Ring of Roses

by Sara Clancy

  If they can scream, they can wait, her professor’s voice, commanding and sure, broke across her mind. Unconscious first. Resolved, she peered into the rain. Who needs immediate treatment? Who will really benefit? The questions rolled in her mind as she scanned the beach. She paused when she spotted a man. He lay sprawled motionless against a stone. The distance wasn’t far. But the boulders were enormous and covered in strips of slime and seaweed. She scrambled towards him, waterlogged shoes dragging her down.

  “Hello?” she asked as she finally came to his side.

  Receiving no response, she cupped the sides of his head. Careful, her professor’s voice came again. Always be aware of neck injuries.

  “Can you hear me?!” she yelled over the storm. “Can you open your eyes?”

  No response. Readjusting her fingers, she pressed again into the cooling skin of his neck. No pulse. A hand against his mouth. No breath. Annabel tilted his head back and opened his mouth. Before she could give him a breath, the voice of her professor resonated in her head again. What are you doing? Triage! He’s dead. Don’t waste your time. Annabel swallowed thickly, staring down at the man, willing him to give a sign of life. Move on, Anna! Save who you can. Be smart.

  Her hands trembled as she rolled the man onto his side. Arranging him into a recovery position let her hold onto the belief that she would come back for him once she had helped the others. Logically, she knew that it wouldn't matter if she did. The lie was a comfort and one she clung to as she forced herself to leave. The next person she decided upon was also motionless. This man was far closer to the frenzied water. She rushed towards him over the massive stones. Sliding down into a fissure created by a cracked boulder, she stumbled across a woman. The rain was unable to wash the blood off her face. The dim light turned the crimson an inky black. The contrast made the woman's watering eyes glow. Fear and pain in both measures met Annabel and froze her solid. The woman clawed at her arms, wailing as blood continued to flow. Focus! Annabel told herself.

  “Let me see.”

  The woman covered her face with both hands and sobbed. Straightening her spine, lifting her chin, Annabel tried to emulate her professor. Calm. Authoritative. Measured.

  “It will be okay. Let me see.”

  While she didn't reveal her face, the woman allowed Annabel to peel her hands away from her face, exposing the deep gash that crossed the bridge of her nose. A few little prods and it became clear that a broken nose was the worst of the damage.

  “This will heal,” Annabel assured. The woman still sobbed, but there were moments of silence. Annabel schooled her features as she flushed with victory.

  “Does anything else hurt?” she asked, the professional persona a little bit easier to carry.

  The woman shook her head, the motion whipping blood onto the stones around them.

  “Can you walk?”

  It was hard to keep from sagging with relief when the woman answered with a nod. Getting out of the canyon wasn't as hard as Annabel had feared. Calmer now, the woman was able to climb up once they found a few serviceable stepping stones. After they were up, Annabel set her up on the beach on her own. The instructions were simple. Keep walking until she was amongst the people that had begun to cluster together. In a state of shock, the stranger wasn’t in any position to argue. She moved like a zombie. Mindless. Aimless. Annabel didn’t wait to see how far she got.

  The deluge had washed her hands clean by the time she made it to her original target. The tide was coming in, allowing the sea to reach higher up on his legs than before. At random intervals, the rushing water floated his lower body, threatening to drag him back in the water.

  Annabel stumbled as she hurriedly grabbed his arms. A thought came to her, freezing her in place before she could pull. What if he has a spinal injury?

  She answered herself. Not in a meek whimper but a tone similar to the professor she was trying to emulate. Paralyzed is better than dead.

  Her fingers tightened around his wrists and she braced her feet. Minimal upper body strength forced her to throw her full weight behind moving him an inch. Sweat beaded against her skin, almost instantly washed away by the rain. Panting hard, she glanced around. The encroaching waves crashed through the convoluted pathways between the stones. It was a mass of rushing water and wild foam. One more tug proved to her that she wasn't going to win the fight like this.

