Read The System #2 for Free Online Page B

local hospital—which was not an easy journey.   Joey had found their last supply in a shop nearby: a battery operated handsaw. And he looked close to vomiting as he handed it over, the realization of its use dawning on him.
    After all three women worked together to get his limp body on the table, Ethan lay exposed in just a pair of blue and white checkered boxer shorts. He had been in and out of consciousness, but as they gathered around, his eyes fluttered open and he saw Darla first.
    “Hey,” he said to her and attempted a smile.
    “It’s time, kiddo,” Darla replied and she grabbed his hand.
    “Okay. Okay,” Ethan closed his eyes again. “I can do this.”
    “You’re strong,” Darla told him. “Strong and ready. You’ve got this.”
    “Doc?” Ethan rolled his head to the side. “What’dya got for me? We doin’ this old-school? Whiskey and a mallet to the head?”
    “Morphine and a local anesthetic. Only I can’t give you much morphine…the risk is too great without a way to monitor your vitals closely. I’m sorry, Ethan…you will feel some of this.”
    “I’ll feel it,” he repeated.
    “You will,” Doctor Krause told him as she gave him his first shot. “But I’ll do the best I can.”
    “Can’t I get a spinal or something? You need electricity for that?”
    Doctor Krause smiled and adjusted her glasses. “Ethan, we don’t have options. I’m not a surgeon and I’m not an anesthesiologist. I want to keep you alive…we have to do this the way I know how.” She looked at him and winced. “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be—” Ethan closed his eyes.
    Darla held his hand.
    The doctor administered another round of injections into Ethan’s wounds. He didn’t even flinch as the needles entered his flesh. She picked up a block of fabric off of one of the side tables—it looked like a luggage strap and it wrapped around Ethan’s leg five inches above his knee. Doctor Krause sighed and glanced at her ragtag surgery technicians; she looked calm, but her clamped jaw and narrowed eyes gave her away: she was nervous—scared even. She had been honest about her position as a family doctor; it was a job that did not lend itself toward emergency amputations. But it was too late now. They were committed.  
    “Okay, Darla. Ainsley,” the doctor instructed and she passed around a box of surgical gloves and masks. They covered their hands and their mouths and stood waiting for further instruction.  
    Doctor Krause motioned for Ainsley and she took a step forward.
    “Darla, I’ll need you to hold Ethan still as much as possible. Start near his shoulders. Ainsley…when I ask for an item, grab it quickly.” The doctor placed a hand on Ethan’s leg and pinched slightly. Then she asked for a scalpel and extended her gloved hand backward; her daughter picked up the metal instrument and placed it in her mother’s open palm.
    Then Doctor Krause started an incision an inch above Ethan’s knee. The blood started to run down the sides of his legs, not a gush, but a trickle, and she mopped it up in a swift wipe with clean, cut towels. Blood matted down his leg hair and made his skin a rosy color. She ran the scalpel along that line and then dug further: past the skin and into a white layer of fat.
    Ethan’s leg jerked upward and Darla moved into position, wrapping her arms around Ethan’s shoulders and hugging him tightly to the table. Ethan started to yank and groan. His face was white, his teeth chattered against each other, rattling inside his mouth.
    “Shhh….shhh,” Darla repeated and with her hands secure on Ethan, she could not stop to wipe away the tears that started to roll down her cheeks. She let them run and drip, but she tried to will herself into finding every iota of strength. “It’ll be over soon. It’ll all be over soon.”
    The incision went deeper.
    Ethan screamed, even in his fevered state, and rolled his head from side to side. Doctor Krause looked up, unperturbed, and