Absolution

by Mark Campbell

  “Why are you telling me this?” Teddy asked.

  “I came here to do more than just give you my thanks,” Hock answered as he rolled the cigar between his calloused fingers. “You see, circumstances are forcing me to recruit from within the camp’s population.”

  “What sort of circumstances?”

  Hock simply took another puff and then blew the smoke up and away. “I want you out of that work crew and in a uniform. I need someone like you.”

  Teddy was awestruck by the unexpected proposal. Having spent so many years on the wrong side of iron bars, he had never imagined becoming one of the people who held the keys. This was something he had never asked for—nor did he find this proposal particularly appealing.

  To him, the lieutenant’s offer was a nonstarter.

  He had never worn ink back in Tucson and had never joined a gang just to survive—he sure as hell wasn’t going to join one now that he was out.

  Plus, how could he work with the likes of Parham?

  It’d never work out and his temper would only earn him a spot on the gallows.

  Hock studied Teddy’s expression and looked like he was trying to get a read. He gave up and sighed. Thick ashes hung off the tip of his cigar. “Unfortunately, the doctor wants to spend some time with you after you heal up so I can’t take you quite yet.”

  “What doctor?” Teddy asked with a confused expression.

  Hock took his cigar and tipped the ashes towards Teddy’s bandaged leg. “When he’s finished doing whatever the hell he does down there and releases you back to my custody, we’ll talk again.”

  Teddy furrowed his brows and tried to make sense out of what he was saying. “What doctor?” he asked again, agitated. “Down where? What in the hell are you going about?”

  Before the lieutenant could answer, the door opened and a male nurse wearing blue scrubs entered the room pushing a medicine cart.

  The nurse appeared surprised at the sight of the lieutenant and came to an abrupt stop. “Sir…” He gave a nervous salute. “The doctor told me to administer some more hydromorphone. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “I was just leaving,” Hock said. “Go about your business.” He walked towards the door, puffing his cigar.

  The nurse held up a shaky finger. “Um, sir, you, uh, can’t smoke in here,” the nurse said awkwardly. “It’s, uh, clinic rules.”

  The lieutenant paused and cocked a brow at the young man. He took a long drag and blew smoke at the man’s face.

  “I won’t tell if you don’t,” the lieutenant said with a grin. He took another puff and left the room.

  “Asshole,” the nurse muttered very quietly under his breath as he pushed the cart towards Teddy’s bed. He brought out a small vial and a syringe as he fiddled with the IV port.

  “I need to speak to the doctor,” Teddy said.

  The nurse ignored him and pushed the syringe’s plunger in.

  “Are you deaf?” Teddy asked angrily. “I said that I need to… speak… to…” His words trailed off and his ears started ringing.

  “Sweet dreams,” the nurse said as he withdrew the spent syringe from the port and tossed it inside a red bin on his cart.

  Within seconds, Teddy’s world started spinning.

  He drifted off into a deep, drug-induced slumber.

  CHAPTER 13

  NOVEMBER 27th

  2:07 AM

  Mark Hammond was awoken by the sound of gunfire.

  He lifted his head from his desk and looked around the darkened study with a hungover, delirious gaze. The stubble on his cheeks had grown into a thin patchy beard. His wrinkled face and the whites of his eyes were yellowed with jaundice as his failing liver struggled to keep pace with his unrelenting drinking.

  Restful sleep remained elusive and was a luxury that he hadn’t experienced for a very long time.

  Each time he attempted to sleep, the same nightmare played over and over in his mind:

  Laura, pale and deathly sick, staring up at him.

  The pillow, soft and supple, in his hands as he pressed it down on her face.

  Her nails digging into his forearms and her legs flailing as she struggled to hold onto whatever life she had left.

  The feeling of her body becoming limp as she succumbed.

  Hammond’s dreamless bouts of rest only came from the bottom of a bottle and at the expense of his rapidly dwindling health. Empty whiskey bottles covered his desk and lay shattered on the floor. The air was sour with the stench of old urine and spilled alcohol, but his nose had already become accustomed to it.

