Page 33 of Hunted By Fae

Still, there she is, moving from one bed to another, lifting bodies and draping them onto the wheelbarrow, then carting them out through the double exit doors, then returning—and doing it all over again.

I wonder how she fought it.

The sickness.

Could it not thread into her because of her strength?

Louise has been a ‘gym junkie’—as Tess calls it—since I met her.

Is that what saves her from the black plague?

Is it what saves me, that I am fit, that I take care of my physical body?

And that might be why Tesni is so ill, because her idea of hydration is ‘water is in my coffee’ and nutrition is ‘potato is a vegetable’ when she’s stuffing her face with fries.

Vegan she might be, but the unhealthy sort.

She’s always been that way.

And it shows.

Skinny-fat. Slim, but not strong.

Now, she’s just skinny.

I can’t get her to each much in the moments she’s lucid, and those moments are fewer by the hour.

This virus works fast.

If I estimate it right, this is her last day.

That’s the longest anyone has endured the black plague before their hearts have given out: Five days.

The nurses track it.

Time it.

And so that’s what I do.

I lift my wrist and eye the face of my watch.

The analogue hands tick to meet at twelve.

Midnight or midday, I can’t tell. Time is blended, woven together, an impossible task to untangle.

A sigh sags my shoulders as I reach for the notebook with the pen stuck in between the pages. I flip it open and, clicking the pen, mark a line next to a row of seven lines.

There.

Exactly eight lots of twelve-hour periods. Four days—and now, she’s entered her fifth.

I hold the notebook a while, fingers gripped so firm that the thick stacks of paper start to bow and dent.

I only snap out of my trance when the identifiable soft thuds of orthopaedic shoes hit the hard floor.

I lean back in my chair, angle my chin, and watch as Nurse Smith marches, urgent, for the double swing doors all the way across the basketball court.

Beyond those doors are two things: The final exit to the carpark of bodies, and the door to the kitchen.