Then, the EKG beeps shrilly.
Peter’s heart has given in. The pulse is flatlining.
Dorte squeezes her lips together. She feels a strong urge to jump in and start performing CPR. She tells herself it won’t work; it didn’t on Rikke. Yet her instincts are stronger than she thought, and it takes all her effort to hold back.
“I’m sorry, hon,” she croaks, tears starting to spill down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you.”
The EEG shows a modest pattern of brainwaves for a few more seconds. Then, they die out.
The heart monitor stops beeping. Silence descends. Except for Rikke’s bumping against the door.
Dorte stares at Peter’s face, holding her breath, and she realizes she’s repeating something in her mind over and over again.
Stay dead. Please, stay dead.
It goes against everything she has learned in her medical training, and she feels horrible on a human level, too. How can she wish for Peter to stay dead? What kind of person is she?
Twenty seconds pass by.
Then a minute.
Peter stays dead. The instruments stay silent.
Dorte has just begun to hope.
And then, it happens.
His eyelids twitch, then open.
She stares at him. Peter’s irises and pupils are gone; well, not completely, but they’re clouded over by a semi-transparent, milky-white color not unlike what you see with cataracts, except much more pronounced.
He lifts his head from off the floor and seemingly looks around the room. He doesn’t appear to actually see anything, though; it’s more like he’s using some other sense, like he’s trying to feel his surroundings.
Then, his face locks in the direction of Dorte, and his mouth contorts into an angry snarl. She draws back and Peter gets up—that is, he tries to get up, but the straps around his wrist and ankle hinder him from getting any further than an awkward sitting position. Instead of trying to get the straps off, he simply reaches out his free hand in a vain attempt to grab Dorte, who’s more than twenty feet away now. Peter claws at the floor, trying to pull himself forward, but the table is much too heavy, just as Dorte hoped, and he gets nowhere. He doesn’t even look back to see what the problem is; his attention is solely fixed on her, his mouth spewing saliva and hungry growls.
If Dorte hadn’t had medical training, she just might have fainted at the sight of her fiancé. Or at least she would have spun around and run out of the room.
But she stays put. She tells herself it’s not really him, it’s simply the unknown disease causing him to look and act like this. She tells herself she needs to think rationally; she needs to figure out what’s wrong with him and how to cure it.
She manages to pry her eyes off him and instead look to the monitors.
And what she sees makes her skin turn icy all over.
What she sees makes absolutely no sense.
What she sees is nothing.
SIX
Henrik wakes up from a deep slumber, and for a brief, blissful moment, he remembers nothing. For all he knows, this could be a perfectly ordinary Tuesday morning right before the alarm calls him awake. He could be lying next to Trine, the kids sleeping in their own rooms, the world outside about to start another day.
Then it all comes back to him in a series of gut-wrenching flashes.
Nothing is ordinary. Jennie is dead. Dan is gone. The world is turning to chaos.
Henrik opens his eyes and looks around, still hazy, realizing he is lying in Dan’s bed instead of his own. Then he remembers why; Kirsten, his mother-in-law, and Finn, their next-door neighbor, are both staying here for the night with him and Trine. He took Dan’s room so that Kirsten could sleep with her daughter in their bedroom, and Finn is sleeping in Jennie’s room.
Jennie’s old room, he corrects himself, feeling a stab of pain in his chest. The room belongs to no one anymore; it’ll be empty like those two years Jennie was away on continuation school; except this time, she won’t be home for the holidays. Or ever again.
Henrik is still surprised to find how the realization sinks in deeper every time he thinks about the death of his daughter; it’s like hearing the terrible news all over again. He just lies there in silence for a few moments, feeling the pain, fighting back the tears.
They had planned on burying Jennie on Friday. He had even gone and picked out a coffin. But now, with everything that has happened …
The thought makes him turn his head towards the window. It’s still dim outside, and the window is covered by drapes, only letting in a modest glow of early morning light. He can make out the shadows moving almost rhythmically on the other side of the glass, and if he didn’t know any better, he would have said it was an almost beautiful play of the light, like trees moving in the breeze.
But he knows what those shadows are. And there is nothing beautiful about them.
But why aren’t they making any noise?
Henrik sits up in bed, and it’s only now he remembers he put in earplugs. He takes them out and immediately hears the soft, growling moans and the scraping of nails across the window glass.
That’s why he put in the earplugs. He would never have been able to sleep without them. Now, as he finally begins to awaken properly, the feeling of stress returns.
What time is it? How long was I gone?
He reaches down into his pants lying on the floor and finds the phone. It’s only 04:05 AM, which means he was out for less than six hours. But much more importantly: there are four missed calls from Dan. Henrik tried calling him a bunch of times last night before he went to bed, but it went straight to voice mail, which means Dan’s phone was probably out of power.
Henrik didn’t wake up from the phone ringing because of the earplugs, and he regrets putting them in. Dan is probably worried sick because he didn’t answer.
He calls up his son, and this time, it doesn’t go to voice mail. Instead, a calm female voice tells him: “Cell phone service is temporarily out of order. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Then she repeats the message in English.
