But it wasn’t just an ambulance.
And instead of continuing on down the road, the ambulance screeched to a halt.
Matt turned, looking over his shoulder at the strange sight of this ambulance, its sirens and lights still blaring and blazing, just sitting there in the middle of the long, empty road.
Behind the ambulance, there were the mountains. And over the mountains, hanging around their peaks, were intense clouds of white with gray underbellies.
There seemed to be no animals nearby and there was no other human activity. Aside from the ambulance, or perhaps because of it, the day seemed almost impossibly still and quiet. The ambulance, its stillness, and its noise, just seemed to accentuate that feeling.
Brian wordlessly turned, pulling away from Matt.
“Brian!” hissed Matt, holding onto him even tighter.
There was a look that came over Brian’s face like that of a frightened, trapped animal. A wild animal.
Brian pulled harder.
Matt held on harder.
Then, Brian acted. One hand disappeared somewhere and then appeared again, now holding a kitchen knife with blood on it.
It happened too fast for Matt to do anything.
Brian thrashed like an animal, and Matt suddenly felt the knife enter his body. He didn’t feel pain at first. More of a strange, unpleasant sensation.
And with that, Brian was off, pulling away from Matt’s now-weakened grip, sprinting across the open ground, the open sky above him, the sirens behind him.
“Matt!” cried Judy, rushing over to him.
Matt felt stunned. Confused. His hands moved slowly toward the wound, his eyes not leaving Brian’s back.
How was this possible?
“Is it bad?” he said.
Judy said nothing. There was just determination and concentration on her face as she examined the wound.
“It’s starting to hurt,” said Matt, as the pain washed over him in a gentle yet horrible way. He’d never felt anything quite like it. Then again, that made sense, since he’d never been stabbed before.
The whole incident was perplexing to Matt. Why had Brian done it? Why had he panicked like that? Matt remembered the spooked look on Brian’s face and the way his body had thrashed like a trapped wild animal.
Things felt strangely calm. The pain had a way of ramping everything up and also making everything seem still.
For some reason, Matt didn’t even think to go for his gun. It just didn’t cross his mind. After all, Brian didn’t exactly seem like an enemy, even after he’d stabbed Matt. Instead, it seemed as if Brian was someone severely confused, severely troubled and extremely scared.
And, anyway, it didn’t matter if he did want to shoot him. Because Brian was long gone.
“Shit,” exclaimed Judy, her eyes suddenly tearing away from him, her head tilting up as her attention shifted to something in the distance.
Matt was aware of her body becoming tense and of her hand going toward her gun.
“What is it?”
“The ambulance...shit...”
Matt tried to turn around to see what it was she was looking at, but even turning just a few degrees made him cry out in horrible pain.
Judy wasn’t tending to his wound. She was just staring with rapt attention and seemed to be frozen in fear or surprise. And that wasn’t like her.
“What is it?” he hissed, his voice low but urgent.
“Men. Armed. From the ambulance.”
Suddenly, in the distance, the wail of the ambulance siren suddenly cut off.
“How many?”
“Three.”
“EMTs with guns?” said Matt, not understanding what was so concerning about the fact that they had guns. “Got to defend themselves, right?”
“No,” said Judy, shaking her head ever so slightly. “I don’t think they’re EMTs.”
“How can you tell?”
“I just can.”
“What do we do? You think we’re in danger?”
“Yes,” she said simply. She was talking in a volume barely above a whisper.
Matt couldn’t take it anymore. He just had to see for himself what this was all about.
So, still bleeding, the stab wound not even remotely dealt with, he gritted his teeth and made a full turn.
The pain was intense and it took all his effort just to keep from screaming out.
After all, he didn’t want to give away their position if it wasn’t already.
He saw the ambulance sitting there, the lights still flashing, although no sound came from it. It looked kind of funny, against the backdrop of the mountains and the clouds, like some strange little truck that someone had attached a large box on the back of, in place of the truck bed. Then later affixing odd lights to the top of it, painting the whole thing in garish colors.
In front of the ambulance, which appeared small due to the distance, three tall men strode toward Matt and Judy.
They were large men, well-built, their musculature apparent even underneath the clothes they wore.
They were dressed in dark jeans and black shirts. Each of the three had a large beard. Their heads were almost shaven.
There was a vaguely military appearance to them. But for some reason, Matt knew intuitively that they weren’t from the military. There was something different about the way they walked. Something different about the way they moved, which was more aggressive, more angry, and less orderly. There was a complete absence of that calm orderliness that all military-trained people seemed to exhibit without thinking about it. It wasn’t ‘calm’ in the way it was normally thought of, but more a sort of passive preparedness, a readiness for sudden and intense action.
These men instead walked with an aggressiveness that they couldn’t hide. They weren’t just ready for anything, they were gunning for it. They were hoping for something. They were striding forward like they were ready to kill in an instant.
