Small Town Survival -Nineteen

19

Sam and Doc were almost to the hospital when they encountered a small boy just wandering around.

“Are you ok?” asked Doc.

The small boy just stopped and looked at him and didn’t say a word.

Sam asked him “Are your parents around?” The boy just stared at him.

Doc looked the boy over and declared that he looked physically ok, but mentally something was wrong. The child seemed to be in shock.

“Can you tell us your name?” asked Doc. Again all he got was a stare. Doc told Sam that they should take the boy with them to the hospital and see if they could help him.

Doc told the boy where they were going and asked him if he would go with them so they could find some help for him. The boy just stared, but when they started to walk again, he followed them very closely. After about 20 yards, the boy gently grabbed a hold of Doc’s shirt tail and wouldn’t let go. The three of them managed to avoid a lot of trouble and made good time to the hospital. But they were challenged when they arrived and had to convince those guarding the entrance that they did not mean any harm.

“We are just looking for a friend of ours, her name is Sandra. She is a pretty green eyed, blonde and went missing on the Day. This here is her husband, Sam.” Spoke up Doc.

“Are you talking about Sandra Cooper?” asked the guard.

“Yes, that’s her. Have you seen her?” replied Sam.

“Oh yeah, she’s here. One of the doctors recognized her when she was brought in. She’s hurt pretty bad, but the doctors think she’ll be ok. Come on in, she’s been asking for you Sam. That lady means the world to the kids here from St. Jude.”

And with those words the guards let Sam and Doc and the small boy in.

“Who’s this little one?” asked the guard.

“We don’t know, he just kind of attached himself to us. I think he needs a good going over and hopefully we can find some of his family” said Doc.

So Sam went with one guard to find his wife and since the little boy wouldn’t let go of Doc, he went with him to get a good looking over.

As Doc walked with the little boy and the guard, the guard filled him in on what’s been happening in Memphis for the last 24 hours.

“My name is Stan, by the way, and we are finally organized here at the hospital. We lost a lot of patients when the power went down; and the back up generators went out at St. Jude’s which is why they are all over here. All of the systems over there overloaded the back up generators. And for some reason, they didn’t have the fuel to keep them going for long. So here we all are and as far as we know, the only hospital that is able to take any one that gets hurt. Even the VA hospital is not open. We had some trouble at first, but once the gangs realized that if they shut us down, no one will get any kind of treatment, they backed off. They also had some help making that decision when they realized that we out armed them.” Stan finished as they approached the nurse’s station and he asked the nurse of anyone had a moment to look over the young boy.

Doc noticed the heavily armed men that were at all the doors; feeling glad that he was one of the good guys.

Stan noticed his attention and said “We unarm anyone who wants treatment of any kind, if they prove to be honest, and really need our help; they get their weapons back when they leave. If they are just trying to score or pull one over on us…well, we don’t have time or the energy for any kind of crap. We get four or five people a day that are going through withdrawal, just a couple of seriously injured ones. We had a guy come in this morning who was mauled by a lion. Can you believe some do-gooder let all the animals out at the zoo?” he exclaimed. Doc was just thinking that he was glad no one had thought to ask them if they were armed and glad that their weapons were out of sight.

With those words, Stan left Doc and the boy in the capable hands of a very pretty nurse whose name tag said Sue. “Come with me fella’s, Dr. Vern has a couple of minutes to look the young man over” and she led them to a curtained off area next to the nurses station.