Wolf Running (2 page)

She is running through a forest. It is twilight. The trees are black strokes of ink that
moved around her, talking. She realized she was awake, and that someone was in the room with her. She kept her eyes shut and listened.

A cool hand pressed on her forehead, and then on her arm. She recognized the voice as the younger one she had heard before.

“No ID on her, no distinguishing marks, no missing person reports so far. Nowen knows who she is. Nowen knows where she came from. It’s frustrating.” the woman was saying.
Then ask Nowen who I am. But who is Nowen?
“She came in practically catatonic, covered in blood. We’re thinking violent crime or assault victim, and since she was found out by the railroad tracks, maybe just someone who was train-jumping and got hurt getting off. The weird thing is, none of the blood was hers. The only wound we found was this,” and the cool hand was on her right leg, turning it so the back of her calf was exposed, “what looks like an animal bite, probably a dog, but it doesn’t look very recent.” Her leg was released and the young woman -
Nurse? -
moved back towards her head.

Someone else spoke, older and male. Authoritative. “That would be a very big dog. Homeless, maybe?”

“If she is, she’s very new to that state. She’s clean, and her clothes were in good shape.”

There was a rustle of paper. The man -
Doctor?
- coughed lightly, and then spoke. “I see here she was running a fever earlier. Are we sure this woman isn’t a rev?” The doctor emphasized his last word; she revised it in her head to
Rev
.

“So far, the only symptom she’s shown even close to a Rev’s is the fever, and that broke early this morning.”

“Well, if there’s nothing else wrong with her, we might have to turf her out to somewhere else. This hospital is not equipped for this many people - we’re running out of beds here.” Someone screamed shrilly, close by. The doctor paused a moment. “Hell, we’re going to have to start putting them in the hallways at this rate.”

The nurse sounded worried. “We got eight more cases in the last hour, and I heard that Dr. Stallings was bitten by one down in the ER. Bitten! It’s...getting a little scary.”

The voices were moving away now. The doctor was saying “Let’s see if we can get Jane Doe here some new lodgings...” and then they were gone.

She lay there, trying to think.
Jane Doe. Am I Jane Doe?
The name didn’t feel right to her.
No. No, my name is-
and here she came up short. What was her name?
I’m...I’m...
she groped through her mind and found nothing. Panic ran a light finger down her spine as she searched for something familiar.
Who was that other person the nurse mentioned? Nowen? Is that someone I know?
She said the name over and over in head. Then it clicked.
Not ‘
Nowen
’. The nurse was saying
‘No one’
.
‘No one’
knows who I am. Who am I?

She remembered the other things the nurse had said, about railroad tracks and a dog bite. And that she was found covered in blood. She gathered these pieces in her mind and tried to make sense of them, smashing these few facts together like a child with a jigsaw puzzle. Weariness rose up and dragged her under.

She woke to screams, cries of pain and terror. She forced her eyes open and, finding that she could do so without any trouble, looked around. She was still in the hospital room, in a bed near a curtained window. There was an IV in one arm, and a machine near her head beeped along to her heartbeat. The screams were coming from outside her room. And they were getting louder.

Slowly she pulled herself upright. Every muscle in her body ached, and when she drew in a deep breath her ribs protested. She looked around the room; there was another hospital bed, empty. An IV rack lay across the crumpled sheets. The exit door was closed.

She stood up on wobbly legs, yanking the IV needle from her arm as she did. Clear liquid mixed with blood spattered her feet. Using the bed for support she worked her way around to the side nearest the door. Here she gathered her strength and wrenched herself upright, releasing the bed and using the wall as a brace as she made her way to the door. The noise level had increased, screams merging with raised voices and loud thuds, as if something was being thrown around.

By the time she reached the exit her legs were shaking and sweat lightly slicked her face. She leaned her head gratefully against the firm support of the door and took a precious few moments to corral her strength. Raising her head she peered through the small window centered in the door.

