Apocalypse Atlanta (11 page)

As she watched, the two officers who’d been firing stopped.  Then she realized they were out of ammunition, as she saw them removing the magazines from their pistols and reaching for replacements from their equipment belts.  When the steady thump of bullets ceased, the crowd of students at the school doors seemed to suddenly surge forward.

None of the students moved any faster; those in the lead were just no longer being knocked down and becoming fresh obstacles for those behind.  The depressed oval shape of students at the door bulged out as they cleared the doors and spread out, making their way past their classmates on the ground.  Some of those on their feet fell or tripped over others who were already down, but as many more managed to get past and head for the nearest person they saw.

Jessica’s eyes swept through the confusion, as rescuers started darting forward and grabbing at students.  The kids tended to respond by grabbing back, and, just as she’d seen at the elementary school, leaning in or pulling on whoever they got their hands on and trying to bite.  A fresh wave of yelling started, as those who were bit reacted, though some of the rescuers had firefighter coats on, which were apparently too thick for the students to bite through.

The police were shouting for the EMS personnel to separate and get away, which was mostly being ignored.  About as many fresh rescuers were coming forward to assist with trying to subdue and help the students as there were injured rescuers stumbling away with fresh injuries or trying to tug themselves free from a student who had latched onto them.

And the students who had grabbed someone were hanging on hard and tight.  There didn’t seem to be any level of physical distress or discomfort that dissuaded them.  She saw one boy who had the look of a book or computer nerd, pasty skin and slightly built, clinging to a male fireman’s arm.  The fireman was shoving at the boy’s forehead with his free hand and landing knees to his attacker’s midsection to no avail.

Then she saw a familiar face appear at the doors of the high school, and her world seemed to stop.  She stared in shocked, numb horror, as Sandra stumbled out of the doors with a blank look on her face, a laser like fixation in her gaze, and blood dripping from her mouth.  Then she jerked and stumbled as a bullet hit her thigh, falling in slow motion without the slightest sign of pain or concern.  Jessica screamed.

* * * * *

Gwinnett Medical Center was as chaotic a scene as any Peter had ever seen.  Including warzones.  Once the forward base he’d been stationed at in Afghanistan had been hit by a strong insurgent force just after two patrols had returned following ambushes they’d been badly shot up in.  That had been bad, with explosions and bullets hammering everything amid the screams of the wounded and dying.

At least there, those involved had been military.  Even if some of them had lost morale temporarily, there had still been a base of training and experience they could use as a floor.  It had given the officers and NCOs something to seize upon as they organized the response and got control of the situation.

Here and now, Peter saw nothing but confused shouting that often worked at odds, a complete lack of any sort of order or procedure, and very little in the way of anyone attempting to improve upon the situation.  A part of him wondered why the police that were present, or even the medical staff who surely had similar training in crisis management, didn’t try to organize things.

The parking lot outside was full of emergency vehicles.  More continued to arrive.  Ambulances, police cruisers, even fire trucks were being left on the landscaped grass that bordered the lot.  He saw more, along with a fair number of civilian cars, lining up as far down the little ‘road’ that circled the hospital’s campus as far as he could see in either direction.  And beyond that, the sidewalk separating the hospital’s property from the actual street was starting to fill too.

There was a lot of blood evident, though a lot of these injuries didn’t seem to be terribly life threatening.  There were a few people that were sporting wounds on torsos, necks or faces that he assumed were pretty serious; but the majority seemed to be on arms and legs.  Some folks were having trouble walking and leaned on friends or makeshift crutches.  A good amount of the noise was coming from these, as they cried or cursed about the pain they were in.

But worse still were the ones who seemed to be like Amy.  Some were arriving strapped down to gurneys, but only a few.  Many were being frog marched, or more often dragged, in by police and firefighters.  He saw handcuffs, zip ties, rope, even tightly wrapped blankets being employed as restraining devices.  Without fail each one fought against those holding them; struggled constantly to try and go after anyone they laid eyes upon.

The best thing about the sick ones was their silence.  Or maybe that was worse.  Peter wondered absently which it might be.  They weren’t adding to the verbal confusion, true; but it was eerie and more than a little creepy to see them being manhandled, often showing signs of rough handling in the form of bruises or visible injury, and not raising even the slightest grunt or gasp of response.

Regardless of their audibility, the worst part was definitely their eyes.  Every time he looked at one of them, even when they weren’t looking at him, all he saw in their dead gaze was Amy.  She looked back at him from every slack expression, reflected in each face he saw no matter how different they actually were, physically, from Amy.  Young or old or neither, black or white or whatever, man, woman, adult, child; each one looked like his wife.  His wife who apparently was neither dead nor alive.

In and around the fuss and noise being raised by the wounded, and those occupied with trying to restrain the sick ones who were like Amy, was the real source of the confusion.  The emergency responders and the ER’s medical staff all seemed to be yelling at each other, and when they weren’t yelling at other uniforms they often turned to yelling at patients.

The arguments seemed to almost exclusively center around who was going to be treated and when.  Wounded civilians and emergency responders alike were demanding immediate attention from doctors and nurses, who fended them off as they shouted at each other and tried to get at specific patients they seemed to select almost at random.  Surely they had some reason, but whatever criteria they were using, Peter couldn’t recognize it.  It might as well be random.

Peter felt his pocket vibrating.  His phone, he realized, and pulled it out.  “Hello?” he said, automatically flipping it open and putting it to his ear without bothering to look at the display.  Maybe Amy had been admitted upstairs and they were calling to let him know.

“Pete?  Listen, have you seen the news?”

Peter turned away from the jam packed waiting room and covered his other ear.  “Who is this?”

“George.”

