Death of a Nightingale

The dog howled as if possessed. Long, piercing screams, as only an animal in pain can scream. Nina ran in the direction of the sound. It was where the two first shots had come from too. She fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone and only a second later remembered yet again that she had given it to Søren that morning.

She found the dog first. It had been shot in the back and was attempting to crawl through the snow to the house, leaving a wide and scarlet track behind it. She forced herself not to meet its gaze.

Behind the stable a big black car was parked, half hidden by the old midden wall. There was an unreasonable amount of blood in the snow, and it wasn’t all the dog’s. A man lay on the ground with his face downward, unconscious but alive to judge by his labored breathing, and a few meters from him another man sat on the ground, half bent over a third man, who was Søren. Had they shot each other? She couldn’t see a gun.

She had recognized Søren immediately even though she couldn’t see his face, just his back and neck. She fell to her knees next to him.

“Help,” said the man who was still sitting. It was not a plea for himself but more of a calm instruction. “Shot. Chest. Get help. Him.”

The telegram style was clearly caused by linguistic difficulties, not panic, though she could see that he himself was bleeding pretty heavily from a wound in the thigh.

I can’t see anything, she thought. How can I help him when I can’t see anything?

Søren was breathing, but not well. There was a bubbling sound.

“Let me,” she said. In Danish. Of course it didn’t help. “I’m a nurse,” she attempted in English. “Let me take a look.”

She was able to turn him over partially so she could see his face. His eyes reacted when he saw her, but he was gasping too hard for air to be able to speak. Blue lips. Hypoxia. She suddenly realized that what looked like red and white snowflakes on his chest was down—from where the shot had torn a hole in his jacket. Entry wound and no exit wound. His back had not been bloody. Pneumothorax. The lung had been punctured and was in the process of collapsing. With every breath he took, he was dragging air through the hole, air that was caught between the lung membrane, compressing the lung further.

A syringe, she thought, where the hell am I going to find a syringe? The only place there was even the tiniest chance of finding something she could use was in the house.

“I’ll be right back,” she said to Søren’s conscious gaze. She ran, trying to calculate how many minutes he had left.