Dead, but Not for Long (31 page)

“Cheri and the kids are staying,” Dr. Sharma said,
standing and crossing her arms. “I’ve been treating her and she’s doing well
here. She’s not ready to go back to the home she shared with her
recently
deceased husband
yet.”

“It’s not your decision,” Eric said.

“You’re right,” Dr. Sharma replied. “It was Cheri’s
decision. I already talked to her.”

“Oh,” Eric said. “Well, I should probably
stay and help out here since I’m second in command, seniority-wise.”

“Look,” Jack said. “This isn’t a group decision.
Anybody that wants to leave is free to go. Those that don’t want to go are
welcome to stay. We’re just asking one thing.”

He hesitated, noticing that there were several
children in the room. “Can we maybe have the kids leave for a few minutes?”

A couple of the adults volunteered to watch them in the ER waiting room, and once
they were gone, Jack brought up what Reynolds had said about the guns.

“Lt. Reynolds stuck his neck out to warn us about
this,” Jack pointed out. “All it’s going to take is one person to open their
mouth and not only will Reynolds get in trouble, they’ll be back here to grab
every weapon we have. Those that stay will be scavenging food and supplies from
any place we can find it. We’ll need our guns for that and if the military know
we have them, they’ll take them. Does anybody have a problem with keeping quiet about that?”

One of the ex-patients finally spoke up. “I don’t
have a problem with it at all. As far as I’m concerned, everybody here has gone
above and beyond to help us. You all could have easily just left us here to
fend for ourselves when things got bad. There’s no way I’m saying a word to anybody.”

“Honestly,” Marian said, “I hear the guns but I
never see them, since I don’t go outside. I doubt that most of us have a clue
as to how many weapons there are.”

“Three,” someone in the back said.

There was some laughter at the reply.

Jack nodded. “Thanks everybody. Now, I’d like to know who will be leaving.
Can I see a show of hands for those who have decided to go?”

Not a single biker had even entertained a thought of leaving as Snake had guessed, and much of the hospital staff opted to stay.

Dr. Chan, the Cardiologist, raised his hand and explained his reasoning.

“I’ve only got two patients left and since Dr.
Sharma is staying, she can treat them. I was torn about whether to go or stay
but it sounds like these shelters could probably use a doctor. Since we have
four doctors here for a handful of patients, I’m going to go.”

“Dr. Martinez?” Jack asked the young general practitioner.

“I haven’t decided,” the younger doctor admitted. “I
agree with Dr. Chan that we could be of assistance in a larger environment, but
I’m not so sure we couldn’t do the same here. Who’s to say how many survivors
are left in the city that might find their way to us? And we don’t really know
what these shelters are like. On the other hand, I think that disease from the corpses
is going to become a problem here and that’s something we’re going to have to
consider. We
might
be okay until spring, but after that, this city may
become even more dangerous than it is now. I’ll have to think about it.”

Rick, the CNA who had spoken earlier, said that he
would be going along with a nurse he’d been dating. The other nurses were all
staying, as well as one CNA. Most of the recovered patients were going to be
leaving as well as a lot of the visitors, though Theresa had opted to stay and
keep the kitchen running. Doune was not in attendance.

The meeting went on for another hour, with several people asking questions and raising concerns.
When it was finally over, Lindsey was still undecided. She wasn’t convinced they’d
be any safer outside of the hospital than they were in it. Besides making her own plans, she also had Autumn to consider.

She went to talk to Doune and was somewhat surprised to hear he’d be staying.
She wasn’t naive enough to think that it had to do with
finding a cure to save the world or that he would be staying to help his
patients. She knew that it had more to do with the fact that he had a lab in
the hospital and wasn’t ready to abandon it for the unknown, especially knowing
that he’d be put to work dealing with day to day illnesses and injuries. That was just not his style.

“What do you think about leaving?” Lindsey finally
asked Autumn, who was watching intently as the doctor prodded Harold’s brain.

