Air
An Elements of The Undead Series Novelette
by
William Esmont
Smashwords Edition 1.0 September 2011
Copyright © 2011 by William Esmont
All rights reserved.
License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold 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 you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
www.williamesmont.com
Also by William Esmont:
Horror:
Fire: Elements of The Undead Book One
Espionage Thriller:
The Patriot Paradox (The Reluctant Hero Book One)
Pressed (The Reluctant Hero Book Two) Winter 2011
Bio-Thriller:
Self Arrest
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Now
The image comes unbidden: a falling man, upside-down, his hands pressed tight against his body, his knee cocked, casual almost, the crisp white of his jacket in stark contrast to the concrete tower looming behind, a horrific instant frozen for all eternity. His fate is certain. His choice is made. He is free.
I open my eyes and peer over the ledge.
They're still there, of course, twelve stories down. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, mill about the base of the tower, waiting patiently for a meal with a pulse. They don't know I'm here. They don't sense my disgust, my incredulity and abject fury at their mere existence.
They can't. They're dead.
I'm the last person alive on the roof of the Liberty Medical Center, and my time is almost up. Like that man so long ago, events I never could have foreseen have severed the thread of my life, cut short my hopes and dreams, leaving me with but two options: die free or become one of them. If I remain where I stand, the monsters at my back will overwhelm me, consume me whole. Of that I am certain. The only thing holding them back is a two-by-four wedged under a weathered steel door handle. It won't hold. It can't. Not forever.
Black smoke blankets the western horizon, remnants of a fire I cannot see. My house is over there somewhere, three miles to the west. Only a ten minute bike ride. Thirty minutes by foot. It may as well be the other side of the moon now. I wonder what's burning. A small plane went down earlier; a Cessna, I think. It appeared out of the east, flying erratically, wings wobbling and engine sputtering until finally, inevitably, it tumbled into the tree line.
I hear a scraping, a grinding of metal against metal, the soundtrack of my impending doom. The door. Zombies. They're almost through. Despite my better judgment, I sneak a glance over my shoulder. A bloodshot eye meets mine, locking onto me through the finger-sized gap in the door. The owner of the eye, so close to his prize, redoubles his efforts, throwing his full weight against the failing door. Soon. It's only a matter of time.
I spy an empty water bottle, crushed and folded as if it were destined for a recycling bin. I wipe sweat from my forehead. A keening laugh erupts from my throat, a sound I've never made before, never imagined I could make. I clamp my mouth shut and swallow the laugh. This is not funny.
With a soft kick, I send the bottle from the roof, launching it into the air. It hangs in space for a moment, like that old cartoon coyote, waiting for time to catch up. Then, it's gone, tumbling toward the somnambulant mass of creatures waiting below. I watch with detached interest as it spirals to the ground, falling not unlike a leaf, the deformed contours of the plastic bottle triggering unpredictable aerodynamic effects, making it spin and twist in the still, dead air.
The bottle strikes one of the creatures in the head, bounces once, and tumbles to the ground. They react as one. Their sound reaches me a moment later—a deep sonorous moan like a far-off train in the middle of the night. They sense prey. Opportunity. They sense me. Still, they don't look up.
Stupid bastards. The bottle sure got them going. Another laugh escapes.
Metal grinds against metal, making my skin crawl. This is it. I hear footsteps. A roar from behind.
They're out.
My breathing is slow and easy.
I take a step.
A Few Hours Ago…
It's Tuesday morning, and it's almost my turn to give a status report when my phone rings. I twitch in surprise and try to suppress the pleased smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. I was hoping for a reason to bail out of this meeting. This may be my lucky day. I make a show of holding up the phone and staring at the screen, not really seeing it but plastering a concerned frown on my face as if I do. “I've got to take this,” I mumble as I push back from the conference table and rush toward the door. My boss raises an inquisitive eyebrow, but I ignore him and slip past.
“This is Chris,” I answer once I'm alone in the hall.
“Mr. Thompson, this is Sergeant McElroy, Houston Police. I'm calling about your—“
“Brother,” I finish. Goddamn it! Not again.
My brother Dave has always been kind of a fuck up, the kind of guy who would jump off a bridge if all of his friends do it, the kind of guy who thinks nothing of risking his life to impress a girl just to get into her pants—an irresponsible kid in a man’s body, in other words. I almost hate to admit it, but I've always been a little jealous of him. While I've got the steady job, the four-bedroom house in the ‘burbs, and a shiny new Acura, Dave does what he wants, when he wants. He's had more girlfriends than I can count, drives a fast black motorcycle when it's not in the shop, and thinks nothing of drinking a beer for breakfast. In short, he lives life on his terms and makes no apologies about it.
His life isn't perfect, of course. Not even close. Somewhere along the line, he knocked up one of his girlfriends. He has a kid now, a little boy named Max. Max lives with his mom in Dallas, and Dave sees him once a month, or whenever he can scrape up enough gas money to make the trip. He tries to play it off, to act as if he doesn't care, but sometimes I catch a glimpse in his eyes of what the separation is doing to him. He can't help himself, though. He's not cut out to be a father. Hell, if I had little kids, I wouldn't leave them alone with him for a second. I'll never tell him, but I think he'll make a good friend to Max someday. He'll be one of those cool older dads, the kind who lets his teenager drink beer, the kind who recounts endless stories of his wild youth. That's what I hope at least. If not, then I'll really feel sorry for him, and I don't want to go there. Not again.
