Jim turned the ignition of the sedan, and the car purred to life.
“There’s no more running for us,” Jim said, and Erick craned his head back and groaned.
The sedan cruised down Crane Hill Road, then pointed in the direction of St. Joseph’s Hospital.
“Someone there can use me—can use my body—to understand why EV1 laid dormant in me for so long, to help prevent this nightmare from happening a third time,” Jim said, half to himself and half to Erick, as if the plagued individual could understand a single word he’d said.
Jim felt his vision blur, felt the hunger for flesh and blood start to boil deep within him one more time.
He sighed, said: “I just hope we can make it there.”
SEVENTEEN
Sergeant Fuller sat in his corner office at the Cherry Valley Police Station, still as a statue. He had just got off the phone with the Department of Defense for the last time that night. The hardwire had broken, and any further communication with the Capitol would now be impossible.
Their last communication offered this: The Steel Curtain had dropped nationwide, from coast to coast, from border to border. Confirmed cases of EV1 had appeared in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charlottesville, Orlando, Miami, Indianapolis, Green Bay, San Diego…the list went on and on and on.
The worst of NYVO lasted for forty-eight hours. But, for a military quarantine to be successful in so many areas simultaneously would require an abundance of resources and luck, more so than Fuller was convinced the government had.
The words of his contact at the DoD still rang in his ears: “We are facing total annihilation.”
The president, the supreme court, congress, the senate—it had all been moved deep underground, somewhere.
That was the last sentiment Fuller’s contact left him with before the line to the DoD would go dead indefinitely.
A knock at his office door interrupted Fuller’s trance. He snapped his head towards the front of the room, hollered: “Come in.”
Deputy Brighton, a short woman in her forties, poured into the room. “Figured you’d wanna know…dispatch has lost contact with Cadet Stanton for more than twenty minutes now.”
“Yeah,” Fuller said. “There’s a lot of that going around tonight. Any word from Officer Whiteman or Officer Yates?”
“Nope,” the woman said. “Figured you’d want to hear that, too,” she said, and she shuffled out of the door.
Fuller closed his eyes, stood at his desk, mumbled to himself: “Well, you know what they say. If you want to have something done right, do it yourself, and bring a gun.”
He strolled across his office to a locker on the wall facing him. He pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the locker, and opened it with a clink. Inside was a myriad of weapons: knives, guns, clips of ammo.
Fuller pulled a small pistol from the locker, stuffed it into an ankle holster, and attached the holster around the sock on his left leg. He grabbed a duffle bag from the bottom of the locker and stuffed as much ammo and guns into it as he could carry, then calmly walked out of his office.
The snaking hallways through the police station were filled with quiet murmurs and sobs. Word was leaking in about Denver. The fires, the military operations, the rioting and violence. Phone service was intermittent at best, nonexistent at worst. Officers lost contact with their loved ones in the city. News reports in the station were few and far between, and when they did come through over the break room television, they were bleak. Most information filtered in through the shortwave radios, and it said this: Denver was falling. Republic Plaza had collapsed. The streets were littered with walking corpses that violently attacked all those that stood in their way, and the odds of a successful military quarantine were growing slimmer by the second. EV1 outbreaks in Boulder, Aspen, and Colorado Springs had spread state resources thin.
Fuller kept his head low, reminded himself that what was happening in Colorado was also happening in nearly every other state in the union.
He hitched his duffel bag higher on his shoulder. It was so heavy, so over encumbered with weapons and rounds, that the strap dug deep into his flesh.
Surprisingly, no other officer in the building seemed to pay mind to his beeline for the front door of the station. That is, until he passed the dispatch room, where Deputy Brighton swung around in her office chair to catch the fleeing Sergeant.
“Hey,” Brighton called out. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to find Cadet Stanton,” Fuller said, not bothering to turn his gaze into the dispatch room. “Then I’m dragging Whiteman and Yates back here, if I have to pull them by their stupid little ponytails myself.”
