The Apocalypse Crusade (Book 1): War of the Undead Day One

by Peter Meredith

  4

  The phone on the bedside rang, a shrill rooster that jarred Chuck from a coma-like sleep. It took a second ring for him to actually move his arm and open his mouth. “Yeah?” he asked.

  “Is this Chuck Singleton?” The voice was tinny as a soup can.

  “Depends on what y’all’s selling.” He was so slow in the head just then that he forgot that he’d paid for the room in cash and had signed the registry John Smith as a joke. No one should’ve known he was there.

  “I’m not selling anything. This is Jack Cable, I work at R &K at the front desk and I…”

  “Holy shit,” Chuck said, realizing what time it was. Next to him, Stephanie was staring in horror at the clock while in his ear John was going on about how late they were for the Com-cell study. “Are we too late?” Chuck demanded, his mind solely focused on Stephanie. He would never forgive himself if he was the reason she missed her chance at life.

  “I don’t think so,” Jack said, “but Dr. Lee is pissed. You better get in here as fast as you can.”

  “Tell them we’re on our way, thanks.” Chuck hung up the phone and then scratched sleep out of his eyes, still trying to come to grips with his sudden reentry into consciousness. “How the hell did I sleep so damn long?” He looked at Steph and smiled in spite of the desire to rush out of there. “It was you what done it.”

  “Me? It was you who…” A cough interrupted her and she went on long enough for Chuck to know they didn’t have time for any more jawing. He waited patiently as she went pink and then red.

  “Lay down,” Chuck said, sitting her on the bed and then leaning her back. She went into the fetal position and it was five minutes before she could breathe properly. He brushed her hair back and said, “I need to get you to that cure before you spit up a lung. Is it safe to try?”

  She didn’t trust herself to talk, or even to move much; she nodded slowly. With quick hands, as if he was roping a calf, he put her sneakers on for her and then laced them up. He was even tempted to carry her, however his own cough had sprung up and he had to settle on letting her lean on him until they got to the car.

  “Thank you,” she said, and grabbed his hand just as he was getting ready to hurry to his side of the car. She pulled him close and jutted her chin as far up as it would go. He kissed her. There was no way he was going to trust his breath that early in the morning and so the kiss was all lip. Still it was soft and warm and he knew that if he somehow lived to a hundred he would remember the feel of it to the day he died.

  “Thank you again,” she said when their lips parted.

  He grinned. “Twern’t nothing, ma’am,” he said, laying the accent on thick. She smiled and climbed in. He was in his side a second later, feeling light in the head and fighting his cough. It would pass in good time, he knew. “Let’s see what this rice-burner can do.”

  The Toyota was plenty fast, too fast, in fact. He was doing eighty when he saw the flashing red and blue lights in his mirror. “Can you act pregnant?” he asked Stephanie.

  She puffed up her belly, held the pose for only a second and again began to cough. “About as well as you, I’m afraid. I’m practically worthless without my medicine.”

  He was as well and was a little ashamed to admit that in the last month he’d become hooked on hydrocodone. Without his pills his coughing would become so bad that he couldn’t walk a block without going into a fit. Being near Stephanie helped, he was so focused on her that he barely felt anything when she was around.

  They had lapsed into a silence when the State trooper finally got out of his cruiser. “Here he comes,” Chuck said, fishing out his license and getting the rental paperwork. After the usual boilerplate questions concerning how fast he’d been going, Chuck explained that they were in the middle of an emergency. “We have to get to the hospital. We’re late for an experimental procedure to cure cancer.”

  He had done his best to speak “Yankee” to show how serious he was and still the trooper smirked and said, “Right. Good one,” before heading back to his car.

  “You’re one smooth talker,” Stephanie said.

  “I think ma-only chance is if you show some cleavage. Come on, let out the ladies.”

  She blushed and grabbed her shirt with both hands as if the buttons were going to undo themselves at his command. “How would that help? He’s got your license already. By the time he comes back it’ll be with a ticket.”

  “I said it was my only chance. I’m starting to fade and I need to be revitalized.”

