“Shit!” Jeremy shouted, gripping his hands to his profusely sweating head, and running them through his greasy, sweaty, dark brown hair over and over again. “Shit shit shit!”
“Jeremy for Christ’s sake, would you calm down, please!?” Nolan said, his hands bloodied and shaking scarcely. “You’ve been screaming shit for like an hour!”
“What the hell else am I supposed to do!?” Jeremy said. “Look at him!”
Nolan gazed down at Derrick, who they had placed on the long wooden kitchen table. His head was soaked in blood, though that came more from the rapid shaking of being carried around and running; the real bleeding came from the back of his head, where the impact between he and the floor took place. There was a gash, and it was still bleeding hard. Most of his hair was covered in it; the once lighter brown tones now being drowned out in a dark red.
That and his face, which Nolan patched up as best he could. The three slices went from just past his left eye, down his cheekbone, and down to his upper lip– also split open. There would unquestionably be a scar, if he even survived.
Derrick’s eyes were stuck half-shut the whole way through, though now they were flickering closed, and that had scared the hell out of Jeremy. Derrick’s arms fell limp, and his ability to stand was shaky at best.
They had placed him on his stomach, and put a towel under his head, but other than that, Jeremy had no idea what to do. Luckily Nolan was planning on being some kind of doctor, so he at least had some idea.
“Yeah, I see him,” Nolan responded coldly. “But we can’t just freak out and let him die. Keep him awake,” He ordered, pointing Jeremy into position next to Derrick. Jeremy hustled over and crouched down to get face-to-face with his friend.
“Der, you still there?” Jeremy asked, trying to put a light tone in his voice. His anxieties made him want to retreat to his notebook, but he knew that he had a more important job to do.
“Umf…” Derrick slurred out. His eyes wandered a bit, and his pupils were seriously dilated. He didn’t look great, not from Jeremy’s point of view, anyway. Still, he had to at least pretend he was fine, if for no one else than himself.
“Right, well you gotta give me better than that dude!” Jeremy said, staring as much into Derrick’s eyes as he could, trying to get his attention. Derrick paused a moment and then looked at Jeremy directly. “Yeah?” Jeremy asked, hoping it was working.
Instead, Derrick threw up. On Jeremy. And, with a more or less empty stomach, a lot of it was just bile. Were things not as dire, Jeremy would not have let that flown. If Derrick made it out of this, he surely would not forget it.
“Nolan! Where’s the bucket, god damn it!?” Jeremy shouted, already grabbing a towel and wiping his face, while simultaneously trying to prevent any more of Derrick’s throw up from spilling out, holding his friend’s mouth with his free hand. Nolan scanned around the room quickly, and found the bucket by his feet, tossing it to Jeremy, who put it next to Derrick’s mouth, allowing him to finish up.
“Christ…” Nolan muttered, stressed under the pressures they faced, more now than usual.
Not that Jeremy didn’t understand why. They had spent the majority of the night running through the woods as fast as they could, which wasn’t saying much, with Derrick to lug around. Somehow, by the grace of God– as well as a few lucky shots, Jeremy imagined– they were able to outrun whatever the hell was chasing them. Not to mention, through even more luck, they were able to find a small, empty log cabin in the woods, somewhat akin to the house in Maine, with just enough supplies to maybe keep Derrick breathing. Despite all else that had happened thus far, it was that maybe that was so god damn stressful for them.
As far as Nolan went, Jeremy was fairly impressed at his ability to not break down into tears, as he seemed accustomed to doing. Though, thinking about it, Nolan had really been holding his own the last couple months. Maybe it was because he finally began to grow up, but then, maybe it was because they all had finally began to put their anger aside, and seriously work as a team again.
Now, Jeremy watched as Nolan sewed up the wound as best he could. All the while, Jeremy himself rubbed Derrick’s back, comforting him as he continued to vomit. Nolan’s hands were shaking like a madman’s; it certainly wasn’t a clean operation, to say the least. Still, it was better than what Jeremy could manage.
“Alright man, you’re alright,” Jeremy said, speaking to Derrick, but looking to Nolan, worriedly. “Just…Just stay with me, alright? I do not give you permission to die on me.”
