Fracked (9 page)

“Take them down! Open fire! Open fire!” the lead white-suit shouted as he switched his MP5’s firing mode to full-automatic.

The naked ghouls stood up and started sprinting towards the white-suits with black gore foaming from their mouths and tags still attached to their toes.

The white-suits started walking backwards towards the door as they fired at the advancing crowd.

A few of the shots struck true and sent two of the ghouls tumbling and flailing against the floor. Most of the shots were ineffective chest and abdomen shots that did very little to impede the horde’s relentless advance.

Ammunition depleted, the white-suits dropped their empty magazines to the floor and quickly tried to reload with trembling hands.

Before the white-suits even had a chance to finish reloading, the infected took them down one-by-one and started ripping their protective suits apart.

Their deafening screams echoed down the morgue corridor.

Two floors above, the hospital staff were forced to sit along the wall in the cafeteria.

Six men in CDC white-suits were in there with them.

The staff members looked at the men uneasily, nervously.

Three of the men were armed with M-16s and stood at the opposite end of the room while the other three were crouched at the end of the line, taking saliva samples from each of the hospital staff members and running the cotton swab through the quick detection kits.

One of the hospital doctors looked perplexed as he watched the white-suits performing the swab tests.

“Is that a rapid field test?” the doctor asked.

The white-suits didn’t answer him as they continued to do their work.

The doctor frowned and raised his voice.

“How do you have a rapid field test for an unknown virus?” the doctor asked. “What is this strain?!”

“Just sit down and shut up,” one of the white-suits carrying the M-16s ordered.

“Who is the chief epidemiologist?! I demand to speak to them!” the doctor shouted.

The doctor stood up.

The white-suits pointed their M-16s at him.

The doctor paled and slowly put his hands in the air.

“I’m not going to repeat myself,” the white-suit said as he sighted his weapon on the doctor. “Sit down. Shut up.”

The doctor nodded and quickly sat back down, defeated.

One of the nurses started sobbing.

Another nurse took her smartphone out of her pocket.

“Put your phone away!” another white-suit ordered as he waved his weapon at the staff. “No phones!”

The staff members let out a slight gasp as the weapon was pointed in their direction.

More people broke out into tears, trembling.

“This is going to be a goddamn social media fiasco if they don’t get the cellphone situation contained,” the white-suit grumbled as he lowered his weapon and looked at the others.

“They’re headed to the cellular towers now. Calm down,” one of the other white-suits quietly replied.

While the armed white-suits were distracted, Rebecca quietly slid her phone out of her pocket and started typing a text message to John…

One of the white-suits turned around and happened to notice her. He quickly pointed his weapon at her.

“Hey! You! What did I just say?! Put the phone away!” the white-suit shouted.

“I was just checking for any missed calls,” Rebecca said as she quickly pushed ‘send’ and put the phone back in her pocket.

“Miller! Make yourself useful and collect their phones!” one of the other armed white-suits yelled towards the three men that were crouched down at the end of the line collecting rapid test samples.

“On it,” Miller said.

Miller stood up and sat the specimen collection tray down. He pulled out a roll of red biohazard bags and tore one off.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please,” Miller said as he opened the bag and started walking down the line. “Phones, pagers, tablets, whatever else you have… Put them in the bag. You’ll get them again after you’ve been released. This is standard protocol. We don’t need misinformation getting leaked out and causing a panic when there isn’t a need for one.”

Miller went down the line as the staff members reluctantly tossed their cellular devices into the bag.

One of the nurses hesitated and shook her head.

“I… don’t have a phone on me,” she said quietly. “I left it in the car.”

“Just so you know, lying to a federal official is a felony,” Miller said in an aggravated tone. “If I find one on you when I conduct a pat search, you will be arrested by the police officers waiting outside.” He paused. “You will all be thoroughly searched prior to leaving this room so it’s in your best interest to be honest.”

The nurse lowered her head, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and tossed it into the bag with the others.

Miller walked along the line until he came to Rebecca.

She looked up at him, frowning.

“Your phone,” Miller insisted as he held the bag out towards her.

Rebecca tossed her phone in the bag, shaking her head.

