Blood Loss

What I image happens after the credits roll in one of my favourite movies, Drive.

He regretted taking the knife out; if he had kept it in it would have acted as a plug. The blood gushed through his fingers; he used his right hand as a temporary fix to what could be a mortal wound. He gritted his teeth through the pain and knew he had to keep the pressure on or he would lose even more blood. The road ahead of him was already growing hazy in his mind and looked more like a black chasm strung end to end with a yellow type rope then a highway. He straddled this rope keeping himself as far away from the ditch as he could. While his vision deceived him, his mind was still clear or perhaps just heightened from shock.  Either way he knew what had to be done. He needed to stop the bleeding in the next thirty minutes or his life was going to drain away into a pool by his gas pedal.

                Fast approaching was a four way light which raised a difficult choice for the driver. He had two choices. The first was lifting his hand from the blood infused geyser on his chest to reach the clutch and stop for the light. The other was take the risk of getting broadsided from oncoming traffic and keep his wound covered. The light was quickly approaching, now only two hundred metres away and shone red against his bloodstained windshield. The night was at its blackest and the moon hung low in his side mirror. He pushed down the accelerator praying that he was the only driver sweeping the roads at this time of night. A thick wall of evergreen trees blocked his view of the oncoming traffic. The sound of a radio grew louder as he approached the intersection, but at this point it was too late. If he slammed on the brakes now he would immediately enter a barrel role. No, he was past the tipping point. A truck full of teenagers clips him as he passes through the connecting point. The jukebox truck keeps on going with a cargo of inebriated youth as if it had just hit a speed bump. The bleeding driver on the other hand was sent into a fishtail. He tried to right the cars path without success. The car entered a shallow ditch; the sudden impact sent his face into the steering wheel. Momentarily stunned he stares at the steering wheel and its black leather surface. Exhaustion brought his head slowly down to the wheel. The horn went off as his now bruised forehead made contact. Now he was fully awake. He looked around for anything to cover the wound but his car was empty. The knife was still submerged by his feet. He had dropped it after pulling it out of his stomach. He fished through the pile of blood like it was that last fork in the dirty dishwater. It was under his left shoe. He grasped the handle and pulled it, dripping red, up to his right shoulder. Then he cut off the sleeve of his leather jacket and tightly wrapped it around his body to cover the wound. Now that both his hands were free he attempted to reverse out of the ditch. The wheels spun but the car didn’t budge. It was the first time he had been stationary since the failed confrontation, so he took in his surroundings. In front of him was an evergreen forest which stretched along the highway for miles until it faded into the muddled lights of the city. On the other side of the highway was a farmer’s field of what appeared to be tobacco. A quarter of a mile down the crop was the farmer’s house, a large white panelled house with a rotting collapsed garage. Beside the garage a rusted Ford parked in even worse shape.

                He staggered through the tobacco field to the house as a precaution. If he had walked on the road he would have left a trail of blood. This way if anyone was tracking him down to finish the job they would not be led directly to him by a bread crumb trail of blood. Even though he knew that he had killed everyone that wanted him dead. It was better to be safe than dead. The path through the field was rough, he stumbled through the moist soil, and it took twenty minutes for him to limp to the house. The house had no doorbell so he banged his relatively clean hand on the door ten times. Pieces of peeling paint stuck to his knuckles as he waited for the door to open. The door was answered by a scruffy man with overalls and a sun aged expression that left his face in a permanent squint.

                “Jesus H. Christ! What the hell happen’ to you?!” His voice was slightly muffled from the ridge of chewing tobacco packed underneath his lower lip.

“I need hydrogen peroxide, betadine, scissors, cephalexin, a towel and a glass of water.”

