by Rob Horner
Instead, she went back to the kitchen and the waiting cup of hot coffee. The thoughts were there, and she could recite them in order, something she’d learned to do decades before as a nurse in a busy trauma center. Making sense of them…well…that was above her paygrade.
But she had ideas.
* * * * *
“It was awful,” Dr. Crews wept, his head in his hands as Jessica drove through the streets of Gaffney.
She made turns on auto-pilot, wanting to escape the city.
On the bigger roads, the city looked as it always had in the wee hours of the morning. The traffic lights at the major intersections still cycled their inevitable path from green to yellow to red, and those on the smaller streets flashed yellow for one direction and red for the other, precedence given to the major routes. Streetlights brightened empty parking lots and closed storefronts. Even the McDonald’s was dark; Gaffney didn’t rate a twenty-four-hour drive thru.
After tonight, it probably never would.
“Libby…oh God—”
One night of weirdness, of seeing nightmares come to life, and she was ready to give up on the world.
It can’t be that bad, she thought. Someone will come along and make everything right, won’t they? In the movies, there’s always some egghead with a plan to stop the end of the world before it’s too late.
It was strange to think in terms like this, drawing on horror movies for inspiration in dealing with a very real outbreak of the walking dead. There was a temptation to disregard it all as dark fantasy, yet how could she? If the movies were right in predicting a zombie apocalypse, maybe they were right in other regards as well.
Maybe there hope. All they had to do was survive until it could come to fruition.
“The twins were there. They…they were like the people in the hospital. Changed. She…she went to them and they—”
“Shh,” Jessica murmured, reaching a hand to lay it on the doctor’s shoulder. She had no words to offer but hoped her touch would provide some comfort.
“It’s my fault,” he said, the tears coming at last. “I convinced her to go. She didn’t want to. But after what we saw…I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to the boys.”
“Where were they?” she asked.
“At a sleepover. The Carpenters. If I hadn’t pushed…Libby would—”
“Maybe,” Jessica said. “But you can’t blame yourself. Tonight or tomorrow, how would the situation have been any different?”
She said it more harshly than she intended, but it had the desired effect.
Dr. Crews stopped sobbing into his hands, raising tear-stained eyes to look at her.
“How could you know this…whatever it is…had spread outside the hospital? How could any of us? You were worried for your kids. I’d have done the same thing.”
He fell silent and she focused on her driving. A few other cars had come and gone in the opposite lane, none of them driving erratically. Was it possible there were places in the city where everything was normal? Maybe, if they could hide out somewhere outside of the city, the authorities would have time to set everything right.
“Where are we going?” he asked after a few minutes passed. He sounded calmer, back in control.
It wouldn’t last. Just as she felt the rising tide of grief over what she’d done to get away barely contained behind a dam of resolve, she knew his pain would return. She only hoped they could be in a safe place when that happened. He deserved time to grieve—they both did—but they didn’t have the time for it now.
“Tina has a place up near the North Carolina line. It’s out in the country.”
“You’re thinking it’ll be a safe place to hide?”
She nodded. “I hope so.”
“Will she let us stay?”
Jessica shrugged. Then, to change the subject, she asked, “Are you okay? Looked like you were limping a bit when I picked you up. Did you hurt your leg in the crash?”
“I…no…I mean, yeah it hurts a bit, but it’s not from the crash.”
“What then?”
“The Carpenters had a dog, something big and black. It grabbed my leg.”
A spike of alarm shot through Jessica. “Did it break the skin? Here, let me turn on the interior lights.” If the infection could spread to dogs, didn’t that mean they could transmit it back?
“It was weird,” Dr. Crews said. He hadn’t moved to lift his pant leg. His voice was soft, like he was searching his memory. “It didn’t yank or twist like a dog normally would. It just grabbed and held. Then it—”
Jessica remembered how the golden retriever looked walking across her lawn. Like something else pretending to be a dog. “It what?” she asked.
“It chewed. It tried to chew my ankle through my pants. That’s how I got away, just pulled when its mouth relaxed.”
Now he pulled at his scrub pants, suddenly as eager to find out as he had been reticent before. The light from the small bulb in the ceiling of the van only added to the shadows in the footwell, but Jessica fumbled around the rearview mirror and found two more lights focused on the front seats.
The skin of Dr. Crews’ left ankle was bruised and torn, more like he’d bumped against something sharp than anything else. There didn’t appear to be any puncture wounds. Blood seeped out of the tear, coloring the top of his left sock, but the skin around the wound looked normal.
“Maybe the pant leg absorbed the dog’s saliva,” he mused. “It looks like it saved me from the worst of its teeth.”
“Pull it up then. Roll it,” she said. “Just in case, I mean.”
“Right.” He bent to the task, giving himself a makeshift skater look, one pant leg pulled up to his knee, exposing a chronically pale calf. “Maybe I’m like Buck. Immune,” he said.
“We don’t even know if he was immune to this,” she reminded him. “Sure, he got bit, but we don’t know if the patient who got him was even part of this.”
“Holy shit! You’re right. I mean, I coded Austin and called his time of death.”
“And we never saw him again.”
