HVZA (Book 1): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse

by Zimmermann, Linda

  Unfortunately, I had to break the news to seven people that they were infected beyond hope. In fact, I expected several of them to switch at any moment, and made sure I had a member of the security team close by. This was one thing I hadn’t planned—what to do with those poor people who were about to become our mortal enemies? Did we have the right to execute them? Should we use precious medicines and supplies to try to keep them comfortable until the end? Could we just let them leave to infect others and then start killing and eating people?

  Okay, so a couple of days earlier I had shot and killed human beings, so maybe I shouldn’t have had such a moral dilemma. But they had attacked my friends and even killed one of them, while these seven people were guilty of nothing more than being infected. These were not decisions I could make—I would not make them—so I asked The General to arrange a meeting with the medical staff.

  It was mid-afternoon when we all finally took a break for lunch. There were some heated discussions about “patient’s rights” versus “doing what was right for the survivors.” The one side advocated a kind of “catch and release” program of assessing the infected, then sending them on their way if they were beyond hope. The other side wanted “compassionate termination” for the worst cases. I didn’t know what I wanted, and as I was gathering my thoughts to speak there was a bloodcurdling scream and all kinds of commotion outside.

  There was panic and everyone was running in all directions. I pulled out my pistol, thinking we were under attack, but a security man ran over and said there “had been an incident with a patient” and they needed a doctor. We all followed him down toward the dock.

  A few security guards had a man pinned to the ground, while a few others stood around a woman who was face down with a pool of blood around her midsection. The woman was screaming in agony, while the man kept yelling, “I did it for you, baby! I did it for you!”

  “What the hell is going on here?” I shouted, bending down for a closer look at the devastating wounds in the woman’s lower back, then moving away so the surgeons could examine her.

  “I don’t know,” one of Cam’s men replied, looking pale and shaken. “We…we heard a scream…and found this guy chopping up this woman.”

  He pointed a few feet away to a bloody ax in the dirt. I recognized the woman as one of the hopelessly infected cases, and the man was her husband. If this was an attempt at a mercy killing, why do this to her?

  “What the fuck were you doing, you son of bitch?” I asked, dropping to one knee by the husband and not-too-gently grabbing his hair and yanking his head around to face me.

  “It was for her! I was trying to save her!” he cried, tears streaming down his face.

  “By hitting her with an ax? Are you fucking crazy?”

  “But it was the only way! We heard you say it would stop these parasites from killing her and turning her into a zombie!” he said as honestly and sanely as the situation allowed.

  “I said to do this? You’re out of your fucking mind!”

  “But we heard you! You told that nurse about the guy in the wheelchair!”

  I sank to the ground and got a cold, sick feeling in my gut. I had told my nurse about Smokin Rhodes and how his severed spinal column prevented the ZIPs from taking control. I didn’t even think about the fact that there were terminally infected patients in the room who could hear me. This man loved his wife so much, he used an ax to severe her spinal column not to kill her, but to save her!

  I let go of his hair and took two fistfuls of my own. How could I be so careless, so callous, so stupid? How could I not realize that these were desperate people who would do anything to save their loved ones.

  “It’s my fault,” I told the guards holding down the husband. “Let him go. Let him go.”

  They rushed the woman into the makeshift surgical ward, but the brutal blows of the ax had severed more than her spinal column. Despite the best efforts of both surgeons, the woman died about an hour later. Shortly after, the husband put a bullet in his own head.

  So much for the grand opening of the Truesdale Clinic.

  Tomorrow is Another Day: I spent the night alone on my boat with not one, but two Ambiens. Considering my size and intolerance to alcohol and drugs, that was about one and a half more pills than I should have taken. It wasn’t until Cam came along and threw my sorry ass in a cold shower and poured three cups of coffee and an amphetamine into me that I returned to the land of the conscious and coherent.

  I told him that I was done with the clinic, that I had caused enough harm playing doctor. At such moments of self-doubt, Cam had always threatened to take me over his knee and give me a sound spanking. This time he didn’t waste time threatening me—he just did it. I howled and cursed like a sailor, but he wouldn’t relent until I said, “I am Dr. Rebecca Truesdale, and I save lives” three times.

  The ruckus drew a security team, but Cam just gave them a sly wink and they went away snickering and imagining all manner of rough sex they assumed had just occurred. I really, really wanted to smack him, but my butt was sore enough already without provoking him further.

  In light of the “unfortunate incident”—the polite way of referring to the ax murder and suicide—the doctors had all agreed to offer euthanasia, but only to terminally infected and ill patients. (There would be no such provision for people who were just depressed or who had lost hope.) It was clear to everyone that desperately ill people would find a way to end their lives, and it could be done in a traumatic and messy way, or a calm and humane way. The six remaining infection cases that were all beyond hope, as well as two extremely painful, Stage 4 cancer patients, all chose a merciful death by lethal injection—but not by me! One of the paramedics—who had watched one by one as his entire family suffered and turn to zombies—volunteered to be our Angel of Death.

