The Gordian Event: Book 1 (The Blue World Wars)

by Lee Deadkeys

  “We should take the sheet off so he can eat and drink,” Rhonda said when Rudy was done with the rope. He nodded agreement even though he figured Virg was beyond partaking of food and drink. On his way out, Rudy took the corner of the sheet and gently pulled it off. As soon as it was free, Virgil charged them. Rudy slammed the door and bolted it. The rope twanged taught and Virgil pitched forward, face first onto the hard floor. Undaunted, he began to spider-crawl toward the door. His nose and mouth poured blood, slicking the floor with it. Virgil slipped and crashed again and again like a grotesque flopping fish. Rhonda started to sob and covered her eyes with trembling hands. Rudy pulled her into the other room, away from the sight of her husband.

  Rudy didn’t remember falling asleep and was all the more disoriented when the ear shattering scream jerked him from his coma like slumber. Sitting bolt upright on the couch, he reached for his revolver on the coffee table. His sleep muddled head swiveled back and forth trying to locate the source of the scream, while his hand banged around blindly on the coffee table, upsetting half empty glasses and an ashtray. Jumping from the couch, Rudy found his Colt revolver tucked neatly in its holster.

  “Oh, God! No!” Rhonda screamed again. Rudy ran to the kitchen and found his sister staring in wide-eyed horror through the glass in the mudroom door. Virgil was throwing himself against the rope, arms out straight, bloody hands clawing at empty air. He’d been at his face again. His lips were a chewed disaster and his tongue hung by a shred through a hole where his right cheek used to be. The sight of him made Rudy want to scream until he couldn’t.

  “This is madness!” he said and drew his gun.

  Rhonda grabbed his arm as Rudy pulled the trigger. The shot went low, tearing out a silver dollar sized chunk of wood from the wall.

  “It’s Virgil, you… monster!” She screamed and slapped wildly at him. Rudy quickly holstered his revolver and grabbed her in a restricting embrace. She stopped struggling after a moment, her voice muffled as she cried against his shoulder, “It’s still my Virgil.”

  Rudy held her close and kissed the top of her head. He blinked away tears as he stared at his crazed brother-in-law… his friend. Face destroyed, nearly unrecognizable and chained up like a rabid dog. Finally, when he couldn’t bear the sight a minute more, he hugged his sister tighter and wept pitifully.

  Day 5,Evening

  Phoenix Baptist Hospital

  Frank couldn’t hear what his daughter and the woman he still thought of as his daughter-in-law were saying, but they said plenty with their gestures. Angel was delicately prodding at Jess’s bandaged arm, a look of concern on her face. Jess waved it off and roughly jabbed at it with her own finger. See, doesn’t even hurt.

  Angel grabbed Jess’s masochistic finger away and shook her head, No, no Jess. Don’t do that. They looked at each other for a moment and giggled quietly.

  He saw the old familiar bonds between the two rekindled and his heart hurt. By the grace of God, we are a family again. Angel had been what they both needed and he chastised himself, remembering the way he had reacted to the news that she’d resurfaced.

  We should have never let her go. He wished he could erase all the lost time, all the guilt for turning his back on a woman that had suffered just as much, if not more than he. After all, she had to witness Jacob’s murder and then, then there was the horror she herself had endured.

  His chest and hands hurt. His heart was beating too fast and his fists were clenched white. He forcibly moved his mind out of the past and looked again at the only family he had left. He made a silent vow to God and himself, I will kill anyone that tries to harm them.

  “They are good for each other,” Mason commented beside him, his words startling him from his thoughts. Frank nodded, swallowed hard and wiped at his eyes. Mason draped an arm around him. “I thought hospitals were supposed to be clean? Lot of dust in the air.” He winked at Frank.

  Frank shrugged his arm off and punched him lightly on the shoulder. Mason rubbed at his arm and then feigned a fighting stance.

  “Break it up you two,” Jess said. “Don’t make me come over there and break it up for you.”

  The men oohed in false terror and everyone laughed.

  “She is definitely back to her old self again,” Mason said, still chuckling.

