Alexander Death (The Paranormals, Book 3) by JL Bryan Read Free Book Online

“Can you hold still for me?”
    “Whatever,” Radiance said.
    Heather took swabs from the running infections on each of the girl's hands, dropping the Q-tips into test tubes for later study.
    “I have to ask whether you encountered a particular person,” Heather said. “An eighteen-year-old girl. Very skinny. Long black hair. Blue eyes. Named Jenny. Does that bring up any memories for you.”
    “Oh. Her.”
    “You remember her?”
    “Yeah...” Radiance looked around nervously, fidgeting in the hospital bed. “I do.”
    “How did you come into contact with her?”
    “She's the one with the disease?”
    “Possibly.”
    “Well, it was crazy,” Radiance said. She looked Heather in the eyes. “You know, I'm totally nonviolent. I really am. I don't even eat meat.”
    “Okay. But...?”
    “But this girl—it's like we all went crazy.”
    “Could you be more specific?”
    “This girl was at the middle of everything. That's how the riot really started, you know? Everybody attacking her.”
    “Why did everybody attack her?”
    “Because....” Radiance was looking at the floor again. “Because somebody told us to.”
    “Who? And why?”
    “I don't know why, man. It was just like a voice from above. A voice from the heavens. Saying this girl, you know, you have to stop this girl.”
    “Jenny?”
    “If that’s her name, yeah.”
    “Stop her from what?”
    “Stop her from, like, evil. It's hard to explain.”
    “And then what happened?”
    “Then everybody went after her.”
    “Just like that?” Heather asked. “A voice from somewhere told you to attack her, and everybody listened?”
    “You don't understand. Everybody was scared shitless, man, and it all like focused on this one girl.”
    “You're right, I don't understand that.”
    “It's like she was the problem , man. And stopping her was the solution .”
    “The solution to what?”
    Radiance shook her head, setting several dreadlocks swinging. “It doesn't make sense now. But it did then.”
    “Did you attack her?”
    “Everyone did.”
    “With your hands?”
    Radiance looked down at her infected, swollen hands, and she said nothing.
    “Then what happened?” Heather asked.
    “It was just craziness. Everybody attacking everybody. One big, violent clusterfuck. For no reason at all.”
    “But you say the riot started with everybody attacking her?”
    “Yeah. Then it spread into just total insanity. Does any of that make sense to you?”
    “I can't say it does,” Heather said.
    “It's so not like me,” Radiance said. “Really. I don't believe in violence, ever. You have to use visualization and stuff if you want to make the world better.”
    “Were you trying to make the world better by attacking her?”
    “In a weird way that totally doesn't make sense when I try to explain it,” Radiance said. “Yeah. It seemed like she was the evil, and everything would be so much better if we just got rid of her.”
    “What happened to the girl after you hit her?”
    “I don't know. Lost her in the crowd, everybody trying to attack her. Then people were attacking me and I fought back. That's all I really remember. Then I woke up with this shit this morning—” Radiance held up her hands. “So I came to the hospital.”
    “You didn't have these symptoms last night?”
    “Maybe I did. I was pretty out there, you know? I'm just saying, I really noticed them this morning.”
    “Okay. We're going to keep monitoring you, Radiance. The doctors here will keep treating your hands, and we'll see how it goes.”
    “The doctors here? What do you mean? Where are you from?”
    “The Centers for Disease Control.”
    “Oh, fuck.” Radiance touched her hand to her forehead, then looked at her hand, shuddered, and pulled it away from her face. “I'm totally fucked, aren't I?” she whispered.
    “There's no reason to think that at this point,” Heather said. “I think if the infection had been fatal, you would have died by now. You look to be in