Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City

by Jay K. Anthony

  Clark looked for the hospital. It was marked on the map. “Hey,” he said. “That doesn’t look so bad. How far is that?”

  Rocha sat back in his lawn chain. “Only about a mile,” he said. “You still want to go and get those documents?”

  Clark thought it over. Yes, he was tired and yes, his feet hurt, but what if he could figure out how to put a stop to this? Could I forgive myself if I just sat around here and let other people die? When I could possibly save them? “Yeah,” Clark said. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

  Rocha was nodding his head and started to grin. “I like it,” he said and looked again at the map. “Want to know the best part?”

  “Of course.”

  “That hospital is on the way back to Command. If you’re up to taking the risk, once we get done retrieving the documents, we hike the freeway around the end of the bay. Then it’s a straight shot back to base.”

  Clark looked down at the map. “Why can't we just take this bridge?” he asked and pointed at the map.

  Rocha looked. “It's out,” he said. “Went down right after the outbreak. Everyone has to take the long way around. So, you sure you are up for this?”

  “Hell yeah,” Clark said suddenly feeling excited. “You were just saying a minute ago that you wanted to make a difference! We don’t need a chopper. We can make that trip in … what? An hour if we move carefully?”

  “Yeah, maybe quicker if we are willing to be a little bolder.”

  “Let’s do it!”

  “Okay,” Rocha said. “You better be sure about this. Don’t get me wrong. You did good on the cruise ship, but that hospital is something out of a horror movie.”

  “I can handle it,” Clark said.

  “Good,” Rocha said and stood up with his rifle. “Pack up. Let's get this done.”

  LUKE

  “Wake up,” Matt said. “Let’s go.”

  Luke opened his eyes. He was leaning with his face against the passenger window of the tow truck. A ray of morning daylight reflected off of the passenger side mirror and pierced his eyes. He groaned loudly.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Matt asked.

  “Nothing,” Luke lied, because everything hurt. His head felt like it was going to split in two, his eyes were sore and swollen, even his teeth hurt. He felt like crap and needed a cigarette in the worst way. It felt, hands down, like the worst hangover he had ever had in his life and when he had been younger, he had gone on a couple serious benders. Where the hell are we? he wondered and looked around as he sat up. Seemed they had come to a stop sometime the evening before, and right in the middle of the street. He rubbed a hand down his face and patted around for his cigarettes. I can’t believe we fell asleep right here. Lucky nobody came along, he thought as he found his cigarettes and pulled one out of the pack.

  He lit one of the smokes and glanced over at Matt. Matt did not look so good either, kind of like he had a bad case of pinkeye. Matt was rubbing vigorously at his eye socket with a dirty finger and Luke thought he shouldn’t be doing that when his stomach cramped, hard and nasty, down in his bowels. For a second he thought he was going to shit himself right there in the truck. Goddamn! he thought. No more drinking for me. He rested his head on the dash, waiting for it to pass, when he heard a weak groan come from outside the truck. “Now what in the hell is that?” he asked and peered through the windows of the truck. He expected to see zombies surrounding them, but he did not see anything.

  “Sounds like we have a buddy,” Matt said as he rolled down his window and leaned out. “Nothing over here. What you got?”

  Luke rolled down his window and looked outside and down. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, God. That’s disgusting.”

  “What?” Matt asked. Luke leaned further out his window and saw a zombie had gotten trapped under their truck. He vaguely remembered Matt hitting something just before he passed out the night before. He looked at the zombie and thought he might puke. It was evident they had drug him for a while. Most of the zombies face was smashed in and its mouth was crushed so it could only groan weakly. Luke saw one of the zombie’s eyes was missing and it ogled at him with the other one.

  “Now that is one ugly bastard,” Luke said and swallowed to keep from throwing up. Damn, I don’t feel good, he thought. His stomach churned and he felt like a little kid that had eaten way too much ice cream.

  “Zombie?” Matt asked.

  “Yeah,” Luke replied. “What’s left of it. Stuck under the truck.”

