Plague Town (6 page)

A dozen or so flimsy-looking cots occupied with moaning, weeping patients; intravenous fluid set-ups; lots of people in olive drab hazmat suits—the kind meant to protect you against chemical or biological nasties. I couldn’t see anyone’s face through the protective goggles and faceplates. Some carried medical gear.

Others held firearms.

WTF?

I tried to move, but it hurt so much that I stopped trying, shut my eyes, and lay back, becoming more aware of every ache and pain in my body with each passing second.

White-hot poison bubbled inside my right shoulder and arm. Itching, burning sensations coursed through
the skin, muscles, and blood vessels. I wanted to rip out the pain and the itching, but I couldn’t move my arms, so I just suffered in a fog of confusion.

Someone groaned nearby, and the sound became more frantic. I slowly turned my head until I could see the cot next to me. The man occupying it thrashed in apparent agony, head whipping back and forth so fast that his features blurred.

“She’s awake.”

I jumped, and pain flashed through my shoulder, causing me to groan. Someone was standing at the head of my bed. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman—everything was filtered through the bass drum that was pounding in my head.

“Ashley?” the muffled voice said right next to my ear. “Are you hungry?” I forced my eyes open and saw one of the faceless hazmat wearers standing next to my cot. He/she/it held a styrofoam container holding a chunk of raw, bloody meat, waving it in front of my nose as if it were a gourmet dish.

I gagged at the sight, trying desperately not to puke.

“Get that away from me!” I tried to move my left arm so I could get the nauseating thing out of my face, but something held me down. I tugged violently against whatever restrained me, and the movement was enough to send shards of glass burrowing into my head. My vision blurred and my eyelids slammed shut as someone yelled.

“We’ve got another wild card!”

Another wild
what
?
I thought before passing out again.

When I woke up again, I still hurt... but the pain was less intense, as if someone had kindly poured Novocain inside all of my wounds. I knew it was there, but it was muted. Almost bearable.

“Ashley.” It was a familiar voice that I couldn’t quite place. “Ashley, can you hear me?”

I opened my eyes, and blinked once or twice in the glare of a stark fluorescent ceiling light. My eyelids hurt and my vision was blurry, but at least no one was shoving raw meat in my face.

“Ashley?”

I focused on the figure in front of me, trying to place the voice. Blurred lines and features slowly coalesced into the familiar smile of Professor Fraser, still dressed like Katharine Hepburn, sitting in a chair next to me.

Her presence made no sense. Yet I found it oddly comforting.

“H... Hi,” I stammered.
Ohhh.
It hurt to talk. My throat felt as if I’d swigged a glass of Drano. Probably from all the screaming I’d done.

Professor Fraser looked down at me.

“How do you feel?”

Like shit
, I thought. I struggled to sit up, but quickly realized it was a bad idea when a wave of nausea and weakness swept over me.

“Crappy,” I said.

“Not surprising.” The professor laid a cool hand on my forehead; it felt good. “You’ve been through an experience most people don’t survive.” She picked something up off of a tray. “Here.” She held a straw to my mouth. I sipped and was rewarded with a mouthful of cold ginger ale.

I don’t think anything in the world ever tasted as good.

A few more sips settled my stomach, and I risked moving my head to look around me. The surreal movie-set med ward had been replaced by an equally surreal small room, windowless except for a little view panel in the door. Sterile white walls, no closet, no bathroom, no other furniture except the chair occupied by Professor Fraser, my bed, and a little stand next to it.

“Where am I?” I asked, and I totally expected some bullshit answer.
This is a secret facility, and I can’t tell you...

“You’re in a lower level of the med lab behind Patterson Hall.”

Okay, not so secret.
I decided to press my luck.

“What’s going on?”

“What do
you
think is going on?”

Ah, and there’s the bullshit.

Professor Fraser stared at me, waiting for an answer. If only I’d had one.

“What is this?” I countered. “Psych 101?”

“No. I’d just like to hear your take on what happened to you.”

“My take?” I
so
was not in the mood for head games. “My boyfriend and I were having a picnic and...” I stopped short, flashing back to the sound of screams.
Ohmigod
,
Matt. What happened to Matt?
I started again, trying to keep my voice from trembling.

“Matt and I were having a picnic, and we were attacked by... zombies.” The word just hung there.

“Zombies?” She continued to study me, and for the life of me I couldn’t tell if she was taking me seriously, or ready to have me committed. Hell, even
I
couldn’t decide whether or not to have me committed.

Too bone-weary and sick to be defensive, I shrugged, then immediately wished I hadn’t. I had another swallow of ginger ale before I tried to talk again.

“Yeah. Zombies. Unless you have a better word for people who look dead, smell dead, and act dead, except for the whole walking-around-and-trying-to-eat-flesh part.” I blanched at the all too recent memory of teeth sinking into my shoulder and arm. My chest tightened as delayed panic started to set in.

I forced myself to breathe.

“No, that works,” Professor Fraser said, “though traditionally zombies were thought to be created through a combination of voodoo and a special powder containing textrodotoxin, the same poison found in pufferfish. This combination was said to create a state of living death in its victims. The etymology of the word ‘zombie’ is in and of itself absolutely fascinating, and—”

I stared at her and she stopped.

“Erm, yes. Zombie is an adequate term to describe the creatures that attacked you. Although,” she couldn’t resist adding, “ghoul is another popular word in the nomenclature assigned to the reanimated dead.”

Uh-huh.
Mercifully, curiosity was replacing the memories. Professor Fraser’s calm, academic observations were as soothing as Valium.

“So you’re telling me these things are real. You’re not gonna tell me I’m crazy or on crack or whatever?”

