Prospero's Half-Life Read Online Free PDF

have been handy at the time. The entrances were blocked off by
battered ambulances, some of which were riddled with bullet holes
and scorch marks. Most of the windows, especially those near to the
ground floor, were boarded over with a variety of planks, broken
shipping skids, and metal plates that appeared as though they had
been ripped wholesale from the medical equipment inside. Two of the
windows had light issuing from behind their fortifications; the
rest were distressingly dark and silent.
    “ Who the hell is in there?” Richard thought aloud. It was such
a strange and foreign sight to him that he hadn’t realized that he
had spoken the question until Samantha answered him.
    “ I don’t know”, she whispered back. She was very close to him,
trying to look out the window as well, and her breath was hot on
his neck. Richard’s breath quickened, and his heart began pounding
maddeningly loud inside his rib cage.
    “ Doctors, maybe? But why wouldn’t they be trying to help those
people?”
    He felt
Samantha shrug blankly beside him.
    “ Whoever is in there doesn’t want to catch it”, she answered
simply. Richard stared across the street at the crazed parody of a
hospital. It didn’t seem real. None of it seemed real.
    “ Probably not doctors, though”, Samantha continued, her voice
now tickling his ear. “I heard that they were the first to die,
after treating all of those first patients”.
    “ Who did you hear that from?”
    “ My boyfriend. He said that all the doctors were dead and no
one knew what to do. The radio was saying that everything would be
all right, that it was just a few days until they were going to
deliver a vaccine, but my boyfriend said that he’d heard that all
that was just bullshit”.
    “ What was your boyfriend’s name?” It was out before he could
really think about it. Was . He cursed himself for his lack
of tact.
    “ Doug”, she answered promptly. If she’d taken offence to his
slip with the past tense, she didn’t show it.
    “ His mom was a nurse”, she supplied. “That’s why he knew about
the doctors, and the vaccine. He said that on the fourth day after
it all started, she showed up to work and none of the doctors had
come in. The ones who had been there on duty were all dead. Most of
the other nurses were dead too”.
    “ Jesus”. It was all he could think of to say.
    “ He hung up the phone and started making plans. Like
reinforcing the door, and putting all the locks on. Getting a whole
bunch of food. He went out to find some guns, even though I begged
him to stay. He never came back”.
    “ I’m sorry”. It seemed horrifically inadequate.
    She shrugged. “Whatever. He’s gone. My family’s gone. Your
family’s gone. Everyone’s family’s gone”. Her voice hitched, and
Richard looked over in alarm. Her shapely oval face was starting to
scrunch up; she was crying. “City’s gone. Whole fucking country is gone. Maybe
the whole world. Everyone’s dead”.
    “ Hey”, he said, and his throat closed up. He didn’t remember
what he had been about to say. She was crying now, freely, and the
sight of it erased any warm platitudes that he had been about to
spout off.
    “ It can’t be as bad as all that, right?” he continued on
lamely. She spun her face around to stare at him, eyes
blazing.
    “ What the fuck do you think?” she grated at him. “Do you see
very many people up and walking around? Do you see that street out
there. Do you really see it? There’s like a hundred dead bodies in the
street out there. Dead
bodies . Now imagine the rest of the city,
the parts you haven’t even seen yet. How many dead fucking bodies do you think are
there?”
    She left his
side violently and threw herself back on to the loveseat. Her face
turned resolutely to the television and didn’t move a millimetre.
Richard shut the curtain and sat on the couch awkwardly. He looked
at her for a minute or so, hoping that she would look over so that
he could