And that's when I saw it – a sign for a veterinarian. But not just any vet – Jimmy M. Knight, veterinarian. I stumbled across the road, and hope blazed through me as I saw that a light was still on inside the vet's practice; someone was still there at this hour. I staggered over to the door and bashed on it.
“We're closed!” shouted a familiar voice, a voice I hadn't heard for years.
“Even for old Navy SEAL buddies?” I shouted back, hoping it was indeed the Jimmy I thought it to be.
“No way... no freakin' way!” the voice shouted back. “Everett James? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it's me, now get your ass out here and open up!”
A short but powerfully-built man with thinning brown hair and a bushy goatee came shuffling out of the back, with a bunch of keys dangling from his meaty paw.
He saw me through the glass door, and his eyes lit up.
“It is you, Everett! Damn, bro, what on earth are you doing here?”
He opened the door and then saw my shoulder.
“Oh man, Everett, what the hell happened?”
“Gunshot. Nine millimeter, I think.”
“Oh crap. We need to get you to a hospital.”
“Can't. I need... I need you to do it.”
He nodded.
“I don't know how, Everett, but you're damn lucky this happened to you right outside my doorstep. Damn, I heard a bang a few minutes ago, but thought it might be kids letting off cherry bombs or something.”
“No, no... that was me... getting shot,” I said as I staggered in.
“Alright, alright, get into the back room there,” he said. “I'll lock up here and be with you in a sec. Get your shirt off in the meanwhile.”
I stumbled into the back, pulled my shirt off and hopped up onto the stainless-steel table where Jimmy treated dogs and cats.
He hurried in and closed the door behind him, and then put on a pair of thick glasses that he pushed up his nose.
“As you know, this is gonna sting,” he said as he poured some disinfectant onto some dressing cloth and used it to wipe clean the wound. I winced as the disinfectant burned my open wound, but it wasn't as if I hadn't felt this before.
Jimmy shuffled around behind me and looked at the back of my shoulder.
“Oh man,” he said.
“What's the matter? Give it to me straight, old buddy.”
“Good news first or bad news?”
“Good.”
“The bullet went straight through. Doesn’t appear there are any broken bones, so no bone shards. Entry wound and exit wound. So, clean through. Guess they were using full metal jacket rounds or something.”
“They were amateurs,” I grunted. “Likely didn’t know what the hell they were using. I’m guessing that was the good news. Now what's the bad news?”
“You've lost a lot of blood man, a lot of blood. The entry wound ain't too bad, but the exit wound, it ain't pretty.”
“Can you fix it?”
“If I can stitch it up quickly enough and keep the wound closed, you shouldn’t need a blood transfusion.”