“Why are you always laughing?” Mathew asked walking out of the forest. He was carrying a werewolf head on his hand.

He was bleeding. He was covered in blood. He looked to be staggering around, weak on his feet. He was kind of sideways to us so we couldn’t really see his left side. He stumbled forwards a little bit, his body turning towards us.

We stopped laughing.

Immediately.

Whatever funny thoughts that were going through our heads stopped.

He had no left arm.

He had no let arm and he was bleeding profusely from the stump. And there was nothing below the elbow. The wound was clean. It was as if the wound hadn’t been caused by a werewolf; but by a sword. He had tied his arm in a tourniquet using a belt and it had slowed the bleeding, but it hadn’t stopped. He was still bleeding.

We all acted immediately. Josiah rushed forwards and picked him up. He brought him over to me quickly. I looked at the wound closely and it was horrific, his arm had been severed right below the elbow. It was a clean cut. It looked to be self-inflicted, I found a silver flake imbedded into the wound.

I untied the belt; the blood started spurting out of the wound in a jet. I quickly re-tied the belt, but more tightly this time; so the blood would stop spilling out so fast. He grimaced at the tightness, but I was trying to literally stop all blood flow. I had him elevate the arm, so that gravity could help him not lose as much blood.

“What happened?” I said. I wanted him to keep talking to stop him from going into hypovolemic shock. Going into shock would reduce his heart rate and respiration, which in this case would be very bad. He had lost a lot of blood and that meant there was less oxygen in his system; the high heart rate and respiration was compensating for that, but if he went into shock his heart rate and blood pressure would drop, which could mean that his blood couldn’t get enough oxygen to his vital organs; resulting in death.

“I was fighting that werewolf, and he trapped me. I managed to stab him in the leg, so he wasn’t as fast anymore. I managed to run away from him, but I fell and trapped my arm in between a rock and a fallen tree. It was stuck and badly broken. I could hear the wolf approaching. I tried, but failed to free myself. I had to cut it off to escape.” He was panting, in pain and from the increased demand of oxygen on the reduced blood volume.

“The wolf was hunting for me, but then we heard a massive roar coming from here and the Alpha’s head came flying towards us. The werewolf took one look at the head and took off running.”

“That was a hell of a coincidence, the Alpha’s head falling exactly where you two were fighting.” I said. I was being a bit paranoid, but we did have a spy problem and the odds of the head landing where they were fighting were improbably small.

“Wasn’t a coincidence, my powers can help me be very lucky sometimes. I saw what was about to happen and moved the fight to where the head was going to land.” He said.

I brought out the IV kit I had used on Josiah. I had stored it in my void space for future usage; I had also stored the excess normal saline in there. I wasn’t worried about things spoiling inside as the concept of time didn’t seem to exist in the void. The extra saline solution I had stored inside was still warm from the time I had made it. Even still I washed the water skin and the ‘tubes’ out with half a bottle of vodka. I tied a brand new needle with the tube using thread and then inserted the needle into his brachial vein on his right arm.

This proved to be much harder than expected for two reasons: it was dark. And the loss of blood had made his veins flat.

Whilst I tended to him, Isiah and Josiah had transformed back after retrieving Isiah’s clothes and bow. Josiah was naked, he had burst through his clothes when he’d transformed. I passed him an old cloak so he could cover himself up and a pair of loose fitting trousers, which barely fit around his wide frame.

We heard noises and rustling coming from the forest. Isiah drew his bow. Josiah and I drew our swords. Mathew tried to stand up, but I pushed him back into a seating position.

“I thought there was only supposed to be one measly werewolf out here tonight!” came the angry sarcastic voice of Mark as he came through the trees.

“Oh, and you said Josiah was still injured and resting at home tonight!” he was angry; really angry.

Ian was walking up behind him. Ian knew about what was happening tonight; he and Mathew were closer than brothers, and Mathew had told him what was about to happen tonight.

“You were supposed to keep him in the village tonight. You two were supposed to be the last line of defense; in case we failed” Mathew told Ian rather weakly.

Mark turned around to accuse Ian, and then back to Mathew. They were carrying torches but were the light wasn’t strong enough to illuminate Mathew’s missing arm. They did however notice him sitting down and sounding weak.

Ian rushed forward, knowing something was wrong. He came to a dead stop when he saw what had happened. “We need to get him back to the village immediately!” he said forcefully. I only nodded in response.