“Whoaa, hold on their son first let’s just get you sittin’ down here first, then I’ma call you some help, I aint no pharmacy I don’t have all those fancy chemicals, Jesus man, you need some help.” The man went to the kitchen to dial the ambulance. The driver could see into the open bathroom up the hall on the left. He lifted himself up and staggered to the door. The bathroom smelled terrible, the toilet seat was up and there was some tobacco residue clogging up the sink, evidently this guy was not used to company. The mirror over the sink had a thin film of dust on it. He saw his face in the mirror and was surprised by how dishevelled he looked. His thin face was freckled with blood and he had a bruise over his left eye from when he’d crashed in the ditch. His blond hair was matted to his forehead with sweat. Inside the cupboard he found a bottle of hydrogen peroxide behind a container of antidepressant pills and some toothpaste. He took of his jacket and threw it in the bathtub. Then he poured the hydrogen peroxide directly onto the wound. The pain was excruciating but the stinging had a sobering effect, it was a good sting the kind that would keep him alive. He poured some more on the bathroom towel and wrapped it around his abdomen. 

“The ambulance will be ‘ere in half an hour mister.”, the man said from bathroom door, “You just hang in there.” The nearest city, Morston, was thirty miles away so half an hour was better than he had expected. He nodded his head to the man and walked back to the kitchen table. The man sat adjacent from him. There was silence for a while with no sound except the occasional puuit… ting when the man spat into the empty tomato can on the table. He was squinting his leathery face at the driver trying to get a read on him.

“Ma name’s Roger, what’s yurs?”

“It’s not important.”

“Of course it’s important you’re bleeding on ma kitchen floor aint you?”

“My name’s Bryson.”

“Well Bryson nice to meet you, how’d you end up in this predicment?”

“Bad luck mostly.”

“Oh I see, well I’ve had my fair share of that,” he paused and spat, “you see I didn’t always live in such a sad sack of s**t house, I used to be a family man.” Bryson nodded and poured more disinfectant on his wound. This man saddened Bryson because regret and self pity dripped from every one of his words.  

“What happened?” asked Bryson.

“They got tired of me, you see I’m not the most likeable guy.”

“I don’t mind you.”

“Well I imagine it’s easy to like someone who’s keepin’ you alive.” Bryson gave a half smile but even that sent a pain to his gut. Roger saw this and realized there were more immediate problems at hand then his failed life. By this time blood had pooled on the orange green checkerboard floor, it had made an island of an overturned ashtray to the left of the table.

“Do you wanna brew?”

“No I’m fine I doubt I could drink anything without puking.”

“I could get ya beer and a bucket if you’d prefer,” Roger chuckled nervously. At this point Bryson was slipping out of time and conversation was a means of keeping him conscious.

“You’re gonna be just fine, ya hear?” Roger said as he got him a glass of water. That’s when Bryson fell off his chair with a thud; he fell to the floor beside the table. Bryson could no longer make out the edge of the table, his vision blended it with the ceiling. It was as if the world had been drained of all depth. Roger splashed the glass of water in his face.

“Hey buddy… buddy? Ya gotta get up.” The faint sound of the ambulance could be heard approaching.

“You’re almost there my man, hold in there.” Bryson closed his eyes, only now did he realize how warm his blood was against his chest. The warmth was his life and he could see it all around him. They lifted him off the ground and he tried to squint but the light was piercing. The warmth had now spread to the tips of his fingers and he clenched his hand into a ball so it wouldn’t escape. They set him down in the back of the ambulance and hooked him up with an oxygen mask.

“Come on people were losing him!”

                He could feel their voices inside himself. The only part of his body he could still feel was his thumb which he flexed side to side like a lazy hitchhiker. He no longer remembered who he was. He didn’t really care; all he cared for was the warmth which had encompassed his whole body. He wondered where he would go after the warmth stopped or if there was even anywhere to go. He hoped there was.

                “We lost him, he’s gone.” They pulled the sheet over his head and shut the doors behind him.

Reviews

[Claire Twinn]

What a breath taking story! I either wanted the hero to make it or for there to be some strange twist in the tale with the stranger who helped him, but I also like your ending!