The Alt Apocalypse (Book 4): Affliction

by Abrahams, Tom

  “We know that we’re overloading you,” said Doc. “You’re sick. You’re weak. This is, I’m sure, too much…to comprehend.”

  That’s an understatement, thought Gilda. It was beginning to sink in that she was, in fact, awake. Everything she tried to rouse her subconscious from uneasy sleep, everything that had previously worked, had failed.

  “We…didn’t think you’d wake up,” said Doc. “We didn’t plan on telling you anything.”

  “But we thought we owed it to you,” added Victor, “as difficult as it is, as harsh as it sounds. We owed it to you to tell you what was happening.”

  “And knowing you, Gilda,” said Doc, “we knew you wouldn’t want it candy-coated. We knew you’d want…the unvarnished truth.”

  They were wrong. She didn’t want the truth. She wanted to keep pretending this was a dream. She wanted them to tell her she’d awaken in a new reality in which everyone survived the apocalypse. That was what she wanted. But she was certain now that this was no dream.

  Her mind sent her back to her conversation with Claudia in the diner. She’d been cramping then. She’d chalked it up to menstrual cramps and had forgotten about it when her cycle hadn’t materialized.

  The clearing of her throat, the constant need to pull phlegm from her chest, had been a sign too. She hadn’t recognized it.

  This was her reality. This was her unvarnished truth. She’d brought the disease with her and killed everyone inside the bunker. The first one to go had been the one she sought to save; poor Claudia.

  She tried speaking again. Her voice was barely audible. It was getting harder to breathe. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I…I didn’t…know.”

  She exhaled heavily with the last word. Her stomach roiled. Her chest tightened.

  “Nobody blames you,” said Victor. “Nobody. We’re all in this together. Sometimes you succeed; sometimes you don’t.”

  Victor was matter-of-fact about their impending demise, about the end of the world as anyone knew it to be. He didn’t seem bothered by it, let alone angry or resentful.

  “Let’s hope that whatever it is the folks at Interllayar are doing will resolve this…eventually,” said Doc. “That one of these…iterations…as they like to call them…turn out the way we all hope. I take comfort in that hope.”

  Hope.

  That was the promise of the future, wasn’t it? Without hope man was doomed, regardless of disease or war or famine or freeze. Hope and the promise of good days to come was what got people up in the morning, what had them fight through hardship and accept the bad things in life. Somewhere, Gilda believed, along the not-too-distant horizon, lay good things. Better things.

  Could those things still exist if not in this world? Did it matter if it didn’t happen here and now? Gilda couldn’t wrap her head around it. Not in her condition. She could barely form a coherent thought in her head as the fever built again and her body began to shut down. Her lungs were filling with fluid. Her bowels couldn’t contain themselves. This was no dream. It was a living, waking nightmare from which there was no escape.

  As bad as it was for her, for those who’d already succumbed to TBE Gen1, 2, or 3, had Gilda been able to process her surroundings, she might have empathized with the men watching her die.

  They were the ones watching their futures unfold before them on a closed-circuit digital video feed. They were seeing what would happen to their bodies in the coming hours and days.

  Theirs was a horizon empty of hope and promise of better things to come. Theirs was one of pain and futility.

  “Let’s hope you’re right about Interllayar,” said Victor. “Pray they’ve figured something out or we’re doomed.”

  Doc chuckled into the microphone before stifling a cough. “I think it’s safe to say we’re doomed…this time,” he said flatly, “as we’ve been countless times before. The question remains…whether or not we will be…next time.”

  CHAPTER 15

  DAY 17

  Clean Zone 2

  Danny blinked his eyes open to a foul odor and the sensation of something rough and wet on his face. Still half-conscious, he swatted at his cheek, catching Maggie’s tongue.

  She stood over him, straddling him, bathing him with kisses. He reached up and took both sides of her head, turning his to the side.

  “You smell like you ate a rotten diaper filled with cat poop,” he said, without realizing the simile’s non sequitur.

  Maggie licked his ear and pushed a paw into his sternum as she moved to his side. She snorted and licked her chops.