Brighton laughed a little, nervous laugh. “We can’t have you out there, Sarge. Christ. Have you heard what’s happening in Denver? We need to keep all resources that are already here contained here. We’re setting up shelter for the overnight.”
Fuller stopped in his tracks. The front door of the station was clearly in his view, and their were few other officers around.
“Buzz me out,” Fuller said.
Brighton shook her head. “Sarge. I just can’t do that.” She reached for a switch on the front of her dispatch desk, went to click it—
“Don’t,” Fuller barked. “Don’t you fucking dare.” He raised his service pistol forward, held it trained on Brighton’s face. “Keep that door open so that I can get the fuck out of here, you groveling bitch.”
Brighton’s face turned ghost white. “Sa-sarge, why are you doing this?”
“Where was the last location Cadet Stanton radioed from?”
Brighton choked on her words. “The Grab-N-Go. On Green and Parkview.”
“Good,” Fuller said. “Hit the unlock switch. Now.”
Brighton shifted in her chair, nervously pressed a slim blue switch on her control panel. “It’s fine, Sarge. Go if you have to, then. It’s fine. It’s open.”
“Can I trust you won’t hit the lock switch as soon as I step forward? Can I trust you won’t reach for your duty pistol?”
Brighton shook in her seat. The air escaped her throat. She couldn’t nod, she couldn’t shake her head, she couldn’t summon a single word.
“Unfortunately,” Fuller whispered, “I was looking for a fast ‘yes.’” Fuller took a deep breath, then screamed: “Holy shit, Brighton’s infected! We have an infected officer in dispatch!” Then, he squeezed the trigger of his pistol nine times, and jogged to the front of the station.
Fuller was already climbing into his Ford Explorer by the time he heard the officers in the station begin to scream with horror. They must have walked in, found Brighton shot to hell, then panicked that EV1 could have wormed its way into their walls, could be making its way into their bloodstreams as they stood there….
He turned the key in the ignition of the vehicle, then barreled out the front of the station and towards the falling town below.
By the time Fuller made it to the Grab-N-Go, the flames had died down to embers, but the carnage of all that had gone on there was readily apparent. There were two squad cars spread across the parking lot. One was charred beyond recognition, with two equally burnt objects in the shape of human bodies beside it. The other car, however, was untouched by flame. On the rear bumper of the vehicle was the number: 0192.
The number assigned to Stanton’s patrol car.
Fuller parked his Explorer close to Stanton’s cruiser, then stepped out. He’d seen horrors in war and as an officer, but still, Stanton’s appearance shocked him. The cadet’s face was mashed beyond recognition, peppered by Nolan’s shotgun blast. Still, what was left of his eyes rolled back and forth, darted around his skull. His chin and jaw, which dangled now from the rest of his head by sinewy tendons and exposed muscle, clicked open and shut.
Somewhere between the time of his crash and the time of Fuller’s arrival, Stanton had contracted EV1.
“What the hell happened to you?” Fuller whispered.
Stanton spun his head around,
and his neck made an awful cracking sound. He clawed at the steering wheel in front of him, honked it, then outstretched his arms towards Fuller’s face. Whatever was left of him craved Fuller’s flesh, wanted nothing more than to beat the sergeant to death and feast on his still warm skin and organs.
“Not so fast,” Fuller said, and he took a step back. I’ve seen videos of this online. From NYVO. But it’s nothing like seeing it up close. Fuller covered his mouth. For one, you fucking reek.
“I’m sorry about this, bud,” Fuller said, and he raised his pistol—the same one he’d use to assassinate Brighton—and emptied the clip into Stanton’s head. He’d seen videos about that, too—that during NYVO, the only true way to destroy an infected individual was to pierce their brain.
Fuller snapped on a pair of latex gloves and opened the driver’s side door of Stanton’s cruiser. He pulled the cadet’s body out of the seat and tossed it onto the ground no different than how he’d toss away the wrapper of a fast food cheeseburger after he’d finished eating. Stanton hit the snowy pavement with a thud. There was nothing left of him above the neck. A gaping wound at the top of his spine poured gallons of black-tar-blood onto the concrete.
