One Second After [144]
He let go of her embrace, stepped aside from her, and walked in.
He almost backed out but then froze in place.
It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life up to this moment. Worse than holding Mary as she died, worse than anything.
"Jesus, give me strength," he whispered to himself, and then he walked
in.
Dozens were on the floor, all with ones marked on their foreheads. Some were crying, others silent, trying to be stoic. Fortunately for some, they were unconscious. Every wound imaginable confronted him.
He walked slowly through the room. If any made eye contact he stopped, forcing a smile. Some he recognized, and he was ashamed of his lifelong inability to remember names. All he could do was bend over, extend a reassuring hand, and kept repeating over and over: "I'm proud of you. ... Don't worry; they'll have you patched up in no time.... Thank you, I'm proud of you...."
He left that room and in the next one he truly did recoil and Makala came up to his side. He looked at her, wondering how in God's name she had ever handled what he was looking at.
The two towns had nine doctors and three veterinarians Day one. One had since died. There were eleven tables in the room and on each was a casualty and around each was a team at work, the veterinarians as well in this emergency.
The anesthesia saved from the vets' offices and the dentists' offices was now in use. He saw Kellor at work and the sight was terrifying. Kellor was taking a girl's leg off just above the knee. The knee was nothing but mangled flesh and crushed bone. Her head was rocking back and forth, and she was weeping softly.
Horrified, John looked at Makala.
"We're using local for amputations," she whispered. "We have to save the general for the more serious cases." "More serious?"
But he did not need to be told. Head wounds, shattered jaws, chest wounds, stomach wounds, though, were being triaged off because there were not enough antibiotics to treat them after the operation, if they even survived that.
He went up to the girl on the table. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, panicked, eyes like a rabbit that had just been shot, waiting for the final blow, and his heart filled. He knew her.
He grabbed her hand.
"Laura, isn't it?"
"Oh God, I can feel it," she gasped. "Hang on," John said.
The sound was terrifying. Kellor was now cutting the bone with a saw. John spared a quick glance down. It was a hacksaw, most likely taken from the hardware store. My God, they didn't even have the right surgical tools.
"Oh God!"
John squeezed her hand tight, leaning over, looking at her. "Look at me, Laura; look at me!" She gazed up at him.
"Laura, remember your song 'Try to Remember'...."
" 'The kind of September ...' Jesus, please help me!"
The sound of sawing stopped; someone assisting Kellor lifted the severed leg off the table. Kellor stepped back from the table.
"Nurse, tie off the rest...." He pulled aside his surgical mask and looked over at John, then down at Laura.
"Laura honey, the worst is over," Kellor said. "We'll give you another shot of painkiller shortly."
Sobbing, she nodded, John barely able to let go of her hand.
Kellor looked at John as they turned away.
"We're out of painkiller except for some oxycodone," he whispered. "God save her and all these kids."
Kellor tore off the latex gloves and let them drop to the floor.
"Nurse, I'm taking five minutes; prep the next one."
John felt guilty leaving Laura, but Kellor motioned for him to follow him out of the operating room.
"John."
It was Makala.
"I'm needed here now. I'm finished with triage up at the gap."
He nodded to her, but she was already turned away, motioning for an assistant to pour some rubbing alcohol on her hands.
John, following Kellor, walked past the other operating bays. The floor was slick with blood, and as John looked down he was stunned to see that it was covered with sawdust, an assistant throwing more down on the floor even as the doctors continued to operate.
As they passed the last table one of the doctors,