Archive for November, 2005
Thirty-three
November 30
The cop car could have made good time down the still-wet streets. Ruth kept it around twenty miles per hour, though, not wanting to miss anything that they’d regret later on. She had pulled off her soccer jacket once they were going, claiming the car was hot. Seth had turned off the heater, but the car really was heating up inside. He had stripped off his jacket not long after she had shed hers. They were both in t-shirts, now. The relaxed feeling, the comfort of being warm, was working on both of them. They were all smiles now.
“Hey, I think I see something,” Ruth said, leaning forward and squinting through the windshield. She put on the brakes and stopped as quickly as she could. She wiped the windshield with her jacket that had been bunched up in her lap and squinted out again. “Yeah, I do. But what the hell is it?”
Seth looked, but he couldn’t make anything of it either. With how this day had gone, though, he doubted it was anything he wanted to see. He rolled down the window and stuck his head out, trying to get a better look with no glass in front of him. It had stopped raining and the wind had stopped blowing, but it was foggy now, anything over a quarter-mile away was a ghostly mix of white and grey. He squinted a bit more and could finally make out what it was.
“I see the end of an ambulance, I think. Yeah, I see lights flashing now.” He looked over at Ruth who looked back at him, her eyes wide. “Why would an ambulance just be sitting in the middle of the road?”
Ruth shook her head. “I don’t like it. I don’t know why it’s there, but I don’t like it. I think we should try and find another way to the hospital.” She looked back out the windshield and squinted some more. “What do you think?”
Seth nodded, still staring out the window. “Yeah, I agree. Defintely not a good sign.” Flashes in the fog, bright yellow against the white of everything else, were quickly followed with banging sounds. The couple looked at each other again and then looked back out the window. “We DEFINITELY need to find another way around,” Seth said.
Ruth giggled, but her face didn’t look carefree and happy. She pulled the gearshifter into reverse and the car back up a half-block to the nearest side street. She turned left onto it and crept down the road. She didn’t go far, less than halfway down the block, before she stopped the car again. “Do you think it was the ambulance that came to the library?”
Seth hadn’t thought about that. What if it was? Should they go help? Elijah was in there, and even though he had been a complete ass earlier, Seth didn’t want to think of him dead or… not. “Maybe we should.” What about the flashes and bangs, though? Those had to have been gunshots. And where there were gunshots…. Seth didn’t know what had to be there, but he didn’t want to be there himself. Still, they had guns themselves, they could fight back. He hoped.
Ruth nodded and said, “Yeah, maybe.” She put the car in reverse again and backed out of the sidestreet. The police cruiser was sticking across the oncoming lane of traffic, but there wasn’t any traffic so it wasn’t much of a worry. They both looked out Seth’s still-open window. They didn’t see any more flashes or hear any bangs, but they couldn’t see the ambulance either.
“Well, if we’re gonna go, let’s go,” Seth said. He tried to steel himself as much as he could, but butterflies were still flittering around in his stomach. The idea of running into anything that someone else would have needed to SHOOT just… just turned his stomach into a quivering mass. He patted the shotgun that was propped in the dash-mounted holster. He knew he was a shitty shot, but it was comforting to have it around. Ruth had tucked the pistol under her leg. Neither was anxious to have to use them, though.
“Alright, let’s go,” Ruth said, sighing first. A flick of the stick from R to D and the car started to creep down Grand again. A minute or two later, the back end of the ambulance came into view again. Seth could read the hospital name from the back, now. Eden Medical Center. That was the hospital that had sent the ambulance before. Or the one it had belonged to, at least. The lights were still on inside, and the lights on top were flashing silently, white and red. Seth didn’t see anyone around it or in the back.
Ruth pulled the cop car slowly up behind the ambulance, but stayed back a quarter-block or so. They both looked out of the car at both sides of the street and tried to see around the ambulance. Ruth spotted something first.
“Seth,” she grabbed his hand, “there’s something over there. Something big and black. I can’t see what it is, though. Maybe a tent? Why would there be a tent in the middle of Grand?” She was still wide-eyed. Seth had no idea, and said so. She pulled the gun out from under her thigh and double-checked that the safety was on.
“Well,” Seth said, “I guess we’d better see. You want to drive up or should we get out?” He hoped and prayed she’d answer the former.
“I know it sounds stupid,” she started, and he felt his hopes fall, “but I feel safer out of the car. I mean, this is just such a big target….” She trailed off into silence. He wasn’t sure what she meant or what made her feel that way, but he didn’t want to argue with her on it. They’d just stay close, the best of both worlds.
“If we get out, I want to stay close to the car, alright? So we can jump back in if we need to?” She nodded. He popped the latch that held the gun to the rack and gingerly picked it up and sat it in his lap. “OK,” he said, and opened his door.
Ruth climbed out of the other side, the gun in her hand held down to her side. She looked grim now that they were both out in the fog, armed. They slowly approached the back end of the ambulance, still not seeing or hearing anything. Seth reached a hand up and tried to open the back door. The handle turned slowly and surely and he pulled the door toward him. No one was in there and he didn’t see anything that looked out of place. Not that he would have known, anyway. He was about to turn around and tell Ruth, when something small and brown caught his eye. It was a wallet, laying on the floor by the side-long bench. He scrambled partway into the ambulance and picked it up off of the floor, laying his gun on the seat first.
A quick flip through the wallet showed that it belonged to Elijah Powell. It held his driver’s license and his taxi driver’s union membership card. There were a few green bills in the largest pocket but Seth wasn’t a thief. He put the wallet in the other back pocket in his pants. He picked up the shotgun and climbed out of the ambulance. Ruth was standing on the ground, trying to look every way at once.
“Well, this is the same ambulance,” he said. She looked at him questioningly. “I found Elijah’s wallet. Unless you think there are two Elijah Powells that drive taxi cabs in this city.” She half-smiled at him. He felt the same way. It was hard to find anything happy or satisfying the world right now.
