A Plague on All Houses (5 page)

“Wait!”

Gabriel paused, hand on the doorknob.

“I need to use the bathroom.”

Was it just the light or did Gabriel's face just turn red? Yup, definitely some embarrassment going on there. This guy taught classes about all sorts of gruesome diseases, but a mention of basic bodily functions made him blush. Go figure. I wondered what he'd do if I needed tampons or talked about monthly water retention.

And why was I was thinking about trivial shit like this when I'd been attacked by frickin’ zombies?

“Professor Fraser said you needed to stay in bed.”

OMG, it was like talking to a call center in Bangalore. You just knew they were reading from scripts no matter what you said to them.

“Look, I need to pee, okay? I'm not going to rest until I do, so unless you have a bedpan handy, I really need to get to a bathroom
now.
”

Gabriel opened his mouth to argue, came to his senses and snapped it shut again without further argument. When I started to stand up, he helped me to my feet.

Does it make me a shallow person to admit that the sensation of his unarguably muscular arm around my shoulders felt really good? Maybe it was just because his strength was a momentarily safe haven against the uncertainty now rocking my world.

He opened the door and led me out into a hallway. Down at one end a pair of double doors swung open and I could see the make-shift medical ward, people in Hazmat suits and others dressed like Gabriel bustling around, a low hum of continual conversation clearly audible.

I also heard moans and screams. Disturbing splashes of red were clearly visible on the floor and bedclothes.

“Come on.” Gabriel steered me down the other end of the hallway, lined with doors with the little view-panels like the one to my room. At the end were the restrooms, clearly marked with the ubiquitous man-in-pants and woman-in-dress outlines. Gabriel stopped outside of the women's room. “Will you be okay on your own?”

I nodded and stepped away from the security of his arm. I wobbled slightly, but used the door handle to steady myself before he could grab me again. I didn't care if I passed out; no way I wanted him coming in with me. There are some things a girl has to do on her own, especially when a cute guy is involved, even if said guy is a jerk.

I did my business as quickly as possible and washed my hands thoroughly, as if to scrub away what had happened. Splashing water on my face, I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror above the sink. Wow. I could model for Helmut Lang's next heroin-chic photo shoot, at least from the neck up. I thought I'd looked bad after my bout with swine flu. Hell, I had looked like America's Top Model in comparison to the ghastly pale creature with hollowed eye sockets staring back at me now.

The bandages on my shoulder were flecked with red at the point of the wound. Not too badly. Just a few dots of blood soaking through the gauze to remind me of what lay beneath.

I poked experimentally at the dressing covering my arm. Yes, it still hurt, but no blood came through. I flashed back on the moment when the fat zombie had sunk his teeth into my flesh. At the time it'd felt like he'd torn away half my arm, but maybe it really wasn't so bad.

I shivered, noticing my backside and legs were colder than the rest of me. That brought the realization I was wearing one of those flimsy hospital gowns that tied in the back, leaving the butt hanging out when the two sides inevitably flapped open. And at some point or another someone had removed all of my clothes, leaving only my Victoria's Secret pink lace thong. Which meant Gabriel had probably gotten a good view of my rear in the last five minutes.

I spent about thirty seconds being embarrassed before realizing a) the odds of Gabriel checking me out were slim to none; b) I had a nice butt, so no big deal if he
did look
; and c) honestly, why the hell did it matter whether or not anyone looked at my butt when zombies wanted to take a bite out of it?

The human mind really does work in mysterious ways.

A fist pounded on the door, sending a surge of adrenaline through me.

“You okay in there?” Gabriel's voice, sounding more impatient than concerned.

Jeez frickin’ Louise, couldn't a girl pee in private? “Yeah, I'm fine. Give me a sec.”

I could practically feel the impatient vibes thrumming on the other side of the door, which naturally brought out a perverse desire on my part to take my sweet time. I needed to lie back down, however, so I stifled my petty impulse and rejoined Gabriel in the hall.

He put a pseudo-solicitous arm around my shoulders, but I could tell he couldn't wait to dump me back on my cot and leave. I felt like I had cooties or something. I thought of Lucy from
Peanuts
: “Eew, dog germs!” Except in my case it was “Eew, zombie germs!”

If I hadn't needed Gabriel's arm for support, I would've shoved it off. But I could tell my recovery would be a lot like a bout of flu, with brief periods of deceptive strength followed by total exhaustion. It wasn't fair. Food poisoning, Walkers flu, and zombie bites, oh my.