The sergeant leaned in, careful not to rub up against any of the bloodstained surfaces of Stanton’s patrol car. He grabbed Stanton’s laptop computer, yanked it from its surface, and leaned back out of the car.
Fuller set the laptop on the rear of the cruiser’s trunk, opened the lid, and moved the computer’s mouse over a file that contained all of Stanton’s dash-cam footage. Then, he hit play.
And there, he saw it all. He saw Stanton pull up to the Grab-N-Go and order Chloe and Hannah from the car. He saw him sit in his seat, weapon holstered, undefended, and all of the other mistakes that would ultimately cost him his life. He saw Chloe and Hannah lie on the ground, and then Nolan appear from the back of Chloe’s police cruiser, a darkened shadow. He saw Nolan fire the shots that killed Stanton, saw Stanton run over Hannah and crash, and saw Chloe and Nolan run to Hannah’s rescue.
And, when the video file had nearly reached completion, he heard the most important thing there was to hear: Chloe, screaming to her boyfriend that the two of them needed to “get Hannah to St. Joseph’s hospital, right away.”
Fuller laughed, then tossed the laptop to the ground, and thought: So, that’s where the bitch is.
The driveway in front of St. Joseph’s was crammed with parked ambulances when Chloe and Nolan drove up to it.
Hannah was lying in the back seat, shivering and groaning to herself, for the entire length of the twelve minute car ride between the Grab-N-Go and the hospital.
Chloe honked the horn of the cruiser eight times as she carefully pulled up onto the grassy median between the front of the emergency room and the hospital parking lot.
“No one’s coming out,” Chloe said. “No one’s fucking coming out.”
“I’ll go in,” Nolan said. He unhooked his seatbelt. “I’ll get help.”
Nolan jumped out of the police cruiser and raced up to the sliding glass doors of the hospital. He almost ran right into them; the automatic doors refused to open once he was near enough.
“Hello!” Nolan shouted. He jumped up and down in front of the doors, waved his hands from side to side. Still, the doors stayed shut.
“Anyone!” Nolan screamed. “Hello!”
There was no movement inside. The reception area was empty, the triage rooms were dark.
“Please,” Nolan said. “We need help!” He banged his palms on the glass repeatedly. They left greasy handprints up and down the door.
After several minutes had passed, and Nolan was just about to walk back to the cruiser defeated, a slim man appeared in the hallway far beyond the reception desk and the nurse’s station. The light above him flickered, casted him in shadow. Nolan wasn’t exactly sure when he’d appeared; it was as if one moment he wasn’t there, and the very next he was, as if he’d materialized out of thin air.
“A cop has been hurt,” Nolan shouted, and again he palmed at the glass.
The figure shambled further forward. Its feet were bent at awkward angles, it nearly tripped over itself with each step. It passed beneath a flickering fluorescent light, and the bald dome atop its head gleamed.
Nolan cupped his mouth, said: “Oh please, no. Please, please, no.”
Back in the patrol car, Chloe waited with Hannah, whose breath had shallowed and slowed.
“A doctor is coming for you any minute now,” Chloe said, and she jumped out of the front of the car and circled around to the rear. She opened the passenger door of the vehicle and knelt, so that she could be very close to Hannah.
“Chloe…” Hannah said. “You have to help…my mom. She can’t take care of Max…alone. Not with everything…that’s going…on.”
Chloe brushed the hair out of Hannah’s eyes, said: “Han, you’re going to see them soon. As soon as you’re wheeled in, Nolan and I will drive by your place to pick them up. We’ll bring them here to visit you. They’ll be safe. You can take care of them yourself.”
Hannah coughed. “Chloe,” she said, calmly. “I gotta go.”
“Go where?” Chloe begged. “You’re not going anywhere. You can’t. You can’t go. A doctor will be here soon.”
Hannah reached up, pressed a palm against Chloe’s face, and closed her eyes. “It’s better…there.”
