The Lazarus Impact (5 page)

CHAPTER 9

There are fewer guards than there should be, and rumors are flying about a quarantine and poisonous air on the outside. Marcus only had one meal, brought to him by a guy wearing a civil unrest style, police issue gas mask. Some of the other guards have masks too.
They might resort to tear gas
. His fellow inmates are riled up with rage, ready to riot at any moment. The guards were doling out beatings one by one, like they did to Harley, but that didn’t work to subdue the masses. Shawn, the inmate next to him who spent a lot of time in the prison library, said the law requires that prisoners get outdoor time and three meals a day. Marcus hears him shouting about cruel and unusual punishment among all the other yelling.
But maybe it’s dangerous outside, if the air is poisonous. Maybe that’s why the guards have masks on. Maybe it’s cruel to let us out
.

When the shift changes there are even less guards. Two of them argue over using a spare gas mask. The one that loses out ends up sitting watch by the levers that unlock the cells on Marcus’ floor. He coughs violently into his hands every few minutes.
The rumors are true, then. The air outside is toxic
. Marcus tries to yell out to tell the others but his voice drowns in a sea of madness. He covers his mouth and nose with a t-shirt, tying it around the back of his head.

The guard continues to cough incessantly. He stands up, trying to call out for help to the other guards over the ruckus, but he’s inaudible. The noise is so loud now that Marcus can’t even hear himself think. The guard stumbles around, hacking and spitting up blood before finally keeling over onto the cell door levers. The weight of his body pulls several levers down as he flops to the floor.

Some cell doors open and the inmates immediately flood into the hall. They pull the other levers, opening up the rest, including Marcus’ door. A few guards run up to try to fight the mob, but they’re trampled and stomped as the prisoners rush them. There are gunshots; a shotgun and several pistols. Then Marcus hears the hiss of tear gas.
Poisonous air outside and inside
. The sound of fleeting thuds and grunts roll away under the fog of gas. The prisoners open more and more cells, leaving guards dead and bloodied in their wake. “There’s more of us than you, nigga!” Harley’s words echo in Marcus’ ear.

Keys are swiped, doors are opened, and heads are cracked all over the place. The block empties as the mob moves on. But Marcus stays in his room until it grows quiet.
I told myself I’d stay in my cell, but I need to see what’s going on
. When he finally steps out into the hallway he sees several guards and inmates lying on the ground. One guard bleeds out from a stab wound. Marcus can see through the guard’s gas mask that it’s Thompson. Marcus approaches him, putting his hand over the wound, but he knows it’s too late. Thompson is dying. Marcus holds his breath and shields his eyes from the lingering tear gas down the hall.

“Take it. Take the mask,” Thompson utters “Don’t blow it this time,” he adds before fading away. Marcus pulls the mask off his head and quickly slips it on. He looks around at the carnage. There is no guard left alive. He lingers in thought at Thompson’s final words. “Don’t blow it this time.”
This is a second chance. Has God heard my prayers and pleadings for forgiveness? Is this a test?
Whatever it is, Marcus resolves to live the right way if he gets out alive. He knows the inmates will probably turn on him, and he’ll need to fight. The gas mask will make him a target once they figure out that to go without one is a death sentence.
If I gotta defend myself, then so be it. Lord forgive me.
He pulls Thompson’s night stick from his cold dead hands. His gun was missing.

Just then the lights cut out, and the block falls dark. It’s daylight outside, but you would never know it when the lights go down in the cell blocks of a maximum security prison. He hears more gunshots. Rifles this time, likely from the tower. He creeps down the dim hall, following the trail of carnage that the riot left behind.

Marcus remembers some of the halls only vaguely, from when he was first processed and taken to his cell. He passes the lockdown, and moves cautiously as he gets close to the back end of the mob. He can see inmates using wet shirts to try to breathe. Some have fallen, slumped and coughing on the ground. Marcus kneels before one of the inmates that hacks uncontrollably, feeling obligated to care for someone in need. The young man sits cross legged, spraying pink droplets of blood onto the legs of his prison suit with each cough. Marcus puts a caring hand on his back as the young inmate starts to vomit. He tips over, gasping for air, dying.
There’s nothing I can do
.