  Danny turned his head to look at her. He smiled. She was seemingly unhurt and she was free of the human avalanche. So was he. He was okay.

  “We almost lost you, soldier,” said a solid voice. “If it hadn’t been for your K-9’s constant whimper, we’d have never gotten to you in time. You have him to thank for saving you both.”

  “Her,” Danny said.

  The owner of the voice stepped into Danny’s view. He was a tall, thin man. His hair was cut high and tight, flecked with gray. His steely eyes drilled into Danny with precision. He had the look of a man who’d seen too much to look at the world with optimism but still harbored flecks of hope.

  He raised an eyebrow and bristled. “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry,” Danny apologized. “The dog. She’s a girl. Her name is Maggie.”

  The man’s hardened expression relaxed. “Got it. Maggie. Good name. Rod Stewart fan?”

  “Who?” Danny asked. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and surveyed his surroundings. He was on a fabric cot in a large tent, like a field hospital. There were a half dozen additional cots perched on their aluminum legs and awaiting patients. There was an IV in Danny’s arm, and he traced the line to a hanging bag of clear. There was also plastic tubing draped around his ears that looped under his chin. He touched it with his fingers.

  “That’s oxygen,” said the man. “Maggie pulled it free a minute ago. I was going to reinsert it, but she firmly insisted I not touch you anymore.”

  Danny snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor. “Hop down,” he told Maggie. She obeyed and sat at his side. He turned back to the man. “Sorry.”

  “Not a problem,” the man said. “I’m Nick Smith. Homeland Security.”

  “Homeland Security?” asked Danny. He lay back against the pillow underneath his neck.

  “I should say I’m a reservist with Cal Guard, really,” said Smith. “My day job is with the Homeland Security Division of OES. I’m an EMT as well, so I’m here helping you.”

  “OES?”

  “Office of Emergency Services.”

  Danny nodded. “And a reservist.”

  “Yes,” said Smith. “Was in the Army. Field medic. Last stationed at Fort Des Moines. Got a degree in emergency management at Upper Iowa. Finished. Got out. Got a job. Moved to Sacramento.”

  His candor was surprising. His wizened face belied his apparent affability. All Danny had asked was if he was a reservist, and the seasoned veteran had offered a Wikipedia version of his adult life.

  Smith took Danny’s wrist and checked his pulse. “How are you feeling?”

  Danny shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

  “You’ve got some contusions,” said Smith. “Superficially that seems to be the worst of it. I don’t have the capability of any internal diagnostics here. No X-rays, MRIs, or that sort of thing, and you’re not going to get into a hospital anytime soon. So unless you’re complaining of any unusual internal discomfort, you should be good to go soon.”

  “Thanks,” said Danny.

  “What unit are you with?” asked Smith.

  Danny eyed a neatly folded Tyvek suit on a metal folding chair in the corner of the tent then glanced back at Smith. He tried to dodge the question. “Why aren’t you in a suit? Everybody in the zone is in a suit.”

  Smith nodded. “True,” he said. “We’re not in the zone. I mean, not in Zone 4, where you were.”

  Danny sat up again. “Where are
we?”

  “Clean Zone 2,” he said. “Everybody here is good to go. No need for the suits. Not here.”

  Danny’s eyes again surveyed the tent. It was empty other than the loquacious Smith, Maggie, and him. It was quiet outside, too, aside from the distant rumble and squeal of large trucks. The aural chaos of Infected Zone 4 was gone.

  “How did we get here?”

  Smith shrugged. “Transport.”

  Danny swallowed. “How long have I been out?”

  “The better part of three days,” he said. “We tapped the filter to your suit with clean air once they’d pulled you from under the fence. You were still breathing, barely. O2 levels were super low. But we couldn’t take off your suit until we were clear of the zone and had you decontaminated. Then we pumped you full of drugs, kept you sedated.”

  Danny motioned toward the metal folding chair. “That’s not my suit?”

  Smith followed his eyes to the folded suit. He chuckled. “No, that’s a fresh one. We incinerated the other ones.”

