The Hours

by Robert Barnard

  “No thanks,” Nolan said.

  Chloe was slightly annoyed that Nolan didn’t follow her, or offer her help. She recalled how little sleep he had the night before, working on Miss Nacarrato’s English paper. I’ve had the same day you’ve had, Nolan. I’m tired too.

  With a shrug, Chloe headed to the kitchen and checked her cupboards. Not much of anything, really. With her dad constantly working, and not having a car of her own, grocery shopping was a difficult chore to accomplish in the Whiteman household. She opened the freezer and found a frozen pizza inside. It could have been in there a year, but it didn’t matter. She was famished.

  The pizza was the cheap, microwave kind. The kind that cooks with gooey and rubbery cheese and a brick crust. Not really pizza as far as Chloe was concerned, but it was better than nothing. She unwrapped it, threw it in the microwave, and set a six-minute timer.

  Chloe leaned against her kitchen counter, looked out at her tiny yard beyond the window over the sink. A breeze blew through, rustling branches and leaves. Even though the sky was still overcast, the view was kind of pretty. She took a deep breath. The sight of her lawn swaying in the gentle wind relaxed her. While the microwave hummed beside her, she closed her eyes. When she opened them, a familiar face was standing in her yard.

  “Mrs. Hatfield,” Chloe said as she recognized her next door neighbor. Chloe waved through her window, but right away realized that something was wrong with her neighbor’s gait. She walked jaggedly, as if her knee joints were locked in place. Her head started to slant at a funny angle when she noticed Chloe in the window.

  Chloe gulped. It was the same awkward way that Alicia walked on the bus, the same way Max Baker’s dad looked outside of the cafeteria.

  Chloe felt something brush against her arm.

  “Pizza?” Nolan asked with a yawn.

  “You scared the hell out of me, Nolan.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Go back in the living room. Make sure the front door is locked and all the windows are closed, and wait. She sees us in here.”

  “Who?” Nolan leaned over the counter and looked out. He saw Chloe’s neighbor shambling through her backyard.

  “Wait in the living room,” Chloe repeated. She sprinted past Nolan and up her stairwell.

  Chloe rushed into her bedroom. Her socks slipped on the wooden floor and she almost fell over. She dropped to her knees beside her bed and fished a small metal box from under it. The box clicked open and revealed a small 9mm. Chloe pulled out her keys and unlocked a cable that ran through the barrel of the gun, then jumped to her feet. She could hear a sudden banging coming from the kitchen downstairs. Hurriedly, she went to her dresser and opened a drawer filled with socks and underwear. She dug through it and found a loaded, ten round clip under a pair of fuzzy socks. She jammed the magazine into the gun and racked the slide, causing a bullet to load into the firing chamber of the gun.

  Chloe came flying down the stairs and into the living room, where Nolan was still waiting. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Call 911,” Chloe said as she breezed back into the kitchen.

  Nolan followed her, picked up the kitchen phone, and dialed.

  Mrs. Hatfield’s mangled face was pressed hard against the window above the kitchen sink. She looked inside and screeched. Her eyes darted from Chloe, to Nolan, and back to Chloe.

  “It’s busy,” Nolan said.

  “So try again!” Chloe ordered.

  The figure outside howled and began beating at the window with a tightly clenched fist. With one hand, Mrs. Hatfield punched at the window, and with the other she pulled and tugged at the skin on her cheeks. After a chunk of flesh tore off in her fingers, Mrs. Hatfield howled again, and bashed her forehead into the window with such force that the glass began to splinter.

  “It’s still busy, I can’t get through.”

  “I don’t want to have to do this,” Chloe murmured. She drew the gun in front of her and pointed it at the window. “I can’t do this,” Chloe cried. “Alicia is already dead because of me, I can’t murder my neighbor.”

  “She’s not your neighbor anymore,” Nolan said. “You’ve watched the news all morning. She’s infected, she’s as good as dead.”

  “Jesus,” Chloe exclaimed, “I don’t see you volunteering to shoot her!”

  “She’s trying to kill us!” Nolan hollered.