“Damnit,” Henrik mutters and tries once more, but gets the same result.
What does that mean? Did the entire phone network break down? Or is it just overloaded, like it usually is around midnight on New Year’s Eve, where everybody calls their friends and relatives all at the same time?
He checks the website of the national news station and finds his phone still has Internet access, although the connection seems slower than usual. Every single headline is about what’s going on outside. With each one, Henrik’s stomach sinks deeper.
At least 10,000 dead and counting!
The greatest disaster in the history of Denmark is happening right now!
Police try to seal off town!
Live: Follow the catastrophe minute-by-minute!
There are disturbing images all over the page. Corpses in the streets. Policemen in full riot gear aiming weapons at oncoming zombies. Victims with bloody bite wounds in emergency rooms. Traffic jams of collided cars. Shop windows shattered. People fleeing in groups.
It’s like looking at modern-day images from the Second World War. Except this just might be the beginning of the Third.
And now, as Henrik finally feels completely awake and alert, he can actually hear the background noises of the city. Guns firing. Something crashing. Someone screaming.
He gets up and gets dressed. The gesture is weirdly familiar yet strange at the same time. He’s putting on clothes like he would on any other day, like he’s simply about to go eat breakfast, brush his teeth and then go to work.
Instead, though, he goes down the hallway to the bedroom. He taps the door gently, then opens it. The shutters are drawn, and the room is dim. He can make out the figure of his wife under the blanket. The other side of the bed is empty.
Henrik decides to not wake up Trine. He closes the door again, then goes to the kitchen and finds his mother-in-law making coffee. The radio is
playing softly.
“You’re up early,” he says.
“I never went to sleep,” she says, sending him a tired smile. “I just couldn’t. Not with those things outside the window.”
Henrik glances over at the window, which is covered by a bedsheet. Through it, he can make out the figures.
“They’re relentless,” he mutters. “And there are more of them than last night.”
“Did you reach Dan?” Kirsten asks, not heeding his remarks.
“I tried, but the network seems to be out of service.”
“Oh.”
He sits down by the table and rubs his face. “Did Trine sleep all right?”
“I think so. I was just about to go check on her.”
“What about Finn?”
“Haven’t checked on him. Here you go.” She brings him a cup of steaming hot coffee.
“You’re a lifesaver,” he smiles, breathing in the smell of the coffee.
“You should eat something, too.”
“I know. I just have zero appetite.”
The music is interrupted by a bell, followed by a serious woman’s voice: “This is a public announcement. Stay indoors until further notice. Don’t try to interact with anyone infected. The town is in lockdown and has been sealed off by the military. Anyone trying to leave will be sent back. The police are working hard on resolving the situation. Remain calm and help each other. Keep updated on any developments on our website …”
“They keep sending that every five minutes,” Kirsten says, as the music resumes. She lands a plate with two pieces of toast in front of him. “Eat this while I go and check on her.”
Henrik is just about to tell her thanks, but he can’t eat anything, when he smells the toast and his stomach growls audibly. He decides to try for a bite, and it goes down surprisingly well. Within a minute, he’s wolfed down the whole thing.
He leans back with a sigh. The feeling of food in his stomach is comforting, and he feels a little better already. He sips the coffee. He decides to try calling Dan again. Just as he pulls out his phone, Kirsten’s voice calls for him: “Henrik!”
There’s panic in her tone, and it makes him jump to his feet. He runs down the hallway and stops by the open bedroom door, prepared to see the worst; like dead people climbing in through the busted window.
But the bedroom looks like it did when he checked just five minutes ago. The only exception being Kirsten, who’s sitting on the bed, crying next to her still sleeping daughter.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. Seeing his mother-in-law cry is terrifying to Henrik—she’s one of the sternest persons he knows—and the weird thing is, Henrik has no idea why what could have caused her to burst into tears. “What happened, Kirsten? Tell me!”
She holds up a pill bottle without looking at him. “She … she took them all.”
It takes Henrik a few seconds to fill in the blanks. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, she didn’t. She didn’t!” He runs to the bed, almost knocking Kirsten over, tearing the blanket off his wife and grabbing her by the shoulders. “Wake up! Wake up, honey!”
But the feel of her cold skin, and the way her head just lulls from side to side is enough to tell him Trine won’t wake up ever again.
He lets go of her and instead puts his hands to his forehead, stepping back. “No. Oh, God, no. How … how could she?”
“I should have noticed,” Kirsten says, sobbing. “Oh, my sweet girl … why didn’t I notice?”
“We need … we need to call the ambulance,” Henrik hears himself say.
“It’s too late,” Kirsten says, burying her face in her palms. “It’s too late …”
Henrik walks around the room for what feels like several minutes, trying to take in the situation while simultaneously telling himself it can’t be true. The only sounds are Kirsten’s quiet sobbing and the moaning and scratching from the figures outside.
Suddenly, as Henrik passes the window, he’s gripped by an uncontrollable fury, and he screams at the blinds: “Fuck off! Get the fuck away from here! Just get away, you fucking animals!”