She pointed around the left side of the ambulance. “I think I saw something over there, but I’m not sure.” He shrugged his shoulders in that direction and pointed with the tip of his shotgun. She took the hint and started around that corner.
The ambulance seemed miles long as they slowly crept up the side of it. He was starting to wish he had put his jacket back on. After just a few steps along the length of the vehicle, he saw a large lump laying on the ground. A few more steps revealed that it was a man-sized green lump. A few more and they could see that it was a soldier. What was a soldier doing here?
Ruth reached him first and she knealt down next to him. He had his pistol in the hand that wasn’t curled up beneath his body. He had almost collapsed in on himself, as if all of his muscles had given away. He laid on the ground, breathing shallowly. “I can feel a heartbeat,” she said, smiling at finding someone alive. “It’s really fast, though,” she added.
Seth didn’t answer. He was looking around, trying to see further through the fog. It seemed to be increasing, getting thicker, more numbing. He could make out a few orange lines beyond the end of the ambulance, and the black shape that Ruth had seen earlier was definitely a tent. He couldn’t see much else, though. Well, one other thing, he added to his mental list. Another lump was on the ground several yards away toward the other sidewalk. Ruth looked where his eyes were pointed and let out a small gasp.
They could see this lump a little more clearly than they had the soldier. It was a white lump, stark contrast to the black pavement of the road. White except for a couple of slowly spreading spots of red on his back. Seth jogged over to the body to find that it was indeed Jones. He was laying face-down on the pavement, still holding onto life, though. He had some sort of hypodermic needle in his hand, the knuckles white with how tightly he was holding on. His hair was wet, making it curl more than it had the first time Seth had seen him. He looked up at the sound of steps approaching.
Seth knealt down next to him and Jones looked up, smiling when he recognized the face. The smile didn’t last, though. It was quickly replaced by a red cough. After he was through, he looked up at Seth again and Seth leaned in. He felt sure the man wanted to tell him something.
“Sa — safe out here,” he let go of the plastic tube and pointed at the ground. “Safe. The — They’re sca — sca –” he coughed and tried again. “Scared.”
Seth had no idea who “they” were, but he could guess what they were scared of. He patted Jones on the shoulder and Jones coughed up some more blood. “Soldiers. Army. Kee — keeping a secret. Disease.”
Seth couldn’t believe his ears. “Soldiers? What secret are they keeping? The secret of the disease? What disease?”
Jones nodded, once, weakly. He closed his eyes and rested for a second, then whispered, “Their disease. The one that brings out the –” The end was drowned in blood-red coughing, but Seth knew what he meant. He didn’t think Jones would make it much longer.
“What about Eden?” Seth asked. “Can I get to the hospital?” Jones shook his head a couple of times. He was coughing more often now, not able to breath or speak easily.
“Ma — martial law. They have it all blocked off.” He coughed again and moaned loudly when he finally finished. “I — ” another fit of coughing interrupted. When it had passed, he started again. “I remembered the secret, though.” He smiled a small smile at Seth, then his head fell and smacked into the pavement. Seth knew it was useless, but he reached with his hand and felt the neck of paramedic. Nothing that he could feel. So many people had died today, but if Jones was right, there might be hundreds more. Thousands. God, how many would die from this disease, whatever it was?
Jones was dumbfounded. They knew. How could they know? They weren’t supposed to know, they were supposed to…. He didn’t know what they were supposed to do or be, but they weren’t supposed to be in charge of the situation or to know what was going on. It had just started! How could they KNOW ALREADY?
He swallowed and tried to breathe regularly. This was too much for him, though, he couldn’t process all of this. If they knew, they had to have been in on it, right? They can’t know otherwise. It had just happened an hour ago, maybe two. Jones swallowed again, still having trouble getting air down his sticky throat. He looked up at Elijah who looked as shocked as he was. The soldiers were somehow more proper and more relaxed at the same time. The one in the ambulance was standing as much as he could, the low ceiling made for hunched over postures, and was holding a hand out toward Elijah. “Come on, sir, I need you to exit the vehicle and come with us.” There was no question in that voice, no politeness that wasn’t strained with the weight of an order. Elijah was shocked out of their shared stare and looked over at the soldier.
“Y — yes, sir.” He tried to stand and winced when he put any weight on his leg. He scooted himself around on straight arms and his good leg until he was sitting on the floor at the back end of the ambulance. The soldier had gotten down onto the ground and was waiting next to his superior. “I’m not going to be able to walk,” Elijah said, blank honesty on his face. It looked like the same thoughts of military association were running through his head as through Jones’ Something was definitely wrong and they were caught in the middle of it. Jones moved toward the ambulance and the closest soldier put an arm across his chest.
“I’m just gonna get the crutches for him,” Jones said, more aggressively and whiney than he had wanted. He wasn’t sure how he could be aggressive and weak-sounding at the same time, but he had managed it. The soldier stared at him for a few moments longer, then moved his arm. Jones grunted quietly and moved toward the ambulance. The crutches were stored in a rectangular steel box under the seat that Elijah had been standing on. For the brief moment that he was standing there, pulling out the metal braces, Elijah was between him and the soldier. He decided to use it.
“I don’t trust this. No, don’t say anyting, don’t move.” Elijah had been on the verge of opening his mouth and turning to look at Jones. “Just listen. I don’t trust it. They’re in on it or something. I’m going to try to get us away. Somehow.” He popped the door open and started pulling out the thin metal tubing. Elijah gave the smallest nod with his head.
The crutches worked well enough to help Elijah get around on the wet pavement. The four of them walked around the ambulance toward the large tent. When they were passing the cab, Jones stopped suddenly. “Hey, I need to turn the ambulance off, give me a second.” The soldiers stopped and looked at him, then one motioned for him to go ahead. He popped open the driver’s side door and climbed in quickly. He thought about throwing it in reverse and gunning the engine, but he couldn’t leave Elijah to them. No telling what they’d do now that they knew he was bitten. He sighed and killed the ignition. He saw his medic’s bag on the passenger’s side floorboard and remembered what all he had it in. There was a sterile scalpel, a few hypodermic needles. Nothing deadly, but stuff that could be used in a pinch. He grabbed the black leather case and slid back out of the cab.
