Fearing for his life, Theo fumbled for anything resembling a weapon. His fingers wrapped around the regulator attached to the portable O2 tank strapped to the end of the stretcher. He yanked, dragging it free from its Velcro fastenings, and hefted the partially full tank. He pushed the man back from him again and raised the tank warningly.
“Back off, man. Don’t make me use this,” Theo said. His voice shook with a mixture of nervousness and adrenaline. The man snarled at him and lunged forward again.
Theo raised the O2 tank and brought it up against the side of the man’s head with all the force he could muster. The man dropped, tumbling down like a stone to rest against the overturned stretcher. He tried to rise once more, and with another heavy blow, Theo slammed the tank against the top of his skull. Something cracked, and the man went limp. Theo stared at his unmoving form, his eyes wide and his breathing erratic. He gripped the oxygen regulator until his fingers hurt, but he didn’t loosen his grip.
Another flashlight flickered on at the front of the ambulance, and Jonathan came into view.
“Did I just kill him?” Theo asked. He looked up at the other man with wide eyes. The tank slipped from his grasp, clanging against the stretcher and joining his dropped flashlight. He was shaking, and he wrapped his fingers around the bar affixed to the door behind him, using it to steady himself, ground himself, trying in vain to calm the blood coursing through his veins.
“I don’t know,” Jonathan said. He eased toward Theo, putting out a hand like he was approaching a wild animal. Theo imagined he probably looked like one. “I’m not even sure he was alive in the first place.”
Theo looked at the probably dead man again and drew in a slow, shuddery breath. “I am so going to lose my license over this,” he said.
“It’ll be fine,” Jonathan said in a comforting tone. “I promise. We’re going to get you through this, okay?”
Theo tore his eyes away from the man at his feet and looked to Jonathan. “What happened?” he asked desperately. “What did you yell out about up there? And how long have we been here?”
“Thirty, forty minutes,” Jonathan replied. “As for what I saw…I’m not even sure how to describe it.”
“Try.”
Jonathan was silent for several heartbeats, like he was trying to decide on the right words to say. Theo gripped the metal bar tighter, glancing between Jonathan and the dead man on the stretcher between them. A jolt of fear shot through him. He was, suddenly and irrationally, scared that the man was going to get up and attack him again.
“It was like a riot or something,” Jonathan said, his voice low. He looked over his shoulder, shining his flashlight in the general direction of the cab. “There were people in the street, dozens of them. They were all running from something. I don’t know what. I couldn’t see what was behind them. There were National Guard guys in there too, I think. I saw soldiers in uniform and people with guns.” He glanced at the front of the ambulance again, warily, and that time, Theo followed his gaze. He saw nothing on the other side of the windshield but darkness. “People were shooting each other. It looks like a war zone out there.”
Theo crouched, trying to look out of one of the back windows. “We should get out of here. If it’s that bad out there, it’s probably not safe for us to stay in here, right? And I need to find my brother. If that shit’s coming out of town…” He shook his head. “Gray can’t handle himself against something like that. Hell, he can barely even run.”
“I doubt Gray is that helpless,” Jonathan said. The subtle note of condescension in his voice made Theo grit his teeth. “I’m sure he’ll manage. Besides, you’ll lose your job if you ditch out. We need to report this.”
“Considering I probably just killed a patient, I’m pretty sure my job’s already gone,” Theo snapped. “And if it’s not, then they can go ahead and fucking fire me. My brother is more important to me than this fucking job.” He shoved past Jonathan, grabbed the trauma bag that had fallen against the airway seat during the wreck, and unzipped it. He bent over and flung open a cabinet, starting to unload nasal cannulas and non-rebreather masks from it and stuffing them into the bag. Jonathan moved to help.
“You should take the O2 tank out of that,” Jonathan said. He unzipped the side of the bag and pulled it out. “It’ll make more room for the other supplies.”
“You’re going to help me?” Theo asked. He moved to the next cabinet, starting to empty IV supplies into the bag by the handful.
