36 Hours (15 page)

“No.”

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

92

“So they don’t eat. But they aren’t supernatural creatures. They are byproducts of an infectious disease. There’s no mystery here. They
can
die. And they
will
. It is only a matter of time. Only a matter of time until they either eat each other to death, or die of starvation. Then—and only then—do we care to venture out. And then others will venture out. I fear the number of survivors won’t be too high, but no matter—we’ll be among them. We all will. Because we’re going to survive. When they’re dead, we are going to burn their bodies and start over again. It’s just like a storm. That’s all this is. A storm. A rainfall wiping away what needs to be wiped away. Evolution. Survival of the fittest. We are the fittest.”

Wiping away what needs to be wiped away

Survival of the fittest

They don’t die—they come
back
to life

“What makes you so sure,” I asked, “that they can die?”

“Logic. Common sense. Things that die don’t come back to life again. It’s natural biological law.”

“But you’re wrong. I killed one earlier today, at a friend’s house. I saw him die. And he was sprawled over the table, bleeding everywhere. And when I went back, he was gone. He’d escaped through a window. A trail of bloody footprints showed his path. And then one was shot over and over in the street and fell from a truck. The infected was dead on the ground. And then he was gone when I looked again. I think these things have a tendency to come alive again.”

“Reincarnation.”

“Yes. I guess. I don’t know.”

Bryon shook his head, hostilely remarked, “What does it matter? Austin, we’re not staying here.”

My parents. My sister. My family.

The police officer went rigid. “Are you joking? You mean to leave?”

Bryon snapped, “You saved our lives. And we’re happy for that.” Grateful.

“But we can’t stay here. You’re a stepping stone. A good one. But we have to go on.”

The cop found himself standing. “No. You can’t leave. It’s not safe out there.”

Bryon rose to meet him. “We’re going. Thank you, for everything. The rescue, and the food.”

“No.”

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

93

My eyes flashed between them.

The cop snarled, “You
cannot
leave!”

“What is it to you?”

“I don’t want to see-“

“You sly liar. You’re hiding something from us. You want to keep us here, for something you’re afraid to mention through your own bloody lips.”

The cop swung at him; Bryon blocked and drove his knee into the officer’s crotch; the cop fell backwards, over a desk; Bryon came at him again; I screamed, “Bryon!” The cop writhed away and Bryon slammed over the desk; the cop drew the 9mm and bashed the handle against Bryon’s scalp; Bryon gave a grunt and slid to the ground. Blood trickled down the side of his face, a nasty cut and bruise sweltering over his temple. The cop cocked back the gun and aimed the sights over Bryon’s face.

My legs took control. I wrenched upwards and rammed my shoulder into the cop’s back, sending him barreling into the wall; the gun discharged, the slug echoing past my ear. I stood over Bryon’s body and held my arms out in front of me, the fear in my face silently pleading. The cop glared at me and lowered the gun. My breath came ragged and worn. Bryon moaned.

The door swung open and two other cops dashed into the room. One was heavyset and sweating, jowls glistening like diamonds. The other was lanky but strong, and had a buzzed cap and sunglasses. The large one held a 9mm too, the other a small-arms machinegun. I feared they would unleash on me, but they didn’t.

“Everything all right, Pacino?” the lanky one asked.

“Yes,” the first cop said. “Everything’s just fine.” He rubbed his groin. Cold sweat popped on his brow.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. No, he’s fine. He’s not dangerous.”

“Then what happened?”

“The one on the ground attacked me. I laid him down.”

The cop had started it all. I opened my mouth to protest; Bryon gripped my pant leg.

“What do you want us to do with him?”

Pacino licked his lips. “Throw the one on the ground in a cell. I will talk alone with the other.”

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

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The officers rough-handedly tossed me to the side and grabbed Bryon, lifting him up, and taking him through the door. Blood still smeared his face. I watched his feet, then the officer carrying his legs vanish behind the door, and it swung shut, latch snapping. My eyes fell upon the cop—Pacino, was it?—who now came towards me, suddenly more ominous than ever. And yet I found the energy—the courage—to say, “You took the first swing. He was defending-“

“I’ve been a cop for years. I knew he was about to strike.
I
was on the defensive. Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“That bullet, it didn’t hit you, did it?”

