The China Pandemic (11 page)

“They’re coming now, you’ll see her soon,” he said.

She did not answer and still cried.

“It’s all right, he can’t hurt you again,” he said, trying to convince himself along with the girl of the madman’s demise by his own hands. For some reason, he needed to repeat it.

As if she detected in his voice his own shock that the task was done, even at the innocent’s cost, she patted him with one hand on his chest, as she herself shuddered at the wretched nightmare they’d both endured.

He could hear Bang and Macy’s running footsteps on the damp asphalt now, thumping nearer. Graham felt the girl shift in his arms and noticed the dampness against his hand. Her wound bled freely again.

Macy arrived and clung to her twin’s side, unable to say more than, “Marcy, Marcy, Marcy,” a ragged chant filled with dreadful anguish.

Bang and Sheriff sidled up now, seeking Graham’s attention. Bang wrapped his arm around Graham’s long leg, leaned into him saying nothing, and stared at Sheriff, who went to sniff the corpse.

Nothing more needed to be said. They had seen from afar and they knew that Graham had done what needed to be done. Only when Marcy appeared, did they cast away their restriction and leave the safety of the woods.

Silently, they stood for a moment more and watched as Sheriff sniffed over the body. He smelled the death there with only the sound of an occasional crackle of the firebox. Graham stepped forward, knowing he needed to pass the man to take Marcy inside to care for her wounds.

She said, “No, don’t go near him,” too scared of what might happen, and grabbed at Graham, trying to hide there.

“He’s dead, Marcy,” he said.

“Still, I’m afraid,” she said.

Without another word, Graham lowered the girl to the ground and motioned for Macy to hold her up. Macy did without being asked.

Sheriff stood over the man. When Graham arrived, Sheriff took a few steps back. Graham lowered the lids over the bulging eyes, and then started to drag him away towards the side of the store.

Marcy broke her silence and yelled, “No, don’t. He does not like bugs. Burn him. He would want that, I think.”

Graham understood she meant it for the good man, not the mad one.

“Turn around, all of you,” Graham said, not wanting the image of him doing so etched in their young minds.

They did and his only witness was Sheriff and to Graham, a police dog seemed a fitting accomplice. He retrieved the abandoned gas can and poured in the remaining fuel, to reignite the fire.

“It’s done,” he said as he walked over to retrieve the girl. Macy and Bang collected the rifles along the way and they all walked back into the market together.

It seemed different somehow with the lights on. Graham chose a different counter to set the girl down on since the other was a bloody mess. With his jacket, he covered her shaking body. Macy clung by her sister’s side as Sheriff stayed at the open doorway on his haunches.

Graham went over to the first table and used the uncontaminated ice to clean the blood and sweaty death off as best he could. With the last several minutes replaying in his mind, the stinging cold of the ice water snapped him out of his own shock. He wiped off with dry paper towels. Then Graham grabbed a fresh bag of ice and several more rolls of paper towels to clean Marcy, and had her twin reapply pressure again to her leg wound.

After Graham had retrieved his rifle, he and Bang walked back and gathered the supplies he’d dropped earlier. Now with the lights on, Graham could see how few items remained on the shelves of the store and how lucky they’d been to discover those he had.

He dropped his load where the girls were but didn’t say a word. He wasn’t looking forward to treating Marcy’s wounds. He went back and looked for a sewing kit with Bang close behind him. “Look for anything you think we might need, Bang,” he said.

Bang noticed on a low shelf a half dozen green apple juice boxes with happy smiling apples staring up at him. The boy stopped to pick them up while balancing Campos’s rifle. He managed well enough and then caught up with Graham, who turned and realized he’d left a five year old in charge of the heavy weapon. Graham lifted it up from him and silently chastised himself for the oversight.

He would never again be without his own firearm. If he’d had it earlier, he could have simply shot the man again with so much less of a cost than he carried now and forever would.

After retrieving a bottle of alcohol and antibiotic ointment, he went to the housewares aisle. Along with the bleach, he looked for the necessary kit always present when not needed. He saw it there on a plastic hook and pulled off one, then decided they might need more in the future and took the other three as well. After looking at the dinky thread in the kit, he looked around for something sturdier and found a spool of black upholstery thread. He took that too.

“Okay, Bang, now we need a lighter,” he said, and not being a smoker himself, he remembered they were usually up by the counters in the smokers’ necessities area.

Heading back to the front, he saw Macy still holding pressure on the leg wound as she stroked her sister’s hair away from her bruised forehead. He asked, “Is everything all right, Macy?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” she said.

He put down the items and noticed both girls quietly watching him with their twin blue eyes. It began to rain outside, which they welcomed because it would help clean away what had taken place earlier.

