In the immediate seconds following the attack Roberta Carter was numb with shock. When the animal had charged out of the barn she felt some part of her brain refusing to acknowledge the thing. It was just utterly beyond belief, beyond her imagination, yet unabashedly real. It was just there, and bellowing into the night sky. Her ears filled with the sound of guns firing and people running… and somehow she couldn't find it in her to move. Like her feet had been frozen to the spot right there and then. She wanted to do something anything run and hide she didn't know.
Only that the abomination was roaring into the night sky, defying the fact that by right something like it should've been extinct 65 million years ago. It was amazing how one could be looking directly at it but not be able to process it, not be able to remember what it looked like five seconds later. It was more the presence of the beast. There was a feeling of relief when it completely ignored her but continued on its path. Quickly looking to her side, she noticed the kid was frozen too. Well that was understandable…
Looking back she was just in time to see Marty running from the creature. For a while it looked like he was going to get away but then that beam…wincing as the man was whipped into the air, she took a step forward. The animal wasn't looking in her direction, only roaring some more. Now the firing was resuming again, but slower. It was circling them, as if anticipating a move or something. Finally one of the mercenaries got too close she suspected, and it charged at them.
Lucky man got to the side just in time. But the beast didn't stop going, just kept charging right into the trees. The men right after it, disappearing into the underbrush, which swallowed them up rapidly. It was only a second or two after, but already Carter felt the will go back into her legs. Seeing Guitierrez get on his back she could see the extent of his injuries. Luckily she had her medical bag in hand, when she had basically been forced by the mercenaries to assist in case of any injuries. But that wasn't important right now, not at all. She ran blindly to his side, biting her lip when she saw his head slump back. Not here, not now, she thought to herself. "No!" she shouted, knowing that they were a long way away from any sort of civiliation. By road… she didn't even want to think about it and all the cars were surely gone by now right? Yes this was a very bad situation out here in the rain in a shitty village in the middle of nowhere.
When she reached his side she knelt down to assess his condition. Feeling for a pulse she put her finger to the side of his neck. Very faint…very faint. Turning her head she looked at the wound. Completely covered in mud but she could tell it was bad. There was nothing she could do for it out here in the elements though, especially not with this goddamned rain coming down like a hurricane. She needed to get him to a hospital and fast, or at least if she was back in Chicago she would've said that. Now, the best she could hope for was somewhere dry they could do the basics and hope the man would live.
Looking up she saw the kid just standing there, and a little off to the side she saw the barman coming back into the clearing. "Well don't just stand there… come and help!" She quickly assessed as to where to take him. Obviously it was a goddamned miracle the man hadn't died of shock already. There was the barn but she didn't like that reek that was coming from it. Also that was where the animal had come from so she didn't even want to think about what sort of shit might be in there. Down to the village was possible the only question was whether it might be too risky to move him so far in his state.
Something caught her eye as the men ran towards her. Of course she thought to herself that strange hermit who owned the barn lived near here didn't he? That meant that was his house just behind them the whole time. That solidified it for her, which was the only place they could conceivably take him. Looking up again she smiled a bit as they finally reached her side. The kid's face was pale, and she sort of knew his pain…it looked bad on your record when your supervising professor died or got injured. Well wasn't that just perfect, and everybody felt the pain together.
"I need you guys to help me lift him," she said stepping a bit away from Marty's prone form. She winced a bit; trying not to look at that leg, she knew it was going to get infected most likely, and that would be nasty. "You grab the legs and I guess you take the body," she said just randomly assigning each of them a job. Of course she knew she couldn't lift either side, but she could do more about the situation then either of them right now. "Quickly, before it comes back," she said wiping the rain out of her face. A quick, nervous look at the forest, she thought she could hear a distant roar but was that her imagination? Best not to leave those things to chance really.
She observed as they lifted the prone body of Guitierrez, the barman handing her the flashlight beforehand. That was good, it was still relatively early in the day but come night they might need it. As they walked nobody spoke the mood was relatively somber almost as if it was physically weighing everyone down. It really shouldn't be raining that much she knew it wasn't the right time of the year or something. But it was something of a relief to watch the rain wash all the mud and crap off of Marty's prone form. Well not all of it but most of it and that was the main thing for right now.
