Survive by Todd Sprague Page B

underneath. She pulled his leg again, her seemingly frail form holding more strength than anyone thought.
    Kurt kept screaming until finally he passed out. Franny said, “Keep going,” and June did.
    Finally she seemed satisfied with the leg and began wrapping it in sheets. Then she had John make a splint out of the rest of the supplies, and helped him put the splint on. They tightened it in place. With Kurt still out cold, they left him and Franny alone.
    “Do you have any antibiotics, John?” June asked him, slumping down into a chair in the living room.
    “I have some up in my first aid bag, but I don’t know if it’s enough for something like this.”
    “Well, go get them, we’ll have to give it a try. We’re going to need more, though. He won’t be the only one to get hurt, you know,” June said tiredly.
    “I know. I hadn’t really thought about it.” John got up and left to get the antibiotics. Morgan followed him.
    “John, there’s something you should know.”
    John kept walking but turned to Morgan. “What’s that?”
    “It’s getting worse out there. We saw huge packs of those things all hunting together. They weren’t just looking for people, either. We saw them take down a couple of dogs and a cow.”
    “A cow?”
    “Yeah. We passed a field and saw a pack of them chase a cow down. They just piled onto it, biting and ripping at it until it fell. And they’re all over the place. We got lucky, the fence company had a pretty good fence around it so we were safe while we loaded up, but there were thousands of them out there. No kidding.”
    “Jesus... thanks Morgan. You guys did good out there today.”
    “Thanks, boss.” Morgan said, running back to the driveway.
    “Hey, I’m not your boss!” John yelled to Morgan as he ran off. Morgan just waved a hand over his shoulder and kept going.
    Later, after he’d delivered his medicinal burden to his mother, John stood outside looking up at the partially unloaded dump truck. Patrick took his work gloves off and came over to John.
    “Looks like a good haul. I think we have enough here to go around the perimeter twice. It’s good stuff, too. Ten feet high. We can sink a foot into the ground and it’ll still be tall enough. They got a good amount of barbed wire too, for the top. It’s not razor wire but still, if anything makes it that far they should get tangled up in it. At least it’ll slow them down.” Patrick said grinning.
    “At the warehouse, there were so many of them they knocked a fence like that over through sheer numbers.” John said, frowning at the memory.
    “Yeah, I heard. We’ll shore it up with braces every ten feet or so. We’ll cut some logs for reinforcement. We can dig a ditch on the outside to make it even harder to get at the fence later.” Patrick seemed about to burst with some secret he had.
    “Alright, what is it, Uncle Patrick?” John finally asked, giving in.
    “Well, we have enough tree stands from hunting, we can put them up around the compound and have guard towers. Sort of.”
    John rolled his eyes but laughed. “Good thinking!”
     
    The unloading continued. John helped for awhile until Sara came running up to him. “Hey, babe, what’s up?” John asked, brushing his hands off on his pants.
    “I umm, I think we have a situation. You better come quick.”
    John followed Sara to the carport where the tables were set up and covered in vinyl tablecloths. Christmas lights were strung inside the carport, along with tinfoil covered balls of some sort, hanging from the center struts. John smiled at the decorations but caught himself as he heard the yelling.
    Pamela and Roy Kaminski were arguing very loudly in the far corner. Pamela had a big metal pot in her hand. Roy was bleeding from his forehead.
    “Why the hell did you do that?” he yelled.
    “She’s not dead, you asshole!” Pamela yelled back at him. She raised the pot for another swing at him but John reached her just then. He grabbed the