  “Oh,” said Danny.

  “What’s your name?” asked Smith. “We couldn’t find an ID on you. No tags or anything.”

  “Where exactly is this clean zone?” he asked, avoiding another question. “I mean, where am I?”

  “I’m not sure,” Smith said. “I’m from Sacramento and not familiar with Los Angeles. I do know we’re near the beach. And I can see a Ferris wheel in the distance.”

  “Santa Monica,” said Danny. “We’re close to Santa Monica.”

  Smith shrugged. “Okay. Makes sense. Santa Monica Pier? I’ve heard of that. I’ve seen it in movies. But I didn’t know that’s what it was.”

  Danny sat up. “I gotta go.”

  Smith inched toward Danny and gently put a hand on his chest. “Hold on, soldier. Not yet. You’ve got plenty of time to get back to work.”

  Danny relaxed. He glanced at Maggie. She was lying on the floor of the tent. Her head rested on her paws. Her eyes were closed. Her back leg was twitching. She was dreaming.

  “What’s your battalion?” asked Smith. “And your name? I’ve told you about me. I don’t know anything about you other than you being one lucky SOB.”

  “Lucky?” Danny asked.

  “Surviving that chaos,” said Smith. “The gunfire. The collapse. You should be dead. I saw it happening. The way that fence, those bodies, piled on top of you…”

  “Yeah,” said Danny flatly. “I’m lucky.”

  “Three other soldiers didn’t make it,” said Smith. “And I don’t know how many of the sick got early termination notices. Dozens probably. When that fence collapsed, a few tried to run for it. They were summarily executed on the spot. That stopped the rest of them from trying to escape. It was bad.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t see it,” said Danny.

  “I wish I hadn’t,” said Smith. “This is as bad as anything I’ve ever seen, especially because it’s our people. It’s Americans, you know? It’s easy to be detached from the blood and guts of a foreign deployment. They’re not your people. They’re strangers in another land. It’s not home. You ever been overseas?”

  “No.”

  That was true. Danny had never traveled abroad save a short weekend trip to Cabo with his ex. They’d stayed at a nice couples’ resort. He’d learned about tequila and its aftereffects. He’d tried ceviche for the first time and gotten too much sun.

  “So you’re reserve?” asked Smith.

  “I’m Russell,” he said, giving Smith the first fake name that came to mind. He extended his hand, pulling taut the intravenous line attached to the saline bag. “Russell Blake.”

  Smith took his hand and shook it with a firm, muscular grip that was just shy of too strong. He smiled. “Nice to meet you, Russell Blake. So you’re in what unit? I’m guessing you’re local?”

  “Yeah,” said Danny. “My civilian job is in Santa Monica.”

  Danny hoped using a word like civilian would further his weak ruse. It was a matter of time before Smith figured out he wasn’t military. He searched his mind for any bits of information he could recall about Cal Guard. There were bits and pieces from news reports.

  “You’re close to home,” said Smith. “That’s good and bad, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” said Danny.

  “Who are you with?” Smith asked again. “Which team?”

  Danny racked his brain for the last time he’d seen the newsman, Lane Turner, interviewing someone from Cal Guard. It hadn’t been long before the Army had invaded his apartment.

  “Fortieth,” Danny said, hoping he was right about the number.

  Smith’s expression flattened. His eyes narrowed. He was studying Danny, searching for some tell Danny couldn’t identify.

  Smith shifted, squaring his shoulders and putting himself between Danny’s cot and the tent’s exit. “Fortieth what?” he asked, his voice dripping with suspicion.

  Danny shot back, without thinking about it, “Battalion.”

  Smith raised an eyebrow again. “What company?”

  “C,” said Danny. It was the only one he could identify. Charlie Company. It was famous during Vietnam or something, wasn’t it? He thought he’d once watched a documentary about the famous Charlie Company.

  Smith’s face relaxed. His shoulders sank. “Huh,” he said. “Makes sense, I guess. They’re out of Manhattan Beach?”

  “Yes,” said Danny. “Speaking of that, can I get out of here? Maggie and I have things to do.”

