Apocalyptic Moon (After the Bane) Read Free Page A

hasn’t been exposed.” Dora did her best to ease the mother’s concerns with a gentle voice. She knelt down and let the toddler play with her stethoscope as she scanned for bite marks or open cuts. None. Dora checked her eyes. Not bloodshot. “Hold still, Lindsey, I’m going to take a peek in your ears.” Hmm. Pus in the middle ear. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. “Thank God.” Oops, get a grip . “Your daughter has an ear infection. I’ll have Dr. Smith come in and set you up with Amoxicillin.”
    The young mother raised a brow. “You can’t?”
    “I’m sorry, tonight I’m the screener and I must move on to the next patient. Dr. Smith is our pediatrician on duty. She can advise you on how to prevent exposure to…Z-phage.” The mother nodded with a relieved smile. Ear infection always wins over zombie infection.
    Dr. Grover waved her over. “Dr. Adler.”
    She smiled at the mother and daughter, and left to meet with Dr. Grover. “Who’s next?”
    “Just came in. That man, over there. Drunk driver. He just hit and killed a woman. Dead on arrival.” He pointed his chin to the entrance. Paramedics wheeled in a large covered body, then they rushed off. “We need to hurry; the EMTs are off to a five car accident.”
    Dora read his chart. “Blood alcohol .08 and a head wound.” She glanced at a man in his fifties, dressed in a business suit. A nurse had bandaged his forehead but blood still steeped through.
    She used her ophthalmoscope to check his eyes. Slightly red, but expected of someone this drunk. “Mr. Harrison, do you have any other injuries?”
    He stared at the wall behind her. No doubt, in shock. “She just walked in front of my car.”
    She wanted to scold him for driving drunk and hitting a pedestrian but held her tongue as she observed his cut. “You’ll need stitches and then I’m afraid you’ll be placed under arrest for DUI.” Not that he really would be. The police were overwhelmed with calls of possible zombies. “First though, I’ll need to check you for bite marks. A routine examination, Mr. Harrison.”
    He slowly shook his head. He bent and pulled up his pants from his ankle. A fierce bite mark beneath his sock. Dora’s voice hitched. “Oh shit.”
    “The woman looked normal. I ran out to help…but she bit me. She must have been a recent zombie. I got in my car and ran over her again. She was a big woman. I made sure she was down.” Panic flushed on his face. “I might be immune, right?”
    “Umm.” She stopped before telling him no one was immune. “You’ll be quarantined downstairs and treated with antiviral drugs to slow the disease.” It was a big lie. No such drug existed. Every known antiviral drug failed to stop or slow the Z-phage. By tomorrow, this man would become a zombie and the shooters would deliver a bullet to his brain. “Stay here.” Dora drew the curtains around him and left. “Where’s the hit and run victim?”
    “She’s still in the hall to be taken down to the morgue,” said a nurse.
    Dora yanked on the biohazard alarm, alerting everyone to the Level 4 danger and grabbed a surgical blade. The National Guard ran in but Dora was already by the empty gurney.
    “She’s gone!” She turned just as a heavy body slammed her to the floor. The thirty-something zombie in a black sweat outfit exceeded two hundred pounds and Dora at one hundred and fifteen pounds lay crushed beneath her. “Help!”
    The zombie drooled on her, like a dog ready to eat a steak, Dora screamed as she tried to push the hefty woman off. The zombie chomped down on her arm, tearing through her sleeves. Finding flesh, the zombie bit deep into her muscle tissue, making eager chewing sounds. The pain savaged her mind, like a zebra eaten alive by lions in too much of a hurry to bother killing her first. An unnatural holler escaped Dora’s throat and she flailed, stabbing the woman’s face with her blade.
    Time slowed. Two guards lifted the hefty woman who then charged