“Look!” Autumn replied excitedly, ignoring the
question. “We found some green, slimy stuff down by the back of the neck. Dr.
Doune doesn’t even know what it is.”

“Near the brain stem,” Doune added. “It’s quite odd.”

“Fascinating,” Lindsey said, rolling her eyes, “but
what about leaving, Autumn? You need to . . .”

“No,” Autumn cut her off, still seemingly mesmerized by the autopsy.
“Why would I want to leave all this to go live in some prison camp?”

Lindsey let out a sigh of frustration, though the image of a prison camp had crossed her
mind, too. “I seriously doubt that it would be like that.”

Autumn said, “When we found out I had cancer and my doctor here told my
parents we needed to go to UCLA, we drove out the first time.
My dad said he thought it would be fun for me. I think he really thought I might die
and would never get to do it later. He and my mom were both
teachers, so they taught me stuff all along the way. They always did that. It
took us weeks to get there, but I learned a lot.”

Lindsey remained quiet and let the girl have her say.

“I was pretty young, so I don’t remember
everything about the trip, but I do remember a lot of it. I remember stopping
at this place in Utah that was out in the middle of nowhere. Moab, I think it
was called. My dad told me that during one of the wars, all of the Japanese
people were put in these camps. It didn’t matter if they had done anything
wrong or not; it was just that they were Japanese. Most of them were Americans,
but even if their parents were Japanese, they got put in the camps. My dad said
that it was partly because farmers wanted their land. I don’t know much about
that part, but I just remember looking at that place in Utah and thinking how bad
it would have been to get taken from your home and your family and get stuck
someplace like that. I never forgot about it and I don’t ever want to end up
someplace like that.”

Lindsey was silent for a moment longer. She’d
never seen any of the War Relocation Camps, but she had heard about them. She
hoped that the U.S. had learned a lesson from that dark time in history, but
she did have some doubts. Still, she didn’t want to let paranoia keep her from
taking advantage of a safe shelter. She felt that she had to at least try to
convince the girl to go.

“I doubt that this would be . . .”

“No. I’m staying. Final answer.”

Lindsey wasn’t about to drag anybody to a shelter against their will, so she
dropped it, letting Doune and Autumn go back to their conversation.

The girl wanted to know everything that the
surgeon did and why he did it. He was eating it up, enjoying having such a rapt
student. Lindsey, on the other hand, was bored with the autopsy. She had never
been the type of person to enjoy standing around watching someone else work.

“I’ll be back in a while,” she said, needing to get away.

Lindsey was glad that Autumn had found something
to keep her interest. Many of the other children seemed to be bored quite
often. The girl was a natural in the lab and she had learned the job so well
that Lindsey had become superfluous, which was fine with her. She’d simply been
there in the capacity of a babysitter, until she had realized it wasn’t
necessary. Doune might be a bit of a sociopath, but Lindsey was sure that he
would never do anything that would endanger his star pupil. The lab was also
right next to the ER where the bikers tended to congregate when they weren’t
busy. If anything went wrong with one of the experiments in the lab, someone would be right there to help.

Lindsey still walked Autumn down to the lab each
morning and she checked in on her now and then, but she had been very busy with
other things for the last few days and she had enjoyed it. It had been challenging
to try to find the right jobs for all the newcomers and to get them settled
into life in the hospital. Now that no more survivors were to be brought in by
the military, she would have to find something else to do. Perhaps it would be
best to go the shelter, she thought. Maybe she could do the same type of job
there or maybe they could even use a physical therapist.

She wandered around, not sure what to do to kill time. She wandered over to the
ER where she heard Snake and some others talking about making a run for supplies.

“We need to get as much as we can today,” Snake
was telling the other bikers. “I want to get one more run in before the
military starts bombing our part of the city tomorrow at dawn. Who knows how
much will be left when they’re done? We may not even be able to get through the
rubble after today.”

Snake looked a list over and then tucked it into a pocket.

