Doctor Caswell stormed in, her wide eyes scanning the room before she found Morgan, and she asked with a desperate tone, "Have you seen Zoe? Did she go on the mission with you?"
Raising her chin slightly, Morgan replied, "No, we just got back. I thought she was with you."
With a shake of her head, Rachel assured, "I haven't seen her since early this morning. She was supposed to come to the lab but she never showed up. Nobody's seen her most of the day! We've searched the whole hospital and she's nowhere to be found."
Morgan turned and returned to her bed, tossing her shirt onto it as she reached for her belt, the radio clipped to it. Raising it to her mouth, she called, "Josh, Morgan here. Have any of you seen Zoe?"
There was a pause, then he responded, "No, we thought she was with Doctor Caswell."
"Not good," Morgan mumbled, then she said into the radio, "No, she isn't in the hospital. Everybody's been looking for her all day."
"Meet us in the rally area," he ordered.
Morgan combed her hair back and reached for her shirt. "Okay, no problem. We'll find her."
Word spread quickly and in short order there were more than fifty people, most of them zombie fighters, in the rally area to search for her outside of the hospital.
Rachel and Morgan strode to the San Antonio ZRT, who stood closest to the door checking their weapons, and the Doctor was as calm as she could be as she said, "Okay, you guys were the last ones with her. I need to know what was said, if she said anything that might clue us in as to where she went."
"We talked about a lot of things," Josh informed. "She was only half listening most of the time and didn't say much."
"Oh my God," Eric said absently, staring blankly forward. All attention turned to him and his eyes darted about as he went on, "We talked about zombies dying in the heat in Texas." He looked to Doctor Caswell. "We were talking about how the virus can't survive in a high temperature environment."
Her eyes widening, Rachel raised her chin and was unable to speak.
"I'm sorry," he offered, turning his eyes down. "I'm so sorry."
The Doctor looked away, then she shook her head and countered, "You don't need to be sorry." She shook her head. "Okay, we need to just concentrate on where she would have gone."
"The gym," Donny declared. "She was interested in the gym."
"The sauna," Dan clarified. He looked to Morgan and insisted, "We need to get there. Now!"
Zachary's eyes widened a little and he asked in a desperate tone, "You don't think she would try something like that, do you? I mean, if she sets that sauna too high and stays in there too long it could…"
All exchanged glances.
They wasted no more time, grabbing their weapons and heading out the door. Others who saw their rapid departure did the same, following them out the door with weapons held ready.
They did not take time to mount vehicles and instead ran the whole way to the gym that was only two blocks away. Behind the nine zombie fighters and the doctor were some forty heavily armed military and civilian volunteers who were determined to find their wayward zombie girl.
Inside the gym, Morgan, Josh and Rachel stopped halfway between the front counter and the door to get their bearings. All of the others stormed in behind them and stopped behind them, holding their weapons at the ready.
"The pool's downstairs," someone announced.
At a hurried pace, they negotiated their way through the gym and down the stairs where they found the pool area and fanned out to find the saunas, the dressing rooms, anywhere she might have gone.
The sauna doors were opened one by one, and the last was opened by Morgan, who drew a loud gasp and took a step back, her wide eyes on the form that was sprawled on the floor. Hearing this, the rest of her team crowded around the doorway.
Zachary pushed his way through them and into the unbearably hot sauna, stopping right inside as he looked down to the girl who lay on her side on the wooden floor where she had fallen.
Zoe's hair was soaked with sweat and steam and lay around her head in long tentacles. She lay on her side, her legs pulled halfway to her and her right laying ahead of her left. One arm was stretched out under her head, the other was behind her, and she was not moving, not at all.
"Oh, no!" he breathed. Keeling down, Zachary gently scooped the limp girl into his arms and picked her up, standing with her as he cradled her in his arms.
The people at the door stepped away as he turned to leave the room, but Doctor Caswell hurried to the girl and placed a hand across her forehead, then her neck.
"She's burning up," Rachel declared. "We need to get her cooled off."
"Is she still alive?" Eric asked desperately.
"She's a zombie," Dan pointed out. "How would you tell?"
"Get her into the pool," the Doctor ordered. "We need to get her cooled down quickly. If she's still with us then getting her cooled off will be her only chance of staying with us."
Zachary did not respond and instead turned toward the shallow end of the swimming pool, walking right through the people around him as they moved quickly out of his way. When he got to the pool, he simply jumped in with her, and he held her in the water and kept her head right above the surface.
Alfred made it to the side of the pool and ordered, "Keep her head up, boy. Move her around and keep that cool water moving over her."
Doctor Caswell kicked her shoes off and also jumped in the water. Wading to the girl, she brushed Zoe's hair from her face and moved her head to lean against his shoulder. She scooped water into her hand and poured it onto Zoe's forehead, repeating this a few times, then she stroked her hair and called, "Zoe! Can you hear me? Give me a sign, sweetie. Open your eyes. Twitch your nose. Come on!"
Everyone watched in absolute silence as Rachel tried to get some kind of response from the girl's still form. Zoe was limp, her body lifeless.
"Zoe!" Rachel cried. "Please don't do this!"
Zachary carried her all the way back to the hospital, refusing to allow anyone else to help him even as it was clear that he was tiring.
She was taken to her room in the ICU where she was cleaned and put into her bed. Monitors were hooked up to her, but her heartbeat was not to be found, only the steady wave of the barely alive heart action of a zombie. Her body finally cooled, all the way to room temperature.
Rachel and Doctor Kavorski had managed to get everyone out of the room, but it took Josh, Morgan and Eric combined to finally get Zachary out of there so that they could work. Now, they stared down at the lifeless girl who still seemed to cling to the undead heart activity of a zombie.
Stroking his chin, Doctor Kavorski suggested, "We need to do a lumbar puncture and also get some fluid directly from her brain cavity."
Her lips tightening to a thin slit, Rachel closed her eyes and raised a hand to her mouth.
"I know what it seems like," he assured, "but if she was right about this then we need to confirm that, and if she wasn't… Either way, if we do lose her, I don't want her to have died in vain."
Doctor Caswell agreed with a nod.
He grasped her shoulder and said, "I'll go and get the kits, and once we're done we'd better get her strapped down, just in case she goes full-on zombie."
"Yeah," Rachel agreed in a whisper. "I'll get things ready here."
They worked as fast and respectfully as they could, and when they were finished collecting the samples they needed they took great care in strapping the girl down as she had slept. Monitors were put all over her head to watch for brain activity, but all it showed was a girl in very deep, dreamless sleep, and the waves they showed were very weak.