Dogs Read Online Free Page B

She—
    â€œMove, move!” Rosita. Cami was moving as fast as she could, but Rosita never let up. Well, maybe that was okay, even if the other nurses didn’t like it. The Tyler Community ER was very well run, everybody said so. Last year they’d gotten an award for it.
    A mini-van pulled up under the portico and Cami rushed over.
    This patient was an old lady and the bite was on her leg. Blood and shredded flesh obscured the depth of the wound. She had to be in pain, but old people so often tried to not display it. Instead her wrinkled face showed enormous bewilderment. “He bit me,” she kept saying. “Dragged himself over to my chair and bit me. Older than I am practically, no trouble all these years, and he bit me.”
    â€œWe’ll get you all fixed up, Mrs. Carby,” Mary Brown said soothingly. She was good at soothing patients, Mary was. Cami admired her.
    â€œBut he bit me! I called 911 right away, but…why on God’s green Earth would he bite me?”
    â€œI can handle this, Cami,” Mary said. “You wait for the peds patient.”
    Cami hurried over to Rosita just as Dr. Olatic, Chief of Medicine, walked into the ER. Probably Dr. Baker would arrive soon. Rosita had the phone in her hand again. She addressed Dr. Olatic. “Two more dog bites coming in, one possibly fatal. Pit bull. 911 is sending them here by car now, no more ambulances are available. That makes six bad bites this morning.”
    â€œSix?” Dr. Olatic said. “Six?”
    â€œSix.”
    Dr. Olatic questioned Rosita about the patients and then said, “Where are the animal control people?”
    â€œJess Langstrom called to find out if we knew what was going on, Doctor. His team is out following up and collecting dog bodies.”
    â€œCollecting?” Olatic said sharply. “Are the dogs dying?”
    â€œI don’t know. But apparently some owners have shot them after they bit, and some are shut up in houses, and— ”
    The phone rang again.
    Rosita stared at it a fraction of a second, picked it up, and listened. When she hung up, her usually sharp black eyes held an expression Cami had never expected to see there: fear. “Another two, Doctor. Both teenagers bit by the same dog. 911 told their parents to bring them here.”
    â€œJesus.” For a moment nobody spoke. Then Dr. Olatic said to the wide-eyed secretary, “Call Public Health. Get Alec Ramsay on the line and tell him I said they should call the CDC.”

» 7
    Jess and Billy had two dog bodies in the truck, Princess and a dachshund named Schopenhauer, who had also been shot. The dachshund had left its own property, which the shaken owner said it never did, and attacked a woman shoveling her driveway. The woman’s husband heard screams, rushed out with his hunting rifle, and shot the dog.
    â€œI don’t understand it,” the owner said. He was a very thin middle-aged man who, he said, lived alone. “Schopenhauer never leaves our property, never. And he is—was—so good with people!”
    Not this time, Jess thought grimly. He’d collected the information from the owner, and it followed what was by now a familiar pattern: unprovoked dog suddenly goes berserk for no reason and bites the nearest person, snarling like there was no tomorrow. Eight cases this morning.
    Billy, after a stretch of uncharacteristic silence, said, “What the hell do you think is going on, Jess?”
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe some kind of dog sickness spreading…I’m no vet. That’s Dr. Venters’ territory.”
    â€œDoc Venters couldn’t find his ass with both hands. I wouldn’t let him treat me for a hangnail.”
    â€œI don’t think dogs get hangnails,” Jess said, and Billy laughed. The laugh was one of the reasons he’d hung in there with Billy all these years. Straight from the belly, full and large and unfettered, the