Savage Drift

Binwa is trying to coach Astrid through the contractions and I am losing my mind. Astrid screams with each contraction and it is not supposed to be this way. This is not going how it should and I can see that from Binwa’s face, which is twisted with worry and anguish.

“You do what’s right for her!” I shout. “Give her what she needs, for God’s sake!”

Binwa tells me to shut up, she is doing the best she can and I am not making it better.

Sometimes we hit potholes as we wail through the streets and I think I am going to throw up or faint, the pain is so bad. But Astrid’s screams bring me back to the horrible, terrifying moment. Yes, they do that.

It is dawn outside and we are speeding through some small town in Maryland.

“You’re doing great, Astrid,” Binwa says. “This is labor. This is natural.”

But I know she is lying. This is what it looked like when someone dies. Binwa is not doing everything she can for Astrid.

“Your body knows how to do this. You just need to relax.”

Binwa presses her fists into the small of Astrid’s back when a contraction comes.

The van is going down, into a tunnel.

We lurch to a stop and suddenly people are opening the doors.

Four medics bustle in and start sliding the gurney out.

Binwa is going with them and one of the doors swings shut. I push it open and follow them. No one is stopping me. No one is even noticing me, somehow.

I trail them into the bright lights of a hospital. We’d entered through an underground entrance.

They are pushing the gurney and I run to keep up.

JOSIE

“Please!” I plead. “I don’t want to. Please. I don’t want to.”

“You can’t force her to do it!” Niko shouts. “Please, somebody help us!”

“James!” comes a booming voice. “What the hell is going on here?”

It’s the other doctor, Cutlass’s boss, Savic. He has a soldier with him. A soldier carrying a machine gun.

“Please, Doctor. I’ve… I’ve changed my mind,” I tell him.

“She signed the consent form, Dr. Savic,” Cutlass spits at the other doctor. “She signed your precious form and now it’s all legit.”

“No,” he says to me. “You didn’t sign a consent, did you? Sandy didn’t tell you?”

My answer’s in my eyes.

Cutlass grabs Dr. Savic by the arm.

“You told Sandy to tell Josie not to sign? How dare you interfere with one of my test subjects—”

Everything is still for a split second and then double doors at the other end of the hall burst open and in comes a swarm of people surrounding a gurney.

DEAN

“You’ve got to do a caesarian NOW!” Binwa shouts.

“Adamson wants to examine,” one of them says.

“Well, where the hell is he?”

I have to hold on to the gurney. I have to hold on because my head is splitting open and I might fall down.

“Who’s the zombie?” one of the ER guys asks. “Orderly! Take this kid away!”

“Get her to the OR!” Binwa shouts and I stumble, falling. I am on my knees. I reach out my hand. The gurney is sliding away from me.

Someone grabs my arm. I try to stand. I have to stand.

“Astrid!” I shout. “I’m here!”

JOSIE

All heads are turned toward the other end of the hall.

The gurney’s zooming at us and then I hear: “Astrid? Astrid Heyman?”

Dr. Cutlass is looking at the gurney with utter shock on his face.

It is Astrid.

It’s our Astrid.

“This is the Type O teen multiple-exposure pregnancy,” one of the doctors with the gurney says. “The one who got away from us up in Quilchena.”

They start to move past us but I scream and lean over the gurney, hugging her legs.

“Astrid!” I say. “It’s me, Josie. It’s me!”

But she’s moaning and crying. She doesn’t recognize me.

DEAN

I scramble to my feet and push away from the orderly.

One step, two steps and I stumble to Binwa. They’ve all stopped.

I look up.

It is Niko and Josie.

“Josie,” I say. “You cut off your hair.”

They are here. Somehow in the hospital. What?

“Dean!” Niko shouts. “How the hell did you get here?”

I want to ask the same thing but suddenly I am sobbing. It all just bursts out of me.

“Jake left us and Astrid got sick and I couldn’t find help anywhere—”

Josie hugs me and the doctor with them is staring at us openmouthed.

“I’m scared,” I say. “I think she’s going to die.”

JOSIE

There’s blood on my hands. It’s Dean’s. The bandage on his head is leaking blood down the back of his shirt.

Dr. Cutlass is looking at me.

“Can we go with them?” I ask him. “Our friend needs us.”

