Only Can Salmonella Outlast

FOUR

"Sam..." Ella asked, staring blankly at the ground.

"Huh?"

"What's going to happen to me?.."

"The better question to be asking is 'what's going to happen to us?'"

~

Ella couldn't help but show how terrified she was, they were out in the middle of nowhere and she had jacked up legs.

After about a half an hour, Ella sighed again. "The sun is setting."

"You wanna go to bed?"

Ella nodded.

"Alright, I'll try to make us a fire."

Sam went a little ways into the woods and gathered rocks, wood and tons of dead pine needles. He brought it over in a pile and sat next to it.

"You know..." He started assembling the fire pit. "If your legs end up being sawed off, we could always make you some cool prosthetics."

Ella brightened up slightly and let herself exhale sharply through her nose as she smiled. Sam smiled as well, it was nice that he was trying to make light of the situation.

After a moment of silence, Sam spoke again. "Do your legs still hurt?"

"Yeah but I'm trying to ignore it, but that's pretty difficult."

Sam nodded in response.

"So, how long have you been on the team?" Ella asked, trying to keep a conversation.

"I was trying to go for all four years but I guess now I have to quit."

Ella did her soft laugh again. "Same here, I enjoyed it a lot."

"Same, I'm not really into sports but I wanted to be in some sort of extracurricular."

"Yeah, me too."

They continued to chat a bit while Sam struggled with sticks to get a flame going. After a while of no luck, Ella offered to help. Sam gave her the sticks and she scooted over to the ring of rocks. She tried for a while but no luck.

"Do you have a string or something like that?" Sam asked her.

"Oh uh, yeah." Ella reached down to her shoe, untied the shoe lace of her Converse and removed it, she handed it to Sam.

"I wanna try something." He took the lace and took one of the sticks and tied the string on both ends. He took the other stick and used it to create a bow drill. "I'm not an expert but I really hope this will work."

After about fifteen to twenty minutes, Sam finally had a little fire, Sam started throwing little bits of pine needles on the fire to help it burn. Sam threw Ella two of the jackets he found.

"Use one of them as a pillow." Sam said while he fixed the backpack for himself as a pillow and used the jacket he was already wearing as a blanket. Ella fixed her own bed, rolling one of the jackets up and putting it under her head and draping the other one over her body.

After they were comfortable, they went to sleep.

~

In the morning, Sam was still surprised to hear no sirens blaring in his ears. He looked over and saw Ella was still sleeping and the fire was now just embers. He slowly got himself up and threw a pile of dirt on the fire to fully put it out. Sam didn't really know what to do now that he was awake, so he started to walk. He wasn't going to go far since he thought staying with someone would be the best option, plus, Ella was basically disabled now and couldn't do much at all by herself. He made his way across the road, passing the wreck and walking all the way to the hill on the other side of the road. He sat down in the grass and started to watch the sun come up on the horizon.

~

Ella rested peacefully in the grassy ditch under a jacket she used as a blanket. Although it wasn't the most comfortable bed she ever slept in, she was surprised she was able to get a fair amount of sleep last night even after all that happened and how quickly it happened. Ella knew she was never going to recover from the traumatic event but at least her wounds would heal. But that brought her back to her legs, her chances of surviving were fair but since they probably won't be able to find gauze, hydrogen peroxide, or any other medicinal supplies, her cuts could get severely infected and they'd have to remove her legs or she could die from gangrene. They had to think of something before she ran out of time.

~

Ella heard the crunching of gravel, she saw Sam walking back from across the road.

"Where did you go?" Ella asked him, clutching her knees to her chest.

"Just for a walk," He was scanning the forest behind her. "Clear my head."

Ella nodded but didn't respond.

"So I was thinking, maybe we could make a sled or something for you to sit on and I could drag you down the road until we found a town or something and get you some help, but we have to do it soon but your legs might already be infected."

"That could work." Ella didn't look at him. "Or do you think you could just snap off my legs and be done with it."

"That sounds like the best option to me." Sam set down the backpack. "However, I don't have anything. I don't have anything that could help you."

"Which means we'd have to go to town anyway." Ella suggested.

Sam nodded

"I guess we'll have to start building a sled."