When he turned around to join the group, the lead soldier pointed and asked, “What’s that?” Neither of them looked happy.
“My bag,” Jones answered, trying to sound calm. He pointed at Elijah’s leg. “He may need help, depending on how long we’re here. I’d rather have it with me than have to run back and get it.” He hoped they didn’t have any medics with them. He was sure they’d rather use their own than trust to some paramedic from a local hospital, especially since they probably figured he had a gun hidden in the bag. “You can look through here if you think I have a gun or something,” he said, holding the bag out to them.
“Come on,” the soldier answered, turning to lead the way. Jones sighed in relief and fell in behind Elijah. The soldiers led the way and seemed to trust that the two of them would follow. Their trust wasn’t misplaced, apparently, as the two civilians followed close behind. Jones was trying to work through the bag in his mind. He knew he had a few EpiPens in there. One wasn’t always enough for a grown man, but you had to be careful when giving the second one. Too close together and you’d send him into cardiac arrest. Well, close enough. You’d probably wear his heart out first.
He remembered the defribilator that was still in the ambulance. That might have been effective, but it was out of his hands by now. No way they’d let him run back to get something like that. No way to justify needing it. Elijah was getting around just fine. And if they knew what was going on, they probably weren’t worried about keeping him alive very long. Unless they didn’t know about the bites, that is….
They had reached the tent. It was a large black canvas tent with a slicker plastic coating on the outside to keep the rain where it belonged. It didn’t quite reach the ground, so it was more like the tent’s stores used for outside sales. The bottom edge of the canvas stopped some five feet off of the ground. All four men had to duck to enter the canvas shelter.
Jones had been right. Several desks were arranged in a polygon over to the side nearest the antennae. A large computer and a laptop sat on each desk with a soldier at each one. Jones couldn’t see most of the screens, and the ones he could were mostly text read outs. One, however, had a rotating 3D diagram of something that looked like a molecule of something. He thought he had seen it before, but he couldn’t be sure.
Beyond the computer desks, toward the far end of the tent, was another large table with radio equipment on it. The radio set wasn’t very large, only a few feet square and a foot or so tall, but the rest of the desk held walkie talkies and other communications devices. A few cell phones were mixed in, it looked like.
Further into the tent was a collection of cots and chairs. A few of the cots had people laying on them, none of them in military garb. A couple of chairs had soldiers sitting in them. The people on the cots didn’t look very healthy or happy. The soldiers didn’t look happy, either. They were sitting very stiffly, each looking directly at one of the more sickly-looking residents on a cot. Someone from there coughed a few times, very wet coughs.
The soldiers were leading Elijah and Jones toward the cots. The one who seemed to be in charge nodded to the other and tapped him on the shoulder, then turned and walked over toward the computers. The soldier that was left motioned for Elijah to take a seat on the closest empty cot and pulled one of the folding metal chairs over. Jones stood where he was between the cot and the chair.
“How’re you feeling?” Jones asked Elijah. The cabbie looked up at him and smiled weakly.
“I’d be feeling a lot better if I was at the hospital,” he answered, somewhat weakly with a sidelong glance at the soldier. The soldier didn’t move or react at all to either the statement or the look. He just sat back in his chair, legs crossed, rifle sitting across his lap, looking through Elijah. Jones sat his bag down on the cot and flipped open the swinging hook latch. Elijah leaned forward a bit to peer in, but stopped looking when he saw the soldier trying to check the contents, too.
“Yeah, but how do you really feel?” Jones asked again. “Light-headed or woozy? Thick-headed, like you can’t think well? Open your mouth.” Elijah complied, somewhat slowly, after licking his lips and smacking a few times. Must have some cottonmouth, Jones thought. “Can you breathe alright?” he asked as he leaned forward with a small flashlight and a tongue depressor.
Before Elijah could answer, the other soldier came walking back. He asked, “Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?” Jones looked down at his hands and noticed he had forgotten to pull on a pair of latex gloves. He was about to try and make an excuse when the soldier spoke up again. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Come, it’s time for you to go back to your ambulance and go on your way. We’ll take care of your patient from here on.” He reached a hand out to take Jones’ arm to lead him away.
Jones yelled, “What? No!” and yanked his arm away. The soldier didn’t try to take his arm again immediately. He stood where he was. Jones asked again, “Why? Why can’t I take him with me to the hospital where he can get the care he needs?”
The seated soldier leaned forward to put a restraining hand on Elijah’s shoulder. Elijah had been about to stand up and he looked at the hand and sank back down on the olive-colored blanket-covered cot. He grimaced as he sat but Jones didn’t know if it was from the hand on his shoulder or the pain in his leg. He was betting on equal parts of both.
Hand on his shoulder or not, Elijah apparently decided he didn’t like this treatment enough to say something. “Yeah, I want to go to the hospital. I’m an American citizen. You can’t just keep me here!”
The soldier sitting next to him stood up to have better leverage against the sitting wounded man. Elijah looked up at him with a look that was turning into hatred on his face. “You can’t,” he said again, but weaker this time.
The soldier standing in front of Jones turned around to face Elijah. “We most certainly can. And we most certainly will. THIS is the only hospital you’ll be visiting, sir.” He turned back around to Jones. “As I said before, I think it’s time for you to leave.” He put his hand on Jones’s arm again.
“Wait, what do you mean ‘only hospital’? This man needs some serious attention!” Jones was getting to the edge of violence, now. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d wager any amount that these other people on the cots were all sick and needing medical help, too. They all had that sickly sheen that Elijah had picked up lately. An almost sweaty look, without there being any sweat. Waxy.
The soldier didn’t take hand off of Jones this time. “Come on, sir.”
