A. R. Shaw's Apocalyptic Sampler: Stories of hope when humanity is at its worst

by A. R. Shaw

  “Hurry, Maeve, get her inside.”

  She turned and ran for the front door as fast as she could through the thick snow. When she came inside, Ben’s eyes were round saucers. “What happened, Mom? Who is that?”

  “Get a blanket!” she said and quickly laid the girl on the couch after kicking the door closed behind her.

  “Where’s Bishop?” Ben asked.

  “He should be coming. He was right behind me.” The lack of warmth was not the immediate danger to this girl in Maeve’s view. She had cuts all over her with glass bits still embedded in her face, neck, and shoulders. Why she was unconscious wasn’t immediately clear. There was soot all over her face, and her gown was destroyed with singe marks and blood. She had a pulse and was breathing, but her breath was raspy.

  “It’s probably smoke inhalation. Oh God, what do I do? Her breathing’s too shallow,” Maeve said frantically, and Ben looked over her shoulder at the girl.

  “That’s Louna! Andy’s little sister.”

  Maeve hadn’t even thought about who the child was, but Ben was right. God only knows what happened to the rest of the family.

  She sat the child up and began massaging her back and called her name, hoping she would become conscious. “Louna, Louna, can you hear me?”

  “Where’s Bishop, Mom?”

  Maeve shook her head. “I don’t know.” She continued to call out to the child in her arms while Ben ran to the door. When he opened it, he yelled, “Mom! He’s in the snow! Bishop is lying in the snow next to his horse!”

  After laying the girl back down and covering her up, she ran for the open doorway. In the house’s ambient light shining out, she saw Bishop sprawled out in the snow next to his horse in the driveway. Beside him, the horse nudged his body with his muzzle.

  “Ben, get your coat on. First, unlock the backyard door to the garage. Then, take the horse around the back and lead him inside. Can you do that?”

  “Uh, sure,” he said. “Is…Bishop dead?”

  Not wanting to consider that, she said, “Hurry, I’ve got to get him inside.”

  Putting hands underneath his arms, she used all of her strength to drag him across the snow and inside the front door. By the time Ben returned, he helped lift Bishop’s legs enough to barely get him through the threshold so that they could close the door. That’s when she saw all the blood by the dim light.

  “Oh my. I didn’t know he’d been shot. Ben, lock the door and get some towels quick!” She checked under his neck for a pulse and found it there, but the wound in his shoulder worried her. Not only that, the back of his right arm was in bad shape with burn marks on his coat sleeve and embedded glass.

  Never more in her life did she wish she’d become a nurse instead of an English major than right then. On her knees crouching next to him, she said, “OK, they’re both breathing, but he’s definitely bleeding. I wonder if the bullet went through.” And to find out, she pulled him over and saw there was indeed an exit wound. “That’s a good sign, right?” she asked Ben, who stood looking at her, clueless.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  She took the stack of towels from him and put a layer under Bishop’s shoulder and then pressed down with another layer as hard as she could on the front side. Meanwhile, she looked over at the girl on the couch. “Ben, go check and see if she’s breathing, OK?”

  He wandered over to the girl in a reluctant stride and put his hand in front of her nose. “I don’t feel anything.”

  “Look and see if her chest is rising with her breaths.”

  He watched carefully for a few seconds. “Yeah, she’s breathing.”

  She held up two fingers together. “OK, now put your fingers on the underside of her neck, under her jaw, and see if you feel a pulse.”

  “What’s a pulse?” he said, his expression puzzled.

  “It’s that beat you feel in your wrist and in your neck. It pulses with your heartbeat.”

  “Oh.” He did as he was told and waited.

  She was terrified the girl would die right there on her sofa.

  Ben’s eyes widened, and he nodded. “Yes, I feel it.”

  “Good, OK. How fast is it beating?”

  “Like, tap, tap, tap,” he said bobbing his head with the rhythm.

