Vaccination - 01

by Phillip Tomasso

LaForce had his hand over his stomach. He looked green. Normally, I’d of sworn it was from the drag he took on my cigarette. It had been a cigarette, not a cigar. He might look that way from witnessing the murder. I doubted it. He was a volunteer fireman. He’d pulled the skin off burn victims during house fires while trying to drag them out safely. No. He was not sick from smoking, and not from seeing something gruesome.

  Milzy sighed. “What, LaForce?”

  “I don’t feel good.”

  “I need you on the fire side. Please. You two, get back to work.” Milzy strutted back up to the center supervisor pod. Was he trying to act like everything was business as usual? Normal? That some guy didn’t just get his head bashed in with a bat; and the guy with the bat eaten like he was a buffet?

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked. I wasn’t taking more calls. There were emergencies flooding the city, yes, but something really fucked up was happening here. Happening now.

  Tronnes stumbled out from the fire pod. He was bent over with one hand on the chest-high cubicle wall, the other on his knee. I stepped back. Not a moment too soon. Tronnes heaved and projectile vomit spewed from his mouth and nose. It splashed onto the carpeted floor. Wet, chunky, green vomit.

  He’d poised that way for ten, twenty seconds.

  Looked like a fountain statue in a pond filled with slimy, but thick water. The odor of ammonia and hot dogs immediately assaulted my nostrils. My breath caught in my lungs as I jumped back and plugged my nose.

  “Ah, shit,” I said.

  LaForce turned away. “This ain’t good, man.”

  I kept backing up. Toward the door. I wanted out.

  “Help,” Tronnes said, kept reaching for me. He reminded me of the guy at the fence—the way his fingers flicked at me.

  “Milzy,” I called out. “Milzy!”

  Milzy sat in a chair in the center supervisor chair, didn’t look good. Did he not just see Tronnes blow chunks? Instead, his hand slipped between the buttons on his shirt, and his palm massaged his bloated-looking belly.

  Spenser was on the City Fire channel. He had his headset on, but wasn’t doing anything. A new job flashed on his screen. Instead of dispatching it, he stared at me. Dark bags encircled his eyes, and his upper lip kept twitching.

  I knew we were out of fire equipment, there was no one to respond to anything, and I know Tronnes just got fucking sick all over the place--but Spenser should at least, at the very least, put the call out over the air.

  Across the room, Allison backed away from Taylor, and Kawyn. They looked, shit . . . they looked hungry. “Allison!” I yelled.

  She saw me, but stayed still. Her lips moved. I couldn’t hear a sound she made.

  I wanted to close my eyes. Ignore everything. Because it’s not real. It’s not happening. Couldn’t be.

  I could turn, run—grab my keys and head to my car. Or I could help those who were not yet sick.

  But see, there’s the problem.

  How did I know if someone who was not sick now, wouldn’t get sick? I didn’t.

  I tried to remember everything the scientist had said to me. He blamed the H7N9 vaccinations. They were contaminated, but still distributed to the masses. The Flu was man-made. The cure, man-made. But something had gone wrong. Locally. Only thing was the shots, the vaccinations, were sent across the U.S. Supplies may have been sent out globally? LaForce had said they were calling the outbreak an epidemic.

  Epidemic was what LaForce had said.

  “Who did not get the flu shot?” I shouted.

  People looked at me from the various pods.

  “Who didn’t get the shot?” I said. “The vaccination. Who didn’t get it?”

  Maar, Nolan, Cortese—their hands went up. Like they’re in school.

  “What are you talking about?” DeJesus, who was on the EMS channel, stood up.

  “Did you get the flu shot?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  I pursed my lips. “How you feel?”

  “Fine.” He burped.

  Are you kidding me? He fucking burped.

  “If you didn’t get the shot, come with me.”

  Allison screamed. Taylor and Kawyn advanced some, moved slowly and sluggishly, but advanced regardless.

  I ran her way.

  Bradley-Phillips came out of the fire pod. He’s a brick wall. He should have been a city fireman, not a dispatcher--doing truck work, tearing holes in roofs with saws and axes, not dispatching. When he crossed his arms over his chest and hit me, hard, I fell. I landed on my left hand. My wrist bent wrong, but didn’t snap.