  Hammond smacked his dry, cracked lips and stared at the empty glass on his desk.

  He frowned, and reached for the bottle tucked away in his desk drawer.

  He stopped when he remembered that he was already on his last few bottles and he didn’t think they’d bother restocking his personal supply anytime soon.

  Won’t be too much longer until I’ll be making rancid moonshine in my goddamn bathtub, he thought bitterly.

  Who was he kidding though?

  He’d happily drink moonshine, rubbing alcohol, or anything else that took his mind off of the pain even if only for a little bit.

  He withdrew his hand away from the drawer and his heavy eyelids started to shut once again.

  He heard more gunfire—closer.

  Hammond’s eyes shot open and he forced himself to stand up. He tied his soiled robe and shuffled towards the study window with one hand pressed against his aching lower back.

  At the window, he peered down at the moonlit ground below.

  A black Chevrolet Suburban with blue police lights flashing in its grille had rammed through a section of the fence and wove in-and-out of the road in a wild circular motion. Its frontend was buckled and the driver-side front tire had been blown off.

  Two more Suburbans sped out of the vehicular sally port and gave chase.

  Officers manning the perimeter guard towers fired at the erratically moving vehicle as it veered off of the road and tried to disappear into a dead cornfield.

  Searchlights powered to life and focused their beams on the fleeing SUV.

  Men wearing what looked like FEMA uniforms looked out from the shattered rear window and fired at their two pursuers, but with little effect.

  In an instant, and underneath a steady rain of lead, the fleeing SUV lost one of its rear tires. It careened to the left, rolled over three times, and came to a smoldering stop on its back in the middle of the field.

  The pursuing Suburbans skidded to a stop behind it.

  Bloodied, injured officers crawled out of the wrecked SUV and tried to run away but none of them made it very far.

  Deserters, Hammond surmised.

  It didn’t surprise him—the ramifications of announcing emergency rationing would undoubtedly put people on edge. He was quite certain that the back of that overturned SUV was loaded with boxes of MREs and ammunition.

  They couldn’t be the only ones.

  He figured that many of Hock’s men were dipping their hands in the cookie jar to build themselves a nice little stockpile. The fact that needless theft and hoarding would only make the situation worse was probably lost on them.

  Hock’s men weren’t the only ones stealing.

  He noticed that people from his own security team seemed to have vanished during the course of the day.

  Hammond hunched over and shuffled back towards his desk and ignored the sporadic pop of gunfire that persisted from somewhere outside.

  He plopped down in his chair with a heavy sigh.

  His eyes shifted towards the reassignment packet that sat on his desk.

  “Three years…” he muttered aloud.

  How was he supposed to manage a camp for three years when he already knew that it wouldn’t make it past summer?

  His eyes shifted back towards his empty glass.

  He picked it up and held it in front of his face, regarding it. He slowly tilted it side-to-side and watched as the moon
light glittered off of it.

  In the glass’s distorted reflection, he saw his own face—the face of a stranger. He looked like a goddamn ghoul. Then again, after what he did to Laura, wouldn’t that description be accurate?

  Disgusted and haunted by his own appearance, he tossed the glass over his shoulder as the old pains and memories overwhelmed him once again.

  Hammond reached down with a shaky hand, opened his desk drawer, and peered down at the last bottle of whiskey lying inside. Moonlight glistened off of a chrome-colored object next to the bottle.

  His tired eyes lingered on the old revolver with a marbled grip.

  The bottle or the gun—his hand hovered each of them as he considered his options.

  One of the items offered him temporary reprieve while the other offered to silence the ugly memories forever.

  Mark Hammond chose the latter.

  CHAPTER 14

  DECEMBER 17th

  There were one hundred and ten tiles on the ceiling.

