Blood Trilogy (Book 2): Draw Blood by Jason Bovberg Read Free Book Online

just take a look, huh? A lot of shit is about to get real clear.”
    Michael just looks at him, feeling a chaos of emotions.
    “Let’s go,” the cop says. “Trust me, okay?”
    Not waiting for Michael, Joel starts moving again, firearm at ready position.
    Kevin follows, and Michael takes a deep breath, taking up the rear.
    They approach a new hallway to the right and pause. The sound has stopped, but now a brief clamor informs them that the sound is coming from down the new hall. Joel urges them forward. It’s close.
    “You don’t remember anything , huh?” Kevin whispers next to Michael. “You don’t remember what you were doing when—”
    “I remember just flashes … nothing concrete. I don’t even remember driving to work. Nothing about that morning.”
    “Maybe not a bad memory to lose, I guess,” Kevin says. “… when the end of the world happened.”
    “The end of—” Michael starts.
    Joel slows abruptly and gestures Michael and Kevin forward with his pistol. “It’s that room there.”
    Michael sees a closed door. To the right of the door, directly below a small metal rectangle designating the room as Room 278, a chair sits empty and crooked. Joel moves quietly to the door and takes hold of the handle. He glances at Michael and gestures for him to position himself behind him. Michael takes his place.
    “I think I know what’s happened here,” Joel whispers.
    “What?” Kevin says.
    Joel quietly moves to the door and tries the handle. It’s unlocked. It opens soundlessly inward. He takes in the scene, nods quickly.
    Michael feels his veins pulsing. A low gasp comes from within the room, raising the hair on the back of his neck.
    “Yep, we got one,” Joel says, grimacing. “Come take a look.”
    Michael steels himself, then steps forward with Kevin.
    The room appears to be a typical ICU recovery room, with hulking machinery dark and silent in the background. There are whiteboards everywhere, scrawled with barely legible notes and incomprehensible numbers. But Michael’s eyes go immediately to the bed, which has been dragged to the far edge of the room, and the body on the floor right at the foot of that bed.
    The body is that of a heavy, tattooed bald man. He’s half covered by a hospital gown, and much of his exposed skin is loosely swathed by bandages. The man is bent over backward, straining, on all fours. Cords in his neck are standing out in stark relief, and the expression on the upside-down face is one of pure torment—red, furious, eyes bulging. Michael, appalled, notices something right away about the eyes: The pupils are wide and black. The effect is like a shark’s eyes. There’s malevolence there.
    “Oh my god!” Michael can’t help but blurt. “What’s wrong with him?”
    The man locks dead eyes on Michael, then on Joel, and unleashes a dry, throaty gasp. He thrashes once, mightily, and drags the bed’s metal legs a few inches across the floor.
    “Same thing that’s wrong with mostly everyone,” Kevin says.
    Michael can’t take his eyes off the man. He can’t comprehend what he’s seeing. The bodies at the trees were one thing, but this is something entirely different: malevolent and almost completely alien despite the humanity underneath the features.
    “He’s locked to the bed,” Joel says. “See?”
    A pair of handcuffs secures the man’s left hand to the bed railing. The wrist is obviously broken, and the flesh is mangled, twisted. In fact, Michael realizes, the man is on the verge of dismembering his own hand to escape. The skin is taut and torn, and the bones appear to be nearly separated. Soon, the only thing keeping this man tethered will be tendons and skin.
    “He’s a prisoner,” Kevin whispers.
    The room stinks of the man’s sweat, a heavy scent that mingles with the smell of shit and piss, which have stained the bed and his clothes.
    “Fuuuuuck, that’s rank,” Kevin says. His rifle is pointed down and away, but Joel is on high