The figures don’t go away. Instead, they seem to grope at the glass even more eagerly, maybe because of his voice, or maybe because they sense him standing right on the other side.
Henrik leaves the bedroom. He needs to get out, needs to get air, everything is spinning, the atmosphere is suffocating. But he can’t go anywhere, can’t leave the house or even open a window. Henrik leans against the wall, burying his face in his hands.
This can’t be true. It just can’t. How am I ever going to tell Dan?
The thought of his son sends a jolt of lightning to his belly. His son is still out there. Maybe he’s in danger. Maybe he’s fighting for his life. Or maybe he’s already dead. And Henrik is locked up in here, unable to do anything about it. And now Dan is all he has left.
I can’t just stay here and wait. I need to go find him.
“Kirsten,” he hears himself croak.
A few seconds later, Kirsten appears in front of him. Her eyes are red, but she has wiped away the tears and composed herself.
What an absolute trooper. Follow her example and get yourself together.
He clears his throat. “I’m leaving. I’ll go and find Dan. If he’s safe, I’ll probably stay with him. If not, I might try and get him back here.”
Kirsten nods. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“You can come with me, Kirsten.”
Kirsten shakes her head. “I’m staying here with my daughter.”
“I understand. You don’t mind me leaving?”
“I think you should. You still have a child.”
Henrik presses his lips together, then breathes deeply. “That’s right, I have. And I’m going to find him.”
Kirsten is about to say something, when there’s a sound from down the hallway.
“I think Finn is waking up,” Kirsten says.
Henrik had completely forgotten about the neighbor sleeping in Jennie’s room. “I’ll go check on him.”
“No, let me do that. You just get going.”
Henrik smiles. “Thanks, Kirsten.”
Kirsten smiles back, briefly. Henrik feels like hugging her, but he never hugged her before, and knows his mother-in-law wouldn’t want it now, even with everything that’s happened—she’s very old-school.
She goes down the hallway, stops at the door to Jennie’s room, taps it twice, then opens it.
And that’s when everything turns from bad to worse.
SEVEN
He’s dead. But then why is he moving? He can’t be moving if he’s dead. But he is.
The argument has been chasing around Dorte’s head for what feels like half an hour. She has gotten up and is striding around the kitchen, tracing a curved line past Peter wide enough that he can’t reach her—even though he’s tirelessly attempting, reaching out his free hand towards her, groaning and drooling.
Her eyes keep going to the monitor, hoping to see something, anything indicating the situation isn’t as insane as it looks.
But so far, no such luck.
She also has a hard time not looking at Peter’s face. That rational doctor-part of her keeps trying to convince her there are no discernable emotions expressed on the face of her dead-but-somehow-not-really-dead fiancé. Yet another part of her begins increasingly to interpret something akin to sorrow, pain and longing, and it stabs her in the heart to see him like this. Even if he doesn’t feel any physical pain, it’s obvious he’s in a state of deep suffering. And she—a doctor—can’t think of any way to alleviate that suffering.
She already tried morphine. She’s definitely not doing that again.
She got a pair of thick rubber gloves and a syringe. Then, approaching Peter very carefully, she managed to grab hold of his flailing wrist and plunge the needle into the crook of his elbow, administering a dose that would put a horse to sleep.
He grabbed at her eagerly and almost managed to tear off the g
love, so she had to leave the syringe sticking out of his arm as she pulled both her hands back and scrambled away from him.
She waited a minute. Then the effect came. But not as expected.
First, his movements became dull and even less coordinated than they were already. He obviously had trouble holding himself up, and finally sank to the floor, his free arm still reaching out for her.
But his eyes didn’t close. And his groans continued.
The morphine, strangely, seemed to only affect his body, leaving him conscious—if you could call his present state conscious at all, of course. The result wasn’t as much a sedation as paralyzing, and to Dorte, it looked very much like Peter was still suffering just as much, except now he couldn’t move, and she waited impatiently for the effect to wear off. Luckily, it only lasted a few minutes, which was a lot shorter than anticipated.
All in all, what is going on with Peter is a mystery to Dorte. She has never encountered anything in modern medicine able to explain how his state of consciousness can be unaffected by a high dose of morphine; let alone move without a heart rate or measurable brain activity. And on top of it all, she hadn’t been able to find anything in the tests.
She has run out of ideas, out of options, and she’s at a dead-end. The clock is approaching six, the day is beginning outside, and soon people will start to show up to start their workday. And the knocking on the door from Rikke is starting to drive her mad.
Which is why she finally decides to call the authorities.
She steps out into the hallway and finds her phone, searching for the number of the local police online and makes the call.
“Østjylland Police, how may I help you?” a cool female voice answers right away.
“Yes, hello, um … my name is Dorte Møller, I’m calling from Aarhus University Hospital. I have, um … I have two people here with me, both have contracted the virus currently being contained in Viborg.”
She pauses to let the woman reply.
Dead Meat (Book 4): Dead Meat [Day 4] Page 4