Infected (Book 1): The Fall (7 page)

Chapter
9

I took a knee in front of my son.  He ran into my arms and buried his head in my shoulder.  I squeezed him and felt his heart racing against my chest.  After several seconds, I placed my hands on his shoulders and pushed him back so I could examine him.  The right side of his face was peppered with bone fragments. Small red beads of blood were forming on his cheek.  His entire face was plastered with the pink mush from the woman’s head.  I took a handful of napkins from the dispenser on the table and began wiping the filth from his skin.  When I was done, there was a pile of soiled napkins on the floor.  He still had globules embedded in his blond hair.  Those would have to wait until later.

“Are you okay?” I questioned, looking into his face.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, looking down at the floor.  His eyes betrayed the bravery he was trying to portray.  Water began to build along his lower eyelid and his lower lip quivered.   Suddenly, he lunged at me and wrapped his arms around my neck.  Still fighting back the tears, his body shook uncontrollably.

I wrapped my arms around him and whispered in his ear, “It’s over.  She can’t hurt you now.  She will never be able to hurt you again.” I tightened my grip around him, not wanting to let him go.

And then the Pussy Cat Dolls started singing from my left shirt pocket, “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me.”  I hated the ring tone.  Katie thought it was hilarious and had insisted that I make it “her” ringtone.  The entire week after she put it on my phone, she would call me from her phone whenever we were together in public.  She would laugh and laugh as I attacked my pocket, trying to silence it.  Shortly after I got married, I learned that once my wife made up “my” mind, there was no point trying to convince her I had a say in it. 

My phone started into its second incantation and Toby let go of my neck, stood up straight and blurted out, “Can I tell Mom how you just blew that lady away?”  Eight year olds are resilient.  The trauma he just experienced was unimportant compared to the great reaction he would get from giving Katie the scoop.

“I think you better let me tell her about this one, buddy,” I said, tussling his hair.  I extricated the phone from my pocket, wondering how she had heard about the shooting so fast. 

“Hey, Katie,” I said, not knowing exactly what else to say.

“You are not going to believe what just happened,” she said, giving me a chance to think about how I was going to tell her the extent of my day.  “Claire Mantell just came by and asked me if I would take care of her dog and horse for a few days.

“She was saying something about how she was getting away from town while the getting was still good.  You know how she can get,” Katie said in frustration. “She was raving about a plague that was going to wipe out the town.” 

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted.  “Claire was at our house?”

“Yeah, she was here ten minutes ago.  I’m probably going to get sick now. She kept coughing in my face.  She was trying to telling me about something that happened at the Knick Knack Shack.  She was so intent on getting her story out that she wasn’t covering her mouth before coughing.  After the second time her cough sprayed saliva on my face, I started trying to edge her out of the house. 

“I don’t know what I was thinking when I told her I could watch their dog if they ever left town.  That woman is crazy!  She wasn’t making any sense when she spoke.  I finally told her to have a good trip and not to worry about Otis.  I pretty much had to push her out the door. She is always strange, but if you take her normal strangeness and multiply it by ten, that was how she was acting today.”

My churning stomach felt like it was going to give back everything I had eaten at Mary’s.  I placed my arm against the wall for support, fearing my legs might give out.  I could deal with my exposure, but Toby and now Katie?  It was too much.  I could feel a knot forming in the back of my throat.  I was fighting hard against the tears I could feel welling up in my eyes.  I had never cried in front of Toby and I wasn’t going to let him see it in my last hours.

“Honey,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to keep an even voice.  “Something bad happened this morning.”

I wasn’t doing very well keeping my voice even because she picked up on it and interrupted me.  “Connor, what’s going on?  You better tell me the truth.  Don’t you dare try and hide it from me.”

“Katie, you know that I have never lied to you and I won’t start now.” I stopped, trying to find the words that would convey what had happened while still softening the blow.  “Claire doesn’t have a cold.”  I told her about everything that happened at Mary’s.  I told her what Doc Baker had said. I didn’t know how to tell her about Toby.  I paused again, still searching for the words, still fighting the lump growing in my throat as I thought about our son.

