Chapter 8

By the time they reached the veterinary clinic, Nina's arms were aching from wrestling with Elise, whose restraints had twisted around her wrists while she kept throwing herself toward anything that moved, and the sight of the familiar blue sign hanging crooked above the entrance nearly made Nina cry with relief. The place had always smelled of disinfectant, wet fur, and whatever disgusting treats Elise used to buy for Oscar whenever they brought him in, but now the windows were dark, the front door stood half open, and a brown stain had dried across the step beneath the handle. Daniel shoved his shoulder against the side entrance until the swollen wood gave way with a crack, sending dust into Rebecca's face while she cursed him for making enough noise to wake every dead bastard in the neighbourhood.

"Everybody get inside before those things follow us here, because I am not spending another afternoon running around the streets while my daughter tries to bite somebody's face off," Rebecca ordered, pulling Elise through the doorway as Nina struggled to keep the restraints from slipping out of her hands. "Daniel, check the back rooms, Nina, stay with me, and if anybody finds something useful in this bloody place, please bring it here instead of standing around staring at it."

The reception area looked as if somebody had turned the clinic upside down in a desperate attempt to find something worth stealing, with appointment cards scattered beneath the chairs, drawers hanging open, and an empty display cabinet smashed across the floor. Nina stepped around a broken glass jar while trying not to look at the dark smears leading toward the treatment room, because the last thing she needed was another reminder that people were bleeding and dying everywhere they went, and the only person who could explain what was happening was a ridiculously handsome man who had vanished down the street without offering so much as a bloody name.

She shoved the thought aside and followed Rebecca behind the reception desk, where the medicine cabinet hung open with its shelves almost completely bare. Someone had taken the bandages, disinfectant, syringes, and most of the bottles, leaving a few scattered packets of gauze and a cracked container that smelled so foul Nina immediately covered her nose.

"Who the hell empties a veterinary clinic during an apocalypse and leaves behind nothing but rubbish, because I would quite like to meet the genius who decided that rotten medical supplies were going to save anybody's life," Nina muttered, pulling open another drawer and finding nothing except a dead cockroach and a collection of expired invoices.

Rebecca ignored her while examining the remaining bottles, checking labels and dates with hands that trembled whenever she glanced toward Elise, who had begun dragging her heels against the floor and making low, wet noises in her throat. Daniel returned from the back corridor carrying a metal examination frame and a thick lead, his expression sour enough to suggest the entire building had personally offended him.

"I found a cupboard full of cleaning products and enough broken equipment to open a bloody museum, but there might be something useful in the treatment room if whoever robbed this place didn't take the entire building with them," he said, dropping the frame beside the wall. "We need somewhere to secure Elise before she gets loose again, because I am running out of furniture and patience at roughly the same speed."

A muffled thump came from behind the storage-room door, followed by a frightened gasp that made everyone turn toward the sound. Daniel lifted the hammer while Rebecca pulled Nina behind her, and when he yanked the door open, a young woman crouched between bags of animal feed and stacked cardboard boxes, clutching a pair of scissors so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

"Please don't hit me with that hammer, because I've been hiding in this cupboard since yesterday and I genuinely cannot cope with another person screaming at me while I try to work out whether I'm about to get eaten," she blurted, raising the scissors in front of her face.

Daniel stared at her before lowering the hammer slightly, although he kept his body between the woman and Elise, whose head had turned toward the sound of another living voice.

"Put those scissors down before somebody makes a terrible decision, because none of us has the energy for a fight and I would prefer not to add another bleeding idiot to the collection," he said.

The woman lowered the scissors slowly and introduced herself as Lucy Hart, a veterinary assistant who had returned to collect her belongings after the clinic closed early. She explained that the owner had tried to save a dog that stopped breathing during an examination, only for the animal to snap awake and tear through his hand after he declared it dead, and the memory made her grip the edge of the shelf as though she could still hear the screaming that followed.

