Francisco edged his way between the concussed guard and the women. Danny glanced curiously at him, then tightened his lips and manfully followed suit. Francisco had to swallow hard.
"Don't nobody move," Bill groaned. "Sit."
Francisco said quietly, "Lucille, I want you and Janet and Sibyl to sit in that corner over there. Janet, take Zac with you."
They moved. Bill squinted at them, evidently trying to decide which of the double images he was seeing was the ghost and which was real.
"Danny," Francisco said, when he was satisfied with the women's position, "drag that cot over here and sit down behind it, on the floor."
He obeyed. That got the women, Zac, and Danny out of the direct line of fire from the open doorway—just in case Bill decided to start shooting at ghosts. Or mammoths. There wasn't much he could do about Bill and his pistol.
"Siddown," Bill muttered.
He sat. On the floor between Bill and the others.
Then he just waited and listened. The rumble grew into a thundering wall of sound. Occasional blasts from trumpeting mammoths reminded him of old Tarzan movies. The floor shook. His medical bag vibrated on one of the cots.
The stampede swamped across them. Francisco braced. He realized he was waiting for something to crash right into the building. The door slammed open, causing him to jump. Bill fumbled the pistol on his lap, then regained control of it. Nelson and Joey retreated into the shelter in white-faced terror. Francisco caught a glimpse of massive shapes moving in the near-darkness outside.
Then the rumbling stampede was past.
For an instant, Francisco's ears registered another, incongruously loud sound in the darkness.
Nelson blinked—
A low, black shape hurtled in through the partially open doorway. It opened fire. Bill yelled and started shooting wildly. Somebody screamed. Francisco launched toward Bill and his gun. Hot pain flashed through his ribs. A brutal kick caught his side. Then he was grappling with Bill. Gunshots ripped through the main room.
Lucille screamed, "Janet!"
Bill's fingers tightened down across the trigger. Five shots blasted out of the muzzle. A shrill scream cut off behind him. Francisco twisted. He rammed an elbow into the guard's face. Bone crunched with a shocking sound. Francisco smashed his elbow into Bill's nose again and again. The bastard finally went limp.
It's over.... Relief swept through him, followed instantly by intense, gut-churning nausea. Francisco retched, then tried unadvisedly to get up. He retched again, bringing up clear fluid. C'mon, doctor, someone was hit, got to find out what's happened.... He sagged forward, instead, and fought the topsy-turvy rebellion in his gut. Wet, sticky pain clogged his side. Dimly, he saw Danny, Jr. huddled over his mother.
"Danny..." he tried to say.
Something dark loomed above him.
"Don't move!"
The voice was male, angry, scared...
Francisco couldn't have moved, even if he'd wanted. So he didn't. Whoever it was, they rolled him onto his back. An involuntary cry broke from his lips. Then he blinked groggily up at Dan Collins.
"Dan..."
"Frank?"
From across the room came a single, explosive syllable.
"DAD!"
Dan vanished from view.
Francisco tried to lever himself onto one elbow. Vertigo seized him, but the room steadied down after a moment. The sight that greeted him left Francisco cold. Janet Firelli lay sprawled against the base of the wall. Lucille was down, too, dead or unconscious. Danny, Jr. was crying. Dan had huddled down beside his wife. He was searching for a pulse.
Francisco grunted against pain and dragged himself up. "Dan—give me a hand—"
Dan Collins' face was ashen. His friend hauled him bodily across the room, without regard for his cry of pain.
"She's alive, Frank, she's still alive... ." Tears clogged his voice.
"Gimme the kit." His hands were badly unsteady.
"Janet?"
Her voice, whispery soft, said, "I'm okay. Just winged me, is all, nothing but a scratch. Lucille's hurt bad."
A bullet had struck Lucille high in the chest. The exit wound had missed her spine by an inch. The bullet had dislocated her shoulder blade two inches outward. Massive tissue damage in there. Clean it out, Francisco. You've got to pull your shit together, right now, or you'll lose her.
Francisco's hands were so unsteady he couldn't even hold a swab. Pain rushed through him, receded like the waves at Malibu, crashed back stronger than before. His own pulse was racing, unsteady. Shock, he self-diagnosed, blood loss...
From out of the grey fog surrounding him, Sibyl Johnson said steadily, "Let me." She pulled the swab out of nerveless fingers, then swore under her breath. The next moment, she'd wrapped something tight around his torso to control bleeding down his side. "Dammit, don't faint on us! Tell me what to do."
Francisco shut his eyes, fighting darkness. "Dan, get the hell out of here. Sibyl, get an alcohol prep..."
Under Francisco's guidance, Sibyl cleaned around both wounds, then taped down plastic to create an airtight seal in case she'd punctured a lung. Without X-ray equipment or ultrasound it was impossible to determine the full extent of damage and cracking her open under these conditions would kill her.
"Turn her onto her side, no, so the gunshot wounds are down," Francisco instructed, trying awkwardly to help. "If she's bleeding into a lung, she'll fill up both lungs with blood if you turn the other way. Can't do a damn thing about that dislocated bone... . Going to hurt like a mother. Don't want to hit her with a painkiller yet, not while she's unconscious." Sibyl dragged a blanket up across her. "Good, that's the best we can do." He clutched the edge of the cot, fighting the need to faint. "Now start an IV; she's in shock, her electrolytes will be messed up something terrible."
Sibyl found the vein on the fourth try, and taped the IV needle down, then started a saline solution running. Francisco showed her how to add medications, how to deal with infection and shock. Francisco's vision kept greying out as he talked her through it. When it was done, Francisco felt himself slipping.
"Will she live?" Sibyl asked, from an incredible distance.
"Hope so..." he mumbled.
She tore loose his shirt. "You did a good job, doctor. Now let me see how badly you're hit." She swabbed at his side. "It doesn't look too bad. Not nearly as bad as Lucille."
For an endless moment, all he could do was yell. Sibyl Johnson had a sadistic bent. When his vision began to clear again, she was taping gauze into place. Dan Collins had reappeared from somewhere. His friend's face was waxy white.
"Frank?"
Sibyl answered for him. "The bullet grazed his ribs. He's lucky. I take it Lucille's your wife? She's pretty bad, but we did our best. Right now she's sleeping quietly. Help me get him onto a cot, would you?"
Tough girl, Sibyl Johnson.
They lifted him cautiously and deposited him on one of the cots.
"How much of this should I give you?" Sibyl asked matter-of-factly.
He managed to focus on the small vial of remaining Demerol and a clean hypodermic.
"No, Lucille's going to need that—"
She shrugged, stuck the needle into the rubber seal, and began filling the hypo herself. "If you slip into shock from pain and die on us, what are her chances?"
Footsteps in the other room heralded somebody's arrival.
"Hey, Collins," somebody called, "where are you?"
"Infirmary."
Francisco roused himself with a supreme effort. "No, that's too much! Half that..."
She arched one brow in his direction. "That's better." She complied, using the plunger to squirt the medication back through the rubber seal so none of it was wasted, then neatly injected him before he could protest.