Miller tied the bag shut, slung it over his shoulder, and started to walk back towards the group performing the rapid field tests.

“Miller, I nearly forgot,” one of the armed white-suits said.

Miller stopped and turned towards the voice.

“Go to the ICU and check on Bravo Team,” the armed white-suit said. “Tell them to check their radios. Alpha was trying to get a hold of them.”

“10-4,” Miller said. He walked out into the hallway carrying the bag of phones over his shoulder.

As he walked down the hallway, he heard a few concerned patients knocking on their doors.

Miller ignored them as he made his way to the ICU.

He pushed open the ICU’s double-doors with his foot and stepped inside.

He froze immediately.

The two white-suits from Bravo Team were standing with their backs facing the door, twitching. They were slouched over with their arms slumped down at their side; their weapons were on the floor.

Mike’s bloody corpse was lying motionless on the floor in a pool of blood and broken glass.

Miller’s eyes widened as he stepped back and threw a hand up in disbelief.

“Jesus Christ! We’re not supposed to butcher them! What part of ‘surgical precision’ didn’t you understand?! Oh! You just wait! The clean-up team is going to lose their shit when they–”

Both of the white-suits turned towards Miller’s voice.

Their visors were shattered and their respirators were hanging off of their face. Black bile seeped out of their mouth and dribbled down the front of their tattered suits.

Miller gasped in horror and tried to run out of the room.

One of the white-suits sprinted towards Miller and leapt atop of him, sending him crashing through the double-doors and sprawling out into the hallway.

The bag of phones slid across the floor and stopped in the middle of the hall.

The white-suit started ripping Miller’s suit apart, exposing his face.

The other white-suit ran out from the ICU and joined his companion.

Together they kept Miller pinned down and started vomiting tarry bile on Miller’s face.

Miller clawed at his attackers helplessly as the substance seeped into his orifices.

A patient trapped inside a locked room nearby heard the commotion and started knocking frantically on his door as he tried turning the knob.

“Hey! Who’s out there?! What’s going on?! This is bullshit! Let me out! Let me out NOW!” the man inside the room shouted.

He started kicking on his door.

One of the infected white-suits got off of the floor and charged towards the door, screaming.

He slammed against the door repeatedly with his shoulder.

The wooden door shattered and the white-suit ran inside the room.

Hearing the noise outside in the hall, panicked patients in other nearby rooms started knocking on their doors and screaming for help, pleading to be let out.

The other infected white-suit got off of Miller’s twitching corpse and bashed his way into a nearby room with a feral cry.

They heard the blood-curdling screams and the commotion all the way inside the cafeteria.

The white-suits looked at each other as the hospital staff exchanged uneasy glances.

“What the fuck is going on out there?” one of the armed white-suits inside the cafeteria asked with concern. He readied his weapon and stepped outside in the hall…

The banging and screaming was almost deafening as infected patients and the two white-suits smashed their way into room after room, systematically spreading the contagion to the unfortunate souls trapped inside.

“Shit!” the armed white-suit exclaimed as he aimed down the hall.

The infected caught in the middle of the hallway immediately looked in his direction and started blindly sprinting towards the sound of his voice, screaming, still wearing their hospital gowns.

The white-suit fired and managed to take down a few, but the horde was too massive and too fast.

“Infected! In the building!” the white-suit shouted as he retreated back into the cafeteria and slammed the door shut. He keyed his mic and started shouting. “Break, break, break! Charley Team to all inner patrol units and outside work details, Wildfire! Implement full-containment measures!”

As soon as he made the announcement, the unarmed white-suits dropped the testing kits and ran away from the terrified hospital staff.

The armed white-suits pointed their weapons at the staff and started firing indiscriminately into the crowd, mowing them down as they swept their rifles from side-to-side.

Their screams were piercing, but for many their pain was short-lived.

Others dove out of the way while some tried running towards the doors.

The white-suits quickly took down two nurses who were just a few inches away from the door. They then focused their fire at the ones who were crawling underneath the tables and taking cover amongst the corpses on the floor.