The house was just ahead, she ran ahead a bit, tried the door. Opened pretty reasonably for the moment, though nobody seemed to be at home. She hadn't seen him in the mandatory evacuation, and briefly she wondered where he might be. Well for now that wasn't important, the patient was. She shined her flashlight inside, moving to the right as the men walked through the door. It seemed in an okay state, not perfect. Like someone had just up and left leaving everything in this state.
Now that they were all in the house, she slammed the door behind them. Taking off her rain slicker, she tossed it off into the corner. Pausing to wipe her glasses on her shirt, she directed the men as to where to place Marty. She thought of the bedrooms, but realized she needed a solid surface to work with. Maybe later if he came through but for now she needed something like…
She saw the kitchen table, though there was a ton of crap on it. Like the man had never cleaned, or hadn't had a chance too. Thankfully no rotten food, but there were dirty plates all over the surface of the table. "Over here!" She called out, gesturing to the table. It was just the perfect size and width to lay Marty's body on…. She thought for a second, and started pulling the chairs out of the way. She could tell the men were getting sort of tired and she knew they needed to set him down fast. Taking a breath she started just throwing all the crap to the floor. There was surprisingly a lot of it, so she just threw it under the tabe so it wouldn't interfere with her work.
Stepping back, she motioned that it was okay to put Marty on the table now. They did so, and his prone body was limp and slack as they let go of him. Dr. Carter immediately knew that she needed to do a couple things first, and so she drew up to of the other chairs close up. Sitting in the first, she placed her bag on the other. Looking up at the men she shook her head. "He's in shock right now… " She pointed to the barman, "You go to the bedroom, get a pillow or something to prop his head up with." Not looking to see if he did or not she turned to the kid. "You…" she tried to think, looking back at the wound. "Go to the sink, fill a pitcher, bowl or glass of the largest size you can find with water and come back here."
As he went as well, she felt the pulse again. Still faint, though at least he was breathing. The injuries seemed to be mostly centered around his leg now, she could see because someone had turned on the light somehow. There was still a shitload of mud on his leg, and she looked around for something to wipe it off with. Luckily she noticed something rolling on the floor under the chair. That roll of paper towels she'd knocked off while clearing the table. Ducking down she grabbed it and ripped off a few towels, placing the rest on the same chair as her medical bag. She tried to daub as much of it as she could, but there was a lot if it frankly. About ten or fifteen crumpled up paper towels hit the floor, before she was halfway satisfied.
"I got it…" the kid began, nearly scaring her half to death. Nodding, she turned around and grabbed the pitcher of water from him. Carefully, she dipped some more paper towels in the water and gently daubed it over the area. Still not as clean as she would like it, but it was probably as clean as it was going to get. She needed to wash it out but to do that… She shook her head, looking up as the barman came back with the pillow. As he placed it under Marty's head, Carter had an idea. "You," she said to the barman, "Go back to the bar, and get me some of bottles of liquor. I really don't care which, beer, whiskey, Champagne whatever. Just do it!"
She watched him go, as if in a daze. He took the flashlight, before she had a chance to say anything. Well if it made him feel any better, man hadn't said jack shit and neither had the kid. Probably the stress and mental shock had rendered them numb. Understandable but all the same they had a patient to attend to here, and back in Chicago they never let their personal trauma interfere with the care of a patient. She was a doctor now, processing events not as a bystander or witness, but as a caregiver. If this man died, it would be on her, regardless of anything she might feel towards him.
"You," she said to the kid in a more authoritative voice. "Go get a kitchen towel or rag or something, like a used shirt." She watched him stumble off to the bedroom again as she continued to clean the affected area. Gently she sort of splashed the water onto the upper leg, being careful not to douse the leg. Next she set the towels and the water down, and stood up. She grabbed both ends of his torn pants leg, and ripped it down the middle, and to the side just ripping out the entire pant leg at the knee. Now at least she could see the wound a bit better. She made a split second diagnosis, determining what could be the best fix for this. Obviously the man needed a tourniquet; otherwise he was likely to bleed out. Fast too, because he was starting to wake up she saw.
