Dead Fall

by Joseph Xand

  And now Keene was dead.

  And now Meyers was locked in the back of a police van, little more to the men who'd kidnapped her than a sex toy—a blow-up doll.

  It took awhile, but eventually, she remembered how to disconnect. How to bide her time and wait for an opportunity to present itself. She found her way back to the Somewhere Else.

  But now there was a new problem.

  Travers.

  As long as they were coming for her every day, they were leaving him alone. She could handle the abuse. She knew how. She knew Travers couldn't handle it. He wasn't as strong as she was. He knew nothing about the Somewhere Else.

  With Travers left alone, she was free to plan their escape. But today they'd taken him instead of her.

  Why? she wondered. What are they doing to him?

  Meyers had had a couple of escape plans in the works, but now she didn't know.

  Outside the barred window, a trio of corpses wobbled slowly through the McDonald's parking lot heading away from the convoy. The winds caught their moans and carried them back towards it. Even after all this time, the sound still sent chills up her spine.

  A few minutes later, the doors of the dry cleaners popped open. Murphy and Cadagon came out laughing and stumbling, not much more steady than the dead. They held one another up, each with a bottle in his hand.

  Behind them, Phillips and Fuller had Travers's arms draped over their shoulders. He seemed unconscious. His feet dragged behind them.

  And he was wearing a dress.

  They'd clothed him in a flowery, yellow blouse and a matching, loose-fitting skirt with a thick, pink sash wrapping his waist.

  She watched them come around to the back of the van. She backed up until she was pressed against the back wall, as far from the door as possible. She listened for the door being unlocked. When it opened, Cadagon smiled at her and offered her his bottle.

  "Want a drink, fuckmeat?"

  Meyers shook her head. Cadagon moved aside and Phillips and Fuller came into view. They turned around, leaned Travers backward into the van, then let him go. Travers fell back and thumped against the cold, steel floor. Then both of them climbed into the van, grabbed Travers's arms, and pulled him roughly the rest of the way in.

  Phillips looked at Meyers as they made their way back outside. "Just returning your girlfriend. Doesn't she look pretty?"

  Meyers moved to Travers and rested his head in her lap. His breathing was shallow, his face cut and bruised. She noticed blood on the back of the skirt and down his leg and knew he was probably bleeding from his anus.

  She looked at Phillips as he climbed back down onto the street and reached to shut the door.

  "What did you do to him?" she demanded to know.

  "Don't ask, don't tell, bitch," he said with a smile. His colleagues laughed as he closed the door and locked it.

  Meyers held Travers for a long time. Long after he regained consciousness. He cried into her lap and she never pressed him for details of what happened.

  She promised him if he could stay strong she would figure a way out of this. She was working on a plan if he could just manage a little longer.

  She was biding her time.

  And eventually, she would think of something.

  Interlude #2

  T HAD COWERED IN THE BUSHES below the first-floor window he'd just slipped out of. Since commandeering the Shoreline Hook Regional Medical Center, the CDC put many new safety precautions into place. One of them was that the windows of the patient rooms on the first floor had been secured—welded shut.

  However, a few days earlier Thad discovered the windows in the cafeteria, also on the first floor, to be fully functional. It was from one of these he decided to attempt his escape from quarantine.

  He was right in his assumption that leaving wouldn't be difficult; they weren't exactly on lockdown and held as prisoners. Security personnel weren't stationed in the hallways with machine guns.

  Yes, there was security inside and out, but it was there primarily to handle emergencies as they arose, such as recently-deceased patients reanimating and causing havoc. The guards outside were mostly there to keep people out; concerned family members, but also members of the press corps.

  Officers patrolled the parking lots—Thad had noticed them over the last few nights, rolling around in a security truck, the drivers shining a high-beam spotlight through the trees that lined the back of the hospital parking lot and between vehicles that hadn't moved in weeks—but only every couple of hours.

  Easily avoidable.

  Would there be consequences if Thad were caught trying to leave the hospital without permission? Probably. He was infected, after all, and highly contagious. The powers that be wouldn't want him out in the general public contaminating people.

  But what was the worst they could do to him were he caught trying to run? Bring him back inside? Keep a closer watch on him?

  They needed him too badly to keep him locked away in a prison cell somewhere.

  They need him.

  Thad pushed the thought aside and looked around the parking lot. Spotlights weren't dancing around in figure-eight patterns as was often stereotypically portrayed in prison-break films. Nor were there guards high aloft in lookout towers trained to gun down anyone attempting to flee.

  The few guards stationed outside, Thad knew, were likely lazing at the checkpoint that was hastily built at the hospital's sole entrance. The checkpoint was basically a small, mobile trailer where the guards spent most of their time. There was also tall, plastic barricades the guards could move aside anytime an ambulance arrives with new patients, which happened nearly every hour now, and often several ambulances at a time.

  There was a time when the rule was that when someone came onto hospital grounds, they weren't allowed to leave. That rule had applied to the EMTs who drove the ambulances as well. At one point, nearly the entire back parking lot was full of ambulances. There were more than a hundred EMTs walking the hospital floors, sleeping in waiting rooms, and demanding to be released.

