“Wait!” Cora shouted.
The man’s head jerked toward her, then he immediately dropped the bags to the ground and reached for his belt. He produced a pistol and pointed it at Cora.
Cora held her hands out to her sides. “Whoa, I’m not coming after you.”
“What do you want?” The man was shaking and sweaty, and he kept looking over his shoulder every couple of seconds.
“Medicine,” she answered. “Antibiotics. A little girl is sick.”
“A lot of people are sick,” he said. “There needs to be a system. I can’t just let everyone have all the medicine they ask for. It would all be gone in an hour.”
“I understand that not all cases can be fixed,” Cora agreed. “But you have to see this girl. She’s very sick and if she doesn’t get medicine, she could die.”
“Do you realize how many people have died already?” the doctor said.
“I can only imagine,” Cora said. “I’m a nurse at this hospital. An ER nurse. So, I’ve seen people this sick before. In a situation like this, she needs to be treated as quickly as possible. We can’t let her die.”
“She’ll die anyway. It would only be delaying the inevitable,” the doctor said.
“By hoarding the medicine?”
“By protecting it and giving it to people as I see fit!”
Cora shook her head. Something had broken in this guy. Other doctors and nurses who stayed behind in the hospital were trying to save patients. This doctor was actively killing them by taking the medicine away.
“You’re Dr. Ashburne, right?”
The man hesitated, then nodded.
“What exactly is your plan, Dr. Ashburne? People need this stuff. I need it.”
“Don’t take a step near me or I will shoot you,” Ashburne said.
“That violates your oath, doesn’t it? To do no harm?”
“Don’t talk to me about an oath. Do you know what I’ve been through in the past two days? I was in the middle of surgery. It was an emergency. I was called in to relieve pressure for a brain bleed. And right in the middle of it, the lights just went out. The man just died. No flatline noise. No beeps to indicate what was happening. Just darkness.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, doctor, I really am. But that doesn’t mean you need to take off with all the medicine, There are hundreds of people here who still need it.”
“And I won’t see this hospital turned into a warzone.”
“You’re the one with the gun.” Cora could feel her cheeks burning as she became flushed with anger. This man had cracked, and he was trying to take everyone down with him.
Cora felt the knife she had stuck in her sleeve. She knew it was no match for the doctor’s gun, but he wasn’t in his right mind, and he wasn’t even looking at her half the time. With the paranoia of a drug smuggler, he kept looking in all directions as though he were waiting for someone to pounce on his back. She could probably charge him before he could get a shot off, but was it worth the risk?
“I’m not asking for pain meds,” Cora said. “I’m asking for antibiotics. The girl has an infection, and she needs them or she’s going to die.”
“I have to protect it,” he said, seemingly to himself. “I have to protect it. I have to protect it.”
Cora was in danger, she knew. It would do Michelle no good if she charged the man only to get shot in the process.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Cora said. “You’re not in your right mind. Please reconsider.”
The man just muttered to himself. He kept the gun in his hands, but he pulled the duffle bags back up over his shoulders. He was unwieldy, his feet unsteady. If Cora was going to charge him, this was the time.
Cora hesitated only a moment, then jumped toward the doctor. He tried to point his gun at her, but the bags pulled him off balance. The gun went off and the bullet knocked a hole in the ceiling.
Cora knew she would only have a second of an advantage. The man was bigger and stronger, but she had her wits about her. She pulled the knife from her sleeve and stabbed down into the man’s shoulder. He screamed out in pain and dropped the gun on the floor.
Cora scrambled for the gun, leaving the knife in the doctor’s shoulder. She felt his hands grab around her ankles and begin pulling her toward him. She was just inches from the gun. She turned on her butt, then reared her leg back and kicked him in the chin. He fell back and his head hit the tile floor with a thud. Cora jumped to her feet and grabbed the gun off the floor, then spun around just as the doctor was getting to his feet.
The two of them stared at each other for a long moment. Cora finally shook her head. “All I want is antibiotics, then you can do whatever you want with the rest of it.”
The doctor reached for the knife in his shoulder and winced, cursing her under his breath. “We’re all going to die,” he said. “Do you realize that? Every last one of us.”
“I don’t plan for that to be anytime soon,” she said.
“You don’t get it,” he said. “This is bigger than just some power outage. This kind of thing was meant to kill. Do you get that?”
“I don’t care about any of that right now,” she said. “We have to live moment to moment or we aren’t going to survive the night much less the week or next month.”
The doctor felt for his shoulder and cursed under his breath again.
“I’m sorry about your shoulder, but you know it was necessary,” Cora said. “Now, if you don’t mind, do you know where there might be some antibiotics?”
“Check it yourself,” the doctor said as he stepped away.
He had his back turned toward her, but Cora wasn’t taking any chances. “Please keep walking.”
The doctor slowly did as she said and made his way to the other side of the hallway. Now he faced her and he looked like he wanted to skin her alive.
