He looks like he’s going to argue with me but then pops out four and hands them over along with the water. I swallow the horse pills all at once.
“Any antibiotics?”
Cara shakes her head.
“We’ll have to find some later.” If I make it to later. “For now we have to clean the wound and change the bandage before it gets dark.” This part is gonna suck.
“What do we do?”
Here it is. I could bleed out in seconds and I don’t want to die.
“Untie the jeans. When you do, I might... I might pass out from the pain and if I do just keep going. Don’t stop, whatever you do. Dump most of the water on the wound, then follow with the alcohol. Put a sterile pad over it and wrap it tightly with the gauze.”
“Wait.” Cara reaches into her bag. “I did find this.”
A sewing kit. Oh God, that’s not gonna be fun. Who the hell knows if I’ll even be awake for it? Probably not.
“Great,” I say. “Dump alcohol on the thread and the needle. Your hands, too. Actually, do all that first. And thread the needle before the sun sets. Cara, can you hold the flashlight when it gets dark?”
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she looks at the bloody jeans tied over my stomach and then back at her own pack. She nods.
“Okay,” Andrew says. “Here we go.”
He moves slowly, reaching for the jean legs tied across my middle. I want to hold his alcohol-covered hand but I know I can’t. He has to do this if there’s going to be any hope for us.
He pulls, but the knot is damp and tight—the jeans have shrunk into it. Every time he tries to untie it more pain shoots up my body. I’m sweating and my mouth has run dry.
The knot is finally coming loose. I’m feeling woozy and sick.
“Andrew,” I manage to say. He looks at me and asks if I’m okay. I don’t think I am. I’m so tired and the pain’s stopping. I’m getting cold. I think this is what dying feels like. All the jostling must have ruptured something.
He says something else but I don’t understand what it is.
“I love you,” I say.
Darkness closes in again.
Andrew
THE STORM LET UP AN HOUR AGO,so Cara and I left the library we took shelter in to scout out the town. We’re in Delray Beach, Florida, a little more than three-quarters of the way down the coast. Because of the bikes we found in Vero Beach, we can cover a lot of ground much quicker than we had been.
Having Cara helps. She checks the map in the morning and her photographic memory map trick has us set for the day.
“There’s a pharmacy on the corner in about a mile,” she says to me. She says it carefully, like I’m a bomb and if she says anything too loud or the wrong way, I’ll explode. Because apparently that’s me now.
I don’t want to say what I’m thinking. I’ve been too negative lately and I feel like it’s pissing Cara off. But she would never tell me.
Still, I know what’s going to happen. We get to the pharmacy, and it’s picked clean. No water, no meds, no food. The grocery stores are all the same. They smell of mold and spoilage from animals and perishable food that was left to rot.
When we get to the pharmacy, I watch the front and let Cara go in.
She comes back empty-handed.
I didn’t even have a moment of hope.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Let’s head back.”
We mount our bikes and go back the way we came. The streets of Delray Beach are quiet, but I still keep my eyes peeled for anyone peeking from behind curtains in the vacant houses. I watch for movement.