  On a whim, she flashed him and when his eyes went comically big she began another coughing fit that lasted until the state trooper got back. “You ok, ma’am? Because you’re, uh…exposed.” She hadn’t been able to control herself long enough to button shirt.

  5

  The labs were quiet. The eighteen scientists were working diligently on the fresh round of blood work. It was a somber atmosphere with everyone keeping their noses pinned to their microscopes or glued to computer printouts. Only Dr. Milner stood out in that he walked around with a smug I told you so look on his face.

  The phone rang next to Thuy’s elbow. She was afraid to take the call, especially in front of the entire lab. Every time the phone rang, everyone would look up and stare through the glass walls. Work was progressing slowly since the nurses on the second floor were calling every five minutes or so with new problems. The headaches were now universal among the patients and worse, they had progressed to migraines. Thuy had sent the staff physician down to begin medicating the patients, first with Tylenol, and then when the migraines had begun they had ratcheted up the drugs but so far they seemed always a step behind. The latest problem the medical staff was facing was a paranoid-fueled aggression that was bizarre in such a frail population.

  “It’s Rothchild,” Riggs said, holding out the phone to Dr. Lee.

  After a deep breath, Thuy spoke with as much confidence as she could muster: “Hello Dr. Rothchild, how is Gabriele?” His daughter was still in the "Big House" being treated separately. Her personal doctor had come to pick up the first of her treatments just after seven. He’d been officious and dreadfully pompous, but, as he was the best physician money could buy, his attitude was pretty much expected.

  “The good news is her O2 saturation rate has been steadily climbing. The bad news is that she’s got a migraine, a pretty bad one,” Edmund answered. He sounded tired and older than ever. “She’s starting to become very agitated.”

  “Yes, it’s what we’re seeing with the other patients. We’re prescribing Relpax for the migraine, with limited results. I’ve sent Dr. Lorry down to see what we should do about the aggression.”

  “Keep me posted,” Edmund mumbled into the phone and then hung up.

  “Same symptoms with his daughter?” Riggs asked. Thuy could only nod, feeling the sensation of impending doom hang over her head. If things got much worse she would be stuck using the amphotericin, an anti-fungal medication that would essentially destroy her trial.

  Just then the phone rang again and she flinched. Riggs picked it up, listened for a second and said, “No, send them up here. Thanks.” He set the phone down and said to Thuy. “The two love birds just showed up. I figured you wanted them up here.”

  “Sure, I guess.” Thuy didn’t know what to do with Chuck and Stephanie, and considered sending them back to whatever motel they had been shacking up in. Until they got a handle on what was happening she wouldn’t be giving anyone any more treatments.

  “It’s early yet,” Riggs told her, seeing the incipient despair in her eyes. “A migraine is a small price to pay for a cure for cancer. No, don’t give me that look. The migraines are a setback, but look at the lung function, for goodness sakes! Except for that one patient, O2 sats are up across the board. That means the cure is working, and faster than anyone thought possible! Cheer up, Thuy. You can’t let something small…”

  The phone rang again and Thuy slumped. Riggs ran a hand through his sandy hair before answering
. “Riggs,” he said. “No, she’s busy. What do you…Yeah? I’ll—I’ll tell her.”

  “What now?” Thuy asked.

  “One of the nurses was attacked.”

  “By the prisoners?”

  Riggs would have thought so, too. “No, it was one of the other patients, Mrs. Applewhite. Supposedly she just went crazy and bit Irene. They had to restrain her, which is nuts. She’s like ninety pounds.”

  Thuy had memorized the particulars of every one of her patients—Sandra Applewhite; 54 years-old, married, mother of two; Five foot even; weighed in at ninety two pounds the day before. Four bouts of chemo had left her amazingly frail. “It’s not nuts,” Thuy said, hopping up. “So far the symptoms have been progressing based on when the patient received his or her treatment. It stands to reason that soon or later individual metabolisms and body structure will take over.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Riggs said, following after her. He stopped when he saw she was heading for the elevators. “Whoa, where are you going? Down there? Weren’t you the one who said scientists belong in the lab?”

