300 Minutes of Danger

by Jack Heath

  01:55He ignored her, which was probably good, since she wasn’t sure it was the truth. Behind them another window exploded in the heat. Broken glass rained down on the road.

  The firefighter squeezed between the crowd barriers and deposited Liliana on the ground. He cut through the shoulder straps of the vacuum with some kind of blade. Liliana gasped as the tension across her chest was released.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ the firefighter asked.

  Liliana nodded.

  01:30‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Just my feet,’ she said. ‘And my hands.’

  ‘OK.’ The firefighter pointed to one of the nearby ambulances. ‘The paramedics will check you out and clear you to go.’

  Go where? Liliana wondered. My home just went up in flames.

  ‘Liliana!’ a voice screamed.

  Liliana whirled out. ‘Mum! I—’

  00:45She didn’t have time to finish the sentence before she was swept into a hug. Her face was pressed against her mother’s chest, and she felt kisses rain down on the top of her head. She felt her father’s arms wrap around the two of them.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s OK.’

  Liliana closed her eyes as she was squashed between her parents, safe at last.

  00:00

  FLYRUS

  30:00 ‘Will this hurt?’ Tony asked.

  ‘What are you, five?’ Shane kicked a stone into the gutter and pumped his fist in the air as it disappeared into a stormwater drain. His skateboard was tucked casually under one arm.

  ‘A five-year-old wouldn’t think to ask,’ Tony said, determined not to be provoked. ‘Not until the needle came out. I just want to be prepared.’

  29:40‘They’ll tell you it feels like “a little pinch”,’ Shane said, ‘because that sounds nicer than saying it feels like getting stabbed in the arm.’

  ‘Thanks, Shane. You’ve been a big help.’

  ‘Of course, it feels a whole lot better than catching the flyrus.’

  ‘Which is why I’m getting the vaccine,’ Tony said.

  ‘Just imagine,’ Shane continued. ‘Coughing up your lungs while your eyeballs melt and your brains leak out your ears …’

  ‘The flyrus doesn’t do that.’

  ‘Yes it does. I heard it on the radio.’

  Tony’s parents worked at the hospital. He knew there were things they didn’t tell him because they thought he was too young, but they had explained the flyrus very thoroughly.

  ‘You’re making that up,’ he said.

  28:00‘Am not.’

  ‘Are too. Look, there’s the vaccination centre.’

  The vaccination centre was just a white shipping container on a semitrailer parked in the town square. Tony had asked his parents why hospitals weren’t immunising people, and his mum said the disease was too contagious. If everyone in the city went to the hospital to get their vaccinations, half of them would get infected just waiting in line.

  27:30The truck hadn’t opened its doors yet, but it was already surrounded by a crush of people. Tony swallowed. If just one of those people was already infected, the disease could ripple through the crowd.

  He wished his parents were here. But they were doctors, and they were needed at the hospital. He would just have to trust them when they had told him the infected would be easy to spot and avoid.

  The appearance of the first few patients—staggering groggily, blood around their lips—led some to announce that the zombie apocalypse had arrived. People had barricaded their doors and plastered their windows with newspaper. A cure had been developed quickly, but the vaccine took longer, and it felt like the whole country had gone insane.

  27:00‘Are you coming, or what?’ Shane demanded.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Tony followed him into the crowd.

  The queue wasn’t much of a queue. It was more like a winding family tree, splitting off in several directions with everyone glaring at one another. Everybody seemed to be waiting for everyone else to push in.

  Shane and Tony joined the back of the queue, or one branch of it, just in time to see the doors open. Tony got a brief glimpse of the inside of the shipping container—ultra-modern, ultra-sterile—before two people were hauled inside and the doors shut again.

  26:00‘How long do you think it takes?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Five minutes per person,’ Shane said. He spoke with absolute confidence, but Tony knew from experience that Shane often regarded his own guesses as facts. They were friends largely because their parents had gone to university together, and while Tony didn’t like Shane’s flaws, at least he was aware of them. He’d rather hang out with Shane than with the other kids at school, whose defects were unknown.

