’Til the World Ends Read Free Page B

was being kept, one of the smaller rooms that was separated from the main wing, away from the sick. A chair stood in the corner, probably where Ben had been sitting. Jenna hovered next to the patient, looking grim.
    The man on the bed groaned, sounding delirious. He was definitely paler, and blood had soaked through the bandages on his arm. But what was most worrying was the red fluid seeping from beneath his eyelids. It oozed slowly over his cheeks, cutting two crimson paths down his skin, and it could be only one thing.
    I swabbed it with a cotton ball, just to be sure. Yes, it was definitely blood. Ben came up behind me, peering over my shoulder.
    “What’s wrong with him?”
    “I...don’t know.” Though I hated admitting it. Peeling back his lids, I shone a light over his pupils, checking for wounds or scratches. Nothing. “The only thing I can think of is a subconjunctival hemorrhage, or Ebola, as unlikely as that is. Sadly, the only way to know for sure would be to conduct blood tests, but we don’t have any way to do that here. We’ll just have to keep him under surveillance and see what happens.”
    I caught a whiff of something foul, rotten, like the stench of a decaying animal, and my heart sank. Frowning, I shooed Ben out of the way and bent over the wounded man, gently unwrapping the gauze to see the wounds on his arm.
    The wounds were clean. The skin around them was still puffy and red, but the bites themselves looked fine. Or at least not infected. And yet, I could still smell the faint stench of rot and decay that suggested gangrene or wounds that had gone septic.
    Then I realized it wasn’t coming off his arm, but the body as a whole.
    Puzzled, I cleaned and rebandaged the arm, feeling Ben’s worried eyes on me the whole time. Nathan groaned and tossed restlessly, and I finally gave him a shot of morphine to calm him down. As his tortured thrashing stilled and he drifted into a drugged sleep, I heard Ben take a ragged breath.
    “He’s getting worse.”
    I turned to face him, wiping my hands. “There’s no infection, as far as I can see. His fever is getting worse, yes, but we’ve done all we can for him now. We just have to wait and see if he pulls out of it.” Ben sagged, looking lost and hopeless, unsure what to do. Sinking into the chair, he ran both hands over his face and sighed.
    I hesitated. Then, not really knowing why, I walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not giving up,” I told him softly. “And you shouldn’t, either. Why don’t you get some sleep? There’s an extra cot in the office if you need it. I’ll let you know if there are any changes.”
    He looked up with a faint, grateful smile. “Thank you,” he murmured. “But, if it’s all the same, I’d like to stay. I should be here if...anything happens to him.”
    “Miss Kylie.” Maggie walked into the room. The petite intern smiled shyly at Ben before turning to me. “Sorry to interrupt, but Jenna wanted to know if you’d like us to move Mr. Johnson’s body to the back lot now or down to storage.”
    I stifled a groan. “I don’t think Mr. Johnson will fit in any of the storage units we have down there,” I said, aware of how morbid this must sound to Ben. It had become so commonplace to us now, we didn’t even think about it anymore. “If you and Jenna will get him on a gurney, I’ll take him out back.”
    She nodded and padded away, and Ben gave me a worried look. “Out back?”
    “There’s an empty lot we’ve been using for body storage,” I said tiredly. “When the freezers downstairs get full, we move them outside. This place was set up pretty fast, so it didn’t come with a proper morgue. We’ve had to improvise.”
    “You’re going outside? Now?”
    “I can’t leave a cadaver lying on a bed all night.”
    He rose swiftly, his gaze narrowing. “I’ll come with you.”
    I frowned at his sudden change of mood. “There’s no need. I’m capable of handling a dead body