Mauser frowned. “You aren’t done until I say you’re done, asshole,” Mauser snarled. He gripped the front of Steele’s shirt and slapped him hard across the face.
Spittle flew from Steele’s mouth, and snot ran down his nose, his cheek stinging with fire. He made no move to defend himself. Mauser slapped him again.
“Now buck up. We need you out there. Our team needs you and, as much as I hate to say it, I need you.” Mauser looked at him desperately, trying to read his eyes, searching for any will that might be left in his squad mate, his friend, his brother.
Steele stared at him blankly.
Fire blazed in Mauser’s eyes. “You know what? Fuck you, man. I thought you were made of tougher shit than this. You got us all the way here just to give the fuck up now? If you want to die here, be my guest, but I won’t sit here and rot with you.” He released Steele, letting him fall against the bedroom wall.
Mauser stopped near the door and shook his head in disgust. “It’s not safe here. They’ll come for you and kill you.”
Steele didn’t respond. Why should I go on? Where was it written that I have to live if I have no reason to live? The infected will probably sniff me out and tear me apart just like that little boy and his father. I deserve death for letting innocents die on my watch.
“Go to Hell,” Mauser called back at him. Already there. Mauser went back downstairs with a dismissive wave. People argued down below, but he didn’t care. He had brought them far enough.
Jarl checked on him. He held a light weight Daniel Defense AR-15 carbine with red dot sights with a thirty-round mag locked in. Years ago, Mauser had three carbines built specifically for this type of end time scenario. One of their spare tactical vests covered Jarl’s torso, with six more mags hanging from it. Jarl looked every inch a warrior: fierce, hard and wary.
Jarl gazed down at him, an old pagan god judging the worthiness of the prostrated man below him. After a moment, he bent down, taking a silver chain from around his neck. A small metal hammer hung from its lowest point, the pendant so worn it appeared as an upside down T.
“This is, Mjölnir, symbol of Thor, Norse god of thunder,” Jarl said, holding the chain out in front of Steele. “In the Dark Ages, my people were forced to convert to Christianity. In secret, we still worshipped the old gods. You have been a good friend and a strong warrior. You have a long fight still ahead of you, and Valhalla will be your reward. I will see you at Ragnarok.” Smiling he resembled more of a bear than a man, and he draped the chain around Steele’s neck, patting his friend’s shoulder. “Die well,” he whispered, steel in his eyes, and he left Steele alone.
Steele looked up, tears in his eyes, and then laid his head back down. He had once been a warrior, a public servant and a rock in the winds of chaos. Now only his shell remained: no heart, no will and no life to live.
Downstairs the movement ceased, and the engine revved up, grew faint, disappearing altogether. Steele had resigned himself to his dire fate. For although he yet breathed, he had joined the dead.
JOSEPH
Mount Eden Emergency Operations Facility, VA
Joseph ran as fast as he could through the drab halls to the employee sleeping quarters. His shoes slapped the tile, and he gripped a corner wall to catch himself before he shoved open the dormitory doors. Too many people were crammed into the small space, making the air hot and stifled. People lay in single bunks in various states of sleep, or, if they were like Joseph, various states of insomnia.
It reminded him of an old black-and-white submarine film. The sailors were all packed inside a small metal tube, sweating and trying to scrape out some sort of life while any mistake could bring thousands of pounds of water pressure crashing down upon them. A mere oversight effectively turning the ship into a piece of crumpled metal. The Mount Eden facility was little more than a thinly plated U-boat, but instead of water destroying them, three hundred thousand diseased people awaited their chance. Even a single infected unleashed among them could enlist the whole bunker into the ranks of the dead. Joseph shuddered at the thought.
In the dark, he stumbled over someone’s backpack as he made his way to Dr. Williams’ bunk. They slept in rotations, much like being on a ship, and had been assigned bunks to share with two other people. He searched high and low from bunk to bunk for an old man with a ridiculous snow-white mustache.
