Chapter Twenty-Three
Kini saw pain in Gary’s gaze. Not his pain. Her pain. This man was going to hurt her, not because he wanted information, but because he liked it.
“Why do you care what the CDC does? Everyone is dealing with the outbreak. No one has the time or manpower to do anything else.”
“How long is that going to last?” Bruce asked.
Gary’s leer hadn’t changed. Nothing she said was going to stop him from doing what he wanted to do. She winced at the sudden added pressure as Gary squeezed his hand around her arm. “A couple of days. More help is coming.”
“What kind of help?” Gary asked.
“Medical assistance and…some law enforcement.”
“Fuck,” Bruce said.
Gary grabbed her by the neck with his free hand in a chokehold. “How do we get rid of them, bitch?”
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t answer, couldn’t save herself. A charged, cold chill whispered over her skin. Her hands scrabbled at his, trying to loosen his hold, but he just smiled and squeezed.
“If you strangle her now, she can’t tell us anything.” Bruce paused as if thinking about it. “Or be a useful hostage.”
Gary let her neck go. “Answer the question, bitch. How do we get rid of them?”
“I don’t think you can,” she said, her voice raspy. “Not since those two deputies were shot.”
“That has nothing to do with the outbreak,” Bruce said.
“They won’t assume that,” Kini said. “They’ll turn over every stone in this desert until they find out why all of it happened.”
“Fuck,” Bruce said again. He glanced at Kini. “Cover her eyes.”
Gary reached around behind the seat and grabbed something. A paper shopping bag. He put it over her head.
Dammit. Now she wouldn’t know where she was or how to get back to the highway, let alone town. That was if she managed to escape these two lunatics.
Gary kept a tight grip on her arm, but not as tight as when he’d been asking her questions. Her fingers were swarmed by pins and needles, but she didn’t complain. The pain told her he hadn’t done any lasting damage. She was just glad he hadn’t put his hand anywhere else.
They bounced down the road, the potholes seeming to increase exponentially by the minute. To give herself something to do, and stay calm, she counted the seconds. When they stopped, eight hundred and forty-four seconds had gone by. Fourteen minutes. Given the distance a truck could cross in that time, the search area was going to be huge.
No one knew where she was or who she was with.
No one was going to find her in time.
They yanked her out of the truck, dumping her onto her hands and knees. The ground beneath her was packed hard with uneven gravel on top.
Gary swore and used his grip on her upper arm to haul her to her feet. He pulled so hard her arm nearly came out of its socket, and she cried out.
He jerked her forward and she staggered again.
“Get up, you stupid bitch,” he growled at her.
“I can’t see where I’m going,” she said. “How do you expect me to stay on my feet?”
The paper bag was ripped off her head.
The first thing she saw were three body-sized mounds only a few feet in front of her.
What the…?
She stared at the edge of one mound. The dirt had been disturbed by something small, leaving a human finger visible. A finger with bite marks all over it and some flesh torn out.
Gary leaned down, his breath coating her ear in an invisible slime she wasn’t sure she’d ever clean off. “If you don’t want to end up in the next hole, you’ll do exactly as you’re told.” He gave her a shove. “Get up.”
Kini got to her feet and didn’t resist when he pushed her toward a rundown house. Paint had begun peeling years before, leaving only the faintest hint of white on its weathered boards. There was a porch with a section of the roof covering it, but the corner supports were leaning to one side, giving the impression that the whole thing would collapse in the next stiff wind.
There wasn’t a window in the place that didn’t have at least one hole in the dirty glass.
Gary pushed her up the two steps to the porch, then through a screen door barely hanging onto the doorframe by one hinge.
The smell hit her first. A bitter, acrid scent combined with something she identified as cat urine burned the inside of her nose. The mess was the next assailant on her senses. There were empty beer bottles, matchboxes, and lighters all over the floor. Along the wall on the left was what looked like an old picnic table covered in hot plates, glass jugs, and a variety of chemicals and kitchen utensils.
Okay, so, crystal meth lab. Should she be horrified or relieved?
A glance in the opposite direction had her stopping cold. A map of Utah had been adhered to the wall with a large number of the state’s towns and cities marked with tacks. Above the map was a single sentence written in black marker: HV first stage infection targets.
