Salvation: Secret Apocalypse Book 5 (A Secret Apocalypse Story) by James Harden Read Free Book Online Page B

completely impossible.
    Initial high fever followed by extremely low core body temperature.
    No heartbeat.
    Symptoms appeared within minutes of patient presenting.
    No response to vaccine.
    No response to NVX.

 
    Below the notes is a large red X. I can guess what that meant. All the other
charts read the same. A few of them simply had a large red X on them. No notes
at all. No need for notes. At the far end of the room was a long and narrow
walk-in storage area.
    “Do you see the storage area?” George asks over the walkie-talkie.
    I readjust my headphones in my ears and turn the volume up slightly.
“Yeah, I see it.”
    “The NVX injection pens should be in there. They usually come in packs
of three.”
    “Got it.”
    This is where I will find the meds. The shelves line the walls of the
walk-in storage area. They contain all the necessary medical supplies anyone
could ever want.
    Bandages.
    Surgical tools.
    Hypodermic needles.
    But I can’t see any boxes or vials labeled NVX. No injecting pens.
    At the end of the narrow walk-in storage area is a glass door. It leads
to a secured, sealed off section.
    The glass door has a keypad security lock.
    I am about to ask George if he knows about the sealed off room. If he
knows the access code, but then I see something that should definitely not be
in a medical supply room.
    It is a machete.
    It is covered in blood and small chips of bone and small slivers of
flesh and ligament and clumps of hair.
    Before I can figure out what the hell this means, I hear a groan coming
from back out in the sick bay. I hear the howling scream. I hear running
footsteps.
    I turn around, picking up the machete in the same movement. The infected
person is almost on top of me. His arms are stretched out, reaching for me. I
swing the machete in a wild, swooping arc. And when I swing the machete I close
my eyes.
    I don’t know why I close my eyes.
    The machete is sharp and heavy and it doesn’t quite fully decapitate the
infected man, but it does the next best thing. It slices through the top half
of its head. It slices clean through. It does this easily. Like a hot knife
through butter. It was the weirdest sensation. And to be honest I kind of feel
like trying it again. But I’m not going to get the chance.
    As I swung the machete and half-decapitated the infected man, I let go
of the handle and the machete went flying out into the sick bay.
    I don’t know why I let go.
    Maybe because I wasn’t ready for the attack. Maybe because the blade was
surprisingly heavy. Or maybe because I didn’t expect it to slice through so
easily. But yeah, I let go of the blade and it went flying back into the
hospital room and landed under one of the beds.
    And then I see another infected person.
    The reason I didn’t see them initially is because they were standing
behind one of the curtains in the corner of the room.
    They were just standing there. Motionless.
    Dead.
    But alive.
    And now they have sprung into action.
    There was fresh meat on offer. A fresh host.
    The infected person is walking towards me. They are still caught up in
the curtain. They are almost tangled up.
    But they continue walking forward. Coming for me. And they eventually
walk through the curtain and it falls away. And then I see this infected person
is wearing a white lab coat, and I think that maybe they used to be the doctor
to these patients and maybe he was the one who wrote all those notes and all
those large red X’s.
    Once he sees me, he charges.
    I have no time to run out of the storage room to retrieve the blade.
    So I back further into the storeroom.
    I have nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
    No escape.
    I place my hands on the shelves on each side of the narrow storeroom and
lift my legs up to kick the charging zombie. I make contact with its chest and
it goes flying back. The thing quickly gets to its feet, and I wonder for how
long I can keep doing that.
    Long enough for George to show up?
    Would he even show up?
    The