Dr. Williams was the Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases at the CDC. He had been giving a presentation to Congress on bioterrorism when he got trapped in the D.C. area due to the outbreak of the virus. As a leading expert in the field of infectious diseases, his word sparkled like gold. He was shuttled to the Mount Eden facility immediately.
As a disease surveillance specialist, Joseph was far below him in the hierarchy of the organization. Dr. Williams was probably squinting through microscopes while I was running around in diapers. None of that really mattered now that their science team could be one of the only things standing between the human race and total extinction.
Joseph discovered the old man lying on his side in a bunk. He gently shook his shoulder. I don’t want to startle the old buzzard; he might croak with too much excitement. Dr. Williams opened his eyes and gasped, recognizing Joseph’s face. A small man with white, thinning hair, his upper lip was adorned with a wispy mustache that was usually reserved for cowboys and fine gentlemen from the Victorian Era. Slowly, he sat up in his bunk and put on his glasses.
“Joseph, it can’t possibly be time to switch sleep rotations. What’s wrong?”
Joseph could hardly contain himself. “Dr. Williams, sorry for waking you, but I just came across some information you have to see.”
Dr. Williams took his time getting out of the bunk, as old men tend to do when they wake up in the morning.
“Read this email,” Joseph insisted, pushing a paper into Dr. Williams hands.
“It can wait until we get to the lab,” Dr. Williams corrected, stretching his back. Joseph wanted to run back to the lab, so excited he could hardly stand it, but was forced to walk slowly beside the old doctor. He bounced from foot to foot until they finally reached his computer. The old doctor tenderly sat down at Joseph’s desk adjusting his glasses.
“It was sent two weeks ago from a former classmate of mine from the University of North Carolina.”
The old doctor skimmed the email. The look on the elder man’s face didn’t change. His eyes moved back and forth as he digested the information. Had he read it? This could be the biggest piece of the puzzle they’d found yet.
Finishing his digestion of the material, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Dr. Jackowski, this email is speculative at best. It is not worth a further second of our time.”
Joseph’s eyes bulged out of his head. What? He cannot be serious.
“Sir, with all due respect, this could possibly be patient zero; our needle in a haystack the size of New York. If we could get our hands on a live strain of the infantile virus we could produce a vaccine. We could save millions of lives and give ourselves a fighting chance.”
Joseph shoved the printout of the email into Dr. Williams’ hands. He coughed impatiently, glancing at the email again. “We don’t even know if this is the same virus,” he said, pointing at the print out. “See right here. While the patient exhibited violent tendencies as well as fever-like symptoms, Dr. Anderson mentions nothing of the reanimation of the patient, or any other information that would lead me to believe that this is anything other than common rabies or typhoid fever. When severely dehydrated or hallucinating during a fever-like state, patients can exhibit all these phenomena. In fact, it also says that the patient recovered from his condition, which is clearly not a possibility for the people outside this facility.”
While it might seem like a stretch, this was hardly something that could be passed over. At the very least it deserved a thorough investigation. How could a man of this genius, a man of such caliber, not see the connection? It had so much potential Joseph could taste
it.
The report stated that the patient had been to Africa.
Dr. Williams continued: “I don’t want you pursuing this false hope while we’re working here. It will distract you from your important research into finding a cure. There are many lives at stake here, and I need everyone on the same page.” He stood up and put a hand on Joseph’s shoulder.
Joseph leaned back. He wanted to strangle this old fool. You can’t cure this disease, he thought. You could only hope to contain it.
“You should get some rest, Joseph. By God we all need it,” Dr. Williams said, turning to leave.
“You know, you’re absolutely right. I shouldn’t waste our time on such a foolhardy patient case. I just need some sleep,” Joseph said convincingly. Inside he boiled in anger.
Dr. Williams looked him up and down, his eyes weighing the truthfulness of his words. “When we cure this, Joseph, we’ll be the saviors of mankind. We’ll win Nobel Prizes for sure.” The old man’s eyes twinkled with ambition.
