by Logan Jacobs
“Research is a good point, actually,” I said. “The library has printers, right?”
“Yeah?” she replied and sounded confused.
“Tomorrow I think we should collect information on some other things we might need and print off different instructions,” I said.
“Why?” the blonde asked. “We have our phones, we can always look something up if we need to.”
“We might not have internet connection much longer,” I explained. “We don’t really know how long we have until the power supply cuts out. Then, we won’t be able to charge our phones, or print any instructions.”
“That’s ridiculous,” the British girl groaned, “there’s no way this will go on that long. I’m sure they will just call in some military troops and everything will all be sorted out.”
“Really?” I stared at her for a second, unsure if she really believed her own words. “You’ve seen everything I have, right? That dinosaur we saw by the shops was huge and it just appeared from out of nowhere. They’re clearly appearing like that all over. The police could barely make a dent in the number of them. What makes you think the army will just show up and solve everything?”
“I…” Becka looked taken aback at my words. “They can’t keep appearing forever, it has to stop some time. Then they can kill them and, I don’t know, throw them in the ocean or something. Right, Jason?”
“I wish that was true,” I said. “But really, we don’t know that they have to stop showing up. We have no idea what’s causing it or how long it will keep happening.”
“Won’t they figure it out, though?” she asked. “Eventually they will realize where the dinosaurs are appearing and then they can shoot them whenever they come through.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But how long will it be before they figure that out? How long would it take to set up the proper barricades? We need to think about things long term.”
I knew she didn’t want to think about being trapped in this situation much longer, but denial would get us nowhere. We needed to be realistic and prepared.
“I just can’t think about it that way.” She crossed her arms, and I wondered if she’d heard my thoughts. “If this is long term, if everything is stuck like this? I just, I don't know how to handle that.”
“If you’re right and this will get back to normal soon, then we’ll be fine if we over prepare. But we still don’t know when ‘normal’ will happen, so we need to make sure we plan for as far into the future as we possibly can.”
“I guess,” Becka said.
“And, hey,” I replied. “If it ends up only being a few days away, we just wasted some of the school’s printer ink.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I suppose it is the smart thing to do.”
“Good,” I said. “We can work on that tomorrow, but right now let's get these boards up.”
Becka nodded and started to find boards that were long enough to overlap the edges of the windows. She handed them to me and I started to arrange them into the right shape and laid smaller boards across the rows to add support. I had the first one hammered together in no time and we decided to put that one up, just to make sure everything was right, before we started making the next two panels.
“Okay, if you just hold the panel in place, I can hammer it in,” I said. “Unless you would rather I hold it. But this wall is pretty tough, so it may be hard to get a nail into.”
“I want to watch you hammer,” she replied. “Don’t worry, I can hold the board.”
“Okay,” I laughed, and then I helped her lift the panel and line it up in the right spot for us to nail in.
Becka placed both her hands on the panel and used her body weight to lean in and hold it in place. I started hammering in the first few nails and placed them at the top corners so the board would have more stability. I was right about the wall, it was solid, and each nail took a lot of effort to get it into the wall correctly. A few of them bent under the hammer and ended up being wasted, but we had plenty to use.
It was also a struggle to hammer them in over my head. I wished I had a ladder and thought I remembered seeing one in the maintenance closet back in building C, but it was only a few nails, and it would take a long time to go get the ladder. It was better to just suck it up so we could finish and go help Hae-won with the barricades.
In about fifteen minutes, I had worked in enough nails to make me feel the panel was secure. I wished I had better tools, especially a power drill, but this would do for now.
Becka ran inside and grabbed us some water before we started working on the next panel. I had found some good crossboards and Becka was laying out the last few longer boards when I heard her scream in pain and fall to the ground with a panel clutched in her hand.
“What is it?” I asked as I ran to her side. “What happened, are you okay?”
The beautiful blonde didn’t answer, she just shook her head and gritted her teeth together tightly. She stared straight down at the grass in front of her, and I could see what was wrong.
Where she still gripped the board, an old nail from the bookshelf was piercing up and through the middle of her hand.
Chapter 12
“Fuck,” I growled.
“Is it bad?” she asked, and I saw a tear stream down her cheek.
“Um,” I sucked in a breath and thought of how to respond. “No, it’s a small wound. Don’t worry, we can fix it.”
She must not have been convinced by my tone because she started to full-on cry.
I knelt down beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into me and started to bury her head in my chest.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I tried to tell her. “Can you just tell me what happened?”
I figured I pretty much knew what happened, but I needed time to figure out how to help and thought talking might keep her mind busy for a while at least.
“I just went to pick up the board,” She sobbed. “Then I felt this sharp pain through my hand. It must have been stuck into the wood, but I didn’t see it. It went through my hand, didn’t it? I can feel it. God, what do I do?”
She was starting to ramble, so I thought now was a good time to cut in.
