Krisis (After the Cure Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

conservatory. Despite what she’d said to Bill, Ruth didn’t want to freeze in the street. She wanted to hold her boy one more time before… the thought was so overwhelming that she struggled to breathe.
    She tried to stop thinking about it. She concentrated on stepping in her own footprints from that morning so she didn’t have to risk breaking a new path in the dark. The conservatory was dimly glowing from solar stakes scattered along the paths. It had been so long since Ruth had seen a light other than the one she or Bill made, it frightened her. She was hesitant to approach the greenhouse. What if the light drew others? But hers were the only prints in the snow. Juliana must come in another way. Ruth switched off the flashlight and stumbled through the doors. “Juliana, are you here?” she whispered. Something rustled in the brittle plants a few beds off.
    “I’m here,” Juliana’s voice floated gently through the dark air between them.
    “Sorry I’m late,” said Ruth slowly. Juliana laughed as she appeared on the path.
    “I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘late’ any more.”
    “I don’t have much in the way of medicine, I’m sorry. Most of it is gone now, and I didn’t keep very much at my own clinic, just formula and the common vaccinations. I don’t know how much help I’ll be.”
    “You don’t need to worry, these people will be grateful— I’ll be grateful if you just tell me what I need to do to keep them healthy and what is likely to happen when they do get sick.” Juliana clicked on a light and swung a backpack over her shoulder. “It’s not far and it’s warmer than here anyway.”
    “Where is the rest of your group? You don’t come out here at night alone do you?” Ruth glanced around expecting more people to appear on the dim path.
    “Why not? You did. No one will be out tonight. It’s too cold for the looters. And the Infected— I’m afraid any that were out there must have frozen to death.”
    Juliana led her back out into the snow and Ruth felt a sudden jolt of panic. She didn’t know this woman, had no idea if what she was saying was true. She tried to reason with herself. In a few more hours, nothing that happened now would matter much anymore. But deep down she knew she wasn’t ready to die. It was like an appointment penciled in that she never meant to keep. She knew that what Bill said was true: the world and Charlie were only going to get worse. But something in her still rejected suicide.
    Juliana led her down alleys that she’d never recognize, even in daylight, though she’d lived nearby for years. The unplowed drifts of snow squeezed in and choked the narrow side streets. No one on this side of town was taking care of bodies either. Ruth shrieked as the gray beam of her flashlight strobed over a corpse lying on the side of the alley. Juliana stopped and turned around.
    “Oh, I’m so sorry. I try to keep up with them, but I already have so much to do. I just cleared this street before the last storm. Poor man. It must have been one of the sick ones. Lots of them seem to be wandering up from the subway stations. They’re flooding, you know.”
    Ruth shuddered and moved her flashlight as if she were averting her eyes. “It’s okay. It’s not like I’ve never seen a dead body before. It just surprised me.”
    “We’re almost to the hospital. Do you need a minute?”
    Ruth shook her head. “The hospital? We’re nowhere near the hospital.”
    “Sorry, I meant the psychiatric hospital. It’s where we’ve set up.”
    “I thought that place was falling down. Why’d you choose there?”
    “Most of it is intact. Our wing is fine. And there is a wood burning furnace that heats the whole place and the kitchen is original, so it has a hand pump for the well.”
    “How many of you are there?”
    Juliana was silent for a few minutes and Ruth began to be nervous that she’d asked the wrong question or that Juliana was trying to think up a plausible