Free Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel by James Carlson Page B

knots and clots , but judging from the amount of her blood alone, had to guess it was quite bad.
    “Are you okay?” Muz asked. It was a stupid question, he knew, con sidering what she had been through, but it was all he could think to say.
    The woman simp ly looked back at him with wide doe-like eyes.
    “Okay, let’s get you on your feet and out of here,” Muz said to her.
    Still the woman did not respond. As shaken as he was by everything that had happened, it was only when Muz began to unclip her straps that he noticed the huge bulge of her stomach and the breaks in the tibias and fibulas of both her lower legs.
    “Oh God, no,” he moaned, feeling utterly deflated. “How far gone are you?”
    Still the woman didn’t respond. She seemed completely undisturbed by her badly broken limbs, as though she hadn’t noticed her misshapen legs and wasn’t even feeling the pain anymore. She was almost catatonic, her eyes glazed over.
    Muz was reluctant to move her now but could hear , somewhere within the vehicle, a canister filled with compressed gas leaking from its nozzle. He had no idea what the gas was and therefore whether it was flammable or noxious, and so he had no choice but to get the woman out of the ambulance.
    Scooping her up into his arms, her head lolling against his neck, he staggered precariously down the folding steps and out of the back. He could hear her legs cracking, as the broken ends of bone rubbed against each other, and he tried not to think of the additional injuries moving her in this way might be causing. He wasn’t confident he had time to figure out how to operate the ambulance’s hydraulic ramp and lower her out still on the gurney, so carrying her was his only option.
    Only when he felt they were a safe distance from the ambulance, should it g o up in flames, did he lower the woman to the ground, seating her on the curb and leaning her against some metal railings at the side of the road.
    Looking up at him with those blank eyes, seeming to comprehend her surroundings momentarily, the woman reached up weakly with one of her hands and attempted to pull Muz’s head down to her mouth. Muz pulled back against her feeble grip. In his experience, it was common for women whom he had rescued from car wrecks or other dangers to want to kiss him but it just wasn’t appropriate.
    “You’re going to be okay. I’m going to take care of you,” he assured her.
    Leaving her sitting beside the road for a moment, he paced franticly up and down , trying to gather his thoughts. What the hell was going on? What had caused all those people suddenly to start behaving like animals? There was no point pondering those questions, he thought. He had to concentrate on his more immediate concerns. Getting himself back to the nick, through all this madness, would have been difficult enough by himself. Now there was the added problem of the duty of care he had to this woman.
    As he was desperately trying to decide what to do, he failed to notice the woman slump forward, her head resting limply against her breastbone and her hands slapping the pavement, all signs of life gone.
    Simply dragging the wo man through the streets wasn’t an option, he thought. It would cause untold damage to her legs. He could risk going back to the ambulance, to find a way to get the gurney out the back, he considered. Then he could easily wheel her along. That would slow him down considerably however. Also, should the two of them come under attack from any more people suffering from this spread of psychotic dementia, he would be morally obligated to stand his ground and defend her. That would not be a good situation to be in.
    Maybe he would be better off leaving her here. Obviously not just leaving her sitting in the street , but get her into a house, as a place of relative safety, and come back for her later with back-up. Yes, though it felt like he would be abandoning the woman, this appeared to be his best option.
    Behind him, the