“Listen, okay, you’re gonna be fine,” I said in the most soothing voice that I could manage. “We need to get you some medical equipment and then we can bandage it all up. It might hurt for a while, but you’ll be okay.”
“Should I take my hand off,” she gestured to where her hand still rested on top of the board.
“No,” I said quickly. “No, let’s try to keep that there for now. We want to make sure we have bandages for the blood before we pull that out.”
She nodded and still didn’t look at her hand, but I thought that was for the best. The last thing she needed was to faint right now.
“There’s a nurse’s station in that building there.” She bowed her head in the direction of another class building.
“Okay, good, we can go there,” I said. “I can carry the board and you can just focus on keeping your hand still and keep yourself calm.”
“What about Hae-won?” She asked. “What if she comes back, and we aren’t here?”
“It’s okay,” I soothed. I thought it was touching that she would think of the other girl when there was a piece of metal sticking through her own hand. “She’ll know to wait in the gallery for us. She can always barricade it if she needs to.”
Becka nodded, and I noticed how red her face had gotten. A few more tears streamed down her cheeks, and she gulped down a lump in her throat.
I tried to move the board as carefully as I could. I was glad Becka hadn’t immediately dropped it when she felt the sting of the point. If she had, there would be a lot more blood than the small pool forming on top of the wood plank.
I moved with the board slowly so that I could match my pace to Becka’s, but she still winced every few feet from an unexpected jolt. It took us a long time to cross the little square, but eventually we made it to the
door of the correct building.
“You wait here,” I told her. “I’ll set the board down and go in through the window. I’ll come around and open the door, okay. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“Okay, Jason,” she said, and I lowered the board down with her until she was resting on the pavement.
“Just one minute,” I assured her.
I turned away from her and found a rock to break the nearest window with. At this point I was basically a pro at breaking and entering, and it only took me a minute to slip the window open and climb inside. I ended up in another classroom and I quickly went around to the hall and found the entrance door. This one was an older lock, so it simply had a few bolt latches to unclick before I opened it to see Becka sitting on the other side.
“Let’s get this hand fixed,” I said and tried to sound positive.
We got her and the board up and started toward the small nurses station on the main floor. I maneuvered the panel around to get it through the door and Becka winced again as I set the piece down on the counter.
I left her standing there while I rummaged through some cabinets trying to find the right things to fix up her hand with. There were some bottles of antiseptic and several gauze packets that I figured we could use. If this was a real clinic, I would have considered using stitches on her wound, though I’m not sure I could have done that without using some kind of anesthetic. For now, though, we mostly had to make do with wraps and tape.
I readied a cloth next to the board for Becka to put her hand on as soon as we got it off the nail. I figured that could take some of the initial blood before I could get to work wrapping up the injury.
“Okay, I’m going to pull your hand off this nail,” I instructed Becka as I gathered the first aid equipment near us on the table, “Then I’m going to clean it with this, that might hurt, but we need to do it. Then, I’ll start wrapping it in this bandage and tape and hopefully that will get the bleeding under control.”
“Alright, I understand,” she said.
“You are doing great,” I said, and it was true. I was surprised she was being so calm, but I supposed all the dinosaurs we had been facing must have been enough to make this seem like a minor issue.
“Thanks.” She smiled at me. “I’m really glad you were here.”
“Okay, on the count of three I’ll remove it,” I said. “One, two--”
I pulled up on her hand and it lifted out from the nail. I learned that counting trick from a doctor back home, and I supposed the premise was that if you weren’t anticipating the pain it wouldn’t hurt as badly, but I’m not sure that worked in this case.
“Mother fucker!” Becka shouted as I set her hand down on top of the folded towel.
She didn’t move it, and I hurried to dump the hydrogen peroxide over it. She bit back a scream when the liquid hit the wound and fresh blood oozed from the back of her hand while the blood from her palm began to soak through the towel.
“Almost done.” I grabbed stacks of square gauze patches and placed them on either side of her hand over the holes. Then I took a gauze bandage wrap and encircled the middle part of her hand. I wrapped it several times, moved down to circle the wrist, and back up to the wound again. Next, I took the bandage tape and started wrapping the gauze tightly to keep it in place.
I ripped off the tape to end the wrap and gently patted it down before looking over the work. It wasn’t the ace bandaging of a real nurse, but for the limited supplies and even more limited experience, it would have to do.
“How does it feel?” I asked.
“Not great,” she replied, and I noticed that she looked a bit nauseous and seemed to be breathing heavily.
“Here,” I grabbed a paper cup from the counter and filled it in the sink before I passed it to Becka.
“Thank you.” She took the cup from me and started taking slow sips.
I looked around at the scene we’d created. There was a lot of blood on the towel, some still on the board and the nail stuck in it, and loose bandaging thrown everywhere. It looked like a mess, but I had actually thought it would have been worse. Luckily there was no Tarantino-like blood spurting and the hole the nail created was actually on the smaller side.