Targets?
Infection?
An icy wave of fear broke over her, coating her body with frost and freezing her lungs solid. The outbreak was no accident. If she read the map correctly, things were going to get worse. A lot worse.
Gary put his hand between her shoulder blades and shoved.
So angry her hands shook, she glared at him. “You’re insane.”
He pushed her again. “You’re here for only one thing.” He gestured with the gun. “In the bedroom.”
Her jaw fell open for the second time in ten seconds, but he shoved her toward a doorway to the right before she could respond.
There were a couple of cots in the room; one was occupied, the other wasn’t.
“He’s sick,” Gary said, waving a hand at the occupied cot. “Take care of him.”
Kini raised her empty hands. “With what?”
“You’ll get some stuff,” he told her giving her another push toward the cot. “But if he dies, you’ll be next.” Gary gave her a serial killer’s smile and left the room.
Kini reluctantly approached the cot. The smell of unwashed male almost overpowered the cat urine smell from the other room. All that was visible was brown greasy hair, so she pulled the sleeping bag back.
A man, late twenties to mid-thirties, unconscious and with labored breathing. His face shone with sweat and when she peeled more of the sleeping bag away she saw that the fabric was damp. An indicator of a prolonged fever.
Footsteps approached.
Kini glanced up as Gary came back into the room with several large cases covered in EMS symbols. The words just fell out of her mouth. “What did you do, rob an ambulance?”
Way to go, idiot. Goad the asshole into hurting you.
Gary flashed his teeth in an unveiled threat but didn’t do more than ask, “Can you help him?”
“I don’t know yet.” She’d been in the room less than a minute, and he thought that was long enough to diagnose an unconscious person? “When did he start getting sick?”
“Yesterday. Started complaining about a headache and coughing a lot. A couple of hours ago, I tried to wake him, but he wasn’t all there, you know?”
This was someone Gary cared about. A friend or brother? She raised an eyebrow.
He scowled at her with a suddenness that told her he wasn’t happy with revealing how important this man was to him.
She didn’t say anything, just opened the case of supplies closest to her.
It contained a blood pressure cuff, stethoscope, and other assessment tools. In another, IV tubing, needles, suture kits, and other tools for treating wounds. The third case contained antibiotics, painkillers, and other medications.
Gary watched her investigate the contents for a minute then turned to leave.
“Wait,” Kini said. “What’s his name?”
“Don,” the man said before he disappeared.
She returned to her patient, listening to his heart and lungs, and talking to him as she worked. “Hi, Don, my name is Kini, and I’m a nurse.” She took his pulse, found a digital thermometer in one of the cases, and stuck the business end in one of his ears.
So far, the signs weren’t good. His pulse was fast at 110, his lungs were full of fluid, especially his right lung, and his temperature was 105 degrees. She found a blood oxygen monitor in the first case.
Kini clamped the small device over one of his fingers. It read 82 percent, low, but not deadly. Combined with his fast pulse rate though…he needed advanced medical care no amount of goodies stolen out of an ambulance could provide.
She got up and went to deliver the bad news. Hopefully, they wouldn’t kill the messenger.
Gary and Bruce were talking in the living room, but they went silent as soon as they saw her.
There wasn’t any point in trying to sugarcoat any of it. “He’s got a fever and pneumonia. He needs to be on a ventilator and treated with medications used in an ICU, not an ambulance.”
“He has that hantavirus?” Bruce asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but with all the cases in this area”—she shrugged—“it’s the most likely cause.”
Gary stalked toward her. “You’re not even going to try to help him?” He walked around behind her, grabbed her by the hair, and hauled her back against him. He whispered into her ear, “Do you have a death wish, bitch?”
He thought he was scary. He had no idea the kind of scary she’d already faced down and watched die. “Would you prefer I lie to you? You’re wasting his time. He needs advanced life support. If you take him to a hospital now, he’s got a chance.”
“And if I don’t?”
“He’s got no chance.”
“Take him,” Bruce said. “I’ll stay here. Maybe she can help the others.”
“Others?” she asked. There were more sick people here? “You should take them all to a hospital.”
