Bleeders

by Max Boone

  "Look at them," he said, and I did. They were anger incarnate. "It's like they're so focused on what they want, they refuse to see anything else."

  Mind blind, I thought. It was true, they barely seemed aware of the fence, only that something was in their way. Their eyes drilled into us so intensely it sent a chill up my back, like we were the one thing in the world they wanted more than anything. It would almost be flattering if they weren't trying to kill us.

  After we caught our breath in the delightful smell of the dirty alley, and with a soundtrack of angry screams and repeated clawing and crashing against the fence, it was time to get back to it. We needed to get off the streets while there was still more of us than there were of them. At the rate New York was falling apart, that didn't give us much time. We turned the other way to exit out the other side of the alley, took about two steps and stopped dead.

  At the opposite end of the short alley, four Bleeders stared at us through the fence.

  "I think we're trapped," Jeremiah said.

  "Really," I asked, "is that what you think?"

  The four of them lunged, screaming and shaking the fence. To make things worse, the fence must have come loose a while ago because someone had fixed it by tying it to the wall with a bunch of wire. The noise stirred up the two Bleeders behind us all over again, and they smashed their fists on the fence even harder.

  We needed to find a way out before they drew more attention. Jeremiah ran to the only door in the entire alley while I looked for a fire escape we could reach. I knew there was no way that door was unlocked. He pulled on the handle and, of course, it didn't open.

  The lowest fire escape I could find was still way too high a jump. Maybe if we stacked a few garbage pails we could climb up and reach it. It was our only chance at this point. "Help me," I shouted as I dragged the closest pail under the fire escape. Jeremiah left the locked door behind and grabbed two plastic crates. It was insane to think our lives depended on a bunch of trash in a random alley that smelled like sour milk, but that's where we'd found ourselves.

  You don't see these things coming.

  Jeremiah stacked the crates on top of the garbage pail and I started to climb them. We heard a sharp snap as the wire holding the fence broke under the weight of the four Bleeders. They didn't even notice it happened, but as they kept pushing on the fence it began to move.

  I looked down at Jeremiah. "Move," he said.

  As the Bleeders began to stumble through, and their shouts grew more excited, I got to the top of the unsteady tower of trash. Jeremiah held my ankles as I reached for the sliding fire escape ladder above. It was out of my reach by at least two feet. My stomach knotted up as I glanced back at the four infected crazies tripping over each other to get into the alleyway.

  "Focus," Jeremiah scolded.

  "I can't reach it!"

  "Try again!"

  I stretched as far as I could, up on my toes with my fingers straining to so much as touch the metal, but it couldn't be done. I lost my balance and tipped forward, falling awkwardly from the trash tower and back down to the ground. I caught myself against the wall and looked back at the Bleeders. Clear of the broken fence, they ran at us with hunger in their bleeding eyes. They would be on us in seconds, and there were too many of them to fight off.

  We had no options left. We went back to the fence behind us and climbed it again, kicking at the faces of the two Bleeders on the other side to keep them from biting. I was bone tired, but I put everything I had into scaling that fence.

  At the top, Jeremiah and I straddled the fence and held on tight as the other four Bleeders crashed into it. Thankfully that fence wasn't broken like the other one, and it held under the impact of their bodies.

  On both sides of us, Bleeders pawed and slapped at the fence, reaching out with their bloody hands. It wasn't the same desperation like I had reached for the ladder with. Theirs was out of hunger. Blood lust.

  All I could think as I looked down at their snarling faces was, Would that be me soon? Would I become one of those face-chewing monsters?

  "Now we're trapped," Jeremiah said.

  "You think," I repeated. This time it wasn't as funny.

  The fence shook under us as we looked around for some clue about what to do next. What I'd noticed earlier, about people in New York just going about their day, that was long gone. Absolute mayhem had consumed the streets. It was every man for themselves out there, and we could barely tell the Bleeders from the looters, the cops from the criminals.

