The Black: Outbreak

by Paul E. Cooley

  And then the asshole ex had called instead. She’d gone ahead and told Ryan it was work and that she had to go. He’d looked as relieved as she felt. That, however, had only made her feel worse.

  The short drive home involved a screaming match via hands-free cell. Then another when she entered her apartment. But that was that. The fucker was blocked. And he knew better than to pay her a visit. She was a goddamned HPD Lieutenant and SWAT Commander. If need be, she’d put a hole between his eyes.

  That thought brought her mood even lower. More depression. Another dose of crushing loneliness. She unclipped the garters holding up her flesh-colored stockings and peeled them off her legs. She threw those in the growing heap at the base of the bed. She sat up, undid her bra, and tossed it over the side.

  Early night, she thought. That’s what I need.

  She placed her thumbs in her panties to roll those off too and then her phone rang. Well, rang was the wrong word for an earth-shattering klaxon alarm.

  Sarah hopped out of bed, grabbed the phone, and touched the screen, heart pounding. “Celianne,” she said.

  “This is dispatch,” a low voice said. “Your team is on alert. Get here. Now.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said into the phone and clicked it off. She whirled toward her closet, cast her eyes at the pile of clothes, and sighed. Well, if she wasn’t going to get laid, at least she’d get release of some sort tonight.

  Sarah pulled out her “go-bag,” dressed in heavy blue jeans, a sport bra, and a thin undershirt. She finished the ensemble with a black turtleneck, combat boots, and her HPD jacket. The only thing left to do was to face the storm outside and get to HQ. And then the night would really begin.

  Chapter 15

  Its talons clicked on the floor. It could not hear the sound. It could not hear the rush of climate control or the screams and sobs behind the surgical suite glass walls.

  Its eyes rotated upon the appendages like slowly spinning marbles. It saw the glass. It knew that’s where the prey had gone. It tried to get in, even reabsorbed some of its mass to coat the substance, dissolve it, destroy it. But the glass was impervious.

  In frustration, it continued down the corridor, one eye constantly fixed on the surgical suites it left behind. Once past the large glass enclosed rooms, it encountered other doors. It slashed through them with three taloned tentacles. The door disappeared into a rain of splinters. It continued forward into the first room, dragging its bulbous rear end across the floor to absorb the wooden particles.

  Its eyes scanned the room, found more to consume. The creature’s tentacles smashed away metal and glass to make space. It focused on plastic, wood, and any organic material it could find. Each particle created another synapse, another connection. It grew imperceptibly larger.

  Rather than returning to the hallway, it stared at the wall. It knew there was something behind it. The creature shuffled forward on five legs and kissed the surface of the wall with a wet, viscous tongue.

  Smoke rose from the dimpled wound in the paint, stucco, and sheetrock. It pressed forward and a portion of the wall crumbled. Exposed network cables met its liquid self, the plastic melting and exposing wires. It continued pushing and sliding forward, its solidity collapsing into itself. The tentacles pulled back as did the eye stalks. No one heard the crackling crunch of it reshaping itself. The moving mass of black liquid pushed through the wall, dissolving wooden supports.

  It kept sliding forward until it met no resistance. In its wake, wires short-circuited and a circuit breaker popped in the next room. The smell of ozone joined the fetid stench it left behind. The darkened room it entered was filled with electrical equipment. It saw through the darkness as though it was light. There was little here for it to eat, but it didn’t care. It would take all it could.

  Chapter 16

  The black van, if you could call it that, pulled into the parking lot. Sarah looked through the windshield between wiper blade swipes. The rain fell in a torrent.

  A large tunnel of plastic flapped in the wind from the ER entrance. Instead of covering the entrance, the tunnel, disconnected from its wall mooring, had slid out of the ER and rolled out into the roundabout. That wasn’t right. Also? The HPD officer supposed to meet them wasn’t there.

  She picked up the mic. “Dispatch, SWAT Commander Celianne.”

  “Dispatch. Go ahead.”

