Sanctuary

by Courtney McPhail

  She turned back around to see that Hillman and Alan had gotten in on it too, providing them the cover they needed.

  “Kim,” Alan called out. “Crawl over here! We’ve got your back!”

  She began to shimmy towards them, using her knees and hands to propel her forward across the beam. It was slow going but it kept her out of the way of the bullets and the random tools that were flying up at them.

  She only had six feet left to slide over when a power drill came flying into her line of sight. She followed its path as it arced up and clipped Hillman in the shoulder. The weight sent him toppling backwards where there was nothing but open air. Alan grabbed onto Hillman to try and stop his fall but the larger man’s weight and momentum were too much for Alan. Kim let out a scream as the two of them toppled off the beam down to the scaffolding below.

  She scrambled the last few feet over to the small platform, her need to help the fallen men sending her fear to the back of her mind. Hillman and Alan were sprawled in the middle of the bridge the toppled scaffolding had formed between the building and the fence. Alan lay on his stomach, his head resting on a metal bar that had blood sliding down it. Hillman was facing up but his eyes were closed and she could see a jagged piece of plywood sticking out of his thigh. A dark circle grew around the wood as his blood soaked his fatigue pants.

  Freaks were already trying to climb through the metal bars and splintered plywood, their milky eyes focused on the defenseless men.

  “Alan! Get up!” she yelled down. Alan stirred at the sound of his name but still lay prone across the scaffolding.

  She got to her knees and pulled out her sidearm, taking aim at the freaks that were climbing towards them. She did her best to make sure her aim was true, waiting until she had a direct headshot so she didn’t waste the handful of bullets she still had. She plugged the two closest in the head and their bodies fell to block the other freaks for a moment.

  “ALAN!” she screamed and she saw his head lift up, his movements still groggy as he looked around. “Alan, move! Get Hillman and climb!”

  Her screams didn’t seem to register through his daze and she had to turn her attention back to the freaks. They had pulled down the bodies of the fallen and were back to climbing up through the scaffolding. She fired at them, taking down a few but it wasn’t enough to stop then and it wasn’t long before she was out of bullets. Shit!

  One of the freaks broke out ahead of the pack, climbing with the ease of a monkey through the scaffolding just below Alan and Hillman’s feet. Alan had rolled onto his back and his daze seemed to have cleared as the freak reared up over him and he struggled to pull his gun from his holster.

  The boom of a shotgun sounded next to her and she watched as the freak’s head exploded like an overripe melon and its body toppled down on top of the men.

  She looked up to see Quinton aim his shotgun down at the rest of the freaks and fire. The close range spray of buckshot tore through them, killing some and injuring the others who retreated, howling in pain.

  Trey appeared next to Quinton on the platform, quickly followed by Malcolm.

  “We’ve got a break now,” Malcolm said, “Let’s get over the fence.”

  “Alan is conscious but Hillman is hurt,” she told him. “We’ll have to carry Hillman out.”

  Malcolm nodded and sat on the edge of the platform, swinging his legs out to dangle for a moment as he rolled onto his stomach. He inched himself over, gripping the edge of the platform until his feet found the scaffolding below. Quinton followed his example and joined him down there, immediately climbing to tend to the injured man.

  “You go next, Trey,” she told him and she kept her hands on his shoulders as he slid over the edge, watching the ground beneath the fallen scaffolding for any stray freaks. When his feet had touched the scaffolding, she slid herself down as well, not wanting to have her son out of her reach.

  Malcolm already had Alan on his feet and was helping him climb up to the top of the scaffolding. Trey was already perched where the scaffolding met the top of the fence, scouting out the other side. Quinton was leaning over Hillman, wrapping his belt around Hillman’s injured leg, just above the wood that stuck out of him.

  Kim moved up to Hillman’s other side and looked over at Quinton. “Do you have to take the wood out before we move him?”

  Quinton shook his head. “Better it stay there for now so he doesn’t bleed out. Tourniquet is just in case we jostle it while we carry him.”

