Chapter 4: Alone (1/2)
Zac had an ominous feeling and prepared to look around in the vicinity for tracks or signs of where his friends had gone. However, a dizzy spell reminded him of the most pressing issue. Almost falling, he went to the car and brought out the small green box with the first aid kit from the trunk.
He then limped to the camper, whose door was standing ajar, and hesitantly went in. The interior was completely empty as well, with no signs of either friend or foe. Scared that the smell of blood would attract more monsters, he firmly closed the camper’s door. Luckily, it was one of the few spots that hadn’t been dented by the demonling’s rampage. Zac finally slouched down on the sofa, not caring that the blood would stain the fabric.
He put the box on the small dining table and opened it and first grabbed the small bottle of surgical spirit. By this time his face was drenched in sweat from the pain, and his hands were already shaking. Putting all the things he needed next to him, he started to prepare for his treatment.
Slowly and gingerly, he took off his shirt and pants. Luckily, the blood was still wet and hadn’t had time to coagulate and stick to his wounds. Still, the pain was a hundred times worse than ripping off a Band-Aid as he removed the clothing.
The claws of the beast had raked a long gash on his waist, and three additional but slightly smaller on his left thigh. There was finally the last wound on his right calf. While the wounds looked ghastly, it actually did not seem as bad as he feared. The cuts seemed clean and straight, and the bleeding had somehow almost stopped by now, turning into a slow trickle. He could only hope that it meant that he was getting better, and not that he was running out of blood.
Knowing what came next, he almost whimpered when grabbing a water bottle and a gauze swab. He carefully poured the water over the wound at his waist to clean out the blood and dirt, and the agony almost made him pass out. Gritting his teeth and blinking away the tears falling from his eyes, he then grabbed the alcoholic solution and poured some in the wound as well. The wound didn’t look inflamed, but he didn’t dare skip this part, even though it felt like he was being ripped in two from the alcohol.
His face was like a beet by now, sweat pouring down and veins throbbing out on his forehead. Finally, he took some surgical tape and taped the wound together, and then wrapped some bandages a few rounds around his waist.
The first part down, Zac just sat panting for a while. He closed his eyes, and a wave of exhaustion hit him like a truck, almost making him pass out then and there. However, there were still wounds to treat, so he roused himself again with some difficulty.
Zac did the same procedures on his legs, and by the time he was done, his face had gone from red to a ghastly white. His hands were shaking so bad that he could barely grip the water bottle when he downed the last of its contents in a few big gulps. He was so weak he barely managed to make it to the bed in the back, and as soon as he hit the pillow, he passed out even though the suns still stood high in the sky.
They were still shining brightly through the window when Zac woke up. Was there no longer any night now that there was an additional sun up in the sky? He stretched a bit and found out that while far from healed, he did feel much better than he did before. His bandages were red with blood but not wet, so the bleeding seemed to have stopped. He also didn’t feel that intense pulsing agony anymore, and it was replaced by a lesser throbbing pain.
He still had problems keeping weight on his left leg, though, and almost fell when moving toward the fridge. The second thing he noticed when waking up, besides his wounds improving, was a fiendish hunger as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks.
He ambled to the fridge and found out it didn’t work anymore, and some food was already starting to spoil. The monster had probably broken something while creating the various dents in the mobile home. He picked up a few sausages they’d prepared yesterday before they ran out of firewood, and a couple of slices of bread. Then Zac finally relaxed with a bottle of water after he had virtually inhaled the food like a starving ghost.
The others still hadn’t returned. Zac was afraid they either were dead or had fled without looking back. Both scenarios were grim, and the possibility of the second left a sour taste in his mouth. He took out his phone from his pocket, but it was mangled and bloodied beyond redemption, likely from one of his tumbles.
Luckily, they had prepared an emergency phone in the camper in case something went wrong, and he opened a cupboard and took it out. The phone was in working order, but it got no reception. This was weird, as they’d had a decent signal yesterday. Even if they were camping and enjoying the wildness, they wouldn’t stop at a spot with no reception, as no one was ready to go a whole day without surfing on their smartphones.
He also noticed from the time that three whole days, not one, had passed since the world went mad. He truly had blacked out hard after tending his wounds. The date only further reduced the chances of his travel mates and Hannah coming back. At least it also probably meant that the monsters kept to their territories and didn’t wander around as much as he feared. He wasn’t sure he would be able to handle another of those demon dogs at the moment, even with knowing their weaknesses from the last fight.