Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Day Time Ran Out
    The Day Time Ran Out
    The Day Time Ran Out
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    The Day Time Ran Out

    By Darrel Bird

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    There was always time, until there wasn't! A Hollywood couple find themselves living in a world filled with the dead. The society they have known quickly breaks down as plague sweeps the land. They bind together with a few other survivors in an attempt to survive the last days on earth.

    **Please leave a review for this book**
    Thank you

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDarrel Bird
    Release dateMay 28, 2011
    ISBN9781458036469
    The Day Time Ran Out
    Author

    Darrel Bird

    Darrel Bird has written and published 47 short stories. He attended Bakersfield college, and is an avid motorcyclist.

    Read more from Darrel Bird

    Related to The Day Time Ran Out

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Exploring The Boundaries

      May 31, 2018

      The human body: a horse gliding through a field. A monkey skipping between branches. A comet hurtling through the black moors of space. The human body can be these things, or anything, without pain. Sontag famously declared that “everyone who is born

      16 min read

    • Article

      Wait Times

      Mar 29, 2021

      Wait Times
      16 min read

    • Article

      Out Of Prison, The ‘Father Of Gene Therapy’ Faces A Harsh Reality: A Tarnished Legacy And An Ankle Monitor

      Jul 23, 2018

      “I used to be famous and now I’m infamous": After his release from prison, gene therapy pioneer and convicted child molester Dr. W. French Anderson disses CRISPR and talks about…

      15 min read

    • Article

      Secrets Of The Dead

      Aug 7, 2020

      Secrets Of The Dead
      7 min read

    • Article

      Bill Bryson's Latest Is A Different Kind Of Journey — Into 'The Body'

      Oct 14, 2019

      Bryson is beloved for his travel writing, but in his new book he's undertaking an interior journey, looking at everything from medical oddities to the amazing way your body fights off most cancers.

      3 min read

    • Article

      All Hail The Gene Queen

      Dec 4, 2020

      All Hail The Gene Queen
      10 min read

    • Article

      A Cardiologist’s 9/11 Story

      Sep 13, 2018

      The morgue was inside Brooks Brothers. I was standing at the corner of Church and Dey, right next to the rubble of the World Trade Center, when a policeman shouted that doctors were needed at the menswear emporium inside the building at One Liberty P

      14 min read

    • Article

      ‘The Clap For The NHS Meant Nothing’: Novelist Turned Doctor Roopa Farooki On Her Frontline Experience Of Covid

      Jan 22, 2022

      In February 2020, when the novelist and doctor Roopa Farooki first sat down to write her latest book, coronavirus was “something that was kind of buzzing around” in the background. “Those of us going to work every day in a hospital, we weren’t really

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Nurse’s Coronavirus Routine: Recording Videos She Hopes Her Family Will Never Need To Watch

      Apr 3, 2020

      Anticipating a call to treat #coronavirus patients in the ICU, a Seattle nurse makes videos for her family — just in case she doesn't come home one day.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Robin Abcarian: A Memoir Unlike Any You've Read: A Young Woman's Inspiring Struggle With Her Invisible Killer

      Mar 11, 2019

      Mallory Smith was a toddler in 1995 when doctors finally diagnosed her persistent cough and runny nose: cystic fibrosis. Life expectancy for the disease at the time was between 25 and 30 years. Upon hearing the news, her mother collapsed. "Our new no

      5 min read

    • Article

      Covid Patients Reunited With The Medics Who Saved Them

      Aug 7, 2021

      In a light-filled studio in east London, a petite woman in scrubs receives a bouquet of flowers from a tall man, dressed smartly, only faintly out of breath. The room is thick with emotion. They are strangers, but stare at each other with wonder in t

      15 min read

    • Article

      Pleasure Palace

      Sep 1, 2022

      Pleasure Palace
      15 min read

    • Article

      The Happiest Man in the World

      Oct 31, 2023

      Several years ago, a British man named Harry picked his nose. A hidden camera recorded him in this private moment, then someone uploaded the video to the internet, and soon Harry’s pratfall exploded into a worldwide meme. Millions of people—most of t