The doctor shook his head again, and he held his injured arm with his hand. “None of us need to be here. A place like this hospital, it’s going to be full of infection and disease within a week. The food is going to spoil and the infection is going to spread. Nobody in the hospital will survive the next week or two if they stay here. These drugs need to go to communities where people are pulling together to survive.”
“It has only been two days,” Cora said. “Do you think people are really forming communities for survival? Nobody knows what’s going on. We don’t know if the power will be turned back on today, tomorrow, or the next day.”
“Or the next week, the next month, or the next year,” the doctor said. “Any of those time frames are already too late for some people.”
“Exactly my point,” she said. “Why not help the people you can help right now? Why don’t you help the people who are downstairs in the atrium so they can go out and form those communities for survival?”
The doctor stared at the floor.
“Will you please just take that gun and shoot me in the head?”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Doctor Ashburne wanted to give up? He had no idea what was going on, and he was ready to die after two days? Were some people so fragile?
“You know I’m not going to do that,” she said. “Maybe you should give this medicine to the doctors downstairs and let them figure out what to do with it. You didn’t have a specific plan for the stuff, did you?”
The doctor closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. There had been no plan. He had taken the drugs in a panic. He had lost a man on the operating table because of this power outage. To him, that was like losing the world—like fate wanted him to fail. He wasn’t supposed to lose someone like that. He was used to being the hero; he was used to being in control.
Cora took a few steps backward and left the doctor sitting against the wall. She didn’t trust him, nor did she think he was finished struggling with his inner demons. At this point, he was a very unstable person and could come after her for vengeance if it suited him. She would have to keep her eyes out for him a
nd make sure she stayed safe. She wasn’t ready to kill someone just because they were unstable.
She stuffed the pistol into the back of her pants, found the medicine she needed, and made her way to the room where Michelle slept. Cora was surprised to see the scuffle hadn’t woken the girl. The fact that a gunshot hadn’t made her stir worried Cora. She hoped Michelle wasn’t already beyond help.
Cora grabbed a water bottle from her backpack and pulled out a tablet from the medicine bottle. She roused Michelle just enough to take the pill and sip the water. She also made her take a bite of a granola bar so the antibiotic wouldn’t upset her stomach.
Cora sat in the room as the light faded from the hallway. She could hear the doctor still muttering to himself. She didn’t want to stay here. It would become dangerous, especially if the doctor lingered.
She took a deep breath, wondering to herself what she needed to do. Was it any safer on the streets? She decided that there was nowhere safe. She could close this door and barricade the room, but she would have to come out sometime. The simple problem of having no food and no water was enough to think about. They barely had enough for the night. They certainly weren’t going to find any in this room. They probably wouldn’t be able to scrounge any in the streets either. She didn’t like to admit that the doctor was probably right—that they all faced death in the coming days.
She listened to the sound in the hallways. Moaning. Grunting. Shouting. The words were incoherent but for one: Cora…Cora…Cora…Cora!
The sound was getting nearer and nearer, the shout louder and louder. Was she hearing correctly? Was someone shouting her name over and over?
“Cora, where are you? Cora!”
She stepped to the door and looked out.
“Cora! It’s your dad! Are you here? Cora!”
She nearly lost her balance. When her father came into view, they looked at each other, and for a moment, neither of them could speak. Then they ran to each other.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The prisoners were hot on their heels as Alex led Gwen and Bryson through hallways and across cell blocks. This wasn’t the way they had come, but the other two knew Alex had worked in this prison. They didn’t question his movements. The further they ran, the more distance they put between them and the prisoners, but it didn’t seem like they were giving up the pursuit.
Alex had to think quickly, and he had to believe there would be weapons where they were going.
The shouts and screams behind them faded, but the prisoners would likely catch up, and they would be angry.
As they approached the corridor with the safe room at the end of the hallway, Alex’s stomach twisted over and over. Past the door, he saw the mangled body of the warden on the floor. When he pushed through into the safe room, he couldn’t help but glance down at the floor and see Roger.
He held out a hand to Gwen and Bryson, partly to settle his stomach, and partly to slow his racing mind. He closed his eyes for only a moment and then turned toward the cabinets at the back of the room. He bent down and found a hidden key under one of the desks and then opened the cabinet above it. He smiled briefly and pulled out three pistols, then he doubled-checked the magazines. He handed a gun to Gwen, then one to Bryson.
“Do you trust me?” he said to them.
“What?” Gwen asked.
“Do you trust me?” he repeated.
“Do we have much of a choice?” Bryson asked.
“Yes,” Gwen answered.
Alex swallowed and nodded. “I’ve got a plan, and it’s not without risk, but it might just get us out of here alive.”
He looked at Roger’s decaying body, then pulled his eyes upward. Not everyone had been as lucky as he had that night. Maybe, just maybe, he would be again.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Gwen had no other choice but to trust Alex. She questioned whether or not they should have come in the first place. She looked at the pistol in her hands. There had been quite a few prisoners coming after them. The three of them might be able to hold their own in a standoff, but the inmates were armed and lusted for blood.
“This glass is bulletproof,” Alex said to Gwen, nodding at the window behind him. “I want you to stand right there in front of it and wait for them to come.”
