ENDGAMES.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway
Meeting the check of such another day:
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave until all our own be won.
-The First part of King Henry IV.
Richard Stanford had been thrust into the position of "Advisor to the King," partly because of his age (he was twelve years older than Alan and Gordy, who coincidentally shared a birthday), and partly because of the natural deference that most people accorded physicians. And although he had no real desire to lead, his calm head and analytical temperament had made him the natural choice for second in command.
Alan had proven an effective (if brooding) leader, as they made their way across the drastically altered landscape of America's Heartland. His drive, his inner passion to seek redress for his wife's sacrifice, had left him little patience for anything that deflected them from their mission. And his focus had provided a rallying point for them all.
Alan believed that the quiet boy was the only one who might lead them to that which he sought. Reed had promised him that her new companion could deliver them safely to the location of object of Alan's fondest desires: The alien artifact known as the Horn.
But fear of this strangely ineffable creature among the travelers was considerable. Even Stanford admitted (in Reed's absence) that the boy gave him "the jitters."
Nevertheless, their need for a solution was so desperate, and Alan's own thirst for revenge so great, that they entrusted themselves into the care of the quiet boy.
He proved an uncanny guide. Before joining up with him, they had been forced to travel in darkness. Alien activity seemed heavier during the daylight hours, precipitating the need for stealthy, but painfully slow progress at night.
But with the boy acting as their guide they encountered little resistance as they moved into the West. He seemed to possess an unerring knack for finding the most efficient routes.
Sitting in the back of the Ford, Reed relayed his instructions, while the boy stared out the window like a wonder-struck tourist seeing Paris for the first time, passively observing whatever took his inscrutable fancy as they passed through devastation and emptiness.
Gordy Lundgren had managed to stay drunk for much of the trip West.
They'd had to detour around Philadelphia. The roads in and out of the area were clogged with cars, many of them empty, or containing only the dead. Doubling back up to New York State, before finally finding an open highway had taken another two days.
During this time keeping off the flask he kept filled in his knapsack had grown increasingly more difficult. Finally Gordy had gotten very drunk last night.
Like many heavy drinkers, Gordy didn't suffer from hangovers. He simply "woke up," after a night of hard drinking; a little dry mouthed, but reasonably functional.
But Gordy had been drinking so much since they'd left Connecticut that Alan had finally threatened him in Ohio, telling him that if he didn't sober up, they would move on without him. Although Gordy's drinking was done mostly after they had pulled in for the day, off to himself when everyone else was asleep or otherwise occupied, Alan believed nevertheless that his drinking posed a potential threat to them all.
But the big southerner was having a hard time keeping it all together.
*
On their twelfth day out from Connecticut, in the center of Kansas, the relative calm of the last few days was shattered.
They were making their way westward along Rte 80. Stanford was at the wheel. As they passed around a long line of abandoned military vehicles, trucks and jeeps that had been left in a seemingly random sprawl that extended for nearly a mile.
"Wonder where they all went?" Stanford said.
Alan shrugged. He had been quiet, sullen all that morning. Stanford thought that he might be struggling with the same sense of foreboding that had plagued him since leaving Connecticut. Doubt and unanswered questions deeply troubled him despite his belief that Alan Whitmore's quest for the Horn was a valid one. And the boy, the enigma that had chosen to lead them to their goal, was a central figure in Stanford's internal conflict.
He glanced into the rear view mirror and saw that the boy's eyes were focused forward, as if studying a distant feature on the horizon.
What is he? Stanford thought. With a grimace, he remembered Jillian's final agonies back at the Tarrytown View Apartments, the malignant entity that had stolen her will, manipulated her as a man would use a tool or...
...a puppet, he thought bitterly.
"Slow down, Richard," Eugenia said.
Stanford snapped his eyes back to the road, ignoring the foreboding in his gut. In the distance, he made out an obstacle blocking the highway. As they drew closer, he saw a State Trooper unit lying overturned in the center Westbound lane. Its bumper rested against the rear bumper of a Greyhound bus that had come to a halt on the other side of the white line.
The windows of the bus had been smashed. In some places, huge holes had been ripped out of the side panels of the bus. Stanford was immediately reminded of the tour bus ambush Alan had told him about back in New York.
Looking at the bus, a surge of emptiness threatened to well up and spill over his eyelids.
Go around it. Don't stop.
But with a savage thrust, he shoved the voice away.