  The scaffolding shook and she looked over her shoulder to see Mendez and Banks jumping down to join them.

  “Go ahead,” Quinton told her. “They’ll help me with him.”

  Kim didn’t argue and scrambled up the scaffolding to join the others at the top. Malcolm was already on the ground on the other side of the fence scanning the field below. She looked at Alan, who had blood dripping down from the gash in his temple to soak the bandana that had fallen down around his neck. His skin was pale beneath the blood and his eyes were wild as he looked around.

  “Alan, can you make it down?” she asked.

  He nodded and then winced at the sharp movement of his head. “Yeah I can do it. Not gonna be graceful but I can do it.”

  He moved to the top of the scaffolding and rolled to his belly, shimmying backwards so his legs dangled down towards the ground. She could see the muscles in Alan’s arm bunch up as they took most of his weight while he dangled off the side of the scaffolding. She reached over to grip his wrists to give him assurance he wouldn’t fall.

  He glanced up at her and smiled. “I’m fine.”

  He let go and managed a decent tuck and roll as he hit the ground. She held her breath as he lay still among the knee high grass but it only lasted a moment before he was getting to his feet, rubbing the shoulder that had taken the brunt of the impact.

  “Trey, you go next,” she said and gestured for him to follow Alan’s path down. When she was sure that her son hadn’t injured himself in the drop, she followed him. Her adrenaline was high enough that she barely felt the impact as she hit the ground, doing her best to copy the tuck and roll routine.

  “Kim, keep watch while we help them get Hillman down,” Malcolm said, handing over his rifle.

  She did as he ordered, turning her attention away from where Quinton and Banks were hauling Hillman to the edge of the scaffolding and to the grassy plot in front of them.

  It ran the length of the construction site, a couple buildings butting up against it to block it from the side streets on the north side. It probably would have been used as a parking lot if the building had been completed.

  There weren’t any freaks out here but she could hear them on the other side of the fence, screaming and pounding on the boards. God, why wouldn’t they just leave them alone? They’d already taken three people, wasn’t that enough?

  “What the hell do we do now?”

  She turned to see that everyone was on the ground and Banks had been the one to ask the question. He and Quinton had Hillman hanging between them, his arms slung over their shoulders.

  “We’ve got to get this guy back to the motel,” Quinton said. “I can treat him there. If he punctured an artery, I need the supplies at the motel to fix it.”

  “You a doctor or something?” Banks asked and Quinton nodded.

  “It’s your friend’s lucky day.”

  Banks looked down at the wood sticking out of Hillman’s leg. “Not so sure I’d go that far.”

  “How far is this motel?” Mendez asked.

  “Ten miles at least,” Malcolm replied, slightly distracted as he studied the area around them, “But we’ve got a truck. It’s back at some houses we hit.”

  He pointed towards the buildings on the north end of the plot. “We go that way, stay hidden as best we can and loop back around to the houses. It’s an easy drive to the motel and the rest of our people have it secure. It’s the only chance your boy’s got.”

  Mendez looked over at the buildings and then ba
ck at the fence where they could hear freaks pounding against the wooden walls. She seemed unsure, whether it was because she still didn’t trust them or she was simply afraid. Either way, Kim wanted to reassure her, even if only to get them moving away from this place.

  “Trey is my son and we’ve got other kids back there,” Kim said. “Bringing you all back is as big of a risk for us as it is for you.”

  Her words seemed to get through to the woman and she nodded. “You’re right. And any place has to be better than this death trap.”

  Subject File # 756

  Administrator: In our past talks, you mentioned the biggest mistake of your life but you’ve never elaborated on it. Can you tell me about it now?

  Subject: I wanted to play the hero and in doing so I cost lives.

  Quinton knelt in the back of the truck, digging through his first aid kit for some more clean gauze. Hillman was laid out on the truck bed, Mendez propping up his injured leg so that it would stay elevated. Hillman had been in and out of it on the run back to the house, the pain in his injured leg causing him to keep blacking out.

