Read PODs for Free Online Page B

I turned and looked down the row of glass rooms. His was still empty. I was hoping that it was all a bad dream—that I’d wake up and he’d be there like he’d been every other morning.
    I looked back to Kelly. She held up her notepad before quickly laying it in her lap.
    Virus , she wrote.
    Where is he?
    DEAD .
    My blood ran cold. I dropped my notepad and scrambled backward, kicking against the floor with my feet, scooting myself across the tile floor until I was jammed between the toilet and the curtained wall. The only place in the room I could be alone, just me and my tears. And my fear.

    Quarantine, day seven
    One week down, one week to go. I was counting the hours. At least I was trying to. There wasn’t a clock in my observation room.
    Quarantine was brutal. Since the first guy had been dragged out of the facility two days before, three more had been removed. Each time, the screaming and pleading had been horrible. I had lain in my bunk with the pillow over my ears to block it out.
    Every morning I said a prayer of thanks that I’d made it through another night. My blood was clean… so far. Then I’d look around the other observation rooms and see who was missing.
    The only things that made the days bearable were the few people I’d learned to communicate with since quarantine began. We’d write notes on our notepads and use hand signals. We’d even developed our own form of sign language. It helped pass the time and kept us from going insane from lack of personal contact, because the nurses sure weren’t bubbly conversationalists. We affectionately called them Grumpy, Grumpier and Grumpiest.

    Quarantine, day eight
    I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep. It was always the worst time of day. Memories and fears suffocated me in the darkness.
    Memories of my parents were especially vivid at night. I stared at the ceiling and watched them play across the white surface like it was a movie screen. Birthdays and Christmases were all good memories, but so were the dance recitals my parents had never missed. Even the soccer team I’d played on that never won a match—my parents had still been at every game, cheering from the sidelines. And when we’d made our first goal of the season they’d cheered the loudest and acted the craziest. I smiled through my tears thinking of that day. That had been the only goal we’d made that year. My dad had said that it was special because it was the only one. I was only in first grade, but even I knew we sucked.
    I was still awake when a nurse pulled the curtain outside my room. I looked inside the rooms next to me; the curtains were pulled there, too.
    I heard a commotion in the hallway. The boy in the room to my right was asleep, but the boy to my left, Brad, was awake. I looked at him. He shrugged. We walked to the wall and listened. I couldn’t make out the noises. It sounded like scraping or scuffling. Whatever was making the noise was right in front of my room. My curtain moved back and forth. I backed away from the wall.
    A scream pierced the darkness and I jumped.
    “No, no, no!”
    The hall quieted. The commotion outside my curtained wall stopped. I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to walk back to the wall. Just as I reached the glass, something blew the curtain aside and I saw the wheels.
    I turned and ran across the room to my bunk, my bare feet slapping against the cold tile floor. I scrambled under the blankets on my bed and pulled the pillow over my head, squeezing my eyes closed.
    I knew what those wheels were attached to. And I didn’t want to be anywhere near it.
    I don’t know when I finally fell asleep. I don’t remember getting tired. I woke to the sound of the nurse calling my name through the intercom. It was time for my morning blood check.
    I climbed out of bed, walked to the wall, stuck my hand inside the box and waited for her to prick my finger and take her share of my blood. It was in the middle of the blood test that I noticed