Afterland (37 page)

“All right, Drew,” I say. “I’m going to do several things. It’s might, well, um, it’s definitely going to hurt, but, uh, don’t worry about that. First of all drink this antibiotic.” I pour it out into the cap and hand it to him. He brings it to his mouth and I notice that his hand shakes. “I’m not sure when or if it’ll start to work. I’ve seen it begin to work any time from immediately to several days after it’s taken. Hopefully, it’ll be effective quickly.” Drew drinks it. I can’t see any visible change, but he’s also not getting any worse. “All right, now this is the part that’s going to hurt. Drink some more vodka. See this right here?” I point to his knee. “That’s a very large bacterial infection. It has to be gotten rid of before it spreads to your blood. I don’t have a proper anesthetic, but….I, uh, I’m gonna….I’m warning you now, this is going to hurt, okay? I need to cut the infection out.”

“
What
?” Drew exclaims. “You wanna cut out a part of my leg?”

“It’s not a part of your leg, it’s the infection.”

“Holy crap, don’t do it. I would rather just die. Please, I’m serious.”

“If the infection spreads, which it will, your death will be much more painful than this.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want anybody poking around my leg with a knife.”

“Listen, Drew, if nothing is done right now-”

“I don’t care, please just don’t…” Then he slumps to the ground. I exclaim in surprise and then see Veronica standing behind him with a large rock.

“There,” she says. “Now you can do whatever you need to.”

“Um, all right.” I feel my heart speed up. I am too dizzy to tell Veronica that knocking Drew out like that might have been more dangerous than the infection.

“Um...Somebody hand me the rum,” I say. James hands me the small container. I spill a little bit over the knife to sanitize it and drink a little bit myself. For luck.

“All right. Holy crap, I’ve only ever seen this done, I’ve never actually done it.”

“It’s okay, Molly, you’ve got this.”

“Alright. Jesus Christ.” I stick the knife through the skin of Drew’s knee. Drew groans as his knee makes a strange squelching noise and I turn away. I bite down on my lip and continue cutting.

“Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.”

I cut away approximately five centimeters of skin, enough so that I can lift it up and skin my knife at the infection. I grip my hand to stop it from shaking and withdraw the knife. I wipe the sweat off of my forehead and try to slow my heartbeat, but it doesn’t work.

“You’re doing good, Molly, okay? You’ve got this.”

“I don’t want to kill him.”

“You won’t. And even if you do, at least this way, he had a chance.”

“Okay, okay.”

I stick the knife under his skin and carve out a little chunk of the infection. I pull the knife back out. At its tip is a small green piece of what looks like slime. I feel bile rise in my throat.

“Oh my god, that’s so gross. Holy crap.” I wipe it on a nearby root and then wipe the dirt off on my sweater.

“Rum, please.” Somebody hands me the rum. I sanitize the knife again and take a swig, facing the fact that I have to go do that several more times.

It continues for what seems like an eternity, but finally, everything that I can take out with a knife is out. I wipe the sweat off my forehead again a take out the antibiotic cream. I pour some rum over my fingers and administer the cream all over Drew’s knee then I take out the medical bandage, soak it in rum, and wrap it tightly around Drew’s leg. And after that, I just slump back against a tree and sigh.

“I’m done.” I feel bile rise in my throat again. “Give me a second.” I stand up, run several feet out into the woods, and vomit behind a tree. My entire body shudders and I feel weak beneath the knees. I grip the trunk of the tree for support. What if I screwed up? What if he doesn’t live because of me? What if…

“Molly. Hey.” It’s Smaller Sally. She puts her hand on my shoulder and hands me the rum container. “It’s water. Drink up.” I drain the container and continue shuddering. “You did great,” she says.

“What if I killed him?”

“You didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s still alive. And besides that, his temperature is going down.”

“Oh.”

“You did great, okay? None of us would have been able to do what you just did.” She squeezes my blood stained hands. “You did great.”

“Thanks,” I smile weakly.

“You’re really pale. Do you want to lie down for a moment?”

“No, no, I’m fine. I just want this to be over. I want to get back to camp.”

“Me too,” Smaller Sally admits. “I miss home.”

“I’ll just go wash my hands and then we’ll leave.”

“Okay.” She walks back towards the Sternmenschen and I walk towards the nearby stream. I dip my hands into the fast water and watch my hands stain the waves with blood. After a minute, all the red disappears with the current and I sigh in relief. I head back to the snowmobiles. I’m ready to get back home.

CHAPTER 25

              We drop the Sternmenschen off in the clearing where we saw Augustus assign Mike the murder. Drew still has a limp, but is lucid. I sigh with relief.

              “You’re on your own from here,” Smaller Sally tells them. “Tell Augustus not to bother Mike again.”

              “We will,” James says. There is an awkward silence. “Thank you for rescuing us,” he adds.

              “No problem.”

              “And, uh…” Drew begins to say. “Molly? Is that your name?”

              “Yeah.”

“Thanks for saving my life. And I apologize for, well, for being such a jerk”

              “Don’t mention it.”

Veronica firmly shakes both of our hands. I can tell that she still doesn’t like us, but she has the decency to appreciate what we did.

“Good luck,” she says.

              “You too.”

              My legs are sore and my head hurts, but my blood pulsates with relief that the hardest part of this ridiculous venture is already behind us.

We leave the Sternmenschen in the clearing and ride off back towards camp.

              “Just a couple more hours and this is all over!” Smaller Sally shouts.

