I stumbled through the twigs and dirt, using the trees for balance while looking for the others. The sky was overcast but calm and the birds were chirping away merrily. It struck me odd that birds were chirping; I hadn’t heard a bird for weeks but took it as a good sign that we were well and truly alone out here. My biggest concern was finding the others and figuring out exactly where “here” was.
Voices up ahead forced my tired legs to move faster as I hobbled over vegetation. I rounded a large tree to see Penny and Chloe hovered over where Earl was tying off a piece of fabric around Bash’s arm.
Blood ran down Earl’s face, but he looked alright otherwise. They had set Bash’s arm against a branch and used some of his shirt to hold it still so I took that as a sign it was broken.
I didn’t say anything to the group, just nodded when Earl met my eyes and started off. I had to find Ty and Jack.
I walked a ways alone in the quiet, trying not to think about what had just happened. I’d survived a plane crash. Brian hadn’t. I couldn’t find Jack and Ty but the others were ok. I wanted to fall to my knees and cry for about 5 months but instead I just kept walking.
The voices had faded out completely behind me as I made a slow, wide circle around what was left of the plane. Bits and pieces of metal and plastic were everywhere, including hanging in the tree branches.
Roscoe ran around my legs, startling me and nearly causing me to fall, Chloe right behind him. He was barking and I knew the best thing to do was trust the dog. Chloe and I chased after him until we came to a small clearing to find Ty on the ground sitting up against the base of a giant tree. I watched Roscoe run over and start licking his face enthusiastically as Ty started to laugh and cry and hug his dog. Chloe ran over and soon all 3 were a tangle of limbs and tears.
I wanted to join them but it didn’t feel right. A part of me knew they were like family now, but I still didn’t feel like I belonged, so I hung back. I looked up and nearly peed my pants seeing Jack still strapped to his chair and dangling from a branch.
“Jack! Jack!” I ran over to the branch, my yells getting the kids’ attention as Ty struggled to stand using Chloe as a crutch and hobbled over.
Jack’s hat was on the ground just below the limb he was tangled in. The tree was huge and he was a good 10 feet above the ground. I couldn’t see his face well; it was partially hidden behind the leaves but I could see his chest moving slowly which meant he was still alive.
“How do we get him down?” Chloe asked. I hadn’t noticed her move to stand beside me with Ty still leaning on her.
“I’ll climb up and cut the belt. He’ll fall, but it probably won’t kill him.” I answered, tightening the sleeves of the hoodie around my waist.
She put her hand on my shoulder to stop me. “I’ll go, you’re hurt.” She said, looking down at my gut. I followed her gaze to where the sleeve was coated in blood and stood back. She was right; I was in no shape to climb trees at the moment.
I nodded at her and she raced over to the tree, stopping at the base to figure out how to get up there. After a moment Ty and I joined her in staring up. Jack was on the lowest branch and there wasn’t really anything else to grab onto below.
“Here, step on my hands and I’ll push you up.” Ty started, bending down slightly with his hands laced. She put a foot in his hands and using his shoulders, they bounced a couple times before she jumped and he pushed, launching her towards the branch.
It was just enough to get her there as she struggled to find a grasp, feet slipping on the bark. I held my breath watching her struggle her way up until she was kneeling on the branch looking down at us.
“Good Chloe. Now just crawl out to him and cut the belt.” I yelled up at her.
She nodded and started to crawl out to where Jack was still passed out and very much stuck. When she reached him, she stood up and leaned out; using a smaller branch above for balance, but still couldn’t get far enough out.
Backing up, I watched with fascination as she looked up, studying the branch above her before I saw her knees start to brace.
Ty started to tell her no, but before he could get the words out, she leaped up to the other branch and swung a few times, hanging by her hands. When she had enough momentum she kicked her legs up until her knees were around the branch.
Hanging upside down like kids do on the monkey bars, she upside down crab walked back over to where Jack was and I almost passed out when she let go to dangle by just her knees wrapped around the branch.
