Wipeout | Book 5 | Foul Play

by Richards, E. S.

  Chapter 13

  Lacing up his boots in almost complete darkness, Austin prepared to leave the apartment once more. It may have been the middle of the night, but it was far from silent in their building as Meghan groaned and wailed from the bed where she lay. Her son was beside her, of course. Dante was a trained medical professional and a devoted son, there was no way he was leaving his mother’s side as she battled this strange and mysterious illness that seemed to have stealthily crept into her body and then unleashed itself at the worst possible time.

  The old woman writhed in the bed like there were animals crawling through her veins. She said her skin burned and sweat poured out of her like water leaking from a faucet. She needed medicine and with nothing in the apartment, there was only one way they were going to get it.

  “Seriously dude, I can come with you if you want. I can help.”

  Austin looked up at Miles and shook his head, the motion just visible in the dim light. The teenager had already offered and been refused once, but Austin couldn’t blame him for trying. The situation in the apartment wasn’t pleasant, Miles would likely get a better night’s sleep out on his own. But with the four walls to protect them – and Meghan’s crying to ward off any potential intruders – it really was the safest place for him. For all of them.

  Turning and looking toward Bowie’s bedroom, Austin pushed himself up from the couch and walked across the small apartment. Bowie was in bed, but he certainly wasn’t sleeping. The little boy’s eyes were wide open as he lay under the bedsheets, the cover pulled right up under his nose in an attempt to protect himself.

  “What’s happening dad?” Bowie questioned when Austin appeared and sat down on the edge of the bed, pushing back the dinosaur bedsheets first so he didn’t trap Bowie under them too tightly. “What’s wrong with grandma?”

  “She’s sick, buddy,” Austin replied, stroking Bowie’s blond hair and subtly feeling his son’s forehead at the same time. Austin breathed a sigh of relief. Bowie didn’t have a temperature – that was how things had started with Meghan, she complained she was too hot and went to bed to try and cool down. Things had escalated quickly, but thus far it didn’t look like she’d passed her sickness onto anyone else.

  “Is she going to get better?”

  “Of course she is.” Austin smiled at his son. “She just needs some medicine. I’m going to go out and get it for her now.”

  “You’re going outside again?” Bowie gasped at the idea, shaking his head and sitting up more in his bed. “Don’t go again, dad. Please don’t leave me.”

  A lump formed immediately in Austin’s throat. Hearing his little boy plead with him not to leave and knowing he had to, was one of the hardest things Austin had ever had to deal with. He’d cross a thousand raging rivers in that rickety old canoe if it meant he didn’t have to disappoint his son, but unfortunately that wasn’t a tradeoff he could make. Meghan wasn’t getting any better and he needed to do whatever he could to help her.

  “I won’t be gone long, Bowie,” Austin soothed his son. “I just need to get some medicine to help grandma, okay? Daddy is still going to be here, and your new friend Miles.”

  Bowie nodded bleakly, understanding that Austin was leaving no matter what he said. The two of them sat in silence for several more seconds until another wail from the other bedroom cut through the air, followed by Dante’s desperate words as he tried to comfort his mother. Austin looked down at Bowie and gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile, followed by a kiss on the forehead. As he left the room, he wished they had never removed Bowie’s bedroom door – at least closing that would bring his son some comfort, but instead he was forced to listen to the cries of his grandmother at maximum volume.

  “How’s she doing?”

  It was a bit of an unnecessary question, but Austin asked it anyway as he walked into what had been his and Dante’s room, where Meghan now occupied the double bed. He could see instantly that there was no improvement in the woman’s health; the sheets were damp with sweat and she tossed and turned from side to side as she groaned, despite Dante’s best efforts to keep her still.

  There was a bucket of cool water next to the bed and a wet cloth. Dante constantly moistened the fabric and mopped his mother’s brow. It did little to cool or soothe her though, Meghan’s flailing arms lashed out and nearly knocked the towel from Dante’s hand as he tried again.

  “Do you have any idea what’s wrong with her?”

  Dante shook his head. “It’s like some extreme flu. Either that or she’s been poisoned,” he added after a pause, half laughing at the idea, half worrying that somehow it might be true. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. She keeps saying her skin feels like it’s on fire but she’s not burning up anymore, she’s just a little bit warm.”

  “What sort of drugs do you need? I’ll go out now and see what I can find.”

  “You’ll need to go to a hospital,” Dante replied. “We need something more than what you can just find in any old drugstore. Look for Vicodin, Advil if you can’t find any. Amoxicillin as well if you can find any, this might be a bacterial infection.”

  “Vicodin. Advil. Amoxicillin.” Austin repeated the words under his breath to make sure he remembered them properly. “Okay. Anything else?”

  “I don’t know,” Dante started to look nervous. “I can’t treat something if I don’t know what it is.”

