Home Coming (The Survivalist Book 10) A. American (read after .txt) 📖

guys can handle this, then I’ve got another little project I need to get to.”

Danny nodded, “We got this.”

Mel and the girls arrived at the gym without incident. Jamie and Ian helped them carry the medical supplies inside. The gym was beyond words. It was hot and muggy. The air was still and thick with the odor of putrid flesh, feces and urine. The few staff tending to the wounded looked nearly as bad as their charges. Some of them were also suffering from injuries sustained in the rocket attack. Chris Yates, the medic, came over when he saw the group arrive.

“What’s all this?” The weary man asked.

“It’s Russian medical supplies. We’ve got all kinds of stuff here and more in the truck,” Ian replied. “We’ve also got some rations to help feed these people.”

“Clean bandages,” Chris muttered as he looked over the items. Picking up a small box, he said, “This is morphine! Where did you get all this?”

“We just got it,” Ian replied. “Can you get a couple of people to help unload all of it?”

“Absolutely!” Chris replied and waved a couple of people over.

Once all the supplies were inside, Mel told Chris they were there to help for the day and asked what she and the girls could do.

“I’ll pair you up with our people. They know what needs to be done and an extra set of hands will be greatly appreciated.”

While he went off to get his people together, Mel and the girls looked around the gym. Those that had family members had them at their side, many of them fanning flies away from wounds. There were pans and buckets of what had to be human waste in several places and people could be heard begging for water or painkillers.

Holding her nose, Taylor said, “Mom, this smells awful.”

“I know. But we can help for a day. Imagine having to be here all day, every day. Imagine being one of the wounded.” She looked at her daughter and added, “we’re lucky. We get to go home when we’re ready. Where we have running water, hot food and ice. Look at these poor people. Like Dad says, suck it up, buttercup.”

Chris came back and paired each of the girls up with one of his people. Using the fresh supplies, they set to work cleaning wounds, changing dressings, and trying to comfort the suffering. Lee Ann was helping a female nurse with the Guard change the dressing on a woman’s leg. The entire leg had been burned and was wrapped in pink gauze.

“Here,” the nurse said, handing Lee Ann a large plastic bottle with a long nozzle. “Squeeze the water onto the gauze where I’m removing it. It’ll make it come off easier.”

Lee Ann did as instructed, and the woman cried in pain at having the dressing peeled from her. The wound was horrible looking, with skin hanging in ribbons or coming off with the gauze. The fetid gauze was placed in a bucket as it was unrolled. The nurse looked into it and commented, “At least we don’t have to boil those again.”

“What do you mean?” Lee Ann asked as she carefully drizzled water onto a stubborn piece of gauze.

“We’ve been boiling and reusing the gauze. We didn’t have anymore. You’ll see some wounds are wrapped in bed sheets, or strips we’ve cut from them, boiled and used as dressings.”

Lee Ann looked down into the bucket and asked, “How many times have those been reused?”

“Three,” came the flat reply.

Mel worked with Chris. They were at the bed of a small child, no more than seven years old. The little girl’s head was wrapped in a puffy bandage that Chris was unwrapping. Tears ran down Mel’s face as Chris worked.

“She’s already dead, you know. But her heart hasn’t got the message yet,” Chris said as he removed the bandage to reveal a hole the size of a golf ball in the child’s skull.

Mel choked on a breath and covered her mouth. “Oh, no, I, I, can’t look at that,” she said, before turning away.

“It’s ok. You wouldn’t be normal if it didn’t bother you. It bothers me too, but I’ve been doing this for a long time and can deal with it. Just take the new bandage out of the wrapper and hand it to me.”

Mel did as he asked and waited what she thought was sufficient time for Chris to have the wound covered before turning back to look. She was relieved when she saw the clean white dressing covering the hole. Chris finished dressing the wound and checked the child’s pulse.

“There’s no hope for her?” Mel asked.

Chris took a small penlight from his pocket and held the child’s right eye open. Shinning the light into the eye, he replied, “No. See, the pupil doesn’t react at all. She’s brain dead and will probably pass today or tomorrow.”

“Where are her parents?”

As he stood up, he replied, “No idea. She came in alone. A lot of kids came in alone.”

Jess worked with a young man. The two were changing the dressing on a young man’s leg. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen. His left leg was missing above the knee. Once the bandage was removed, Jess looked at the wound.

The amputation had been closed, but it wasn’t a clean job. The sutures looked rough with flaps of skin pulled over in an almost haphazard manner and stitched together. As the EMT worked to clean the wound before applying the new dressing, Jess looked at the young man lying on the canvas cot. He made no complaints, verbal or physical. He just lay there and stared at Jess. She smiled and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Robert,” he replied without emotion.

Glancing back at the leg, Jess said, “You’re going to be fine. Looks like it’s going to heal well.”

“No, I’m not. I don’t have a leg. I had a football scholarship. I was going to go to the NFL.” He turned his attention to the rafters of the