  A special tent was set up away from all the others. Soothing music was played, a real bed was brought over from Cornwall, and some fake flowers sat on a couple of folding trays. Cam told me it was all done up very nicely, but I refused to look for myself. Maybe I was being hypocritical with all the killing I had done, but I just didn’t have the stomach for these cold, clinical suicides, or the sobbing friends and family members who were saying goodbye for the last time. Or even worse, for those that didn’t have anyone to say goodbye to them.

  For all her many managerial and medical talents, I heard that this was where The General really excelled. She sat by the bedside of every patient to the end, and spoke words of comfort that were exactly what each person needed to hear. For the mother who was all alone and had already lost her parents, her husband, and four children, she talked about the joy of being reunited with her loving family.

  For the man who was about to leave this world and his wife of 52 years, she managed to get them both to happily recount their best moments together, and realize how blessed they had been to have each other for so long. The General clearly had a gift, but she had also had a lot of experience with dying soldiers shredded by roadside bombs—in fact, too much experience. If the paramedic was the Angel of Death, the stern and ruthlessly efficient General also turned out to be our Angel of Mercy. I hoped I could learn from them both.

  I also took the time to learn from all of the other doctors—yes, even the proctologist. I made the rounds to each one to soak up as much of their expertise as I could. I may have had a lot of book knowledge, but that never, ever, is a substitute for experience. While I could have spent all day with each one, I was once again most drawn to the surgeons. Even under such primitive conditions, they wielded their healing scalpels with remarkable skill. And they were both gracious enough to tell me why they were doing—and just as importantly, not doing—certain things.

  “You may think you know what you’re up against, with all your years of experience and high tech imaging and tests” the 50-ish female surgeon, Dr. Jill Simmons, told me, “but until you actually open someone up, you really don’t know shit.”

  Both surgeons actuall
y let me “get my hands dirty” in a few of the minor surgical cases, and the scalpel in my hand was steadier than I thought it would be. Once again, I underestimated my ability to focus when all the chips were on the table.

  “Doctor Truesdale,” The General said in a voice so loud and clear that I stood up at attention over the appendectomy I was observing. “I do believe you are AWOL from your post. We have surgeons to perform surgery. We have you to assess and treat the infected, do we not?”

  “Yes, sir, General,” I responded with a salute after I had peeled off my bloody gloves.

  I was very glad Cam had smacked some sense into me, because getting back to work was exactly what I needed. This may not make sense since I was battling the zombie infection parasites, but during those times that I was working, I actually forgot all about zombies and the death and destruction I had witnessed the past several months.

  And all the patients—even the very sick ones—repeatedly kept saying that this was the best they had felt in a long time. It was so good just to see people again, to talk, to laugh, and yes, to even to cry together. And the fact that they now knew there weren’t just people out there waiting to slit their throats for a can of beans, that there were actually people who cared and wanted to help, well, that just gave them the hope and courage to keep on going.

  Their thanks and kind words gave me hope, as well. As much of a nightmare as Day 1 had been at the Truesdale Clinic, Day 2 seemed to be one of promise. At the risk of sounding like Little Orphan Annie (who I could never stand), tomorrow is another day.

  Misery Loves Company: My initial thoughts about the clinic were that it would be open for a few hours one day, and that maybe a dozen people would show up. After we saw over three hundred people those first two days, and more were coming out of the woodwork every hour, we realized that we would be there for a while. And our concerns about having enough food and water for an extended stay soon vanished as everyone brought something as a form of payment.

  We didn’t ask for any type of compensation, but patients felt obligated to bring a couple of jars of their homemade jam, boxes of crackers, canned vegetables, chocolate bars (always welcome!), and even their homemade jerky from just about every animal you could imagine (but hopefully not dogs or cats!). Powdered milk and vitamins were especially welcomed, and we soon had a pediatric pantry and food storehouse which was predominantly used for malnourished patients.

  We also began collecting stories. A nurse had brought a large, blank book, and with a piece of masking tape and a Sharpie had entitled it, “Survivors Log: How I Avoided Being Eaten By Zombies.” I didn’t hear about it until the third day, and on a break I thumbed through it. And I thought I had it rough!

  For the most part, entries were not well written and they tended to ramble, but they all came from the heart and sent a chill up your spine. A few dozen entries were from people who had been on Manhattan when they blew the bridges and tunnels. What they had to do to survive and then cross the river was astonishing. One man had killed his zombie roommates with a fork. There were so many other zombies in his apartment building, he had to lower himself out the window with strips of bed sheets—eight floors! He then had to fight his way to the west side, where he swam across the cold river using a blow up doll as a flotation device.

  One woman hid in subway tunnels for weeks, eating raw rats and using nothing more than a board with some nails in it as a weapon. One 14-year-old kid used his “authentic” Lord of the Rings sword to slash his way out of midtown. He built a raft out of shipping pallet planks and managed to paddle his way north.

  The most chilling entry was anonymous. Someone admitted that they were trapped in their office building for over a month, and he subsisted by eating his co-workers who had committed suicide one by one, until he was the last.