  “Hey, hey,” Austin put a hand on his husband’s shoulder, looking him in the eyes as best he could while Dante continued to frantically try and treat his mother. “It’ll be okay, babe. We’ll sort this out. You and me – okay – we can do anything when we work together.” Dante was getting increasingly anxious and Meghan showed no signs of steadying or improving as Austin stood with the two of them in his bedroom. “I love you, Dante,” he said as he prepared to leave. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Hurry,” Dante whispered as Austin stepped away, his full attention going back to his mother as she screamed and cried out for help.

  Dante wasn’t going to leave Meghan’s side and until he returned with the drugs, the two of them couldn’t go anywhere else either. Picking up a half-filled water canister and clipping it to a notch on his pants with a carabiner, Austin started toward the front door, nearly walking into Miles in the darkness.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Miles, come on,” Austin stepped around him and folded his arms in front of his chest. “We’ve been over this; I need you to stay here.”

  “Why? I can help you out there, I know the city more than you.”

  “But it’s not safe.”

  “You’re not my dad and no offence,” Miles squared up to Austin, standing as tall as he could despite being almost a foot shorter than the man. “But I was doing pretty well out there on my own before you came along.”

  “Then how come you came back here?” Austin asked outright, too tired and too short on time for an argument with the kid. “Look – I know you can cope out there on your own and yeah, you’re probably right, you may know the city better than me right now. But I’m asking you, please stay here. It’s not just for your own safety, but for Bowie as well. I need you to look after him.”

  Miles opened his mouth to argue, but as another of Meghan’s screams echoed through the apartment, he found himself looking in the direction of the bedroom and gradually closing his mouth. “Fine,” Miles succumbed eventually. “I’ll stay.”

  “Thank you,” Austin exhaled. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Take care of them for me, I’m trusting you.”

  There wasn’t a chance for Miles to say anything else, no matter how the kid felt – Austin unlatched the door quickly and slipped around it into the dank corridor on the other side, three words bouncing around in his head as he took the stairs two at a time and headed for the street. Vicodin. Advil. Amoxicillin. He had no idea what was wrong with Meghan, but he desperately hoped the drugs would help. His family couldn’t deal with any more trauma and he refused
to let things get any worse.

  Once he was outside, Austin turned and jogged down the street in the opposite direction to where he’d gone before. It was still dark, moonlight guiding his way with another couple of hours until sunrise, but Austin didn’t need light to know where he was going. The New York Presbyterian hospital was only a couple of blocks away, if he ran, he could make it there in decent time.

  Moving through the streets he thought about his family and once again, whether he had done the right thing bringing them back to New York. He wondered how Samuel was getting on at home with his parents, his every waking hour so busy now they were back in Queens that he’d barely had a chance to think about his friend. No matter what Samuel was getting up to though, Austin doubted whether it could be worse than his predicament. Meghan wasn’t well and if Dante couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, Austin doubted whether they could find the means to treat her. The hospitals had surely all been shut down by now, there wasn’t going to be a doctor or nurse in sight who could aid his family today.

  Upon entering the hospital, Austin discovered to his horror that he was only half right with that assumption. Bringing his arm up to his face and covering his nose and mouth, he gaped at the sight in front of him. Bodies littered the hospital corridors, the smell surging toward him like a wave as he stepped into the building. Some looked to have died from natural causes, but what struck him the most was the number who were covered in bullet holes, their blood streaking the walls and pooling on the once pristine floor.

  It took everything in his power for Austin not to turn on his heel and run back out of the building. It was Dante’s voice in his head that kept him going, repeating the three drugs that could potentially help Meghan. Vicodin. Advil. Amoxicillin. From the state of the hospital entrance, Austin doubted whether anything was left in the place in the way of supplies, but he had to look – there was no way he could return home empty handed without knowing full well he had searched until there wasn’t a single drawer left unopened.

  The scene in the hospital only got worse as he moved through it – the remnants of whatever gunfight had taken place in the entrance lobby were harrowing, but the sight that Austin knew would traumatize him for life was the one he observed in the wards. Rotting corpses filled the beds, the patients who laid there unable to escape due to their injuries or illnesses. The machines that had once beeped life into them now lay dormant, the only sound in the building Austin’s footsteps and the quiet scuttling of rats in the corners of rooms. Thankfully Austin never saw one, but he could hear them and it didn’t take much for him to imagine them feasting on the dead.

  At the first nurses’ station that he came across, Austin poured through all the cabinets and drawers, searching for any medicine boxes that might be the ones Dante had requested. Other than abandoned papers, there was nothing. He moved onto the store cupboards, hoping at least for bandages or needles – some sign of potential – but each shelf was stripped bare. There wasn’t a shred of useful equipment left in the place, let alone the drugs that Meghan needed.

  Refusing to give up, Austin continued his search. Almost two hours later he had walked across every floor in the building. He had seen thousands of dead bodies, their vacant eyes staring back at him as the sun rose across New York City and illuminated them. He’d seen children, babies in their mothers’ arms, elderly couples, and families – he’d seen all the horrors that he could’ve imagined but not once had he seen anything that he could use.

