The Hours

by Robert Barnard

Jim collapsed, motionless, onto the cool linoleum of the emergency room floor. Miraculously, the floor warmed, the walls of the hospital vanished, and the darkened sky turned bright. There was nothing but endless miles of bright green lawn under azure skies.

  He was home.

  He was back in East Violet.

  There was Chloe, swinging on her swing set, her golden braids bouncing in the summer sun.

  Not too high, Chloe…not too high…you’ll fall…off….

  Nolan stood in the doorway of the hospital, white as a ghost, frozen by fear and panic at what he’d done. It felt surreal, felt awful, it twisted knots deep down in his guts, and he wasn’t sure what to do first—to cry, or scream, or jump, or fall.

  In the hallway across from him, alerted by the deafening sound of gunshots, no less than a dozen victims of EV1 appeared. They shuffled out of stairwells and hospital bed, and walked towards the sound of gunfire, a sound which instinctively warned them of potential food.

  Hordes of them converged onto the emergency room floor. They pushed and clawed to get ahead of one another. Though they moved slowly, they moved purposefully.

  Dozens of sunken, yellowed eyes focused on Nolan. Jaws clicked open and shut. Arms flailed to and fro.

  Nolan pivoted on his feet and ran back to Chloe’s patrol car faster than he thought was humanly possible.

  Chloe was sitting in the grass, stroking Hannah’s hair, when she heard seven gunshots ring out.

  She froze, leaned back, thought of Nolan.

  She unholstered her pistol and stood, cried out: “Nolan?”

  There was no answer, but a moment later he appeared, weaving between parked ambulances and fire trucks. He came running down the grassy median between him and Chloe.

  “Nolan!” Chloe cried. “Nolan, what’s wrong?”

  “We have to go,” Nolan screamed. “The hospital is gone.”

  “What do you mean?” Chloe asked.

  “They’re dead, Chloe,” Nolan panted. “They’re all dead and gone. And any second now they’ll be spilling out into the parking lot, so let’s go.”

  “Hannah passed—”

  “Chloe,” Nolan said, and he pressed his palms on either side of her face. “There are dozens of them back there. More than we ever saw at one time in New York. Just in this area alone. We have to drive home, now. We have to pack. And we have to run.”

  “Run…where?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Nolan said.

  “What about my dad?” Chloe said. “He could be in there!”

  Nolan’s face froze. “Chloe, I don’t think so.”

  “What happened, Nolan? What happened?”

  “Chloe, he—he—he—”

  “Just spit it out, Nolan, what’s wrong? Where is he? Is he okay?”

  “He’s gone,” Nolan sputtered. “I’m sorry, Chloe. He’s gone.”

  Chloe started to jitter. “How do you know that, Nolan, how do you know that? What were those gunshots? How do you know, Nolan? How do you know? Nolan? No, Nolan…no, no, no, no.”

  Nolan wrapped his arms tightly around her. “I’ll explain everything to you,” he said. “Later. For now, you have to give me your car keys so that I can drive us out of here. You’re in total shock.”

  “Okay,” Chloe said. “Okay, okay, okay.” She fished a key fob from her front pocket, handed it to Nolan. “Drive us home, Nolan. I want to go home.”

  Nolan kissed her on the forehead, guided her towards the passenger side of the car. She was almost there, when the most unusual sound interrupted the still, quiet night air.

  The sound of applause.

  Nolan turned to his left. Parked across the lot was a giant Ford Explorer.

  Leaned against its front hood was Sergeant Fuller.

  Fuller raised his service pistol, aimed it over Nolan. “Quite the show, kid. Quite the show.” He grinned. “And Miss Whiteman, whew! Boy, is it hard to get ahold of you, or what?”

  Chloe shivered, said, “What do you want, sarge?”

  “My face on the one dollar bill,” Fuller said. “Hah! I heard that in a movie once. Never had the right time to use it.”

  “We’re leaving,” Nolan said. “Put the gun down—”

  Fuller fired a single shot. It pierced the ground just feet away from where Chloe and Nolan stood. A puff of snow and grass exploded from the mound of dirt where the bullet landed. The couple froze where they stood.

