Rebirth (3 page)

“No.” I muttered. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” My head shook from side to side, my face tightened and my throat went dry. “NO!” I shouted. I screamed. “NO! JOEL! NO!” I fell hard on my knees to the tiled floor and thrust my arms into the cold water. Pulling Joel free of the icy wetness, I gasped as I saw the life drain from his face.

“Jesus Christ!” Sid cried from behind me. “What the fuck!” I looked up at him and suppressed my own urge to lose it. I needed to be smart here. I needed to save Joel.

“Sid,” I said. He didn’t respond. “SID!” I shouted. His eyes focused on mine.

“Yeah?”

“Help me move Joel to the floor.”

He snapped into action and grabbed Joel’s feet. We struggled to move the dead weight over the side and onto the floor. Blood trickled from his forearm, soaking the floor mat.

“Sid, take off your belt.” He reacted without as much as a pause. “Now wrap it around his forearm, above the wound, and pull it as tight as you can.” Oh God, the wound. What had he used, a skill saw? I checked his pulse. The heartbeat was barely there, but there was hope. Had he been submerged for long? I listened at his nose for breath. How much blood had he lost? How would we ever replace it? How was I going to close this wound? He’d cut things I was sure I couldn’t mend. We would have to resort to amputation.

“Sara?” I could hear the panic in Sid’s voice. “Sara, is he alive?”

“Yes.” I could barely think now. I tried to remember the minuscule training I’d been given at the clinic and my stints at the hospital during my co-op.

“Will he be okay?” His eyebrows threaded together over his frightened stare.

That depended on the amount of time he had to bleed out, I thought. “Joel can’t have been like this for long. I only just heard the bath water shut off.” The makeshift tourniquet was doing its job: the blood had stopped flowing from Joel’s forearm. Sid held his ground, hovering over Joel’s pale body, applying pressure to the arm with his right knee while pulling up on the belt.

“So, what now, what do we do now?”

I was working on that. What next? Shit I’d never done this. I’d never even seen this done. Would he slip into a coma? It depended on the blood loss.

“Talk to him, Sid. Slap his face, try to wake him up.” I got to my feet and realized just how weak I had become. I found support on the counter and collected myself. “Stay with him while I get my books.”

When I charged out of the bathroom, I nearly ran into the others. They were speechless. Watching. I moved past them frantically on my way to the bedroom. I dug around the couch until I found my medical textbooks under a pile of papers.

“Can we help?” Seth hovered in the doorway. “Can I help?”

“Boil some water and find me some clean linens.” Flipping through the pages, I came to a section on amputation. Scanning the technical illustrations and brief explanations, I gave him another order. “Find something metal, wide but thin, maybe 6 inches square. We’ll need a saw, a couple of gloves, alcohol and fire as well.” Just scanning the steps to a successful modern day amputation told me I had no chance. I would have to amputate like a field surgeon in the Civil War.

Seth ran out into the hall and communicated my orders to the others. I was scared to death. Maybe one of the boys - possibly Earl- could do the cutting while I supervised. “It needs to be able to cut through bone,” I shouted out to them. “The saw.” My hand rose to my mouth, shaking uncontrollably. “Be strong,” I whispered to myself. “He needs you.”

Back in the bathroom, Sid had worked some color back into Joel’s face with all the slapping. “Nothing,” he reported. “Nothing’s happening, Sara. Shouldn’t he have woken up by now?”

“It’s just as well, Sid. We’re taking the arm off below the elbow.” A look of horror struck him. My chin began to tremble but I forced myself to stay coherent. “It’s the only way we can save him. The damage is too severe. I don’t have the tools or the training to fix that.” I pointed at the ruined arm. The soft flesh I so prized, the flesh of the arm I would rest my head upon while we drifted off to sleep. The skin I would put my lips to and swear was softer. And now, I was going to remove it.

The group returned with the requested items, Seth leading the way. “Where would you like everything?” he asked.