  Eventually, someone higher up made the executive decision to let them do their jobs, though only when decked out in a full bio-hazard suit. Many of the EMTs were all too happy to get back out there and do their part in fighting the epidemic.

  Far too many others, after a few runs of picking up sick people, stopped coming back. Perhaps they were tired of feeling like a prisoner. Or maybe they got sick themselves. There weren't as many ambulances in the back lot as there used to be, but they still dominated it.

  But other than the EMTs, the rule still applied. No one was allowed to leave the hospital grounds once they waltzed onto it. Everyone was too scared of spreading the infection further.

  Thad knew the infection would spread regardless of the steps taken to prevent it.

  Which was why he was leaving.

  Thad looked up the wall of the five-story building looming over him. Even without lookout towers, a soldier could keep his eyes on the grounds from an upper floor window. Or the roof.

  Well, Thad would have to take the chance.

  He scuttled low along the wall, staying behind the bushes until he reached the corner of the hospital nearest one of the parking lanes with a long line of ambulances. Then with a deep breath and a mental count of three, he shot from behind the bushes and scurried underneath the first ambulance.

  He laid under the ambulance on his back, waiting for his pulse to steady and listening for the tell-tale signs that someone had spotted him—the scrambling of feet as soldiers bolted out the back entrance, a security van swerving around the building to give chase. But nothing happened.

  Finally, Thad flipped over on his stomach. Easier said than done, even considering how high the ambulances sat off the ground. Once he was on his stomach, he army-crawled out from under the ambulance and then under the next one in line.

  When he'd been planning his escape, realizing he'd need to leave via the woods behind the hospital, Thad had decided to crawl benea
th vehicles to the back of the lot and knew he could take advantage of the ambulances' high chassis.

  It would take awhile to manipulate the distance of the lot on his belly. It was nearly forty ambulances deep, with a few empty spaces among them. He crawled non-stop under four or five vehicles before he needed to stop and rest, his elbows and knees on fire.

  He wore a surgical smock over his clothes in an attempt to keep them clean, but some of the ambulances were in severe need of routine maintenance. They'd left puddles of either oil or antifreeze beneath them after sitting so long. Thad was sure the fluids had seeped through the smock to his clothes.

  Regardless, Thad continued moving between the brief rest breaks with little trouble. That is until he reached the fifth vehicle from the end of the row. It wasn't an ambulance. It was an average civilian vehicle, maybe smaller than most. And low to the ground. He knew he'd never slide under it.

  Thad slipped out from under the ambulance and leaned against the Miata while he tried to figure out what to do. He'd been at it for thirty minutes or so. The next patrol wouldn't be for some time. He pulled his knees up to his chest. They popped and groaned when he did. He rested his head against the passenger side door and closed his eyes, wondering for the hundredth time if he was doing the right thing.

  The first few days he'd worked with the CDC on the infection, they'd made some interesting discoveries, some of which seemed promising. But nothing got them any closer to a cure or a vaccine. Over much of the last week, they'd been spinning their wheels, experiencing one disappointment and setback after another. Then the President had given them a time ultimatum that they could never meet. Thad was certain of that.

  Am I really that certain?

  Of course, I am, he reassured himself.

  And if the infection couldn't be contained by the President's deadline, then the President goes public. And mass hysteria sets in.

  And then it is too late. Too late to gather everything necessary for long-term survival. Too late for Thad to make sure his daughter has what she needs.

  If just being around me doesn't kill her.

  He ignored that thought and looked up at the sky. It was a cloudless early morning, but few stars were visible due to the lights of nearby New York City. He wondered what it was like there now. Much of the city was locked down, the parts of it that were easily quarantined because they were accessible by bridge or tunnel.

  But the general public didn't know the extent of the quarantine.

  Reporters weren't being allowed in and satellite coverage for internet and cell usage was being blocked. Only The Bronx had escaped lock down completely since access to the borough was easy from any of a hundred different ways.

  But Thad knew serious discussions were taking place about cutting off access to all bridges across the Hudson, which would in effect quarantine all the New England states.

  Thad had seen it coming before those discussions began. Even before any part of New York City was closed off.

  Which is why he got his daughter and ex-wife out early.

  Thad sat up straight when he heard the hum of a security truck around the corner. He stood up slowly next to the ambulance and peered through the windows of the passenger side door and the windshield. The truck was driving slow, the portable spotlight trained on the trees beyond the lot.

  They were making their rounds early. Had he been spotted?

  Thad crouched back down and crawled on his hands and knees past the front of the car that had halted his progress. He moved quickly, then, laying back on the ground parallel to the next ambulance, rolled beneath it.

  There he stayed motionless, watching the truck's progression around the perimeter of the parking lot. Finally, the truck reached the end of the row of ambulances, turned the corner, and rolled within eight feet of Thad's head.

  Not once was the spotdlight beam turned towards the vehicles. It seemed to take forever, but eventually, the truck reached the end of the row, turned right again, and left the back parking lot in the same direction from which it had entered.

