by Jack Hunt
The fact was, no one truly knew how people would react to a widespread pandemic and yet right then it was beginning to unfold in front of their very eyes.
As they continued to travel south, they began to notice abandoned vehicles along the side of the highway, some even blocked one of the lanes causing delays. People had simply run out of gas before they could reach a station. They came up on a family that was hiking along. Frank pulled over to the side and though he wasn’t going to let them inside the vehicle he asked if they needed water. The father nodded, and Sal handed several bottles outside of his window before they went on their way.
“We should have given them a lift,” Sal muttered gazing back at them.
“There are going to be hundreds of people like that, Sal. Who knows if they are infected. I can’t take the risk. Besides, having all those people breathing in this vehicle, no thanks.”
“We still have masks, hell even our disposable coveralls.”
“Yeah, I guess we have Chester to thank for that,” he said sarcastically before shooting Sal a look. After driving for another hour, they arrived in Utica, New York. The first thing Frank did was to locate the Walmart so they could pick up a disposable cell phone.
“Why do I have to go in?”
“Look, just do it.” Frank looked around feeling his skin crawl at the sight of so many people going in and out of the place. Though he had visited a Walmart near Clayton, it took everything he had not to turn around and drive back home. At least this time he had Sal.
“Oh, and gear up.”
“Come on, Frank.”
Frank reached over and pulled out one of the coveralls and a mask. “No coveralls, no getting back in this vehicle.”
Sal sighed and went through the process.
“Look around you, Frank, we are in the armpit of America. There’s no way on God’s green earth that it will have made its way up here yet.”
“You want to take that chance?”
Sal rolled his eyes, hopped out and disappeared into the throng of people pushing carts. He noticed many were coming out with stacks of camping gear. It looked like Black Friday with folks jostling to get what they needed. If this was a picture of what was to come, he couldn’t get back to the cottage fast enough.
Across the parking lot he noticed a group of people scuffling. Panic rose in his chest at the thought of running into trouble without a weapon. It niggled him to no end to know that he had a firearms license but no longer had it on him. Without that, he wouldn’t be able to walk into a store and purchase another. They’d want to see it and run background checks and make them jump through all manner of hoops. It was hard enough just to convince the rental company to let them rent a car with cash. They wanted a credit or debit card and neither of them had that, at least they couldn’t get one until they reached their bank and asked for another to be issued. So they ended up paying a hefty cash deposit. The young guy behind the counter was obviously looking to score some extra income, so Frank wasn’t sure if the paperwork he had them sign was really legal.
He hadn’t turned his attention away from the group for but a few minutes when he heard someone scream. Frank turned and his eyes widened. Staggering out of the middle of the rowdy group was a young woman; her face had blood dripping from the side of her eyes. An older man nearby stared at his hands, which were covered in blood. They turned and Frank noticed they had blood splatter on their face from where the woman had coughed over them. Both would be dead in less than twenty-four hours.
Come on, Sal, hurry up. His eyes shot back to the Walmart. But he still hadn’t come out. If they didn’t get their ass in gear, they’d both end up infected.
CHAPTER 24
All hell broke loose just when they were about to be released. Ella had been pacing back and forth inside the claustrophobic box for hours since her conversation with her mother. FEMA employees came and went, until one of them finally gave the thumbs-up. Once they were given the all-clear, soldiers led them out from their prison-like enclosure over to another tent that was being used to process those who had been cleared. There were already close to twenty people inside when they entered. Most were students, others campus employees. A murmur spread throughout as people exchanged stories about what they had seen, people who had died and where they were going after. Ella, Hayley, Zach, Gabriel, Tyrell and Jimmy stood behind a red line as each of them was called forward.
While Tyrell was being dealt with, Jimmy saw an older man across the room. He was wearing a security uniform and looked to be older than her father.
“Hey, boss, I thought you were gone.”
“For a while, so did I. I wouldn’t have been in this position if it hadn’t been for Nolan.”
“Oh yeah? Where is he?” He swiveled his head and looked over the tops of heads.
“Dead.”
Jimmy went from a smile to a look of shock. “That’s. Well. God damn.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, um, guys, this is Charlie, my supervisor.”
Charlie made a nod with his head towards Ella and the others.
“He means, babysitter,” he said before laughing.
Everyone greeted him with a nod, or a hello. They were kept six feet apart and told not to touch anyone by staff who were busy taking down the addresses of those about to leave. It was hard to imagine they were actually going to let them out after the shit they had just put them through. She had to wonder how much her mother’s involvement in the CDC had helped. Ella stood behind Gabriel in line listening to Tyrell bitch and whine about having to wait.
“So, do you know if it’s over?” Jimmy asked Charlie who was in the line across from them.
He shook his head. “No, they are still bringing them out and locking them in.”
