by JE Gurley
Benoit held up his hand to stop him. “This petty bickering serves no purpose. Whatever we were in our former lives,” he paused and looked pointedly around the group, “we are all in the same boat.”
Rita snickered. All eyes turned to her.
“My father came to Florida during the Mariel Boatlift. He said much the same thing.”
“A wise man,” Benoit said. “Too many of us are looking at this situation as an inconvenience. It’s much more than that. This plague could become a world changing event.”
“How?” Rita asked.
“If cities fall, if too many people die, the country might be too weakened to recover. Some cities might even be abandoned.”
“Surely not Miami,” Rita said, alarmed at his statement.
“No, maybe not. We have a good climate and nearby farmland. The northern cities might become too decimated to supply with food and too difficult to heat in the winter. Their surviving populations might have to move south.”
“That’s all we need,” the young blond said, “millions of illegal aliens.” Benoit shot him a withering look.
“You’re talking about forced relocation, aren’t you?” Rita asked.
Benoit nodded. “It could happen. Granted, that’s a worst case scenario, but thinking everything will return to normal in a few days or even weeks is delusional. We’re in this for the long haul.”
Conversation slowed to a standstill as everyone tried to come to terms with Benoit’s pronouncement. There was a chance he was wrong. After all, he was only a high school science teacher, but to Rita, his words had the ring of prophecy. The world had changed and would never be the same again.
Tomas, as if he sensed the fear floating around the group, began to cry. Rita picked him up and checked his diaper. It needed changing. Perhaps his innocence was still intact after all. She knew hers wasn’t. She left the others sitting and staring off into space and returned to the tent. She changed Tomas’ diaper and fed him mashed apricots, his favorite. Afterwards, she sang him softly to sleep. Footsteps behind her startled her.
“It’s just me,” Benoit said as she turned around quickly. “Fine child,” he said, looking at Tomas.
“He’s precious. I wish he didn’t have to wear a mask. Every time I feed him, I fear for his life.”
“Same here. I’m almost afraid to eat.” He patted his stomach and smiled. “Almost. Given time, they might seal the stadium or move us to better quarters. Then we could move around more freely.”
“I think you frightened them,” she said, referring to their fellow refugees.
“Yes. Sometimes I speak without thinking. I must watch that.”
“You make sense.”
He shrugged. “In ancient times, the bearer of bad tidings has often paid the price with his life. I should learn from their examples and remain quiet.”
“Do you have family?”
His jaw tightened as he glanced away. She immediately regretted her question. “I did,” he finally replied. “My wife became infected. The military carried her away. I don’t know where she is, but I suspect she’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“All of us have lost loved ones. Many more of us will.” He looked at her. “I sometimes wonder if this is a judgment from God.”
“No, God would not do this.”
“No? He’s been pretty heavy handed in the past – Sodom and Gomorrah, the Tower of Babel, Noah’s Flood, the destruction of Israel.”
As they were talking, Rita noticed a commotion outside the tent. Dismissing it as simply the children engaged in some raucous game, she ignored it. She shook her head to refocus her thoughts. She could not allow Benoit’s doubt to confuse her. “No. God did not cause this. He is watching over us. I have faith.”
“I once did. Now, I’m not as certain.” His voice became more strident. “Keep your faith. Hold on to it like you do your child. I’m an old man. Most of my life is behind me. You and your child will have a future.”
A woman’s shrill scream pierced the growing din. It was a cry of pain and anguish and of heartbreak.
“Stay here,” Benoit cautioned. He strode to the edge of the tent to peek out and was almost knocked down by the blond young man rushing in. His ashen face matched his hair. His eyes darted around the tent as if he were seeking escape.
“It’s here!” he screamed.
Benoit tried to grab him to question him further, but he broke free and raced out the opposite end of the tent. By this time, Rita was worried. Deep down she knew what was happening – infection. She picked up Tomas, wrapped him in his blanket, and secured it around her neck and shoulder like a sling carry. She joined Benoit by the opening.
