"I wasn't grilling you doc, we started over now you know. I don't care what you did or to who, so long as you do your best now. You better take a few of the boys under your wing too, in case this ain't like we think. Ain't short term. I gotta go talk to Jack again. Are you going to check Hank while you are here?"
Doc looked at Juan in a most peculiar manner, but said, "Sure thing, vice-jefe."
Juan watched while the Doctor checked on Hank and had to wonder a little about the medicine he had gotten at the doctors request that morning. Half the bottles were antibiotics, Juan read that on the labels, the other half were prescription pain medicines, of which only a very small amount had gone to Hank, six pills in fact out of four bottles. Juan was not a doctor or even that experienced with medicine, but he knew most of the common antibiotics, which is how he knew which ones were for infection and which bottles of medicine were probably for pain. The extra three bottles of antibiotics were sitting back in the pharmacy; the four bottles of 'other' medicine had not been in the bag when Juan returned the rest of the medicine for storage. He didn't want to think too much about it, but he could not help asking himself, 'Where did those other bottles of pills go?'
After the doc finished poking around Hank, not quite waking him up, he wandered off to find nurse Beth or Charlie and get them on disinfecting the bitten's wounds. Juan wandered off to find Jack. Once he was outside one of the men told him Jack had gone back to helping the guys move cars into position. Juan wandered slowly over to where he saw the men working on the street, maybe a quarter mile away. There were armed men all around the parking lot, most had baseball bats, quite a few had rifles, they were taking down the zombies if they approached. It did not appear like there were a lot of zombies coming around anymore, they were just trickling in by ones and twos. The men, and some women, handled them quickly and efficiently, using bats, not guns. Juan already knew that loud noises attracted the zombies attention. As he was walking a shot rang out and one of the men fell backward behind the car, the other men started yelling and shooting at something beyond the cars that Juan could not see.
Juan ran up to the men, in the July heat it made him break into a sweat, even to go that short distance. By time he got there the shooting had stopped, a man was bent over the wounded man on the ground who was shaking and kicking his feet. Juan elbowed his way in next to him and knelt down. The man had been hit in the neck. Juan didn't know either of the men, the man trying to treat the wounded man yelled out at Juan, "Back the fuck off and give me room. Someone go get Doc! You!"
Juan sat back on his heels and yelled in Spanish at one of the men to grab some clothing to help stop the flow of blood. Quick enough they had a clean looking blanket out of a nearby car which they tore into rags, it did not do any good, the man kept bleeding and kicking his feet, first his feet stopped moving, then he stopped moving entirely, then the other man working on him started CPR, Juan had been to all the classes to certify as a Cub Scout leader so he jumped right in on compressions, thanking God he did not have to do the breathing. What seemed like half an hour later the Doc was there, he knelt down in the blood, looked at what was going on and said quietly, "Stop." Neither Juan nor the other man stopped working. Doc raised his voice and said, "Charlie, Juan, stop!"
Juan looked up at him, sweat beading and rolling into his face, Charlie, saw Juan stop and said, "Don't stop goddamn it, we can save him!"
Juan looked at the doc, the doc said, "Charlie! Charlie look at me." Charlie did so. "I am the doctor here, this man cannot make it, I am calling it. Time?"
Charlie responded by looking at his watch, "Fifteen thirty-fi….dammit!" He got to his feet a little wobbly and looked down on Doc, "We could have, should have.."
"Charlie, things have changed, we couldn't have, shouldn't have. Me, you and Beth and anyone else are going to have to have a talk about triage today. There are no hospitals to go to, no flight for life, nothing. If we can't fix it here, with what we have, it won't get fixed. We don't have much here either. Which means we won't be able to fix much."
Juan looked at the doctor, "Triage?"
"Triage Juan, is when a nurse or someone else, a doctor some times, evaluates who we can fix and who we can't. Once the ones we can save are in one category, they are evaluated for who needs the most help to save now, versus the ones we can afford to leave for later. Like treating someone bleeding badly, before a guy with a broken finger. Sure the finger might hurt, he might even have gotten to us first, but the guy bleeding to death can't afford for us to wait to set the guy's finger or he, the bleeder, will be dead. Triage. Usually we can work everyone, so triage is not needed. Sometimes though, like if two buses collide or a plane goes down and does not kill everyone, there is a need to decide who to treat and in what order. I have been pretty lucky and only had a couple of times where I had to assign a nurse to do triage. Usually the nurses end of doing it, not the doctors."
Juan nodded, and said, "Okay, so now you mean if people get shot in the neck, there won't be any way to save them, so we should not waste time trying to save them?"
"If it comes to that, yes, I am not a miracle worker, I was never a surgeon, I couldn't have done anything for this man if direct pressure didn't stop the bleeding. I am sorry. Charlie you did all you could do. By the way Charlie, this is Juan our 'segundo', did I get that right Juan?"
Again Juan nodded, "Pretty close. 'Say-goon-doe', that is close enough."
"Means 'second' doesn't it?", seeing Juan nod yes, he continued, "Yeah I heard some of your neighbors saying that, it sounds better than 'vice-jefe' to me."
Charlie, held out his bloodied hand to Juan, who took it and was pulled to his feet. Charlie then shook his hand, "Sorry I yelled at you. I know you were trying to help, I just needed space. I have the feeling my life of treating people is going to suck for a long time, if I can't save them, they are going to die and we won't be able to save many trauma patients now. You see what happen Juan?"
"No, tell me."
"We were moving cars into place, a guy drove up with car full of people, friends and family, only one of them was not bitten. Thomas here", he pointed at the dead man, "told them our deal, the bitten go into pen, the girl who was not bit could come in and not be segregated. Or they could leave, their choice. Just like Jack told him to say, you know? Well, they got all mad about it, made to drive away and we got back to work, about ten seconds later one of them shot Thomas from a block away. Everyone shot back, probably killed all of them. Hey," Charlie said to everyone around them, "Did anyone check on them?"
A chorus of "No" and "Hell No!" came back from the crowd. "Maybe we should? Just in case?"
Jack's voice called out from somewhere outside the circle, "Yeah, we should. I'll go, you want to come with me Juan?" Jack stepped out in front of the crowd, a look of sadness on his face as he glanced towards Thomas.
"Sì." replied Juan, "I'll go. Gimme a gun somebody."
A man handed Juan a new looking shotgun, he whispered, "Fully loaded, five shots, plus these." As he passed the gun and a half empty box of shells over to Juan.
"Okay, everybody else get back to work. Next time, we keep our guns out and ready until they get out of sight completely okay? C'mon Juan." said Jack.
The doc took Charlie aside and started talking to him as Juan, Jack and a couple of other guys started walking slowly to the van. As they walked the block to where it was Juan could smell gasoline and blood.
"You came looking for me, right?", asked Jack to Juan.
"Sì. We need to find a bus or two, maybe a semi too. I think we are moving to Sky Ridge, we wanna send some people over to take a look at it first, the highway should be open, it was this morning when we came through to get back here anyway. You know anyone who would want to go?"