by Rob Horner
Tonya rose slowly from the floor, each motion a deliberate placement of hands and knees, then setting the feet, then stretching up to her full height. The pus-pocket on the left side of her face remained, though it appeared duskier, as if the dark substance within was leeching its color through the skin. The twining blue and red lines were darkening as well, losing their individual colors, though they still appeared as worms rising out of the spongy pocket, tracking along the side of her head, and running back into her temple. A pipeline to the brain.
Her features were twisted, all semblance of the sweet woman gone, the one who remembered everyone’s birthday and would pray with anyone who asked. Her lips were spread and pulled back, exposing the teeth—a human version of a dog snarling and ready to bite.
“Tonya!” Dr. Patel said. “You need to sit down. Relax. Your body just went—”
Tina still had her grip on the doctor’s coat and wasn’t about to let go. When he made to step forward, either not seeing the implicit threat in the other woman’s posture and stance or willfully ignoring it, Tina held him back. Her adrenaline was surging, her nerves singing. She watched the nurse for the slightest indication of movement, ready to pull or push or whatever was needed to keep the doctor safe.
Then the lights went out, and she flinched, dragging the doctor back and putting herself between him and Tonya, willing the other woman not to attack but already feeling the press of her nearness, heart hammering in anticipation of the weight of her lunge, the grasp of her hands, and the snap of her teeth.
No lights came on. Without a window to the outside, the room was devoid of any light.
Tina thought she could hear the other woman breathing, a raspy, torturous sound like air being forced into dried and cracked bags of leather. She held her breath, thinking it would help her hearing, and the sound stopped.
“Shouldn’t the lights have—” Dr. Patel began, and Tonya moved, her form brushing by Tina’s right side, a barely-perceived whisper of motion seen by proximity and filled in by imagination.
“Hey! Let me—”
She was hunting by sound!
Desperate, Tina pulled on the lab coat she still held in her hands, feeling the resistance of the man, determined to override it and pull him to safety. She stuck out her left arm for guidance, feeling nothing but empty air. She had been facing into the room but turned to the right when she moved the doctor the first time. So, her left arm should be pointing at the bed.
“Let go!” Patel yelled, and she didn’t know if he meant her or Tonya.
There was a sudden thud, which came from her right.
She turned, feeling, straining. Found the wall. Swept her hand left. Found the door jamb.
Still grasping the doctor’s lab coat, unsure if he was hurt or if Tonya had hold of him, or anything else other than that she needed to get out of this dark room with this crazy woman now, she slid her hand down to the handle, gave it a twist, and threw it open.
The dim light coming into the room was enough to see Tonya once again down on the floor but rising quickly. The thud must have been her falling.
Twisting, Tina got both hands on the stunned doctor and yanked/pulled him until he was facing out into the hall. She released his coat, grabbed his hand, and darted out the door, towing him behind.
Buck barely avoided the door for room 9, which swung open as he and Jessica ran from the break room. That would have been the worst possible end to what had turned out to be a very bad day.
Yeah, I survived getting my ear half-eaten, took down two crazy fuckers and saved a bunch of people, but then got taken out by a door.
In the dim light of the emergency lamps, he had a brief glimpse of Dr. Crews going all Chris Masters on…
Isn’t that the wife of the dude we brought in?
…a black woman, but then the door blocked his vision even as he raised a hand to keep it from braining him.
Stepping around the door, Jessica right behind him, Buck saw Tina come running out of the room towing Dr. Patel by the hand. Another form staggered out behind them, not sticking the turn properly, so she crossed the width of the hall and banged into the far wall before getting her feet set in order to charge after the fleeing pair.
It was Tonya. He’d never spoken to her before today, but she was the one who checked him in and bandaged him up after Dr. Patel played Frankenstein on his ear.
And now she was moving like that CNA in the break room, all anger and hostility.
He reached for her arm, stopping her before she could renew her chase.
She half-turned to the left and he saw the weird veins on her head. Before she could complete the turn and attack, he had her in a bear hug, arms wrapped around from behind.
She slung her head back, but he anticipated the move, turning his head to the side to avoid having his nose broken.
The back of her head hit his right ear.
Pain.
A fire started in the side of his head, worse than the initial injury, but he held on.
“I’ll get help,” Jessica said, darting around him.
“Jessica,” Dr. Crews grunted. “Pull up a set of B-52s, three of them.”
“What about for Kenja?” the nurse asked.
“Is she out of her mind too?”
Jessica nodded. Then, realizing the doctor couldn’t see her, she said, “Yeah, she attacked me in the break room. Buck knocked her out with the coffee pot.”
“Then get four. Use whatever patient’s names you need to. We’ll fix the charts later.”
“Okay doctor.”
“And hurry. I’m not sure how long we can hold them.”
“Doc!” Tiffany said, running over from room 15, “Mrs. Burlesn—”
“Is that who busted out of 15?” he huffed. Mrs. Butler still wasn’t making any noise, but she struggled on.
“Yeah, she bit James, but Angelica knocked her out.”