  “I did.” She hit the button and somewhere behind the walls the machinery whirred into life. “And weren’t you the one who said he wanted to help people?”

  “Right, but this? I-I wouldn’t know where to start. We have forty-two patients…”

  “Thirty-nine,” Thuy corrected. “Mr. Burke is, for the moment, asymptomatic, and Glowitz and Singleton haven’t been exposed.”

  “Ok, thirty-nine patients then, none of whom I’m at all qualified to help. You have a medical team, let them do their job. We should do ours.”

  She jabbed the button a second time. “Part of my job is finding out the facts. I have to see the patients first hand. Damn, this is taking forever.” She turned and headed for the stairs but didn’t get three paces before the elevator doors opened. Stephanie Glowitz and Chuck Singleton stepped out.

  Steph started to apologize, “We are so sorry about being…”

  Thuy spoke over her, “Riggs, explain to them what’s going on. They’ll need all the information we have to make an informed decision.”

  “Decision ‘bout what?” Chuck asked.

  She ignored him. “Set them up in one of the BSL-4 labs. We’re not using them anyway.” Thuy left them without any further explanation, dropping down two floors. The moans struck her as soon as the doors opened. The sound of pain—pain that she had caused—made her pause before stepping out onto the ward.

  The head nurse stuck her head out of a patient’s room. “Gloves and masks, Dr. Lee. We’re still in the window for another two hours.”

  “Right,” Thuy said. There was very little chance, statistically zero chance, that a healthy adult would have complications to Fusarium in the dry setting of the hospital, especially with all the precautions they had taken. Still, Thuy gloved and put on a surgical mask. She went to the nurse’s station and found Dr. Lorry bent over a nurse, his gloved hands were wet with her blood.

  “Is it bad?” Thuy asked.

  Lorry was cleaning the bite wound, a ragged hole in the woman’s shoulder. “Seen worse. It’s going to need some stitches and it will leave a scar.” He sat up, rolled his neck on his shoulders and looked at Thuy. “What did you give them? According to the literature Fusarium toxicity shouldn’t present in this manner.”

  “This is the first time anyone’s been exposed to Fusarium in this way so it’s no wonder that there are certain unforeseen side effects. I believe the symptoms are acute and will fade.”

  “And the amphotericin?” Lorry asked. “When is that on the table?”

  “Not yet,” Thuy said in a whisper. “We have to give them more time.”

  Before Lorry could say anything, a scream from down the hall cut their conversation short. It started out high and piercing and then dropped into a raging, curse filled rant. As Thuy stood rooted in place, first Dr. Wilson ran into the room and then the radiologist, Dr. Fenner. There was a crash and more screaming.

  As if in a dream, Thuy walked to the patient’s room and stared in at Sally Phelps who was swinging her IV pole like it was a halberd. The woman seemed no bigger than Thuy and the pole and the monitor must have weighed forty pounds, yet she swung it like it was a fly swatter. The first swing hit Dr. Fenner on the arm and knocked her to the ground. The second swing was like a strike from a sledgehammer. With full malice on her small features, Sally raised the pole and swept it downward looking to crush the radiologist.

  Dr. Wilson yanked Fenner out of the way by her lab coat as the monitor exploded, sending plastic and surgical steel in every direction. “Help get her out of here!” Wilson bellowed at Thuy.

  Dr. Fenner didn’t need the help. She was already scrambling away, her mask turned halfway around her head, her mouth a grimace of fear and pain. Thuy stepped aside to let her get to safety.

  “We need help down here!” Thuy yelled as Dr. Wilson started circling to Sally’s right. Sally, who at one time had taught the third grade, didn’t wait to attack. Her IV pole was bent and hung with the remains of the monitor; she swung it like a scythe, looking to decapitate Wilson. He dropped to the ground as the pole whistled overhead and crashed against the wall. Thuy reacted on instinct. She had a clear shot at Sally and darted in, tackling her.