A cream-colored wall was directly opposite, one sign pointing right to the nurses’ station and another sign pointing left to the elevators. There was the sound of running feet and then three people, all in scrubs, ran through her viewpoint, right to left. Trailing them came a fourth person, an older man, also in scrubs. He was cradling his right arm across his chest and pressing his left hand against a bloody gash in the upper arm. A large group of people thundered by and the man was knocked aside. He slammed against the far wall and slid below the small window’s perspective. A smear of bright blood followed him down.

She stepped back, confused and afraid. Her hand rested on the door handle but she couldn’t make herself turn it. She needed to get out of this room, find someone who could tell her who she was and why she was here. But something very bad was going on in the hospital. Even with her lack of knowledge about her own self and what might be normal for her, people screaming and running and bleeding in the hallways couldn’t be normal for a hospital.

Now more noises were coming from outside her room. She pressed her face back up to the small window, straining for a glimpse of what was happening. Whoever had been screaming nearby had stopped, but other voices, further away, were raised in pain and fear and anger. Something that sounded very much like gunshots came to her, faintly. She thought about calling for help, and then decided against that. Drawing attention to herself right now might not be the best idea. For the time being, she was safe.

A rustling sound drew her back to the window. As she watched, the injured man who had been knocked down rose into view. He was facing away from her, swaying slightly. His arms hung limp at his sides and blood dripped from the injured one. Then the man turned, slowly, until he was facing her door. He looked bewildered and lost, and she could almost see his mind trying to turn over, like a car engine on a cold day. He finally seemed to see her, and their gazes locked.

And then he was gone, pulled down by someone moving very fast, a blur of pink fabric stained with something dark and wet-looking. They landed with a loud thud against the base of her door and she took a startled step back. The injured man began to wail, a sound of pure agony that was abruptly cut off. She could hear liquid tearing sounds. A thin line of blood slid in under the door.

She staggered away from the door, a hand clamped over her mouth. The large window next to her bed caught her eye and she worked her way over to it. The floor she was on was well up from the ground, and the height gave her a wide view of the outside.

Against a rich blue sky multiple columns of smoke climbed upwards from a sprawling cityscape. Directly below her window was a large parking lot full to capacity with cars, all trying to reach the street that ran adjacent to the lot. Where they hoped to go in their frantic rush wasn’t certain, as the street was also backed up with traffic. Horns were honking furiously and sirens clamored for attention. People were running between the stopped vehicles wildly. From this height they resembled marbles, crashing into each other as if they had been casually tossed to the ground. Someone, a woman she thought, stumbled and fell in the mad rush of people. No one stopped to help.

The sound of crunching metal drew her attention to where a long black car was forcing itself past the other stopped vehicles and up onto the sidewalk. Now free of obstacles the car roared headlong down the concrete walk, and those in the fleeing mob who weren’t able to get out of the way were mowed down. Loose-limbed bodies flew through the air, and where they landed they left bloody smears.

A burst of movement drew her eye and she saw three people peel off from the panicked mass and rush over to the fallen woman. They dropped to their knees around her, and even though their bodies blocked her from view, the bright red blood that spread out from the group was easily visible.

Gunshots split the air. Drivers were abandoning their vehicles now and joining the stream of fleeing people. From a spot just a few blocks away there came an enormous explosion and a fireball bloomed, adding its own stream of smoke to the sky. And above it all rose the screams.

She turned away, consumed by her own fear.
What the hell is going on?
It wasn’t safe outside the room, and it wasn’t safe outside the hospital.
I need to hide. Just for little while. Just until someone in charge comes along.
Tucked away in the corner near the empty bed was the entrance to the bathroom. She hurried inside and pulled the door shut behind her. It was made of thin material and did little to block out the noise from the madness raging through the hospital. She wedged herself in the space between the toilet and the wall, squeezing her eyes shut and finding with some surprise that she longed for the oblivion of just an hour ago.