“Okay, she’s one of the four.”
“Okay, just wanted to make sure you knew about her.”
“After we get these people down, I want to look at everyone who’s been bitten or scratched. I think that’s how it’s spreading.”
Dr. Patel turned from where he and Tina rested by the nurses’ station. “How is that possible?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
One other voice joined the mix. “Doc,” Josh said. “It’s a madhouse in the waiting room. Same kind of thing. We heard glass breaking, thought maybe we should go help reception.”
“Help or blockade,” he said. “If they get into reception, they get back here. Take everyone who isn’t holding on to someone and go. Brandon? Billy? That means you. Karen, didn’t I see you back there?”
“I’m here, doc.”
“Good. Jessica’s getting B-52s. I want you to mix up some Geodon.”
“How much?”
“However many vials are in the Accudose.”
“Okay.”
“Genny, are you over there?”
“I’m here, doc,” the older redhead said from the secretary’s desk.
“See if you can get the police—”
“Phones are tied to the power,” she interrupted.
“Okay, the cop watching the EMT?”
“He shouted a few minutes ago,” she said.
“Okay, take a peek, see what’s going on, Genny.”
“I can go,” Angelica offered.
“No, stay there and don’t let Mrs. Burleson attack anyone else. We need to keep these people under control.”
Wake up.
She opened her eyes to darkness. She wasn’t sure why she was lying on the floor, so she rose to her feet.
There were shades and gradations to the darkness that informed her this was the darkness of a closed room without a light, and not a problem with her eyes.
There was a vague memory of someone she wanted to share with, a chase around a table. Then a large man came in and did something that put her on the floor. She didn’t try to attack him becau
se he couldn’t become.
She didn’t know how she knew that about him, and she found it didn’t matter.
Even in darkness, the room was familiar. Memories of numerous times she’d been in there, eating at a table, talking with other people. They were images only. She could recognize her role in the pictures without experiencing any lingering emotion attached to them. They were food without taste, fuel for the tank with no pleasure. In this case, the memories provided context to her position.
The table was in front of her and the sink behind.
She turned left and strode unconcerned to where she knew the door would be.
A person who feared pain might have shuffled, hands out hesitantly, but nothing could hurt her.
She reached the door, twisted the handle, and pulled.
A lessening of the darkness opened before her. She could see two who had become, two or three who could not, and four or five others who had yet to be shared with.
Come to me.
She turned away from the tempting targets, heading left past the bathroom where a flash of memory told her someone had died. There were two bodies on the floor, both men. One of them was in the process of becoming. The other was not. He was stirring, trying to get up. His face looked…off-center, and there was blood drooling from his nose. The blood stirred a hunger, a desire to share. But the voice was insistent.
She turned away from the men and pushed through the door leading out of the department.
Someone was coming down the hallway from the right, someone who couldn’t become. That person waved a hand and shouted, “Kenja? Wait,” but she kept going straight. If the person thought to follow her, she would defend herself, but she couldn’t go out of her way. Not right now. Not while he beckoned.
Jordyn barely caught the back door to the emergency room before it closed. She didn’t understand why Kenja stalked away without saying anything, but maybe it had something to do with what she’d witnessed earlier. God knows, if Jordyn had a front-row seat to something like that, she might not be all right for weeks.
Stepping back into the department was like stepping into a warzone. Gus, sweet old Gus, who still held the door for every woman no matter how young or old, was down on the ground, throat ripped out blood pooling under him.
And the cop…
“Oh my God, are you all right?” Jordyn said, rushing to the side of the young police officer. For his part, Tim was trying to get to his feet, but the world kept spinning and his stomach twisted every time it did.
“Guy in there,” Tim waved in the general direction of room 10. “Got out. Knocked me out. My face—”
Jordyn tried on a smile, unaware that Tim currently saw three images of her face and all of them were blurry. “What about Gus? Did the guy in there do that too?”
“Whass wong—” Tim swallowed, closed his eyes, and tried to force his mouth to work properly. “What’s wrong with Gus?”
“He’s dead,” the nurse replied. Then, “Listen, stay here. I’m going to go get one of the doctors.”
She rose to her feet, deliberately avoiding looking at the dead security officer.
Something really bad happened here, she thought. Gus’s throat looked like it was torn… No, not gonna think about it. Maybe Kenja saw something.
But the CNA had been acting strangely, not even responding when she yelled.
“Here’s your radio,” Jordyn said, spying the black square on the floor by the wall. She handed it to Tim, who accepted it. The officer had managed to get to a sitting position, with his back propped against the wall near the door to Room 10. He still didn’t look good. His nose was broken for one thing. She could tell that just by looking at him. And there was blood pooling in one of his eyes.
She jogged to the nurses’ station, almost bowling over Genny. “The officer’s hurt,” she said. “Where are the doctors?”
“They’re both over there,” Genny said. “Oh, I hope he’s not hurt too bad. His wife makes the sweetest cookies. She brings them to church every—”
“Not now, Genny,” Jordyn replied, scooting through the nurses’ station.