Daylight is ahead, but Marcus hears fighting. “Get ‘em in the head!” someone yells.

Marcus steps out into the cold sunlight. But a cloud of gloom quickly turns an otherwise bright winter’s day into something sinister and ominous. Through the dust he notices a dark fog rolling in from the southwest. His eyes quickly dart all over the place as he sees a most horrific sight; men eating each other. Biting and gnawing at flesh like rabid beasts.
Perhaps this Christmas gift of freedom is really a curse
.

“Yo Marcus!” Harley yells. Marcus can’t pull his eyes from the mayhem. He stares in disbelief. “Marcus!” Marcus breaks his gaze and turns to see Harley standing a short distance away with a gas mask on his face and a shotgun in his hand. “Get over here, nigga. We need you. Help us kill these muh’ fuckin’ cannibals! Take your freedom back!”

Marcus lingers in thought.
Thompson has given me life, and the meteor has given me freedom while it gives others death
.
Freedom
.
Why? Is it a blessing or a curse? If this is what’s out there, then perhaps I’m receiving that ultimate punishment I deserve
.
That punishment beyond what mere man can dole out
.
It’s hell
.
Hell on Earth
.

He feels hands grab at his shoulders from behind. He turns to see the young inmate from the hall grasping at him. His jaw chatters like a wild dog chomping for food. Marcus backpedals toward Harley. Harley shoves the inmate backward and promptly blows his head off without hesitation. Bits of brain and blood coat the wall behind like a macabre abstract impressionist painting.

“That guy was dead a minute ago. Back in the hall,” Marcus tells Harley in disbelief.

“They all comin’ back, mutha fucka. Until you get ‘em in the head,” Harley explains. “You breathe the air, you die and turn into one. And if they bite you, you turn into one of them too, only faster. See?” Harley points to the ground nearby, where a guard twitches and convulses. Blood gushes from the bite wounds on his neck and arms, smearing onto the concrete as his body violently seizes. The shaking stops and his mouth foams up as he dies. A moment later he bursts back to life. Harley shoots him in the head, spraying the concrete with crimson death. “Then they eat people. Fuckin’ zombies or some shit.” Harley nods at Marcus’ night stick. “Where you get that?”

“Thompson. Same with the mask,” Marcus answers.

“Here’s his gun too,” Harley passes Marcus a pistol. “They’re all gifts from me, then,” he says with an evil grin. “Merry Christmas, brutha.” Harley had exacted his vengeance for the beating Thompson gave him. It was Harley who killed Thompson. Marcus stirs with anger. He liked Thompson, and there is absolutely no remorse in Harley.
I think he enjoys this
.
He’s tempting me
.
Is Harley a reflection of what I once was, beckoning me back to a life of evil? I may have been like that once, but no more
.
This is yet another test
.

“I vowed never to harm or kill a man again,” Marcus says, unsure about whether he wants to keep the weapon.

“Well good, cause that ain’t no man. That right there’s a demon,” Harley argues, pointing at the dead guard. “And if you hesitate and one of these muh’ fuckas gets at me because of it, then I’ll make damn sure I come back from the dead and kill yo’ black ass myself.” He glares at Marcus. “You rollin’ with me now.”

He speaks as if his word is Gospel, but maybe he’s right; these things
...
they’re not men. They’re demons
.

“Get those masks!” an inmate yells nearby, pointing at Marcus and Harley.

“Back the fuck up!” Harley points his gun with a warning, and a crew of masked inmates come to his and Marcus’ defense.

It’s just like I thought
.
The masks made us targets
.

With his eyes fixed on the inmates, Harley points his gun to the side and blows away another cannibal.

“Come on, let’s go. Let’s get out of here,” Marcus says. There’s a clear path out through the main gates now that the tower riflemen have been overrun. With their guns raised and their eyes fixed on the inmates, Marcus, Harley and Harley’s crew back their way out to freedom.

