DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 14, SECTION 7

Inside the hospital room, the corpse of what looked to have been a very old woman lay on one of two hospital beds. Most of her left leg had been eaten away to the bone by the man in the opposite bed. Both of his legs were in dusty casts; he'd been able to drag himself from his bed only far enough to feed on the woman's flesh before dying on the floor.

Ian slammed the door closed and gagged in the darkness.

My gut twisted again. "Ian!" I screamed in pain.

"Hang in there, Ash. Almost there."

He pushed me further down the hallway and eased open another door, this time opening only slightly. He peeked in through the crack.

He breathed a quick sigh of relief and opened the door fully.

Once again, light burst into the corridor.

Something fluttered madly. A pair of pigeons exploded into the air, stirring up a cloud of feathers and dust, then madly maneuvered out of the open window.

Ian pushed me into what looked like an abandoned examination room. Because of the open window, the air was fresh, which made me feel better already. Ian dusted off the examination table with a discarded lab coat, lifted me from the wheelchair, and lay me gently onto the table's cold padded surface.

A machine that looked vaguely like a fat, boxy robot with a computer-screen face glared at the examination table. Ian plugged the machine into the generator's extension chord, then took the generator itself out into the hallway to start it up, apparently to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. It roared to life, then Ian stepped back into the room and closed the door, dulling the sound of the motor.

Outside, the morning sun was rising on a beautiful day.

I doubled over as pain once again ricocheted through my gut.

When I fell back onto the bed, Ian lifted my shirt and rubbed a cold jelly onto my abdomen.

"Is this a freaking ultrasound machine? What are you doing? "

Calmly, Ian answered. "If you've ruptured something, or if there's something wrong with your appendix, this is how I'll see it. I know you're in pain Ash. Try to relax."

The confident touch of Ian's hand soothed me as he gently spread the jelly across my skin.

I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"I think maybe the pain is lessening," I said.

Compared to the first jolts of pain I'd felt the night before, these were nowhere as bad.

"That's really good," Ian said. "I still need to check it out."

He flipped on the ultrasound machine.

The computer loaded for a few seconds, then a pale blue color lit up the screen.

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