Author's Note: Thanks to those of you who have read/left feedback. Since I think there's only like 3 people reading, I decided to post everything I've written so far, which is 2 more chapters. Hopefully 8 will be done soon.
Six
The thunderstorm felt like it came out of nowhere. It was raining so hard it looked like the water was coming from below, forcing Carol to slow down a bit when the windshield wipers couldn't keep up even set to the fastest speed.
The windows were fogging on, and Sophia was playing with the nobs on the dash to try to get a perfect balance to clear things up a bit. A little grunt from the backseat told Carol that Henry would soon be waking and ready to nurse, but she hoped the motion from the car would keep him calm until they could find a safe place for the evening.
The old Cherokee jostled along the uneven pavement when the front passenger's side tire hit a water-filled dip and sent a heavy spray out toward the side of the road. Sophia glanced at Carol who sighed and sat up in her seat a bit.
"Don't worry. We'll drive out of the rain eventually. Find a place to stop." Carol worried her bottom lip between her teeth a moment. Sophia fidgeted with the nobs again before wiping her hand across the inside of the windshield. Within moments, the fog began to clear, and Sophia settled back in her seat.
They passed a green road sign indicating a town ten miles up. Sophia unfolded the map in her lap and studied it a moment.
"We need gas?" Sophia asked.
"Not a bad idea." Carol muffled a yawn and arched her neck forward to stretch out the aching muscles. Sophia glanced at her mom again.
"Maybe we should stop for a few days." Carol winced and shook her head, a slight pop coming from her neck with the motion. "I'm kind of tired, anyway." Sophia glanced in the back seat for a moment. "Henry's started to get tired of the car."
"Henry will get used to the car. Besides, I'd rather be traveling if he's fussy. Houses aren't sound proof, you know. Walls only block so much noise." Carol took a deep breath. "I feel better if we're moving." She glanced at her daughter, watching the wheels turn in her head. She'd grown up so much. The innocent curiosity she'd once had about her seemed a fuzzy memory. She was still that sweet, compassionate little girl, but she was growing into her own, thinking more critically, honing her awareness of the world and learning how to exist in it.
Sophia's hands rattled the map, and she sat forward in her seat.
"Did you see that?" the girl asked, blinking and squinting as she rubbed her hand against the cool windshield. Carol followed her daughter's gaze, unable to see anything but what looked like a couple of old cars about a half mile up the road.
"The cars?" Carol asked.
"No! There was someone in the road."
"A walker?"
"No," Sophia insisted. "Mom, it looked like…" Sophia sat forward a little, and Carol eased off the gas. "It looked like someone waving for help." Carol made a sucking sound behind her teeth and shook her head.
"Your eyes can play tricks out here." Frustrated, Sophia slumped in her seat, but not for long. Bright red tail lights lit up in the rain, and Carol watched the driver's side door of a pickup swing open. A figure huddled under a poncho ran out in the road, arms flailing. It was certainly no walker. Carol had never seen the dead move like that.
"Mom!"
"I see them. I see them," Carol insisted. She motioned toward the glove compartment, and Sophia quickly got inside for the gun. Carol quickly tucked it in the back of her pants. The Jeep's brakes squealed when she stopped, and the figure came around to the door, bloodied hands frantically slipping and slapping against the glass.
"Help! Please help!" Carol rolled the window down just a crack, one hand behind her back in case she needed to protect her children. But the sobs and hiccups of a frightened girl somewhere around Sophia's age stayed her hand. "I didn't think we'd see anyone. We haven't seen anyone in…"
"What's happened?" Carol asked, her voice steady but assertive, giving her that level-headed presence she'd been so well-known for back in the hospital before everything fell apart.
"There was an accident," the girl sniffled. She wiped at her eyes, and Carol could see the wide, frightened wells red and brimming with fresh tears. "It's my dad."
"Was he bit?" Carol asked quickly. The girl shook her head frantically.
"No. The gun fell. It went off, and I…please! He's hurt. He's bleeding! Please! He's all I've got!" Carol looked to Sophia who was breathing heavily in the passenger's seat. They hadn't seen another living, breathing person in months, and the fact that the first person they came across was covered in blood was doing nothing to assuage the anxiety that shook from Sophia's limbs like raindrops off a quivering leaf.
"Mom?" Sophia balked when Carol reached to open the door.
"Stay here. Stay with your brother. Do not get out of this truck. Do you hear me?" Sophia nodded, eyes wide, chest pumping with quick, anxious breaths.
