Bower hadn’t heard anyone walking around or talking since the shooting, at least no one human. The alien creature moved around sporadically, but seemed to be giving her a wide berth, and that was fine with her.
Elvis gave her something to focus on. He hadn’t regained consciousness, and she was worried about him. There was no way of knowing just how much blood he’d lost. The shock of a major amputation would have killed most people, but Elvis was a fighter. Bower’s medical training kicked in and she set about caring for him.
Hah, what a joke, she thought, caring for a severe trauma case with no medical equipment while locked in a cellar with a murderous alien. Only it wasn’t a cellar, was it? The windows had been sealed from the outside with steel plates, but she could see through the cracks into the moonlit street outside. And it wasn’t a murderous alien, at least not in her case, not yet anyway.
Bower felt she had to stake out some territory. She didn’t feel comfortable remaining in plain sight beneath the gaping hole in the upper floor, but she didn’t want to chance upon the alien either. She dragged a mattress from the center of the floor, dragging it across beneath one of the steel plates blocking the windows. A thin strand of light pierced the cracks between the plates. Somehow, having a faint glimpse of the outside world gave her hope.
Two of the mattresses near the bottom of the pile were still in their original plastic wrapping. Bower smiled, lost in thought. This would be the closest she’d come to anything sterile. She moved those two as well, leaving the rest of the mattresses where they lay.
Bower tore the protective sheeting off one of the mattresses and reversed the plastic, reasoning that these strips of plastic and cloth taken from a sealed mattress were the closest thing she’d get to fresh bandages and dressings.
Elvis was more difficult to move than the mattresses. Bower pulled him over to the darkened window by grabbing him under his armpits and dragging his legs. She laid him on the plastic she’d turned inside out, with the mattress beneath him, all the while aware she was being watched by otherworldly eyes.
In the half-light, she got her first good look at his arm. The tourniquet was tight, much tighter than she remembered, but that was good. Not only would the tourniquet stem the flow of blood and compress the nerve channels, it would stop the spread of bacteria back into his body. Looking at Elvis, there wasn’t much that could be done for him outside of arranging a medi-evac, and that wasn’t going to happen.
Even if she could get a medi-evac, there wasn’t much that could be done for him in-country. In any other circumstance, he would have been sent to a specialist US military hospital, either stateside or in Germany. He needed skilled surgeons working on him. The nerves and arteries would require microsurgery to close off properly. His body armor had protected his torso, otherwise the blast would have killed him outright. Bower counted five scraps of shrapnel in his vest, each one larger than a silver dollar.
Bower figured an experienced surgeon would probably amputate the remains of his arm right around where the tourniquet was set. It wouldn’t leave much of an arm, but he’d live. She was daydreaming and she knew it. In reality, she was surprised he wasn’t dead already.
Combat morphine, she suddenly thought. No, it was fentanyl they carried these days, something much stronger than morphine, and it wasn’t in a syringe, it was like candy, something to suck on. From memory, it looked like an elongated lollypop, only without the stick. Bower rummaged through his pockets and the packs lining his belt. Nothing. As Elvis lay there, she inserted her finger gently into his mouth and felt around on the inside of his cheeks. She could feel a sticky substance inside his left cheek. He’d self-administered, and rightly so, and that had been how he’d endured the pain as long as he had.
Using a jagged scrap of metal, Bower cut into the edge of one of the mattresses and tore long strips of material to use as bandages. She wanted to clean and treat his wound as best she could. It was pointless; deep down she knew there was nothing she could do for him. He’d probably linger on for a few hours, perhaps a day, but then he’d die. She had no way of replacing the fluids he’d lost, let alone the blood, and no way of providing him with antibiotics or an intravenous feed, no painkillers, no antiseptics. She was staying busy while he died regardless, and that realization broke her heart.
Bower sobbed.
“Don’t you die on me, Elvis. Don’t you dare. You’re a soldier, damn it. You need to fight for your life.”
He couldn’t hear her, she knew that, but still she spoke, if only for herself.
“Come on, Elvis, you old hound dog… Come on, you’ve got to show me those blue suede shoes… Love me tender, Elvis. Don’t… be… cruel…”
She pushed her fingers up against his jugular, searching for his pulse. It was there, but it was weak and erratic.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry I got you into this. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
Was there anything she could do for him?
Sitting there on the side of the mattress, Bower heard a soft, steady drip. Somewhere, there was a water leak. It was just the distraction she needed. She could wet his lips. Even just a few drops of water in his mouth every minute or so would get absorbed by his body. It was pathetic, but she couldn’t admit that to herself. She had to get Elvis water. She had to do something, anything. In some ways, Elvis became a proxy for her own life. If she could keep him alive it gave her hope for herself.
Bower took several of the torn strips of cloth and followed the wall, listening for the drip. Rats scurried as she approached, or were they insects? And what about the alien? In her concern for Elvis, she’d forgotten about the terror waiting in the dark.
Bower stepped lightly, inching forward slowly with one hand running along the wall, as much for comfort as for guidance. Her heart was racing. Her ears pricked at the slightest sound. She’d never known such darkness.
Further along the floor, moonlight drifted through cracks in the various sealed windows, teasing her with the promise of light. Bower crept onward with one hand tracing the wall and the other out in front of her to avoid bumping into anything in the pitch black of night.
Suddenly, her outstretched hand touched something unearthly. Bower could feel the soft flesh of her palm resting against dozens of stiff spikes, sharp tips like needles. Her heart raced, her breathing stopped. Slowly, she pulled her hand away, only on breaking contact she had no idea where the alien was or what it was doing, and that terrified her even more. When she touched the spikes, the creature had been still. In the darkness, she could hear the alien moving, she only hoped it was moving away from her. Gingerly, she reached out again, feeling at the air. Nothing.
Why would it do that? Why would it block her path? Or was it as blind as she was in the darkness? What did it think of her approach? Did it think she was seeking it out? Her mind raced with the possibilities as fear welled up within.
“Water,” she said. It was irrational, that much was obvious, but Bower felt she had to declare her intentions, even if there was no hope of the creature understanding her. “I need water. We need water or we’ll die.”
There was silence.
“Water… Two hydrogen atoms sharing electrons with a single oxygen atom, forming a simple molecule via a covalent bond.”
She wanted to explain what she needed in scientific terms, as best she could remember them from her high school chemistry classes, but none of this would make sense to an alien and she knew it. And yet, hearing words spoken in the darkness was soothing. By speaking she was making her presence known, she wasn’t sneaking around. She hoped the alien understood why she had spoken, even if it didn’t understand her words.