Things are worse than I thought.
It looks like raw meat. The back of my leg from just below my kneeto the cuts from the trap is swollen and a beautiful shade of horrific purple. My left leg is dirty but about half the size of the right one.
The boy comes back with a small glass vial and a bottle of pills in one hand. In the other is a small leather-bound notebook, the pages of which are well-worn and yellowed. He sets the vial and pill bottle down on the table along with the book. I pick up the vial; it’s cold and filled with a clear liquid. The wordbupivacaineis printed on the label. Whatever that means.
“Where did you get this?” I ask him, reaching for the bottle of pills.
The-illinsuffix on the label tells me it’s antibiotics. Even postapocalypse, those SAT prep courses weren’t such a waste after all.
He unwraps a sterile syringe and sticks it into the vial, filling the plastic tube and setting it on the table before getting up and heading back to the kitchen. “You aren’t allergic to penicillin or any antibiotics, are you?” he calls out. I hear the sound of water pouring into a glass.
“I don’t think so. How do I know?” I ask.
He returns and hands me the glass and two pills. “I guess take it and find out.”
“This won’t kill me, will it?”
“If you’re allergic, yeah, probably.”
Great bedside manner, dude.
His eyes drift down to my leg. “But you said this happened yesterday, so if you don’t take them, the infection will definitely kill you. And it’ll be worse.”
He’s probably right. If it’s infected already and I do nothing, I’m dead. Do I have a choice? Yeah, I guess I just risk it, but... that hasn’tworked out so far. And amputation without anesthesia—well, I hope evenIdon’t deserve that. I swallow the pills and drink all the water.
He picks up the syringe filled with the liquid from the vial he brought out.
“What’s that do?” I ask, still nervous. Why am I taking pills and medicine from a strange boy in the woods?
“You’ll see.” Before I can stop him, he sticks it in my leg and I howl out in pain. He pulls it out and sticks it in again, farther down.
“What are you doing?” I scream.
“Just a little more.” He sticks me several more times, holding down my leg just above my knee while he does so. Tears are streaming down my face and I can hear my heart throbbing in my ears. I curse and scream until he finally stops.
He returns to the kitchen with the vial and used syringe. The burning in my leg begins to subside, but the memory still aches. The shriek of a teakettle comes from the kitchen and I glance to the doorway, my vision blurred by my tears.
He soon emerges with a large ceramic bowl, moving slowly and setting it down on the table.
“You have a stove, too?” I ask him.
“I’ll show you later. How does your leg feel now?”
Numb. The leg pain is almost gone. My brain has gone back to focusing on the pain in my armpit from leaning on the crutch.
“Fine,” I say.
“I wouldn’t say ‘fine,’” he says, pulling a chair out and sitting down. He pulls the medical container over. “But at least you won’t have to bite a stick to deal with the pain while I stitch you up.”
He sets a few needles and black thread on the table and takes outthe bottle of rubbing alcohol. He dips a washcloth in the hot water, wringing it out with one hand at a time, then sets it down on the table and waits in silence.
“Still hot,” he says, looking up at me.
“Who are you? Some kind of kid doctor?”
He smiles his sad smile; it’s nothing like the grin he has in the pictures hanging on the wall. “Sorry.” He holds out his hand, red from the hot water. “I’m Jamison.”
“Andrew. Nice to meet you.” We shake. His hands are warm and I’m jealous—it feels like I won’t ever be able to shake the cold from my bones. When he lets go, he pours alcohol into a cupped hand and then rubs them together.
