by Cleek, Caleb
After breakfast, he took a quick shower and threw on his work attire. It was seven-twenty. If there weren’t any accidents along the way, he would make it by eight. He locked the door and bounded down the concrete stairs two at a time. Breakfast had renewed his vigor and put energy back in his step. He felt good.
The steps from his second story apartment dropped him onto the broom-finished sidewalk that led to the car port. He could never figure out the appeal of broom-finished concrete. It would probably be okay in North Dakota where the sidewalks were frozen eight months a year, but traction wasn’t an issue in Georgia. He couldn’t remember the last time the sidewalk had ice for even a couple hours during the day.
When he rounded the corner of the building and came into view of the covered carport, he was surprised to see that it was nearly full. By this time on a weekday, at least half of the slots were normally empty. He looked at his watch to make sure it wasn’t the weekend. The watch indicated it was Thursday. To the best of his recollection, May 15th wasn’t more important than any other day of the year. There was no reason people would have the day off. With a shrug, he pushed the unlock button on his remote and was greeted by the brief illumination of every light on his F-150.
At the firm where he worked, a seven series Beamer was considered an entry level car and Bentleys were commonplace. At first, stuffy co-workers frowned at his six year old pickup; it didn’t fit the image they were all scrambling to portray. It didn’t scream wealth like their hundred thousand dollar rides. His apartment didn’t fit the bill either, by a factor of at least ten. He made a lot of money, enough to have easily paid cash for a big house in a good neighborhood as well as a luxury car to park in front of it. Those things didn’t matter to him.
His job and money were a means to an end that he was striving to achieve. He was saving to buy a ranch in Wyoming and not have to worry whether or not it made a profit. To that end, he lived as cheaply as he possibly could. He would happily forgo a luxurious lifestyle that didn’t appeal to him today in order to achieve a different lifestyle that did appeal to him down the road.
A mile from his house, Zeke hit the freeway. It was empty, with only a handful of cars going into the city. The lanes out of the city were a different situation, though. A solid stream of cars was leaving Atlanta; at least six or seven times the normal traffic volume was crawling out of the city toward the suburbs. It was exactly the opposite of how it should be. He knew he was missing something and reached to turn on the radio. He stopped short of the empty hole in the dash, remembering his truck had been broken into four days prior. Why somebody would take a stock Ford radio was beyond him. Zeke would have to wait until he got to work to figure out what was happening.
The closer to the city he got, the heavier traffic leaving the city became. Like a lemming, he considered getting off the freeway and joining the exodus to the suburbs, but his thoughts were interrupted by the scream of a siren behind him. Before he could look in the mirror, a wall of air rocked his truck and pushed it to the side of his lane as a column of eight Dodge Chargers, painted in the blue and silver of the Georgia State Patrol, blasted past him at what must have been one hundred and forty miles per hour. At the seventy miles per hour he had set the cruise control, they literally passed him like he wasn’t moving.
Zeke had always been drawn to danger and excitement. He had nearly followed his older brother, Connor, into law enforcement to chase adrenaline rushes, but in college, when he discovered his uncanny ability to predict trends in the stock market, he went into investments instead. When he listened to his brother’s stories, he sometimes regretted his decision, but it was a means to an end; it was taking him closer to the ranch in Wyoming.
He decided to continue on to his office at the edge of downtown unless he saw a convincing reason to turn back. He wouldn’t panic and mindlessly flee the city simply because others did. By the time he reached his exit, twelve more patrol cars had blasted past him in ones, twos and groups of three. Something big was going on. After the last group of three cars blew by, he slammed his fist down on the top of the steering wheel, frustrated by not knowing what was happening. As he was envisioning crushing the nose of the thief who stole his radio, a horn honked behind him from one of the few cars going into the city. He looked up and realized the light at the end of the off ramp had turned to green.
As he worked his way through the maze of city streets to his office, he noticed that only a small fraction of the normal pedestrian traffic hurried along the sidewalks, and the few people he saw were all moving with a purpose. Everyone had their head on a swivel, looking around nervously as they hastily made their way to their destinations.
As Zeke neared his office in the financial district, the image of his truck glided smoothly across the spotless surface of the mirrored glass fronting the buildings on either side of the street. As he proceeded west, the buildings decreased from fifteen stories to an average of four. He made a right turn, followed by an immediate left into the drive that descended into the parking garage beneath his office.
Stopping at the horizontal arm with his work ID in hand, he waited for the parking attendant to raise the gate and admit him into the garage. It took a couple seconds to realize nobody was in the booth. He waited for a minute and grew impatient. He opened his door, stepped onto the concrete drive, and walked around back of the security booth. Pushing through the unlatched door, he quickly located a green button marked “Raise Arm.” He pressed the button and heard the quiet whir of an electric motor spinning outside as the arm briskly rose.