“God help me, yes,” Jonathan answered. Theo heard a cabinet open and something fall from it, and he glanced over his shoulder. Jonathan was pulling the OB kits, burn sheets, and trauma dressings from the cabinet above him, stacking them neatly in his hands. “There’s no way you’d make it all the way into town on your own,” he said.
Theo grit his teeth in mild frustration. Jonathan was talking like he thought Theo wasn’t capable of protecting himself, though the body at their feet said otherwise.
“If something happened to you while I was just sitting around in here waiting on help,” Jonathan went on, “I’d feel pretty damn guilty about it.”
Still trying to determine if he’d been intentionally insulted, Theo slid the next cabinet open. As he reached for the elastic bandages inside, the cell phone in his pocket began to chirp, its high-pitched shrill breaking into the mostly quiet interior of the ambulance. He fumbled at his pocket, ripping the phone free. Glancing at the display and seeing Gray’s name, he flipped the phone open and put it to his ear. “Gray?”
“Theo, Theo, where the fuck are you?” Gray’s voice came through the line, and Theo’s shoulders stiffened. Something about his brother’s voice frightened him. It was hard, tense, and heavy with tears. Theo’s stomach lurched.
“I’m on the truck,” Theo replied. He chose to not mention that the truck was a wrecked truck. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“I need help,” Gray said in a rush. “We need help over here. There were these guys. They attacked me and April, and I—”
“April?” Theo repeated, furrowing his forehead. “April Linder?”
“Yes, April Linder!” Gray confirmed impatiently. “Look, she’s dying, and we can’t get an ambulance here. We can’t even get through to fucking nine-one-one, and I need help!”
“Okay, Gray, calm down and tell me where you are,” Theo said.
“I’m at a bar. The Brass Monkey. It’s about two miles east of my apartment.”
“Yeah, I know the place.” Theo didn’t bother to question why Gray was at a bar; he, after all, was the one who’d ditched out on his brother and their plans earlier that evening.
“Just hurry, okay?”
“I’ll try,” Theo said grimly. “Stay inside and make sure you keep people around you. Do whatever you can for April. What’s her condition?”
“She’s fucking bleeding out, Theo!” Gray said, his voice loud. “Her fucking neck—”
“Put pressure on it,” Theo cut in. “Whatever her wound is, just put pressure on it and keep it there. I’ll be there as soon as I possibly can. I promise.”
“Theo?” Gray’s voice cracked. He sounded incredibly young over the crackling phone line, and Theo felt a pang of nervousness in his chest.
“Yeah?”
“It’s crazy out there,” Gray said. “It’s…there are people with guns and shit everywhere. A lot of shooting going on. Me and Jack, we don’t know what to do. Everybody else left when all the shooting started. There are four of us left in here, and we’ve got the doors barricaded, but I’m not sure how long that’ll hold.”
“Stay where you are,” Theo repeated. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think. “Don’t leave that building if you can help it, okay? I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll run the whole way if I have to.”
“Be careful, Theo,” Gray said. “It’s bad. You have no idea. I want to get out of here. I really, really want to get out of here.”
“I’m going to get you out,” Theo promised. “Just stay ther
e. Don’t leave. And keep me updated.” He flipped the phone shut and shoved it back into his pocket, wordlessly snatching up supplies again.
“Everything okay?” Jonathan asked, passing Theo the drug bag from a cabinet, which began emptying into the trauma bag.
“Gray’s ex-girlfriend is hurt badly, and they can’t get any help to them,” Theo answered. “They’re at the Brass Monkey. Think you can help me get there?”
“That’s almost five miles away.”
“I can handle it,” Theo said. He stuffed the last of the medications into the bag, added three IV bags of fluid, and then got the overstuffed bag zipped. He stared at the bulging bag, then scanning his eyes over the rest of the truck’s interior. “You see anything else we might need?”
“AED?” Jonathan suggested.
“And O2,” Theo added. He dumped the pediatric bag’s contents onto the floor and stuffed two portable oxygen tanks into it, adding the intubation kit to the two bags he was going to carry.
