Wheels and Zombies (Book 1): Ash Read online

  I took his hand and shook it. For some reason, a feeling of finality hung in the air.

  “Watch your back, half pint, and if I can help, you’ll find me here, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said and tried a smile. It must have come out as a grimace because Chuck gave me a sympathetic look.

  Thoughts swirled as I replayed the encounter with Chuck and the images from the TV in my mind. All of that was happening not far beyond these hospital walls. The information had hit me like a sledgehammer as I rolled my chair out of the break room. The hall looked empty past the door, and I risked it. The images on TV seemed to come straight out of a horror movie—one with terrifying special effects.

  Besides fear, it invoked something else in me, something dark that hit me in an instant, and I felt complacent. Why should I be the only one to suffer? I bit my cheek to stop the thoughts in their tracks. It wouldn’t do me any good to think like this. What happened to me wasn’t anyone’s fault, just plain bad luck, and if there was one thing Alison had taught me, it was not to hold grudges.

  I neared the nurses’ desk when the sound of rubber soles squeaking on the linoleum caught my attention. My chair’s tires made a similar sound when I came to a halt. Silently cursing myself, I rolled into one of the dark holes in the wall. Three beds stood in the room, but none of the patients seemed awake. Peering out from the darkness, I watched Nurse Patterson stride past the open door. I knew she wouldn’t be able to see me. The rooms were too dark.

  Nurse Patterson had no lack of self-confidence. She was quite full of herself, with her dark hair neatly put up and pinned to her skull. Her nose always seemed to find its way up to the ceiling. I wondered if Chuck had meant her when he spoke of this Nurse Ratched. I didn’t know any Nurse Ratched, but the name didn’t sound very complimentary.

  Careful to avoid making the wheels squeak, I peeked out and saw that at the end of the hall, Patterson took a left to enter the nurses’ lounge. A breath escaped me. I needed to pass that lounge. Praying the uptight nurse had closed the door behind her, I edged closer. It seemed the luck that I had lacked ever since I had been born kept its consistency. The door stood wide open.

  Voices whispered in the hallway, and I couldn’t contain my curiosity. “When are they coming?” a voice that carried more tension than usually said. The voice belonged to Dr. O’Connell. I don’t believe I had ever seen him at the hospital at this late hour.

  Dr. O’Connell had established himself as a formidable healer over the years. His experience gave him seniority over most of the staff working at the hospital. He would have retired two years ago if they hadn’t offered him a lucrative deal to stay on. His name and reputation had proven to work well in the market. Dr. O’Connell turned out to be modest enough to tell me that the moment we met. That’s why it seemed odd to hear this strained voice coming from him. Although with everything going on outside, I guessed, even a seasoned doctor might start to show cracks.

  Nurse Patterson, however, sounded as sure as always when she said, “Evacuation procedures for the patients start the day after tomorrow. A Captain Decker will be here bright and early tomorrow morning to start with the cancer wards. They won’t be going to the safe zones.”

  “Why not? And why the special interest in the cancer wards?” O’Connell asked.

  “I’m not sure. They wouldn’t answer any of my questions, and frankly, I don’t care. When I’m done tomorrow, I’m out of here.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I’m joining my sister’s family. They’re already up at one of the safe zones,” Patterson said. “What’s your plan?”

  There was a moment of silence before O’Connell answered. I swear I could feel the tension build by the second even outside here in the hall.

  “They’ll never let me leave the island, so I can forget about joining my daughter in California. I will try to stay with the patients—they’ll appreciate a familiar face,” he said. “I can’t just hand them over to the military.”

  “Doctor, you’re living in a dream world. Those patients will be part of some hush-hush research,” Patterson said without hesitation. “You’ll have to forget about them. No one is ever going to see them again.”

  My mouth dropped open at those last words. I recapped them in my mind, not sure if I had heard correctly, but they came back with exactly the same meaning. The military wanted to use the patients on the cancer ward as guinea pigs. The fact that I was part of that ward hit a second later. I gasped.