  “Officer Fletcher is not at his post. Has he checked in, over?”

  “Negative,” the dispatcher replied. “They were supposed to check in five minutes ago. Over.”

  Sarah’s frown deepened. “Dispatch, we’re on site. Will give you a sitrep shortly. Over and out.”

  She put the mic back on the radio and stared at her driver. Officer O’Malley, the youngest member of her SWAT team, was decked out in all of his gear save for his helmet. The man practically lived at the station, training, preparing, doing all the things she expected a rookie member to do. That said, however, he had taken it a bit far the last few months. He’d never been skinny, exactly, but any fat he had when he started on her team had been replaced with taught muscle. At least she didn’t have to worry about him falling over from exhaustion. She just had to worry about him overreacting inside the hospital.

  “Ready?” she asked him.

  “Ready, Boss,” he said with a nod.

  Sarah turned and stared into the long, wide cabin. The other six team members looked at her expectantly.

  “Gear. Muster. Get to it.”

  The team said nothing. Perkins and Givens hit the back door and swung it wide. The rest of the black-clad men jumped out behind them. Sarah opened her door and entered the freezing rain and wind.

  Upon reaching the station, she’d changed into her gear as quickly as possible. The Feds had called the Deputy Chief and asked for a SWAT team to get to Ben Taub ASAP. Apparently, they were concerned about a quarantine situation going awry. Sarah didn’t know what that meant. Only that her team was to arrive, assess the situation, protect any personnel of the hospital, CDC, or patients. In other words, treat it like a potential hostage situation.

  She ran to the rear of the van pleased to see Perkins and Givens handing out weapons. The matte black rifles were distributed and magazines passed out like candy. Givens’ dead eyes blinked at her as he handed her a rifle.

  Then the mags. She placed them in the slots on her belt, visually checked to make sure her Glock .40 was on her hip, and headed to the overhang.

  Without a jacket to cover her, the rain splattered against her helmet and across the back of her neck. The cold wind braced her face and she shivered. Not a great start.

  Once she made it to the overhang, she turned and waited. Her men quickly scrambled with their gear beneath the overhang to join her. They stood in a neat line awaiting instructions.

  Sarah peeked through the hospital’s glass doors. Nothing in there was moving, save for the tunnel that continued to whip back and forth. “Givens. Perkins. Recon.”

  The two men nodded to her and moved quickly into the entrance, Givens leading, Perkins several steps to his rear and off to the left. Even with all their gear, the two men moved like silent ghosts. She didn’t bother watching them. They knew what they were doing. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have followed her to Houston just to join her team.

  “Form up,” she said to the others.

  The men paired off and moved to the sides of the building entrance. O’Malley, her partner for the night, and another pair on either side waited for the all clear. O’Malley patiently waited next to her. Rifle in his hands, muzzle pointed down and off to the left, he was a large and silent presence next to her.

  Her heartbeat had picked up the moment they arrived. But the icy tension in her back hadn’t begun until Perkins and Givens walked through the entrance. Now was the dangerous time. When you first hit a scene and had no real eyes on the ground, you never knew what to expect. Usually, when SWAT was dispatched, they were either part of a larger police operation or sent in when the shit h
it the fan.

  But that was the problem. She didn’t know what was inside the hospital. And it seemed as though no one else did either. Every second that ticked by made the feeling worse. She knew it would come, but when her radio finally squawked, it still scared the hell out of her.

  “Boss,” a deep Southern drawl said over the radio. “We’re clear.”

  “Move out!” she yelled.

  The pairs of men by the entrance entered in a two-by-two formation.

  She leaned forward and ran behind them, O’Malley just off to her side. The bright halogen lights beaming down and illuminating the overhang wrecked what little night vision she had and left her eyes starry with afterimage.

  Inside the first set of double doors, Sarah was struck by the silence. The wind and rain outside was louder than a rock concert in comparison. Once through the second set of double doors and into the main ER hall, she felt as though she was in a tomb.