  “How the hell did that happen?”

  Luke thought about telling him that he was not the one who had been driving, but decided not to bother. “Hell if I know,” he said as he leaned back into the truck and rolled up his window. “You take care of it,” he said. “I can’t move.”

  Matt looked like he did not appreciate being ordered around but he searched the interior of the truck and behind the seats without comment on the subject. “Dammit!” he complained. “I don’t remember what I did with my sledge hammer.” Luke was not surprised. He did not remember much of anything after leaving the parking garage. Wait, what about the armored car? he thought and turned in his seat to look behind them to make sure it had not been a dream. Sure enough, the big, black bank car was still there, hanging on the arm of the tow truck. Well glad yesterday wasn’t all just a part of my imagination, he thought. Suddenly his head began to swim so he put his hands flat on the dashboard to keep from passing out.

  “Are you okay?” Matt asked.

  “Hold on,” Luke said, squeezing his eyes shut. “I feel like shit.”

  “Well, suck it up,” Matt replied. “We need to get moving. Do you think our new friend out there is going to be a problem?”

  The nausea passed. Luke opened his eyes and looked at Matt. “Probably not if you don’t mind dragging the bastard along with us until he peels off,” he said.

  “Nasty but I’m not in the mood to screw with him right now,” Matt said as he turned the ignition key. The truck engine refused to turn over and only made a weak clicking sound. “Shit.”

  “What is it?” Luke asked.

  “Son of a bitch,” Matt said and rubbed his eye again. “I think I left the lights on.”

  “We still have the generator?”

  “Yeah,” Matt said and opened the driver’s side door. “Come on. Help me get it out of the back.”

  “One second,” Luke said. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again. He was sure he was running a fever and the bones in his neck felt like they were fused together with glass. Must be because I passed out with my head against the window, Luke thought. Matt got out of the truck and left his door open. The cold fresh air instantly helped Luke clear his head. He opened his eyes and lit a cigarette. Feeling a tiny bit better, he grabbed his shotgun and slid across the seat to get out through the driver’s side and avoid the zombie under the truck. He walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle to take a better look at their roadkill.

  “What do you think?” Matt asked.

  “I think I’m going to knock this ugly bastard’s head off,” Luke said and turned the shotgun around so that he could hold it like a baseball bat. He was in no mood to screw around, but he also didn’t want to make so much noise that he attracted more zombies. The weather looked to be going to hell and the last thing he wanted to do while feeling like shit was to get things stirred up. The zombie floundered under the truck and hissed weakly at Luke. Luke squatted down and looked at how Matt had run the zombie over and where it had gotten twisted underneath. One of its legs was mangled and wrapped around the axle of the front passenger tire.

  “Hurry up,” Matt said.

  Luke stood up and took a drag off his cigarette. He glared down at the zombie. He was sick of the things. He blamed them for ruining what had once been a good life. “Hey,” he said. “Look at me.” The zombie groaned and reached for Luke, who stepped back, just out of arm's length. Luke took one last drag of his cigarette and flicked away the butt. He set hi
s feet and cocked back the shotgun over his shoulder with both hands and swung as hard as he could. He caught the zombie smack in the side of the head with the butt of the rifle. What was left of the zombie’s brains were splattered onto the side of the truck and the zombie went limp. Luke’s stomach protested at the sight and he leaned over the hood of the tow truck and threw up.

  “God damn, you could have turned the other way,” Matt said as he rolled the generator from the back of the truck to the front. He opened the hood and began to hook up the generator to the truck’s battery. “What are you, some kind of lightweight? We didn’t drink that much.”

  “Man,” Luke said as he wiped his mouth with the corner of his shirt. “I don’t know. I feel like shit.”

  “Well,” Matt said. “Get over it and watch our asses. As soon as I get this damn generator running, we’re going to draw every zombie within a hundred miles.” Using the truck’s front bumper, Luke scraped a chunk of the zombie’s brain off of the butt stock of the rifle and turned the weapon over to take guard.

