The Most Uncommon Cold I - Life in the Time of Zombies (23 page)

     The screen showed the customs area at the airport from an overhead angle.  In the upper right corner was a white time stamp.  There was no movement at all.  The detective continued to stare at the
screen for nearly two minutes in anticipation before recalling the number 1535 written on the envelope. He pushed the fast forward button on the remote and watched the time stamp climb. A number of airport employees and passengers sped frantically in and out of the picture.  The time stamp sped through the hours.  When 1530 appeared, he pushed the play button to bring the picture back to normal speed.

     Lieutenant Detective Greg Lawrence continued watching the images on the
screen for almost two minutes before suddenly jumping up and yelling “Hell no!” 

     It was then that he heard the coughing behind him.

Chapter 19

     The grimy fingers poked slowly into the skin of the stomach.  At first, the skin just pushed in and then popped back out.  I slowly lifted my head to look down at my stomach, and the fingers began digging more quickly and with more purpose.  Then there were four hands and then maybe six. They became more like claws
and suddenly the skin was broken.  Blood seeped out around the fingers until they were splashing in it.  In just seconds, the contents of my body were being pulled out.  Long, bloody tubes of flesh and darker-colored organs streamed from my body.                         

     Even after I forced my eyes to open from the dream, the images hung in front of me and blurred everything else.  Actually, there was not much to see anyway.  As the pictures of blood and violence faded away, my limited view was taken up by the white acoustic ceiling tile and two long slightly flickering
fluorescent tubes hanging above me. Once consciousness had fully returned, I became aware that I was on my back in some sort of gurney like they use in ambulances.

     I turned to look to the right, and my vision was again swimming.  I squeezed my eyes tightly closed for three seconds or three hours.  When I
opened them again, the realization of my situation hit me with a shock.  My entire body convulsed with terror.  I twisted to get out of the gurney and found it was impossible to move my arm. The brown leather cuff around my wrist held my hand against the metal rail of the gurney.  A look to my left showed a matching cuff.  I thrashed around trying to get my hands out of the restraints.  

     The futile action only succeeded in bringing a stabbing pain to the back of my head.   I squeezed my eyes closed once more and was still.  This lack of distraction gave the memories an open door
though which to  rush. 

     I was flooded with the faces. 

     There was Bonnie’s face glowing with her radiant smile.  It was a smile that never failed to put a grin on my lips and butterflies in my stomach.  Even  now I could feel the sense of longing to be with her springing up within me. Seemingly in reaction to my feelings, her appearance began to change.  The face sagged and wrinkles gathered around the mouth. I looked into her eyes, but they were no longer the deep blue eyes full of life that I had come to know.  These were washed out, cold, dead eyes.  

     Somehow, I was now standing in the underground garage beneath our apartment
building standing near my wife’s huddled form.  I could not see what it was, but Bonnie was holding something bloody in her hands.          

     “She needed a ride to the drugstore,” I heard her mutter to no one in particular. 

     “Who?”  I asked as I moved closer to her. “Who needed a ride to the drugstore, Bonnie?”

      She twitched as if startled by my words. Her head rose in my direction, but her
unfocused eyes still seemed to look right through me. 

     “She needed a ride to the drugstore,” she repeated.

     As I watched the scene, I was somehow a participant and spectator at the same time.  I could feel my hand moving to touch Bonnie’s shoulder even as my mind shouted for the hand to stop.  The movement continued, and my fingers touched her shoulder lightly.  At that instant, Bonnie’s lips twisted into a grimace revealing a mouth full of bloody teeth. Between the teeth was something stringy and repulsive. I fell back away from her. 

     “She needed a ride to the drugstore!”  She shouted with fury as she moved toward me.  It was then that I caught a better look at what she was holding.

     The head of a young woman with long blond hair rested unsteadily within her hands. The stringy blood-soaked hair covered part of her face, but I could still see a big chunk had been bitten out of her cheek and her nose was gone. Something told me that I should recognize the face even though I did not. 

    “Bonnie, what happened?”  I screamed at the same time my feet were stumbling away from her.

     “She needed a ride to the drugstore,” Bonnie repeated as she took a step toward me and let the head fall.

     Rather than the soft thump of an overripe melon I expected, the head bounced away like a basketball and carried my attention with it. I could feel my head nodding with each bounce of the head/ball.  The movement stopped abruptly as the head/ball came to rest in Glen
’s hands.  I found myself back in The Faith Lighthouse Church. The young minister was standing behind a podium. He looked down at the thing he was holding for a moment before raising his eyes to me. 

    
“Looks like we’re not gonna get a chance to watch
The Cross and The Switchblade
like we planned,” he said as he moved out from behind the podium.    It was then that I saw the blood. 

     It seemed impossible for him to stand at all since his left leg ended in a jagged edge of flesh and bone just above where the knee should have been. His stomach had been ripped open
and its contents of half-digested mush were clear.  The young minister laughed, causing everything to shake.

     “Think fast!” Glen called out as I looked up to see him launch the head/ball toward me.

     Before I could react, the thing hit me in the face.  At once, I was back in the gurney.  But instead of staring up at the ceiling, I was looking at the big face of a guy who had slapped me and was raising his big meaty hand to slap me again.  His mouth was moving, but all I could hear was sort of a loud buzzing sound all around me. 

     When the buzzing stopped, I heard the
big face yell, “Wake up!  I need to talk to you!” 

     I turned my head to avoid the impact of the hand coming down.  The result was the hand missed slapping my cheek and instead smacked my ear.  The buzzing was instantly back. 

