Falling by Simona Ahrnstedt

Author:Simona Ahrnstedt [Ahrnstedt, Simona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2017-07-24T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 36

The next day, the shit hit the fan.

“The twins died last night,” Idris said when Isobel arrived at the hospital. He was on the stairs, smoking, looking tired.

“Merde.” They had delivered them the day before, by C-section, and they had been horribly small. “How’s the mother?” she asked.

“Her family came to get her.” He let out smoke, stared into the distance. “Do you feel it?” he asked after a while.

Isobel nodded. It was there, an unease, palpable in the air. A new silence, a low pressure, an absence of sound. A foreboding that something was about to happen.

“Some of the staff have disappeared,” he said, taking another drag.

That was often how it started. The locals were the first to know. A rumor, spreading quickly during morning prayers. Men, secretly arming themselves. Women, seeking shelter for themselves and their children.

She followed Idris into the hospital, wondering where Marius could be. It was warmer than before, and she slapped her neck. Was it her imagination, or were the insects biting even harder today?

“We have a lot of patients,” Idris said as he washed his hands. He clutched his notepad. “I need to go back to ICU. Can you look into this?”

He gave her a handwritten note.

“What is it?”

“They came in this morning. Boy. Two years old. Trouble breathing. They’ve walked for days.”

“So far? Where from?”

“The desert. His blood count isn’t good.” Idris shook his head. “They should’ve brought him much earlier.”

“I’ll take it.”

Idris disappeared, and Isobel left to find the family. She quickly greeted the father, Muhammed, a tall, serious man with a tattoo of a bird’s footprint on the entire left side of his face. The mother, Halima, who didn’t look a day older than fifteen, sat with the boy in her arms.

“What’s his name?” Isobel asked softly as she glanced at her patient.

“Ahmed,” Halima whispered. She was dressed in a piece of colorful fabric, dusty with sand. She had a tattoo similar to her husband’s on her cheek.

As Isobel examined the boy, he was silent. That was never a good sign. A child who cried, protested, or screamed was a child who still wanted to live. When Isobel tried to give him an injection, he was so dehydrated she couldn’t get the needle in.

“Medicine,” the father snapped. “My son needs medicine.”

Yes, Ahmed needed medicine. And nourishment. If only they had been able to get him here earlier.

She filled a pipette with a nutrient solution and gave the parents what she hoped was a reassuring and confident smile.

“Give him this. A drop at a time until it’s finished,” she told them, hoping it would be enough.

“Where are you going?” the father asked, blocking her way. “You’re the doctor—you have to stay. Help my son.”

“I will come back. Give him the drops. I need to see my other patients. I’ll be back as soon as I can, I promise.”

Muhammed stared at her, but then moved out of the way. Isobel smiled encouragingly at Halima, who had already started to give Ahmed the solution.

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