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

by Peter Meredith

  Right away he saw there was a problem. “Where’s Jack?” he asked Earl Johnston, the lone security guard. Deck knew the guard rotation by heart: at all times there were supposed to be two guards on duty at the front desk, two more were stationed at the main gates, one was babysitting the prisoners and the last was supposed to be constantly walking the grounds.

  “They needed him up on two. Some issue with the patients.”

  “You mean with the prisoners?” Deck demanded.

  “No, there was a fight between some of the patients. Some lady got bit. Nothing serious if you ask me." Earl had never been a part of a clinical trial and for him rowdy people were a daily occurrence. He wasn’t concerned in the least. "He said he'd be back down in a few minutes. I'm thinking he's trying to chat up some of them pretty nurses.”

  Deck made a noise in his throat that was part growl—anything that drew a man away from his post was disconcerting. “Get the perimeter guard to cover Jack while he’s away. And find Ray. I want to see him up on four.”

  He decided against checking on the patients; if there was more to the fight than just a couple of patients going at it, Ray would fill him in. Deck went to the fourth floor and even before he stepped out of the elevators he knew something was wrong there, as well. There was something in the muted atmosphere and how everyone in the glass-walled labs looked toward him when the doors opened. Tension ran on the air.

  Dr. Lee spotted him and came fast-stepping in his direction. He didn’t need any skill in reading people to know the tension was mostly stemming from her. “Where have you been?” she asked, scolding Deck like she was his mother. “Were you sleeping in?”

  Since he’d been on the clock for the last thirty hours straight, this was particularly galling. Who the hell was she to question his whereabouts? “I was on a coffee break.”

  Surprised by the snarky answer, her dark eyes widened momentarily. She then set her jaw and hissed, “We need help and all you have to offer are flippant remarks? I was right about you; you’re nothing more than a glorified mall cop… a self-glorified moll cop.”

  He glared and she matched it, completely unaware that the entire lab was watching them. Neither backed down and twenty seconds passed before the elevator dinged, pleasantly and Ray stepped out.

  “Am I interrupting something?” he asked

  Deck growled, “Give me a sit-rep.”

  “Sure…uh…” Before he could start Deck stalked away, heading for the nearest BLS-3 lab. Ray caught up, walking quickly. “The prisoners are all accounted for; locked up tight. It’s the other patients who we’re having trouble with. There is something wrong with them, they’re acting up, screaming and well, going crazy. There’s talk between the medical staff that someone is attempting to sabotage the trial by putting PCP in the cure they were taking.”

  “It’s not PCP or synthetic cathinone,” Thuy told them. “We tested their blood. We don’t know what’s causing this.”

  “How about we ask the source,” Deck said. “While I was on my coffee break I figured it out.”

  “You don’t drink coffee,” Ray remarked.

  Deck chuckled. “Then it must have been when I was on a smoke break.”

  “You smoke now?” Ray asked. “You take that up when you stopped snorting coke?” He’d been with Deck long enough to know someone was getting their chain yanked. He just didn’t know if it was their perp or if it was this cute lady doctor who was clearly getting worked up. Regardless who it was, Ray had eased his hand up and was resting it on the flat of his belly—his gun was five inches away in his shoulder holster.

  “Will you two stop it and just tell me who did it!” Thuy demanded. She was suddenly furious and didn’t notice that both men had assumed completely different attitudes. Ray was stiff, his muscles bunched and ready to spring into action. Deck was relaxed, his right hand holding the lapel of his suit. He worked better when he was relaxed; he was faster, fluid like a snake, and he never cocked up his aim by being overly tense.

  Thuy also failed to notice Eng go rigid. He suddenly couldn’t feel his feet, but he could feel his hand as it slowly stretched out to his top desk drawer where a pistol was hidden beneath a stack of papers.

  “Stop what?” Deck asked Thuy, his eyes sweeping over the scientists. “This is what mall cops do. We hunt down bad guys when we’re not sucking down an Orange Julius.”

  Eng had the drawer open and was fishing around beneath the paperwork as his heart began to whomp in his ears. He’d try for Deckard first and then go for Ray. If nothing else he would shoot Thuy simply out of spite.

