The driver’s side door of the cruiser flung open. Chloe slid behind the steering wheel, and the door slammed shut.
“It’s my dad,” Chloe said, and she held Jim’s wedding ring between her index finger and thumb. It gleamed beneath the police cruiser’s dome light.
“What do you mean?” Nolan asked.
“Something horrible has happened,” Chloe said. She sniffled. “I found this—I found—I found his wedding band…on his hand.”
“What do you mean?” Nolan asked, sounding panicked. “Where’s your dad? Where’s Jim?”
Chloe sobbed. “That was his truck, but he wasn’t in it. And this was on his hand but…but his hand…it wasn’t attached to him.”
Nolan said, “Jesus Christ.” He slapped the gate that separated him from the front of the vehicle, then turned his head. Outside, ferocious flames continued to consume the Grab-N-Go, but they had shrunk in size. The fire was dying down.
The snow was falling harder.
“Okay,” Nolan said. “Okay—okay…we have to get home. You have to call it quits. The weather is getting worse, the situation is getting out of hand, and we have nothing, Chloe, okay? We have nothing at home to get us through a bad snow storm, let alone an EV1 outbreak. Okay? We have a pantry full of cereal and granola bars, a fridge full of leftover takeout. We have to start thinking about ourselves, now.”
“Listen,” Hannah said. “No one’s calling it quits. My kid’s at home with my mom. You don’t see my running home with my tail between my legs. We’ll call it quits at shift change, and you better believe Chloe and me will be right back out here when we’re summoned again.”
“If you found your kid’s severed hand in an alley,” Nolan said, “I’d bet you’d be more interested in early retirement from the Cherry Valley Police Department.”
“Don’t even say such a thing, asshole,” Hannah said.
“Shut up,” Chloe said. “Both of you shut up. No one’s going home. No one’s doing anything. My dad’s out there, somewhere, and he’s hurt. He’s hurt badly.”
“Chloe,” Hannah said. “He lost his hand, be real—”
Chloe reeled back her hand, slapped Hannah square across the face. Hannah recoiled, brought a finger to her nose, felt the thin stream of blood that started to trickle from her nostril.
“How fucking dare you?” Hannah asked.
“How dare I? How dare I? How dare fucking you?” Chloe screamed.
“Both of you have to get ahold of yourselves,” Nolan said, plainly. “You’re cops for crying out loud. If you can’t keep it together, what chance do the rest of us have?”
Hannah laughed. “Oh? The clinical recluse is telling us to keep it together? That’s a riot, Nolan, really.”
Nolan shook his head in confusion.
Chloe bit her lip.
“Oh, what, you think I didn’t know?” Hannah said. She grabbed a napkin from a pouch on her belt and dabbed at the blood beneath her nose. “Chloe and I have been side by side for over six months now. She’s told me everything—the paranoia, the drug use, the inability to leave your bedroom. You’re a real winner, aren’t you champ? Apparently, when NYVO hit, you sat around a chemistry classroom at your high school, shitting in your pants. If it wasn’t for her dragging you out of there by the hair, you’d be dead.”
“Shut your mouth,” Chloe said.
Nolan leaned back in his seat. “You told her all of that, Chloe?”
“I told her about what happened to us in New York, sure. I told her about the weed, about how you’d been ditching class, but only because I was worried about you and needed advice. Because I thought she was a friend.” Chloe turned to Hannah. “I didn’t think you’d ever be so cruel, Han.”
Nolan shook his head. “How could you?”
Chloe huffed. “I love you, Nolan.”
“Let me out of the car.” Nolan tapped on the door. “Let me out!”
“I’m not letting you out,” Chloe said. “Are you insane?”
“I don’t want to be in here anymore,” Nolan said. “With either of you.”
“I’m not letting you out of the car, Nole.”
“Please,” Nolan said. “I don’t want to be a burden on you any longer. I’ll get to a bank, wire some money out to Arabella, and drive there. It’s where I always wanted to go. It’s where I always wanted to be.” He scanned the rear of the police car. “There’s a shotgun back here. I’m taking it with me.”
