Isolation (Book 2): Going Out

by Jones, Nathan

  “I thought we weren't supposed to go out,” she protested feebly. “It's dangerous out there.”

  Unfortunately, that no longer mattered since the danger had found its way inside. “It's okay if it's an emergency, like if someone's sick,” he replied firmly. He set her down on his blanket and began wrapping it snugly around her for the trip.

  “Oh, okay.” His daughter snuggled into the blanket with a soft whimper of discomfort. “Will they make me feel better?”

  Nick desperately hoped so. Maybe by some miracle they'd developed a cure for Zolos since the power went out. Or at least discovered some treatment that would increase chances of survival. “They'll be able to help,” he said confidently, leaning down to kiss her sweaty forehead. “Just rest for a little bit, okay? I need to get ready and tell Ricky where we're going.”

  Fumbling around in the darkness, he pulled on some socks, felt his way to the front door and put on his shoes and jacket, and grabbed his keys and wallet. Then he hurried into Tallie's room and made a small pile of a change of clothes and her coat, socks, and shoes.

  Last of all he reached for her stuffed sloth Huggy on the bed, hoping it would offer her some comfort. But when he felt the wetness soaking it he recoiled, and instead felt around her toy chest for another stuffed animal, hard to tell which one in the darkness, and tossed it on the pile.

  After searching around, wondering if there was anything he was missing, he decided he was wasting time and hurried back out into the hallway, cautiously approaching his son's door but staying well clear of it; now that Zolos was a reality in this apartment, he felt like no distance would be far enough away to keep his son safe.

  “Hey, Ricky?” he called.

  “Dad!” his son said, voice thick from crying. “What's going on? Is Tallie okay?”

  “She's resting right now,” he said. “I'm going to take her to the hospital. Try to get some sleep while we're gone.”

  “Wait, you're leaving me here all alone?” Ricky demanded, the fear in his voice ratcheting up a few notches. “Why can't I go with you?”

  Nick closed his eyes, wishing yet again that he could wake up from this nightmare. “You can't come anywhere near us anymore, son, and the car's a tiny enclosed space. You'll get exposed for sure. Besides, Zolos will be all over the hospital, so it would be even less safe there.”

  “But what if you don't come back? What if I end up here all alone?” His son began to cry again.

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “It's going to be okay,” he assured him firmly, wishing he could look into his eyes, give him a comforting hug. “The CDC says one in ten people survive the infection. Your sister will be one of those.”

  There was a long pause. “One in ten sounds terrible,” Ricky said. “That's you and Tallie and eight other people, and only one gets to live?”

  “Hey, hey!” Nick said earnestly. “I'm not sick. I'm just fine.”

  There was no answer for several seconds. “Doesn't that mean you're the one in ten who survived, Dad?” his son said in a terrified voice. “That means Tallie's going to die.”

  His breath blew out of him in a sharp gasp at hearing that horrifying possibility spoken aloud. He forced his panic down, making his tone confident for the little boy trapped all alone on the other side of the door. “Th-that's not how statistics work, son. There's no reason both of us won't be just fine.” No response. “Things are going to be okay. Everything will be okay. Um . . . I need to get your sister to the hospital as soon as possible, okay? Get some sleep, we'll be back soon.”

  Ricky didn't answer as Nick lurched back down the hallway to his room.

  But rather than going inside and getting his daughter he paused for a moment, slumping down with his back against the wall beside his door, the pile of Tallie's things on the floor beside him. He knew he needed to move, but he also needed a few seconds to compose himself.

  His world wasn't ending, even if at the moment it felt that way. He had to cling to hope, believe that things were going to turn out okay.

  Maybe he was immune, and somehow he'd passed that on to his children. Or maybe the virus spread from him was weakened somehow and would work the same way as an immunization, actually protecting his daughter from Zolos rather than killing her.

  Or his words to his son could be right, and she'd be the one in ten who pulled through, especially if he could get her proper medical care.