  “Just tell me who it is,” Thuy demanded.

  Deck’s eyes swept to Lieutenant Eng who felt the steel in his hands. He gripped it like his hand was a vice and started to pull it out of the drawer when Deck jutted his chin to Eng’s right.

  “It’s Anna,” he said. The lady in question had gone white in the face and now she began to shake her head so that her pretty hair swung gently. Deck snorted out a half-laugh at her timid denial. “We should go talk somewhere private.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” she insisted, eyeing the stack of paper in Deck’s left hand. “If someone has gotten into my emails it’s not my fault. Dr. Milner, tell them.”

  “I don’t know what to tell them. If you’re the one who did this…you’re fucked.”

  Anna walked forward like she was in a dream. Ray met her and ran his rough hands over her soft body, searching for weapons. “She’s clear.” The two men immediately assumed a new demeanor: hard and quiet. They marched her away from the elevators to the relative isolation of the BLS-4 labs. Thuy followed along until they were at the pressurized door.

  “We got this,” Deck told her.

  “Find out what she put in the Com-cells,” Thuy said. “There are thirty-nine people whose lives are depending on what you find out.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Anna whined.

  Deck held up the stack of paper. “I have the emails between you and a certain professor at Cornell.”

  Anna opened her mouth but words failed her until she finally said, “You can’t prove anything.”

  Brimming with hate, Thuy stared at her and had to fight against the overwhelming desire to punch the girl in the face. “Do what you have to do,” Thuy said to Deckard. “I just don’t want to know the details.”

  He tried to hide his look of amazement. Dr. Lee looked like the kind of person who couldn't even bring herself to jaywalk and here she was suggesting he should rough up a suspect. “I can sweat her and threaten her,” Deck whispered to Thuy. “But that’s about it.”

  Thuy tried not to let her dismay show. The patients were going downhill so fast it was frightening. “Do what you can,” she practically begged.

  Deckard grunted and shrugged—he wasn’t about to commit to torturing anyone, especially not aloud. He and Ray frog-marched Anna to the back labs, while behind them Eng had to practically pry his fingers from around the gun.

  Chapter 6

  //11:39 AM//

  1

  Von Braun clawed his way out of the Diazepam stupor like he was digging out of a fresh grave. He came out bleary in mind, while everything around him was dim so that he thought he was wearing sunglasses. He tried to put his hands to his face but chains brought him up short.

  “What the fuck?” he asked, squinting at the cuffs and barely seeing them twinkle. “Why am I chained up?” The only thing he really remembered was being angry, and that was because he was still angry, but at what, he didn’t know. He was just simply furious. “What the fuck!” he raged.

  “Shut up,” the guard ordered. His name was Rory Vickers and he was very much tired of his assignment. The day before had been dull as hell just standing there as the prisoners griped or watched the TV or got hard-ons over every nurse that came in the room, but now he was annoyed as shit. Over the last four hours, the prisoners had become progressively more and more fucked up. They would rage and yank on their chains until their wrists
bled. Worse, in his opinion, was that they would also scream their throats out.

  Rory was ready to dash their skulls in. They were fucked up. There was a scientific term for it, he was sure, but he didn’t know it and hadn’t cared enough to ask.

  When the docs finally got around to prescribing something to shut them up, Rory had literally thanked God. The second they were all asleep, he immediately switched the TV to ESPN and settled down on the edge of Herman’s bed, hoping that the Diazepam would keep them sedated until his shifted ended, but that wasn’t how his day was going.

  Now Von Braun was awake and seething at him. “I don’t have to shut up. You can’t make me you dumb fuck. I have rights. I have a lawyer who’ll sue your sorry ass. And all these doctors, too. And all the scientists who thought this…" Von Braun paused and squinted, mightily at Vickers. "Why are you wearing a mask? Are you fucking ugly, or is it something else?”

  Rory wasn’t sure why he was wearing the mask other than he didn’t want to end up like these assholes. If he believed what the nurses said on the subject, the Fusarium had ceased being toxic two hours before and yet that hadn’t stop them from remaining gowned, gloved and masked every time they entered a patient's room.