  “Cuff her,” Fuller said. “Or I kill you both, here and now.”

  Chloe pulled a pair of cuffs from a pouch on the front of her belt, then handed them to Nolan. “Just do whatever he fucking says,” she said.

  Chloe put her hands behind her back, and Nolan slid the cuffs over her slender wrists.

  “Nice and tight,” Fuller hollered. “Don’t want any funny business.”

  “They’re on,” Nolan said.

  “Good,” Fuller said. “Now grab a second pair from the uniform of our too-soon departed Officer Yates, and cuff yourself, too.”

  Nolan winced. He walked to the side of Chloe’s patrol car slowly, bent down, and reached inside over Hannah’s still body. He slid a hand into a pouch on her belt, half expected that Hannah would reach up and grab him. He pulled out the cuffs and slipped them over his left hand, and then his right.

  “Just dandy,” Fuller said, and he pointed at the fire trucks and ambulances parked in front of the hospital. In the spaces between them appeared infected after infected. “Now, the way I see it, you two can come with me—see what fine adventures I have in store for the three of us—or you can stay here, handcuffed and defenseless, against no less than, say, thirty or so of these EV1 creeps. What’s it gonna be?”

  Chloe felt ready to vomit. Nolan was more terrified than he’d been in his entire life. Still, the two picked one foot up in front of the next, and hurried towards Fuller’s Explorer.

  “That’s the option I would have picked,” Fuller said, and he let out a hearty chuckle. “Now, c’mon kids. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Dawn was fast approaching, but the night sky still hung inky, dark, and ominous.

  Chloe leaned her head against the rear passenger window of the Explorer, watched streetlights as they passed. Some sidewalks were empty. Others were littered with screaming, panicked citizens.

  Nolan sat in his seat, staring at Chloe. She looked so calm, considering the circumstances. It soon occurred to him that it wasn’t a calmness so much as it was a vacantness. She was overwhelmed by the loss of Jim, she was shocked at the sudden abduction by Sergeant Fuller. She was awake, but she wasn’t there…she was simply out of gas.

  She was as much a walking corpse as the plagued individuals roaming through the passing streets.

  And in the driver’s seat Fuller sat, humming gleefully, until at last he said: “Ya know, it was kind of fucked up, how you lied to me earlier.”

  Chloe sat still in her seat, croaked: “What?”

  “Back at your house,” Fuller said. “Earlier in the night. Remember? I asked whose sedan that was parked in front. You lied and said it was Nolan’s. I knew a Malibu was too frilly of a car for Nolan, even by his standards. So after you left, I ran the plate. It checked back to a rental company in New York. Some broad named Sherri Gordon rented it, drove it all the way out here.”

  Fuller laughed. “So, being the good detective I am, I step inside your home. You’d lied about Sherri Gordon’s car, so now I’m worried about the wellbeing of Sherri Gordon. I take a quick peek through your house, and boom! Who do I find dead, beaten to a fucking pulp, on the floor of your master bedroom? None other than—ta-da—Sherri Gordon! And that’s when I first had dispatch try to reach you on the radio. Do you know how long ago that was Chloe?”

  Chloe shook her head. “No.”

  “That was six and a half hours ago, Chloe. Six and a half hours. Why didn’t you just radio me back? We could have taken care of it. We could have worked it out.”

  “Hannah and I,�
�� Chloe said, her voice wavering, “were responding to emergencies as we found them. We were trying to be proactive. And, the whole while, we were looking for my…for my father.”

  Fuller shook his head. “I saw so much promise in you, the day I hired you. And your first official day on the job, you folded. You folded big.”

  “Where are you taking us?” Chloe asked.

  “You know,” Fuller said, his eyes glued to the road. “When NYVO happened, I was obsessed with it. I don’t think I turned off the news for a month. I thought—here’s this virus, right? And everyone who contracts it dies within twenty-three hours of getting sick. Twenty-three freaking hours. Like clockwork. Something like that doesn’t just appear in nature, right? Something like that…it has to be mechanical. Technological. Like…like, it was spread by nano-bots, or some wild shit like that. And then weeks go by, months go by, and it’s over. It’s all over. Like some invisible being flicked off a switch, said, ‘don’t worry, that’s the end of all those bloodthirsty plague victims.’ I knew better. I knew better than to believe that shit.”