  Givens and Perkins covered the room ahead, each man standing off to the side. “Team Beta, cover that hallway,” Sarah hissed. Kilfoil and Bradfisch ran to the hall entrance marked “TRAUMA.”

  Sarah swung her eyes to the left. A glass and metal partition separated the ER adjunct building from the main hospital. At least we have containment, she thought.

  “Charlie, cover the entrance.”

  Epp and Schneck moved behind her and took up positions guarding the inner double doors.

  Sarah began walking to the room Givens and Perkins stood outside of and then stopped. Something was wrong. The room’s entrance held the remains of the plastic tunnel mooring. Melted plastic strips hung down in curls. She wrinkled her nose at the lingering smell of burning plastic and something like rotten meat.

  Sarah pointed to the door and O’Malley took up position behind Perkins. She moved forward and got behind Givens. “Go.”

  At her words, Givens walked into the room’s entrance, weapon pointing ahead of him, knees bent. Perkins followed behind. She and O’Malley stayed outside the room covering the area.

  “Clear!” Perkins yelled from inside the room. “And Boss? You better get in here.”

  She and O’Malley exchanged a glance. She clicked her mic. “Charlie? Beta? Sitrep.”

  “Charlie. Nothing moving.”

  “Beta. Nothing moving.”

  She nodded to herself. “Stand by.” Sarah took a deep breath and walked across the threshold.

  From outside, she’d only been able to see the very front of the room. And that belied the carnage within.

  Metal and glass instruments were scattered across the floor. The tile gleamed as if freshly mopped and every metal surface in the room glowed as if polished. But there was no one home.

  The portable curtain stations set up around the room were little more than metal skeletons. The steel rods, usually covered with plastic, looked thin and out of place. Without their hardy covering, the stands looked as though they might fall over at any minute.

  Sarah looked down at something near her foot and blinked. She bent down and picked up a disc of metal with her gloved fingers. She turned it over and over. It reminded her of something, but…

  “Boss?” Givens called out.

  Sarah, still gripping the disc, turned from the wall to face the rest of the room. Givens and Perkins stood by one of the free-standing stretcher beds. Or what used to be one.

  No plastic. No paper. No tags. Nothing left but the frame. And next to it? Sarah’s brows scrunched together. She pointed at it. “Givens?”

  “Boss?”

  “What do you think that was?”

  His eyes followed her gaze and then he nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I wanted you to see.”

  She dropped her hand. “So what is it?”

  Givens grunted. “Exposed electrical wires. Screen. Metal. I think it used to be one of those things that shows a heartbeat. You know ‘beep beep.’”

  “Yeah,” she said to herself. “So why is it completely taken apart?”

  “It’s not taken apart, Boss,” O’Malley said from behind. “It’s like something, I don’t know, removed all the plastic and rubber. Just metal and glass left.”

  Sarah turned and surveyed the rest of the room. There were other devices in a similar state. Not to mention the zippers, metal fasteners, and even some electronics, scattered around the floor.

  She pointed at the cabinets along the wall. “Check ‘em.”

  Givens and Perkins moved. Perkins stood a few feet behind Givens, his weapon pointed off to the side as Givens opened each cabinet. He found sterile gauze, plastic trach tubes, bedpans, pillows, blankets, boxes of pre-packaged syringes, and bottles of fluid. He closed the final cabinet and turned back to her with a shrug.

  “I think we call this room clear?” The men exchanged glances and then nodded as one. “Let’s see what else we can find.”

  She led the way out of the room and into the lobby. Schneck and Epp didn’t turn around. The two men faced the outer doors, weapons steady. Neither man had seen a tour in the sandbox, but they were certainly disciplined.

  Team Beta, Kilfoil and Bradfisch, stood at the entrance to the adjoining hallway. “Anything?” she asked. The two men didn’t turn around, but each shook their heads. “Okay, Beta. You and Alpha take the hall. I want you to take it slow and methodical. There should be two operating theaters on your right, and a couple of store rooms on the left further down the hall along with the phone trunks.”