  Teddy knew that because he counted each and every tile at least five times every day during his brief periods of lucidity. Time itself seemed to have an abstract quality as the hours morphed into days. As to how many days had passed since he was admitted, he hadn’t a clue.

  After the meeting with Lt. Hock, they had rolled his bed into a different room while he was asleep.

  It was a smaller room.

  The walls were painted the same tepid blue as before but appeared to be made out of some sort of sealed concrete. His bedside monitor had been replaced with an even more advanced version that required more tubes and wires to invade his body. There were no chairs in the room nor any posters on the wall, but there were two security cameras mounted in opposite corners of the ceiling.

  Another drastic change was the door itself.

  Instead of a regular hospital room door, Teddy noticed that his door was made out of a solid piece of steel as if it were a ship’s bulkhead entrance. It seemed to operate remotely by whoever was watching the cameras and made a loud HISSSS each time it opened.

  He also knew that the room was pressurized because every time the door was opened his ears popped.

  Nurses wearing blue protective suits along with hooded respirators came and went infrequently, but they kept him too sedated on pain medication to figure any set pattern in their schedules. The few who did come when he was awake were stiff and unemotional in their duties and performed their work like automatons.

  Bandages changed—check; bedpan emptied—check; vitals taken—check; medication administered—check.

  They never spoke to him and never answered any questions.

  It was maddening, and the truth of the matter was that Teddy was afraid that his fragile grip on reality was slipping away.

  It wouldn’t be too much longer before he figured he’d be no different than a babbling lunatic at an asylum.

  He didn’t know why he was being kept in that room and he didn’t know why the nurses wore those blue-suits whenever they saw him.

  It honestly scared the shit out of him.

  He certainly didn’t feel sick—just doped up.

  He felt like a prisoner in his own flesh.

  Until he regained some strength, he was powerless and at the mercy of their needle.

  His legs tingled and sensation started to slowly return, but all he could do was hope that he would have enough strength to make a move before another blue-suited asshole sedated him again.

  Their timing had been better than his every time so far.

  Teddy stared up at the ceiling and started mentally ticking off tiles as he waited to see if his body would finally be faster than theirs.

  After he counted all 110 tiles twice and was about to start on round three, the door depressurized and opened as someone entered the room.

  “Good evening,” the visitor said.

  Teddy looked towards the voice, disappointed—they had beaten him to it again.

  However, he was surprised to see that his visitor wasn’t a nurse inside of a blue-suit at all.

  His visitor was an elderly man wearing a white lab coat.

  The man appeared to be in his late sixties. His face was tanned, wrinkly and what was left of his silvery hair was slicked back away from his receded hairline. A stethoscope hung around his neck and a FEMA ID card dangled from his coat’s lapel. His breast pocket was crammed with pens and markers.

  “I’m Doctor Gatsby,” the man said in an affable voice. He walked towards Teddy’s bedside and extended a hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mister Sanders.”

  Teddy hesitated a moment, but then forced a hand out to weakly shake the man’s hand—even the simple act of a handshake felt laborious.

  Gatsby peered down into Teddy’s eyes and offered a smile.

  Teddy saw the unmistakable glint of intelligence in the man’s blue eyes, but there was something else that he couldn’t quite place a finger on.

  The doctor withdrew his hand and turned towards the monitor, carefully scrutinizing the readings.

  Teddy had a million questions and it felt like he was going to blurt them all out at the same time in an unintelligible string of words. One question eventually rose above them all. “When can I leave?”

  “You’re lucky that they picked you up when they did,” the doctor replied without answering the question. “The bullet missed your femoral artery, but you almost succumbed to exsanguination.”

  Teddy stared at him blankly.

  The doctor glanced down at him and saw the confusion on his face.

  “Blood loss, Mister Sanders,” Gatsby clarified with a pitying smile. “You nearly bled to death in the middle of the road.”

  Teddy remembered that he wasn’t the only one in bad shape—Parham came to mind. “What about the sergeant?”

  “Dead,” Gatsby coldly replied as he turned his attention back to the monitor. “He expired two weeks ago.”