  They went down in a heap of flailing arms and legs. Thuy was younger, heavier, and far healthier. Sally was a demon possessed. Despite her sickly looking arms she was viciously strong and was able to pin Thuy to the ground. Thuy kicked and squirmed but there was little she could do against such strength. Sally opened her jaws wide and thrust for Thuy’s throat, stopping just short of it as Dr. Wilson grabbed her by her hospital gown and pulled her back. Sally was tiny next to the large doctor and he was able to yank her off of Thuy, but not before Sally’s nails dug three furrows along Thuy’s arm.

  “I need Diazepam, stat!” he ordered in a thundering voice. "Ten milligrams I.M." There was a rush of feet as Lacy Freeman and a second nurse sprinted into the room. Wilson held Sally down as Lacy jabbed a needle into her deltoid muscle.

  “It’s like she’s on PCP,” Wilson said, when Sally slumped back, her eyes slowly losing their focus.

  “Or bath salts,” Lacy said. “You know, that weird drug some of the kids are using that turns people into cannibals?”

  Thuy struggled to her feet and stared down at the onetime schoolteacher. “I’ll have my people check her blood for synthetic cathinone. It’s the ingredient in bath salts that cause this sort of behavior. In the mean time I want every patient sedated.”

  Dr. Wilson, who was patting down his short afro stopped and looked at Thuy in disbelief. “Hold on now. We have two cases of bizarre behavior that doesn’t mean we chemically restrain everyone.”

  “The two cases just happen to be the two smallest patients,” Thuy said, pointing down at Sally, who had closed her eyes and looked to be unconscious. “Logic suggests that we will have eight more cases in the next half hour—all from the next smallest patients. And if you thought Sally was a handful, it’ll only get worse. Wait until you try to subdue Mr. Allen or the prisoners, especially Von Braun.”

  “I’m not really in the subduing business,” Dr. Wilson said. “Maybe you’re right. We can start on a lower dose, intravenously and move up if there are issues.”

  From the doorway Dr. Lorry said, “I want to know when we start the amphotericin. This trial is getting out of control.”

  “I’ll call Kip,” Thuy said.

  “Why bother? You know what he’ll say,” Lorry shot back.

  Everyone knew, however she felt she was out of options and called anyway.

  “I forbid it!” Kip snarled into the phone. “The symptoms you describe don’t fit Fusarium toxicity so treating for Fusarium toxicity is a waste of time and a waste of my god-damned money. Do you know how many millions I’ve sunk into this project?”

  “There are lives in danger,” Thuy said, ignoring his point completely.

  “It seems so, but not
from Fusarium. Find out what is causing the issues and treat for that. Hell, for all we know it is bath salts. We do have a leak, maybe they turned saboteur as well. If you need help with rowdy patients get Deckard to help.”

  “I would but I don’t know where he is.”

  6

  Deck stood up from his keyboard and stretched, kneading his knuckles into the small of his back and grimacing as the vertebrae popped and cracked.

  “I’m getting old,” he whispered to himself. Beside him the printer was spitting out paper, all the evidence he needed to secure a conviction, or at least a confession from the mole in R &K Pharmaceuticals. Seeing as all the evidence had been come by illegally, it was technically “fruit of the poisonous tree” but that was a legal matter. His first consideration was to the man who signed his paychecks.

  He showered and shaved, dressing in black from head to toe, knowing it made him look particularly menacing. He liked having every edge possible when dealing with scum. He dropped the stolen hard drive onto the stack of printed e-mails and then went out into the gloomy day. The clouds were heavy and so low that it looked like he could reach them with a rake. Despite the threat of rain, children played hide-and-go-seek, running all around the thirteen guesthouses on the hospital property. One of these had been repurposed to accommodate Deck’s security team.

  A little blonde girl shot around the corner and nearly barreled into him. “You should be more careful, Maddy,” he said.

  “Ah’m not Maidy,” the girl said in a molasses-thick accent.

  “You sure aren’t,” Deck said. “Either way, you should…”

  The girl screeched suddenly and went tearing off after a boy of about twelve. “…be more careful,” Deck said after her. “Never mind.” There were more cries and screams from the seven or eight children running around, and it was hard to tell if someone was being murdered. He assumed they weren’t killing each other and walked the sixty yards to the hospital.