“Better where?” Chloe panted. “Hannah, Han! Please, Hannah!”
Hannah relaxed where she lay, sprawled across the hard plastic seats of the rear of the patrol car. Her breathing ceased.
Chloe collapsed. Her knees dug into the snow dusted grass beneath her, and she started to sob.
At the entrance of the hospital, Nolan stood, frozen in fear. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. The figure before him shuffled closer towards the sliding glass doors. Where its left hand once was, was now nothing but a tattered stump. It’d been shot several times, and the entry wounds oozed thick, gunky tar. The lights flickered once more, and there was no mistaking who the figure was.
Jim Whiteman.
Nolan pressed his head against the cold glass of the sliding door and let out an awful cry.
“Nole…” Jim said, softly. “Is she okay? My Chloe?”
Nolan’s eyes shot open. “You can…you can talk?”
Jim nodded his head solemnly. The distance between him and Nolan was no more than a foot or so. The only thing between them was the thin, sliding glass door.
“She’s fine, Jim. It was her partner that was hurt.”
Jim sighed. “Thank God.”
“I’ll go get her,” Nolan said, and he pointed at the rows of abandoned ambulances and fire trucks parked behind him. “She’s just over in the parking lot, not far from here at all—”
“No,” Jim said. “There’s nothing in the world I want more than to see her one last time.” He pointed to himself. “But I’d hate for this to be her last memory of me.”
Nolan rubbed his eyes. “What happened, Jim?”
“I was bit in New York, Nolan. That fight on the lawn, remember? You and Chloe were inside…I was bit by an infected. At the hospital I tested negative for EV1. It’s apparent, now, that that was a mistake.”
“You’ve had it this whole time?” Nolan said.
Again, Jim nodded. “I was sick…a few times. Never wanted to bring it up. Never wanted to worry Chloe.” He extended his right hand—his only hand—and unlocked the sliding glass doors. He wedged his fingers between them, enough to pry them apart, and once they were loosened, pulled them open.
Nolan shuffled backwards so fast, he almost landed on his ass.
“Don’t get close,” Jim said. He jammed his hand into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and handed it to Nolan. “Take this,” Jim said. “Read it some other time. It’s my confession of everything I’ve done tonight.”
Nolan took the piece of paper, nervously stuffed it into his back pocket. “Jim,” Nolan said. “I re
ally—I really oughta get Chloe.”
“Stop,” Jim said, and he reached his hand behind his back, pulled a small pistol from his waistband and handed it to Nolan. Just like the note, Nolan accepted it.
“What’s this for?” Nolan asked.
“I got here,” Jim said, “hoping that someone might be able to help me.” He let out a long breath. “There’s no one left. The staff, the patients, the doctors. They’ve either jumped ship or turned into a walking corpse. Every floor, every hallway, every room…they’re bursting with them.”
The steel of the pistol felt cold in Nolan’s hands.
“You love her, right son?” Jim mumbled.
Nolan nodded.
Jim’s eyes swelled with grief. “Then do for her what I no longer can. That envelope I gave you? Now’s the right time.”
“It’s back at home—”
“Then drive there as fast as you can. Read it and run. Just run.” Jim took a step back. “But not before you do one final thing for me.”
Nolan looked down at the heavy gun in his hand, then shook his head.
“There’s no time. Don’t hesitate, don’t even think about it,” Jim said. He took a few more steps back. “As soon as you point it at me, I turn back into one of them, and every instinct in my body will be to kill you, do you understand?”
Nolan sobbed. “Okay, okay. I understand.”
“Are you ready?”
“I love you, Jim.”
Jim smiled. “Treat her like a queen, Nole.”
Nolan raised his hands. They jittered, and the handgun clutched between them swayed from side to side.
“Do it,” Jim screamed, and he unhinged his jaw as wide as he could, extended his flailing arms far out in front of him. His words turned to groans, and he stomped forward, a charging bull.
Nolan took one deep breath, and the gun steadied in his hands. He slid his finger over the trigger, and squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed….
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