"He kept saying the dog was gone, that its heart had stopped and there was nothing left to do, but the bloody thing opened its eyes and bit straight through him while he was leaning over the table," Lucy said, her voice shaking as she glanced toward the treatment room. "He ran out through the back door, and I heard him screaming in the street, but I never saw him come back, so please don't ask me whether he survived because I can't tell you anything I didn't actually see."

Rebecca slowly lowered the bottle she had been examining, her expression tightening as she looked at the bloodstains near the treatment room and then at Elise, whose grey fingers were scraping against the restraints. The infection had spread beyond hospitals, beyond the people who collapsed in supermarkets and came back with their mouths full of blood, and whatever was happening to the dead had found its way into animals that had never been near a hospital.

Rebecca searched the treatment room while Lucy helped Daniel secure the metal frame against the wall, and Nina knelt beside Elise, who had stopped struggling long enough to look at her with a faint trace of recognition beneath the cloudy film covering her eyes. The moment made Nina's throat tighten, because she could still remember Elise laughing over breakfast and stealing sweets from the shopping trolley, and now she was sitting beside her with a lead wrapped around her wrists like some dangerous animal they were afraid to approach.

"Lis, look at me properly, because I need you to tell me whether you're still in there somewhere and whether you can understand what I'm saying to you," Nina whispered, brushing a strand of damp hair away from her friend's forehead.

Elise's mouth trembled as she tried to speak, and for several seconds the only sound coming from her was a rough, painful rasp that made Nina wonder whether she was going to attack her again. Then Elise swallowed and looked at Nina's face, her eyes shifting toward the bloodstained sleeve covering Nina's hand.

"Are they going to fix me, Nina, or are you all just keeping me tied up because you're frightened I'll wake up and start eating somebody before you can get away from me?" she asked, her voice so weak that Nina had to lean closer to hear her.

Nina squeezed her hand despite the way Elise's fingers twitched against her palm, forcing a smile that felt like a cruel joke even before she opened her mouth.

"We're going to find somebody who can help you, and until we do, I'm staying right here with you, so don't start making plans to get rid of me because I have survived twenty years of your nonsense and I'm not letting you turn into a bloody zombie and ruin my record," she promised.

Elise studied her for a long moment before looking down at their joined hands, and the little smile that appeared on her cracked lips hurt Nina more than the sight of the blood covering her mouth.

"You're lying because you need to believe there's still something you can do for me, aren't you, because I can see how frightened you are whenever I move and I don't want you wasting your life trying to save somebody who might not even remember your name tomorrow."

Before Nina could answer, Rebecca called them toward the treatment room, where she had found a bottle of sedative with a damaged label and an uncertain amount of liquid remaining inside. She refused to administer it without knowing the correct dose, snapping at Daniel when he suggested using enough to knock Elise unconscious, because she wasn't going to poison her daughter with medication intended for an animal simply because everyone was desperate.

The old landline rang while Rebecca was still arguing with him, its shrill sound cutting through the clinic so abruptly that Lucy nearly dropped the bottle she was holding. She stared at the telephone as though it had grown teeth, then hurried to answer it, hoping somebody from the emergency services had managed to find a working line.

A man's voice came through the receiver, calm enough to sound obscene against the distant screaming and the pounding of something outside the clinic, and he asked whether the infected girl was still alive before Lucy had even managed to identify herself.

Lucy gripped the telephone tighter as the caller described the clinic, the number of people hiding inside, and the sedative they had found, then warned them that military units were beginning to seal the roads leading toward the city centre.

When Lucy demanded to know who he was and how he knew what was happening inside the building, the man gave her the name of the clinic's owner, and the scissors slipped from her other hand as recognition drained the colour from her face.

Then the caller asked to speak to Nina Calloway specifically, even though Nina had never told Lucy her full name, and before anybody could reach for the telephone, the front door handle began turning from the outside.