It was one of the older children. The young boy stood in a circle of other alarmed children who, too frightened to run, stared dumbfounded at their stricken companion. The boy snarled as his eyes searched the crowd for a target. His chest heaved and his hands twitched uncontrollably. Rita spotted the boy’s alarmed mother, the woman in the blue-flowered coveralls, racing toward him. The boy’s eyes darted to his mother at the same time, but there was no sign of recognition in them. His target selected, he intercepted her. Uncomprehending of the danger, his mother opened her arms to him. He slammed into her, knocking her sprawling backwards to the ground. He sat atop her and began beating savagely at her face with both fists. Her futile efforts to block his enraged blows quickly grew weaker. Within a matter of seconds, she lay still. He continued to pummel her lifeless body. No one moved or offered to aid her. It was as if time had frozen, but for the boy, his mother, and Rita, observing them. Finally, the boy ceased his pounding and stood, his face and arms covered in his mother’s blood, searching for his next victim.
“Run!” Rita shouted, but most ignored her. People continued to stand frozen in horror, unsure of what was happening.
Almost as if the boy’s attack had been a catalyst, several more people in the compounds on the verge of changing erupted into a frenzy of activity, catching the guards by surprise. Then, as realization hit them, panic swept through the crowd like a disease itself. Those that screamed drew the infected toward them. The confusion masked the attacks. In the chaos, the guards were unable to fire. People swarmed in all directions, but most rushed toward the closed gates. The guards faced them through the wire but made no move to open it.
In the background above the screams, a siren began to wail, but to Rita it sounded distant, unimportant. The blood rushing to her ears was more deafening. Her chest pounded so hard that she was afraid she would wake up Tomas. She glanced down at her son, who was awake staring up at her, but he made no sound. She had nowhere to run, and the guards had taken her pistol. She knew that the guards were not going to let them out. If anything, she feared they might shoot them all.
“Come with me,” Benoit said.
His voice sliced through the confusion in her mind. She focused on it until her heart calmed.
“We can’t go to the gate,” he said. “The infected will follow the crowd. The guards won’t open the gate.”
While she had been watching, he must have ripped apart one of the cots, for in his hand he held a piece of wood. She followed him out the rear of the tent to the row of trash bins. They found the young fair-haired man hunkering down behind them. He stared at them in terror.
“This is my spot,” he yelled.
“Shut up,” Rita said, “you’ll bring them here.”
His eyes scanned the area before leaning his back against one of the bins. “What do we do? The army,” he said suddenly, “they’ll come, right?”
“Don’t count on it,” Benoit answered. “They’re here to prevent the disease from spreading.”
As he began to understand Benoit’s meaning, the blond’s eyes rolled, and he shoved a hand in his mouth to bite back a scream.
Rita risked a peek around one of the bins. A man, his face a mask of rage, stood less than ten feet away. His eyes searched the area. A ring of blood circled his mouth, and m
ore blood stained his coverall crimson. She pulled her head back and motioned her companions to silence. She eyed the ten-feet-tall chain link fence behind them. It had been constructed more as a means to separate people into smaller groups than as a serious barrier. It was sturdy, but there was no razor wire across the top as there was on the fence surrounding the stadium. Other than its height, it should present no real obstacle. A row of six portable toilets near the corner of the fence that faced the visitor’s dugout along the first base line would provide cover. She was certain she could scramble up the fence. In the back of her mind, she wondered if the demonios could climb. She pointed to the fence. Benoit guessed her intention and nodded, but the blond shook his head.
“No. We have to stay here.” His voice cracked as he spoke and his hands trembled. Rita sensed that he was on the verge of hysteria.
“We can’t stay,” she said, “it’s too dangerous.”
The fence began to rattle as people piled against it near the gate trying to escape. The noise startled the blond. Only Benoit’s firm grip on his shoulder kept him from jumping up and running. The first shots came moments later. She didn’t bother checking to see if the guards were killing only the attackers or firing indiscriminately into the enclosures. They had no choice but to attempt the fence.