“So maybe no one’s immune,” Crews said. “That’s fucking terrifying.”
“Yeah. So, keep an eye on that leg.”
* * * * *
The van moved fast. Much faster than the hunter could run.
But a van was not a home, not for most people and certainly not for these two. They weren’t driving to get away. At least, he didn’t think so.
It seemed more likely the van was going to a place, rather than driving aimlessly.
Moving along Highway 18, passing both the north and southbound onramps for Interstate 85, the hunter caught a strange doubling in the scent, like an olfactory déjà vu. The van had come from this direction not too long before.
Smiling, he increased his pace, feet pounding the pavement, muscles moving smoothly.
The doubling continued, and he realized he was following the van from two time periods. The strange overlay made the scent stand out even more sharply. There was another scent on the air, not just the doctor and nurse-driver. One of those from the emergency department.
The scent formed an image in his mind of blond hair and clean scrubs.
Tina Maltis.
She was in the van on its first journey along this road. But her scent wasn’t present when the van returned. Neither was it present now.
It left only one conclusion.
Jessica and the doctor were going to wherever Tina was dropped off.
Three of his targets together in one spot.
They could be planning to pick Tina up; in which case the hunter might not have enough time to reach them before they left again.
If that was the case, then so be it. No matter where they ran, they would eventually have to stop, and he could find them.
The heel of one of his loafers wobbled, the stout shoes unable to withstand the punishment placed on them by his new ability to run without tiring. The hunter stopped for a moment, pul
ling the shoes from both feet. He stopped himself before removing the socks. He might be stronger and faster than ever, but he had no idea if that conferred any protection to his skin. He wouldn’t feel any discomfort, and he wasn’t at risk of contracting any diseases, but he could still render himself immobile if he became too damaged.
A few miles in his stocking feet shouldn’t hurt him, though.
Still smiling, the hunter set off again, chasing the van and its tantalizing cargo.
Chapter 16
“Zombies, huh?” Bill asked. “Like in The Walking Dead?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Tina said.
Bill held up his hand. “No no, it’s okay. It might even fit, kind of.”
Tina didn’t hear him. “Not really like the TV show, though. They were different. Some of them were so…aggressive, so wild, they were closer to rabid animals than zombies from the show.” James had been like that. But then there was Bobby, the big guy in Radiology, who reacted to their presence with hostility but moved with the languid purpose of a sloth.
She couldn’t forget Danny, the new guy on Buck’s ambulance crew. He’d been pinned to the ground by Buck after biting into the throat of old Mr. Sprugg. When he broke free of the psych room, Danny didn’t come after them, though they were grouped up and already fighting for their lives, ripe for the taking. No, he headed deeper into the hospital. The last time she saw him was in Med-Surg, where he made a break for the exit, pushing the doors open and allowing more of the…zombies…to come after them. Those actions spoke of a cunning intellect and sense of self-preservation, hardly consistent with either James or Bobby. Or with any of the creatures from the movies, for that matter.
“Rabid,” Bill said, seizing on the word. “Wasn’t the idea behind 28 Days Later?”
“You know I don’t like those movies.”
If he heard her, he didn’t give any indication. Tina smiled, lifting the steaming cup of coffee for a drink. Bill was animated now, putting pieces together, things known and things surmised. She loved watching him when he got like this, whether it was playing conspiracy theorist with the nightly news or taking a customer’s unreal expectation for a project and finding a way to make it work. It gave her a flush to realize he took her report as fact, weaving it into his narrative in a seamless fashion.
“So, see, all those zombie movies start off with a bang, some explosion or explosive catalyst, right? A CDC building or Cold War stockpile gets raided or destroyed, and some dust or debris floats out and infects everyone, turning them into zombies. What if life is imitating art, you know? Maybe it was a CDC building—aren’t they in Atlanta?—and it released something which makes people super sick, some kind of souped-up stomach flu. But that’s just for the people who got a blast of the dust. They get the slow death by anal explosion. It makes them crazy too, of course, so they go around biting and scratching. The stomach stuff turns out not to be contagious, but they can spread the crazy just like every other zombie. You following me?”
Tina nodded, enjoying the hot liquid running down her throat and into her stomach, letting Bill’s voice soothe nerves which had been ravaged by the events of the evening.
It was strange, but even having him regurgitate those events in order to fit into his narrative failed to bring her back to a panicked state. It was this place, the cozy kitchen in their lovely home, surrounded by acres of property on an out of the way street, and the knowledge that those problems were miles away. It brought a sense of calm security. They had an alarm system on the doors and windows, three patrolling livestock guardian dogs—big, white Kuvasz—and several well-maintained firearms in Bill’s gun cabinet. Even better, they had a fully finished and highly defensible basement they could retreat to if needed, with its own fridge, microwave, and Internet access both hardwired and wireless. Aside from the interior entrance, the basement could only be breached from a single door leading to the backyard, both of which could be defended with a clear sightline from the center of the room.
It wasn’t in Tina’s nature to think this way, but it was Bill’s, and he’d gushed over the possibilities when they’d first inspected the home.
