“When was it ever safe?” I murmured. He took a breath to argue again, but my voice grew sharp. “Move him now, and your friend will die,” I stated bluntly. “With that fever and those wounds, he’ll be dead by morning. You leave, you kill him. It’s as simple as that.”
He slumped, the fight going out of him. I gestured to the stool, and he sank down, his posture defeated. “If you would take your shirt off, Mr. Archer,” I urged, trying to remain businesslike as I fished a needle and thread from my coat pockets. He blinked, pulling back a little, and I sighed. “I don’t have the time or patience for modesty, Mr. Archer. And we ran out of hospital gowns the first week we were here. So, please.” I gestured with the needle. “Take off your shirt.”
Wearily, he complied, pulling the garment over his head without so much as a wince. I kept my expression professional, but my gaze roamed over the tanned, powerful shoulders and sculpted chest as he dropped his shirt to the floor. Things were bleak, but I wasn’t blind. Ben Archer was gorgeous; you didn’t need a Ph.D. to see that.
He didn’t move as I walked up behind him, examining the five deep lacerations that ran from his shoulder nearly to the center of his back. They looked like...claw marks. I shivered. Something was very wrong here.
“What happened to you and your friend?” I began, dabbing the wounds gently with an alcohol wipe. He didn’t flinch, though the lacerations were quite deep, and I knew the alcohol stung. “Did you hear me, Mr. Archer?”
“Ben. Just Ben.”
“All right, Ben.” I wiped the last of the blood away and reached for the needle and thread. “You still haven’t answered my question. Those bite wounds on your friend, they aren’t normal. What happened?”
I felt him hesitate. My voice grew a little harder. “Don’t lie to me, Mr. Archer. If I’m going to help him, I need to know exactly what happened. Any information you withhold could end up killing him, or my other patients. Now—last time—tell me what happened.”
“We...” Ben paused, as if fighting himself, struggling to get the words out. “Nathan and I...we were attacked,” he finally admitted.
“Yes, that I gathered,” I said, gently touching his shoulder. His skin was warm, and he finally flinched at my touch. “I’m going to start stitching now, so brace yourself.”
He nodded.
“So, something attacked you,” I continued, sinking the needle into the smooth, tanned skin, talking quickly to keep him distracted. “What was it?”
“I...I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” I frowned as I pulled a stitch closed, seeing him grit his teeth. “Something obviously savaged your friend and tore the hell out of your shoulder. What was it?”
“I didn’t see it very clearly,” Ben muttered. “It was dark, and the thing moved so fast.” He shrugged, then grunted in pain as the motion pulled at the stitches. “I thought it was human, but...” He trailed off again, and I frowned over his shoulder.
“Ben, your friend was bitten by something with canines at least an inch long. Humans don’t have teeth like that.”
He raised his head just as I looked up at him, and for a second, our faces were inches apart. Guilt, horror and fear lay open on his face; he had the look of a soldier who had seen far too much and would be eternally haunted by it.
“You should leave,” he whispered once more, his voice like a ragged, open wound. And my stomach flip-flopped at the look in his eyes. “Don’t ask questions, Kylie, just trust me. Get out of here as soon as you can. Go home, leave this place, and don’t look back.”
I took a deep, steadying breath.
“I can’t leave,” I told him firmly. “I won’t leave my patients, so that’s out of the question. Besides, I don’t have a home to go back to.” He looked away, and I wished I could turn his head back, force him to meet my gaze. “You’re not telling me everything,” I said, and his face shut down into a blank mask. My eyes narrowed. “What are you hiding?”
“Miss Kylie?”
Maggie appeared in the door. Seeing Ben, she blushed and looked down at her feet. “Ms. Sawyer was complaining that it hurt to breathe. I gave her a shot of morphine for the pain and a sedative to help her sleep.”
“Good girl,” I said, feeling a lump rise to my throat. The final stages of Red Lung, before the victim began coughing uncontrollably and drowning in their own blood, was difficult, painful breathing.