  I looked down again at the hands reaching up for our feet. "So what's the plan now, wait for them to tire out?"

  "I doubt we can wait that long."

  "Well we have to do something," I said, "I'm not dying in an alley that smells like old cheese." But Jeremiah wasn't hearing me anymore. I saw that familiar look on his face- the virus was kicking the crap out of him. His mind was somewhere else, probably some fevered nightmare, though I couldn't imagine a place much worse than where he really was.

  "B.C.D," he mumbled, and suddenly swayed forward. I held him up and shouted for him to snap out of it. The Bleeders were like ravenous dogs, watching their dish being filled. They weren't smart enough to climb, but they sure knew when warm meat was dangling overhead.

  "Hey! C'mon, man!" I was losing my grip on him. If he didn't wake up soon I would either have to let go or allow myself to be dragged down with him. Neither was a great option, but I knew which one I would choose if it came down to it.

  He leaned further and further down the street side of the fence until the big Bleeder was scratching at his hand, then pulling.

  He wasn't going to snap out of it. "I'm sorry, man," I said, and let go.

  Jeremiah hit the sidewalk hard. It jarred him for a second but he was still in a daze. The two Bleeders reached for him to tear him apart. I wanted to look away, but I didn't.

  Gunshots filled the air, semi-automatic weapons going off in controlled bursts. The two Bleeders standing over Jeremiah were riddled with bullets, heads and chests spraying blood all over the sidewalk and fence. I flinched, not knowing where it was coming from or when it would stop.

  Two soldiers appeared from around a parked car as if from nowhere. They wore body gear in gray pixel-looking camouflage and black gas masks over their faces. No sooner than the two Bleeders fell off Jeremiah, the soldiers fired their weapons again and lit up the four crazies on the other side of the fence. They jerked and spasmed and fell down in a pile of death.

  The whole thing took five seconds. At the end, not one Bleeder was left standing. I was relieved to see Jeremiah was in one piece, though barely any more awake than he was before.

  "You, on the fence! Come down slowly!" One of the soldiers shouted at me through his gas mask. He had something painted on the side of his mask but I couldn't see it from where I was.

  "I'm not armed," I said as I climbed down. He shouldered his weapon and ripped me off the fence. I hit the sidewalk next to Jeremiah. Before I could recover, the soldier was pulling me back onto my feet and pushing me up against the blood-splattered fence.

  "I said slowly," he barked in my face. Already I wasn't liking this guy. From up close, I could see the side of his mask was painted to look like a skull- not exactly standard issue uniform. Meanwhile, his partner checked Jeremiah's neck for a pulse.

  "He's sick," I said. "He needs help."

  "Hey. You don't give the orders," Skull-face said with a shove. I noticed he wasn't wearing his name on his chest. Neither was his partner.

  "You're not looking too healthy yourself," the partner said.

  "I'm fine." I was thinking of what they were probably doing to the sick people. The same they do to horses.

  "Maybe we'll just get a second opinion," Skull-face said. He turned me around and held me against the fence while his partner slapped Jeremiah a few times. Jeremiah came to just in time for the both of us to be dragged away.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  From what I could gather, the New Yor
k City Police had become overwhelmed only a few hours into the outbreak. That cleared the way for the military to sweep through the city in an attempt to control the damage. What that meant was they were rounding up anyone who looked sick and shooting anyone who got too bitey. Whatever had happened overseas, it seemed to have spooked them pretty bad. They weren't taking any chances.

  It was insane how fast it had come to this. That morning the Red Flu had been this abstract thing they were using as this week's promo scare- "Is the Red Flu coming to your town? Tune in to find out..." –and here I was a few hours later, having my phone taken away and being loaded into the back of a military vehicle with my own blood and the blood of strangers all over my clothes. As they pushed me into the back of the transport behind Jeremiah, I watched as four soldiers surrounded a dairy truck and raised their weapons. The driver inside was smashing his face against the windshield over and over, trying to reach them. His teeth were mostly gone already, and probably spread across the dashboard.

