Z Poc: The Lodge

by catt dahman

  “Why can’t medical come in? Why can’t these people be taken to a hospital?”

  “Ma’am, we have experts informed of this and working diligently. Ines Lindsay is a doctor and will assist you,” he said as he introduced her. “She is fully capable of helping in this situation and has some experience with this type of infection.” Ines wasn’t ready to leave yet, either. As long as she stayed, he would, and she had whispered to Nick that she was learning a great deal about the infection as she worked. The information was priceless, she claimed.

  “What is this infection?” Dana asked.

  “We’ll have to see,” Ines said.

  “You’re a doctor?”

  Ines nodded, “Infectious diseases.”

  “Jeez and you just happen to be here. So what is this? Can you cure it? Why are you here? Can you tell us something?” Dana was really scared.

  “She will observe the patients, but you have to understand, this is a serious infection and contagious. We are quarantined as no hospital could handle this. We must be in isolation,” Nick broke in.

  “We heard. Quarantine. But her being here, that is coincidence.”

  “What is it? A bad disease such as anthrax? Is it that?” Dana struggled to understand what he meant by no hospital was able to handle it. A hospital could handle any contagion. Was military coming? National Guard?

  Ines explained, “No. It’s referred to as Diamond Flux, for the scientist who has studied it the most. In airborne form, it is the first virus that comes on as a hemorrhagic fever and is easily transmitted to any person without a resistance. The body pours out most of its fluids, and the victim falls into a coma.”

  “I’m not seeing that,” Dana said, “and there isn’t massive bleeding. It isn’t airborne either.”

  “That’s because this is secondary, a body fluid to body fluid contagion, and it displays different,” Ines said. “If you recall, the Plague displayed a pneumatic bubonic as transmitted by fleas and rats. We have missed the airborne stage.”

  “I know. So this isn’t airborne at all?”

  “Not as we have it here. If it were free, we would have had substantial cases, about seventy percent. But this is secondary and only transmitted by physical fluids.”

  “A bite. Sexual transmission. Lisa’s hands, oh, she bites her nails and has dry hands because of habitual hand washing, damn,” Dana thought aloud. “I saw today how cracked her hands were, and her cuticles were bitten, and I thought the hot springs might help.”

  “They, the patients, are contagious by body fluids. Your gloves are saving you,” Nick said.

  “When do we get supplies dropped? Antibiotics? A cure? Protection for the rest of us?”

  Nick thinned his lips and sighed, “There is no protection per se but full avoidance. There is absolutely no cure. Once infected, nothing at all can be done. It is a hundred percent communicable. ”

  “Then you better get the uninfected patients to safety,” Dana demanded, but she saw the looks shared by Nick and Ines. “What?”

  “Again, we can’t leave. And I assure you, there is little chance of knowing who is infected well enough to be sure,” said Ines as she shook her head. “I can’t explain everything, but what we know is we are on our own now. This is a prion- based infection, and there is no cure. The best bet is not to be infected. Susan, I will give you a key to that other cabinet, and in it are emergency supplies, and you will find a massive amount of pain killers since we don’t wish anyone to suffer.” She didn’t add that she and Nick needed to leave. Or that they could leave.

  “Prion? Rabies? Mad Cow?” Susan asked.

  “Yes and No. Those are prion-based but are in the league of let’s say…a firecracker. Diamond Flux is an atomic bomb. Same thing but bigger.” Ines moved her hands and arms to mimic a mushroom cloud.

  “This is a nightmare. Will they be okay?” Dana asked, dreading the answer.

  “I’m sorry, but no. The mortality rate is a hundred percent. Everyone exposed is infected. A hundred percent on that as well. They’ll grow sicker and well, it is prion-based.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, there may be some issues after death. We will have to wait. We are under military guard, however, and they call the shots. They give us orders. Panic will cause more deaths. We need to keep things quiet.”

  Dana laughed bitterly, “That’s sickening. How can you keep this a secret? They’re suffering. You’re all bullies. Murderers even.”

  “I have more pain medication,” Ines handed Susan the key. “We can’t do anything but help those suffering.”

