“I'm sorry. This is just all a little overwhelming. I haven't seen this many young people in one place since...”
The end of that sentence involved blood and zombie pursuit. She'd seen all those young people in the nightclub where she danced across the ribbon of time between the Old World and the New.
“Yeah, I've not seen anyone new come in for a few days. You stand out because you have the thousand yard stare. Everyone comes in with it, though most lose it when they see what we're doing here.”
Despite the commotion around them, the girl hung out her hand. “I'm Lilly.”
Victoria looked at it, and wondered if she saw it correctly. “I thought shaking hands would have been a dead art by now.” She laughed to show she wasn't being hostile.
“No, we still do it here.”
Victoria took it.
“I'm Victoria. Nice to meet you.”
“Testing is upstairs.”
“So I've been told.”
With a smile, Lilly brushed her arm and asked her to follow. Victoria stayed with her, but pulled on her long-sleeve shirt. She hadn't brought it for warmth exactly, but it did stave off the chill. Medical buildings were always cool. This one seemed downright cold, but she attributed that to not feeling proper air conditioning in weeks.
When they got to the second level, Lilly pointed to the stairs to the third. “There's more testing up there, but you want to be on this floor where things are a little more lively.”
Victoria saw only a few people going up and down the stairs leading to the uppermost floor.
“You came at the right time. We have several openings in the program. You can have one of mine. I've have to study two at a time for the past three shifts because we have so many.”
Victoria played along, nodding and grunting in the affirmative when necessary. She believed she could figure this out once she had a better sense of what kind of research was being done. The confidence she tried to project was the opposite of how she felt.
Lilly took her down a long hallway, then turned abruptly into a room to their right. She had to push open a heavy door and hold it for Victoria.
There were no lights on in the room, and the sun was on the opposite side of the building, so there was a false darkness when she walked in. Her eyes adjusted in moments, and when she saw the layout, she knew exactly what she'd walked into.
Bed after bed lined the walls and made neat rows down the middle of the long room. Like a middle-school classroom with beds instead of desks. Each bed had a person lying there, and most had another sitting beside them. She estimated about forty total, in four long lines.
Victoria looked around for a person she figured had to be in the room.
Not over there.
Not there.
There!
Near the other end, the security man walked between the rows with an even face and dull green hospital scrubs. He could have been a doctor of medicine except that he wore a big back belt around his midsection and even from a distance she could see the big pistol perched there, next to several long and thin tools she took as spikes, or stakes. The gear of a killer of zombies...
“Here you go. You can take this one,” Lilly said pleasantly.
It was a man she recognized. He was one of the scouts Liam rescued when he ran across the pedestrian bridge the other day.
“Hello again,” he said.
3
Victoria sat next to him. His hands and arms were restrained.
“Hello yourself. I didn't know you got bitten.”
“Sorta. In the tunnels. We got lost. I dropped behind and nearly fell apart under the weight of one of them things...but Jason came and got me. He was about five seconds too late to make a difference.” Though it was clumsy, he pointed his head down toward his right arm. “Got me on the hand with a nasty scratch. When I arrived in the park, they separated me and a few others and walked us over here. They said they were going to give us medical attention, but when I woke up...well, here I was.”
“They tricked you?”
“Tricked? Yeah, I guess it was kind of a trick. But what else could they do? I was a threat, even though I didn't get bitten. They aren't taking any chances.”
“And you're OK with this?” Victoria felt her sense of right and wrong being trampled, mostly because of the restraints.
“I'm too tired to care, to be honest. You and your friend pulled us off that bridge and you ran every ounce of care out of me on the way here. Really, that was the bravest thing I ever seen.”
“Well, Liam believes in what you guys are doing. You created a baby Polar Bear.” As she said it, she looked around the room at all the young people watching over the injured. Did they have any idea what was happening beyond the safety of their campus?
Did we ever?
“Yeah, well Jason and that woman really know their stuff. Keep everyone on task. Said we were coming down here for an important mission and all that. Like I said, I was tired. Even before we ran here, we were out of food. Out of time.” He looked up at the ceiling tiles.
“I'm Victoria, by the way.”
“Neil. I'd shake your hand, but...” He chuckled softly.
She put her hand on his good hand, defying his pessimism. He turned with a tired smile. “Thanks.”
They sat in silence for a long time, as there wasn't much to talk about in the crowded room. Most of the other young people had electronic devices with them, so they could stay busy while doing their monitoring. Victoria had no such luxury.
After an hour or so, some kids rolled in a cart with some bottled waters and a pile of energy bars.
“Lunch time!” the cart pusher yelled.
That got things moving. Victoria watched the procedure and figured out the attendants got food for themselves and their patient. Since they couldn't use their hands, she'd have to put the bar in Neil's mouth so he could chew it. It was all familiar to her, since she spent a frantic few weeks in the hospitals before the crisis in the United States spun out of control. This clean building was a far cry from a hospital ward full of sick people beaten down with Extra-Ebola or Influenza.
