Jessica Meigs - The Becoming (5 page)

“I don’t know,” Gray said helplessly. He followed along with Jack as he hurried them back into the bar, through a small but growing crowd of bar-hoppers clustered at the door, trying to see what was going on outside. “These two guys just came out of nowhere and attacked us. You know me—I can’t fight for shit. One of them bit April.”

“
Bit?
” Jack repeated incredulously. Before Gray could reply, Jack yelled to Smitty, “Call 911! We need an ambulance ASAP!” As Smitty rushed for the phone, Jack carried April to one of the unused pool tables, snagging a towel off a table and pushing it into Gray’s hands. “Now, tell me everything,” he ordered as Gray pressed the towel against April’s wounds. “Don’t leave anything out.”

Chapter 6

Theo surfaced to consciousness slowly, feeling as if he were slogging through a thick, viscous pool of molasses. Something sharp jabbed him between his shoulder blades, and he shifted as he tried to remember where he was. It came back to him relatively quickly. Ambulance. MVA. Dead patient who wasn’t actually dead. Crash.

Theo forced his eyes open and shifted again. Whatever was underneath him cracked under his weight. He shook his head slowly, experimentally rolling it from side to side, as he tried to figure out if he was injured. After silently inventorying each and every bone in his body, Theo determined that the only ache was in his head, where he’d struck it during the crash. He raised his head a few inches off the object behind him—it was a cabinet, he realized, and as he became more oriented, he further remembered that it was the cabinet where the IV supplies were kept.

A nearby shuffling noise reached his ears. He froze, squinting in the darkened ambulance, but the noise didn’t come again. How long had they been like this? Theo didn’t remember it being so dark before the crash. And why had no one come for them yet? Jonathan had called them en route; had no one noticed they hadn’t shown up at the hospital?

That was when he heard the gunshots.

Theo tensed, his ears straining to better make out the sounds outside. The shots were somewhat sporadic, firing from somewhere uncomfortably close to the overturned ambulance. And there was screaming and shouting. A good deal of it. And there was something clawing at the leg of his uniform pants.

Theo swore under his breath and jerked his leg away from whatever it was grasping at him. His right hand found the metal bar attached to one of the back doors, and he used it to haul himself to his feet, balancing with one foot on the side of the stretcher and the other on a cabinet door. “Jonathan?” he called out, hoping his partner was okay. When there was no immediate answer, he raised his voice. “Jonathan!”

A low groan from the front of the ambulance met his ears. “Right here,” Jonathan said. He sounded hoarse. “You okay? You hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Theo assured him. He gingerly touched the back of his head and felt a large bump on his skull. His fingertips came back stained with blood. “Hit my head. I’m okay, though.”

“And the patient?”

Theo wasn’t exactly eager to check. Despite his lack of enthusiasm or hope for the man they’d picked up at the wreck site earlier in the evening, he fished his flashlight out of the pocket by his right knee and mashed the button on the bottom. The light flickered on, and he found himself face to face with the patient.

The man stood on his broken legs just an arm’s length from Theo, his fingers reaching, grabbing for the front of Theo’s uniform shirt. He had somehow managed to break free from the stretcher and backboard, though he still wore the C-collar. As the man’s fingers curled into his shirt, Theo gasped and dropped the flashlight. It tumbled down to roll somewhere below the stretcher.

“Back off!” Theo ordered. He put a hand to the man’s chest and pushed him just firmly enough to show that he meant business. The man didn’t seem to register what he’d said. “I said
back off!
” he repeated, much more loudly than before. The man seized Theo’s shirt in both hands and jerked him toward him, his mouth opened, his bloodied teeth aiming for Theo’s throat. Theo noticed, in a flash of a single second, that the man had bitten right through his own tongue. Blood poured from his mouth and down his chin, but the man didn’t seem affected by the injury.

Suddenly fearing for his life, Theo fumbled for anything resembling a weapon that he could find. His fingers wrapped around the regulator attached to the portable O2 tank strapped to the end of the stretcher. He yanked, dragging it free from its Velcro fastenings, and hefted the partially full tank. He pushed the man back from him again and raised the tank warningly.

“Back off, man. Don’t make me use this,” Theo said. His voice shook with a mixture of nervousness and adrenaline. The man snarled at him and lunged forward again.