Before we reached my room, the double doors at the end of the hall swung open and a gun-toting, Hazmat-suit-clad soldier burst into the hallway. “Captain! We have a situation!”

Captain? Since when did a teacher's aide rank—well, a rank? I filed this away for later examination.

Gabriel's arm immediately dropped from my shoulders. “I'll be right there.” He turned to me. “Ashley, go back to your room.”

Not bothering to wait for an answer, he took off after the soldier through the still swinging doors, leaving me swaying unsteadily in the hallway.

I wanted to lie down and should have gone back to my room. But I've never been much for following orders, especially with so many questions left unanswered. So I waited a moment, then followed him into the makeshift medical ward.

The screams I'd heard from the hallway amplified in volume the second I slipped into the ward. Eerie moans echoed above the screaming, a real-life chorus of the damned. The smell in the room was thick, coppery, and rancid. I did not even
want
to know what went into this particular olfactory mix.

The dozen or so cots were occupied by thrashing, feverish people. None of them looked good. Sallow, greenish-yellow skin tone, like jaundice with a bad case of mold. Blood and other fluids leaking from mouths, noses, and ears. Some had raw wounds on their arms or legs while others had bandages seeping through with blood—or in some cases, nasty, foul-smelling blackish ooze. Most of them had restraints strapped across their arms, waist, and legs, along with metallic collars around their necks. I thought the straps were there to prevent the patients from hurting themselves, but still, it was totally disturbing. And the collars? Just plain creepy.

There was a commotion at the far end of the room, lots of shouting and drawn firearms. Most of the Hazmat brigade were down there along with Gabriel, who, as far as I could see, was the only person in the room besides me
not
strapped down who wasn't wearing protective gear. I briefly wondered why, but then the woman in the cot nearest me started convulsing and I forgot everything but the horror show in front of me.

Dark blood poured from her mouth and nose in scary quantities. Her eyes snapped open and for an instant we locked gazes. The whites of her eyes looked like bloody egg yolks: sickly yellow streaked with red veins. Tears of blood oozed out from under her lashes and trickled down her face. She opened her mouth and croaked out something. I think it was “Help me,” but a fresh flow of blood caused the words to rattle and distort in her throat.

“I … I'm sorry…” I backed away from her, wanting only to escape from the horror of the moment. My legs hit cold metal and I nearly toppled back onto another cot, this one holding a skinny African-American kid covered in blood-soaked sheets. His eyes and mouth gaped open, blood oozing thickly from the corners. I would have thought he was dead, except for the occasional tremor wracking his body.

Pressing a hand to my mouth to force back the bile rising in my throat, I stumbled to the middle of the room, trying not to look any more as the grotesque sounds of throats closing up even as they vomited out blood reached my ears.

Why wasn't anyone doing anything for these people?

Something or someone at the far end of the room growled, a guttural, feral sound. My attention snapped back there in time to see one of the Hazmat guys raised his gun, tugging back on a lever that made a nasty
ch-chak
, like the sound a shotgun makes in the movies when they rack a shell into it. A real “gonna shoot you in a sec” kind of sound.

“Hold your fire.” Gabriel barked the order in a tone that cut through the chaos. “We need to contain as many of these specimens as possible.”

Specimens?

“Use the poles. Just keep away from its teeth.”

I slowly approached the cluster of soldiers and medics. The soldiers had poles, about six feet in length, with spring loaded clasps on the end. No one noticed me; they were too busy trying to hook the clasps of their poles into one of several metal rings on the blue metal collar around the neck of what had once been a good-looking guy in his twenties. He wore torn, bloody remnants of jeans and white cotton button-down shirt. I could see wounds through the shredded fabric, deep gouges in gangrenous sallow-green flesh.

“Matt…?” My voice came out as barely a croak, but still audible.

Matt's head stopped moving as if my voice triggered an off switch, then slowly turned to the side to stare at me with milky white pupils, the whites themselves yellowed and bloodshot. One hand stretched out towards me and for a heartbeat I thought he recognized me. Then a feral snarl distorted his features and he—it lunged for me, mindless hunger the only emotion in those dead eyes as it plowed unheedingly through the soldiers between us.