After getting Neil squared away, she ate her own bar and sucked down the water. She discarded “eating like a lady” a long time ago.
By chance, she saw Doctor Yu walk by the door.
“Don't go away, huh?” she said with pep as she sprang up to catch her.
“Doctor Yu!”
The doctor was near the stairwell, though it wasn't clear if she was going to go up or down. She turned around as Victoria caught up with her.
“Hi, doctor.”
“What are you doing here? Did you come to get that man's blood back? Because that isn't—”
“Oh, no. Not at all. No, I'm here to ask you if I can help, though I've already fallen in back there. Sitting with the sick.”
The doctor looked behind Victoria. “Sitting? You are part of that?”
By tone alone Victoria realized she was confused.
“Is that OK? Isn't this what you're doing?”
“No, not my team. I was coming from upstairs to get some supplies. This floor is another project. More of...hedge...against a larger outbreak.”
“You bring in the sick to make sure they aren't infected, right?”
“Yeah, something like that. Listen, this isn't a good place to talk. Will you join me at the medical tent out in the park this evening? We can talk more then.”
“Sure.” It pleased her greatly to be making plans to do things more in advance than the next zombie attack. “See ya then.”
She sat back down next to Neil, but he was asleep. She didn't even have a book to read.
I wonder what Liam's book is going to say about the Zombie Apocalypse up to this point? Am I living at the start of a book now, or at the end, as things return to normal?
She wrestled the idea as she sat and stared at the floor throughout the afternoon. The only relief came at dinnertime, when the small cart came back in with more wa
ter and energy bars. This time she was given two.
“Almost enough calories for a quarter of the day,” she said to Neil. Everyone downed their bars, though several youngsters around her claimed they were going to try to make them last. They did, for ten or fifteen minutes. Hunger came before lofty notions of “spreading it out.”
Soon she was done with her second bar, too.
4
Once again she followed the lead of the other students in the room. Everyone stood up at around six o' clock, said their goodbyes, then made for the door.
Though she was the one moving, Victoria tried to employ her bedside manners for the man in her care. “Will you be back tomorrow for more fun?”
“I don't think I'll be going nowhere,” he said without much enthusiasm. Wires and tubes poked out from underneath a blanket covering his bottom half and she wondered if he could get up at all. If the patients didn't get up at some point they ran the risk of developing worse problems, including bed sores. But there didn't appear to be anyone in charge.
“We just leave the room? Who takes care of you overnight?”
“Don't know. I slept through all of last night.”
She asked a nearby woman who seemed on high alert. “Excuse me, what happens overnight?”
“They don't tell you?”
“I wasn't told anything, except come in here and keep this man company.”
“Well, some of 'em come back. Most don't.”
Victoria looked at some of the other patients, who had to have heard her talk. None met her eye.
“You mean tomorrow morning some of you will be gone?”
“Not some. Most. I've been here three nights. Two of those nights they come in and took people. The first night they probably did too, but I was too tired and never woke up when they were here.”
“Who's they? Where did those people go? Where do new people come from?”
The woman laughed. A couple of the others in the area also cracked smiles, but still wouldn't address her directly.
“We hope we'll see you tomorrow.”
She was about to press the question when a few men—and one mean-looking woman—came through the door into the mostly emptied room. The patients were still there, but few of the attendants.
“All right people, the doctor is in da house!” A man dressed in a campus security uniform yelled to the few students left, including her. “You need to be gone, now!”
“I'll check on you in the morning.” She headed for the door.
“I hope I'm here,” came back in a hushed voice.
Once out of the room the students all went down the stairs, then they continued down into the lower stairwell where they could catch the tunnel back to wherever they came from.
Briefly, she looked for Lilly, but that was fruitless. She walked out the front door and made directly for the medical tent out in the crowd of Forest Park. Doctor Yu should be there, waiting.
The gunshots almost surprised her. Somewhere on campus, someone was unloading round after round. The noises of the shots echoed around the buildings on the brick campus as she walked. Constantly she increased her speed until she was nearly at a jog when she reached the edge of the big crowd.
It took her ten minutes to reach the tent, then another hour before Doctor Yu was free to talk.
“Thanks for seeing me. Can I help you while we talk?”
“Sure, you can roll up these bandages with me.” The doctor was pulling dried bandage wraps off a clothesline. “These are for people with circulation problems. We wrap them around their legs to keep water from pooling there. I like to keep them neat...though between you and I, the longer this goes on, the more other doctors are going to raid these things until the circ folks have nothing to use.”
“Triage?”
“You might say that, though the people who need these probably need them more than anyone with a laceration or bite.” She paused. “Thanks for stopping by. I, uh, wanted to see what made you go to that research group? I thought you were going outside with Liam.”
