by Joe McKinney
We stared at each other for a brief moment, and I think maybe she saw how bad things were in my eyes.
She blinked.
The microphone lowered a little.
When she spoke again, her hard edge had softened a little, and the words didn’t come as easily.
“About an hour ago, Chief Roles held a press conference in which he said the police department was moving to Stage III of the emergency mobilization plan. Can you tell me what that means?”
I glanced at Marcus in time to see the smile evaporate from his face.
“What does that mean, officer?”
“It means things are as bad as they can possibly get,” I said, which was basically understating the problem. In order for our brass to go to Stage III of the emergency mobilization plan, they would have had to admit the total defeat of the combined resources of the San Antonio Police Department, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, and all the little unincorporated police departments throughout south Texas.
I thought of April and Andrew, and they never seemed as far away as at that moment.
“You wanted to know if help was coming for these folks.” I said to Sandy. “You can tell them we’re waiting on the military. They’re about the only ones that can pull our irons out of the fire at this point.”
Marcus came around the front of the car. “What else did the chief say, Sandy?”
Sandy turned on him, and almost immediately I saw a spark in her eye. Marcus had that effect on women. They couldn’t spread their legs fast enough.
“He said that all personnel were being recalled to duty, regardless of their actual duty status. Are you a police officer, too?”
“Marcus Acosta,” he said, and held out his hand to shake hers. Marcus hated reporters, but he loved women, and he had an almost predatory look in his eyes as he took in her sumptuous curves.
Sandy, for her part, suddenly seemed a lot less aggressive than she had just a moment before, when she was the no-nonsense investigative journalist ready to stick it to the police. At that moment she reminded me more of a little lamb that didn’t have enough experience to realize that if she didn’t cut and run right that minute, the wolf in Marcus was going to devour her.
“Sandy Navarro,” she said, eyes turned down a little, blush spreading like a field of poppies in bloom across her cheeks.
They shook hands, and lingered that way a little longer than they should have for just a polite nice-to-meet-you handshake.
“I’ve seen your spots on the news,” he said. “You’re good.”
“Thank you,” she said, and the blush widened.
I groaned and turned away.
“Give me a second,” she said to him. “I want to finish interviewing Dr. Stiles and then maybe we can talk some more. I’d love to hear about the adventures you two have had tonight.”
“I’d like that, too,” he said. “I’ll be here.”
Sandy walked back to the older guy she’d been interviewing when we pulled up, and waited for the cameramen to get back into position.
Marcus smiled at her, then caught me sneering at him.
“What?”
“You know what,” I said. “What the hell was that?”
“Give me a break,” he whispered. “This may be the end of the world, but it’s not everyday a man gets to have something that good. You saw those legs. Do you have any idea how good they’d look wrapped around me?”
“You’re a man whore, Marcus.”
He smiled.
The two of us walked closer to the entrance and stood behind the cameramen so we could hear the interview.
Sandy straightened her skirt and jacket, brushed her hair back out of her face, and then turned on the charm for the camera.
“Good evening,” she said to the camera, her eyes twinkling. “I’m Sandy Navarro, Channel 9 News. I’m here at the Lexington Baptist Church in northwest San Antonio with Dr. William Stiles of the University Hospital District, who less than five hours ago managed to lead nearly seventy people to safety here at this church. Good evening, Doctor.”
“Good evening, Sandy,” the man said. He was a lean-faced man with a military officer’s haircut and a self-assured posture. I also got the feeling from him that he was used to people fawning over him.
“Dr. Stiles, tell me a little about your situation here.”
Stiles steepled his hands together in front of his chest and frowned in concentration. “A little while ago, University Hospital was overrun by people infected with the necrosis filovirus. Most of the hospital’s security staff was either killed or infected themselves. Luckily, I was able to get these people out of the hospital. We managed to make it out to the front lawn of the hospital, where we requisitioned two city buses that had been abandoned there, and drove them to this church, where we’ve been ever since, waiting on the authorities to get us out.”
“And how many people were you able to save, Dr. Stiles?”
“Sixty-three.”
“You worked on some of the first reported cases of infection here in the city, is that right?”
“That’s right. We saw the first cases last night. They came in from Houston on one of the flights bound for the shelters. We had no idea at the time what we were dealing with. It was only in the early hours of this morning that we realized we were dealing with something completely new. Unofficially, we began calling it the necrosis filovirus.”
“Can you tell us about that please? What exactly is the necrosis filovirus?”
Stiles exhaled deeply, his frown spreading further across his golf-tanned face. “The necrosis filovirus is closely related to the family of viral hemorrhagic fevers that include Ebola, Marburg, and the Crimean-Congo viruses. It’s a biosafety level-4 agent, which makes it about as dangerous as any virus you’re ever likely to deal with. Laboratory protocols call for a pressurized, heavy-duty biosafety suit to handle a level-4 agent. AIDS is a level-2 agent, if that gives you some measure of comparison. The thing about the necrosis filovirus that makes it different from the other hemorrhagic fevers is the incubation time. A person who contracts Ebola or Marburg is likely to exhibit a headache, backache, and other flu-like symptoms within five to ten days. The necrosis filovirus, on the other hand, seems to amplify within the host in just a few hours. After that, well, you’ve seen the infected walking the streets. They experience depersonalization to such a degree that they essentially become a zombie. The illusion is all the more complete when you see the clouded pupils, the smell, the rotting skin, and the almost complete lack of sensitivity to pain.”
