Fire.
He knew he should be alarmed, but the heavy weight on top of him made it hard to breathe and didn’t leave room for any other concern. He took stock of his situation. His throat hurt like hell and he was covered in a warm and sticky substance. But he was alive. And the sobbing meant Katie was too.
“Katie?” he croaked.
His throat shrieked in protest.
“Jack? Oh my God, you’re alive! I thought you were…”
“Where are you?”
The words were clear in his head but came out as little more than a rasp and each one, its own little inferno of agony.
“Jack you have to help me, the candle started a fire, but I can’t get my hand free.”
Jack swallowed molten lava.
“Wait…”
He reached up and his hand encountered the top of Dawson’s head; he snatched it away in quickly, but there was no movement or protest from the man. Jack started to wiggle out from under him, his fingers slipping as he tried to find purchase on the floor. He realized then why he felt wet and sticky. Copious amounts of blood coated him and the floor around him. He lifted his head, the blood in his hair cooling as he examined Dawson.
It would be too difficult to slide from under him. He reached out again, hands clamping the big man’s head, grimacing when his finger accidently brushed against an eyeball. He was definitely dead then, no one alive would take a finger to the eye and not flinch. Jack shivered and got on with it, twisting Dawson’s head and heaving up with his own shoulder. The body shifted slightly.
“Hurry Jack!”
With a renewed effort he heaved again and this time, managed to tip the body far enough to slip from under it. He scrambled to his feet, slipping in the blood on the floor as he rounded the upturned table.
Katie leaned against it, her good hand supporting the wrist of the one that had been pinioned. She was pale, her face tired and pained. Three feet away, the candle had ignited the ugly wallpaper that covered the longest wall in the kitchen. It had fallen too far from Katie for her to reach and the flames were now crawling up the wall and licking the ceiling. Jack knew they only had minutes to escape.
He knelt next to Katie, every muscle in his body protesting the sudden move, and grasped the handle of the icepick. It was buried deep in the table, with barely a centimeter of the thin needle showing between the skin of Katie’s hand and the handle.
His sister’s blood was all over the handle. The puncture wound in her hand had been torn during her struggles and he couldn’t find enough purchase on the slick handle to begin to pull.
“Hurry Jack.”
Even in the few seconds he’d taken to kneel and work on the icepick, the flames had ignited the ceiling and were spreading rapidly overhead. Jack curled the fingers of his left hand around the handle, and then reinforced them with his right, grasping the end of the handle and spike to find better leverage.
He tugged once. The whole table moved. He put his foot and shoulder against the vertical table top and pulled. Still it didn’t budge. Smoke was filling the room quickly, making it difficult to breathe even down at their level.
“I have to move it side to side,” Jack wheezed. “It’ll hurt... a lot.”
Katie nodded.
Jack braced himself again and pulled, simultaneously trying to move the handle back and forth. Katie screamed in agony when he slipped and bumped against her arm.
“Sorry!”
Clenching his teeth, he gripped it again and with a supreme effort the spike began to budge, barely a fraction of a millimeter at first, but with each back and forth movement, it became looser. They both coughed as soft ashes began to rain on them. It was only as he readied himself to give the loosened icepick one last tug that he realized Katie had fainted and was slumped against the table, unmoving.
Coughing, he gave an almighty jerk. The icepick slipped out, surprisingly easily in the end, causing him to fall onto his backside. Cursing, he flung the pick across the room and knelt beside Katie. He knew he was too weak to pick her up and, struggling to breathe, he put his hands under her arms and stood up, dragging Katie along the floor a few feet at a time.
By the light of the blaze he made his way to the doorway to the hall, pulling Katie through just as a sheet of blackened plaster fell to the floor, throwing up a shower of sparks and dust.
The air was clearer in the hallway, the smoke still clinging to the ceiling, and Jack breathed more easily as he dragged his unconscious sister to the front door. He unlocked the door and pulled it open so hard it hit the plaster and bounced back into his shoulder. Ignoring the pain, he pushed it open again with his foot and pulled Katie out onto the porch, not stopping until he dragged her into the center of the front lawn, where he collapsed beside her sucking deep lungfuls of cold, clean air.
Part Two – Out of the Frying Pan…
22
Bumps and gentle movement woke Katie. She tried to keep her eyes closed, but when memories of Dawson, her abduction and the subsequent horror crashed into her brain, she shot up to look at her surroundings. She immediately regretted the sudden movement. Her head pounded painfully, but it was a tickle compared to the screaming fire in her hand.
“You’re awake!” Jack grated, looking over his shoulder.
Her brother looked how she felt. There were shadows under his bloodshot eyes and the purple bruising on his neck was stark against his pale skin. Katie nursed her hand. It had been crudely bandaged, and a splotch of blood stained the white dressing.
Jack began to slow the car.
“Where are we?”
“We’re on the way to the El Dorado Forest,” he said, pulling to a complete standstill, before getting out and coming around to her door.
They were on a two-lane road bordered by thick forest. Cool air and the fresh smell of outdoors wafted into the car when he pulled the door open.
