She rose to her feet, clutching her sharpened broomstick, slashing at the air. Saw the karate man with the iron pipe standing near Officer Paris, moving down the hall towards Champ, hitting the walls with that pipe, whack and then again thunk. And then, in the strange way Cap Rogers had explained they would do from time to time, the karate man fell asleep, standing up. He just leaned against the wall and tuned out, holding that gory piece of pipe. For some reason he moaned and his filthy toes curled as if he were having an orgasm.
Theresa snarled and thought of Timothy. She muttered some prayers. She stumbled towards the man with the pipe. And then she stopped for a moment. All at once it hit her what was actually going on. How the infected people had been getting into the ER. Oh God…
The bathroom door! Even more infected were coming through, two teenagers tatted and pierced, a bit like Champ. They were doomed.
Realizing there was nowhere to run, Theresa focused on the bathroom door. She stumbled that way. Something had to be done.
And right then the lights went out for good.
Life in the embattled ER continued a slow march towards decay, but now in total darkness. Doc and Champ huddled together. Movement continued everywhere; faint rustlings, moans, footsteps and whispering. Champ gasped as bright white light hit her face like a fist. Doc was using his handheld flashlight. He grabbed her shoulder as if to steady her and walked the beam down the hallway. The karate man was still in a suspended state, leaning against the wall, staring down. The two teenagers had also gone into the catatonic state associated with the infected. They were sitting in the middle of the boxes and powders, eyes closed but mouths half open. They would wake up again, perhaps soon, but for now Doc had an opening.
“Champ, stay right here.”
“Don’t leave me, Doc…” Champ hated herself for the weakness in her voice, for the fear in her belly. The darkness was the final straw. Seeing that, Doc handed her the flashlight. She clutched it in both hands. Watched as Doc crawled slowly along the floor towards the storage closet he’d inspected early on. Champ looked up at the partially boarded window, half expecting to see a chewed up hand feeling for purchase. She caught a brief glimpse of the night sky. In their weird way, the infected had apparently been distracted by something else.
But they would be back.
Doc reached the closet. He could hear the karate man and the teenagers making some kind of snoring sound, their lips pursing on the out-breath. He was too afraid to call out to see who else had survived the most recent wave for fear of attracting undue attention. He reached up with one hand, got the door open and crawled into the storage closet. Doc closed his eyes, waited for them to adjust a bit to the darkness. He was forced to feel his way along the wall, but eventually he found the emergency generator and flipped the switch.
The emergency power kicked in, and small, recessed lights went on all over the facility. Not much light but something to get them around. Keep them from descending into gibbering madness. Doc moved back rapidly, on his knees and elbows. The infected were still sleeping. He hurried back down the hall to be with Champ.
Outside the ER, other than steady moonlight, visible things changed as they went from black to bright or from shadow to half-light. In the abandoned garage, where the emergency generator was based, the yellowing bulb came on dim and off color, just enough to reveal some empty cardboard boxes and a row of rusty tools, including an ancient power saw hanging on the splintering wall, its rotating blade wickedly glinting in the low light.
The yard and porch lights flickered in and out.
The infected stopped moving. They stood there in the moonlight, looking around as if confused by the phenomenon. As the power found a new level and settled down they seemed to snap out of it.
Inside the ER, Theresa emerged from her post. She was badly wounded. She didn’t seem to see Doc or Champ. Champ started to call out, then thought the better of it.
Doc and Champ watched the hallway change as, one by one, small recessed light bulbs set deep into the woodwork flickered a bit and then stayed on. They provided just enough light to make out what was happening. Theresa did not turn their way. Instead, she moved towards the bathroom, where the door was still open. Doc tried to make sense out of the chaos he’d seen and heard. The bathroom, of course, the window must have been open just far enough. Dear God, so much carnage in such a short period of time. He tried to remember the shouts and screams and noises. By his best estimate, there were perhaps six or seven survivors…Doc, Champ, Theresa, Callie, Billy Ray, Bowden and Cap Rogers. Doc thought to himself that Cap, by staying in the front office, appeared to have chosen the safest spot in the building for himself, intentionally or not.
