Infection Z [Books 1-3]

by Chesla, Gary

  Larsen smiled to himself as he walked down the tunnel.

  Landry seemed to know everything that was going on and he didn’t appear like he was hiding anything.

  Larsen picked up his pace as he breathed a sigh of relief and felt the tension leaving his body.

  “With what has happened the last few days,” Larsen thought, “I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. Let it go, there are more than enough real problems to worry about.”

  Twenty minutes later, as Larsen passed the hospital, he decided to stop in and see Johnson.

  “Hearing that we have been letting our imaginations run away with us and that there aren’t any conspiracies going on behind our backs, should be good news to Johnson,” Larsen thought as he walked towards the entrance to the hospital.

  Inside the hospital, it was quieter than usual.

  Larsen tried not to think about it, his imagination had caused him enough problems over the last few days to go looking for any more conspiracies that didn’t exist.

  Larsen walked back the hallway that led to Johnson’s room, half expecting to hear Johnson complaining about still being in the hospital or about the food or something.

  But as he went further down the hallway, it became even quieter than out front.

  He glanced into the room before Johnson’s room as he walked by.

  The room was empty and the bed had been made up, empty and tight, just like it was straight out of the Air Force handbook.

  “I’m glad to see someone was able to get out of this place,” Larsen thought as he walked by.

  When he came to Johnson’s room, he was surprised to see the room was empty except for a nurse that was making the bed and resetting the monitors.

  Larsen walked into the room and glanced into the bathroom to see if Johnson was on the can.

  “He isn’t here,” the nurse said.

  “Did he get discharged early?” Larsen asked.

  The nurse looked uncomfortable, but finally answered.

  “No, he has been transferred,” she replied.

  “Transferred where?” Larsen asked. “This morning he told me he thought he was going to be released after the doctor removed his bandages and checked to be sure his nose was healing properly.”

  “The doctor said that Johnson was running a fever and was getting a strange look in his eyes, so he transferred him to room 319,” the nurse replied. “I’m sure it is just precautionary.”

  “He’s in isolation?” Larsen said, as the nightmarish images of seeing Bennet on the third floor flashed through his mind.

  “How long is he going to be up there?” Larsen asked.

  “Probably until his fever breaks,” the nurse grinned. “The doctor said we can’t take any chances with that virus around.”

  “I was hoping to talk to him,” Larsen said. “I was hoping to make him feel better about being stuck here in the hospital.”

  “If you like, you can leave him a note,” the nurse replied. “No one is allowed to go up to the third floor, but I can give it to his doctor when I see him.”

  Ah, sure,” Larsen replied, then took the paper and pen that the nurse was holding out.

  By now, Larsen’s imagination was going a million miles an hour as he thought about Johnson being up on the third floor with Bennet.

  He took the pen and wrote the first thing that came to his mind in order to keep the nurse from getting suspicious.

  He wrote, “Hang in there buddy, you will be out of here before you know it. See you soon, Larsen.”

  He handed the paper and pen back to the nurse.

  “I’m not much of a writer,” he said.

  “I’m sure just getting a message will make him feel better,” she replied.

  “Thanks,” Larsen said, turned and left the room.

  As he walked down the hallway, when he was sure he was alone, he ducked into the same stairwell he used to go up to Bennet’s room.

  “Shit!” Larsen said. “I have to be crazy to be doing this again. Why can’t I just accept the fact that Bennet and now Johnson got infected and are going to die like just about everyone else in the country. We are all going to die soon enough, it’s only a matter of time. Get the hell out of here and spend your time trying to find a way survive instead of getting your ass in trouble and spending your last days locked up in the brig.”

  But just like the last time Larsen was in this stairwell, if he was going to have any peace of mind, he had to know the answer for himself.

  Landry seemed open and sincere, but as Larsen thought it over, he wasn’t completely convinced.

  A thought kept nagging at the back of his mind.

  “How did Landry know that Bennet was dead?” Larsen thought. “I didn’t tell him that Bennet was dead. Did Landry know more than what he told me? If so, what was he hiding and why? Shit, here I go again.”

  Larsen began to climb the stairwell slowly as he talked to himself.

  “If Johnson has a fever and his eyes look funny,” he thought. “Then the nurse was telling the truth.”

  If that was what he found, he would leave and go back to his barracks and forget about it. At that point he felt he could accept it for what it was, as screwed up as it was, this was the life they were facing, that they were all facing together.

  Like Landry said, there was no conspiracy, just one big problem that they would be lucky to survive.

  Having made an agreement with himself, Larsen continued up the stairs until he came to the door that opened up onto the third floor.

  After looking through the small window, Larsen took a long breath and held his nose and pushed the door open about an inch and listened.

  When he felt it was quiet, he slid out into the hallway.

  He couldn’t hold his breath any longer, so he covered his nose with his arm and breathed into his sleeve.

  Even that didn’t help much and the strong odor of death that saturated the third floor made him gag.