      9 min read

    • Article

      Where There Is No Hospital

      Mar 8, 2022

      Where There Is No Hospital
      15 min read

    • Article

      A Story In Notes

      Sep 25, 2023

      For five years, I have been collecting medical anecdotes. They exist in a file of short stories, anonymised, and with invented names. There are encounters in the chaos of the ED, in crowded wards during Covid, in eerily underpopulated private hospita

      2 min read

    • Article

      Evacuation Air

      Sep 23, 2019

      Evacuation Air
      14 min read

    • Article

      ‘‘Remember That Name’’

      Jun 26, 2018

      ‘‘Remember That Name’’
      4 min read

    • Article

      Storyteller

      Nov 4, 2021

      Storyteller
      11 min read

    • Article

      ‘Frankenstein’ And The Science Of Transitioning

      Apr 25, 2018

      Victor Frankenstein stands listening to his creation, the creature who he brought to life from the sewed-together remnants of the dead, who he abandoned at the height of his success, and who now asks his father to remedy his rejection buy building hi

      6 min read

    • Article

      Then the Birds Began to Die

      Jul 22, 2021

      Then the Birds Began to Die
      8 min read

    • Article

      Curse Of The Were-Jackal

      Apr 18, 2024

      Curse Of The Were-Jackal
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Emergency

      Mar 19, 2022

      The Emergency
      17 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Day Time Ran Out

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Day Time Ran Out - Darrel Bird

      The daytime ran out.

      updated version

      Darrel Bird

      Copyright 2010 by Darrel Bird

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords License Statement

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      And I looked and beheld a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given to them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and with the beasts of the earth. Revelation 6:8

      Atlanta burning

      At the CDC Atlanta, Dr. Vernon Sedgwick hooked the air supply hose into his biohazard suit and opened the door of the level 4 biocontainment, where a fresh slide of the virus lay ready.

      He nimbly moved the manipulator control, and then gave the glass slide a final bump as it slid under the electron microscope.

      Although the virus was small, it couldn’t hide from the best microscope in the world. No, sir, my tiny friend, you cannot hide your face from me no matter how small you are. Come to Poppa now and don’t be shy.

      He began adjusting the microscope one micrometer at a time, and as the dimness cleared, a shining metallic-like figure came into view. He stared at what had already killed half of Atlanta. The virus resembled a vortex, so unlike the Ebola virus, which killed quickly enough, this thing, was twice as deadly.

      He jumped when the virus he thought was dead exploded into a fireworks display of color, then settled back down, only this time it was larger and uglier. Fear like he had never known it filled his gut.

      "Lacy…Lacy!

      Yes, Doctor Sedgwick?

      I thought you said you treated this virus before it was handed off to me?

      Yes sir… it was.

      Then why is it still alive?

      The slender, good-looking woman on the other side of the inch-thick glass stared at him for a moment.

      We did treat the virus, Doctor. You know, I don’t guess at those kinds of things; that’s why I work at level 4.

      Well…Never mind, it’s just as good; get suited up and come in here.

      Doctor, you know the two of us are not supposed to be in there at the same time; it’s the rules!

      Well, to hell with the rules, just get your pretty butt in here; the rule makers are mostly dead!

      The 29-year-old graduate of Nova South Eastern and Cal-Tec donned the biohazard suit quickly and stepped through the airlock door as it slid behind her and sealed.

      What are you so excited about?

      Take a look at this.

      He readjusted the microscope until the virus was again clear; she stared at it for a minute, and then jumped back as it bloomed again like an ugly deadly flower.

      "Oh God!

      As she stared into the microscope, he reached over and hit the button that would seal their fate. She did not hear as the oiled 2-inch bolts in the door slid softly closed.

      He reached into a drawer for a small gun, and as she stared at the image, he put the gun close to her temple, just touching her biohazard suit, and pulled the trigger. Then he aimed the gun at his own head and pulled trigger again.

      The first time Atlanta burned was during the Civil War; the second time it burned was when the war against a man-made virus was lost, and Atlanta would never burn again.

      The biosuited bodies of Dr. Lacy Miller and Dr. Vernon Sedgwick would watch over the biocontainment level 4 long after the suits finally rotted off their bones and blank eye sockets as a testimony to what man could do to himself. They would stay a hundred feet below ground while Atlanta sank into oblivion.

