[Georgia 03] Fallen

hospital. She listened to the medics run down vitals as she pulled back the gauze over his belly. The entrance to the wound was thin, probably from a kitchen knife. The edge was rough from the serration. There was very little fresh blood, indicating a closed bleed. The gut was distended, and the telltale odor of rotting flesh told her that there was not much that she would be able to do for him in the ER.
    A tall man in a dark suit jogged alongside her. He asked, “Is he going to make it?”
    Sara looked for George. The security guard was nowhere to be found. “You need to stay out of the way.”
    “Doctor—” He held up his wallet. She saw the flash of gold shield. “I’m a cop. Is he going to make it?”
    “I don’t know,” she said, pressing the gauze back in place. Then, because the patient might hear, she said, “Maybe.”
    The cop dropped back. She glanced up the hall, but he was gone.
    The trauma team set up immediately, cutting off the man’s clothes, drawing blood, connecting lines to hook him up to various machines. A cut-down tray was laid out. Surgical packs were opened. The crash cart appeared.
    Sara called for two large-bore IVs to force fluids. She checked the ABCs: airway clear, breathing okay, circulation as good as could be expected. She noticed the pace slow considerably as people began to realize what they were dealing with. The team thinned. Eventually, she was down to just one nurse.
    “No wallet,” the nurse said. “Nothing in his pockets but lint.”
    “Sir?” Sara tried, opening the man’s eyes. His pupils were fixed and dilated. She checked for a head injury, gently pressing her fingers in a clockwise pattern around his skull. At the occipital bone, she felt a fracture that splintered into the brainpan. She looked at her gloved hand. There was no fresh blood from the wound.
    The nurse pulled the curtain closed to give the man some privacy. “X-ray? CT the belly?”
    Sara was technically doing the regular attending’s job. She asked, “Can you get Krakauer?”
    The nurse left, and Sara did a more thorough exam, though she was sure Krakauer would take one look at the man’s vitals and agree with her. There was no emergency here. The patient could not survive general anesthesia and he likely would not survive his injuries. They could only load him up with antibiotics and wait for time to decide the patient’s fate.
    The privacy curtain pulled back. A young man peered in. He was clean-shaven, wearing a black warm-up jacket and a black baseball hat pulled down low on his head.
    “You can’t be back here,” she told him. “If you’re looking for—”
    He punched Sara in the chest so hard that she fell back onto the floor. Her shoulder slammed against one of the trays. Metal instruments clattered around her—scalpels, hemostats, scissors. The young man pointed a gun at the patient’s head and shot him twice at pointblank range.
    Sara heard screaming. It was her. The sound was coming out of her own mouth. The man pointed the gun at her head and she stopped. He moved toward her. She groped blindly for something to protect herself. Her hand wrapped around one of the scalpels.
    He was closer, almost on top of her. Was he going to shoot her or was he going to leave? Sara didn’t give him time to decide. She slashed out, cutting the inside of his thigh. The man groaned, dropping the gun. The wound was deep. Blood sprayed from the femoral artery. He fell to one knee. They both saw the gun at the same time. She kicked it away. He reached for Sara instead, grabbing the hand that held the scalpel. She tried to pull back but his grip tightened around her wrists. Panic took hold as she realized what he was doing. The blade was moving toward her neck. She used both her hands, trying to push him away as he inched the blade closer and closer.
    “Please … no …”
    He was on top of her, pressing her into the ground with the weight of his body. She stared into his green eyes. The whites were crisscrossed with a road map of red. His mouth was a straight line. His body shook so hard that she felt it in her spine.
    “Drop it!” George, the security guard, stood with his gun locked out in front of him. “Now, asshole!”
    Sara felt the man’s grip tighten. Both their hands were shaking from pushing in opposite directions.
    “Drop it now!”
    “Please,” Sara begged. Her muscles couldn’t take much more. Her hands were starting to weaken.
    Without warning, the pressure