“Mmph…” Derrick huffed out, gaining his breath. “My…My head tickles…tickles spunky…” It was all nonsense. Jeremy knew that much. He knew what he meant, but it was all nonsense.
“Yeah, that’s Nolan,” Jeremy explained, trying to give a little chuckle, which wasn’t that hard, as the things that Derrick was spouting were admittedly pretty funny. “He’s tickling your head all spunkily,”
“Well fake it less mam!” Derrick half-shouted, huffing as he did, suddenly upset. Jeremy noticed.
“What’s up man?” he asked, gripping Derrick’s shoulder lightly. “Talk to me.” Derrick just huffed outward again, tearing up a little.
“Tired,” he whined. “An’ I’m noxious… nocturnus… nauseous!”
“I know, but you gotta power through it. “Jeremy insisted. “I don’t know if you remember, but you took a fall, and a pretty hard one, so we’re patching you up.”
“Did… did it look schwifty?” Derrick asked, sounding strangely curious about it.
“Oh yeah,” Jeremy chuckled softly, “looked schwifty as hell, but you gotta stay with me now; we don’t have all day, you know?”
“Why...?” Derrick questioned, lifting his head to get a better look at Jeremy. Nolan paused, not wanting to accidentally stab Derrick in the head, and Jeremy just eased his friend back down.
“Well, we gotta get back to the guys, wherever they are…” Jeremy explained, looking once again to Nolan, who just scrunched his face up in pain, trying to hold back his emotions for Derrick’s betterment.
“Well…” Derrick paused again. “Well what about… What about Zack? And… and Lily and Emily...? We were just talking to them, weren’t we?” Nolan stopped for a second, and Jeremy looked at him confusedly. He already looked like he was breaking– his emotional progresses regressing. That definitely didn’t help.
“Nolan,” Jeremy said, almost ordered really. He stared at him, somewhat angrily, and waited for him to look back; once Nolan did, Jeremy motioned down to Derrick, getting him back on task. He himself refocused on he and Derrick’s conversation. “Well dude… no, we weren’t talking to them; we were talking about them. They uh…” Jeremy paused, looking down, trying to keep his composure. “They died a while back… Almost a year ago now. We were just remembering them.”
“N-No… you’re wrong!” Derrick insisted, still sounding very spacey. “We were talking to them; we were all outside, doing work… they were cooking with that oil thingy… we were all really tired, and they weren’t paying attention… and then… and then…”
Nolan slammed his fist down onto the side of the table hard, cutting Derrick off, and aching head, made visible through his sudden moans of pain. Jeremy shot Nolan an angered glare, and Nolan fiercely stared back.
“I cannot do this if he’s going to talk about that,” he said. “I won’t.” Jeremy glanced down, and then back to Nolan, enraged. He held his ground for a moment, not wanting to back down, but he knew Derrick was more important than his pride, so he turned back to Derrick, softening his angered expression.
“Hey so… listen, if we were all in the Avengers, who do you think would be who?” Jeremy asked, trying to put on a small smile; it felt more half-assed than all previous attempts so far, but it got Derrick’s attention back, and away from that topic, so at least it was something.
Nolan glanced down at his hand momentarily before continuing his work: The knuckles were riddled with sharp, aged splinters, and from
what he could tell by feeling alone, his ring finger was broken. He’d have to tape it to his middle finger later; assuming they had enough supplies left for that, anyway…
In about forty-five minutes, Nolan had finally managed to fully stitch up the wound, wrapped up Derrick’s head with what bandaging they had, and took a small handful of ice wrapped in paper towels and placed it under his head. Some twenty minutes later, Derrick’s pupils returned back to relatively normal size, so they allowed him to sleep; Nolan insisted to Jeremy that meant he was fine, and while Jeremy was skeptical, he trusted Nolan, so he went with it, as upset as he was with him.
Jeremy moved Derrick to a couch, propped his head up, left a mostly-full water bottle on the ground next to him, and tossed a blanket over him. Nolan cleaned up the table and all the supplies, wrapping up his fingers in the process. Once he was done, Jeremy got up, walked over, and knocked the bottle of alcohol in front of Nolan off the table, swiftly gaining Nolan’s now-angered attention.