“I was, but I thought I could do more good here. I was in the Barnes Hospital internship when the stuff hit the fan.”
“Really? That's a great—was a great program.”
“I just want to do something to help while I try to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.” Victoria smiled, hoping it would rub off on the doctor.
“You should stay away from those people. I know we are post-apocalypse and all, but their methods aren't very scientific. They go through test subjects too quickly to really know if they're doing any good.”
“Are they working on a cure?”
“Who isn't?” She paused, considered her reply, then continued. “Actually, me, most times. I have to split duties here in the camp with those in the research division. The bosses don't want to antagonize all these people by pulling back on the medical staff, though I know he wants to. Saving civilization will come from research, not papering over skinned knees.”
“You sound like Liam. Always looking at the big picture.”
Yet, it still didn't add up.
“It's pretty dull work. How do they get all those kids in there to watch over them. Why so many like that?”
Doctor Yu stared at her for a long while. She finished wrapping a long stretchy bandage and looked up.
“What?”
“They didn't tell you what you were studying there? Did they tell you what was on the top floor?”
“No, what's on the top floor?”
5
Victoria waited until it was after midnight. Miki Yu had given her all the instructions she'd need to see things for herself. The doctor said she would wash her hands of the affair if she was caught, but otherwise seemed anxious that Victoria discover the truth.
All the watchmen had their eyes focused on the zombies outside the walls—so Yu had claimed. As she slid through the darkness to the research building, she was inclined to believe it. There weren't any guard stations, lights, or movement. In the distance she could hear the ever-present gunfire of the city, but none close by.
The key, she was told, was to go to a nearby dorm building and find the tunnel underneath the campus. Her own dorm was too far from the core of the university, so it wasn't part of the interlocking system. She flicked on a small flashlight and began walking in the direction she needed to go.
“They don't lock the place down like they should. Students don't leave their beds, much less their rooms, when they think zombies are nearby. They simply turn out the lights and nobody moves all night,” Doctor Yu had explained.
So why am I the idiot out after curfew breaking all the rules. That isn't me, at all. This is Liam.
She reached the sign for Whitaker and went up the steps. Miki said there may be a lone guard wandering around on the first floor, and again she was right on the money. Victoria watched as the man drifted down one hallway and then she softly ran across the entryway to the stairwell up. She heard her own shoes and thought they sounded like bongos plodding across the floor, but the man didn't come running.
On the second floor she reached the top step and waited. There were no guards visible.
“Don't worry about the second floor,” Yu advised. “Go to the third.”
Is Neil still in there?
She thought about what she wanted to do. Go up, or check on the man she'd sat with most of the day. Yu said go, but her nurse's heart wanted to ensure he was either gone, or being tended to by a night crew.
She tip-toed across the linoleum floor, sure that her frying pans were alerting everyone on the floor. But her soft-soled running shoes served her well. She arrived at the door of the research room and could look inside. A soft light came in through the many outer windows. The moon was at just the right angle.
Her eyes took time to adjust.
First she could make out the white sheets of the beds. They were still in there, though that didn't surprise her. They wouldn't move beds around.
There were
a couple nurses patrolling the room. She picked them up as her eyes continued to absorb the details of the dark room.
I think there are people in those beds.
She looked down at the door, and considered whether she could get it open so she could take a closer look. Surely the nurses wouldn't mind some extra help, would they?
There were no light on. At all.
Something wasn't right.
The nurses walked among the patients, though some moved faster than others. That alone gave her pause. The night shift should have fewer nurses, not more. She counted five.
A different research project?
Her pupils grew larger and the data coming in became even more detailed.
The nurses weren't dressed like nurses. They were in civilian clothes.
She thought she could see a face. It was glistening.
It fell into place like the final pieces of a complex jigsaw puzzle.
The odd movements. The lurches. The searching behavior. The wetness on their heads. On their necks.
Oh God, no.
There were zombies in the room. It suddenly made sense. The zombies were walking among the test subjects—they were left in there. The nearest body on the bed was still strapped in. It was too dark to see any facial details, but there was definitely a restraint over their mouth. It could be the fear she felt, but she thought the test subjects were squirming.
Whatever was going on inside, she wanted nothing to do with it.
She looked down the hallway, found it clear, then looked once more into the room.
A zombie face appeared in the window of the door.
She froze.
In the moonlight she watched as it appeared to sniff the door and cock its head like it was listening for something. The filth on its face wasn't visible in the terrible light, but when it licked the glass she could see the disgusting film that had to be red.
She prayed it would leave the door so she could escape unnoticed. She hadn't even brought her gun. There wasn't supposed to be any threat inside the walls. On the spot she decided from that day onward she was going to take a gun into the shower with her.
With a loud snort, the zombie moved out of her field of view. She was just about to move when something told her to stay still. Almost as she resolved to keep her feet planted, the zombie came back to the window—as if it were playing a game with her.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 132