We All Sleep Alone Read online

  WE ALL SLEEP ALONE

  FINLEY CREEK: DISASTER Book 3

  CALLE J BROOKES

  WE ALL SLEEP ALONE

  Copyright © 2020 by Calle J. Brookes

  978-1-948328-08-1

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  For information contact:

  www.callejbrookes.com

  * * *

  Book and Cover design by C.J. BROOKES

  * * *

  First Edition: OCT:2020

  REED:112920

  * * *

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Also by CALLE J BROOKES

  I shall be telling this with a sigh

  Somewhere ages and ages hence:

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  —Robert Frost

  1

  It was going to happen, going to hit them straight on.

  Dr. Allen Jacobson wrapped his arms around the nurse next to him and yanked her behind the intake counter. It was the two of them now. Everyone else had evacuated the ER with the warning siren and headed toward the inner corridors, following the hospital’s tornado warning plan. But this nurse had been ahead of him in the parking lot.

  He thought. He hadn’t been paying much attention. Just running from the storm. He hadn’t even looked close to enough to see which nurse it was.

  The woman and her daughter who’d come in after everything was secured were curled on the floor together a good twenty feet away from him and the nurse.

  Allen wouldn’t be able to get to them. To get them away from the glass entryway.

  Glass could be so deadly.

  The roar of the wind drowned out their screams.

  Glass shattered around them. It hadn’t stopped. Ceiling tiles bounced off his back. Allen tightened his hold on the woman in his arms. She screamed—once—as the storm struck.

  He’d never forget her scream. The fear.

  The wind pulled at him, yanking at his clothes. Allen pulled her to her feet. They had to get to some sort of better shelter.

  He shoved her toward the underside of the desk. She was small; she fit. He managed to get himself partially under the large desk with her. He covered her head with one hand and pulled her to his chest.

  She had short hair, soft as silk.

  He didn’t know why that stuck with him, but it did.

  Allen’s arms tightened around her.

  Even the desk could turn deadly if the wind grabbed it. He wasn’t about to let her go. He yelled that it would be ok, would be over soon. He doubted she heard him. Small hands tightened on his arms.

  She felt so damned breakable.

  Metal and wood scraped against itself, a shrill sound unlike any he had ever heard before. The sprinklers turned on.

  He prayed it wasn’t because of fire. Fire would make this so much worse.

  Dust flew sideways around them. Stealing breath.

  Everything crashed down around them. Leaving them in total darkness. He didn’t move. Not yet.

  There were backup generators located at the rear of the hospital. They might kick on—but if the generators had been hit, the hospital would be in darkness.

  He had his phone in his pocket.

  Allen pulled back from the nurse in his arms. “You ok?”

  “Yes. I think so.” Her words were shaky. He couldn’t blame her. “How badly were we hit?”

  “Hard.” Allen shone the flashlight on his phone at the woman. He knew it was one of the ER nurses—he’d recognized the familiar green scrubs—but he hadn’t had time to get a close enough look to see which one it was.

  Izzie, the third-shift nurse who liked to snip at doctors, stared right back at him out of terrified dark eyes. Eyes that dominated her pixie-cute face.

  He’d never seen her scared before.

  “The woman and her daughter?”

  He turned the phone toward the last place he had seen them.

  A child’s booted foot was all he saw. Debris covere
d everything but that one tiny foot.

  Allen jumped to his feet, kicking ceiling tiles out of his way. Izzie was right behind him.

  When he touched the little girl’s leg, she cried out. He gave a quick prayer of thanks that she was still alive. Alive meant hope. He tossed his phone at the nurse. “Point the light this way.”

  By the time he got half the debris off the girl, people were moving back into the ER.

  What remained of the ER looked like a war zone.

  Three nurses he recognized pointed their phones in his direction to get him more light while doing what they could to shift the rubble.

  Another crew worked nearby to find the girl’s mother.

  Allen pulled the last of the rubble off the child. An orderly had a backboard ready. “On three.”

  Allen counted it off. He, Millie, and Jade lifted the little girl carefully. Allen knew the procedures for a major catastrophic event involving the ER. He knew what his role was going to be.

  He looked at the man heading the team to extract the mother.

  “Do we have any portion of the building still operational?”

  Rafe Holden-Deane, chief of medicine, nodded. “But we may have to do large-scale evacuations when we’re certain the weather has stabilized.”

  “In the meantime?”

  “Your department is still standing—running backup generators for now—but we’re going to have to carry patients up stairwells to get them there.”

  “Then let’s get them up there.”

  Two orderlies took over for him.

  “First, you need that gash on your head taken care of.” Rafe used his own phone to gesture toward Allen’s head.

  Allen didn’t remember getting hit. He touched his forehead. There was blood. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re a contamination hazard. One we can’t afford right now.”

  “I’ll clean him up,” the nurse who’d ridden through the storm with him said. She’d been at his side since the storm had hit, hands ready to get him everything he’d needed in an instant. Almost before he’d needed it.

  She hadn’t panicked even once.

  He didn’t know where she’d found half the supplies she had provided, but she had.

  She was good. Definitely good at what she did. He’d make certain Rafe knew that. When this was over.

  Rafe nodded. “Go.”

