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Back Doctors and Friends
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. TITLES BY KIMMERY MARTIN
  3. NOTE TO THE READER:
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. CHARACTER SPECIALTIES
  7. PART ONE
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. PART TWO
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. PART THREE
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. PART FOUR
  32. 22
  33. 23
  34. 24
  35. Epilogue
  36. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  37. BIBLIOGRAPHY
  38. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  39. Readers Guide
  40. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  41. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  42. What’s next onyour reading list?

Compton locked her elbows and started chest compressions. With every thrust of her arms, more bubbly fluid gushed from the woman’s nose and mouth, sizzling onto her cooling skin, running down her slight body to the floor. Not for the first time, fear pierced me at the thought of what that fluid might contain, but Compton had crossed that particular Rubicon the instant she first responded.

Time passed; I couldn’t gauge how much. The screaming around us abated, replaced by an unnatural absence of voices and, eventually, a dozen hushed conversations. From somewhere out of my line of sight sounded the staccato hack of a prolonged cough. Somewhere else on the boat, somewhere far away—the bow, maybe—a thin, high scream rent the air, followed by a hubbub of panicked voices and then shouting.

Compton continued her dogged compressions. She was now drenched, covered in her own sweat, blood from the floor, and flecks of frothy, bloody sputum. I switched off my thoughts, the rote drumbeat of the chest compressions filling the void in my mind so I wouldn’t have to contemplate what I’d risked, for myself and my children and my friends, by not canceling this journey.

“Mommy?”

My head snapped to the side. Beau walked toward me, one hand reaching toward mine from about fifteen feet away. “No,” I whispered. “Back away.”

Beau blinked at the dead woman, who was only a little bigger than Rorie. A small sound escaped him. A few feet behind him, Declan appeared, and then Rorie and Hannah.

“Back away,” I begged. “Please, honey.” I caught Declan’s eye, wordlessly beseeching him to help. He seemed frozen, one foot in front of the other, his mouth open. Hannah swooped from behind him and dragged Beau and Rorie out of sight, murmuring something to them as she did.

“Declan,” I called. My voice sounded foreign to me, like someone else was speaking. “Keep them outside. Don’t let them touch anything.”

With a jolt, Declan reactivated. He nodded, turning in the direction Hannah and the children had gone before whirling back to face me again. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to: he flashed me a look so heavy with anguish I could read his thoughts as clearly as a chyron on a television news show. Please, please, please don’t get sick; be careful; I love you.

I love you.

Almost as soon as I registered the meaning of his look, it vanished. I had no time to process this; in front of me, Compton pushed, almost angrily, one final time on the woman’s chest and then slumped back onto her heels. “I’m calling it,” she said, her voice hoarse. “She’s gone.”

PART THREE

DURING ARTIOVIRUS

11

You Go to War with the Army You Have

COMPTON

NEW YORK CITY

Sixty Days After Patient Zero

“Dr. C! Five more incoming!”