They hadn't encountered many other survivors since leaving Connecticut. Much of the region between Kansas and New York had been devastated by the invasion. But in his heart of hearts, Stanford had never given up hope that they might find others along the way. His frustration and powerlessness back at the 69th St. docks and in the days following their escape from New York, had left a vivid impression on the physician. He was unaccustomed to feeling helpless.
Striking a blow for the forces of Order and the American Medical Association; Dick Stanford M.D. to the rescue!
He stopped the Ford, keeping well back from the accident scene. If something jumped out of the bus he wanted to give the big vehicle enough clearance to move out in a hurry. He threw the truck into Reverse and pulled back to a distance of about sixty yards.
"Are we stopping?" Eugenia said quietly.
She had stopped talking to Alan altogether. In fact, she had become more and more morose as they'd headed into the west.
"We need to check, Genie," Stanford said forcefully. Despite the nagging foreboding that danced at the back of his skull, he found himself desperately hoping to find survivors on the bus. And he had grown tired of the tension that hung over the group like a storm cloud. Eugenia's sullen pouting had put them all on edge for the last three days. Anything that would distract him from this state of ever present dread would be a welcome diversion. He found it difficult to keep the excitement out of his voice even as he scanned the area for marauders. "I want to check for survivors."
Eugenia made a tsking sound in her throat but refrained from saying anything else.
Stanford and Alan stared at the bus for a moment. Then Stanford reached behind him and produced his black bag.
"Let's do it."
Behind him, Reed Maxwell shifted in her sleep. She had also changed since leaving Connecticut. She had grown pensive and quiet, especially in the boy's presence. And when he wasn't guiding them she spent more and more time sleeping. Stanford had checked her repeatedly for signs of a concussion as a result of striking her head when the boy kissed her. But she appeared in perfect health.
"I've been chosen to become his consort," she'd said, the night he appeared in the Whitmore house. But when Alan asked her what that meant she'd merely smiled at him.
"He's offered to guide us to the Horn, but he also needs a guide. I can't explain it in any other way. I don't really understand it myself. But in a way, he needs us as much as we need him."
But Stanford bristled at her use of the word "consort." That phrase still nagged at him as he opened the door. He glanced back at the boy. In the last few days he had grown more and more uncertain about their strange companion. Even now, something about his intensity of focus disturbed Stanford, rubbed at him like sand paper against an open wound.
But he ignored his misgivings. He was too excited by the prospect of making himself useful.
"What's happening?" Reed said sleepily.
"Stay here," Alan said. "We're just going to check it out."
Reed nodded. And once more Stanford found himself thinking about Jillian Whitmore.
Puppets, he thought even as he shouldered his bag.
But who's the puppeteer?
*
The three men slammed their doors and walked toward the wreck. The afternoon was hot. Insects buzzed around them almost incessantly. Alan thought he could hear the sound of flies buzzing the closer they came to the bus.
A few yards back Alan halted and spoke into the silence.
"Wait."
His voice brought them up short. His brow furrowed, Alan pointed toward the overturned cruiser. A burly forearm protruded from the driver's side window, the hand lying palm up in the center of a dried red stain.
The hand was moving.
"Shit," Stanford grated.
Gordy, his head ringing from the previous night's binge, suddenly felt the cold wash of instant sobriety trickle down his spine.
Alan gestured for quiet as he knelt down, still several yards from the overturned cruiser. They had learned early on to approach stalled cars with extreme caution. Kneeling on one knee, he attempted to see the driver.
"Hello? Can you hear me?"
There was no reply. But the arm continued to move, erratically thumping up and down on the tarmac. Alan could see the thick gold wedding ring on the third finger of the driver's hand as it lifted up and plopped down once more. He squinted, but the view of the cabin's interior was blocked. The vehicle had rolled several times before coming to rest on its roof. The top of the car had crumpled, making it impossible to see inside.
"For God's sake, Alan," Stanford grumbled as he moved toward the car.
Gordy piped up in his rumbling southern twang.
"Hey, Doc we gotta be sure, right?"
Stanford, angry at having delayed possible aid for the driver, waved Gordy's excuses away as he ran to the car and kneeled down.
"Hello?" he said loudly, so that whoever was inside could hear. "We're here to help. Can you talk to me?"
The hand and forearm lifted up again, hovering in midair for a second before thumping to the tarmac. Stanford tried to see past the crumpled roof with no success.
