by Nick Randall
“Let’s keep moving!” he growled. “This guy doesn’t have much longer!”
Two more gun shots suddenly whizzed past the party and also struck the wall.
This time, Roy’s alert eyes had discovered the position of the shooter. He took aim with his Beretta and popped off two shots at a fleeting humanoid target that was diving for cover behind a row of parked cars. Both bullets ricocheted off the trunk of an abandoned Kia sedan and the flash of blur that was the target disappeared.
Roy continued to keep his Beretta 92 trained on the cars as Josie and Jon picked up Ben and continued moving on behind him.
Even though the target never re-appeared, Roy fired two more shots as insurance as he backed up with Josie and Jon and they took cover behind a corner.
“How many hostiles?” Jon asked.
“One was all I saw,” said Roy, peeking his head cautiously around the corner. “Don’t see him anymore though.”
“Just a couple of more blocks to go,” Jon nodded his head towards his walled concrete house up the street. “But we’re not in the clear yet. You mind trading places, buddy?”
Roy holstered his Beretta and he and Jon switched positions so that Roy was now lifting Ben by the arms and shoulders.
Josie took a good look at Roy’s house up the street on the hill. A concrete wall around eight feet high surrounded his property, with his two story home that was further reinforced with concrete nestled nicely in the middle. Clearly, he was someone who was at least a little bit concerned about security.
“Let’s make a run for it,” Roy hurriedly suggested. “It’s a miracle this guy is still alive. We need to get him into that house and we need to get him there now.”
“Too risky, my friend,” Jon was peering around the corner for any signs of hostiles.
“It’s risky enough that we’re even out here,” Roy countered. “I say we make a run for it. Or else this kid will bleed to death if he hasn’t already.”
“I agree,” Josie said, her knees nearly buckling under the weight of carrying Ben the whole time.
Outvoted, Jon sighed.
“This could be a big mistake,” he said.
Suddenly, three more bullets struck the brick corner, dust spraying across Jon’s face!
“Screw that, make a run for it!” he called out after Roy and Josie, who were already making a beeline for Jon’s house with Ben in their arms.
Rather than follow them Jon held his ground. Two more bullets struck the brick corner.
Jon spat out dust from his mouth and rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. Getting a firm two handed combat grip on his Glock 19, he instinctively whirled around the corner and immediately blind fired three shots in rapid succession, hoping it would cause whoever was shooting to instinctively jump for cover.
Upon firing his third shot after coming around the corner, he spotted and zeroed in on his target, a relatively short masked man dressed in camouflage and holding a semi-automatic carbine of some kind.
Both the masked man and Jon fired simultaneously. The masked man’s bullets missed Jon by mere inches and struck the bricks behind him, but Jon unleashed hell with his Glock, advancing on his opponent while firing seven rapid fire shots without any hesitation in between trigger pulls. Several rounds struck the masked man in the torso region and caused him to reel back.
Rather than change magazines Jon performed a New York reload, tossing away his now empty Glock and drawing his extra one with his left hand, while continuing to advance on the wounded masked man.
The masked man was staggering around uncontrollably, going into a state of shock from his numerous bullet wounds. His shaking hands let go of his carbine and it clanged to the pavement.
Jon saw that his opponent was defeated, but he also knew that he was still dangerous and thus he kept his pistol trained on him.
“How many guys are you with?” Jon asked through gritted teeth.
The wounded man didn’t reply, instead losing his balance and crashing to the ground.
“How many?!” Jon asked again, knowing full well he was exposed out in the open.
Again, the masked man didn’t respond. He tried to pull himself back to his feet, but failed and crashed down again to his knees.
Jon saw it was a hopeless struggle and knew he had to get out of the open quickly to re-join Roy and Josie. Getting split up was bad enough and lost would be even worse.
He took quick but careful aim at the masked man’s head, and fired a single shot to put him down and out of his misery.
