Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End by Daniel Cotton

me.”
    “Come to the treatment room!” Susan orders him, not liking the looks of the avulsed wound beneath the gauze when she steals a peek. She has to clean it out very well knowing how bad human bites can be.
    The hospital’s PA has been directing staff almost nonstop since Luke arrived, he had ignored it until now. “Code green, Labor and Delivery. Code green, Labor and Delivery.”
    “That’s a restraint, isn’t it?” he asks his daughter. “Who gets restrained in L&D?”
    “Don’t know,” she answers, more concerned with tending to her husband’s injury. “All available staff have been pulled from us and the other wards to help out in the ER.”
    “It’s a real mad house down there,” Luke confirms.
    “Thanks for your help, but you should go,” Susan has Josh’s hand cleansed and re-wrapped. She walks her father out of the treatment room.
    “I’d like to watch this prick bleed some more,” he snickers.
    “Why do you hate him so much?” she implores.
    “Because you had it good before you met him.”
    “It wasn’t all good,” she corrects.
    “He was a good man, Suzy. Oz didn’t deserve what you did.”
    The truth hits her like a punch that robs her of her breath. “You need to leave.”
    “Can’t we talk?” Luke feels bad that the conversation has gone this route yet again. His disapproval of Susan’s choice to leave her ex-husband in favor of her current, bringing their son in tow back to her hometown of Breckinridge, has caused a great rift between them.
    “There’s nothing to say that you haven’t already, every time I see you, tonight, at my wedding.”
    He is unable to let it go, his pride won’t let him lie and say he is wrong or even sorry. All Luke can do is utter the same words he ended the wedding toast with, “It needed to be said.”
    “Leave.”
    The man turns away, he’s exhausted all of a sudden. “If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll swing by and check on the boys.”
    The elevator ride to the ground level lulls Luke to sleep once more for the brief time he is inside, but when the steel cocoon opens he is snapped to attention by the chaos that has only gotten worse.
    Running on his second, second wind of the evening, the man in the Santa suit skirts the ER opting to exit through the main entrance. The line of people waiting to be seen has grown, spread throughout the lobby. People moan and groan, clutching bloody rags to stem bleeding wounds. They tell the staff taking triage similar stories of being bitten.
    Luke slows his pace to eavesdrop on the details. Only one recount differs, a girl with an injured leg, trampled during a hotel fire. He also hears yet again this night a phrase that connects it all as he pushes the glass doors open.
    “You said she was dead!”
    He thinks of his grandkids, home alone, relatively. Just old Mrs. Krantz to keep an eye on things. Old, old Mrs. Krantz, with all her medical concerns, he adds.
    The buses aren’t running. He knows he won’t be getting a cab tonight. The only vehicles he sees on the road are emergency responders. He needs to get to the boys, his eyes survey the area in desperation.
    He rushes to a large bus, on its side is a giant logo of a derby girl wearing pads and band aids that announces in a word bubble “Make way for Man’s Ruin”. The door is shut and he can’t see through the tinted windows if there is anyone onboard. He knocks on the steel with urgency several times before giving up and searching for another means.
    The lot is jammed packed with cars, people have even parked where there are no spaces. The automobiles spill out onto the street, abandoned by their owners’ desperation. Luke sees a vehicle among the many that he knows he can use and won’t even have to worry about having the key.
    He climbs into the open ride and slides across the plush leather seats. Many cities, including Waterloo to the north, have been getting rid of their Handsome Cabs, Breckinridge has been debating it