SINK - Melt Book 2: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series) Read online

  “Get her to safety.” Phillip tried to raise his arm, but it wouldn’t move more than an inch. “Get yourself to safety, man.” His eyes were drooping, his words slurring, he wasn’t going to last too much longer unless he got medical attention.

  “I’ll send help,” said Paul. “We’re so close. There are going to be medics.”

  Phillip held up his phone. “Take it. I don’t need it anymore.”

  Paul couldn’t let him give up. If he took his phone it was tantamount to saying he agreed Phillip was going to die. He couldn’t do that. “Hold on. Ten minutes. I promise. I am not going to leave you behind.”

  Phillip laughed. “Tell my mom that I love her. Tell her she did good.” He nodded, smiling. “She did good.”

  “You tell her, man.”

  Phillip shook his head. “I want all her memories of me to be happy. I don’t want her to hear me dying.”

  Paul ran. It was hard with a girl bouncing on his shoulder. He knew she had to be in a world of pain, but he had to find just one person who’d help. He skidded to a stop. More people. They were streaming downtown, too. All he needed was one. “Please,” he shouted. “My friend is hurt. I need to get him to the nearest hospital.” A woman stopped. She was slight, but she could manage Phillip if he could at least walk a little. “He’s just down the block,” said Paul. “On the street. He’s bleeding, but…” He saw the light go out in her eyes.

  She backed away, apologizing. “I’m sorry. They said not to engage.”

  “Who said?” Paul was desperate. “Who said not to engage?”

  She was gone.

  He kept trying as he raced down 9th Avenue, talking to anyone who’d even slow their step. But he got the same answer, time and again. He pieced it together. There had been an alert. Whatever was in the air when the buildings went down could be transferred by touch. Why were they all so completely spineless? Did no one care? Was he the last of his kind? Was he so different from everyone around him? He’d never thought so before this minute. But then again, his family was made up of only the best people; people who’d give their all to do the right thing.

  He turned onto 27th Street. The hospital was still standing. He could see it now, towering over its neighbors just a block and a half away. He rounded the corner onto 8th Avenue, his mind full of gleaming ambulances all lined up and at the ready. But instead there was a mob scene. He couldn’t tell if they were fighting to get out or fighting to get in, but they were fighting. He was never going to get to a medic, let alone a doctor.

  “Paul?”

  Paul turned and found himself face to face with Stephen McKan. The man looked like he’d barely broken a sweat. Why was it that the good died young, but the evil were allowed to flourish?

  “I need help,” said Paul. “My friend is dying.”

  McKan didn’t budge.

  Paul needed him on his side. He’d made a pledge to save Angelina, but he couldn’t do that and let Phillip die alone. He had to use everything in his power to get Stephen to help him. “Mom would want you to help me.”

  Stephen smiled and tilted his head to one side. “She would. And she’d be right. I’d do anything for you. You know that.”

  Paul hadn’t expected that, but he’d take what he could get. Not cool that the man had a thing for Mom, but if that made him step up, all to the good. “A friend fell four blocks back. He’s injured, but if we can get him here we can get him help.”

  Stephen matched Paul, stride for stride. They might make it. If they just kept up the pace.

  “When did she tell you?” Stephen still hadn’t broken a sweat. The guy was majorly fit.

  Paul, on the other hand, was puffing. Angelina was wearing him down. It was hard to get the words out. “Tell me what?”

  Stephen looked at him like he had fallen out of the stupid tree and hit all the branches on the way down. He laughed, though the sound was brittle and judgmental and had no humor. “Never mind.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Stephen.

  “The world is ending around us. People I care about are dying. I don’t know where my mother or father are and I have no way of knowing whether we’re going to make it out of Manhattan. If there is something you think my mother might have told me, spit it out, because she probably did but I am tired and hungry and not in the mood to play games.”

  “I’m your father.”

  Chapter 18

  Petra hadn’t been kidding. Sean was in a bad way. The sheets that hung off his makeshift bed were drenched in a shocking dark red. The floor underneath his bed was more lake than puddle. How could anyone survive that much blood loss? There was more out of him than in him. But he was alive. Aggie could tell that much because his chest was rising and falling, though slowly and unevenly. Petra had been wrong or freaking out when she said she couldn’t find his pulse. Then again, maybe he’d died and revived since she’d gotten them all in the room.

  “Is he back? Is he alive? Tell me he’s not dead.” Petra was all over the place. “I couldn’t find his pulse. Really I couldn’t. He was dead. His lips were blue. He was gone.”

  “Stand back,” said Betsy.

  Petra didn’t move. She hung over Sean, sobbing.

  “Get your sister to step back please, Agatha. I need room to work.”

  Aggie put her hands on her sister’s shoulders and steered her a few feet away from the fire. No sudden movements, nothing too alarming, just a smooth, easy transition from “in your face” to “safe distance from the scene of the action.” Petra never stopped wailing and never took her eyes off Sean’s face.