  “You might be contagious or something,” Rory explained. “Not going to take any chances.

  “Contagious!” Von Braun cried in outrage. “Contagious! That means you fucks gave me a disease. That’s why I can’t see. You fucks are trying to blind me!”

  This sparked a new memory in Von Braun's addled mind: People in blue suits coming for him...trying to poison him with some sort of gas. It seemed like a long time ago, or perhaps something from a dream, yet somehow it had been real. “You did this to me, you fuck! Let me go! Unchain me or I’ll rip out your throat!”

  This wasn’t just an idle threat. Von Braun had a sudden need to get at this man’s flesh because…because beneath it, he was certain there was clean blood. It would be red and warm and the taste…well, he wasn’t sure what it would taste like but he knew it had to be better than how his mouth tasted now. His mouth tasted like dirt and shit.

  “I need a drink,” Von Braun said. All around the guard the room was dim as if they weren’t in a hospital, but in a dense forest where the sun’s light couldn’t reach and yet the man himself stood out distinctly and the swath of pale skin at his throat practically glowed. “Come closer, please.”

  Rory snorted in derision. “You sound like some sort of kiddie rapist.”

  “Get over here!” Von Braun screamed.

  “I don’t think so, psycho. If you want a drink I’ll page a nurse.”

  There was a call button next to the older prisoner who was thankfully still zonked out. Rory was still careful as he leaned over and hit the button. The old man stank.

  Next to the button, there was speaker: “Yes?” a female voice asked.

  “One of the prisoners is thirsty and I’m not going near him.”

  “He’s got an IV, he doesn’t need anything to drink.”

  Rory gave the psycho prisoner a shrug. “Your drink is sticking out of your arm, enjoy yourself.”

  Unbelievably, Von Braun bent over and yanked the IV out of his arm using only his teeth. He was thirsty alright, but instead of drinking from the little plastic tube, he drank the blood that came leaking from the little hole in his skin. “Fuck!” he cried, staring around, his mouth smeared with very dark blood. “This is dirty.”

  “What the hell?” Rory murmured, feeling just a touch of revulsion. With his lip curled he pressed the button again. “Hey, there. This jackass just pulled out his IV with his teeth. I actually think there’s something wrong with him. His eyes are weird looking, too.”

  “Hold on. We’ll send someone down there.”

  Von Braun was trying to touch his eyes with his fingers but was missing as if he couldn’t see them very well. “What’s wrong with my eyes? Huh? What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Rory said. “And I don’t know what’s wrong with them. They got some black stuff in ‘em.”

  “What sort of…” Von Braun left off as two doctors came in, both of whom were masked and wearing surgical gloves. Rory recognized the smaller of the two by his bushy eyebrows. It was Dr Lorry. He didn’t bother to get very close and squinted at the prisoner from four feet away.

  “I can’t believe he’s awake,” Lorry remarked, making no move to get closer. “He’s on a pretty good dose of Diazepam. Hold on…there is something in his eyes. What is that?”

  The taller of the two stepped forward. “You can’t see anything from there, doctor. Hi there. I’m Dr. Wilson.”

  “You’re a fucking nigger is what you are,” Von Braun seethed. “Get your black ass away from me.” He couldn’t believe they’d let one of them in a hospital with white people. The thought was sickening. “Get back to your jungle, Sambo.”

  “Sambo?” Dr. Wilson raised his hands as if surrendering. “After the morning I’ve had, I’m not even going to try. He’s all yours, Dr. Lorry.” Wilson left, shaking his head.

  “Great,” Lorry replied without any enthusiasm. He brought out a penlight and shone it into Von Braun’s eyes. The prisoner cursed loudly and flinched back. “Photosensitivity,” Lorry remarked to himself. "Also some dark matter which I don’t recognize. Maybe dust. We’ll want to do an ocular rinse to see if that clears it up. Alright Mr. Von Braun, open your mouth…holy…what is that?”