“You know Astrid?”

There’s something going on in the doctor’s eyes. They’re clear. Present. I feel like, maybe for the first time, the man is actually with us.

“Move out of the way!” a gray-haired lady shouts. “We’ve got to get this girl into the OR!”

Dean is leaning on Niko now.

“It’s okay, Dean. She’s gonna be okay,” Niko is telling him. Dean is barely standing on his feet.

“Dr. Cutlass,” I nearly shout. “We were all trapped together in a store in Monument, Colorado, for two weeks. We’re like family.”

They’re leaving now, going down the hall and Dean stumbles after them. He calls to Niko, “Please come with me. I’m scared. I’m scared and my head’s not working right!”

“Please!” I beg Cutlass. “These two are family to us!”

“That girl is Astrid Heyman. She’s the girlfriend of my son’s best friend,” Dr. Cutlass says. “You’re from Monument?”

“Brayden Cutlass,” Niko says, remembering. “Brayden’s last name was Cutlass.”

Dr. Cutlass grabs Niko by both arms.

“You knew my son?!”

DEAN

Josie and Niko come maybe five minutes later. A short Asian nurse is with them. She is smiling so widely her face is all teeth.

They have taken Astrid into the OR.

“They said I had to wait,” I tell Niko and Josie as they sit down beside me on either side. “They told me to wait out here. Astrid’s having the baby.”

“We know,” Josie says. “You told us.”

Had I? I couldn’t seem to remember from one minute to the next.

My thoughts are muddled again. Worse than before. I know that much.

“There’s something wrong with my head.”

“Looks of it, you have a concussion,” the nurse says, peering into my pupils.

Josie picks up one of my hands and squeezes it.

“I never thought I’d get to see you again, Dean.”

“Astrid’s having the baby now,” I tell her.

“We know, sweetie. It’s gonna be okay.”

“Everything is going to be okay,” Niko says. He takes my other hand in his. “We’re together now.”

“That dressing needs to be changed,” says the nurse, peering into my eyes. She goes off for supplies.

“I can’t believe he let me out of the testing,” Josie says, across me, to Niko.

“He let you out of the spinal tap. He still wants blood and spit and God knows what else.”

“Yes, but none of those will kill me.”

“Who wants your spit?” I ask.

“Brayden’s dad.”

“He works at NORAD,” I say, remembering.

“He was going to do a procedure on me, but we told him all about Brayden. About how we all were together, and about how we tried to get his son to safety.”

“Josie?” I say.

“Yes, Dean.”

“Astrid’s having the baby. And I’m scared she’s going to die. I tried so hard to keep her safe.”

“Of course you did,” Josie says. She rubs my shoulder. It is so good to be with her. She always feels like home.

“Astrid’s having the baby,” I tell her.

The nurse comes back with some gauze and stuff. I lean my head forward and rest it on Josie’s lap.

The nurse puts something on that stings. Then she wraps up my head again.

She also hands me a little cup with two pills in it and a big cup of ice water.

We wait.

Josie and Niko keep stealing grins at each other, saying, “I just can’t believe he let us go.”

I know I should ask them how they got there to the military hospital, but I don’t want to. I just want to sit and be quiet and think about Astrid.

We sit there that way for a long time.

Then the lady Binwa comes out.

She has on an orange suit. At first I don’t recognize her. But then I remember her and the ambulance ride. I remember feeling so angry at her, but now I am glad to see her.

“Dean,” she says. “Dean. You’re a father.”

Josie laughs aloud. Niko claps me on the shoulder.

“They’re working on Astrid now, fixing her up. Baby’s fine. Premature, of course, but lungs are good. They’re both going to be fine.”

“Astrid’s okay?” I ask. “She’s all right?”

“She did beautifully, Dean. They stopped the seizures. Did a caesarian—had to be done. But she looks great.”

“She’s okay?”

“She’s fine,” Binwa says, pushing a piece of hair out of my eyes.

She turns to go back through the double doors.

“Wait!” I say. There is something I should ask.

Binwa turns back to us. “Astrid’s just fine, Dean. And you’ll be feeling better soon, too.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s the baby. What is it? A girl or a boy?” I ask.

“It’s a little boy,” Binwa says. “Four pounds, eight ounces.”