  25:30But maybe Shane was right. If so, it would only take them two—Tony did a quick headcount—or maybe three hours to reach the front of the line, have their jabs and get out of here. After that they would have their immunisation certificates and they could go back to doing normal things. School, basketball, trips to the shops. Those things weren’t allowed for people who hadn’t yet been treated with the vaccine. And Tony was getting the vaccine on day one. He was kind of looking forward to being the only one out and about. Sitting alone in the cinema, walking through a deserted supermarket …

  23:45‘This is pointless,’ Shane said. ‘Once everyone’s immunised, whoever designed the flyrus will just release a slightly different version of it. There goes our immunity. Until they’re caught, vaccinations are a waste of time.’

  23:30‘What makes you think anyone designed the flyrus?’ Tony asked.

  ‘It’s obvious. Swine flu could make the jump to humans naturally, because humans and pigs are really similar. You can even transplant a pig’s heart into a person. Bird flu works too—birds aren’t mammals, but they’re warm-blooded, like people. But flies are insects. There’s no way that the same virus should be able to infect us and them. Not unless it was engineered.’

  It was actually a pretty well-reasoned argument, by Shane’s standards.

  ‘But why would anyone do that?’

  ‘Lots of reasons. Maybe it’s an attack from another country. Maybe it’s environmentalists who want to wipe out humanity. Maybe—’

  23:00‘I don’t think environmentalists want humans to be extinct. They just want to make sure we still have somewhere to live in fifty years.’

  ‘That’s what they want you to think,’ Shane said. ‘But most environmental threats are human-made. What better way to protect nature than to …’

  Tony had stopped listening. He was watching a car on the nearby road. The presence of the car itself wasn’t unusual, although the outbreak had noticeably reduced traffic. But the car was moving erratically, swiping from side to side as though overtaking other drivers who weren’t there.

  ‘Do you see that?’ Tony said.

  ‘The question is, how quickly would the earth recover?’ Shane said, ignoring him. ‘I think after twenty years—’

  ‘Shane, look.’

  22:20The car was driving faster and faster. After a few erratic turns, it was facing the treatment truck and still accelerating. The engine howled as it mounted the curb.

  ‘Look out!’ Tony yelled. He grabbed Shane’s arm and pulled him away from the truck as the car zoomed towards it.

  SMASH! The sound hit Tony like a physical barrier as the car slammed into the side of the shipping container. The truck groaned like a hungry giant’s belly as it tipped, slowly at first but gaining speed as it overbalanced. The nearest people barely managed to get out from underneath as it crashed to the ground with a sound like a thunderclap.

  21:30No-one had been crushed, but the air filled with screams. Some people ran away from the toppled truck, others ran towards it. Shane was staring at the carnage with a mixture of fear and delight. He was always making up horror stories, perhaps because nothing interesting happened in his real life, and now one was unfolding right in front of him.

  20:50Tony pulled his arm. ‘Come on!’

&n
bsp; ‘Where to?’

  It seemed obvious to Tony. ‘To help the driver.’

  They ran around to the far side of the fallen truck. The car was resting a couple of metres away, having bounced back after the impact. The front half was crumpled like a chip packet. Frayed ribbons of rubber surrounded the blown-out tyres. The driver was slumped forwards into a bloodstained airbag.

  20:30Tony wrenched the door open. It came off its hinges and hit the ground with a thunk. Little cubes of shatterproof glass fell out of the window frame.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Tony asked. ‘Sir?’

  The driver didn’t respond.

  Tony reached past him to unbuckle his seatbelt. The airbag looked like a pillow but was surprisingly firm, like a leather ottoman. Eventually he found the seatbelt and hit the release button.

  19:40Immediately the driver fell sideways. Tony caught him and wheezed under his weight. He was so heavy that his lifeless arm swung into Tony’s chest with the force of a punch.

  ‘You want to give me a hand?’ he gasped.

  ‘Not really,’ Shane said.

