Rewriting the Apocalypse novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Glove

Bess Mulligan did not ask a single question.

She opened the green door at nine that night, took one look at the four of them on her step, and said, "Back room. Boots off. I'll make soup."

Jo had called her from a payphone, which Sam had spent forty minutes finding.

Bess had said only, "I'll leave the light on."

Now the stranger from Sublevel 3 lay asleep on a cot in the supply room with a blanket up to his chin.

Sam sat on the floor beside him, in case he woke and did not know where he was.

Jo stood in the clinic kitchen with her back against the sink, shaking.

Her head ached behind both eyes.

The nosebleed had stopped hours ago, but the shake in her hands had not.

"Sit," Bess said, and set a mug of tomato soup in front of her.

Jo sat.

"Eat that," Bess said. "And you." She pointed at Eli, who had been standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets since they came in. "You're bleeding on my floor."

Jo looked up.

A dark line ran down the side of his left hand, from the glove cuff to his knuckles.

She had not noticed it.

"It's nothing," Eli said.

"Sit," Bess said. "I have a field kit older than you. Give me the hand."

"I can do it myself."

"With one hand? Sit down."

He sat at the table across from Jo with a look of faint dread.

Bess pulled his hand out of his pocket and began to unbutton the glove.

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