  Teddy was surprised at just how much time had passed. “How?”

  “Retroperitoneal hemorrhaging caused by a ruptured aortic aneurysm,” the doctor explained. “There was very little we could do, given his injuries.”

  Teddy didn’t know what half of that meant, but he understood what dead meant. He knew that the hard-ass lieutenant wouldn’t take the news well, but he hoped that meant the man would rescind the offer he had made since Hock didn’t seem like the type of man who took refusals very well.

  The doctor continued. “Your initial prognosis wasn’t very good either. I was concerned about possible infection. Fortunately, I think that you’re out of the woods. Everything has healed well and we’ve removed the buckshot pellets that were embedded in your thoracic region.”

  Gatsby lifted Teddy’s gown and peeled back the gauze bandage that wrapped his thigh. He peered down at the healing wound, nodded with approval, and carefully reapplied the bandaging.

  Teddy placed a hand over his eyes. The longer he kept them open the dizzier he became. Whatever drugs they were pumping him with seemed to have lasting effects.

  “Yes, indeed. Looks fine,” Gatsby announced. He pulled a small pad out of his pocket and scribbled down some notes.

  “If everything looks so fucking rosy, then why do they keep forcing medication down my throat?” he asked with his hand still over his eyes.

  “Simply for the pain,” Gatsby explained. He placed a cold hand on Teddy’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring pat. “We don’t want you suffering while we work.”

  Teddy took his hand off of his eyes and gave the doctor a dark look – he knew that the man was lying.

  He knew that the liberal dispensation of heavy sedatives had nothing to do with pain management and had everything to do with behavioral compliance.

  It was a tactic he had seen before in Tucson.

  The prison doctors kept many of the troublemakers in line with their needles. Many times, they housed heavily medicated schizophrenic inmates out in general population and avoided proper medical treatment for their illn
ess. Whenever someone started making too much trouble, a shot of chlorpromazine always seemed to be the answer.

  “Doc, what the fuck is going on?” Teddy asked weakly. “What’s the deal with the spacesuits?”

  Gatsby flashed a slight smile and put his notepad away. “Do you know much about immunology, Mister Sanders?”

  Teddy simply looked at him, annoyed.

  “Well, I gather not,” Gatsby said with a soft chuckle. “If you did, you’d understand my fascination with you.”

  A dark thought crossed Teddy’s mind.

  “Doc… Spare me the bullshit and tell me,” Teddy said dreadfully.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Am I sick…? Do I have the flu again?”

  “Quite the contrary—you’re immune!”

  Teddy grew even more confused. “I can’t be immune… I had the flu.”

  “Exactly,” the doctor replied. “You weren’t immune, but now you are. You had the flu, recovered, and developed an immunity to that particular strain. That’s the way things normally work, right?”

  “So did many others. I don’t understand how that makes me special.”

  “Your body’s immune response is what makes you unique,” the doctor explained. “Most people develop antibodies to a particular strain and then become susceptible as their immune response to the initial infection naturally declines. The blood sample which they took at the quarantine center back in Tucson revealed the presence of H7N9 antibodies, but that’s to be expected in a recovered individual. If I were to compare the numbers from the initial test conducted in Tucson to the numbers taken in this clinic after losing so much blood, I would expect to see a drastic reduction in your immune response to the H7N9 pathogen. Your immune response, however, is still going strong—the presence of abundant antibodies in your blood is testament to that fact.”

  “Then why the spacesuits?”

  “Even more fascinating is the way your system responds to antigenic drift,” the doctor went on as if he didn’t hear the question. “Small genetic changes are common with influenza…” He waved his hands animatedly. “This genetic drifting… to-and-fro… it creates a new variant of the virus. The variants don’t pose a real danger to an immune individual since they’re close together on the phylogenetic tree and share the same antigenic properties. A healthy immune system exposed to a similar virus will usually recognize it and respond accordingly.