“There's been an accident,” McElroy says.
This isn't the first time a cop has called me about Dave. The most recent incident was about a year ago when they hauled him in on a drunk-and-disorderly charge. Dave swore up and down he didn't start the fight, that the other guy had insulted his girlfriend or some shit.
“Whatever,” I told him in the parking lot afterward. “The important thing is you didn't get hurt. Or shot.” Houston is like that, thick with wannabe cowboys with serious Rambo complexes.
Dave laughed so hard at that he almost split open the ragged line of stitches in his upper lip. “You worry too much, Chris.” He gingerly traced a finger along his injury. “I would have had him if the cops hadn't shown up.”
The funny thing is, I believed him. Dave is a scrawny little son of a bitch, but when he gets backed into a corner, he turns as mean as a castrated boar. I still have a dent in the back of my skull as proof, payback for screwing one of his girlfriends in high school.
The door opens behind me, and my boss sticks out his head. “Everything okay?”
“I don't know,” I whisper. “Family emergency...”
He gives me a knowing 'aha' and closes the door, leaving me alone again.
“Is it serious?” I ask McElroy.
I hear a mumbling from the other end, as if McElroy is speaking to someone else with his hand covering the mouthpiece.
I sigh, annoyed. “Is it serious?”
“I'm sorry,” McElroy says, returning. “There's something going on over here—a fight in the emergency room. Yes. I mean, no. Your brother is pretty banged up, and he's asking for you.”
I picture Dave stretched out in a hospital bed, a pretty nurse by his side and a fat white cast covering the length of his leg. “He'll live?”
McElroy covers the phone again and shouts something unintelligible to someone on his end. Then, “Yes, Mr. Thompson. He'll live. But like I said, he's asking for you.”
This is better than I expected. Not only do I have an excuse to abandon the meeting, but now I have an excuse to leave work early. An afternoon in a hospital waiting room beats a full day of meetings at work any day.
“I'll be right over.”
I open the door to the conference room and inform my boss I have to leave. I don't give him time to protest.
Five minutes later, I'm ensconced in the leather cocoon of my new Acura, weaving through lunchtime traffic toward the medical center. Traffic is lighter than usual. I pass a cluster of cars on the shoulder. The drivers appear to be arguing with each other, in each other's faces. I don't see any damage to the cars. And then they're behind me.
I pull into the medical center parking lot and find a space. There's nothing near the entrance, so I'm forced to park in the hinterlands. I check my phone for messages as I walk. Nothing. Good.
The hospital lobby is mobbed. People are stacked five deep at the front desk, trying to get the attention of the receptionist. Two police officers stand beside the Coke machine; they look oddly out of place, nervous, as if they don't want to be here. I can't help but notice that they’re both resting their hands on the butts of their guns.
Taking my place at the rear of the crowd, I gird myself for battle. An undercurrent of tension flows around me, through me, circulating, mounting as I wait. An old lady with a bandage on her hand moves to cut in front of me. Stepping forward to block her, I cast an angry glare in her direction, but she's not paying attention.
This isn't working.
Someone at the front, someone I can't see through the mass of angry visitors, is taking too damned long. I recall a nurses’ station around the corner, a few steps inside the emergency room. Detaching myself from the crowd, I set off to find it.
An oversized pair of swinging doors separates the emergency room from the lobby. Plastered prominently in the center of the door, at head height, is a sign reading ‘Hospital Personnel Only.’ Fuck that. I take a deep breath and push through.
The doors bang shut behind me as I survey the emergency room. Nurses and doctors rush about like rats, frantic expressions, clipboards in hand, in what looks like barely controlled pandemonium.
An exam room door creaks open on my right, and a doctor exits. I do a double-take when I realize that his white jacket is soaked through with blood, as if he was on the losing end of a paintball battle. A second later, a police officer comes out. Like the doctor, the cop is drenched in blood, the light blue of his uniform shirt glistening black under the harsh fluorescent lights of the ER. He takes off a pair of safety goggles and rubs the lenses clear with his thumb.
“It's down the hall,” the doctor says to the cop, pointing in the opposite direction.
“Thanks.” As the cop turns, I catch a glimpse of his name tag. McElroy.
“Sir?” I step into his path. “I'm Chris Thompson. We spoke on the phone.”
A confused look flashes over McElroy's face, then vanishes. “Right. Dave Thompson's brother. He was asking for you.”
Duh. “Yes, sir. I came as fast as I could.”
“He's in one of the triage rooms.” He gestures at a line of curtains along the far wall. “He'll be glad you're here.”
I glance in the direction he indicated. All but one of the curtains are drawn. I don’t see Dave. A thought pops into my head. “Officer?”
“Yes?”
“Is my brother in trouble?” I expect him to say yes, to tell me Dave was the cause of some major catastrophe, so I’m surprised when he shakes his head.
“No. Sorry I didn't make that clear on the phone. I was the first responder to his accident. It was a single-vehicle crash, no fault of his.”
A scream erupts from the waiting room. A woman. Then another, louder. A moment passes, and I hear what sounds like furniture crashing over, perhaps the long row of chairs I passed on the way in.
Before I can ask McElroy what's going on, he pushes me aside. His palm is on the butt of his pistol, the safety strap unbuckled. He moves to the door and peers through one of the ten-inch square windows.
