Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
“It’s done,” I tell her. “They’re all dead.”
Whatever memory of her that has been haunting me doesn’t respond. I thought it was over when I left Atlanta. Sure, they always could have tracked me, but I had put so much distance between me and that wretched, horrible city without a sign of them. I honestly hadn’t expected them to be waiting here for me. Walking toward the truck, I open the passenger door and toss Lindsay’s pack to the floorboards. Grabbing the severed arm, I throw it out onto the road. I hope that there are Zombies nearby. I hope they heard all of this and are drawn to the noise. I hope they come here, find these dead assholes, and I hope they eat them. Serves them right.
Reloading the flare gun, I put it in the glove box and pull out the medical kit. There isn’t much in here. There’s gauze, rubbing alcohol, some blood-clotting packets, a wrap, some pain relief pills, and a spool of thread and needles. There’s nothing here that’s going to help me at the moment. Pulling up my shirt, I look at the bullet hole as blood pours out of the wound. I tear open one of the powder packets and pour it over the bullet hole, feeling the sting and the burn as I clamp my stump down on the hole just two inches from my belly button. I don’t know. I’m probably not going to survive this. God, I’m so nonchalant about it. I shouldn’t be.
“Hey, you wanted to be numb,” I tell myself as I slap myself across the face to keep me alert and awake. Closing the door, I take off my shirt and stuff it over my bullet hole, wincing against the pain as I walk around the truck and climb into the driver’s seat. Putting the truck in reverse, I head for the nearest place that will offer me some sort of help. Luckily, the pain isn’t too much right now. The adrenaline and the panic is still coursing through my veins. I might have a few more minutes until I start feeling the pain, so I decide to use them wisely. I have to find somewhere to set up a makeshift infirmary. I have to put myself back together.
These bastards are not going to win, not now, not this close to the girls. Not after everything they made me suffer and do. I did not kill an entire city of those fuckers just to have them off me at the last second. No. This is not how my life ends.
“What the hell?” I shout at the dash as I watch the temperature gauge slowly start to climb. I’m not going to make it. I slam my palm against the steering wheel and shout again, letting out a long guttural roar that causes my gaping wound to hurt even more. I am only two hours away from where they marked on the map to find them. It’s south of some place called Marineland and I already have the route traced out. I could make it there. I could make it there in two fucking measly hours. I can just find some place to stop and patch myself up and then I can get back in the cab and drive, but I’m not going to make it if the five ton’s temperature gauge is climbing like this. If it keeps it up, I’m only going to make it another ten, maybe twenty minutes, before it’s dead, over-heated, in the middle of the road. There’s no more time to waste. The bastards shot up the truck and they shot me. I have to stop. I’m not going to make it today.
The only place that I can find that doesn’t look like a blown up, shot to hell, piece of crap is ironically enough, a trailer park in the middle of nowhere. There are a dozen enormous, dead trees hanging over the park and the only thing nearby is a burnt down gas station and a grocery store that has received the same treatment. There’s nothing around here that’s making me feel like I’m in danger. I pull the truck off the road and head for the trailer homes, parking at the entrance of the little cluster of trailers. There’s maybe twenty of the trailers behind the high wooden fence, part of which has collapsed over and fallen in. I keep the truck running for a moment longer, waiting for any signs that there are people living in the trailer park still. I keep very still, slowly twisting the key and letting the engine die. Again, I’m surrounded, engulfed, in silence, waiting for another sign of life. Nothing. I’m completely alone here, or at least it seems that way.
I stumble out of the cab, my stump clamped down onto my side as I make my way to the nearest of the trailers. Walking up the wooden steps, I try the door and find it open. So grateful that this isn’t going to be too difficult, I look around the room see that the place has been pretty well looted. That’s fine, I don’t need much. Looking around the trailer, I throw open the cabinets until I find the toolbox. Throwing it open, I find a pair of needle nose pliers and some box cutters, and I have the last thing that I need. Clearing off their table, I set it down next to a pair of fairly clean looking drinking glasses that I found. The pain is starting to come at me with a vengeance and I grip my side in agony. I need to hurry. I’m running out of time. I push open the door to the bedroom and I stop for a moment, staring at what I wasn’t expecting to find.
There’s a dead man in the bed. His desiccated remains are leaning up against the wall, a bible in his lap and his head hanging limp, his chin buried in his chest. There is dried, rusty blood all over the bible, as well as the wall and ceiling behind him. The gun that he used to kill himself is on the floor near the bed. Slowly, I reach down and pick up the gun, checking the cylinder for bullets. The bastard used his last. I hope it was worth it. I toss the gun onto his lap, watching it land on the dried, crusty pages of his bible before leaving the room.