  “Sorry,” she muttered as she awkwardly and jarringly brought the man towards the edge of the bolder.

  She watched the waves, studied the rhythm as she heaved the man’s torso up. He flopped back almost instantly, forcing her to prop him up against her chest. Wrapping her arms around his stomach, she found that she couldn’t reach her own fingers. Twisting her hands up in his shirt instead, she waited for the next surge.

  A wave crashed against their boulder, spewing frothed water into the air. The canyon flooded once more and she hurled them into the crush. Instantly carried into the rapids, it was her lifejacket that kept them up. Annabel leaned back, pulled the man on top of her, tried to keep them both breathing as the elements bombarded them. Then, with matching ferocity, the tide went out. She scraped her feet along the sandy bottom and kicked at the stones around them, trying to break free of the pull.

  Once they were braced and the worst was over, she hurriedly caught her breath and prepared for the next surge. They only moved when the waves carried them. The process left her half drowned, drained, and covered with a thousand bruises. But it worked. They exhausted the reach of the ocean far faster than if she had tried to drag him over the stones.

  Picking what she hoped was the path of least resistance, she heaved the man up a slope of stone. Slick and drizzled with rain, she fell more than once, her life jacket softening the fall. Dropping once more onto the top of the boulder, she decided that they had gone far enough. At least for now. The steps of CPR had long since been drilled into her. She moved on muscle memory alone. Clambering up onto her knees, she hunched over him, shielding his face from the downpour. Pulse. Breathing. Check head and neck for injury. Lay him flat. Check his airway. Tilt his head back. Pinch the nose. One breath.

  The second it took for his chest to heave up seemed to stretch for eternity. Two more breaths. Is he breathing on his own? her professor’s voice instructed. Recheck his pulse.

  Her hands fluttered over his chest and found his sternum. Long and lean, she had to put the weight of her body into each compression. Rain pelted her back. The waves crashed. People screamed. None of it mattered as she counted down the time until the next breath.

  “You’re hurting him!”

  The cry didn’t mean a thing until a teenaged girl dropped down opposite her and tried to push her off. Annabel shoved forward, never pausing. Each compression was hard enough to make the man’s stomach roll like the tide. The crack of bone sounded over the teen's demands.

  “You broke his ribs!” the girl screamed. “Get off my dad!”

  Annabel had to blow the next breath, stalling her reply. “I’m a med student. You have to be strong or it won’t work.”

  Nervous energy made the woman tremble. It was clear that the daughter felt useless. That put Annabel on edge. Hopelessness made people unpredictable.

  “Take over the breaths,” Annabel commanded, making sure that her voice came out as clear and stable as possible. “Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Understand?”

  The daughter nodded, her blonde hair flopping forward in her haste. Two rounds and the daughter no longer needed the prodding to get the timing right.

  “Anna!”

  Annabel snapped her head around towards her sister’s voice. Lightning cracked, chasing off the shadows to reveal Jezebel battling her way out of the sloshing water, black ooze dripping from her eyes to paint her cheeks. Annabel's blood turned to ice. What happened to her eyes? People hurried around her, dragging out the others she was with. Once she could rip her gaze from her sister's face, she instantly noticed the bundle Jezebel held protectively within
her arms.

  “Anna! Where are you?”

  Unable to wave and draw her sister's attention, Annabel had to scream until her throat cracked. Perhaps it was enough. Or it might have just been luck. Either way, Jezebel made a beeline toward her. As much as Annabel longed to lock her sister into a tight grip and never let go, she maintained her focus on the man before her. Later, she promised herself. Once we get through this. Their reunion consisted of a brush of shoulders and a few helpless glances.

  “Your eyes.”

  If Jezebel heard her, she ignored the comment in favor of presenting the bundle to her.

  “Something’s wrong with the baby,” Jezebel declared.