  Smith checked the saline bag and looked at the readout from the oxygen sensor on Danny’s finger. He picked up a tablet from an adjoining table and tapped on it a few times. He nodded and forced a smile. “Sure thing, Russell Blake. I can step next door and grab you something to wear. What size?”

  Danny noticed for the first time he was in boxers and a T-shirt. He shrugged.

  “I’ll grab a large,” said Smith. “Size ten boots?”

  Danny nodded.

  “I’ll be back,” he said and, with the tablet tucked under his arm, stepped from the tent.

  Danny was alone. The second Smith was gone, he pulled the IV from his arm, blood pooling at the puncture, and hopped from the cot. He high-stepped it to the tent’s exit and peeked his head through the opening.

  He was in a row of tents. It looked like an encampment of sorts, the kind one would find at a forward operating base. Danny didn’t know the term, but he was familiar with the concept.

  To the right men in Army combat uniforms were walking back and forth, dipping in and out of tents. To the left was the same. Except it wasn’t the same. About seven or eight tents down, Smith stood with his back to Danny. He was pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, and he was talking to a trio of men with patches on their left arms. The Velcro patches had, in large black lettering, the letters MP.

  Danny cursed himself. He hadn’t fooled Smith. Not at all. Smith probably knew there was nobody in Charlie Company named Russell Blake. That was assuming there was a Charlie Company.

  Danny ducked back inside the tent and scanned the tent for some idea as to how he’d escape. He was in his underwear. He was unarmed, except for Maggie, and blood was trailing down his arm.

  He padded over to his cot and looked for something, anything, he could use to help him get away. He glanced over his shoulder, toward the exit, and saw the yellow suit. It wasn’t great, but it would do.

  Forty-five seconds later he and Maggie were walking out of the tent. He was dressed in the hazmat suit and wearing the hood. He’d taken three steps to the right when he heard someone shout for him to stop.

  “You!” called someone. “In the suit. You! Stop now. That’s an order.”

  Danny didn’t bother to look back or follow orders. As they likely knew, he wasn’t military, and he didn’t give two flips about martial law.

  He and Maggie bolted along the rows of tents, dodging the myriad of soldiers or lab techs at work, his feet pounding against the soles of the rubber boots. His breath was h
ot and damp inside the hood. This suit carried with it a different aroma than the last. It didn’t have the remnants of someone else’s musk. This one was all about the off-gassing chemicals in the suit. Danny inhaled the strong odor of plastics and rubber as he ran. His head pulsed at the temples, but his headache had subsided. It was a nuisance. His vision was clear, at least as clear as it could be inside the condensation-clouded reflective face shield.

  Maggie was ahead of him, seemingly sure of where she was going and of the urgency. She wove in between and amongst moving obstacles like a motorcyclist in rush-hour traffic on the 405, or traffic any time of day on the 405. Danny pumped his arms and lifted his knees as he ran after her. He saw a metal cart to his right, electronics sitting atop it with cables cascading down its side. He angled for it and, as he brushed past it, reached across the top to grab at it and fling it to the ground.

  Danny spun out of the way, like a football running back avoiding an arm tackle, and the table toppled behind his feet, its contents spilling into the pathway that ran between the facing rows of tents.

  “Stop now or we will—” called the voice still trailing him. The sounds of someone grunting and falling, cursing, and grunting again finished the sentence.

  Maggie turned right on a dime and disappeared between two tents. Danny followed her blindly. As he rounded the corner with less precision than his dog, his momentum carrying him wide to the left, he glanced to his right.

  There were three men chasing him. Two of them wore the military police patches on their arms. The third man was Nick Smith. His affability was gone. His face was squeezed with exertion, and maybe anger, and he led the other two. They were only fifteen yards behind him. Danny was struck that they weren’t closer. Maybe his endless hours of Shotokan training had helped his athleticism.

  He turned back to refocus on what was ahead of him when his left foot caught a tent spike and he tripped forward. He was caught for several lunging, off-balance steps in that windmill of an expectant face-plant, when he somehow recovered and regained his speed.