“Why didn’t we go home?” she asked, as he gently took her bandaged hand and inspected it. “What about Danny… did you…?”
“I buried him before we left… next to Mom and Dad.”
“Oh…”
Tears for Danny sprang to her eyes.
Jack put his hand on her shoulder, and she put hers on his. They stayed like that for a minute then Jack went to the back and came back with a small bottle of water. Katie didn’t realize how thirsty she was until she began to drink. She downed the bottle and asked if there was another.
Jack nodded. He and Danny had found a full 24-pack of Deer Park half-liter bottles in one of the houses they’d raided.
“How do you feel?”
“I have a really bad headache,” she said. “And my hand? Oh my god, I wish I could cut it off.”
“Yeah, it’s really bad. Here, take these.” He squeezed two white pills out of a foil pack of ibuprofen and handed them to her. “You need to take it easy Katie. I washed the wound, but it goes right through and I don’t know how much damage there is to nerves… we have to watch out for infection too.”
She nodded and washed the pills down with a gulp of water.
“What’s the plan?”
“We’re going to hide out in the El Dorado Forest until we get a handle on what’s happening.”
“You don’t think we should have stayed at home?”
“No,” he said. “There’s nothing there for us anymore. Plus, the Chinese will be sure to set up a base in Sacramento and start rounding people up. It’s the capital of California, after all. Before we left this morning, I saw choppers in the distance and there have been jets going overhead.”
She didn’t argue with his logic.
“Are you okay?” she asked, reaching up and gently touching his neck.
Jack pulled away.
“I’m fine. My throat kills me, and I think I have bruised ribs, but I’m alive.”
“Me too, thanks to you. I thought you’d gone… he told me…” Katie broke into sobs.
“I’ll never leave you,” he said, allowing her to rest h
er forehead against him. “We’re in this together and anyone who tries to get in the way of that will end up like that asshole, Dawson.”
23
Katie fell asleep not long after they began driving again and when she awoke, the car was stationary. She looked around. The sun was going down and they were parked in a roughly circular clearing with trees on all sides. She opened her door and got out of the car on shaky legs. The dirt road they’d traveled in on, sliced its way back into the forest 30 yards behind the Mazda. Jack was nowhere to be seen.
She called his name.
There was no answer and Katie’s heart began to beat fast. She ran to the back of the car. The tailgate was up and some of the items had been removed and placed on the ground.
“Hello pretty,” said a strange voice behind her. She jumped, whipping around with her hands raised in defense. There was no one there.
“Hello pretty,” the voice repeated.
This time her eyes found the culprit. She lowered her hands and let out a long exhalation.
“Jesus, Katie. Get a grip,” she murmured.
Thirty feet away on the branch of a tree, staring right at her, was a big white bird with a bright yellow comb of feathers on its head. She recognized it as a cockatoo, and most definitely not a native of the El Dorado Forest.
She took a step towards his tree and he began preening his wing unconcernedly.
“Hello pretty,” she said.
It looked at her then went back to its preening as if it was the most pressing matter in the world. Katie smiled.
“You’re a rude little thing, aren’t you?”
“Who are you talking to?”
Katie jumped again. She turned quickly to face her brother. He had emerged from the trees in front of the SUV and was carrying a tomahawk and some rope.
“Don’t sneak up on me Jack!” Then more softly, “I was talking to my new friend.”
“Hello pretty,” said the cockatoo, right on cue.
“What the hell?” Jack laughed. “Is that a parrot?”
“I think it’s a cockatoo, like from Australia or something.”
“Gidday mate,” said Jack, dropping his gear on the ground and joining Katie.
The cockatoo, apparently even more disinterested now, began to peck at the bark of the branch it was sitting on. Katie’s smile disappeared, the brief diversion giving way to the trauma of the last few days.
“What were you doing in the bushes?” she asked Jack.
“I’ll show you in a minute. First, we need to change your dressing. Come and sit down.”
He carefully unwrapped the bandaging on her hand and inspected it. It looked terrible, but he thought the overall swelling might have gone down a little. The wound on the back of her hand looked like a small volcano. The rim of the jagged circular sore was pink and puckered, but inside the opening her flesh glistened red. At least it had stopped bleeding. He turned her hand over. The wound on her palm was less ragged and more like a puncture. It had also not crusted over. Worryingly, it was weeping a translucent fluid and the skin around it was swollen.
“Can you wiggle your fingers?”
Katie pulled a pained face but managed to wiggle all of her fingers.
“That’s good.”
Jack tore open one of the alcohol swabs he’d found in his mother’s first aid kit. Katie flinched and tried to pull her hand back when he dabbed the back of her hand. The wound immediately began to bleed again. He persisted, holding her hand firmly.
“Sorry,” he said. “We have to clean it – I’m worried about it getting infected.”
“It hurts so bad,” said Katie, tears running down her cheeks.
“It’ll get better, I promise. A few more days it should be starting to heal. I can’t tell for sure, but I think it went between the bones, and you can wiggle your fingers so that means it probably didn’t damage any nerves.”
He wrapped a fresh bandage around her hand and then stood up.
