by G. Benson
It had felt like hours. This was taking them too long.
“There’s definitely no scalpel?” Joy asked. She could only hope the desperation in her tone was all in her head.
Taren, face grim, shook her head.
“Fuck,” Joy breathed.
She was about to tell Ro not to look, but Ro had already twisted their head towards the door, arm holding the axe up right behind them awkwardly for Joy to take.
This was not how she wanted to do this.
She’d known she’d need the axe. She didn’t have a bone saw.
But she’d only wanted it for the bone. Not the whole arm. Healing would be a nightmare if they just hacked the whole arm off. The bleeding. The infection. Closing a wound like that? Almost impossible.
She reached for the axe.
Xin’s head lolled on the table.
The red was definitely past her wrist, skin mottled grey in parts of it.
That morphine wasn’t going to even touch this. She raised the axe up, lowered it to line up with exactly where she was going to cut. Raised it back up. She adjusted her grip, flexing her fingers.
Aim well and true, or this would be worse than it needed to be. She tensed her shoulders, put her weight on her back foot to swing down.
“People!” Ro’s voice cried out.
Right as someone else shouted, “What the hell are you doing?”
Joy whipped her head around. In the doorway stood Raj, Natalie, and a man she didn’t really know. They carried the ends of IV poles, which clattered as they dropped them on the ground, Raj’s baton gripped in his fist.
“Raj,” Joy breathed out, relieved.
Xin struggled to sit up, Taren holding her down.
“Hey, guys,” she breathed out, long and slow, sounding like a sixteen-year-old with their first joint.
“We have no time,” Joy stated. “Raj, get here, I need you. Glove up. Natalie, please tell me you have a scalpel in one of those bags.”
“I do.”
“Grab one. Man I don’t know very well, please lie on Xin’s lower legs like my friend Ro here.” They stood for a second, taking in the scene. “Now!” Joy did bark this time.
They leapt into action, Raj slipping in next to her, the trolley between them. “Taren, take the axe.”
She did.
A scalpel appeared a second later, dropped onto the dressing trolley.
“Natalie, brace her head.”
Natalie stood at the head of the long table and bent her knees, putting her head over Xin’s forehead and angling her elbow down, ready to put her weight into stopping Xin from thrashing. How she managed it so well with one good arm, Joy had no idea.
Raj and Natalie hadn’t taken their eyes from Xin’s missing finger, a pool of blood settling under her hand.
“No sedation?” Raj asked.
“There’s none.”
“She have morphine?” Natalie asked.
“A lot,” Taren answered.
“Above or below elbow amputation?” Raj’s dark eyes were serious.
“Above. Transhumeral. We need to be sure we get it all,” Taren answered for her.
Raj’s eyes on her didn’t leave. He nodded.
“I need to do this,” Joy said.
So Joy picked up the scalpel, and did this.
Taren
Time to cut off an arm, apparently
It was fast.
As it needed to be. Quick. Ruthless. Joy was a fantastic surgeon. They were right; the morphine was nowhere near enough. Xin screamed, then bit down on the bandage Taren shoved in her mouth, her legs struggling under the weight of the bodies lying over her. They had clamps, luckily. And the tourniquet remained.
But there was still a lot of blood.
Raj, gloves on, clamped where Joy directed him to with one hand. The other was clenching under Xin’s wrist, arm curled under Joy’s working space. He didn’t look at all comfortable, but he held on with a grim determination. The two worked well together, seamless.
When Taren and Joy had had dinner, in another life, Joy had spoken highly of Raj.
“Uh—kid—” Raj said, and Ro twisted to show they were listening “—grab her wrist, help me.” Raj was calm, his voice strained from the angle he was trying to keep. “Her arm needs to be as still as possible.”
Blindly, like a champion, Ro reached and grabbed Xin’s wrist, pinning it down. Taren put all the pressure she could on Xin’s body, twitching and trying to move under her, and put her forearm across her chest, reaching across and pinning her shoulder down near the tourniquet.