  Footsteps lead into the hall. I scrambled to take off, but then I had to crane my neck to face the menacing eyes of Nurse Patterson. She gave me a look that made me feel as if the military coming to get me was the least of my problems.

  “You nosy little brat,” she said, stepping around and reaching for the handlebars of my chair. There wouldn’t be much I could do, but I wouldn’t let her get away with it easily.

  “Hey, you can’t touch my property,” I said in a loud voice and rolled the chair backward. “Keep your hands off my chair.” If looks could kill, I’d be dead.

  “I’m going to do more than just touch your chair, you little piece of—” she started to say, but old man Chuck cut her off from where he stood in the door opening of the break room.

  “You let half pint go, you Ratched,” he called out from down the hall.

  “I’ll be coming for you next,” Patterson shouted back. “Have you been smoking again? You old coot.”

  At that, voices started to complain from several rooms. Some shouted in Chuck’s or my defense. Others just complained about the noise level. Patterson jerked at my chair as I tried to wrench away. I wanted to tell Chuck what I had heard, but I couldn’t see any way to get to him.

  “Nurse,” O’Connell said in hushed yet stern voice, “please return Miss Reed to her room and quiet the rest.” Patterson went for another pass at my chair. I couldn’t see much choice but to give in.

  | 3

  The room was still on the dark side when I opened my eyes, but the white head of hair and the wheezing breath fed to him by a tube were unmistakable. Chuck stared at me wild-eyed.

  “Well, see who finally decided to wake up,” he said. I blinked in surprise at his figure hovering over my bed.

  “What are you doin’ in my room?”

  “Never mind that. What did the old hag tell you last night?” he asked.

  I looked at him in surprise and asked, “The old lady you gave an alcohol overdose?”

  “No, half pint, the Ratched woman.” Through a haze of half-sleep, I fought to recall the night before. My head felt so woozy that I wondered if Patterson had given me something to sleep, but I couldn’t remember. I shook my head as if that would make it go away.

  “She didn’t tell me anythin’, but I overheard her talk to O’Connell, and they spoke of evacuatin’ patients—why?”

  “Because I just saw half a dozen army vehicles with a bunch of buses pass my window and because my old friend Weaver—he’s an old twat with a weak heart—admitted to cardiology two floors down,” he said and then looked at me expectantly.

  I didn’t know the man with the weak heart, but I nodded anyway to keep him talking.

  “Well, he said that staff had been packing up for evacuation, but that shouldn’t start until tomorrow.”

  “Ratched did mention that the evacuation of the patients would start tomorrow, but we’re not gettin’ evacuated,” I blurted out. Chuck eyed me with furrowed brows. “That’s what she said. They’ll evacuate the rest of the hospital but not us—we’re supposed to be taken someplace else.” I pulled myself into a sitting position so I could face the old man.

  “Why wouldn’t they evacuate us?”

  “I don’t know, but Ratched—I mean, Patterson—said we’d be taken for hush-hush research, and they wouldn’t have to deal with us anymore.” My words came out high-pitched and a little frantic.

  “Are you sure about that?” Chuck looked at me unconvinced.

  “I’m not screwin�
�� around here,” I said as heavy boots fell outside the door. At the sound, Chuck’s expression changed.

  “Well, over my dead body,” he said. I’d heard people say that before, but the look on Chuck’s face told me he meant it. He strutted to the door, and I was afraid he would charge out. It would have looked impressive if he didn’t have to drag that oxygen cart behind him and wasn’t wearing a dreadful dark brown bathrobe. He stopped abruptly to ease open the door. Light that filtered through the crack made Jarrod grumble something incomprehensible in his sleep. Chuck poked his head out the door. As I waited in anticipation for what Chuck was about to do, I became very aware that my heart picked up speed. Chuck pulled his head back inside the room.

  “Two men in green are chatting up O’Connell,” he said in a hushed tone as he made his way to my bed.