“Now get some rest.” He patted Joseph on the shoulder again, an action Joseph was starting to despise - and he left the small research room.
Joseph leered his blank computer screen, his mind racing. Time was short; he had to get this right. Determined to pursue his lead, he hoped no one found out. Even if they did find out he wasn’t sure he would care. His fingers hammered away at the dusty keyboard.
STEELE
Fairfax, VA
Steele slept. He slept like there was no tomorrow, because for him there was no tomorrow. Having lost all sense of honor, duty and resolve, he sat crumpled in a pile of his own filth. He had no one left: no friends, no love, and he figured his family was most likely gone as well. But none of that mattered; they were all going to die anyway.
Thoughts of her flowed through his mind as waves fall onto a beach. Her smile, her emerald green eyes, and her sun-touched hair all rolled seamlessly into one. When he awoke, he didn’t know how long he had been there. Photos of Gwen stared down from the wall, dried blood covering the frames. Her smile accused him of her death. Her cheerful eyes blamed him for her torture. Every frame simultaneously reminded him of his past life and his current state of misery.
The blood caked on his skin dried into a crusty, flaky mess. It itched his skin, but he endured it. The distinct and putrid smell of decomposition settled upon the body of the infected and Gwen. Flies buzzed around the room, accelerating the process. They landed on his face and arms, biting him, but Steele refused to brush them away. He dozed in and out of consciousness, plagued by feverish dreams of Gwen and the infected.
Sometime that afternoon as the sun shone in underneath the shades, he could hear movement downstairs. Gwen’s body lay draped across this lap. They would die together like a tragic Shakespearian couple. He gazed at her brutalized face. It twitched in the dim light of the bedroom. Is she still alive?
He thought back to when he had shot his first deer as a child; how he imagined it was still breathing long after it had passed into the spirit world. As his father taught him how to field dress a deer, the buck’s eyes followed him. Steele couldn't escape its glassy gaze as if the former forest king judged him for partaking in its expiration.
Taking a dirty hand, he swept her sticky hair out of her face. She seems whiter than normal. The wiggling continued, and he felt sick as he discovered maggots eating through her flesh. He picked at them, brushing them off her face, but the more he brushed the more he discovered.
“Damn it, Gwen,” he whispered to her. “Why didn’t you wait for me? I’m so sorry. I should have come to you faster,” he stammered, tears of anger growing in the corners of his eyes. He gently set her body down next to him. Side by side until they die.
Footsteps resounded from the living room. They creeped and creaked on his hardwood floors, a deranged shuffling of infected feet. So they have finally sniffed me out. Well, at least it would be over soon and I can be at peace. Maybe my friends will shoot me in the head after I turn. Mauser has a good shot; it would be fitting if he did it. Aim true, old friend.
He wondered if there was a heaven, or if it was an endless darkness after death; a sense of fading into nothing. Maybe I will reincarnate into someone or something else, or perhaps I will go to Valhalla to fight all day and feast all night. The funny thing about people is that everyone thinks they know, but nobody actually does. Even the ones who think there is nothing afterwards can’t prove it. The only ones who know death, are the ones who have already passed, and the dead share no secrets.
People throughout the ages have made up countless different answers to reassure themselves that life wasn’t finite, but that is the only sure thing about life, that it eventually comes to an end. No matter how long you eked out an existence, you would meet the same fate as everyone before you, death.
Could this be the resurrection of the dead that the Bible spoke about? That’s pretty twisted if that’s what I’ve been singing and praying about at church all these years. Soon I will find out who’s right or wrong. Or perhaps I will just cease, learning nothing, and the mystery will die with yet another insignificant human being.
Stairs groaned, a warning call of an aging house, and alerted him of the imminent arrival of the intruders. Steele closed his eyes and lay still. There was no use struggling now. The hobbled footsteps entered the room and stopped. He waited for the searing pain of a ravenous human bite. Their canines would rip through his docile flesh.
