After the End: Survival (2 page)

He grated the cone flower roots and put them in a plastic baggie. He did the same with some yellow and white chamomile flowers he found hidden under a patch of thistle weeds. Pete threw everything into the garbage bag he'd taken from the hospital, including two clean cotton shirts he dug out of a bedroom dresser belonging to the home's previous owner. Then he grabbed one of the potted aloe plants and walked back over to the injured boy's house. Don was gone, but Pete found the woman ("My name's Karen," she said solemnly) still on the back porch, changing an infant's diaper and shooing flies away from the unconscious boy. Two other children, a boy and a girl about the age of five, were playing on a blanket under a tree.

"I need three pans of boiling water, two small and one large," he said, indicating pan sizes with his hands.

She nodded and walked to two propane barbeque grills with side burners. Stacks of propane tanks had been scrounged from the neighborhood. Pete noted she got water from one of four 55-gallon plastic barrels that Don had plumbed together, wasting little of the run-off from the roof gutters. He helped her strain the water through a cotton shirt, tore into ten-inch strips. He cut the top of the empty IV bag with a knife and put the bag into the large pan of simmering water. Into one of the small saucepans he put the grated cone flower roots, and into the other, the crushed chamomile. Pete watched as the rolling water changed color with the addition of the plants.

"Hey Pete, good to see you." It was Don, walking through the doorway of the house to the patio. "Anything I can do?

"Got any duct tape?"

"Oh yeah," replied Don, doing an about-face and walking back into the house.

He returned a moment later and together they repaired the still hot IV bag. Pete added a couple of tablespoons of sugar to the boiling water and Don poured it into the open top.

Pete walked over to the injured boy.

"What's his name?"

"Kyle. Used to live off Paramount Park. His family all died. He just wandered over here on his bike one day, joined us for dinner and stayed. He's a pretty good kid, mind's well and helps out. He's a good scrounger. Doesn't talk much."

"OK. Look, we need to replace some fluid in this kid. Kyle," he said as an afterthought. "He's dehydrated from the fever and he can’t drink because he’s unconscious. So we’ll replace some of that fluid with sugar water." Pete nodded his head towards the IV bag, resplendent with silver duct tape, hanging from a nail on a rail next to the boy. He had already punctured the rubber seal on the bottom of the bag with the sharp upper end of the IV tubing and watched as the drip chamber filled with water, replacing air with fluid in the clear plastic line.

Pete had Don grasp the boy's good arm tightly to act as a tourniquet. Unable to find a vein in the arm, Pete found one on the top of the boy's hand. Cleaning the feverish skin with an alcohol pad, Pete was able to penetrate the vein with a twenty-three gauge butterfly needle. Dark red blood moved slowly up the hollow plastic line. Quickly taping the two yellow "wings" of the needle to the boy's hand, Pete connected the line of the butterfly needle to the end of line coming from the IV bag. He released the small plastic clamp on the IV line and watched as the chamber on the IV bag began to drip and the blood in the plastic line near the boy's hand flowed back into the needle resting inside the vein.

Pete walked over to the aloe plant and cut off a leaf. He squeezed some the clear gel from the leaf on the boy's lacerated arm, then took a warm length of cotton that had been simmering in the saucepan with the chamomile flowers. He rolled the warm, wet cloth into a ball and pressed it against the cut, wrapping it in place with a cotton strip. The boy moaned once and stirred.

"Karen, could you take that other saucepan off the grill, strain the fluid and put it in a thermos?”

Pete stayed on the porch all night. Karen brought him food and a blanket. He changed the dressing every two hours, and filled the IV bag once during the night. The boy urinated about four in the morning; Pete put a dry sheet under the unconscious youth.

At sunrise, Pete was dozing in his lawn chair when Karen touched his shoulder. Smiling, she nodded toward the boy. Pete inhaled sharply and sat on the edge of the chair for a few seconds. He walked over to the boy. The child's eyes focused on Pete's face.

"Hey, Kyle. How ya doin'?" Pete felt the boy's forehead. Only a little fever.

"Fine," the boy answered automatically. "My arm hurts."

"Let's see if we can do something about that." Pete gave the boy an aspirin, and had him wash it down with some cone flower root tea.

"Ugh.”

"That's some good stuff, isn't it?"

A weak but emphatic shake of the child's head was his answer.

