DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 13, SECTION 11

I panicked.

I stood; my only impulse was to flee, but everywhere I turned, the body of someone I'd grown up knowing was collapsing at a picnic table or falling onto the ground.

Ian's reaction was only slightly more level-headed then mine. "Why the hell are we just sitting here, Chris?" Ian grabbed him by the shoulders. "So, okay. We need surgical masks, at least. Right? The Home Guard was passing them out like Halloween candy earlier. There must some around town someplace. Let's find some, then we'll figure out what to do next. . . Right?"

Chris shook his head. He laughed a sad little laugh.

"Ian, even gas masks wouldn't help us. TGVy is in the air. As in, the global oxygen supply. The airborne eggs are too small for a freaking surgical mask to filter out. And even the best gas mask filters only work for so many hours. Besides," Chris shrugged dejectedly, "We've already been breathing the air." He waved his hand in a loose circle around his head. "It's everywhere."

"How can you know that?" I demanded.

Chris put his head in his hand and took another bite of his hamburger.

"I didn't want to say anything until I could test enough air samples," he said, staring out into the darkness above the river. "But that last town we were in, there was a notice on the TV screen. One of those public emergency announcements. Just a still image showing a global map, colored red in regions of 'high risk.' And you know what parts of the map were colored in red? The whole thing. The whole freaking map. I kid you not. Once the parasites' eggs were in the air currents, it was only a matter of weeks until they dispersed globally."

I collapsed back down on the picnic table's bench. I sobbed. This was way more than I could take.

"So we're all just going to die now?" I cried. "And there's nothing we can do about it?"

I couldn't accept that the answer to my questions was yes.

Chris raised his head from his hand, his hair disheveled, his eyes red, and looked straight at me for the first time since we'd discovered the nuns.

"Actually, no," he said. "We are all just going to die. But not you."

I searched his eyes, trying to make sense of what he was saying. 

"...I don't understand."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Please VOTE 🌟 before continuing. xxBailey