He replied just as quietly. ‘Listen, I’ve got my eyes on the road. I ain’t seen anythin, nor heard anythin. Whatever’s goin on back there is your business. Understand?’
‘Great.’ I sighed, getting back into my seat.
‘What do we do?’ Emile asked, leaning over.
‘Why do I have to decide?’ I replied, sharper than I intended.
I waited a second to cool, then gave him an apologetic half shrug.
‘I don’t know either.’ He admitted, settling back into his seat.
The kid himself wasn’t saying anything else. He sat hunched over, blankets around his shoulders, shivering and occasionally making little moans of discomfort. Dave tensed up every time, but he hadn’t drawn a weapon yet. Not sure if that was a bad sign or a good one – I didn’t know how to approach a situation like this.
If the kid was infected, he wasn’t getting through that checkpoint. None of these people were. In fact, getting him even close to the checkpoint would endanger their whole operation. I went back up to the front.
‘Sydow won’t let you through with him onboard. You’re going to have to stop so we can get him off.’
‘You weren’t catching my drift there, darlin.’ Tucker said, eyes briefly flicking from the road to me in his rear-view mirror. ‘I ain’t stopping anything. Not this vehicle, nor what needs to be done. And those doors still ain’t locked.’
Again, my ass hit the seat and I had a lot to think about. I met Claire’s gaze again, and read from her raised eyebrows and tight lips that she didn’t know what to do either. I put my hand to my chest, where she could see it, and made a gun with my finger and thumb.
Dave picked up on it too, and looked hurriedly from me to our feverish travelling companion. Tony and Gavin hadn’t picked up on the vibe. I looked over to Emile again, but we weren’t in sync this time.
His brow was furrowed, deep in thought, but he looked up when he saw me staring.
‘What’re you thinking? Any ideas?’
‘If someone wanted to limit the spread of information…having the aid of the largest news network in the Voison would be a great asset. Even most independent radio stations get their news from the VBC. They’re everywhere.’ He added.
‘Not what I was talking about,’ I said, flicking my eyes to the infected kid. But I found myself agreeing with him. ‘Gods Emile. I wish you’d never told me about your granddad’s stupid theory. I’ll be wearing a tinfoil hat next.’
‘Tinfoil hat?’ he asked, confused.
‘So the sewer lizard aliens can’t read my thoughts.’
‘Now you are not talking sense.’
‘Nevermind. Lost in translation.’ I sighed, giving him a sideways glance. He was grinning from ear to ear, smug, so I slapped him on the arm. ‘Eres un cabrón.’
There was a moment of stunned silence. I wasn’t sure if I’d gone too far, but then he started laughing. It was warm and happy, making me feel better about the tension in the ambulance, but the others weren’t in on the joke, so you could still cut the air with a knife.
‘I did not know you spoke Rojasin.’ He said through the chuckles. ‘Though I will admit your pronunciation left me in some doubt as to whether I am a dumbass, a goat or a bastard.’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. They don’t teach you the really good swears in school, I had to pick that one up from movies.’
We drove on in silence for a little while longer, the kid’s moans of discomfort becoming more frequent, and Dave getting even more on edge. Nobody said anything about it. It was a situation nobody wanted responsibility for dealing with.
A couple of times, Dave’s hand went for his hip – the wrong side of me, so I couldn’t be sure, but I figured there’d be a pistol there he was thinking about using.
I didn’t blame him. It was probably the best thing. Take the kid out before we get to the checkpoint. Smooth sailing from there. But what did the kid want? He knew what was happening to him.
I was working up the courage to ask him, trying to think of any other ways around it, when I realised he hadn’t made a sound in a while. For a moment, I wondered if we were mistaken, read the whole situation wrong. But no, we couldn’t have. The vomit, the fever, it was undeniable.
‘Hey, kid?’ I said, getting his attention. Or half of it. He didn’t look up at me, but his head twitched a little, angling his hear in my direction. ‘What’s your name?’
‘My…name?’ he tried, but his voice was hoarse.
‘Yes, tell us your name?’ Claire prompted.