“No, I want to know what’s going on. What do you know?” Jones’ eyes were wide and he stared directly into the soldier’s face. They were about the same height so it worked. The soldier stared back, then nodded.
“Fine, I’ll tell you. Once you go past this roadblock you won’t be able to leave anyway. We’ve cordoned off the next five square miles of the city, including Eden Medical, where you’re headed. I’ve called ahead and you’re expected. If you don’t show up soon, you’ll be looked for. The finding won’t be a pretty sight, I don’t imagine.
“This man,” he pointed at Elijah, “was bitten by a girl that had come back to life, correct? He’s infected, then. We’re not sure where the infection started, but we know it’s out there and spreading like wildfire. We’ve had some fifteen cases come through this tent already. In some people it catches and moves through their system like nothing we’ve ever seen. In others, like your friend here, it seems to move slower, has a harder time with the body’s natural defenses. In both cases, though, it’s fatal.”
Jones’s jaw was slack. He hadn’t been expecting this. Not at all. How could something just pop up like this? Viruses didn’t spring out of nowhere and start killing with a one hundred percent fatality rate. What were they doing to treat the infected? He decided to ask. “What — what do you do with them? To — to treat them, I mean?”
The soldier’s face was hard. “We keep them comfortable. We keep them warm. When the time comes, we keep them dead.” Elijah’s face went pale and his eyes went wide.
“I don’t wanna be no demon!” he yelled. A few of the other patients looked up at his yell and they were all wide-eyed and distressed-looking. He moaned his protest again, much quieter this time, with no force. The soldier standing over him didn’t show any signs of compassion, but he wasn’t holding him down any longer, either.
Jones stood slack. No wonder it was fatal. No one was trying to prevent it or fix it. They were just letting it run its course. Just letting this disease kill any it wanted to. He couldn’t believe it. “How — how can you justify that? How can you be OK with just killing innocent people?”
The soldier looked at him dead in the face. “When we do what we have to do, they’re not people any longer.” He looked at his wrist watch. “Come on, I’ve let you stay too long already. Your expected at the hospital in ten minutes. Check in with the staff sergeant at the front desk.”
They reached the ambulance faster going out, not slowed by Elijah’s limping progress. “Remember what I said. You’ll be looked for if you go missing. This isn’t America any more. This is martial rule and you’re expected to comply. Just get in your wagon and drive it on through to the hospital. You’ll be well taken care of. We need all the medical staff we can get. Just go on to the hospital and find out what you need to do next.” He reached out and opened the driver’s side door. “We’ll move the barricades for you to drive through.”
Jones sighed. Apparently it was worse than he had ever thought. Some disease running rampant that killed all who were infected with it. Well, it killed them and brought them back. The soldiers were the ones ultimately responsible for the final death. He still had some sneaking suspicion that somehow they were responsible, or at least tied into it. So what was a God-fearing man such as himself supposed to do? Could he justify just going along with them, letting them take care of it how they were taking care of it now? Could he just let them keep killing people who hadn’t done anything worse than get a virus? One they probably didn’t try to get, that they got by being attacked by someone else on the street? Someone that would have seemed completely insane. How did you guard against the insane?
You didn’t.
Jones nodded at the soldier and flicked the clasp on his bag as surreptitiously as he could. He turned toward the door and sat the bag on the seat, then moved his hand and tipped the bag over. “Damn it!” he cursed, the anger in his voice only partially attributable to the soldiers and their unbelievable actions. The soldier looked around the door and saw all the medical paraphenalia on the floor of the cab. “Shit, let me pick this stuff up real quick,” Jones said. The soldier nodded and continued to stand where he was. Seeing no gun on the floor or in the open bag must have made him decide there wasn’t anything Jones could really do to him.
Jones picked up a few things off the floor and seat. A couple of scalpels in their sterile paper packaging. A packet of cotton bandages for wounds. A two pack of splints for setting bones. He glanced of his shoulder and saw that the soldier wasn’t paying him any attention, he was staring into the distance, squinting at something coming this way. Jones closed his hand around a pre-packaged syringe filled with adrenaline, an EpiPen. He closed his eyes for a second and said a quick prayer that this would turn out better than he thought it would.
The packaging was almost non-existant, just the plastic tube of the “gun” with a plunger sticking out of the end. The only thing keeping it safe was a plastic plug stuck to the other end that he popped out with his fingernail. It came primed and ready, since there wasn’t much time to prepare for someone to go into anaphylactic shock. He turned toward the soldier, the syringe in his right hand. Centrifugal force carried his arm and hand up and forward, bringing the tip of the pen to the soldier’s back, just above the waistband of his pants. Jones’ thumb jammed down on the end.
The soldier jumped like had been shot, but it was too late. The liquid adrenaline was already making its way through his veins toward his heart.
Thirty-one
November 29
Elijah didn’t like the look of this at all. One soldier was sitting across from him petting the stock of his rifle. The other was standing on the ground, staring at the paramedic. His hand was on his pistol. How had this gone from strange roadblock to the soldiers being on the verge of drawing guns and shooting innocent people over being slow to tell a story about people coming back from the dead? I mean, it wasn’t a story that you could just tell to anyone. Who the fuck would believe you?
Elijah spoke before Jones could continue. “Yeah, she WAS dead. That didn’t stop her from doing, though. She sat up and attacked the other paramedic. She killed her, even. That’s why she’s not here. The damn girl came back to life and ripped her goddamn throat out.”
Both soldiers turned to look at him, their eyes the only part of their faces showing any shock. He wasn’t sure if it was from the language, the suddeness of his interruption, or what he had told them. He had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t the latter. The one on the ground slowly crossed his arms again and said, “Go on.”
Elijah shook his head. “What’s to tell? We killed her. Again. We had to kill the paramedic again, too. She came back just a few minutes later. What else were we supposed to do? Huh? What else? What would you do with two women coming back to life trying to eat you?” He was almost to screaming tears now. He held himself together, though, knowing that that kind of breakdown wouldn’t help anything and would probably only prolong their delay here. He wanted to get through this shit and get to the goddamn hospital to get his leg looked at. The more he thought about it, the more he could feel the girl’s teeth in his leg still. The more he could feel his leg going numb. Or, more accurately, the less he could feel that he leg belonged to him.
