~~~
Oh, my God.
“Whu?” Megan slurred, unable to form words through her swollen lips. There was a commotion in the room, the sliding of a chair, the sound of a magazine slapping on tile.
“She’s awake!” a woman called out with delight.
Beth? Megan tried to open her eyes, but only succeeded in getting one open partway. Her left eye wouldn’t budge. It was glued shut. She felt a cool hand on her forearm.
“It’s okay Megan. You’re safe now.” Definitely Beth.
She turned her head to follow the voice, and her friend’s concerned face swam into view for a moment before fading away. She felt sick, like she was going to vomit. Bile rose in the back of her throat. She swallowed it back.
“Jack and the doc will be right here,” Beth murmured.
Megan closed her good eye and let herself relax a bit. Her last memory was Pringle’s face, a screwed-up mask of malignant fury, and his arm raised high. It had been more terrifying than any zombie she had ever encountered. Everything else was blank. No. Not quite. She had snippets of something. Pringle leering at her. This bed. This room, the buzz of cicadas, a cool hand rubbing hers. This is now.
Jack and the doctor—what was his name again? You should know this, Megan—burst into the room. She attempted a smile and felt her lips crack with the effort. The doctor wore a stethoscope and a flannel shirt, unbuttoned so the curly gray hairs on his chest peeked out. Jack was empty-handed, his hair askew as if he had just risen from a long slumber.
The doctor motioned Beth aside and began to examine Megan. Leaning in close, he pried her left eye open wide with his thumb and forefinger and flashed a light into her pupil.
She whimpered. “Ow…” She could see nothing through the eye, yet the light made the back of her brain burn.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “I need to check your concussion.” Jack and Beth watched silently though the whole procedure, lifting her limbs and gently replacing them when the doctor asked, taking care not to bump any of her bruises.
“Roll her over, please,” the doctor instructed. His name is Steve, Megan remembered. A veterinarian. Not a doctor…Jack gave him a questioning look, and then he did as requested.
As they rolled her, her ribs flexed and compressed, sending blinding bolts of pain through her chest. She began to cry. If she had been standing, the pain would have taken her legs right out from under her. She endured another few moments of poking and prodding before the doctor completed his exam with a curt, “Roll her back over, please.”
This time, she tried to anticipate the pain, to brace for it, but it was no use. The same agony sliced into her as they returned her to her back. She almost blacked out. Jack leaned in and brushed away a few stray hairs that had slipped into her eye, his touch sending an instant shiver of pleasure through her body, making her forget the pain for a split-second. Megan wiggled her toes, relieved to see they still did what she asked of them.
“How long…?” She tried to ask.
“A week,” the doctor replied. She blinked. Tears ran down her cheek. Her throat felt thick with snot. Jack shuffled his feet nervously, as if he didn’t know what to say next.
“How am I?” she asked, not able to meet the doctor’s eyes. She couldn’t bear to see his face if it was bad news.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Considering what you went through, you’re in surprisingly good shape. A few broken ribs, a moderate concussion, and your left eye are the only real problems. I haven’t detected any signs of internal bleeding, thank God.”
Megan swallowed. Their medical facilities were sparse. Major trauma was a death sentence, and would be for the foreseeable future, at least until they found a real doctor and better equipment. She brought her fingers up and probed the swollen skin around her bad eye. She felt a thick line of stitches.
The doctor frowned. “About that...” She understood. The eye was gone.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Jack asked.
“Pringle.”
He and Beth shared a quick glance. “Nothing else?”
“Kevin?” she croaked. “Where is he?”
Beth looked at Jack. “He didn’t make it.”
Megan closed her eye and recited a quick prayer for him. She hadn’t known him very well, but he had seemed capable and confident, a solid addition to the community.
“Alicia?” she asked.
Jack answered with a sad shake of his head. “She disappeared that morning. No one has seen her since that day.”
“Tell me everything,” Megan demanded.
So Jack told her. He started at the point when she, Pringle, and Kevin had disappeared into the building and ended with the moment he found her crumpled on the floor with her life hanging by a thread.
“I can’t believe he did this,” Megan said in a whisper when he finished.
Jack gave her hand a soft squeeze. “I know. Not now.” She wanted to press the point, to get some answers, but she was fading, and all of a sudden, nothing seemed quite as important anymore. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the doctor stepping away from her IV with an empty syringe in his hand.
“No…”
But it was too late. Oblivion wrapped her in its soft embrace, and she was gone before she could finish her thought.
Next
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost, Fire and Ice
Thirty-Five