     “Owwww!”  I yelped even though I could not hear my own words. 

     The mouth on the
big face moved for a few seconds before I could hear anything other than buzzing.  “—just needed to find out what the hell is going on with that video.”

     I stared blankly at him for a minute before what he said made sense to me. “You found the disc?” 

     “Yeah, I found it and… What the hell is that?” The guy was practically screaming.

      “It
’s a security video from--” A fit of coughing from somewhere in the room stopped me.  I moved my head from side to side but could not find the source of the sound.  “Who’s that?” I called out. 

     “Officer Gleason, why?”  The big guy asked.  “Never mind. 
We got more important things to talk about.”

     “Untie me!” I yelled.

     He was quiet for a few moments as he stared at me.  I could tell the big guy was judging the risk of untying me. Finally, he moved over to the side of the gurney and unbuckled the cuff. 

     As soon as my hand was loose, I spun around to free my left hand.  As I was loosening the straps, I looked over to see a policeman leaning against the wall even as he continued to cough.  I sat up quickly
and dark spots floated in front of my eyes.  As soon as my vision cleared, I turned to the big guy.

     “Are you sick?”

     “What are you talking about?”  

     “Do you have a cold?” I asked too loudly.

     “No, but what the hell does that matter?  I want to know about the video right now,” he answered, forcing his voice to sound assertive even while his expression showed something else.

     “We need to get some place safe and then I
’ll tell you all about it,” I said still watching the coughing policeman.

     “You
’re in a police station!  I don’t think you’re gonna find anywhere safer.”

     “Do you have an office?”  I asked
, even as I was pushing myself over the railing at the side of the gurney.

     The big guy moved quickly over to where I was climbing out of the gurney.  For just a moment, I thought he was going to push me back.  Instead, he grabbed  my elbow to keep me from falling.

     “Take it easy.  We can go to my office.” He looked over to the officer and said, “Gleason, get the wheelchair outta the storeroom.” 

     “I don
’t need a wheelchair,” I started to protest until I realized the errand would get Officer Gleason and his cough out of the room. I took a step toward the door to prove my point and almost immediately got dizzy and stumbled.  Big Face had me by the arm again as Gleason left the room.

     “So where am I and who are you?”  I asked flatly. 

     “I’m Lieutenant Detective Greg Lawrence, and this is the Portero Hill Police Station.”  He looked at my confused expression for a moment before continuing.  “I’m not sure how much you remember, but you were brought in by a patrol team called to Gerald Ford Junior High.”

     “How long have I been here?” I asked slowly.

     “You got here about four hours ago,” the detective answered. He hesitated a little before adding, “You were supposed to be transferred over to SF Medical Center, but the wagon never showed up.”

    
I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me.  “What happened… I mean how did I get here?  I’m not sure what…” My words trailed off as I felt all the energy drain out of me.

     “Why don
’t you tell me what you remember?”

     I was quiet for a long time while I sorted through all the memories. “I remember that the world has gone more than crazy
in the last couple of days.”

     Detective Lawrence chuckled quietly in response to my observation.

     “You mean you haven’t seen a rise in the number of… uh… extremely violent attacks?” I asked with clear anger at his response.

     “Hell yes, I
’ve seen a bunch more attacks!” Lawrence bellowed.  “But I dunno about sayin’
the world has gone crazy in the last coupla days
.  The world’s been crazy for a damn bit longer than that!  You’re a reporter.  You oughta know!” 

     I felt stupid at having mistaken the detective
’s response as disagreement. “I suppose I should have seen it coming.  All I know is that no one did, and now the shit has hit the fan!” As my voice grew louder, I could feel myself on the verge of panic.  “There are dead people--”

     “Okay, Mr. Turner, you need to calm down,” Detective Lawrence said quietly.  Taking hold of my arm, he continued, “Let
’s go to my office to talk more.” 

     We shuffled down the hallway on the way to the detective
’s office. My balance was improving, but I still felt a bit unsteady and let myself be guided.  I was staring at the floor as if that would help me feel more steady as we stopped.  I raised my eyes to find we were standing in front of silver elevator doors. 

     I looked at my own blurry,
distorted reflection staring back at me.  Then I became aware of the detective’s intense gaze fixed upon me.  The chills were immediate.  At once, I realized that stuck on an elevator with this guy or anybody else was the last place I wanted to be. 

     “We need to take the stairs!” I practically shouted.
 

     Just as I was turning away from the elevator, the doors slid open. 
Inside was a single figure in a dark blue police uniform.  It was slouched motionless against the back wall in the right corner.

     Lawrence started toward the elevator. 

     I repeated, “We need to take the stairs!”

     He turned toward me as the elevator doors closed, and I began trotting toward the sign reading
STAIRS.

     Detective Lawrence wa
s surprisingly fast and had taken hold of my arm before I had gone more than a few yards.

     “Whoa, slow down there
, buddy!” As if it was little more than reflex, the detective immediately had me pinned against the wall.  “We need to stay together.”  He turned me so that I was facing him.  “You aren’t havin’ another one of those
episodes
the shrinks were talkin’ about, are you?”

    
I looked at him for a second before answering, “Look, we don’t have time for this. We need to get somewhere safe.”

     Lawrence nodded slowly then took my arm and guided me to the stairs.  Once inside the stairwell
, we began to climb. When we got the door marked
First Floor
, we both instinctively paused and listened.  Except for the sound of some voices hissing over a radio somewhere, there was silence. I started to pull open the door, but the detective stopped me.