Rushing back out to the truck, I grab my pack and I grab Lindsay’s pack before scooping up one of the gallon jugs of water and rushing back toward the house. Throwing back the door as awkwardly as a one handed guy with a bunch of gear can, I hurry to the table and I toss the pack down in the seats before setting the water on the table. I wash the two cups out as thoroughly as I can, spilling water everywhere without a care or worry in my mind. Then I focus on the pliers, making sure they’re as clean as I can possibly make them before turning my attention to all my other supplies.
I’ve been carrying this crap around with me for ages and finally it’s coming into use for me. I pull the container of lighter fluid out of the bottom of my pack and fill up one of the glasses. Setting my lighter down next to it. I grab everything that Lindsay and I still have from the tattoo parlor. The clear plastic wrap, the gauze, and the bandages. I’m going to need them soon.
Already shirtless, I feel my back, making sure that the bullet didn’t come out the other side, that it is in fact deep inside of me. God, I hope this works. I look at the table and feel my heart pounding a thousand miles an hour. This is stupid. This is so stupid. God, where is Lindsay when I need her? This was always the stuff she was good at. I’m sure she’d seen some sort of Civil War documentary about taking bullets out of people. I, on the other hand, have absolutely no clue what it is that I’m doing. Taking the rubbing alcohol out of Lindsay’s bag, I grab down another cup from an open cabinet and wash it thoroughly before dumping the contents into the cup with a cartoon duck on it, wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a big text bubble saying “Aloha!” I look at it with a small sense of mysticism, thinking that he might just be telling me what no other person can. Maybe this is aloha for me.
No. It’s time to do this. I take a deep breath and I grab the pliers and the box cutter and stuff them in the tall glass of rubbing alcohol. Oh God, I hope this works. I look up at the ceiling of the trailer, hoping that there might be some heavenly, divine ray that will rid me of this bullet. There’s nothing. I reach down for the bottle of painkillers and toss two in my mouth and swallow them dry before going to the kitchen again and grabbing a spoon. Almost forgot that one. I would have been sorry if I forgot that one. Washing the spoon, I come to terms with the fact that I’m killing time, trying to avoid what needs to be done. I look back at the hole in my stomach which has stopped bleeding only by the grace of soaking powder, and I take one last deep breath.
“Let’s do this,” I say to myself, and grab the pliers.
Sitting down on the couch, I look at the pliers slowly approaching the hole in my stomach and I talk myself down. “Alright, this is going to be simple,” I tell myself. “There’s already a hole in me. I’m going to just take the pliers, go into the hole, find the bullet, and rip it out. Nothing to it. The pliers are smaller than the hole. It’s not even going to hurt that much, thanks to the pills. I’m going to be okay. I can do this. I can do this.” I take a deep breath. “I can do this.”
I shove the pliers into the hole and I scream instinctively. I instantly rip the pliers out and look for something to bite down on. There’s a wooden spoon in the kitchen that is used for spaghetti or pasta or something like that. I grab it and stick it between my teeth and lay down on the couch again. It stinks of old beer, cigarettes, and dust. It doesn’t matter, I grab the pliers and push them into the wound again, screaming against the pain as the pliers push deeper and deeper into the wound. It feels like they are all the way inside of me, soon to be scraping against my back, but when I look, they’ve hardly gone half an inch. I close my eyes and feel the tears as I try again, pushing deeper, praying to God that I feel contact with something hard that happens to be a bullet stuck inside of me. I twist the pliers around again and again, feeling the blood coming up and spilling out of the wound and across my stomach, all of the soaking powder gone and the wound bleeding fresh again. I can feel the blood on my thumb and index finger, but I can’t stop. I keep trying to reach deeper and deeper inside of me, but I can’t find anything. I can’t find the damn bullet!
“Fuck!” I scream, tearing the pliers out of me as I stand up and put them on top of the table again, instantly reaching for the remaining powder packets. I tear one open with my teeth and dump the contents out over my bleeding hole and wait for a moment, applying pressure and praying that the bleeding will stop again. I sit down in one of the wooden chairs and look at where the box cutters are, knowing what has to happen next. I want to throw up. I think I’m going to throw up. God, I wish that I had a shot of whiskey.
I close my eyes and wish that I could hear someone’s voice. I don’t care right now. I want to hear Tiffany. I want her to be here with me, to put her hand on my chest and to kiss my lips and to tell me that everything is going to be alright. I want the girls here to tell me that they believe in me, that I’ve done right by them, to encourage me to keep fighting. I want Lindsay here to tell me to get my ass in gear and that I’m not dying here, not in this little shit hole. I close my eyes tight and I try to remember her. God, I can’t help but think about that night in the home improvement store. I remember how we’d had each other again and again, going at each other until the sun came up. It had been the best night of my time here at the end of the world. I have to give that to her. She gave me what I didn’t think was possible. She gave me pleasure in this hellish waste. I will forever be grateful for her and all she did for me. That woman was a foul-mouthed angel from Columbus, Ohio.