With that, Jon quickly recovered his empty Glock, took a quick look around of his surroundings, and then jogged back around the corner.
He saw Roy and Josie were already nearing the wall of his property. His eyes and ears on full alert on the hostile environment around him, Jon sped up his pace to catch up with them.
Chapter 4
“Mom!” Alex cried as Roy and Josie burst into Jon’s house with the bloody and unconscious Ben in their arms.
“Alex!”
Josie couldn’t contain her relief and excitement to see her ten year old daughter again despite the situation. Alex ran across the room and tried to hug Josie across the waist.
“Keep moving!” Roy barked when Josie stalled.
In the front yard, Jon locked shut the gate to the wall and then dashed across his graveled lawn to the front door, which he promptly shut and locked behind him as well.
“Take him into the kitchen!”
Roy and Josie dashed through Jon’s home and into the kitchen, carefully setting Ben down on the dinner table. Waves of relief swept over Josie’s numbed arms as she was finally able to let go of Ben’s weight.
Jon swung open cabinets and drawers in the kitchen and began fishing around for his emergency first aid supplies. Several glasses and dishes crashed to the hardwood floor and shattered into pieces. His boots crunched over them as he zipped back and forth between all corners of the kitchen in the hurried search for the first aid.
Alex hopped into the kitchen to look Ben over, appalled and yet also curious at the sight of all the blood.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked innocently. “I can help out!”
“Go to the top level and keep a look out for anybody you see!” Roy ordered his daughter.
“But I want to help!” Alex insisted.
“We may have been followed, so you can help by keeping a look out!” Roy shot back.
Knowing better than to argue with her father, especially in intense situations such as these, Alex turned and disappeared up the stairs to the upper level of the home.
“Just the two bullet wounds, right?” Jon asked as he glided over to the dining room table with an armful of bandages, gauze pads, tourniquets, morphine, and other medical items.
“One more in the leg,” Josie said.
“WHAT?!” Jon’s eyes went wide.
“It’s old, it’s old!” Josie clarified. “The ones in the arm and the abdomen are the only ones of concern right now. Sorry, sorry…”
Jon shook his head as he used a pair of scissors to cut open Ben’s shirt, soggy in all the blood. “Man, this poor kid sure has been shot up far worse than anyone should ever have to be. Reminds me of this infirmary in Afghanistan back in 2001…”
With Ben’s shirt now removed they were quickly able to locate the two bullet holes, one in the upper left arm and one in the gut. The wound in the gut was bleeding far more profusely due to the tourniquet above the wound in the upper arm.
Jon took a towel, wrapped it up, and then carefully pressed it over the wound in the abdomen to help prevent the flow of the bleeding.
“Take this and keep the pressure on!” he snapped to Josie.
“Okay, okay,” Josie tried to keep herself calm as her hands replaced Jon’s over the towel. “So we just gotta pull the bullets out and close up the wounds, right?”
“If only it were that simple,” said Jon as he rummaged around in his med kit. “In some cases, there may be smal
l shards of the bullet lodged in the flesh in the surrounding area. Ideally you would remove those pieces to, but considering the fact that we don’t have all the personnel and equipment I’m used to it might be more dangerous trying to remove them then it is just leaving them there.”
“We have to remove the larger parts of the bullets at least,” Roy pointed out. “It’s the only way to properly clean and disinfect the wounds.”
Jon withdrew small bottles of painkillers and antibiotics from his emergency med kit. He handed these to Roy.
“Force these down his throat,” Jon instructed as he next pulled out a pair of medical tweezers and began wiping them down with an alcohol sanitizer pad. “They’ll prevent the progress of the infection and help subdue the pain. Won’t be much but it’s enough to matter.”
Roy did as he was instructed, prying Ben’s mouth open and forcing the pills down.