  “Explain what you meant by issues after death? What does that mean?” Dana demanded. She was a nurse and knew prions could get misfolded and replicate themselves so they left spongy holes in the brain, as in mad cow disease, but she didn’t know a lot about prions, “And how did the prions get in these people?”

  “We don’t know what is going to happen here. This is a new situation for us as well. As you were told, the US Army is in charge, not us, and they will call the shots here. The prions somehow reactivate parts of the brain, the instinct for maybe reproduction, food, hive behavior…the basics…and certainly the rage emotion, and so after death. They don’t get around well and shamble, and they don’t think, but they are deadly adversaries.”

  “You have to be joking. Zombies?” Dana hissed, “and that is not funny.”

  “I’m not laughing, nor is it a joke. I’m not heartless.”

  Dana stared Nick down, but the man didn’t flinch. She wanted to vomit. “How did the prions get in?”

  Ines shrugged, “It was an experiment that was supposed to be destroyed, but a vial was stolen and released. It’s what we have always feared: those who stole the vial knew that the horrid diseases were locked away in vaults. It doesn’t matter, who or how, except that they are worse than dead and that it happened. Nick and Dave can explain more about that if you want, but what matters is what we do know about the enemy infection. The prions piggyback on a virus and get into a host.”

  “Who us or another?”

  “What you’re asking is from where. The US. They…we made it. We caused this nightmare. We found a substance in Russia and with it…well…we made a terrible infection. It’s a very long story, and it has a rather wicked ending, so much so that one of our own caused this.”

  “And you knew.”

  Nick stared blankly.

  “I hope God has mercy on your soul, but I doubt He will. I bet all of you burn, Baby, burn for this,” Dana snapped.

  “Truly. I know this seems horrible and cruel, unfair and impossible, but let me say this, please. We are not the only ones facing this. Terrorists or zealots unleashed this very infection in France a few days ago. It is now being reported in Israel, Morocco, Buenos Aires, Frankfort, and the island of Bermuda.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. So, you see how serious this is? I am afraid the powers that be will learn from this quarantine, and I sincerely hope everyone survives and we get past this, but information gathered here may save millions. The world is already infected and so will everyone here, as well, in a few weeks.”

  “Those accounts you mentioned in all those places. Did the infected…are they dead or alive?” Dana asked.

  Ines swallowed hard, hating to say, “Well. Let’s say they are…deadish.”

  Chapter 5

  Infection Spreads…Young Zombies…Peri and Norman

  Shan and Ricky

  Peri, Norman, and Hank found Mike drunk at the bar.

  “Hey, good-lookin’, I hear you are the hotel stud,” Peri said, hating the words.

  “Oh, yeh?” Mike beamed, his vision blurry. Wow. This one was an emerald-eyed beauty with peachy pale skin and shining black hair that fell down her back in waves. He imagined she was an Irish princess. She was hot.

  “My friend, Lisa, said so. And Sheila said so.”

  Mike laughed.

  Norman stepped over with Hank, “No seriously, we kno
w for a fact you had sex with Sheila, and she’s infected with something, and Lisa is, too.”

  Mike looked as if he might deny everything, but then he shrugged, “Man, it’s the end of the world, and we see them things all bloated up and moaning and hungry. Their eyes…jeez. And I don’t wanna be one, yanno? Above all, I don’t want that. I can go down fighting, but just to have my soul ripped out and then get used like a meat puppet? Fuck no.”

  “You knew you had it?”

  Mike shrugged at Peri.

  “Right,” Hank agreed although he didn’t understand. He wanted Mike to keep talking. “You had to know.”

  “So I’m glad I done got the shot, but then what’d they say? Eat the meat, don’t bite…ha ha ha…new species of Angels, whatever the hell that means, and it’s all cool ‘cause the world is going to be a shit pile soon with zombies roaming, but hey, it’s okay, Mike, cause you got the shot.” He paused. “Then they say: no sex. It’s me, Mike, and they say no sex?”

  “You’re okay.” Hank urged him to go on.