Her face was close to Joy’s, bent over the arm, her face tight with concentration. That tick in Joy’s jaw where she was clenching it.
She’d made several incisions.
Xin moaned through the bandage, tears leaking out of her closed eyes.
Ro retched. As did Scott, who had joined them, apparently. Natalie pressed her face close to Xin’s ear and muttered things. Taren leaned down on her torso and twisted her head so she could look up at Xin, whose face was twisted with pain as she breathed heavily, spit on her chin and teeth clenched on the bandage like any of it helped.
“Did you know, when I was at school back home, I got in a fight with a kid who told me the Loch Ness monster in Scotland wasn’t real?” Natalie murmured, lips right next to Xin’s ear. “No kidding, I laid him flat. I was five. My dad was from Scotland, and I believed in that monster with all my wee heart.”
And on she went. Thankfully, because the rest of them were too focused. Taren wanted to close her eyes and simply will them back to before this was going on, when she and Xin were walking to their shift, a bounce in Xin’s step.
“Give me the axe,” Joy said, tucking the flaps of skin she’d left to close the amputation site away to expose the bone.
The axe passed between them, and Joy didn’t hesitate.
She straightened. Anyone who had been looking turned their heads away.
Except Taren.
Even Raj closed his eyes as she swung down.
And somehow hit perfectly. The sound Xin made would stay with Taren until the end of her days.
The arm came away in Ro’s hand, who’d been clinging to it exactly as they’d been told to. Ro retched again and dropped it. The limb hit the ground with a thud.
Joy looked at Taren, and a moment too long passed between them.
“Okay,” Joy said. “I have time now, to close this well.”
She bent over and got back to work.
At Xin’s ear, Natalie was still talking.
“Have you been to Ireland, Xin? It’s so green. I mean, here has its green moments, I guess. And nothing beats the beaches around these parts, you know? I didn’t know water could be so clean. But Ireland? It’s so green. And when it’s not raining, it’s so beautiful. No sharks, either. So maybe we can’t swim often because it’s so cold your nipples freeze off, but if we do, we don’t get attacked by a shark.”
Xin had passed out, but no one told Natalie to stop talking.
Taren straightened, slowly raising her arms as she realised Xin was out cold.
Working on Xin, Joy didn’t tear her concentration away. But she did mutter, “Would love the fucking beeping to stop.”
Taren could go and find the machine that was doing it, but there was no way she was venturing out.
“Ro, Scott,” Taren whispered. “You can stand up. Xin’s out.”
Both of them slowly stood up, wincing as their backs cracked. They both left a hand on each of Xin’s legs, ready in case she moved. Ro was wide-eyed, gaze constantly darting down to Xin’s arm on the ground, then away. But they didn’t leave. Or run. So, kudos to them. Scott’s eyes were on Xin’s face, brow furrowed.
“One bit her?” he asked, voice soft, as if scared to wake her.
Taren gave a sharp nod. “It happened so quickly. I hope…” Taren didn’t need to finish that aloud. That she hoped they�
��d been fast enough. Or that this would even work. “We gave her morphine, and some antibiotics. We need to keep up with those.”
“We have a bunch in the bags,” Natalie said, pausing her murmurs to Xin. “We’ll take anything we haven’t already grabbed, too.”
“Good,” Taren said.
“We found Scott between the two wards,” Raj murmured. There wasn’t much left for him to help Joy with, just releasing clamps as she asked.
“It’s nice to see you alive,” Taren said, giving a smile.
“And who’s this?” Raj asked, jutting his chin towards Ro.
“This,” Ro said, “is Ro. Hi. Who are you?”
“Raj.” He pointed. “This is Natalie.”
Natalie’s gaze flicked up to Ro, a weak smile on her face. She’d let her hand go from Xin’s forehead, instead brushing her hair back gently, smoothing it away. The distraction of greeting Ro seemed to pull her out of it all, and she stood as she must have realised Xin wasn’t waking up any time soon.
“What’s that bandage?” Natalie asked.
Ro held their arm up. “Dog bite.”
