Complicated ✔

Ch. 16 - The Farm

SHANE'S POV

I watched Carl and Kathryn go down, the echo from the sudden gunshot ringing through the air as Rick began to panic. We both ran over to the two, unconscious on the ground, before I knelt down with Rick and rolled Kathryn onto her back and off of Carl. The bullet went clean through the deer in front of them and her left shoulder, coming to a stop in Carl's abdomen on his right side. I heard rustling in the trees as this man with a rifle appeared, looking horrified at the sight before him as Rick took his belt off and wrapped it around Carl as a make shift tourniquet. I was placing some pressure on Kathryn's shoulder when the man started stuttering, saying he didn't see either one of the two unconscious kids in front of us.

Before long he began saying that he knew someone who could help both Carl and Kathryn. Hearing that, Rick quickly picked Carl up into his arms and looked to the man in a silent request for directions. Being pointed the way, Rick quickly darted off with that man running with him while I picked Kathryn up in my arms and ran too. As we were running, Rick seeming to struggle after a while with carrying the boy, Kathryn groaned in my arms before her eyes began to open. "Hang in there girl," I grunted as I continued to run, feeling her move around as I kept my eyes ahead of me to where Rick was running with Carl. "Shane," she shouted shocked, "Shane put me down!" "No can do sweetheart," I said as I kept going before I felt her hitting me with the fist on the arm that wasn't shot. "I said put me down," she said as she hit me with each word she shouted.

KATHRYN'S POV

I wanted down on my own two feet, I didn't like Shane carrying me. I didn't care if my leg was still bad enough where I wouldn't be able to keep up with them, I just didn't want to be carried like I was. Before long, Dad disappeared from sight with my little brother unconscious in his arms. The jarring from Shane running was really starting to hurt my shoulder, I lowered my head and placed my and to my forehead for a moment but when I looked back up a farm house had come into view. When we were in the yard of the house, I fought harder against Shane to get him to put me on my feet. Finally he placed me down and I quickly limped away from him towards were Dad had just walked out onto the front porch with Carl's blood on his shirt. "Dad," I called out, causing him to look to me.

I quickly limped up the stairs to the porch and ran straight into his arms as he hugged me as tight as he dared with my injured shoulder. "Let's get you looked at," Shane said as he came up the steps after asking about Carl while I remained in my dad's arms. Dad turned me around to the door, his hand gently resting on my shoulders as he guided me into the house. We walked into the house, coming to a stop at the room door where I finally got a good look at my little brother laying there unconscious on the bed with an older man using some kind of cloth as a pad to place pressure on his stomach where the bullet hit him. "Do you know his blood type," the older man said after we stood there a couple seconds. "A-positive," Dad said from beside me, "same as mine."

"Sweetheart what happened to you," a woman said catching sight of my left shoulder when she looked to Dad as he spoke. "I was shot when my brother was," I whispered out as my eyes stayed on him, "I was kneeling down in front of him when it happened. Is he gonna be alright?" "We're going to do all we can to help him," she said walking over to me, "but let's get your shoulder looked at so that we can keep it from getting infected." "Please worry about my brother," I said, "I'm fine." "Hershel will look after your brother," she said, "but we need to get you looked after too. Beth will you come into the kitchen and help me with her please?" I watched as a young blonde girl nodded and followed us out of the room as she turned me around and pushed me out gently.

"How'd you hurt your leg," the lady asked, noticing my limp and the rag still wrapped around it. "Cut it," I said as she sat me down on a chair in the kitchen and set to work cleaning my shoulder wound. "My name's Beth," the blonde girl said smiling at me as she handed the older woman a couple cotton pads for my shoulder once it was cleaned. "Kathryn," I said as I trained my eyes to the door we entered through while the lady placed the pads on my shoulder then wrapped them in place. "Kathryn my name's Patricia," the woman said, "can I see your leg? To make sure it didn't get infected or anything." Nodding silently, I carefully lifted my leg up so that she could pull Daryl's rag off of it and asses it. She handed me the rag after pulling it off, looking at my leg and mentioning it needing a few stitches to make sure it healed properly.

