“And the vaccinations.”
“You already knew?”
“Just a guess,” I said. I tried to swallow. Mouth was too dry. “You get one of those shots?”
“Yeah. They kind of forced everyone here to get ‘em. Didn’t want us getting sick and missing work, spreading it around to everyone,” he said, smiled. “Why, you didn’t get one?”
“Figured if everyone else got one, I wouldn’t need it,” I shrugged. No one can make me get a shot. I wasn’t a conspiracy theorist, but I didn’t trust the government much. Which, I guess, made me a conspiracy theorist.
“It’s crazy on the fire side. We’ve sent every unit out on EMS calls. We’ve got fires everywhere. There’s no one left. I mean, no one left. We keep putting out tones, and voicing out jobs. Inventory showed every piece of equipment at--what, forty departments-- are being used. The county has nothing left. We tried getting fill-ins from other counties. No one has anything to spare. Not a squad, not a buggy. Nothing. We’re out of ambulances, too. I talked to Taylor. The police -- same thing, all out. No cars left to send to any of the newer jobs. Bunch of cops aren’t answering the radio at all. So that’s got cops coming off of jobs to go check on the other officers.” LaForce shook his head.
It was too much to take in. I understood what LaForce said. I kept running through my conversation with that suicidal scientist. “Yeah, it’s crazy on ph—”
“Grahhhhh.”
I looked up at LaForce. Did he just, Grahhhhh, at me?
His eyes were open wide, stared over my shoulder.
I spun around.
A man had his hands on the bars of the perimeter fence. Blood dripped from his mouth, was smeared on his face, and coated his clothing. Milky, glazed over eyes vacantly stared back at us. Black veins webbed his forehead and face, pulsed. . . no, moved. I watched what looked like small pebbles being sucked up through thin straws.
“What the hell?” I backed away from the fence. “Go tell someone! Get a supervisor, or something!”
LaForce stood for a moment longer, staring. He backed away, one shuffle, then two, then finally turned and ran back into the building. I should have followed.
“It’s all right, sir,” I said. It’s a lie. He looked sick. Like he’d died and no one had told him.
It was there. In my mind. After the call I’d just taken, after talking with LaForce. But I wouldn’t say it out loud. Wouldn’t even let myself form the complete thought in my head. Wasn’t believing it. No fucking way zombies were real. Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, The Walking Dead – Fuck no. Fuck Milla Jovovich and all of that shit.
This guy’s arms snaked through the bars, fingers flicked, reaching for me. His face was pressed tight against the metal slats like he thought he could fit his head through. Worse, like he wouldn’t stop shoving himself until his head did fit through.
I didn’t see the second man until he was directly behind the guy trying to slide through the bars.
The second guy swung a baseball bat as if he was in the box at home plate. The bat connected. The first guy’s skull smashed with a sickening, almost hollow-sounding thwack!
The face that was pressed against the bars was now halfway through. Bulbous eyes bulged from bleeding sockets. Blood oozed from a gaping mouth.
“Ah shit, man.” It was all I could say. May have said it over and over. Certainly more than once. The need to turn and run back inside filled me. There was no reason to stay out here and witness a murder. There was no way I could do anything to stop it. Decided, I was ready to flee.
LaForce and Milzy stood behind me. Their mouths open. They stared at the beating taking place behind me.
“We need police,” I said.
Milzy got one hand on his cell. The other reached for his waist, like he thought he wore a holster. Like his fingers were reaching for the memory of a handgun.
I couldn’t look away from the --you couldn’t call it a fight—scene, as the guy with the bat swung again. Blood sprayed like mist in all directions from the back of what had to be a pulpous mess of a skull.
Milzy yelled at the guy, “Put the bat down! Just put the bat down!”
When the assault finished, murder committed in front of us, the guy held his bat like a sword. “You have to destroy their heads, man. It’s the only way. They don’t go down otherwise. They just keep at you. You have to—”
Three more men came running up on the man with the bat, tackled him.
Good Samaritans?
At least, I thought that until—once they had the bat-guy on the ground—they didn’t just restrain him, they devoured him.
Faces got buried in bat-guys gut, on his arm, and leg; teeth tore clothing off flesh and flesh off limbs.
One guy’s head rose, intestines hung from the corners of his mouth. I wanted to look away as he gnawed and chewed and ripped the thick twisting snake of innards in half, but couldn’t.
I just stood there. Thoughtless. Staring.
“Let’s get inside,” Milzy said. “Now!”
# # #
The 911 Office was supposed to be impenetrable. A fortress. There was a mirrored backup operations floor within the facility, and ready to go to in case the main operations area was destroyed or compromised. There were showers and rooms to rest in should a crisis present itself and we’re forced to stay at work until the situation is resolved.
I figured it might happen during a major snowstorm, or some kind of terrorist attack. The idea of needing refuge from monsters on the loose never entered my mind. Never.
“I had a call, Milzy,” I said. “Some guy said he was a scientist. That this was his fault. I mean, I thought he was crazy. I sent a page to you guys.”
We entered the building. Milzy locked the doors.
“Saw it. Not now,” he said, “save it.”
“He told me the only way to stop these things was by destroying the head. Just like that guy with the bat said just now. Same thing. Destroy the head.”
“Not now,” he said, again.
He also told me the infected ones were people who’d received the H7N9 vaccinations, I thought.
“Get back on the phones.”
The supervisor knew something. I could tell. I was shocked by what I’d just witnessed. A brutal slaying.
Milzy looked shaken. Not shocked.
Someone must have given information about what was going on to management. Just not to everyone, I guess. Not to us. An email. A memo. Department of Defense? The Center for Disease Control?
I’d been off the operations floor for maybe ten minutes?
When I walked back on, people were missing. Too many. “Where is everyone?”
“Sick. Lot of people seem to be coming down with this flu,” Milzy said. “We’ve got them lying down in the bunker area.”
“Everyone?” I asked.
LaForce had his hand over his stomach. He looked green. Normally, I’d of sworn it was from the drag he took on my cigarette. It had been a cigarette, not a cigar. He might look that way from witnessing the murder. I doubted it. He was a volunteer fireman. He’d pulled the skin off burn victims during house fires while trying to drag them out safely. No. He was not sick from smoking, and not from seeing something gruesome.
Milzy sighed. “What, LaForce?”
“I don’t feel good.”
“I need you on the fire side. Please. You two, get back to work.” Milzy strutted back up to the center supervisor pod. Was he trying to act like everything was business as usual? Normal? That some guy didn’t just get his head bashed in with a bat; and the guy with the bat eaten like he was a buffet?
“What the hell is going on?” I asked. I wasn’t taking more calls. There were emergencies flooding the city, yes, but something really fucked up was happening here. Happening now.
Tronnes stumbled out from the fire pod. He was bent over with one hand on the chest-high cubicle wall, the other on his knee. I stepped back. Not a moment too soon. Tronnes heaved and projectile vomit spewed from his mouth and nose. It splashed onto the carpeted floor. Wet, chunky, green vomit.