Blood Red by Jason Bovberg

the sound of his voice. She shouldn’t
have left the house without leaving him a note or something. Or she
should have gone straight to his work without even thinking,
without stopping for anyone. She should have shut out the rest of
the world and made it her primary goal to find him, whether that
meant finding him alive or finding his body.
    That last thought manages to cramp her
insides with anticipated grief, but she doesn’t let it show. And
she doesn’t think the worst is true. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking,
but she believes she can feel that he’s still alive. After her mom
died, she developed an almost umbilical bond with her dad that
wasn’t there before. For two years, they were inseparable—until
Susanna entered the scene. Now she feels that closeness surging
back, that intense connection with him, however geographically
distant he might be. It sounds ridiculous, but she believes it. She
has to believe it.
    Her father is alive.
    And he’s at his office.
    There’s a comfort in that certainty that
prevents her from leaving immediately in the Honda; she doesn’t
want to challenge it. If she were to actually go out and find him
dead, her world would be over. Better to believe that he’s
alive.
    When Rachel and Bonnie reach the corridor
full of bodies, Rachel notices that some of the family members are
leaving the bodies of their loved ones, perhaps to go in search of
others in town? She watches one woman say her goodbyes, touching
what appears to be the body of her husband with a note of finality
and rushing forward out of the hallways in tears.
    While the two women approach the double doors
that lead back into the admissions area, they hear heightened
commotion at the front of the hospital—yelps of pain or anger. They
glance at each other, pick up their pace into a jog, and hurry
through the doors. Perhaps half a dozen new people have arrived,
and the volunteers have their hands full with their needs. Most
have new bodies to add to the corridor of bodies behind the double
doors.
    “Oh my!” Bonnie says, already hurrying to the
new arrivals. She calls back to Rachel, “Can you give me a
hand?”
    Rachel follows Bonnie to a man who has
stumbled through the front doors, cradling a boy in his arms. The
boy is writhing in pain, obviously suffering from the same
affliction that befell Sarah. The father keeps crying, “Help him!
Help my son!”
    Before Bonnie can reach him, the poor man
stumbles against a waiting-room chair and goes sprawling, the boy
flying from his arms and landing awkwardly against one of the
magazine-littered tables. The boy cries out wretchedly,
alarmingly—that same wounded-animal mewling that Sarah made.
    And now Jenny is back at Rachel’s side,
helping her lay the boy flat on the ground. There are several
large, pale swatches of skin across his face, and his eyes have
gone blind; the pupils are thick, gray, unseeing dots. Rachel
places her hand softly against the thick, damaged flesh of his
cheek, trying to soothe him. Then he’s being lifted away from her,
onto a stretcher and whisked away with his father by one of the
volunteers. She knows they’re on their way to room 109 and to Alan,
and for some reason that comforts Rachel.
    She surveys the waiting room, which is about
half full of survivors—like Rachel and Jenny themselves—who remain
stunned by what has happened to their world in the space of a few
hours. They stand there, pale, scared, staring blankly. People move
hesitantly to the admissions area to ask a question, receive
earnest though uncertain replies, after which they wander away, not
having received any kind of answer they were hoping for. They even
seem to be glancing to Rachel for answers. Their loved ones are
mysteriously gone to them, probably forever, lying on beds and
stretchers behind those double doors, and no one can tell them
anything.
    “Rachel?” comes Bonnie’s voice from across
the room.
    Both Rachel and Jenny turn. Bonnie is
standing with Scott