N87 Virus | Prequel |Outbreak Kadin, Karri (best english novels for beginners txt) 📖

collapsed to his knees. The patient, now free from the hospital bed, had his arms with railings still attached wrapped around Jones’ torso. The patient sunk his teeth into Jones’ neck and tore away a large, wet chunk. Blood sputtered into the air from Jones’ carotid artery, splattering the floor and people around him.

Veronica rolled over as peach yogurt spewed from her gut on to the pale blue tile. A loud crash followed by a scream and a feral howl echoed behind her. Then gunshots silenced the room.

Veronica sat, wide-eyed, on the side of the gurney as the nurse cleaned her injured hand. Jones’ body and the body of the patient lay covered with seperate sheets in the middle of the ER. Even with the sheet over him, she couldn’t get the image of the hole in his neck to leave her mind. The patient’s body riddled with bullets lay on the white tile floor. Blood had leaked out from each, staining the white sheet with red polka dots. Police set up caution tape around the crime scene and had shut down the ER. The hospital board and every department head were huddled in the corner, whispering to each other with furrowed brows. Veronica looked out the ambulance bay and saw a sea of people trying to get a view of the carnage. The entire town was out front.

The nurse wrapped the last piece of gauze around Veronica’s hand and secured it with paper tape. Her face looked familiar, but Veronica couldn’t remember her name. She glanced at the nurse’s name tag, ‘Amber’. Veronica’s mind wandered back to the day she was hired. She was pretty sure Amber had given her the whole ten-minute hospital tour that day.

“You are all cleaned up here. Keep the area clean and covered, and don’t forget to take these.” Amber handed Veronica a bottle. She stared at the pharmacy label with her name neatly typed out with the medication name below it. Augmentin.

“The human mouth is full of germs. Finish all the antibiotics. That’s really important. Even if it looks like it’s improving, don’t stop taking them until they are gone.” Amber handed Veronica a gray plastic basin full of wound care supplies. “If the wound develops a foul odor or colored drainage, that would warrant a call to your doctor or for you to come back here to get checked out. Any redness or warmth to the area or if you develop a fever come straight to the ER.” Veronica nodded and dropped the pill bottle into the basin before tucking it under her arm.

“Thank you.”

“No problem, sweetie. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

Veronica's mind raced through all the research she’d gathered about the virus over the last few weeks. Every thought sent a spike of anxiety into her chest.

“These meds won’t help with the virus though, right?” Veronica asked.

Amber shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt. The spread of the infection is so erratic that we don’t even truly know how someone becomes infected. My best advice is go home, self-quarantine, and pray.”

Veronica slid from the gurney and headed to the exit opposite the ambulance bay. She didn’t want to fight through a crowd of gawkers. She made it to her car without calling any attention to herself and once locked inside she hit call on her husband’s number for the tenth time in the last two hours. He didn’t answer yet again. Something was wrong. Alejandro was always reliable, always available when she called. He was always there when she needed him. Some gawkers were talking to a news crew and pointing her way. A sharply dressed blond reporter started walking toward her. Veronica started her car and peeled out of the parking lot.

She arrived home thirty minutes later to a quiet house. This time of night Alejandro would normally be heating something in the microwave for dinner and yelling at some sports channel on their oversized TV. But nothing. His black Honda was in the driveway, so he had to be home. Unless he had gone out with some of his buddies to a bar to eat chicken wings and yell at the sports channel together. He probably couldn’t hear his cell over all the bro bonding.

Her hand throbbed. All she wanted was to tell Alejandro about the catastrophe at work while wrapped up in his arms, and for him to tell her everything would be okay. She grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and walked down the hall to the bathroom. She found some old ibuprofen that was probably expired, but popped some into her mouth, anyway. Something was better than nothing. She read the side of the Augmentin bottle. Take with food. She downed the large white pill and walked back to the kitchen.

She dialed her husband again and made herself some cinnamon toast. Proper food would be nice, but they hadn’t made it to the grocery store in over two weeks and were basically out of everything. As the phone rang, she made a list in her head of things to ask Alejandro to bring home. She heard the faint ring of her husband’s cell phone coming from the back of the house. Their bedroom. She dropped her phone and ran in the sound's direction.

“¡Alejandro!”

The bedroom door was ajar, the only light in the room came from the closet with the door slightly cracked. Neither one of them enjoyed sleeping in total darkness. Alejandro was lying on his stomach, tucked into bed, lightly snoring. His phone lay on the floor next to him.

Veronica sat down on the edge of the bed and shook her husband awake. His eyes fluttered open, and he gave a slight smile when he saw her.

“Mi Amada. What time is it? Are you home early?” A cough racked his body before she could answer. He rolled over and pulled a tissue from the box on the nightstand, then brought it to his mouth. Veronica rubbed his back as he coughed up thick