Marcy was shaking now from either shock or the cold, he didn’t know which, but he asked Bang to close the open door.

“Macy, go look for jackets or blankets; something to wrap her up in,” he asked.

“Sure,” she said, and wandered off to plunder the aisles.

“Marcy, I’m Graham. I met your sister and Sheriff early this morning. I tried to help you earlier before…” He chose not to continue the thought. He looked up at her and saw her shaking, and now her teeth chattered too.

“It’s okay. We’re going to get you warmed up and fix your leg. Then we are all going to get out of here,” he said as Macy ran up holding an armload of Extra-Extra Large sized heather gray sweatshirts. She’d found them somewhere in the store. They were huge and bore the logo of the town’s name across the chest.

“These are all I could find,” she said as she rushed over.

“They’re perfect,” he said, and sat Marcy up to pull one over her. Then he balled up another one and put it under her head as a pillow. He laid the others, layer after layer, over the girl. He overlapped them and tucked them under her sides like a burrito. “We’ll get you warmed up in no time,” he said as he worked.

“We need to get something warm into her too,” he said, thinking she might be going into shock. He looked around for an answer to that one and remembered there was a microwave set up to warm fast food next to the deli.

“Macy, you and Bang go see if you can find clean cups, bottled water and teabags or hot chocolate. Use the microwave by the deli to make her something warm to drink, but make sure the water’s clean,” he said as he sterilized several needles. He sat them on a clean paper towel to cool nearby, and he decided the larger thread would be the best way to go since it was sturdier and had less lint than the kit variety. Luckily, one of the needles had a fairly large eye he hoped the coarse thread would fit through.

He checked under the compression and saw the hatchet cut had stopped bleeding, but the swelling had increased. Graham knew it needed to be cleaned and dressed as soon as possible, however much he disliked the idea of having to do it.

The kids must have found something appropriate because he and Marcy could hear the microwave going. “Looks like they found something for you,” he said to her. She smiled a little, but her teeth continued to chatter.

“I need to rip your pants leg open more,” he said to her, and she nodded. He grabbed each side and ripped the edges all the way down as cleanly as possible. When he got to the hem, he gave a little more effort and then just slipped the loop over her shoe. After he had moved the blood-stained excess out of the way, he wetted several paper towels and gently tried to clean off the dried blood from her calf, avoiding the thigh area entirely.

Macy and Bang showed up smiling and bearing a steaming cup of cocoa. Bang brought the remnants of their excursion: a few unopened bottles of water, paper cups, plastic spoons and an opened package of Swiss Miss. Where they found the water, was a mystery to Graham.

“Perfect,” Graham said while he helped Marcy sit up to drink the hot beverage. They all watched her so she grinned weakly and a little sheepishly, but she drank it all down.

“Feel a little better?” Graham asked. At least she’d stopped shaking so much.

He took a deep breath and said to the girls, “I’ve got to get this cleaned out and closed. I’m sorry. It’s going to hurt, Marcy.” Both girls looked ready to cry. “It has to be done. The sooner we finish it, the faster we can get out of here,” he said, trying to help them understand.

Macy reached over to help her sister roll to her side. “Just hold on to me, Marce,” she said.

Bang appeared silently on the other side of the counter, pulling the makeshift blanket over the girl to help cover her back. Graham nodded at him and the boy reached over and opened the various items they needed for the job, getting them ready for Graham.

Graham opened one of the water bottles and dampened several more paper towels. He cleaned up around the wound. Bang struggled to open the over-packaged saline bottle while Graham used the alcohol to clean his own hands. Watching Bang wrestle with the bottle would have been funny in any other situation, but not here.

After smelling the alcohol in the air, Marcy started to whimper a little. ”That smells like the doctor’s office.” Macy held onto her sister, trying to soothe her. Graham would almost rather kill another man than do this, but just almost.

When Bang handed him the opened bottle triumphantly, Graham grinned at him, showing his appreciation.

“Okay, Marcy, the first thing we have to do is clean this out. It’s going to be cold and it’s going to sting. Just hold onto Macy and breathe. Don’t hold your breath. I’ll go as fast as I can,” he said.

She didn’t look up or acknowledge him. She only held onto Macy and buried her head into her sister’s neck. Graham began to spread the wound open, as gently as he could with his left hand. She made no sounds of discomfort yet. He popped open the bottle top and squirted a test stream, arching it across the floor. “Okay, Bang, I need you to come over here and hold onto her leg to help keep it still.”

Macy tightened her hold on her sister as a warning of what was to come. Graham started the stream at the higher end, working as deeply as he could and flushed more blood out of the wound. Marcy moaned and her leg shook involuntarily. “I’m sorry, Marcy,” he said to her, hoping she knew it was true.