Now they’d have to adjust to the bad lighting on top of everything else. No weapons or food, poor access to water, no communication with the outside world. Just fucking great.
Suddenly Doc realized what Theresa was up to as she shoved the slumbering teens back into the bathroom, clogging up the entrance. She was too injured and weak to do much, but they reacted like sleepwalkers, responding without putting up any fight. Theresa was inside the bathroom for a long moment, doing something, possibly finishing off those who were still asleep, perhaps making sure their corpses would slow down the next wave of intruders.
Doc and Champ exchanged looks. He steeled himself to go help her. But suddenly Theresa emerged again. She had a scalp wound now, and her face was shiny and wet with blood. Theresa wiped her brow and stared down the hall. She managed to focus on Champ.
“God loves you,” she said. She took her spear and ran it through the karate man, pinning him to the wall. Then Theresa sat down heavily, her bottom crashing to the floor, and leaned her immense bulk back against the closed bathroom door. Probably close to three hundred pounds of dead weight as a barrier.
The handle moved a bit, back and forth, with a low rattling sound. Theresa leaned back with all her strength. The infected tried the handle again. Theresa reached up and back with both hands and held onto it. Grunts and moans from the other side of the door as the intruders persisted. They slammed against the door. She resisted. They tried again, harder.
The onslaught stopped for a moment. Doc started to call out to her to run, to join them, but again decided not to expose Champ to danger. Theresa wiped her eyes again, peered into the shadowy light and spotted the chair Bowden had been using. She moved for the chair, flipped it around and wedged it under the handle to block the bathroom door. Exhausted, Theresa leaned back and slid down into a sitting position. She still blocked the door with her body as best she could. Blood flowed from her scalp, blinding her eyes.
“Champ?” Theresa whimpered. “Champ, I’m sorry.”
Doc hugged Champ close. He looked down and saw the girl cringing at the sight, bewildered and torn.
Theresa spoke weakly, half to herself now. “Daddy is gone. Mommy is going to leave you soon, too. Oh, I’m so sorry. We never meant to hurt you…”
Doc whispered to Champ, “Hang on, kid. I’m going to get you out of here.”
Theresa sobbed, then froze as she heard a soft scraping sound behind her. The knob turned and the door bulged. She stiffened at once and went silent. Uh oh.Champ whispered, “What’s going on, Doc?”
“I don’t know.”
And it suddenly went quiet again everywhere.
And as the old saying goes, too quiet.
««—»»
Cap had indeed chosen the safest spot for himself. The battered waiting room was a mess, broken glass everywhere, with scraps of paper everywhere and some drugs floating in like a cloud of dust, but it was burglar-proofed and sturdy. So Cap had studiously avoided much of the fighting. At that very moment he was speaking softly into a small piece of top-secret communications gear that had been disguised as part of his regular headset.
“Yes, I’m here. Over.”
A few miles away, outside the command tent, in the bitter cold mountain air, the man called Burkhalter was pacing and speaking int
o a similar device. Glancing through the green tent flap to make certain Major Leanne Davidson was still working at her console, Burkhalter lowered his head, cupped his hand around the device and whispered.
“Stand by, Captain.”
But Leanne could see his shape against the canvas tent, outlined by the moon and some work lights in the distance, near the parked vehicles. She read his body language as he turned away and became suspicious. Leanne was not pretending to be occupied, she was truly working hard to establish a clear signal to the embattled ER, but she didn’t like or trust her new boss. She could tell Burkhalter was up to something, and that he wasn’t one of the good guys. She was good at multi-tasking and went to work.
