Текст книги "Vaccination"

Автор книги: Phillip Tomasso

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter Five

 

 

“Supervisor,” I yelled. Waited. Looked around. Everyone was still busy. We had over a hundred calls in Que.

I sent a message to the supervisors’ pagers to look at the job. Nothing more I could do. Nothing they’d be able to do. At least I’d alerted them for when authorities called with questions.

Permission or not, it’s break time. I needed a couple of minutes to get my head back together. I needed a cigarette. As far behind as we were, breaks would get skipped. I set my headset down, inactivated my terminal and walked off the floor. I wanted to look back, see how Allison was doing in the police pod, but didn’t want to risk eye contact with a supervisor–didn’t want to get questioned about why I was up and walking off the floor with so many calls waiting to be answered.

I patted my pocket to ensure my smokes were there, headed off the floor, through the halls, and toward the back door. The rain had stopped. The night had cleared. No need for a coat. Moon’s out in a cloudless sky. Looked peacefully deceiving.

The perimeter was fenced-in. Secure within its confines. I figured I had fifteen minutes and wasn’t wasting them thinking about work.

I thought about Kenya. And the scientist.

I lit my cigarette.

“They’re saying they’re like monsters.”

I looked up. Laforce is standing there. “What?”

“On the news. The city’s full of these monsters. They’re attacking people. Eating them.”

“Eating them? What, eating people?” I thought of the suicidal guy, what he’d said. I almost smiled. It sounded foolish. It was foolish. Best I knew, George Romero wasn’t shooting a new film in Rochester.

“Yeah. It’s becoming, I don’t know, like an overnight epidemic.”

“What, like all of Rochester?”

“I heard New York. Chicago. Pennsylvania.” LaForce took my cigarette. “You mind?”

I eyed him curiously, as I lit another. “You don’t smoke.”

“Right now I do.” LaForce took calls, dispatched both fire-EMS and police, and when needed, acted as a supervisor. He had access to more information than a schmuck like me did.

“What do you mean ‘it is’?”

Laforce took a long drag. I waited. Almost counted down from five out loud. He went into an expected coughing jag. Smoke escaped from parted lips and nostrils. The big guy looked like a mildly retarded dragon.

“Give me that.” I took the cigarette from him. Dropped it. Crushed the lit head with my heel.

“Guy on the news said something about scientists here at the hospital breaking some vial, and covering up the mistake. Had something to do with that flu.”

“And the vaccinations.”

“You already knew?”

“Just a guess,” I said. I tried to swallow. Mouth was too dry. “You get one of those shots?”

“Yeah. They kind of forced everyone here to get ‘em. Didn’t want us getting sick and missing work, spreading it around to everyone,” he said, smiled. “Why, you didn’t get one?”

“Figured if everyone else got one, I wouldn’t need it,” I shrugged. No one can make me get a shot. I wasn’t a conspiracy theorist, but I didn’t trust the government much. Which, I guess, made me a conspiracy theorist.

“It’s crazy on the fire side. We’ve sent every unit out on EMS calls. We’ve got fires everywhere. There’s no one left. I mean, no one left. We keep putting out tones, and voicing out jobs. Inventory showed every piece of equipment at–what, forty departments– are being used. The county has nothing left. We tried getting fill-ins from other counties. No one has anything to spare. Not a squad, not a buggy. Nothing. We’re out of ambulances, too. I talked to Taylor. The police – same thing, all out. No cars left to send to any of the newer jobs. Bunch of cops aren’t answering the radio at all. So that’s got cops coming off of jobs to go check on the other officers.” LaForce shook his head.

It was too much to take in. I understood what LaForce said. I kept running through my conversation with that suicidal scientist. “Yeah, it’s crazy on ph—”

“Grahhhhh.”

I looked up at LaForce. Did he just, Grahhhhh, at me?

His eyes were open wide, stared over my shoulder.

I spun around.

A man had his hands on the bars of the perimeter fence. Blood dripped from his mouth, was smeared on his face, and coated his clothing. Milky, glazed over eyes vacantly stared back at us. Black veins webbed his forehead and face, pulsed. . . no, moved. I watched what looked like small pebbles being sucked up through thin straws.

