The System #2 by Shelbi Wescott Read Free Book Online

paused until the wailing died down before moving to the red, stringy muscle.
    “Clamps,” she called and Ainsley answered by placing several within her reach. “Thread.” The doctor started to clamp Ethan’s exposed veins and sew several others shut. Still the blood seeped through the towels below his leg, turning the white into crimson.
    And still Ethan screamed, calling out gibberish, guttural exclamations of pain. Sweat pooled along his brow.
    “Darla,” the doctor said in a near-whisper. “If you could…there’s a bit more morphine we can use. This will be the last though or we risk overdose. Ainsley?” The young woman handed Darla a syringe as Doctor Krause continued running the blade into Ethan’s tissue and muscles and clamping the remaining, exposed pieces of his leg. Darla positioned her body against Ethan’s and then jabbed the analgesic into his upper leg. Ethan still whimpered and groaned, but his eyes closed, his head flopped to the side. His breathing became ragged and labored.
    “Check him,” the doctor said and her voice was tense and terse. Her daughter rushed wordlessly past Darla and listened through her mother’s stethoscope at Ethan’s heart.
    “Fine. Fast, but normal,” came the reply as Ainsley moved back into position.
    The doctor reached the bone. Ethan’s skin above the knee hung limply without anything to support it. Leathery and loose, it didn’t even look like skin anymore.
    “Saw,” Doctor Krause demanded and the saw was delivered. She flipped it on and the buzzing sound filled the room—Darla looked away as Doctor Krause instructed Ainsley to tug upward on the flesh to expose the bone. With ease and without flinching, Ainsley worked the fat and muscle around the bone, creating a clear path. Manhandled and cut to shreds, the inside of Ethan’s leg began to look like ground beef.
    It took four attempts, but then the bone broke free. Doctor Krause tossed the amputated leg to the ground and it fell with a thunk. Then she sprang into action, removing clamps, stitching veins, and positioning the remaining pieces of Ethan’s leg around the clean-end of the bone. She took the skin flaps and, like wrapping a burrito, folded them over the muscle and fat.
    She began to stitch the top and bottom skin flaps together.
    In less than thirty minutes, the entire procedure was completed. Ethan’s stump was stitched crudely and wrapped with layers of gauze.
    His lower leg lay abandoned on the floor.
    Blood splattered their clothes and the floor, and the room smelled like sweat, blood, and fresh meat. Doctor Krause removed her rubber gloves and shook her mask free and exhaled through her mouth.
    Ethan moaned and shifted, but he did not wake.
    “That’s it?” Darla asked.
    “No,” Doctor Krause replied. “He has risk of infection and shock and phantom pain. And morphine addiction, if we need to keep him sedated. Among other risks and worries. And I don’t have any knowledge of prosthetics…so, he’ll never walk again. If he lives. No. This is not over for dear Ethan.”
    Ainsley coughed into her shoulder and sniffed. She stood rooted to the floor, the stethoscope still around her neck.
    Darla kept her hand on Ethan’s arm and felt how hot his skin had turned. “What can we do? How can we help him?”
    “Nothing. We can’t do anything more,” Doctor Krause replied. She put a hand on her daughter’s back and gave her a small push back toward the garage. “Go on,” she said in a small voice to Ainsley. “Help watch the child. Go relieve Joey.” Ainsley obeyed, and she slipped out of the house with her head bent low, and her shoulders hunched. Then the doctor turned back and crossed her arms, looking around the room.
    “What can I do?” Darla called—her voice rising in fear and anger. “Is there anything I can do?”
    “We will stay with him until he wakes. Then we’ll move him back into his bedroom and care for him there.” She marched into the dining room and grabbed