All Is Silence - Deserted Lands #1

Chapter 4 - Part II

Lizzie's scream trailed off as a middle-aged man wearing scrubs and a stethoscope strained to speak. “You shouldn’t be here,” he mumbled, barely able to put the words together.

“My mom and brother. They came here after they got sick.” She didn’t know what else to say. Was she in trouble?

His name tag read: Dr. Reynolds, Pediatrician. He eyed her strangely, trying to keep his balance. He didn’t look like he was in any shape to enforce the quarantine.

“You—you’re immune.” His words came with more difficulty and he stumbled to the floor.

“What?” She knelt beside him, not sure she understood. I’m immune?

“Not sick. Natural immunity.” His speech was slurring and running together, becoming less and less coherent. “Find others. Have babies. Keep on. Strong.”

Then, as if he’d burnt the last of his candle, he smiled a half smile and slid to the floor.

Was he dead? Lizzie pulled away from him in horror, skittering backwards like a crab, bumping into a medical cart. She used it to scramble to her feet and then pushed it so it blocked him into the other end of the hallway. He snored, letting her know he still lived.

The doctor’s freakish plan to have her survive and repopulate the planet had a fatal flaw. She was sterile. Her family doctor had told her she would never have kids after some asshole gave her chlamydia.

Room 314 beckoned her like a haven from the nightmare behind her. She closed her eyes as she opened the door, not wanting to see yet another awful scene. She breathed deep and opened her eyes. There lay Mama with Jayce nestled in her arms. They looked asleep, peaceful. Had Mama refused to let Jayce go? Or had there been nowhere left to put him?

On the floor, curled into the fetal position, was the nurse with a bottle of pills in her hand. Lizzie gently extracted the bottle from her stiffened grasp. Oxy’s. Empty. A way out of the nightmare, an emergency exit. Without the bottle the nurse appeared to be praying.

Lizzie kissed her mother's cold forehead. Straightened her hair and tousled her little brother's. “I stole your watch, little man. I miss you,” she said through sobs. “I love you both.” She lay her head down on them, but they weren’t there.

She had come to find out—to make sure. It was real. She thought about burying them, but if Jess couldn’t do it, how could she? The thought of leaving them there pissed her off. She screamed, letting the rage keep the tears away. All the profanity and swear words she knew boiled out in a torrent.

When she was done, she pulled a sheet up to cover Mama and Jayce, and stumbled from the room. She couldn’t go back past the doctor so she pushed open a door at the end of the hall that said “Emergency Exit Only,” ignoring the shrill alarm that sounded behind her.