  Frank lowered his voice, “Yeah, it’s good to see, too. I was starting to worry that all this… this,” he gestured around them and then to the hallway, “would be too much for her. I thought for a while there, she was going to crack, you know?”

  Mason nodded and turned slightly away from the two women. “Why do you think she seems fine now? I mean our situation hasn’t changed. In fact, in almost every conceivable way, it’s worse.”

  “It’s Angel.” Frank shrugged, “No disrespect to her, but Angel isn’t like Jess. She is the type that actually likes being cared for, looked after, protected. I’m not saying she’s weak or that there is something necessarily wrong with that, it’s just who she is. Jess isn’t that way. Jess is the sheepdog. Angel is the lamb. You take the lamb away and the sheepdog runs in circles trying to figure out what to do next.”

  Mason nodded, it made sense. “You’re a pretty smart guy, Frank.”

  Frank shrugged again. “I’ve had practice.” He looked at Mason, a peculiar expression on his face. “Takes a strong man to fit a woman like Jess.” Now Mason nodded and then looked at Jess. Frank liked what he saw in that look, liked it very much.

  “Gather round, people.” Frank had been so fixed on his little group that he’d almost forgotten about Sgt. Story. Sam, he corrected himself. They all moved over to where Sam stood looking out the second-story window. When they had gathered around, Sam pointed out the window.

  “See that van, the grey one? That’s my van. I figure we can all pack in there, easy. Get to the police station and find out what the hell is going on. The only problem we have is….”

  “Is getting to your van, waaaay down there, with God knows how many of those crazies between us and it,” Jess finished.

  Sam dropped his pointing hand, let out an irritated sigh and went on. “That is one obstacle I am working on.”

  Jess huffed, rolling her eyes, “Shit, there are other obstacles?”

  “Yes, a few,” Sam said, turning briskly from the window. “Look, are you going to bust my balls all day or are you….”

  “Shhh, listen.” It was Angel, her voice soft but urgent. “Do you hear that?”

  They all turned and looked at the barricaded door, their attention focused on listening for noise from the hall.

  Angel shook her head as she grasped Jess’s arm, “No, out there. Does that sound like a siren?”

  They heard it, faintly at first and then rising until at last they could see the flash of lights rounding a row of vehicles and heading straight for the hospital.

  “Oh no, look at that fool,” Jess said, standing on tip-toes with her head pressed to the window, looking down toward the ER entrance. A moment later the others saw it too. A man in a hospital gown, bare ass flexing, sprinted from the hospital and ran straight for the oncoming ambulance.

  “Does the driver see him?” Angel asked.

  As if to answer her question, the ambulance driver banked left, narrowly missing the running man. The change in direction put the ambulance on a collision course with a line of parked vehicles. The driver overcorrected, first one way and then back the other, the space between the wheels and the road growing with every error.

  A second gowned man ran from the hospital, his arms spread wide as if he intended to embrace the ambulance. Use the brake! Frank thought an instant before the van lost its fight for the road and toppled over. Sparks flew as it slid on its side like a red and white rocket.

  It bumped over the crazy man with the outstretched arms and disappeared under the awning. They heard the impact a moment before they felt the rumble underfoot. A tremor moved upward through the floors, the glass in the window buckled and crunched as a web-like pat
tern shot across its surface.

  “Will it blow up?” Jess asked as Sam moved a few steps toward the ruined window.

  “I don’t think s—” he began and was cut off as the ambulance exploded.

  Sam would be forever thankful that his body’s reaction was better than his mind’s as the shockwave moved up the front of the hospital, shattering windows as it went. His arms came up, shielding his face and eyes a fraction of a second before the glass hit him.

  The others had similar reactions, all except Chad. Maybe the pain medication had dulled his reaction time. Whatever the reason, Chad stared unflinchingly at the window; his eyes refusing even to blink as the blinding light pierced his cornea, followed by bits and splinters of safety glass.

  Sam felt the stinging impact hit his forearms and hands. Cautiously, he lowered his arms from his face, careful not to dislodge any bits of glass from his short hair. “Christ!” he said and was about to ask if everyone was okay when Chad started to scream.