He looked down at his leg, his vision starting to blur with wetness in his eyes. His leg was more numb than it had been when they were driving along. Then it had just been the calf and below, going down to about the middle of the foot. Now it seemed to be moving up toward his knee and thigh. He wasn’t sure his knee would even obey him any longer. He didn’t have any way to test it, though. Not with the soldiers in the way. Testing would have to wait for the hospital. He hoped.
The soldier in the ambulance tapped on Elijah’s foot with a finger. “So which one did this?” Elijah shook his head and looked up, tears actually coming to his eyes. He felt they were going to take him away somewhere. He didn’t want to go anywhere with them. He wanted to go to the hospital and get some help for his leg. This was complete bullshit. BULLSHIT! The soldiers scared him.
“The girl. She bit me before we… put her down.”
The soldiers looked at each other and the one on the ground, who happened to have more bars on his helmet than the one in the box, nodded. The one in the ambulance placed a firm hand on Elijah’s ankle. A hand and grip he could only feel halfway. Something was definitely wrong. “You going to have to come with us, sir.” Elijah had known that was going to come out of his mouth as soon as the hand had touched his ankle.
“What? Why?” Jones was up in arms, again. “He’s not crazy, if that’s what you’re thinking. He really did get attacked by the girl and she was definitely dead. Mary said she was and I would have trusted her with my life. The girl came back to life and — ” The soldier standing in front of him raised a hand.
“We know, sir.”
Jones was pushing the ambulance along at fifty miles an hour through the empty streets. The rain had slicked the roads a bit, so he kept the wheel as straight as the road would allow, not wanting the somewhat top heavy ambulance to flip over if he could help it. Mary usually drove the wagon, so he was a little nervous about it. He still couldn’t believe she was dead. Especially not in the way it had happened. He… he wouldn’t think of it. It was pointless to spend time worrying over the past.
The mist falling from the sky reduced visibility to a block at the most. He was leaned forward and squinting through the grime when he saw a moss colored shape start to form in the distance. Flashing lights made bright circles in the air and he let his foot up from the gas. The truck started slowing immediately and he barely put his foot down on the brake. Once he realized it actually WAS a roadblock, he pressed down harder and brought the truck to a stop a few yards away from the wooden blockade. Two men in olive drab uniforms were standing in his lane, their hands extended in the universal symbol for “stop.” He had already done that, but he figured they were just making sure.
When he hadn’t moved in a half minute or so, the one in back lowered his arm to cradle the butt of the rifle in his hand. The one in front waved for him to exit the vehicle and come over to where they were waiting. He tapped on the glass to tell Elijah. When he turned, the cabbie’s face filled the glass. He pointed at the soldiers then at his door. The man seemed to understand, so Jones nodded and exited the ambulance. He left it running, figuring this wouldn’t take too long.
The mist hit his skin as soon as he was out of the truck and he shivered. The two Army men were both wearing rain jackets the same green color as the rest of their uniform. They also had helmets on their heads, upturned bowls of green painted with up-pointing arrows. Jones supposed those showed rank, but he didn’t have any clue what one sign meant over another. He’d never cared for the military. He’d rather save lives than take them, or further the war machine by repairing those it chewed up and spat back out. Still, he couldn’t make it down the street without dealing with this particular group of Army men. He sighed and walked over to the closest soldier.
“Hello, sir,” the soldier said, his face impassive.
“Hey,” Jones answered. Neither man offered or expected a hand. “I’ve got a patient in the ambulance. I need to get through as quick as possible.” The soldier’s eyes perked up at the mention of a patient.
“An injury, then?” Jones nodded and the man continued. “What kind of injury? What caused it?” His eyes were still shining and Jones noticed that his partner had come closer at the mention of an injury.
“Yeah, obviously injured,” Jones answered. He didn’t trust this. Something seemed fishy. “I mean, why would I have someone in the back of the truck without them being injured? I don’t transport healthy people, you know.” He made it a point to avoid telling them more than he absolutely had to.
“We understand what your job is, sir. Can you answer the questions, though? What kind of injury?” The soldier’s face had gotten harder, not liking the obvious lack of information. His eyes still glowed with…. What? Anticipation? Anxiety? Excitment? Jones wasn’t sure, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“A leg injury. A… cut… in the calf. Nothing serious, but needing more attention than I can give it.” He answered slowly, carefully checking his words before saying them. He suddenly had a feeling that they were more interested in Elijah than they should be, even if they had known about the accident. He had a worse feeling that it was the INJURY they cared the most about. Why would soldiers be so… fascinated… with a simple injury.
The second soldier spoke up now. Jones noticed that neither of them were wearing nametags. He thought all army uniforms had those badges sewn on them above the pocket. This was even more confusing and suspicious. “We’ll need to see the vict — patient before you can pass through.” He started moving around the first soldier toward the truck. Jones moved over to block his way.
“Why? I mean, why do you need to see him? No, before that, why is there a roadblock here? I mean, this is America, you can’t just stop people in the middle of the road. You can’t just search the ambulance, either. It’s the property of Eden Medical Center, a privately-owned hospital.” He was starting to get angry and he knew that was a bad idea when the military were involved. He couldn’t help himself right now, though. This invasion of his life was just too far beyond his tolerance level.
“Sir, just cooperate and everything will go much smoother. We just need to check on your patient and make sure he’s safe to allow to travel. As soon as we do that, you can be on you way.” The first soldier answered him this time. He had been about to put a hand on Jones’ chest but seemed to have decided against it halfway through the motion. He tried to make it look like he was just gesturing, but Jones knew better. This was moments away from getting violent, he feared.