“I’m going,” she whispered.
She rose to her knees and peeked out again. The infected man had wandered away, but at least four others were inside the tent, trashing the beds and attacking the people who cowered there. She knew they couldn’t wait any longer. She stood and sprinted for the portable toilets with Benoit keeping pace beside her. The blond boy remained where he was. She put him out of her mind. He had made his choice. She kicked off her cloth shoes and climbed the fence. Tomas kept slipping from side to side threatening to throw her off balance, but she clung to the wire with all her strength. Benoit, agile for his age, reached the top first and offered her his hand. He pulled her on top of the fence. Her heart stopped for a moment as one of the guards looked up at them, but to her relief, he waved them down.
Two of the infected inside noticed them at the same time as the blond belatedly decided to join them. The guard brought one creature down with a shot to the head, but the other was too quick. It grabbed the young man’s legs as he climbed the fence and yanked him back down. He fell onto one of the toilets, knocking it over. Benoit started to go back down for him, but Rita stopped him.
“You can’t help him.”
Benoit threw his wooden cudgel at the zombie, but it bounced uselessly off its back. The guard finally killed the second creature, but the blond boy lay still. She didn’t know if he was alive or dead, but there was nothing they could do for him. The guard urged them away from the fence, past the two aquariums filled with dead fish, and into the Diamond Club seats above home plate. From their vantage point, it looked as if a war had erupted on the field. All the enclosures were in turmoil. The guard stared down at the scene with tears in his eyes as he watched his fellow guards kill anyone trying to escape.
“I don’t understand,” he said, “they just all went crazy at once. Usually, they show some sign of turning – dilated pupils, nervous twitching, or something. It was like, like spontaneous combustion.”
Benoit placed his hand on the stricken guard’s shoulder. “What do we do now?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I have to go back, keep them from killing everybody if I can. Get out of here. Use a service tunnel.”
The soldier walked calmly back to the killing floor. Rita hoped he could stop the slaughter. Fear on both sides of the fence fed the frenzy. If order couldn’t be restored, it might mean the end of quarantine centers.
Benoit pushed her toward the visitors’ dugout. “Let’s go.”
The power, like in most of the city, was off throughout the stadium. Portable generators powered the light towers in the field and smaller strings of lights in the below ground corridors. They passed beneath the stands and through the visiting team’s locker room, meeting no one. The screams of the dying and the sounds of gunfire continued behind them, growing fainter as they progressed deeper into the bowels of the stadium. Once, they heard the footsteps of more soldiers rushing toward the field and hid in a supply closet. They waited in the darkness until the soldiers passed. The service corridor was lined with boxes of supplies but empty of soldiers. They stopped long enough to fill a bag with MRE’s, bottled water, flashlights, and batteries. Benoit spotted an exit sign above a door. He placed his ear against the door and listened before opening it a crack.
“It’s clear,” he whispered.
They emerged into a small parking area outside the building. Several jeeps, canvas-covered trucks, and two Humvees sat in the lot.
“Can you drive?” Benoit asked.
Rita didn’t have time to answer. A Humvee came around the corner moving fast. As soon as the soldier behind the .50 caliber machine gun spotted them, be began firing. Bullets stitched holes in the side of the jeep and ripped through the canvas of a truck.
“They’re shooting at us,” Rita gasped.
“Back inside!” Benoit yelled.
They rushed back inside the stadium, but before Benoit could close the door, a bullet hit him in the shoulder, spinning him around. He fumbled with the door, but got it shut. Blood rolled down his arm and dripped onto the floor. The bullet had only grazed him. A direct hit would have shattered the bones in his shoulder. As it was, his right arm was now useless. Tomas, until now lying quietly in his sling, began to wail. Rita tried to quiet her baby while helping Benoit. She knew they didn’t have much time before the soldiers entered. The trail of blood Benoit was leaving marked their path. She ushered Benoit into a linen room and sat him on a box. Grabbing a towel from a stack of linen on a shelf, she made a bandage and pressed it against the wound to staunch the bleeding. Benoit gritted his teeth against the pain as she tightened the bandage.