“Okay, now for the main event,” said Jon, taking a deep breath to prep himself. “Listen very carefully. We’ll start with the abdomen first. Roy, after Josie pulls back the towel I want you to hold the wound cavity open so I can locate the bullet or at least the largest fragments. Josie, I want you to grab a kitchen knife and some matches and go outside and get a fire going. There’s firewood in the shed. You take that knife and put the blade into the fire until it gets as hot as it can. We’re talking red hot. Got it?”
Roy and Josie both nodded affirmatively and yet nervously.
“Okay, okay, now pull back the covering and do exactly as I said,” Jon instructed.
Josie slowly pulled back the towel to reveal the messy bullet hole. The flow of blood had slowed but it hadn’t stopped. Looking deep into the wound, Josie could see that Ben’s skin and flesh had been completely ripped apart like tissue paper. She couldn’t even imagine how bad the internal organs might be. It was just amazing someone could be wounded so grievously and survive, she thought.
“What you are still standing here for?!” Jon snapped Josie out of her mesmerization. “Go and heat that damn knife blade!”
Josie immediately bounded for the kitchen and yanked open drawers before she found the cooking utensils and withdrew a butter knife. Behind her, she glanced to see Roy and Jon working on Ben’s abdomen.
“Get that fire going now!” Jon yelled, blood spurting from the bullet wound as he struggled to locate the bullet fragments with the tweezers.
Frantically Josie swung open more doors and cupboards until she located the old box of waterproof matches resting amongst other utility items.
She then ran out the backdoor to the graveled backyard with the knife and matches in hand. She went first for the shed near the corner, but to her dismay the front door was locked.
Dammit! she thought.
Rather than run back into the house to ask Jon for the key she hurriedly circled the shed in an attempt to locate any kind of firewood that she hoped would be there, instead only gathering a few sticks and leaves that she could find to use as kindling. At least it was better than nothing.
Matches spilled everywhere as Josie ripped open the box and struck one of them to get a small flame going. Kneeling down, she held the flame to one of the leaves to ignite it. Once it took hold, she began adding more leaves and smaller sticks to grow it.
Hardly the best way to get a fire going, but in the considerable rush she didn’t care. She just had to get a large enough fire going and she had to get it going fast.
Once the little fire was going, Josie carefully placed the blade of the knife into it to heat it. As much as she wanted to relax and stare into the fire before falling to sleep, she pulled herself away to search for more fuel.
Suddenly, she heard screaming coming from within the house that she recognized instantly.
Less than two seconds later and Josie had burst back in through the backdoor and was in the kitchen.
To her horror, Ben was wide awake and thrashing about on the table. Roy and Jon were both swearing up a storm as they tried to hold him down.
“What are you doing to me, what are you doing?!” Ben was crying.
“Ben, Ben, it’s okay!” Josie rushed over. “They’re with me! We’re trying to help you!”
“What are you doing to me?!” Ben was screaming in pain and sweating more volumes of perspiration than Josie had ever seen in her life.
“You’ve been shot, we’re trying to heal you!” Josie grabbed Ben by the face and looked into his eyes. “But you have to stay still!”
Finally, Ben started to relax.
“What have you done so far?!” Josie asked Jon.
“We got one fragment out, but there’s at least one more still lodged in there,” Jon said, scooping up his fallen tweezers from the floor. “This is going to hurt even worse this time but if you want to stay alive another hour you have got to stay still, kid!”
“Okay, okay…” Ben was teetering again on the edge of unconsciousness.
Roy reopened the wound cavity with his fingers. Ben grimaced in pain again, letting loose a few more screams.
“How’s the knife coming along?” Jon grimaced as he fished around in the wound channel for the remaining fragment.
“The firewood’s in the shed, where’s the key?!”
Jon glanced around frantically.
“Shit! Just use newspapers and whatever else you can find. Quickly!”
Twenty seconds later and Josie was back outside with an armful of newspapers and pieces of cardboard that she had scavenged from the house. The little fire she had created was quickly dying, so she struck another match and ignited a sheet of newspaper into a flame. She gradually added more pieces of newspaper and cardboard, and then set the blade of the knife into the fire.