  I screamed.

  “What’s the deal?” Bradley-Phillips asked.

  I ignored his drooling. “You get the shot?”

  “So?”

  I got up, babied my left arm some, and curled it in toward my own chest. If I told them what I knew, what I thought I knew to be true, they’d panic. If I didn’t come clean, those who hadn’t received the shot would be trapped. I’d be trapped.

  My kids. Shit. My kids!

  “You’re sick,” I said. I moved backward a few steps. “Those of us who didn’t get the shot need to go to Secondary Ops.” The mirror back up area just across the hall.

  I said this loud, hoped the people who had not received the shot understood. I tried to tell them without saying it. I wanted them to run.

  “You don’t want to spread the virus, do you, Bradley? Do you?”

  He’s a big guy. Normally gentle. At least I thought so before he knocked me halfway across the room.

  No one moved. My subtle hint had fallen on deaf ears.

  “Allison—why don’t you and the others go to Secondary Ops,” I said, my eyes on Bradley-Phillips, as if ready to fend off another attack. Which I wasn’t. The guy could squash me with his hammerhead-sized thumb.

  I couldn’t leave Allison. I wouldn’t say I loved her, but she was my girl. My woman. However, there was no way I planned to cross the room in order to get to her. No way at all.

  I heard the groan and felt the hand on my shoulder before I could do anything. Its puke breath gave Tronnes away.

  I grabbed Tronnes’ wrist with my one good hand, and spun, twisting his arm up behind his back, and pushed. It was harder than I wanted to push. When I heard the crack, I shuddered.

  With his now limp arm dangling at his side, I expected Tronnes to scream. Or cry. Or cuss. Or throw a punch.

  He didn’t. He licked his lips. Cocked his head to one side. . .And took a sloppy step toward me.

  Chapter Six

  I’d told everyone who wasn’t injected what the plan was. It was no longer safe staying here on the primary operations floor. Either they followed my directions, or they didn’t.

  I pushed Tronnes again, hard. His one good arm pin-wheeled.

  “Allison, get out of here!”

  I didn’t stay to see if Tronnes fell. Instead, I turned and ran past LaForce, who was doubled over and cradling his stomach with folded arms.

  I pushed through the door, pulled it closed.

  Bradley-Phillips, right behind me, was stopped by the steel enforced barrier. He struggled with the door handle. If he turned it, and pushed—I’d be unable to stop him.

  Instead, he gave up on the knob and just banged giant fists on the door’s bullet proof glass.

  It was in his eyes. They’d gone from brown to milky-white. Brown, to fucking milky white. Did I just see that happen? Did I just witness life spill out of his eyeballs?

  No, had the scientist said they weren’t dead. That they were alive? I couldn’t remember.

  Bradley-Phillips looked dead. It seemed like he’d forgotten how to use a door handle. In the time it took his eyes to lose color, he’d forgotten how to use a door handle. I’d seen it happen, and I still couldn’t believe it.

  The others—those who hadn’t received the shot—made their way toward the west end primary operations exit.

  Allison had jumped onto a desk and over the cubicle as Taylor swept a hapless arm
toward her, and missed.

  Maar, Nolan, and Cortese, were right behind her, the four of them scrambled in the direction of the only other not yet blocked possible escape route.

  Winger, one of the other supervisors with Milzy, tackled Cortese, had him by the arm. Without pause, Winger bit off Cortese’s ear, chewed it like a pit-bull with a rubber wad of rawhide.

  I draped an arm across my stomach and hoped to steady the sudden flip-flopping going on inside there. I braced myself, an arm on the wall, knees wobbling.

  I pulled my hands away from the wall. The floor blurred. My shoulder slammed into the closed door. . .off balance, but still on my feet.

  Secondary Ops. It’s around the corner. I pushed off the door with my shoulder, and ran.

  Allison’s at Secondary. Stopped at the pass-protected door. “They’re in there!”

