A great review for “Trial of the Heart!
August started with a bang! I’m so proud! As a friend would say, I’m “popping my collar!” Instagram book influencer “She_reads_well” included “Trial of the Heart” in her July reads and gave it five stars! Get your copy!
Here’s the next installment of my zombie novel, “Doe.” Go back and read the previous installments: Part one and Part two.
Doe: Zombies at the Border
Synopsis: In this ripped-from-the-headlines romantic horror thriller, Doe Santiago, a Chicago EMT with a gift for healing, gets a strange message from her brother, Luis. He has been detained at the Mexican border with his daughter, Jasmine, in the midst of a viral outbreak that is turning victims into flesh-eating creatures. When Doe heads South to locate her brother, she never thought she'd find a conspiracy that would threaten the world.
Chapter three: The Last Ride
Hiram made the jump, turning 8 feet of wagon into what seemed like a narrow crevice. He had a short window to cross into traffic and make it to the exit lane toward Grand Avenue in downtown Chicago. Seconds ticked by, but all he could do was gun the engine to get across three lanes of cars driving sixty miles per hour, and then make a sharp left onto the exit. “Brace yourself!” he screamed.
The vehicle swung a crazy left and then sped across the highway, narrowly missing a car, an SUV and an Uber. Horns honked and drivers cursed. He took another sharp left and a right before straightening out. He headed down Grand Avenue in a serpentine weave, dodged cars and pedestrians.
Doe tilted James’s head back slightly to open his airway. She pushed hard and fast on the middle his the chest, not too high and not too low. Doe climbed on top of him and straddled his midsection. She needed to use her body weight to keep him from steady while she pressed thirty times and then breathed into his mouth.
She checked for pulse and breaths.
Nothing,
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, one, two three four ...” She pushed to the tune of the Bee-Gees “Staying Alive” in her head. That’s what they taught the civilians, but she always found it helpful. She kept pushing.
“Staying alive, staying alive, ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive,” Doe pushed.
Still nothing. She began to panic but suddenly calmed herself and took in deep breaths. All the calamity around her -- Hiram's driving, cars honking -- melted away as she touched the cross around her neck.
"Holy Spirit, give me the strength and your gift to heal this man."
Her hands warmed to the touch as she put one palm on his head and the other on his heart. The heat spread through the biker's body. Doe began to pour sweat.
Hiram looked over his shoulder briefly to tell Doe they were almost there but he couldn't believe the scene of calm in the back of the bus. His gaze couldn't linger. He had to look back to traffic.
After the "intervention" — that's what Doe called these healings — she started CPR one more time. After another thirty beats and a breath, Doe checked for a pulse. She felt it. It was weak, but it was something. Hiram pulled into the ER lane at Northwestern Memorial.
Nurses dressed in green scrubs and and a doctor in a white coat awaited them. They opened the back doors and saw the patient, Doe taking vitals medical supplies strewn all around the wagon. They pulled James towards them on the gurney out of the vehicle and the wheeled legs automatically unfolded with a click. They pushed him through the wide sliding doors, with Doe walking alongside holding a saline bag. She handed off the bag to the nurse.
“He coded but I performed CPR and he’s back. Pulse forty, BP eighty over fifty,” Doe told the medical staff. They began shouting to colleagues and wheeled him to the operating room.
And that was it. It always felt strange handing off a patient to someone else when you’ve done your best to save him. But that’s the job: Working to same patients, training her rookie partner and trying to keep herself together at the same time.
She walked out to find Hiram sitting on the curb, smoking a cigarette. He looked wiped out.
“Are you OK? I thought you told me you quit when we first met.”
“Doe, I’m seriously going to get written up for this. I crossed into upcoming traffic on the LAKE SHORE DRIVE!”
“But you saved a guy’s life,” she said. “And you didn’t kill anyone. All in a good day’s work, right?” She laughed. He looked up incredulously and took a drag.
"Uh, what were you doing to that guy?"
"What do you mean? I was performing CPR."
"Yeah, but what ELSE were you doing?" Doe shook her head and laughed.
“Come on, Hot Rod,” she said. “Let’s pack everything up and get going.”
“Hot Rod?” In an instant, he knew that’d be his firehouse nickname. “Yep,” Doe said, “We all have one, and with those driving moves, this is gonna be yours.”
Come back next time for Chapter 4.
Your sister in Christ,
THE BOOKSHELF
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Books by Yvette Walker
Yvette Walker is a journalist, educator, and the founder of Positively Joy Ministries. Her ministry supports this blog, a podcast, publishing her many books and opportunities to share the message of joy as a speaker.
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