Free Flesh-Eater (Book 1): Fear the Fever by Stacey Broadbent Page B

for some answers, they both still clung to the idea that they could help their friend before it was too late.
    As they slunk through the streets, they saw a completely different town to the one they had grown up in.  It was heart-breaking to see.  Some storefronts had been boarded up already, others had been completely deserted.  The few people they saw were either running for safety or stumbling about in the throes of the fever that had consumed so many already.
    There were bodies strewn across the town green, a bloody mess surrounding them.  They did their best to avert their eyes, but it was like a train wreck, you couldn’t help but stare.
    Scared faces peered out of windows as they passed by.  They couldn’t believe how much had changed in the short time they had been away.  Had it really only been a matter of hours?  How had this taken over so quickly?
    The chaos seemed to intensify, the closer they got to the hospital.  Cars had been parked haphazardly in what appeared to be a makeshift barrier.  More bodies lay about the streets, some covered in bite marks, others missing whole limbs.  Flesh-eaters in an almost drunken state gorged themselves on their fellow peers.
    Chad and Zuckerman edged their way between two cars, and in through the entrance to the hospital.  A nurse clad in breathing apparatus ran up to them.
    “Have you been bitten?” she yelled over the terrified voices around her.
    “No,” Chad said, looking between the nurse and Zuckerman.  “We came to get help for a friend.  He’s sick.”
    “In case you hadn’t noticed,” she waved her hand around the room, “everyone is sick.  I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, there is no help,” she said warily, tears in her eyes.  “They’ve left us for dead.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have patients to see.”
    “Wait.”  Zuckerman grabbed her arm.  “What do you mean, there is no help?  There has to be!  Where are the doctors?  The army?  Surely someone is coming?” he demanded.
    “Haven’t you been watching the news?  They don’t know what it is or where it came from.  They have no idea where to start on a cure, and it’s spreading faster than we expected,” she said sadly.  “The doctors have families too, most of them left to be with them.”
    “So, if there’s no hope then why are you still here?” Zuckerman pressed.
    “I’m a nurse.  This is what I do.  I may not be able to fix my patients, but I can be there for them, and make them comfortable.  It’s all they have left now.”  She looked down at his hand clasped around her arm.  He let her go, his hands dropping to his sides.  “I’m sorry,” she said earnestly before walking away.
    “Now what?” Chad asked, deflated.
    “There’s gotta be something we can do.  We can’t just give up.  Someone round here must have some answers!  At least some sort of idea of what to do!” Zuckerman said, clearly unhappy with what he’d been told.  He began to stalk down the corridors, stopping at each door.
    “What are you doing?”  Chad pulled at his arm.  Zuckerman spun around to face his friend.  He pointed a finger down the hall to the reception area.
    “They might be ready to give up without a fight, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to live in fear the rest of my life.  Someone must know something!”
    Zuckerman was right.  They couldn’t just sit around waiting to be next.  Chad watched him run from room to room.  They needed to think about this rationally.  The doctors didn’t know where to start looking, because they didn’t know where it came from.
    As far as they knew, Ross had to be one of the first to turn.  Perhaps he was the key?
    Chad thought back to where he first saw him that morning.
    “Zuckerman!  I have an idea.  It’s not much of one, but it’s a start.”  He waited for his friend to stop and listen.  “We need to go to the supermarket.  Ross was there before he got on the bus.  Maybe they saw