“Can you believe this?”
One by one they made their way through and were brought out. Tyrell shook his truck’s keys in the air looking all pleased with himself. Gabriel hadn’t looked happy since they arrived. She knew he was blaming himself for getting Jason to venture out and perhaps that’s how he’d become infected but there was no way of knowing that for sure. She imagined many of them would feel some sense of guilt by the time this was over.
As they were guided across the campus to Tyrell’s vehicle, and they watched others being released, Ella noticed a set of residence doors open. Four soldiers were leading out a line of about fifteen students, all of them appeared to be in one way or another potentially infected, if the withdrawn looks on their faces were any indication. They had them wearing biological suits. Her group slowed to let them past. They were being led over to the same tent that Ella had been in. Another batch that they would observe.
What happened next, occurred so fast.
The group that was being led towards a tent was at least fifteen feet away from them.
How one of the students managed to grab a soldier’s gun was unclear, but someone grasped his sidearm and unloaded a bullet that took the soldier down. Simultaneously several of the students tore off their biohazard suit masks and began rushing in different directions.
Another round was fired and his colleague took down the student who had shot the one soldier. Chaos erupted as the students dispersed. Whether they had planned it or not was unknown. All Ella knew was two of them were running in her direction.
Now whether it was instinct or not, Charlie tackled one of them to the ground. The other slammed into Jimmy knocking him down. Ella watched in horror as a third student came barreling her way, not looking to harm her but simply to escape. She braced herself for impact but it never came. A FEMA employee plowed into the kid not more than three feet from them. Ella and the others jumped back and watched as government employees took matters into their own hands. That’s when a FEMA employee took down Gabriel. In all the tussle and chaos, they must have figured that there was no way to know who was infected and who wasn’t and so they were going to scoop up everyone.
“Guys, let’s go!” Ella heard Tyrell shout. In the
shit storm that unfolded he had bolted over to his truck and started it up. Hayley was already halfway there, and Zach was in the back. Ella tried to tell the guy who had Gabriel that he wasn’t infected, that they had already been given the all clear but he wasn’t listening. In fact, he shouted to one of his other colleagues to grab her. In that split second, she made a decision. Now whether it was the right one or not, or fueled by having been locked away for over twenty-four hours and treated like a terrorist, she pulled back her leg and kicked the employee on top of Gabriel in the gut as hard as she could. He fell off Gabriel and she grabbed hold of his hand and hauled him up. Both of them double-timed it through the erupting chaos towards the truck.
The sound of gunshots going off made her think they were firing at them, but a quick glance over her shoulder told her differently. It was another student who had snatched up a gun. The final image she saw was of him being gunned down. As the truck’s wheels spun and tore out of there, she looked back at Charlie and Jimmy who had been thrown face first on the ground. She wished she could have helped them but they were beyond help now. The moment they chose to tackle an infected student, their number was up.
In the back of the truck their bodies banged from side to side as Tyrell tried to keep the wheels on the ground. Ella grasped the side with all her might to prevent herself from going over the edge.
“Speed it up,” Zach shouted.
Tyrell smashed the accelerator hard and was speeding his way up 168th Street with a military jeep hot on their tail.
WALMART HAD JUST BEEN TURNED into infection city. Frank sure as hell wasn’t going to linger around here. Kitted out in overalls, mask and goggles, he must have looked like an odd sight staring out the window but not as half as odd as Sal, who was elbowing his way out of the doors and getting some strange looks from folks going in.
Frank started the engine and reversed out keeping an eye on the woman who people were trying to dodge. She must have shown up hoping that a bottle of Tylenol from the pharmacy would cure what she had but she was shit out of luck. Frank was shutting all the air vents as Sal hopped inside with his eyes wide open.
“God, it’s insane in there. I don’t want to say that people are losing their shit but people are losing their shit. You would think that the pharmacy shelves would be bare but it’s the food section. I mean you kind of know you’re living in America when two people are fighting over that last box of Twinkies.”
“Did you get the phone?”
He held it up and then placed it on the seat. Frank handed him a bottle of sanitizer.
“But I’m geared up.”
“So? You can’t be too cautious.”
His OCD had kicked in and gone into overdrive after seeing that woman leaking snot and blood all over the place.
“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance for that woman?”
“Do you see the state she is in? She’ll be dead before they even get there.”
“How the hell could I miss it?” Sal shivered.
Once they had put some good distance between them and the store, Frank tried phoning Ella but it just went to her voicemail. Over a period of an hour he kept trying but to no avail. On the fifth attempt an unfamiliar, gruff male voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Who’s this?” Frank asked. “And why do you have my daughter’s cell?”