  “We need blood.” Nurse Betsy was in charge now. Totally different flavor of Bets: authoritative, knowledgeable, getting things done. She spoke, they listened. Aggie had no idea Mrs. Betsy had it in her. It was as if a switch had been thrown and Betsy had come into focus.

  “We have blood.” Petra turned to Aggie, her sobs slowing. “Tell me you guys got blood when you raided the pharmacy.”

  Aggie looked to Jo.

  “We have meds, we have equipment, but the blood isn’t stored in the same place as the meds.”

  Betsy bundled up the sheet that had been under Sean. “He’s been bleeding for a long time. I’d say he’s lost at least a couple of pints.”

  There it was, on the floor, an ugly reminder of how she had failed him. She’d been so intent on finding out what the grown-ups were doing, she’d left Petra in charge of a critically ill patient—despite knowing it was the last thing Pet could do with any hope of success when her brain was addled. Petra wasn’t built that way. She was an empath, a worrier, a deep feeler. It was Aggie who was supposed to be the smart one, the organized one, the one who stopped bad things from happening.

  Aggie rolled up her sleeve. “Take mine.”

  Betsy snapped her latex gloves on and covered her mouth with a mask. She had already laid out a tray with everything she’d need. When had she done that? Did Aggie really have to ask? Betsy—pie-maker, jelly-maker, preserver of fruit and veggies—would have made up ten beds, baked a feast for a hundred, done laundry for a thousand, and still had time left over to organize a surgical tray so she could perform procedures on command. “Are you a universal donor?”

  Aggie shook her head. “No.”

  “Do we have a universal donor in the house?” Betsy shouted, winding her hair behind her head and covering it with a net. “Shoot.” She removed her gloves and tossed them in the trash, and grabbed another pair. “I am out of practice.” She turned back to the room, hands up in the manner of a surgeon. “Okay. Ready. Do we have a universal donor in the house?”

  “Me,” Grandma Margaret had followed them in from the porch.

  Betsy put her hand out towards Margaret but didn’t touch her. “I’m sorry, my dear. Your blood won’t do it.”

  “I’ve given blood every year since…” Grandma Margaret stopped. “I get it. The anti-rejection meds.” She stepped back, crestfallen. “I would have given him
as much as he needed.”

  Petra was silent but shaking. She snuck a look at Aggie, then looked away.

  “No,” said Aggie.

  “No, what?” Betsy was right there between them, sharp as a tack. “Who are we talking about?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Aggie, “it’s not going to happen.”

  “Please?” said Petra.

  The air in the room had taken on a thick, angry quality. Aggie was positively radioactive, she was so mad. She scanned the room, glad to find that Midge was tucked away in the reading nook, asleep.

  “He’s dying,” said Petra, “or I wouldn’t ask.”

  Betsy stepped up to Aggie. “I get it. You don’t want to put her at risk. But I know what I am doing. And your sister is right, without blood he is going to die.”

  A tear escaped Aggie’s control. It was the first, but it was followed by a flood. “She’s too little. It’s not fair.” She turned to Petra. “And don’t you dare ask her. You know she can’t say no.”

  “If you agree to let her donate blood, I promise it won’t hurt and I won’t take more than I need.” Betsy was asking, not telling. Not what Aggie expected. It put the decision squarely in her court. Though it had already been there. Even before Petra asked. She was the decision maker. Now she had to work out what Dad would do.

  “Then what?” Aggie was almost spitting, she was so furious. With all of them. They’d really put Midge in danger? For a stranger? Worse, they’d make her be the final arbiter of what was allowed and what was forbidden? She’d wanted this responsibility. But when it fell to her the weight was like lead-filled shoes, with a deep-sea diver’s lead-filled suit. She was drowning in responsibility.

  “Then we wait and see. I can stitch him up, so unless we’re looking at something internal, he should stabilize.”

  “How do we even know he’s dying? He looks okay to me.” Truth was, she hadn’t looked too carefully at Sean. She didn’t want his death on her conscience.

  Betsy snapped her gloves off for a second time. She gently took Aggie's hand and led her to Sean's bedside. “Put your hand on his neck.”

  Aggie did as she was told.

  “Now put it on your own.”

  Aggie felt her own pulse, good and strong and even and thumping hard.

  “That’s what we call a thready pulse.”

  “Is there no other way?” She was begging. She didn’t care. It was her job to keep Midge safe.

  “Not that we have access to out here,” said Betsy.

  Aggie pointed at Petra. She didn’t care that it was a direct accusation. She meant it and she wanted Petra to understand exactly how she felt for once. “If anything happens to her…”

  “I know.” Petra hung her head. “I will never forgive myself either, but Mrs. Betsy says she can do it and I trust her.”

  “Nurse Betsy,” said Aggie. “She’s Nurse Betsy now.”

  Nurse Betsy woke Midge and led her to the fireside. Just as soon as Nurse Betsy told her what they needed to do and why, Midge was in the rocker, her sleeve pulled up, without a single question or a word of protest. “If Sean needs it and I have it,” she said, “then I want him to have it.”