“What the hell?” I backed away from the fence. “Go tell someone! Get a supervisor, or something!”

LaForce stood for a moment longer, staring. He backed away, one shuffle, then two, then finally turned and ran back into the building. I should have followed.

“It’s all right, sir,” I said. It’s a lie. He looked sick. Like he’d died and no one had told him.

It was there. In my mind. After the call I’d just taken, after talking with LaForce. But I wouldn’t say it out loud. Wouldn’t even let myself form the complete thought in my head. Wasn’t believing it. No fucking way zombies were real. Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, The Walking Dead – Fuck no. Fuck Milla Jovovich and all of that shit.

This guy’s arms snaked through the bars, fingers flicked, reaching for me. His face was pressed tight against the metal slats like he thought he could fit his head through. Worse, like he wouldn’t stop shoving himself until his head did fit through.

I didn’t see the second man until he was directly behind the guy trying to slide through the bars.

The second guy swung a baseball bat as if he was in the box at home plate. The bat connected. The first guy’s skull smashed with a sickening, almost hollow-sounding thwack!

The face that was pressed against the bars was now halfway through. Bulbous eyes bulged from bleeding sockets. Blood oozed from a gaping mouth.

“Ah shit, man.” It was all I could say. May have said it over and over. Certainly more than once. The need to turn and run back inside filled me. There was no reason to stay out here and witness a murder. There was no way I could do anything to stop it. Decided, I was ready to flee.

LaForce and Milzy stood behind me. Their mouths open. They stared at the beating taking place behind me.

“We need police,” I said.

Milzy got one hand on his cell. The other reached for his waist, like he thought he wore a holster. Like his fingers were reaching for the memory of a handgun.

I couldn’t look away from the –you couldn’t call it a fight—scene, as the guy with the bat swung again. Blood sprayed like mist in all directions from the back of what had to be a pulpous mess of a skull.

Milzy yelled at the guy, “Put the bat down! Just put the bat down!”

When the assault finished, murder committed in front of us, the guy held his bat like a sword. “You have to destroy their heads, man. It’s the only way. They don’t go down otherwise. They just keep at you. You have to—”

Three more men came running up on the man with the bat, tackled him.

Good Samaritans?

At least, I thought that until—once they had the bat-guy on the ground—they didn’t just restrain him, they devoured him.

Faces got buried in bat-guys gut, on his arm, and leg; teeth tore clothing off flesh and flesh off limbs.

One guy’s head rose, intestines hung from the corners of his mouth. I wanted to look away as he gnawed and chewed and ripped the thick twisting snake of innards in half, but couldn’t.

I just stood there. Thoughtless. Staring.

“Let’s get inside,” Milzy said. “Now!”

#  #  #

The 911 Office was supposed to be impenetrable. A fortress. There was a mirrored backup operations floor within the facility, and ready to go to in case the main operations area was destroyed or compromised. There were showers and rooms to rest in should a crisis present itself and we’re forced to stay at work until the situation is resolved.

I figured it might happen during a major snowstorm, or some kind of terrorist attack. The idea of needing refuge from monsters on the loose never entered my mind. Never.

“I had a call, Milzy,” I said. “Some guy said he was a scientist. That this was his fault. I mean, I thought he was crazy. I sent a page to you guys.”

We entered the building. Milzy locked the doors.

“Saw it. Not now,” he said, “save it.”

“He told me the only way to stop these things was by destroying the head. Just like that guy with the bat said just now. Same thing. Destroy the head.”

“Not now,” he said, again.

He also told me the infected ones were people who’d received the H7N9 vaccinations, I thought.

“Get back on the phones.”

The supervisor knew something. I could tell. I was shocked by what I’d just witnessed. A brutal slaying.

Milzy looked shaken. Not shocked.

Someone must have given information about what was going on to management. Just not to everyone, I guess. Not to us. An email. A memo. Department of Defense? The Center for Disease Control?

I’d been off the operations floor for maybe ten minutes?

When I walked back on, people were missing. Too many. “Where is everyone?”

