Tim lay halfway in the hall, with Kyle on his knees next to him. As shock flooded through his body and his heartrate dwindled increasingly from the loss of blood that had begun pooling outwards, his vision began to blur as his hands and feet twitched in a series of spasms. His eyes had locked to the faint source of light drifting through the house; the front door that had been left open when he walked in, and the busy street beyond.
Day 4
Jaime Walling stepped aside as another stretcher was rushed down the hall, accompanied by three police officers that only added to the frantic air that wafted behind them. The patient on the gurney was thrashing about under the canvas straps that held him securely to the bed that was being wheeled past.
This was the fourth patient she had seen in this state so far on her shift, and she had just walked in two hours ago.
“What’s going on?” she asked a co-worker and friend as she hurried past, a nearly overflowing stack of yellow folders in her arms.
“Some kind of infection,” her friend answered quickly, pausing long enough to look around before leaning in. “Started last night,” she whispered, pulling the folders closer to her chest to close the gap between them. “Nobody has a clue what’s going on, but whatever it is, it’s bad.”
“Virus?”
Her friend looked around nervously. “Let’s put it this way; I heard Director Carson tell Doctor Delgado in Oncology that the CDC was already on their way here.” She paused. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Jaime let her eyes fall to the folders for a second.
“Look, I gotta go,” her friend said. “E.R.’s going nuts right now, and I need to get to Neurology, they’re already in the process of prepping it for quarantine.”
“K,” Jaime replied as her friend turned and rushed down the hall. The whole facility was buzzing, nurses rushing to and fro, the intercom a constant blare of names and codes. It seemed like whatever was happening, it was happening all at once.
Jaime turned to make her way down the hall to admitting when she heard a scream. She froze in her tracks. Jaime had worked in County for the last six years, and even in the maternity ward, she had never heard a sound that added a thin layer of frost just underneath her skin like this one had. The sound was angry; primal, and seconds later it was followed by the echoing explosion of gunshots.
She stared down the hall, watching as time slowed. Sounds seemed to fade distant as she saw the people around her turn and begin rushing down the hall away from the distant noise. Then she saw something that took her a moment to process. There was a police officer rushing down the hall towards her. He had skidded around the corner so fast that he had nearly smashed into the wall opposite. His gun was in his hand and as she registered the look of panic on his face, she realized that she had been holding her breath. All at once the world exploded back into real time around her, and she could hear what the officer was screaming as he rushed down the hall.
“RUN!!!”
She stood paralyzed as he flew past her, and then another movement caught her eye. She turned her head to see the patient that had been strapped to the gurney just minutes before turn into the quickly emptying hallway. The man stopped for a moment, his left arm slightly twitching from the elbow down, and then he slowly raised his head, nostril’s flaring as he sniffed the air.
Jaime stared.
Then in a motion that happened at a static crack, the man’s head turned down the hall towards her and he screamed.
Jaime slowly reached behind her, grasping desperately for the doorknob that led to the small janitorial closet she was standing in front of. As her hand found the cool brass, the man at the end of the hall turned and began running towards her. She could see holes in his t-shirt, and the signs of multiple entry wounds caused by the pistol eruptions, and her mind attempted to process the fact that someone with a half a dozen gunshots to the sternum should not be able to run screaming down a hallway, or even be alive for that matter.
She twisted the knob and pushed backwards, allowing her weight to propel her into the small dark space. As she stumbled against a yellow bucket and row of broom and mop handles hanging on the wall behind, she heard the rapidly approaching footfalls. She stared in horror and then in a moment of realization, shot her hand out and twisted the small knob above the handle, locking it from within. It was seconds later that she shot backwards against the wall, her body trembling with fear as the man outside began bashing with force and aggression against the door.
The room erupted in a cacophony of guttural screams and pounding fists. Jaime sat huddled amidst the cleaning supplies, trying to sink into the wall furthest from the door as the man on the other side tried with everything in his ability to get through to her.
Her hands came up to her ears and she closed her eyes. She could hear the muffled poundings continuing. Then as quickly as they began, they stopped.
Jaime slowly pulled her hands away from her ears as a serene pause from the pounding filled the room, and her ears readjusted to the quiet. She could hear sounds coming from the other side, but couldn’t make out what they were. Then she heard another scream.
Her body tensed again as the sound pierced the door, followed by another; the man that had been trying to smash his way in. She cringed as there was one more frustrated pound against the door, and then listened to the footsteps darting away, followed by another scream and a series of pattered gunshots. Then there was silence.
Jaime sat in the closet, allowing the quiet darkness to envelop her. It must have been an hour before her breathing returned to normal and her heart stopped pounding in her ears. She sat in the blackness, trying to process everything that had just happened, and muster the courage to leave the safety of her enclosure. She knew that whatever it was that was outside, could still be near, but she also knew that she couldn’t stay in the closet forever.