“Hey, idiot,” Hannah said. “There’s a travel ban in effect. You think you’re going to make it five minutes out of town?”
“I don’t care anymore,” Nolan said. “But both of you are losing your minds. And I want to be away from you as soon as possible. I’d rather take my chances in the cold. Now please—let me the fuck out of this car.”
Chloe took a long, deep breath. “This is insanity. Can we please, please, try to keep our heads together for two seconds. If the three of us can’t stay and work together, we’ll all be dead. Hannah—I’m sorry for slapping you.”
“I’m sorry for always assuming the worst,” Hannah said, flatly. “And I’m sorry for what I said about you, Nolan. She loves you. A lot. I hope you know that.”
Nolan crossed his arms. “I know. I love her, too.”
Chloe looked up into the rearview mirror of the cruiser, locked eyes with Nolan. They said more to one another in that brief moment of eye contact than they had all night.
“If my father’s hurt,” Chloe said, “then he’d hopefully be at a hospital, right? So let’s drive over to St. Joseph’s. That’s the closest emergency room to us. That’s where he’d know to go if he was hurt. It’s where an ambulance would take him if one picked him up around here. We’ll go, and Hannah—you can stay at the hospital. Wait for another cruiser to pick you up. I know you want to play by the book tonight. I know you just want to get home to your mom and kid sometime soon.”
Hannah nodded. “Yeah, Chlo’…yeah.”
“So then everyone’s agreeable with that plan?” Chloe said.
Nolan said: “Sure.”
Hannah said: “Yeah.”
“Okay,” Chloe said. “Good.”
She started the car, shifted it into drive. Just as she was about to drive forward, the interior of the cruiser illuminated blue and red.
“What is that?” Nolan said. “A cop pulling over another cop?”
Chloe said, “Sh.”
From behind their cruiser, a bullhorn squelched to life atop the Crown Victoria that pulled in behind them. There was a second of static and feedback, and then a thin, miserable sounding voice cried out from the speaker.
“Officer Whiteman and Officer Yates, please step out of your patrol car,” the voice behind them echoed.
Chloe turned to Hannah, still dabbing blood from beneath her nose, and asked: “Who the hell is that?”
Hannah sighed. “It sounds like Stanton.”
“That insufferable little prick from academy?”
Hannah laughed. “That’s the one. I told you, Chlo. They’ve been calling for you all night. They must have finally sent someone out to lasso us back to the corral.”
“Shit,” Chloe said. “We don’t have time for this. What should we do?”
“What options do we have?” Hannah said. “You want to try outrunning the cops? Let’s talk to him. Tell him what’s going on.”
Chloe stepped out of the car, first. She squinted her eyes, could hardly see Stanton sitting in his patrol car beneath the falling snow and strobing lights.
“Put your hands up, then fall to your knees, and lie flat on the ground,” Stanton said, over the bullhorn.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Chloe called back. “It’s freezing out here!”
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Whiteman,” Stanton called back.
Chloe took two small steps forward, waved her hand at Stanton, seated firmly behind the steering wheel. “Come out here,” she said. “It’s chilly, but we can talk—”
“On the fucking ground, Whiteman,” Stanton said.
“Okay, okay,” Chloe said. She did exactly as she was told. She held her hands up, dipped down to one knee, and then to the other. When she was kneeled on the ground, she slid forward, fell chest first onto the powdery snow. Her front chilled, her back warmed from the dying flames still engulfing the gas station.
“I’m going to catch pneumonia,” Chloe hollered.
“Shut up,” Stanton said. “Now Officer Yates, do the same.”
Hannah took a deep breath, said to Nolan: “This should be interesting.” Then, she opened the cruiser’s passenger door and stepped out.
“Hands straight in the f-f-fucking air,” Stanton ordered.
“You stuttering, Stanton?” Hannah hollered back. “No need to be nervous. Remember everything they taught us in academy?”
“Sh-sh-shut up,” Stanton said. “Who else is in the car with you?”
“No one,” Hannah said.
“I can see the outline of his head and shoulders, moron,” Stanton said.
