by E S Richards
Chapter 12
A scream pierced Amy’s eardrums as she stared forward at her son, not realizing the noise was coming from her until Giles grabbed her and pulled her body down to the ground. Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears, which made all other sounds muffled and fuzzy but there was one thing and one thing only that she could focus on. The blood.
James was lying on the ground, knocked backwards out of his chair by the impact of a bullet slicing through his shoulder. Crimson blood was pooling around his small body, his eyes wide and searching the ceiling as he stared up above him, unable to concentrate on anything else. Tears welled in Amy’s eyes as she looked down at her son, blinking rapidly to try and disperse the liquid and start thinking clearly again. She couldn’t go into shock now; she needed to save her son.
“Where did that come from?”
Giles’s voice was serious yet focused, his hands pressed against the wound in James’s shoulder while he peeked up over the table, through the smashed glass in the window. Amy didn’t have any words to answer him and instead leaned over her son’s body and applied more pressure to his shoulder. Blood was still flowing out at a fast rate, but James was conscious and—due to the shock—not yet complaining about the pain. That would come soon enough and Amy knew she needed to do everything she could to stop it.
“Is there a first aid kit?! Where would it be, Giles?”
“In the bathroom,” Giles replied after a pause. “Stay here. I’ll get it.”
Amy didn’t reply but readjusted her hands over the hole in James’s shoulder, doing everything she could to stop the bleeding after Giles shifted away. The young man stayed as low as he could as he quickly scampered over to the bathroom, constantly looking back over his shoulder towards Amy, James, and the broken window. He had no idea where that bullet had come from or why anyone would be shooting at him but those questions would have to wait until later. For now, a little boy’s life hung in the balance.
Tugging the contents out of bathroom cabinets Giles eventually found the first aid kit, along with a sewing kit containing needle and thread. He’d taken several first aid courses during his time working at the country club and knew that if he needed to sew James’s shoulder wound closed, he could do it.
Amy was still leaning over her son as he moved back towards them, James now white as a sheet as Amy whispered in his ear. He still hadn’t cried out in pain or reacted in any way, but Giles was certain the pain would start to win over the shock now and soon enough the boy would be in a lot more trouble than he was.
“Here,” Giles said as he reached Amy, handing her sterile cloths from the first aid kit. “Move your hands and let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
Amy did as she was told and released the pressure she had on James’s shoulder, allowing more blood to trickle down onto the wooden floor and pool around her knees. She immediately started wiping the blood from James’s skin with the cloths, cleaning the area as best she could so both she and Giles could get a proper look at the bullet wound.
“Give him these,” Giles spoke again, reaching into the first aid kit once more and pulling out a couple of pills. “For the pain,” Giles added as Amy looked at him nervously. “I’m going to bandage him up for now, but I think he’ll ultimately need that sewn back together.”
Amy swallowed and took the pills from Giles, leaning over James once more to make eye contact with her son. “It’s okay James, you’re going to be okay. I need you to take these, all right?”
Amy’s heart broke further as she watched her son give her a meek nod, trying to lift his head up slightly to show willingness. She grabbed a water bottle from the table quickly, sparing a glance at the shattered window and the vacant resort beyond. Clearly someone else was here but all she could focus on right now was her son. Her bloody fingers slipped as she uncapped the water bottle, holding it in one hand while the pills were in the other. Giles was working at cleaning James’s shoulder and Amy could see how much it was hurting her son. He needed these pills immediately.
“Lift your head up James,” Amy said softly, placing the water bottle on the ground and cupping the back of her son’s head instead. Once he was slightly more upright, Amy dropped the two pills into her son’s mouth and fed him some water as quickly as she could manage. “Good boy,” she coaxed after he had swallowed them, “you can lie back down now.”
James opened his mouth to say something but nothing except a mumble escaped his lips as he lay back down, his eyes drifting closed slightly.
“They should knock him out in a couple of minutes,” Giles said to Amy from where he was now digging through the sewing kit, plucking out a long spool of thread. “I’m not sure whether this needle is strong enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a proper medical center in the resort which will have better equipment,” Giles replied as he glanced out of the window once more. “This is better suited for fixing clothes.”
“So, what should we do?” Amy’s voice rose in panic. She wasn’t trained at all in first aid and had never had any experience dealing with bullet wounds. All she could concentrate on was being there for her son, but as James’s eyes fluttered once more and he gave way to unconsciousness she knew she had to help Giles as much as she could.
“Swap places with me,” Giles said as he crawled around James’s body, “I need to try.”
Amy did as she was told once more, her pajama bottoms leaving a smear of blood on the floor as she moved around to James’s other side. Her son looked almost peaceful where he laid, his chest moving steadily up and down as he breathed. It was like he was asleep. Were it not for the pool of blood and the bullet hole in his chest he could have been, but they were things Amy couldn’t ignore.