  Faces were pressed against the thick, break-proof glass. Blood and saliva smeared in shapes of noses, mouths and handprints. “Milzy said the first sick people were in the bunker.”

  Didn’t matter what Milzy said. Bunker. Secondary.

  The sick weren’t in the bunker, resting. They were in Secondary. Locked up. Locked away.

  “So now what?” Nolan panted, used his sleeve to wipe sweat from his forehead. “What’s going on? I mean, where do we go?”

  Where do we go?

  “I took a few calls—I think what’s going on here, is happening out there, too,” Maar said. “I have to get home. My wife and kids, you know? I have to get to them.”

  “It can’t be safe out there,” I said. I thought the same thing. My kids. I needed to find them. Protect them.

  Allison looked from one operations floor to the other. They’re literally twenty feet apart. Identical rooms. Both housing flesh-eating monsters that were all staring at us through blood-streaked glass, as if we were animals at a zoo. Or, more like we were food on display and they were waiting to place their order, to pick up their plate and get in line at the buffet.

  Now serving number twenty-seven? I think.

  “Jimmy has guns,” I said, “in his locker.”

  I didn’t want us to separate. Safety in numbers and all of that. “We can get the guns; make a dash for the parking lot. We’ll follow each other. Nolan lives closest. We’ll hit his house first.”

  Nolan smiled. He liked the plan.

  “My wife’s home alone,” Maar said.

  “I’m worried about my kids, too. We shouldn’t split up,” I said.

  “My wife is closer,” Maar said.

  I just stared at him. “We’re staying together. Nolan’s house first. Right now, Jimmy’s locker, all right?”

  We ran for the men’s room, through the door, past the urinals and stalls, and finally through rows of lockers. “It’s this one,” I pointed.

  “So how do we get in?” Nolan set fists on his hips.

  “Break into it,” Maar said.

  Way easier said than done. After ten minutes of pulling, banging, and pounding, we realized the truth. Guns might be inside that locker, but we had no way at them.

  “I have to check on my family,” Nolan said. He’s in his locker, grabbing his cell phone, dialing. “No one’s answering.”

  Maar disappeared. I heard another locker open.

  “Come with me to the women’s lockers?” Allison snaked her arm through mine. She shivered. “Please? Will you come with me to my locker?”

  “I have to get to my family.” Nolan put on his coat. One hand had his cell. The other, car keys. “I’m sorry. I have to.”

  “We should stay together.” I wasn’t going to beg. I didn’t think anyone would listen. Not anymore.

  I heard the bathroom door open. “Maar! Maar!”

  Nothing. He must have taken off!

  “Let’s get your stuff, quick,” Nolan said to Allison, and zipped up his coat.

  I looked at Jimmy’s locker, then at Allison, deflated. “Okay. Let’s hurry!”

  I got my cell, followed them out of the men’s room, and into the women’s. They were stopped inside.

  Barb leaned against the sink counter. The faucet running. Her messy dark hair was perfect for framing a face full of clown-like smeared make-up. “I don’t feel well.”

  “Get your stuff, Alley,” I said. “What doesn’t feel good, Barb?”

  “My stomach.”

  “Go Allison. Get your stuff,” I ordered. “Now.”

  She moved, ran to her locker.

  Barb stood up straight. Like Bradley-Phillips, she drooled. Blood drop tears dripped from bloodshot eyes. Her nose twitched. Lips quivered.

  When she grunts, I’m running!

  “Allison!” I yelled.

  “I gotta get out of here,” Nolan said.

  I grabbed his arm. He shrugged it off, stepped back and banged back out through the door.

  Son of a bitching chickenshit!

  Allison is stuck. Barb stood between us. Pupils milky-white and glazed over. Shit. From stomachache to zombie after seconds? That quick? That was un-fucking-fair, forget simply unbelievable!

  “What do I do?” Allison asked.

  Barb was all of four-foot-eleven. If that.

  “Get ready, Alley,” I said. I counted inside my head. One. Two...

  I pivoted, raised my leg, and kicked.

