Verge of Extinction (Apex Predator Book 3) (16 page)

While the fluids coursed into the woman’s veins, Jen removed the bandage.  It turned out that what she had believed was a gauze bandage was actually a couple of pieces of paper towel, secured with masking tape.

The wound underneath was worse than Jen had imagined.  The hole was jagged and still oozing blood.  There was a foul odor coming from the area.  Red streaks had begun to show on the woman’s forearm.  This was a sign that an infection was spreading.  Jen was almost sure that the infection would be bacterial.

This gave her pause.  She could treat a bacterial infection.  But, the fact that bacteria was setting into the wound did not exclude the possibility that the zombie plague had not already infected the woman.  So, would it be worth it to treat the woman’s infected hand?

On the one hand, the antibiotics she had were a rare commodity.  She did not want to waste them on someone who was essentially dead anyway.  On the other hand, she did not know if the woman was truly infected with the plague.  Without treatment, she was dead one way or the other.  How would she feel if the woman died and did not reanimate?  How would it look to her new friends if she did nothing?

She reached into her bag and retrieved a small plastic IV bag.  She wasn’t exactly sure which antibiotic she should use.  She decided on Ancef.  She drove the spike into the bag, primed the tubing, and connected the secondary tubing to the line that the saline was already flowing through.  She tried to count the drips so she wouldn’t run the antibiotic in too fast.  Ten minutes later, she realized she had allowed it to flow in too fast.  But, under the circumstances, she decided it would be ok.

She decided that she had done all she could for the woman.  She told Josiah as much, and asked to be shown to the other patients.  As an afterthought, she pulled 3 Acetaminophen tablets and two Ibuprofen tablets from her bag.  The woman swallowed them hesitantly before Jen left the room.

Josiah led her to the next house.  This one was larger than the one that housed the quarantined woman.  The living room was large and there were several survivors huddled around a coffee table.  They stopped talking as she entered the house.  She could feel their stares.  None looked injured.  All looked worried. They must be families and friends.  She smiled uncomfortably as she passed.

A young man in his mid-twenties occupied the first room she entered.  He had a bandage wrapped around his left hand.  He reported that he had been burned by a car battery the previous day while trying to jumpstart one of the derelict vehicles.  She removed the bandage.  She could see that it was an electrical burn.  It didn’t really worry her much.  If it hadn’t killed him yesterday, then he should be fine if he kept it clean and dry.  She told him as much as she rewrapped it with fresh gauze.

The man asked her about pain medications.  She reached into her bag and produced the bottle of Ibuprofen.  She shook a few out into her hand.  “This should help,” she told him curtly.  The look on his face told her that he was hoping for something a little more sedating.  “Sorry, I don’t have anything stronger with me today,” she said in her sweetest voice.  “It should stop hurting in a few days.”  Without waiting for his response, she turned and left the room.

The next room contained a man who had fallen off of a two story roof.  Although she could not see any deformities, the man cried out in pain every time she touched his right calf and ankle.  Without a working x-ray machine, she could not determine the extent of his injury.  She decided that the best thing to do would be to splint the leg and let it heal on its own.  She advised the man as much and asked Josiah to have someone to find something resembling a splint and some ACE wraps.

The other two rooms were occupied by people with minor injuries that Jen would forget about before nightfall.  They were bandaged and sent back to their families.  She had spent less than an hour in the makeshift clinic.

She and Josiah were about to leave when a younger woman strolled in.  She was extremely thin and her skin was leathery.  Jen noticed a resemblance between her and the emaciated dead roaming the countryside.  The woman had horrible teeth.  Several were missing and the rest were grayish black.  Even walking, Jen could see that the woman’s hands were in constant motion.  Jen couldn’t help but think how bad methamphetamines can make a person look.  She’d seen enough people come through her ER coming down off of crystal meth to recognize the signs.

“Can I help you?”  Jen asked gently.

