Read Zombies! (Episode 4): The Sick and the Dead for Free Online Page A

either. Especially after a week of self doubt and self loathing, the ego boost was just was the doctor ordered.
     
    ***
     
    SO Peter Ventura was chief of the ER at Sisters of Charity for two weeks on the day that Denise Luco met with 2 lawyers, a bureaucrat, and a PR man. It was a difficult transition, the one from full time doctor to full time administrator. He was often taken from patients in order to deal with schedules and budgets. He was in charge of a staff that differed dramatically from the staff that had been under Veronica Leke. The most notable change in staff was the addition of armed security personnel. There were guns in the ER. The pressure from above was different as well. The hospital administration gave him no quarter. They treated him like a seasoned veteran and scolded him for his rookie mistakes. A week in, he blew up at the board, telling them to go ahead and find someone else because he was done with the job. But there was no one else and they begged him back, promising to be more understanding of his position. It was a matter of hours before they broke that promise but Peter was mollified by the knowledge that he could do as he pleased with almost complete impunity.
     
    The biggest transition, though, had nothing to do with his new position. He found that his perspective as a doctor had been altered. He could no longer view patients in the same way. Setting a broken bone was one thing but he couldn't help thinking that behind every cough and cold that came through the doors lurked a zombie. Absolutely everyone was tested for the infection. It slowed down the patient turnover rate dramatically. Even with half of the population having vacated the city, the ER was still busy on a regular basis. The extra lab work kept people hanging around for far longer than necessary. Peter suggested that they let the people go home and follow up on the labs later, but that was quickly and rudely shot down. You can't just let infected people walk away. But better than ninety nine percent of them were free of the infection anyway. The truth was that it just wasn't that prevalent. There were, however, those few who really were sick. It was scary.
     
    Peter told every positive patient himself. Though some might think that the other doctors would be glad to be relieved of such a burden, that was not the feeling. His actions actually generated resentment among the staff. To them, it seemed as if he was armoring himself in both his title and his trauma. It seemed to them that he looked down upon them as unable to convey the necessary sentiment. Or perhaps they were just unworthy. The truth was that he was no better at it than anyone else. In fact, he was probably worse. Peter passed along the news with absolutely no emotion whatsoever. His mind dropped a shield in place that blocked out anything that he might find hurtful. Though being a victim might have helped him commiserate with these poor people, it was something that his fragile mind could not allow him to face head on.
     
    Today he was busy. People were flooding through the doors with a variety of maladies, most of which could have easily been self-treated at home. He felt very on edge. He snapped at three people before finally taking himself away from the ER to gather his strength. It was while he was taking this break that a medical student brought him a lab report that was stamped as positive for the zombie infection. Peter stared at it for a full two minutes, trying to will it to be different. But it would not change. This person, this twelve year old boy who'd come through the door coughing up blood and had been diagnosed with pneumonia, was going to die and become a zombie. How was Peter supposed to tell him? How was he supposed to tell the mother?
     
    There was a protocol in place for plague victims. They were all to be transported to Arthur Conroy Memorial Hospital in Manhattan. Peter had never been there but he supposed that was where the city had set up