orange juice and washed it down.
She had no way to know the time, or how many hours she had been in this room. Somehow Pam had entirely forgotten that she had slipped her cell phone in her pocket back in the lab. Besides using her phone for checking the time, she had no use for it now. There was nobody she could think to call at the moment anyway. She hardly thought it would be a good idea to concern her parents just now. The only window was the small one on the door, and that only showed a tiny section of the lighted hallway.
Her body had been charged with adrenaline most of the day, but now, against her will, she felt the need to close her eyes for a moment. And yet, she was locked in this room with six new infected people. None of them were restrained. She started to drift off, but then kept waking herself up with a start. Gruesome images flooded her mind, and she was barely certain if they were memories or fragments of dreams.
Still the presence of the armed guards reassured her. They looked fresh and alert. Each one met her glance with the same suspicion they showered on the other patients.
Incredibly, as Pam allowed herself to sit back on the bed, she noticed that each one of the other patients had sunk back on the cots and seemed to fall asleep. Only Pamela kept fighting the urge. She sank back onto the hard pillow and allowed herself to close her eyes, but she kept her fist clenched hard. This was an old trick she had learned to keep herself from falling asleep when she needed to close her eyes for a moment during her studies. The trick finally failed. Pamela woke with a start to find the room dim and most occupants snoring.
She heard low voices emanating from the small office. That room’s door had been closed, but the small reception window had been left open a crack. Perhaps the office’s occupants wanted to be sure they heard what went on in the ward room, but it also allowed their voices to echo out. As Pam turned her head, she noticed that Dr. Lincoln’s cot had been rolled away. She wanted to sit up so she could see if he was still in the room, but some kept instinct kept her still.
“We need to clean this room out,” Captain Crawford said. “We have enough subjects contained in the brig, and these infected people are just accidents waiting to happen.”
The Lonesome Road
“Dr. Lincoln almost took out a nurse before we got to him.” Pamela heard another male voice. “Sometimes these things wake up suddenly, and then they move faster than we expect.”
Pam barely stopped herself from flying to her feet. Dr. Lincoln had passed away, reanimated, and then attacked somebody, and she had slept through it? The infected had seemed to sleep a lot or become very indolent before they died. George had not appeared to be asleep so much as in shock. The educated part of her brain tried to sort through the little evidence she had. But no, as soon as she woke up her body tingled with adrenaline. Except for the fear flooding her brain, Pam’s mind felt clear.
She understood the fact that she and Paul, who still slept, had both been infected with some milder airborne form of the virus. But she had no way to understand what that meant. She knew she had never been treated with a virus blocker. She wished Paul would wake up so she could ask him about it.
She could not be sure exactly how much time had passed but it had seemed to take Dr. Lincoln longer to succumb than it had taken George. Yet the doctor’s wound had seemed worse than George’s. Dr. Klein’s wound had seemed quite minor compared to the other two, and it had taken her the longest to actually expire. Pam had no way to account for the difference yet. Somehow it seemed important.
She knew that she simply did not have enough information to draw conclusions. It was possible that an individual’s natural immune system was also a factor. That could be compromised by age or other diseases, or it may be enhanced by good general health, fortunate genes or some prior opportunity to build up resistance. Had Dr. Klein had some way to immunize herself that was partially effective? She had, after all, invented the virus blocker.