Theo raised the O2 tank and brought it up against the side of the man’s head with all the force he could muster. The man dropped, tumbling down like a stone to rest against the overturned stretcher. He tried to rise once more, and with another heavy blow, Theo slammed the tank against the top of his skull. Something cracked, and the man went limp. Theo stared at his unmoving form for a long time, his eyes wide and his breathing erratic. He gripped the regulator until his fingers hurt, but he didn’t loosen his grip.

Another flashlight flickered on at the front of the ambulance, and Jonathan came into view.

“Did I just kill him?” Theo asked. He looked up at the other man with wide eyes. The tank slipped from his grasp to clang against the stretcher and fell to join his dropped flashlight. He realized he was shaking, and he wrapped his fingers around the bar affixed to the door behind him, using it to steady himself, ground himself, even as he tried in vain to calm the blood coursing through his veins.

“I don’t know,” Jonathan admitted. He eased toward Theo, putting out a hand like he was approaching a wild animal. Theo imagined he probably
looked
like one. “I’m not even sure he was alive in the first place.”

Theo looked at the probably-dead man again and drew in a slow, shuddery breath. “I am
so
going to lose my license over this,” he said.

“It’ll be fine,” Jonathan said in a comforting tone. Theo only half-believed him. “I promise. We’re going to get you through this, okay?”

Theo tore his eyes away from the man at his feet and looked to Jonathan. “What happened?” he asked, desperately needing to divert his attention from the body and onto what were probably more important topics. “What did you yell out about up there? And how long have we been here?”

“Maybe thirty, forty minutes,” Jonathan replied, answering Theo’s last question first. “As for what I saw…I’m not even sure how to describe it.”

“Try anyway.”

Jonathan was silent for several heartbeats, as if he were trying to decide on the right words to say. Theo gripped the metal bar tighter, rapidly glancing between Jonathan and the dead man on the stretcher between them. A jolt of worry, of fear shot through him. He was, suddenly and irrationally, scared that the man was going to get up and attack him again. Before he could really focus on the sensation, Jonathan spoke, drawing his attention back to him.

“It was like a riot or something,” Jonathan said, his voice low. He turned to look over his shoulder, shining his flashlight in the general direction of the cab, as if trying to peer through the windshield. “There were people in the street, dozens of them. They were all running from something. I don’t know what. I couldn’t see what was behind them. There were National Guard guys in there too, I think. I saw soldiers in uniform and people with guns and stuff.” He glanced at the front of the ambulance again, warily, and that time, Theo followed his gaze. He could see nothing on the other side of the windshield but darkness. “People were shooting each other. It looks like a war zone out there.”

Theo clenched his teeth as he crouched, trying to get a look out of one of the small back windows. “We need to get out of here, then. If it’s that bad out there, it’s probably not safe for us to stay in here, right? And I need to go find my brother. If that shit’s coming out of the town…” He trailed off, at a loss for how to finish the sentence, and shook his head. “Gray can’t handle himself against something like that. Hell, he can barely even
run.
”

“I doubt Gray is
that
helpless,” Jonathan said. The subtle note of condescension in Jonathan’s voice was enough to make Theo grit his teeth. “I’m sure he’ll manage. Besides, you’ll lose your job if you just ditch out. They’re probably going to need us back at base to help if shit’s that bad out there.”

“Considering I probably just
killed a patient,
I’m pretty sure my job’s long gone,” Theo snapped. “And if it’s not, then they can go ahead and fucking fire me. I’ll quit if I have to. My
brother
is more important to me than this fucking job.” He shoved past Jonathan, grabbed the trauma bag that had fallen against the jump seat during the wreck, and unzipped it. He bent over and flung open a cabinet, starting to unload nasal cannulas and non-rebreathing masks from it and stuffing them into the bag. Jonathan watched him for a moment, and then he moved forward to help.

“You should take the O2 bottle out of that,” Jonathan said. He unzipped the side of the bag and pulled out the tank in question. “It’ll make more room for the other supplies.”

“You’re going to help me?” Theo asked. He didn’t look at Jonathan. Instead, he moved on to the next cabinet, starting to empty the IV supplies into the bag by the handful. He wasn’t worried about organization; he could sort it all out later, when he had more time.