  The flat of my foot planted solidly across Barb’s face. She fell backward, through a stall door. I saw Barb’s smashed nose and missing front tooth as she landed on the toilet.

  Allison didn’t need to be told to run this time.

  We fled the restroom and the facility and headed for the parking lot.

  Chapter Seven

  “Where’s Nolan?” Allison asked.

  I saw a car wait as the gated fence slid open. A car drove out--Nolan. And zombie-monsters sauntered in. He let more of those fucking things into the secured parking lot!

  “Run,” I said.

  At the parking lot, she went left. I turned right. “This way!”

  “My car?”

  “We’ll take mine,” I said. I didn’t want us separated.

  We get to my car. I click the fob to unlock the doors. Climbed in. Locked it.

  I started the engine just as a zombie stepped in front of us. Without a second thought, I put it in second, and gave it gas. My car lunged forward and over the monster. I pulled up to the gate. Waited for it to slide open slowly, as I looked in the rear view.

  Maar must have made it out, too. I was pissed he just took off, but hoped he was safe just the same.

  I had the attention of the zombies roaming about inside the fence-confined parking lot.

  They came our way.

  Only these two were fast. Not slow and sluggish like I’d seen inside 9-1-1.

  Hunger drove them.

  And right now, Allison and I were the only visible meal.

  The gate’s mouth is open just wide enough for me to maneuver the car through. So I accelerated, smashing off the side mirror.

  “Where are we going?”

  “My ex-wife’s. I want my kids.”

  She didn’t ask. But we’re both thinking it. My ex is just not going to hand over my kids. Thing is, I don’t give a shit if Julie does or not. I’m taking them. That simple. She and the geriatric boyfriend of hers, Douglas or Donald, or whatever, won’t be able to protect my kids.

  “Did any of them get the shot?”

  I cringed, a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. My ex’s boyfriend is so freaking old; no way he didn’t get the shot. And if he got one, then I’d bet Julie did, too.

  “Your kids?” Allison is looking straight ahead.

  I punched the dashboard with each word. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

  I sped down streetlight lit roads. It’s 10:48 PM.

  People are out, filling the sidewalks and streets.

  Adults. Kids.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d of said trick-or-treating started early.

  I turned on the radio.

  Static.

/>   I checked channels.

  Nothing.

  I went to AM and surfed until I found a hard-to-hear broadcast, like the D.J. was holding a hand over his microphone:

  “. . . the Mexican government is allowing Americans to cross the borders. Unaffected are allowed to cross the border. There’s a medical exam—if you’re deemed healthy, the Mexican army is letting people cross. But they are shooting the heads off anyone sick. That’s right. The Mexican military is shooting on-sight the obviously infected. Like I said, they are letting healthy Americans into their country. . .”

  Mexico. Made sense. They were too poor a country to have received any of the vaccinations created by America. Our president put up a concrete wall to keep Mexicans out of this country. What a double-edged sword. That same wall would now benefit the Mexicans, so they could keep Americans off their soil. Funny, and almost fitting, that Mexico is getting the last laugh.

  Two thousand miles away, awaits possible salvation.

  I glanced at the gauges. Full tank of gas. I shut the radio off.

  Chapter Eight

  The expressway would be the fastest way to my ex’s. For one, no traffic lights – not that I planned to stop for traffic lights. More importantly, I doubted people were walking on the expressways, not like they were walking on the other roads.

  “This happened fast,” Allison said. “I mean, like all at once. They like, just changed. About the only thing that tipped you off was the sickness, you know? Them getting sick.”

  I kept my eyes on the road. We made a left from West Main onto West Broad, and a left at the second light to the ramp that merged with I-490 W.

  “Chase, Chase, this isn’t happening. Not for real, right? It can’t be.”

  “Allison, I need you to stop talking.”

  “Their eyes. I saw their eyes. They glazed right over. Right then, you know, right there. They just – I saw them just go from brown to cloudy, and white. I saw it. It happened. But that’s my whole point—”

  “Allison. Please. I’m asking. Just, I need a minute here.”

  “—it can’t be happening. It seems like it is. It feels like it is. But it isn’t, right? It can’t—”