The arm lifted, trembled, as if reaching for help.
Eager to comfort the unseen driver, Stanford grasped the man's hand and pulled. With a slight tug the arm slid free. The forearm was attached to a shredded bicep, tricep and shoulder blade but nothing more. Everything else was gone. Blood from the severed arm pattered down on the ground at Stanford's feet and a jut of gnawed bone gleamed whitely from the severed shoulder.
The arm looked as if it had been chewed.
In disgust Stanford uttered a choked cry and threw the severed arm down.
And something with small, furred, clawed hands reached out and snatched the arm back into the car.
With a gasp, Stanford fell back, landing on his butt.
"What... what the fuck was that?"
Alan had time to curse. Then Gordy uttered a squawk of terror.
"Look! Look!"
Alan and Stanford whirled.
The fields were moving all around them. The endless sea of wheat was waving and jittering as if blown by heavy winds. Then from all around them, a coughing, barking roar suddenly filled the air.
Alan took two steps backward and stopped. Stanford was frozen where he stood.
A horde of wolf- sized animals lifted their heads out of the untended fields all around them, their eyes reflecting the sunlight like evil glints of malice. At the sight of the predators Alan's breath hitched in his chest.
They'd left their guns on the cargo floor of the Ford.
Gordy shook his head.
"No way man. I didn't sign up for this shit."
He made an ugly little sound in the back of his throat, almost like a little girl's giggle. Then he turned to run.
"Wait!" Alan hissed. "Don't!"
Something in his tone stopped Gordy. The big man looked to his left, then his right. The animals were suddenly everywhere, all around them
"Ooohhh shiiit, Al," Gordy muttered.
There were dozens of them.
In the afternoon sunlight, Alan recalled the human-faced hyenas he had seen in New York City. Their mottled, gray and brown fur seemed out of place amid the lush, golden fields of wheat. Like a stain, a great wrong in the very bosom of nature. They were like a sickness in the earth itself. Something so alien, so malignant, that they stood apart from and in glaring contrast to the natural order around them.
The predators stared at the three men standing like stone statues in middle of the abandoned highway.
"Gordy?" Alan said calmly, keeping his voice even.
"Yeah?" Gordy answered, his own voice quaking.
"Just... stand still."
Alan had seen the hyena- things run down fleeing humans in New York. They were strong and vicious, but didn't appear highly organized or intelligent.
"You ain't gotta worry about that, hoss," Gordy breathed.
Alan's eyes strayed from their position to the Ford. He gauged the distance, judged their chances of reaching the truck and the guns. Then he spoke very deliberately in the oppressive stillness.
"You're the closest to the truck. You got your radio?"
"Yeah," Gordy said.
He wore it clipped to his belt at all times, a habit they'd developed since leaving the Andrea Dorrito ashore back in New York.
"Get on it. Slowly. Tell Eugenia to make some noise."
"What?"
"I said make some noise. Tell her to honk the horn, flash the lights."
"What the hell good will that do?"
Alan kept his eyes moving over the dozens of shadowy hulks that moved back and forth through the fields. In the distance, the predators were crossing back and forth across the highway. All of them were looking toward the humans now.
Alan kept his voice level as he spoke.
"Listen to me. I've seen these things before, in New York. I think they might be pretty slow- witted. Brute strength, but not a lot of brain power. I think if we can scare them..."
"Scare them?!?!" Stanford gasped.
Alan's eyes never left the moving wheat.
"Yes, that's right," he said quietly. "They attack in packs, like coyotes or wild dogs. If we can make enough noise, scatter them, just long enough to make it to the truck..."
"And the guns," Gordy rumbled.
"Maybe we can make it," Alan said.
At the thought, Gordy felt his mind draw its focus down to a little pinpoint of calm. He usually only felt this sensation while drinking.
Guess I'm runnin on pure adrenaline, he thought. Well then, I guess that's good enough.
He was tired of being scared, tired of running. The thought of laying his hands on a shotgun and letting off some steam was enough to momentarily quell his fear.
"I get it, Al."
"Good. Tell Eugenia to hit the lights and blow the horn like crazy. Do it very slowly. No sudden movements"
Next to Alan, Stanford stood rooted to the spot.
"My God," the physician said. "They're going to kill us."
"Stop it, Richard," Alan growled.