  In the chaos, Annabel had forgotten that there had been an infant onboard. And children. How many? Five? Six? Cutting those thoughts aside, she refocused on the here and now. Scanning around her, she spotted a nearby man. Calling him over and explaining the basics, she instructed him to take over with the compressions.

  “My leg is bleeding.”

  “There’s a child–”

  The man spoke over her explanation. Fixated on his leg, nothing would shake his focus.

  “Sir. I can look at your leg. But the child has to come first. You need to take over for me,” Annabel said firmly.

  “She’s a doctor,” the daughter declared.

  Before Annabel could correct the statement, the man was on her, gruff hands clasping her shoulders and his body weight bearing down. Fevered, feral, he screamed at her to help him. To fix his leg. His weight bore down upon her, steadily crushing her into the stone.

  “I’m bleeding out! Do something!”

  Annabel twisted her shoulders and tried to push him off balance. He held on tight.

  “You’ll be okay,” she insisted.

  The cut was on the outside of his leg, far away from any arteries.

  Her assurances only fed into his terror.

  “Can’t you see the blood?” he snarled, his face inches from her own, his fingers squeezing until she gasped in pain.

  “Can’t you see the dying people?” she shot back.

  The words were a mistake. She knew it the second they left her mouth. The teenaged girl that had been attempting to pry the injured man off heard them. Connected ‘dying people’ to her father. It snapped something within her, near hysterical screams mingled with the man’s demands. Annabel couldn’t understand a word of it as they closed in around her.

  “Sir, listen to me–”

  Desperate, panicked, deranged, logic wasn’t going to get through. Trying to force off his hands, she struggled to keep count of the compressions. This enraged him. She was prepared for screaming and threats. Not for the beefy hands to leave her shoulders and wrap tight around her neck. It was easy for him to squeeze the slender column of her neck. The daughter lunged across her father, shoving and hitting the man. It didn’t matter. The hands tightened and the last of Annabel’s wheeze chocked off. Screams blended together into nonsense. Blood swelled against her skin, hot and tight. Her arms shook as she struggled to throw the man off of her.

  One solid strike and it was done. Air rushed into Annabel’s lungs, coursing like fire down her crumpled throat. Already back to her compressions, she looked over her shoulder, gulping down what air she could. A bloody rock dropped into view, cast aside by the young man who now crouched beside her.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  It only occurred to her then that the daughter had an accent. Now that she noticed, she realized that this man had a matching one.

  “Egil,” the daughter declared. The rest was in Swedish. Annabel could recognize the sound of it. The meaning, however, was lost. Whatever she said, Egil nodded and arranged his hands over Annabel’s, poised to take over the moment she pulled back. Having her brother near seemed to calm the girl. Her past outburst was forgotten.

  It went off without issue, and she crumbled to the side, coughing and sputtering. Still, she crawled over the stone. The man who had attacked her lay motionless, a small puddle of blood pooling around his head. The cut on his leg wasn’t as bad. It was the rain, watering down the flow, making it spread and look worse than it was. Water slicked her fingers as she worked the unconscious man’s belt open. A quick yank and she freed the leather, looped it around his thigh, and tightened it to stem the flow of blood.

  Hopefully, if he did regain consciousness, the pain would keep him down. One of the guides had made it to shore and began to bark orders, trying to regain some kind of control. Racing across the uneven ground as fast as she could, she added her own advice to those within earshot. With her vision blurred by dim light and rain, all she saw were wounds needing compression, broken bones in need of splints, and the wandering wounded, those caught in shock, requiring prompting to stagger further away from the shore.

  Jezebel slipped on the stones. Her drop was sudden, made all the worse for her as she instinctively protected the infant in her arms. Leaping over the canyon between the boulders, Annabel finally reached her sister, and instantly pulled the child free.

  “How long hasn’t it been breathing?” she asked.