It was an innate sense that all animals and humans had: that sense of another’s intention of killing. Many humans hide it. Others don’t.
These men didn’t hide it.
They had long guns in their hands. Semi-automatic rifles. Sidearms in holsters on their hips. Various knives and carabiners hanging elsewhere.
All of the three men wore masks that partially covered their large beards.
They all had tattoos, intense black-only sleeves that covered their entire arms, wrapping up and around their necks, and even entering, however briefly, the face area.
“Shit,” muttered Matt.
“Now you see what I mean.”
“What are they doing in an ambulance?”
“No idea. No time to worry about it.”
“They look ready to kill,” said Matt. “Who knows why...Some kind of crazy paramilitary group...Maybe internet warriors...I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” said Judy. “They’re going to kill us. No question about that. You can just tell.... It’s all in the posture, in the stance...The way they walk.”
“You’ve got to run, Judy,” said Matt, turning his head, ignoring the pain, which was getting more intense with each passing second, to look her squarely in the eye.
“I’m not leaving you here, Matt.”
“Then you’re going to die. I can barely move, let alone run with you.”
“Then we’ll stay here and fight. You never heard of standing your ground?”
“It’s three against two,” said Matt.
“Not terrible odds.”
“Not the worst,” agreed Matt. “But look at them. And look at us. Let’s be realistic. We might kill or injure one of them. I’m not doing so good. Definitely not in top fighting form. And how long has it been since either one of us has slept or eaten? But look at them. They don’t look like they’re hurting for food or rest.”
Judy didn’t answer for a moment. She was thinking it over. He saw it in her eyes.
But such was her character that she wouldn’t consider, even for a momen
t, abandoning him to die there.
Because abandoning him there would be leaving him to die.
“You’ve got to go,” he said, knowing that he had to try, despite her stubbornness.
She didn’t answer him. Just shook her head, almost imperceptibly.
“We’ll both die,” he said, knowing as he spoke the words that it was hopeless. “What’s the point in that?”
She just shook her head again.
“What about Jamie? She’s out there somewhere.”
“What am I going to do for her if you’re dead? I’m an old woman.”
“Not that old.”
“Not in my physical prime. Let’s put it that way.”
“Well,” said Matt, not taking his eyes off the three men who were still headed right toward them, not having slackened their pace in the least bit. “If I can’t convince you to leave me here, then we’d better dig in.”
“What are our options?”
“Options? Not many. Nowhere to hide. I can’t run, let alone walk. Nothing to take shelter behind. Just the desert.”
“There’s a juniper tree over there,” she said, pointing. “Think we could get you over there?”
Matt glanced over. “Doubt it,” he said. “Not before they get within range, at least. If they hadn’t seen us yet, maybe it’d be worth it. But they’ve definitely seen us, and that tree isn’t going to provide us with much shelter.”
“So we stand and fight.”
“More like lie down and fight,” said Matt.
He could feel his heart pumping faster. He could feel the coldness on his skin. He could feel that rattly feeling of adrenaline. But despite the pumping stress hormones, the pain was really ramping up.
And as the pain surged, his body started to go wobbly, as if it was incapable of maintaining the tension necessary to remain standing.
Before he knew it, he’d slid all the way to the ground, his hand involuntarily moving to his wound, as if it would help the pain.
He looked down at his hand and saw it becoming covered rapidly in his own blood. It was a strange sight.
“Well,” said Judy, sinking down next to him. “It’s harder to shoot us if we’re on the ground, I guess. Flat on our bellies. That way we’re not like barn doors. That’s some kind of advantage. Can you get into position?”
Matt shook his head. The pain was getting to be too much. He struggled, moving his leg, but it was pointless, just amounting to him getting into a more awkward and unbalanced position.
“I’ll help you,” she said.
“Hurry. Not much time.”
“What about your wound?”
“I’ll deal with it. I’m not going to bleed out before we kill them or they kill us. If we’re alive after, we’ll deal with it.”
The three men were closer now. The ambulance appeared somehow smaller, now that they were farther from it.
Why an ambulance? he wondered, as Judy shoved with all her weight against him, essentially trying to push his body into the prone position.
Had they ambushed that ambulance? Stolen it from where? If so, why the lights?
It didn’t make sense. What were they doing, after all? Just driving out to spots in the desert with the intention of killing everyone there?
Maybe they were looking for goods. Supplies. Food. Gasoline. Ammunition. Made sense, in a way.
But wouldn’t plenty of that have been available, now that such a huge swath of the population was dead? The dead, after all, had no use for their gasoline or food. If one could navigate the cities safely without contracting the virus or getting shot, then there’d be plenty of material things for the taking.
But maybe it was too dangerous. After all, that was why he wasn’t in Albuquerque.
“Matt, Matt, you still with me?”
Judy was shaking him.
“Huh? Yeah...I just...”