I felt Ben’s eyes on me, sympathetic and knowing. Suddenly self-conscious, I drew away. I didn’t need his pity or his advice to leave—as if I could just walk out. And it was clear I wouldn’t be getting anything further out of him, at least not now. “I have to get back to my patients,” I told him, beckoning Maggie into the room. “I’m sorry. Maggie, would you mind taking care of Mr. Archer, please?”
“Sure.” Maggie smiled at Ben, and he gave her a tired nod. I left them together and wandered back to the main room, checking the rows of patients along the makeshift walls. For now, everyone seemed okay; comfortable and in no pain, at least. Except for Ms. Sawyer’s raspy breathing and the occasional bloody cough that I couldn’t do anything about, the clinic was quiet. An event that occurred less and less, as Red Lung continued its war on the human body and continued to win.
I pondered what Ben had told me. He and his friend had been attacked, there was no mistaking that. It wasn’t uncommon, sadly. With the breakdown of normal society, human beings reverted to their base instincts and started preying on each other. In the early days of the plague, not a day had gone by that I hadn’t heard gunshots, screams or other sounds of distant chaos. I didn’t doubt they’d been attacked, but the wounds on Nathan’s arm and Ben’s shoulder didn’t look like anything I’d seen before.
What was Ben Archer hiding? What wasn’t he telling me?
“Kylie.” Jenna appeared as I made another circle through the rows of cots. The intern had been training to be a nurse and was older than me by several years, but always took my instructions without fail or complaint. Her gaze was sympathetic as she pulled me aside. “You’re exhausted,” she stated, blue eyes appraising, and I didn’t argue with her. “How long since you slept last?”
I shrugged, and she patted my arm. “Go lie down. Maggie and I can take care of things for a few hours.”
“I don’t know. Ms. Sawyer—”
“You’ve done everything you could for her,” Jenna said in a low voice. “Seriously, Kylie, get some sleep. While you still can. You’re going to fall over if you don’t rest soon, and no one can afford that. I promise, we’ll come get you if anything happens.”
I nodded. It was getting close to eighteen hours with no sleep, and I was tired. But before I left the room, I made a note to check on my newest patients, make sure Nathan was comfortable at least. And maybe, I could get the last of that story out of Ben Archer.
I didn’t quite get that far. Instead, I went to Doc Adams’s old office and collapsed on the cot against the far wall, pulling the sheet over my face. I thought I wouldn’t sleep with all the dark thoughts swirling through my head, but I was out almost before I touched the pillow.
Chapter Two
It seemed only a few minutes had passed before someone touched my shoulder, jostling me awake. Blearily, I opened my eyes and glanced up at Maggie, who stood over me with a half-worried, half-reluctant expression.
“Yeah?” I mumbled, struggling to sit up.
“Sorry, Miss Kylie.” Maggie bit her lip. “But, I wanted to let you know, Mr. Johnson just passed away.”
I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my eyes, grief and anger and disappointment flaring up momentarily. “All right, I’ll be right out. Thank you, Maggie.”
She nodded and scurried away. Standing, I put my fingers to my temples, massaging the headache pounding behind my eyes.
Dammit. Another one lost. Another life taken by the plague, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Eric had been right; this was futile. Those people out there, coughing and gagging and fighting to breathe, t
hey wouldn’t survive. Not at this stage of the virus. But I couldn’t abandon them. I’d promised my patients I would fight to the end, and that was what I was going to do.
Grabbing my coat, which I’d tossed on the desk before falling into unconsciousness, I walked out of the office.
And ran smack into a large, solid chest as I emerged, yawning and rubbing my face. With a yelp, I stumbled back, looking up into Ben Archer’s worried brown eyes.
“Sorry.” His deep voice held traces of alarm, and I gave him a wary look. “I need to talk to you. Something is wrong with Nate, and I don’t know what to do for him.”
My head pounded. The stress, disappointment, and looming sense of pointlessness were starting to get to me, but I put my feelings aside to focus on what I had to do.
“Walk with me.” I started down the hall, and he followed at my side. The clinic was dark now, as evening stole in through the door and cloaked everything in shadow. I could hear the generators out back, humming away, but we were running out of gas, and not much power was left for lights.