Jonathan reached for the back door of the ambulance, his hand resting on the handle, and looked back at him. “Look, before we step out, I’ve got to ask you this,” he started. “I have to know how far you’re willing to go. How far you’re capable of going. I’ve got to know that I can rely on you in something like this.”
“Something like what?” Theo asked impatiently. He was itching to get moving, to set out and find his brother, and Jonathan’s talk was doing nothing but slowing him down from setting out on his self-imposed mission.
“Just…listen for a minute,” Jonathan said, not sounding the slightest bit impatient with Theo. He fell silent, and they both listened to the sporadic gunfire outside, the shouts and screams from the people beyond. “It sounds bad out there,” he said. “Really bad. A war zone, like I said. I’ve been in one of those before, but you haven’t. I need to know, Theo. Would you kill someone if you had to? Are you capable of killing someone? Don’t answer right away. Think about it.”
Theo stood there, his fingers clutching the straps of one of the bags he’d packed, staring at Jonathan through the darkness in the back of the ambulance, listening to the chaos outside. His heart pounded erratically in his chest, and the smallest tendril of adrenaline began to creep up his spine. Could he kill someone? Would he? It was a hard question. Theo had always been the type of person who helped other people, not hurt them. He was in the emergency medicine profession to do that very thing. Now he was being asked to contemplate something that went against his nature, and he wasn’t sure what to say.
Theo shifted his eyes away from his driver and down to the floor, staring emptily at the dead patient lying on the stretcher in a haphazard heap. He thought about Gray, about the promise he’d made in his heart the minute he’d been old enough to understand his duties as an older brother. He’d always assured both himself and Gray that he’d protect his brother, that he’d keep the bullies and the other people who would do awful things to him at bay, that he would, in fact, do everything in his power to make sure Gray was always safe from harm. Especially after their parents had died. Theo would do anything for Gray. He’d even kill for him, if that was what it took. There was no doubt in his mind about that.
Theo lifted his gaze to Jonathan. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely, his voice low. “Yeah, I’d kill if I needed to. If it meant protecting my brother, I’d do it.”
“That’s good to hear,” Jonathan acknowledged. “Because there’s a chance you might have to.” He tugged on the door’s latch and pushed his foot against the door. It fell open, hitting the pavement beyond with a scrape and a thud. Jonathan went to work on the second door. “Once I get us in the clear, I’ll take some of that off your shoulders,” he promised. “And then we can start running.” He swung the door open and locked it into place and then looked back at Theo. “Let’s go,” he said, taking a cautious step out of the truck.
There was a loud pop. Jonathan jerked to the side and collapsed, lying halfway on the bottom door. Theo stumbled backward, his eyes registered the sight of the bullet hole in the side of Jonathan’s head.
Chapter 7
Gray paced impatiently alongside the pool table on which April’s body lay, the fingers of his left hand curled so tightly around his cell phone that his knuckles hurt. He ignored the pain, ignored the throbbing in his skull and the deep ache in his chest. It felt like adrenaline had snatched the air from his lungs in the time since he’d called Theo, and he fought to not dial his brother’s number again. He had said he was coming. Redialing his number over and over wouldn’t get him there any faster. It was already too late for Gray’s immediate need.
April had died five minutes before, shortly after Gray had placed his initial call to Theo. She’d bled out, her blood pouring from her wound and spilling across the green felt of the pool table, soaking through the towels Jack had kept pressed against the wound. No one had been able to get through on the official emergency lines in the interim. There hadn’t been anything they could do for her. She’d died, and they hadn’t been able to stop it.
Gray set his phone down on a table and ran both hands through his hair, ignoring the sticky blood still staining them. He paced to the end of the table and then turned sharply to go back the other way. He avoided looking at April’s body lying on the table, pale and cooling. He didn’t want to think about what had happened to her. He didn’t want to think about how her hair looked, tangled and disheveled, spread under and around her head like a dark halo. He couldn’t wrap his mind around any of it, so he simply shut it out. His chest still felt tight. He knew he needed to sit down, needed to take it easy and force himself to calm down before he worked himself into an asthma attack. His nerves wouldn’t let him do it.
