Free Crossbones by John L. Campbell

they had first encountered the puddle. Closed, oval-shaped hatches stood to the right and ahead, and on the left was the stairway from which the thing had originally come. Michael reached for a hatch handle, then heard the squishing of waterlogged flesh galloping in boots, splashing as it ran through the puddle. He would never get the hatch open before it was on him.
    There was no choice. Michael bolted for the top of the stairway just as the creature reached him, leaping down four and five steps at a time into the darkness below.
    Michael’s abrupt scream rose from the stairwell.
    The dead thing followed him down.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    W aiting room’s empty, Doc,” said Tommy, poking his head into the curtained ER cubicle. Tommy was one of the hippies who had helped take back sick bay and now worked there as an orderly while studying to be an EMT. His beard was gone and he felt more comfortable in scrubs now.
    Rosa looked up from the patient notes she was making, sitting on a rolling stool and using the exam table as a desk. She wasn’t tall, but even without makeup and with her hair pulled into a ponytail, she was a very attractive woman. Beneath her scrubs and white doctor’s coat was the full figure of an exotic dancer, remnants of another lifetime.
    â€œI’ll clean up next door and then hit the books, if that’s okay,” hesaid. The doc had just finished stitching up a lacerated forearm. There were a lot of sharp edges on this ship.
    â€œSure,” she said. “What are you working on today?”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Today? Doc, I’ve been on the pulmonary system for four days. I didn’t know there was so much to learn about a person’s insides. I thought being an EMT was, like, stabilizing, and patching people up.”
    Rosa smiled. “You need to know how it all works on the inside before you can fix the outside.”
    â€œOff I go,” he sighed, then paused before leaving. “Doc, you look beat.”
    â€œWhen am I not, Tommy?”
    â€œThis place is quiet. Why not grab a meal, maybe a nap? I got this.”
    Rosa scratched another note on the chart. “I’ll get to it.”
    The man shrugged and let the curtain fall back into place. As he walked away, his voice called, “Don’t make me rat you out to Father X, Doc.”
    â€œUp yours, Tommy,” she called after him, smiling. It wasn’t a threat without merit. The big priest was forever after her about pacing herself, reminding her that she wouldn’t be able to tend to the needs of others if she didn’t look after her own needs, and other assorted nagging remarks along that vein.
Father
was the right title. Rosa didn’t know what she would do without him.
    It was more than his gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) guidance that drew her to him. He had a particular strength, something Rosa desperately wanted to possess. He knew what it was to be responsible for others, understood the fear and constant worry that went along with leadership, the frustration of never being able to do as much as you wanted. Even after her time spent serving as a Navy corpsman in combat overseas, and as an EMT on San Francisco’s streets, she had never felt the same, sometimes unbearable weight ofresponsibility as she did now. In both those lives there had always been someone to turn to, backup waiting if things got too intense. Now, in this new life, this new world, there was only her; not nearly a doctor, but counted on to be just that.
    Rosa left the cubicle and dropped the patient file in a plastic wall holder. Tommy was seated at a desk nearby, face pinched in concentration as he used a highlighter to work over a medical book. She pulled a different chart from the same wall holder and scanned it, standing near the desk and not looking up.
    â€œName the anatomical features of the respiratory system in mammals,” Rosa said.
    Tommy grumbled