CHAPTER 10

Michael and Amy look out over the skyline from the window of their 16
th
floor apartment. Manhattan is eerily silent, empty. There are no lights flickering, no billboards running, no horns honking. The word from their neighbor Farrah is that the bridges and tunnels have been closed. It’s a quarantine within a quarantine. There’s no power, no heat, no water. Garbage is already piling up on the curbs of their neighborhood. But there’s no one to clean it up, because no one is at work. The sanitation and power jobs don’t pay enough to afford living in the city, so they are blocked out anyway, behind the closed off bridges and tunnels. The Mayor thought about trying to mandate some personnel show up to work, but he reconsidered after angry protests ensued. Anyone with sense is home attending to their families, trying to figure out how to survive without their normal comforts and conveniences.

Michael works in the city planner’s office and even he wasn’t going in. He doesn’t make all that much money, working for the city, but Amy is in finance. That’s how they could afford the apartment. She makes a ton, and works her ass off. But the markets are closed, and sitting at home bothers her. She needs to do something. She wants to work, but the economy has come to a grinding halt.

Even last week was really sluggish. Christmas was on the way, and the meteor news had everyone in a panic. Michael resisted at first, convinced nothing was going to happen, but on Amy’s insistence they stocked up on some supplies before the stores ran out. Canned vegetables, bottled water, dry goods, and cat food for Minxie, their aging 11-year-old Maine Coon. They even filled the tub with water just in case. They already had gas masks as a precaution from a recent terrorist scare; some jihadist animals were caught with canisters of neurotoxin gas or something like that. So they ordered some black, Israeli style, clip and strap masks online. That purchase turned out to be a life saver, as they later heard on an emergency radio broadcast that the dust from the impact was poisonous. Since then there has been nothing; no word other than the bridges and tunnels being closed, which was just a rumor from Farrah.

They opened gifts in the dark with a flashlight just after the power went out late on Christmas Eve, when the big one hit. The iPads and Blu-rays they got for each other would be of no use to them, ever. On Christmas day they scrapped together a somewhat fresh meal for dinner, using whatever they had left in the fridge before it went bad.

They knew their vegan diet would have to change if anything went wrong. They wondered if they would get sick from the transition back to processed, high preservative, canned foods. It would not be a good transition to make with failed plumbing. But they stayed away from canned meat. Not even the apocalypse would keep them from eating healthy, they thought. Well, Michael thought. Amy missed having a nice, juicy, medium-rare steak once in a while. She especially missed her mother’s traditional Chinese salted pork and stir fried beef dishes. Michael convinced her they should change the way they eat after reading the research on the Mayor’s new food initiatives program. She was head strong with almost everything else in her life, but with Michael she was flexible. Deep down Amy thought it was a crock of shit to regulate salt, fats, and certain oils, but she supported her husband. She agreed to go along with him. That was almost a year ago.

But marrying a hippie did have its pluses. At least the spare bedroom was filled with edible greens. About six months ago they started doing some indoor gardening with a hydroponic kit they saw on an infomercial. It started out with herbs, then grew to include tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce greens. Good enough for a salad minus the dressing.

“We can last a while here,” Michael says. With all the looting and rioting, they haven’t gone back outside for fear of violence. It was good exercise while it lasted though, running up and down 16 flights of stairs.

“Look.” Amy points out over their west-facing view. A wall of black dust creeps over the unlit grey skyline. They put their gas masks on and hold each other’s hands as the debris lightly pelts the side of their building. The sound of fine sand blowing against glass fills their ears, and soot settles on the narrow ledges outside their window as the gust ceases. It happened many times throughout the day, but this was the biggest.

“A quarantine means they’re leaving us to die. We need to get out of here,” Amy says.

“I think we can ride it out,” Michael responds.

“Who knows how long we’ll be stuck here. They may never let us out of quarantine, if they even care that we’re still alive,” Amy argues.

“We can’t get out anyway if the bridges and tunnels are all closed. It’s not like we can hop on a subway or a train either,” Michael says.

“Can’t we at least try getting out? If we can get to my parents’ house maybe we can regroup and then try to get further west, past the outer barricade,” Amy suggests.

