“They also have the medical supplies.”
“Let me just look at it. We might need to stop the bleeding now.”
Truth be told, John was feeling a little weak. He could feel the blood flowing out of his arm. His heart was beating in a strange way. He could feel his blood pulsing. His feet, nose, and hands felt freezing cold, as if they’d been dipped in ice water.
Cynthia cut aside the sleeve of John’s shirt.
“It’s not lodged in there or anything. It grazed your arm.”
John nodded without looking at the wound. He didn’t want to see it.
“You’re really lucky. Took away a good bit of flesh, though. And it’s bleeding a lot. I’ll tie this around it.”
“A tourniquet?”
“I don’t think that’d be good for this situation. Let’s just tie it around the wound, to create some pressure.”
John nodded. He was gritting his teeth against the pain.
Cynthia twisted the shirt around the wound. She took a small stick from the ground and used it to tighten the cloth. She twisted it all around on itself, locking it in place.
“That should hold for a while.”
“Good enough,” said John. “Let’s get those packs.”
“Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk.”
John had been sitting down while she’d worked on his arm. He stood up quickly, and he felt dizzy as he did so. His vision seemed to swim before him.
“You don’t look good. Are you dizzy?”
“I’m fine. Come on.”
They set off. Cynthia led the way, since John was a little disoriented. He didn’t know why he was feeling that way, since it didn’t seem like he could have lost enough blood to cause those symptoms. But then again, maybe he had. He’d kept moving after receiving the wound, and who knew how much he’d bled without realizing it in that time.
The going was rough for John. His legs felt like lead, but he kept going.
“I think it’s this way,” said Cynthia, turning back to address John.
As John looked to where she was pointing, he tripped over a thick root in the path, lost his balance, and went tumbling down.
He hit the ground heavily, and Cynthia rushed over to him.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Maybe I should go get the packs myself. We can make camp here.”
John shook his head. “Those others might be around. They’ll find us if we stay here.”
“They’re probably long gone. They just want to get out of here with the loot.”
“Maybe they want more,” said John. “We’ve got to keep moving. Help me make a crutch and I’ll be fine.”
John handed Cynthia one of the pocket knives that he’d taken from the gear at the farmhouse. Cynthia took it, and had to study it to figure out how to open it. She wasn’t used to modern folding knives.
“Like this,” said John, taking it back from her, and opening it for her. “I’ll do it. There’s a branch over there that could work.”
“You’re crazy,” said Cynthia. “Do me a favor and try not to exhaust yourself to the point where you’re no longer any use to yourself or to me.”
John got the point, and let her take the knife.
“Cut diagonally. Rock the blade back and forth to get it deep. One single cut,” said John, instructing her based on something he had seen once, long ago, on the Discovery Channel. “Then you should be able to bend the branch and it’ll snap cleanly off.”
Cynthia did it and it worked. “Not bad,” she said.
John stood up with Cynthia’s help. She handed him the stick and he tested out different positions to hold it in.
“It’s not like my leg’s injured. Maybe I’ll just use it as a walking stick. I just need a little more support.”
“It’ll help keep you from getting so fatigued,” said Cynthia. “Let’s keep an even pace. Slow and even.”
“But we’ve got to get those packs. As quick as possible.”
“I get that. But listen to me. We’re not going to get anywhere if you fall down again, or get too tired. You’ve been shot, and you’ve got to take that into account. Pushing yourself is good, I get that. But sometimes, you’ve got to work with what you have. And what you have now is a gunshot wound and a weakened body.”
“You’re right,” said John. “Sorry. I could get us both killed like this with my stubbornness.”
“Have you always been like this?”
“Sort of. I think I’m getting a bit of a hard head from all of this.”
“We’re adapting,” said Cynthia. “These experiences are changing us in indefinable ways. Our brains and our bodies are adapting as best they can to the new circumstances.”
They began walking again, and they went slower this time. John made it.
The packs were where they’d left them, no worse for wear, except for some extra dirt on the outside.
Cynthia dug into her pack and drew out a full water bottle, handing it to John. He drank it down with delight. Plain old water had never tasted so good. Cynthia handed him some packets of dried fruit, telling him that he’d feel better once he got his blood sugar up.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Same goes for you.”
“Well, let’s keep it that way. We’ve got to keep our eyes open and our guns ready. Those others could be out here.”
“Not to mention anyone else that’s here,” said Cynthia.
“Too true.”
“You’re going to have to rest,” said Cynthia, who was busy breaking out the emergency kit. She was examining the different ointments and bandages and trying to figure out what was appropriate for a chunk of flesh that had been ripped away by a bullet.
John shook his head. “You’re right about taking our time,” he said. “But we’ve got to get out of this area.”
“It’s almost night.”
“Even more reason to get a move on it.”
“You really think they’ll be able to find us in the dark, if we don’t make a fire? We can get in the sleeping bags and cover ourselves with leaves. We’ll be practically impossible to see. Plus, we have no more batteries and it’s going to be hard to move effectively at night.”
John thought about it for a moment. “Once again, you’re the voice of reason. You’re right, we’ll stay here tonight.”
“Damn right we’ll stay here tonight. You’re crazy if you think you’re going to make it far with that pack, not able to see a couple feet in front of you.”
She was leaning down over John’s injury again.
“Has it stopped bleeding?”
“Let me take the cloth off of it.”
John felt the tension releasing around the wound as Cynthia got the stick out of there. She unwrapped the piece of shirt slowly.
“Shit,” she muttered. “It’s still bleeding.”
John glanced down. It was bleeding all right. The sight wasn’t exactly stomach-churning, but it wasn’t pleasant either.
The blood flowed freely now, without the bandage stopping it at all.
“It should have coagulated by now.”
“There’s too much missing. Too much surface area, compared to a cut into the flesh, where the two sides can sandwich together.”
Cynthia looked nervous. She was tossing aside items from the medical kit, muttering to herself.
“Nothing in there?”
“No, and we’ve got to get this to stop bleeding. How are you feeling?”
“Uh, tired. And a little…”
“Woozy?”
“Definitely.”
“You’re losing too much blood.”
“I think so…”
John was feeling strange. Pretty odd. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but things were starting to flip past him. He still knew where he was, and who he was. And he didn’t think he was in any danger of dying soon.
That was what he thought, at least. But Cynthia’s increasingly concerned attitude was starting to make him think differently. She wouldn’t, of course, come out and say that she thought he’d die soon. But it was all in the way she moved, and the way she was rummaging through the packs, looking for something to stop the bleeding.