F*** Cancer, This One Did Us All In.

16

  Ow! Oh, Jesus Christ that hurt! Gah, seriously Amelia? Are you trying to – oh, nope, that burns. Oh god, now it stings. Now it burns and it stings. Amelia! Amelia! Please, I'm begging you in the name of whichever god you want to believe in, stop!

  Those were just some of the thoughts that ran through my mind as Amelia finally cleaned the wound on my leg, in the women's bathroom of a small garage, me lying on the ground with my leg raised above my body and on Amelia's lap, as she sat on the toilet and got to work cleaning it. She had found a first aid kit behind the counter of the garage and she was busy cleaning my wound with a bottle of water and whatever else was in there.

  Let me just say, that my mind was in an entirely new plane of existence altogether. It was taking all of my willpower not to scream out at the top of my voice, so I had instead opted for whining and breathing heavily. Oh, and biting my hands. That one too.

  Amelia had found this garage somewhere after the fourth time I had stopped the truck, because the pain from my leg was severely impeding my driving. I had to stop the truck that time because a sudden spike of pain from my leg almost made me crash into a wall and, yeah, I did not want another repeat of that.

  So, when Amelia had spotted the garage, I had parked the truck next to one of the gas tanks and we had both gone to the back of the truck to devise a plan on what we were going to do about my leg.

  So, that was how we ended up here, with Amelia torturing all my sanity out of me, Mfundo keeping guard with my – I mean, the gun in case any zombies came while collecting food and drinks for us, and Eric waiting outside, refuelling the truck.

  I had given Mfundo the gun after a quick tutorial on how to use it, and even though my mind was racked in pain, I couldn't help but hope that Mfundo remembered everything I told him, just in case a zombie does attack.

  "And . . . we are done." Amelia said and she stopped applying the pain, although it still lingered on in my leg.

  "Thank . . . god." I said, breathing heavily like I had just stopped crying. Which, now that I think about it, I actually had been crying.

  "I just need to bandage it again." She said and I felt a little part of me die.

  She took out a roll of bandages from the kit and wrapped them tightly around my leg. She cut the bandage with a small pair of scissors and tied it against my leg. She put the roll into the first aid kit and smiled at me as my heavy eyes looked at her.

  "Is it over?" I asked her and she nodded with a smile.

  I smiled as well, a heavy smile that was too weak to even reach my nostrils, but a smile it still was. And then, I don't know, I sort of just laid there for some time, trying to regain the strength I needed to, well, do something. It could have been two hours later, it could have been five minutes later, when Amelia helped me to my feet and let me stand on my own, albeit a little wobbly.

  We walked out of the bathroom together, and I could now say that was the second most horrible experience I had ever had in a women's bathroom.

  We saw Mfundo was standing right outside the bathroom door, keeping watch while he had a large cloth bag – which we had found underneath the driver's seat of the car – which we had filled to the brim with as much sandwiches, dried fruit packets and drinks as possible. And some (according to my parents, unhealthy) snacks, more healthy snacks, and there was a pump-action shotgun lying by his feet that we had found underneath the counter.