This Dark Earth Read Online Free Page B

easily than she thought possible. The haft popped the sclera and crushed the vitreous fluid from the eyeball. The needle jutted from the ocular cavity. The contortionist fell backward, pawing at the handle of the needle. He flopped to the floor, squirmed, then stilled.
    How horrible, to die twice in a single day .
    Looking beyond him, Lucy saw the waiting room had turned bloody during her palaver with Robbins and Martha. The foul-mouthed old lady with the religious bent shuffled slowly past the fake ficus and turned toward Lucy. Again, milky eyes glared at her. Lucy couldn’t pin it down exactly, but there didn’t seem to be any awareness in those eyes. It was as if some deep-sea creature felt eddies and currents spun off a passing fish and moved to attack, working on pure instinct.
    She can smell, maybe. Hear sound or feel the vibrations of air. The eyes don’t move in the sockets, they don’t track. But she knows I’m here. The glassiness would occlude sight somewhat. If she can see me, I’m very blurry .
    The woman lurched forward. Her legs and arms seemed to tremor still.
    For a moment, Lucy stood paralyzed. The sight of the woman, half of her face missing and the entirety of her front covered in blood, locked her in place.
    “Lucy!” Robbins’s voice came from her left. “The doors are open. Come on.”
    Everything happened at once. The clinic’s front door exploded inward, billowing smoke. The explosion knocked Lucy sideways, toward Robbins and Martha. Her head smacked against the wall and the world went white and then tilted horribly as she fell.
    When she sat up, men in black military garb poured through the husk of doorway, wearing masks that obscured their faces, their weapons raised. Lucy made herself move. Pushing at the floor with her hands, she scrambled to her feet, head spinning, and threw herself after Robbins. The back doors began to close just as she passed through.
    Behind her, a cacophony of gunfire ripped through the smoke, and she felt more than sensed the hard motes of bullets filling the air around her. Something spun off Lucy’s skull, and she pitched forward onto the tile floor.
    The doors behind her closed seconds after she saw the soldiers begin shooting people in the waiting room, but not before she saw one of the patients lurch toward a figure in black, knock his gun aside, and drag him to the floor. Bullets ripped through the bloody old woman, yet she didn’t fall. She lurched and turned toward her attacker.
    It wasn’t until bullets began ripping through the door that Lucy forced herself up again. The screams grew louder, the gunfire wilder and more frantic.
    Tracers swam in the corners of her vision, and she found her body responding sluggishly to her own commands.
    Robbins and Martha had already disappeared down the hall, and Lucy nearly bowled over Martha as she rounded the corner. The woman, shell-shocked and stunned, stared down at the floor. Robbins lay on his side, clutching his calf with both hands, trying to stem the flow of blood.
    “They shot me.” He looked at Lucy, eyes wide and bulging, and then laughed. “They shot me! I’m a doctor, for chrissake!”
    Lucy knelt and looked at him closer, puzzled by the crimson that spotted his shirt.
    “Are you hit in the chest?”
    “No.” He nodded at her hair. “Looks like they got you too.”
    She touched her scalp. A long, wet furrow traced the left side of her skull. It throbbed, and suddenly, Lucy became aware of the pain.
    She reached for his belt.
    “Hey!”
    She laughed, maybe a little too wildly.
    “Robby, I’m not gonna rape you right here.” She unbuckled the belt and ripped it from his pants. “I’ll wait till later.”
    After tying off his calf, she helped him up. Down the hall, the gunfire continued in spurts.
    “We’ve got to get out of here. There’s an emergency exit at the end of this hall. We’ll have to cross the picnic area to get to our cars. You still have your keys, Robby?”
    He nodded,