Upside down, she was now directly over Jack and I didn’t bother to hide the impressed look on my face as she pulled out her knife and started sawing at his seatbelt.
As soon as it had enough give, the nylon snapped and Jack started to fall. I rushed over in a vain attempt to catch him only to have him fall on me and take us both down.
“Angie! Are you crazy?!” Ty ran over and pulled Jack off of me and I just grinned at the shock on his face.
“There’s certainly a good argument for ‘yes’ on that one.” I groaned as I pushed Jack the rest of the way off of me and sidled up to him. Putting my fingers lightly on his neck, I tuned out the noise around me and closed my eyes. I felt a faint pulse and could kind of hear his heartbeat.
I felt around his body, giving him a full pat down, but didn’t find any large wounds or anything that was leaking blood so I had to assume his injuries were internal. Putting my ear to his mouth, I listened.
His breath was light, but it was there. “Go get Penny and hurry!” I called to Chloe who was taking one last swing from the branch before she let go and I watched her sail through the air to land gracefully on the ground on her feet. I’d never been more jealous of anyone in my life.
“Really? You done now, ‘cuz I think Jack’s seriously hurt here.” I snapped at her in irritation.
“I’m going already!” Her sarcasm wasn’t missed as she traipsed off back into the woods to find Penny and the others.
Ty came over and sat next to me and we watched Jack breathe together.
“Is he going to die?” The fear in Ty’s voice was palpable.
I took a deep breath and winced. “I hope not.”
Looking down at Jack, I started to wipe the dirt and blood combo from his cheek with the edge of the hoodie around my waist. His brows were furrowed, as though he was troubled and confused even in sleep.
I didn’t have time to consider the implications of Jack dying before the sounds of the others heading in our direction forced me to look up. Penny, Chloe, Earl and Bash appeared from between the trees and Penny rushed over, a giant red plastic toolbox in her hand.
Scooting back to give her room, I watched as she kneeled down and started poking Jack in all the places I had. She checked his pulse and his blood pressure and all I could do was stare helplessly as his lips started to turn blue.
Penny’s fingers stopped on his ribs and she started tearing his shirt open. A large lump was building up and her hands immediately stopped poking when she found it. I heard her heart slow and knew what she was going to say before she even looked up at me.
“I think his lung was punctured; there’s definitely some broken ribs.” Looking down at Jack, the frown on her face grew. “He doesn’t have long.”
I looked at Jack’s sleeping face and suppressed the urge to throw up. Running my fingers lightly down the stubble on his cheek, I sniffled and tried to swallow the bile that was rising in my throat.
No. Not Jack. Take me instead!
I looked up at the sky through the trees and begged and pleaded and argued with whatever was up there to take me and let him live.
My pulse slowed as the clouds parted, revealing the ice blue sky in shards. Tears were now rolling down my face in big fat drops that landed with a loud splash on my hand, only to roll off the side and onto Jack’s face.
Looking up from my hand I focused on Penny. “What can we do?” I asked between sniffles.
She just shook her head at me. “He’s bleeding into his lungs. I could cut a hole and release the pressure, but he’d bleed out. He’d need a transfusion.”
I thought about that while I watched the tears continue to land on my hand and roll off onto his cheek.
Wait….
Looking back up at Penny, I thrust my arm at her. “Then give him my blood.”
She started to shake her head, “We don’t even know if your blood types match.”
I shook my arm harder at her. “I’m O Negative, that’s universal, right? If he dies, at least I’ll know I did everything I could to keep him alive. Plus there’s something in my blood that makes me heal fast, maybe it will help him too.”
Penny’s pained expression as she looked at me then Jack felt like waiting for a judge to deliver a verdict and I could only wish I knew what words to say that would make her agree.
I looked up at the others for support. Earl was rubbing the back of his neck, just like Jack did when he was irritated with me. Bash had sat down leaning up against the same tree Jack had just fallen from and Ty and Chloe just stood there staring with their arms crossed.