The girl looked from Jen to the man standing next to her.  Jen could tell she was nervous.  For some reason she didn’t want to talk to her in front of him.  She was pretty sure she could guess the reason.  She looked to Josiah.  He shrugged his shoulders.  “How about you give me and…”  She turned to the girl

“Pen,” the girl answered.  “Call me Pen,”

“Would you leave Pen and I alone for a moment?” she asked Josiah.  He closed the door as he left, leaving the two women alone in the house.

“What can I do for you…Pen?” she asked.  The woman still appeared very anxious.

“I’m…  I mean…” she stuttered.  “You’re a nurse right?  You’re not supposed to tell anyone anything I say right?”

“No sweetheart,” she replied.  “I won’t tell anyone anything.”  The girl let out a breath and became visibly more at ease.  She still was restless and anxious, but she seemed more relaxed.

“I uh…  I guess what I’m trying to say is…”  She still couldn’t get the words out.  Jen was losing her patience.  The girl must have seen it in her eyes.  “I’m coming down off meth,” the girl blurted.  She then launched into a ten minute monologue.

She told Jen about how her and her boyfriend, Ducky, had escaped the city.  They had been taken in by a group the next day.  But, Ducky had stolen from the leader, and they were kicked out.  They were alone for the week or so.  She wasn’t sure, because Ducky had kept her pretty high the entire time.  The RV they shared was perfect for getting high and staying safe.

Then, they had run into a group of guys on motorcycles.  Ducky thought they would be a fun group spend the end of the world with.  For two days they had been.  Then, they had decided that Ducky not only needed to share his excessive amounts of drugs with them, but he needed to share his woman.  On the fourth day, Ducky had decided to stand up to the leader, some guy named Andy or Ender or something like that.

At this point, the girl began sobbing uncontrollably.  She told them of how they had shot him in the legs and then cut off his right hand.  After that, the group left both of them in the woods to die, which was exactly what Ducky did that night.  That was three days ago.  She had found her way into the Haven on the previous night and had crawled into the corner of an abandoned house.  A woman named Samantha had found her and pointed her here.

Jen was shocked at the story.  She had remembered the story Indira had told them about Thor and his band of smugglers and human traffickers.  She felt for this woman.  She knew the woman needed help.  She reached into her bag and retrieved a bottle.  The medicine was called Clonidine, a blood pressure medication.  She told the woman that it was also used to help relieve the symptoms of withdrawal.

She then advised the woman that she would have to enlist some outside help and asked if she would allow Josiah to help.  The woman consented.  Josiah agreed to keep an eye on the woman overnight, reporting he knew just the place to keep her safe and out of sight.  It was obvious to Jen that he had no idea who she was.

As she left the makeshift clinic, she found Roy and Mr. Westergart talking in the empty street.  It was the emptiness that suddenly struck her.  The residential street was lined on both sides with one story houses, many of which had a carpet of dead leaves on the lawns.  But the driveways were empty and the street totally devoid of cars.  It was eerie.

Roy waved her over.  “…Seabee training base a few miles away,” Roy finished.  “I’m sure there are things there that both your folks and our folks could use.”

The black man nodded his head.  “It’s settled.  I’ll be back here with a dozen folks tomorrow.  You give me a dozen of yours and we will raid that base for everything we can.  Make sure your people know how to operate heavy equipment.”

“Let’s round everyone up,” he ordered Jen.

“I’m going to stay here tonight,” she announced.

“What?  Why?”

She told him about the injured girl.  She told him she wanted to see it through.  She explained about Father Albright and the young Lieutenant.  After Mike, Ms. Hebert, the teachers and soldiers at the vet clinic, the firemen; she wanted to get a win.  She was needed here tonight.  Although he really didn’t like it, he agreed to allow her to stay the night.  After saying goodbye, she and Roy marched off to find something to eat.  Mr. Westergart turned on his heels, looking for the rest of his people.

An hour later, Jen was leaning back in a chair, watching the woman breath.  As the IV bag ran out of fluid, she replaced it with another.  She had run the first bag in rapidly.  The last one she had run in over the course of about six hours.  She would continue at about the same rate with this bag.  She only had two more liters of fluid with her.  If the woman didn’t show signs of improvement soon, she would have to stop the IV fluids.