“Oh, hey George.”  He tried to suppress his annoyance.  It wasn’t George’s fault the hospital hadn’t figured out how to help Amy yet.

“Pete, you okay?  You sound strange.  Where are you anyway?”

“Hospital.”

“Oh fuck!” the man on the phone cursed.  “What’s wrong?  Did you get bit?”

Peter blinked, then shook his head.  “No, I’m fine.  It’s Amy.”

“Oh man . . . is she okay?”

Peter considered the question for several seconds, then closed his eyes.  “No.” he finally said.  “They tell me she’s probably not.”

“Probably?”

“Look George, this really ain’t a good time.” Peter started, feeling a stirring of irritation.

“Tell me about it.” George said.  “What do you think, is this it?”

“George–”

“I mean, it’s looking bad, right?  Hate being right man, it sucks.”

Peter closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.  “George.” he said after a moment.  “If you don’t either hang up and leave me alone, or start making sense, and I mean right now, then I’m going to hunt you down.” he said with a definite edge of anger in his voice.  “And when I find you–”

“Zombies Pete, jeez.  It’s all over the news.”

Peter blinked and glanced at the nearest television, mounted up above head level on the wall.  He hadn’t been paying much attention to them, lost in his thoughts of Amy and his lethargic observation of the activity in the waiting room.  He couldn’t hear what they were saying, he could barely hear the phone, but he saw the word ‘Live’ in one of the upper corners.  The scene looked remarkably similar to what he was witnessing here at the hospital, except it was outside in front of a building.

“Explain.” Peter said as he eyed the screen.

“Fuck, listen.  Zombies are among us.  It’s the apocalypse.  What’ve I been telling you guys all these years.”

Abruptly his irritation flashed over into anger, and Peter found himself gripping the phone very tightly.  “That’s it.” he growled.  “I told you this isn’t a good time.  My wife is on a bed in the hospital and the Goddamned docs can’t even tell me for sure if she’s alive or dead.”

“Pete–”

“At some point they’re gonna get their shit together long enough to tell me if I’m married or widowed.” Peter continued, feeling the warm glow of anger igniting brightly enough to finally burn through the helpless sensation he’d been tangled in about Amy.  “And when they do, either way, I’m going straight to your place.”

“No, I ain’t–” George said quickly.

“And if you ain’t there, I’m gonna check your damn cabin next.”

“Yeah, that’s a good–”

“And if you’re not there, I’ll just keep looking.” Peter said louder, stepping over George’s attempts to break in.  “And eventually, I’ll find you.  When I do, my foot is going so far up your fucking a–”

“Gunny!” George shouted at him from the other end of the phone.

Finally pausing in his tirade, feeling like he was only just getting properly rolling, Peter counted to three, taking a breath on each number.  “What?” he finally said after the third breath.

“You wanna come kick my ass, fine.” George said, sounding neither angry nor irritated.  In fact Peter thought he sounded a little afraid.  And not from the threats Peter was directing at him; George had been shrugging those off for over twenty years.  No, this was something else.

“I’ll even bend over so you can do it properly.” George continued.  “But you gotta listen to me.  Answer me straight.  Have you been paying attention to the news?  Have you watched it or heard it in the last two hours?  Teevee, radio, internet, anything?”
“No.” Peter said shortly, looking at the television again.  There was a caption on the bottom of the screen that said the pictures were coming from the Georgia Tech campus.  It looked like some sort of riot, but one where half the people involved weren’t bothering to run or shout.

“Then listen to me.  I ain’t making this up, it’s what they’re saying on CNN and Fox and MSNBC and the rest.  This ain’t Gonzo George talking, this is the fucking news, okay?  We are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, or the beginning of one anyway.  They ain’t using that word yet, but that’s what it is.”

Peter opened his mouth to say something, what he wasn’t exactly sure, but his anger switched off so abruptly it left him momentarily speechless.  “Bullshit.”  He finally said.

“No, not bullshit.  Real shit.” George insisted, and he didn’t sound like he thought it was even a little funny.  “You said Amy’s in the hospital, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, what’s wrong with her then?”

“They said they don’t know.” Peter said slowly.

“And they ran her vitals, right?  Scanned them, checked them on the machines, right?”

Peter’s irritation was starting to reignite towards anger again.  “Alright, you’re about to head back into foot-in-ass territory George.”

“No Gunny, honest, I’m not disrespecting your wife.” George said quickly.  “You said they said she’s ‘probably not’ okay.  Well, that sounds like they think she should be dead, but isn’t for some reason.”

George was silent for several seconds, and Peter was too.  He thought about what Lambert had told him.  The cold numbness was starting to return, eager to grab hold of him again.

“Gunny?”

“Keep going.” Peter said quietly.

“Um . . . look, I’m real sorry about Amy, okay?  I mean, she was a good woman.  But if she should be dead, but isn’t, then she’s like a lot of other people the news is calling ‘sick’.” George said.  “And I’ll tell you, the news is behind internet right now.”

“Internet?”

“Yeah man, the internet.  People are putting posts up online, trading notes, pictures, videos.  And before you go off on me again, some of it’s coming from med staff; it ain’t just random people speculating, okay?  I’ve seen footage, medical charts, test results . . . it all adds up to the same thing.”

“And you say it’s zombies?”

“Shit, if the shoe fits, you know?”

“Zombies aren’t real.” Peter said looking over his shoulder at the ongoing crush of chaos in the waiting room.  His eye fell on a pair of officers struggling to restrain a man who was silently fighting them.  “That’s bullshit hysteria.”

The man was handcuffed, looked to be at least a hundred pounds out of shape, and of only average height.  Despite all of that, he was on the verge of breaking loose from the two pairs of hands trying to keep a hold of him.  His head kept swinging back and forth as he tried to get his mouth on the officers.