“Let’s just do it here, on the floor,” I answered. They placed everything on the counter. I poured the boiling water on Joel’s arm and open wound. If ever he would wake up, surely that would have caused it. The alcohol was next. Then I sterilized the saw: a small saw with a thin cutting surface.

“It’s a bone saw,” said Earl. “For hunting.”

“That should work.”

I positioned the saw and closed my eyes. One quick push should make it through the muscle, I thought. Then four or five hard pulls through the bone and then more muscle. Less than ten strokes should do it. I felt sick at the thought. Could I have ever been a surgeon? “Fuck it,” I said, as I wiped my forehead with my forearm and mouthed a prayer.

Chapter Four

“Sid,” I ordered, “hold his arm down at the bicep and don’t let it shift around as I cut.” Earl circled round me, took Joel’s hand and pushed down hard. With Sid at my left and Earl at my right, I wiped the sweat from my eyes and pushed the blade into Joel’s lean muscled forearm.

“Jesus,” whispered someone above us.

I dared not stall for long. I continued the grisly work on Joel’s arm and upon hitting the bone, slowed considerably. I struggled for a moment. The blade warped as I realized it was stuck in the bone. I pulled at it roughly, wishing desperately for the job to be done. A scraping sound made everyone wince.

Suddenly Joel’s eyelids sprang back, and his eyes bulged out of their sockets. His back arched violently and a scream burst from his mouth. He looked down at his arm, the saw in my hand and his friends gathered around, their faces white as ghosts at this unexpected turn. He wailed once more. Then his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he slipped into a comatose state.

I was frozen in place, too shocked and sickened to move.

“Let me, Sara.” Earl took the saw from me. His right hand still holding down Joel’s, he used his left to free the blade and continue the cut. In four short tugs he had separated Joel’s forearm from the rest of his body.

Earl looked to me for further instructions. “Uh, heat the plate,” I remembered, feeling my composure return. The metal plate was set up on the sink and a fire lit beneath it. Joel’s severed hand twitched on the floor and I moved away from it, pulling myself up to the counter. “When its red hot, use the gloves to carry it over to the open wound and press it against his arm.” When Freddy complied I turned my head and shook.

“It’s really smoking, Sara.” The stench of burnt flesh had permeated the room. Sid and Earl were literally waving the smoke away from their faces as Freddy continued to push the plate to Joel’s stump.

“Dump some of the alcohol on it and remove the metal.” Skin pulled away along with the plate as Fred removed it, but it was working. “More alcohol and heat the plate again.”

We repeated the process a few more times until the flesh and muscle and bone were charred at the stump. “Apply the antibiotic cream and wrap it in the linens.” It was my final order of the day. I was exhausted, and nauseated. The heat of so many bodies in that small bathroom, and the smell sent me into the hall and then into Joel’s bedroom, where I gave myself permission to go to pieces.

“Would you like us to place him on the bed, Sara?” asked Caroline, leaning in through the doorway.

I looked up from Joel’s desk, tears streaming down my cheeks. Caroline knelt down beside me.

“Look at my hands, Caroline.” I said, shaking. “We... I just took off Joel’s arm.” My hands were stained red, leaving gory marks on everything I touched.

Caroline gently pulled me up from the desk chair. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

We walked down to the bathroom on the main floor, passing the scene as our friends cleaned up the mess on the second floor. I caught a glimpse of Earl through the haze of smoke and bodies, gripping Joel’s disembodied hand in his. He was hitting Kevin with it, as though it were a prop. I hadn’t the energy to confront him, but what an asshole! I stared them both up and down- Kevin and Earl. They must have felt the burn of my gaze as their eyes met mine. “Assholes,” I mouthed. Earl quickly put the hand in a bag and sent Kevin to the yard with it.

I never understood Earl. I always felt as though he hadn’t given himself the opportunity to vent, to feel after everything went to shit, after the Reaper. But upon witnessing that spectacle, playing with Joel’s hand as though it were a toy, I think I understood him better. It wasn’t that he hadn’t allowed himself to feel. It was that he couldn’t feel. He talked a good game, he made others feel, but he himself, I don’t think he had the capacity. What did they call that in life? A psychopath?