  Beta waited until Alpha passed them into the hallway. Once Perkins and Givens rounded the corner and gave the go-ahead sign, Schneck and Epp followed.

  Sarah touched her mic. “Dispatch. SWAT Command. Over?” A burst of static erupted from the radio. She frowned. “Dispatch? SWAT Command, over?” The static answered her again, punctuated by a squelch as the world beyond the double doors lit with lightning.

  Dammit, she thought, that’s all I need. “O’Malley? Check your radio.”

  Her partner tried to reach HQ. Nothing. No response. No one on the lines.

  She looked over at the admitting station for the ER. The chair behind the credenza was melted in places. The seat fabric was missing leaving nothing but metal in its place. What may once have been push pins were just barbed pieces of metal.

  Something caught her eye. Sarah leaned over the credenza and peered down. A thermometer sat on the floor next to a pile of metal buttons and hairpins. She blinked. What the fuck?

  “Boss,” Givens drawled through her headset. “We’re clear in the hallway. You better get down here.”

  “Acknowledged,” she said. “Schneck? Epp? Stay put. O’Malley? You’re with me.” She started down the hallway. The floor was as bright as it had been in both the ER room and the foyer.

  The hallway echoed with the light thump of their combat boots on the tile floor. O’Malley’s gear jingled slightly with his heavy steps. Sarah made a mental note to work on silent drills with him. Or maybe she’d hand him over to Givens and Perkins. Those two men could teach anyone how to be silent and deadly; that was their stock and trade.

  They rounded the hallway and to the straightaway. Perkins stood at the back of the hall near an open door on the left. Givens, on the other hand, stood just before the entrance to the trauma operating rooms.

  Sarah peered through the glass partitions and into the theaters. Behind the door, two people dressed in HAZMAT suits stood next to a pale and stricken-looking man in scrubs.

  “You try and open the door?”

  Givens shook his head. “No, Boss.” He gestured to it with a free hand. “They won’t open it.” He shrugged. “Didn’t want to force the issue.”

  “Givens. Trade with Perkins. Get him over here.” She cocked her head in O’Malley’s direction. “Take him with you.”

  “Yes, Boss.” Givens pointed to O’Malley. “You’re with me.”

  The two men walked down the hallway as Perkins headed back. Sarah wanted to get the sitrep from Perkins rather than Givens. He was a little more observant than his part
ner. Well, that wasn’t true. Perkins was just more well-spoken.

  “Boss? We have a serious problem.” Perkins’ voice didn’t waver, but she didn’t like its tone. He was one of the most reliably stoic men she knew. He’d been in firefights all over the Middle East, alongside her most of the time. If Perkins was saying they had a problem, they did. A big one.

  “What’d you see?”

  His eyes flicked back down the hall. “The storeroom is a disaster. FUBAR. Whoever went in there broke through the walls.”

  “What?”

  He nodded. “The wall connecting the two rooms looks like it was burned through. Melted. Shit, Boss, I can’t find the right word.”

  “Was the other room locked?”

  “No. That’s the weird thing. There was no damned reason to break through the wall if you could just walk in.”

  “Okay. Is that it?”

  Perkins shook his head. “No, Lieutenant. The other room? Your schematics are right. It’s the trunk room for the internal phones. It’s completely wrecked. Exposed wires like we saw in the ER and some of them are shorted out. Surprised they ain’t caught fire yet. And there’s something else.”

  By the look on his face, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Go ahead.”

  “There’s a goddamned hole in the floor. About the size of three people.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched together. “They cut down through the floor?”

  “Not exactly. Looks more like there was some kind of trap, like for water. In case the room flooded, I guess. Whatever it was, it buckled under extreme pressure. I guess the metal gave out and took the flooring with it. Either way, the phone trunks are totally fucked and we have someone on the loose.”

  She glanced at the three people in the trauma center hallway. “Okay,” Sarah said. “You’re with me.”