“Well?!”
I asked up at them, the hysteria I was feeling starting to leak its way out.
Penny saw the desperation on my face and sighed as she reached for the plastic toolbox. Opening it, she started pulling out gauze, syringes and plastic tubing. Tearing open a package, “I can’t promise this will work. We aren’t in a sanitized environment and we have no way of knowing if whatever heals you will heal him.” Her eyes were heavy as she peered into mine. I nodded my head in solemn understanding.
The others came closer, forming a circle around Jack. “What can we do to help?” Chloe asked Penny.
Penny looked up at Earl, “Dad we need a fire.”
He nodded and motioned for Bash and Ty to follow. I could only assume they were going to find wood.
Penny motioned for Chloe to come sit down with us. She squirted hand sanitizer from a bottle that she had retrieved from her backpack into Chloe’s hands, who in turn rubbed them together.
I didn’t say anything; just watched Penny work. Her hands were sure and steady as she set up the tubing and prepared needles. I took her well-paced heartbeat as a good sign that she knew what she was doing.
Holding an alcohol wipe, she grabbed my arm and met my gaze. “You sure you want to do this? There’s no telling how much he needs and I can’t let you die from blood loss either.”
Taking one last look at Jack’s sleeping face; I nodded without a word and straightened my arm, pumping my fist so my veins would pop.
With a sigh, she wrapped a tourniquet around my arm and after inspecting my veins for a moment, stabbed me with the needle, starting the IV. I didn’t flinch at the giant needle and she didn’t meet my eyes after seeing the scars of past punctures. It was an unspoken understanding between healthcare provider and patient and I knew she could see they were old. On the bright side, at least I wouldn’t have to waste my breath telling anyone I was a recovering addict.
Penny had already started an IV in Jack’s arm and I become a little fascinated watching her setup the tubing so it flowed from me to him. She had found a bag of Saline in the first-aid kit and had it hanging from the tree, also flowing down into Jack’s arm.
I didn’t look up when I heard the boys trudging back over and start to assemble a fire, I just held my breath and prayed this worked. I watched the blood run from my arm through the tubing. Not blinking, I kept my eye on it as it made its way over and into Jack’s arm. It looked normal enough; it was just blood. It didn’t glow or sparkle or do anything else magical. If I couldn’t feel the wound in my gut knitting itself up, I wouldn’t have any idea there was anything different or special about my blood.
“Angie, you might want to look away for this.”
There wasn’t time to ask why and my breath stopped as Penny jabbed an Exacto blade into Jack’s torso where the lump had gotten a lot bigger. My heart stopped as blood bubbled up out of his chest and ran down his side. Vision swimming, I started to get dizzy and had to remind myself to breathe. There was just so much blood flowing out of him that I couldn’t even see Penny stab his lung with a plastic straw until I heard the whistling of air released from it and Jack’s chest start to heave with labored breaths.
The lump in his chest subsided and the color returned to his lips. I watched his chest rise and fall as the light started to dim. Looking down the tubing, the blood was flowing fast from my arm into his and I thought about how pretty it was as I lost consciousness.
Chapter 8:
The smell of wood burning brought me back. I didn’t open my eyes, just focused on the sounds and smells around me as I struggled to free myself from the haze of sleep.
Fire crackled in the background of hushed voices and Chloe’s giggling. My chest felt like there was a car sitting on it and I forced an eyelid open.
“Welcome back.” Penny smiled down at me as she held my wrist and focused on a watch.
Blinking up at her, I turned my head to Jack. His eyes where open and he smiled at me.
“If you hadn’t just saved my life, I’d kill you.” He winked at me and punched me lightly on the shoulder from where he lay next to me.
I coughed and struggled to sit up. “It worked?” I asked. My throat felt like sandpaper and I licked my lips, which only made everything that much drier.
“Here, drink this.” Penny held a bottle of something orange to my lips and I sipped slowly, grateful for the warm liquid.