“We’ll clean it again tomorrow,” he said, then smiled. “Come on, I’ll show you what I was doing in the bushes.”
He put the first aid kit away and then led her through the trees about 30 yards before coming to another small clearing. In the center was a two-man tent and a small circular patch of ground that had been cleared and on which now stood a pyre of branches and sticks. Two camp chairs sat on either side of it.
“You made a camp? Geez, how long was I out?”
“We got here three hours ago.”
“Wow, okay. What now then?”
“Well, we sit tight, I guess. Wait for help.”
Something in his tone was off.
“You don’t think help is coming, do you?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “We don’t know how bad things are, but I’m hopeful.”
Katie didn’t push it, but nothing in the way he spoke gave her any reason to think he was genuinely convinced or even hopeful that help would come.
“Come on then,” she said, trying to sound upbeat. “Let’s start bringing our stuff in.”
“No, you sit and rest, I’ll do it.”
“No,” she said emphatically. “I slept while you were doing all this, I’ll be fine.”
She lasted exactly two trips to the car and back before she sat down, exhausted, her hand throbbing again. Jack gave her two more ibuprofen and a bottle of water before moving the rest of their gear; his last two trips were in the dark.
After he was done, Jack lit the fire and cooked a pan of beans as Katie, now dressed comfortably in jeans and a sweater, sat quietly staring into the flames. They spoke less than a handful of words as they ate, Jack explaining they could only light the fire when it was dark.
“We don’t want anyone to know we’re here. Not the Chinese… or anyone else. Tomorrow I’ll hide the car.”
“Okay.”
“So… if help doesn’t come,” Katie said in the dark. “What are our long-term plans? We can’t just camp out forever.”
Jack stared into the flames. He’d been thinking about that very subject.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I guess we play it by ear.”
24
Katie awoke with a fever the next morning and didn’t want to get out of her sleeping bag. Jack gave her the last two ibuprofen and a sip of water, but despite his pleading, she refused to let him change the dressing on her hand and rolled over to get more sleep. Even though he was worried, Jack didn’t argue because he thought rest was perhaps the best thing for her.
Two hours later she woke up feeling a little better and this time let Jack tend to her wound. He unwrapped the bandages; the wound looked worse and smelled a little. There was a yellowish substance oozing from the sore on the back of her hand and when he flipped it over, he saw a telltale line of pink traveling from the heel of her hand, and halfway up the pale underside of her forearm.
This was worst case scenario. She had an infection and most likely blood poisoning. Katie saw the look on his face and asked what was wrong.
“This is bad. Like really bad. I need to go and get you antibiotics and more ibuprofen.”
“Can’t you just clean it?” she asked.
“No, it’s too far gone.”
“Well you’re not leaving me here. I’ll come with you.”
“No, it’s too dangerous Katie. Don’t worry, I’ll be quick. The last town was only thirty minutes back. I’ll raid a pharmacy, get what we need and come straight back.”
They argued about her coming while he cleaned and bandaged her hand again, but she eventually gave in, too exhausted to fight. Katie swayed as she stood up and Jack put his hand out to steady her. When he felt her forehead, she was hot again.
He gave her some more water and led her into the tent to lay down.
“You stay here and sleep, I’ll be back by the time you wake up.”
“Can’t you take me with you?” she said. “I’ll lay in the back, I won’t be any trouble.”
“No Katie, we’ve be
en through this. You’ll be safer here.”
She capitulated, and he turned to go.
“Back soon.”
“Wait!”
Jack turned back, ready for another argument, but was surprised when Katie draped her arms around his shoulders and rested her head against his.
“I love you, Jack. Come back safe.”
Jack hugged her back.
“I will, now lay down and sleep.”
After she was lying down, he draped the sleeping bag over her and went to the door. He looked back and saw that she had closed her eyes. He zipped up the tent and got moving.
Leaving her behind was a decision he would regret for the rest of his life.
25
Katie dozed fitfully for a short time before waking up shivering. Well, it seemed like a short time. In truth she had no way of knowing how long she’d been asleep or how long it had been since Jack had left. She pulled the sleeping bag up to her throat but before long, she was too hot. She threw off the sleeping bag then unzipped and shrugged off her jeans, allowing the cool air to dry the fever sweat on her body. Within minutes she was shivering again.
“God, I can’t take this…”
She crawled out of the tent and stumbled across to the fire, which Jack had restacked with fresh wood that morning. She pulled out the old newspaper he’d pinned under a rock and tore strips off it with trembling fingers, screwing them into balls and stuffing them haphazardly under the smaller twigs at the bottom of the pyre.
She retrieved the matches from the pocket of the chair where she had seen Jack deposit them and lit the newspaper. It took more easily than she expected and soon the twigs and leaves were ablaze, their flames licking the bigger sticks. Within three or so minutes the fire was blazing. Katie huddled on one of the camp chairs, as close to the fire as she dared.
In her hot and cold, feverish misery, she was totally oblivious of the thin, gray column of smoke coiling into the blue Californian winter sky.
Lone Wolf: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (America Falls - Occupied Territory Book 1) Page 8