              “Thank goodness.”

              She chuckles. “They’re going to kill us back at camp.”

              “I hope they let us eat first. I’m starving.”

              “Me too. I hope they have some good beer as well. This calls for getting drunk as hell.”

              “This calls for some really strong tea.”

              Smaller Sally laughs and I realize for the first time how beautiful her laugh is.

              We continue riding. The sun begins to set. I try to remember when we left. It seems like ages ago, but it was actually only yesterday morning. I try to do the math. If we left yesterday at nine and now it’s almost eight, then we’ve been gone for...thirty five hours? Yes. That’s the longest I’ve ever been away from the Rebellion camp or from Hopetown for that matter. I remember that yesterday was supposed to be my night shift at the lookout post. I wonder who replaced me. Homesickness hits me like a knife. I miss camp so much. I miss training, I miss the smell of smoke and pine needles, I miss the bustle of the the line for food, I miss the bruises and the uneven ground, I miss all the people, I miss the sound of guitar chords, and most of all, I miss the feeling of belonging. All I want is to go back. If I dropped dead, right there at the camp, I would die happy that I had the chance to see it one more time.

              “I miss it so much,” I whisper.

              “Me too,” Smaller Sally responds. I didn’t realize she could hear me.

After several hours, we finally reach the foot of the familiar mountain. I laugh out loud as we begin the steady climb.

“We’re so close!” I shout. We pass the familiar scenery and the familiar trails and I begin to laugh again.
We’re finally home,
I think. We ride into camp and a mix of cheers rises from the people. We drop the snowmobiles where they are and run into the crowd. Smaller Sally pulls Mike towards her before he can say anything and kisses him fiercely. Nathan envelops me into a hug so tight, my feet lift off of the ground.

“Thank goodness you’re safe,” he says, spinning me around. I laugh and hold on to him tightly. I hold on to make sure I don’t fall down, but I also hold on because I am finally home and I never want to let it go again. I hold on to the familiar feel of leather and the smell of smoke and I hold on to the rough callouses on Nathan’s hands and I hold on to home, because I am certain that I want to spend the rest of my life here. Nathan puts me down and I think that my feet felt more certain in the air than they do on solid ground. Other people rush in to slap me on the back, or some, like Emily, on the face.

“Where the hell have you been? You had us all scared to death!” She shouts.

“Long story!” I shout back.

“Holy crap!” Somebody else shouts. “Both of you are idiots!”

“I know,” Smaller Sally laughs. “That’s why we’re here with the rest of you.” The crowd pushes Smaller Sally and me together again and we stand next to each other, dodging question in relaxed ease.

“You poor dears,” Big Sal tells us. “You must be starving.”

“Yes,” we say in unison.

“Give me a minute and I’ll whip something up for you.”

“And somebody get the beer,” Smaller Sally shouts.

“You drunkard,” Mike pokes her.

“That’s why I’m with you,” she responds. Somebody pulls out all the stores of alcohol that we have
—
which is a surprisingly large amount
—
and within a minute, everybody has a full cup in their hands.

“To Smaller Sally and Molly’s safe return!” Somebody shouts. We all clink our glasses and drink. Big Sal hands us both plates of scrambled eggs which we quickly devour.

“So what exactly happened to you guys?” Somebody asks.

“Mhh,” Smaller Sally holds up a finger while she swallows. “We screwed up,” she says.

“Weren’t you cutting power lines?”

“Yeah. We screwed up real, real bad. I’ll give you all the details later. For now, can somebody refill my cup?”

We quickly go through one then two then three bottles. We stay up late into the night while the bottles pile up and everybody is very drunk. Finally, when everybody is too drunk to speak, much less stand, we all disperse to our tents. I fall into my tent and fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow.

__              __              __              __              __              __              __              __              __              __

              I wake up late the next morning sometime around noon. I don’t remember much from last night, but I have the impression that there isn’t much to remember except for one hundred
thank goodness you’re safe
s and
welcome home
s. I stand and walk out of my tent. Big Sal, as always, is at the fire.

              “Ah, you’re up,” she says. “Bacon and eggs?”

              “Yes please.”

She throws several pieces of bacon onto the pan and cracks two eggs over them.

              “Where is everybody?” I ask.

“Various places. Some are in the woods. Some are still asleep.”

“Oh.” I look up to figure out the time, but my mind can’t process much. “What’s the time?” I ask.

“Twelve.”

“Oh, wow, I slept a lot.”

“Yeah. But to be fair, we did go to bed very late.” She takes a sip from her coffee. “Mike was looking for you earlier, by the way. He’s in the Field of the Fallen now.”

“Oh. I’ll go find him after breakfast. I’m starving.”

“I figured. You looked really tired last night.”

“Yeah, well. It’s been a long couple of days.”

“I bet. You two took some really big risks doing what you did.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it later. But right now, your breakfast is ready.”

“Thank you so much.” I gulp it down ravenously.

“You should go find Mike. He was worried about you.”

“Isn’t he always? But alright, I will. Thanks for the breakfast.”

“No problem, dear.”

              I wash my plate out with snow and head up to the Field of the Fallen. I am a little nervous, going up to talk to Mike. What will he say? What does he know? He did agree to my murder, after all. My heart begins to flutter. Does he still trust me? Do I still trust him?

I can hear the familiar sound of crossbow shots as I approach.

              “Mike?” I call out tentatively. The shots stop.

              “Yes.”