  They tried to restrain him, Frank going so far as to lay across the young man while the others tried to hold his arms down. Chad managed to get his bandaged hand free and raked it across his lost eyes. The bandage came away red.

  From outside the door they heard the hammering of fists and strange roaring of the people they had recently begun calling the Infected, the sound of Chad’s screaming maddening the throng.

  “Hold him!” Sam yelled, a pitcher of water poised over Chad’s eyes as he tried to pry them open. The others kept casting distracted glances at the barricaded door, allowing Chad to free his recently repinned arm. He lashed out, knocking the water from Sam and sending it flying.

  “We have to shut him up! He’s drawing them to us!” Mason said, and as if to prove his point, someone shouldered hard at the door, moving it and the barricade a few inches into the room. Angel screamed as dozens of fingers folded around the gap.

  Sam made a grab for Chad’s flailing hand, missed and took a backhand to the face. “Fuck this,” he said and punched the rookie in the head.

  Chad grunted, recovered and Sam hit him again. The last one did it—Chad slumped on the bed. Frank and Mason ran for the door.

  “Help them,” Angel pleaded, looking at Sam. He saw that Frank and Mason were being jostled as the infected shoved and pounded at the other side. The bed frames between them and the door made it extremely difficult to push against, the arms clawing through the gap made it impossible to close.

  Sam bolted across the room; reaching the door a second after a massive effort from the other side bounced the other two men from their positions. Sam hit the frames hard, the metal raking painfully into his hip but closing the gap by a few inches.

  He had a moment to wonder how many bodies were on the other side, forcing against the door, and realized that it could be hundreds. Frank and Mason were back a second later, they pushed, shoes squeaking on linoleum as they were forced back again.

  Angel screamed as an arm snaked around the ever-widening gap, blindly searching for something to grasp. The hand found a clump of Mason’s hair and clamped down. He yelled, grabbed the arm in both hands and slammed it against the door frame. They all heard the sickening snap, or thought they heard it over the hungry ravings from the hall.

  Jess was yelling something that Sam couldn’t hear and he risked a glance over his shoulder. The woman was stripping bed sheets off the discarded mattresses and tying them together. She yelled again at Angel, who blinked and ran for a nearby linen closet. She hesitated, swung the doors open and began tossing out sheets and blankets.

  After the tenth sheet lay in a pile at her feet, Jess yelled for her again. She stopped, folded sheet in hand and then gently laid it back on top of the other in the linen closet.

  Jess stood in the middle of the room, tying sheets together, then stepping on one and pulling the other up until the knot had tightened. Angel shook out semi-folded sheets and handed them to Jess. Five minutes later, she completed her make-shift rappel. She looked around the room as if to say, now what?

  Sam saw where this was going and wasn’t inspired with confidence. The only real anchor in the room was the rookie’s bed. Hopefully it was heavy and bulky enough to support their weight.

  “The bed! Use the bed!” Sam yelled. Jess nodded and began pulling and pushing the bed into position.

  The rookie’s head bobbled on the pillow and Sam had to push down a lump of painful guilt. If it weren’t for him, the rookie wouldn’t be in this situation. He’d probably be home, playing on that damn game system. He felt sick with the guilt and let the feeling settle in, let it get comfortable and put up its feet. After all, before things got better, they were sure to get worse. Much, much worse.

  Smoke from the wrecked ambulance began to billow up into the destroyed window, and with it, the noxious stench of burning rubber. Sam wondered hectically if the hospital’s oxygen supply was in a basement. He saw no tanks in the room, only fittings in the wall. He pictured tubes behind those walls. Tubes like tentacles, leading down to some dark abyss where they connected to a large green body. A body that was essentially a bomb.

  Would the fire melt through the tubing, eating its way to the tanks, or would the whole thing go at once? He didn’t know. What he did know is that they needed to get far away from here before the fire spread. Or the things in the hall finally forced their way in.

  “Lady, come here!” Sam yelled, gesturing for Angel to take his spot at the barricade. She looked dubious but came over. “When I move, those things will probably force the door open some more. It’s important that you do NOT freak out and run, OK? You just push as hard as you can.”