“No.”

“Graze you?”

“I’m fine.” One could almost fall for the guy’s lying sense of compassion. No compassion was there. You could see its absence in his eyes, where they shone with a vivid
excitement
and
hatred
.

“I’m sorry. Really, I am. I didn’t mean for the gun to go off.”

“Did you mean to plug Bryon if I wouldn’t have knocked you across the room?”

“No. It was a display of force.” Then, “Before my friends got here. Are you thirsty?”

Parched. “No.”

He holstered the gun. “Okay. Whatever. Look. I need to show you something. Come on.”

“Where are you putting Bryon? A cel ?”

“They’re nice. It’s not like Alcatraz or anything.”

“What about his head? You bruised his temple.”

“Don’t worry! We’ll clean him up. Alvarez is a licensed physician.”

He took me through the door, down a corridor with offices, the computer screens blank, doors open. Blood covered one of the panels of glass, flecks of human flesh branded into the drywall. We went through an electronic door, which was half-wedged open with a night-stick. The hallway bent around and we passed several high-plated glass windows overlooking the road leading towards the highway. Tractor Supply, McDonald’s, Burger King, K-Mart, China Garden, Kroger, and the infamous LaComedia Dinner Theatre were all down that road—and a road branching ran up to my subdivision. A hill and several homes forebode us the view, though we could see the general, quiet Anthony Barnhart

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mayhem of the streets. And I saw AmeriStop All the windows were shattered and the shelves were knocked over; a gas pump had burst apart into flame, and fire still ravaged the lot, leaving the front of the building charred. Through the smoke I could see several figures moving about within the gut of the gas station department. We went on through a door, into a foyer. And he stopped.

“You wanted to know how long until one of these guys starves? We’re learning.” He reached for the door, looked over his shoulder at me, and added as a precaution, “Don’t get close. The chain could come out.” And he opened the door, and the darkness of the hall filled with that scourging light, and my eyes made out several potted plants, some trees, a bench outside, surrounded by towering brick walls, with barbed wire at the top. A Wendy’s fast food tray brushed inside the doorway, pushed by a delicate wind. A courtyard. Pacino took the 9mm in his hands and went through; I followed. Almost immediately I saw him. Or her. I couldn’t tell. All I could see was its back; it was crouched in the corner, with a chain around the neck. Blood soaked the back of the shirt in rivulets, and its chest heaved in and out with every breath. I don’t think it had heard us come through. We went behind the bench, feet softly padding over the tiled rock. My blood pressure surged, and I suddenly felt so fearful. Bryon’s paranoia. Conspiracy? I eyed the cop warily, almost with fright; but he didn’t look at me, and instead—clapped his hands. The man/woman in the corner turned, and I saw the face of a once-beautiful police sergeant, now turned into a ghoul from hell. Her short brown hair was caked this way and that, a concoction of mingled sweat and blood. Her purple skin meshed with the light, and her sunken eyes swiveled in the sockets. Her yellow teeth knocked together and she ran towards us, reaching out with hands in a death-grip. She screamed—I fel against the cop; and then the scream turned into a choke, a gasp, and the chain around her throat tightened; she fell over backwards, landing in several trimmed bushes, next to a spindly hemlock. She got up and came again, but fell back. She did this over and over, eyes betraying all love, and finally she went back to the corner, hunched down, and cowered.

“They don’t learn,” the cop said. He spoke in a whisper. “She’s forgotten about us.”

Clap clap clap

She whipped around, hissed, and launched at us again, falling back several times. Returned to the corner.

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“We’ve guessed a memory span of about a minute. And she gives up if it’s a lost cause.”

