Free Dead: Winter by TW Brown Page B

jacket looked in the firelight.
    Jon was on their heels. “Jake is walking the perimeter with the new girl,” he announced as he peeled out of his gear. “How bad is it?”
    “It’s a bite,” Ian said through clenched teeth as Dr. Zahn knelt beside him while pulling on a new set of rubber gloves. “It doesn’t have to be bad to kill you.”
    “You don’t know that!” Billy blurted. “Bites don’t mean you’re gonna die.”
    “What are the odds that two of us are immune?” Ian sucked air between clenched teeth as Dr. Zahn cut away his bloody shirt.
    “How did it bite you with you gear on?” the doctor asked.
    “When I fell, my coat must’ve slipped down.”
    “Why didn’t you have it fastened?”
    “I must’ve missed it when I was heading out. We were in a hurry and I guess I got sloppy.”
    “Get him in the back.” Dr. Zahn pointed to Billy and Jamie. “Put him on the cot and help him get out of his clothes. Gloves are in the box on the wall just inside the door. Get ‘em on first.”
    “It’s my shoulder, my feet work fine.” Ian sat up, but then flopped back down.
    “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Dr. Zahn cautioned. “You are bound to experience dizziness.”
    I knelt beside Ian. “I should’ve been out there.” The fact that I had handed off my responsibility of lookout to a new person who wasn’t familiar with the evolution crashed down on me with a wave of guilt.
    “You wouldn’t have seen it either,” Ian said. “Don’t start beating yourself up. This creeper was barely a head and shoulders. It had to have been crawling here for days. We all missed it in the snow.”
    “Let’s go, Ian,” Billy said, reaching past me from one side as Jamie came around to the other.
    Holy crap! Jamie.
    He had no idea about Teresa. She was in bed. Maybe I should help and let him go to her.
    “Steve,” Melissa called. I looked over my shoulder and saw her sitting on the floor holding Emily who was crying her eyes out. Thalia was standing beside the two. She was no longer crying and was stroking Emily’s hair. Buster was sprawled out in front of the three, head perked up and tilted as he took it all in and seemed to be trying his hardest to figure out what the crazy humans were up to now.
    “I’ll be in to check on you in a few minutes,” I said to Ian, and patted his arm.
    I went over to the girls and knelt down so that my face was even with Emily’s. Her face was wet from all the tears. This was a big one, whatever it was. And I didn’t think it was about Ian.
    “What’s the matter, Em?”
    “I want to change my birthday,” Emily sniffled.
    “What?” There were a bunch of things that she could’ve said and I would have had some idea where to go with the conversation. I was still learning about how to be a dad, and I’d gotten better, but this one flew right past me.
    “First the sick girl,” Emily sniffed, “then Teresa…and now Ian is gonna be a zombie.”
    “Whoa, sweetie,” I said, wiping away some of the tears. “Nobody is gonna be a zombie.” That was true. I wouldn’t let Ian get back up. When his eyes closed, they would stay shut.
    “But Teresa—”
    “What?” I heard Jamie’s voice behind me. “What about Teresa.”
    Crap . This wasn’t how he was supposed to get the news. Melissa gave me a funny look and got to her feet.
    “She is in back resting, Jamie,” Melissa said in that voice I recognized from when she would try to get me to relax. “Dr. Zahn looked her over and decided that she needed to stay in bed for a while. It happens to pregnant women all the time.”
    I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Jamie’s expression change from extremely worried to just a bit concerned. I watched as Melissa escorted Jamie back. Brad stepped in without a word and helped Billy escort Ian to what passed off as our emergency room, leaving me with Thalia and Emily.
    “Now listen,” I climbed up and sat down on the chair Melissa had vacated, pulling both