Jamison picks up the hot towel and begins to clean the area around my wound. I flinch, expecting pain. But there is none.
Watching him clean my wounds, I’m immediately thankful that Jamison, Kid MD, gave me some kind of local anesthetic. The white washcloth turns red-brown, but as he cleans the wounds, things don’t look so scary. Gross, but not scary.
“So what happened?” he asks. “A dog attack you?”
“No.” I shake my head and let out a groan. “It was a damn bear trap.”
Jamison shoots a look up at me as he continues cleaning. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
His smirk returns. “It’s the apocalypse and you decide to make enemies with Wile E. Coyote.”
“Seriously.” I let out a sigh. “I had no idea people even used those things anymore. I’m sure it was set up before the bug but,honestly, who sets a damn bear trap?”
“How did it not cut your leg off?” he asks, looking at the gashes.
“Dumb luck?” I tell him. “It didn’t snap all the way shut.” I still don’t understand how the branch landed between the jaws of the trap and didn’t set it off. I barely even stepped on the trigger myself.
Jamison threads the needle. He douses it with alcohol and puts the needle to one of the wounds in my leg. “Any feeling coming back yet?” he asks.
I shake my head and he slides the needle into my skin. I tense up at the sight but feel no pain.
“It’s gonna be a pretty rough stitch job since the needle’s flat,” he says, not looking away. “But it should help you heal faster.”
I watch as he pulls the thread tight on the first puncture. “Seriously, how do you know how to do this? Were you premed or something before the bug?” Maybe he’s older and just looks young?
“No,” he says. “My mom taught me how to sew buttons on my shirts or fix a seam that busted. Same principle, right?”
I look back at the pictures on the wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jamison glance up at me, follow my gaze to the picture, then look back down at my leg. I don’t press the matter further.
“Why’d you decide not to shoot me?” I finally ask after he’s sewn up three of the six wounds in my leg. How is he so good when none of the rest of us survivors are?
He lets out a sigh. “I guess because... I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “Probably because I’m too stupid to realize when I need to look out for myself.”
“If that makes you stupid, it means I’m a hundred and fifty percent dipshit.”
“I figured out that part when you said you stepped in a damn bear trap.”
I laugh, and it feels like it’s the first time in months. Maybe it is.
He ties off the final stitch and wipes away the blood. Then he throws the wet towel back in the bowl of bloody water and holds out his hand to me.
“Think you can walk? You can take a shower if you want.”
I stare at him. “Shower?”
“Yeah. W—I have well water.”
I caught that almost-“we.” So he’s alone. “Running waterandelectricity?”
“And a hot water heater that runs on that electricity.”
My stomach does a flip with excitement. This placesounds amazing. I let myself think, just for a second, whether I could take it from him. After he didn’t shoot me, after he helped me, could I take this place? But that second is enough to make me feel sick.
“You okay?” Jamison asks.
“Yeah. And yes, I would love to shower.” Only the shower, then I’m gone.