Not that Jeremy cared. He may not have been as physically imposing as Nolan, always being on the smaller side of the group, but he had much more of a fire in him than the rest, and right now it was burning his insides.
“What the shit was that!?” Nolan asked, baffled. He kept his voice down as to not wake Derrick, and so Jeremy knew to do the same.
“Me what the shit? You what the shit!?” Jeremy countered quietly, shoving Nolan from across the table. “You were about to step the hell away from your patient, your god damn friend, because he mentioned your girlfriend!?”
“Jeremy…” Nolan warned through gritted teeth. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Don’t want to hear it!?” Jeremy said, blown away, though still in a hushed tone. “Too bad, asshole! You think you’re the only one that lost something that day!? We all did! That doesn’t mean you get to just use it as a sob story to turn your back on everyone when you hear about it like some… god damn war vet!”
“What!?” Nolan asked angrily, though he still glanced over at Derrick, making sure they weren’t too loud. “You have no idea what I lost! None of you do! And what kind of psychopath would I have to be to want to hear about it all the time!?”
“The same kind that would let his friend bleed out on a table right in front of his eyes!” Jeremy raised his voice, if only slightly. “You are so full of shit, you know that? ‘You have no idea what I lost.’ Fuck you! Aren’t you fucking forgetting you weren’t the only couple up there!?” Nolan paused, and looked down; maybe he actually did forget. Jeremy didn’t care though. “And look at him! Luke’s able to move the fuck on! He doesn’t sit around crying his god damn eyes out every two god damn seconds!”
“Then he doesn’t know what it’s like!” Nolan said, tearing up, his strange, new rough exterior quickly falling away, and volume raising with a swift crack of his voice.
“The shit he doesn’t!” Jeremy yelled in a stinging whisper. “And the shit we don’t! Everything out there, the whole god damn world going to shit, living in constant fear of god damn monsters, and we lost them because we all were just being careless! It was our fault, Nolan! All of us! We all had to deal with that!” Nolan seemed taken aback, but Jeremy didn’t stop; he wasn’t about to pull the punches Nolan needed to hear. “And me!? The shit I don’t! I knew Lily my whole god damn life! She was like my sister you fucking tool! Of course I know what the fuck it’s like! We all do!” Jeremy himself was getting teared up now; hell, he was crying, there was no getting around it. By then they both were, yet they both still managed to be pissed at each other in this odd, muted fury.
“Well maybe I don’t know the fuck how!” Nolan yelled back, his lowered tone breaking in pain. “Maybe I don’t know how not to cry about it, or how to move on! So maybe I’m gonna make a mistake and fall the fuck apart when I shouldn’t! You think I don’t feel awful about it!? I do! I could have gotten Derrick killed! I may still have! If he doesn’t wake up… that’s on me…!” Nolan broke down, slamming his own hands onto the table, and letting loose his tears. By now, Jeremy was in full force joining him, the pressures of it all having caught up to them both.
Jeremy felt for him, and in that moment he realized Nolan was much more angry with himself than with Jeremy. He realized that Nolan probably blamed himself for what happened to the girls, and probably everything else that happened since, just as much as he did himself. Still there wasn’t much he could say. Nor, he believed, was there much more to be said anyway. Instead, he fell silent onto the table, crying along with his friend, as their other slept, perhaps for the last time, behind them.
They stayed like that, maybe for 2 minutes, maybe for the rest of the night, Jeremy didn’t remember. At some point he grabbed his notebook from off the ground, even just to hold it, but other than that, he hadn’t moved. At some point, they fell asleep there, because Jeremy woke up lying on the table, his face stuck a bit to it with old tears and snot, and his notebook now fallen onto his feet.
The window showed it to be late-morning. It was sunny out, and the wind blew dying leaves onto the outer-windowsill. It also sounded fairly quiet outside, so more or less for certain, they were alone, and for the moment, they were safe.
It was an annoying comfort for Jeremy, to wake up some days feeling safe, because he heard no life around him. Just one of the many thoughts his notebook already contained.
