Bobby Adair - Ebola K

They got back into the trucks and slowly rolled up the dirt road toward the hospital.

The smell of ash took on a different character as they passed what looked like a school: three rectangular buildings arranged around a central courtyard, dirt worn by the running feet of playing children. Through the broken out windows, Mitch saw charred, misshapen chaos. Tables, shelves, books, ceiling supports, and a couple of soccer balls among other bits of rubble—or so it appeared.

At the hospital, Mitch got out first and conferred with his man in charge. Reality was ready to prove wrong his calculation that there wouldn’t be that many dead. Even as the man told him what was inside, Mitch looked over the concrete front porch that stood level with his chest, and through the burned door. The hospital’s roof had not collapsed, though it had burned through in several sections, allowing sunlight to pour in on the blackened horror inside.

Mitch understood the change in the smell as he saw the bodies, charred in a crust of black, contorted, with arms and legs sticking at angles as though the people had been frozen mid-task. Fingers were spread wide. Horror stretched petrified faces. And Dr. Mills was beside him, mouthing something about the barbarity. Her coworker, Simmons, fell to his knees, pulled his filter mask away from his face and retched on the pavement.

Staring in through the doorway, view blocked only by metal hinges bolted to small pieces of a burnt wooden door, Mitch couldn’t begin to guess how many bodies lay inside. The whole village? Was that possible? He thought about the three school buildings and looked at them over his shoulder as he lifted a foot to the next of the steps. Were those shapes he’d seen through the windows of the school burnt bodies as well?

Dr. Mills passed him on the way up the steps and waded into the ash-layered ward, careful not to disturb the dead. Mitch came in behind, noticing the ashes weren’t hot. Nothing smoldered.

“My God,” Dr. Mills muttered.

Mitch just shook his head.

“Could they have been that afraid of the disease?” she questioned.

After a moment of quiet thought, Mitch replied, “You think these people were dead before they were burned?”

Shaking her head, Dr. Mills countered, “I think these people were burned alive.”

Mitch looked at the countless dead. “How do you know?”

“Look at them.” She pointed. “These people died in agony, trying to run, trying to escape. Dead people—that is, people who died prior to being burned—would not have been burned in these positions.”

Mitch understood. “What about Ebola?”

Dr. Mills walked further into the blackened ward, shaking her head. Mitch didn’t know if that was an answer to his question or an expression of despair at the brutality of man against man. He couldn’t bring himself to follow her through the room. He turned and went back out onto the front porch, then looked around at all the burned structures down the slopes.

He looked at one of his men and motioned to the houses along the road up to the hospital. “When you guys were checking, were there burned bodies in those?”

The man nodded. “Some.”

Mitch shook his head, thinking of the scale of the massacre.

One of the mercenaries came running around the corner of the building, speaking rapidly in a tongue Mitch didn’t understand. But he caught one familiar word: mzungu .

The man standing beside Mitch turned toward him, pointing through the hospital. “They have found two whites near the trees.”

They ran.

Mitch knelt beside the boy. He was in his late teens, maybe early twenties, and in really bad shape. The girl lying a few feet away was clearly dead, though not burned. Her eyes were open. Blood had crusted around her mouth and nose. Her cotton blouse and pants were stained. Her mouth hung open, buzzing with flies and crawling with small insects. There was no hint of motion—she was gone—but the boy was at least breathing.

Mitch touched a hand to his mask, making sure it still covered his mouth and nose. “Go get the doctor,” he told the man who’d come back with him. He put a gloved hand to the boy’s shoulder and shook.

The boys red eyes snapped open and he coughed.

Mitch told another of the men to get some water for the boy. He then turned his attention back to the young man. “Can you hear me?”

The boy nodded, barely.

Mitch asked, “Are you Austin Cooper, from Denver?”

Austin tried to smile. His teeth were caked with blood and the remains from the last time he’d thrown up.

“Can you talk?”

Just then, the man arrived with a plastic bottle, half full of water.

Austin croaked unintelligibly. Mitch took the bottle and poured some into the boy’s mouth. Austin closed his eyes and red-tinted tears flowed. He tried to speak again, but the words wouldn’t come. Mitch poured a little more water into his mouth.

Dr. Mills came running up and dropped down at Austin’s other side. “Oh, my God,” she said. To one of the men, she instructed, “Go get Dr. Simmons.” She put a gloved hand on Austin’s face, and turned to Mitch. “He’s got a fever.”

“Ebola?” There was fear in Mitch’s voice.

She looked down at Austin. She looked at the girl. She looked a back up at Mitch and nodded.

“Can you tell me what happened here?” Mitch asked Austin.

“Yes,” Austin answered in a raspy voice.

Book 2 in the Ebola K Trilogy will be out in late autumn of 2014.

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Every time a reader leaves a review, an aspiring author gets a new pencil.

Yeah, I know that line sucks but I’ve been in front of my computer proofreading for something like fourteen hours straight trying to get this book published before midnight and I’m half brain-fried. Eh, maybe I’ll edit it out later with a better line. But, the whole point of this part is to beg for a moment of your time for a review.

I know, the word review is kind of intimidating but don’t be intimidated. Any little bit of blabber qualifies. In fact, you can copy and paste this line, “This was the best book in the whole wide world!! It goes really well with the Ebola Virus Plush Toyhere on Amazon!!”

Reviews help out indie authors more than you know. My landlord likes it when I pay my rent on time. Reviews (especially the good ones) help make that happen.

Thanks for reading! — Bobby

Slow Burn: Zero Day , book 1

Slow Burn: Infected , book 2

Slow Burn: Destroyer , book 3

Slow Burn: Dead Fire , book 4

Slow Burn: Torrent , book 5

Slow Burn Box Set: Destroyer and Dead Fire

And coming soon… a joint collaboration with T.W. Piperbrook

Flying Soup

Text copyright © 2014, Bobby L. Adair