“Shit,” he hisses. “Here we go again.”
“Again? What is it?”
But he's already gone. I'm tempted to follow, to find out for myself what's going on, but I need to check on Dave. Besides, McElroy is a cop. He's trained for this sort of stuff.
I grab the closest doctor, a pretty young Indian woman, by the elbow. “Dave Thompson? He's my brother.”
The doctor, Chandra-something-or-other according to the fine blue embroidery over her left breast pocket, stares at me as if I just asked her the meaning of life. She tries to look around me, at the ER where McElroy went.
I snap my fingers in front of her face, forcing her to focus. “Dave Thompson?” I ask again.
She stares at her clipboard. “We moved him upstairs a few minutes ago. Twelfth floor. Orthopedic.” She steps around me. “Excuse me. I have to check on the ER.”
Realizing this is all I'm going to get out of her, I step aside to let her pass. She pushes through the door and is gone.
More shouting comes from the waiting room, then another crash, this one louder, closer to the doors. I decide I'm not going in there. I look around the emergency room for an elevator and see a pair of extra-wide, gurney-sized doors at the far end of the room. I set off in that direction with a determined stride, trying my best to look like I belong.
When I reach the elevators, I find the one on the left is already on the top floor. I push the call button for the other one, and the doors slide open immediately. I step inside and press the button for the twelfth floor, then lean back against the waist-high railing to wait.
Less than a minute later, the elevator chimes softly, and the doors rumble open to the top floor of the building.
Compared to the lobby and the emergency room, the top floor is a ghost town. I look for a nurses’ station and spot one a few yards down the hallway. An overweight woman in a floral print top huddles behind the desk. She's on the phone. She glares at me as I approach, putting me immediately on the defensive. What the hell did I do?
“Dave Thompson?” I mouth, motioning both directions in the hall with my eyes.
“Hold on, Louise,” the woman says into the phone. She puts her call on hold and gives me her attention. “Did you come from the first floor?”
I nod.
“My friend in Records said she heard gunshots in the emergency room. Did you see anything?”
My breath catches in my throat. Gunshots?
“I, uh, no… there was a commotion in the emergency room, but I didn't pay much attention.”
Three ear-splitting tones blast from the public address system speaker mounted in the ceiling. A moment later, there’s a fourth, longer tone, piercing my ears like an ice pick to my brain.
A man's voice booms from hidden speakers: “Attention, hospital staff. This is an emergency broadcast. Medical Center Tower One is on lockdown, effective immediately. Code A1. I repeat, Medical Center Tower One is on lockdown, effective immediately. Code A1. Please exercise extreme caution. Further instructions will follow.”
I lock eyes with the nurse. “What’s Code A1?”
She pulls a binder from a flimsy metal shelf beside her desk. “Good question.” She runs her finger down a series of tabs until she finds one marked A1, then flips the binder open to that page. Her face goes white as she reads.
“Sir,” she says sharply, “I have to ask you to vacate the hallway right now.” She stands up and grabs her purse from under the counter shelf.
My patience is almost exhausted by this point. All I want to do is find Dave.
“I will,” I say, not quite knowing what she means by vacate. “But first, please tell me where my brother is. Dave Thompson. And what the hell is A1?”
She hesitates, looking like she wants to bolt. Finally, after an interminable moment, she leans over her keyboard and types. “A1 means we are under threat of a terrorist attack.”
A terrorist attack? What the hell? Why would a terrorist want to attack a hospital? I straighten and glance over my shoulder at the elevator.
“Twelve eighteen,” she says, breaking me out of my spell. She points to my left. “Down there, on your right.” She fixes me in her gaze for a moment. “I have to go now. We have a rally point. I suggest you go to your brother's room and stay inside until we get the all clear.” She scoots from behind the desk and takes off at a brisk waddle, heading in the opposite direction.
I call out to her. “Miss?”
She ignores me, rounding a corner and disappearing from sight.
I notice her phone isn't blinking anymore. Louise must have gotten tired of waiting.
The hallway is a pulsing hive of activity as orderlies, nurses, and even the occasional doctor race back and forth, closing doors and holding hushed conversations. I head for Dave's room, a new urgency in my step.
Terrorists?
Dave's door is closed. I don't bother knocking.
“Chris!” he croaks when I enter. “What the hell took you so long?”
I step inside and close the door behind me. I test the handle, fearing it may have locked, but it didn’t.
He looks worse than I imagined. Not only does he have a cast on one leg, but he's also got a splint on his left hand. A bandage, stained a faint shade of pink, covers the side of his head. Ouch. My stomach clenches at the sight, a quick twinge of nausea, then I'm fine again.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
Dave shrugs and tries to smile, but winces instead. “I'm in a lot better shape than my bike if that's any indication.”
“Really? What the hell happened?”
“Fucking deer. Came out of the bushes and clipped my front wheel. That's the last thing I remember.”
I shake my head, imagining what I would have done in his place. “Shit.” I hate deer.
Dave changes the conversation. “What's going on out there? Someone shut my door a minute ago, and it sounds like they're shutting all the doors along the hall. And what in the hell is Code Eight One?”
“A One,” I correct.
“Whatever.”
“I don't know. Something’s going on downstairs. The nurse said something about a terrorist attack, but I think she's full of shit.” I step to the window and peer out at the parking lot. If there's a terrorist attack underway, I can't see any signs of it.
