Chapter 5 - He

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*Warning*

Bad night pictures. Still don't know why night pictures always seem EXTRA... uhm... pixellated - pixel-ish?

Whatever...

(Seriously though, don't know what I'm doing wrong)

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‘Binny! It’s a man! There’s a man in his truck!’ Marina said – stating the obvious – panic in her voice. Lubinnia ran from the other side of their truck to where Marina was standing. And sure enough there he was, lying in fetus position. Binny found herself staring with an open mouth – eyebrows in a frown. As shaken up as she was, her first thoughts still went to wondering if that was really a guy. The long hair didn’t help much in determining the sex of the person before them. Eyebrows still in a frown, she turned her attention back to Kenny, their neighbor.

‘Where did you find him? …uhm…It is a him, right?’

‘Yes, it’s a man! I got fooled at first too, thought it was a woman! He was on the side of the road when I returned from the fields. It looks like he’s been beaten up pretty badly. There were some blue spots, but they’re not that visible anymore. And some bloodstains... I think they’re dry now… or not!’ he said glancing at the small, but newly forming blood puddle under the man’s body.

‘He’s bleeding?! Binny, we have to help him… Let’s get him inside!’

‘I don’t know… I mean, what if he’s a criminal?’

‘Binny!’ Marina scowled, already touching his feet.

‘W-wait… what if he has a KNIFE?’

Marina froze. Even Kenny had a weird look on his face. Bet that thought never occurred to him when he lifted the guy into the truck.

All eyes were on the stranger as he lay there – still, like he wasn’t even breathing.

Then a soft groan of pain escaped his lips. While soft, it was still loud enough for both women to hear. Lubinnia winced and Marina made up her mind. He was in pain. Even if he was dangerous, right now he wasn’t capable of hurting anyone.

‘I’ll take my chances with that knife. Help me get him inside’

Lubinnia shot an unsure look at their neighbor. ‘I’d love to help, but I think I’ve already sprain my back lifting him the first time’ he said apologetic.

Lubinnia dragged her feet to where Marina was holding the stranger’s legs – Leaving her to deal with the upper body. High heels and all she climbed onto the pickup truck and shifted him towards the end. She got down and together they carried him to the house.

‘He’s quite light, don’t you think?’ Binny strained. You could cut her sarcasm with a knife.

‘Funny, Just don’t drop him okay, he’s bleeding as it is…’ Marina struggled keeping his legs from scraping the ground. She moved her arms from his legs to his thighs so she could walk a bit straighter – relieving herself of the pressure she felt gathering in her lower back. The movement shifted his head, lifting it slightly. The porch-lights fell on his face and Marina breath threatened to leave her.

He was a man alright, and a looker at that. No, that didn’t do his features justice. Handsome was the word.

‘Hey-hey, don’t daze off… It already feels like I‘m carrying dead-weight over here!’

‘Dead-weight? We still have to carry him up the stairs, or did you forget that part!’

‘Ugh! Who came up with the stupid idea of making the guestroom upstairs?’ Binny could kill that person right now.

‘That would be you…’ Marina strained as they reached the stairs to the upper level of the house. ‘You decided you wanted the room close to the kitchen, so the one upstairs automatically converted into guestroom’

‘Jeez!’

Reaching the bedroom they disrespectfully tossed him on the bed like he really was dead-weight. Mean, but he was heavy. Binny took care not to let his bloodstained clothes stain the bed. Holding him up she inspected the stains – checking to see if it was safe to remove the clothing. Most of the stains on his jacket appeared dry except for the one located directly beneath his heart. That was most likely the cause for the puddle in the truck. It was still dripping…

When Marina returned with the first-aid kit and some towels, they quickly, but carefully removed his jacket and shirt. The dirt on them suggested that he had been lying and/or crawling in the dirt for quite a while. He was weak… she could only imagine how much blood he must’ve lost. He was lucky to still be alive.

Binny switched places with Marina to boil hot water and get some more clean towels. In the drawer she found some pants that seemed his size. They belonged to an ex-flame of hers… Good thing she didn’t burn them already. She helped Marina get him into the pants and made haste for the kitchen.

To Kenny, who had followed them to the room, it pretty much seemed as if they had it under control, so he took his cue and started for the door. ‘I’d best be going; I know he’s in good hands! Again, sorry to have disturbed you, but he’d be dead now if I had to take him to the hospital’

‘No, Kenny, you did good in bringing him here. Most of the cuts aren’t that deep. He has lost a lot of blood, but if we can get the bleeding to stop… with some time he’ll be fine’ Marina assured him sponging off the stranger’s, in her opinion, well developed broad back. ‘Any idea who he is?’

