I yelled at them every step back to the Train.
I pushed them inside and pulled one of the futon sofas in front of the door.
“You stay in there until it’s safe!” I shouted. “We’ll come and get you when it’s safe.”
They cried and sobbed inside, banging on the door.
Astrid and Sahalia were curled up together on the other futon couch in the Living Room.
Astrid was singing to Sahalia.
Robbie was dead. Brayden had been shot, and now Astrid was singing to Sahalia. I had to keep the facts straight or I might go crazy. Those were the facts.
I raced back to my friends.
“This is bad, this is bad,” Jake kept repeating. It must have all felt like a very bad trip to him.
Josie was crying on the floor, the gun lying next to her on the linoleum.
Niko had Brayden lying on the floor and was pressing both his hands down on Brayden’s shoulder. Blood was all over Niko’s arms and shirt. Brayden was soaking with it.
“I’m trying to stop the bleeding but I don’t know what to do,” Niko said, looking up at me with pure panic in his eyes.
I ran to the Pharmacy.
Alex was there, scrambling to gather as many bandages in his arms as he could.
It was dark. It was hard to find anything because the store was so dark.
“Bring those to Niko and then go turn the lights on, okay?” I said.
“But the power!” he protested.
“We need light!” I answered. “We need to see what we’re doing.”
“Okay.” He gulped and ran off to obey.
I needed something to stop the bleeding. I knew stuff existed because once our neighbor fell off a ladder and opened up a huge gash on the back of her head.
The EMTs had sprinkled a powder on it. Some kind of powder to stop bleeding.
I jumped over the pharmacy counter. The place was a mess.
What the hell has Jake been up to back here? I thought.
The lights came blinking and twittering back on.
I squinted, at first.
Then I started scanning the shelves.
I grabbed the pain pills Jake had given me. Those would help Brayden.
I couldn’t find that bleeding stuff. I didn’t know what it was called or anything.
I grabbed some of the antibiotics Niko had given to Mr. Appleton and I ran back.
The crime scene looked much, much worse with the lights on.
“We gotta get this body out of here!” Jake was nearly crying.
“We will, Jake. We will,” Niko said tersely. “Shut up about it.”
Robbie had been pushed backward by the force of the bullet and lay slumped against the shelves.
Blood and clumps of tissue (brain) were spattered over the decorative steering-wheel covers behind him.
And under his legs an oil slick of blood was spreading slowly.
Niko had made a square pad of bandages out of the supplies Alex had brought and was pressing down on Brayden’s shoulder with all his might.
“I couldn’t find that blood stuff,” I huffed, out of breath.
“It’s slowed,” Niko said. “I think the bleeding’s slowed. But he’s lost so much blood.”
I took Brayden’s uninjured arm and tried to find a pulse.
“He’s cold,” I said to Niko.
“I know.”
“Where’s Josie?” I asked.
“Astrid came and got her.”
“We have to do something about the body, guys!” Jake wailed. “It’s freaking me out.”
Niko looked at me.
“Can you get rid of it?” he asked.
“You don’t need my help?” I said.
“Alex will be right back,” Niko said.
I turned to Jake.
“Okay, I’ll get rid of the body,” I said. “But you have to help.”
Jake was crying now, tears streaming down his face.
“It’s my fault, it’s my fault,” he moaned.
“Stop, Jake. I need your help.”
“I can’t do this,” he said.
“Yes, you can. Just… just don’t look at him,” I told Jake.
I grabbed Robbie’s hand.
It was cold and heavy. Like clay. A clay body.
I took the one hand and Jake took the other.
“Oh God,” Jake groaned.
We flopped Robbie onto the air mattress. His body landed with a sick, wet sound.
I picked up the comforter, which had been lying on the floor, and covered the body with it.
“Come on,” I told Jake. “Pull.”
We pulled the air mattress back to the storeroom, leaving a grisly trail behind—blood running in parallel lines—as if the air mattress was a flat paintbrush trailing firehouse red.
Jake had blood all over the center of his body and his arms. We looked like we’d just butchered a cow.
“I’m scared,” Jake said.
“I know, Jake,” I said.
“I don’t want Brayden to die,” he said, breaking into sobs. “Christ! I have to get myself together.”
He wiped the tears away with his forearm, which was spattered with blood.
Jake and Alex were assigned to cleaning up the blood, while I helped Niko to bandage Brayden.
We cut Brayden’s shirt off. Niko swabbed him down with that orange stuff and then asked me to hold the bandage down hard while he wrapped the whole shoulder with gauze.
It was wet and disgusting to do this. The bullet had taken a chunk off the shoulder. The flesh was raw meat, horrible and messy. I could see white bone under the torn meat.
I tried not to black out.
“Keep the pressure on!” Niko commanded.
I closed my eyes and pressed down hard.
Niko didn’t think we should move him too much, so I went and got a new inflatable mattress.
Me, Niko, Jake, and Alex lifted him, as carefully as we could, onto the air mattress.
Niko sent Alex for space blankets and Gatorade.
Niko continued to attend to Brayden while I helped Alex and Jake finish cleaning up.
By the time we finished, there were eight trash bags filled with blood-soaked paper towels, dirty wet wipes, empty bottles of bleach, etc.
After what felt like hours and hours of hard, gruesome work, the kind of work nobody ever, ever wanted to have to do, Niko finally said:
“I think he’s stabilized enough.”
“Stabilized enough for what?” I said. Maybe he was in good enough shape that we could wash up and change clothes. We looked gruesome beyond belief.
“Stabilized enough for us to go talk to Sahalia.”
