Chapter 13 - Ben
I dropped my body to the ground. There were more gunshots fired, but none were hitting their mark. Morgan had collapsed onto the ground, and the boy was sprawled out against the wall to the mall.
I tried to search for the location of the gunfire. It was only one gun I think, because there were a few moments between shots. There was something that glinted at my 9 o' clock. It was the scope glint off of a sniper rifle. It must have been what Morgan had seen.
As quickly as I could, I shuffled over to where the boy was. The wall broke the line of sight of the sniper. But the sniper was still firing at our positions. Pieces of brick were flying off of the wall. The boy was covering his head and shaking each time there was a shot. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. He looked up at me with a absolutely terrified expression.
"Help me grab Morgan!" I demanded to the boy. He slowly stood up and nodded.
Morgan was somewhat protected as he had fallen behind the range of the snipers field of vision. I cautiously walked over to him and checked his pulse. He was still alive. I grabbed his shoulders and the boy grabbed his legs. We carried him over to the wall that was most protected. He was shot below his left shoulder. I ripped off his jacket to examine the wound.
It was pretty horrid. The flesh was mangled and blood was pouring out of it, staining the white snow. I pulled off my shirt and balled it up. The shirt would hopefully stop the bleeding at least slightly. He needed a hospital.
"You," I shouted at the boy. "go inside those doors. My brother Seth and his niece Alex are in there. I need you to go find them."
After a few seconds, he shook his head and nodded, then ran off into the mall. Reached over to his backpack that he was carrying. Maybe there was something I could use in there. I located a metal box with a Red Cross on it. A first aid kit! I opened it up and it was amazing. There were packages of clean gauze, bandages, medical tape, rubbing alcohol, and a suturing kit. The alcohol would clean it off, then I could use gauze to help the bleeding.
I ripped the seal off the bottle and unscrewed the lid. Morgan was still unconscious. Good thing, because this would hurt.
I removed my wadded up shirt from his wound and started. The liquid slowly poured out of the bottle and onto the wound. His eyes flashed open.
"AHHH!" He screamed.
"Oh thank God. Welcome back to the realm of the living." I cried.
"What happened? Is the boy ok? Where's Alex?" He tried to sit up, but was rewarded with pain.
"You've been shot. But I'm cleaning you up."
I placed gauze on the wound and applied pressure, despite his cries to stop. I started to get out the tape and I heard footsteps crunching in the snow, far in front of the wall.
An explosion seemingly rocked the world. There were screams from men, then orders barked in a language I didn't understand. I recognized it though. It was NASR soldiers. I grabbed my gun and peaked out from the wall. There were about 20 men advancing on us. A few of them were killed in the explosion, but there were at least 15 still ok. I aimed at someone who looked important and fired. He went down, but I was responded to with gunfire from them.
I ducked back behind the wall and over to Morgan. He had pulled himself up into a sitting position against the wall.
"How's it look?" He asked.
"Not too good. About 15 soldiers advancing. The claymore took out some of them."
Movement came from the door leading inside. The boy popped his head out out of the entry. I motioned for him to come. Around his shoulders were Alex, who looked pretty beaten up. She had a long gash down the side of her calf and what looked to be a burn.