  Other accounts from survivors throughout the Hudson Valley were equally harrowing. There was the nun who had kill several zombie nuns with gardening tools, then ran for her life and lived like an animal in the woods until some kind people took her in. There was the school teacher from Albany who had to lay motionless under a pile of corpses in the street for three days until the huge pack of zombies surrounding her had moved on. And there were countless terrifying tales of people forced to kill their own spouses, children, best friends, and neighbors. No one who had survived this long didn’t have some sort of blood on their hands.

  One clever entry was short and to the point, and summed up the experience of both writing and reading the entries: “Lost everyone I loved. See that you all have, too, so I don’t feel as bad. Misery does love company.”

  Chapter 14

  Phase 14: Never Turn your Back: The numbers of patients finally started to dwindle after five days, and we all decided to wrap things up two days before Thanksgiving. Even under these hellish circumstances, people still wanted to go home and spend that holiday with whatever was left of their family.

  Cam had been trying to persuade me to spend Thanksgiving with him at the compound. I was torn between going home and working, or giving myself a break, which I knew I needed. And frankly, I knew it would be depressing being alone at my house for the first time in my life, without my mother cooking a huge turkey. But I didn’t agree to go until he told me that Smokin would be there, and that he specifically said that he was “hoping the ass doctor” would join them. How could I resist such a charming invitation?

  There were many bittersweet farewells as the medical staff began to leave, as we all silently wondered if we would still be alive to do this again in the spring. Someone had written lists of everyone’s names and addresses, and we all took copies, joking that we would add them to our Christmas card lists.

  By noon, just about everyone had gone, and only a few boats lingered in the river. Cam wanted me to go straight to the compound with him, but I needed to take care of some things and get some clean clothes. Then he offered to “see me home,” but I told him this wasn’t high school and I would be fine. After I got the last of the medical supplies stowed on my boat, I decided to take one more look in all the buildings to make sure nothing important was being left behind.

  I was just about done when I heard an air horn offshore. I went to the stone terrace that had a commanding view to the south, and saw a small aluminum boat with an outboard motor sputtering toward the island. I found a towel and waved them toward the north end of the island where the dock was located. I then raced down to the dock to see what was the emergency.

  A man was steering the motor, and a woman was sitting on the bottom of the boat leaning against his legs. He was yelling for help, calling out for a doctor, and she was moaning in pain. It wasn’t until he was close enough to toss me a rope to tie up the boat that I saw that the woman was pregnant and in labor.

  “Are there any doctors left?” the man shouted.

  Just once, would someone please think I looked like a doctor!

  “I’m a doctor. How far apart are the contractions?”

  “Just a few minutes. But my wife’s in awful pain and she says something doesn’t feel right,” the man said, helping his wife out of the boat and then lifting her in his arms.

  “Take her up that path to the first building on the right. Let me grab some things from my boat and I’ll be right up.”

  Shit! Two hours earlier and there would have been an ob/gyn here. Twenty minutes ago and Cam and three of his men would have been here to help. Now I was all alone, with very little experience delivering babies. Once, in the ER, I had delivered a baby, but his head was already out by the time the mother arrived and it was more like playing catch than assisting a birth. I had almost done several other deliveries, waiting for doctors to return from dinner or their golf games, but in those cases they always managed to swoop in at the last minute to claim the honor and their large fees. As I ran up the hill, I tried to remember all the basic steps and what medications could and could not be administered.

  The woman was stretched back on a cot, moaning and huffing and puffi
ng, and straining to push. The husband was frantic, and started yelling at me to do something, anything! I pointed a threatening finger at him and in a low voice told him to calm the fuck down and hold it together for his wife’s sake.

  “Now, what’s your name, and what’s your wife’s name?” I asked, filling a syringe with a painkiller.

  “I’m George, and this is Anita. This is our first child. It’s been a rough pregnancy, really rough,” he replied more calmly, pulling up a chair and taking his wife’s hand.

  “I’m not surprised, under these circumstances,” I said, then spoke in a soothing tone. “Now Anita, you should start to feel some relief from the pain any second. I need to examine you now, okay?”

  She nodded her head in between a huff and a puff. She was at least nine or ten centimeters dilated, which meant it could happen at any moment. I told George to run back to my boat and get some clean towels, as only dirty linens had been left behind. I tried to keep telling Anita everything would be fine, that she would have a beautiful baby in her arms in no time, but I was unable to hide my concern when I examined her again and found that the baby’s foot had emerged.

  Goddamn it, a breech birth!

  “Anita, how far along are you in your pregnancy?”

  “Uh…almost…eight months,” she said in between heaving breaths.

  Breech births are more common in premature babies, I said to myself as I got up and paced the floor to clear my head and concentrate. Too late for external cephalic version. Could try internal podalic version, but that risks uterine rupture. But if there’s an umbilical cord prolapse, the baby’s brain isn’t getting enough oxygen.

  George returned as I was pacing and muttering to myself.