Contagious by Emily Goodwin Read Free Book Online Page B

were screwed. The fire came and went with no such luck.
    Running my hand along the wall in front of me, I led the group down another hall. Every few seconds I stopped, listening for the dragging of feet. I was about to give up when a very dull glow came into view. Dim light from the security lights shone above the stairwell. Once everyone was out, I slammed the heavy door shut, a moot attempt, I know.
    “ Keys,” I reminded Padraic. I needed to keep moving. If I stopped, my body would react. And I couldn’t have that right now. Logan took the coughing girl from Padraic. And Jason still held Zoe. I couldn’t expect them to race up two flights of stairs. Though it wasn’t as pitch black as the basement thanks to the emergency lights in every hall, it was still too dark to be confident that nothing was lurking. Hesitantly, I opened a door marked ‘janitor closet’.
    “ Hey!” I said to the darkness. When nothing came rushing at me, I said, “Everyone get in here. Padraic and I will get the keys.” Jason tried to protest, but I shoved him in the closet and shut the door. I took my bag and gave it to Sonja.
    “ There is a taser inside. It won’t hurt a zombie, but I think it can slow down a crazy. Press it against their heart.”
    “ Ok,” she said weakly.
    “ Which way?” I asked Padraic. His face was pale of color and his body twitched. Well, I wasn’t the only one not handling this with full composure, at least.
    “ Uh,” he looked around. “This way.”
    We ran to the stairwell. Our footfalls echoed loudly. We encountered nothing as we made our way down the hall on the third floor, which only made me more nervous. Maybe the zombies could go downstairs but had yet to master going up?
    “ What kind of car do you have?” I asked suddenly.
    Padraic gave me a ‘what the hell does it matter’ look. “A Range Rover.”
    Figures. I rolled my eyes. “How many people fit in it?”
    “ Oh,” he said, cluing into what I was getting at the whole time. “Five.”
    “ I suppose we all will fit. It’s not like we have a choice.”
    From inside a room, a crazy jumped out, knocking me to the ground. “Get the keys!” I demanded. “I can hold him off. Go!” He hissed and snapped. Oddly, my martial arts instructor’s voice rang in my head. Remember that you are worth defending, Orissa , he had told me. We had spent several months ignoring the traditional methods and focused on self defense. I was confident I could get away with minimal harm from a human attacker. I knew the weak points, and I knew going for the eyes, nose, and throat were good ways to stop an attack. But that relied on inflicting pain, and the crazies didn’t react to pain. The crazy’s hands wrapped around my throat.
    In a minute I would pass out.
    With my free hand, I struck the crazy’s face, shoving my palm into his nose, driving the bone up. Unable to breathe, he let me go. I scrambled out from under him, uprighting myself. I had nothing to kill him with. A med cart sat a foot behind me. I grabbed it and shoved it at him. He fell back, tumbling over an overturned wheelchair. I had been trained on how to fight, not how to kill.
    You are worth defending. And so was everyone else. The madman crouched, saliva dripping from his mouth as he growled. My body hummed with adrenaline. A biohazard trash can had fallen off the med cart and cracked, spilling dirty, used needles all over the floor.
    “ Here goes nothing,” I said, as I dove down to get one. I pulled the needle back and lunged, driving it into the man’s chest. I pushed it in; the needle bent on his sternum, not killing him with a bubble of air as I hoped. Defeated, I backed into a room, gagging instantly at the smell of the rotting corpse that had been left in the bed. Expeditiously, I scanned the room. There was a small bathroom across from me. And the door opened into the room. I circled around the bed, knocking over the IV stand. The tubes pulled the corpse’s arm, and I