Not completely, the concussion had been too sudden for that but he was starting to move slightly. She couldn't have that; he might fall off of the table. But she only had one extra set of hands here, the kid to thank. She saw a belt hanging off of a chair across from her and grabbed it, just the thing she needed to tie a tourniquet off. It would be really nice if she had alcohol as well to clean this wound more but this looked to be as good as it was going to get until the barman returned. She grabbed some of the longest strips of pant leg that had fallen onto the chair, and brought it again to Marty's leg. Right there, two to three inches above the wound itself.
Carter tied them tight, turning her head to face the kid. Still pale and scared as hell, he was standing there like a man who had no idea what the hell to do. "Get over here and hold him steady!" She called out, realizing that she needed Marty to be still, or as much as they could get him while she put the damn thing on. She motioned for him to get on the opposite side of the table and hold his leg and the body so that Marty couldn't move around too much. She could see the man already starting to groggily mutter things, a sign of a return to alertness perhaps? Anyway she knew from experience that he would probably freak the hell out when he awoke to see that he was bleeding. Hell, anyone would.
She slipped the other end of the belt around his leg, and grabbed it to make a simple loop. Then Dr. Carter pressed tightly on the rag bandage, so it wouldn't slip. She could feel the sweat running down her face, her glasses fogging up under stress as usually happened in times like this. She looked up at the kid then down at Marty again. Threading the belt quickly through the buckle she pulled it as far as it would go. She wasn't all that surprised in retrospect to see Marty immediately react with a howl of pain. Well if there was doubt about it before, he was definitely one hundred percent awake now.
He started to move, trying to get up. "You'll strain yourself," she said, brushing the bangs out of her glasses. "Don't let him get up yet," she said knowing that too much strain on the muscle could inflame the injury. She looked away, grabbing her medical bag and quickly rummaging through it. In the corner of her eye she could see him struggling with the kid, trying to sit up straight. Damn fool, yes he was…. She had it here somewhere didn't she…oh there it was, no it wasn't. The bag was a colossal mess; Carter didn't know how many times she'd sworn to get a new one.
She saw Marty getting up now, pushing the kid away, but still she couldn't do anything to stop it. She knew that sometimes when patients were in pain they reacted impulsively, and failed to think rationally. Now before he got off the table… actually he had one leg off already, and was trying to push himself off. Without the other man they'd never get him off the floor. There was no time literally, no time to be indecisive she knew then. Her hands closed on a syringe just as the man got up, arms heading out towards her. Ducking, she took hold of his shirtsleeve, pulling it almost to the elbow. Then she quickly bit the safety cap off of the syringe, and injected the full amount of morphine right into his arm.
Well that might've been too much, the dosage called for it to be administered slowly, and in carefully measured amounts. But it seemed to have an immediate effect, as she felt Marty's body slump away from her, falling backwards. Luckily the kid caught him, and together they were able to maneuver the man back onto the table. That was a relief, she thought to herself, shaking her head. For a second there she hadn't been sure how it was going to go but… The dosage for everybody was different, but this would likely keep him sedated for several hours, or long enough for her to actually get some real treatment for the man. Because looking at the wound again, she knew that they had only just barely managed to staunch the wound; this was only a temporary solution at best.
Turning to the kid again she sighed. "I need you to go back down in the village, and get my jeep." She felt in her pockets fast, realizing with a pang that she must've left it in the tent in the confusion of the evacuation. "Well the keys should be right in the car under the seat." She knew that they needed to get Marty to a hospital, and right now she figured that her jeep would be the only way to get that done. She watched the kid nod to show he understood and begin to leave. "If you see Jophrey while you're down here tell him to hurry up." It had been at least ten minutes since the barman had left, he should be back by now.
As the door slammed, Dr. Roberta Carter ran her fingers through her hair and began to nervously nibble the fingers of her right hand. She was over her head here and she knew it. The injured man on the table…mercenaries with guns… and a huge prehistoric monster running amok outside… she wondered how she had managed to remain so calm and collected.
Act like I know what I'm doing, she thought. Trust me, I'm a doctor.