  “Where are you going with all this, asshole?” Nolan said.

  Chloe kicked her foot at Nolan, shook her head. Obviously, Fuller had become unhinged. She didn’t want him provoked.

  “Where I’m going with all this, you cop-killing asshole,” Fuller said, and as the words left his mouth a flash of Deputy Brighton’s panicked face popped into his mind, “is that while everyone spent the past twenty-four months celebrating, I prepared. I built a bomb shelter like you would not believe. Well, actually, you will believe. Because that’s where we are headed.”

  “I…I didn’t mean to kill him,” Nolan said. “I only meant to scare him off. He was trying to abduct my girlfriend and her partner. Would you have done it differently?”

  “You know,” Fuller said, “I wouldn’t have. I might have sold you short, you little shit. You’ve got more pizazz than I initially gave you credit for. You’re gonna make a great gopher.”

  “A gopher?” Nolan asked.

  “Yeah,” Fuller said. “When I’m fucking Chloe in that sweet underground lair I spent the past two years building, you’ll be sent above ground for supplies and reconnaissance runs. ‘Nolan, go for this. Nolan, go for that.’ A gopher, get it? Hah! It’s pretty funny, man. What, you didn’t think I was going to kill you, did you? Healthy humans are fast becoming a commodity, my man.”

  The Ford Explorer bounced along the streets of Cherry Valley, its passengers sitting silently, save for Fuller’s occasional humming. The massive police cruiser hooked onto Crane Hill Road, and the houses became fewer and farther between. This was the more rural area of Cherry Valley, where half finished sub-divisions and the occasional farm were the only things that broke up the miles of pine and spruce trees.

  When at last the Explorer parked in front of a desolate Victorian on the outskirts of town, Fuller again opened his mouth. “It’s safe here,” he said. “I know you both hate me right now, but I really think we’re going to grow to love one another, and grow to love our living arrangements. What would you have done if not for me?”

  Fuller led Chloe and Nolan out the back of the Explorer at gunpoint and towards the lonely, darkened clapboard home that sat in the center of his property. Surrounding the home was a seven foot tall fence. On either side of the structure were gardens.

  Fuller’s house was small and ramshackle, but the property extended far in all directions. Behind the home were miles of trees and rolling hills. Any neighboring properties were obscured by tall spruces and the pointed, wooden fence Fuller had so carefully constructed.

  Chloe thought to scream, but who might hear her? There was a better chance, she figured, that one of the living dead would hear her screams before a neighbor ever did. A sense of hopelessness and dread sank into her.

  Fuller led the pair into the front door of his home, didn’t bother to turn on a light. He walked them down a narrow hallway, instructed them to turn right and open the door ahead of them. Chloe did, and carefully the three tip-toed down a narrow, spiral staircase that led into a cold, damp basement.

  A light clicked on, and Fuller grinned. “Welcome home, kids.”

  Nolan pivoted on his foot, took a quick inventory of the basement room. It was square, only ten feet by ten feet wide. If there were other areas to the cellar, perhaps they were unfinished. On the wall opposite of Nolan was a small, dormitory style refrigerator. Beside that was a microwave stacked on top of a toaster oven, and two shelves above those appliances housed dozens of packets of instant soup mix.

  On the wall to the left of him was a couch planted in front of a nineteen inch, tube television. Beside the TV was a stack of dime store, paperback novels with yellowed pages and a pile of old video games.

  “This is it?” Nolan asked. “This is what you spent two years fabricating? You’re going to what, survive the apocalypse on nothing but ramen noodles and ‘The Hardy Boys?’”

  “Shut up, ass wipe,” Fuller said, and he elbowed Nolan square in the nose.

  Nolan stumbled backwards, cupped his palms over his bleeding nostrils.

  Chloe closed her eyes and cried.

  For the next twenty minutes, Fuller instructed each of them to disrobe. They changed into oversized sweatpants and t-shirts that the sergeant had kept in a closet in the back. Clearly, he had fantasized about a scenario like this for quite some time.

