Survival: After It Happened Book 1 (20 page)

Dan lay there panting, light headed. He was barely conscious and terrified.

He struggled back to his feet and tried to wipe the blood from his eyes again. He groped around, and found a rag of a hospital gown which he wrapped around his head and left eye. He sucked water from the bladder built into his vest and spat it into his hand to give him at least some vision out of his right eye.

There was no sign of the man with whom they had fought and so nearly lost to. Blood was all over the floor and he could not tell who it belonged to. He staggered forwards to find Steve unconscious and bleeding heavily from a deep cut to his left forearm. He found another gown and tied it tight around the wound before going to Lexi.

She was still alive, but her pulse was weak. He cut her down and wrapped her in a white blanket. He tried to lift her, but fell twice, weak from blood loss and pain. He eventually rolled both of them into another blanket he had laid on the floor, and dragged them together as he crawled to retrace their steps. He had to get help before he passed out as his injuries threatened the end for all of them.

He called for his dog desperately, fearing the worst, but he did not come and Dan could not find him.

After he made maybe thirty metres along the endless corridor before he lost consciousness, only to regain it with a gasp after he knew not how long.

Seemingly for hours he laboured, dragging the inanimate forms of his two friends and crying with the pain and the fate of his absent dog.

He eventually made it back to where they had all entered at different times, and could go no further. Light was beginning to show at the edge of the sky now, and he tried one last effort with what remained of his strength.

He dragged himself through the smashed glass panel, getting cut again as he lacked the alertness to avoid the glass shards. He pulled himself towards Lexi’s vehicle as his peripheral vision began to fade.

He hauled himself to the side step, then the door handle and tried the door. Barely able to believe his luck, he found the door open and tried to get inside where he grabbed the speaker mic of the CB radio.

He keyed the press-to-talk, calling weakly for anyone who would be listening.

“Help us” he gasped “hospital” and slumped into the footwell, finally unconscious for good.

~

Very few of the group had believed Dan’s assertion that all was well, and it was no secret that he left not long after with Steve, both heavily armed. Loud disputes had gone on through the night, with Neil and Joe advocates of going after them with everything they had.

Penny raised strong counter arguments, supported by the lefties and the pacifists and those in favour of a warm bed and a clear conscience through their blinkered views.

Jack had remained mute throughout, carefully watching the CB radio for and twitch of life. For hours he sat as the arguments raged around him.

Kate had prepared her ambulance for a rescue mission, and was arguing for action over inaction. Penny finally went too far by declaring, “He only has himself to blame if he has gone out and found trouble. He has a habit of doing so!”

That was too much for Neil.

“Do you think any of us would be here if not for him?” he turned and yelled at her, taught with anger

Mike, more through personal experience and loyalty than his own beliefs, sided with Neil. “He has killed to keep us safe, and you would just abandon him?” he asked angrily, very conscious that he would be dead and his daughter brutalised if Dan and Lexi had not saved them.

A shout from jack silenced them all.

“QUIET” he roared, and turned back to the radio set.

“Say again” he spoke into the mic. “Repeat. Dan are you there, friend?”

Nothing.

He turned to the group, still frozen in their stances of mid-argument.

“I heard them. He said ‘Help. Hospital’ I’d have heard more but for your howling” he said, looking at Penny with obvious scorn.

“I for one am going. Now. Who is with me?” he said as he nodded to Joe.

Joe led the way in his Land Rover with Jack. Kate followed in the ambulance with Neil riding, quite literally, shotgun.

They were at the hospital by day break, arriving in the biggest contrast to Dan and Steve, and what they saw made them fear the worst.

Joe was out of the car and scanning wildly with his rifle, moving towards Dan. Kate nearly bowled him over to get to him first, checking his pupil response and shouting his name. He came round enough to speak.

“Inside. Help the others” he said, before blacking out again.

He slipped away into the dark, and knew nothing more.

The story continues in AFTER IT HAPPENED BOOK TWO: HUMANITY