“God help me, yes,” Jonathan answered. Theo heard a cabinet open and something fall from it, and he glanced over his shoulder. Jonathan was pulling the OB kits, burn sheets, and trauma dressings from the cabinet above him, stacking them neatly in his hands. “There’s no way you’d make it all the way into town on your own, you know?” he said. The statement made Theo grit his teeth in mild irritation; the man talked like he wasn’t capable of protecting himself, though the body at their feet said otherwise. “And if something happened to you while I was just sitting around in here waiting on help, well, I’d feel pretty damned guilty about it.”

Theo was still trying to determine if he’d been intentionally insulted, but he shook the feeling off and slid the next cabinet open. As he reached for the elastic bandages inside, the cell phone in his pocket began to chirp, its high-pitched shrill breaking into the mostly quiet interior of the ambulance. He startled and fumbled at his pocket, ripping the phone free. Glancing at the display and seeing Gray’s name, he flipped the phone open and put it to his ear. “Gray?”

“Theo, Theo, where the fuck are you?” Gray’s voice came through the line, and Theo’s shoulders stiffened. Something about his brother’s voice frightened him. It was hard, tense, and heavy with tears. Theo’s stomach twisted.

“I’m on the truck,” Theo replied. He chose to not mention that the truck was a
wrecked
truck. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I need help,” Gray said in a rush. “We need help over here. There were these guys. They attacked me and April, and I—”

“April?” Theo repeated, wrinkling his forehead into a frown. “April Linder?”

“Yeah, April Linder,” Gray confirmed impatiently. He continued, breathless. “Look, she’s
dying,
and we can’t get an ambulance here, and we can’t even get through to fucking nine-one-one, and I need help.”

“Okay, Gray, calm down and tell me where you are,” Theo said. He tried to talk slowly and calmly, though his voice shook noticeably.

“I’m at a bar. Smitty’s. It’s about two miles east of my apartment,” Gray answered.

“Yeah, I know the place.” Theo didn’t bother to question why Gray was at a bar; it probably wouldn’t do any good, and besides, it was a moot point now anyway.

“Just hurry, okay?”

“I’ll try,” Theo said grimly. “Stay inside and make sure you keep people around you. Do whatever you can for April. What’s her condition?”

“She’s fucking
bleeding out,
Theo!” Gray said, his voice loud. Theo fought to not pull the phone away from his ear. “Her fucking neck—”

“Okay, put pressure on it,” Theo ordered. “Whatever her wound is, just put pressure on it and keep it there. I’ll be there as soon as I possibly can. I promise.”

“Theo?” Gray’s voice cracked. He sounded incredibly young over the crackling phone line, and Theo felt a pang of nervousness in his chest.

“Yeah?”

“It’s crazy out there,” Gray said. “It’s…there are people with guns and shit everywhere. A lot of shooting going on. Me and Jack, we don’t know what to do. Everybody else left when all the shooting started. There are four of us left in here, and we’ve got the doors barricaded, but I’m not sure how long that’ll hold.”

“Just stay where you are,” Theo repeated. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to think. “Don’t leave that building if you can help it, okay? I’ll be there as soon as I physically can. I’ll run the whole way if I have to.”

“Be careful, Theo,” Gray murmured. “It’s bad. You have no idea. I want to get out of here. I really, really want to get out of here.”

“I’m going to get you out,” Theo promised. “Just stay there. Don’t leave. And keep me updated.” He flipped the phone shut and shoved it back into his pocket. Then he blew out a breath and began to wordlessly snatch up supplies again.

“Everything okay?” Jonathan asked. He retrieved an orange canvas bag from a cabinet and passed it to him. Theo flipped open his pocketknife and cut the seal on the bag before beginning to transfer the drugs from the orange bag into the trauma bag in front of him.

“Gray’s ex-girlfriend is hurt really bad, and they can’t get any help to them,” Theo answered. “They’re at Smitty’s. Think you can help me get there?”

“That’s, like, five miles away,” Jonathan warned.

“I can handle it,” Theo said confidently. He stuffed the last of the medications into the bag, added three IV bags of fluid, and then somehow managed to get the overstuffed bag to zip closed. Then he paused, staring at the bulging bag for a moment before scanning his eyes over the rest of the truck’s interior. “You see anything else we might need?”