“And then what?” Gwen asked.
“Then I just want you to stay where you are. No matter what happens, just stand there. They are going to shoot at you, yell at you, and they are going to threaten all kinds of terrible things if you don’t open that door. But until they are either dead or subdued, you don’t move.”
“And where are you going to be?” Gwen asked.
Alex looked at Bryson. “Now you really have to trust me,” he said.
Bryson looked down at the gun in his hand. “What do you have in mind?”
“To them, we’re just gonna be a pair of bodies,” Alex said.
Bryson hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and nodded. Gwen started to protest, but Bryson held up a hand. “It’s fine. This is good.”
Gwen watched, frozen, as Alex and Bryson left the room and closed the door behind them. The two of them stood next to the window. Alex was instructing Bryson on what to do, but Gwen couldn’t make out what they were saying with their backs turned to her. Then, Alex lay on one side next to a couple of rotting bodies, and Bryson lay down on the other side of the hallway. Terror seized Gwen.
They were planning an ambush.
This was either a great idea or a terrible one. Still, all she had to do was stand in the locked room. She wondered what she would do if they failed. How long would the prisoners wait for her? How long would she survive in here with a corpse? She also knew the ramifications of opening that door to prisoners.
She heard them before she saw them. They were screaming, laughing, firing their guns into the ceiling. Gwen couldn’t stop the shaking in her limbs even though she was protected by the walls and the bulletproof glass. How many shots could it take before it finally caved? The first group of prisoners barreled through the door at the end of the hallway. They stuttered in their steps when they saw Gwen standing there, looking at them through the window, but then they charged forward. First, they tried to open the door, then they tried to blast it open with a gun. Gwen didn’t move. She didn’t have any expression on her face, but she couldn’t help but flinch every time one of them shot a bullet into the air, or the door, or the window.
The second wave of prisoners came in with a hostage. Two of them held firm to Trent’s arms and ushered him forward. Only a few of them had weapons, but it was still a much larger team than Alex and his crew. It was seven against two. Gwen could only prove to be a distraction while Trent was currently weaponless and at gunpoint. Alex and Bryson would have to work quickly if they were going to survive this.
The group was scattered around the hallway and didn’t move toward the window. That must have been why Alex and Bryson hadn’t sprung yet.
Gwen had to do something. She had to get the prisoners closer to the glass so that Alex and Bryson could get behind them and surprise them. If they moved now, they would be seen before they got to their feet. Thankfully the prisoners hadn’t noticed that two people on the ground either weren’t wearing prison uniforms or guard uniforms. The two of them simply blended in with the other dead bodies.
“There’s nothing for you in here,” “Gwen shouted. “I mean, there are a few guns, but that’s it.”
One of the prisoners stepped forward. If there hadn’t been glass between them, Gwen would have been able to feel his breath on her face. “Where are the others?”
“They went in a different direction,” she said. “I got separated from them and I’m staying in here.”
“Why don’t you unlock the door and let us get a few of those weapons?” He looked back at Trent. “I would hate for something to happen to your friend here.”
Gwen looked at Trent, who seemed strangely calm in the situation. She was about to take a calculated ris
k, but she thought it might draw one or two of them in.
“I’m having a hard time seeing in this dim light,” she said. “Could you bring him closer so I could see who it is?”
A few of the prisoners looked at each other, confused because it seemed light enough in the hallway for them to see each other. Perhaps it was difficult for her to see inside that room?
The prisoner closest to the window shoved Trent’s face up against the glass and said, ”Do you recognize him now?”
Almost all of them were close enough to the window now and had crossed the threshold beyond Alex and Bryson. She tried not to let her eyes travel to the pair as they stood, pistols ready in their hand. They brought up the guns, and before the other prisoners could react, they pointed them at their heads.
“How about everybody just take a minute and breathe?” Alex said. “Nobody has to die here, but I’m more than willing to take all of you out if it comes to that.”
“Those of you without weapons step to the side and those of you with weapons, drop them now,” Bryson said.
None of them moved anything except for their eyes. Each of them assessed the situation, wondering whether or not they had the upper hand against these two men. Gwen knew they were running out of time. There were probably other prisoners on the loose. They could come up behind Alex and Bryson, and it would all be over.
“Why don’t you go ahead and give me your gun?” Trent said with a smile, nodding to the lead prisoner.
The man started to hand his gun over to Trent, and Trent reached out for it, but barely a second before his fingers touched the metal, the prisoner brought the gun up to Trent’s chest and pulled the trigger.
Gwen couldn’t hear her own scream as the firefight erupted. Trent crumpled forward, joining the bodies on the ground, while Alex and Bryson both unloaded on the prisoners in front of them. Blood painted the window in front of Gwen. Between the men scattering and the blood flying, Gwen couldn’t tell how many of them had been hit. She scooted to the side of the window to get a better look and could only see a few men on the ground fighting each other. They were likely fighting for control over the weapons. Three more shots. More grunting, fighting, screaming.
Fallen Earth | Book 2 | Aftermath Page 19