Zeke hastily reentered his truck and proceeded down the ramp into the bowels of the garage. The subterranean parking structure was the antithesis of the parking lot at his apartment: it was nearly empty. A handful of cars ranging from low-end compacts to mid-priced sedans were congregated just outside the reserved spots flanking the stairwell and elevator shaft. None of the reserved spaces were occupied. Normally by this time in the morning, at least four or five of the partners in the firm were already at work. Today none of them were present. As he pulled into his reserved parking place, Zeke’s curiosity continued to swell. Something major was going on if none of the other partners had arrived by 7:50.
Chapter 9
Zeke reached the top of the drab concrete stairwell and stepped through the metal door, passing into the reception area. The contrast between the utilitarian stairwell from the basement and the marble floor and dark walnut paneling of the reception was so stark, new clients often stopped and stared when they entered the building for the first time.
It was no surprise to Zeke that neither the night guard nor the receptionist was behind the speckled granite top of the reception counter. This morning, nothing seemed to be as it should. He walked around the alcove and pushed through the nine foot oak doors that led to the offices. He looked into the dark interior of each conference room and office he passed as he plodded down the hallway, the thick, plush carpet silencing each footfall.
The first floor was empty, with no indication anybody had been there recently. Even the coffee pot in the big conference room was cold.
Rather than walk back into the reception area to ride the elevator to the second floor, Zeke took the stairs at the end of the hall. Unlike the stairwell from the basement, the interior stairwell was richly decorated.
Zeke paused at the second floor landing, hesitant to confirm his suspicion that he was alone in the building. He knew most of his colleagues would have come to work from their death beds. His curiosity about the mass exodus from the city and the mystery of his absent co-workers overcame his apprehensions. He pulled the tall oak door in toward the stairwell and entered the hallway that formed a ring inside second floor offices. More importantly, it led to the break room with cable TV.
Entering the hallway, Zeke immediately heard a voice coming from ahead and around the corner. He quickly traversed the length of the hall and made the right turn. His step was quickened by light spilling through the doorway of the b
reak room and the female voice speaking excitedly within the room.
When he entered the room, Zeke’s mounting uneasiness initially began to subside at the sight of six people. They had moved chairs away from the table and arranged them in a haphazard semicircle around the television hanging in the corner of the room. All eyes were riveted to the screen as if it were a magician about to perform a sleight of hand trick. Nobody turned to acknowledge him. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. They sat transfixed, staring at the screen.
When Zeke moved far enough into the room to see the screen, the image he saw froze him where he stood as dread trickled into the center of his stomach.
The scenes flashing in the box in the top right corner of the screen looked like images from a movie, except the television was tuned to Fox News. The female voice he had heard in the hall was from the commentator. Her tightly drawn face indicated this wasn’t an entertainment exposé about a newly released blockbuster. The near panic in her voice reflected the seriousness of whatever was occurring on the screen.
The scene from the box inset in the corner of the screen enlarged, replacing the commentator. At full screen, the grisly details emerged. On a street in an unidentified city, buildings on the right side of the screen were fully engulfed in flames as was a car on the side of the street. But that was not the focus of the shot. The focus was on the street itself. A dozen or so people were running toward the camera, dropping purses and other personal effects as they ran. The audio was still from the commentator. It was clear many of the fleeing people were screaming as they fled past the camera with mouths open and faces full of terror.
The camera then focused down the street. Half a dozen bodies lay randomly in the road. A handful of people were tending to the seemingly unconscious forms in the street.
The camera zoomed in until it included only a single prostrate body with two good Samaritans beside it. One was on his knees facing the camera and the other was bent over the body, which was lying on its back. The blurry image suddenly came into focus. The man on his knees, facing the camera, was covered in blood. A crimson flood had poured from his mouth and down his white shirt.
Zeke’s mouth opened as he wondered how a person so wounded could tend to another. As he wondered, the battered man knelt down toward the unconscious victim of whatever tragedy was being displayed. His face disappeared behind the second person who was knelt over the unconscious form and was facing away from the camera. The body facing away from the camera slowly stood up and turned into view. The woman’s face was covered in blood, like the other, but her mouth was opening and closing in what Zeke recognized as chewing. The camera moved back to the victim on the road. When the female moved to the side, the ghastly scene became clear. Zeke’s stomach turned when he realized the man wasn’t helping the victim on the ground, but was tearing flesh from the body with his teeth. The blood running down his face and shirt wasn’t his own; it was from the body in the road. When he stood up, pieces of flesh adhered to his mustache. He followed the woman and they joined another defiled figure and began tearing at a squirming body laying supine on the asphalt surface.
The scene rendered Zeke as speechless as the rest of the group. He was hypnotized by the carnage he was seeing. As disturbing as it was, he couldn’t break his eyes free from the barbaric spectacle in front of him.
When the initial shock of the sight subsided enough for Zeke to regain his senses, he focused on the commenter’s voice.
“This scene from Los Angeles is being replayed in cities and towns all across the western United States,” she said. “It began with this footage from security cameras in the Reno Airport late yesterday afternoon,” she added as the scene from the street was replaced by a black and white video of a woman lying on a bed in what appeared to be a first aid station.
Beside the woman, whose face was bloodied, two boys in a similar condition lay on two other beds. “This woman and the two boys apparently had seizures and died in the Reno Airport. About thirty minutes later, this occurred.”