Maybe there was more to his paranoid conspiracy theories than mere hobby, but if it kept them safe, she was willing to let him have them.
“In fact, it’d have to be that way. Aren’t you always explaining that viruses are a lot more contagious than bacteria? That’s the thing that’s always missing from the zombie shows, the how it spreads. Not airborne, of course, because everyone would have it. It has to be…what’s the word?”
“Blood-borne,” Tina said absently. One of their dogs barked outside, a flurry of noise which vacillated between deep rumble and high yipping. It had to be Bear, so big but still young, over a hundred pounds of puppy, really. He tried so hard to show his protectiveness that he often went into barking tirades if the moon went behind a cloud, scattering shadows like a flock of birds all taking off from the same tree.
“Right, blood-borne, like Hepatitis and HIV. So, there’s this crazy virus, and it’s spreading, but all the news can talk about is the explosion. Because—”
He trailed off, thinking furiously. Bear hadn’t stopped barking. But he wasn’t staying in place, not challenging the night from right outside the kitchen window. No, his unique blend of puppy and big dog voice sounded from everywhere, a mobile noise machine patrolling the expansive acreage.
“I got it!” Bill yelled, startling Tina. She hastily set her coffee cup on the table and dabbed at her chin. “They’re talking about the explosion and the illness, but they aren’t putting them together because it was a government building, probably the CDC! They’ve been told not to connect the dots, don’t you get it? It’s a massive cover-up. Man, someone must’ve really screwed the pooch.”
“You don’t really think—” Tina began.
“What? That they’d all listen? Maybe not for the same reasons, but—”
“The media…I’m sorry…the Mainstream Media wouldn’t hide anything for the president, isn’t that what you’re always saying? They’d go out of their way to embellish anything to hurt him and his administration, right? So why would they cover it up?”
“Who said anything about the president being involved,” Bill countered.
“But they’d find a way to blame him, wouldn’t they?”
“Maybe later,” Bill said. “But remember, they’re lazy bastards, the whole lot of them. If a Democrat told them to sit on something because something bigger was coming, they’d do it. They have no interest in researching, finding facts, or asking questions counter to the talking points put out by Nancy Pelosi or Chuck-You Schumer.”
Tina was only half paying attention. Bear’s barking had settled on a single direction, to the left of the house. From their position at the back end of the lane, that would be toward the State Route leading into town. The nearest neighbor in that direction was at the corner, more than a hundred yards away counting from driveway to driveway. A tiny stream, acres of grass, and a small stretch of clustered trees provided a natural barrier between their properties.
“And Fox, well, they wouldn’t just go along with that groupthink,” Bill continued. “But they would hold back something if the president asked, because they’re as in-bed with the Republicans as everyone else is with the Democrats.”
A second dog began barking. This one was consistent and low-pitched, individual sounds running together so the string of barks had a strange ululation, almost like a howl. That would be Jima, the oldest female. Smaller than Bear, weighing in at around eighty pounds, she possessed a craftiness which gave her the edge in any doggy brawl, always coming out on top. She knew better than to bark at nothing, just as she knew better than to investigate a skunk—something Bear only learned a few months before. Bear was still chirping somewhere off to the left side of the house, near where the uncleared patch of woods sat between them and their neighbor. Jima’s voice raced away in that direction as well.
W
hich left Charlie somewhere near the house.
As a guardian breed, Kuvasz developed a strange partnership dynamic. If there were two or more in the pack, one would always remain close to the family while the others patrolled and challenged. A last line of defense, in the canine mind, the straggler wouldn’t join his packmates unless he could be certain no further danger encroached on their territory.
Bill’s tirade slowed. He would be parsing what he’d already said, looking for logical fallacies, seeing if there were any holes in his theories. It was one of the aspects of his character she appreciated. He loved to play spectator to politics, delighted in finding explanations for the seemingly inexplicable actions of elected officials from both political parties, and could spend hours regaling her with facts and speculation. But he remained self-aware throughout, capable of adapting or changing when new facts presented themselves. That one trait made all the diatribes worth it, she decided. He was animated and enthusiastic, but not stuck on stupid, as a mayor of New Orleans once famously said, not so stubbornly adherent to an idea that he was closed off to new information.
If more people were like him, politics would be very different.
“What are they barking at?” Bill asked suddenly, breaking into Tina’s reflective thoughts. The noise had faded into the background, combining with her sense of warmth and security. She was surprised to find herself on the verge of dozing off.
Bear’s pubertal bark broke off in mid pitch change, morphing from frantic warning to sudden pain, a squeal of primal anguish. Jima’s voice sounded again, lower and laced with real threat, a big dog who’s decided the time for warning has passed and is about to attack. A third canine voice sounded from below the kitchen window, Charlie rousing himself and rushing to the aid of his pack.
Bill started toward the back door.
“No, wait!” Tina shouted.
“But the dogs—”
“Can handle it or not. And if they can’t, you need a gun.”
Bear screamed, a horrifying sound which sent a raging desire to protect and help through her no less than if it had been one of her children, and Bill moved as though to ignore her warning, one hand out to yank open the door. “No!” she screamed again. “Remember what I told you. It might be one of them.”