  Tony lowered the unconscious man to the ground. His eyes were swollen shut with purple flesh. His face was smeared with blood.

  18:50Tony pressed his finger to the man’s slippery neck. He couldn’t find a pulse.

  ‘Tony,’ Shane said. ‘I don’t think you should touch him.’

  ‘His heart’s stopped,’ Tony said, rolling up his sleeves. ‘He needs CPR.’

  ‘He’s got the flyrus.’

  Tony froze. ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Look at the bruises around his eyes. Look at the way he was driving.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Tony said, trying to keep the doubt from his voice.

  Then the man coughed.

  18:20Hot blood splashed Tony’s face. He recoiled as the man coughed again, unleashing another spray of blood.

  It was a classic symptom of the flyrus.

  ‘No,’ Tony whispered.

  The man’s eyes opened a crack. They rolled to look at Tony and then they glazed over. When Tony moved, the eyes didn’t follow him. The driver was dead.

  Tony turned to see that Shane had already stepped back a few metres.

  ‘Don’t come any closer,’ Shane said.

  17:15Other people were coming around the side of the fallen truck. They stared at the gruesome scene—the crushed car, the dead body, Tony all covered in blood.

  ‘Shane,’ Tony said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Get back!’ Shane yelled at him.

  The bystanders looked from Shane to Tony.

  ‘He’s infected!’ a young woman yelled.

  A tall man swore and brandished an umbrella like a weapon. A heavy-set guy picked up one of the car’s fallen mirrors and held it up like a club. One by one, Tony watched the crowd turn into an angry mob.

  ‘I need to get to hospital,’ Tony said. ‘To get tested.’

  ‘Then go!’ shrieked a woman clutching a paving stone. ‘Get out of here!’

  16:30‘I’ll never make it on foot.’ The treatment was only effective if it was administered within twenty minutes of exposure. Tony was fifteen kilometres from the nearest hospital.

  ‘Not our problem,’ the man with the umbrella growled.

  To Tony’s horror, even Shane had picked up his skateboard and was wielding it like a baseball bat.

  ‘Shane,’ Tony said.

  ‘Get back,’ Shane said. ‘I mean it.’

  Tony didn’t move. ‘Please. I’ll never make it to hospital alone.’

  16:00Shane swung the skateboard at him.

  Tony was too shocked to even duck. The board hit him in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. He wrapped his arms around it so Shane couldn’t take another swing.

  15:40Shane let go of the board and stumbled back, perhaps realising how close he was to a potentially infected person. He turned and fled. So did the rest of the crowd. They ran as though Tony was a nuclear warhead.

  Tony stood in the deserted square, dazed. He couldn’t believe how quickly the people had become animals. How Shane had turned on him without a moment’s hesitation.

  He circled around the toppled semitrailer. Maybe the people inside could help him, or he could help them. But there didn’t seem to be a way in. The driver of the truck was nowhere to be seen.

  15:00Too late, Tony realised he was in another kind of danger. Whumpff. Smoke leaked out from under the bonnet of the crashed car. If the flames reached the petrol tank, it could explode.

  Tony ran. His heart felt like it would burst. The wind was freezing on his hot skin. After two blocks he collapsed, exhausted.

  The streets were deserted. No cars, no pedestrians, no anything. The buses weren’t running. How could he get to the hospital to get tested?

  13:50He still had Shane’s skateboard. But he was at the bottom of a valley and the hospital was at the top of a hill. The board wouldn’t help much.

  He would have to call an ambulance to take him. But would it arrive in time? He whipped out his mobile and dialled emergency services.

  13:30The phone rang twice before a recorded message cut in. ‘All our operators are currently busy. Please stay on the line. All our operators are currently busy. Please …’

  13:00 Tony listened to the message, over and over, panic growing in his belly until he couldn’t take it anymore. How long would it take for someone to pick up? When they did, how long before the ambulance arrived? Add another five minutes to drive to the hospital, five minutes to get admitted, another five to get tested …

  An explosion of coughs bent his body in half. He hacked a gob of spit into the gutter and gasped for breath.