      The virus hunter

      Thirty two year old Dr. Iris Pritcherd had worked for W.H.O. since college and was presently attached to the Atlanta Center for Disease Control when the call came in from Chicago that people were sick with a virus the doctors didn't recognize. The director at the CDC told her to take Fred Limpkin and go to Chicago. That suited her fine, as she was madly in love with Fred Limpkin. At the CDC, they called him The Lumpkin. That bothered Iris not at all because he was a handsome catch with a good personality.

      A virus didn't worry Iris because she had chased viruses all over the world and came out unscathed. She had returned from Africa the month before, tired, lonely, and looking for something different than poorly built, poorly furnished outback bush hospitals.

      Dr. Lyle Richards, also of W.H.O., took her arm at the airport and said, When you get there and find out what's what, report it immediately; it's probably nothing those hick doctors can't fix by themselves, but we get paid for the routine.

      Yes doctor.  She said, but her immediate thought was asshat! as she followed Fred through the gate to board the plane. She didn't like Richards because he treated her as if she didn't know what a virus was. As she walked down the covered ramp to the plane, she remembered Africa, where all the interesting stuff was. She had hoofed it through jungles to find the first victims of some real nasty stuff, such as Ebola.

      After they were in the air, she laid her hand on Fred's leg and squeezed. What say we take a little me time when we land? A day won't hurt.

      They told us to go directly to Chicago Medical Center, didn't they?

      Well, for cripes sake, Fred, if you don't want me, just say so!

      I didn't mean that, Iris; of course I want you. The sex is too good to pass up flashed across his mind like a rock skipping across a pond. He looked sideways at her out of the corner of his eye, as if she could detect his thoughts. Of course, she didn't know that he was using her just for sex. He knew the women they worked with laughed at her behind her back because they knew him as the biggest woman chaser in Atlanta.

      Let's just both turn off the phone and have some fun for once.

      Ok, I'm for that. Fred returned.

      They got a hotel room in downtown Chicago Tuesday at six p.m. and slept late the next day. They didn't emerge from the hotel room until Thursday morning at nine a.m. They caught a cab to Chicago Med, holding hands, with Fred thinking, "That's the best time I've had in years; she is like a teenager!"

      As soon as they walked up to the front desk, they knew immediately that something was terribly wrong and instinctively realized their mistake because the hospital was swarming with sweating doctors and nurses, and there were beds in the hallways almost out to the front desk.

      The woman answering the phones hardly looked up as they announced who they were; she just slung her head at the hallway and continued talking on the phone. They walked slowly toward the hallway when they spied a doctor. We are here to see Dr. Johnson?

      Second floor, take a left and down the hallway. Last room on the left.

      They made their way between the beds and found the elevator, which took a full two minutes to make its way to the second floor. Three nurses took the elevator with them, and they saw fear in the eyes of those nurses. There were beds in the hallways of the second floor too as they made their way to Johnson's office and knocked.

      What, What?  They heard someone yell on the other side of the door. Iris pushed the door open to find Dr. Johnson on the phone. Well, get me someone in Atlanta! He screamed and slammed the phone down: What the hell do you two want? He glared at each of them.

      I'm Dr. Iris Pritcherd from Atlanta.

      Where the hell have you two been? We've got a pandemic going on here!

      We came as soon as we could. She lied.

      He tossed a piece of film with a picture of the virus and said, We don't know what this thing is, and we think the incubation period is twenty-four hours.

      But that's almost impossible, Dr. She had looked at thousands of viruses, and this resembled none of them.

      Yeah, well, if you don't believe me, the hallways are full of specimens, with fresh ones coming in all the time.

      But we need to find the original carrier to isolate the virus, Doctor; that's our job.

      There's no way in hell to do that; a third of Chicago has it. Iris looked doubtful at the doctor.

      Go down to the front desk and interview, and at least you can determine the approximate time of incubation until death. He sighed.  I have to get back to work.

      Incubation until death? Her mind was whirring, and she had forgotten all about Fred. He followed her along like a lost puppy. He already knew he was in trouble because he had skipped all the serious diseases and bluffed his way along for years. Iris was the brightest

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1