Zero by Michael McBride

Author:Michael McBride [McBride, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Thriller, Science Fiction
Amazon: B006HIQXSM
Goodreads: 20348465
Publisher: Factor V Media
Published: 2005-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

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Brian bolted upright, sheet clinging to his damp pajama top, blanket bunched around his waist.

The fading realm of dreams swirled at odds against the waking world in a cacophonous miasma of shadows. At first, he was unable to rationalize his surroundings, as though waking someplace different than where he remembered falling asleep. Slowly, the wan moonlight parting the blinds drew contrast in shades of gray.

A darkened television was bolted to the plain white wall directly ahead. There was a dry erase board with the stenciled word “Nurse:” and the name Andrea hurriedly scrawled in green marker to the right. Beside “Aide:” was the name Anna.

There was a sliding glass door to the left, a multicolored curtain drawn halfway across it. Beyond, there was a tall counter, behind which he could see the top of a woman’s head and a man in a lab coat with a stethoscope draped over his neck. There was a board behind them with even more names next to a vertical column, labeled by bed number.

Nearly out of sight beside the entryway was the shoulder and left hip of a tan-uniformed officer, his left hand resting uneasily on his holster.

Machines whirred and hummed to either side of Brian, against the wall behind his slightly elevated bed, flashing at various intervals with small red and green displays.

He tried to get up, but his body was unresponsive. He merely toppled to the right against the thick plastic bed rail, facing another uniformed officer who was sound asleep in a green leather chair against the backdrop of the nearly-closed vertical blinds.

It took every last ounce of his strength to right himself on the pillow, and even then his neck was uncomfortably kinked to the right.

Bolts of lightning knifed through the slats between the blinds, drawing pale stripes across his legs beneath the manila blanket, highlighting the various cords and tubes that connected his arms to the whining equipment. His left shoulder was bandaged beneath a thick coating of gauze with slimy salve seething from beneath.

His right wrist was cuffed to the rail.

Straining, he was barely able to see a bag of clear fluid dripping one drop at a time in a small chamber, then into the clear plastic tubing of one of his tethers.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Lightning flared again, the resultant growl of thunder barely audible; little more than a shiver of the window pane.

The television snapped on the moment the strobe lit the room.

Brian glanced at the policeman, but he was still completely unconscious.

“…thirty-eight found dead within the remains of this house, no more than half a block from the dormitories where hundreds of students went about their daily pursuit of knowledge without the slightest clue as to what was going on behind the doors of Twenty-four Sixteen Portico Lane.” All that was left of the house behind the female reporter was half of the front façade surrounding the burnt front door, charred, still smoldering beneath the heavy rain. Policemen in yellow rain slickers milled about behind stretches of yellow tape flapping in the wind.

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