  “Good, I need you to do that every few minutes for me while I’m trying to help Bishop. If it becomes slower or faster than it is now, tell me quickly, OK?”

  Ben nodded that he understood. It was a lot to ask of a six-year-old, but she had no other choice. She couldn’t leave Bishop’s side at the moment, or he would continue to bleed out.

  After another five minutes, she asked Ben to check Louna’s pulse again, and he said the beat was the same as before. Then she said, “Now I need to you come and help me with Bishop.” Her hands and arms were covered in Bishop’s blood by then, and the grout crevices in her tile entryway were filling with rivers of the red blood. “We need to move him somewhere where I can work on him better.”

  “He’s lying on his gun, Mom,” Ben said, and in all the confusion she hadn’t even noticed that he was, in fact, lying on the the rifle that was slung over his other shoulder.

  “Great. OK, that can’t be comfortable. I think the bleeding in his shoulder has stopped. Can you clear a spot next to the fire and bring me that large comforter?”

  “Sure,” Ben said and did as she asked.

  Having him near the fire would at least allow her to see the extent of his injuries better since the light was brighter there.

  While Ben brought her the comforter, she removed his boots, guns, and knife. Then she laid out the quilt alongside his body. “OK, I can’t drag him like I did before or his shoulder will start bleeding again. We’re going to roll him on the comforter and drag the blanket over to the fireplace. I’ll need your help; he’s a big man.”

  She grabbed him by his belt at the waist and his right shoulder, then lifted while Ben stuffed the comforter underneath his body with plenty of room above his head. Out of breath, she said, “OK,” and again she applied pressure to his shoulder to stop the bright red blood seeping through the cloth she’d used before. “Now go check Louna’s pulse again before we do the other side.”

  “Shouldn’t we call an ambulance, Mom?”

  “I wish we could, sweetie, but there’s no one to call.”

  When he returned from Louna’s side, he said, “Same as before. Where’s her brother, Andy?”

  Maeve avoided her son’s eyes. “I don’t know, son. Help me with Bishop now.”

  This time, she reached over Bishop and pulled upward while Ben pulled the comforter through to the other side.

  Again, she had to take time to stop the bleeding before she continued. At least now she could move him away from the front door, which was starting to look like a gory crime scene.

  Together, both she and her son pulled and tugged the comforter with all their might and moved Bishop closer to the woodstove. That’s when she really saw the extent of his condition. She had Ben hold the compress on his shoulder while she checked on Louna again. Her breath was shallow, but she was alive.

  Quickly, Maeve ran to get antiseptic, scissors, tweezers, water, and clean washcloths. She began with the child and cut away her nightgown while Ben hid his eyes. She started at the top of the child and washed away as much of the soot as possible and tweezed out all the glass she could find embedded in her skin and washed her again. Though she bled from cuts, there were no major gashes. Maeve applied antiseptic and then elevated her chest with pillows until she was almost sitting up; since her lungs were probably the biggest concern, removing as much weight from her chest as possible would be the best thing. Then she covered the girl with a fresh blanket and hoped for the best.

  Then she moved to Bishop and again Ben helped her by removing his hat, coat, and gloves. Then she unbuckled his belt while Ben removed his socks. “What are we doing this for?” Ben asked.

  “I need to see if he has any other injuries that we need to
treat.”

  She cut away his thermal T-shirt with scissors to get to his damaged arm when Ben asked, “Won’t he be mad?”

  She shook her head. “No, he’ll be thankful we helped him. Oh my,” she said. “Look at that one.” A large glass shard stabbed into his forearm.

  “Ugh, he’s going to need stitches, Mom.”

  “Yeah…” she said, and the realization dawned on her that she would have to be the one to do the stitching. She went to her home library and pulled out a first aid book and flipped through the pages. Nothing said what to do in case of a gunshot to the shoulder, but there were directions on how to stitch up a wound.

  Again, she started at the top and washed away the grime. When she got to the large shard of glass in the back of his forearm, she waited until she’d removed all the other smaller ones because she knew this one would bleed a lot as soon as she took it out.

