She looked over at Thor sound asleep next to her on the rug. “A lot of good you are,” she whispered. The dog opened one eye, gave a half-hearted wag of his tail before letting out a contented hiss of breath as he settled down again.
Emily had spotted a full-length mirror hanging on the wall in the hallway when she entered. It was too far from the light of the fire for her to see very well, so she lifted it from its hook then carried it back into the living room, resting it on the cushions of the couch. She angled her body until she could see her back as clearly as possible and twisted her head over her right shoulder until she could make out the four puncture marks just below her right shoulder blade. They didn’t look as bad or as deep as they felt, she decided with some relief. Blood had already congealed in the wounds but the skin around the edges of each puncture was puffy and had turned an angry looking red. The punctures were directly below the curve of her shoulder blade, so every time she moved her arm the bone and muscle would agitate the wound, which hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. She’d been lucky this time, the wounds weren’t life threatening, as long as it wasn’t already infected.
Emily examined the rest of her body in the mirror. Scratches and dried blood—both hers and that of the monsters she had killed—covered her hands and face. Just below her left breast was a nasty looking bruise that covered the flat of her abdomen and extended around her side and onto her back. Emily gently probed around the area checking each rib. Nothing was broken, thank God, but it was going to be sore as hell for a while.
She was tempted to use some of her precious water to clean off; she felt like she hadn’t showered in months. Instead she reverted to her supply of Wet Wipes, spending the next ten minutes gently wiping away the grime and blood, first from her feet, then making her way up her legs and finally her remaining upper half. By the time she was finished she looked almost presentable… she smelled strongly of lemons, but certainly passed for human again.
Emily had unpacked the first-aid kit from the bergen already. She had a tube of antiseptic cream and some clean gauze ready and waiting. She cleaned the wounds with a couple of iodine soaked pads making sure she pulled out any bits of dirt that had collected in the wound. She twisted the top off the tube of antiseptic cream and applied the pungent smelling cream to her wounds, stretching to reach the furthest hole with the tips of her fingers. The remaining cuts and scratches received similar treatment.
By the time she finished Emily was beginning to feel a little better. No way was she going to win a beauty pageant anytime soon, but at least she was clean and patched up. The gauze she had intended to cover her injuries wasn’t going to work though, she had no way to reach back there and accurately position it to cover all the wounds, so instead, she opted to simply put on a clean tee-shirt.
Emily looked down at Thor. The dog was still fast asleep on the rug in front of the fireplace, as though saving a random stranger’s life from alien invaders was something he did every day. She walked over as quietly as she could and knelt down next to the dog. He didn’t open his eyes when she started stroking him along his spine, but his tail beat a gentle rhythm against the hearth of the fireplace and he stretched all four legs out and gave a rumble of contentment.
“Have I told you what a good boy you are?” she whispered in one cocked ear. His tail beat a little faster as he graciously accepted the praise, but his eyes still stayed closed. She ran her hands down his side and over his flank, searching for the wound she had seen him nibbling at earlier. Her fingers ran across the cut an inch or two below his ribs. She probed around the area as gently as possible; the only indication of discomfort the dog gave was a slowing of his tail wagging. She parted the fur to one side and leaned in to examine the dog’s wound. It looked nasty: a six-inch long tear that, if it had gone any deeper would probably have taken stitches to fix properly. She unscrewed the antiseptic tube and applied some of the cream to her fingers, then, as gently as she could, Emily spread the cream over her new friend’s wound, working it in past the fur until she was sure the entirety of the cut was covered.
Thor gave a low whimper.
“Stings, I know,” she said, “but it’s for your own good.” The dog’s tail thumped the floor with renewed vigor. “Okay, big boy,” she said, when she was finished and confident that was the only wound the dog had received during the fight. “How about I fix us some dinner? You hungry, boy?”
The mention of food seemed to get Thor’s attention because he instantly flipped over onto his front, fixed his eyes on her and let out a half-yawn half-whine that clearly conveyed that he thought food was a really, really good idea.
“Okay, let’s go see what we can find to eat.”
Emily pushed herself to her feet, wincing at the pain in her shoulder as the t-shirt rubbed against the cuts on her back. “I think I have something you may like,” she cooed to the dog padding alongside her while she walked over to where she had left the bergen.
Her poor backpack looked like it had been through a shredder. Several pouches had split open and slashes crisscrossed the back of it where the creature had attacked her. She would deal with that later, what was more important was getting some food inside them both.
Emily untied the top flap of the pack and rooted around inside until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out the bag of jerky strips.
“Perfect,” she said. Thor was now sitting obediently next to her staring at the bag in Emily’s hand. She tore the top strip from the bag and instantly smelled the astoundingly delicious aroma of the dried meat. Her stomach began doing cartwheels. Thor began drooling.
She fed the dog several pieces at a time. He devoured them without even bothering to chew, gulping down six pieces before Emily had even finished one. “Jeez!” she said, laughing as she handed him more of the jerky. “When was the last time you ate anything?”
That was a good question. There didn’t seem to be any food source around the area for the dog. She hadn’t seen any rabbits or squirrels. In fact, when she thought about it, she hadn’t seen
“Okay! Okay! Just slow down.”
They shared the packet of jerky between them, but it was obvious by the time Emily showed Thor the empty bag that neither of them were satiated. “I’ve got an idea,” she said, checking through the bergen again.
“This should do the trick,” she said, pulling four square cans of corned beef from the pack which she then took into the kitchen.
She placed the cans on the counter and used the integrated opener to open the first. Thor sat obediently next to her, but he did not take his eyes from the food for one second. In one of the kitchen cabinets she found two soup bowls. She mashed the entire contents of one of the tins of beef and fat into smaller pieces, breaking the meat apart until it became a soft mush and placed it in one of the bowls. The other bowl she filled with water and added a large glass for her.
“There you go,” she said and placed the two bowls on the floor next to the dog.
Thor looked at the food then back to Emily then back at the food again. He gave a small whine of frustration. Emily looked at him, confused for a moment before she understood what was wrong: this was a well-trained dog. He was starving but he wasn’t going to touch the food until he was told he could. Like a soldier, he stood obediently waiting for the go-ahead from his new mistress.
“Eat, you silly dog,” she said and patted him on the head.
The dog must have been a magician in another life because he made the food disappear in a second. Ignoring the water, Thor stared at the now empty food bowl. He sat back down and looked up at Emily, who had managed barely make a dent in her own dinner in the time it had taken him to devour his in its entirety.
“Wow,” she said, impressed. “Okay. You get one more can, doggy. I don’t want you being sick.” She picked up the bowl, opened a second can for the dog, and placed it back on the floor. It took just a nod from Emily before he began eating, this time at a slightly more leisurely pace.
Apparently satisfied with his dinner, Thor took a few deep gulps of water then cleaned the final few morsels of meat from the bowl with his tongue before curling up at Emily’s feet, letting out a contented sigh and closing his eyes once again.
Emily finished her own meal and washed it down with a few swigs of water from her bottle. Her shoulder hurt sufficiently that she decided it warranted a painkillers that she swallowed with a few more gulps of water. Walking over to the fireplace, she warmed her hands on the orange flames as they danced in the hearth.
She smothered a yawn with her hand and realized how incredibly exhausted she was. It was definitely time for sleep.
