Autumn saw his eyes drift to her arm again and then to his watch.
“How long has it been?” she asked.
“Almost three hours,” he replied. “I’d like to take another blood sample if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. It’s kind of weird that I’m still feeling so good, but maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m like that boy at the school.”
He got a new test tube and took the sample, fixing a slide while Autumn grabbed a deck of cards from her desk drawer. They had come in handy during her long hospital stays, since playing her handheld video games and reading had gotten boring after a while. Besides, her dad had told her that too many video games would turn her brain to mush. She had become quite good at most variations of solitaire. Her poker skills, on the other hand, were a little rusty. Once again, her Dad had been her teacher, and he had taught her, along with the fundamentals of the game, the fine art of bluffing. Maybe this was a game in which she could top the doctor.
While Autumn got the cards ready, Doune looked through the microscope and switched slides a couple of times.
She could see him frowning, but he remained silent as he walked back to the table. He picked up a notebook and read through some of his notes. After a few minutes, he said, “Let me see your arm again.”
He unwrapped the bandage and began to take some notes, measuring the wound and taking a picture of it as well.
“It still doesn’t look bad,” Autumn noted.
“No, it doesn’t,” he said as he replaced the bandage.
“All right, I think I’m ready for this game,” Autumn said. She knew that she should be feeling the effects of being bitten. She had seen bite victims, and she knew how quickly they spiraled into death . . . then worse. She dealt the cards and rearranged her hand.
“Maybe the guy who bit me wasn’t really a zombie,” she said aloud. “I mean he sure looked like one. He was all pale, and he moaned, but some of my foster parents did that.”
“They did?”
“No.”
She looked at Doune and grabbed the deck.
“You want to draw?”
“Why would he bite you if he wasn’t a zombie?” Doune asked.
Autumn rolled her eyes. Dr. Doune was smart, but he wasn’t always very good at telling when she was kidding.
“It was a joke,” she said. “The guy that bit me looked just like all the others.”
“I see,” he said, setting down two cards, though his mind obviously wasn’t on the game. “I’ll take two.”
Autumn discarded four cards and picked up four more from the deck. When she saw that Dr. Doune seemed preoccupied, she grabbed two more cards and slipped them onto her seat, sitting on them to hide them.
There was a knock on the door, and Autumn made sure her bandage was tucked beneath her sleeve before Keith walked in with a tray full of blood samples.
“I’ve got another group ready to come out of quarantine,” he said.
Autumn stood to help fix the slides, but Doune shook his head and asked Keith to help instead.
“Autumn is a bit under the weather tonight,” Doune explained.
“No problem. I can help,” Keith said, following Doune over to the table across the room. He fixed the slides and marked them while Doune began to check them under the microscope. After just a few minutes, Doune announced that all of the samples were negative.
“I’m heading up to the fifth floor after I tell these guys they can go,” Keith told Doune. “I’ll be back down at 9:30 to get the others.”
“Before you go,” Doune said, checking to make sure Autumn was still in his office and out of hearing range, “can you tell me about the outbreak upstairs? Was anybody bitten?”
“Yes,” Keith said. “We lost Dr. Martinez, Debbie, one of the bikers and two patients. It was bad.”
“Are they all dead?”
“Debbie just passed on,” Keith said. “The others are all dead, too.”
“It was the survivor who was brought in from the office building site?”
“Yes. I still haven’t heard how it happened,” Keith said. “The room was supposed to be guarded.”
“And the patient was supposed to have been strapped down,” Doune added. “We have rules for a reason.”
“Hey, I’m with you,” Keith said. “This shouldn’t have happened, and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’ve got to run, but I’ll be back down at 9:30.”
“All right. And would you please see if you can find out anything else about the outbreak while you’re up there?”
“I’ll do that. I’ll let you know when I come back down.”
“Thank you, Keith,” Doune said.
~*~
After getting beaten at poker several times in a row, Doune stood up to take a break. He was fairly sure that the girl was cheating, but he had yet to catch her in the act, so he hadn’t said anything. Glancing at the clock as he got himself a glass of water, he was surprised to see how many hours had passed since Autumn had first been brought in.
“Let’s check that arm,” he said, walking over to unwrap it. Once again, he expected the worst and was surprised to see that the wound was showing a definite improvement.
“Autumn, something is just not adding up here,” he told her. “Don’t take this wrong, but you should be on death’s door right now. Instead, the wound seems to be healing.”
“I know what you mean,” Autumn replied, looking at the bite mark. “I should be feeling pretty rotten by now, but I feel okay. Maybe that guy was just nuts or something, like a zombie wannabe. A little makeup and some moaning. Bite the first defenseless girl you see, and voila, you’re not a dork anymore. You’re a scary creature.”
“You tested positive, Autumn,” he reminded her.
She stood up and turned to scoop up a handful of cards from her seat, placing them back into the deck.
“I knew you were cheating!” he said, pointing at the cards. “I knew it!”
“So maybe the test was wrong. Why couldn’t the guy be a fake?” she asked again. “Either way, it’s still an on-the-job injury, and I should be getting paid, right?”