Later that morning, Pete took out the IV needle and told Karen to give the youngster chicken broth and to change the chamomile soaked dressings every two hours.

Stumbling home, Pete was tired but euphoric. Walking through the front door, he went to the living room and took a long pull of whiskey. It burned all the way down and gave his gut a fine, familiar warmth. Lying down on a filthy blanket he fell dreamlessly to sleep.

In two days Kyle was walking unsteadily around the porch. By the end of the week Karen had to speak sharply to him to lie down and take a nap.

It was the start of Pete's new career as a healer, although he wasn't always successful. A man in his late sixties died of a heart attack after two long and painful days. And a middle-aged woman, diagnosed as a borderline diabetic before the Change went into a coma before succumbing, her dying breaths filling the room with a sweet odor.

But more often than not, what he tried, worked. Amarillo's "real" doctor, Jay Flood ran the area's only hospital, a converted church and often had Pete assist in invasive procedures. As a team they were able to set broken bones, suture deep lacerations and perform some surgery, appendectomies and tendon repairs. Contributing his knowledge of herbs to help prevent infection, Pete was instrumental in making those surgeries possible. Both men became well-known and respected throughout the area.

"Damn, Pete, I've spent so much time around you the last few days I swear you're beginning to look good." Jay Flood washed his hands as he spoke. The two had spent the last three days with patients from the Woflin community. Food poisoning from under-cooked pork during a barbecue had left some thirty people with nausea and diarrhea. The subsequent dehydration had robbed an elderly woman of her body's supply of potassium. The resulting chemical imbalance had thrown her heart into an arrhythmia. Death was fairly quick. Most of the affected were responding well to a tea made of dried blackberry leaves and copious amounts of water boiled in alfalfa. A few needed IVs.

"I'd say you need a good pair of glasses," Pete responded, "although I've got to admit, ugly guys with bad breath and bags under their eyes have always been a turn on for me."

"Uh-huh. I think we've got this deal wrapped up. I'm gonna deecee Judge Coleman's IV and head for home. What do you think?"

"I think I'll hang around till this evening, anyway. Just to make sure. Go. I'll take care of the IV." Pete slurred as he spoke, his exhaustion coming over him in waves.

"Hey, you want me to stay for a while?" Jay noticed the slurring. "I mean it."

"Nah. I'll get a couple hours sleep, check on stuff and be right behind you."

"OK. In that case, I'm outta here. As usual, the pleasure's been all yours. See you later."

"Right. Later."

Pete watched Doc Flood walk out the door of the hospital. Rising from a brown velour rocker, he ambled over to a heavy-set man of sixty. Dark eyes peered from behind a face framed with a mass of tangled gray hair.

"I hope ‘deecee’ means you are going to remove this needle from my arm."

"Judge, you're a mind reader." Pete shut off the valve on the clear plastic IV line, and removed the tape securing the tubing to a muscular, hairy arm. The tape came off reluctantly, clinging stubbornly to the thick mass of hair.

"Sorry about that." Covering the IV entry site with a dry square of cotton that had been boiled in water, Pete grasped the top of the needle.

"Little sting now," he said, smoothly pulling the needle out of the vein. While applying pressure to the cloth over the entry site, he deftly ran the needle through a hole at the top of the IV bag.

"Doctor, I thank you for all you've done for me and the people of this community." Judge Coleman emphasized the word ‘Doctor’. Unlike Pete, who had acquired his title by circumstances, Coleman really had been a judge in Potter County's 100th Circuit Court. "Without your skill and knowledge, I believe many lives would have been lost. My own included."

"Get me a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label and I'll consider us square."

"I'll see what I can do, Pete."

Swaying slightly, Pete shuddered once from lack of sleep.

"Right now, you're going to get your little fanny into bed." Latesha Williams, tall, spare and black, had been a charge nurse at the V.A. Hospital. She was smart, aggressive, and took pleasure in telling people how best to do things. She was usually right. Steering Pete to a nearby bed, she continued, "Doctor Flood told me you were tired, like it was news. You will lie down here," she said, making an expansive gesture with her arm, "and sleep. Now. I will wake you up if necessary." Sounding like it was unlikely.

"Ok, wake me up in two hours."

"Two hours. Yes, sir."

"Ah, he lives."