Rebecca ducked down and crawled out of the way, narrowly escaping a barrage of gunfire. She hid behind two deceased nurses and covered her head with her arms as she tried to keep low and quiet, however she couldn’t stop herself from trembling.

“Forget it! We don’t have time! Let’s go! Regroup downstairs with the others!” one of the white-suits ordered as he ran towards the door.

The others immediately stopped firing and followed him.

The cafeteria doors burst open just as the white-suits were approaching.

Infected poured into the room and leapt onto the white-suits, taking them down with ease.

The white-suits fell, screaming, inadvertently and ineffectively firing wildly up into the ceiling and shattering fluorescent fixtures as their fingers tightened around their triggers.

Rebecca frantically crawled towards the buffet-style serving line to take cover.

Two elderly male patients started sprinting directly towards her, snarling.

Rebecca screamed, got on her feet, and bolted towards the silver kitchen door just behind the serving line. She pushed the swinging door open and ran inside.

The old men opened their mouth and spewed a black, oily infectious substance in her direction.

The substance pelted against the door as it swung shut with Rebecca already safely inside.

She scanned the dark kitchen in an attempt to find some sort of hiding place.

The kitchen had two long tables in the center. Both tables were stacked with pots and pans. A row of ranges and sinks stood on one side of the room and shelves of condiments and spices were on the opposite side. A large industrial refrigerator was positioned against the far wall next to boxes of dry goods.

Rebecca ran towards the fridge, nearly slipping on the polished floor in her frenzied pace.

Seconds later the two elderly patients barged into the room and froze. They cocked their heads to the side, listening and pacing.

One of the men bumped against the table and sent a stack of plates crashing against the floor.

Both of the patients became enraged and started flailing their arms around, knocking pots and pans off of the tables and shattering glasses.

The old men froze again…

Listening…

Waiting…

Distant gunshots erupted from the hallway.

New prey.

The two men snarled and darted out of the kitchen back into the cafeteria, leaving Rebecca alone as she wept inside the closed refrigerator.

She kept her eyes squeezed shut and her hands cupped over her mouth.             

It felt like hours passed.

John’s stomach was aching from hunger, his throat was raw with thirst, and his bladder was full.

He kept glancing at the door impatiently, but he hadn’t seen anybody ever since the doctor left with Rebecca.

He waited on the bed and simply stared at the television.

The local news from San Antonio was playing.

“–in store for us throughout the week with record-breaking temps and a muggy weekend ahead of us,” the weatherman said with a smile as he stepped aside and revealed the forecast for the week ahead.

The image switched to an attractive anchorwoman sitting behind the news desk.

“Thanks, Eric,” she said with a smile. “We’ve just received more information regarding the emergency closure of Interstate 37 to the south of our viewing area. TXDOT and hazmat officials have informed us that an overturned chemical tanker has multiple lanes blocked as authorities continue to clean up the spill. The work is expected to last throughout the night. Luckily, no fatalities have been reported. There has been no indication when the interstate will reopen, but as of now all thru-traffic is being diverted off of the interstate and onto state highways and farm roads. The towns affected by the closures are Tres Rios, Pleasanton, and Beeville.”

She looked into the camera and smiled as a video of an elderly woman petting a dog played in the top corner of the screen.

“In other news tonight, a woman in Leon Valley has been reunited with an old four-legged friend who she thought ran away months ago. The fairytale reunion happened after the man who was taking care of the stray happened to spot a faded posted inside the HEB located on Bandera and–”

John turned off the television and sighed.

He was tired of waiting.

“To hell with this,” he grumbled as he forced himself to sit up.

His head swam.

He closed his eyes and waited for the vertigo to subside before reaching for his cellphone to check the time.

One unread text message.

Becky.

Yawning, he clicked on the message and read it…

As he read it, his face grew pale and his eyes grew wide.

Help. In the cafeteria. 2nd floor. Very scared. Men holding us at gunpoint. When you get

The message stopped abruptly.

He tried calling her phone.

It rang, but nobody answered.

He called again… and again… and again.

No response.

He picked up the bedside phone and put the receiver to his ear.

The landline was dead.