Nothing.
A hushed whisper broke the tense air. “Mark...?”
Steele slowly opened his eyes. Gwen’s apparition stood six feet away from him, pointing his breach-barreled Mossberg directly at his head.
Wow, there is a God. And he is cruel. Steele felt he must have really messed up in life pretty bad to deserve this kind of ending.
“Is he one of them?” came a voice from the back. A man who looked suspect to Steele moved forward, his baseball bat ready to bash his head in.
“Wait!” she exclaimed.
The darker complected man stopped his forward progress, holding his bat high behind his head. His dark eyes were wide.
Shadowy Gwen passed him and used the serrated barrel of her gun to lift his forehead. Cold steel bit into his skin, and it shocked him like a cattle prod.
The steel is real. I can feel the steel.
He locked his eyes with her angelic face, “Gwen...” he croaked, his throat raw after days without water.
Kneeling down, she took his gore-covered head in her hands, and kissed him. She kissed him repeatedly, all over his face.
Suddenly realizing what she had done, she jerked her body away. “Are you bitten?” she asked.
“No,” was all he could muster in a gargled voice. He reached his arms around her. They felt heavy, like they were made with lead, but she felt warm and soft and real. This is real. She’s really here.
Tears of joy fell from his eyes, and her chest heaved as she gripped him tight. They were together once again. The world might be ending, but at least we are together. Isn’t that all I could ask for? To be with my true love while the world as we know it took a Titanic dip?
Gwen and her companion helped Steele to his feet. He was incredibly dehydrated, and they led him down the stairs.
Furtively, she peeked out the window while the man with the bat raided the pantry. He shoved canned goods of all descriptions into his backpack.
Gwen called back softly, “We should move now while the coast is clear.”
“I’m hurrying.” He picked up his pack and put a strong arm around Steele, basically lifting him by himself. They dragged him out the door into the sunlight.
After being in the shaded room for so long, the bright light stung Steele’s eyes, but he didn’t complain. The threesome limped their way over to a townhouse across the street. Closing the door, she bolted it gently as if she dared not make a sound. They slid a couch back into place, barricading the door. Steele leaned on the wall, exhausted from his meager effort. A woman
with dark brown hair came into the living room holding a .38 Special snubnosed revolver.
“Is he bit?” she asked.
Gwen held a finger to her scowling lips, and helped him down onto an old, weathered sofa. “Lindsay, this is my boyfriend, Mark.”
“He looks like hell. Where did you find him?” Lindsay said.
“We found him over at my place when we were searching for supplies. Get me some water and bandages, hurry.”
She stayed up with Steele all night tending his wounds. The next morning, he awoke and she was gone. Fear of her absence sent him into a fight or flight mode, but the sight of her belongings on the nightstand calmed him.
He crawled out of bed, and stretched his legs. Spare bed sheets covered the upper floor windows, preventing anyone or anything from seeing in. He inched a sheet back to get a view outside. A few people lumbered on the street. Bastards are out there in my neighborhood.
He let the sheet fall back in place. I must be in old man Benson’s place. Benson had been a widower recluse, only coming out of his house at odd times. Steele had always wondered what the inside of his place was like.
Based on the appearance of the guest room, Benson must have been an avid comic book collector. This is what he was doing. I wonder where he has all his video games stashed? The bookshelves were lined with hundreds of comics and graphic novels. Large framed posters of superheroes and other science fiction movies adorned the walls. The room was topped off with a three-foot model of the Millennium Falcon, which hung from the ceiling. Steele laughed to himself. When did the old man have time for a wife?
Gwen came in with two cups of coffee. Steele wondered how long the electricity supply would last before it blew out. It had to be only a matter of time before the grid collapsed without human intervention. He smiled broadly, exposing crow’s feet around his eyes that only appeared when he was truly happy. Gwen had his favorite shotgun slung across her back. There was nothing sexier than a woman with a gun.
End Time Page 27