World War IV: A Broken Union by James Hunt

Author:James Hunt [Hunt, James]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Thrillers & Suspense, Thriller & Suspense, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Suspense, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense
Amazon: B017JDMJ0E
Published: 2015-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Hundreds continued to pour into the city day and night. Homes and rooms were bursting at the seams, and those that couldn’t find or afford a roof pitched tents and blankets on the outskirts of town. Farmers, fishermen, hunters, blacksmiths, merchants—anyone and everyone that was affected by the Russians marching south fled to the protection behind the front lines. And with an influx of people came an influx of sick, wounded, and the dying. The hospital was already bursting at the seams, and the fighting hadn’t even started yet.

Kemena rushed from room to room, table to table, to every man, woman, and child that stepped inside. She stitched wounds from the journey and wounds from scuffles between men in the streets over food or bedding, she cooled fevers, cleaned mange and lice, and fed and watered more malnourished peasants than she’d seen in her lifetime.

Moans, cries, and pleas were the only noises she heard anymore. And the fighting hasn’t even started. It was a thought that plagued the few moments of peace she received sporadically throughout the day in a closet next to her office. She sat, leaned against the shelf, the noise of the hospital muffled by the thick wood. Even when she was alone, in the quiet, her pulse raced like she had just sprinted.

The long hours had left Kemena dirty, tired, and with a light tremor in her left hand that she found trouble keeping steady. She held out her palm and watched it twitch with an agitated mind all its own.

Kemena shut her eyes, curling her fingers back and forth from a fist to open palm, forcing her mind to regain control of the deft hands that had served her so well all her life. Those hands that had healed and saved so many. While her mind was slowly draining, she could not lose her hands.

“Dr. Mars?” The knock startled her along with the timid voice on the other side. “Are you in there?”

The nurses and assistants had done what they could, but not all of them possessed the mind and knowledge of healing like she did. And the volunteers that she managed to round up could do no more than carry the sick, bury the dead, and bring whatever supplies she could scrounge up from other towns and villages. Everyone tried to help, but the brunt of the burden was hers.

Kemena opened the door, and one of the volunteers stood before her, blood stained on her shirt, but from which patient there was no way to tell. “Yes?”

The girl had mouse-like features and scurried about the hospital floor in the same manner. She’d arrived with her family of farmers who lived north of the city, right in Rodion’s war path. She’d come on their first day and offered whatever help was needed. “Your nephew is here to see you.” Before Kemena had a chance to respond, the girl was already down the hallway and gone.

Kemena pushed her way through the main hospital floor, groping

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