He’d poised that way for ten, twenty seconds.
Looked like a fountain statue in a pond filled with slimy, but thick water. The odor of ammonia and hot dogs immediately assaulted my nostrils. My breath caught in my lungs as I jumped back and plugged my nose.
“Ah, shit,” I said.
LaForce turned away. “This ain’t good, man.”
I kept backing up. Toward the door. I wanted out.
“Help,” Tronnes said, kept reaching for me. He reminded me of the guy at the fence—the way his fingers flicked at me.
“Milzy,” I called out. “Milzy!”
Milzy sat in a chair in the center supervisor chair, didn’t look good. Did he not just see Tronnes blow chunks? Instead, his hand slipped between the buttons on his shirt, and his palm massaged his bloated-looking belly.
Spenser was on the City Fire channel. He had his headset on, but wasn’t doing anything. A new job flashed on his screen. Instead of dispatching it, he stared at me. Dark bags encircled his eyes, and his upper lip kept twitching.
I knew we were out of fire equipment, there was no one to respond to anything, and I know Tronnes just got fucking sick all over the place--but Spenser should at least, at the very least, put the call out over the air.
Across the room, Allison backed away from Taylor, and Kawyn. They looked, shit . . . they looked hungry. “Allison!” I yelled.
She saw me, but stayed still. Her lips moved. I couldn’t hear a sound she made.
I wanted to close my eyes. Ignore everything. Because it’s not real. It’s not happening. Couldn’t be.
I could turn, run—grab my keys and head to my car. Or I could help those who were not yet sick.
But see, there’s the problem.
How did I know if someone who was not sick now, wouldn’t get sick? I didn’t.
I tried to remember everything the scientist had said to me. He blamed the H7N9 vaccinations. They were contaminated, but still distributed to the masses. The Flu was man-made. The cure, man-made. But something had gone wrong. Locally. Only thing was the shots, the vaccinations, were sent across the U.S. Supplies may have been sent out globally? LaForce had said they were calling the outbreak an epidemic.
Epidemic was what LaForce had said.
“Who did not get the flu shot?” I shouted.
People looked at me from the various pods.
“Who didn’t get the shot?” I said. “The vaccination. Who didn’t get it?”
Maar, Nolan, Cortese—their hands went up. Like they’re in school.
“What are you talking about?” DeJesus, who was on the EMS channel, stood up.
“Did you get the flu shot?” I asked.
He nodded.
I pursed my lips. “How you feel?”
“Fine.” He burped.
Are you kidding me? He fucking burped.
“If you didn’t get the shot, come with me.”
Allison screamed. Taylor and Kawyn advanced some, moved slowly and sluggishly, but advanced regardless.
I ran her way.
Bradley-Phillips came out of the fire pod. He’s a brick wall. He should have been a city fireman, not a dispatcher--doing truck work, tearing holes in roofs with saws and axes, not dispatching. When he crossed his arms over his chest and hit me, hard, I fell. I landed on my left hand. My wrist bent wrong, but didn’t snap.
I screamed.
“What’s the deal?” Bradley-Phillips asked.
I ignored his drooling. “You get the shot?”
“So?”
I got up, babied my left arm some, and curled it in toward my own chest. If I told them what I knew, what I thought I knew to be true, they’d panic. If I didn’t come clean, those who hadn’t received the shot would be trapped. I’d be trapped.
My kids. Shit. My kids!
“You’re sick,” I said. I moved backward a few steps. “Those of us who didn’t get the shot need to go to Secondary Ops.” The mirror back up area just across the hall.
I said this loud, hoped the people who had not received the shot understood. I tried to tell them without saying it. I wanted them to run.
“You don’t want to spread the virus, do you, Bradley? Do you?”
He’s a big guy. Normally gentle. At least I thought so before he knocked me halfway across the room.
No one moved. My subtle hint had fallen on deaf ears.
“Allison—why don’t you and the others go to Secondary Ops,” I said, my eyes on Bradley-Phillips, as if ready to fend off another attack. Which I wasn’t. The guy could squash me with his hammerhead-sized thumb.
I couldn’t leave Allison. I wouldn’t say I loved her, but she was my girl. My woman. However, there was no way I planned to cross the room in order to get to her. No way at all.
I heard the groan and felt the hand on my shoulder before I could do anything. Its puke breath gave Tronnes away.
I grabbed Tronnes’ wrist with my one good hand, and spun, twisting his arm up behind his back, and pushed. It was harder than I wanted to push. When I heard the crack, I shuddered.
With his now limp arm dangling at his side, I expected Tronnes to scream. Or cry. Or cuss. Or throw a punch.
He didn’t. He licked his lips. Cocked his head to one side. . .And took a sloppy step toward me.
Chapter Six
I’d told everyone who wasn’t injected what the plan was. It was no longer safe staying here on the primary operations floor. Either they followed my directions, or they didn’t.
I pushed Tronnes again, hard. His one good arm pin-wheeled.
“Allison, get out of here!”
I didn’t stay to see if Tronnes fell. Instead, I turned and ran past LaForce, who was doubled over and cradling his stomach with folded arms.
I pushed through the door, pulled it closed.
Bradley-Phillips, right behind me, was stopped by the steel enforced barrier. He struggled with the door handle. If he turned it, and pushed—I’d be unable to stop him.
Instead, he gave up on the knob and just banged giant fists on the door’s bullet proof glass.
It was in his eyes. They’d gone from brown to milky-white. Brown, to fucking milky white. Did I just see that happen? Did I just witness life spill out of his eyeballs?
No, had the scientist said they weren’t dead. That they were alive? I couldn’t remember.
Bradley-Phillips looked dead. It seemed like he’d forgotten how to use a door handle. In the time it took his eyes to lose color, he’d forgotten how to use a door handle. I’d seen it happen, and I still couldn’t believe it.
The others—those who hadn’t received the shot—made their way toward the west end primary operations exit.
Allison had jumped onto a desk and over the cubicle as Taylor swept a hapless arm toward her, and missed.
Maar, Nolan, and Cortese, were right behind her, the four of them scrambled in the direction of the only other not yet blocked possible escape route.
Winger, one of the other supervisors with Milzy, tackled Cortese, had him by the arm. Without pause, Winger bit off Cortese’s ear, chewed it like a pit-bull with a rubber wad of rawhide.
I draped an arm across my stomach and hoped to steady the sudden flip-flopping going on inside there. I braced myself, an arm on the wall, knees wobbling.
I pulled my hands away from the wall. The floor blurred. My shoulder slammed into the closed door. . .off balance, but still on my feet.
Secondary Ops. It’s around the corner. I pushed off the door with my shoulder, and ran.
Allison’s at Secondary. Stopped at the pass-protected door. “They’re in there!”