  “So,” I said. Chuck ignored me. He frowned, which made the crinkles in his face reached new depths while he seemed deep in thought. When our gazes reconnected, Chuck’s expression had changed. His eyes gleamed as if they had returned from the dead. A half-grin lifted his cheek into something devilish with a bit of charm. I raised my brows, not sure whether I liked where this was going.

  “Where busting out of here, half pint.” He said it in a slick, Jack Nicholson-from-The Shining tone of voice with a matching expression that felt a bit disconcerting. That movie, along with the book, stood high on my scare list, but that’s what I liked about them. However, my expression must not have conveyed that, because Chuck’s features softened.

  “Come on, half pint. What have we got to lose?” he said as if he needed to convince me. “How long have they given you anyway?”

  My throat clenched, and I had to swallow at that. Acknowledging that you’re going to die and expressing an exact time frame seemed like a line I didn’t want to cross. It would be too final.

  Chuck, fortunately, didn’t wait for an answer. “You want to spend those months in the hands of some Frankenstein?”

  I shook my head, still uncertain of my voice.

  “I mean, even if it is not that bad, you think they’ll give a rat’s ass how you spend your final days with all that going on outside?” He pointed a crooked finger at the window, reminding me of the chaos we’d seen on TV yesterday.

  He was right of course. If what we had seen turned out to be spreading as fast as the news ticker had announced, the government would have their hands full. An image of an old World War II movie flashed in my head where they shipped off the sick and helpless to Nazi death camps. The thought made me shiver. Chuck watched me, waiting for my answer that in a way was easy, but on the other hand, wasn’t.

  I cleared my throat and said, “And how were you plannin’ to get us out of here?” Relieved my voice had returned, I waved a hand over my legs to gesture at my mobility with a mock grin.

  Chuck shrugged as if it were nothing before he crossed the room over to where my wheelchair stood in a corner. He maneuvered it awkwardly over to the bed, steering the chair with one hand and pulling the oxygen cart with the other. Without a word, he scooped me from the bed. Frail and too short for my age, I wouldn’t be much of a challenge to carry anyway, and I could tell the old man, despite his bad smoking habit, had kept his body in shape over the years. He must have been one hulk of a man during his prime. He sat me in the chair, but then he lost his balance. He gripped the armrests, balancing his weight as he almost tipped us both over before regaining his footing.

  “Sorry about that, half pint,” he said, panting a little from the effort. I eyed him with a raised brow when he padded my near bald head. That would not have gone over well if it had been anyone else, but I could suffer it from the old man. At least, he didn’t call me kid.

  Despite the oxygen cart, Chuck moved with efficiency down the long white corridor of our hospital wing. I hovered at his back as much as I could in my chair on wheels. When necessary, we ducked into a darkened room at the sound of footsteps. Our wing treated severe cancer cases. Most patients hung on by threads, and at this early hour, it left us with an eerie silence only disturbed by the wheezing and beeping of respiration machines and heart monitors.

  It changed when we neared one of the main junctions where three corridors converged. From around the corner, we could see that the evacuation of our special breed of patients had begun. The hospital had set this entire floor up as a dedicated cancer ward. I assumed this would make it a lot easier to haul us off in a relatively low-key fashion that wouldn't disturb the rest of the patients on other floors. Armed soldiers pushed beds from rooms and lined them up by the elevators. Nurses padded along the beds in an effort to keep the patients calm.

  Disgruntled voices came from a sectioned-off portion at the beginning of the corridor. Several soldiers formed a line to keep a bunch of people separated from the patients. At least ten of them struggled with the soldiers for access. The soldiers wouldn’t relent.

  “They’re family,” Chuck said in a whisper. “I recognize Maggie’s husband.” I didn’t recognize the woman’s name or the man he pointed out down the hall. It must have shown on my face.

  “You somewhat met yesterday,” he said. “The old hag who had trouble holding down the booze.”

  I nodded absentmindedly, a bit on edge from the violent shouts flaring from the corner where soldiers held back the family members.

  “How would they know to come so early?” I asked in a hushed voice.