  “Go for it,” he said and Matt pulled the starter cord. The generator roared to life and Matt quickly jumped into the truck and sat behind the steering wheel. He turned the ignition key and the truck roared to life. Luke took another look around and did not see anything other than the beach and seagulls. Seriously, where the hell are we? he thought. Dumb shit must have really made a wrong turn. He set the shotgun on the top of the truck cab and helped Matt unhook the generator. They wheeled it to the back and put it in the truck bed next to the lift.

  Luke stumbled back to the passenger side door and grabbed his shotgun. He took another look around and climbed inside, slammed the door, and closed his eyes. He heard Matt climb in beside him and then felt them turn around and accelerate down the road. Luke was cramping all over. His joints felt hot and swollen. He knew they had a medicine kit back in the van at the boatyard. I wonder how many aspirin would be safe to take, he wondered and then laughed. Who am I kidding? he thought. The world has been taken over by Goddamn zombies and I’m worried about overdosing on aspirin.

  He kept his eyes closed until he felt them stop. Matt shoved Luke on the shoulder. “Get the gate, man,” he said. Luke opened his eyes and looked around. He was confused at first and looked for Ted and Pete, but then realized they were at the side gate of the boatyard nearest the garage. I must have fallen asleep, he thought and crawled out the passenger side and went to the gate. He opened it and Matt drove through. Luke got it closed and walked in a daze back to the truck and got in. Matt drove the rest of the way to the big garage and stopped the truck. He used his mirrors to back both the tow truck and the armored car through the far right bay door. Luke thought Matt had clearly worked with tow and trailers before because he was easily able to navigate the large armored vehicle into place. I sure as hell couldn’t have done it. Especially not right now, he thought as his head began to pound harder. Matt jumped out of the truck.

  “Get off your ass. We have a lot to do,” he said.

  Luke groaned but got out of the truck. After a step he had to stop and cough, deep and heavy. He hawked and spit and went to the back of the tow truck to see if Matt needed help unhooking the bank truck. He gagged at the smell of the garage. He had forgotten how bad it was and held his breath. Screw helping Matt, he thought and went to go around the back of the two vehicles so he could stay as far away from the smell as possible. He tried to open the bank truck’s driver side door. It was locked and Luke looked it over. It was quite a door with heavy hinges, a flat handle, recessed door lock, and a window which felt like it was made of some kind of super plastic. “How in the hell are we going to get inside?” he asked Matt.

  Matt finished unhooking the bank truck and climbed out from underneath. “We’ll have to drill our way in,” he said. “I saw a power drill and an extension cord over on one of the benches in here. Grab the generator and I’ll get the tow truck out of our way.” Luke helped Matt take the generator out of the back of the tow truck along with the hand cart and the barrel of fuel. They set them all next to the bank truck and Luke went to look for the tools Matt described while Matt drove the tow truck away from the front of the garage. By the time he got back, Luke had found the power drill and had connected it to the generator by the extension cord. Matt went straight for the generator and pulled the starter cord. The generator roared to life and Luke winced as the noise bored into his aching head. With watering eyes, Luke went to work on the lock.

  He was not sure if the drill was dull or if the lock was made out of Titanium, but it took him what felt like a ridiculous amount of time to drill through the lock. By the time he was done, Luke had chain smoked through what remained of his pack of smokes and was hot, panting, and sweating. Matt was there with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. He opened the driver’s door and climbed into the cab. “I’ll see if we are going to be able to hotwire this thing,” he said as he went to work on the steering column. “Take that drill and see if you can get the back doors open.”

  Luke knew he was running a fever and he just wanted to lie down. But, he knew that would not fly with Matt right now and the sooner they got done, the sooner he could find a place to curl up and sleep. With a groan, he drug the drill and the generator to the back of the bank truck and went back to work.

  CLARK

  Clark stood in the hospital lobby and counted the seconds as they ticked by on his watch. He had been up pulling guard duty for the last hour, watching the sun come up, and was sick of fighting to stay awake. He checked his watch again and saw it was finally time to wake Rocha, the Snoring Giant. He walked over to the soldier and carefully nudged him on the arm. Rocha paused in mid snore and popped open one eye. “All good?” Rocha asked.