Holy shit! What the hell happened here?
Voices rose from the area of Room 14, and Josh came trotting out, pushing an empty stretcher. “Get the one in 16!” he shouted.
Dr. Crews was busy putting a sleeper hold, or something like it, on an older black lady, so she turned to Dr. Patel.
“Doc, the officer needs you. He’s got a broken nose, concussion, I think, and I’m definitely worried about an orbital blowout.”
“Was he bitten?” Patel asked.
“Bitten?”
“Yes, was he bitten by anyone?”
“I don’t kn… Why does that matter?” Jordyn replied.
“Were you?”
“I…no.”
“All right. I’ll come look.”
That was strange, Jordyn thought. Even considering it’s Dr. Patel.
But he was moving, so she went back to the hallway with him. The doctor might need help taking care of the police officer.
Austin would have smiled if the gesture held any meaning for him. It used to. Things that pleased him had made him smile. They must have.
An image of a little girl, three years old, holding a toy guitar in her hands in the breezeway of a modest suburban home, comes into his mind. She plucks the strings, creating a singular note that is both charming and flat. She’s dressed in Minnie Mouse pajamas, a two-piece thing that’s just pink-over-pink when seen from the back. She’s singing a nonsense song as she plucks, lyrics that might be words and might be noise. Some of it he can understand, or thinks he does. “That’s how you Chip and Dale,” and “I can’t believe it,” are the most common, though from her mouth the consonants aren’t completely articulated. She’s moving as she sings, unaware he’s watching her from the doorway, recording this priceless moment of childish innocence on his smartphone, which he and his wife will laugh over when she gets home from work. Every once in a while, she stops the random movement, and a deliberate swish of her tiny bottom accompanies a new lyric, “You gotta shake your buh-uh-uh-utt today.”
He shook his head. The memory used to mean something, but now it was just a random thing, a misfiring of neurons that hadn’t yet accepted their new programming.
It was the sounds that mattered.
People had come in response to the noise of the gunshots, the sudden loss of the lights. He and the become that once was Randy waited for them in the darkness. First a pair, then two more. All were now become, the blood they shed when they were shared with just drying stains on the floor and walls. Even the police officer who removed the become that once was Lisa was now a part of their community.
Those new become had been sent out on his command.
Find more.
Share.
Two were in the area called Med-Surg, where more nurses waited to become, and where a dozen patients cowered in their rooms, terrified by the screams and cries echoing through the darkened halls. Some prayed to be delivered, and his become granted their wishes. One of his stormed through the other departments—radiology, the lab—while the young black girl walked unopposed to the Intensive Care Unit.
Some were immune, fighting to the end.
That surprised him, though it shouldn’t have. He’d already encountered two other immune today. The first was the large man who brought him to the hospital. The second was the torn and shredded body lying on the floor of the morgue.
Immune or not, they could die.
Eventually, all would become or die.
There were others out there, other become like him, who were somehow more. He could feel them. Some were aware of him and were drawing closer. Some were very distant.
The same curly-haired girl now grown a little older sits in his lap on an easy chair. He’s running his hands through her curls, gently massaging her scalp. There’s nothing wrong with her, no injury or ache. It’s just something they do.
That
girl was out there as well.
She’d become before him, but that didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was how right it would be to be with her again.
It was possible.
They were both become.
In the darkness, Austin smiled.
Chapter 24
When Josh pulled open the door to the receptionist’s area, he found Grace and Rose managing to keep the tide at bay. Both glass dividers that separated their little office from the waiting area were broken, but that left a high ledge for someone to have to climb over. Not an easy task with two pissed off receptionists wielding a broom and a mop like fireplace pokers. Only Grace appeared injured, sporting a long gash on her left arm. It didn’t slow her swing, and he winced at the solid thunk sound of her mop handle coming down overhand on a snarling man’s head.
“Thank God, I thought my arms were gonna fall off,” she said when she saw him.
“We were just about to make a run for it,” Rose added. “We didn’t want to leave a way into the back, but we didn’t know what else to do.”
“You’re lucky we stayed this long,” Grace said, jabbing a woman in the face before she could gain the ledge. “They don’t pay us enough for this kind of action.”
Josh smiled. Rose and Grace had been a duo in the reception area ever since he came to work there. If he let them, the two black women would continue building off each other’s statements indefinitely.
“Brandon. Billy. Go give the ladies a breather,” he said. “China, grab some gauze and Coban and wrap Grace’s arm. Caitlin, let’s go grab some furniture, see if we can block this door.”
He’d been thinking of the mobile crash carts and the stationary supply cabinets where they kept sutures and staples, IV supplies, and other frequently used items, bandages and gauze, alcohol swabs and Q-tips, tongue depressors and otoscope probes. But they’d need every cabinet and cart in the emergency department to block the hallway and prevent anyone who got into reception from accessing the rest of the department. It was Caitlyn who kicked the locks off the bed in room 14 and started pulling it out.