“You’ll get paid. Not that money is worth anything now.” He hesitated before finally adding, “He wasn’t a fake.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Keith said that others were attacked.”
“Who?” Autumn asked, growing solemn.
Doune listed the names that Keith had given him.
“Are they all dead?” she asked quietly.
“Yes,” Doune said.
“Then I guess I am going to die,” Autumn said. “It’s just taking me longer.”
Doune opened his mouth to speak but closed it again when he had no reply.
~*~
When the quarantine period was up, Snake went to the cafeteria to talk to Jack and a small group of those who had been on the fifth floor during the outbreak.
Jack asked Dr. Sharma to speak first, so she could get back upstairs. With input from Moose, Marla, Hawk and a few others, they were able to piece the whole story together. When everybody was done speaking, there was silence for a while as Jack pondered the situation. He finally spoke.
“It sounds to me like there were a lot of little slip-ups that added up to a huge disaster. I don’t think we can point fingers at any one or two people. I think that Dr. Martinez made a bad call, but there were other contributing factors, too.”
“And Bull was supposed to stay out in the hall,” Snake added. “There was no reason for him to be in that room.”
Dr. Sharma sighed and said, “One of your men found several pain pills in Bull’s pocket. I was only giving him a couple at a time because you warned me that he’d had a problem before.”
“Where’d he get them?” Snake asked, frowning.
“We keep the meds in a room down the hall from the one he was guarding,” Dr. Sharma explained. “I’m not sure how he would have gotten the key with another guard right there
.”
Hawk let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair.
“I took a smoke break when I first got there,” he admitted. “Bull kept trying to get me to go. I’m not trying to push off the blame — I’m responsible for leaving my post, but maybe he wanted me out of there for a reason. Now that I think about it, he was a little glassy-eyed when I got back, and I don’t remember him being that way before.”
Moose nodded in agreement. “He was nodding off. I think he went into the room to get some sleep.”
“I think Bull had a bigger problem than I thought he did,” Snake said, “and I’m holding myself responsible for letting him pull guard duty.”
“I don’t understand why we didn’t know this guy was infected,” Keith said. “Didn’t anything show up in his blood test? He should have tested positive.”
“I assumed he was tested on the second floor,” Dr. Sharma said. “I never even thought about it.”
“And I’ll bet Dr. Doune didn’t, either,” Jack said, “since the patient was going upstairs. Dr. Martinez probably also assumed it had been done. This is what I mean — there were a lot of little mistakes.”
“It will be easier when the other quarantine room is ready,” Dr. Sharma said. “We can have more protocols in place. But I am at fault as much as anybody. I knew that there were no straps on the patient, and I did nothing about it.”
Jack said, “You’re an intern and you’re used to letting the doctors who are in charge make the decisions. Now that it’s just you and Dr. Doune, you’re going to have to take on more responsibility. That means from now on, if you don’t feel right about something, you need to make the call.”
“He still has seniority over me,” she pointed out.
“He has also made it clear that his priority is the lab,” Jack said. “You’re in charge of the patients now. That doesn’t mean you can’t go to Dr. Doune for help, but the final responsibility will fall on your shoulders. Are you okay with that?”
Dr. Sharma let out a long breath, thinking it over. She was twenty-five years old and would be fully responsible for the remaining patients in the hospital. There weren’t many left, but that could change. It was a lot for her to take in.
“I will do my best,” she said, finally.
“Thank you,” Jack said. “I just hope we can learn something from this and put some safeguards in place to keep it from happening again. I think we all realize now that we can’t let our guard down, no matter how safe we think we are.”
~*~
“We need some of you to help unload the last truck,” Snake called to his men. He stopped Lindsey and Wombat when they started to go outside. “Maybe you two could help me take Dr. Doom’s new test tubes upstairs. “Not sure I trust some of these guys to carry glassware.”
“Sure,” Lindsey said, taking one of the three boxes. Wombat took another, and Snake got the last one.
“I hope we don’t have to do any more shopping for a while,” Snake said.
“We shouldn’t,” Lindsey said. “We brought in a huge haul today. I’ll bet we’re set for winter.”
“Apparently they made three more trips while we were looking for generator parts,” Snake said. “I wasn’t happy to hear that they went back out, but I guess there was no harm done, and they did get a lot of stuff.”
When they reached the lab, Lindsey pulled the door open and carried her box inside. She spotted Doune and Autumn in the office, playing cards. As she walked over, she caught a glimpse of a bandage on Autumn’s arm, but when she opened her mouth to ask about it, she caught a look from Doune that made her remain silent. He’d barely shaken his head, but it was enough to get his point across, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. Lindsey managed to keep her face expressionless as the others brought their boxes in. Once Snake and Wombat were inside, she slipped back out into the hallway and leaned against the wall, knowing there was no way she could remain in the room and act like nothing was wrong. She took several deep breaths, trying to keep control of her emotions. Moments later, Wombat stepped outside to join her.
“Are you all right?” he asked, after taking one look at her.