“Baby, they put quarantines in place for a reason. I’m sure they know what they’re doing. I trust the government to make the right decision.”

“Yeah that’s the problem. They’ve condemned us to death and you’re okay with it.”

“We don’t know that. Remember we saw military helicopters before? They might be doing rescue and recovery type things, or getting ready to.”

“I don’t like being stuck here. I don’t want to stay. Can’t we at least try to get out of the city?” she asks.

Michael reluctantly agrees after a few moments of thought. “Sure, but not tonight. Maybe some of this wind will die down by the morning.” They lie down on their bed embraced in one another’s arms. The sound of their breathing through masks provides them with a sort of eerie white noise that eventually numbs them to sleep.

#

A loud thud wakes them in the dawn. Amy bolts up with a gasp, dreaming she was shot and couldn’t breathe. They hear a distant screaming in the hallway, and then all falls quiet except the continued sound of dust pelting the window. They get up from bed and peek out the peep hole in their door, but they see nothing except the fish-eyed opposite wall. They hear some gruff, muffled voices, and then another ear shattering thud. It’s a gunshot, much closer in the hall than the one that woke them. They hear crashes through the walls, screaming. It’s Farrah. Suddenly her screams are silenced with another shot. Michael’s eyes widen in panic. He freezes in fear, his round blue eyes like balls of ice behind his mask.

“Let’s go. We need to get out of here,” Amy whispers while she slips a pair of sneakers on near the door. “Grab the bags.” Michael stares past her, still in shock. “Go!”

Last week the news shows all suggested that people make “bug out” bags with enough food, water and basic supplies for 72 hours. They each packed one. And now they are about to abandon the comforts of their apartment to brave the dangerous streets with nothing but those bags.

Michael returns with them, and they both quietly slip them on their backs over their coats. Through the thin walls they can hear men rummaging around Farrah’s apartment next door, looting for supplies. They grunt, cough, and give angered directions to one another. Michael grabs Minxie under his arm, and they slowly open the door to peek out into the hall. All is clear, but Farrah’s door is wide open. They have to pass it to get to the stairwell at the end of the hall. They place their steps carefully. Amy nudges Michael on the arm and motions for him to quit breathing and making a racket. They hold their breath and sharpen their ears to the sounds within Farrah’s apartment. Minxie squirms under Michael’s arm. She wants to run loose, but Michael holds her tight with nervous fear. Glass breaks and heavy objects topple onto the floor within the apartment. Just as they are about to cross in front of the door, the sound of rummaging is right next to them, behind the wall that abuts the hallway. They’re rifling through the kitchen for food. Michael and Amy freeze in their tracks, waiting. A moment later the sounds move; they’re deeper in the back of the apartment. Michael and Amy dart in front and pass the doorway, moving at a quick pace to the end of the hall without daring to look behind.

“Hey!” one of the men yells out before coughing. He runs to the door, blindly firing a shot down the hall in their direction. “Hey!”

Amy and Michael run to the stairwell and fling the door open, starting their descent to hell. The man chases after them. He fires at them as they wind downward in a dizzying clockwise circle, half floor by half floor. Michael and Amy stay close to the walls, away from the inner shaft. They are at least a floor ahead. They can hear him coughing, labored in his breathing. He shoots again and again. Michael and Amy move as fast as they can. Minxie claws at Michael, whining and hissing, tearing at his skin, but he holds onto her.

“Just let ‘em go.” They hear the deep voice of another man echo from above, nearly drowned out by the clattering of their footsteps in the cavernous stairwell. After what feels like an eternity, Michael and Amy safely make it to the building lobby. There is no doorman anymore. There’s not even a door. Their glassed, upscale, luxury building is wide open to whoever wants access.

“My back. It’s wet. Have I been shot?” Michael asks, confused, craning his neck to look around his side. Panic starts to build up within him.

Amy checks him over. There’s a hole in the side of his pack. She feels around but he’s not hit. “They must’ve hit one of your water bottles.”

They catch their breath for a moment, but they’re still reeling with fear. Michael tries to ease his nerves by petting Minxie.

“We better keep moving,” Amy says.

The windy winter morning awaits them outside.