  Once it was gone, Thad laid still for a few moments more, eyes closed, breathing in and out, reaching again for the necessary stamina and courage to finish this.

  Courage? Was it heroic or valorous to retreat with your tail between your legs?

  Of course not, Thad told himself. But surely there is some valiance in knowing when you're beat. Surely.

  With a regretful shake of his head, Thad rolled onto his stomach again and army-crawled, faster this time, underneath the undercarriages of the last of the ambulances. Finally emerging at the end of the row, he again sat on his rump and leaned against a vehicle. The wooded area in front of him was sparse and shallow. He could easily see the lights of the convenience store on the other side of the copse of trees, as well as faintly hear the music playing over the store's outdoor speakers to entertain its gas-pumping patrons.

  Quickly, Thad moved towards the trees at a crouch, having to maneuver through a manicured flower bed of periwinkles, caladiums, day lilies, and Mexican feather grass before disappearing into the shadows of the woods.

  Even amid the darkness of the trees where he more than once tripped over vines, saplings, and tree roots and was scratched multiple times by thorns and limbs, he kept the lights of the store in front of him and emerged beneath its overhead lot lights at the back of the store in only about three minutes.

  The store was busy. Every gas pump was engaged and several cars waited in the wings for their chance. Every parking space was also filled, and customers moved in and out the front door (Thad could see the front door through the store's large glass windows) in a never-ending march. On this side of the building, both the men and women's bathrooms had a line next to the doors. Beyond the store's lot, lines of cars moved constantly down the road in both directions, even at this time of night.

  People were anxious.

  Thad briefly wondered how many people, whether those pumping gas, shopping inside, or driving past, were already infected.

  Thad scanned the parking spaces in the back of the store for his friend's, Michael's, car. When he didn't see it, he continued around the back to the other side of the store, then up to the front, and eventually back to where he started. Michael hadn't arrived yet, but he would soon. Traffic was worse than Thad had anticipated.

  He walked to the dumpster behind the store where an empty five-gallon bucket was flipped over and sat down on it. He examined the damage done to the medical smock from crawling beneath dozens of ambulances. Then he took it off carefully and tossed it in the dumpster. The clothes beneath were miraculously unscathed.

  He looked back towards the hospital. From here he could just make out lights in some of its upper floor windows, even through the trees.

  They shined like a beacon, reminding him there was still time to change his mind.

  * * * * *

  It was two hours after being attacked by Dr. Amata before Thad was able to continue the tour. CDC personnel gave him a head-to-toe check over to make sure he hadn't been bitten, then there was paperwork to fill out and reports to write detailing his side of what happened, protocols put in place anytime a staff member is attacked by one of the infected.

  Plus he was too shaken up to go on for awhile.

  When the tour did continue, Thad had enough questions that Jennifer decided to skip the second and third floors, where the sickest individuals were being cared for, and head straight for the top floor, that being where the bulk of the real research was happening.

  When the elevators opened on the fifth floor, Thad could hardly believe he was still in a hospital. People in bright yellow or orange biohazard suits dominated the bone-white environment, although it was obvious many of the staff here, mainly CDC employees, shared Dr. Amata's belief that the precautions were pointless. Most chose more casual clothing as opposed to the inhibiting plastic and rubber suits.

  Heavy plastic sheeting was taped to walls and ceilings with slits cut into them for people
to walk through, but most of the sheeting was in stages of collapse. The drab decor was interrupted occasionally with hints of pink or rust-colored stains on the wall—blood that someone had half-heartedly attempted to clean up.

  The deeper Thad moved into the unit, the more the floor resembled a medieval dungeon or a bad torture-porn movie. As he and Jennifer passed rooms, he would look in to see all sorts of horrific scenes in progress—researchers cutting into strapped-down patients who were still alive and in obvious distress, fighting against their bonds. In one room, other researchers slid scalpels beneath a woman's fingernails, apparently testing her threshold for pain (which was quite high, by Thad's estimation). In another room, a man's limbs had been separated from his torso, and Thad heard someone mention he would now attempt to remove the head without damaging the brain stem. In yet another, a man was having his eyes removed while he was still conscious.

  And everywhere they went was the horrible stench of death—the smell of bile and decay that constantly tugged at Thad's gag reflex.

  Thad was reminded of what Nazi doctors must have looked like experimenting on Jews.

  Jennifer walked slow but kept them moving in spite of Thad's intermittent desires to stop in for a closer look. Or to protest what he was seeing, forcing the researchers to stop.

  Finally, he said, "How is this legal?"

  "The President has made it clear that with our research here, we could circumvent the usual laws concerning the study of corpses," Jennifer responded.

  "But these aren't corpses. You said the top two floors were for research on the recently deceased. Autopsies. These are living, breathing human beings."

  "Living, but not breathing."

  "Jennifer…"

  "I know it's hard to believe, Thad. It was for me, too. But I'll show you."

  Were it not for the bacterial infection, the fifth floor of the Shoreline Hook Regional Medical Center would be a happy place. Just days ago, the entire floor was the hospital's labor and delivery department, housing the delivery area, the Mother/Baby recovery area, and the neo-natal intensive care unit.