The Living Dead (Book 1): Contagion by L.I. Albemont Page B

getting colder.”
                The bed and floor were splashed about with thick black bile and the smell was as if his internal organs were rotting and he was spewing them out. His breathing was rapid and shallow and she couldn’t tell if he was conscious.
                Hating herself for saying it but doing it anyway she said, “Portia, you know you have to restrain him now, while you still can.”
                Portia sat by her husband’s side, talking softly to him and stroking his arm. She looked at Virginia but said nothing.
                Virginia left the room and went downstairs, going through the kitchen then out into the garage. She searched until she found what she was looking for and went back up to the bedroom. She handed the roll of duct tape to Portia who took it without comment.
                “Do you want me to help you or do you want to do it?”
                “Help me.”
                Virginia took the roll and wound several layers round both ankles, tight enough to hold him but not tight enough to cut off his circulation. She didn’t want to hurt him. She then secured both feet to the foot rail at the bottom of the bed and handed the tape to Portia who wrapped each of his wrists and then looped the tape through the spindles on the headboard. It looked terribly uncomfortable but Bill didn’t appear to be aware of being moved. His face was a mottled white/gray color and his breath came in short gasps. The bandage on his face was saturated with oozing pus. She watched as Portia adjusted his blankets then, after partially drawing the door to, they went back downstairs.
                Portia said, “I’m not sure what to expect next. If he does go into coma and then revives like they are saying, violent, I wonder if I’ll be able to calm him down enough to eat or drink. If I can’t, then I’ll need to get an IV drip going as soon as possible. I don’t have the equipment for that here. I’d start it now if I did. He’s already dehydrated from all the vomiting.”
                Virginia couldn’t imagine anybody surviving what she had seen upstairs. She wanted to be sure he was restrained just in case she was wrong but from the moment she saw the condition he was in, she was sure he wouldn’t make it through the night. She kept her opinion to herself and made Portia a cup of hot tea, with a little whiskey for extra warmth. She added a small log to the fire and sat on the down filled sofa. Portia took a sip of tea, then another and seemed to relax a little.
                “Did I ever tell you how I met Bill? It was just after I started working on the pediatric floor at East Beaumont. I was new in town and the new kid at work. I’d just started a week of midnight shifts and I had a hallway of the injury cases- you know, kid falls down the stairs and get concussed, toddler who jumps out of the crib and breaks a collarbone. There was also one case of measles. That was kind of unusual. Even back then you hardly ever saw it thanks to immunizations. I had checked on all of my patients and the measles case would be the last before I went home. When I went into the room, I thought something was wrong. There was a grown man in the bed, asleep. I went back to the station to tell them we had a patient misplaced. I was wrong. Measles was Bill. He’d been working on a project in the Dominican Republic for 6 months and probably contracted it there. Since it was considered a childhood illness, they put him on the children’s ward. When I went back into the room, he was awake. I saw those blue eyes and when he smiled… that was it for me. He asked me for my phone number and called me after he was discharged.” She smiled at the memory then leaned back and rested her head on the sofa.
                Virginia turned on the television. CBS reported infected victims wading ashore in the Carolinas and