Playlist for the Apocalypse

Chapter 5: Stayin' Alive

JONATHAN

Consciousness found Jonathan slowly. Everything hurt. He struggled to straighten the tangle of thoughts that swirled around his head like loose threads caught in a breeze. He remembered the crack of the lightning, the shower of sparks, glass and rain as the lightning broke through the green house roof. He remembered the pain and then there was nothing. The world came into focus as his eyes finally adjusted to the blinding light. It must have been morning because the sky was clear, not a cloud in sight to indicate that there had been a storm. The early February air was crisp and cold yet, the smell of smoke still clung to the air.  He tried to roll over but there was too much pain. It shot through his body, searing his nerves like fire and causing his vision to blur.  He settled for turning his head. To his left was his record player, someone had switched out the vinyl. The sound was muffled but he could still make out the song playing over the speaker. Someone had a sense of humour.

"Stayin' Alive?" He rasped. The words were barely a whisper but speaking out loud wreaked havoc on his chest and he wheezed. The sound startled the stranger in a black mask and goggles squatting next to the record player. "You're awake!" The stranger yelped, in what almost sounded like relief.

"What are you doing here?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. The stranger cocked their head to the side as if considering him for a moment then, they reached up and slowly unmasked. Beneath the face coverings, the stranger was a girl with inquisitive brown eyes, glasses and long black hair that had been tied back in a ponytail. She was dressed in battered jeans and a faded hoodie. She was pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way. She probably looked even more beautiful when she wasn't scowling, a look that she directed at him pointedly like she thought he was an idiot.

"You called for help." She said matter-of-factly.

Jonathan struggled to recall when he could have done such a thing, but he still felt as if cartoon birds were circling his head. His muddled thoughts were suddenly interrupted as the girl moved towards him and his breath caught. He noticed his pistol tucked into her waistband. It was at that particular moment when his brain caught up enough to realize that he was defenseless and at the mercy of this stranger.

She leaned forward as if she might touch him. He flinched in surprise, an action that caused him to groan at the sudden pain in his neck and she pulled herself back, waited for him to compose himself before leaning forward, more slowly this time, then snapping her fingers beside his head.

"Judging by the fact that you're not freaking out right now, am I correct in assuming you were already deaf in your left ear?"

"ummm...Yeah."

"So," she said, "I've assessed the damage and I think you've broken a couple of ribs. From the looks of it, you also could use some stitches but first I think we're going to need to take that out."

Jonathan must have looked dumbfounded because the girl raised a slender finger to point. He followed her gaze to examine his lower body. Immediately, he wished he hadn't. She'd somehow managed to lift the beam off him but, his clothes were in tatters. His torso and legs had fared badly against the glass from the greenhouse ceiling. Nasty looking bruises and scrapes patterned his skin, the bloodiest of which had been crudely patched up, but that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was a foot-long piece of metal, probably from the antenna, that had lodged itself into his lower abdomen. The rod was, mercifully, one of the thinner ones, about the diameter of a pencil. The skin around the rod was raw, jagged and bloody but the area had been heavily bandaged with some kind of medical tape, holding the rod in place. He fought the sudden urge to vomit and then promptly pass out. He would not do that in front of the stranger.