  “Yes,” Clark replied and sat down. There was no immediate danger. Things had been strangely quiet. Last night, they had easily reached the hospital in under an hour and gone inside through the open front lobby entrance. The building was pitch black inside. Any emergency lighting had died a long time ago. Clark had hoped to find the documentation on the patient that had been resistant to the disease and then get back out of the hospital, but Rocha had vetoed the idea.

  “Moving around in the dark in such close quarters is too risky,” he had said. “Let’s find a spot and bunk down until daylight. You look dead on your feet anyway, Doc.” Clark had been in favor of getting some sleep, so he reluctantly agreed. Unfortunately, Rocha had insisted they pull a 50-50 shift where one person stood guard while the other slept. Clark had worked some awful hours over the last few months, but sleeping every other hour through the night just plain sucked. The only way Clark had been able to stay awake on his shifts was to stand in the center of the lobby and listen to Rocha snore away, one hour at a time. Now it was finally morning and Clark willed himself to keep his eyes open while he watched Rocha dig into his pack. The soldier took out an energy bar and tossed it to Clark. Clark reached for it, fumbled it in the air, dropped it, and picked it back up. “Nice hands,” Rocha joked.

  Clark knew he actually had amazing hands, hands that had done cosmetic miracles on his patients before the outbreak. Those hands had made some beautiful creations and he had been well compensated for his work. As he bit into his breakfast he looked at Rocha again. “You have no idea,” he said. Rocha raised an eyebrow in question. “Never mind. When you were here the first time, is this the way you came in?”

  Rocha chewed on his breakfast, another energy bar. “Nope,” he replied. “We had chopper support last time. Dropped us off on the roof. Just like they did on the cruise ship.”

  Clark nodded. “So,” he said. “You haven’t cleared this part of the building?”

  “Nope.”

  “But you know the way to the lab. Right?”

  Rocha shrugged. “Not so much. General idea.”

  Shit! Clark thought. “So we have to search floor-by-floor?”

  “Pretty much,” Rocha said and finished his breakfast.

  Clark wanted to get pi
ssed but knew it would not help. He wanted to scream that they needed to get to the lab, get the documentation, get the hell out of the hospital, and get to work on a cure. A cure which could save the world! he thought. But throwing a tantrum right now is not going to get anything done. “Whatever you say,” he said.

  “Damn straight,” Rocha said and stood up to put on his pack. “We take it slow. I did some recon while you were sleeping and there is a candy machine down the hall that was broken into.”

  Clark was not thrilled at the thought of Rocha running off while Clark slept unaware, but he continued to keep his mouth shut. Rocha never complained, so why should he? “You think there are survivors then?” Clark asked.

  “Well, at least at one time,” Rocha said. “The floor is streaked with blood, so it's hard to say if they are still survivors.”

  Clark’s stomach sank at the thought and he considered if he wanted to finish his breakfast. “Wonderful,” he said.

  Rocha was ready to go, with his pack on and rifle in his hand. “Let’s get this done,” he said.

  “Ok,” Clark replied and stuffed the rest of the energy bar into his mouth. It tasted like cardboard and his stomach was protesting, but he knew full well he might not get another chance to eat any time soon. He took his handgun out of the holster on his leg and held it pointing down with both hands as he followed Rocha out of the lobby and into the heart of the hospital. As soon as they got away from the sunlight, it got very dark. Rocha avoided the streaks of blood on the floor and kept to one side as he crept forward. Clark checked behind them to make sure they were not being followed. Nobody home, he thought and turned back around and watched as Rocha peeked down a short hallway to their right.

  “Right side clear,” Rocha whispered and continued forward. They moved halfway down the main corridor when Rocha stopped at another corner. He peeked around. “Contact,” he whispered and Clark crept up behind him. “Left side,” Rocha continued. “Three targets.”