Mathew was still able to walk, but he was weak and unsteady on his feet. Ian arranged for Josiah to walk beside him carrying the waterskin of saline, like a waking IV stand.

I walked by Isiah and quietly whispered for him to burn the corpse of the werewolves in the clearing. He nodded and walked back towards the clearing. Mark looked at Isiah walking back and gave me a dirty look. He felt betrayed; like we had all conspired together to keep a secret from him. He was 100% correct.

“We need to burn the corpses of the werewolves. It is dangerous to leave them lying around.” I said to him as he looked at me suspiciously. Was it necessary though? I had no idea what would happen if an animal ate werewolf flesh. I didn’t particularly want to find out; just in case it was a rabies type thing. Also, we had made a lot of noise and other people were bound to want to investigate and they could get infected with the werewolf virus.

I treated it like a virus, because that is how the infection seemed to behave. To me were-ism behaved like a sexually transmitted disease, like HIV or herpes. It was passed on through bodily fluids and it didn’t seem to survive for long outside the host. It had to be spread by direct contact and couldn’t be passed on very easily. Of course it was also much more difficult to spread as 90% of those infected died within minutes of being infected... so they wouldn’t have time to spread the infection. Although with werewolves the death rate was only about 80%.

I was thinking on these tangents to avoid thinking about my main problem. Mathew had his arm chopped off. How was I going to help heal that? I knew nothing about amputations, when I had repaired Josiah’s arm I was putting things back in their places and literally supergluing it back. This time I had no idea where to even begin.

The only thing I remembered about amputations was reading a thriller novel in which an African warlord chopped people’s arms off and dipped them in molten tar. The hot molten tar would cauterise the wounds closed, and he would do this to his prisoners every Christmas. I remembered the option he gave the prisoners, short sleeved or long sleeved; by which he meant above the elbow or the wrist. That part really stuck with me for some reason.

I broke out of that terrible thought with a shiver. It seemed ridiculous, but I didn’t know what else to do. I then started to dissect (poor word choice) the methodology of what they were doing with the tar dip. They were cauterising the wound and sealing it; which stopped the blood flow and reduced the chance of infection. That I thought I could accomplish, probably. Maybe.

We reached the village, and it was active with people. They had obviously been disturbed by the howls and roars in the forest. We were half a mile inside the forest but the noise had obviously carried. I had hoped that the trees would provide some natural sound dampening, but apparently it hadn’t.

“Tell them that everything is okay now and the wolf pack is gone. They won’t return.” Which was true, dead people rarely return.

Ian went off to explain/lie to the villagers. Mark, Josiah and I took Mathew to the pub. It had the largest fireplace and the biggest tables. The large fireplace would mean more light and that I could boil water faster.

We got inside the pub, the fire was already lit. Both Ian and Mathew’s wives were inside waiting, along with Bess. When they saw us come in the all got up. They saw Mathew’s stump and one of the women almost fainted. That one was Mathew’s wife; they were identical twins and liked to dress the same. . It was impossible to tell them apart. The other twin grabbed her and stopped her from falling.

“I knew something more was going on lad, I already have the water boiling.” Bess said, pointing at the fireplace. I nodded in acknowledgement. Mathew had stopped bleeding and the saline solution had seemed to have helped. So I had a little time. Although Mathew had lost a lot of blood, it could have been much worse. He had tied a tourniquet on the wound immediately, so he hadn’t lost as much blood. He had lost a lot of blood, but not nearly as much as he could have.

I had Josiah sit Mathew down onto a chair and I went to the back room. I saw one of the tables had been cleaned and there was a clean linen sheet on top along with my medical equipment bag. I looked at Bess. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I remember the Great War, I still remember those howls.” She said to me. Damn, that was one impressive woman.

I went around the back of the bar and got a pestle. I ground up some willow bark from my pack and two secret pills of Vicodin. I mixed that with some water, and made him drink. I had no anaesthetics in my void space, Vicodin was the best I could do. I made him drink the whole thing down. And then I asked him to lie down on the table. “This is going to hurt.” I said to him. No shit. “When you cut off that arm you were in a battle haze, so you probably didn’t realise how much it hurt. This will hurt worse.”

I then prepared my equipment by filling up a tankard with boiling water and then sterilising my knives and needles. After the incident with Josiah I had improved my medical pack.

He nodded his head. I had him bite down on a leather strap. “Jo, grab his shoulders and other arm and hold him down. Mark I need you to hold his legs down.” I said to them. They both nodded, although Mark was still scowling.