“Nolan,” Hannah said. “Chloe’s boyfriend.”
“Great,” Stanton said. “Get down on the ground, same as Officer Whiteman.”
Nolan sat in the rear of the police cruiser, jittering.
What is happening?
There was no going back to the station. There just wasn’t. Chloe and Hannah were supposed to be on proactive patrol all night. There were emergencies popping up faster than the force could answer them. So why the constant insistence on them getting back to the station? It didn’t feel right to Nolan. It didn’t make sense.
Nolan’s hands turned icy cold, and he suspected it wasn’t just because of the plummeting temperature. For the second time that night, his gaze fell upon the shotgun clipped into the rear of the vehicle.
He picked it up from the clip, checked to see that it was loaded, and gave it one good pump.
He tried to forget what a terrible shot he was. Tried to ignore the countless times he’d trembled under the weight of anxiety before. I’ve let Chloe down so many times. Make it count. Make it count.
Nolan purged from his mind the many memories of freezing in the face of pressure. He’d had the consistency of, and been as useful as, a bowl of Jell-O during the NYVO event. Maybe he could turn it all around. Maybe he could be there for Chloe, instead of the other way around.
Maybe, for once, he could be the one that saved the day.
“Passenger,” Stanton called, over the bullhorn. “Exit the vehicle slowly and turn towards me.”
Nolan took a deep breath and pulled on the door handle beside him. It clicked open, and the door swung out. The shotgun was cold and heavy in his hands.
Stanton continued: “Both hands, high in the air—”
Nolan sprung from the back of the police cruiser. He pointed the shotgun towards Stanton’s car, and as soon as he did, Chloe started to scream.
“No, Nolan, don’t!” Chloe shouted.
Nolan swung the shotgun forward, and his right heel caught on a patch of ice. Before he could correct his aim, he squeezed the trigger of the shotgun once. The blast was deafening, the recoil was painful.
A spray of bullets missed their target—though, Nolan wasn’t even sure he had a target to begin with—and peppered the front fender of Stanton’s police cruiser. The front, driver’s side tire of the patrol car started to deflate. Something underneath the hood started to hiss.
“You motherfucker,” Stanton yelled, and he started to step out of the car. He was half stood, had his duty pistol trained on Nolan, was ready to fire.
Nolan pumped the shotgun one more time. This time, he brought the massive gun up to his shoulder, aimed more carefully.
Puh-pow.
The sound of the shotgun blast echoed over the darkened street. A second spray of bullets hit Stanton’s driver’s side door, shattered the window, pelted at his chest and arm and neck.
Stanton collapsed into his cruiser. A thick river of blood started to flow from his neck and chest, the areas of his upper body unprotected by a Kevlar shield.
The wounded officer flailed behind his steering wheel. He fumbled for his radio, tried to call for help, but his efforts were futile. He became more and more unaware of what he was doing, and as he clutched at the gaping wound beneath his neck, he stomped on the accelerator of the cruiser.
The engine of the vehicle roared.
“Get up,” Chloe shouted, and she rose to her feet. “Get up and get away from him!”
Nolan darted into the street and Chloe followed. Hannah started to follow her partner and her boyfriend, when Stanton—in all of his panicked confusion—slapped at the gear shift of his vehicle, knocked it into drive.
Stanton’s cruiser rocketed forward, a bat out of hell. It fishtailed across the slick parking lot of the Grab-N-Go and collided into Hannah at twenty-seven miles-per-hour.
Hannah tossed into the air, hit the windshield and hood of Stanton’s cruiser with a sickening thud.
Stanton drove across the parking lot before passing out and colliding into the side of a dumpster. Hannah toppled from the car limply, collapsed beside it.
Chloe came charging across the parking lot first, hollering. Nolan followed behind her as fast as he could.
Hannah groaned on the ground as falling flakes of snow kissed her face. The corner of her lips foamed red; her eyes rolled back and she began to twitch.
“Help me carry her back to my patrol car,” Chloe shouted.