  Larsen knew the room in front of him was 301, Bennet’s room, but he needed to know what direction to go to find Johnson’s room.

  As he started to move down the hall, so he could see the number on the next door, Larsen stopped and froze in his tracks.

  Loud footsteps were approaching from the hallway behind him.

  Larsen did the first thing that came to mind and quickly slipped into Bennet’s room, closed the door behind him and pressed his ear to the door to listen.

  The sound approached Bennet’s door and then slowly faded as the footsteps continued down the hallway.

  Larsen quickly pushed his nose back into his sleeve and took a breath, then spit out the bile that had risen into his throat.

  As he wiped his mouth, he heard a moan and quickly turned to look behind him.

  As he spotted the curtain that circled the bed in the room, Larsen realized that the sound had come from behind the curtain.

  “Bennet!” Larsen thought as he moved closer to the curtain.

  As he reached for the curtain, he remembered what he had seen the last time he opened the curtain, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to see that sight again.

  Curiosity, or just the need to know, made him pull back the curtain again anyhow.

  Larsen dropped his arm away from over his mouth as he gasped at what he now saw.

  Bennet’s head was strapped down to the bed to keep it from moving, but his milky white eyes darted around menacingly in his eye sockets.

  Bennet’s lower jaw was gone, having been surgically removed, for what purpose Larsen had no idea.

  Despite his head being strapped down and his lower jaw having been removed, Bennet gave every impression that he was still trying his best to bite Larsen.

  Even if Bennet’s head would not have been strapped down, there was little chance that Bennet could have actually attacked Larsen, his arms and legs had also been removed.

  The shoulders twitched as Larsen was sure that somewhere in whatever was left of Bennet’s brain, Bennet was trying to reac
h out with his phantom arms and grab him.

  Larsen stared down at Bennet’s body.

  The open wounds where they removed his jaw, arms and legs showed no signs of any attempt to stitch up or bandage the wounds.

  “What the hell are they doing to you?” Larsen whispered to himself. “You don’t seem to be in any pain, but I sure hope to hell that there isn’t any part of you left in there to know what has happened to you. My God, talk about a living nightmare.”

  Larsen stepped back and pulled the curtain closed as his mind turned back to finding Johnson.

  He hoped that this wouldn’t be what he found when he finally located Johnson.

  Larsen tried to shake off the image of Bennet as he moved over to the door and leaned his head against the door to listen.

  Finally, he opened the door and looked down both sides of the hallway.

  Larsen focused on the next door to the left and slipped out into the hallway and moved quickly over to the door.

  “Room 303,” Larsen said, “Johnson has to be down this way.”

  He moved slowly down the hall, listening to be sure he wouldn’t accidentally run into whoever was walking around out here before.

  Finally, Larsen arrived at room 319.

  He slipped inside and stared anxiously at the curtain that surrounded the bed in the room.

  Larsen could hear movement on the other side of the curtain, it sounded like a body struggling to move.

  It remined him of the sounds made by the limbless body of Bennet.

  “The image of an armless, legless Johnson straining to get out of his bed wasn’t a pretty sight as it flashed through his mind.

  Larsen was just about to pull back the curtain but stopped when he spotted Johnson’s chart hanging from the corner of the curtain.

  He grabbed the chart and began to scan the entries.

  According to the times recorded, Johnson had been here for two hours.

  Larsen looked at the body temperature entries for the last two hours.

  “They are all 98.6,” Larsen thought. “But the nurse said that Johnson had been running a fever and had a strange look in his eyes. That was why he had been sent to quarantine.”

  The entries from Bennet’s chart flashed through his mind and Larsen quickly looked to see if there was any record of Johnson receiving the virus shot that had appeared on Bennet’s chart a few hours after he was admitted to the hospital.

  Larsen breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t see any indication that Johnson had received that shot, but his sense of relief quickly disappeared when he glanced at the top of the chart.

  The chart was labeled, “Johnson: Control subject #17.”

  This made chills run down Larsen’s spine.

  He quickly looked at the time of the last entry, it was just a few minutes ago, the steps in the hallway that had Larsen hiding in Bennet’s room must have been the people that had just checked on Johnson.

  Another glance at the chart showed the entry times had just changed from thirty minutes between each entry to fifteen minutes.

  Just like it had been on Bennet’s chart, the entry times shortened right before Bennet had been given the virus shot.

  If Johnson hadn’t yet been given the virus shot, it would be happening very soon, maybe it would be done with the next entry in ten minutes.

  “Whatever I find, I need to look at Johnson now and get out of here in the next five minutes or I might end up in the next room,” Larsen thought as he let the chart go and reached for the curtain.

  He held his breath, not because of the smell, he had forgotten all about the smell the second he got a look at Bennet.

  He held his breath to steady his nerves.

  Then Larsen slowly pulled back the curtain.

  The first thing Larsen saw was Johnson’s naked body strapped down to the bed, his wrists and ankles were tied down and his mouth was gagged.