  He had to cling to something, anything, or he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep going and do what he needed to for his children.

  Nick pushed to his feet with a determined noise and made his way into his room. He almost had a heart attack when he found Tallie unmoving, but she'd just fallen asleep in the comforting safety of his blanket. Which was probably good; she needed her rest.

  He picked her up as gently as he could and made his way to the front door. “We're going, Ricky,” he called quietly down the hall. “Be back soon.”

  There was no response, which he hoped was just his son sulking. With a sigh he unlocked the front door and edged outside with Tallie in his arms.

  It took a frustrating amount of time to juggle his daughter in her bulky blanket to hold in one arm, so he could fumble for his keys and lock the door behind him. The night was dark, the half moon and stars partly obscured by clouds, so he had to be extra cautious as he made his way down the stairs and towards where he'd parked his car in the apartment lot. With every step he was afraid of tripping over something and dropping Tallie.

  He was halfway there before he realized with chagrin that he should probably be keeping an eye out for possible threats, like those two punks who'd attacked his apartment. Then he snorted bitterly, realizing that if anyone was stupid enough to be out here risking Zolos, he was their worst nightmare.

  A small silver lining to Nick's own worst nightmare; now that the horror of the virus had struck him and his daughter, at least they had the best defense against anyone who'd wish to do them harm.

  Assuming that person didn't have a gun, in which case knowing they were infected might be even more of an incentive to shoot them. So even the silver lining had another big fat cloud attached to it.

  In any case, the night was still around him. If there were thugs out there he couldn't see any sign of them; KC remained eerily quiet, the way it had since the Zolos scare began, and especially since the power went out. Standing on the fire escape outside his office the effect had been disconcerting, but now that he was actually venturing away from the building it was seriously creeping him out.

  Cities weren't supposed to be this quiet, even at this hour. It wasn't the silence of peace but of fear, of everyone cowering from an invisible terror.

  Nick shivered and quickened his pace the rest of the way to his car, buckling Tallie into her car seat and getting behind the wheel. Even from inside the vehicle the sound of the engine starting was worryingly loud, and he wasted no time backing up and getting on the road.

  The eeriness didn't fade as he drove. There were no streetlights or stoplights, no other cars. His headlights were the only source of light he could see, making him feel uncomfortably conspicuous.

  That would've been a good enough reason for him to drive at unsafe speeds, blowing right through every stoplight and stop sign he encountered. But that wasn't why he did it; in his desperation to get Tallie the medical care she needed, and with the way clear, he wasn't about to let anything slow him down.

  As he got closer to the center of the city, however, he finally saw other lights. Not only did he begin to see vehicles on the road ahead and down side streets, prompting him to slow down to more reasonable speeds, but a few places up ahead were illuminated by what looked like those floodlights used by emergency services when the power was out.

  He guessed they were coming from vital city buildings like police and fire stations and hospitals. Maybe a few other buildings housing local and federal relief efforts, as well as whatever measures were being taken to keep Kansas City's leadership organized.

/>   Sure enough, as he got closer to the North Kansas City Hospital he saw that it was bathed in floodlights, which covered the nearby buildings and parking lots as well. The place was a beehive of activity even at this hour, vehicles coming and going and tents full of patients blanketing every open space, including most of the farther out parking lots.

  The roads coming into the area were blocked at least a hundred yards out in all directions, and there were hastily erected fences all over the place, not just around the perimeter but surrounding clusters of tents and building entrances. Soldiers and law enforcement in hazmat suits closely guarded everything, making sure quarantine wasn't breached.

  It made it incredibly confusing to try to guess where Nick was supposed to go, but hopefully the two soldiers manning the barricade up ahead could help him out. Although he'd be happy if they just didn't turn him away.

  He drove the car as close as he could to the barricade before the soldiers motioned for him to stop. They were National Guard, judging by the patches on their hazmat suits. As one started forward a cautious distance Nick rolled down his window, trying not to feel antsy about the M16 the man held ready to use.