John threw the receiver down and tried calling ‘911’ on his cellphone.

There was a busy tone.

Panicked, John put his phone away, stood up, and hurried towards the door.

The pulse monitor slid off of his finger as he stumbled towards the door.

The machine made a steady alarm tone.

As John approached the door, he heard a commotion in the hall.

He tried turning the knob.

It was locked.

“HELLO?!” John shouted as he started banging against the door. “IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?! OPEN THE DOOR! LET ME OUT!”

No response.

“Fuck!” he said in frustration. He tore off his hospital gown, grabbed his work uniform off of the table, and hastily changed clothes. He slid on his boots as he hopped his way back towards the door one foot at a time, struggling to get the weathered boots over his sockless feet.

He heard gunfire outside.

Panicked, John started kicking the door, screaming and shouting.

“LET ME OUT!” he repeated over and over as he kicked.

Something slammed back against the door, startling him.

John stepped away from the door in confusion.

Whatever was on the other side was snarling as it bashed frantically against the door.

The cheap door started to splinter and crack off of its hinges.

John backed against the bed, momentarily forgetting about his wife and the armed men holding her captive. His attention was fixated on the thing smashing against his door…

The door finally broke into wooden slivers as a naked, overweight man rushed into the room. The man had a large scar running down the center of his abdomen and the area was covered with surgical markings. His eyes were pitch-black. The man didn’t seem to mind as the pieces of wood sliced into his body and gouged into his robust body, making him look like some grotesque porcupine.

“Get the fuck back!” John ordered as he stumbled backwards and pushed the bed against the wall.

The obese man charged towards John, screaming.

John dove out of the way.

The obese man crashed against the flimsy hospital bed and broke it to pieces.

John ran towards the door, looking over his shoulder in fright and disbelief.

The obese man got up with unnatural speed and chased after John, quickly closing the distance.

He grabbed the back of John’s uniform collar.

John spun around and broke free from the man’s vice-like grip, ripping his own collar in the process.

The obese man shoved John hard in the chest, screaming.

John was flung back and landed in the hall. He sat up and scooted against the wall, struggling to catch his breath, terrified.

The obese man sprinted towards John.

John held out his hands in a vain attempt to keep the massive man back.

Suddenly, a gunshot resounded from down the hall.

The obese man’s head snapped to the side as soon as the bullet struck it and erupted out the other side.

He collapsed in the center of the hall, wooden slivers still protruding out of his body.

John looked down the hall towards the sound of the gunshot and saw two people in white hazmat suits armed with M-16s. He was uneasy at first, but was relieved as soon as he saw their CDC emblems.

Before John could even express his gratitude or ask questions, one of the white-suits shouldered his rifle and pointed it at him.

John’s blood ran cold.

“No, wait!” he shouted holding his hands up.

A patient darted out of a nearby room and pounced on the white-suit just as he pulled the trigger.

The white-suit’s gunfire pelted against the cement floor and ran up the side of the wall, shattering a framed Triburton company picture. The man let out a terrified shriek as the patient tore open his suit and started regurgitating the toxic substance inside.

The other white-suit quickly pointed his weapon down at the patient.

An infected nurse stepped out from an adjacent doorway and pulled the white-suit inside the dark room.

The white-suit was helplessly pulled inside, kicking and screaming, shooting wildly at the ceiling.

“Holy shit…” John muttered in abject horror, staring at the massacre with wide-eyes, trembling.

The patient turned his black eyes towards John’s voice and leapt back onto his feet. He started running down the hallway towards John, arms flailing.

The white-suit got up and followed behind the patient with his respirator hanging off of his protective suit.

John scrambled back up and started sprinting down the hallway, struggling to breathe.

The hallway was peppered with bullet-holes and most of the light fixtures were shattered. Most of the patient rooms had their doors smashed open, but many others were still shut with patients trapped inside. The people inside were banging against their doors, inadvertently beckoning their attackers. Bullet-riddled corpses were strewn all across the floor, twisted in bloody heaps.

John leapt over the corpses and didn’t dare turn around to look at his pursuers.

Behind him he heard doors shattering and animalistic screams as the horde grew in number.