  “Who knows these days,” Chuck said, “with all these handheld boxes you kids play with …” His throat made a wheezy sound, and he cupped a hand over his mouth. After some disgusting gurgling sounds, he continued. “Anyone could have called them.”

  When I peered around the corner, I witnessed Maggie’s husband, a little fat guy with greasy hair, shove one of the soldiers in the shoulders. The soldier didn’t even flinch. It didn’t stop another soldier from shoving the little fat man in return. Maggie’s husband stumbled backward into some other family members. An entangled mess of arms couldn’t stop him from falling on his butt.

  A feisty redhead who had witnessed it slapped the soldier in his face. He, in turn, shoved the redhead as he had Maggie’s husband. The redheaded woman barely took a step back, but she cried out in anger. A burly man reacted and punched the soldier square in the face.

  The situation escalated like a brushfire. This was our chance. I yanked on Chuck’s ugly bathrobe. He looked down at me over his shoulder and then followed my finger to where it pointed across the hall to a pair of elevators. The grin on his face told me he was thinking the same thing. Chuck took another peek around the corner while I watched his hand extended in a gesture not to move. I could feel the adrenaline rise in anticipation, my hands poised on the wheels, ready to haul ass. Chuck’s hand twitched. I went. Wheels spun fast as I hurried to the elevator doors. With ease, I came to a halt, spun the chair, and hit the button in one quick action. I had just motioned to Chuck, who had made it halfway, to hurry up when a figure in green stepped around the corner.

  “Hold on. Where are you two going off to?” a female voice said.

  Chuck stopped in his tracks, his eyes closed, face set in a grimace that carved deep crevices into his wrinkled skin. Holding my breath, I watched the woman step closer.

  Over her green uniform, she wore an armored vest, a gun holstered at her side, and an assault rifle strung across her chest. She didn’t stand tall in her army-issued boots, but the dark, braided hair molded into a Mohawk at the top made her look impressive. She stopped next to Chuck and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. I would have expected her to pull a gun or start shouting for the others. Instead, she let out a breath, and her dark eyes filled with concern.

  “You must be Miss Reed,” she said in a soft tone as she released Chuck’s shoulder. “Nurse Patterson said you might have figured out a thing or two, and I see you’ve enlisted a friend.”

  Chuck folded his arms over his chest and rested his butt against an empty bed that someone had parked in the hall. He eyed the woma
n suspiciously.

  The elevator next to me dinged, and the doors whooshed open. A tall man in uniform stepped out. His dark skin jumped out against the white walls and tiled floor. He looked down at me with a smile that reached his blazing jade-green eyes.

  “Sergeant,” he said when he turned to the Mohawk woman.

  “Lieutenant,” she replied.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “I was just escorting these two for a bathroom break.”

  “I see,” the lieutenant replied. “Carry on.” With a nod, the lieutenant walked off in the direction of the violent shouts that seemed to have increased.

  With the lieutenant’s back turned to us, I glared at the sergeant with wide eyes. Chuck shifted his gaze between the both of us looking confused. The sergeant placed her hands on her hips and shook her head.

  “This is so fucked up,” she muttered under her breath.

  “You can start by letting us onto this elevator,” Chuck said, seizing the opportunity at the sergeant’s hesitation.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t let you sneak off. Besides, they’ll comb out the hospital if I don’t bring you back,” she said. She looked from Chuck to me and then over her shoulder to where the shouts came from around the corner. “The fact that we don’t agree with our orders probably won’t be much of a comfort.”

  “Why are they doing this?” I asked. She angled her head down to face me.

  “Someone figured that cancer might provide a cure for that rabies virus that is destroying the city.”

  “So it’s true what half pint said. They will experiment on us and shove us in cages like rats,” Chuck said and took a step back.

  Feeling sick to my stomach, I swallowed hard to shove the bile down. A shiver ran down my body at the same time the color drained from my face. Doctors had poked and prodded me my entire life. This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening. I took hold of my stomach, unable to stop the bile rising in my throat and threw up over the armrest of my chair. The white tiled floor turned a disgusting yellow.