But Stanford couldn't control his fear. The things surrounding them terrified him more than anything they'd yet encountered. But on a deeper level, they offended Stanford. He sensed that they were wrong somehow, antithetical to everything he believed about the natural order. The invaders' motives were understandable; power, resources...
But the hyena-things were an abomination.
Stanford's teeth wouldn't stop chattering. And for a moment, he thought he was slipping into shock.
"Richard," Alan warned. "We can make it."
"No... we can't, you idiot. We can't..."
"Be quiet, Richard," Alan hissed.
Alan eyed the growing number of snarling predators in the wheat surrounding them. Several of them had stepped out of the fields and were restlessly moving back and forth across the highway. To Alan, they had the look of scavengers, strong, but fearful, powerful, but only when acting in concordance with a larger group.
One of the hyena things turned and snapped at a second smaller one. The two tumbled out onto the highway in a furious jumble of snarling, mottled fur and fangs. Finally, the larger hyena chased the smaller one yipping back into the wheat. A pained yelp, followed by a cacophony of growls and shrieks burst from the field where the two had disappeared.
With a shudder, Gordy slowly unclipped his walkie-talkie from his belt and pressed the Send button. His movement elicited a flurry of low snarls from the predators.
Eugenia had locked the doors at the first sign of trouble. Now she was staring out the window, her head shaking back and forth in silent denial.
"Goddamit, pick up the goddamn radio, Eugenia, Gordy bellowed, eliciting an eruption of snarling off to his left.
Eugenia finally picked up the walkie-talkie in the Ford which now seemed impossibly distant.
"Y...yeah?"
Gordy breathed a sigh of relief.
"Genie, honey,' Alan says you got to make some noise."
"Wh...what?"
"Make some noise, darlin' Blow the horn. Yell and scream like hell."
"But..."
"Just do it, sweetie. We gotta get to the truck and these bastards are blockin' the way."
"But what good...?"
"Listen to me, now. When I give you the signal..."
He was cut off by a burst of snarls from very nearby.
Gordy felt his anger draining as he turned frantically about in a full circle trying to see everywhere at once. He hissed into the walkie-talkie.
"Goddamit, when I wave, you lean on that horn like the staff of Moses."
"O...okay," Eugenia sniffed.
Gordy could hear the tears building in her voice even over the radio. He suddenly recalled Alan telling him that Reed Maxwell had almost single-handedly taken out one of these monsters in that theater back in New York. She'd burned the goddamn thing to Kingdom Come with resin and a torch.
"Tell her to hit the lights too," Alan said. "Throw some of those flares out into the wheat. Maybe we can give them something else to worry about."
Yeah, take their minds off samplin' our asses, Gordy thought.
But he relayed Alan's instructions.
"Oh, and unlock those doors, darlin," he added.
He saw her nod and reach behind her for the box where they kept the emergency road flares. Then he looked back at Alan. He and Stanford had drawn close together, as if leaning on each other for moral support. Stanford's eyes were wide as he eyed the moving wheat.
"Do it," Alan hissed.
Gordy turned and waved at Eugenia. She was clutching one of the flares in her trembling hands. Lowering the window, she broke one open and tossed it into the field on her left. Alan turned to Stanford and grabbed his right arm in a sweat-drenched grip.
"Alan, I'm not... I can't..."
"Run at them like you mean to kill them," Alan grated, ignoring Stanford's terror. He was focused on getting them through the gauntlet of creatures that was swiftly growing every second they delayed.
"Scream and yell, wave your arms. Make yourself as big and menacing and crazy-looking as you can. Then, when they back off, go for the truck."
Stanford closed his eyes and nodded.
Another flare popped out of the window of the Ford. It rolled across the highway and stopped just short of the field adjacent to the driver's side.
Then Eugenia blew the horn.
Alan, Gordy and Stanford moved as one.
A cluster of hyenas had crept into the road, blocking their path to the relative safety of the Ford. When the horn sounded the hyenas turned in unison toward the source of the noise. Releasing a bloodcurdling rebel yell, Gordy ran right at the hyenas, waving and screaming like a lunatic. Several of the creatures started, surprised by the sudden noise and movement.
"Go!" Alan thundered.
Screaming and waving their arms, Stanford and Alan rushed at the nearest group, five hyenas led by a huge male that had stepped out of the wheat field and were inching toward them.
The large male creature bristled at the challenge. But as Alan and Stanford rushed toward it, it flinched. With a yelp, the hyenas turned and fled barking into the wheat.