The line went dead without an answer. Frank tried phoning back again multiple times but it just went to voicemail. He veered off to the side of the road and slammed the brakes hard out of frustration and fear. Sal jolted forward almost going through the windshield.
“Geesh, Frank.”
He phoned Kate hoping that she might shed some light on Ella’s situation but couldn’t get through to her. Some lady answered and just kept repeating the same thing like a robot.
“She’s unavailable right now. If you give me your name and number I will have her phone you.”
He hung up and stared out the window as a light rain began to fall. They were still miles from Queens and even though the traffic heading there had eased up, it would still take another four hours before they reached Queens and that was if they didn’t have any further trouble. It had just been one thing after the other. They were about twenty minutes away from Albany and with no idea what was going on with Ella.
ELLA WAS STILL in a panicked state after they dumped the truck. They had no choice. With the roads clogged up by people trying to get out of the city, the military jeep had gained on them and several times nearly managed to box them in.
It was Zach’s idea to jump out once they made it to Utopia Parkway after they ended up in some heavy traffic. Everyone ran in different directions to avoid all of them being caught. The idea was to regroup at Clearview Park Golf Course. It butted right up against the Clearview Expressway, otherwise known as Interstate 295.
Her thighs screamed in protest as they darted west down 17th Avenue into a residential area. Hayley and Zach went one way, Tyrell another and Gabriel and Ella stayed together. From the very second they jumped out, leaving the truck running, three soldiers gave pursuit. Darting in and out of traffic, she could hear blood pumping in her ears. Her heart smashed against her chest. She had never been this scared in her life. Whatever hope she had of getting into the police after this was shot, if there was a life after this. By the look of people leaving the city in droves, the situation was beyond repair.
The fact that they didn’t have any masks only added to her paranoia. If her father could see her now, he would lose his mind.
“This way,” Gabriel said grabbing hold of her hand and tugging her down the side of a home, through a gate and across a backyard. They jumped a wall, crossed over three more yards and dashed inside an old dilapidated shed. Inside it was crowded. There were bikes jammed up against the wall, a lawn mower, pots with dead flowers and cobwebs all over the place. The only light came from a small dusty window that had a crack in it. Both of them crouched down in a small open space and listened intently. They could hear a soldier’s voice, and some neighbor saying they had gone in a different direction to where they were heading.
Ella was close enough to Gabriel that she could feel his breath against her. If he had been infected in the tussle that occurred at the campus, she was probably infected now.
He stared at her and she felt herself becoming a little uncomfortable. “What you did for me back there. I appreciate it.”
“Well, I couldn’t have you go through all that again.”
“Quite a kick you have on you.”
She smirked.
“You think they’re gone?” she asked.
Gabriel stood to his feet and peered out the window. “We should probably stay here for a little longer, just to be sure.”
He crouched back down and Ella found herself at a loss for words. She never imagined seventy-two hours ago that she would have a fractured wrist, be isolated by FEMA and chased down by the military.
“You mentioned your father was coming. What are you going to do now?”
“What can I do? I can’t go back and they still have my phone. If I can get to a phone I can call my mother and see if she can get in contact with him.”
“What’s your dad like?”
“You’re asking me that now?”
“Well I figured we had some time to kill. So?”
She cleared her throat. She’d always had trouble explaining to people what her father was like. For the longest time, she just avoided telling them that he had OCD, an extreme phobia of germs and was on disability. Instead she would just tell them about what he used to do. It wasn’t lying. He was ex-military and from what she heard from her mother, he had been good at his job.
“He’s a unique guy, let’s leave at that.”
“Oh,” he nodded. “One of those.”
She frowned and a faint smile danced on her lips. “By that you mean?”
“Well, with you being at police academy, I’m guessing he’s a cop. You know, the stern kind that thin
ks his daughter should follow in his footsteps.”
She gnawed down on the inside of her lip finding his guess amusing.
“That would make sense. I mean, why would a woman want to become a police officer? You know being as it’s a very male-dominated career.” She paused. “You do know, Gabriel, it’s 2016? Hell, there’s even women fighters in the UFC.”
A large smile spread across his face. “So I’m right or wrong?”
“I’ll leave that to my father to explain when you meet him.”
He chuckled. “Bringing me home to the family, now how about that?”
She backtracked. “Um, I didn’t mean that.” She quickly changed the topic. “So what about you?”
He ran a hand over his stubbled jawline. “My father is dead.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was that the flu?”
“No. No he died of cancer back when I was eight.”
Ella sighed. “That’s got to be rough.”
“Yeah, it is, kind of. I guess I really never had a chance to get to know him so I don’t know what I’m missing.”
She nodded slowly pondering her own relationship with her father. It was fairly good; she had fond memories of growing up and going on trips to the market, and seeing him when he would return from a military tour. But in some ways, she kind of saw him through the lens of his OCD.