  The truck was nearly full on the inside. A dozen tired faces looked back at us from the dim light of the reinforced box. Jeremiah and I took a seat halfway down one of the benches running the length of the truck.

  We looked at each other uncomfortably as the sound of the soldiers opening fire on the dairy truck rose up. "No use crying over spilt milk," I said.

  He shook his head. "Asshole."

  My fever was coming back worse than before, but I couldn't think about that. Keeping our voices down, we talked about our chances at making a run for it the next time they stopped to load up more passengers. It didn't look good, at least not for both of us, so we decided we needed more information to come up with a better plan.

  I switched seats with a young guy all the way at the front, near the small talk slot that faced into the cabin. Skull-face was in the passenger seat with his gas mask in his lap. He was a punk, no older than twenty, with black hair shaved into a crew cut.

  "This whole operation's a joke," he said. "The people upstairs want lots of happy pictures of people being treated so they can say they tried. Our orders should be shoot to kill, no exceptions." His partner drove, though I couldn't see his face from where I was sitting.

  "Give it a rest, Simmons," he said.

  So that was his name. Simmons. I repeated it in my head so I wouldn't forget it, for what purpose I didn't know. Maybe some day I would sue him for excessive force or wrongful imprisonment. Whichever fucked up his day worse.

  The President's voice was on the radio. Simmons' partner turned it up and we all listened in. "...want to be absolutely clear to our friends and peers across the globe that these measures are in no way preparations for war. We are dealing with this situation in an aggressive manner, as we trust you are. This is no time for paranoia. This is a time to buckle down and ensure the safety of our citizens."

  "Hey," I said. "Where are you taking us?"

  Simmons jumped in his seat and shoved his mask up to his mouth. "Get back," he shouted and fumbled to close the slot, dropping the mask in the process.

  I couldn't help but chuckle. "Wow, you guys suck at this, huh," I said as he shut the slot in my face.

  Still laughing, I settled back into my seat. The other passengers didn't look too amused. "Ahh, lighten up," I said, "we're all screwed anyway."

  "I wanted to hear the rest of that," Jeremiah said.

  "It's all bullshit. They're not ensuring our safety, they're shooting us and locking us up. And why bother saying all that about war?"

  "Conplan," he mumbled.

  "Say what?"

  He looked up at me. "Nothing," he said. "Just thinking out loud."

  The truck came to a sudden stop and we all slid forward on the bench. Some of the passengers in worse shape than the rest of us fell to the floor or slumped over, looking half dead. The back door unlocked with a loud click and opened wide. It was still bright out, and we squinted as soldiers in masks pulled us out into the sunlight and lined us up. They had to drag a few of the worst to their feet.

  As my eyes adjusted to the sun, I finally saw where they had taken us.

  Yankee Stadium.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The stadium's parking lot was littered with the military and their toys; Humvees and Jeeps, tents filled with supply crates, manned checkpoints, and a few things with computer screens and huge-ass antennas that I couldn't tell you what they did if you beat it out of me. Jeremiah was being real quiet as they marched us toward Gate Four, but I could tell he wasn't happy at all with what he saw. I leaned in and asked him what he was thinking, but he just kept saying, "Not good. Not good."

  Waist-high metal gates surrounded the entire building. They were the kind the stadium normally used to wrangle long lines, but now they were being used to keep out an angry crowd of people shouting and crying and throwing things at the military men.

  I turned to the guy behind me. "Mets fans," I said. He didn't laugh, but he seemed to have a lot on his mind.

  As we walked in a line toward the building, I made eye contact with a woman who had tears running down her face. She held up a picture of a man and begged me or anyone who listened to find him and tell him she was out here. Like we all didn't have enough on our plates.