  Chloe gestured as if she would hand her gun to Nolan. “You’re more than welcome to take care of this.”

  Nolan swallowed. “Let’s just wait in the living room. Maybe she’ll leave us alone if she can’t see us.”

  Chloe lowered her gun. “Sure Nolan, let’s try it your way.”

  Nolan and Chloe retreated to the living room. To both of their surprise, the commotion in the kitchen ceased after only a few short moments.

  “See?” Nolan said. “Should we go back and look?”

  “No,” Chloe said plainly. “We sit and wait, here.” The microwave in the kitchen dinged. Her pizza was finished cooking.

  The two sat tensely in the living room, silently. Nolan chalked up the uneasiness to the unwelcome visitor in the backyard, but for Chloe something much deeper was simmering beneath the surface. She and Nolan had been best friends for so long, and she really adored all of his quirks and shortcomings. But today, with the chips down, she felt as if she was seeing her friend for the first time. He was sheepish, weak. Not quick to act. Chloe figured that if it wasn’t for her, Nolan would be dead twice over by now. When she thought about it long enough, it wasn’t a problem that was exclusive to today.

  “Why didn’t you beat up Andy?” Chloe asked, breaking the silence of the room.

  Nolan thought about the green pickup out front, and the daring escape from Henderson High that Chloe orchestrated. “You had it under control—”

  “No. Not today.” Chloe crossed her legs. “When he and I started dating, why didn’t you beat him up? Weren’t you mad when you found out? I always pictured you hearing the news for the first time and punching him right in the mouth.”

  “Chloe, I—” Nolan stuttered.

  “You didn’t even care, you just went on with life like everything was the same and that it didn’t matter.”

  Nolan felt his body slump into the couch.

  “I don’t know why, Chlo’. I’m not a violent person, I guess? I probably didn’t hit Andy for the same reason you never hit Ashley Connolly. I thought we were, you know. Above that.”

  “You’re right,” Chloe said with a laugh. “I never hit Ashley Connolly. But when I found out about your little escapade with her on the football field, I cornered her in the girls bathroom and called her a fucking slut. I threw a notebook at her, Nolan.”

  “I never knew about that—”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Chloe groaned. “I sat in detention for a week.”

  “I thought you said you got caught cheating on Mr. DePierre’s chemistry midterm?”

  “I was never caught cheating. I was just too embarrassed to tell you what happened.”

  “Why are we talking about all of this?”

  “I don’t know, Nolan. Maybe I’m just wondering why even with the fucking world ending around us, you don’t really give a shit about me.”

  “Hey, that’s not—”

  “Have you even applied to college yet, Nolan? Did you care at all when Colorado State accepted me? Of course you didn’t. I was going to move half way across the country, and what—it was all right, right? Because you’d be living in your bedroom, smoking weed with David Kline and playing Xbox—”

  “That’s fucked up, Chloe, he’s dead now—”

  “Maybe that’s the best thing to have happened for you today.”

  Nolan jumped up from the couch. “Real classy, Chloe. That’s messed up, and I know you don’t mean that.”

  Chloe curled her legs towards her chest, wrapped her arms around her knees, and started rocking back and forth.

  “You were off with
your baseball player and his rich fucking parents, you seemed happy to me,” Nolan yelled, pacing the living room behind the couch. “Remember the winter ball? Unchained Melody?”

  “We were freshman, Nolan. You had braces. You smelled like grilled cheese. It’s been four years. Don’t pretend like this is all news to you, don’t act stupid. That night my dad came home early and caught us watching ‘The Evil Dead?’ After you left, I got a twenty-minute lecture that spiraled into him not wanting me to end up a beauty school drop out like my mom. He asked me if I knew how condoms worked, for Christ’s sake!” Chloe paused for a breath of air and to compose herself. “Everyone else could see it, Nolan. Just not you. It makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me, you know?”