“Sick. Lot of people seem to be coming down with this flu,” Milzy said. “We’ve got them lying down in the bunker area.”

“Everyone?” I asked.

LaForce had his hand over his stomach. He looked green. Normally, I’d of sworn it was from the drag he took on my cigarette. It had been a cigarette, not a cigar. He might look that way from witnessing the murder. I doubted it. He was a volunteer fireman. He’d pulled the skin off burn victims during house fires while trying to drag them out safely. No. He was not sick from smoking, and not from seeing something gruesome.

Milzy sighed. “What, LaForce?”

“I don’t feel good.”

“I need you on the fire side. Please. You two, get back to work.” Milzy strutted back up to the center supervisor pod. Was he trying to act like everything was business as usual? Normal? That some guy didn’t just get his head bashed in with a bat; and the guy with the bat eaten like he was a buffet?

“What the hell is going on?” I asked. I wasn’t taking more calls. There were emergencies flooding the city, yes, but something really fucked up was happening here. Happening now.

Tronnes stumbled out from the fire pod. He was bent over with one hand on the chest-high cubicle wall, the other on his knee. I stepped back. Not a moment too soon. Tronnes heaved and projectile vomit spewed from his mouth and nose. It splashed onto the carpeted floor. Wet, chunky, green vomit.

He’d poised that way for ten, twenty seconds.

Looked like a fountain statue in a pond filled with slimy, but thick water. The odor of ammonia and hot dogs immediately assaulted my nostrils. My breath caught in my lungs as I jumped back and plugged my nose.

“Ah, shit,” I said.

LaForce turned away. “This ain’t good, man.”

I kept backing up. Toward the door. I wanted out.

“Help,” Tronnes said, kept reaching for me. He reminded me of the guy at the fence—the way his fingers flicked at me.

“Milzy,” I called out. “Milzy!”

Milzy sat in a chair in the center supervisor chair, didn’t look good. Did he not just see Tronnes blow chunks? Instead, his hand slipped between the buttons on his shirt, and his palm massaged his bloated-looking belly.

Spenser was on the City Fire channel. He had his headset on, but wasn’t doing anything. A new job flashed on his screen. Instead of dispatching it, he stared at me. Dark bags encircled his eyes, and his upper lip kept twitching.

I knew we were out of fire equipment, there was no one to respond to anything, and I know Tronnes just got fucking sick all over the place–but Spenser should at least, at the very least, put the call out over the air.

Across the room, Allison backed away from Taylor, and Kawyn. They looked, shit . . . they looked hungry. “Allison!” I yelled.

She saw me, but stayed still. Her lips moved. I couldn’t hear a sound she made.

I wanted to close my eyes. Ignore everything. Because it’s not real. It’s not happening. Couldn’t be.

I could turn, run—grab my keys and head to my car. Or I could help those who were not yet sick.

But see, there’s the problem.

How did I know if someone who was not sick now, wouldn’t get sick? I didn’t.

I tried to remember everything the scientist had said to me. He blamed the H7N9 vaccinations. They were contaminated, but still distributed to the masses. The Flu was man-made. The cure, man-made. But something had gone wrong. Locally. Only thing was the shots, the vaccinations, were sent across the U.S. Supplies may have been sent out globally? LaForce had said they were calling the outbreak an epidemic.

Epidemic was what LaForce had said.

“Who did not get the flu shot?” I shouted.

People looked at me from the various pods.

“Who didn’t get the shot?” I said. “The vaccination. Who didn’t get it?”

Maar, Nolan, Cortese—their hands went up. Like they’re in school.

“What are you talking about?” DeJesus, who was on the EMS channel, stood up.

“Did you get the flu shot?” I asked.

He nodded.

I pursed my lips. “How you feel?”

“Fine.” He burped.

Are you kidding me? He fucking burped.

“If you didn’t get the shot, come with me.”

Allison screamed. Taylor and Kawyn advanced some, moved slowly and sluggishly, but advanced regardless.

I ran her way.