‘No’ he replied shrugging his shoulders, ‘I searched for some ID, but he had nothing… not even a wallet! Will you girls be okay, with him here? I mean, I know you can take care of yourselves, but still…’

‘Yeah, we’ll be okay, don’t worry!’ Marina said keeping the dripping blood from reaching the clean pants or dripping on the bed. Even his hair curled strangely with the dried blood in it. Letting him lean sideways against her, she started to dab the wet sponge on his hair to smoothen it out.

‘Besides, If he makes a wrong move, I’ll just hit him with my golf-club!’ Lubinnia felt the need to add as she reentered the room laden with more clean towels and a bowl of warm water. Kenny looked at her as if she was a crazy person. Wasn’t she the one squirming just a minute ago? Marina made way for Binny, who was cleaning and disinfected the sewing needles, and started for the washing-room. His clothes and those towels needed to be washed out now or the stains won’t ever get out. Kenny followed her out and they left Binny to work her nursing magic.

She removed the small debris in the wounds. Most likely lodged in due to him crawling in the woods. At least that’s what the pine-needles told her. She cleaned the wounds with Betadine and started sewing them. The sewing of the wound near his heart took some time because it kept on bleeding.

When she finally finished the sewing, she put medical gauze on the wound. Because the wound on his abdomen was in a place where one could easily move the gauze, with one wrong move, she decided it best to wrap it around his entire torso to keep it in place. As she unrolled the gauze she admired his firm and broad back. Not quite a v-shape, but it was firm. ‘Nice back, you have there!’ She couldn’t help but lower her eyes to the part that came after his back. Not that she could see much of it in the sitting position he was in.

‘Lubinnia Wick, How dare you sexually harass an injured, unconscious man!’ she devilishly grinned.

After tying the bandage on the side, she lowered his torso to let him rest. Her eyes followed his body as it fell backwards. She reached out abruptly, stopping the movement. ‘Whoo, that was close!’ One minute too late and he would have a bump on his head to accompany his other injuries.

The abrupt stop made his body bent a bit and caused a moan to escape from his lips. But other than that, no sign he was conscious.

She moved him a bit to the foot-end of the bed and then lowered him onto the pillows.

…to then realize he was lying on top of the covers. ‘Smart Binny! Real Smart!’ she thought already lifting him to slide the covers from under him.

‘Oh, my my my, aren’t you firm all over!’ she mused as her hand slid over the part she previously wanted to check out.

Oh, I am so shameless!

Marina came in and removed the covers while Binny conveniently held him up at the most ‘appropriate’ place. ‘The stains in his clothes are really in there. Even with pure soda, it takes a while. I decided to just let them soak in it. I’ll hang them out to dry in the morning… Were the wounds deep? I told Kenny they weren’t so he wouldn’t worry too much, but I wasn’t sure’

‘Not all of them. The worst one was the one near his heart. That one was deep –  looked like a stab wound. Whoever did that number on him, wasn’t kidding around. He was not aiming for unconsciousness, I’ll tell you that!’

‘You missed one-‘

‘What?’

‘The wound on his shoulder’ Marina pointed towards him.

‘There was no wound on his shoulder, just some dried-up blood!’

‘Weird, I could’ve sworn it was still bleeding when I was sponge bathing him. I wiped it twice!’

‘Nothing there, sweetie! You know, it’s been a long night… maybe we should follow his example!’

‘Get beat up and stabbed?’ Marina mused.

‘That’s cute, real cute! But as fun as that sounds, I’d rather get some shut-eye!’

Looking at their patient, well, actually it was more like staring at their patient; they could still hear soft moans escape his lips from time to time. They both wondered what was going on in his head at this exact moment. Was he in pain, some excruciating pain that didn’t seem to escape his lips? Was he dreaming? Dreaming of what exactly? Or whom?

Better yet… who is he?

‘I still stand by what I said by the truck… what if he’s a criminal?’ Binny said, her eyes not leaving his face. Marina said nothing… No arguing with that. She could be right – for all they know he could be Jack-The-Ripper himself. The goose-bumps on Marina’s shoulder told her that that might not have been the best example to compare him to.

‘I don’t care how good-looking or firm he is, he still scares the crap out of me… Better lock his door tonight!’

‘Yeah!’

‘Yeah!’

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