“What about the unbelievable acts of aggression we’ve seen, Dr. Stiles?”
“That, unfortunately, is a recorded symptom of the hemorrhagic fevers. Though truthfully, I’ve never heard of any disease that turns people into cannibals. The thing is, in Ebola and Marburg, the disease devastates the host’s ability to move around. Those diseases are so deadly, so incapacitating, that the host usually does not get a chance to spread the disease very far geographically before quarantine measures can be put in place. Up to this point, every recorded outbreak of a viral hemorrhagic fever has been restricted to a relatively small number of victims. The necrosis filovirus, though, incubates faster, allows its hosts to move around with comparative ease, and, as you just said, makes them very violent.
“There’s one thing I want to point out though, Sandy. None of the hemorrhagic fevers have a one hundred percent mortality rate, and I have no reason to believe that the necrosis filovirus does either. We may not be able to save every person infected with the virus, or even most of them, but we can save some, and that puts us in a delicate situation ethically. These are not criminals we’re dealing with, after all. The infected are normal people, and they can’t be held responsible for their actions. That’s just not fair. The problem demands a more delicate solution than just sending in the military to shoot all the infected. After all, if this were an outbreak of another kind of disease, such as the bird flu, or something comparable, we
wouldn’t go around shooting the victims. We can’t do that here, either.”
Stiles went on talking, but Marcus and I both had had enough. Marcus turned to me and said, “This guy is nuts if he thinks he can cure those people.”
“I know,” I said.
“We need to get out of here.”
“I know.”
While the others were listening to Stiles, Marcus and I headed back for the car. We didn’t make it very far though. I had my hand on the door when Sandy and one of her cameramen came up behind me.
“Are you leaving, officer?”
I dropped my chin to my chest and sighed. Then I turned around and braced for another round with Sandy Navarro, Channel 9 News bulldog.
“Yes,” I said.
“Just like that? You don’t plan to do anything for these people?”
“I thought we’d settled that,” I said. “I can’t do anything for them. And I have a family of my own out there. I intend to find them.”
Before she could say anything else, Marcus stepped back around the car. “Sandy,” he said, taking her by the arm and leading her away from me a little. “Why don’t we go inside? Officer Hudson and I will talk to the people. Let them know help is on the way. It’d be a good shot for you guys, and maybe you could tell me a little more about what you know about what’s going on. After all, if I’m going to be out in the middle of all this, it sure would be helpful to know a little more than I do now.”
She brushed the long black hair from her face and smiled warmly. It was amazing to watch, the way she changed. That same flip of her hair turned her into a serious professional journalist in front of the camera, but around Marcus, it made her look like a schoolgirl who’s just been introduced to her favorite rock star.
Unbelievable, I thought. How does he do it?
Marcus nodded to me. I knew the look. Go in and put on a good show for the public, it said. I’m right behind you.
I sighed, turned, and went inside the church, Sandy, Marcus, Stiles, and the cameramen trailing behind me.
The door led into the gymnasium, which was large and barnlike, decorated with banners from the church’s youth group, announcing them as the Baptist Youth Basketball League Champions of 2002 and 2004. The whole place danced with yellow candlelight, and people were everywhere. They had taken the tumbling mats down from their brackets on the wall and laid them out in one corner of the gym so a few of the older folks would have a place to sit down. That handful of older folks watched tiredly from their corner as the others bustled around them with a sort of aimless agitation. Nobody looked to have a plan.
I caught bits and pieces of conversations as I walked through the crowd. People were complaining about the cold, about how hungry they were, about how scared and worried they were.
I didn’t blame them. Most of them were echoing the same feelings I had, and again I thought of April and Andrew, wondering if maybe they had left our home for someplace like this. Thinking of them made it hard for me to say anything reassuring to the folks who asked me when they could expect to be rescued.
I lied as best I could. I told them not to worry, that they were safe, that there was no way the military would take one minute longer than they had to before coming to our rescue.
If they knew I had doubts of my own, they didn’t let on. Most just walked away, wide eyed and still very frightened, mumbling to themselves.
From somewhere behind me I could hear Marcus laying it on thick with Sandy, and she couldn’t get enough of it. Once, I even heard her giggle, a bubbly, nasally sound that seemed totally out of place amid the stunned survivors around us.
I separated myself from the crowd and walked down a hallway that led back into the church, looking for a bathroom. I had mud and blood and bits of other stuff all over me, and after listening to Stiles talk about level 4 killer viruses, I had a renewed desire to get cleaned up.
