Free The Ending Beginnings: Clara (An Ending Series Novella) (The Ending Series) by Lindsey Fairleigh, Lindsey Pogue

their rooms?
    Clara
turned back around, her eyes sweeping over all ten of the closed bedroom doors
on either side of the hall. Was everyone in their rooms, sick like she’d been?
The thought brought on a new wave of dread.
    When
Clara’s eyes landed on Beth’s door, she swallowed. There was a large X taped on
it. After a few tentative steps, Clara pressed her ear to the door, held her
breath, and listened. There was no sound. Beth wasn’t humming, like she often
did; she wasn’t talking to herself or screaming and throwing things like Alicia
was doing. It was completely quiet.
    Clara
tapped on the door gently. “Beth?” There was still no sound. Staring at the
handle as if it might burn her, Clara reached for it to find that, unlike
Alicia’s, it wasn’t locked. Throat dry and heart pounding, she turned the knob
and inched the door open.
    Beth’s
room was dark and reeked of the foul stench of bile. Through the dim glow of
the moonlight shining through the window, Clara could see Beth’s silhouette on
the bed.
    “Beth,”
she breathed, willing the meek woman to answer.
    The
light flicked on, and Clara screamed. Beth was gray and covered in vomit.
    She
was dead.
     “I
told you to stay in the hallway,” Roberta reprimanded, pulling Clara out of the
room and switching off the light before she closed the door behind them. “There was a reason, you know.”
     “She’s
dead,” Clara gasped. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Beth’s closed door.
     “I
know,” Roberta said, patting Clara’s shoulder as she walked her toward the
nurses’ station. “Most of them are.”
    Clara
looked back at the doors, realizing how many of them had X’s on them. “But I’m—you’re…”
     “You
were sick, but you got better. Don’t ask me how,” she said as she wrote
something in a file. “I have no idea how you recovered while everyone else is
either dead or more insane than when they got here.”
     “But, you seem fine.”
     “I
was sick too, but it passed quickly. I came into work two days ago and found
you in the shower, covered in vomit, and some of the others were already dead
from whatever the hell this virus is.” She paused, then added, “Alicia killed
Devon and Beatrice.”
     Clara
blanched. “Why didn’t the police—”
     “Greta
and I called them hundreds of time, but they never came. The last time we tried
to get through to anyone, the phone just rang and rang.” She set the file on
the counter.
    Clara
couldn’t even blink, she was so overwhelmed. “What about Dr. Mallory and—”
     “I
haven’t been able to get a hold of any of them, either. It’s just Greta and me
for now, until either someone comes to help us or…” She shrugged. “Who the hell
knows.” Roberta’s exhaustion was evident. “What happened here and what little
I’ve seen on the news is all I have to go off of.” She turned on the stereo
they used as a PA system and pressed RADIO. “You should listen to it. I have to
go get Samantha some clean sheets. I’m running low on everything…” Roberta
continued to mutter to herself as she passed through the rec room and down
another hallway.
    Clara turned the
volume up on the radio.
     
    … is at war,
yet our enemy is not one we can fight openly. Our enemy has swept through every
nation, attacking discretely, killing indiscriminately. We lost thousands
before we even knew we were under attack. Many have already fallen, and many
more will fall. But we cannot give up the fight.
     
    Clara wrapped her
arms around herself, dread filling every ounce of her as she prepared for what
she might hear next. She fingered the backs of her sleeves, drawing her arms
tighter around herself.
     
    Over the past
century, through technological achievements, we made our world smaller. We made
the time it takes to communicate across oceans instantaneous, and the time it
takes to travel those same routes nearly as fast. We made our world smaller,
and in doing so, we sowed the