“Connor, you know I hate it when you joke like that!  It isn’t funny.  Now tell me the truth.  What’s going on?”

“I’m not joking,” I said in a hushed tone.  I looked up at the water stained ceiling and pulled Toby closer to me with my free hand. 

“You’re telling me I am going to die within six hours?” she asked, her voice raising an octave.  “Nice try, you had me for a minute.  Honestly, why do you think these jokes are funny?”  I could hear the anger starting to come through in her voice.

“Dad, tell her how you blew that crazy lady away,” Toby blurted out, still not understanding the gravity of what was happening.

“What’s he talking about?  And why are you with Toby?”  Katie asked slowly.  The anger in her voice had turned to fear.

I wasn’t going to get a better transition to tell her about our son.  Before I was done, Katie was sobbing on the other end of the line.  “I hate your job!  Why can’t we have a job like normal people?  Why do you have to have a job where your life is in danger every single day?”

This was a conversation we had had a thousand times and I wasn’t going to come out any better this time than in the past. “Katie, I am going to bring Toby home.  First, I need to secure the school.  There were at least sixty kids in here when the woman ran in.  Every one of them was exposed.  If they leave the school grounds, there’s no hope of containing the disease.  It will spread like fire in dry grass.”

“No, Connor, you need to take care of your family right now.  We have given enough to this stupid town.  You need to come home and take care of us.”

She was right, but it was too late for us.  There were still a lot of other families who weren’t exposed.  I couldn’t lay down and die.  That was coming soon, but not yet. “Did Claire say where she was going?”

“Yeah,”  she choked between sobs.  “She said she bought airline tickets to her mom’s house in Iowa.  She was on her way to the airport.  What difference does it make?”

“Katie, it makes a big difference.  If she gets to the airport, this disease will spread all over the country. When did she leave and which car was she driving?” Claire had an old Astro mini-van and an extended cab Ford pickup.

“She was driving the pickup and left ten minutes ago.  Don’t you go trying to stop her, Connor!  We need you!”

She was right, I couldn’t go after Claire.  I lived fifteen minutes out of town and my place was on the way to the airport.  That put her thirty miles ahead of me.  It would take me forty minutes to catch her assuming she was driving the speed limit. In her agitated state, she was probably driving closer to eighty or ninety.  I couldn’t afford to waste that time. 

“Dispatch, this is Unit 2. Shots fired at the elementary school.  Another infected person is down.”  At this point, the radio call seemed to have lost its urgency.  “Contact the Highway Patrol and give them a B.O.L.  for a green, late nineties Ford F-150 with a dent on the front right fender and an American Quarter Horse Association sticker in the back window.   The vehicle is traveling south on Highway 72 and is approximately 30 miles south of town en route to the airport.  Contact TSA and have them put Claire Mantell on the Do-Not-Fly-List.  The vehicle needs to be stopped at all costs.  The driver has Ebola and should not be contacted once she is stopped.”   Everyone has heard of Ebola and even though it wasn’t what she technically had, it was close enough and would get everyone’s attention, especially the busybodies in town listening to their scanners. 

For good measure, I added, “I want a message put out over the emergency broadcast system for everyone in and around the town of Lost Hills to stay inside their homes.”  Panic could work in our favor now.  It would keep everyone inside.

“10-4,” she answered in a calm voice. 

“Are you still there, Katie?” I asked as I put the phone back to my ear.

“I’m still here,” she blubbered through tears.  “Please come home.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.
”

Chapter
10

I looked around the cafeteria.  It was empty.   Besides Toby, there were no kids anywhere.  I peered through the windows which had been hazed from decades of sprinkler mist blowing onto the glass and leaving hard water deposits.  The mineral buildup bent and refracted light passing through the glass and created a real life version of a Monet painting framed within the institutional metal window frame.  I could see small pockets of bleary kids, most of whom were crying.  The majority had already fled the school grounds.  I could see teachers making futile efforts to coax fleeing kids back onto school property.  They were having no more success than I had experienced trying to corral leaves in the wind as a child. 