  The more I looked, the more I noticed a lot of people were holding up pictures. One woman held a teddy bear and wasn't saying anything, just looking down at her feet. Even for a cold bastard like me it was depressing as shit. A few people were taking videos with their cell phones. Like posting it to Youtube was going to shut down the operation and bring justice for all.

  The line must have had at least a hundred of us in various states of fucked. It moved through a checkpoint where the medical exam consisted of a guy in a surgical mask shining a pen light in our eyes. "Should I turn my head and cough," I asked when it was my turn. The guy just checked my eyes and waved me on. "You sure you don't want to take a quick peek at my prostate," I called back to him, but a masked soldier shoved me forward. I continued toward the front gate, with the shouts and cries of the people getting further and further away. When I looked back, I noticed the soldiers were starting to break up the crowd and turn them away.

  They led us through the front doors and into the Great Hall. Even after working there a while, it was still an impressive place, with high ceilings and huge, hanging banners of past greats. Obviously the soldiers outside had been told not to give the Youtubers any juicy footage, because the inside of the stadium had plenty to offer. The balconies were manned by armed soldiers with masks and automatic weapons who, out of the public sight, had no qualms with aiming their guns at us. They barked at us to keep walking toward the entrance to the main area of the stadium. Most of the people were too sick to put up a fight. The rest of them were too scared.

  As I trudged along with the other human cattle, a woman to my right caught my attention. She stared ahead like none of us were there. Her dirty blonde hair was arranged at the top of her head in what had once been a very neat bun that had since been pulled loose. She had an attractive face, lean and serious, but that's not what made me notice her.

  It was her red eyes. They weren't like the Bleeders we'd run into, though, it was just the irises that were colored blood red, like it was their natural color. The rest of her looked fine, the whites of the eyes white, the skin in need of a tan but otherwise healthy-looking.

  Jeremiah saw her, too. I motioned for him to follow me a little closer, but he shook his head and said we had other things to think about. I ignored him and went anyway.

  "Hey," I said, flagging down her attention. After a few more calls she turned my way, though she still looked like she was staring right through me. I don't think she blinked once. "What happened to you," I asked.

  "You have it, too," she said in an eerily calm voice.

  "No shit, lady. I wouldn't be here otherwise."

  "If it doesn't kill you," she said, "you'll wish it did."

  I didn't know how to respond. The coolness in her voice scared the he
ll out of me, like she was past caring about anything anymore, me, herself, everything going on around us. On her left hand I noticed she wore a silver engagement ring with a decent-sized rock mounted at the center. For a second I thought it was a ruby or a red diamond, but with a closer look I realized the truth.

  There were bits of blood and flesh stuck in it.

  The dirty blonde woman with the red eyes turned and faced forward again, following the crowd wherever it took her. I thought about calling to her again but I knew better.

  We made our way through the winding halls and onto the field. My mouth dropped at the sight of what had become of Yankee Stadium. The place was absolutely brimming with sickness. The infield was littered with so many people laying on blankets and emergency beds you could barely see the grass, while the outfield was taken up by three hospital tents where people were waiting to be examined. Anyone who wasn't lined up or unconscious was fighting with each other. Yelling and shoving were the norm. The few soldiers present broke up a few of the bigger fights, but otherwise they minded their business.

  "Look," Jeremiah said, pointing past home plate. Chain-link fences had been installed along the entire wall that separated the field from the stands. They must have been ten feet tall, bowed forward with barbed wire wrapped around the top, ensuring there was no way to climb up and over. "The most expensive stadium ever built," Jeremiah said, "reduced to a cage."

  I couldn't believe this had all happened in one day. "This is bad. This is really bad."

  "That's what I've been saying since the beginning."

  We walked near the hospital tents to see what was going on inside. Masked doctors took blood samples from the infected as well as checked their temperatures, their blood pressure and whatever else their instruments could read. The patients all looked relieved to be getting some kind of medical attention, but there was something about the whole thing that didn't sit right with me. There was no sense of urgency to the way the medical staff moved. No compassion in the way they looked at people or handled their wounds.