The Loss (Zombie Ocean Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

antibiotic ampoules, a big jar of iodine, lots of small tables, rubbing alcohol, an Automated External Defibrillator in a bright red plastic case, and several big fluffy packs of gauze and twenty-odd rolls of bandaging.
    I'm no expert but this is what we drilled. I race out with the cart and back to the lobby with Ravi at my heels trailing more drip bags and tubes.
    "Macy, Farin, Christina," I shout and point at the cart. "Get drips into the ones you can. There's more water here, use alcohol on towels for cleaning up the wounds." I turn. "Ravi, fill up two of the soup boilers with boiling water and roll them out here, quick as you can. Wire them up to keep them hot. Did you get that?"
    Ravi nods and runs off while the others gravitate towards me. I snatch up the red AED box and bolt back to Lara. Soon Cynthia and Adonis, both trained nurses, and Ozark our resident surgeon will be here, but until then it's just us and we need to do what we can. I've drilled enough to know the first few minutes after rescue are the hardest on the body, when the shock of survival hits and people die of relief. We need to stop that from happening.
    I drop by Lara's side with the box open.
    "Anything?"
    She rises from giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with bright blood smeared on her lips and face. There's frothy blood all over the black-haired woman's neck, and the man at her side is staring and squeezing her hand.
    "I think it's TB but I can't be sure," Lara says. "Her heart's hardly beating, it skips and starts again. Do you know how to use that?" She points at the AED. I don't, not anymore than the drills have taught me to, but that's easily as much as anyone else here and we haven't got time to wait.
    "No," I say, then crack the seal, open the case and start unspooling cables. There's a small digital readout atop a central plastic bulge that contains the battery pack, a big red button reading CHARGE, and four cables sticking out, two red and two yellow, each with peelable sticky pads on the ends. "Peel those off," I say, handing the red cables to Lara. "Stick them to her left side over her heart."
    She gets right to it and I do the same with the yellow cables. Underneath the peeling plastic there's a conductive jelly coating, which adheres slightly to the woman's palsied skin.
    "Done," Lara says.
    WEEE AAAW says the klaxon outside. The lobby doors slap open and someone runs in.
    "Macy!" I shout, too focused to look up. I'm sure she'll guide this new person in to the work that needs doing. No drill can prepare you for the stink, for the horror of so many suffering people, but we've all seen bad stuff before. Every one of us is a survivor.
    "Clear," I call, unclasp the man's hand from Abigail's, then push the big red button in the center of the case. It hums, clicks, the small readout blips once, twice, then sends a jolt down the cables and into Abigail's body that makes her jerk up off the sofa.
    "It's working," I say, "don't touch her."
    WEEE AAAW says the klaxon, and the doors slap again. The machine clicks, beeps then sends another kicking jolt.
    Beep beep, the machine says. Beep beep, a pulse line says, then goes away. The man is curled on himself like a clutch of broken straws, so thin and wiry, staring like a terrified child.
    The AED jolts her again then powers down. Abigail's pulse is gone.
    I look at Lara and she looks at me. So that's it. It's only the second death in all of our history in New LA, after Julio killed Indira, and it stings like a bitch. I see that same feeling in Lara's eyes, but there's no time now to mourn.
    "No more," I say, and Lara nods, then we're both rising and moving, grabbing up drip bags and needles, water and alcohol swabs, and starting the business of saving what lives we can.

 
     
    2. PETERS
     
     
    It's a nightmare that lasts long past the dawn, as one by one the twenty-odd souls delivered in a battered old white panel van pass through the best of care we can offer. They are all hideously