Nolan stood, frozen with fear. “Isn’t that…bad? Isn’t it bad to move someone who’s just been injured?”
“Yes, Nolan,” Chloe said. “It’s awful. It’s the last thing we should do. But the goddamn fire department never showed up to the burning gas station behind us. Do you think an ambulance will ever come?”
Nolan nodded. “You’re right.”
“Grab her legs,” Chloe said. “I’ll get her arms.”
Hannah moaned, reached out and grabbed at Chloe’s neck. “My kid’s at home with my mom,” she mumbled. “Max. I gotta see my Max.”
“You will,” Chloe said, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. “Nolan and I are going to get you to St. Joseph’s before you know it. They’re going to take great care of you. And then, as soon as you’re feeling up to it, we’re going to bring your son to visit you.”
“Max,” Hannah coughed. “Promise me you’ll take care of Max.”
Where am I now? Where am I?
Jim rolled over onto his back, stared up at the inky dark sky above. Blustery trails of soft, white powder rained down on him.
He brought himself to his feet, took a careful evaluation of his surroundings. He was somewhere near the edge of town. Crane Hill, if he wasn’t mistaken. From where he stood, he had a decent enough vantage point over Cherry Valley. The Grab-N-Go was still on fire, but that wasn’t what was most concerning to him….
Cherry Valley looked absolutely serene compared to Denver, nestled far on the horizon. A glittering blanket of lights hovered over the city. Helicopters. Dozens of shafts of lights poured out of them, focused on the city below.
There were no fewer than ten different plumes of smoke rising from the city. Republic Plaza was entirely consumed by flame.
The ground rumbled, and a squadron of fighter jets roared above him, flew in formation towards the troubled city center far off in the distance.
It’s happening again, Jim thought. And it’s not just me, and it’s not just here. California. Texas. It’s happening in major urban centers, all at once. His eyes fell on the mangled stump at the end of his left arm. God help Nolan and Chloe.
He turned back towards the darkened road behind him. A sedan was parked haphazardly on the shoulder of the road. It’s hazard lights blinked. A chime inside of the car rang loudly, to alert its owner that the door had been left open and the headlights left on.
Who is the owner? Jim wondered, and as he stepped closer he noticed the slick trail of tar-like blood greased over the driv
er’s side window. I took it. I must have.
Jim stepped even closer. Seated in the passenger seat, lifelessly, was an older gentleman in a postal uniform. His face had been beaten, brutally. Chunks of flesh were missing from his left shoulder and arm.
I did this to him, Jim thought, and then I took his car.
Jim slumped into the driver’s seat and shut the door beside him; the corpse beside him shook from the force of it, opened its eyes and howled.
His eyes rolled back and forth. The white had turned to yellow. His skin had turned papery, flakey. The wounds that dotted his face and arm oozed a viscous black tar, and his mouth clicked open and shut.
“You’ve got no meal here,” Jim mumbled. “I’m as dead as you are.”
Jim sighed, leaned back in the driver’s seat, and heard a crinkle. He wrinkled his nose, then wedged his right hand—his only hand—between his back and the seat. He felt around, traced his fingers over a loose piece of paper. He plucked the paper out and examined it. The letters were a messy scribble, the paper had been smeared with blood. But still, he must have taken his time writing it, because the sentences were at least partially legible:
Jim Whiteman
Bit, two years prior. East Violet, New York
EV1 tests showed no sign of disease
I am certainly EV1 positive
I am responsible for the deaths of:
Sherri Gordon
Steven Holbrook
Khloe Scott
Erick Marshall
Please apologize to their loved ones
Please understand that I know not what I did
Please send Chloe and Nolan my love and
Please exterminate me
Jim folded the paper in his hand and sobbed. When he was finished crying, he folded it once more and stuffed it into the breast pocket of his windbreaker.
The corpse beside him moaned and clicked his teeth once more.
“You must be Erick,” Jim said, and he sobbed some more.
Erick opened his jaw wide. Some of his teeth were shattered, others were missing. They were scattered over his postal uniform and the interior of the car, had fallen out from the force of his mouth clicking open and shut so many times.
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