The road, about a hundred yards in front of the truck, was full of Yeti. Okay, there was just one Yeti, but damn he was huge. And very obviously pissed off.
“Jess, what do I do?” Marty asked, the truck slowing as he took his foot off the gas.
I leaned over the front seat to get a good look, locking eyes with the white-furred demon. “Punch it.”
“You mean it?”
“Hit him.”
Without hesitation, Marty put his foot in it, and the Suburban lurched forward, diesel engine roaring as we barreled toward the massive creature. The Yeti bellowed back, standing his ground as we came on, and I started to wonder if maybe I’d made a huge mistake.
Just as I tensed for impact, and Will braced his arms against the dash, muttering, “Oh shit,” the demon vanished, and we passed harmlessly through a cloud of quickly dispersing blight. When I turned to look out our back window, the road was empty.
I think every person in that truck deflated, letting out the breaths we’d collectively been holding. I clapped Marty on the shoulder, noting that only now was he flexing his white-knuckled hands on his steering wheel. “To Fort Collins, Jeeves. And don’t spare the horses.”
I collapsed into my seat, feeling broken glass grind against my legs, and I just couldn’t bring myself to care.
16
T he nearest hospital was in Fort Collins, more than an hour away, but through some miracle we made it there in record time and unmolested.
There was no way the ER staff was ready for us. We came in like a herd of drunk buffalo, so many of us covered in blood and unidentifiable goo that they finally just herded us all into the back to let the actual docs sort us out. Even Duke managed to slip by, and he made camp next to Zane’s bed, doing a pretty damn good disappearing act for something the size of a small horse.
I tried to disappear. My injuries were superficial at worst, and after spending so much time in them, hospitals in general give me the heebie-jeebies. I found an out-of-the-way corner and pretended that I was invisible, lost in the scent of bleach and the monotonous beep of a dozen different monitors. Maybe if I held really still, no one would notice me.
I know you’re not supposed to use phones in hospitals, but I was desperate to get word to Mira, Ivan, anybody. I filched Cole’s phone while he was having some glass shards removed from his neck, and kept trying to get my wife on the phone. Nothing. Nada. Bubkes.
A passing nurse paused briefly, thinking to chastise me over the phone I’m sure, but she took one look at my face and thought better of it. Instead, she grabbed some antiseptic swabs and started working at the cuts and scrapes, holding my chin in an iron grip no matter how I tried to pull away. We took turns glaring at each other as I dialed and redialed the phone, but by the end, I think we’d found some kind of happy truce. Neither of us liked the other, and we were okay with that.
Cameron, despite the fact that he looked like the walking dead himself, was trying to explain Zane’s condition to the doctors. “I’m telling you, he was attacked by an animal, and the wound went all nasty like this in just a day. We got him here as fast as we could.” They obviously didn’t believe him, which was logical since he was lying out his ass. I wondered if he’d have to mention that in confession later. “No, we don’t know what kind of animal.”
The bite on Zane’s hand was fairly obscured by his demon mark and the insidious infection. The others, however, over his arms and shoulders… well, those couldn’t be anything but human. Even I could see that, and I wasn’t a medical professional. Cameron was going to have to work on his song and dance skills if he wanted to explain that away.
Will could have backed him up, but my buddy hung back, his normally chattering self uncharacteristically quiet. He didn’t like lying about medical stuff. It went against his own personal code of helping people. But when you can’t exactly run around telling people that a zombie bit your friend, you either lie, or you shut the hell up. He was doing the only thing he could, and still live with himself.
Oscar could have backed Cam up too, or at least nodded along or something, but I think he’d finally spent the last of the energy that had sustained him throughout his introduction to this terrifying new world. He took up a chair next to Zane’s bed, holding his son’s good hand while the staff rushed to get IVs and other medical paraphernalia in place. Already, I could see the powerful painkillers taking effect, and the tension in the teenager’s face easing. The best they could do for him was let him sleep through this. Their medicine wasn’t going to do a damn thing beyond that.
“Any luck?” A bandaged Cole found me pacing through the ER. It looked like he’d gotten away without any stitches. “I see that Nurse Ratched got her hands on you too.” He nodded toward my own lovely collection of gauze and tape.
“Mmph.” Cole’s wife wasn’t answering either. Oddly, that made me feel better. Steph and Mira were probably out together, doing some girl-bonding thing now that the kids were all in school during the day. They were… getting their hair done. Or… maybe catching a movie. What do women do when we’re gone? Hell, they could be having an orgy with oiled-up cabana boys, and I don’t think I’d care so long as they were safe.
All I was doing was running Cole’s battery down too, and I finally forced myself to give up, flopping in the nearest chair. I yanked the hair tie out of my ponytail in sheer frustration, and grimaced when I realized how much foulness I had in my formerly blond hair. This vacation had most definitely not gone as planned.
“So. Wanna bet this is the last official Colorado paintball trip?” My little brother flopped beside me, the pair of us looking like matching bookends.
I snorted. “Ya think? I’ll be lucky if anyone on this trip speaks to me at all after we get home.”
“It’s not that bad, big brother.” I gave him a look, and he shrugged. “Nobody died.”
“Day’s not over yet.” Even if we could get Mira on the phone, I had to wonder if Cam would survive casting the spell to save Zane. This still had the potential to turn out all kinds of bad.
“Listen.” Cole leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “None of this is your fault.”
“Um… every single bit of this is my fault. If it weren’t for me, none of this would have happened.” I gestured to the entire ER, more than half the beds currently occupied by people who arrived with me. “Zane wouldn’t have been targeted. Cam wouldn’t be hurt. Marty.. . Christ, he didn’t sign up for any of this. Will either.”
My brother blew a long breath out his nose and shook his head. “Jess… Why did you tell Will and Marty about all this in the first place? Way back when, what made you confide in them, when you’ve hidden it from almost everyone else?”
What the hell kind of question was that? I blinked at him, perplexed.
“Humor me. Why’d you bring them into this?”
“Um… I guess, because I needed their help. I couldn’t do it alone.”
“Yeah, but you could have found someone else. You could have found armor and weapons somewhere, especially after Ivan surfaced. You could have found another doctor type. So why them?”
I had to really think about it. I didn’t recall consciously making the decision to tell my two best friends about my new calling in life. It just… happened. It never occurred to me not to. “I guess because they’re my friends. My best friends. Why wouldn’t I tell them?”
Cole nodded with a satisfied smirk. “Exactly. They’re your best friends. They’re not gonna ditch you over this.”
I just shrugged. Only time would tell, and honestly, I wouldn’t think ill of Marty and Will if they ran the other way screaming. If they were smart, they would.
“So what do we do now?” My brother leaned back in his chair again, stretching out his long legs.
“I don’t know. We need Mira to help Zane. Until then, there isn’t a lot we can do.” And I needed to get to the numbers in my phone. Viljo had to get the word out, warn people if it wasn’t already too late.