We reached the spot where Nathan was being kept, one of the smaller rooms that was separated from the main wing, away from the sick. A chair stood in the corner, probably where Ben had been sitting. Jenna hovered next to the patient, looking grim.
The man on the bed groaned, sounding delirious. He was definitely paler, and blood had soaked through the bandages on his arm. But what was most worrying was the red fluid seeping from beneath his eyelids. It oozed slowly over his cheeks, cutting two crimson paths down his skin, and it could be only one thing.
I swabbed it with a cotton ball, just to be sure. Yes, it was definitely blood. Ben came up behind me, peering over my shoulder.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I...don’t know.” Though I hated admitting it. Peeling back his lids, I shone a light over his pupils, checking for wounds or scratches. Nothing. “The only thing I can think of is a subconjunctival hemorrhage, or Ebola, as unlikely as that is. Sadly, the only way to know for sure would be to conduct blood tests, but we don’t have any way to do that here. We’ll just have to keep him under surveillance and see what happens.”
I caught a whiff of something foul, rotten, like the stench of a decaying animal, and my heart sank. Frowning, I shooed Ben out of the way and bent over the wounded man, gently unwrapping the gauze to see the wounds on his arm.
The wounds were clean. The skin around them was still puffy and red, but the bites themselves looked fine. Or at least not infected. And yet, I could still smell the faint stench of rot and decay that suggested gangrene or wounds that had gone septic.
Then I realized it wasn’t coming off his arm, but the body as a whole.
Puzzled, I cleaned and rebandaged the arm, feeling Ben’s worried eyes on me the whole time. Nathan groaned and tossed restlessly, and I finally gave him a shot of morphine to calm him down. As his tortured thrashing stilled and he drifted into a drugged sleep, I heard Ben take a ragged breath.
“He’s getting worse.”
I turned to face him, wiping my hands. “There’s no infection, as far as I can see. His fever is getting worse, yes, but we’ve done all we can for him now. We just have to wait and see if he pulls out of it.” Ben sagged, looking lost and hopeless, unsure what to do. Sinking into the chair, he ran both hands over his face and sighed.
I hesitated. Then, not really knowing why, I walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not giving up,” I told him softly. “And you shouldn’t, either. Why don’t you get some sleep? There’s an extra cot in the office if you need it. I’ll let you know if there are any changes.”
He looked up with a faint, grateful smile. “Thank you,” he murmured. “But, if it’s all the same, I’d like to stay. I should be here if...anything happens to him.”
“Miss Kylie.” Maggie walked into the room. The petite intern smiled shyly at Ben before turning to me. “Sorry to interrupt, but Jenna wanted to know if you’d like us to move Mr. Johnson’s body to the back lot now or down to storage.”
I stifled a groan. “I don’t think Mr. Johnson will fit in any of the storage units we have down there,” I said, aware of how morbid this must sound to Ben. It had become so commonplace to us now, we didn’t even think about it anymore. “If you and Jenna will get him on a gurney, I’ll take him out back.”
She nodded and padded away, and Ben gave me a worried look. “Out back?”
“There’s an empty lot we’ve been using for body storage,” I said tiredly. “When the freezers downstairs get full, we move them outside. This place was set up pretty fast, so it didn’t come with a proper morgue. We’ve had to improvise.”
“You’re going outside? Now?”
“I can’t leave a cadaver lying on a bed all night.”
He rose swiftly, his gaze narrowing. “I’ll come with you.”
I frowned at his sudden change of mood. “There’s no need. I’m capable of handling a dead body by myself. Besides—” I glanced back toward the bed “—I thought you wanted to stay with your friend.”
“Please.” He took a step forward, not intimidating, but intense. “Let me help. It’s the least I can do.”
There was more to it than that, I thought. I wasn’t stupid. He was still hiding something, and I was going to find out what. Just not tonight. I was tired, my head hurt and I didn’t want to fight him. “All right,” I sighed. “If you think you can stomach working with a dead body, then I’ll put those muscles of yours to work. Follow me.”