  Johnson must have heard the curtains being pulled back and his eyes opened and looked in Larsen’s direction.

  Larsen saw two clear blue eyes with the most pissed off look in them that he had ever seen.

  “Get me the hell out of here,” Johnson’s muffled voice mumbled through the gag.

  Larsen put a finger up to his mouth to signal Johnson the be quiet.

  “I’m going to take off your gag if you promise to be quiet and not try to bite me,” Larsen whispered.

  “Very funny,” Johnson mumbled.

  Larsen put his hand up to Johnson’s gag, watching cautiously to be sure he wasn’t going to try and bite his hand.

  When Johnson just sighed, Larsen grabbed each side of the gag, pulled it out of Johnson’s mouth and slid it down over his chin.

  “Before you say anything,” Larsen whispered, “Look me in the eyes.”

  “Why the hell do you want me to look you in the eyes?” Johnson growled in a low whisper.

  “Be quiet, I’m just making sure that your eyes are clear to be sure you aren’t infected,” Larsen replied.

  “Well I’ll tell you what, if I were infected, I know three sons of bitches who would be the first ones I’d eat,” Johnson growled. “Strap me down here naked and start poking and probing me like I was a damn lab rat.”

  “Shut the hell up for a minute, will you,” Larsen said. “Did they give you any shots?”

  “Not that I know of,” Johnson replied. “Will you untie me so I can get the hell out of here?”

  “Did they say anything about why they brought you up here?” Larsen asked.

  “All they did was tell me down in my room was to get undressed for a complete examination so I could be discharged,” Johnson growled. “As soon as I was undressed, three goons jumped me and strapped me to a gurney and brought me up here. They stuck me with a needle and took some blood samples, but they never said a word after that.”

  “When I stopped down at your room to visit, the nurse told me that you had been running a fever and had a strange look in your eyes,” Larsen said. “She said you were transferred here as a precaution until they could get your temperature down.”

  “Does this look like how you get rid of a fever?” Johnson growled. “Are you going to untie me or not?”

  “I’m going to untie you, but you need to shut up,” Larsen whispered. “According to your chart, I think they will be back in less than ten minutes, so we have to get moving but you need to be quiet.”

  Larsen pulled his pocket knife out of his pocket and cut the straps that were holding Johnson’s arms and legs down.

  Johnson sat up and looked around, “I need some clothes, I can’t go running around like this. Did you see where they put my clothes?”

  “No one would like for you to find your clothes more than me right now, but I don’t see them and we don’t have time to look for them,” Larsen said as he moved away from the bed and put his ear to the door to listen for footsteps out in the hall.

  “I think it’s clear, we have to go now,” Larsen said as he opened the door and look out into the hall. “We have to go down nine doors to the stairwell, so follow me.”

  Larsen slipped out into the hallway and Johnson hesitantly followed.

  They heard the first sounds of footsteps coming down the hall as they reached the stairwell.

  After they were both out of the hallway, Larsen quietly closed the door.

  Larsen started down the steps with Johnson close behind.

  “So far so good,” Johnson said, “but I can’t go running through the lobby like this.”

  “When we get down to the bottom, you wait under the steps and I’ll go find you something to wear,” Larsen replied, “but we need to do this before they discover you are missing, I figure we have less than five minutes so just be quiet and move.”

  It took then only a minute to reach the bottom of the stairwell.

  “Get back under the steps and don’t come out until I call you,” Larsen said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  With that, Larsen went out into
the hallway.

  He walked slowly down the hall and looked into each room as he walked.

  When he saw some guy sleeping in one of the rooms, Larsen walked into the room and looked inside the guy’s closet which was near the door to the room.

  Larsen grabbed the guy’s shirt and pants and quickly left the room and headed back to Johnson’s hiding place.

  As Larsen entered the stairwell, a low buzzing sound began to echo down the stairwell.

  “Johnson,” Larsen called out in a whisper.

  Johnson’s head appeared out from around the stairs.

  “I think they just discovered that you are missing,” Larsen said as he tossed the clothes at Johnson. “Put these on and let’s get moving.”

  Johnson had barely pulled his new pants up when the sound of running footsteps began echoing down the stairwell from above.

  Johnson quickly pulled the shirt over his head and looked at Larsen.

  Larsen signaled Johnson to follow him and they began walking down the hallway towards the back of the hospital.

  They had just reached the back exit, they heard the electronic lock buzz and click into the locked position.

  “The hospital must be on lockdown,” Larsen said. “We can’t get out this way.”

  “Now what?” Johnson asked nervously. “They are going to have MPs all over the hospital looking for me in a few minutes. Maybe we should find the janitor’s room or the laundry room and hide there?”

  “That would probably be one of the first places they would look,” Larsen replied as he looked around.

  “They will probably look everywhere until they find me,” Johnson’s worried sounding voice said.

  “There might be one place they won’t look,” Larsen replied, “Quick, follow me.”

  Johnson was surprised when Larsen slipped into Johnson’s old room.