  She was shaking her head, no. There wasn’t time to coddle, “Just do it, or we’re all dead. Do you get me?” She didn’t respond but at least she ceased shaking her head.

  Sam moved fast, seizing the large metal food rack. It rolled easily half-way to the door. Bracing his foot against one of the wheels, he pushed. The food trolley tried to spin away so he lowered his grip and pushed with everything he had.

  It tipped, spilling trays as it did, then started to right itself. Pushing with one arm, he pulled at the lower shelf with the other, feeling his muscles tremble. Finally, the thing crashed to the floor, narrowly missing the two men and the lady.

  Jess was beside him in a flash, helping to push the heavy cart the last bit to brace the barricade.

  “Do you think those sheets will hold?” he asked her.

  “Absolutely,” she said, her face flushed with effort. “I saw it on a rerun of 'Mythbusters.'”

  Sam would later speculate on how they managed to escape; one at a time down a thread of fabric, dropping onto what was left of the metal awning and finally, the near ankle-shattering drop to the ground.

  Concentrating on everything that went right kept his mind from replaying the parts where everything had gone wrong. The part where Chad woke up just as Sam had thrown a leg over the windowsill. The part where those things had wormed through the barricade and tore at the blind, helpless man he had abandoned. And the worst part, when Chad had first screamed, then pleaded for him to help. With great effort he mostly managed to drive those thoughts from his head.

  Everything had changed. It wasn’t personal, it was only necessary. It was survival.

  Day 5, Night

  Indian School Road

  “This isn’t working! We have to get off the road and hole up someplace until we can figure out what to do next,” Frank said and was thrown against the wall of the van as Sam weaved through the vehicle-riddled street.

  “Where do you sug—Shit, hold on!” Sam cut the wheel to the left as a small car came speeding around some wreckage, barely missing them. The van leaned dangerously to the right, threatening to tip. Angel screamed as she was tossed into Frank. The van slowed, found its center balance and righted.

  “Are you trying to kill us?” Jess yelled from the back. Sam almost turned to make a retort, saw that the others had been tossed around pretty good, and de
cided against it.

  “It’s getting dark, we need to find shelter,” Mason said, his head pressed against the passenger window. “I suggest we head to my house, it’s close and there is some food. Besides, Jess brought most of her guns over there last night. And I have a bad feeling we’re going to need them.”

  This time Sam did turn. “Wait, you people have food and guns? Why the hell did you come out in this… this clusterfuck? Why go to the hospital?”

  “Try to keep up, OK? We got caught out in this shit storm, those things attacked us, clawed my arm to hell. We knew Angel was there and I needed medical attention. Why the hell were you out in it?”

  Sam shrugged, he didn’t want to talk about why he was there, especially since he’d just left his reason screaming and torn to shreds a few miles back. “I didn’t know any of this was going on. I thought something was going on but….” he trailed off, not wanting to say more.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Frank said. “We’re all here now and Mason is right, we should head to his place.” He looked at Sam. “I think you should let Mason drive, he knows the way and it’ll be a lot easier than trying to relay directions in this mess.”

  “Fine with me,” Sam said, stopped the van and moved to the back. Mason slid into the driver’s seat and Frank took the passenger.

  Sam settled in across from Angel. He was vaguely aware of an odor in the cramped area, an odor he had become accustomed to over the years at Wormwood; blood. He looked at the women, searching for an injury when his eyes settled on the dark stain between Angel’s legs.

  “Ma’am, I don’t want to embarrass you, but I think you started your lady thing.”

  Angel looked down, clamped her legs together and covered the area with her hands. She started to cry softly. Jess moved beside her and placed a mostly clean oil-rag over Angel’s lap.

  “It’s not her lady thing, you dolt. She just had a….” Jess placed an arm around Angel’s shoulder, “a baby and she’s hemorrhaging.” Angel didn’t say anything, only continued her sad, soft weeping. Sam opened his mouth but before he could ask, Jess answered his question. “The baby didn’t make it, he was stillborn.”