This Would Be Paradise (Book 1) Read Free

sick woman,” I hissed.
    “I’m just going to look through the peephole,” she answered, removing her arm from my grasp.
    Zoe approached the door, peering through the small eyehole. Before I could say anything more, she ripped open the door. A disheveled guy in sweatpants and an unkempt beard burst into the room, shutting the door behind him.
    “Mike, what the hell?” Zoe demanded of the scruffy man.
    “Zoe,” he huffed; a thin layer of sweat coated his pale skin.
    I noticed his left leg was bleeding. The blood had seeped through his ripped sweatpants and had started to drip onto the carpet. There goes our damage deposit.
    “Are you okay?” Zoe asked, taking a step back from Mike. His eyes were darting all over the place rapidly, like he was searching for someone.
    “One of…” Mike took a deep breath. “…one of my buddies got sick, I think. He bit my leg!”
    Zoe ran into the bathroom for our last clean towel and he placed it on his leg wound as he sat on one of the beds. Sitting seemed to calm him down; he didn’t look as panicked as he did before.
    “I’m Bailey by the way,” I said, with a noncommittal wave.
    “Mike.”
    I wanted to say, “Yeah I got that,” but I held my tongue for once. I grabbed Zoe and ushered her into the bathroom.
    “Uh, who’s that?” I asked.
    “He’s the guy from last night.” She at least had the good graces to look embarrassed. I rolled my eyes.
    “Hey, you girls see the news?” Mike yelled from the other room.
    “Yeah, there’s some serious shit going on,” Zoe said, leading us back to where Mike was sitting. “We were about to head to the hospital.”
    I glared at Zoe for telling him, undoubtedly he would want to come along.
    “Mind if I go, too? I think I need to have this looked at,” he motioned to the still bleeding wound that adorned his lower leg. See, I knew it .
    “Well if we are going to do this, let’s go,” I sighed, grabbing my bag with all my documents in it.
    The motion of putting the bag strap on my shoulder pulled my wound taut and I sucked in a breath at the fresh wave of pain that radiated from my side.
    “You got bit, too?” Mike asked.
    “Scratched, by some crazy woman downstairs,” I answered through clenched teeth.
    “Should we be going back down there then?” he asked, a scared look flashing across his face.
    “How else do you suggest we get to the hospital?” I countered.
    “Call for an ambulance?”
    “No ambulance would come for a scratch and a bite,” Zoe sighed, grabbing her own purse.
    I had briefly thought of calling the police to report the attack, but I figured I would have to fill out something at the hospital, so I would just do it all there.
    “We should call a taxi, though,” I suggested, as the idea came to me.
    Zoe nodded and flipped through the ratty phone book beside the room phone. She found a number and dialed. Mike and I just watched in silence as she held the receiver to her ear.
    “You’re fucking kidding me,” Zoe gritted as she slammed it down. “No one is answering there either!”
    All right, at this point the situation was starting to make me nervous. One thing after another kept happening; I was attacked by some crazy woman who appeared to have ripped open another man earlier, the news was going on about some virus, and flights had been cancelled. This was like something straight out of a B-List Hollywood horror movie and I was having a hard time believing it was all real.
    Maybe I was still hungover, asleep. At that thought, hope bloomed in my chest. Then I remembered the radiating pain from my wound and I knew I wasn’t imagining all of this. Unfortunately, I was living it and first things first, I needed to get my side looked at.
    “Well, I guess we’ll be walking so let’s go,” I said as I headed toward the door.
    “Are you going to be able to walk?” Zoe asked Mike.
    “I should be able to hobble there, it’s only got to be like a ten-minute walk from here anyways,” he