A naked woman covered with blood ran out of a dark patient room as John ran past it.

John pushed her aside and ran faster, lungs burning.

At the edge of the corridor the hallway branched into two directions.

Towards his right he saw a hallway full of overturned medical carts and a group of crazed patients attacking each other and running from room to room, bashing down doors and finding new hosts.

Towards the left he saw an elevator with its doors propped open by a bloody gurney with tattered nylon straps. The doors kept trying to close on the gurney, but they opened again as soon they struck it.

John sprinted towards the elevator, slid across the top of the gurney and landed inside the lift. He kicked the gurney away from the door’s tracks while simultaneously pushing the ‘2’ button repeatedly.

A horde of infected people wearing hospital gowns, nursing scrubs, and even a few wearing compromised white-suits closed in on the open elevator, running and trampling over each other as they tried to get to their prey. The only thing that the group had in common was their black, soulless eyes and feral expressions of inexplicable cannibalistic rage.

John frantically mashed on the ‘close’ button as the ghouls moved closer.

The bell chimed and the doors started to close.

Just a few feet away from the elevator, a young man wearing a tattered patient gown led the pack. He opened his mouth and spewed tarry bile towards the closing elevator doors.

John fell backwards as some of the substance managed to enter the car and pelt against the floor. He kept his back pressed against the rear of the elevator and listened as the bodies slammed against the doors.

The elevator hummed to life and slowly started its descent.

Soft jazz was playing on the overhead speaker as the black goo on the floor started to slowly slither around on the floor…

He looked down in disgust and made sure to avoid it at all costs.

The elevator came to a stop, chimed, and the doors slid open.

The second floor hallway looked ransacked. Every patient door was smashed open and many of the overhead lights were either shattered or flickering. Tattered hospital gowns and spent brass casings littered the floor. Bullet-riddled corpses of patients were strewn throughout the hall. The air had the coppery scent of blood mixed with gunpowder.

He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he sure as hell wasn’t trying to stick around to find out.

John pushed the red emergency stop button on the elevator’s control panel, just in case, and silently made his way out into the hall. Once he reached an intersection, he glanced up a swaying sign that pointed towards the different departments located on the floor.

Without hesitation he turned right and ran towards the cafeteria.

John passed numerous overturned hospital carts and toppled gurneys that had been pulled out of the nearby patient rooms as he hurried towards the cafeteria entrance ahead.

He walked past the ICU, he noticed that the double-doors were propped opened by an overturned hospital cart.

John glanced over and froze as soon as he recognized the corpse lying in the middle of the ICU.

“Mike…?” he muttered. He stopped and pushed his way through the ICU doors and stared down at Mike’s corpse in disbelief.

Mike’s body was contorted and the top of his head had been blown off. The blood around his corpse was black and stringy.

Two MP5s, spent brass, and shards of glass surrounded Mike’s corpse, but there wasn’t a single white-suit in sight.

“You poor bastard,” John said, shaking his head. As he stepped closer, the black substance started to move and creep towards John’s boot.

Alarmed, John backed away.

The black, organic substance stopped moving and sat motionless once again.

John looked down at the floor and picked up one the MP5s that the white-suits dropped, studying it. Growing up on a farm, he was well-acquainted with firearms thanks to his dad. Granted, he never fired something as advanced as an MP5 submachine gun, but considering what he saw so far he was pretty sure it’d come in handy.

He stepped out of the ICU and started running towards the cafeteria again, albeit a little more cautiously.

The whole floor looked abandoned and he knew he was probably too late.

Worried, he slung the weapon over his shoulder, pulled his cellphone out of his pocket, and tried calling Rebecca again.

A distinctive AT&T ringtone started chiming from the bag of cellphones lying behind him that the white-suit had collected earlier.

Confused, John turned towards the bag, listening as the phone rang and vibrated against the floor.

He reached down and pulled the ringing phone out of the bag…

His face sunk in horror as he stared down at his wife’s phone.

Suddenly, the ringing stopped.

Both phones had the same message: ‘NO SIGNAL’

John dropped the phones and dug through the red bag, but none of the phones had a signal.