She continued to hear Ben screaming from inside, before they became less and less frequent and soon ended completely. Either he was dead or had slipped back into unconsciousness.
“We got it!” she heard her husband call from inside the house. “Bring us the knife, quick!”
Through the flames Josie saw the blade of the knife was reddening. She tore off a lower piece of her shirt to safely grab the hot handle sticking out from the fire, and then ran back inside to the kitchen.
“We got the fragments out!” Roy was yelling excitedly.
“Is he alive?!” Josie asked.
“Yes!”
“The knife!” Jon was now wearing a leather glove over his right hand and snatched the searing hot blade from Josie. “Okay, okay, now both of you hold him down tight.”
Roy and Josie did as they were instructed. Jon held the glowing knife blade mere centimeters above the site of the wound.
“You got him?”
Roy and Josie nodded.
With that, Jon brought the flat of the knife down over the wound. Josie looked away at the ceiling as she could hear sizzling and smell smoke filling the air. To her surprise, Ben didn’t wake up.
When she looked back down, the now blackened bullet wound was fully cauterized and to her relief the the bleeding had stopped.
Jon let the knife fall to the floor with a clang and wiped his sweating brow with the inside of his elbow.
“Well, now for the arm.”
* * *
Jon relaxed in his rocking chair on the top level of the house, looking out of the acrylic glass window and over the defensive wall to view the surrounding neighborhood for any signs of more hostile forces. So far, he had yet to see a single soul, but he could hardly say he was relieved.
Jon was a diehard prepper with a healthy stockpile of food, water, medicine, and other supplies, but he had also only stored enough for two people: himself and one more in the probable event that he would have to take care of someone else.
But as fate would have it, including himself he now had five people to feed and take care of, one of whom was badly wounded and who perhaps wouldn’t make it a few more hours.
Jon had never viewed himself as an insane ‘doomsday prepper’ like they used to make shows about on TV. Rather, he viewed it
as an important responsibility. History repeats itself, he knew, so it was only a matter of time before the United States was thrown into long term chaos like it had with the EMP attack. Setting aside provisions and building a concrete wall around his house wasn’t crazy to him, it was just dead smart. But now the fact that he had far more people to feed than he had expected made him severely question his survival strategy. There were only two options left, he decided.
He glanced at the fully loaded Daniel Defense AR-15 with a red dot sight that was resting at the ready in the corner, and he also had one of his trustworthy Glock 19’s sitting on the window sill, both within easy reach and just waiting to defend his life against whoever would dare to launch an assault on his small fortress.
That also wasn’t to include the Glock 26 9mm backup gun, or BUG, that he always kept strapped to his ankle under the leg of his khaki cargo pants. That small pistol was his last ditch holdout in the event that every other weapon failed in life-or-death emergencies, and he had never told anyone that he carried a last resort weapon of any kind, not even his old pal Roy. Having a BUG was an advantage that Jon knew could evaporate the moment anybody became aware of it.
A solid four hours had passed since they had finished operating on Ben, who they had carefully transferred to the old couch in the living room to sleep. It was amazing that Ben had been able to survive considering the immense amount of blood that he had lost. He was a tough young bastard and Jon admired him for it, but the recovery process would be long and painful.
Ben wasn’t somebody who Jon could just throw out onto the street. If that happened, he most certainly wouldn’t survive, and Jon couldn’t live with himself knowing that after all the terribly wounded men he had witnessed screaming and begging for help in the infirmary tents in Iraq and Afghanistan. And besides, he had enough supplies for two people, so that wasn’t an issue.
But Roy, Josie, and Alex? Now that was a different story entirely. Jon’s supplies were designed to last two people for a full year, or one person for two years. But between five hungry mouths, his hard earned stockpile would be lucky to last a few short months at best, no matter how well they could ration it.