“There. That will help.”
“At least I’m not leaving a trail of blood.”
The sudden attack on them confused her. “Why did they shoot at us?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Frightened maybe, or else they thought we were zombies.”
“But we were …”
She didn’t finish her thought. Whatever the soldiers’ reasons, attempting further contact would be useless. They couldn’t escape, but they couldn’t remain where they were. The soldiers would quickly find them. Returning to the enclosures was equally out of the question. Between the zombies and the soldiers, they wouldn’t survive long.
“We need a place to hide,” she said.
“We must go up.”
“Up?” she questioned.
“They will search the lower levels first. We must stay ahead of them.”
Rita looked at Benoit concerned about his condition. He was not a young man and he had lost a considerable amount of blood. His already pale skin was now ashen. She was afraid he might go into shock.
“Can you make it?”
He rose unsteadily to his feet. “I have no choice.”
They could hear shouts and booted feet behind them. They located a stairwell and went up several levels before emerging on the Founders and Legends Suites concourse behind home plate. Choosing one of the suites at random, they slipped inside. Benoit immediately collapsed on one of the seats, while Rita edged closer to the glass to peer onto the field below.
Chaos reigned. Several of the fences were now lying on the ground. Bodies littered the field. In death, it was impossible to distinguish between the infected and the innocent. The body of the young blond-haired boy still lay atop the crushed portable toilet where he had fallen in his escape attempt. She realized that she didn’t know his name. People in white hazmat suits and armed soldiers were everywhere. She watched in shock as one soldier shot two children as they climbed into the seats behind the Marlins dugout. A few moments later, in what she considered an act of karma, one of the infected attacked and killed the soldier.
She felt a moment of guilt at his death, but it quickly passed as she stared at the corpses on the ground around him.
More soldiers poured inside through the main entrance, forcing everyone seeking to escape back onto the field and into the horde of rampaging zombies. A few detainees had picked up weapons from fallen soldiers and fought back, but it was a one-sided battle. Some managed to make it off the field and into the tunnels chased by zombies, but most, meekly accepting their fate, sat on the ground and waited for death. This submission saved them. Now able to distinguish between crazed infected zombies and the non-infected sitting on the ground, the soldiers concentrated their fire on the zombies. They spread out and encircled the field, working their way inward. Many soldiers and many civilians died, but slowly they began to make headway. Within half an hour, all the zombies on the field were dead, as were several hundred other people. She had no doubt that those who had escaped into the stadium would soon be captured or killed, making her and Benoit’s position questionable.
When she turned away from the window, Benoit was already asleep. The run through the building had exhausted him. With no medication for his pain, sleep was the best thing for him. Searching the suite, Rita found water, soda, and beer in a small refrigerator. They were warm, but she drank a soda for the sugar content. Tomas whimpered a bit as she laid him on one of the seats and piled whatever she could find against the door. When she was finished, she admired her handiwork. Her makeshift barricade wouldn’t keep out the soldiers, but it might prevent zombies from breaking in.
She had no baby food or bottle. She opened one of the MREs and laid out its contents – a beef ravioli dinner, a side of beans, a package of wheat bread, grape jelly, a fudge brownie, lemon-flavored drink mix, trail mix, matches, toilet paper, seasonings, and a flameless heater. She mixed the lemon powder with water and dipped the bread in it, allowing Tomas to suck the liquid from the bread. She read the instructions and added water to the flameless heater. It just warmed the beef ravioli, but it sufficed. She mashed the raviolis with the plastic spoon and fed it to Tomas, taking bites from it between his bites. When he was full, she finished the ravioli, the brownie, and the trail mix.