Nolan put the last of the medical supplies in his backpack, wiping down the end of the table. He noticed that Jeremy had woken up, and gave him a light smile, lifting up the small towel he was using to wipe the table down and tossing it to him to clean up his face. It was wet; probably from their own water supply.
“Guess all of Luke’s stupid chores really got to me,” he said, giving a light chuckle. Jeremy chuckled too, and rubbed his eyes with the ends of his palms, trying his best to wake up quickly. Whatever beef they had, it was gone now. That was the beauty of friendship, after all.
Once Jeremy had woken up enough, he moved over to Derrick, who was still laid unconscious on the couch. Jeremy could feel his own heart starting to beat faster in his chest by the second.
Jeremy knelt down by his face, and gazed at him. He frowned, as Derrick appeared completely out of it, perhaps too out of it. Then, Jeremy glanced down at the water. It was lower. Significantly lower. Derrick must’ve drank it. Which meant…
Jeremy gave a slow facepalm of relief, and was immediately thinking about how badly he was going to give it to Derrick over throwing up on his face. He was ready to lightly push on Derrick’s shoulder, to wake him, until Nolan noticed, and waved at Jeremy to stop.
“Let him rest a little. We can leave soon enough,” Nolan said. Jeremy paused, partially not wanting to listen, and partially really wanting to see his friend awake again, but he nodded, and stood back up, moving over to the table.
He sat down, and Nolan sat across from him. The blood from Derrick’s head was still fairly stained onto the table’s end, but it wasn’t like anyone was coming home to it, so all in all, not a big deal.
Jeremy pulled out his notebook, and began to write down in it the events of the past day or so. It wasn’t necessarily fun, it never really was, but on the one hand, it was a nice coping mechanism, and on the other, somebody had to keep track of what was going on here. The world, the people, the creatures– hell even the days; it had to mean something.
“So, is it like… weird, not having Chris here with you?” Nolan asked. Jeremy looked up from his writing, and stared at Nolan curiously. He felt as though this would be just one of many homophobic jokes they would both hear in the past resurfacing.
“I mean, I wouldn’t call it a comfort,” Jeremy said. “What about you and Luke? I’m sure that’s not exactly fun for you.” Nolan seemed to see the defensive nature Jeremy slid into, because he held up his hands in innocence.
“I’m not saying anything about you two. I know you’re just best friends,” he said. “In fact, it’s because I do feel the same way without Luke that I thought I�
�d ask.”
Jeremy nodded, and settled down, glad to not have the return to their past include the return to all the immature jokes. He started writing again, but then stopped, knowing that Nolan was trying to spark up a conversation. He felt bad to just ignore him.
“You think the others feel jealous?” he asked. “You know, with us all kinda being packaged deals and stuff.”
“I mean, Luke and I don’t always agree; he took your side in the fight, remember? Junior year, or whenever it was.”
“September, Senior year,” Jeremy corrected. “Yeah, I remember… I’m still sorry about that man; you know that, right?”
“I know,” Nolan said, looking at Jeremy intently. “I– we’ve gone through worse since then… I know.” Jeremy smiled a little. That was, after all, the fight that split them all apart, and it was Jeremy’s fault. So far as he cared, anyway.
“You think they’re okay?” Jeremy asked Nolan. Nolan glanced out the window, and Jeremy looked over as well. The sun had somehow cut through the sky, past all the trees surrounding them, and still managed to hit the window, reflecting four elongated squares of light near their feet.
“They’re fine,” Nolan said. “No way Adam’s willing to die yet.” He and Jeremy laughed, and then both looked back to each other. “Plus, Luke would never let it happen, to any of them.”
“No, I guess not,” Jeremy replied. They paused again, and eventually Nolan shook his head.
“I don’t think they get jealous,” he answered. “At the end of the day, we’re a group for a reason. We’re all there for each other, despite all the flaws we come with, and all the problems we might have. I’d like to think they all know that.”
Jeremy nodded, taking their conversation in. It was nice, to have a real talk like that with someone other than Chris for a change. After all, Nolan was right, they were a group for a reason. You can’t be a group without being friends.
The Way Back (Book 1): The Way Back Page 18