“Terrorists?”
I shrug. “That's what she said.”
“Fuck.” Dave squirms around, as if he’s trying to sit up.
“Hold on, man. Let me help.” I cross the room in two quick steps.
He stops moving. “I'm okay. I had an itch on my ass. I've been sitting here too long.”
I'm not sure what else to say. I pull a chair from beside the window, slide it toward the bed, and take a seat. “Did the doctor say when you can get out?”
Dave rolls his eyes. “They said they want to keep me overnight for observation.” He taps the bandage on his head. “Said I took a good hit.”
“Hmm...”
“Thanks for coming,” Dave says, his voice turning serious. “I didn't know who else to call.”
“No problem,” I say, meaning it.
We sit for a moment, neither speaking, neither sure what to say next. I pull out my phone and check it only to find I have no messages, no excuse for putting a wall between myself and Dave. Seeing my unease, Dave finds the remote control and points it at the television mounted high on the far wall.
Good idea.
The television is already tuned to MSNBC. A reporter, light-skinned Hispanic with a trim mustache, stares off camera. His forehead is slick with sweat. He nods at whoever he’s looking at, then swivels to face his audience. He coughs. “Please hold on, ladies and gentlemen. We're going live to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention any moment now. For those of you just joining this broadcast, the CDC is holding a press conference about the mysterious illness sweeping the country.” He puts his hand to his ear. “And now to the CDC...”
“What’s he talking about?” Dave asks. I shush him.
The camera switches to a shot of a wooden lectern in a dark conference room. Atlanta, I presume. A single glass of water sits on the corner of the lectern nearest the camera. A dark blue curtain covers the wall behind, the letters CDC stenciled in subtle off-white lettering in a repeating pattern.
Dave and I exchange a look of confusion. He moves to change the channel, but I hold up my hand, stopping him. “No. Wait. I want to see this—“
“You're the boss,” he says, balancing the remote on his cast. “What do you—“
I cut him off with a hand gesture as a man steps behind the lectern. Somewhere in his early fifties, the new arrival has the steely-eyed look of a man accustomed to delivering bad news. With wavy gray hair parted down the left side and an immaculate charcoal suit, he could be a doctor or he could only be someone who plays one on television—some sort of administrator.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” the man says. “I'm sorry for calling you here on such short notice, but time is of the essence.” This comment is directed at his local audience. He shifts his eyes to the camera, and his expression changes, grows harder, more intense. His eyes bore into me, rooting me in place.
A text overlay appears on the bottom of the screen, identifying the man as Steven Walberg, Director of the CDC. The top man.
“Over the course of the past several days, scientists and doctors here at the CDC have been tracking the progress of an as-yet unidentified disease. We have been working diligently to understand the source, the spread, and most importantly, the implications for the broader public health of this country, and to an extent, the world.”
Director Walberg clears his throat and takes a sip of water. “It's my unfortunate duty to report that there have been grave developments in our efforts to understand this new illness.“ He pauses, takes another sip of water, then continues, “Over the past forty-eight hours, we have received an increasing number of reports of the disease in geographically disparate areas of the United States. The disease presents like a common cold or flu, at first—high fever, nausea, and confusion. However, we are confident that it is not a variant of the flu you might be familiar with, such as swine or avian. This is something else, something new, something we haven’t seen before. Affected individuals become extremely aggressive as the disease progresses, turning on their caregivers in unpredictable and often violent ways. Due to the rapid and widespread nature of the infection, we suspect the disease is airborne and that it is likely present in all areas of the country.”
Director Walberg motions to his left, and the camera pulls back, revealing a wall-sized video screen. “This is the status of the infection as of two days ago.” He gestures at a map of the United States on the screen. If I squint, I can see a very faint scattering of pink dots clustered in and around the major population centers of the United States.
“And this is six hours ago,” the director says as the image is replaced by an identical map. On this version, the dots are much more obvious, pink blossoms swallowing entire cities. Worse yet, each major center of infection has sprouted tendrils reaching out to surrounding areas, chains of infection leading to countless smaller blobs in smaller communities, connecting everything. “As you can see, this new disease is present in all fifty states as of six hours ago.” He takes another sip of his water.
Dave laughs. “Jesus Christ! Is he kidding?”
“Quiet! I don't know.”
“Given the nature of this threat, the CDC has recommended to the President, and he has agreed, to institute a National Public Health Emergency, effective immediately, in an effort to halt the further spread of the contagion.”
“A little bit late for that,” Dave says with a snort.
Someone, probably a reporter, calls out from off camera, and the director raises his palm in a halting motion. “Hold on, Jim. I'll take your questions in just a minute.”
“To my fellow Americans, rest assured that we at the CDC, along with our partners in the private sector, are doing everything in our power to get this situation under control. You may not have seen any evidence of the illness in your particular city or town yet; however, it is only a matter of time. Our recommendations are to stay inside and avoid contact with others unless absolutely necessary. If you or a loved one becomes ill, take measures to prevent infection, a face mask, for example, and proceed directly to your nearest hospital or medical caregiver. The nation’s medical system has been briefed on this threat, and they are being provided further details as I speak. I can't stress enough the importance of being vigilant. If you see someone behaving erratically, do not approach them. Contact your local law enforcement and let them deal with it. With God's good will, we will come through this unscathed. Further information will be available on the cdc-dot-gov website immediately after this press conference, including a transcript. Now, I have time for a few questions. Jim?”