She slowly rose to her feet, the void of the room fighting back against her vision as she searched for the knob. When she finally found the cool brass once again she let her hand rest on it, listening for anything other than stillness on the other side. She slowly twisted the knob and started pulling it inwards. As she did, the only thought running through her head was, ‘It’s not possible. There’s no way. They’re not real.’
Day 5
The sea-swept air was cool on John’s arm as he made his way down the Pacific Coast Highway in his 76’ Chevy pickup. This Saturday had been as the last countless; a tradition of driving up the coast for fish and chips at his favorite seafood restaurant in Oxnard. He had woken up early as usual, had a mild breakfast and then pulled his weekend truck out of the garage. Since his wife had left him he had created his weekend routine to fill the space where time had recently been spent with just the two of them. A little something to keep his mind off it he told his friends.
The morning had been calm, the weather in the mid-eighties; perfect for a coastal drive, and the classic rock on his radio set a mood that had kept a smile tugging at his cheeks for the last thirty miles.
He passed through Malibu, deciding not to stop at his new local coffee shop, instead opting to hold off until Santa Monica, where he had made up his mind to have a couple cocktails before heading home. As he watched the stretch of highway in front of him a flicker of movement pulled his eyes to the rear view mirror. Less than a hundred yards back were flashing lights.
“Shit,” he whispered as he slowly edged his truck over to the shoulder, his foot falling from the gas pedal.
Moments later three police cars flew past him, their lights blazing, accompanied by a loud blare of their sirens.
‘Man…’ he thought as he realized the speed the cars were going. ‘Hate to be on the receiving end of that…’
He made his way back onto the road and turned his radio down a notch. He hadn’t noticed the police cars until they had been nearly on him, and didn’t feel like getting pulled over for failing to yield. He’d already had a couple beers and wasn’t trying to push it.
He made it about another three miles down the highway when something caught his eye. A short distance down the road it appeared that a car had lost control and ran almost completely through the guardrail that separated the highway from the rocky shore a hundred feet below.
His foot slowly pulled back off the gas pedal again.
‘Damn… They didn’t even notice that guy ran off the road,’ he thought to himself as he slowly approached, pulling his pickup over to the small shoulder as he did. ‘Fuckin cops…’
John came to a stop twenty feet away from the car and glanced in his side mirror before reaching out to open his door. As he did, movement caught his eye and his hand stopped, fingers wrapped loosely around the cool metal of the handle.
Inside the car it looked as if the two people that occupied it were fighting. The passenger was leaned across the front seat, scratching and clawing at the other. The driver was fighting back, trying to shove the other away. Then John realized two things. The two people in the car were a man and a woman and the man was fighting feverishly to keep the girl away from him, neither of them noticing that the movement was slowly pushing the car further and further off the edge of the cliff; a thin strip of guardrail the only thing keeping them from plummeting to the rocks below.
“You gotta be shitting me,” he exclaimed as his hand jerked the handle down and he swung the door open, stepping out into the highway to make his way towards the dangling car. “Hey!” he yelled as he quickly approached, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He stepped forward quickly, and now could hear the man yelling as he fought desperately. “Hey!”
Now John’s legs moved into a dash as he rushed towards the driver’s side of the car.
As he approached he could see a large man in his early thirties punching out at the girl. He had a handful of her hair and was yanking her head backwards with all his might. The girl kept lunging forward with all the force her small frame would allow. Then the man pushed her head back again and struck her in the face.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing asshole!?” John yelled as he rushed forward to yank the driver’s side door open. Then the car leaned forward and began to pitch. He dove towards the back of it as the railing snapped free with a metallic screech and the vehicle slid off the edge, the sound of the man inside yelling trailing off.
He stood there, staring at the space that had just been occupied by the car, as the sound of crunching metal and braking glass exploded in a decrescendo from below. He stared at the scrape marks leading off the edge and paused, his mind trying to rationalize what his eyes had just witnessed; trying to make sense of the macabre scene. Then he slowly moved forward and peered over the edge.
The car had slid down the rocky cliff side and impacted nose first on the rocks below before falling forward onto its roof in the sand. There was a trail of broken glass and debris all the way down. A sparkling path leading to the mangled frame. As he stood there trying to formulate his next move he caught a whisper of movement. A single hand fell out of the passenger’s side window. He stared for a moment, frozen in place by disbelief and unabated shock.
Then the hand moved.
“Oh shit!” he exclaimed, his eyes darting for the nearest incline he could use to make his way down.
A hundred yards down the road there was a small slope that led down to the beach. It was rough, but he was already sliding down it before he took into account the sharp plants and rocks that would stagger his way down.
When he reached the bottom he turned and began sprinting towards the overturned car.
“Don’t move!” he yelled as his feet padded through the soft sand. “I’ll get you out!”
The sand made him feel like his legs were moving as twice as slow as they should be, and by the time he reached the car he was well out of breath.