‘I don’t…have…don’t know…’ he muttered, still with his head down, but looking from side to side, as if for a clue. His breathing had been growing increasingly erratic, but had settled down now, to even, long in-and-outs.
‘Aaron Gorezka.’ Gavin said, giving us all a look. ‘It’s on his wrist tag.’
I was starting to think the kid didn’t have long left now – if his thoughts were becoming so disjointed and delirious. Just as I’d finished the thought, we began to drive down an on-ramp, joining the motorway southbound.
‘Shit! Now I’ve no clue how to get back from here.’
‘It is alright – I have a good sense of direction, and I know these roads.’ Emile assured me.
‘Double shit!’ I swore again, another thought striking me.
‘What this time?’ Gavin groaned, clearly sick of my attitude, but the feeling was mutual.
‘We’ll be balls deep in the checkpoint traffic soon. What if they’ve blocked the emergency lane? I don’t like the idea of parking the ambo in that mess – and having to get out of it even less.’
Emile didn’t even have to think about it. ‘People at the hospital blamed us for taking their family away. These people will either be unhappy that we could not control the virus, or bombard us with requests for aid.’
‘Just stay in the vehicle and you’ll be fine!’ Tucker called out.
‘I think we’re going to have to abandon Plan A.’ I said, shaking my head. “Plan A” was easier to say than “my friends, family and home”.
‘We might have to stick this one out,’ I said to Emile, ‘if we try running away things might turn ugly, and that’s before we even get back into the city.’
‘We still have a problem...’ Tony pointed out, ‘Like you said, we’re getting awfully close to a lot of people who aren’t going to be keen on seeing anyone carrying the virus.’
‘I say we kill him.’ Dave said, plainly.
We’d all read the pamphlet now.
This wasn’t one of those times when you have a back and forth discussion – everyone was aware of the facts, and I think everyone knew what they’d want done to them if the worst came to it. But it was one thing to know that, and another to say it out loud. Nobody spoke against Dave.
Its just, nobody spoke in favour either.
‘What do you want, Aaron?’ Claire asked him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
‘Does it matter?’ Dave asked.
‘It should.’ She said, giving him a stern look.
‘He might not be able to give a straight answer.’
‘Looks too far gone.’ Tony added.
‘I am not sure-’ Emile tried.
‘But we’re sure he’s infected?’
‘You heard him –’
‘…made him drink something –’
‘He can’t even speak…’
‘-kick him out here –‘
‘Oi!’ Claire yelled, her usually soft spoken voice taking on a sharp edge that cut through the chatter. ‘Let the poor lad speak.’
Claire turned back to Aaron, and Aaron looked up at her.
The colour drained from her face, and her mouth opened in surprise. ‘Oh my.’
Aaron lunged for her, space blanket tangling in his arms as they went from wrapped around his shoulders to wrapping around her neck, dragging her closer in a lightning quick motion.
It didn’t care about the broken arm, a pain few people would be able to
fight though. I’d had only a second to process what was happening, but there were faster folk than me on hand to help.
Thundering claps of gunfire erupted almost simultaneously, as Emile and Dave fired their pistols at the thing that had been Aaron.
Dave’s view was partially obstructed by Claire, while Emile was shooting diagonally, but in such a close range there was little chance of either of them missing. I hoped.
My ears were ringing again, I couldn’t tell how many times they’d fired, but from the bullet casings now rolling around on the ambulance floor, I’d guess at quite a lot.
For a moment, time had stopped. The ambulance was still moving, but we’d frozen in shock. But as suddenly as it’d come, it was over. My ears were still ringing, and I could just about taste the blood and smoke in the air as I grabbed onto the ceiling rails, steadying myself as I went to Claire.
‘Claire? Claire are you okay?’
‘Holy shit, Gods above, what the fuck…’ Tony was muttering, breathless. In the front, Tucker was also cussing quietly.
I put a hand on Claire’s arm. She might have been the ex, but I didn’t want to see her infected. ‘Look at me. Are you okay? Shot, injured, bitten?’
She raised her face to me from the still form of Aaron, who’d slumped forward in his seat, held in place by his belt. Blood oozed from the wounds in his chest and dripped onto the floor of the ambulance. Gavin would have to clean up again.