The hallway went about fifty feet into darkness, past a number of offices and classrooms with locked doors, then opened into a high-ceilinged vestibule.
It was even darker there, and I turned on my flashlight.
Two other hallways went off to my right, and there was a flight of stairs on my left. A sign next to one of the hallways said RESTROOMS, and there was an arrow beneath it.
I followed the arrow.
The bathroom was a few doors down on the right, and I almost made it. I had my hand on the door when I heard somebody coughing, a mean, wet hacking sound that reminded me of the noises Carlos had made before his end had come.
I clicked off my flashlight and stood perfectly still, listening in the dark.
The coughing came again, and so did other noises. Worried voices. Calming voices. More coughing. A woman making a noise somewhere between a groan and a scream.
I drew my gun and inched along the wall, following the sound. Around the next corner I saw flickering yellow candlelight. The voices were clearer now, and so were the sounds of people in pain.
Slowly, I walked around the corner, into the candlelit main entrance to the church, and I gasped.
The entranceway was rectangular in shape, long and narrow, with a high, three-story ceiling. A massive wooden chandelier hung in the middle of the room. A narrow balcony ran the length of the room on both sides, and looked to go off to the upstairs levels of the main sanctuary, which was off to my right.
About thirty people were stretched out on makeshift cots, and all of them looked in really bad shape.
A couple of people who looked to be nurses were busy tending to the sick, trying to make them as comfortable as possible.
None of the injured seemed to have turned—yet.
Three things went through my mind all at once.
First was that Dr. Stiles must be using this place as some sort of hospital for the infected among his group. I remembered what he had told Sandy about a less than 100 percent mortality rate, and how he hoped at least some of the infected might recover, and a shudder ran through me. These people, I gathered, were relatives of those farther back, in the gymnasium.
My second thought was that Dr. Stiles had conveniently not mentioned his little hospital to Sandy or to Marcus and me. I shuddered again. What possible reason could he have for not mentioning it, I wondered. And then I answered my own question. He probably figured it would hurt his chances of being rescued if the rescuers knew this little virus bomb of a menagerie existed. Why would they risk spreading the infection, or catching it themselves?
My third thought had nothing to do with the sick people groaning on the floor, or even with the unscrupulous Dr. Stiles. It was all about the four men with rifles that had stepped out of the shadows on either side of me as soon as I entered the room. All four of them shifted their guns to their shoulders and, before I knew it, I was looking down the barrels of each of them.
I hadn’t noticed them at first. I was too busy watching a pair of nurses who were tending to the sick, and trying not to look into the red, swollen eyes of the few people on the cots who had strength enough to look at me.
The gunman closest to me looked about thirty years old. He had a golden complexion and deep black, unruly collar-length hair. He had a narrow build, and between that and the hair, he reminded me of some sort of Colombian soccer star.
But he was an amateur with the gun. He held the stock too high up, so that he had to point the barrel down at me in an uncomfortable-looking angle.
Untrained, no question. And twitchy, jumpy. A bad combination.
Behind him was a short, gray-haired man with a considerable paunch. He looked like he had fired a rifle before, but he was nervous, like pointing a gun at a cop was something he never imagined himself doing as long as he lived.
The other two guys, who were standing off to my left, were nondescript. Just regular-looking guys of average height and average build. They held their guns loosely, uncomfortably.
I focused on Twitchy.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“We don’t want you h
ere,” he shot back quickly, angrily.
“Fair enough,” I said. I kept my voice calm, my moves slow and minimal. The last thing I wanted to do was get Twitchy twitchier.
“Leave us alone.”
“I’d like nothing better,” I said. “Let’s just put those guns down, okay? I don’t want to be here any more than you guys want me here. Just put your guns down and I’ll turn around and leave you to your business.”
There was an awkward pause.
Paunchy lowered his gun, almost dropped it. The two on my left did the same thing. It was like I thought with them. They didn’t want any part in this.
Twitchy didn’t drop his, though. He saw the others lose a little of their conviction, and it scared him.
Suddenly he was animated, his voice quivering with nerves. He stabbed the air with his rifle and spoke frantically, so frantically I could barely understand him.
“No, you put your gun away. Not me, no. Yours. Yours. Put it down first. You go first. Kevin, Robbie, watch him. Don’t let him talk you down. He puts his gun down first. Burns, get up here.”
He nodded at Paunchy behind him without ever taking his eyes off me.
“Burns, get up and take that gun from him.”
“Malin,” said Paunchy. “I don’t—”
“Nobody’s taking anybody’s gun away,” I said. “Everybody just stay cool. I’m backing up now. Just relax and everybody’s gonna be just fine.”
“No,” shouted Twitchy.
He said something to Paunchy that I didn’t catch. I was too busy watching the room behind him. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen movement under a sheet covering a cot, and as I watched, I saw a woman with a blood-stained face, blackened gore in her hair, and milk-white pupils, sit up in bed.
Her head turned slowly in our direction, the eyes dead.