“Thank you, Director Walberg. Jim Stevens from the Associated Press. Sir, you mentioned the symptoms of the disease and the associated violence; however, you made no mention of mortality rates. What can the general public expect?”
Director Walberg licks his lips. “That's a great question, Jim. I don't have numbers yet. We will provide them as soon as they are available.”
“Sir?” Jim again.
“Next question,” the Director says, ignoring him. “Mary?”
“Mary Carpenter here from the Washington Post. How long has the CDC known about this threat? You said two days. How is that possible? And does it have a name?”
The director's face lights up as a roomful of camera flashes go off at once, all of the reporters hoping to catch his facial expression as he answers a potentially career-killing question.
“First, reports of the disease surfaced a little over ninety-six hours ago in Honolulu. This is not unusual. During any given year, there are thousands of disease outbreaks that do not warrant national attention. In almost all cases, they are geographically isolated and burn out before progressing. This one, unfortunately, is different. And no, we do not have a name yet. As I said, it does not resemble anything we have seen before.”
I shift in my chair, trying to find a more comfortable position.
The director makes a show of glancing at his watch. “I have time for one more question.” His eyes roam the audience of reporters. “Ed.”
“Thank you, sir. Ed Halpern from Reuters. Have there been any indications of infection outside of the United States?”
The director purses his lips and shakes his head. “I'm not at liberty to discuss events outside of CDC jurisdiction at the moment.”
“When, sir?” asks the Associated Press reporter.
“Soon,” the director says, annoyance flashing across his face.
A chorus of shouts rings out in the room as the reporters not selected try to get in one last question.
“Thank you for your time,” the director says. “Please be careful, ladies and gentlemen. This is the real deal.” He turns and walks off camera.
Dave picks up the remote and mutes the television. “This is a joke, right?”
I shrug. “I don't know. It sure sounds that way.” A thought strikes. Hospital. Shit. “We have to get out of here.” I get to my feet.
Dave gives me a perplexed look. “Get out? Why would we want to do that?”
“You know how they always say the worst place to be sick is in the hospital. If this is real, then this place is going to be full of sick people real soon.”
Dave crosses his arms. “I think we should stay. And besides, I'm not going anywhere with this thing on my leg.”
He’s got a point. Where would we go? My place? I don’t think so. That leaves his house, with his dirt-bag roommates, not my idea of the best place to recover from a broken leg.
“Hey! Look!” Dave gestures at the television.
The President is on the screen.
“Quick! Turn it up!”
“…as reported by the CDC, our great nation faces a threat unlike any we have experienced before...”
Dave and I watch the entire speech, barely able to believe the words coming from his mouth—the declaration of martial law effective immediately, the curfew, the mobilization of the National Guard in all fifty states to provide emergency assistance. It sounds as if the world is coming apart around us, yet the hospital room is as quiet as a tomb.
Dave mutes the television again when the President finishes, and turns to me, all sense of skepticism banished from his demeanor. “Can I use your phone?”
“Sure.”
“I've gotta call Jenny and see if she and Max are okay.”
I give him a nod of encouragement. Jenny is Dave's ex-girlfriend and the mother of his son Max. They met four years earlier at a party and dated for a little over two months. Eight months later, Max came screaming into the world. Dave didn't even know he had a son until he heard through a mutual friend. Jenny has a new boyfriend these days, one with a steady job and a kid from another relationship.
I watch the muted television while Dave dials. Information about the curfew scrolls across the bottom of the screen. Phone numbers. Lists of schools that have canceled classes. Businesses closing early. The works. Everything is shutting down, like on 9/11. Around the country, I'm sure, people are glued to their screens as Dave and I are, waiting for whatever comes next.
The floor shakes as something loud and heavy crashes in the hallway, making me nearly jump out of my skin. Dave stops dialing, and holding our breaths, we both stare at the door, waiting for the brushed metal lever to turn down and for someone to burst into the room.
But they don't. The seconds tick by, and finally, I allow myself to exhale.
With a shrug, Dave finishes dialing and places the phone to his ear.
While he’s doing this, I go to the door and place my ear against the cool wood, trying to hear something, anything.
“Aw, come on!” Dave whines. “It says ‘call not completed.’ What the hell?”
I turn to face him. “I'm sure you're not the only one trying to make a call right now. Try again in a minute.”
He ignores me and gets the same result. His face grows red with frustration.
“Is there anyone else you can try?” I ask. “Someone who may be able to get in touch with her?”
Dave shakes his head. “No. Ronny and I got into it last week. He owes me a hundred bucks, and he won’t return my calls.” Ronny is Dave and Jenny's mutual friend, the guy who introduced them.
“Try him anyway.”
Dave glares at me. “Fuck him.” He lies back, trying to make himself comfortable, phone ready in his hand.
The hospital alarm blares. “This is an emergency broadcast,” a male voice says as soon as the alarm stops. “Hospital staff are instructed to—“ A stabbing squeal of electronic feedback erupts from the speaker before he can finish, then all is silent.
The television goes dark, and the steady hiss of cool air from the grate in the ceiling disappears, and right away, the room feels hotter. Or is it only my imagination?