Clair’s eyes were wide, but her mouth had formed a tight line through which she drew a shuddering breath.
‘I…didn’t think they could turn so quickly. From one moment to another. Just like that…’
‘I think perhaps he had turned before then.’ Emile suggested, ejecting his pistol magazine, swapping it for another from his belt. ‘His breathing has been getting worse since we set off, then suddenly it was getting better. I think he was lost perhaps five minutes ago.’
‘I heard it too. Stopped wheezing and shivering. Sounded calm for a second, but then he started looking, I don’t know…twitchy.’ Dave nodded.
Cops, I guess, are supposed to pick up on these body cues. But neither Claire, Gavin or myself had seen a change in his behaviour, and we were the medics. I felt we’d let the side down. But there’d be time to overanalyse our mistakes later. I turned my attention back to her.
‘I’m fine.’ She assured me, showing me her hands, then pulling at the top of her turtleneck. ‘He can’t have bitten me through this, I promise, and I don’t think I was hit with any blood splatter. Uhm, was I? Oh Gods, was I?’
Claire was beginning to take shallow, rapid breaths, and I could see her hands shaking in her lap. I went to one knee on the floor of the ambulance, feeling the dampness of blood through my scrubs.
‘You’re having an anxiety attack,’ I said, keeping my voice calm and even again as I took her hands in mine. ‘Claire, you need to close your eyes for me, and start to take deeper breaths.
She didn’t say anything, just closed her eyes and nodded, shivering like we were sat in a walk-in freezer.
‘That’s it, you’re doing fine. It’s just nerves, nothing to worry about. Keep breathing, keep your eyes closed…’
‘Get the door…’ I heard Emile mutter, but I was keeping my attention on Claire as I talked her through the attack.
‘Tell me about the toilets near paeds, Claire. Do they still have that funky salmon and avocado thing going on?’
Claire nodded again, eyes still closed, thinking about a familiar place, focusing on familiar details, rather than the back of the ambulance and her panic trigger.
Tony, I’m assuming, opened one of the back doors, and I saw from the corner of my eye, Emile unbuckling Aaron’s body, picking him up under the arms and dragging him from view, still wrapped in his blankets. It was getting colder in here with the back doors open, but a bit of fresh air would only help Claire along.
‘Keep breathing Claire, keep your eyes closed. Focus on that outdated décor. I can’t remember – was it avocado tiled as well, or just the stalls?’
‘Tiled.’ Claire said between breaths, her voice still unsteady, but at least she wasn’t physically shaking anymore.
The door slammed shut, and Claire snapped her head up to the sound, eyes open again. I squeezed her hands, and she looked back to me.
‘Are you okay?’
She squeezed my hands back.
‘I can’t believe you used the paediatrics loo as my happy place.’
‘I panicked.’
‘You panicked?’ she raised an eyebrow, giving a shaky laugh.
Her eyes drifted to her right, over the space where Aaron had been. Blood covered the seat and ran down onto the floor, where I’d met the edge of the puddle with me knee.
‘That poor boy...’ She sighed.
‘Don’t think about it.’ I told her, standing back up, her hands still in mine. ‘There was nothing you could do.’
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Tucker said from the front, ‘but we’ve got another problem. I think we’re stoppin.’
‘We aren’t at the checkpoint yet.’ Gavin said, climbing up into the front passenger seat.
‘Yeah, well, there’s your problem.’
Fifteen
The ambulance pulled to a stop a little ways behind the Sydow Sec ATV Tucker had been so keen on following this whole way. Looking from the windscreen of the ambo, I could see a soldier had climbed out of the roof hatch and was standing atop it with a pair of binoculars, but couldn’t see much else beyond.
‘There’s traffic ahead, the road’s blocked,’ Tucker was saying to Gavin, but I had to take his word for it. ‘I’ll go see what happens next.’
Tucker left Gavin in the front, heading over to the ATV, with his partner staring out of the window. I would have been watching too, but Tony caught my attention. He passed back my phone.
‘Katy, was it? I’m not sure I want to leave Greenfield either. Even after…all that with the kid. I’d feel safer at home. Would it be okay if I came with you guys? I want to stay. I mean, what’s to say Sydow is any better?’