  All along his chest she found embedded pieces of glass, and when she wiped away the blood, they pooled up again like little reservoirs. Applying a cold compress, she then waited for the bleeding to abate before dabbing on the antiseptic. Had he been awake she was sure he would have yelled out at the stinging pain, but then again, after she looked at the tough guy, perhaps not. He wasn’t the complaining type, especially since he was more concerned about the girl than himself when he’d arrived.

  “Ben, all the doors are locked, right?”

  “Yes! I made sure.”

  With everything else going on, she couldn’t shake the sounds from earlier and the thought that perhaps someone might come to the house after the shooting. They had to have seen Bishop’s tracks in the snow, right? Should I be concerned?

  “OK, come and sit with them while I get a few things together,” she said instead of “while I find a needle and thread.” While up, she peeked out the front window. The glow from the house fire down the road seemed to dim. Just in case, she checked the locks again and then checked the back door as well. After she had found the needle and thread in her sewing kit, she lit a lighter and slid the needle through the flame a few times and then wiped it down with alcohol. She’d never done this before and barely knew how to sew. The gash in Bishop’s arm was around two inches long, and the injury to his shoulder was even bigger, but it had to be closed, and she was the only one here to do the stitching.

  Preparing herself, she took a deep breath, then brought the supplies along with a few more clean towels back to her patient and knelt down next to him. “Ben, keep a watch on Louna. Tell me if anything changes.”

  “OK. I will,” he said as he watched over Louna.

  Just as she suspected, after pulling out the jagged glass shard from the back of his forearm the wound bled profusely. She made sure to remove all of the glass before she applied pressure. The wound gaped open, and there was no way around it—she had to sew it back together to join the edges.

  After threading the needle by the light of the woodstove, she set to work. The first pull through the skin made her stomach roll. Maeve nearly lost it but pulled herself together, wiped away the blood, and stitched through the layers of skin.

  Afterward, she covered the wound in antibacterial ointment and wrapped a bandage around the entire arm. Then she stood and went to wash her hands. Turning back to Bishop and talking to herself with her hands on her hips, she said, “I don’t know what to do about the shoulder.”

  “Doesn’t it say in the book?” Ben asked.

  “No, I guess they figured in the case of a gunshot wound you’d go to the hospital.”

  “Mom, she’s moving!” Ben yelled from beside Louna.

  Maeve ran over to the couch and found the little girl stirring. “Ben, get a glass of water for her.”

  He ran to the kitchen while Maeve felt the girl’s forehead. So far, there was no sign of fever in either patient, but she figured if there was a chance, it would happen. Ben returned with the water, and Maeve said, “Louna, you’re all right. Can you hear me?”

  The little girl moved her hand to her throat, and her eyelids fluttered. “She’s trying to wake up,” Ben said.

  Maeve sat her up and held the cup to her mouth. A little of the water trickled past her small red lips, and a tiny stream spilled down the side of her cheek.

  “Is she going to die, Mom?”

  She had to tell him the truth. “I don’t know, Ben. Not if I can help it.”

  She laid the girl’s head back down on the pillow and checked for a pulse again. Knowing her lungs and esophagus were probably damaged from the hot air of the burning house, there was quite a good chance the girl would die.

  “She’s not going to die,” came a gravelly voice from the pallet on the floor.

  “Bishop! You’re awake,” Ben said.

  Bishop tried to sit up and recoiled from the pain in his shoulder.

  “Don’t try to move!” Maeve said. “You’ve been shot through the shoulder.”

  He suddenly looked frantic. His eyes were wildly searching the room. “Where’s my rifle?”

  “Right here,” Ben said, pointing to it on the chair next to him.

  “Door’s locked?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ben said, nodding his head.

  “How’s the girl?”

  Maeve didn’t know what to say. “She’s breathing but still unconscious.”

  He struggled to sit up a little more, and Maeve helped him. He looked at his right shoulder. “Did the bullet go through?”

