Read Online Dead City - 01 by Joe McKinney - Free Book Online

had called a fax machine by mistake.
    I tried the operator.
    I dialed 9-1-1.
    Hoping against hope, I even tried calling home, but I got the same weird noise each time and finally gave up on it.
    I stuffed some of the latex gloves in my pocket and headed back up to the front.
    The four silent ones were still hiding behind the desk. The first man was standing near the door, looking up and down the hallway.
    “Do not lock this door,” I said to him. I pointed to the door. “Don’t lock it.”
    He didn’t look like he understood.
    I walked into the hallway and found Carlos was still leaning against the wall. He was coughing, and there were wet lines of black fluid around his lips.
    “Hey,” I said, shaking his shoulder gently. “Carlos, can you hear me?”
    His eyes were speaking volumes about how much it hurt.
    “There wasn’t much back there. Just some children’s aspirin. I got some clean bandages, though. I’m gonna change this one because it’s soaked through.”
    He turned his face to the wall as I unwrapped the bandage on his arm.
    The wound was much worse.
    The first time I cleaned it the wound looked dirty and mean, but at least it looked like a wound.
    It didn’t look like that anymore. It had festered and changed from the white and pale red of a fresh, deep cut, to a sickening yellow and black crust. If I hadn’t known better I’d have said it had been festering for days, not just an hour or two. It actually looked like it was decaying while it bled. And it stank of rotting meat.
    If he had been more aware, he would have heard me force the bile back down my throat
    I changed the bandage as quickly as I could and gently put his arm back down at his side.
    The hallway had been quiet while I worked on him, the only sound coming from the swinging light panel as it rotated on its wires, but now I heard something new coming from farther off.
    Even before I could separate out the elements of it, I knew it was the sound of footsteps sliding across the tile somewhere off in the dark ends of the hallway. I let out a deep breath of frustration.
    “They’re coming again. Can you hear me, Carlos? We have to move. They’re coming again.”
    I slid a hand under his shoulder and tried to lift him, but there was no strength in his legs.
    The man in the landscaper’s uniform was standing by the office door, watching me, and I called over to him to come and help me.
    He didn’t move.
    “Help me, damn it.”
    He shook his head. “ El está enfermo .” He seemed horrified I had even asked him to help.
    “Come here and help me.”
    He shook his head again and stepped back. “No.”
    From behind me I could hear the footsteps getting closer and I knew we only had a minute or two at the most to get going.
    As I watched him back up toward the office I got so angry I stood up, drew my gun, and pointed it at him, muttering something under my breath about him being a fucking little coward.
    “Get over here and help me,” I said, closing the distance between us.
    He stared at the gun, and for the briefest moment I’m pretty sure he was thinking about running the other way.
    But he didn’t run. He nodded and walked over to where Carlos sat against the wall. Together we lifted him up and carried him over to the office.
    “We have to get out of here. It’s not safe. Entiendes?”
    He didn’t understand.
    “Más muertos,” I said, pointing down the hallway. “We have to go.”
    That much he understood.
    “Do you have a car? Maybe a truck?”
    Again, I got that puzzled look.
    “A truck, damn it. You know—” and I made a hand gesture like I was steering a car, “—a truck.”
    He nodded. “Sí, una troca. La escuela tiene una troca .”
    Glory hallelujah, now we’re getting somewhere.
    “Great. ¿Dónde?”
    He pointed toward the corridor Carlos and I had taken to get to the office.
    That wasn’t good.
    I didn’t remember seeing anything down there except classrooms, and that was the same direction the