Pushing on
I couldn’t keep thinking about Simon. Instead, I looked through the equipment that Carter collected before the rain took him. Laid out the map and tried to figure out where we are, where we need to be. Tried to work out a route to the hospital.
Thorpe asked me why I was bothering. He’s come out of his silence to snap at everyone with poisonous pessimism. I almost took his head off. I told him to go ask Nugget if we should just forget the hospital trip and fester here forever. Not to mention that there might be real help there, actual contact with organised people.
The kid is still not doing well. She has one blown pupil in a bloodshot eye and she isn’t awake much. (I had thought that she was a he, but apparently I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I’m not doing much right at the moment, it seems. I feel like I’m stumbling all the time.) Sax managed to get her to eat today. I don’t know enough about headwounds to help her; I just know that it’s bad and she needs proper medical care.
I don’t want to lose her too.
I found a truck down the street that will hold all of us. All of us that are left. I spent most of the day going over the engine, trying to figure out if we can get it going. All those years watching my dad fiddle with engines seem to be useful for something after all.
I can’t think about my dad right now. It makes my throat close up; it makes me useless.
Ben came to help me; he’s often at my elbow lately, which is helpful considering that I still can’t use one arm. We managed to figure out that the truck’s battery still has juice but the ignition is dead. Then the rain forced us to scurry back inside.
The laptop is almost out of juice. How will I cope when that happens? My writing arm is broken – I can’t hold a pen. I don’t know what to do about all the things that are broken.
Someone just asked if we should bury Simon. I have no idea what to tell them.
Tags: Simon, Thorpe
- Category: 03. Aftermath,Uncategorized