Graham picked up the pace to get it over quicker. The girl moaned louder and Macy tightened her grip. Big tears streamed down Macy’s face as she repeatedly said, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Graham dislodged himself from the scene and completely focused on the task at hand. He finished the entire bottle of saline and then took most of Bang’s pile of gauze and started pushing on the wound, hoping to stem the new flow of bright red blood. He held the pressure on her leg, as her moans subsided a little. He noticed she gulped air now and then, and held her breath. “Don’t do that, Marcy. Breathe normally or you’ll make it worse. I’m sorry, but we’re half way there now. You’re a brave girl,” he added.

The rain outside got heavier and made plunking sounds against the pavement so loud it could be heard inside. Occasionally Sheriff was distracted by it when he wasn’t fixated on the people doing what must be done. Once he whined, when he knew the girl was hurting, but stood where he was and watched them all, guarding the place they were in.

Graham wiped dry around the injury and then the area around her on the counter. He put several more paper towels under her leg, getting it ready to sew up. He reapplied alcohol to his hands, thinking this would hopefully help keep infection down, then wiped carefully around the wound and let it dry. He threaded the needle, knotting one end, and glanced at Bang, who gave him a sympathetic smile.

Graham had no idea what he was doing. He’d only seen it done once before and hoped that was enough direction to get him started. The gash was about four inches long, with the deepest end about an inch and a half. He thought it would be best to just start at the right end and pull the ends together as he went along. He would try to space them evenly and use enough stitches to close the wound. He wanted to do it right the first time.

“All right, Marcy,” he said, “We’re almost done. This last part is going to hurt again but then we’ll be done and we can get out of this place. Are you ready?”

“Yes, just do it,” she yelled from her cover. Macy nodded at him.

“Good girl,” he said.

He first held the two ends together and held a clean ice cube to help deaden the nerve cells, and started in the middle. As he pushed the needle through the skin, he worked his way down and then tied it off. He continued from the middle up, again using ice cubes to help numb the pain as much as he could. She didn’t moan this time but screamed openly. By the time he pulled the last one through, he was shaking and tearing up himself. He wiped the site clean and applied the ointment. Bang looked sheet-white as he handed Graham a large bandage to cover it up.

He pulled her into his arms and held her, whispering, “I’m so sorry I had to hurt you, but it’s over now.”

He let her go, and on his way to the pharmacy area wiped away his own tears. He thought he would have to break into the pharmacy, but as it was, the door was already opened. Graham tried to remember what he’d been prescribed for the finger incident, but he could only remember it started with a ‘D’.

There were rows of white cubby shelves behind the main counter with large bottles in alphabetical order. Going over to the ‘D’s starting with Demerol, Depakote, Depo-Provera…Dopamine, Doxazosin, Doxycycline. “That’s it,” he said out loud. “God, this could be dangerous, so how much do I give her?” he thought. He looked around for some kind of drug dictionary and saw a stack of rather thick books on the counter with one labeled
Merrill’s Drug Encyclopedia
. He turned quickly to Doxycycline and it read:

Doxycycline is a tetracycline antibiotic. It kills certain bacteria or stops their growth. It is used to treat many kinds of infections, like dental, skin, respiratory and urinary tract infections. It also treats acne, Lyme disease, malaria and certain sexually transmitted infections.

“Bingo,” he said. However, it didn’t tell him how much to give her. He remembered taking one three times a day and thought he’d just go with that for her as well.

Getting ready to leave, the nonsensical thought of dispensing a few into one of those honey-colored pill bottles occurred to him. “Things are different now. I need to think like it,” he said to himself. Their lives depended on him thinking in this new world, not the old.

He grabbed the entire bottle and looked around for Ibuprofen too. Then he looked at the book in his hands and decided it needed to go with him as well. He searched around for something to carry all of this in and found a bright red empty cooler lying against the wall with the lid to the side. He laid the jumbo bottle of antibiotics in along with the dictionary. The thought crossed his mind just to take all the drugs on the shelf, but he knew there were pharmacies along the way. What mattered now was just to get them out of here. He grabbed a bottle of Tylenol with codeine, knowing that it could come in handy.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said to himself, and backed out with what he had, closing the door as best he could behind him.

He stopped at the first aid aisle once again and picked up more tubes of Neosporin and their generics and as much gauze and bandages as was available. Keeping Marcy’s cut clean would be a real problem, he thought.

As he approached the kids watched him, looking a little stunned after the morning events. “Hey, Bang, let’s have one of those juice boxes. Here, Marcy, I want you to take one of these and then you need to have one at breakfast, lunch and dinner or at least three times a day as well as one of these painkillers,” he said as he handed her the bottles, “every six hours.”