Leanne concentrated on a wavy blue line that showed faint voice patterns. Leanne searched for the source of the signal, with one eye on Burkhalter’s shadow. The man came back towards the entrance to the command tent, so she dropped her head as if uninterested in what he was doing. She put on her earphones and kept working. Out of the corner of her eye, Leanne saw Burkhalter peer through the tent flaps to reassure himself, then move away again. She ordered the computer to keep scanning. It hit the mark. Her heart crawled up into her throat. After a moment she locked in on Burkhalter’s conversation. She could just make out what he was saying.
“It’s me.”
Something else, a kind of high chatter? This is a coded line, Leanne thought. No wonder it had taken so long to decipher the signal. It was Top Secret. Who was this rat bastard talking to?
She heard Burkhalter’s heavy breathing. A female operator broke in and said, “I have the Vice President now.”
Jesus, a bunch of merc’s and now the Veep?
“Connect,” Burkhalter said. “We’re all clear here.” The woman said, “Mr. Burkhalter, be advised this conversation will now be scrambled on every other band, do not change your position or you will lose the signal.”
“Understood.”
Leanne trembled when she heard a faint beeping sound and then the low growl of a familiar voice. “Report.”
“Two of ours left,” Burkhalter said, crisply. “We also have six civilian survivors at the site, which is surrounded by bogeys.”
The Vice President coughed and spat. “We are concerned with one thing and one thing only. Our man has the package in his possession?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
“Outstanding. Then let’s wrap this up. Hold one.”
The Vice President left the line. You nosy bitch, you could go to prison for this, Leanne thought. Screw it, I’m bored. What are these bastards up to? She adjusted her headphones and kept listening, then absently fondled the photograph of her deceased daughter. The VP returned.
“So when can we end this thing?”
Burkhalter said, “Soon, sir. We just have a few loose ends.”
“Better make it quick. It needs to be clean as a whistle before the air strike.” Leanne straightened up. Air strike?
She could read the fear in Burkhalter’s voice. And if this kind of man was scared, something was very, very wrong. He cleared his throat. “All non-essential military have already been evacuated. Most are guards down by the highway. We have one military communications officer in the tent, holding down the fort. I’ll eliminate her myself when our chopper has the package.”
‘“You have any problem with doing that?”
“Not at all, sir.”
Leanne thought, well I have a fucking problem with you doing it, you schmuck.
“We’re playing hardball here because we have to, Mr. Burkhalter.” The man seemed to be rationalizing more to himself. Leanne cursed herself for not bringing her sidearm to work. It was out in the truck, under the dash. Colonel Sharp had told her to leave it outside.
“So we’re almost done here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I knew we could count on you. Make magic. By 12:01 it needs to be like that town, those people and this whole operation never existed. No witnesses. We’ll make this worth your while. Time-and-a-half, in fact. Understand?
Burkhalter whistled. “Thank you, sir. Consider it done.”
Who is on the inside? Who are they talking about? Leanne swallowed her fear. She cut her connection, laid down a ghost trail in case anyone sharp enough had begun to hone in on her eavesdropping. She hit the older codes, where the computer had been continuously searching for broadband signals, running numbers and sound designs. Burkhalter remained outside. Leanne thought, I have to derail this somehow, and connect with some civilians, or I’m dead meat by midnight…and so is everyone else in that ER. She gradually locked on to two separate signals. She worked fast, struggling to clear them up.
“Come on. Come on.” Under her breath, feeling dizzy.
Leanne separated the twin live signals. She identified one as LAPTOP and the other as RADIO? PHONE? She kept looking back over her shoulder to be certain she was hiding her work from Burkhalter.
««—»»
The infected had gone back to sleep again. It was momentarily calm. Billy Ray was huddled in the corner of the attic with his knees pulled up to his chest. The noise and confusion, the screaming. It had been a horrifying, seemingly endless stretch of time since Officer Paris had left the attic. Billy realized he had to get himself together. He listened intently, heard nothing. Dust motes floated in the blackness, tickling his nose. He used his flashlight sparingly, directed it around the attic. Nothing was moving. He’d never felt so small and alone in his entire life. Should I risk going downstairs, or stay up here all night? He crawled over to the steps and took a peek down the dimly lit stairs. His voice was raspy when he whispered, “Hello?”
