Plague 1 - Plague Year by Jeff Carlson

Author:Jeff Carlson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
Published: 2012-03-10T05:55:21+00:00

* * * *

The feeling stayed with her after he was gone, after she’d peed, after she’d curled up on her side and closed her eyes with the unwashed blankets balled against her chest like a ragged teddy bear. It was a phantom pressure closing in all around her and she could only think of one escape—someone who’d carefully ?irted with her for months.

She knew where to ?nd Ulinov because Major Hernandez had continued to do an exemplary job of making them feel at home, and because her nurse had been excited and talkative to have such celebrities on her watch.

Ruth had asked why they were in a downtown hotel and learned that this building was VIP care. The only hospital in the area had been more of a clinic, with only forty beds.

“Your friends are doing great,” the nurse had told her. “We have a great staff and great equipment.”

It was a rare case of too much wealth. Both military and civilian medical gear had been ?own and driven into the area, in the ?rst days of the plague and later after salvage operations— and anyone with medical experience or education had been given a place inside the safety of Leadville’s barricades.

Wallace would remain in what had been the hotel restaurant under intensive care and Deb and Gus, kept for observation, were directly behind Ruth with the woman who coughed and coughed.

Nikola Ulinov had been wedged into a cubby like hers across the broad hall. Ruth only made it that far because she’d been resting and because she leaned on the walls like an old woman. Less than one in ?ve of the ornate lamps were on, and the carpet had been ripped up so that wheelchairs and gurneys rolled easily. Ruth might have sat down on the un?nished wood ?oor to collect herself before going in, except she didn’t want to get caught and sent back to bed.

She needed a friend very badly.

He was there, propped up on what looked like sofa cushions, reading from a sheaf of papers. He was alone. Ruth had expected to ?nd Kendricks visiting, or another council member, but she didn’t care what they wanted with Ulinov. Not now.

His eyes dropped to her bare legs and paused on the front of her T-shirt, and she was glad. She was too conscious of her stiff left arm hanging off her shoulder like something from a marble statue. His leg was elevated, slung up at the knee and at the foot. What a pair.

“Comrade,” she said. It was an old joke between them.

“Sit. Your face. You are white.”

Wonderful.“Comrade, can I squeeze in with you?”

“There is no room—” His bull chest, clad in an ugly green army undershirt, took up all but a few inches of the narrow bed.

“I’m very cold.”

A man in the other half of the room groaned, barely separated from them beyond the divider of plywood. Ruth didn’t care. She could be quiet. All she really wanted was to lie with him, to be held.

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