  Nolan continued to pace the same three feet of floor behind Chloe’s couch. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  Chloe started to sniffle. “And that bastard Andy Kinney, Nolan. I never told you, I thought you knew…I thought everyone knew. I didn’t know who to talk about it with…he—”

  A thunderous crash from the front door interrupted Chloe, followed by a wicked howl and shriek. Chloe snapped forward and grabbed her pistol from where she left it on the coffee table. A pounding and beating at the door boomed through the living room. Through a narrow, stained window in the front door, Nolan could see Mrs. Hatfield’s contorted face thrashing forward.

  Chloe stood up with her gun in hand. “I’ve had enough of this.”

  Chloe raised the gun in front of her and gripped the handle firmly. A resounding burst of shots filled the small living room as the firearm blasted away at the door. After seven shots, the gun jammed.

  Chloe and Nolan’s ears filled with a shrill ringing from the gunfire. As it faded, the thumping sounds at the door continued.

  Chloe trembled. She fiddled with the gun and tried to unjam it. The pounding at the door became increasingly angry and violent. The door rattled in its frame.

  “It’s stuck,” Chloe grunted, pulling on the slide of the gun.

  The doorknob spun.

  “She’s going to get in!” Nolan exclaimed.

  “I know,” Chloe said irritably, turning towards Nolan. “But the fucking thing is stuck—”

  The gun fired, and for a short moment in time Nolan and Chloe looked at each other without expression. Eventually, Nolan’s face turned from blank to utter confusion. Chloe dropped the gun and ran towards Nolan. The senseless beating continued at the door.

  “Nolan,” Chloe cried, catching the straggly boy before he could pass out.

  “You…you shot me, Chloe,” Nolan said, grabbing at his shoulder with his hand. Immediately, his palm dampened from the warm blood seeping through his hoodie.

  “Nolan, I’m so sorry, just sit still,” Chloe said, and she dropped to the floor with him. Nolan’s face turned white, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

  Outside, the pounding at the door was as relentless as ever. To Chloe, it felt like her front door might burst open at any moment.

  Pound, pound, pound.

  SIXTEEN

  Dr. Paul Merrill sat alone in the hospital cafeteria, greedily chomping away at a turkey sandwich. The turkey—or, what he assumed was turkey—was rubbery and had a thin layer of film covering it. The mayonnaise was warm, the bread was dry and crumbly. Day old.

  Paul kept a field notebook within reach at all times as patients came into East Violet Memorial. As far as he knew, he was one of the first doctors in the country to work hands on with a virus that had caused so much devastation. He wanted to chronicle every minute of it.

  After spending most of his morning stuffed inside a hazmat suit, breathing recycled air, the cafeteria felt cavernous and lonely. Staff on the lower levels used a separate dining hall; his was designated only for those with high-level risks of exposure. Paul didn’t mind. The quiet allowed him to concentrate as he jotted down the morning’s events.

  The mysterious virus plaguing New York came to be called “EV1.” Paul first heard Thomas Litchfield, a CDC agent, toss the phrase around after he landed from Washington D.C.

  “What does it stand for?” the doctor asked, Litchfield’s helicopter blades still whirring atop East Violet Memorial.

  “Extinction Virus One,” Litchfield said, very matter-of-factly. “A global killer. The end of humanity.”

  Even with a one-hundred percent mortality rate, and symptoms that developed within moments of infection, Dr. Merrill found the “end of humanity” qualifier a bit macabre and hyperbolic. He also found it suspicious that Litchfield and the other CDC agents knew a great deal about a virus that was supposedly newly discovered and incredibly mysterious.

  As a virus alone, EV1 was truly terrifying. It had certainly contributed to endless mayhem, destruction, and death in and around New York. But as a global killer, Paul thought, the virus was extremely weak and inept.

  Tests concluded that the virus wasn’t air or waterborne. Its only mode of transmission was from person-to-person contact. A bite, a scratch, a kiss. Those who were infected moved slowly and unintelligently. Save for a failed quarantine or botched military response, Paul reasoned that it shouldn’t be difficult to stop the outbreak in its tracks. And, with reports indicating that EV1 had yet to be observed outside of New York, it seemed as if the military response was by and large successful.

