Chapter 5: Only Minutes Left
Grace Peters
The limbs of bushes and trees bounced up and down in the wind. The droplets of rain made a refreshing pitter-patter on the ground below them. The thunder struck moments after the lightning flashed in the night sky. The storm was upon them. It was moments like these that made Grace want to cuddle up by the fire with a blanket and a cup of coffee. I had no fire, I had no blanket, I had no coffee, and Leo was bleeding out.
"Fuck!" Grace yelled, dropping to the ground to help the man she had just met. She had just let one friend die. She wasn't about to lose this guy too. "Why didn't he tell us he was injured? What do we do?"
"Keep your voice down!" Noah said, frantically, gesturing toward the ground. "They can hear you. Normally, I'd rip off a piece of my shirt to make a tourniquet for the wound, but it's around the side of the body. No piece of my shirt could reach that far."
"Well, what do we do?"
He bent down and put his hands underneath Leo, lifting him into the air. "I'm guessing you don't have any giant pieces of cloth in that car of yours?"
"No. I don't." Grace answered.
"Then we're booking it down the road. First house we see, we're breaking in and finding a blanket. I've seen my fair share of wounds like this before. I say we got about half an hour before he's gone." He started to walk down the road, and Grace followed him.
"That's breaking and entering!" She argued. "You do know that's illegal, right?"
"Grace, there ain't no law anymore." He told her. "Not after what I saw down in the city. And if the police force is still trying to enforce the law, then us breaking into a small house in the middle of nowhere is not their biggest concern right now."
Grace shrugged. It felt strange that she was willingly going along with a plan that involved breaking into someone's house. But right now, it was become a robber or lose Leo, and she wasn't about to lose Leo, no matter how little she knew him. "Fine." She sighed. "We'll break into some house, but we're taking a blanket. That's it."
"You may change your mind once you get there." He continued. "Trust me; the concept of stealing is not a new sensation to me. You're inside a house, and you see something you need, you take it. Don't matter if it's wrong or not. You need it. They'll do fine without it. And in these times, you'd be a damn fool not to take it."
"I'm only stealing the blanket." Grace said with a certain confidence, one that would not leave her voice. "Now let's go." She gestured toward the road, and they continued running. She started to feel wheezy, but pushed harder. She was never a runner. She had to keep reminding herself, that she was doing this to save Leo's life. Every step she took was for him. Every step was for staying alive. Grace turned her head away from the blackness of the asphalt to the raindrops falling from the sky. It was much easier to run faster if she wasn't looking at the ground.
"Can you load the gun for me?" Noah asked her between gasps of air. "Just take it out of the holster there. There are rounds in the backpack."
"Sure." She said, withdrawing a huge breath. She reached her arm over and grabbed the gun out of his belt. It was heavier than she thought it would be...more metallic...more unfeeling...more deadly. She slowed down a small bit and ran behind him. It felt awkward trying to unzip his backpack while running, but she managed it. She reached into its cloth frame and pulled out and handful of rounds.
"Good." He told her, pulling his arms up to try to find a more decent way to hold the man in his arms. "Now pull the bottom out of the handle." Grace did as he instructed, and pulled the empty chamber out of the bottom of the gun. She put six bullets into it and clicked it back into place. The gun was loaded. "Okay." He huffed. "The rest is simple. Pull the top back until it clicks, aim and pull the trigger."