Bradley-Phillips came out of the fire pod. He’s a brick wall. He should have been a city fireman, not a dispatcher–doing truck work, tearing holes in roofs with saws and axes, not dispatching. When he crossed his arms over his chest and hit me, hard, I fell. I landed on my left hand. My wrist bent wrong, but didn’t snap.

I screamed.

“What’s the deal?” Bradley-Phillips asked.

I ignored his drooling. “You get the shot?”

“So?”

I got up, babied my left arm some, and curled it in toward my own chest. If I told them what I knew, what I thought I knew to be true, they’d panic. If I didn’t come clean, those who hadn’t received the shot would be trapped. I’d be trapped.

My kids. Shit. My kids!

“You’re sick,” I said. I moved backward a few steps. “Those of us who didn’t get the shot need to go to Secondary Ops.” The mirror back up area just across the hall.

I said this loud, hoped the people who had not received the shot understood. I tried to tell them without saying it. I wanted them to run.

“You don’t want to spread the virus, do you, Bradley? Do you?”

He’s a big guy. Normally gentle. At least I thought so before he knocked me halfway across the room.

No one moved. My subtle hint had fallen on deaf ears.

“Allison—why don’t you and the others go to Secondary Ops,” I said, my eyes on Bradley-Phillips, as if ready to fend off another attack. Which I wasn’t. The guy could squash me with his hammerhead-sized thumb.

I couldn’t leave Allison. I wouldn’t say I loved her, but she was my girl. My woman. However, there was no way I planned to cross the room in order to get to her. No way at all.

I heard the groan and felt the hand on my shoulder before I could do anything. Its puke breath gave Tronnes away.

I grabbed Tronnes’ wrist with my one good hand, and spun, twisting his arm up behind his back, and pushed. It was harder than I wanted to push. When I heard the crack, I shuddered.

With his now limp arm dangling at his side, I expected Tronnes to scream. Or cry. Or cuss. Or throw a punch.

He didn’t. He licked his lips. Cocked his head to one side. . .And took a sloppy step toward me.

Chapter Six

 

 

I’d told everyone who wasn’t injected what the plan was. It was no longer safe staying here on the primary operations floor. Either they followed my directions, or they didn’t.

I pushed Tronnes again, hard. His one good arm pin-wheeled.

“Allison, get out of here!”

I didn’t stay to see if Tronnes fell. Instead, I turned and ran past LaForce, who was doubled over and cradling his stomach with folded arms.

I pushed through the door, pulled it closed.

Bradley-Phillips, right behind me, was stopped by the steel enforced barrier. He struggled with the door handle. If he turned it, and pushed—I’d be unable to stop him.

Instead, he gave up on the knob and just banged giant fists on the door’s bullet proof glass.

It was in his eyes. They’d gone from brown to milky-white. Brown, to fucking milky white. Did I just see that happen? Did I just witness life spill out of his eyeballs?

No, had the scientist said they weren’t dead. That they were alive? I couldn’t remember.

Bradley-Phillips looked dead. It seemed like he’d forgotten how to use a door handle. In the time it took his eyes to lose color, he’d forgotten how to use a door handle. I’d seen it happen, and I still couldn’t believe it.

The others—those who hadn’t received the shot—made their way toward the west end primary operations exit.

Allison had jumped onto a desk and over the cubicle as Taylor swept a hapless arm toward her, and missed.

Maar, Nolan, and Cortese, were right behind her, the four of them scrambled in the direction of the only other not yet blocked possible escape route.

Winger, one of the other supervisors with Milzy, tackled Cortese, had him by the arm. Without pause, Winger bit off Cortese’s ear, chewed it like a pit-bull with a rubber wad of rawhide.

I draped an arm across my stomach and hoped to steady the sudden flip-flopping going on inside there. I braced myself, an arm on the wall, knees wobbling.

I pulled my hands away from the wall. The floor blurred. My shoulder slammed into the closed door. . .off balance, but still on my feet.

Secondary Ops. It’s around the corner. I pushed off the door with my shoulder, and ran.

Allison’s at Secondary. Stopped at the pass-protected door. “They’re in there!”