She and James had already been through so much on their journey. Every time she felt like they were safe, something more terrible than ever seemed to happen, the effects of the EMP raging far beyond what she imagined. Amy still didn’t really know what was happening across the country, but to her it didn’t truly matter. She would live without power for the rest of her life so long as her son was by her side.
Turning her attention to Giles, Amy watched as he cleaned the area around the bullet wound once more. The bleeding had definitely slowed down, but Amy wasn’t certain whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. She was forced to hold her breath as a man she had met only a couple of days ago pulled out a needle and thread and tried to fix her son’s arm. As he first stabbed James’s skin with the needle Amy let out a gasp, Giles having to apply a lot of pressure to get the small needle through her son’s skin.
“Come on,” Giles muttered under his breath as he tried to thread the needle through the other side, the bullet wound so small he had his head just inches above James’s shoulder. “I don’t know if this will work,” he spoke again after a minute, pulling his head back with the needle and thread still in his hand. “I can’t get it through.”
Amy bit her lip. “So now what? What do we do?”
“I need supplies from the medical center,” Giles continued as he applied another sterile cloth to James’s wound. “I can bandage it in the meantime, but long-term this needs to be sewn up. Sooner rather than later.”
“Where is it?”
“By the main entrance. I should be able to get there and back unseen.”
“Oh God,” Amy looked from her son to Giles, suddenly aware again that there were other people in the resort who had shot at them. It surely wasn’t safe to go out there, but Amy couldn’t let anything more happen to her son. “Giles, you can’t. We don’t know who it was or why they were shooting. What if there are more of them out there?”
“I’ll be fine,” Giles reassured Amy as he could see the dilemma she was dealing with. “I’ll be back before you know it. Why don’t you try and move him into the bedroom? He should be out for about an hour.”
“Okay,” Amy nodded as Giles started to climb to his feet. “Be careful.”
Giles
turned back to Amy and smiled before pacing to the doorway of the lodge and carefully easing it open. Amy watched him wait by the door for a couple of seconds before he slid outside, closing the door firmly behind him. With just her and James in the lodge, it suddenly felt very empty, but Amy refused to entertain the thought of Giles not coming back. He had been to the resort before; he knew what he was doing. He would be fine.
Looking down at James’s body, Amy saw the cloth that still rested above the bullet wound and the rest of the first aid kit beside it. Reaching for the contents she found a fresh bandage and some medical tape inside, quickly wrapping the bandage around James’s shoulder and securing it in place with the tape. The bleeding was much slower now, but the bandage still quickly started to turn a dark crimson color as her son’s blood seeped through it. Cursing herself, Amy looked up at the broken window a final time. Why had she given James her seat? Why couldn’t it have been her? Who was out there and how could she be sure they weren’t coming back?
Carefully Amy looped one arm under her son’s neck and hooked her hand around his injured shoulder. Her other she hooked under his knees and then braced herself to stand, moving as quickly as she dared in a low crouch toward the master bedroom, not once looking back at where everything had happened.
James murmured slightly in his unconscious state as Amy laid his body down on the bed, the sheets still crumpled from where her son woke up no more than an hour earlier. Once he looked comfortable Amy sat beside him and stroked his hair, whispering softly as she struggled to remain strong.
The state of Giles and his illness from the dirty water, and the story he had just told her about Mel crept back into Amy’s mind and she shook her head violently, desperate not to think about what she would do if James didn’t pull through and something happened to Giles. No. She wouldn’t let that happen. Calming herself, Amy tried to make sense of what had happened. James was still definitely alive and, although Amy was really just guessing, she believed being shot in the shoulder was better than anywhere else. A few inches to the left and the bullet would have hit his chest. She couldn’t even think about it. Giles would be back soon, healthy again from the clean water they’d found in the lodge, and James would be okay.
As the seconds dragged by Amy tried to focus on anything else but the thoughts in her head. She looked to the clock on the wall before remembering it no longer worked and she had no idea how long ago Giles had left. Minutes started to drag and she wondered when he would return, if he would return. She was almost beside herself with worry when the sound of the front door being opened filled the lodge and Amy leapt to her feet, shielding her son’s body with her own before she knew exactly who was there.
“It’s me,” Giles’s voice sounded out immediately, reassuring Amy that whoever had shot at James had not come to finish them off.
“In here!” Amy called back straight away, Giles hurrying into the master bedroom where James lay waiting on the bed.
“How is he?” Giles came into view, his breathing heavy and a sheen of sweat on his brow from where he had just run through the resort. “Is he asleep?”
“Yes,” Amy moved to the side slightly so Giles could see her son. “He’s okay. Did you get everything?”
Giles nodded. “Didn’t see or hear anyone either. I don’t know what’s going on out there.”