“How? How’d you-“

“She was a friend of mine. Worked at the Station. We all loved her. She was single, so everybody jostled for her. Then someone came rolling into the Station, one of the first. Before it hit so hard. She said she’d been attacked and bitten, and had knocked the attacker cold. She said it happened in the Eagle View Condos. And then she started getting angrier and angrier. You see, the symptoms aren’t just physical—they’re also psychological. This person, she turned almost inhuman
psychologically
before she completely made the jump. Taylor didn’t know what to do. The woman was screaming and we had to restrain her. Then she started to morph physicals; Taylor tried to grab her arm, we were going to put her down with some sedatives—not kill her, mind you, just paralyze her—and then she bit Taylor, tore out a chunk of her arm. Taylor had gone hysterical, running around, and she was bleeding so bad. And then when she was getting gauze—I was with her—she threw the gauze away and started cursing, swearing. It wasn’t like her at all. As if her soul was being taken away and replaced with that of a brute animal. Then she started to change, and I backed off. Then we had to lock the doors, and were able to get her in a cell before she went insane. We shot her with tranquilizer—we have some animal tranq guns—and then we strapped her up and put her out here.” His voice wavered; he bit his bottom lip. “She always liked to come out here and read. She really liked John Grisham. She was reading
The Testament
. It’s still in her locker…” He turned away.

I looked at her now. Yes. She did have a chunk missing out of the arm. And she didn’t see me.

She’d forgotten.

“It’s the bites,” Pacino told me. “They bite you, and you become one of them. And you—gosh.”

Thunder crackled. She jumped up again and rushed us. Pacino grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me to the door. It began to sprinkle, some drops splattering on my head. Pacino opened the door wide as the rain began to intensify; lightning flashed above us, the courtyard growing even dimmer, until Taylor—or was it Taylor? No, I didn’t know; couldn’t know—was just a shadow retreating to the corner, making guttural noises with the rain. Anthony Barnhart

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“She’s gone,” Pacino mumbled. “It’s not really her. Her body has been stolen.”

And we went back inside. He locked the door behind us. Rain drummed on the roof.

2:00 p.m.

Sadists forevermore

The courtyard

The green mile

Darkness grew over us again and we walked down the corridor. “You didn’t chain her just because she liked to spend her break out there,
did
you, Pacino?”

He could read right through me, and I through him. “You’re a bright kid. What’s your name?”

“Why didn’t you kill her? Shoot her?” I remembered the blood on the office window. What led these officers to save the girl, and not the one who had been killed? A horrible idea crept up, an idea only very lonely men could conjure up in their sleep. His reply soothed the ache on my mind.

“She will tell us when it is safe to go,” he answered. “She will die of starvation. And so will all the others, within a bare few hours.”

They were starving her. Seeing when she would die. Seeing how long it would take until the infected were cleansed, not through serums or I.V.s or treatment, but through a grueling and agonizing death. I imagined her death-throe wails, chained and unable to flee, scorched beneath the bitter sun, skin wrinkling back and opening, revealing bloody flesh and muscle. Writhing in the garden, her wails shaking the Station walls.

The windows looking over the street passed to our right, revealing heavy rains pounding the grass and trees and slopes and buildings. Sheets of rain swam over the street, between the wrecked vehicles, and fires were smothered, choking dying flames. The thunder shook the building foundation. Mist rose up from the grass, scratching over the window panes. One of the windows held a jagged crack, the panes on either side held taught and tense, on the verge of breaking. But the windows were gone and we went back into the hallway with the offices. Surprised he didn’t take me back to the desk room, he dragged me in the other direction. The air grew colder. Another set of electronic doors, wedged open Anthony Barnhart

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with a crowbar. He put his foot in and took out the bar, then with muscles rippling slid open the doors, ducking inside. The doors swung shut behind us, smacking together with a loud crackling.

A blank television set lay on the ground, the screen broken. Chairs were scattered about the room, and several mounted video feeds on the walls and ceiling hung like a ghostly fog. The two other officers saw me and turned their heads, muttering to themselves. Laughing. The big one slid a hand over his mountainous stomach.

“Take it easy, boys,” Pacino said. “I just need to show him.”

The skinny one—Alvarez, I think—jumped in front of another door. “Whoa, whoa. I don’t think so.”

“Come on. He needs to know.”

“Why? Why does he need to know?” He glared at me. “Is he not content with living?”