Both Raj and Natalie’s gazes swung wildly to Taren, who held her hands up placatingly. “Woah. It’s a dog bite. We checked.”
Natalie eyed the arm more. Ro wiggled it. “You can check too, if you want. The police guys threw me into the canteen and wouldn’t listen.”
“You were alone?” Raj asked.
Ro swallowed, arm wrapping around their middle and hand rubbing at the opposite upper arm. They edged to the door, peering out to check the hallway. “I was with some others who had some bites and weren’t deemed able to be evacuated. They wanted to try get out. They’re, uh—” They swallowed again, visibly. “They’re lying dead on the pavement outside from gunshots.”
Scott twitched violently. He ignored Taren’s curious look. Joy was wrapping a bandage around and around the stump of Xin’s arm.
“That reminds me, Ro.” Taren gave them a small smile. “We need to get some antibiotics into you.”
Taren did that, because having something to do felt good. Her hands were shaking. She never shook. She grabbed saline, the antibiotics.
Thinking about this was easier than thinking about what they’d just done.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking though, as if they were remembering that they’d dismembered one of her closest work friends. Hell, closest friends. Xin, who was always cheerful. They’d hacked her arm off with an axe.
Taren swallowed, her back to everyone as she used a side counter to mix up the antibiotics. They’d hacked it off to save Xin’s life. Taren missed stabbing the bottle with the needle the first time. Second time she managed it, though.
She’d never shaken so violently in her life.
They’d tried to save her life.
She hoped.
They’d saved her life, hadn’t they?
She really hoped they hadn’t put Xin through that for her to—to die, regardless.
A deep breath. That was what she needed. To take a deep breath, and get this trembling under control.
There was a beep, the sound of a blood sugar machine. Joy was at least taking care of herself, too.
There were voices murmuring behind her. She should pay attention. She took another deep breath and, slowly, her hands steadied. She managed to draw up the antibiotics, then stood for a second, listening.
“Will she be able to move?” Scott asked.
“Ideally, no.” Joy’s voice was steady. Far steadier than Taren’s hands. “But realistically, yes. We’d need to support her. She’s lost blood, but luckily we could control that. But this is major surgery she just went through, never mind the shock. Never mind if…”
“If it didn’t work,” Scott finished.
“Yes,” Joy said. Taren wanted to sidle up next to Joy and brush their hands together. Whether for Joy or herself, she didn’t know. Perhaps for both of them. “It’s quiet here, though. For now. Why don’t we go back to the canteen?”
“I need you to come with me, to see something.” Scott’s voice came out strangled.
Taren finally turned around.
They were all standing in the same positions with Xin in the middle, pallid and sickly looking—except Joy, who was at another counter near the medication cupboard, a vial of insulin in hand that she was starting to draw up.
Taren looked away from her. From the way her hands moved, the sharp look in her eye on the syringe as she counted units.
She got queasy from blood covering surfaces and people, but could cut off an arm. Right.
The stump of Xin’s upper arm was wrapped perfectly in a bright white, clean bandage. The cleanest thing in the room. They were all sweaty and flushed. Blood was on each and every one of them in some form or another. Ro was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and going from scanning the corridor, then back to the people in the room. Watching. Waiting.
They seemed like someone well-versed in both those things.
“See something? Like what?” Joy asked. She turned to face the wall, pulling up her shirt.
Taren walked around and held up the syringes to Ro, who gave her a soft little smile, something fleeting and barely there.
“I think it’s better if you see it, to believe it.” Scott’s voice was tight.
“I saw it and still don’t bloody believe it,” Natalie muttered. She’d still not left her post at Xin’s head, hand gentle on the crown of her hair, fingers smoothing it back over and over. “Well, we can’t split up again. Xin would kill us.”
“I would,” Xin mumbled, the sound hoarse and barely reaching them.
Natalie’s hand paused on her head, and Joy stepped up next to her.
