Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

Hurdling the bed, I took off after them. Patrick swung an elbow, clipping the nurse’s damaged forehead, but she didn’t let go. They fell together, banging into the crash cart and knocking it over, one defibrillator paddle springing out on its cord and snapping back like the tongue of a frog.

As the tank hit its outer limit, the tube went piano-wire tight, yanking the mask straps and Patrick’s head forward. I braced for the tube to pop free, but it didn’t. Instead the rolling tank switched direction, curving in an arc across the tiles, somehow staying tethered to Patrick’s face. Given the weight of the tank, the tube wouldn’t hold it long-it was like having a swordfish on ten-pound-test fishing line. I dove on my stomach and swatted the tank toward them, putting slack back in the line.

She was choking Patrick out now, one arm locked across his throat, the other flailing to cuff his wrist. How could I get her off without tangling in the tubing or knocking it loose?

A glint to their side caught my eye.

The defibrillator paddle.

I lunged for it, sweeping it up and yanking its companion free. I thumbed the charge button on the portable defibrillator. The unit turned on with a whine. It made a series of short beeps and then a long one. I slammed the metal paddles onto the nurse’s head and pulled back on the discharge buttons.

The reaction was unlike anything I’d seen in movies or TV. The nurse jerked back so violently that it looked as though she’d been lassoed. She landed in a sitting position. Electricity fizzled across her eye membranes, sparking, and then they ignited, giving out whooshes of flame. She fell back, her head smacking the floor, and lay still. Wisps of black smoke tendriled up from her eyeholes.

Her momentum had knocked Patrick across the floor. He spun like a hockey puck over the tile, his mask and tank clattering with him. He wound up on his belly, facing me. We looked at each other.

“Sorry,” I said.

He mumbled something I couldn’t make out.

I scrambled over to the tank. The tube had been tugged to the very edge of the nozzle, a millimeter away from popping off. I secured it tightly and looked up. “You okay?”

He nodded, but I could see he was foggy. “‘Okay’ might be an overstatement.”

“We made a lot of noise, so we’d better move it before they get here,” I said.

I helped him up, and then we hustled back to the Respiratory Suite, Patrick hugging the hundred-pound H tank as he walked. He was having trouble moving well. I couldn’t count on his helping me much.

After we checked out the tanks-there were ten more big ones-I saw something in the back of the suite that spelled even better news. A beige machine the size of an industrial copier. Block letters on the side spelled out OXYGEN TANK FILL SYSTEM.

We now had a sustainable plan.

Whether we came back here for future missions or figured how to get the entire machine and its filters back to school, we had a way to keep him breathing.

With a simple push-button setup, the unit was surprisingly easy to figure out. It had a plug in the back but also a toggle for an internal backup generator, one of the benefits of emergency medical equipment. I inserted the lighter portable tank into the system and started filling it.

We wouldn’t have time to wait around.

“Can you carry another tank?” I asked.

Tucking the shotgun beneath his arm, Patrick swept up another tank with ease. Sometimes even I forgot how strong he was. I grabbed two tanks myself, staggering under the weight, struggling to keep them from dragging loudly on the floor. We hurried back into the hall.

Patrick led the way down the rear stairs, and I scrambled after him.

He shouldered through a door onto the ground floor, and we shot gazes up and down the corridor, but no Hosts were in sight. From the square we could still hear the scream of the ambulance siren. I prayed it had drowned out the commotion of our battle upstairs.

Sliding glass doors let out into an alley behind the hospital. “Let’s go,” Patrick said. “We can’t carry more than these.”

I looked frantically around the corridor, then saw what I was searching for up against a wall.

A gurney.

I ran over, heaving the heavy tanks onto the mattress. Patrick set his on there, too, then leaned on the railing with both hands, panting hard. Sweat ran from his hairline into his eyes as he struggled with the effects of the oxygen.

“I’ll run to get the rest,” I said. “You’re too weak. We can’t risk you dragging that tank up and down with you.”

He started to shake his head, but I left him there anyways.

I scrambled back up the stairs, stepping over the sizzled corpse of the Host, and grabbed two more tanks. I made it back down okay.

Patrick had stacked the tanks on the gurney and was readying the thick nylon straps to hold them in place. I set the two down by his feet and ran back up. Every time I turned a corner or put my back to the dark hall, fear licked at the nape of my neck. Somehow I made it through two more trips, grabbing the refilled portable tank on my final leg. Since the gurney was overflowing, I decided to leave the last two tanks behind.

Patrick secured the load, cinching the straps to pin the pile of tanks to the mattress.

He leaned his weight into the gurney, starting it rolling toward the rear exit. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I said. “We need IV bags and needles.”

He looked at me, blinking, fighting for clarity.

“To feed you,” I said.

“Hurry, Chance,” he said. “Just… hurry.”

I sprinted back upstairs, my steps pounding down the dark corridor. I’d clocked the big refrigerator behind one of the nurses’ stations. When I arrived and tugged open the door, a puff of cool air greeted me. Thank God-the seal had held.

I had to shove aside an EKG cart so I could swing the door wide. The cart wobbled off up the hall on creaky wheels. Grabbing a giant organ-transplant bag, I eyed the IV bags inside the refrigerator. There were solutions with saline and dextrose, minerals and vitamins, but I had no time to figure out which I needed, so I swept every last one from the shelves into the bag. Then I dug through the drawers behind the station, looking for the equipment that Dr. Chatterjee had told me to get. Catheters, tubing, large-bore needles. I loaded them up, zipped the bag shut. I crouched to slide the strap over my shoulder, then rose unsteadily, using my legs so I wouldn’t throw out my back.

I wobbled a few steps, passing the front stairs, heading for the rear of the building. I sensed movement in the unlit landing by the stairwell.

The door creaked open.

A shadow filled the doorway.

I could see straight through its head.

I dumped the bag and did the first thing I could think of, which was to kick the Host right in the stomach.

He flew about halfway down the dark stairs, then seemed to stop, floating in midair, his arms spread to the sides.

It was impossible.

Something lofted him back onto his feet, and I saw that he hadn’t been floating at all.

He’d been propped up by the Hosts beneath him.

They filled the front stairwell.

Like a rising tide, they surged up at me.

Blood rushed to my head, so intense I thought I might pass out. I wheeled around, searching for something, anything, to use as a weapon.

The EKG cart I’d kicked aside was a few steps away. I dashed for it and grabbed the edge, using all my might to swing it around toward the door.

I felt the impact shudder the cart before I saw what it had struck-the Host, already past the threshold. The metal edge had hit him in the gut, doubling him over the equipment. The doorway behind him was packed with reaching arms and blank faces. Though my thighs screamed, I put all my force into driving the cart forward, shoving him into the others, through that doorframe, and onto the stairs.