Professor Fraser shook her head.

“No. You experienced something outside of the norm... but unfortunately, not outside of reality.”

“And those were really dead people walking around? Hungry dead people.”

A hesitation.

“Yes. I’m afraid so.”

I lay back, taking a deep breath. Looked at my bandaged arm, felt the throb in my neck and shoulder. I had enough pop culture savvy to know what that meant.

“Am I... that’s going to happen to me, isn’t it?” She didn’t answer right away. I reached out and grabbed her hand. “You’re going to have to shoot me in the head, aren’t you?”

“No,” Professor Fraser said, “but that’s a very good response on your part.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Professor?” It was official—I’d entered the “anger” stage. “I’ve been bitten, so whatever infected those people, whether it’s voodoo or puffer fish toxins or whatever—it’s gonna happen to me, too, isn’t it?”

“Simone.”

“Huh?”

“My name is Simone.” That took me by surprise. Professor Fraser gently extracted her hand from mine, but then took my hand in hers and peered at me steadily. “We’ll be working together now, and probably
for the foreseeable future. There’s no need for things to stay so formal.”

“Working together?” I had no idea what she was talking about. My head suddenly pounded to the rhythm of my heartbeat, my arm and shoulder throbbed, and I wanted more painkillers. “I’m not dying?”

Professor Fraser shook her head, and I didn’t think she was bullshitting me any longer.

“No,” she answered. “You need to rest and let your wounds heal. That’s all.”

“But how do you know?” My face flushed with fever heat as my anxiety ramped up another notch. “How can you be sure I’m not gonna die, and try to eat you?” I struggled to sit up again, but she placed a firm hand on my uninjured shoulder.

“Trust me, Ashley, I’ve seen this before—”

Of course you have
, I thought furiously.
Nothing to see here, folks, ’cause this happens every day!

Then I stopped myself.

What if it
did
, but most people were lucky enough to never know about it?

“And you exhibit none of the clinical indications we’ve come to associate with reanimation,” she continued.

Clinical indications?

I searched Professor Fraser’s face for some sign that she was lying, and saw nothing but certainty there. She was so calm, it was both disconcerting and yet oddly comforting.

I lay back down.

“What... what about Matt?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer. “Is he here, too?”

Was it my imagination or did she hesitate before replying?

“Yes,” she said. “He’s in another part of the lab.”

Oh, thank god...
I’d thought for sure he’d been ripped to pieces.

“Is he okay?” There was a definite hesitation this time. My skin began to crawl.
So much for comforting.

“He’s still alive,” she said.

“Can I see him?”

Professor Fraser... Simone... shook her head.

“Not right now,” she said, and I thought I saw cracks appearing in that composure. “You need to rest.”

“I don’t want to rest,” I protested. “I’ve
been
resting. I want to know what’s—”

“I know you do,” she said, and she pressed a small button next to the bed. “We’ll explain everything to you when you’re more up to it.”

We?

The pulsing in my head increased. I was about to force the issue when the door opened to admit a skinny, ginger-bearded, and vaguely rodent-featured man in his early fifties.

“Doctor Albert?”

He jumped a little, as if startled.

“Oh, hello, Ashley.”

“What are you doing here?”

Dr. Albert smiled soothingly.

“I’m the head of University Medical Services,” he said, as if that explained everything. Before I could respond, he took something out of his pocket. A syringe. “Now Ashley, this will help you with the pain, and let you sleep a bit more.”

This is a load of crap,
I thought. I wanted to know what happened to me. I wanted to know what happened to Matt! But I was too weak to resist as he administered the shot and my protests died before they’d begun.

The effects hit almost immediately, and a wave of numbing drowsiness washed over me. Without a word, I drifted back off to sleep.

Josh lay on the ground, mouth opening and closing in mindless hunger. Footsteps crunched on pine needles and dirt a short distance away.

“Any sign?”

“Piece of terrycloth. Dried blood on it.”

Cartridges were slapped into place and rounds chambered as the footsteps sped up to a slow jog, heading in Josh’s direction. He moaned again, the sound rising up and echoing through fog-shrouded trees.

“Think I’ve got a zed over here, sir!”

Footsteps crunched on pine needles.

“Oh, man, that is seriously fucked up...” Someone coughed, almost dry heaving. Josh moaned, clawing hungrily at the dusty black boots a foot or so away from his head.

“Zed identified, sir!”

“Fire!”

“On the way!”

There was a clap of thunder and Josh’s second life disintegrated, along with his head.

I don’t know what the doctor shot me up with, but whatever it was, I slept like the un-reanimated dead—a long and dreamless sleep.

Waking up was better this time; I could open my eyes without sending ground-glass pain shooting into the lids and sockets. In the nasty glare of the fluorescent lights, everything looked much as it had before, except the chair where Simone had been sitting was unoccupied.

The door to my little room was closed, but I could hear an occasional voice and the sound of footsteps. My anxiety, although muted by the lingering effects of the sedative I’d been given, rose a notch. A borderline claustrophobic, I didn’t much like the closed space.

Was I a patient here, or a prisoner?

I pushed myself up to a seated position with much more success than my last attempt. My shoulder and arm still throbbed under their bandages, but other than that, I felt pretty damn good... which in itself was pretty damn weird.

I was wicked thirsty—probably dehydrated from the drugs, not to mention the hundred-yard zombie dash I’d done—but I actually felt rested. It was like the first good sleep-in of summer vacation. Except I usually didn’t start my summer vacation with chunks of flesh missing from my body.

That’s gonna suck come tank-top weather.

A glass sat on the bedside table, condensation frosting its sides. I reached for it with my left hand, wincing when the move put pressure on wound.