Grimacing, I watched as Beth ran out of the room before running back in with a sewing needle and some thread. Holding Daryl's rag tightly like it was some sort of comfort, I closed my eyes tightly as Patricia began placing a few needed stitches along the wound before taking another cotton pad and placing it over the new stitches to keep them clean. Before she left me alone in the kitchen, she handed me a glass of water and some ibuprofen for the pain I was sure to be in from the gunshot wound and the cut on my ankle. Thanking her, I quickly took the pill and knocked back the glass of water, almost sighing in relief as the cool liquid ran down my throat. I smiled as I sat the glass down on the counter after emptying it, but that smile soon faded as I heard Carl start screaming out in pain.

Getting up and moving as quickly as I could, I made my way back to the room with Carl to see Hershel digging around for one of the fragments of the bullet while Patricia pushed a needle into Dad's arm and Shane held Carl down. "Beth get her out of here," the man named Hershel shouted when he noticed me standing there. The girl gently grabbed my arm and pulled me from the room as I could still hear my brother's cries of pain. "It'll be okay," she whispered as she looked to me while we walked over to a couch in the den of the farm house. "That's my little brother in there," I said as I felt tears fall from my eyes before I placed my hands over my face and cried into my palms. "He'll be alright," she said sitting beside me, "my dad's going to help him in every way he can."

Maggie, Beth's older sister, came out and joined us in the den after a while and not long after that Dad and Shane finally came out. "He's stable for now," Shane said looking to me as I just watched Dad take a seat with a bandage around his arm they used to do the transfusion earlier. "How are we going to tell Lori," I asked after a couple of minutes, looking right at Dad as he looked up at me before shaking his head. We sat in silence again before Hershel came out of Carl's room, explaining to Dad what was needed to be done and what was needed to do it. Shane and Otis were leaving to go get the medical supplies requested by Hershel while Maggie asked where to find Lori to bring her here.

I watched as Shane and Otis drove off to the high school and Maggie rode off on her horse to bring Lori back here while Dad, Patricia, and Hershel wandered back inside the house to check on Carl. I stayed out on the porch, just listening to the silence around me. I just sat there, lost in my own little world, consumed by my thoughts of the group back on the highway. I'm sure Glenn had to be worried by now after we didn't show back up. I could just imagine how he'll react when he sees me with my arm bandaged up from getting shot. Just thinking about that had me laughing, that boy worried about me way too much. "What's got you laughing," Beth's voice asked softly, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Just thinking about how a friend will react when they see me after getting shot," I said smiling over at her as she walked over to where I sat in one of the rockers on the porch. "They the worrying type," she asked while I smiled. "Oh yeah," I said nodding, "big time." Beth sat with me for a while before she finally went back inside with the others, only to be replaced by Dad a couple minutes later. "You alright," I asked looking at him as he took the seat Beth had been occupying earlier. "When I find out Carl's fine I will be," he said looking over at me tiredly, "what about you?" "I got shot in the shoulder and my leg was cut on glass days before," I said smiling at him, "I'm doing fine. And Carl will be fine too just as soon as Shane and Otis get back with those supplies."

He smiled at me and reached over, grabbing my hand that was closest to him and giving it a gentle squeeze. "I don't know what I would do if I had lost you both today Kathryn," he said still holding onto my hand as he looked over at me. "You ain't getting rid of me that easily Daddy," I said smiling at him and squeezing his hand back. Before either one of us could say anything else, the sound of hoof beats in the distance caught our attention. Dad got up out of his chair and walked over to the railing, watching the movement in the distance grow closer. The moment he walked over to the steps that led down to the ground and over to Maggie's horse, I knew she'd found Lori and brought her safely here. I watched silently as Dad told her what happened with Carl before quickly leading her inside to the room he was in while I just simply stayed outside on the porch.