"Move!" Alan screamed.
Alan and Stanford changed direction and headed for the truck. But with a murderous howl the hyenas burst from the wheat field and pelted after them. There was a horrible moment when Alan heard their slobbering cries drawing closer. The thumping of hand-like paws shook the earth.
Gordy reached the truck first. Eugenia opened the door and slid over so Gordy could dive in. But a scream from behind Alan pulled him around.
Stanford lay on the ground in the center of a whirling cluster of hyenas.
Alan stopped running just as a hyena leapt out of the nearest field. With a gibbering shriek the creature body-slammed Alan to the ground. As his head hit the tarmac with a dull thud, Alan smelled the fetid, carrion stench of the thing's breath as it chuffed into his face.
The hyena thing's snout plunged toward his throat.
Alan got his left forearm up just in time to block the hyena's thrusting fangs. Sharp pain flared as the hyena's jagged, razor sharp teeth snapped together, crunching the flesh and bone of Alan's forearm. For a second, bright flashbulbs went off behind Alan's eyes and he shouted in pain.
Alan managed to bring his knee up sharply into the creature's mid torso. The impact rattled through his leg and up his spine. It felt as if his knee had struck a heavy bag filled with wet sand.
But even as the hyena thing let out a whoooshing sound, it only increased the pressure of its bite. With a stubborn shake of its powerful neck and shoulders, it began to drag Alan across the highway and into the churning wheat.
Terror lent strength to Alan's limbs as he slammed his right fist into the man-like face of the alien scavenger. A glancing blow to the thing's ear brought a yelp of pain from the beast.
An explosion nearby set Alan's ears ringing.
"Git off him, you lousy piece of ..."
Gordy's expletive was drowned out by the roar of the shotgun. Alan saw the twisted face of the hyena thing shear away in the scatter- blast, felt wetness patter down onto his cheeks as the creature flipped off to one side.
Alan was on his feet in a second and Gordy was there at his side, the shotgun clutched in one hand. He reached into his waistband and flipped Alan the Colt .45 he'd grabbed from the back of the Ford. In a blur of movement a Mac 10 appeared almost magically in Gordy's other hand.
Three hyenas lay dead nearby. But more of them ran about in the wheat all around them. Gordy fired another shotgun round into the nearest field, screaming like a madman. A scream of pain answered him, followed by snarls of terror as a plume of black smoke billowed upwards from the dry field.
The smell of burning was growing heavy in the air.
Alan whirled to see what had happened to Stanford as Gordy guarded his back. The fallen physician had been surrounded by a dozen of the hyena- things. He was bruised and battered, his shirt torn in a dozen places. And he was covered in blood. One eye had been smashed shut and his left arm hung limply at an unnatural angle. He lay on one side, cradling the broken arm as he kicked desperately at the aliens as they swirled and snapped around him.
Several hyenas were fighting and tearing at each other, trying to get at the wounded human in their midst. A large male darted in, attempting to rip Stanford away from the others. For a second, the creature managed to grab Stanford's right leg in its powerful jaws. The monster tugged and jerked at the struggling physician, trying to yank him out of the circle. Stanford screamed in agony.
"Help me!"
But the creature was swiftly buried beneath a heaving mound of fighting scavengers.
Gordy aimed the Mac 10 at the swirling beasts. But Alan swept the hot barrel down.
"What are you doin'?" Gordy screamed.
"You might hit him!"
"What the fuck are we supposed to...?" But Gordy was cut off by a fit of coughing as the smoke from several fires blew across the highway. Eugenia had lit several more flares and tossed them into the dry wheat field. A flurry of panicked hyenas was madly fleeing the leaping flames. Sparks leapt up from the fires, crossing the dividing line of the highway and setting the wheat ablaze all around them. In seconds, the dry, untended fields became an inferno.
And the Ford was dead center of the blaze.
Four hyenas, yelping as they fled the flames, scrabbled toward Alan and Gordy. The big southerner swung the barrel of the shotgun toward the fleeing creatures and pulled the triggers. His shot took one of the hyenas in the throat and flipped it over onto its back. The other three veered off, passing around Alan and Gordy to plunge into the adjoining field.
"We gotta help him!" Gordy screamed.
Alan threw a glance over his shoulder as a hyena flashed behind him and his eyes widened.
"Look!" Alan grabbed Gordy and pulled him around.