“Gray, please, sit,” Jack begged from somewhere behind him. “There’s enough going on without you driving me crazy walking all over the place.”
Gray abandoned his pacing to move to the front doors. The shooting had begun outside not long after Gray, Jack, and the bouncer—Brendon was his name, Gray had learned—had brought April inside after they’d disabled their attackers. A nightmare had broken out beyond the doors, and in light of the violence outside, Brendon had thought it prudent to barricade the doors, to keep the shooters and any people who might have wished to do them harm out of the bar. None of them had any idea what was going on out there. Gray had more than once considered calling Theo back to ask him, but considering Theo hadn’t mentioned anything when he did call, Gray suspected Theo didn’t know either. It seemed like the entire world had collapsed around them in a very short time.
“Gray, please,” Jack said again. He sounded exhausted. Gray turned to look at his older friend. “Just sit, okay? You’re driving me nuts. Besides, we need to figure out what to do.”
“Do?” Gray repeated. “We’re going to call the fucking cops, Jack. That’s all we can do.”
“We need to get out of here,” Jack replied. “It sounds bad out there. Really bad. I don’t think we should stick around in here that much long—”
“We call the police,” Gray said again, more emphatically. “We can’t just leave. There’s a dead body in here! April’s dead! The cops need to—”
“We can’t call the police, Gray,” Jack interrupted. “We can’t get through!”
“We can’t just leave her here!” Gray protested. He sank into a chair, leaning over to rest his elbows against his thighs. He didn’t look at Jack, directing his next words to the floorboards. “I can’t leave her here. I can’t just…I don’t know.”
“The police aren’t going to come,” Brendon said. “There’s a lot going on out there right now. They wouldn’t have time to investigate the attack on you guys right now when they’ve got people running around with guns. Especially since she’s already dead.”
“And what the hell is going on out there?” Gray demanded. He stood and took a few brisk steps toward one of the windows to peer out into the darkness beyond. Though the parking lot was poorly lit, he could make out people runn
ing down the street and could hear the pop of a gun firing. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Never even heard of anything like this. Do you think it’s a riot? Some sort of uprising against the government or something?”
“If it was an uprising against the government, it’d make more sense if it was up in Jackson,” Jack mused. He moved to join Gray, and they stood staring into the darkness in silence for several long moments.
“Zombies,” Gray mumbled.
Jack gave him a startled look. “What?”
“It’s zombies,” Gray said. “It’s got to be. Hell, that guy bit April. He bit her. Think about it, Jack. It’s total Night of the Living Dead shit. Zombies bite people. They, like, eat them and shit.”
“Gray…is the lack of oxygen from your asthma starting to affect your brain?” Jack asked. “There’re no such things as zombies.”
“How do you know that?” Gray persisted. “Those two guys who attacked me and April, they’ve got all the hallmarks of a fucking Romero film. They were trying to bite me, they did bite April, and they stank to high heaven, like a damned corpse or something. Maybe there’s been a lab accident somewhere or something, and a bunch of dead people are going around trying to, I don’t know, eat the living or whatever it is that zombies do.”
Jack stared at him, clearly incredulous. “Gray, I do believe you’ve finally cracked.”
“I have not!”
Jack leaned against the wall beside the window, crossing his arms over his chest. “Okay then, genius. Where are all the zombie hordes like you see in the movies? There’s supposed to be massive crowds of them out there, right?”
Gray shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
Jack sighed. “You know what I think? I think it’s just a bunch of people rioting, and you’ve been watching way too many horror movies.”
Gray huffed out a breath and crossed his own arms, squinting when he noticed movement in the shadows near the edge of the parking lot. “So you still think we should leave?” he asked, trying to ignore the veiled insult to his intelligence that Jack had dropped on him. “You still think we should ditch out of here? Where would we go?”
Origins (The Becoming Book 6) Page 15