Jones stepped back a step to look at the soldiers again in a fuller picture. Such boring, non-marked uniforms almost made him feel they weren’t really military. Maybe some local militia or something. He didn’t want to take the chance, though. The government had been giving more and more civil power to the military in the last few years. Jones had been a bone-level Democrat for as long as he could remember and the idea of trained-to-kill military police roaming the streets gave him the heebie-jeebies.
He looked around quickly. Orange-striped wooden horse blockades with “US” stamped on them in large stensil letters. Two Jeeps sat on each sidewalk, one green and one tan. A large black tent was set up on the other side of the street, too, and people were milling around it and a freestanding antennae just outside of it. Jones guessed there were computers and radio equipment in the tent. If it was a fake, it was a damn good one.
“Sir? Is there going to be a problem?” Both soldiers were standing in front of him, presenting themselves as a solid wall of military strength. He knew he wouldn’t be able to jump in the ambulance and get away. It wasn’t made for going fast or breaking through anything resembling a blockade. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t just stand by while he drove through their camp, either.
“No, no problem. Just thinking. By the way, what should I call you?” He looked at the soldiers square in the face, trying to look friendly. It didn’t seem to work. Both soldiers’ faces stayed slack and uninterested in him, but coldly set on seeing what they wanted in the back of his truck.
“You can call us ‘Sir,’ of course. If you need names, I’m sorry but that will have to wait for another time. This operation is here for the safety of the city and the guidelines for it don’t allow us to discuss personal matters.” The soldier on the left, the first one he had talked to, answered him quietly and quickly. He then put a hand on Jones’ shoulder and pushed him gently to the side. The other soldier nodded curtly and followed his fellow soldier. They walked alongside the ambulance and came quickly to the back doors. Jones followed behind them, feeling a little like a chastised puppy.
“Is this locked?” the first soldier asked. He had one hand on the handles of the back doors and didn’t look over at Jones, expecting obedience.
Jones paused, not wanting to comply with such blatant disregard for his rights and the rights of his employer, then gave in, realizing his disobedience wouldn’t prevent anything. In a few more seconds they’d simply try the door themselves and probably take the keys from him if they found it locked. Forcibly, he was certain. “No, it shouldn’t be,” he said quietly.
The officer nodded and twisted both handles away from each other. They turned easily and he pulled the doors toward him. Light from the overhead lamps in the back of the ambulance spilled out and illuminated the faces of the two soldiers. The day was still dreary, but the wind and rain were both calming down. It was dark out here in the street, though, and Jones figured it wouldn’t brighten up at all before night fell. Elijah was sitting at the far end. The soldiers looked at him for a few moments.
“Sir?” the first one called. “Sir, can you come out of the ambulance?” Elijah’s face looked worried, but he started to slide around the benches toward the door. Jones didn’t trust this, but he didn’t have any reason he could explain, or any way to get them out of it, so he had to just let it play out. Elijah had reached the door and the soldiers had stopped him there.
“Sir, just stay in the ambulance. There’s no reason for you to go to such trouble, especially when you’ve been hurt. Can you tell us about the wound?” The second soldier climbed up into the other side of the ambulance and sat across from Elijah. Elijah swallowed and nodded.
“Well, officer, I — ” The first soldier cut him off.
“No need to address me as officer. ‘Sir’ will do fine.”
“Oh, OK. Sir, I was driving my cab earlier and, because of the rain, couldn’t see very well.” He still seemed very nervous and Jones was afraid his anxiety would put the soldiers even further on edge. If they were on edge, that was. He still couldn’t tell exactly what was going on.
“You’re cab driver, then?”
“Yeah, yeah. I was driving and I couldn’t see very well. A girl, some little girl, stepped out in front of my cab and I couldn’t see so I hit her.” Elijah swallowed again, the gulp loud enough for Jones to hear standing behind the soldier that was still on the ground. He smiled a nervous smile and nodded again, a nervous habit apparently. “And then I carried her into the library. I probably shouldn’t have, but you can’t rewrite the past, huh?” He smiled at the soldiers each in turn. They didn’t smile back as far as Jones could see.
The soldier in the ambulance waved his hand impatiently. “Go on. We don’t care if you should have moved her or not. What happened next?” Elijah nodded again and continued his story, telling how the power had went out and the ambulance had come with the two paramedics. The soldiers turned and looked at Jones at that point.
“Two paramedics, sir?” the one on the ground asked. “What happened to the other?” His arms were crossed on his chest but Jones felt that he wanted to rest a hand on the pistol at his hip. Seeing the gun made him think of the other soldier’s rifle. He didn’t see it now, but he didn’t remember him setting it down. Maybe it was in the ambulance were he couldn’t see.
Jones shrugged and gestured to Elijah in the cab. “The girl he brought in died. She…,” he trailed off, not sure whether he should tell them about the girl coming back to murderous life. The girl and Mary, that is.
“Continue your story, sir,” the standing soldier said, now resting one hand on his pistol’s holster. “What did she do? She was dead, wasn’t she? How could she DO anything after she was dead?” His face was colder than Jones had seen it so far, and he had been sure the soldier was carved from marble earlier. Jones’ eyes flickered around and he saw that the soldier in the van had indeed had the rifle in there with him. It was now sitting on his lap and he was staring at Jones as hard as his partner was.
The ambulance rolled along at a pretty good pace. Elijah was sitting in the back so he wasn’t sure how fast Jones was pushing the bone buggy along, but what outside he could see through the rounded rectangular windows in the rear door seemed to sliding away at a good clip. His leg was throbbing where the little bitch had bitten him, but he was confident that something could be done at the hospital. Just had to get there.
He scooted over on the two-man bench and tapped on the window into the front cab. He saw Jones’ eyes raise to the rearview mirror and Elijah tapped his wrist. How long? Jones shrugged, then held up five fingers. Five more minutes. He could handle that. They must be moving well faster than the speed limit, then, since it took more than the ten minutes they’d been travelling plus five more to reach the hospital from the library going the city-mandated twenty miles per hour. He sat back again, adjusting his leg on the stretcher affixed to the middle of the ambulance’s boxy backend. The wound was throbbing and seemed to be dripping a bit of yellow pus, even through the bandages that Jones had wrapped tightly around it. He wasn’t sure, but he thought his foot was turning black. He had taken off his shoes and socks after he had gotten into the ambulance when it had started itching like mad. It definitely looked more purple. Maybe it was just blood deprived or something.