  It could have just been something caught in my throat, he thought. I often cough after I run. It’s not necessarily the flyrus.

  He opened the camera app in his phone and took a selfie. When the picture appeared on the screen, he gasped.

  Two dark rings encircled his eyes. He looked like he was wearing makeup.

  12:30A surge of bile rose up his throat. He choked it back down. There was no need to get the test. He definitely had the flyrus. And if he wasn’t treated soon, he would die a horrible death.

  The call was still connected. ‘All our operators are currently busy. Please stay on the line.’

  The city must be full of sick people, or people who thought they were sick. There couldn’t possibly be enough ambulances for everybody. There weren’t even enough phone-line operators to talk to all the callers.

  The growl of approaching tyres echoed around the street. Tony turned to see a hatchback zooming towards him. He stepped out onto the road, waving his arms eagerly.

  12:00‘Hey!’ he yelled. ‘I need help!’

  The car slowed. The side window rolled down, revealing the driver—a young woman with thick glasses and a neck tattoo.

  The driver looked at the blood on Tony’s face and the dark circles around his eyes. Her mouth fell open. She swerved around him and sped up, rocketing away out of sight.

  11:30Tony felt tears sting the corners of his eyes. No-one would help him. No-one was willing to even be near him. He was going to die alone.

  The recorded message was still going. Surely it was too late now—even if someone picked up the phone and sent an ambulance there was no way it would arrive in time to save him.

  11:20He hung up and called his mum.

  ‘Hi, you’ve called Dana,’ her voicemail said. ‘I can’t come to the phone right now, but—’

  Tony ended the call and tried his dad instead.

  ‘I’m unable to take your call at the moment,’ his father’s voice said, ‘but if you leave your name, number and a brief message, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’

  They would both be flat out at the hospital.

  10:50‘Dad,’ Tony said. ‘Something happened on my way to get vaccinated. An accident. I think I have the flyrus. I’m really sorry.’ His voice wobbled. ‘If I don’t make it, I just want you to k
now that I love you and Mum, and thank you for everything, and take care of each other. I had a good life, and I know I was lucky to have parents like you.’

  He couldn’t think of anything else to say so he hung up. Tears streaming down his face, he called Mum again just so he could listen to her voice on the answering machine.

  10:05‘Hi, you’ve called Dana. I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message, I’ll call you right back.’

  Tony was about to leave his mum a message when he heard it.

  A siren.

  09:55Could be police. Could be a fire truck.

  Could be an ambulance. With a life-threatening illness sweeping the city, that was the most likely.

  He started running towards the source of the noise. It was downhill, so he jumped on Shane’s skateboard. He rolled down the empty road, keeping one foot on the board and pounding the concrete with the other for extra speed. Soon he was racing through an alley at a reckless pace, swerving around skip bins and abandoned shopping trolleys, the wind buffeting his hair as he struggled to stay balanced. It would be ironic if in his desperation to get help he fell off the skateboard and broke his neck.

  08:00He burst out of the alley onto a main street just in time to see an ambulance appear at the far end. It turned towards him, siren howling, and hurtled closer and closer.

  ‘Hey!’ Tony shouted, waving his arms. ‘I need help! Hey!’

  07:45The ambulance must have had a more urgent mission. It ignored him completely, accelerating up the street until Tony had to scoot backwards to avoid being crushed beneath the wheels.

  There was a fifty-fifty chance it was headed to the hospital.

  Those odds were good enough to be worth risking his life. So, as the ambulance swept past—

  07:00Tony grabbed hold of the tow bar.

  The sudden increase in speed nearly pulled his arm out of its socket. He crouched low, holding onto the skateboard with his other hand so it wasn’t pulled out from under him. The tiny wheels roared along the asphalt with a sound like a giant zipper being undone.

  06:55It had been hard to balance before, but that was nothing compared to now. The board fishtailed left and right under Tony’s feet. It was like trying to stand on an electric eel. Tiny flecks of black grit kicked up from under the ambulance’s tyres.