“I could go along if you need me,” Lindsey said. “The
doctors and nurses shouldn’t risk going but there isn’t a whole lot of physical
therapy needed right now. And since I don’t have a gun, I’m probably one of the
least valuable people here at the moment.” She laughed and added, “Even Autumn
has turned out to be an excellent assistant to Dr. Doune, so I guess I’m still
trying to find my niche.”

“Looks like you’re in better shape than most of
us,” Snake told Lindsey while patting his rather extended belly.

“What do we need to get?” she asked.

“Medical supplies, mostly,” he said, pulling the
list back out of his pocket. “Plus some diesel fuel for the generator if we can
find a way to carry it back. Groceries and anything else we run across that
might be useful.” He turned to Lindsey. “You know this area better than we do.
I guess you’re leading the way. You sure you’re up to this?”

“I’m up to it,” Lindsey said. “I’m actually kind
of looking forward to it, in fact. I’m getting stir-crazy here.”

She glanced up from the list and said, “My dad
taught me how to shoot when I was young. It’s been a while but I’m sure I could
pick it up again if we happen to stumble across a .38.”

“I don’t know how much luck you’ll have at the gun
store, even if the military hasn’t stopped by there first,” Snake said. “Last
one we went to was almost cleaned out of firearms. Hit a mess of ammo, though.
If you can’t find a .38, I could lend you a .44 Mag. Little more punch.”

“It might be too much for me, but I’d be willing
to try it if I can’t find something smaller,” she said, handing Snake the list back.

“You might as well hang onto that,” he told her. Snake
pulled out a map and highlighter that he had found in one of the administrative offices.

“I marked the area that Reynolds told us about
yesterday, but I couldn’t remember all of the street names,” he said.

Lindsey looked the map over and took the
highlighter to mark a few more streets. They ended up with a decent-sized area around the hospital.

“There’s a gun shop here,” Lindsey pointed at a
spot on the map, “and a medical supply store here, I think.”

“What about a grocery store? And we’ll need a gas
station, too.”

Lindsey pointed out several locations and Snake
nodded. “We should be able to get everything we need while staying inside the safe zone.”

He made a trip up to the fifth floor to warn the
snipers, in what they were now calling the Crow’s Nest, that he and the rest of
his crew were about to venture outside. They would undoubtedly need cover. On
the way out the door, Snake had to stop the biker who had cut himself the day before.

“You’re staying here,” Snake said.

“I’m fine. It’s just a little cut.”

“It’s a big cut that could easily get infected,”
Snake pointed out. “Wait ‘til it heals before you go back out there.”

The biker hung his head and turned away from the door.

“That’ll teach him to play with knives,” Snake
muttered as they waited for the “all clear” call on the radio.

~*^*~

Once the parking lot was clear enough, the group made a run for the vehicles.
Some of the men fired up their bikes while the rest headed to the truck.

Snake told Lindsey to get into the cab with him as
the others climbed onto the hood then up onto the top of the truck.

“Will they be all right up there?” Lindsey asked, watching the men as they climbed up.

“They’ll be fine,” Snake assured her. “We bolted a
length of chain from the front to the back of the roof on each side, so they
have something to hold onto.”

He started the engine and they headed out of the
relative safety of the hospital parking lot into the plague-ridden city.

Lindsey was stunned by the destruction around them as they moved through the besieged neighborhoods.
She had observed enough from the windows of the hospital to know that it was bad outside, but seeing it up close drove the fact home.

The truck moved slowly as Snake eased it around
cars that had been abandoned in the street. Some had doors flung open, telling
Lindsey that the occupants had left in a hurry. Some of them hadn’t left at
all. She watched the undead clawing at windows to try to get out, forever
trapped in their seat belts. Many of them were families, with luggage tied to
the tops of their vehicles. She wondered how many of them had not been able to get
out of the city because they’d taken the time to get their possessions. And how
many had already been infected before getting into their vehicles to leave? It
must have been a lot, she thought, seeing no other explanation for cars with
doors closed and windows intact and infected passengers inside. Others had
windows broken out, telling a different story.