Free The Ward by S.L. Grey

Next to the nurses’ station a doctor is trying to revive a hugely fat man, his shirt cut away to reveal a fish-belly white stomach. The doctor yells for
back-up.
    Someone grabs my wrist. At first I think it’s Farrell, but it can’t be.
    Head down, he’s making his way towards the glass exit doors, the flash of emergency lights blasting into the waiting room, saturating the scene in flickering red light.
    I look down and straight into the eyes of a skinny dark-haired woman. She’s young, maybe a year or two older than me, and she’s lying on the floor next to the admissions desk. Even
though her clothes are torn and covered in soot and filth, I can tell that they were once expensive. She tightens her grip on my wrist. I try to loosen it, but she’s strong.
    ‘Help me,’ she whispers. ‘My daughter – I need to find my daughter.’
    ‘I… I…’
    ‘
Please
.’ She begs me with her eyes. But what can I do? Farrell is almost at the exit doors now.
    Follow him
.
Run
.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, hating myself. Pulling my wrist free, I skitter away. I don’t look back.

Chapter 7
FARRELL
    I can still make out the whoops and wails of the ambulances as they negotiate their way through the chaos back there. I can even imagine screaming and crying, but that’s
probably just reverberations from the hellish soundscape we blundered through. Whether it was the injured people or their desperate relatives I couldn’t tell, but all their shouts and cries
meant the same thing: pain and fear. And the smell. Burned clothes, burned hair, burned flesh.
    I inhale deeply to try to clear the person-ash out of my lungs and get my breath back. Take in air right to the bottom of my lungs, slowly out; deep inhalation, slowly out. As I do, I think of
Katya. If Nomsa left a message for her, why hasn’t she come to see me? Was what happened on Monday morning that bad? Or maybe it’s just that she’s on a shoot. Yes. A job.
That’s much more likely. I’ll get home, sort this out.
    Next thing, I’m on my arse on the grass.
    ‘Are you okay?’ Lisa asks.
    My mind comes back into focus. I must have just gone faint from all the heavy breathing. It’s the first time I’ve had some fresh air all week. For a moment I expect my vision to
resolve out of the grey like it does after you’ve passed out, but then I remember that I can’t see. Where the hell are my eye drops? Have I lost them?
    I fumble around on the grass.
    ‘Here,’ Lisa says, pressing the vial into my hand.
    ‘Thanks.’ I tip a couple of drops into each eye. Even though Nomsa said twice a day, morning and night, I’m desperate for this shit to clear out of my eyes, and to have my full
senses back. Outside, in Johannesburg, you’ve got to be on your guard.
    I concentrate on what I can make out. Greenery, spots of colour, a fresh smell: freshly cut grass and floral scent. I breathe again, careful not to overdo it, stay sitting on the spongy grass,
my arse getting wet from the dew. I imagine the clean air replacing every molecule of the death stench we’ve been through. There’s birdsong.
    ‘Where are we?’
    Lisa’s still standing by my side. ‘A garden. Someone’s house.’
    ‘How did we get in here?’
    ‘I don’t know, we were just running. I went through this gate across the road.’
    I can picture the sort of house, those boxy suburban properties around the concrete monolith of New Hope Hospital. But why would anyone leave their gate open to the street? ‘We’d
better hope there are no dogs.’
    ‘Let’s keep going.’ Lisa grabs my wrist and tries to help me up, but she crashes down over me when she starts to pull. Her body is warm, tense. She struggles off me, sits on
the grass next to me and groans.
    ‘You okay? We both seem to be falling today.’
    ‘Ugh, headrush. I’m starving. I was supposed to have the surgery today so I haven’t eaten for ages.’
    ‘Are you sure it’s okay for you to be out here? I mean, if you were