Hatchetfield Stories

Fuck Clivesdale!

Last week I walked past a dentist in my neighborhood and there was this weird van parked in front of it and it had 'mobile anesthesia center' on it in big letters and my medical fear said nope but my weird writer's brain saw an opportunity lmao

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
-Hospitals
-Medical stuff

-Amputation
-Blood

-Injury

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Paul had come back from the theater relatively unharmed, considering he had been in the middle of an exploding building, holding the grenade. A few blue and red stains contrasted his white shirt, but he had gotten away without any major injuries.

Emma, on the other hand, was laying in a puddle of her own blood, the crimson liquid still pouring from her thigh, despite Paul's tie being wrapped around her leg in an attempt to slow the bleeding.

"Paul?" Emma groaned, her hands slipping on the blood when she tried to sit up.

Paul hushed her, easing her back down. "Emma... Save your energy, okay? Here." He draped his suit over her broken body to keep her warm in the evening breeze.

She melted into the soft fabric, closing her eyes and reaching her hand up to cup his cheek. Feeling a thick substance making its way up her throat, she rolled onto her side, coughing out a blob of blood. The movement sent a jolt of pain through her body, and she let out a pained moan, sitting up and wiping the blood from her lips.

Both of them froze when they heard footsteps approach the wreckage. Emma was the first to react, reaching for the gun and flicking off the safety with one swift motion. Her hands trembled as she aimed the firearm in the direction of the sounds.

"Colonel!" someone shouted, turning his head, but still approaching the pair. "There are survivors here!"

A woman jogged towards them. "Good job, Johnson," she told the soldier, before kneeling next to Emma's shaking body and gently taking the gun from her hands. "Oh, what have they done to you?" she mumbled, inspecting the injury with her flashlight. Emma looked away when she got a proper look at her fucked up leg "Johnson, tell HQ we need a medic asap."

The soldier nodded, running away to follow the command.

"Who are you?" Paul asked the woman, his eyes darting between the woman, Emma, and her injury.

"Colonel Shaffer. PEIP." She showed him her badge. "Listen, I have to get you guys outta here, but no one can leave the island until we're certain you aren't one of them zombies. Our medic is on his way, and he'll fix ya right up!"

Paul and Emma shared a glance, before nodding. Before Emma knew what was happening, the woman had one arm under her knees and one supporting her back, and she was lifted into the air.

Emma's body spasmed at the blinding pain shooting up her leg, washing over her like a tsunami of agony. She cried out as the colonel adjusted her grip, and before she could even catch her breath, they were running away from the crash site.

Her leg exploded in white-hot pain with every movement, and the blood dripping from her mouth soon got mixed with the tears streaming down her cheeks.

Luckily, it wasn't too long before they reached PEIP's temporary camp, and more soldiers surrounded them, taking Emma from the colonel's arms. Someone opened the backdoor of a black van and spread a plastic sheet over the bottom.

Emma was placed on top of it, and they let her catch her breath while some soldiers talked to Paul and the medic.

Soon, Paul sat down next to her, carefully lifting her head so it could rest on his lap. Emma sat up when the medic approached, stepping into the van. He smiled reassuringly.

"Emma, right?" he asked, and Emma nodded. "We cannot take you to a hospital until we're sure you're not infected, and taking even more blood to test for spores than you've already lost doesn't seem like a good idea, so I'm going to help you with your leg here, alright? This isn't the most sterile or stocked environment, but I have all the supplies I need with me. Paul, put on this mask." He handed him a mask, and looked through his supplies while he put it on.

"I am going to numb the area," he explained, tapping her leg just below the injury. "But because we can't monitor you as closely as we could in a hospital, and we don't know how this infection will react to these drugs, it wouldn't be responsible to give you our strongest anesthesia. It will significantly reduce the pain, but there's a possibility you will still experience some discomfort."

Emma nodded hesitantly. "You know, getting surgery in the back of some sketchy fan was always on my bucket list," she joked, laughing nervously in an attempt to both lighten the mood and distract herself when the medic filled a syringe. She laid her head down, closing her eyes. She flinched when she felt the needle piercing her skin, desperately trying to push the thoughts of her professor away as the plunger was slowly pressed down, though she almost wished the syringe was filled with whatever he had used against her, if that would mean a break from all the pain and fear.