Squinting blearily above him, Pete saw the face of nurse Williams peering back at him with a conspiring smile. He felt drugged, the side of his face wet from drool. His boots had been removed. He did not remember taking them off. He sat up on the edge of the bed and slipped them back on.

"What time is it?"

"Eight thirty-five. A.M.," she added with emphasis.

"I slept fourteen hours? Dammit, I told you to wake me up after two hours."

"Yes, you did," she said sweetly, handing him a warm cup of thin brown fluid. "Have some tea."

Holding the cup in both hands, he took a cautious sip.

"Ephedra," he stated.

"That's right. Mormon tea."

"FDA's gonna shut you down. Where's Judge Coleman?" he asked, taking another sip.

"He left at sunrise." She pointed her finger at him as he started to object. "Vital signs were normal, no nausea or diarrhea, tolerating liquids well, his urine was clear. And he said your snoring was keeping him awake."

"All right, all right. I'm going home. Get a hold of me if you need me. It's been fun." He smiled wickedly. "Thanks for your help, honey."

Latesha lived with a short, plump woman whose blond hair was always perfect.

"Honey, your ass. Go." Pointing to the door.

"I'm gone."

"Seven-fifty-nine, music from Jerry Garcia, “Truckin’,” and that's just what we're doing this morning, truckin' right along. Say, that reminds me, Holman's just got in a truck load of Russet potatoes, fresh from Happy, Texas. These thin-skinned beauties boil into the tenderest, tastiest tubers you ever laid a tongue on. You'll need to head over to Holman's quick-like though, ‘cause when they're gone, they're gone! Now accepting gold and diamond jewelry, double A batteries and sugar. Just south of I-40 on Western, that's Holman's Wholesome Foods."

Reaching up as he spoke, Larry Maxwell started a CD player, paused a few seconds, then lowered the music level on the control board as he spoke over the introduction, "Hey, let's turn it loose. Here's Wynonna and Naomi, gonna tell us about it on KAMR, Amarillo radio."

Checking off the commercial he'd just read on the log sheet, Larry got another CD ready for play in one of three CD machines. The red light on his intercom started flashing. He pushed a switch.

"Yup."

"Sheriff's office just called. They said to come over as soon as you can."

Larry considered this. Usually, he made a news run to the "Cop Shop" around ten o'clock each day. When they called him to come over ASAP it meant something big.

"OK, Val, tell 'em I'll be there right after my air shift. About nine-fifteen."

Tall with blond hair and piercing blue eyes, Larry Maxwell had been in radio broadcasting more than twenty years. Starting in high school his junior year, he'd worked weekends at an AM station in Provo, Utah. Rebelling against a strict Mormon upbringing, he dropped out of high school two months short of graduation, taking a full-time broadcasting job in Elko, Nevada. Other stops included Boise and a management opportunity in Leadville, Colorado. That’s where things kinda went downhill. A poor economy, combined with his own lackluster performance ("Year-round skiing and too much nose candy," he recalled later on, "a lethal combination.") and it wasn't long before the station went dark. . . bankrupt and off the air. His girlfriend managed to get a job at the Pantex nuclear facility in the Texas Panhandle. So they rented a U-Haul and made the move to sunny Amarillo. Just two days after his arrival, the afternoon slot at "Country Giant" KMML came open. Larry convinced the suits that he was perfect for it. Hell, he was a decent announcer, he could write copy, sell air time and could rewrite news out of the local newspaper to make it sound like he'd done all the research himself. One day during the noon hour the Professional Businesswomen's Club of Amarillo arrived for a scheduled tour of the station. The station manager had lost track of the time, and was enthusiastically receiving fellatio from a billing secretary when the group blundered into his office. Larry was promoted to station manager the next day.

His first official act as manager was to rehire the billing secretary. "An irreplaceable asset," he explained to the skeptical station owner.

Four years later, Larry Maxwell was firmly entrenched as station manager. The station was profitable and rated number two in the market ages 12+ by Arbitron. He was living in the Willow Glen apartment complex ("Three Swimming Pools, Clubhouse, Washer and Dryer in Each Apartment") with girlfriend number three since his arrival to Amarillo. She was a former barrel racing champion who worked as one of several directors at the American Quarter Horse Heritage Center. She was tall and slender with brunette hair cut in a short page boy. Lately, Cynthia had been reminding Larry about her friends who'd been married recently. Larry gave her two, three months max before she'd be gone.