  “Right. Mike is doing fine. All is okay, only…ha ha ha…this is the punch line: Mike, ole man, ole boy, ole stud, you gotta keep your carrot in your pants. No sex at all,” Mike said.

  “Riiight. Bummer,” Norman chimed in.

  “The world ends, and I can’t even get laid? What kinda joke is that? So I did it. You Army? Am I gonna go to the brig or get shot?” He laughed.

  David Dallas had listened quietly. He was there, not to offer ideas, but to help if and as asked. He felt guilty. He also knew it was time to grab the doctors and get out of the lodge and to safety. The experiment was over, but he hadn’t seen Major Reid in a while.

  “David, can you lock him in his room so he doesn’t do anything else?”

  “Yes, I can do that.”

  “Gonna lock me away?”

  Peri huffed, “It’s best since you can’t keep your parts to yourself.”

  David ordered Mike to his room and posted a porter to make sure he stayed so he wouldn’t infect anyone else. Drunkenly, Mike only laughed and complied. “Cut it off if I can’t use it,” Mike bellowed and then laughed again.

  “He’s insane,” Peri said, “what if he’s infected more people? We may have several infecting people.”

  Dana gathered her friends, the ones she could find, in the sitting room that was down the hall from medical room. When she was finished with her story, they just looked at her with shocked faces. Peri added her story as well, and the pieces of the puzzle began to fit. Most were furious or scared. Some didn’t seem to be able to take it all in yet.

  “In the morning first thing, we are going to need everyone to meet and hear this…everyone at the lodge,” Hank said.

  “You’ll cause a panic,” David told him, “but we have the guy, Mike, in his room. He can’t spread this anymore.”

  “People deserve to know and be warned,” Peri added. “We don’t have the little girl that bites yet.”

  “We can’t find her. But we’ve also been busy.”

  “No kidding,” Peri said.

  Before they could talk further, the back door to the lodge banged open, and people ran in, yelling. A teenager stood with his hand dripping blood; his other hand was around a child who limped and had a bloody leg. Others lined up behind them, eyes scared and shocked. Everyone spoke at once, but a few people managed to explain.

  “Some kids attacked us; I know it’s crazy…the kids….”

  Dana and Susan left the other patients with Ines and had the teen boy sit down in a chair. He slumped there, glad to get off his shaking, wobbly legs; his entire body felt like ice. The tip of one finger had been crushed or torn away. It looked very painful. Dana gently swabbed the spongy tissue and shuddered at seeing the bone peeking out the flesh, and then she cleaned the injury before wrapping it. He would need specialized treatment, and he would lose part of his finger. If it didn’t stop bleeding, she would have to do something major for him.

  “She bit me! She bit my finger,” he cried out, trying to be brave as Dana scrubbed. It hurt, but mainly he was scared and in mild shock.

  She knew he was also infected. She clenched her jaw. Well, if the information were right, he would die and become a monster, anyway. She didn’t tell him but tried to pretend that wasn’t true.

  Eddie and his little brother had been up late playing with the other children whose parents let them stay up and run around. When Eddie’s little brother, Joey, fell off the swings and skinned his knee, a little girl ran over, and before the child could get up, she stretched out her little tongue and lapped at the wound happily. When she began to bite, Joey kicked her away, wailing with the pain, “I kicked her hard, too. I don’t care if she is a girl,” Joey said.

  Eddie saw it all and grabbed the girl. From the side, the little girl’s twin jumped at Eddie, and as he shoved her away, she bit down on his hand, tearing away the tip of his finger, “I’m not kidding; she chewed and swallowed my finger! She’s a little freak. Those girls are bad; they like blood.”

  The woman with them was Trish, wife of the rude man, Rudy. “I was there. It was the same girl who bit my Nina. I was taking a break, and I shouldn’t have left Nina….” she sobbed.

  Her son spoke up, “That girl bit them and came after me. He…Eddie…hit her with a chair. Right in the head. He hit her a lot of times, too ‘til she stopped that moaning and trying to bite. She fell down.”