  Aggie wanted to cover her ears or scream at them or run down to the paddock and take one of the horses out for a long, long ride. Perhaps one that involved her not coming back at all. But she couldn’t do that. She had to stay and see this thing through.

  There was a fearful amount of rubber tubing, none of which inspired confidence. When Midge’s blood started to flow, Aggie had to look away. Even if it was true that Dad would have encouraged Midge to do what she was doing, she wasn’t Dad.

  Aggie truly didn’t want to stay, but she knew she could never leave. She positioned herself between the kitchen and the front room so she could be there for Midge in case she needed her, but still keep an ear on what Jim and Jo were plotting. If she’d been honest with herself, she would have realized that listening to Jim and Jo was easier than watching her baby sister fork over precious blood. She tuned the front room out and the kitchen in. They were deep in their conspiracy theory now, debating the finer points of what to do when Manhattan lost it and the humans showed their true colors.

  “There aren’t going to be rioters.” Aggie threw the comment over her shoulder but didn’t look at them. They were paranoid and depressing and had no faith in their fellow man. People were better than that. They’d pull together. They wouldn’t tear the place apart looking for food or guns or whatever it was Jim said they had to keep under lock and key.

  Grandma Margaret pulled up a chair beside her in the doorway. “You look like you’re ready to start a laser show with those eyes.”

  Normally, Aggie would have rewarded Mimi’s lame-o jokes with at least a smile, but she couldn’t conjure that much up. All she had were scowls and an acid stomach.

  “Midge will be fine. She’s young. She’s healthy. She’ll get a cookie and some orange juice and she’ll sleep for a while. We’re all here, so she’s not going to fall or hurt herself. It’s lovely that you’re so worried about her, but trust Betsy. She’s a pro.”

  “They’re making me crazy.” Aggie nodded towards the kitchen. “They’re talking about this accident as if it’s the end of the world.”

  “I think they’re just trying to be cautious. They’ve both seen action and they know what happens when there’s a food shortage or a national crisis.”

  “But neither of those things are happening, Mimi. There’s a terrible accident down in Manhattan. We’re fine up here.”

  Mimi didn’t speak. She just sat, which was fine by Aggie. She didn’t need another old person telling her that her worldview was naïve. She needed someone to tell her that there was enough to go around and there would be no one at their gate and soon she could let her guard down and go back to feeding goats and exercising the horses. “Damn…”

  “Mind your language.”

  “We haven’t fed the goats today. Pippy will be bleating her head off.” She dusted herself off and headed for Midge. “I won’t be long. And I’ll kiss Pippy for you, of course.”

  “Will you tell her a story?” said Midge.

  “I think she would prefer to hear that from you,” said Aggie, “but I will let her know you miss her and want her to wrap up nice and tight in her hay bed and sleep good tonight.”

  The night air felt good on her face. So did being away from people. She’d forgotten how much time she needed on her own. The leaves were turning. Fall was on its way. She looked up at the sky. There was so much to love about the world. How could you look at the Milky Way and not be blown out of the water? It was awesome in every sense of the word.

  Pippy was fractious, stamping her hooves and making a racket. She hadn’t been fed for 24 hours. She was right to be in a mood. But why Pippy and not the rest of the animals? The chickens were all tucked up, the horses whinnied and stepped to and back, but they weren’t making a ruckus. It was just dear little Pippy. Spoiled, funny, sweet Pippy. She was everybody’s favorite for a reason. She had personality to spare. She was the Queen of their little farm back home and Queen out here, too.

  “Rats,” she said. “I forgot about Floofy.” There was so much to juggle in her mind. Could she sneak off while everyone was tending to Sean and find their lost and wayward alpaca? No, they’d worry too much.

  She fetched the water, sloshed it into the trough, found some treats, and hung over the fence talking sweet nothings at Pippy. “Midge loves you very much.” Pippy had the best nibble in all of Goatdom. She would take an apple in small bites. Midge was right, she was a special kind of goat. “She wanted you to know she hadn’t forgotten you and will be back tomorrow to read you a story. I promised I would tell you that.” Pippy took the core of the apple and trotted away to her corner to enjoy it in peace.

  She heard Reggie’s bark. Another animal she’d forgotten. It wasn’t like her. She was careful about her duties. She was supposedly the reliable one, for goodness sakes. S
he needed to up her game and stop getting distracted by all this talk of theft and attack and danger to their property. Like anyone even knew they were there.

  Reggie barked again, this time more urgently. He wasn’t much of a talker, in spite of what Jo said about him. Not unless there was someone there. She picked up her pace. With any luck, Jo had come over to feed him. She stopped and listened more carefully. Again, with the bark-bark-bark. It was higher pitched and more insistent. Not his “happy to see you” bark. Aggie broke into a run. Her heart met the rhythm of her feet as she pounded towards the cabin.