  “There’s an exit wound.”

  “Good, but we’re going to need antibiotics. Do you have any in the house?”

  She shook her head no. “It’s illegal now to keep old medications.”

  Bishop nodded. “We can’t stay here. Whoever that was who looted that house, they’re organized. The others probably already found them, and there are clear tracks to this house through the snow. We have to leave before daylight.”

  He said just what she had feared before. “We can’t leave. Where will we go?” Maeve nearly shouted. “It’s freezing out there, and both you and this girl need medical attention. You can’t travel.”

  “Where’s my horse?”

  “I put him in the garage,” Ben said.

  “So there are tracks in the snow outside everywhere? You’re in danger here. We have to go now,” he said and began to stand.

  “Bishop, wait. Look at her,” she said, pointing to the child. She was as white as the snow outside, drained of all color. “She could die out there. She needs rest.”

  “She’ll die if we stay here, and so will you and Ben.”

  He looked around for his boots, and Ben brought them to him. He sat in a chair and began lacing them up as well as he could with the pain from the wound in his shoulder.

  “Your wound. It’s going to start bleeding again.”

  “Can you bring me a couple of spare T-shirts?”

  She cursed under her breath but left the room in search of one of Roger’s old T-shirts.

  By the time she returned, Bishop already had his belt back on. He sucked in a sharp breath when he pushed the compress on his shoulder. A bright red stream of blood began to make a river down his bare chest.

  “Take the first T-shirt and cut the seam open from the right sleeve all the way down to the hem.”

  She grabbed the scissors that she used to cut his thermal tee off of him earlier.

  He nodded when she was done and reached for the shirt. She didn’t give it to him, though. She knew he’d need help getting the shirt on while holding the compress with his left hand over his right shoulder.

  “I can do it,” he said, watching her as she approached him.

  She shook her head and ignored him while she slipped the opening over his head. “You need help, Bishop.” She opened the armhole and helped him slide his right hand through the opening.

  “Now, pull the shirt taut and tie it high under my left arm with the cut ends,” he said, somewhat reluctantly.

  She wasn’t sure if he just didn’t like people touching him or if
he didn’t like her touching him. It didn’t matter to Maeve, though. He needed help, and she was the only one who could help him now.

  “Tighter,” he said as she pulled the excess material taut under his left arm. She pulled harder, and when she did he sucked in another sharp breath out of pain.

  “I’m sorry! Let’s push a few more of those towels under there to put pressure on the wound.”

  He nodded with his lips pursed in a straight line. She hated to hurt him, but it must be done.

  When they were through, she helped him put another T-shirt over the first and then his coat over that. Thankfully, he still had use of both arms.

  “That’ll do,” Bishop said and tested out his right arm to see what his range of motion was. “Bundle the girl up and Ben too. We need to get to Jax. He’ll know how to help the girl, and he has all the illegal antibiotics one could ask for.”

  “Who’s Jax?”

  Bishop stuck his knife into the holster on his belt and grabbed his AR-15 to sling over his back. His M9 Beretta, he replaced into its holster. Going to the front of the house, he looked out into the pitch-dark night. “He’s a hermit,” Bishop said and flashed a rare smile.

  “Wait, Bishop. I don’t know if I can trust you. I don’t want to leave my home and take my son out into the forest in this terrible cold. What if no one comes here?”

  Bishop looked at Ben, who was watching the two of them discuss things. She knew she shouldn’t express her concerns like this in front of her son, but there was no other choice now.

  “Take a good look at your boy. He’s alive now. He won’t be by sunup. Roger asked me to take care of you two when he was gone. You’re not going to stop me from doing that.”

  Maeve took a step away from him. “What is that supposed to mean? We don’t even know you.”

  “Your husband knew me, and he trusted me, and I’m going to keep my promise to him. Ben, get your gear on.”

  Her son scrambled for his coat and boots. She’d never seen him move so fast. In a way, she felt betrayed by her own son.