The Last Twilight by Marjorie M. Liu Read Free Book Online

“You wanna know something else, Mack?”
    “Not really.”
    “This is worse than Ebola,” she said, feeling cut, sick. “You know it is, Mack. The amount of hemorrhaging alone proves that. Usually only a third of victims bleed out, but I haven’t seen a single body in this vicinity that isn’t soaked in blood. And those symptoms the doctor noted? No mention of vomiting or diarrhea. Not once.”
    “Rikki—”
    “I’m telling you, Mack. The virus has evolved… or this is something entirely new.”
    “Rikki—”
    “No survivors,” she added, ignoring him. “Not one, not in over one thousand people. The camp doctors called you in at the first sign, and by the time you got here everyone was dead. That is unprecedented, Mack. Ebola is deadly, but someone always survives. Always.”
    And it did not kill so quickly. According to the notes Mack and his team had discovered upon his arrival— including messages to the living that Rikki found heartbreaking—death had occurred less than six hours after the first sign of symptoms. Usual containment methods had proven useless.
    No one in the camp had stood a chance. A massacre at the end of a machine gun would have been kinder. Something Rikki knew all about.
    Mack still stared at her. She said, “What?”
    “What, nothing,” he replied darkly. “Except that I think you made me pee pee myself.” Rikki sighed. Mack shook his head. “It’s almost time for us to check our temperatures. You feeling anything weird? Hot? Tired?”
    She gave him the finger. “You?”
    “Shit. I could collapse at any moment.”
    She would have laughed, but that would have involved vomiting up her spleen or sobbing out her guts. She had never worked an outbreak of this magnitude—never imagined, in her worst nightmares, that she would have to. And it was worse, so much worse, with no one left to save.
    No one but themselves.
    Without waiting to see if Mack followed, she began slogging through the water toward shore. Floodlights had been set up, the brush hacked back. Rumbling generators drowned voices, the nightly jungle chorus. Everyone wore biohazard suits, even the peacekeepers, some of whom had put away their weapons to help load bodies into bags. Rikki only hoped someone had told those men that touching a body dead from Ebola was as dangerous as handling a live grenade.
    There but for the grace of God, thought Rikki, struggling to contain her terror: a hard hot stab of liquid heat that traveled straight down to her knees and made her wobble. She had to stop for a minute—pretended to survey the water—and remembered that she was wearing a mask. A real mask, goggles and all. She did not have to be strong. She could be scared. She could show it on her face and no one would be the wiser.
    The idea brought Rikki no relief whatsoever. She had no time for fear. Not now, not here. She had things to do. Maybe later, when this was over. Maybe, or not ever.
    You can’t go on like this forever. Your heart can’t take it.
    Yeah, whatever. And whiners burned in hell. According to her old coach, anyway. Besides, it didn’t matter what her heart felt. She’d gotten by for years on true grit alone; hard, stubborn strength of will. No other alternative, nothing left back home. And here at least, she could make a difference.
    Even if she wondered, sometimes, what it would be like to have another life. Something softer. Not so lonely. Not so alone.
    The water swirled black and restless around her legs. Rikki took a step, then another, ignoring the burn in her eyes. Swallowing it down past the knot in her throat, she forced herself to look up. Head held high.
    Two men on shore caught her attention. Again, she stopped walking. They were staring. Measuring. The men were swathed in protective gear, backlit by floodlights, but she noticed them because they were not working, because they were staring. At her. Goggles and masks might hide faces, but she still felt the weight of their gazes. That old