Amy chewed on her lip as she looked out of the bedroom door into the rest of the lodge. The place seemed quiet and calm, just as it had earlier that morning as she sat and ate breakfast. It was disturbing. Amy wondered if she would ever be able to feel peace again.
“Can I?”
Giles had moved closer to the edge of the bed where Amy stood and was placing his medical supplies down on the bedside table. Amy shifted away to give him more room and stepped around to the other side of the bed, climbing up and sitting beside James. His skin was still white from blood loss, but Amy was relieved to see his breathing remained steady. She was confident he would be able to pull through this. She had to be. She had to have James by her side.
Chapter 13
“So, South Haven. That’s straight up route 94 isn’t it?”
“94 and then 196,” Len replied from the backseat of the pickup truck, still in awe that they were driving after everything that had happened. Harrison and Justin had managed to fix the engine in under half an hour, both of their skills and expertise combined to get the Dodge Fargo in working order and running slightly quieter than it had been when Harrison first heard the vehicle approaching.
Len now sat in the backseat, beside Justin’s son, Max, while Justin drove with Harrison seated next to him. The conversation was minimal, all four passengers in an almost stunned state of silence that they were back in a working vehicle. Although in reality not much time had passed since Len had been working in central Chicago, driving to and from work every day without a passing thought for how much he relied on technology, still it felt like a lifetime.
As Len sat and thought back through everything, he knew he had accomplished so much since that fateful day in Chicago. He could now build a fire, shoot a gun, and wield a bow. He had killed people, been captured, escaped a violent gang, and avoided being captured again by a group of poisoned locals. In such a short space of time he had done so many things Len had never even imagined would be possible in his life. For the first time in many years, he finally felt confident in himself.
Harrison’s cough from the passenger seat reminded Len that almost none of it would have been possible without the old prepper by his side. A month ago Len hadn’t even known Harrison’s name and probably wouldn’t have even said hello to him in the street. Now he trusted Harrison with his life and owed him more than that for all his help. Once he reached South Haven and got to his family, Len wanted to make sure Harrison would be able to reach his own.
“What do you reckon, Max?” Justin spoke up again from the driver’s seat, now addressing his son who sat gazing out of the window as the world sped by beside them. “Want to see what South Haven’s like?”
Max shrugged. “Yeah, all right. Might be nice by the beach.”
Len smiled, “I hope so,” he added to the small conversation, his mind drifting to a memory of James playing in the sand beside Lake Michigan with a huge grin on his face. Although he didn’t speak about his son much with Harrison, James was always at the forefront of his mind. He was the only reason that Len was making this journey and he was the reason why he would never stop until he saw his little boy again.
Being seated in the back of the pickup beside Max, thoughts of his own son came to Len’s mind more often. Max looked several years older than James was, Justin’s son definitely already in high school while James still had a couple of years left to go. But after not seeing his son in the flesh for so long, Len could still pick out some similarities between the two boys. Max’s hair was shaggy and blonde like James’s and blew in the wind from the open window in the pickup. Also like James he didn’t speak much, preferring to watch the world go by rather than engage in conversion.
Pulling his eyes away from Max so as to not perturb the boy, Len realized that statement was true for everyone within the truck. Harrison had never been a big conversationalist, something that Len had grown used to over their travels. The older man had shared some stories with Len; a couple about his wife and daughter, and the theatrical tale of how he broke into Washington Park Zoo in order to rescue Len from the Latin Kings. Len spared a thought for a moment for the two people he had been locked in there with; the woman had died, but he had no idea whether the man had managed to escape during the shootout he and Harrison caused.
Len himself had killed several more gang members that night. He hadn’t really had any time to process how it felt to kill another human being but as he sat in the back of the Dodge and thought through his journey to this point, he didn’t feel like he had imagined he would. At some point after leaving Chicago, something in Len had changed and he had accepted he would do anything to be reunited wit
h his son, including taking another person’s life. As he looked at it, it had been him or them and that was an easy choice to make. He didn’t want to dwell on the people’s particulars—whether they had families or children of their own—he just knew they had tried to stop him from reaching his son and he wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of that.
He wondered how Amy would be taking care of James and what the two of them were doing at that moment. His ex-wife was resourceful and Len knew she loved their son very much. James would be in safe hands and out of harm’s way, of that he was sure. Although it was potentially naïve of him, Len continued to picture the two of them in Amy’s house in South Haven. The small lakeside town would be free from disaster and life continuing as normal. His family would welcome him back with open arms and everything would be as it should be.
***
Harrison kept a close eye on the fuel gauge as Justin drove, well aware that they had less than a quarter of a tank and would need to refuel if they wanted to drive all the way to South Haven. Len was comfortably daydreaming in the back of the truck next to the younger boy, which Harrison was pleased about as it gave him some time to focus on his own thoughts. He had been glad for Len’s company thus far on their journey, but it felt nice to be able to relax and let someone else—literally—take the wheel for a while.