“Shut your face,” Gary said as he shoved her so hard she landed on her back. He raised his fist and she flinched, bracing herself for the hit.
“Go,” Bruce told him.
Gary hesitated, sneered at her, then walked toward the bedroom.
Kini met Bruce’s gaze. “You’re making a mistake.”
He tilted his head, studying her as if she were an interesting insect he’d never seen before. “Gary’s right. You do have a death wish.” He angled his head toward what she’d assumed was the kitchen. “Get up. You have other patients.”
Kini clambered to her feet and preceded Bruce into the kitchen.
No one was there.
“Keep going,” he ordered, pointing at the back door.
Outside was a large tent. Someone inside sounded like they were hacking up a lung.
“How many people need medical attention?” she asked. That tent was big enough to hold half a dozen people.
“Three.”
She turned. “I’ll need the medical supplies—”
“I’ll bring them.” He pointed at the tent.
Damn it. So much for a dash to freedom while everyone’s back was turned. She entered the tent to find four cots, three occupied by people coughing.
Even the inside of the tent stunk of unwashed bodies and urine. Did the smell of the chemicals they worked with seep into their pores, so they sweated it out later?
“Who’s this?” one man asked, sitting up to look at her. Skinny as a rail with pale skin and bloodshot eyes, he looked more than half dead.
“A nurse. She’s going to take care of you guys, hopefully make you better.”
Skinny let out a cackle that scraped across her nerves endings like a cheese grater. “Make me better? The Pope doesn’t have a chance in hell of doing that.” He flopped back onto the cot. “You’re wasting this sweet young thing’s time.” He laughed again.
Kini winced and tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone as dry as the desert around them. Her usefulness as a nurse was the only thing keeping her alive. “Do you mind if I attempt to give you a second opinion?”
“Whatever, lady.” His laughter descended into a wheeze.
Well, she had at least one semicoherent patient. After a glance at the other two occupied cots, she approached them cautiously.
Standing a couple of feet away, she said tentatively, “Hello?”
She got a snore for a response. At least he was alive.
When she queried the last cot, a rough and irritated voice barked, “Will everyone please shut the fuck up.”
Two complainers and a snorer. Better than three dead.
Movement had her spinning around, preparing for a fight. It was Bruce with the medical supplies. He handed her the stethoscope with a frown that told her he’d noticed her reaction.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said in not much more than a whisper. “Not now, anyway.”
“Gee, that’s so reassuring.”
Wait, had those words come out of her mouth?
Kini closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable reaction and resulting pain.
A couple of seconds later she opened her eyes to find Bruce staring at her like she’d put her crazy pants on backward.
“When I’m tired and sore I get snarky.”
He just stared at her coldly then walked away.
It took her twenty minutes to take the vitals of all three men and document them in a notebook she’d found in one of the cases. Of the three, Skinny was the healthiest, but none of them were well.
She spent a long time listening to their lungs. They didn’t have pneumonia, but the sound coming from them wasn’t right, either.
Bruce came back at that point, and she saw no reason to lie to him.
“All of them need proper medical care.” She pointed at the stolen medical supplies. “This isn’t enough.”
“Get them up and able to work,” he ordered. “I don’t care how.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but the cold expression on his face, so completely devoid of emotion, scared her. It took her a couple of seconds to get her vocal chords working again. “I need to know what got them sick in the first place, before I can give them any kind of treatment. What were their symptoms?”
He shrugged. “They started coughing and constantly complained of having a headache.”
She sucked in a breath. “The chemicals used to make the meth. Did any of you wear any kind of mask or breathing apparatus?”
He raised one eyebrow. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Those chemicals are dangerous. They may have damaged lung tissue.”
“So they don’t have that damned disease?”
“Their lungs don’t sound right, but they don’t sound like pneumonia, either.” She looked at the three men. “I could be wrong though.”
“Can they work?”
“I don’t know.” She studied Bruce. “Can they?”
He glanced at the house then at his watch. “We have a quota to meet.”
“If the damage is the result of the chemicals, making them work will only hurt them further. It could kill them.”
He barked out a laugh. “This isn’t a union. They don’t get sick time or anything else for that matter. They produce or they die.”
And she’d thought he was the nice one. “What are you going to do with me?”