Carol turned, reaching for a jacket in the back seat. She hopped out of the truck and slipped the jacket on, pulling the hood over her hair before following after the frantic girl.
The headlights from the Jeep illuminated the path until the girl turned in front of another vehicle and knelt down on the side of the road beside an old black tarp.
Carol noticed the scattered, fallen bodies of a couple of walkers, one lying uncomfortable close to the tarp, hand outstretched toward it in a desperate, final reach.
"Dad!" The tarp crumpled under the girl's hands. Carol knelt down next to her, pulling back the tarp as the rain pelted down on them. The girl had done what she could to try to protect him. She'd packed small towels and articles of clothing against and under the wound and covered him entirely with a tarp to keep him dry. "I..I didn't know what to do."
"You did good," Carol assured her. "You did good. You said he was shot?" Carol heard a raspy groan from under the tarp, and if she hadn't been able to see him still breathing, she might have pegged the figure for a walker. His skin was pale against the blood, and each rise and fall of his stomach with labored breaths shook a little more with the struggle.
She peeled back the layers of cloth packed against the wound, finding that the wound was a through and through. She couldn't be certain if any remnants remained in the wound, but she knew that the way he was bleeding, he was going to bleed out if she didn't stitch him up soon. The packing had slowed the bleeding a lot, but it was almost pouring from him again. Carol pressed the packing against his wound again.
"What's your name?" she asked the girl.
"Lydia." Lydia sniffled and wiped at her eyes, and Carol nodded her head.
"Lydia, I'm Carol. You did a good job. It looks like it went through him. I don't think it hit any organs. He was lucky."
"Are you sure?"
"I've seen it before with hunting accidents."
"Are you a doctor?"
"Close. Surgical nurse," Carol explained. "You have a sewing kit?" She knew there was on somewhere in the Jeep, but finding it was going to take more time than he had.
"I don't…I don't know," Lydia choked out. Carol sighed heavily, growing impatient as warm blood trickled over her hands. Still, she took a deep breath and looked to Lydia.
"I need you to go back to my truck. Open the hatch. In the back is a red duffle bag. It'll be under some boxes of diapers and things. I need you to get in the side zipper. There's a sewing kit. Can you get that for me, Lydia?" Lydia stared down at the shaking form of her father under the tarp. "Lydia!" She flinched and nodded. "Go now!" Lydia got up and ran back toward the truck, while Carol reached across for the spilled First Aid kit while still trying to apply pressure. She found a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, popped the lid between her teeth and twisted until the seal broke. Once the cap was off, she let off on the pressure and poured the alcohol over the wound to sterilize it. She felt the man tense for a moment before going slack again from the shock.
For a moment, he stilled, and Carol quickly rolled him onto his back, moving around to pull the tarp back to reach up to check his pulse.
Shaggy hair was wet and plastered to his face, but his eyes fluttered opened for a brief moment, focusing on nothing as he took a deep, pained breath. She froze and for a moment felt like her heart had dropped into her stomach. She swallowed hard, choking back the lump in her throat as she watched his lips twitch into a grimace.
"You're gonna be ok," she whispered, bringing her fingers to his neck to check his pulse. It was strong and quick, and Carol took a deep, shaking breath. She looked over her shoulder. "Lydia!" She turned her attention back to him, gently brushing her thumb over his forehead, tracing gently over a small scar on his forehead that jutted down into his eyebrow. "You're ok."
For a moment, the sound of the rain and the thunder and the haunting sobs from the Lydia somewhere nearby faded away, and the distinct din of a moderately crowded barroom played in the back of her mind. The smell of smoke and the taste of a too-sweet pink drink with a little umbrella filled her senses. The feel of a warm hand against her lower back, the whisperings of desire hot against her ear.
She flinched and brushed shook her head when Lydia returned with the small sewing kit in hand.
"Lydia," Carol urged, "hold your dad's hand."
"Is he gonna die?"
"Not if I can help it." She made quick work of pulling back the packing again and threading the sewing needle. Her hands were shaking, making it nearly impossible to get the thin, black thread through the eyehole. Still, she managed to dig deep and compose herself with all the professionalism she once possessed and got the job done.
She made quick work of sewing him up. It wasn't perfect or pretty, and he'd have a couple of scars, but it was better than not having his life.
By the time she pulled the last suture tight and tied up the end, the patient was breathing steadier again. She did what she could to dress the wound with rain-soaked gauze before pulling the tarp off of him and laying it out on the ground beside him.
"What—what are you doing?" Lydia asked, still squeezing her dad's hand.