My first thought was why he was asking me and not Emile. I had no interest in being an authority figure here, I just wanted to go home too – either home would do at this point, hell, I’d even consider my parents’ house at this point. Emile was the one wearing the badge and the gun. But that wasn’t what I found myself saying.
‘To be fair, Sydow hasn’t been hit as badly by the infection as other cities. It was in the papers. They diverted non-ERHR patients from other hospitals into the city, and sent cases of infection out to smaller hospitals in the surrounding counties.’
‘That seems unfair,’ Claire joined in the conversation, probably keen to be thinking about something else, ‘sending dangerous patients to smaller hospitals. I hope they sent soldiers with them, though as we’ve seen, that might not have helped much against ERHR.’
‘ERHR? Hah,’ Emile grumped, ‘I cannot believe we are still calling it that. East-Rojas Human Rabies. You know it didn’t start in Rojas? It came across the border, nothing to do with us – we just got stuck with the name. Blame Sartogan, or whatever El Presidente is calling their “democratic state” now.’
‘Point is,’ I said, ignoring Emile’s aside, ‘it will actually be safer there, in the city proper. I’m no fan of Sydow Security, but Sydow’s their home, it’s in the name for Gods’ sakes. They won’t let the infection take hold there.’
‘They’re also defensive specialists,’ Dave nodded, ‘I’m going back to the War here, but they were the fortification guys. There’s this story where the Alsatians had blitzed through this town in Rojas, blown everything up, but Sydow got a regiment around the side, right in their wake. In a day, they’d raised defences and restored infrastructure. When the Rojasins beat the Alsatians back, they tried to retreat the way they’d come. Ended up stuck between a Rojasin rock and a Sydow hard place.’
‘My grandfather said he fought in that battle, Vitolade,’ Emile nodded,
‘but my grandfather also said he’d been to the moon, so I was never sure whether to believe him.’
‘Point is,’ I repeated, feeling the weight of it sinking in, ‘when it gets down to it, I’m not sure we can turn back at this point. Believe me when I tell you, I do not want to be here. But it’ll be safer riding this thing to Sydow than getting out and trying for home. On foot, it’d be too dangerous. With nobody guarding County anymore, those infected are free to roam.’
‘What if I can get us a car, somehow?’ Tony asked. ‘Beg, borrow, or steal one if I knew how. Not being funny, officers.’
‘Hah. Be our guest, Tony.’ Emile nodded. ‘But unless we get a vehicle, I must agree with Katy. It will be too dangerous to walk all that way exposed. Who knows how bad the city will get in the next few hours? If not the infected, then the panic.’
‘Just drop it alright?’ Gavin said from the front. ‘You’re better off with us. And they’ll need fighters and medics in Sydow if they’re going to keep the city working. You saw the hospital. Not enough people, too many problems. You want that to happen again? Then roll up your sleeves and muck in.’
‘You’re one to talk about duty Gavin!’ I shot back at him, ‘I kept my mouth shut, I came in for Trip-C, I did my bit and all Sydow gave me for it was a black eye.’
‘Please!’ Claire shouted, holding up a hand, the other pressed to the side of her head. ‘Just, let’s not fight right now, okay?’
‘Gets us nowhere.’ Dave agreed, giving Gavin a warning look. ‘If they want to go, nobody should stop them. If they want to stay, that’s up to them.’
‘Voice of reason. Thank you David.’ Claire said.
‘Just Dave.’ He corrected her casually.
‘Tucker’s coming back anyway.’ Gavin told us, his voice terse from the chiding.
The door opened and our driver climbed back into his seat.
‘Shit.’ He told us.
‘Enlightening.’ Claire muttered. The adorable schoolteacher begins to take a back seat when she’s tense. Or been on the gin.
‘We’re looking at a four lane jam,’ Tucker explained, turning around in his seat, half his bottom lip stuck out in thought. ‘Boy on the truck there says it’s deep. Some idjits started using the emergency lane to try and get ahead of the line, and everyone else followed. This ain’t a neat queue of traffic folks. It’s a shitty mess.’
The Suburban Dead (Book 2): Emergency Page 13