  The clothes were unwashed and smelly, like they’d come from a rummage sale. Chloe and Nolan’s skin itched something terrible.

  Fuller let them keep the clothes they had been wearing in a corner of the room. In Chloe’s case, that meant her officer’s uniform, which Fuller left mostly untouched, except for her service pistol and handcuff key, which he kept for himself.

  When they were each dressed to his liking, Fuller sat them on opposite ends of the room. He handcuffed Chloe to a two inch metal pipe that ran horizontally along the basement floorboards, and Nolan to a three inch support beam that ran vertically from floor to ceiling. The sergeant was kind enough to toss them each a single throw pillow and ratty blanket, both of which felt like they were purchased from the same rummage sale as their clothes, and started to walk towards the spiral staircase at the end of the basement.

  “I almost forgot,” Fuller said, and he turned around and strode back towards the duo. He reached deep into his pocket, pulled out a small sandwich baggy. Inside were dozens of small, white pills. He unzipped the sandwich bag, plucked two out, then handed one to Chloe and one to Nolan.

  “I’m not taking this,” Chloe said.

  “You will,” Fuller said. “It’s nothing harmful. It’ll just relax the two of you, so you don’t have the strength for whatever wild plans the two of you have certainly been concocting since arriving here.” He grinned at Nolan. “I don’t like the way this one’s been looking at me.”

  “And what if we don’t take it?” Nolan asked, defiantly.

  Fuller pulled his gun from his holster, said: “Then I shoot you in the face. That’s going to be the alternative every time you refuse to do what I ask. And lemme tell you, friend, it’s going to get really tiring if you make me have to ask that each time you disobey. I don’t want to, right? I don’t want to have to pull my gun out and act all macho each time I make a simple request. So do what I say, yeah? And we’ll get along swimmingly.”

  Chloe popped the pill into her mouth and swallowed, then shook her head. She didn’t care anymore. It could make her grow ten feet taller, or it could end her life right then. There were no other option, and nothing else mattered.

  Nolan, seeing that Chloe took hers, swallowed his pill, too.

  “What if we gotta piss,” Chloe said, flatly.

  “You can wait ‘til morning,” Fuller said, “when you’ll get to go in shifts. Or you can wet yourself in the night. I don’t care.”

  Fuller’s smile beamed ear to ear. “The first night is gonna be rough, I don’t have any illusions about that. No sir. But it will get
better in the coming days, this I can promise you. We will become one big happy fucking family.”

  Fuller climbed the spiral staircase up towards the first floor of the house, and waved to Nolan and Chloe, who were sitting in near dark. “Sleep tight! Don’t let the zombies bite!”

  And the cellar door slammed shut.

  Chloe curled up onto her blanket in her corner of the cellar and shivered. The floor was icy. If there was any heat pumping through the house, none of it seemed to reach the half-finished basement.

  Nolan leaned against the wall, felt the effects of Fuller’s pill start to kick in. His legs and arms felt like jelly. His thoughts turned fuzzy.

  “He’s a…sociopath,” Nolan mumbled. “How could you go to work for a sociopath?”

  “I had no idea there was this side to him,” Chloe said. “How could I? How could anyone?”

  “Have you two, ever…?”

  Chloe groaned. “Shut up, Nolan. I can’t believe you’d even suggest such a thing.”

  “He seems to think that there’s always been a possibility that you two would have a future together.”

  “He took a bunch of us newbies out for drinks the day we were hired. Hannah was there.” Chloe sniffled. “He tried to make a move on me, I shot him down. I never wanted to tell you about it, never wanted to make you worry. Hannah teased me about it every chance she could. He always had a thing for me.”

  “Then you should have quit,” Nolan said.

  “If I quit my job every time someone above me made a pass at me, Nolan, I’d be terminally unemployed.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I don’t even know why I’m talking about it.” Nolan slumped against the wall behind him.

  Chloe sprawled out on her back. The blanket wasn’t long enough to keep her legs and feet from dangling on to the cold cement floor. She stared up at the ceiling, lost deep in thought of everything that’d gone wrong.

  “I thought we’d seen the worst of our lives during NYVO,” Chloe whispered. “We survived the end of the world just to die in this asshole’s basement.”