She reassessed the woman after she was satisfied the IV was running adequately.  A smile crossed her face.  The woman’s pulse had come down to just over 100.  Her breathing had slowed and her capillary refill was 3 seconds.  If nothing else, the fluids were doing the woman some good.  She fought the urge to look at the wound.  The woman needed her sleep.

A knock at the door startled her.  After taking a few deep breaths to help her regain her composure, she opened the door.  She gasped as Theresa entered the room.  “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded in a not-so-quiet whisper.

The girl looked dejected.  “When Mr. Westergart told us you were staying the night here, I volunteered to stay with you.  Actually Staff Ser… I mean Lieutenant Brown, Jackson, and I volunteered to stay with you.  I was the most expendable.”  She said with a smile and a little head tilt.

The Bishop was on the dock when Kerry pulled the
Sea Witch
along side.  When it became obvious that everyone had come ashore, his smile disappeared.  “Hold it, Mister,” he barked at Mr. Westergart.  “Where’re the rest?  Where’s my nurse?”

It hadn’t occurred to Terrance that Lt. Brown had kept the Haven from the Bishop.  “They stayed behind to help out some friends.”  The Bishop’s jaw clenched and his face became a deep red.  “What the hell do you mean, they stayed behind with friends?  What friends?”

Lt. Brown stepped between the two men.  “We’ve made contact with another group of survivors.  They have injured.  Jen agreed to stay with them tonight. Theresa asked to stay with her.”  He shifted his weight nervously.  “She wanted to keep Jen safe.”

“So, you left the only nurse we have in the hands of a fourteen year old?”  The man was shaking he was so angry.  “Which one of you thought that would be a good idea?”  He glared at Mr. Westergart.  For his part, the older man kept his cool.

“I thought it was important to have allies out there.  We used to do MEDCAP missions overseas all the time.”  His voice was calm and even.  “We help folks with their medical needs and they support us when we’re in their area.”

“Who are these people?  How do we know they aren’t dangerous?”

“They seem like good people,” Lt Brown interjected.

“And you know this how?  You’ve only known any of them for a few hours.  How could you possibly know they are good folks?”

Lt Brown swallowed hard.  He’d been dreading telling the Bishop about the Haven.  “We actually ran into them a few days ago.”  The Bishop didn’t miss the fact that the soldier couldn’t look him in the eye.  He looked like a kid who just got caught in a lie.

“A few days ago?” he repeated.   He grabbed the soldier by the front of his shirt.  “When exactly were you planning on telling me about this?”

“I…  I…”  Lt Brown couldn’t find the words.  This man was so far beyond reason.  And, he reminded himself, he was right about one thing.  He had purposely hid the existence of the Haven from the Bishop.

The Bishop’s eyes narrowed.  He let Lt Brown’s shirt go and took a step back.  “Staff Sergeant Brown,” he began.  He paused to let the instant demotion sink in.  “You have betrayed the trust of the people of the Island.  I also find that you were probably responsible for the death of Mike and Ms. Hebert.  As such, I condemn you to banishment.”  He looked to Jackson.  “Please escort this,” he paused long enough to give SSgt Brown a look of disdain.  “Take him to the bridge and see that he never comes back.”

Jackson stood frozen in place.  There was no way he was going to betray his NCO.  This man had been his squad leader in combat and his savior during the end of the world.  The Bishop did not notice the soldiers jaw clenching as he stood motionless.

“Fine, you’re out too!”  He turned to Terrance.  “Major, would you please escort these criminals off of my island?”

Terrance was frozen also.  He had been on the island for less than a day.  In that time he had gone from refugee to local folk hero to military leader.  He didn’t really know anything about the politics of this place.  He did know SSgt Brown.  After a day outside the wire, he knew this was a man to be trusted.  He had heard the stories of SSgt Brown’s heroism and leadership.  They mirrored the stories people had been telling about him.