  “It looks like mold,” Rory said. Curious, he had leaned in over the bed and saw that the inside of Von Braun’s mouth was lined with what looked at first like dirt or dried blood, however the way it coated the gums wasn’t normal, it was like the insides of a dog’s mouth.

  Dr. Lorry worked the pen light back and forth and agreed, “It could be mold. We need a sample, Mr. Von Braun, so just keep your mouth open.” Lorry produced a cotton swab and advanced on Von Braun, however the prisoner jerked his head left and right, trying to see the swab.

  “What is that? Is that a needle? Get it away, you fucking cocksucker.” To Von Braun the swab was thin and white against the backdrop of shadows. It didn’t look right, especially in the hands of this little cock sucker. That thought stuck in his addled mind. “You’re a fag, aren’t you? You’re a nigger-loving fag.”

  “Does that ever get old to you?” Lorry asked with a sigh. “It was old for the rest of us fifty years ago.”

  Von Braun opened his mouth to reply and when he did Dr. Lorry ran the cotton swab across his gums. “What the fuck!” Von Braun screamed. Heedless of the manacles on his wrists he tried to reach Lorry, he tried to get at that throat, partially in anger and partially from a need to get clean blood. The doc had said there was mold in him and Von Braun was sure he was right. He felt dirty on the inside.

  Lorry watched the prisoner struggle against his chains—it really was freaky. “Look, settle down, Nazi-boy before you hurt yourself. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Von Braun’s rage was so great he could barely think straight; all he wanted was to kill this fucking pipsqueak so that he could clean his mouth out. He had mold in his mouth! No wonder his tongue tasted like shit. Suddenly he stopped struggling as he hocked up an amazingly solid loogie and spat it at Lorry, striking him in the right eye with the black and green gob of snot.

  “Son of a bitch!” Lorry yelled, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He stormed out of the room, going immediately to the nurse’s station where he cranked the hot water up on the sink. “That fucker just spat in my eye!” He yanked off his gloves and his mask, chucking them into the nearest biohazard container.

  The nurses all took a step back. “You’ll need to rinse that eye for a good fifteen minutes,” Dr. Wilson advised.

  “No shit,” Lorry seethed. The doctor rinsed his eye with water and washed his face and even began a regimen of amphotericin as a precaution, not realizing it was already too late. The Com-cells insulated the deadly mycotoxins from the effects of the drug. In minutes the Com-cells were reproducing in h
is blood.

  2

  John Burke wasn’t an idiot. He knew his diction wasn’t more than a step up from a kindergartener’s and that his accent was syrupy thick even compared to his fellow razorbacks, but that didn’t mean he was void of common sense or that he couldn’t read none. He had been told that the IV running into his arm was simply part of the treatment, yet right there on the plastic bag was the word Diazepam.

  That was a narcotic. Amy Lynn had been practically hooked on the stuff in the last weeks of her life.

  John didn’t need a narcotic, he needed answers. All morning long he had lain in his hospital bed and listened as the other patients went through horrible changes. This started with the near-constant soft, pining tone of the nurses being called from one room to the other. Very quickly that sound was driving John crazy.

  All he could think about was what was happening to the other patients, and when would it start happening to him? The tone soon gave way to the sound of people moaning in pain. This was horrible to listen to but what came next was worse.

  What did you do to me?

  Don’t come near me with that!

  Stop! Stop, no…that hurts! Stop, you’re killing me!

  People were caterwauling like they were being attacked in all sorts of dreadful ways. John drew the covers up to his chin and shivered like a child as his mind conjured up images of a thousand tortures he was sure the other patients were being subjected to.

  During this there were fistfights. He’d lived what he would call a “hardy” life and knew a fight when he heard one. These battles occurred sporadically; one minute there would be only the crazy shouting and then in the next, there’d be crashes and thumps and the sound of running feet.

  Get his leg!

  Tie him down.

  Fuck! He bit me!

  During a lull in the commotion, John decided he’d had enough. If there was a cure, something he was beginning to doubt, he didn’t think it was worth all of this. On tiptoes he went to the door and peeked out only to see a team of nurses and security men heading his way. Quick as he could, he jumped back in bed and pretended to watch the TV.