I took a deep breath and blew it out. I started the operation. I cut apart the skin until I went past the elbow. Mathew bit down on the strap as he tried to thrash around. “Hold him down tighter!” I commanded. Both Mark and Josiah complied. I doused the site in vodka, to sterilise the site as much as I could. Ideally I would have used betadine, but there was none available. Actually, ideally I would have called 999 and waited for an ambulance; and let professional surgeons do this kind of shit.

I cut away the flesh from below the elbow leaving only the skin and bone attached, I knew enough to know that the best place for the amputation was at the joint itself and that exposed broken bones were bad. I cut away all of the muscle and tendons that were below the elbow severing the ulnar nerve at the elbow at the junction where it started to split. I cut away all of the ligaments connecting the humorous to the radius and the ulna bones, and then dislocated and pulled the bones away from the elbow. By this time the Vicodin had kicked in and the pain must have been reduced by a lot. But Mathew still screamed into the leather strap.

I tied off all of the blood vessels going down the arm using a heated knife to cauterise the ends of the blood vessels. I had no idea whether I was doing everything in the correct order or not, I was hopelessly unqualified. I checked to see if we had missed any blood vessels and loosened up the tourniquet slightly; to literally check for leaks. Luckily there weren’t any. I cleaned up and went behind the bar to prepare a salve, which was actually just a strong antibiotic cream and disinfectant mixed together. I applied the salve to the wound and then stitched the wound closed, using the skin flaps from below the elbow; liberally applying the salve to the outside of the wound as well. I then carefully wrapped the site in bandages.

I then collapsed on the floor. My legs were no longer able to bear my weight. In all of the excitement after the battle I had completely forgotten that my own legs were torn apart on the inside. By this time Ian had long finished talking to the villagers and had come back. Even Isiah had returned after disposing of the corpses.

Isiah and Josiah rushed forwards and to help me off the floor. They sat me up on a chair, using another chair a footstool to raise my legs up. “Let me have a look.” came Bess’ voice from behind me. She’d been sitting with the twins. She had been trying to calm mark’s wife down and praying with them for some comfort.

She raised my trouser legs up to look at my leg. “Oh my god! How did this happen? Why were you standing there like nothing was wrong?” she scolded me. My legs were a mass of ugly purple and angry red. They were swollen and looked bruised to hell. I had caused a lot of internal damage when I tried to push myself way beyond my limits, to try and rescue Isiah.

“I’ll be fine, just a couple of days off my feet and I will be fighting fit again.” I said. Poor choice of words, that. The room seemed to get tenser, as soon as the word fight was used.

“Speaking of fighting, what happened out there? You told us there was only one werewolf. We saw more than a dozen bodies lying there. And I want the truth.” Mark said. There was something in his voice that told me; if I didn’t tell him the truth, we were done being friends.

“Are you sure you want to know?” I asked softly.

“Yes!” he snapped back

“You once told me that you couldn’t know, so that you didn’t have to inform our superiors.” I said reminding him.

“I have the right to know what kind of monsters I have at my side, pretending to be my brothers!” he said. I was genuinely offended. We were friends. He was the one who talked to me the first time I took a life. I was the only one in the village who knew about his wife and adopted son.

I was hurt.

I heard quick small footsteps coming from behind me. Bess walked forwards, she stood in front of mark, raised her right hand back and slapped him in the face. It was like thunder. Everything went quiet; it was as if even the insects were afraid of making a noise.

“HOW DARE YOU! THIS CHILD WENT OUT THERE INTO THE NIGHT TO FIGHT MONSTERS! He fought to protect our village. He fought to the point that he could barely stand and the first thing he did after that was to help heal his brother; ignoring his own pain. LOOK AT HIS LEGS! He did that to himself for our sake. Pushing himself beyond his limits to protect people he has no blood relations to.” She was crying. “Oh, I have failed you as a mother. You will apologise and you will mean it!”

Mark looked at his mother, the tears in her eyes and then he looked at my legs. “I am sorry.” He said, bowing his head. He seemed to genuinely mean it. “But why didn’t you take me with you, I could have fought alongside you.” This really seemed to be the crux of the matter.

“For the same reason, we didn’t take Ian, or Tom or any of the other able bodied men.” Isiah said from the side.

Josiah looked at him. “Do you really want to know the answer?” Isiah asked him.

Mark took a moment to consider his options; he took a deep breath and then exhales slowly. He turned and looked Isiah in the eye; and then nodded his head, slowly.

“Because you are human; and we are not.”