  “I need to get in, my daughter is sick!” he called.

  It might've been coincidence that the soldier chose that moment to stop, still twenty feet away, but probably not. “Zolos?” he called back.

  Nick couldn't see what else it would be these days. “Yes! She just barely started showing symptoms!”

  The soldier sidled around the car to look through the rear driver's side window at the limp blanket-wrapped girl in her car seat. Then he motioned to his buddy, who began rolling aside the barricade. “Drive straight in and try to find a place to park out of the way. You'll probably have to go most of the distance on foot.”

  Nodding, Nick pressed the gas and slowly pulled forward. “Thank you!”

  Finding an out of the way place to park was easier said than done. It seemed like anywhere that wasn't occupied by emergency vehicles or buses was being used as a staging area or had been fenced in to hold tents.

  Finally, he gave up while still dozens of yards away from the nearest source of activity. There was a narrow strip of trampled grass by a fence that blocked foot traffic, so he bit the bullet and just pulled up over the curb onto it, wincing at the grinding noise from his undercarriage.

  Snagging his keys and stuffing them in his pocket, he scrambled out and hurried to unbuckle Tallie.

  He had to bite back a cry of horror when he saw his daughter's face in the first good light they'd been in since she woke him up into this nightmare. Her features were waxy pale and shining with sweat, which mingled with the thin trickles of blood coming from her ears, nose, and dribbling from the sides of her mouth and beneath her closed eyelids.

  Nick pulled her gently out of the car seat and clutched her tight, forcing down his panic at the heart-wrenching sight and focusing on breathing as he backed out of the car and shut the door with his hip.

  He felt her stir as he started towards the people bustling around the vehicles up ahead. Now that he was braced for it, he wasn't quite as shocked when his daughter poked her little face out from beneath the blanket, yawning to reveal a bloody mouth.

  “Are we there, Daddy?” she mumbled.

  “We're here, sweetie,” he said, rubbing her back. “Have a good sleep?”

  “Not really.” Tallie made a face. “My arms and legs are still tired, and my mouth tastes like a nosebleed.”

  “Well hang in there, Okay? We'll find a doctor to help you.” He sped up to a jog.

  The vehicles up ahead seemed to be funneling new arrivals to an area where hospital workers, wearing different hazmat suits than what the soldiers used, were hard at work. They bustled around moving patients too weak to stand, checking the vital signs of the new arrivals, and coordinating where they should be taken next.

  It was probably a jerk move on Nick's part, but he didn't want to get caught up in that chaos. He wasn't about to risk any delay to Tallie getting the help she needed, and another real consideration was that he couldn't afford to risk them getting processed and shoved in tents when Ricky was waiting for them at home.

  So he hurried around the periphery of the milling crowd to a spot closer to the hospital, where medical staff tended to patients on gurneys who appeared in the later stages of the sickness. The bright lights and loud noises were incredibly disorienting after the dark and quiet of the rest of the city, making him squint and stumble.

  He probably looked like he was drunk.

  In spite of that, nobody paid him much attention. Even the guards, who he kept shooting nervous glances at, expecting them to challenge him at any moment. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised he was being overlooked, since in his determination to reach his destination he brushed by even the people he passed close to who weren't wearing hazmat suits without a second thought, ignoring the fact that they almost certainly had to be contagious.

  In a way, it was surreal to think that after spending almost two weeks terrified of Zolos, now he was walking among infected people with zero fear. Part of that was desperation to get care for Tallie, of course, but mostly it was because he knew he'd already passed through the fire.

  And led it directly to his daughter to burn her instead. But he couldn't spare the time for self-recrimination right now; that would come later.

  In the chaos it took him a few seconds to notice that one of the hospital staff, a woman judging by the size and shape even through the bulk of the hazmat suit, was hurrying towards them. Nick turned towards her with relief.