  “He beat her with a chair?” Peri asked.

  “What about the second girl?” Dana asked.

  “She started chasing Uncle Thorn’s girls. They ran off, and we come here,” Duke said. He was Nina’s brother. “The one that bit my sister, Nina, she’s the one that done run off chasing my cousins.”

  His mother slumped, “Rudy and Thorn is gonna kill me.” She reached out her arm for Dana to see. A livid set of teeth prints stood out on the woman’s arm. “She bit me when she went after Duke. Before Eddie here hit her. He had to. She was crazy. And her mama….”

  “Her mom?” Peri could hardly keep up.

  “Yeah. She kept yelling for the girls to stop and not bite,” Eddie said.

  “I don’t know where Rudy is or the rest or the other people we was with, Wicket and his wife…everyone is like they’s hiding or something.”

  Dana had Eddie, Trish, and Duke with hand and arm injuries and Joey with a knee scrape and bite, plus three more patients. This was going way too fast.

  “David and Nick, you can do security for the lodge?”

  “Best we can,” said Nick.

  “Dana and Susan, triage. Take the patients…isolate…Hank…security, okay? Peri with me, Ricky, you and Shan, too. We’ll find the missing kids. Where did the mother of the girls go?” Norman asked.

  “Mama Biter? No idea. Baby Biter ran after the other two kids, and she followed, but there was another kid, too. Kids were everywhere,” Eddie told them. “I’ll help. I need to let my parents know….”

  “We’ll find the parents soon. Right now, you are a patient, and Dana is handling it. If you see our other friends, grab them. Yours, too, but don’t go looking,” Norman finished. Someone had to take charge, and the hotel guys seemed content to just participate but not lead.

  Trish spoke up, “Thorn and Carol went to bed. They left the kids running around; I couldn’t see to Nina and Duke and them girls….” Her face was defeated and helpless. “Rudy was in the bar. He’s gonna kill me. I couldn’t watch them all and take care of Nina.”

  Norman spun to face her, “No, he won’t hit you. I promise you, Hank?”

  “On it. No harm is gonna come to you, Ma’am.”

  Dana motioned them to follow her, and David Dallas and Nick Hoyt dismissed the crowd so they could help with security.

  Walking outside, Peri took a deep breath. She should be tired, but her adrenaline pumped. It was like being in a nightmare she wanted out of but couldn’t make it stop. Norman held her hand, and they ran down the path with Ricky and Shan close behind. She w
as impressed with Norman’s manners and how he stepped up to take charge and do the rough work.

  The area, paved in rocks, with benches, flowerpots, tables, and trees all around, was a beautiful spot to sit and enjoy the shade in the heat of the day or to pause at in the evening and watch the night settle, like a blanket. As it was getting later, no one remained there; all was as Eddie and Trish had said.

  To the right was the playground and behind the little sitting area were the hot springs. The fight had occurred there.

  “Look. There’s the little kid,” Peri pointed, horrified that everyone had run and failed to render aid or do anything at all. They had left an injured child. She felt ill. Dana would have come unglued.

  Shan yanked the chair away, and they knelt beside the small child. Shan looked up sadly, shaking her head; the child’s skull was fractured. Peri felt a flare of anger that this child was dead, and her mother was nowhere around. It seemed very wrong. If she had a child, she wouldn’t want her to die like this, alone and then left like garbage. It made her sick and furious at the neglectful actions of all those involved.

  The little girl’s head was badly damaged by the chair. Her mouth was ringed with blood as if she had been eating red ice cream and gotten it all over her. Blood coated her teeth as well, and Peri wondered if it were from attacking and biting the boys and Trish. There was also blood matted, sticky and thick in her hair, where the chair had smashed her skull.

  She was dead.

  Peri felt a wave of shock wash over her; her extremities went cold as she realized this was a dead child in front of her.

  “How did this happen?” Shan muttered.

  “I don’t know, Shan. I don’t understand why children were out this late, running wild. Parents can be so damned selfish, allowing their kids to run about so they can drink or be alone,” Peri wiped away a tear.