Taren finished up with Ro, giving their arm a quick squeeze, before stepping up next to Joy to stand close to Xin. Taren’s side pressed against Joy, and she felt Joy’s hand, next to her leg, squeeze her loose scrub pants, as if searching for an anchor. Her gaze stayed on Xin, though, so Taren let her do that and smiled down at Xin, who gave her a blurry one back.
“Well, hi.” Taren put her hand on her leg, squeezing. “We’ll give you some more morphine, soon.”
Xin shook her head. “No.” Her words were slurred, laced with an edge of pain. “Too…groggy.”
“Codeine?” Joy suggested.
“Yeah,” Xin breathed out. “That.” She tried to open her eyes and scrunched her face up, quickly closing them again. “Hurts,” she slurred.
Natalie’s hands smoothed over her forehead. “I think she’s out again.”
“Better for her,” Joy said. “I still don’t see why we can’t just stay here.”
Raj looked to Scott. Scott looked to Natalie, who looked between them.
“For God’s sakes, tell us,” Joy said. “Why a dramatic reveal?”
Raj gave his attention to Scott, who sighed, digging his hands deep in his pockets. “We’re surrounded by military types. I was watching out of a tiny window in a supply closet for hours. No traffic is reaching the roads near us. No movement anywhere. Except more and more military personnel arriving.”
“We’ve seen them,” Taren said. “They’re guarding the perimeter. And, you know, shooting at us.”
“The last couple of hours,” Scott continued, “they’ve been bringing in munition cases. Explosives. They’re going to blow this entire place to kingdom come.”
Taren blinked at him. Joy sucked in an audible breath. Ro froze.
“They’re going to blow us all up?” Joy asked.
“They’re going to blow us all up,” Scott confirmed.
Xin laughed, eyes still closed. Whether the hysterical note was caused by the news or the morphine was anyone’s guess.
Joy started shaking her head. “They can’t. They know people are in here. Alive people. Injured people. God, there’re probably other groups hidden away in places. What if there’s a cure? These are people, too. They can’t do this!�
��
But they could. That cement that had exploded right near their heads when they’d stuck them out the window had been proof of that.
Taren grabbed Joy’s hand, squeezing. “I know.” Joy was still shaking her head. “Hon—I know. But they’re going to. You saw the people they shot. And Scott said they shot even more. And Ro. Do you really think they wouldn’t blow this building to pieces to stop this thing spreading?”
Breathing hard, Joy didn’t tear her eyes off Taren’s face. The calm, steady surgeon who’d amputated her friend’s arm with a freaking axe was gone. But this was good. Taren could be this person, this time. Calm in a crisis. She could do that. Her shaking fingers weren’t shaking anymore.
“This thing would have spread elsewhere. It didn’t only erupt in A&E. We had patients upstairs and who knows where else with it. We don’t know if it spread further than the original lab.”
All Taren could see was Joy’s hard gaze. Nothing else existed. She let go of her hand, gripping her upper arm instead. Everyone around them was probably staring, but Taren was beyond caring at this point. “No. I’m sure it hasn’t, or they’d be focused on clearing up that mess, wouldn’t they? They’re desperate.”
The laugh that rang out from Joy’s mouth chilled Taren. “Desperate? They should try being in here.”
Taren finally looked around. Raj, Natalie, Ro, and Scott were watching them, crowded in the small room, blood smeared on the ground and on the table. Joy’s surgical gloves were inside out on the dressing tray, abandoned. Xin lay, blinking at her sluggishly, then eyes closing as she drifted again. Every single person in here looked terrified.
Taren turned her head to Scott. “There has to be a way out.”
“There is one.”
Joy’s fingers wrapped around her wrist and she tugged Taren’s arm down, but didn’t let go of her. Like the desperate fist that had clutched her scrub pants. A tether. Taren could be that, for Joy. Joy blowing her off after their date seemed like another life. Who even cared about any of that right then?
“How?”
Scott’s eyes flicked between them. Taren thought she saw them rest longer on Xin, his gaze going down to her stump. “There’s an old sewer access thing, a passage that leads under the A&E car park and to a generator lot. It leads past hospital limits, too. We should be well past the barricade.”