“Any better?” I asked Becka as she finished the water and passed the cup back to me.
“It still hurts,” she replied and held up her hand to examine it. “I think it’ll be okay, though.”
“Good.” I set the cup back and moved over to Becka. “Maybe we can ice it or something, that might help.”
“Maybe,” Becka said and to my surprise, she smiled at me. “You helped a lot there, Jason. I think I would have been spraying blood all over and freaking out if you hadn’t been here. Thank you.”
“It was nothing, really.” I grinned. “I’m sure someone else would have done the same.”
“No.” Becka moved in front of me and looked up with her sparkling brown eyes. “You’ve been saving us every day for… the last two days.”
She put her uninjured hand on my shoulder and leaned in toward my face.
Her kiss shouldn’t have caught me by surprise since we’d been kind of sort of flirting all day, but it still did, and for a second I didn’t react. But I was only stunned for a second. Then I wrapped my hands around her slender waist and pulled her in tighter so that the full length of her beautiful super-model body pressed against mine.
We each moaned in each other’s mouths while our tongues danced and slid against each other’s, and my head started to spin as her scent filled my nose. Her kiss was so gentle that it made me want more, and I slid my hands down her back, cupped her tight ass, and pulled her harder against me.
“Mmmmm,” Becka sighed in my mouth as soon as I grabbed her ass, and she lifted one of her her legs up so that she could wrap it around my hip. Then she grinded her crotch against mine as she pushed her tongue deeper into my mouth.
We were locked together for an incredible minute, as our bodies slowly dry humped each other, but then she pulled her mouth away slowly, gently bit my lower lip, and let out a shuddering breath as she raised her uninjured hand to stroke my cheek.
“Damn,” I said as I was left with the faint taste of cherries on my tongue.
Becka shook her head. “I’m sorry… Uh… I know you and Hae-won have a thing going on… I just forgot myself for a minute. And… I wanted to…”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. Did Hae-won and I have a thing? I mean she had kissed me back at the gallery, and I was crazy attracted to her, but Becka was just as beautiful and incredible. I really liked both of them, but I couldn’t quite say that aloud.
“Don’t think too much about it.” Becka smiled. “I just wanted to, in the moment.”
“Kiss me?” I asked.
“Maybe more,” she sighed. “Sorry. Uhhh. I’m going to… right.”
She turned away and walked out the door, and my eyes roamed down to her butt. She looked incredible in her tightly fit jeans, and that ass had felt incredible in my hands.
Did I now somehow have a shot with both of these beauties? The idea seemed too good to be true, and I shook the idea out of my head, grabbed a bunch of the left over supplies, threw them into a bag, and followed Becka out to the hall.
“My hand really does feel better,” she said as soon as I walked out of the nurse’s office, and I guessed she was trying to change the subject.
“Yeah, I dumped about a bottle of antiseptic on it, so you should be fine with just letting it heal,” I explained as we started to walk down the hall toward the exit.
“That stung like a bitch, but it needed it with that rusty old nail,” she replied.
“True.” I laughed. “Good thing you’ve got your tetanus shots.”
Becka stopped in her tracks and turned to me.
“What do you mean?” She asked.
“You know,” I looked at her, confused. “The whole rusty nail, deep cut thing. You used to get tetanus from it, but now everyone gets a bunc
h of vaccines.”
“Um,” She was looking at me with wide eyes, and I started to get concerned.
“You have had the vaccines?” I asked.
“I mean, some of them,” she said.
“What do you mean ‘some of them’?” I continued. “Everyone gets all of them, they have to. It’s the same in England, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “All I know is I have this memory of when I was fifteen and my friends all wanted to ditch school for a festival. I needed a regular vaccine shot from the doctors, so I had my mum schedule it for that day. I thought it would be easier to skip that way. I could just leave and say it was for the appointment.”
“What?” I groaned. “Wouldn’t your mom know you missed the appointment?”
“They send letters in the mail,” she explained. “They just say it’s bad to miss appointments, since it costs the NHS and all that. I got to the mail early for a week so she wouldn’t see it.”
“Fuck.” I took a deep breath, “We don’t know that it was that shot that you missed for sure, just that you missed a shot.”
“Actually,” Becka looked at me with her eyebrows scrunched together. “I do know. I started getting paranoid that I had missed some super important shot like polio or something, so I looked up the regular vaccine courses. I found out it was tetanus and that I’d already had two, so I figured it wasn’t that important. Besides, if anything serious did happen, I could always get a shot from the doctors then.”
I groaned again and tried not to facepalm.
“Well, it’s normally available at every clinic,” she argued. “I mean old people aren’t even vaccinated, and they’re fine. How was I supposed to factor in the apocalypse into my calculations?”
“Uh,” I grunted. I thought through what was happening and tried to figure out if there was a chance Becka could get tetanus and what that even meant. “Do you have your phone with you?”