The bitter sugar from the drink made me flinch. “Ugh. I hate Gatorade.”
She chuckled and put the bottle back down and grabbed my arm, helping me to sit up.
Looking back to Jack, I noticed the straw had been pulled from his chest and a large bandage had taken its place and he was breathing on his own.
It had worked.
“Hey.” I said to him. Swallowing hard, I traced my hand lightly over the bandage. “You ok?”
“Aside from being a mutant like you now, I’m fantastic.” He winked at me and closed his eyes.
“
Ass
. Least you could do is thank me for saving your life,” I mumbled back to him.
Without opening his eyes, his hand grabbed mine and squeezed.
Faces were staring at me through the smoke of the fire and I was glad for it. They all looked tired but at least we were alive. Well, most of us anyway.
“Has anyone figured out where we are yet?” I asked while picking up the offending beverage and chugging the rest of the bottle.
“Far as we can tell, we’re somewhere in Daniel Boone National Forest.” Ty answered.
“Where’s that?”
“Kentucky. On the Tennessee border.” He sounded as tired as I felt. “The GPS from the plane is shot, but I got just enough to put us there. On the bright side, we’re so far outside of civilization that zombies aren’t the biggest concern.”
Watching flames jumping, I thought about that for a minute. We had only brought what we could carry onto the plane which meant food and water would be an issue very soon.
“What
is
our biggest concern right now?” I asked.
“Bears, cougars and weather.” Earl answered with his low grumble. His face was drawn and pale in the firelight and I knew we were both weighing which was worse; bears or zombies. At least bears probably wouldn’t come investigating the fire, but the coppery hint of blood that was still hanging in the air was a concern.
“We need to get rid of anything with blood on it.” I started to untie the hoodie from my waist. The blood had dried and it was flaking off onto my lap as I struggled with the knot.
“Why?” Ty looked up from the maps he was always studying, a look of pure confusion on his face.
“She can smell it. If she can, animals can.” I looked over to Jack at his words, the shock on my face barely contained.
His eyes found mine and he shrugged, wincing at the gesture. “I can smell it too.”
The others stared at us openly for a moment before grabbing the debris from our blood transfusion and throwing it in the fire.
I had managed to free myself from the ruined hoodie and chucked it into the fire before peeling my shirt off and tossing it in as well. I was a little sad to be destroying anything with Jack’s face on it, but there had been no redeeming that article of clothing. I reached down to my pack and pulled the Playboy cami I’d worn at the dome and pulled it on over my head.
Once down, I reached over to Jack and pulled his destroyed t-shirt the rest of the way off as he struggled to help me. Tossing it in the fire as well, I looked at his jacket but before I could grab that too, his hand stopped mine.
“Not the jacket. It’s fine, I can wash the blood off.” There was no pleading in his tone and his eyes were hard. Apparently he’d rather die than part with the jacket. Fine.
Pulling my hand back, I made sure he could see my irritated expression before turning back to the group. “How far are we from civilization?” I asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.
“No more than 5 miles north of Honeybee.” Bash pushed his map next to Ty’s and his finger traced the page. “We can either head south to Interstate 75 and take that up to D.C. or we can zigzag our way there along the back roads. Either way, we can’t stay here long. The smoke from the crash has probably already caught anyone nearby’s attention and it won’t be long before we’re found.” He looked up and met the eyes of all of us staring back at him.
If the world were still normal, catching attention from anyone nearby would be a good thing. Now it just filled me with dread as the likelihood of anyone nearby still being alive and not wanting to eat us where slim to none.
“We leave at first light.” Earl’s words were definite and left no room for argument.
“And go where? We have no plane, no pilot and D.C. is still hundreds of miles away. We should have stayed home, at least there Brian would still be alive!” Penny finished on a shout and I could only look on in surprise as she stormed off into the night.
