“Why…why do you want to know?” Jillian asked. The question caused a coughing fit.
“Well, you’re a very sick young lady,” Grenwald said. “And we need to know if you maybe had contact with anyone else. We’re trying to figure out who else might get sick.”
Jillian looked at the sterile white wall next to her hospital bed. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?” she rasped.
Grenwald was quiet for a moment. “We don’t know that. We don’t know enough about what you’re sick with to even guess at this point. But your vitals have stabilized. We’ve given you an emergency course of Tamiflu and—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jillian croaked. “You can’t stop it, or you wouldn’t be so scared of me.”
“I’m not…” Grenwald said. Her voice was muffled by the suit she wore.
Jillian turned and looked at Grenwald and saw her own reflection in the bubble-like visor. A pale, almost alabaster white woman with blue veins showing through the skin of her face stared back. She gasped—her eyes were blood red, like all the capillaries had burst at once and flood the sclera. Her eyes looked dark and sunken in shadows.
“Oh, my God…” she breathed.
“Jillian…can you tell me…right now, what do you feel? Where does it hurt?”
Jillian closed her aching eyes. The lights in the room felt too bright, even though they hadn’t changed since she’d woken. She didn’t want to—couldn’t—look at herself any longer. She looked like death, like a monster.
“How do I feel?” she wheezed, feeling her lungs struggle to carry oxygen to her virus ravaged body. She could almost see the life ebbing away in her reflection. Her limbs seemed very heavy, filled with lead. Her joints, on fire and painful for the last…however long it had been…had gone numb. It was the only change—the relief from the constant background pain making her brain throb. But a new sensation wormed its way into her consciousness, now that she thought about it, and concentrated on what her abused nerves were telling her.
“Yes, dear. Tell me how you feel,” Grenwald persisted, her voice so loud that Jillian thought she’d shouted. Why was everything so loud?
Jillian opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. What to tell the doctor? How scared she was that she was dying, that she’d never get to see her parents again, never get married, never have the kids she’d dreamed about since she was a little girl…all her dreams and hopes…everything, like the world around her, and her own body, were dying and dropping away like leaves in an autumn wind.
“I feel cold,” she whispered, the very act of talking painful to her swollen throat.
“Cold?” asked Grenwald, leaning over her to check a machine on the other side of the bed.
Jillian opened her eyes and looked up at Grenwald’s helmet. Through the clear plastic visor she saw the older woman’s neck and jaw, stretched as she was taking a reading on whatever it was that was beeping to her left. Her eyes locked on to the pulse just visible along the side of Greenwald’s neck, just a tiny movement of the skin, pulsating with each beat of the doctor’s heart.
“Anything else?” Grenwald asked, not looking at Jillian, still fiddling with the readout.
Jillian’s stomach clenched with a cramp more powerful than she’d ever felt. An insatiable need to eat something penetrated her thoughts and wouldn’t leave. Her heart started racing, and the monitor beeped in time, forcing Grenwald to look down in surprise at her patient.
“What is it, dear? Are you in pain?” she asked, her hands coming down to rest on Jillian’s leg and arm as she arched her back, her mouth open in a silent scream of agony.
And then it was gone, and the pain vanished and Jillian flopped down onto the bed again, rattling the equipment and throwing Grenwald off balance. She staggered forward and fell across Jillian.
As if she were in a dream, Jillian watched her arms shoot up like snakes, tearing the restraints free in one quick movement with strength she hadn’t known she’d possessed. Her pasty white hands latched onto Grenwald’s helmet. The thin plastic at the neck, designed to keep splashes and air out, parted easily under Jillian’s chipped nails and clawing hands. Grenwald screamed as Jillian ripped her helmet sideways and focused on that throbbing vein in Grenwald’s neck. She could feel her own pulse slowing with every second. More monitors started to set off a chorus of electronic alarms.
“I’m hungry,” Jillian wheezed, though it came out more like a growl. Alarms sounded, Grenwald screamed, and Jillian died.
Jillian Downer fed.
To Be Continued…
What’s Next?
The action doesn’t stop here!
Episode 4: Apocalypse is now available as a pre-order. Have you read through the Elixr Plague story so far and need some more post-apocalyptic mayhem? Well, I have another series called The Wildfire Saga. You might want to check out my Future History of America series. Fair warning, it’s not for the faint of heart.
If you want action, these books have plenty. If you want characters—lots of ‘em—these books are chock full of people, from presidents to foreign leaders, spies, rebels, soldiers, civilians, and even bikers.
Want a paperback book you can sink your teeth into? The Future History books can also be used as doorstoppers.
If you’re looking for something less action-packed, but more realistic, you may want to try my Solar Storm series. This post-apocalyptic story is set in the days immediately after the sun wipes out the global power grid and the entire world is essentially tossed back to the 1800s. Solar Storm is about one man’s quest to save his family and survive when the whole world goes dark.
Author Contact
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About the Author
MARCUS GRADUATED FROM the University of Delaware and later earn his law degree. Since then, he has at times been employed (or not) as: a highly over-qualified stock boy, cashier, department manager at a home furnishings store, assistant manager with a national arts and crafts chain, an acting store manager with the same chain, an unemployed handyman, husband, cook, groundskeeper, spider-killer extraordinaire, stay-at-home-dad, and writer.
He currently lives with his wife, children, and one cheeky vizsla in Illinois—and he couldn’t be happier you’re taking the time to read this.
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Books by Marcus Richardson
THE ELIXR PLAGUE
Episode 1: Vector
Episode 2: Infection
Episode 3: Pandemic
Episode 4: Apocalypse
OTHER SERIES
The Future History of America
The Wildfire Saga
Solar Storm
Elixr Plague: A Zombie Apocalypse Serial
For my complete catalog, please see:
marcusrichardsonauthor.com
Elixr Plague (Episode 3): Pandemic Page 10