No one answered. Reluctantly, Billy Ray sucked it up and managed to get to his feet. He stepped over the dead bodies piled up near the window and moved out into the stairwell. He put his back to the wall. At his feet, a half-naked teenaged girl in Goth clothing stared up at him with sightless eyes. Billy Ray whimpered and moved further down the steps.
Six steps from the floor he could just make out the catastrophe waiting below. It was an absolute mess, with drugs scattered everywhere and slaughtered human flesh in shreds and crumpled piles. The soldier called Bowden seemed to be missing. Then Billy Ray froze. He saw what was left of Officer Paris, and the oozing blackness that told him the back of her head had been crushed. He knew he should see if there was anything he could do for the others, but that thought was at war with his finely honed sense of self-preservation.
Billy Ray risked another step down into hell. Seated with her back to the bathroom door was the fat woman, Theresa. She seemed dead. Satisfied, Billy Ray touched the wall to brace himself to turn. But the woman blinked and slowly, ever so slowly, turned her head, as if she’d heard or seen him sneaking down the stairs. Blood ran out of her right nostril. A strange smile blossomed on her lipstick-smeared face. She raised one finger to her lips, as if to say, Shhhhhhh…
And that’s when he noticed that she wasn’t still.
She was moving a bit, forward and back, forward and back.
Theresa closed her eyes and coughed up blood. She twitched, gurgled and appeared to expire for real this time. He’d seen it happen before, could feel her spirit leaving the flesh behind. And yet she kept moving slightly, a few inches at a time, forward and back, forward and back. It finally hit Billy Ray that there were people in the bathroom, trying to get out. More of them.
Her body relaxed and slid down off the chair. The door moved again as the infected struggled to push her corpse out of the way. Faced with his moment of truth, Billy Ray tiptoed back upstairs.
««—»»
Doc tried his best to peer down the hallway, but couldn’t see much. He was a bit afraid to use his flashlight. Every time he used it, the damned thing felt like it was sending up a signal flare. He fumbled by his side and found some bottled water, unscrewed the top and handed it to Champ.
“Stay hydrated.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re a brave girl,”
Doc said. Champ handed back the water. “And you’ve got balls, for an old man.” And then, after a moment, she said, “Why to you think they stopped?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the sudden change in light when the power went out. The soldier said something like that might happen. That lights can confuse them.”
The girl leaned closer to Doc, whispering. Her breath smelled of chewing gum. “Why stay here? Let’s hot wire a car and make a run for it.”
“And just leave the others?”
He felt her shoulder move as she shrugged. “Maybe.”
Doc turned his head and let his eyes search what he could see of her face. Looked for the words. “Champ, listen. About your folks…”
“You’d make a lousy shrink.”
He stared.
“Doc, relax,” she said. “No, I’m not all that broken up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Look, they were just foster parents, and shitty ones at that, okay? Who cares?”
Doc said, “Okay.” He poured some of the water over his head. Even warm, it felt good. He thought for a moment. “So you can hot wire a car, huh?” Champ snapped her fingers to show how easily. For some reason, he believed her. This kid had been around.
“But hey,” he said, teasingly, “you’re not old enough for a license.”
Champ snorted quietly. “Duh. I didn’t say I could drive it.”
Doc chuckled. “Oh. Well, you just hang tough for a minute kid, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Her voice trembled. “Wait. Where are you going?”
“Just to check on the others. Stay there.”
He crawled away. Panicked, Champ almost followed but decided to listen. She watched as Doc crawled into the gloom, his form dimly lit by the weirdly colored emergency lights set into the floorboards. Champ returned to her phone and continued to search for a signal.
The room stank of blood and death and voided bowels. Doc worked his way down the first hall and saw Timothy. He moved around some dead townspeople, grabbed the man’s arm and checked for a pulse. Nope.
Pain Page 8