He sat back and closed his eyes, but immediately was met with the eyes of the dead girl, wallowing in ecstacy at the taste of his blood and flesh. His eye lids flew open and he stared at the slowly swaying medical equipment hanging from the ceiling rack. He felt those eyes would stay with him for a long, long time. He tried to push any thoughts and memories from his mind but was interrupted by the ambulance quickly slowing down and stopping.
He leaned forward and looked out the back windows, half expecting to see the flashing blue and white lights of a police cruiser pulling them over. Wouldn’t that be ironic? They had survived an attack by a dead girl — two attacks! — just to get pulled over for speeding to a hospital. Well, once they saw his bite and Jones explained the situation, they’d be on their away again. There weren’t any lights, though, flashing or otherwise. Whatever they had slowed for was in front of the vehicle.
He slid back toward the cab and leaned forward to look through the window again. He saw flashing lights and a barricade in front of the truck. It was stil raining a bit, more mist than rain at this point, so he couldn’t see too much of what was in front of them. He thought he saw some green Jeeps over to the side, though. What would the military be doing here?
Jones reached up a hand and knocked on the window once the car was stopped. Elijah was still looking out, but Jones hadn’t known that. He turned around and saw Elijah’s face. He pointed out the window and nodded. Elijah nodded back and shrugged his shoulders. If this had been a newer ambulance there’d probably be a better way to talk to each other, but it was an older model and they had to get by with knocks and body gestures. It had worked pretty well so far. Jones pointed over his shoulder at the door then turned and exited the ambulance. Elijah sat back down to wait for someone to open the door. Which he was sure they’d do if they needed him.
Gumbowsky’s head came over the top of the staircase just when Jamison started the cruiser. The engine roared to life and the lights started flashing again. Mike stomped on the accelerator and the car shot toward Gumbowsky, sliding to a stop in front of him. He popped open the side door and climbed into the passenger seat. “You sure you can drive, man?” Mike didn’t look so good, but he nodded vigorously, his eyes not moving from in front of him. He kicking in the gas again and they sped down the street, away from the subway station.
The closest hospital, Eden Medical, was behind them about fifteen miles. Gumbowsky wasn’t sure where Mike was heading. “Hey, man, the hospital’s behind us. Shouldn’t you turn around?” Mike growled something indistinct and whipped down a side street to the right. He sped forward a block or two and hauled a tire-skidding right again. At least he was pointed in the right direction now.
The streets were deserted in the less-than-pleasant early afternoon hours. A few cars sat on the sides of the road, but no one was walking around. Even on the nastiest days of winter or the hottest days of summer, SOMEONE was always on the streets. A kid truant from school, a mom going grocery shopping, someone. It was truly scary to see the streets so empty of life.
Gumbowsky pulled his eyes away from the deserted pathways of the city and looked over at his partner. They’d been assigned to each other for a couple of years now, but Mike had never been really friendly. Still, they had Christmas dinner with each other’s families and had saved each other from injury or maybe even death a few times. That one drugged out kid last summer, for example.
Mike had had the kid cornered after he had tried to rip off a convenience store. The kid hadn’t grabbed more than a hundred dollars — the store didn’t keep more than that at any given time usually — but he had risked his life, and threatened the life of the clerk, for it. He had a knife in his hand, but he kept reaching behind his back and fiddling with something. Gumbowsky had been in the car calling for backup when Mike radioed in that he needed help now. When he got to the scene, Gumbowsky saw the kid and Mike in a standoff, both of them with pistols drawn.
The kid had been completely tripped out on bathroom-brewed crack, nervous twitches made him slow-witted. He didn’t notice the new cop slipping into the alleyway behind and beside the one he was concentrating on. Gumbowsky had pulled his gun out, but kept it held down to his side. Mike saw him out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t do anything to give it away, just a quick flick of the eyes. Gumbowsky slid further into the alley, getting as close to the crackhead as he could. When he was only a few feet away, he raised his gun and yelled “Freeze” at the kid. It had felt so crazily cliche, but it was all that came to mind.
It had worked, apparently. The kid’s drug-addled brain hadn’t been able to deal with two targets and he had dropped his gun. The knife was already on the ground, dropped when he had decided to pull out the gun. Mike moved forward, gun still trained on the kid, and Gumbowsky moved closer, too. Mike cuffed the kid and searched him for more weapons while Gumbowsky read him his rights. Rights. These damn kids shouldn’t have any rights when they’re out of their minds on shit they made in a bathtub. You were lucky if the tub was clean, even. That night had gone well, though.
Now, though, Mike didn’t look like himself. His eyes were jumping around more than the crackhead kid’s had. His lips were both trembling and his throat was still bleeding, although it was now just a trickle. He had one hand clamped on the wound, which probably explained a large part of why he was driving so eradically. While Gumbowsky was looking at him, he suddenly whipped the around around another corner to the right and raced up another side street. Two blocks and he pulled another right, still not at the hospital. Suddenly he slammed on the brakes and jumped onto the passenger-side sidewalk. When the car was stopped, he twisted off the ignition, lept out of the car keyless and ran up the alley they had stopped at.
Gumbowsky didn’t know what to do. His partner seemed delirious. He sat where he was in shock for a few seconds, a half of a minute, then slowly got out of the car. It wasn’t raining, but it felt like it should be. An unnatural chill seemed caught inside of Gumbowsky’s clothes and skin, making his bones want to shake. He looked around to see if he knew where he was.
