Page 58 of The Dire Reaction

“I saw John die, Sam. There was a whole pack. He never had a chance.”

Crying. I can hear her crying and I can’t console her. Why can’t I move? I’m just so tired…

Something wet lands on my hand. Her cold fingers are still there, wiping it away.

“Don’t wait to tell her, Sam. I know you love each other. Time is so short. She loves you, too. I saw it today.”

Her forehead touches my wrist. My arm is shaking from her sobbing.

Elly, I’m so sorry. I wish I could wake up…

Chapter twenty-nine

DANI

IfeellikeI’mbeing torn in two.

One half of me wants to curl around Sam’s unconscious body. The other half knows I need to be out here in this hospital tent helping treat the wounded as they arrive.

It was only an hour after the phone call yesterday before the first truck arrived. They had a tent erected in the front yard soon after, just as another truck rolled in stocked with medical supplies and personnel.

There’s now a full time sentry on every building keeping eyes on the surrounding areas. A series of motion detecting cameras added to the woods nearby now keep a set of invisible eyes on the hardest areas to watch.

Captain Russo isn’t as old as he sounded on the phone, but the exhaustion rimming his eyes surely adds ten years. His gruff manner is tinged with patience as he explained to me his expectations and presented me with a signed letter from the governor’s office exempting me from any ramifications for helping outside of my license.

“Boise and the surrounding areas have a population of roughly half a million people. We’re looking at a conversion rate of between fifteen and twenty percent.” His gravelly voice isn’t smoothed by his constant sips of scalding coffee. He wipes an errant drop from his unshaven face. His dark beard looks as old as this new hell.

“Conversion rate. That’s an interesting term. Nearly a hundred thousand people changed? What have you estimated the mortality rate of the virus to be?” I ask as I peel off another pair of exam gloves. The patient’s vitals seem to be stable, and he is ready to be shipped back to the prison safe zone.

This has been my first chance to ask him questions. Yesterday was a flurry of making sure Sam was okay and moved comfortably to his bed. Then, I was up until well past midnight working through an onslaught of wounded patients.

“Well,” he grumbles, “that’s harder. We estimate twenty to thirty percent, but we’re seeing higher losses due to the dogs…” His voice trails off. The implications constrict my throat.

“So, you’re saying at least fifty percent of the population is just,gone?” I stop moving and look at him. His khaki uniform is dirty and disheveled and he has dried blood crusted to the left side of his neck. It’s been there since last night when he helped to carry an injured man to one of the stretchers.

He moves to take another drink from his cup, then just stares into the bottom of the empty vessel.

“Yeah. The Governor is gone. Most of the state congress. I heard they squirreled the President away, but scuttlebutt says he turned.” He continues to stare into his cup. “Too many have turned,” he adds quietly.

He fidgets with his hand and I realize he’s twisting a wedding ring.

I can’t resist asking. “Is your wife okay, Captain?”

His brown eyes are hollow when he glances up. “She was pregnant with our first child. We were waiting until it was born to find out if it was a boy or a girl.” He pauses, habit drawing his cup partway to his lips before he sighs. “The baby turned and she hemorrhaged internally. The tech who checked her out said the anatomy just wasn’t compatible.”

He turns on his heel and walks over to the smaller mess tent before I can reply.

What the hell do you even say to that?

I scrub my hands under the small foot pump fountain and head back into the house with a handful of clean bandages. Elly has breakfast cooking, a heaping pan of eggs and hashbrowns.

“Any change?” I ask her as soon as the door latches behind me.

She knows exactly what I’m talking about. “No, but I haven’t checked on him in about an hour.”

“Okay, I need to change his bandages anyway. I’ll be a bit.”

When I step into the bedroom he’s sprawled across the bed. His IV tubing is wrapped around his arm and the stand is leaning precariously over the bed.

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