Chapter Two

Then

She jerked awake. Feeling unconnected and strange, it took her a couple of minutes to gather her wandering thoughts. Then the events of the day came flooding back. It was dark in the bathroom, and the chaotic noises of earlier had ceased. Considering all that she had heard before, her surroundings were disturbingly quiet.

She eased out from her cramped hiding position and stood, her legs aching. Slowly she opened the door. The light panels in the ceiling shone incongruously bright and cheery, and for the first time since she woke to panicked screams she took in her surroundings. The room was empty, and the windows in the opposite wall showed that night had fallen. There was a television mounted on the wall facing the beds, but it was off and she couldn’t see a remote anywhere. Wooden cabinets surrounded a small sink in an alcove near the bathroom, and a couple of soft beige chairs were scattered randomly around the room. Medical equipment, machines that served some function beyond her knowing, was grouped around the head of each bed.

She stood in the middle of the room and wondered.
Whatever it was, whatever the cause of the chaos, was it still going on? What had happened in the hospital?
Where was everyone?
She crossed to the door and looked out the small inset window. The bloody smear on the wall and the threads of blood that had seeped under the door were still there.
If things were back to normal, wouldn’t someone have come by and cleaned the mess up? How dangerous is it outside?

“I can’t stay here.” The harsh croak of words startled her. Was that her voice? It didn’t sound familiar to her, but then again, would she even know if it did?
My name is-
she thought, and again found nothing. There was a black hole in her head where everything about herself should be. If she concentrated too much on that gaping nothingness she would fall in. Forcefully she turned her thoughts back to the here and now.

I can’t stay here. I don’t think it’s safe to stay here. I need to find someone who can tell me what’s going on. And maybe tell me who I am.
Her decision made, she reached for the door handle and then realized that she was only wearing a hospital gown.

She stepped back from the door and looked around the room again. The cabinets in the alcove caught her attention. A search of the top cabinets turned up only medical supplies, but a bottom drawer revealed a pair of blue jeans and a red button-up shirt. The pants were too short and the shirt too big, but at least she was clothed. Another search turned up a pair of worn sneakers that fit reasonably well.

There was a mirror in the bathroom. She studied the unfamiliar reflection. The woman in the silvered glass had a short crop of heavy, matte-black hair that lay close to the skull and thick brows over wide-spaced amber eyes. A thin, sharp nose over lips that were almost the same color as her skin, a light reddish-brown. A splattering of dark freckles arched across the bridge of the nose. High shelves of bone over sunken cheeks completed the facial features. There were dark smudges under her eyes and flecks of dried blood along her forehead. She puzzled over that for a moment. She hadn’t seen any scrapes or cuts on her body when she’d changed out of the hospital gown. There had been a black smear on the inside of her right arm, something that had wiped away easily, but that was all. She was tall, the top of her head nearly meeting the top of the mirror, and under her gown her body looked slightly starved, with ribs and hips precisely delineated under her skin.

She turned on the tap and splashed cold water on her face, then took a drink from the spigot. Dressed and more awake now, she also felt more confident. The fear and confusion from just a few minutes ago didn’t seem as important as finding out what was going on.

She turned away from the mirror and crossed to the exit door. Pressing her ear against the wood, she listened. Still nothing from the outside. She drew in a deep breath and turned the handle. The door opened inward faster than she expected, helped along by the two bodies slumped against it. She crouched down to look closer at them.

One of the bodies was that of the older man she had seen earlier. On his back, his head tipped to the side, the ragged hole where his throat should be was glaringly obvious. His blue scrub top had been torn away, exposing a gory slash in his rounded abdomen. Mangled coils of intestines intruded from the wound and drying blood was splashed on his face and chest in vertiginous swirls. A laminated ID on a lanyard gave the dead man’s name as Dr. Carlton Stover. She leaned in for a closer look at his face, and her stomach turned.
Oh, god, he’s missing an eye.