It was a lost cause.  The virus was out.  It might still be possible to keep it within the borders of Lost Hills.  Even that was dubious.  If Claire made it through the roadblock, there would be no stopping the spread.  She grew up here and was an outdoors person.  She knew every back road and four wheel drive trail in the county.  The only good news was that she had a limited time before she succumbed to the infection.  If she took back roads the whole way, she wouldn’t make it to the airport within the short window of time she had left. 

“Toby, it’s time to get you home. Your mama needs to see you.”  The scene in the cafeteria was a carbon copy of Mary’s minus the bodies on the floor.  Trays and lunch boxes were strewn across the floor.  Milk cartons lay tipped on their sides, their white, liquid contents pooled around them.  Milk was still dripping off tables onto the benches and off benches onto the floor.  The room showcased the chaos and panic that had transpired minutes before. We stepped over trays, mashed potatoes, beef stroganoff, mixed vegetables, and silverware that littered the floor as we walked hand in hand to the door.  When we stepped through the door, a gust of wind whipped across the playground, sending a cloud of dust whirling off the baseball field and across the black top.  I squinted to protect my eyes seconds before the small pieces of dirt and debris pelted my face, stinging as a thousand tiny projectiles assaulted my skin.  I let go of Toby’s hand and placed my hand over his eyes to shield them from the onslaught. As suddenly as it began, the wind dissipated and the dust and sand settled back to the ground. 

Fifty eyes watched as I walked to the patrol car with Toby at my side.  Each small group turned towards us as we passed.  They were faces seeking reassurance that everything would be okay.  They were faces looking for comfort.  Those were things I didn’t have time to offer.  It pained me to wantonly ignore them as I walked past.  The problem with responsibility is it often prevents you from doing what you want to do.  Right now, I was being pulled from twenty-five different directions and I couldn’t respond to every pull vying for my attention.

I opened the door for Toby and helped him buckle the seatbelt. Then I walked around the front of the car, opened the driver door, dropped into the seat, lifted my legs up and pivoted them into the car.   Reaching across my left shoulder, I pulled the seat belt across my chest and snapped the buckle into the clasp.  As I was pulling my door closed, I heard a siren wailing in the distance.  Matt was in town and tearing down Main Street.  I turned the patrol car around and waited for Matt to round the corner toward the school. Five seconds later his car came into view, lights flashing.  As always, I was startled by how loud the siren was.  You don’t get the full effect when you are inside the car with the speaker pointing away from you.  With the speaker pointed at me, the sound was ear-splittingly loud, even with the doors closed.  As if reading my mind, Matt cut the siren off.  He pulled his car next to mine, facing the opposite direction, driver window to driver window.   I quickly rolled my window up.  I reached to my radio extender and switched to the extender-to-extender frequency. Mashing the transmit button down, I said, “I’m going back to Mary’s.  Follow me over there.  We have a mess to clean up inside.”

“Copy that,” he said as he pulled forward and performed a three point turn.  The narrow street wouldn’t accommodate a u-turn.

Less than a minute later, we were stopping in Mary’s parking lot next to the ambulance.  Lawrence was leaning over the ambulance hood, shotgun pointing at the front of the diner, daring someone to try to leave.  Bertha, Mary and Kimiko were huddled together close to him, terrified at the prospect that anything might come out the front door.

“Stay in the car,” I said to Toby. “I won’t be long.” 

I exited the car as Matt simultaneously climbed out of his truck.  “Keep your distance and stay upwind of me,” I yelled to Matt. “Do you have some bullets for me?”

“No, I heard your call at the school and came straight here.  How many do you have?” 

“I probably have enough for now.  You better get the Remington,” I said, pointing at the shotgun between the two front seats.  “You’re going to need it.  Get your gas mask, too.  You don’t want to breathe the air in there without it.”

Matt opened his trunk to retrieve his gas mask and I turned to Lawrence. “Anything change while I was gone?”