Opening my eyes, I look at the box cutters and know what needs to be done. Reaching out, I take hold of them and feel the rubbing alcohol running over my bloody fingers. Reaching for the wooden spoon, I hold the box cutter and extend the blade as far as I think I need to. I don’t know how deep the bullet went, but I hope that this will be enough. I can’t imagine cutting into me anymore than this. I hold the blade close to my face, it’s an inch, maybe a little more.
I don’t want to cut into my core, I want to cut out. I’m afraid of hitting something more than I want to. Gripping the box cutter awkwardly, I ready myself, biting down on the spoon and feeling the spit running down my lips and chin. Gripping the handle of the box cutter, I push it outward, cutting across my side, screaming in agony as the blade rips into me, slicing more and more of me as I push. Tears burn against my will, welling in my eyes as I feel my sinew and muscle separating and I choke against the scream. I’m afraid that I’m going to pass out. I’m not going to stay alert. I’m going to pass out. I’m going to pass out.
Pulling the blade out, I look at the incision, which is just a few centimeters long. I can’t do that again. I can’t. I look at the extension that I’ve made and I know that it’s not going to be enough. I have to go out farther, maybe even deeper. I think I’m going to throw up as I choke back bile. I set the box cutter back down on the table and I unscrew the top of the water gallon. I take a drink and lean back my head, huffing and puffing as I try to get a grip. I’m not going to be able to continue this. Holding my breath, I look at the wound. The painkillers haven’t kicked in yet. They’re not going to. Not in time. Gritting my teeth upon the wood of the spoon, I snatch up the box cutter before I can doubt myself further and I go at it again.
This time, I don’t wait. I make it hard and I make it quick, cutting myself open a few more centimeters as I scream through my teeth, against the pain. When I’ve gone far enough, I throw the box cutter across the room and sob in agony, gripping my bleeding wound and screaming at God to just kill me. I stay that way for a few moments, restless, suffering, and delusional.
When I’m done sobbing and have a grip on my emotions, I look at the hole in my side and figure that it’s large enough for me to do what needs to be done. Looking back at the pliers, I press my stump back down on my gaping wound and pour water over the pliers on the table before dunking them back into the rubbing alcohol. I swish the pliers around for a moment or two before pulling them back out. Rubbing alcohol drips across the wet table and onto my stomach as I hold the pliers above the hole. Every time the pliers drip, I wince as the burning acid chews and claws at my wound. That’s fine. I’m getting used to the pain. I’m going into shock. I need to hurry. Gripping the pliers, I take a few sharp breaths and then one more, holding it in and keeping it there for a few seconds, thinking back over what needs to be done.
“Oh, God! Fuck!” I scream as I plunge the pliers into my stomach, opening them and going deeper than I had last time. The needle nose sinks into the wound, the incision did the trick, but it hurts so fucking much that I know I’m close to passing out. The edges of my vision grow dark. I pause, not pushing any deeper as the acidic burn of the rubbing alcohol feels like it’s cauterizing the entire wound. No, that comes later. I look down at my trembling hand and wonder how much damage I’m doing to myself just trying to get the bullet out. Taking another series of breaths, I hold them for a second and then let them out slowly. I’m light-headed and I don’t want to pass out. I want to keep even, smooth breathing. That’s the key right now. Keeping awake and alert.
“Alright,” I say with staggered, quivering breath. Speaking into the wooden shaft of the spoon. “One last push.”
I scream into the spoon, biting so hard that I’m afraid that it’s going to snap and cut open my mouth with the shards. I press the pliers deeper and deeper into the wound, feeling the bloody, tender flesh, screaming from a thousand different nerve endings, crying out in horror as I continue to hurt and maim them, as if they have not suffered enough in the passing day. I keep pushing deeper and deeper, until finally, as if God had finally heard my prayers, I hear the click. I open my eyes and I take another deep breath. Found the bastard, now I just have to get it out. I close my eyes as I open the pliers, screaming against the pain and instinctively opening my eyes to see a blurred, quivering world all around me. I’m going to pass out. “No!” I roar, pressing deeper and clamping the pliers down over the bullet.
Now just pull it out
, I tell myself. Easier said than done. I scream against the pain as I feel the bullet being exhumed, ripping open and pushing back the tender, savaged flesh until I see the bloody copper bullet appear from the wound, twisted and mangled all to hell. I pull it free, glistening with my blood and stare at it. I’m sweating like a pig, with my chest heaving and gulping down breaths as I stare in wonder at the thing. I’ve never been shot. That’s one thing that I can say is a first. I’ve never been fucking shot or ripped the damned bullet out with a pair of needle nose pliers.