"Feeling okay?" Paul asked, and Emma opened her eyes, staring at his frown. She nodded, even though her vision was slowly getting blurrier, and it was getting harder to keep her eyes open as more blood dripped down the side of her leg in a steady stream.

The agonizing pain quickly faded to a distant throbbing, and she took a relieved breath as the medic put on some clean gloves, opening a bottle of disinfectant and setting it aside.

"I'm going to pull it out, alright? Paul, can you make her bite down on this?" he handed Paul a washcloth, which he rolled up and carefully forced between her teeth. The medic gave her a quick warning, before the pipe was pulled out, the screws on both ends ripping her flesh open more.

Now, it wasn't the worst pain she'd felt, but the sudden agony made her vision go black for just a second, and her back arched as Paul grabbed her shoulders to keep her in place. Before the pain even subsided a little, the disinfectant was splashed over her leg, a hand on her knee to keep her from kicking out.

She was able to catch her breath when he put the bottle away, and she tensed when he grabbed a scalpel. "What are you doing with that?" she asked, her voice trembling as she tried to move backward.

"Your bone is completely shattered. I have to at least get the splinters out before it can heal," the medic explained, positioning himself next to her leg and moving the limb to get a good view of the wound. "If we're lucky, amputation is not needed, and you will pass out in the process."

Emma winced, holding her breath as he cut into her thigh.

It was weird, seeing the blade and tweezers dig around in her leg, but barely feeling more than a distant pain, hidden behind a wall of medication and adrenalin.

To be honest, she was exhausted. When Paul cupped her chin to make her look away from the gory mess that was her leg, she blinked at his slowly, the blur that framed her vision growing bigger.

"Keep breathing, okay? Just focus on my voice," he instructed, and she took a deep breath as her eyes grew heavier.

"Paul..." she moaned weakly.

"Shhh... It's okay, you're in good hands. When you wake up, we'll be able to get out of here. Just hang on."

Emma nodded, but what she didn't see was the medic making a sawing motion just above her leg, and Paul going pale as he tried to bring some comfort, talking to her as her eyes fell shut, his voice gentle and soft, before the medic went to work.

*** *** ***

The first thing Emma noticed when she woke up was the hand playing with her hair.

Next came the throbbing pain radiating from her leg, and the steady beeping of a heart monitor next to her ear.

It took her longer than it should have before she realized the beeping was her heartbeat. She opened her eyes with a groan, gripping the soft sheet covering her fragile body, while trying to ignore the painful tug on her forearm.

"Emma?" Paul whispered, stopping with stroking her head.

"Fuuuck..."

Paul chuckled, taking her hand as she tried to make out his face of the blurry colors as her eyes adjusted to the bright hospital room. "We got out of there," he explained when he saw her puzzled look. "They made sure we weren't one of them, and they took us here. We're in Clivesdale."

Emma let her head fall back with a groan. "Fuck Clivesdale."

Paul laughed. "Yeah... Fuck 'em." He kissed the back of her hand. "I'm getting the doctor, okay?"

Emma nodded with a smile, looking around the white room, before pulling the blanket away to look at her leg. What she didn't expect was to look directly at the mattress, her leg cut off just below her hip, the stump covered in bandages.

She barely noticed the door opening.

"Emma?" Paul asked, concern clear in his voice.

"It's fine, I didn't need my leg anyway," she muttered, her eyes fixed on the blood-stained bandages.

"Miss Perkins?" the doctor spoke, sitting down next to her. "You've had quite the fall. Is it alright if I check for any other injuries while I walk you through what happened?"

Emma gave a small nod, wincing as he used his thumb to keep her eye open so he could check for a concussion.

"Your femur was completely destroyed," he started, pulling out a flashlight and checking her pupils. "There was no way we could've saved your leg before you lost too much blood."

Emma gritted her teeth. "Surviving the apocalypse and losing my leg wasn't what I expected when I woke up." She let out a forced laugh as the medic made sure her ribs weren't broken.

"Once I was sure you weren't dying, I took some blood to send to our lab. We left as soon as we got the results, we took you here and gave you some blood, antibiotics, and pain medication." He inspected the clipboard that lay on the nightstand and flicked through the pages.

"When you've recovered, Colonel Schaffer will make sure both of you can move on. A house, a car, money, everything you need to start a new life. In the meantime, you can stay here, in Clivesdale."

Emma groaned dramatically. "Fuck Clivesdale!"