With his gaze still fixed on the front of Mary’s, he replied, “Yep, there’s a bunch of ‘em moving around in there.  You can’t see ‘em now, but if you keep watching you’ll see ‘em move past the door.”  The diner windows were tinted to fight the summer sun.  The door had the only untinted glass in the diner.

I turned back toward the front of the diner and caught motion inside. “How many do you think are up and moving?”

“I can’t tell for sure.  My best guess is more than twenty.” He hesitated for a couple seconds and then, “Connor, we’re sick.  All three of us have been coughing and my head feels like it is going to explode.  We have fevers, too.”

“I know,” I said. “I noticed before I left.”

“How are you doing?” he asked, finally breaking his gaze away from the diner and looking toward me.

“I’m fine,” I said, feeling guilty at not being sick. “How about if I borrow that shotgun from you?  I’ll trade you for the AR-15 in the Electro-Lock.”  Lawrence was a veteran of the first Gulf War back in ’91.  He had been an Army Ranger and was much more comfortable with the AR-15 than he was with the shotgun.  It was virtually the same as the M-16 he had used except that it was semi-automatic, one shot for each trigger pull.  Both shotgun and rifle had their uses, but the shotgun was better for up close and personal applications.  Inside the small interior of the diner it would be as destructive as a rabid shark, chewing up everything in its path.

Lawrence tossed the shotgun to me. He still had my second set of car keys from earlier. He pulled them from his pocket and tossed them into the air as he walked toward the patrol car to get the rifle. The sun glinted off the shiny surface as the keys reached the apex of their trajectory.  Gravity pulled them back and they landed in his hand with a jingle.  I nodded at Matt and we began our approach to the door.

I didn’t have the diner keys to unlock the door and I didn’t need them.  Double-ought buckshot is the ultimate lock pick.  I lowered the muzzle of the gun as I approached the door and placed it an inch from the lock.  When I pulled the trigger, nine lead balls, each slightly over one-third inch in diameter, hurled down the barrel at over thirteen hundred feet per second.  They collided with the door and punched the lock out of the metal frame, leaving a jagged hole in its place and broken glass along the edge of the frame.  I racked the pump, ejecting the spent case, and jacked a new shell into the chamber.  As soon as the action clicked shut, I placed another shell in the magazine tube, bringing it back to a full load.  I pushed through the fractured metal door into the interior of Mary’s Diner.  As much as it was going to hurt my conscience to shoot innocent men and women, I had to do it.  They were no longer people.  They were occupying the bodies of people, but they had morphed into something else.  We were probably too late to stop the spread, but we had to try.

As soon as I entered the room, I hooked to the right and immediately swept across the room with the barrel of the shotgun, searching for a target all the way to corner to my right.  Matt followed immediately behind me and hooked to the left.  We were each responsible for clearing one hundred eighty degrees of the interior.  As I was finishing my sweep, Matt’s gun boomed behind me and then a second time.  Matt was taking care of business and I trusted him completely.  My side of the diner was clear save three bodies on the floor.  That meant there were a whole mess of them on Matt’s side.  I pivoted to the left side of the room and took two quick steps toward the center so that Matt would not be in my field of fire.  There were two corpses on the floor about six feet in front of Matt and nothing else.  Both of the corpses were on their backs, their faces obliterated from close range shotgun blasts. 

“They must be in the kitchen,” Matt said.  “I’m right behind you.” 

We stacked up at the swinging door into the kitchen.  I was about to burst through when I heard Lawrence open up outside with the AR-15.  I hesitated, about to turn back to help him, but I knew he could handle whatever was going on out there.  I hit the swinging doors with my right shoulder and pivoted to the right, sweeping my entire half of the room with the barrel of the gun.  Nothing.  I turned back to Matt’s half of the room, expecting to hear shots before I finished my turn.  The interior was silent.  The room was empty.  The side door and the back door were both open, the frames splintered.  Looking through the doorways, I could see nearly twenty of the infected out each door.  They were fanning out in small groups, running at full speed.  Neither of us shot.  They were out of range.