I couldn’t say I blamed her; she’d lost her husband and the father of her children after all, but what she couldn’t possibly understand in that moment was if they’d have stayed in that house, they would’ve all died. At least on the road with us, they had a chance.
No one said a word as Bash stood and followed his mom into the dark. I stared at Earl whose gaze was so intent on the fire it would seem it kept burning because he willed it so. Moments later he rose and stormed off after his grandson and daughter.
I looked over at where Johnny was curled up with Roscoe, sound asleep and sucking on his thumb softly. A lock of dark hair had fallen across his face and combined with the shadows from the fire, he looked beautiful and ghastly all at the same time.
It felt like I was still getting used to teenagers, so the sleeping child seemed an anomaly to me. I thought about what a strange life he was in for if he survived. There would be no first grade, no video games, no chicken nuggets with ketchup. It probably wouldn’t be long before a gun was thrust in his little hands and he was forced to fight for the right live with the rest of us. Of course that was assuming he lived that long. Being so young, I didn’t have the highest of hopes of his survival but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t still try to protect him. Sometimes we do things not because we have to or because we’re expected to, but because we still have to live with ourselves if we don’t.
Grabbing my pack, I pushed it up against the makeshift pillow Jack was laying on and laid down beside him, making sure my guns were all in their harnesses and my sword resting across my chest and let myself drift into an uneasy sleep.
I woke up to find a rabbit staring at me from behind the tree Jack and I had been sleeping against. Its nose twitched, causing its whiskers to flicker and I met its gaze moments before Roscoe came barreling over after it, causing it to run away.
I turned my head towards Jack’s soft snore and smiled. The color had returned to his face and his breathing was normal. He was going to be ok. How much my blood had affected him would remain to be seen, but he was alive and that was good enough for me.
I poked him insistently until his eyes opened and peered over at me through the haze of sleep. “What is it, Angie?” He mumbled before giving a little cough with accompanying wince.
“Nothing, just glad you’re alive.” I left it at that and sat up to find everyone else busying themselves with packing and kicking dirt on the fire.
“It’s time to go,” Earl said, throwing one last handful of dirt on the now dead and smoking ring of charred wood where the fire had been.
I pushed myself to my feet and reached down to give Jack a hand. We grumbled and moaned but managed to make it to our feet. Neither one of us said anything as we packed up our stuff and checked our weapons.
Between what was in the chambers and the bullets and shells in my pockets, it didn’t look good. I was pretty low on ammo and was willing to bet so was everyone else; we needed to make a supply run.
“We need to get more ammunition and the two of you need antibiotics. We’re going to head into Honeybee, stock up and based on what we find, we’ll decide from there which way to go.” I looked over to where Penny was busily strapping Johnny into his Spiderman backpack and nodded my head when she met my stare.
I started to wander off when Jack grabbed my arm, questions in his eyes.
“Need to pee,” I said, hoping that was answer enough.
He didn’t have the chance to say anything else as Chloe ran over and grabbed my arm from his grasp. “I’ll go with you.”
“Fine,” I said, turning to walk deeper into the woods.
Chloe and I walked for a few minutes until I felt we were far enough away to illicit some semblance of privacy.
Once we were both finished, we walked back to the clearing to see everyone standing around awkwardly waiting for us. I just nodded my head and waited for someone to point the way.
There was still a lot of tension between Penny and Earl and Bash didn’t look so hot either. I could only hope they could put aside their differences long enough for us to get somewhere safe.
Ty and Bash led the way through the brush. Still no one spoke so I focused on the sounds of the trees and the few birds. The sun had barely risen and there was a chill in the heavy air. I wiped my hand across my forehead, pulling it back to see sheen of dirt and sweat. It was barely after dawn and already the air was oppressive enough that each breath felt like it was being drawn through a small hose.
Pulling up my shirt, I flinched seeing the angry welt from where I’d pulled the metal out of my gut. It was puckered and had a reddish purple tint, which told me it was healing. I’d have a nasty scar though.