  “Sir, you shouldn't be in this area!” she called frantically as she paused a short distance away. Her eyes fell on Tallie and dropped in unspoken sympathy, but her tone remained firm. “Even if you think you've already been exposed, you should've at least taken the precaution of wearing-”

  “Forget me, I'm immune!” Nick snapped, hefting Tallie, limp and whimpering piteously, in his arms. “Please, you have to help my daughter!”

  The woman's eyes went wide through her foggy faceplate, then narrowed. “Immune? You lucky son of a-”

  “Lucky?” he nearly yelled, cradling his little girl. Against his will the tears he'd struggled to hold back this entire time flowed free again. “Do you think I wouldn't rather be sick instead? Please, forget me and just help her!”

  The hospital worker's eyes dropped to Tallie, and whatever bitterness she was feeling vanished into sympathy. “She needs to be processed, assigned a bed . . .” She trailed off, shoulders slumping hopelessly. “At which point we'll struggle just to give her basic care, let alone do anything to help her.” She paused to give him a narrow look. “Actually, you'll probably need to be processed as well, immune or not. Our policy doesn't leave much wiggle room.”

  Nick didn't like any of what he was hearing. “I can't stay here! I had to leave my eight-year-old son home alone to bring Tallie, and I need to get back to him. Can't you help her right now?”

  The woman snorted bitterly. “Help her how? Give her a checkup to confirm what we already know?”

  He grit his teeth in frustration. “Listen, uh . . .”

  “Melody,” the woman said impatiently.

  “Good to meet you, Melody, I'm Nick Statton and this is my daughter Tallie.” Nick kissed his daughter's sweaty forehead, then pressed his cheek against it, holding onto his composure for dear life. “Listen, can't you make an exception? She's just one little girl. Isn't there anything you can do to help her? Please, I'll do anything.”

  The hospital worker stared at him for an agonizing few seconds, then sighed. “I suppose I can at least give her a checkup, confirm it's Zolos and gauge its severity.”

  It was a bit absurd to feel as relieved as he did about such a noncommittal answer, but he was. “Thank you.” He kissed his daughter's head again. “Thank the nice lady, Tallie.”

  “Thanks,” she said in a tired murmur.

  Melody smiled warmly at the five-year-old, the
n led them over to a space near a bed and motioned for him to set Tallie down right on the pavement. She gingerly peeled away the blanket, grimacing through her faceplate at the bloody nightgown. “It goes without saying that you need to do whatever you can to keep the orifices clean in spite of the bleeding. I'd recommend finding something to use for a pad to soak up the blood, and changing it frequently.”

  “Right,” Nick said.

  She ignored his response, getting started on checking his daughter's vitals. As she did she asked him a barrage of questions about when Tallie first exhibited symptoms and the speed of their progression, when he guessed she'd been exposed, her state of health beforehand, even things like nutrition and whether she'd been drinking clean water.

  Finally, though, she seemed done with the questions and just worked silently. “I don't suppose you've heard any news of what's going on?” Nick asked. He didn't want to distract her, but at the moment she just seemed to be doing routine stuff. Besides, he didn't know when he'd get another chance to talk to someone from outside the apartment in the near future. “Since the internet and cell phone service went out, my world's pretty much shrunk to the walls of my apartment and what I can see out the windows.”

  Melody shook her head tiredly. “I hear some, from relief workers and soldiers. They've still got satellite phones and long distance radios so they can coordinate. None of it's good news, though.”

  Yeah, he hadn't expected it to be. “What's it look like out there?”

  She shrugged, not pausing in her efforts. “The answer to the question you're probably secretly asking, under the circumstances, is unfortunately that the world's best minds still haven't found a cure. No innovative treatment options to dramatically improve survival, either.”

  Nick swallowed. “I was guessing you probably would've mentioned it if there was.”

  She sighed. “On top of that, Zolos has spread pretty much everywhere it realistically could. Every single country is struggling to manage some sort of relief efforts, most with far less success than we've managed. Which should give some indication of just how bad off they are. The death toll is estimated to be in the billions now, and rapidly climbing.”