"We can't let him lay out here. We need to get him somewhere dry where we can clean him up and dress the wound right."
"Do you know a place?" Lydia asked, eyes wide and worried. Carol shook her head.
"There's a town not far. We'll find a place. I'll need your help to get him to my car." Lydia looked down at her dad, her shoulders shaking as another sob escaped. "Lydia, I know you're scared. But if we don't get him somewhere that he can rest and heal, he will die. We can't stay out here." She watched the girl's panic begin to wane.
"What do I do?"
"Help me roll him onto the tarp." Together, Carol and Lydia managed to get the tarp under his back and roll him onto it, minding his wound and getting enough tarp around either side of him to grip.
Unconscious, he was dead weight, and it took a lot of effort between the two of them to drag him on the tarp across the wet asphalt.
The rain was coming down harder now, but she was able to make out Sophia's silhouette when she stepped in front of the headlights.
"Sophia!" Carol called. Sophia jogged over. Without words, she grabbed the tarp and helped drag it toward the Jeep. Thunder rumbled overhead, and even through the storm, Carol could hear Henry having a full-blown meltdown, and she knew if they didn't get out of here soon, they'd be attracting walkers and have a whole new problem on their hands.
"I need you both. Lydia, help me on your dad's good side. Sophia, I need you to get under his other arm. Be careful. He's hurt bad." Sophia nodded and crouched down to mimic her mother's movements.
Trying to lift and unconscious man was certainly not something Carol would have recommended for anyone, let alone a woman who hadn't fully recovered from giving birth yet. She was still tender and sore in spots that she hadn't realized still ached until she put all of her strength into getting him up and somewhat on his feet.
Lydia and Sophia helped support him as they struggled to get him to the Jeep. Sophia was closest and stretched out to get the door open, and all together they jostled him into the back seat next to Henry's car seat. His cries were hoarse now, and his poor little face was red from screaming.
Carol felt a rush of relief when they got in the vehicle and closed the door. Carol motioned for the girls to get in, and Lydia hesitated.
"Our stuff! We have weapons. Clothes." Carol looked over her shoulder as a flash of lightning illuminated the sky and revealed two walkers a half mile down the road.
"Two minutes. Grab what you can and come back. We can't stay here." Lydia hesitated, glancing at her unconscious father slumped awkwardly in the back seat, his head resting on the handle of Henry's car seat. "Go! We don't have much time!" Lydia rushed off to gather what she could.
Carol rushed around the Jeep, unfastening Henry's car seat from the base.
"Sophia." She covered the car seat with a blanket and stepped around to pass it over to Sophia in the front seat. "Hold him, ok?" Sophia nodded, and Carol moved back around, helping ease her patient down to lay longways across the back seat.
Moments later, Lydia returned to open the back hatch of the Jeep, tossing in a couple of packs and what looked like a crossbow. She slammed the hatch shut and started to climb in the back seat.
"In the front," Carol instructed. "You can sit in the middle. He's going to need to lay still to keep the stitches from pulling." Lydia nodded and did what Carol told her without question.
When Carol returned to the driver's seat and shut the door, she pulled her hood down and ran her fingers through her damp hair. She felt soaked to the bone, and Lydia was shivering violently between her and Sophia. Henry was screaming from the confines of his car seat, and Sophia bounced it clumsily on her knee.
"Promise he won't die," Lydia sniffled, wiping at her eyes and looking to Carol with every fear and hope wrapped up all at once in her lonely gaze.
"I can't. But I promise you, I've seen people come out of worse. Your dad's strong. I can see that." Carol looked to Sophia.
"My mom's right," Sophia urged, getting Lydia's attention. "She's seen lots of people hurt way worse than your dad."
"But…that was before. Right?"
"It was," Carol said quietly. Sugar-coating the truth would have felt like a betrayal. "But he's made it this long. He's fighting. So we'll help him fight. Ok?" Lydia wiped her nose with the back of her hand and nodded.
"Ok," she whispered. She shrunk back in her seat. Carol took a deep breath and avoided looking in the rear-view mirror. He was there. How, she wasn't sure. She wasn't entirely convinced this wasn't a dream.
She put the Jeep into drive and continued on in the direction they'd been heading. She managed a brief peek in the rear-view mirror, long enough to see the fingers twitch on his hand.
She braced herself for the coming days and the coming questions. Not just from him but from Sophia. From Lydia. She wasn't sure if she felt like laughing or like crying when the realization hit her that she was the only person in that vehicle who knew that the father of her son was lying stitched up in her back seat, and she didn't even know his name.