The quiet boy was striding purposefully toward the fighting creatures. His head was up, his nostrils flaring wide. As he walked he opened his arms as if to embrace a long lost friend.
Alan 's heart sank when he saw that Reed Maxwell was at the boy's side.
"Reed!" Alan cried, moving forward even as he did.
Suddenly, he was up and running.
They hadn't seen Reed and the boy leave the Ford, hadn't noticed them pass by. But now the two of them were walking toward the hyenas like two lovers rushing to attend a concert.
The scavengers suddenly stopped fighting. As Reed and the boy approached, the creatures sniffed the air as if they'd scented something tantalizing on the burning wind.
One of the scavengers released a bloodcurdling howl. In unison, the scavengers broke away and pelted toward Reed and the quiet boy.
The boy kept moving, but Reed stopped. Alan and Gordy reached her and Alan grabbed her by the shoulders to drag her back from the scene. But she shook him off. Her whole body was trembling. Her eyes were wide. With a hushed, reverent tone, she whispered to no one.
"Even these lowlies know and respect his power." "Let's go," Alan hissed. "Reed? What are you doing?"
But she would not be moved.
The things had formed a snarling circle of snapping fangs and howling madness around the child-thing that stood calmly in their midst. In the center of the swirling beasts, the boy lifted his hands once more, as if in welcome.
Some of the scavengers snapped and feinted at the boy, as if offering him a challenge. But as the quiet boy surveyed the creatures swirling around him he smiled.
Suddenly, the largest of the scavengers, the same one that had challenged Alan and the others, broke ranks and padded forward.
It was huge, its head nearly level with Gordy's. The creature seemed to sniff at the air as it studied the boy. Then the scavenger yelped. Tucking its stub of a tail between its hind legs, the scavenger ducked and scraped its tailbone along on the highway as it approached the quiet boy. Whimpering, the massive scavenger crawled on its belly and lay its head at the boy's feet.
The quiet boy lifted his foot and stepped on the hyena's head. The thing whined, its back legs scrabbling on the tarmac as if preparing to launch itself away. But it did not run.
The quiet boy's eyes gleamed with malignant joy as he pressed his sneakered foot down. With inhuman force, he crushed the hyena's head into the tarmac.
Reed Maxwell hissed, sucking her breath between her teeth.
A second scavenger approached and lay down beside it's dead pack mate. The creature followed the same ritual, placing itself below the quiet boy's foot only to meet the same fate.
One by one, every scavenger that had not fled the fires emerged from the smoke and offered themselves in sacrifice. One by one they all received a similar death.
Dimly, Alan was aware that Gordy was praying next to him. But he couldn't tear his eyes from the ritualistic slaughter playing itself out before him. A pile of dead scavengers lay sprawled across the smoke- covered highway.
Alan felt nothing. He was unmoved by the slaughter taking place in front of him. He had burned out his capacity for horror, it seemed. He was numb.
The quiet boy however was anything but numbed. His eyes were aflame; his lower legs shining and red as he tramped joyfully back and forth access the dead scavengers.
Like a boy stamping his way through a puddle, Alan thought.
As he danced, the boy turned and grinned at him through gore- stained teeth. Reed Maxwell walked over to the boy, heedless of the pools of blood and carnage through which she moved. The quiet boy ignored her. Even so, she stood attentively at his side while he played.
Tearing his gaze away from the slaughter, Alan moved to off to help Stanford.
The physician was in bad shape. Alan and Gordy left Reed and the quiet boy to their own devices while they carried him back to the Ford. His left arm had been broken in three places. His body was a mass of bites, gouges and scratches. He had been dragged and pulled to and fro by the creatures as they'd fought for the right to devour him.
Alan got Stanford's shirt off and rolled him over and Eugenia gasped. Stanford's back looked as if it had been scored by a cat o' nine tails. Horizontal and diagonal slashes cris-crossed the area between his shoulder blades and the small of his back. In places his skin had been chewed, bitten through where the scavengers had tried to grasp him and pull him away.
And he had lost a great deal of blood.
He regained consciousness while they attempted to lay him in the back of the truck. Through clenched teeth Stanford told them about the morphine he had brought along in his case. After showing Alan how to work the hypodermic, Stanford commented wryly on the irony of his being the first one of them to need it. Sweating from the pain, Stanford guided Alan and Gordy, and together, they managed to set and bind his broken arm.
Then he passed out.
To be Continued...