  He was out again after going over a nasty pothole. Which was probably for the best. He’d packed as much clean gauze as he could fit around the wood sticking out of his leg but they still had to keep it immobile. It was the only way to keep him from potentially bleeding out.

  Quinton found the clean gauze pads and turned to Alan who was sitting next to Banks, their backs to the cab of the truck where Malcolm, Kim and Trey were crammed in together.

  “I’m going to look at your head wound,” Quinton said to Alan. Alan nodded and shifted around so Quinton could get a good look at it. There was a two inch gash just above his ear. It had bled excessively like most scalp wounds, the right side of his neck and the collar of his shirt soaked red, but now it had slowed to a small trickle.

  “You’re going to need stitches when we get back to the motel,” he said, pressing the gauze pad against the wound. He took the roll of gauze and wrapped it a couple times around his head to secure the pad in place.

  “Sounds like I got the better end of the deal,” Alan said, over at Hillman. “Could have been a hell of a lot worse.”

  “What the hell was with the berserkers back there?” Banks asked. Quinton had heard them use the word before and now he realized it was what they called the freaks. “Throwing shit, that’s more than we’ve seen them do. That’s like using tools, you know. Does that mean the people are still in there?”

  “No, you saw what they did to the others,” Mendez replied. “It doesn’t matter what’s inside, they’re still a danger to us. They’re still trying to kill us so that means we keep doing what we have to do.”

  Quinton had to agree with her. No matter what new skills they displayed, the freaks still wanted to kill them and that made them their enemy.

  “They are just getting smarter at killing us, that’s all,” Quinton told them. “It’s how a successful predator makes it to the top of the food chain.”

  The motel appeared up the road and Malcolm laid on the horn to alert the rest of the group. Quinton spotted Lorraine on the roof and he stood up and waved to her so she would know they weren’t strangers.

  Malcolm brought the truck to a stop out front of the motel and Quinton was already moving to put down the tailgate.

  “Lorraine, I need you down here now!” he yelled up to the woman.

  “Janet, keep the kids inside!” Malcolm barked out before he rounded the end of the truck to help them get Hillman out.

  Lorraine was already down from the roof and running towards his own room where the medical supplies were stashed. She held the door open and they carried Hillman inside.

  Lorraine pulled open the curtains to let the afternoon light into the room while he went to the table where he had stacked the medical supplies they had scavenged. He pulled out another box of gloves, changing out the bloody pair he wore for clean ones before he grabbed retractors, clamps, suture kits and several packs of gauze.

  Lorraine turned on the lanterns in the room, adding more light before she went over to one of the packs and pulled out the blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope. She pulled on her gloves and a mask, before grabbing a bottle of Bactine to sterilize the equipment.

  It was moments like this that he was grateful he had a trained nurse with him. He didn’t have to bark out any orders. She knew what was needed and got it done.

  He grabbed a pair of scissors and sliced open Hillman’s pant leg all the way up to where the wood was protruding from his leg. He was careful as he sliced around the wood and pulled away the fabric that was stuck in places where his blood had dried.

  “Malcolm, Banks, I’m going to need your help to hold him down when I take out the wood,” Quinton said as Lorraine set down a towel with his sterilized instruments on the bedside table.

  He instructed Malcolm to hold Hillman’s calves and put Banks at his shoulders. Lorraine gripped his thigh, just above the wound and Quinton took hold of the wood. He took a deep breath and let it out, steadying himself, knowing that if he didn’t pull it out clean, he risked making it worse.

  As he gripped it, he could feel jagged edges catching on flesh and muscle but he gave it a hard pull and it tore free of the leg. Hillman let out a scream, eyes flying open and he tried to rocket up off the bed but the others held him down.

  It didn’t stop the arc of blood that spurted from his leg. “Shit, it hit an artery!”

  Lorraine was there with a gauze pack to staunch the bleeding with one hand, the other holding out the retractors for Quinton.

