Outbreak

Chapter 8

Emmett

I wake up to Jason shaking my shoulder. 

"Emmett. You need to go to bed." I sit up and look around; I fell asleep at the table. I peel off a piece of paper from my cheek and look at it. The writing's all fuzzy, why... oh, right. I put on my glasses that were lying next to me on the table. Written on the table is a list of the things I thought were in the cure - chemicals, various medicines, and for some reason, lemon juice. I sigh. 

"Jason, I'm not getting any closer." 

He sits down next to me. "At least you're trying. And hey, stop trying to get it as soon as possible. You have all the time in the world." If only that were true, I think grimly. If only he knew that one of our teammates' lives were at stake. 

For a moment, I consider telling him, but then remember what Quinn said.

I don't want them to worry. That's the last thing we need right now. 

So instead of confiding in my best friend that Quinn's life is on the line here and also the fate of humanity, I get up and stretch.

"What time is it, anyway?" Jason checks his watch. "It's almost noon. Eric, Ezran, and Mal should be back s--" 

There's the sound of pounding from the front door downstairs, followed by Eric's muffled, panicked shout. 

"SOMEBODY OPEN THE DAMN DOOR RIGHT NOW!!!" Taylor, Ivy, Jason and I all fly down the stairs. We pull away the furniture hurriedly, and my panic increases when I hear a gunshot on the other side of the door. I unlock the door as fast as I can, my hands fumbling from the adrenaline, and tug open the door to see Eric supporting my little brother on his shoulder. Ezran stands behind them, somehow holding three grocery bags, two backpacks, and Eric's handgun (I can tell it's Eric's because it doesn't have a silencer on it.) He's holding a horde of zombie's at bay, barely.

I pull Eric and Mal inside and grab Ezran's free arm. "Get inside!" He fires a final shot, then dives into the doorway. We both scramble back as Ivy slams the door and quickly locks it, Taylor and Jason running to push the furniture back in front of the door.

I turn to see Mal collapse on the floor, and his leg... oh God, his leg. It shouldn't bend like that. And a steady pool of blood is collecting around it.

"Mal! Mal, what happened?" "He fell off a roof," Eric pants. "Dislocated his leg. Landed on something, now he's bleeding--" 

"QUINN!!!" I yell, and crouch next to Mal. His eyes are half-closed, sweat has his short black hair plastered to his forehead, and he's groaning - he's just about blacked out from the pain. "Mal, hold on."

Quinn's face appears from the top of the stairs, and her face pales. "Get him up here."

Jason

I carry Mal up the staircase quickly, ignoring his pained groaning. Quinn and Taylor are swiftly clearing plates of food, paper, and pens off of the table, and Quinn opens up her med-kit that she's put together over the time we've spent in an apocalypse. In it lay several rolls of tightly wrapped bandages, a couple syringes, a needle and thread, ibuprofen, a packaged thermal blanket, adhesive dressing strips, and gauze. 

"Ez," she says while pulling up her sleeves. "Get a big bowl of warm water and a cloth." Ezran nods. I set Mal down on the table and look up at her. "What are you going to do?" Her mouth is a thin line. "I'm going to set his leg." I raise my eyebrows in surprise. "Have you ever done that before?" Mal groans again, and she shakes her head. "Nope. Hold him down."

Eric, Emmett, and Ivy make their way up the stairs as I place my hands on Mal's shoulders. I turn to them. "Ivy, can you help?" She nods and sets her hands on Mal's arms and chest, pinning him down. Quinn makes a grim face. 

"Ready? On three. One... two... THREE!" 

Mal's eyes shoot open and he screams as his leg shifts a little back into place. He starts to struggle violently against our restraints. Quinn grits her teeth and sweat forms in beads on her face as she tries to keep the half-set fracture in place. 

"We gotta knock him out!" I groan. "We're not strong enough to hold him down!" 

Ezran perks up. "Wait!" 

He dashes to the kitchen counter, where the grocery bags the group brought back are. He rummages through one, and pulls out a large bottle. He rips a cloth out of a drawer, unscrews the bottle, and pours a thin stream of the cloudy liquid onto it, dousing it. He runs back over, and presses the cloth to Mal's nose and mouth. The rapid rise and fall of his chest slows, and his eyes roll to the back of his head. His arms and legs go limp, and his head falls back onto the table. Ezran takes the cloth away and throws it into the sink. 

"That should make this a whole lot easier. Mal picked up some chloroform in the supermarket pharmacy." Quinn nods and smiles gratefully. "Thanks." She focuses on Mal's leg again, pulls, and this time the bone pops back into place. Half asleep, Mal weakly cries out in relief, and I let go of his shoulders and look at Quinn, who immediately begins to clean the stab wound on Mal's leg. While she tightly binds a bandage around it, she addresses Eric and Ezran. "Are you two hurt?" Eric sits down hard on one of the dining chairs. "No, just tired and a little banged up." Mal nods and takes a seat next to Eric. 

"We got more supplies, but we'll need to send out a group to gather warmer clothes. Winter's coming, and it doesn't look like it's going to be an easy one."