Panic washes over me, coming out of nowhere to wrap its arms around me, enveloping me in a giant cloak of anxiety. I feel like I'm going to puke, like I have to shit. My stomach is a ball of squirming hot meat, turning over on itself, struggling to turn inside-out. I stagger to the chair beside the bed and fall into it. Cold chills race up and down my body, making me shiver uncontrollably.
“Are you okay?” Dave asks, alarmed.
My breath comes in short, ragged gasps, the nausea receding as fast as it came on. My stomach still feels twisted, keeping me on notice. However, the urge to puke has been supplanted by something else—a deep and profound sense of helplessness. The life I thought I knew is unraveling faster than I can comprehend, carrying me away on an inky dark river of uncertainty. Another shiver courses through my body, a sub-dermal shock wave rattling me to my core.
I belch raw stomach acid. “I don't know… I think so.” I climb to my feet and stagger to the window to stare down at the parking lot.
While the parking lot was empty only a few minutes earlier, that’s no longer the case. Two squad cars are parked below, lights flashing and doors open. I imagine puddles collecting under the motors, condensation from the air conditioners running full-blast in the hot Texas sun. I can't see any officers at first. Then, from the car on the left, three quick flashes are followed by the wave of an arm.
They're shooting at something.
“What is it?” Dave asks. “What’s going on?”
I put my hand up to shield the sun burning into my eyes through the window. “I don't know. Something—”
Sharp white flashes of light erupt from behind the door of the cruiser on my right. A second later, the pieces fall into place: the police are firing toward the hospital entrance, at someone inside the building.
I give Dave a play-by-play as the drama unfolds. The battle looks one-sided; no one returns the officers’ fire, the entire exchange occurring in eerie silence. I tap a fingernail against the window and inspect the edge where it meets the windowsill. Triple-paned. That explains it.
The firing escalates, both officers shooting in the same direction at the same time. Small flashes erupt over and over again from their pistols. One of the cops gets to his feet and dives into his car. A moment later, the car rockets backward and spins around, tires churning up great plumes of black smoke as the officer puts the pedal to the floor and tears off in the opposite direction. From my vantage point, I can't see the face of the remaining cop, but his body language tells me all I need to know. He's alone, and he's in trouble.
A man stumbles into view, heading in a straight line toward the remaining cruiser. He looks to be in his mid-forties, maybe a little older. Overweight, bald, and limping, he moves with a plodding, determined pace.
The remaining cop concentrates his fire on the bald man. I watch as the man twitches with each impact, twisting left, then right, yet always reorienting himself, maintaining his path toward the cruiser.
“They're shooting at a man!”
Dave's cast makes a loud thunk as he slides it off the bed and onto the gold-and-brown speckled linoleum floor.
I can't stop watching. The man is almost at the cruiser. He reaches for the door, his arms outstretched in a crude parody of an embrace. Then, I see the trail of blood behind him. A young woman, I think I saw her in the emergency room earlier, comes into my view behind the man. She's headed in the same direction, toward the cop.
The cop fires twice more at the man, then changes his aim to fire at the woman. One of his shots slams into her shoulder, knocking her backward a few feet, seeming to stop her in her tracks. As I watch in disbelief, she spins around in a slow circle until she faces the officer again and resumes her voyage. I want to be there, on the ground, to see what the cop is seeing. At the same time, though, I realize if I were down there, I would want to be anywhere else, anywhere at all.
Dave joins me at the window, the white of his knuckles grasping the window ledge and the tight line of his mouth testaments to his curiosity. I offer my shoulder for him to lean on, and he accepts.
“What the…?“ he asks, pointing at the lone cop.
I only turn my head away for a second, but it’s enough. The man and the woman, both bleeding profusely, reached the cop during my moment of inattention. They descend upon him in a frenzy of flailing arms, smothering him, becoming one with him. Before I know what’s happened, the cop is gone, swallowed up by his attackers.
Dave trembles against me, his entire body vibrating with suppressed fear.
“Do you have the phone?” I ask.
He's glued to the window, to the sight below. He points at the bed.
The phone has full signal. Perfect reception. Opening my contact list, I dial our mother. She lives in Waco, alone ever since our father died. I'm greeted by silence. Pulling it away so I can see the screen, I see the same message Dave saw. All circuits are busy.
“Who are you calling?” he asks.
“Mom.”
“Can you try Jenny again?”
Dave yells before I can dial. “Chris! Come here! The cop. He's okay. He's getting up!” Dave waves frantically, motioning me back to the window.
Sure enough, the cop is using the police cruiser to lever himself onto his feet.
Only, he's not okay. No. He's anything but. Although I can't make out details from my vantage point, it’s obvious something is terribly wrong with him. I blink, not believing my eyes. Again.
The cop, who not a minute earlier carried a sizable gut over his gun belt, appears to have lost his mid-section. His beefy upper body teeters on an impossibly thin waist, all sense of proportion obliterated.
This can't be right. His stomach. It's gone.
As I step away from the window, the nausea comes roaring back, crushing me to my knees as the half-digested remains of my breakfast burrito explode from my mouth.
“We need to get out of here,” I insist as I wipe my mouth clean.
Dave shakes his head vigorously. “No way, man. I'm not going anywhere. Not now. You saw what happened to that cop.”
I leave Dave at the window and cross to the door. I put my hand on the handle, then looked back, hesitating. Maybe he has a point. Maybe we are safer in here. No. We need to find someone in charge.