A bolt of paralyzing grief hit me, so strong and painful it felt like someone plunged a knife into my chest. I just stood there as my now-undead boyfriend knocked soldiers aside in a hunger for my flesh that had nothing to do with sex.

Zombie Matt's fingers actually grazed my shoulders when one of the pole clasps snagged the collar around its neck, stopping the zombie in its tracks. I looked up to see Gabriel holding the other end of the pole, muscles tensing as he fought to pull Matt away from me. Everyone else scattered as he/it bucked and lunged against the collar and pole's restraint, hands grasping and slipping off Hazmat suits, guttural moans and growls spilling out of its mouth along with that rank black fluid.

“Some help here!” Sweat poured off Gabriel's brow.

Without thinking, I grabbed up one of the poles dropped by the soldiers and shoved the business end up against the ring on the side of Matt's collar. The clasp opened and shut with a snap. The resulting jerk on my arms and shoulders nearly made me pass out. Only the knowledge I might be dead if I did faint kept me upright.

Gabriel shot me an unreadable look before barking out, “Someone grab that pole now!”

Thankfully, someone did. I didn't know who; all those Hazmat suits looked alike. But someone grabbed the pole from my hands, and someone else caught me as I started a slow collapse to the floor.
This is getting monotonous
, I thought as everything once more faded to black.

* * * *

I woke up—again—in my little sterile room. To my surprise, Gabriel sat in the chair next to the bed. His eyes were shut and I thought he was asleep. He looked haggard, as exhausted as I felt. Although—I didn't feel nearly as shitty as I thought I should have. I ached a little, sure, but the fever? Gone. The bite wounds itched and that was irritating, but shouldn't they hurt a lot more?

I poked at the fresh bandage covering the bite on my forearm, resulting in about as much pain as if I'd just bruised it a few days ago.

As much to distract myself from thinking about Matt as anything else, I unhooked the little butterfly clasp holding the bandage in place and slowly unwound what seemed like a large intestine's length of gauze from my arm. I winced as I revealed the arm itself, prepared for a gaping, ragged hole where the zombie's teeth had ripped away the flesh. To my surprise the wound wasn't that bad. I could see tooth marks, sure, but the shark-bite loss of flesh I'd expected just wasn't there.

“You feeling okay?”

Gabriel sat up, eyes opened to reveal those gorgeous blue irises.

“Yeah.” I sat up without any residual light-headedness. “I feel pretty good, actually. I don't get it.”

Looking uncomfortable, Gabriel got to his feet. “Professor Fraser will explain everything. I'll send her in.” He opened the door and started to leave.

“Wait!”

Gabriel stopped in the doorway. “What?”

“What … what happened to Matt?”

He hesitated. “Professor Fraser will be here in a minute. She'll explain everything.”

He turned to leave again, then paused and looked back at me. “I'm really sorry about your boyfriend, Ashley.”

The door shut behind him. I almost believed he meant it.

I drank some more ginger ale from the tray on my bedside stand. About five minutes later the door opened and Simone entered bearing a tray, which she set down on the bed stand. She sat down next to me and gave me an encouraging smile.

“Are you hungry, Ashley?”

I shook my head. “Not really.” I smelled chicken broth and my stomach growled. Okay, I lied. But I didn't want to be hungry. My boyfriend was dead. Or should be dead. And somehow the fact my body still wanted food seemed like a betrayal.

Simone reached out and brushed a lock of hair back from my forehead. The simple kindness of the gesture brought tears to my eyes. “I know you're hurting, both physically and emotionally. You've been through so much. No one should have to go through what you've experienced in the last twenty-four hours. But you should try to eat something. You need to get your strength back and you
did
lose some blood, you know.”

“I want to call my parents,” I said, trying hard not to cry. I wanted to hear my mom's voice so badly it hurt.

“I'm sorry, Ashley, but that's just not possible.” Simone looked sympathetic. “Outside communications have been heavily restricted. We have a call center handling all incoming calls to the quarantine zone and fielding questions.”

“A call center?” I couldn't believe it. “Do
not
tell me the government is outsourcing this to India or the Philippines.”

Simone tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile. “No, it's local, at least as far as being in the United States.”

“But … I need to know if they're okay.” My voice quavered on “okay.”

“Where do they live?”

“Ukiah.”

“So far the infection has been contained in Redwood County. They should be safe.”

“And if they contact this call center…?”