It was the street they had been on to begin with. Down a ways was the library, beyond it, the subway station where the… dead girl had been. Where she had bitten Mike and turned the whole day inside out. There was no one on the streets here either. Gumbowsky wasn’t anxious to go down the alley but he couldn’t let his partner, his friend, wander off like that. He needed medical attention and he needed it fast.
He picked up the microphone for the radio and pressed the “press to talk” button. A crackle of static preceded his message. “This is Officer Gumbowsky. I’m on Grand Avenue, a few blocks to the west of the City Library. My partner, Office Jamison, has been injured and needs medical attention. Please send an ambulance as soon as possible. Over.” He didn’t know if anyone was listening, especially considering the news that Billy had relayed to them. Still, he had to try. He sighed, hung up the transmitter, and climbed out of the car.
The alley was narrow, but not claustrophobic. Or it wouldn’t have been without the trash, at least. The piles of rubbish cramped the passageway to an uncomfortable width at several places, not to mention how they slicked the floor. Mike had already disappeared into the shadows somewhere further along so Gumbowsky had no choice but to hurry along the dirty corridor blindly. He saw the corner when he was three-quarters or so down the alley. Mike had to have already turned it, which was why he hadn’t seen or heard him. Gumbowsky turned the corner and walked into Mike’s back.
He bounced off of his partner’s back with an “oof”, nearly losing his balance. “Jesus, Mike, don’t just stand there in the dark. What’s the mat — ” His words were cut off when Mike turned around.
His face was blotchy and etched with black lines. His nose had turned a horribly dark purple knob on the front of his face, and his lips were pulled back in a snarl. The wound at his neck from the girl’s bite seemed to pulse with his breathing, the edges already turning black and yellow. Pus and blood still oozed slowly out. Mike’s eyes were bloodshot and his pupils wide, almost eliminating the irises. His purple nose flared with each breath out and his mouth was open, breathing in deeply. Gumbowsky nearly screamed.
“Mi — Mike! Come on, buddy, we gotta — ” He stopped talking and turned to run, realizing his partner, his friend, was already too far gone. In the middle of the turn, he felt his legs fall out from beneath him. He managed to pull his arms up to block his face, but the air was knocked out of his lungs. After a couple of burning gasps of air, he scrambled to pull himself forward on elbows and knees, feeling both elbows scrape skin away on the trash-covered ground. He tried to pull his knees up to stand, but felt teeth sink into his calf. He screamed and kicked with the other leg.
Mike let go of him after a couple of solid kicks to the top of his head, but not without ripping a chunk out of his leg and growling at him, a feral growl that caused the hair on Gumbowsky’s arms to stand on end. “Jesus, help me,” he prayed, finally gaining his feet. But everything was turned around now. Mike was moving incredibly fast and had gotten between him and the alley leading to the police cruiser. Gumbowsky stood tenderly on his bitten leg, trying to think if he could outmove his ex-partner.
Ex-partner. He was amazed at how fast that thought had taken hold. Still, this wasn’t the time for examining how his brain dealt with the sudden and uniquely strange loss of his partner. He needed to get away. He turned his head halfway to look at the alley behind him. As soon as his eyes left Mike’s, he felt Mike’s significant weight hit him full in the torso, knocking the air out of his lungs a second time.
They crashed to the alley floor, Gumbowsky’s head ricocheting off the blacktop surface. He felt a blinding flash of pain and black spots swam in front of his eyes, mostly obscuring Mike’s deranged face. He was sure he had a concussion but didn’t dare reach a hand up to check. His hands were full with trying to pry or push Mike off of him, get free of the monster and get to his feet.
Monster. No, he had to concentrate on escaping. The therapist could deal with these immediate thoughts. He grunted as he tried to push Mike off of him. For a second time today he thoght of all the days he had skipped the gym or super-sized a burger meal. Mike’s face slid down and Gumbowsky started pushing down on his shoulders, but Mike wasn’t sliding off of him. Gumbowsky felt a tearing sensation in his gut and screamed in pain again. He started pounding on Mike’s shoulders and head with his clenched fists. They had no effect.
Mike growled, almost a satisfied grunt, and dug in further. Gumbowsky rememberd his gun and scrambled at his belt to get it out of the holster. Mike must have seen what he was doing, as he swatted the gun away as soon as it came free of the leather case. It went sliding away into piles of trash, far out of Gumbowsky’s reach. Shit.
Another scream escaped from his lips as Mike reached a hand down to further rip at his stomach. Gumbowsky reached down and jammed his thumbs into Mike’s face, tearing at his enemy’s eyes. The monster at his stomach growled and howled, ripping all the more furiously. Gumbowsky was sure he wouldn’t make it out of his alive, but damned if he was going to give up. He kept pressing in on his assailant’s eyes with both thumbs.
Mike stopped clawing at his stomach. It was working! Mike’s hands came to his own face and tried to scratch and tear the hands away from his eyes. Gumbowsky held on as tight as possible, feeling the slimey orbs sliding aside to accomodate his thumbs. Both men screamed at each other.
Mike reached forward and wrapped his hands around Gumbowsky’s throat. His thumbs pressed in on either side of the windpipe and Gumbowsky could almost feel the nails digging into his flesh. Then he did feel it, his mind giving up on trying to block out the pain, adrenaline doing nothing. Fingers slid in and pulled and ripped at flesh and muscle. He didn’t let go of the monster’s head, though, now pulling at the eyes with all of his might.
Both eyes popped out into his hands. Covered with blood, they were hard to hold onto, Gumbowsky held and pulled, ripping the optic nerves out with them. The monster screamed at him and ripped at his throat harder. The creature’s thumbs found his windpipe and punched through it, immediately bringing more black spots to his vision. He tried to suck in air and just felt liquid rising in his throat. He coughed and saw specks of blood flying into the air. Mike pulled one hand out of his throat and wrapped it around his forehead. The fingers pinched in, putting tremendous pressure on his temples, and he felt his head pulled off the floor. Mike’s arm straighted and smashed Gumbowsky’s head into the ground. A few more smashes like that and the world faded completely to black.