Then, I hear a soft slap-slap and an intermittent squeak coming from the other side of the door. Stepping to the side of the doorjamb, I grit my teeth and slowly press down on the lever as carefully as humanly possible, praying all the while it doesn't make any noise.
No one listens to my prayer. The latch mechanism makes an ear-splitting KER-CHUNK as it reaches the bottom.
I suck in my breath and stand stock still, my hand a frozen claw on the lever. The sound in the hallway has stopped. I think.
Dave motions at me, telling me to get on with it.
Something in my gut tells me this is a bad idea, maybe the worst idea I've ever had. But I'm committed now. Screwing up my courage, I pull open the door a few inches and peer through the gap.
A woman stands at the door to the next room. She’s young, maybe in her twenties or early thirties, not my type, but definitely attractive with her lustrous blond hair cascading down her back in languorous waves. With a start, I realize I'm staring at the perfect curve of her bare ass peeking out at me from the open folds of her hospital gown. Embarrassed, I avert my gaze. Her right hand clutches a shiny chrome IV rack. A clear plastic line snakes into her forearm from the empty IV bag dangling from the rack.
“There's someone out here,” I whisper as I open the door a little more. “Miss?”
At first, I don't think she hears me, but then the IV rack rolls, tilting toward her as she tightens her grip. Bit by bit, it shifts, the empty bag swinging as if caught by an invisible breeze.
“Miss?” I repeat. “Are you okay?”
My internal alarm blares full-tilt, my fight or flight response pegged hard at flight. The IV bag is empty, and the girl, almost catatonic, ignores me. Maybe she's drugged up on painkillers? Maybe she was in surgery? The possibilities are endless.
Pulling the door open the rest of the way, I move into the hallway and take a tentative half-step toward her. I put out a hand to her, intending to tap her on the shoulder.
Like a dog disturbed from a deep slumber, the girl springs to life. With a feral screech, she twists to face me. The IV spins away, clattering to the floor in a raucous explosion of metal on tile. The line in her arm rips free with a sickening slurp and a jet of blood erupts from the free end, etching a thick line of gore across my chest and neck, barely missing my face.
I leap back, disgusted, and wipe at the spray of bodily fluids slicking my bare skin. “Hey!”
The girl lunges, arms outstretched, grasping for my face, her bony digits curled into makeshift talons, ten tiny pink razor blades. In the span of a heartbeat, I realize that whoever this girl once was is long gone. Twin orbs of bloodshot fury bore into me, burning in their intensity, consuming me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spy Dave hobbling across the room, leaning against the bed for support. His mouth hangs open, as if he's yelling, but I hear nothing.
BOOM!
The girl accelerates toward me, no longer under her own power.
BOOM! BOOM!
An enormous cavity appears in her chest, blood and gore sprays over me, over the wall, over everything.
“Out of the way!” someone shouts.
BOOM!
The girl's head disintegrates into a soupy mist of bone, blood, and brain matter. The lifeless husk of her body crashes to the floor, skidding to a stop at my feet.
“Mr. Thompson?”
I look up from the dead girl. It's Officer McElroy. He dashes down the hall toward me, his gun clutched in both hands but aimed at the floor. A woman holding a small child follows him, a terrified yet determined grimace on her face.
“McElroy?” I ask, shocked.
McElroy checks over his shoulder as he reaches us. Now that he's close, I can see the resolve in his eyes, and it infects me, displacing my fear, coursing through me in waves.
“What—“
He cuts me off with a shake of his head. “We don't have time. We have to get to the roof. Now! They're coming!”
“Who?” Dave asks from the door. “Who’s coming?”
McElroy gestures at the dead girl. “More like her.”
That's all I need to know. “Which way?”
The woman with the child steps from behind McElroy. Small splotches of blood stain her sage-green pants and flowered blouse. A nurse. “Down the hall.” She points past me. “It's not far.”
“Let's go,” McElroy says. “Our ride will be here any moment.”
I don't understand. “Our ride?”
McElroy glances over his shoulder again, then makes a show of checking his pistol. “My girlfriend. She flies the traffic chopper for KHOU. She's on the way.”
The elevator at the end of the hall opens with a soft bong. We all turn to look, and for a long, painful moment, it seems as if it’s a false alarm, that we’re jumping at our own shadows. Then, slowly, inexorably, a cluster of people spill from of the metal box. They're far enough away that I can't make out details, but it's obvious, even from this distance, that something isn’t right. Something in the way they're moving, stalking, taking their time to sniff the air, seems deliberate yet almost random. One of them, a fat man with no shirt, swivels his head toward us. A sound erupts from his throat, almost a bark, and as one, the group turns and surges in our direction.
“Let's go!” McElroy roars.
As we ascend the stairs to the roof, McElroy takes the rear, firing careful shots at the crowd approaching from behind, cursing as he dispatches each target, cursing twice every time he misses.
The stairs end at a heavy steel door with a push bar. The nurse goes through first, flooding the stairwell with light. I'm next, supporting Dave's weight with my shoulder. I know each step must be an exercise in agony for him as the impacts are transmitted through his cast into his freshly broken leg, but we keep going.
I hear the helicopter before I see it. It's behind us, whipping the air into a frenzy of dust and trash, mussing my hair, drowning out all semblance of thought.
McElroy nudges me from behind, and Dave and I shuffle forward.