We walked back to the main room, where Maggie and Jenna were struggling to load the body onto a gurney. In times past, I’d had a couple of the male interns perform this task. But they were gone now; it was just the three of us left.
Plus Ben. Who didn’t flinch as he hefted Mr. Johnson onto the cart, handling the body like he might a sick calf. His face remained businesslike as he laid the corpse down gently, and Jenna and Maggie gaped at him.
As I covered the body with a sheet, I caught a faint hint of rot coming off the corpse. What the hell? It hadn’t even been an hour since Mr. Johnson had passed; there was no way the body would start to decompose so quickly.
“What is it?” Ben asked quietly. I shook my head.
“Nothing.” I flipped the sheet over the body’s head, and the smell vanished. Maybe I’d imagined it, or maybe I was smelling something else: a dead animal outside. I maneuvered the gurney around him and the interns, ducked through the curtains surrounding the bed and headed out the back door. Ben followed.
Outside, the temperature was cool, chilly even. Which was a good thing, given the number of dead things lying everywhere around us, hidden away in houses and beds; the ones who had died alone and forgotten. As it was, the stench coming from the back lot was always there, drifting in the clinic when the breeze blew just right. If it had been high summer, the smell would’ve been unbearable.
As we made our way down the sidewalk, I was struck again by how quiet everything was. Not long ago, the sounds of sirens and cars, screaming, gunshots and breaking glass, had been constant. Just across the river, in monument D.C., the city had been a war zone. Now, an eerie silence hung over everything, and the buildings around us were dark. Of course, our small clinic was located just outside the city limits, so I didn’t know what was happening closer to downtown. Occasionally, I heard screams or the roar of a distant car engine, signs that there was still human life somewhere out there. But the city seemed abandoned now, left to the desperate and the dying.
I sneaked a glance at Ben, walking beside me, one hand on the corner of the gurney. His gaze scanned the buildings and the shadows around us, every fiber of his body on high alert. The same look he’d had in the clinic when night was starting to fall, only amplified a hundred-fold.
He didn’t come out here to help me, I realized with a cold feeling in my stomach. He’s afraid there’s something out here now. I pulled the gurney to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk. “Ben...”
&nb
sp; Something big slipped from the shadows into our path, making us both jump. I flinched, but Ben lunged forward and grabbed my arm as if prepared to yank me behind him. A stray dog, big and black, drew back when it saw us. It dropped what it was carrying and darted out of sight between two cars, its tail between its legs.
Ben relaxed. Quickly, he dropped my wrist, looking embarrassed. “Sorry,” he murmured, staring at the ground. “I’m not usually this jumpy, I swear. Are you all right?”
I rubbed my arm, wincing from the strength in those hands. “I’m fine,” I told him, and was about to ask him why he was so twitchy. But then I noticed what the dog had been carrying and stifled a groan.
“Is that...an arm?” Ben asked, peering past the gurney.
“Yeah.” I sighed, knowing where the dog had probably gotten it. As we got closer to our destination, the smell began to permeate the darkness around us. That familiar knot of dread, guilt, sorrow and anger coiled in my stomach. “Just a warning,” I told Ben, “this isn’t going to be pretty. Steel yourself.”
“For what?”
I smiled humorlessly and turned the corner of the alley.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Ben straighten, though he didn’t say anything. The drone of insects was a constant hum over the hundreds of bodies lined up in neat rows up and down the empty lot. Most were covered with sheets and tarps, but several covers were torn off or had blown away, leaving the corpses to stare empty-eyed at the sky. And, from the looks of the older, “riper” corpses, the scavengers were already gathering en masse.
Ben made a sound in the back of his throat, as if he was struggling not to gag. For a moment, I was sorry for bringing him out here, letting him see the stark reality we faced every day. But he set his jaw and walked with me to the edge of the last row, where I’d laid three people—a mother and her two sons—side by side last week. I tried not to look at them as we lifted Mr. Johnson’s body up in the sheet and set it on the pavement. But it was hard not to remember. I’d stayed up countless nights with that family, trying desperately to save them, but the virus had taken the mother first and the boys hours later, and that failure still haunted me.