“They'll be told you're recovering, but need to remain in quarantine for a while longer. And that you're getting the best possible care.” Simone patted my shoulder. “They'll still worry, of course, but not too badly.”

I shut my eyes and heaved a huge sigh of relief. Maybe I'd eat a little something after all.

Opening my eyes again, I looked at her. “How did this happen?”

She shook her head. “I don't know.
We
don't know.”

“Who's ‘we’?”

“Ah.” Simone picked up the tray and set it carefully across my stomach. “Eat something and I'll tell you what I can.”

Chicken noodle soup, saltines, and more ginger ale. A very familiar menu over the last month. Definitely comfort food. And right now I needed all the comfort I could get. So I crumbled crackers into the soup, picked up the spoon and ate while Simone talked.

“This is not the first time an outbreak of this sort has occurred.” Simone settled into professorial mode, lacking only a lectern and laser pointer. “Throughout history,” she continued, “there have been other outbreaks of the walking dead, also referred to as zombies, living dead, and numerous colloquial and hyperbolic descriptions. It all depends on the time period, locale, and average I.Q. of the local populace. Walking Death has been a popular term, though.”

“What causes it?” I asked, sipping some more ginger ale before going back to the soup.

She shrugged. “It's been difficult to isolate the root cause. It acts like a virus, spread via contact with the infected's bodily fluids. But as to how it originated? No idea. The religious implications alone are staggering.” Simone paused, as if pondering those implications, but then shook her head as if to dismiss whatever she'd been thinking and got back to business.

“Some of the outbreaks have been minor, quite easily contained. In those cases, patient zero was easily located and—”

“Patient zero?”

“The index case. The first patient that indicates the existence of an outbreak.”

I nodded. “Like in the movie
Outbreak
, the guy who let the monkey go, he'd be patient zero, right?”

“Er, yes. At least for the mutated Ebola virus they—” Simone stopped and looked at me askance. “That was a terrible movie, you know.”

“It had Dustin Hoffman,” I said in defense. I liked
Outbreak.

“Yes, and that hideous
Godzilla
remake had Matthew Broderick. And he was no better in his role than Hoffman was in
Outbreak
.”

Couldn't argue with that.

“As I was saying,” said Simone, “Many outbreaks throughout history were easily brought under quarantine. Since this virus wasn't airborne, pandemics were rare. Thankfully the limited travel options made it more difficult to spread, especially when it sprang up in isolated pockets of civilization.

“Then…” Simone paused. “Two outbreaks occurred that had the potential to become apocalyptic. Drastic measures were taken to quarantine the infected areas in both cases. For instance, Pompeii and its sister town of Herculaneum were so heavily infected, Vesuvius was deliberately induced to erupt.”

I stared at her. “You have
got
to be kidding. I mean, what? A bulimic volcano? Did someone stick a finger down its throat?”

Simone laughed abruptly, as if the sound was startled out of her. “You have a unique way of viewing things, Ashley. But yes. Basically that
is
what happened.”

“Seriously?”

Simone nodded. “You see, there's been a small group of people over the centuries who have been aware of the existence of the zombie virus and the potential threat it carries to humanity. They've taken whatever steps necessary to ensure the disease didn't become a pandemic. You've heard of Atlantis, yes?”

I assumed it was a rhetorical question, but nodded anyway.

“There's a reason it's under twenty leagues of saltwater.”

“No way.” I mean, she couldn't be serious, right?

“Oh yes.” Simone didn't look or sound like she was joking in the least. “Those who fought to keep the zombie plague contained took measures to … er … pull the plug on Atlantis when the infection's spread couldn't be stopped, at the cost of their own lives.”

I suddenly pictured an overly earnest group of scholars pulling a giant bathtub-like plug out of the ocean, water swirling around like a flushing toilet, lots of little Atlanteans squealing as they whirled around and vanished under the water. I would have laughed at the absurdity of the image, but if Simone was telling the truth—and after Matt tried to make a meal of me, I had no reason to doubt her—there was nothing funny about it.

“What I don't get,” I said, trying to wrap my brain around everything she'd told me so far, “is how historical events that big have been covered up. I mean, it's not like they had the CIA back in those days.”

Simone looked at me pityingly. “There have been cover-ups as long as there have been politicians, Ashley. Which has been since the first Cro-Magnon figured out he could talk his neighbor out of a hunk of mammoth meat instead of beating it out of him. Although there will always be those who prefer beating to talking.”