“I’ve been listening to the news when I can get it.” When he could stand it. “I haven’t heard any of this.”
“If anyone in the media knows, they’ll keep a lid on it. Or find themselves in some holding area. That’s my guess.” She capped and labeled his blood sample, put a cotton ball and a Band-Aid on the tiny needle mark.
She sat back, looked into his eyes. “Healy’s immune, too.”
“I don’t know Healy.”
“Right, why would you? Lab rat—a good one. He’s been running his own tests. We ran plenty on the infected—starting with MacLeod. But we’re—he’s—running them on the immune now. While he can.”
Rachel looked around the break room like a woman who’d just surfaced from a deep pool.
“We’re a small hospital in Brooklyn, but they’ll get to us. If anyone finds my initial report, they’ll get to us faster, and I’ll be in quarantine, a test study.
“You, too,” she added, then pressed her fingers to her exhausted eyes. “You should stay away from here.”
“I just came to say good-bye.”
“Good thinking. We’re not doing any good. You bringing in the infected, me trying to treat them. A hundred percent mortality rate once infected. A hundred percent.”
She covered her face with her hands, shook her head when he touched her arm. “Minute,” she murmured, blowing out a long breath before she lowered her hands again. Her eyes, deep, dark brown, shimmered, but tears didn’t fall.
“I wanted to be a doctor all my life. Never wanted to be a princess or a ballerina, a rock star, a famous actress. A doctor. Emergency medicine. You’re there when people are sick and scared, hurt. You’re there. And now? It doesn’t make any difference.”
“No.” He felt the darkness close around him. “It doesn’t.”
“Maybe our blood will. Maybe Healy finds a miracle. Long odds, but maybe. But I’m going to do what I can while I can. You should go.” She laid a hand on his. “Find a safe place. Don’t come back here.”
He looked down at her hand. He knew it to be strong, capable. “I had sort of a crush on you.”
“I know.” She smiled at him when he looked back up at her. “Kind of a shame neither one of us acted on it. I—for various reasons—avoided entanglements. What’s your excuse?”
“Couldn’t get my guts up for it.”
“Our mistake. Too late now.” She drew her hand back, rose and picked up the rack of samples. “I’m going to take these up to Healy, stand as his lab assistant since he’s all that’s left in his department. Good luck, Jonah.”
He watched her go. No hope, he thought. He’d seen no hope in her. Strength, yes, but that spark of hope had died. He understood.
He rolled down his sleeve, put on his jacket. He didn’t want to go back through the ER, through all that death, but knew it would help him follow through on the decision he’d made.
He ignored the screaming, the retching, the terrible racking coughs, and stepped out into the air. He’d thought to finish this inside. If he had the balls, he’d have gone to the morgue to end it. Make it easy on everyone. But he just couldn’t face that.
Right here, he considered, at the doors of the ER? But hell, they had enough to do. In his ambulance? That seemed like good closure.
Behind the wheel, or in the back? Behind the wheel, or in the back? Why was it so hard to decide?
The act itself? No problem. He’d handled enough suicides and attempted suicides to know the best way. His grandfather’s old .32. Barrel in the mouth, pull the trigger. Done.
He just couldn’t live seeing death all around him. Hopeless, inevitable death. He couldn’t keep looking at the faces of neighbors, coworkers, friends, family, and seeing death in them.
He couldn’t keep locking himself in the dark to stop seeing it. Couldn’t keep hearing the screams, the gunfire, the pleas for help, the mad laughter.
Eventually his depression and despair would turn to madness. And he feared, actively feared, that the madness would turn him into one of the vicious who hunted others and caused more death.
Better to end it, just end it and go into the quiet.
He reached into his coat pocket, felt the reassuring shape of the gun. He started toward the ambulance, glad he’d had the chance to see Rachel, to help her, to say good-bye. He wondered what Healy would find in his blood. Something tainted with this horrible ability?
Cursed blood.
He turned at the blast of a horn, but kept walking even as the minivan squealed up, bumped onto the curb. More death for the death house, he thought, hunching his shoulders at the call for help.
No help for it.
“Please, please. Help me.”
No more death, he vowed. He wasn’t going to look at any more death.
“The babies are coming! I need help.”
He couldn’t stop himself from looking back again, and watched the woman drag herself out of the bright red van, cradling her pregnant belly.
“I need a doctor. I’m in labor. They’re coming.”
He didn’t see death, but life. Three lives. Three bright sparks.
Comforting himself that he could kill himself later, he went to her.
“How many weeks?”
“Thirty-four weeks, five days. Twins. I’m having twins.”
“That’s good baking time for a two-pack.” He got an arm around her.
“Are you a doctor?”
“No. Paramedic. I’m not taking you through the ER. It’s full of the infected.”
“I think I’m immune. Everyone else … But the babies. They’re alive. They’re not sick.”
Hearing the fear in her voice, he tuned his own to easy reassurance. “Okay, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to go in that door up there. I’ll get you to Maternity. We’ll get you a doctor.”
“I— Contraction!” She grabbed on to him, digging her fingers in like claws, breathing in hisses.
“Slow it down.”
“You slow it down,” she snapped, hissing her way through it. “Sorry.”
“No problem. How far apart?”
“I couldn’t time them once I started driving. About three minutes when I left. It took me, I don’t know. Ten minutes to get here. I didn’t know what else to do.”
He got her inside, steered her toward the elevators. “What’s your name?”
“Katie.”
“I’m Jonah. You ready for twins, Katie?”
She looked up at him, huge green eyes, then dropped her head on his chest and wept.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s all going to be all right.”
Bringing babies into this dark, deadly world? He hadn’t thought of it. Told himself not to think beyond getting her to Maternity.
“Did your water break?”
She shook her head.
The elevator doors opened onto an empty reception area. That same echoing silence made him realize he might find no help for her there.
He led her back—empty rooms, unmanned desk. Didn’t anyone have babies anymore?
He steered her into one of the birthing suites. “Prime digs,” he said, working to keep cheer in his voice. “Let’s get your coat off, get you in bed. Who’s your OB?”
“He’s dead. It doesn’t matter, he’s dead.”
“Let’s get your shoes off.” He pressed the nurse’s call button before he crouched down, pulled off her shoes.
They wouldn’t bother with a gown. He didn’t know where to find one, didn’t want to waste time looking. She was wearing a dress anyway.
“Here you go.” He helped her into bed, stopping when she dug her fingers into his arm again. Pushed the call button again.
“Are they all dead?” she asked when the contraction passed. “The doctors, the nurses?”
“No. I was just talking to a doctor downstairs, a friend of mine, before I walked out and you drove up. I’m going to see if I can find one of the OB nurses.”
“Oh God, don’t leave me.”
“I won’t. I swear, I won’t. I’m going to see if I can find a nurse, and I’m going to get a couple of warming trays for the babies. Good baking time,” he said again, “but they’re preemies.”