  Jezebel shook her head. Platinum blonde hair slipped down to shield her face, swaying as she panted. Using her body to shield the child from the rain, she lay it out on the stones. It was tiny and frail. Each broken little sound it admitted came with a rattle of its chest and a bubble of water.

  “The mother,” Jezebel wheezed.

  Annabel didn’t look up, too busy funneling a lungful of air into the small body before her. Within an instant, the panicked cries rose to deafening shrieks. Stones rumbled, clanking together like an approaching stampede. The sky darkened. Annabel snapped around to see that the sea had built its rage into one towering wall of glass-like water. The sailing ship road on the peak of the lashing froth, the cackling skull carved on its stern alight with glee. Time froze. Nothing existed in that moment but a delirious terror and the realization that momentum would hurl the ship down upon them.

  Chapter 2

  Jezebel snatched up the infant and fled over the slick ground. She didn’t get far. A trip sent her tumbling down into a gap between the boulders as the ship blocked out all traces of light. She hit the sand hard and curled her body around the squealing child. The moment of impact came with a hailstorm of boulders, shattered lumber, and whipped sea water. It shook the earth and rattled the stones. The intensity of the sound reduced the following thunder to a muffled noise, leaving a sharp ringing in her ears.

  Her body vibrated with aftershocks. The infant kicked uselessly at her stomach, its small body sinking into the wet sand. Water trickled down the rocks that surrounded them, gathering around them, steadily filling the space. Licking her lips brought the copper taste of blood into her mouth. Half sure that even the slightest movement would bring the body of the ship down upon her, she remained where she was. Steadily, her rapid heartbeat slowed, her bravery grew, and she risked a glance up.

  Like a retreating beast, the storm continued to emit low, disgruntled growls as it retreated. The rain thinned. Not relenting entirely, but softening until a hazy mist began to cling amongst the stones. The ebony ship towered over her. Its damp, broken boards blocked the majority of the rain. Pressing up onto her toes, her stomach cramped. The vessel landed precisely where she had last seen Annabel.

  “Anna!” she screamed, her voice echoing slightly off of the cold stone. “Anna! Where are you?”

  No one answered her. Instead, it was the baby’s wails that drew her attention. People appeared around the rim of her shelter, each talking over the other.

  “Has anyone seen Anna? She’s my sister,” she asked. “Shorter than me. And thinner? Dark hair constantly in long braids?”

  If someone did answer her, she lost track of the words within everyone else’s demands. Shivering, she looked down at the infant, her hair flopping into her peripheral vision. It was so small. Giving it up to anyone came with a deep twinge of guilt and resentment. As if she were abandoning it. Appa
rently, they took her hesitation for shock, and they all assumed the cure for shock was to yell louder.

  They’re not going to tell me anything, she thought with no small sense of bitterness. So, I’ll find her myself.

  Carefully passing the child to the closest set of hands, she grabbed another man's wrist, allowing him to pull her up.

  Upon her freedom, she received a pat on her back and was quickly left alone in favor of the baby. She didn't mind and instantly set off to round the bow of the ship. Now that the howling winds had died, it was possible to hear the sounds the dark skeletal monster emitted. Clunking rasps and whispered whines as it settled into its new crippled form. Tattered and aged sails flapped in the limp wind, twisting back and forth upon their colossal masts. Every part of it seemed to weep, oozing putrid black water. Despite the massive damage, the skull bow remained untouched. The sight of it turned her blood to ice. She could feel it looking at her. No amount of logic allowed her to shake off the feeling. It only grew stronger as she cautiously inched around the bow, until she was sure that it would devour her if she dared to look away.

  At last, she managed to round the bow. Feeling relatively safer, she tore her eyes away from the skull and instantly noticed a tour guide. Or, more precisely, one of them. She hadn’t been paying attention when they had boarded the boat, so she couldn’t remember if they were numerous groups lumped together or if they generally took forty-odd guests on the island-hopping trip. As she approached the woman, Jezebel tried to recall her name. Harper. No, that’s the American.