  While the military response initiated, Paul’s most important objective was what he called “ethical containment.” Any one who came through the front doors of East Violet Memorial deserved humane treatment alongside their isolation. There were rumors spreading that some of the larger hospitals in New York—the ones still standing and accepting patients, at least—had begun an impromptu euthanasia service for those who showed symptoms of being EV1 positive.

  As far as Paul was concerned, that was unacceptable. His opinions on the subject were met with harsh criticism—from Agent Litchfield, from the nursing staff, and from the few other doctors that showed up for their shift. It was them, after all, that Paul was putting in harm’s way for the sake of ethical containment. What if we found a cure? Paul wondered. If it was his loved one, he would want them to be given the benefit of the doubt.

  Paul scanned his notes. So many patients, so many infected. The first was Marc Cooper. He came in the day before, complaining of confusion and muscle spasms.

  “Did your dad have a look at you?” Paul asked when Marc checked himself into the hospital the afternoon before. Paul knew Marc’s father, John Cooper, personally; John worked as a general surgeon at East Violet Memorial for many years, and for quite some time after that he had his own private practice in town.

  “I didn’t want to bother him,” Marc answered, tugging at his collar. “I was helping him with yard work…we were getting ready to have a family dinner tonight. Hell, Russell’s even coming, and he never has the time.”

  “You drove yourself here?” Paul asked.

  “Yeah,” Marc said with a groan. “You know how my dad gets. I didn’t want to interrupt the night.”

  Paul crossed his arms. Marc’s symptoms worried him. There would have to be a battery of tests to be sure, but Paul had a sneaking suspicion that Marc might test positive for rabies, or something worse.

  “I’ll need you to stay here while we figure this out. That won’t be a problem, yes?” Paul said, examining the young man.

  “Mom’s making her famous Cedar-Planked Salmon. You think I’m going to miss that over some bug? Can’t you just write me up for something good and let me go?”

  Paul sighed. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”

  Marc was Paul’s first EV1 positive patient. Paul stayed overnight in the hospital to observe Marc as the helpless soul transformed from man to monster. Through the night, and deep into the morning, more of the afflicted poured in.

  At 2:45 AM, Wednesday morning, a drunk college kid was checked in for observation. A couple of officers over in Riverside brought him in after a car accident. The cops identified him as Damian Palmer.<
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  Paul treated Damian personally for the lacerations on his right arm, after some of the nursing staff grew concerned for behavior he showed similar to Marc’s. Hallucinations. Dizziness. Nonsensical jabbering.

  A few hours after Damian was restrained and isolated, a car crash victim—Kelly Sweet—was brought in. From what Paul understood, she had crashed her car near Center Square. The cops that brought her in complained that she tried to bite them.

  Paul put Kelly on the same floor and wing as Damian and Marc. The nurses began to jokingly refer to the quarantined floor as “creep ward.” After Kelly’s arrival, Paul received a phone call from an unknown caller in Washington, D.C. The caller informed Paul that Center for Disease Control agents would soon be arriving at his hospital.

  Dizzied by his strange patients and the news of a CDC lockdown, Paul retired to his office. His respite was cut short when he was alerted of an attack in East Violet. A couple of officers named Jim Whiteman and Min Chow were attacked while on duty by persons suspected of being EV1 positive. Paul rode out to pick up the officers personally, anxious to see the virus in its earliest stages.

  When the three of them arrived back at the hospital, Paul ordered both Min and Jim to the creep ward—a term the doctor tried to avoid using—when positive and inconclusive test results came back for the officers. Min seemed hopelessly afflicted, but Paul held hope that the other officer, Jim, would make a full recovery.

  Soon after the two officers were restrained and treated, a young female was brought in. She was found exhibiting strange behavior outside of the East Violet Amtrak station. A college ID on her person identified her as Mia Naccarato.

  By the time of Mia’s arrival, the CDC had jury-rigged a blood panel that could test for EV1. As with most of the CDC’s actions, Paul found this curious—how could such a panel have been put together so quickly, and under such pressuring circumstances? The doctor found it even more bizarre that the blood panel was, essentially, a kit used for the detection of the early onset of the rabies virus.