“Don’t worry!” he said frantically as he approached the mangled steel and plastic. “You’re gonna be ok!”
He rushed around the car and his hand shot out to the handle on the door.
“Just stay still,” he said as the girl began to struggle against the seatbelt restraining her into place. “Just stay still. We’re gonna get you out of here and I’ll call an ambulance immediately. Let’s just get you out of this car before it catches fire.”
The door opened slightly as he pulled the handle which groaned from the force.
“Come on you son of a bitch!” he grunted as his hands yanked the thin metal handle again. The door creaked and screamed open as he jerked it outwards with all his might.
“There we go,” he said as he leaned down and looked into the open door.
As he did he saw that the man in the driver’s side had his head crushed in; smashed between the steering column and the dashboard. He held back a retch as the sight of the man’s brains pouring out of the top of his cracked skull threatened to give up the stomach full of fish and beer.
He reached his hand across the lap of the girl that was struggling to grab ahold of him, trying desperately to yank her way to safety.
John’s hand fumbled for the seatbelt latch and as he leaned further in noticed the large gaping wound on the girl’s neck.
‘What the hell..?’ he thought as he paused, his fingers finding the latch keeping her restrained.
On the road above another two police cars flew past the parked Chevy pickup truck with its hazard lights blinking. The officers didn’t notice the empty vehicle, or the broken guard rail, or the scrape marks leading over the edge. Below the sounds of waves crashing against the rocks drowned out the sounds of a man screaming as a woman tore her way through his face and neck.
Day 6
The tetherball bounced lightly off the metal pole it was attached to, the metal clasp at the top ringing softly across the playground of Benjamin Franklin Elementary School.
A soft breeze rustled quietly through the trees, a thin moaning sound that bordered on a growl hovering just behind it.
As the ball rolled slowly around the pole, a shape shambled by, a low rasping growl adding to the symphony of distant sirens and barking dogs.
Above, Theresa Taylor was writing across the dry erase board at the front of her third grade class, her back to the twenty-five pupils that held their eyes fixed in anxious anticipation of her rudimentary drawing.
She thought herself to be a conservationist and did as much as she could to protect the planet. She recycled, conserved water, only shopped local and organic, and at every opportunity possible as a third grade teacher, attempted to pass on this lifestyle to the young minds she was in charge of molding. Today she was teaching them about biospheres, and how they could help protect the delicate nature of the planet.
"So you see," she continued. "As the rain falls on the mountains, it makes its way down into the rivers and streams, and this is one way the aquafers are replenished."
She continued her less than artistic drawing of a mountain range with a river flowing beneath it, thinking with an inward chuckle, 'Really glad we're not playing Pictionary...'
She finished her drawing and started to turn around when Jimmy; a young boy that spent most of his time staring out the window instead of paying attention spoke up.
"Miss Taylor, there's people walking through the playground."
Theresa paused, setting the marker down on her desk and took a deep breath before responding with words she had spoken redundantly to Jimmy before. "You know you're supposed to raise your hand if you wish to say something Jimmy. I shouldn't have to keep reminding you."
"I know Miss Taylor," he replied, his gaze still locked to the playground outside. "But I think they're hurt."
Theresa looked at him puzzled, still refraining from going to look in an attempt to keep her position of authority. "And why is that Jimmy?" she asked, keeping the sarcastic layer as thin as possible.
"Because they're covered in blood."
There was something in the boy’s tone that ran a shiver across her skin, the flesh beneath her
thin shirt raising in a patch of small bumps. She turned and slowly started making her way to the window, some of the other students taking her movement as an invitation to do so themselves.
As she approached the glass she looked down to see three figures slowly staggering through the playground towards the schools entrance. She paused as what she saw slowly registered. Tattered clothing; blood covering it from the neck down, the shambling gait of a person with too much whiskey the night before, and the same blank stare across their eyes. She felt herself beginning to get angry at the thought that someone would find humor in pulling such a prank on elementary kids, and began immediately pondering the legal recourse of such actions. It was at that moment that one of the people vomited violently; a crimson and black spray of liquid bile shooting horizontally from their mouth, splashing the ground directly in its path. Theresa felt the blood leaving her cheeks as she realized that the woman hadn't even flinched as it happened, and was walking through the viscos puddle; strands of coagulated bile dripping down her chin without so much as blinking. It was right then that two things happened—she realized that what she was witnessing was not a prank, and the sounds of screaming began from the hallway outside.
Theresa's head slowly turned to the closed door leading to the hall as the sounds of chaos began filtering in through the thin wood. She struggled as her mind raced to process what was occurring, and for what her next actions should be.
"What's happening?" a little girl near the door asked, her question delivered on a shrill tremolo.
"Miss Taylor."
Theresa was frantic, her body frozen in a panic that held her locked in place. Her thoughts ran through every zombie and outbreak movie she had seen; thoughts of barricading the door and creating weapons flashing through her fear riddled synapses.
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