Faces were pressed against the thick, break-proof glass. Blood and saliva smeared in shapes of noses, mouths and handprints. “Milzy said the first sick people were in the bunker.”

Didn’t matter what Milzy said. Bunker. Secondary.

The sick weren’t in the bunker, resting. They were in Secondary. Locked up. Locked away.

“So now what?” Nolan panted, used his sleeve to wipe sweat from his forehead. “What’s going on? I mean, where do we go?”

Where do we go?

“I took a few calls—I think what’s going on here, is happening out there, too,” Maar said. “I have to get home. My wife and kids, you know? I have to get to them.”

“It can’t be safe out there,” I said. I thought the same thing. My kids. I needed to find them. Protect them.

Allison looked from one operations floor to the other. They’re literally twenty feet apart. Identical rooms. Both housing flesh-eating monsters that were all staring at us through blood-streaked glass, as if we were animals at a zoo. Or, more like we were food on display and they were waiting to place their order, to pick up their plate and get in line at the buffet.

Now serving number twenty-seven? I think.

“Jimmy has guns,” I said, “in his locker.”

I didn’t want us to separate. Safety in numbers and all of that. “We can get the guns; make a dash for the parking lot. We’ll follow each other. Nolan lives closest. We’ll hit his house first.”

Nolan smiled. He liked the plan.

“My wife’s home alone,” Maar said.

“I’m worried about my kids, too. We shouldn’t split up,” I said.

“My wife is closer,” Maar said.

I just stared at him. “We’re staying together. Nolan’s house first. Right now, Jimmy’s locker, all right?”

We ran for the men’s room, through the door, past the urinals and stalls, and finally through rows of lockers. “It’s this one,” I pointed.

“So how do we get in?” Nolan set fists on his hips.

“Break into it,” Maar said.

Way easier said than done. After ten minutes of pulling, banging, and pounding, we realized the truth. Guns might be inside that locker, but we had no way at them.

“I have to check on my family,” Nolan said. He’s in his locker, grabbing his cell phone, dialing. “No one’s answering.”

Maar disappeared. I heard another locker open.

“Come with me to the women’s lockers?” Allison snaked her arm through mine. She shivered. “Please? Will you come with me to my locker?”

“I have to get to my family.” Nolan put on his coat. One hand had his cell. The other, car keys. “I’m sorry. I have to.”

“We should stay together.” I wasn’t going to beg. I didn’t think anyone would listen. Not anymore.

I heard the bathroom door open. “Maar! Maar!”

Nothing. He must have taken off!

“Let’s get your stuff, quick,” Nolan said to Allison, and zipped up his coat.

I looked at Jimmy’s locker, then at Allison, deflated. “Okay. Let’s hurry!”

I got my cell, followed them out of the men’s room, and into the women’s. They were stopped inside.

Barb leaned against the sink counter. The faucet running. Her messy dark hair was perfect for framing a face full of clown-like smeared make-up. “I don’t feel well.”

“Get your stuff, Alley,” I said. “What doesn’t feel good, Barb?”

“My stomach.”

“Go Allison. Get your stuff,” I ordered. “Now.”

She moved, ran to her locker.

Barb stood up straight. Like Bradley-Phillips, she drooled. Blood drop tears dripped from bloodshot eyes. Her nose twitched. Lips quivered.

When she grunts, I’m running!

“Allison!” I yelled.

“I gotta get out of here,” Nolan said.

I grabbed his arm. He shrugged it off, stepped back and banged back out through the door.

Son of a bitching chickenshit!

Allison is stuck. Barb stood between us. Pupils milky-white and glazed over. Shit. From stomachache to zombie after seconds? That quick? That was un-fucking-fair, forget simply unbelievable!

“What do I do?” Allison asked.

Barb was all of four-foot-eleven. If that.

“Get ready, Alley,” I said. I counted inside my head. One. Two...

I pivoted, raised my leg, and kicked.

The flat of my foot planted solidly across Barb’s face. She fell backward, through a stall door. I saw Barb’s smashed nose and missing front tooth as she landed on the toilet.

Allison didn’t need to be told to run this time.

We fled the restroom and the facility and headed for the parking lot.