As the commentator spoke, the woman’s right hand began to move. Then her chest began heaving as if she were trying to regain her breath. Within seconds she sat up, looked around, and then pivoted her legs off the bed. At the same time, the door into the room opened and a female nurse entered, stopping when she came face to face with the patient, who was now on her feet. The newcomer slowly backed out the doorway with a puzzled look on her face. The woman from the bed lunged toward the door.
The scene cut to a new view from a camera in the adjoining room, showing a rear view of the woman backing out of the room. She was suddenly tackled as the woman from the bed flew through the doorway, knocking her over and landing on top of her. Attacking, the woman lowered her head to the nurse’s throat. When the head came back up, a black and white geyser erupted from the nurse. The blood spray covered the attacker as her face returned to the nurse’s neck. A man suddenly entered another door into the room, probably drawn by the screams. The woman from the bed rose upright, forgetting the nurse on the ground, as she pursued the fleeing man.
The picture switched to another camera showing a view within the terminal. The woman from the bed pursued the man into the scene. People fled in all directions at the appearance of the crazed, bloody woman. Her attention was diverted from the man to a female traveler who stood frozen in terror.
The scene from the second room replayed as the woman from the bed pounced on the traveler, sending her rolling carryon bag skidding across the floor. A man ran across the seating area of the terminal and attempted to pull the crazed woman off the person she was attacking.
But her focus could not be broken even as the man grabbed both arms from behind and wrenched her from the victim on the floor. With a violent lunge forward, the attacker broke free of his grip and fell back on top of the traveler who was still on the floor. The man lost his balance and reeled backward, sprawling onto the tile, momentarily leaving the victim without a defender. The attacker’s face dove for the tender neck beneath her. Even the silent, black and white nature of the video couldn’t mask the terror that was unfolding in the scene as a dark pool ebbed across the floor from beneath the two women.
The man rose to his feet and renewed his attempt to pull the attacker from the woman as three more men ran to his aid. The attacker diverted her attention from the victim beneath her and twisted within the grasp of the man. The woman on the floor clutched at her throat with both hands and darkness spread from between her fingers as they were doused in the blood rushing freely from her wound.
The attacking woman quickly overwhelmed the man, knocking him to his back. As she dove on top of him, he wrapped his hands around her neck, barely keeping her gaping maw at bay. Her hands battered him as her teeth opened and closed inches from his exposed neck. It appeared that hope was lost until the three men reached the grappling battle.
Two men reached her in unison, each grabbing one of her arms and pulling her off the man on the ground. As they pulled her backwards, the third man grabbed one of her legs. The man on the ground quickly pulled himself erect and grabbed her other leg.
The woman kicked violently as she struggled to escape the clutches of the attacking quartet. Each time she lashed out with a foot, the man attached to her leg struggled desperately to maintain his hold.
The television switched to a split screen with one half showing the battle in the terminal and the other showing the first aid room. Zeke didn’t understand why until he realized that one of the boys was starting to move. His chest began heaving and he suddenly sat upright, swung his feet to the floor, and walked out the door. The right side of the picture switched to the second camera as the boy entered its field of view.
He stopped when he reached the corpse on the floor. His head tilted sideways and his teeth opened and closed silently as he looked at the body, his face full of longing. Then his attention was instantly drawn to the open doorway leading into the terminal.
The boy’s head began bobbing up and do
wn rigidly and he suddenly broke into a run. The image returned to the full screen shot from the camera in the terminal showing the boy running spastically, head bobbing, toward the melee on the floor.
Three more men had joined the fracas. The woman was now on her back bucking violently against the four men who were holding her arms down. Two of the original men were still hanging onto her jerking and kicking legs and the seventh man sat astride her torso with his hands wrapped around her neck, trying to hold her thrashing head against the floor.
Nobody engaged in the struggle to subdue the woman noticed the approaching boy until he lunged into the man holding her right leg and sent him sprawling into the man holding the left. With her legs free, the woman bucked her torso up, causing the man astride her abdomen to lose his balance and collapse forward, where her awaiting mouth clamped shut on his cheek. Her head twisted, biting off a chunk of his face. He rolled off clutching his cheek with both hands.
One of the two guys restraining her left arm turned his attention to the boy who was now attacking the men he had just sent sprawling. They were trying to disentangle themselves from each other while futilely attempting to fight off the boy. The scene of chaos descended into pandemonium.
And then the second boy erupted through the door and into the terminal. His entrance wasn’t noticed until he pounced onto the back of one of the men holding the woman’s right arm down. The two men remaining were unable to control her and the tide of the struggle turned for the third time. Now it was in favor of the woman and the boys.
The man with the bite torn from his cheek was out of the fight, leaving two men for each of the attackers. Even through the younger of the boys appeared to be only eleven or twelve years old, he easily outmatched the two men before him. In less than twenty seconds, the fight was over. All seven men lay on the floor in broken, battered heaps. The lack of color softened the carnage, but the dark spatters and pools could not be confused with anything besides blood.