“Experience?” she asked.
Well, she got right down to business. “Two years as an EMT in college, and I was a medic over at Camp Elderwood. Bites, aches and pains, bandaging, suturing, some meds. Lattimore had me working triage and the Zombie Ward.”
She looked me over, and her mouth pressed into a firm line. “I guess it’d be too much to ask for a real medical professional.”
I kept smiling. Beggars can’t be choosers, bitch.
“Since you’re here, though, you might as well get your shit together. We’re not dealing with head colds.”
There was my opening: “What the hell is this?”
“Got me,” she said. “Every few weeks we get an influx of weird shit. This doesn’t seem to be the Meteor Sickness, or what we accepted as Meteor Sickness. It gets bad with fever and vomiting, most of these folks have swollen lymph nodes…”
What the hell? This had all happened overnight?
She cast her gaze over the occupants of the tent, and her shoulders slumped ever so slightly.
I tried to keep my tone businesslike. “What are you giving them?”
“All we’ve got left right now is streptomycin, and we’re low on that, too.”
“That’s it?”
She coughed into her hand, then wiped it against her scrubs. “Lattimore commandeered the penicillin and gentamicin to treat the bites and the soldiers. People who can be saved, I guess. Renati has some experimental stuff he hasn’t been allowed to try yet, but he might also have some strepto back in his lab. Go ask when it’s time to re-dose. I begged a favor from one of the food truck guys and some of them are going to make a run into the bad side of town to check the drugstores, but—”
“The food truck guys?” I imagined Logan and his friends running around in the Quarantine Zone, scooping up supplies to sell off on some kind of makeshift black market.
“Yeah. Keller won’t spare many to go looking for drugs for the dying. Logically, I guess I can’t blame him anymore.” The nurse sat down heavily on the edge of a cot, rubbing at her temples.
“Where is Renati?” I asked. “I never seem to see him for more than ten seconds at a time.”
“Because he’s never outside his fucking lab for more than ten seconds at a time. I’m sure that’s where he is now. Look, I gotta check out and get some shuteye. We can’t do much for these people besides push the drugs and the painkillers. Just try to keep them comfortable and give them water if they ask for it. Renati ordered antibiotics, for all the good it’ll do.” She pointed at the clock hanging on the wall. It wasn’t ticking, but I figured the thing worked. “Next dose is at noon.”
It’s only after seven? My God, it was going to be a long day.
She left without saying another word, and I realized I hadn’t even gotten her name.
Since all this endtimes merriment had begun, I’d dealt with zombie bites and fractures and the occasional aches and pains, not creepy illnesses that were apparently not responsive to antibiotics. Doctor Samuels had given me a primer on suturing and pushing drugs, but I was pretty damn sure I wasn’t qualified to deal with a budding plague.
Welcome to the Dark Ages. I looked around, trying to figure out what the hell I was expected to do. The medic had told me to keep them comfortable, but everyone seemed fairly quiet. I prowled up and down the rows of beds, dimly aware that despite the medic’s nonchalance, I might very well be breathing in superbugs lurking in the lungs of the sick and the dying.
A hand caught mine. “Heya,” someone whispered.
I crouched down beside the bed, and my heart sank. Alyssa hadn’t been in great shape when I left her, but now she seemed to be in the middle of some sort of full-blown infection, drained of all vitality and barely able to move her hands. “Hi, hon,” I said, trying to sound warm and pleasant. “How are you doing?”
She licked chapped lips with a dry tongue. “Hurts,” she said.
Her hand felt hot against mine. I touched her forehead: feverish as all get-out. The streptomycin clearly wasn’t doing anything for her. “Where does it hurt?” I asked.
“Everywhere…”
Well, that didn’t help me. Her pulse was steady, if elevated, and she lifted her arms only with great effort. I probed along her abdomen and frowned, detecting some swelling around her liver. I looked around for Renati, but only found that sea of staring faces.
Make them comfortable.
If it was all I could do, well, I’d do it.
“I’m going to see if I can find you something for the pain, okay?” I asked.