  He dropped the wood for the retractors, Lorraine pulling back the gauze so he could go to work on clamping the artery. The wound was a mess, splinters still in the flesh and Hillman struggling against the arms holding him down.

  “Hold him steady!” he yelled at them, as he put the retractors in place to open the wound. Thankfully the pain from opening the wound was enough to cause Hillman to pass out again and his movements ceased.

  He took the clamp that Lorraine held out to him and went about stopping the bleeding, Lorraine helping him keep the area clean. When he had slowed the blood flow he rubbed his forearm over his forehead, swiping away the sweat that had pebbled on his brow.

  “Okay, I need tweezers to pick out the splinters, then I’ll sew him up,” Quinton said and Lorraine was there with a set of tweezers.

  “I’ll take his vitals,” she said. “Malcolm, can you come hold the lantern up so Quinton has more light?”

  Malcolm jumped to do as she asked and Lorraine moved over to wrap the blood pressure cuff around Hillman’s other arm. The steady puff puff as she inflated the cuff calmed Quinton as he picked out the splinters, wiping away the blood that was slowly oozing out.

  “Blood pressure is low, pulse is slow,” Lorraine reported to him.

  That was to be expected.

  “He’s also running a fever,” she added with a frown at the digital thermometer. “101.2.”

  That was strange. With blood loss, the body’s temperature tended to drop, not rise. A fever like that usually came when someone was fighting off an infection but the wood hadn’t been in there long enough for anything to take root yet.

  Oh God, no.

  Lorraine had rounded the bed and leaned over to give him clean gauze and sniffed at the air a few times before her eyes went wide.

  “Do you smell that?” she asked. He pulled down his mask and inhaled deeply. The copper scent of blood permeated his nose but beneath it there was a sour smell.

  “I smelled it before,” she whispered. “My last day at the ER...this man had been bit by what he had thought was some mentally ill person on the street.”

  No, it couldn’t be. Quinton remembered the freak that had been looming over Hillman and Alan. He hadn’t had a choice, it was going to kill them so he had shot it. He hadn’t thought about the blood spray that his shot would cause or how it would rain down on the men who had open wounds just begging to be infected. />
  His hands froze and the tweezers dropped from his numb fingers.

  “You aren’t saying he’s infected are you?” Malcolm asked. Quinton heard the cries from Banks and Mendez but not what they said, all the noise flowing together until all he heard was a dull roast in his ears.

  All he could see was the blood that soaked Hillman’s pant leg. How much of it was his and how much of it was from the freak?

  God damn it, he had killed this man!

  He had been reckless, he had acted on instinct instead of taking a moment to think things through. But if he had taken that moment, both Hillman and Alan could be dead right now. Except Hillman was as good as dead anyway. But Alan...he had saved Alan, hadn’t he?

  He remembered the gash in Alan’s head. Had he condemned two men to death today?

  “Quinton. Quinton!”

  Lorraine’s pleas finally broke through the myriad of condemnations that had swamped him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Are you still going to stitch him up?” she asked, nodding to where he had dropped the tweezers.

  He shook his head, trying to bring himself back to the moment. “I...uh...yes, get me the sutures.”

  “So you don’t think he’s infected?” Mendez asked, “Because why bother to fix him if he’s infected, right?”

  “She’s right. Maybe you should just unclamp it,” Lorraine said, glancing for a moment at the others. “Wouldn’t it be kinder?”

  “No way!” Banks cried out, stepping towards Lorraine but Malcolm grabbed his shoulder to hold him back. “Doc, you fix up Hillman right goddamn now!”

  Lorraine had a point. If he unclamped the artery, the man would bleed out in a few moments, probably never even wake up. It would be the kindest way to go. Better than turning into a monster.

  Problem was it went against everything in him that was a doctor. He had sworn to do his best to heal the sick. He could stitch this artery and he could save this man. They didn’t know for sure that the man was infected. Sure, there was that smell but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe Lorraine was mistaken. Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe Hillman could fight this off.