“We've got to block it!” McElroy screams. He runs around to the side of the exit, returning a moment later with a piece of two-by-four, which he wedges under the door handle. He stomps down on the wood, locking it in place against the gravel-covered roof.
I don't think it will hold for long. In fact, I know it won't. But maybe it will hold long enough. The last thing I saw before we entered the stairwell was another elevator full of people spilling into the hallway.
We don't have long. There are too many of them.
“This way!” McElroy yells over the clatter of the helicopter. He takes the nurse’s hand and leads her toward the helicopter.
I look at Dave and mouth, “You okay?”
He nods, blinking through tears of agony, and motions for me to go. We set off after McElroy and the nurse. Dave's cast leaves a thick ragged line, a map charting our imminent demise, in the roof gravel as we approach the helicopter.
McElroy is helping the nurse and child into the helicopter when we arrive, pushing from behind. He looks over his shoulder at Dave and me, his mouth a grim line of despair. He shakes his head.
I can't hear a thing at this point; the rotor noise is my world.
My stomach falls off a cliff as I look into the helicopter and realize the cause of McElroy's expression. It's a small machine, the kind of chopper used for traffic reporting and following criminals on the run. Four seats total, one already occupied by the pilot. The nurse holding the child and another man clutching a bare bleeding arm to his chest sit in the two rear seats. I can't be sure, but I think I see teeth marks on the man’s forearm, as if someone has taken a chunk out of him. His eyes are closed, his head tilted against the far door.
There's no more room.
The pilot, a pretty woman with red hair tied back in a ponytail, twists around in her seat and meets my eyes. She looks down, and I see her brow furrow as she struggles with the calculations. She can’t save all of us. We all know it.
Grabbing McElroy, she screams something into his ear. A moment later, he turns to Dave and me and holds up a single finger.
Dave squeezes my shoulder and looks toward the stairwell. His pulse, hot and fast, thunders against me where our skin meets.
Our time is up. Our options have been reduced to a terrible singularity. Only one of us will make it off this roof alive.
Dave’s shout interrupts my thoughts. “Go!” He squeezes my shoulder and tries to push me away, toward the helicopter, toward salvation.
I shoot a glance at McElroy. His gun is out, trained on the stairwell, waiting.
The world tilts.
I'm seventeen. Dave is nineteen. We're on a white-water rafting trip somewhere in Colorado.
The raft tips, and I'm out, free from the boat, swirling, upside down. My back scrapes and grinds along the river bottom; a wall of gray fills my vision, an enormous boulder reaching for me. Water floods into my mouth, up my nose, filling my lungs in an instant, denying me the basic right to scream. Out of nowhere, fingers knit into my hair, grasping, pulling, and ripping so hard it feels as if my scalp is unzipping from my skull.
Sunlight. I'm back in the boat, and Dave is straddling me, pressing on my chest.
The roof. Now.
I grasp Dave and shove him into the helicopter. Tears stream from my eyes as I lean into him and scream, “Find Max and Jenny!”
Dave gapes at me, slack-jawed. Then, with a frantic look in his eye, he wraps me in a spine-crushing hug, squeezing me so tight I'm afraid he's broken me.
And then he's gone, pushed into the chopper by McElroy, stuffed into the impossibly small space like a piece of carryon luggage.
The engine strains as the machine claws its way from the roof. For a second, I don't think they'll make it, that they'll touch down again and push Dave out, but bit by bit, inch by inch, they ascend, the engine noise becoming more regular. The nose of the chopper tilts down, and they lift away, climbing into the clear blue sky, into the future.
Silence descends for a moment as I adjust to the lack of the helicopter sound. I watch as it heads west, racing away from the city center.
An incessant pounding replaces the sound of the helicopter. Behind me. The door. The people.
They're here. They’re coming.
I go to the edge of the roof, to where the helicopter last rested, to where Dave departed, and I try not to think of what it will feel like when I hit the ground.
Right Now. Again.
A new sound fills the air, the unmistakable whump whump whump of a large helicopter approaching.
I spin around, searching for the source. A wicked-looking dark green machine rises above the adjacent building. Military.
The zombies are almost upon me. Any second now...
I steal a glance over my shoulder at the street far below, searching for a landing spot. Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for impact.
With no warning, a white-hot stream of fire erupts from the door of the helicopter, crawling laser-like across the roof and into the horde of advancing zombies, chewing their diseased corpses to pieces and flinging bits and pieces of mottled flesh across the roof in a blizzard of gore. The noise of the gun is beyond anything I have ever heard, an infinite, rhythmic scream of hot metal slicing through the dense afternoon air, dividing my world into two pieces—certain death and desperate hope.
Mesmerized by the unmitigated carnage surrounding me, I almost don’t notice when the brutal chatter of the gun falls silent. With a slight wobble, the helicopter dips toward the roof. A soldier in blood-splattered desert camouflage waves from the door, motioning for me to climb aboard.
Breathing again, I take a tentative step from the edge. Before I know it, I’m running, racing toward the waiting arms.
I’m alive.
About the Author
If you enjoyed this story, please take a moment to leave a positive review. Good reviews help sell stories, which in return allows me to work less and write more.
If you’re ready for more zombie action, take a look at Fire: Elements of The Undead, the first novel in the Elements of The Undead series. There’s a lot more to come!
Email: William.Esmont@gmail.com
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