The Journey to Freedom: Path to WW3

Chapter L

Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not a lot of people can balance on it.

Hunter S. Thompson

Out of the darkness a coyote lunges at me and bites me on the right shoulder. I panic and roll around with the coyote. I can hear Eve screaming from the scare while the coyote locks its jaw while growling.

"Oh my god, Nicholas!" Eve yells.

I pull on the coyote's ears and roll over on my knife. I start to grab it and another coyote bites me on my arm. I see Eve get close to me as I put my body weight on the coyote that has me by the shoulder. Eve puts the gun next to its head and shoots it. The other coyote lets go and takes off scared from the sound of the gun. I finally pick up the knife and tell Eve to go back to back and have the gun ready.

"These things always come in packs, don't be surprised if another one shows up," I tell her.

She replies, "I hope they don't come back, besides the gunshot was loud, I'm sure they already scattered somewhere else."

We stand back to back for a few minutes and tell Eve to go over by the fire. I grab my medical kit and go over by the fire to start patching myself up. Eve turns on her flashlight and points it to my arm. "Oh my god! We need to get you to a hospital fast!" Eve exclaims.

I open up my medical kit and then put the knife in the fire. I start to get the alcohol wipes and Eve takes them from me. "Just tell me what to do and I'll do it," Eve tells me.

I tell her to wipe my arm with as much alcohol wipes that are in there and when she does, my arm burns and I let out a painful groan. She just looks at me while cleaning me up. I tell her to get the knife and put it over the puncture holes and cauterize the punctures. She just looks at me like I'm crazy.

"Do it, Evelyn. I won't ask twice." I tell her.

She grabs the knife and its red from where it was by the fire. The moment that it touches my skin I let out a loud yell. She puts it on a few more punctures, then puts some alcohol on my burns, some antibiotic cream on them and finally puts the gauze over my arm until it's nice and snug. She wraps my arm until the bleeding is contained. I just see her face and the tears fall. I tell her that she's doing a good job. She looks at me and thanks me while smiling. She tells me that I'm bleeding from my shoulder and she puts the knife in the fire. She starts to do exactly the same on my shoulder.

"I see that you are starting to get the hang of it." I tell her.

She just gives me this look of distraught. "You wanted me to learn how to fend for myself in the wild and alone and now I'm here taking care of you. Isn't this cheating?" She tells me agitated and sad at the same time.

I close my eyes from the pain on my shoulder and scream through my teeth when she puts the knife on my puncture wounds from the coyote bite. Once she's done cauterizing my wounds and patching me up. I try to hold in my tears from the pain and it doesn't help, they still come out. Eve hugs me tight and without realizing that she's hurting me, I hold in my pain and just hug her back.

"I thought that the coyote had you for sure. But once the second came out of nowhere, I thought that we were both dead and did only what I could think of and get close enough to shoot it in the head." Eve tells me crying.

I shush her and stroke her hair gently. "It's ok, in a way I'm glad it happened while I was here. I'm sure that if I would've left then the coyotes would've done you in while you were sleeping. I rather get hurt and you take care of me than me not make it in time to save you when they came. How would I explain it to everyone? Maybe it was better this way, this way you know what to do in this kind of situation now. How to patch someone up and what to expect next time in the same or similar scenario." I tell her.