enough to give him a shot now, but he’s going to need a full course to survive. I don’t have that kind of supply.”
This is not strictly true. Glen did have a stack of antibiotics in a separate cold box, but he needed to keep those for himself. If his fall from the outlook had taught him anything, it was that he needed to take care of himself first and foremost. He wasn’t using up his stash of penicillin on a stranger.
Sally’s face crumpled, and she began sobbing. “Where are we going to get antibiotics?” she asked through her tears.
“You could try bartering in one of the towns,” he said.
“We don’t have anything to barter,” Mia said. “The best we can do is to steal some.” And Sally sobbed even harder.
“You could try asking nicely,” he said, but then remembered Margaret, and cut his sentence short. “I might be able to figure out a way to help you,” he added.
Sally completely melted at this. She dropped to her knees on the kitchen floor with her hands over her face. Glen was at a loss. Why would an offer to help cause her to totally lose it? It was supposed to make her feel better.
Mia knelt and put her arm around Sally, making soothing noises.
“It’s not right,” Sally sobbed. “He’s offering to help us and we’re planning on killing him. We’re not human anymore we’re just animals.”
“Just doing what we need to stay alive like everyone else,” Mia said. “No one’s human anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” Glen asked.
Mia looked up with an expression of defiance on her face. “Before Christian got mauled,” she said, “the plan was to rob you blind. And, if you resisted, we’d kill you. Not very nice, but it’s what we do now.”
“You killed people?” Glen asked casually. He didn’t really believe it.
“No,” Sally choked out. “Not yet. But Christian was teaching us what to do. We mostly just loot houses and camps. You were going to be our first home invasion.”
“I see,” he said, beginning to be thankful for the bear that had mauled Christian. “Tell me the story from the beginning. Where were you when the lights went out?” He grimaced inwardly at the cliché, but at least it got the message across.
“Chicago,” Sally said. “We were living in Chicago, but we didn’t know each other yet. I stayed home for a while, until the canned goods ran out and I went to a shelter. I met Mia and Christian there.”
“I met Christian at a different shelter,” Mia said. “But there was some trouble and we had to move. We ended up at the same place Sally was and that’s how we met her.”
“And were you living in Chicago too?” Glen asked.
Mia nodded. “The outskirts,” she said. “I went to the shelter when the food ran out, same as Sally. Christian was there and he recruited me. There was trouble because Christian was teaching me how to rob people and I wasn’t very good at it. I’m better at smash and grab than pickpocketing. Stealth makes me nervous and there was always so many people around.”
“They enlisted me to help,” Sally said. “I turned out to be better at lifting purses and pickpocketing, but there isn’t really a point in lifting purses and wallets. Money isn’t worth anything. Gold, silver and precious gems still have value, but most people want fuel, weapons, and ammunition.”
“And sex,” Mia said. “Women are in demand. But you must be careful. There aren’t that many free women left. Most of us are owned and traded. Most men distrust free women.”
“I had heard that,” Glen said, once again thinking of Margaret. He wondered briefly if she’d made it to her destination. He doubted it and felt a pang of guilt. “So, what then?” he asked.
“Christian would pretend he owned us,” Sally said. “He’d barter an hour or two of our company for a night’s lodging and food. We’d go off with the men, Christian would loot the town or farm, wherever we happened to be, and then we’d run off.”
“The men didn’t chase you?” Glen asked.
“We mostly drugged them,” Mia said. “Unless we particularly liked the look of one or two. The ones we didn’t drug would be amused that they were the chosen ones, until after when we drugged them too.”
“And if we couldn’t drug them, we’d taze them,” Sally said. “No one ever came after us. By the time they regained their senses we were long gone.”
“Interesting way to make a living. Why switch MO and start killing people?” he asked.
“We ran out of roofies and couldn’t find anymore. Tasers aren’t easy to come by,” Mia said.
“Besides, word got out and we got ambushed and had the crap beaten out of us. Christian said the only way to avoid that was to kill the people we stole from. But that meant we had to go after people without a community.” Sally shrugged. “It’s a dog eat dog world out there now.”
Glen was shocked and it must’ve shown on his face because Sally turned and stomped from the kitchen. She sat on the coffee table close to Christian and wiped the tears from her face with her sleeve.
“And you’re okay with this?” he asked Mia. “Killing people to stay alive doesn’t diminish your humanity at all?”
“What does my humanity matter? “Mia retorted. “Kill or be killed, kill or be forced into sexual slavery, either way you lose your humanity. What would you know about it?”
“I know I’ve managed to stay alive without killing anyone,” Glen said. “Surely that counts for something.”
“Where were you when the lights went out?” she asked. “Not in the middle of Chicago, I can tell you that.”
“No, but you could’ve left Chicago. You could have found yourself a place in Illinois to grow some food and raise some chickens, but instead you elected to rob people. And when that stopped working you elected to kill people. I did not. So, excuse me for thinking questions about your humanity are fair.” He might have said more but Mia turned and crossed to where Sally was sitting.
She put her arm around Sally, who turned and buried her face in Mia’s shoulder. They were rocking together when Glen slid out the door to the deck. He sat on the edge overlooking the pond and wondered what to do with these three. They were clearly a threat, but he’d be jeopardizing his own humanity if he threw them out.
He couldn’t access his food stores or his medical stores or leave them alone in the cabin. It was a problem. There wasn’t much in the cupboard to eat without accessing the hidden stash. Yet, if they saw him do that, they would steal it. He had no doubt.
He caught a glimpse of bushy tail on the far side of the pond. “Go away,” he whispered urgently. “It’s not safe here now.”
He had no proof that the three would harm the fox, but he had no proof that they wouldn’t either. He would make an effort to leave
some food for her away from the house in the hope she would stay away. He inwardly cursed himself. He had helped them and now he was responsible for them. He should have turned them away, humanity or no humanity.
He caught the sound of the door sliding, and a moment later Mia was sitting next to him.
“I hope you can forgive us,” she said. “It’s been a long time we felt safe anywhere. We had very little humanity left. If we hadn’t found Christian, or rather if he hadn’t found us, Sally probably would’ve killed herself. She’s been badly mistreated by men.”
“I can understand the need to protect yourself,” Glen replied. “But killing? And not just killing because the circumstance demands it, but planning to kill? I hope I never get to that point.”
“For your sake,” Mia said, “I hope the same.”
Glen stood up. “I need to get Christian a shot of penicillin,” he said and went inside, leaving Mia on the deck.
Sally was curled up in a chair sleeping. He passed her quietly and slipped out the front door. He went to the truck and pulled out the medical kit he kept there, because he really couldn’t get into his medical stores without one of them seeing him. He didn’t want to lose his medical kit, but if they did decide to steal it, better this one.
In the bathroom he found what he needed, a syringe and needle, and he prepared the injection. Christian was unconscious and didn’t even flinch as Glen shoved the needle into his thigh. He’d had to estimate the man’s weight but was confident he’d gotten close enough.
He went to the kitchen and marked used on the packaging the needle had been in and reinserted it. Normal procedure would have been to dispose of the needle, but there wasn’t an infinite supply, so he stored them in empty butter dish in the cupboard. He rinsed the syringe and did the same with it.
Then he pulled a surveyor’s map of the local area out of the drawer and opened it onto the kitchen table. He smoothed the folds and use masking tape to hold it down. Three towns were within traveling distance, well, walking distance anyway. He wasn’t about to fire up the truck for obvious reasons.