“I-I’m okay,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Just a long day, I guess. It’s finally all catching up with me.”
“I know what you mean. We lost a lot of people today, and on top of that, you had your own brush with death. I’m just glad that whoever took the shot at you had poor aim.”
For a moment, Lindsey couldn’t remember what he was talking about. Her mind was on Autumn, and she had to think back to earlier in the day when she’d climbed the fence.
“That happened so fast I hardly had time to be concerned over it,” she admitted.
“You shouldn’t have had to climb up there,” Wombat said. “I should have just pulled myself up.”
“Why? Because I’m a female?” Lindsey asked, turning to look at him. “You can’t think like that, Wombat. We’re all in this together, and we all have to pull our weight. I appreciate that you’re looking out for me, but you can’t be worried about protecting me when we’re on a supply run or a rescue mission. You’ve got to be able to do your job, and I have to be able to do mine.”
He looked away for a moment then said, “My parents raised me to respect women, and it was drilled into my brain from an early age that girls were to be protected. I had three younger female cousins, and it was my responsibility to watch out for them. I kept on doing that until we moved here. I’m sorry. I guess it’s just a hard habit to break, but you’re right.”
“It’s all right,” Lindsey said, giving him a half-smile. “If I’m ever in a bad situation, I’ll be more than happy to have you jump in and help, and I’ll do the same for you if you’re in trouble. I just don’t want anybody distracted by worrying about me, okay? Do you know how I’d feel if you got hurt because you weren’t paying attention, and it’s because you were looking out for me?”
“Okay. I’ll try not to do that. That doesn’t mean I have to like it, does it?” he asked with a smile.
“No,” she said. “But do you worry about Helga? She’s a female.”
“Helga can take care of herself, probably better than most of us. You do a great job out there, too, and I’m impressed by how much you’ve learned in the last couple of weeks. It’s just different with you . . .”
“Why?” she asked.
He held her gaze for a moment then started to reply, but Snake stepped out of the room. He looked at Wombat and Lindsey with obvious curiosity on his face.
Lindsey stepped away, worried about what Snake must be thinking. He had talked to her the first time she went out with the bikers and had explained to her that he didn’t normally let women ride with them because they’d had problems in the past with a co-ed group. Some of the female bikers had been particularly relentless in their pursuit of Wombat. Lindsey had assured Snake that she wouldn’t cause any trouble if she rode with them, but Snake seemed to give her looks at times that made her feel like she was betraying his trust.
“I’m going to check on Autumn,” Lindsey said, looking away. “I haven’t seen her all day.”
“All right. I’ll see you later, Lindsey,” Wombat said, turning to leave with Snake.
Lindsey nodded, her thoughts back on Autumn. She took a deep breath before opening the door.
~*^*~
~26~
Malibu, California
Hixson and Rayburn continued to work their way around the Malibu compound, often having to change directions when a street was filled with the dead. At one point, they had to duck inside a hardware store to avoid a large crowd. Dan found a crowbar, and George picked up a baseball bat from the sporting goods section, telling Dan that he had played third base back in high school. A short time later, they broke into another building to avoid an encounter. When the dead started closing in on them for a third time, they heard helicopters overhead.
“We need to hide,” Dan said, quickly
looking around. He saw an office supply store that looked fairly large and didn’t appear to have any broken glass. He pried the door open with the crowbar, immediately hearing a beeping noise when they got inside.
“George, push the door shut!” Hixson yelled, searching for the alarm box. He knew that he probably had only a minute or less to disable it. The seconds ticked away as he moved down one wall then the other. He finally found a locked metal box behind a customer service counter. Using the crowbar, Dan pried the box loose then used his hands to tear it free, breaking the wires in the process. The beeping stopped. Dan took a moment to catch his breath then hurried back to where George was just getting the heavy glass doors closed.
Dan scanned the parking lot outside to see if they’d been followed. A couple of the dead were within sight, but they seemed to be looking around, not moving in any specific direction.
Two helicopters could be seen slowly moving over the buildings a few blocks away.
“If the zombies start to gather outside the door, they’ll lead those birds right to us,” Hixson said, looking at the dead outside.
“I don’t think they saw us come in, so maybe we’re safe.”
“I don’t know, George. They weren’t in the parking lot a few minutes ago, so they must have followed us. Hopefully they’ll lose interest and wander off. Just stay back where they can’t see us.”
Both men sank farther back into the shadows, though Dan kept looking around in case they weren’t alone. He swore softly when a couple more ghouls moved into the parking lot. One of them started staggering toward the building. The sound of the helicopters got louder, and the dead in the parking lot turned to watch, arms reaching toward the sky. One of the choppers suddenly dropped into sight, and Dan hissed, “Don’t move.”
They stood perfectly still as the helicopter hovered in place for several long seconds. It finally had to lift up again when the undead began to grasp for the landing skids.
“Let’s get out of sight in case they come in,” Dan said, moving toward the back of the store. “I’m going to change. They won’t be looking for me in street clothes.”
Dead, But Not For Long (Book 2): Pestilence and Promise Page 21