“Your eyes were closing.”
“No, I just…was thinking...”
“You were drifting off, asshole. If I’m staying here with you, I think you’d at least have the common courtesy to stay awake.”
It was gallows humor at its best, and to add flourish to the punch line, she slapped him across the face. Hard.
But she wasn’t doing it for fun. It was to wake him up.
And it worked.
His eyes opened fully, and his mind stopped drifting into strange territory. After all, what did the men’s motives matter? They were there to fight and to kill.
It was kill or be killed.
Time to get into position. Get the gun ready. Finger on the trigger.
There wasn’t much time left.
16
Cody
Cody woke up with his head pounding, feeling like he’d been run over by a truck.
He remembered something about getting hit and nothing more.
Where was he?
He tried to pick himself up off the ground before his eyes even opened fully. His arms were too weak, and they gave out.
He fell once again, his chin smashing into the pavement. He tasted blood. But he didn’t black out.
Gradually, the memories came back. He remembered being attacked. And, most importantly, he remembered being close to another person. Possibly a contaminated person.
Shit.
That meant he might be contaminated.
That meant he was as good as dead.
Maybe.
Could he do anything?
Fighting through the pain and the disorientation, Cody forced his eyes open. It felt like a Herculean effort just to do that, but it was worth it, since the act seemed like a stimulating tonic to his whole system, waking him up a bit.
Managing to get up, Cody looked around. Now that his memory was back, he expected to be in the main square, where he remembered being last.
Maybe his memory was wrong, or maybe something else had happened because he was now on a side street.
Nearby, there was plenty of noise from others, but there was no one that he could see.
Now that he was standing up, he started to get worried. He looked down at his naked body. There was some blood and bruising already starting to appear.
And what about the contact with the person? He reached up and felt his head. They’d gotten close enough to him. That meant close enough to catch the virus.
How could they not have had it? The odds seemed stacked against him.
Shit. Maybe he was contaminated.
With each passing second, the odds seemed worse for him.
He was just standing there, trying to keep himself upright, staring at the backs of his hands, wondering if his veins were enlarged, and wondering if he was going to be dead within the next twenty-four hours.
He was unarmed. Completely naked. The knife was long gone.
He had nothing. No way to defend himself. Especially not against the countless residents of Santa Fe.
What should he do?
Cody felt himself starting to really panic. Not just an elevated heart rate. Not just breaking out into a cold sweat. But the overwhelming feeling that he was completely doomed, as if nothing he could possibly do would make any difference in his own personal outcome, the feeling of actual physical dread that he just couldn’t seem to shake
But he had to shake it. He had to.
Cody thought back to his dad, who he’d always just called Brian ever since he was a little kid.
His dad had always told him that, no matter what, there was always something to do. It had been an early lesson in life. Cody had been, he imagined, complaining that he was bored. His dad had roughly shoved a broom in his hands and told him to get to work. That was merely one memory out of thousands. And more importantly, whenever it seemed that Cody had gotten into a jam, some kind of problem that he just couldn’t seem to extricate himself from, his dad wouldn’t step in to fix everything. Instead, his dad would tell him that he needed to use his own mind, to look as hard as he could for solutions that he hadn’t yet thought of.
What would his dad have said?
Cody didn’t have the faintest idea. This type of situation had never come up before.
But that didn’t mean anything.
There was always something to do.... Always something...
He looked down at his naked body and his thoughts turned to contamination.
The thought that he might be dead from the virus in less than a day was a heavy one. And it seemed like it was just a death sentence, as if nothing he did would matter.
What would his dad have said?
That was there was always something to do, that the outcome wasn’t as important as the process. In essence, it wasn’t worth worrying so much about whether it worked in the end. What was important was just to try.
Cody didn’t know how the virus worked. He didn’t know if it was something physical that would get on his skin, or something airborne that would get in his lungs. And there seemed to be no way to find out.
Well, he couldn’t do anything about having already breathed in the virus, if that was the way it worked. But he could get some type of mask. Or at least something to tie over his face. That might help in the future.
And if it was transferred some other way? Well, if the virus was somehow on his skin right now, he could take a shower. He could thoroughly bathe. It seemed almost too simple, but, hell, maybe it would work.
Cody found that just having the idea to do something that might help actually calmed him. It seemed to free up his body, as if having a purpose helped him lose the intense dread and fear.
He looked around, his body feeling freer and looser.
Santa Fe was a strange city, in some ways. Very quaint. And very residential.
There were actually two small adobe houses right across the street from Cody, despite the fact that he was almost in the city center.
He wasted no time. He launched himself forward, running, despite his intense fatigue, toward the house. He didn’t want to stay in the street any longer than he had to.
He climbed quickly over the earthen fence, typical of New Mexico, and made his way through the front yard.
Last Pandemic (Book 3): Escape The Chaos Page 11