*****

That evening no one slept. If they weren’t in the addition, located over the 3 car garage (on guard duty), they were in the bedroom with Joel and I. I tended to him at his bedside. Earl remained in the addition, in Skylab, hopefully embarrassed over his actions in the bathroom. His thoughtlessness, his blatant disregard for my feelings and those of the others… to play with a severed limb, a limb that used to belong to your friend… It was beyond comprehension, and beyond contempt.

“Earl is an asshole,” Caroline agreed after I’d told her what I’d seen.

“I wanted to jam it down his throat, see if he thought that was funny.” I gazed at Joel as he slept under the covers. I held his right hand in mine and leaned in close to listen to his breathing. It was erratic. “He’s going to become a real problem if Joel doesn’t wake up…”

“Earl?”

“Yeah.”

Our conversation ended with the arrival of Sonny. Sonny was one of Joel’s biggest supporters, figuratively and literally. Sonny, though he had lost a fair bit of weight over the past few months (like the rest of us) still carried a substantial frame, big-boned and muscular.

“Hey, Sara, Caroline.”

“Hey, Sonny,” I answered. Caroline smiled and nodded.

“Can I talk to you, Sara?” He eyed Caroline. “Outside?”

I looked at Caroline and passed Joel’s hand to her. “Can you stay with him awhile?”

“No problem.” Caroline took my place at the bedside. I followed Sonny down the staircase and out the front door.

“How are you holding up?” I asked him, hands in my pockets. The night sky was clouding over; a breeze hit us from the south, warm for January.

Sonny took a seat on the concrete porch. I stepped around the dark discoloration that stained its center as I had a hundred times before. A bloody reminder of past victories.

“I’m confused, Sara,” the big guy admitted. “What happened here today, the flags, Connor, and now Joel…. I thought we had it all figured out. I thought we were winning this thing.”

I sat down next to him and wrapped an arm over his bulging shoulders. “I’m at a loss too,” I conceded. “I can’t understand how, if we have a guardian angel watching over us, how he would let something like this happen.”

“Exactly, right. What the fuck? Worst fucking guardian angel ever.” He snickered, despite himself. I smiled, shaking my head.

“What happened up there?” I knew what he was talking about. “Joel isn’t the type, is he?”

“I didn’t think so, Sonny.” I pulled my hair off my face and tied it in a ponytail. “I’m not convinced he did this himself.”

Sonny looked at me, confused.

“What I mean is, I don’t think he did this freely. I think the drugs, the pressure, and the flags might have had a hand in this.” I didn’t dare tell him my deepest fear. That Joel couldn’t live with himself, that Joel may have deliberately caused Connor’s death.

“That adds up. I mean, none of us know what he’s been dealing with. Then the flags show up and off Connor.” His fists tightened into balls. “Glad I got my shot in.” Sonny had reacted first when the flags moved in on us, crushing a man’s nose with his fist and knocking him unconscious. Connor then pleaded with us not to react. It was as though he knew his fate and didn’t want us to suffer similarly.

“Listen, Sonny, don’t let Earl talk you guys into something you don’t want to do.”

“Sara, the only thing I want to do right now is wipe them out. All of them. Make them eat that fuck’n flag.”

I guess I knew that was coming. I left it alone and went to go back inside.

“He didn’t tell you anything, eh?” Sonny raised his voice as I opened the front door. “Joel?”

I froze a moment, not sure how to answer that question.

“You saw what happened, Sonny,” I started. “He accused Connor and I of having an affair, then went berserk, hit Connor, and left. You know about as much about where he went and what he was thinking as I do. What are you asking?”

“I’m not sure.”

“If you don’t have the balls to ask it, then don’t think it.”

He must have known I would defend Joel. I knew what he was asking, it was a terrible thought to entertain, but the motive was there. So was the letter.