  Allen followed the nurse toward the rear stairwell. There was a supply cabinet under there that had basics for these very kinds of emergencies. He thanked God they had some parts of the hospital still standing. “Hurry. We need to get back out there.”

  “Yes. Is the storm over?”

  Allen thought about the damage that had been done to one of the strongest buildings in the city. If the hospital had suffered such damage, it could be total hell out there now. “I think our storm may have just begun.”

  Emergency lighting flicked on over their heads. She grabbed a bottle of antiseptic and some butterfly bandages and went to work.

  Allen got his first real look at the woman working on his forehead.

  His gaze dropped to the name tag still clipped to her top. He didn’t think he’d ever been this close to Izzie M. before.

  He hadn’t even fully remembered her name, to his own shame.

  Her rich, dark hair was cropped short and now covered in plaster dust. Her dark eyes dominated her pixyish face. She was one of those nurses who buzzed around the ER on second and third shift. There were three or four of them that he didn’t know well, a dozen more he didn’t know at all. He very rarely was on the schedule during second or third shifts.

  All he had ever cared about was that there was a pair of helping hands when he needed them.

  Quiet, efficient, never causing any trouble.

  Interchangeable.

  He hadn’t looked that closely at them, not lately.

  It didn’t matter which of the staff that was.

  Except for Jillian—Jillian was a fiery redhead who had nearly died because of Allen. Jillian was hard to forget.

  He didn’t remember if she’d been there a moment ago. “Was Jillian back there?”

  “With Rafe. She’s ok. Nobody seemed hurt. Except you.” She worked quickly, cleaning his wound expertly. “But I heard some of the other wings have injuries. I think they are being diverted to Dr. Kaur in the rear of the building.”

  He nodded. “They were all in the hallways with the patients. Except us.”

  “I almost didn’t make it inside. I came in right behind that woman. If you hadn’t grabbed me...” She shivered. Allen didn’t want to think about it. No one outside could have survived that storm. “We...I don’t know what to do right now.”

  “We do what we always do. We treat the people in the hospital.” Thunder cracked overhead. She jumped, spilling the alcohol down the front of her scrubs. Allen’s hand rose to steady hers.

  Izzie had small, pretty hands. Hands that were scraped raw from helping dig through rubble to free a child.

  “And we prepare for more. Because they will come here first.”

  “I—” Fear. Her fear struck him hard. “I don’t know where Annie or Nikkie Jean are. Or Fin.”

  He recognized every name. His friends, too. People he cared about. “Stay close to me. We’ll get through this.”

  He didn’t know what made him say it. It might have been the big brown eyes that reminded him of another woman who had wanted him to save her once before.

  He’d failed Jess. He wasn’t going to fail anyone else again.

  2

  Izzie stuck close to Dr. Jacobson. The ER staff had divided itself up into teams. Rafe and the head of security, Vincent—who’d taken a piece of shrapnel to his shoulder but was walking around in a makeshift sling—were inspecting every floor, along with any spare nonessential personnel they could gather up. Cage Ralstone had another team in the first-floor stairwell, handling moderate injuries. Shrapnel had sliced through Cage’s arm when he was trying to dig Dr. Kaur out of the partially collapsed maternity ward, but he was still capable of treating patients—he was doing it one-handed.

  Whatever had hit the city, it had been bad. An F4, people were saying. Possibly an F5.

  She’d gotten lucky to make it inside. Just how lucky was something Izzie would never forget.

  What she didn’t know was where her friends were.

  Annie had been supposed to be at city hall today, convincing the mayor to spare her neighborhood in his recent development project. Izzie prayed Annie had found a safe place between the hospital and city hall.

  Terror was hiding the truth.

  Annie and Nikkie Jean were out there. Somewhere. Probably in trouble. Otherwise, they’d be here helping by now.

  She couldn’t get to them.

  No matter what she wanted.

  All hospital staff had been accounted for. Except her closest friends—Annie, Fin, and Nikkie Jean.

  She couldn’t let the fear paralyze her.

  They needed every hand on deck right now. Their hospital wasn’t equipped for this.

  She didn’t think there ever could be one.

  Rumor had it that Finley Creek County Hospital had also taken a hit, but not as bad as FCGH. They were already diverting some of their patients to County and to Barratt County General down in Value.

  Nikkie Jean could be at Barratt County. She lived down in that direction—the father of Nikkie Jean’s baby ran that hospital. Maybe they were together. That was possible. Nikkie Jean could have headed there to help. She’d heard Rafe and Dr. Jacobson talking about diverting some incoming in that direction.

  Barratt County could take up to three dozen of their patients now.

  Patients couldn’t stay in the ER or critical unit, but it was going to take time to get everyone transferred to safer locations.

  Thankfully, the original wing to the hospital could operate as a self-contained unit. Everything else had been added around it. It had its own infrastructure—and was operational.
<
br />   Rafe and Vincent were implementing the emergency plan now. Slowly but surely, everyone was getting moved. Then this part of the building would be shut down for safety.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it was a plan.

  They would do what they had to do to keep FCGH open for the people of Finley Creek that needed it.

  Dr. Jacobson finished setting the stitches in the teenage boy who had sliced open his arm pulling debris off his seven-year-old cousin and turned to her.

  “Now, what? Where do we go next?”