  Vicodin. Advil. Amoxicillin. No matter how many times he repeated the words in his head, the drugs failed to materialize. There was nothing left. Drained of all his energy, Austin stumbled back out of the hospital onto the street and doubled over against a wall, coughing and spluttering from the amount of time he’d spent surrounded by death. He was leaving empty handed and as that dawned on him, he couldn’t help but fear that the death he was walking away from was somehow going to follow him home.

  Chapter 14

  The sun was still rising over the city as Austin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and spat on the ground. That was twice in as many days that he had found himself dry heaving over dead bodies, the stench practically engrained in his nostrils. It was easy to imagine what the hospital would’ve been like in the last couple of weeks; the terror the patients would’ve felt as the power gave out and society started to crumble around them.

  What was more difficult to picture was what it would’ve been like to be trapped in such a place. There had been patients in the hospital who would’ve been too sick to leave their beds, trapped under the thin sheets and forced to sit by and wonder if help would ever come to them. Days must have passed slowly, each hour torture as they waited to find out if anyone was going to come and save them.

  It likely wasn’t their illnesses or the collapse itself which had caused their deaths, but a slow dehydration as they sat by without any other option but to accept death. Those who were capable of leaving would have done so, but the life they’d have found outside of the hospital walls wouldn’t have been the one they wanted. Thinking it over, Austin tried to calculate what the death toll of this disaster must have reached by now. Thousands were gone from New York alone, the count of the country as a whole had to be staggering. And all because of a few ones and zeros being wiped from a computer system.

  With a shake of his head, Austin pushed the thoughts of the thousands of dead from his mind and focused in on just one life: Meghan’s. If he didn’t make it home with something that could help her, then her name might soon be added to that list. Austin couldn’t let that happen. He had fought for his family to return to the city, he was the one responsible for them being back here. Dante might not know what had happened to his mother, but they could all agree that she was fine in Poughkeepsie. Going off that logic, Austin found it difficult not to blame himself.

  Walking under one of the overpasses, Austin felt himself being pushed toward the wall slightly as a gust of wind picked up and whistled round him. The breeze caused something to flicker in the corner of his eye and emerging from one of the many underpasses that wrapped around the hospital forecourt, Austin looked up and saw what remained of the proud banner draped over one wall of New York Presbyterian.

  Proud to be a Level…

  The rest of the lettering on the huge red sign which blew against the brick wall in the wind was missing. The sign was noticeably fire-damaged. Austin tried to remember what it had once said – proud to be a level one something or other. He couldn’t remember the exact phrase.

  Even places like hospitals weren’t safe from the trouble the collapse had brought with it. Disaster didn’t pick and choose who it affected. The rich and powerful weren’t saved and nor were the healthy immune from the danger. Everyone and anyone could fall victim to previously unseen foes in this new world and that reality seemed to grow starker with each passing day.

  Walking down the street, Austin headed for the drugstore on one corner of the hospital. The building was detached from New York Presbyterian in a physical sense, a small grassy courtyard used for visiting families separating the two brickwork buildings. The drugstore was linked to the hospital though, the patients sent there to collect their medication after being discharged. Despite the state the hospital building itself had been in, Austin still had hope he might find something. The three items Dante had asked for still echoing around in his head.

  Pushing open the door, Austin found himself heaving a sigh of relief as he wasn’t greeted by the now familiar scent of death. Unlike the last two places he had entered, the drugstore was deserted. The bell above the door rang out in the dim twilight of breaking dawn as he walked inside, the chimes louder and more high-pitched than Austin ever remembered them being, though he was sure it was just the quiet and the time of day that made them seem that way.

  He was surprised to find the door still intact, the top half of it was made of thick glass which was cracked down one side, but remarkably still in place. The rest of the drug
store however, was not in such good shape. Like everywhere else it had been desperately looted for supplies, the shelves bare and the furniture in disarray. Heaving a sigh, Austin began to sift through what remained on the carpeted floor in hope that he might find a useful box. He checked each and every one of them, desperate to find something that might help to save Meghan.

  ***

  “Hey,” Walter stopped in his tracks, tired and ready for bed but still wanting to point out what he’d seen. “There’s someone in there, look!”

  Pointing toward the drugstore, Walter directed Luc and Taggy’s eyes in the direction of the small store. There was someone frantically tearing through boxes inside, opening one and rifling through before throwing it across the room in disgust. Whoever it was looked like they were crazed out of their mind, not once stopping and looking around or pausing to take a breath in the two minutes that the three of them stood and watched for.

  “What’s with these people,” Luc huffed in annoyance, stepping into the street to cross toward the drugstore. “It’s like everyone wants to mess this city up even more.”

  “Whoa,” Walter called after him, “where are you going?”

  “I’m going to tell him to pack it in and go home, I’m fed up of people causing trouble around here.”

  With everything they had already witnessed that night, Luc had just about ran out of patience. He knew it was stupid to go and harass someone like this, but he just wanted to put a stop to people who thought there were no longer any laws in the city. Just because society had crumbled, didn’t mean people had to lose their minds as well. The last thing New York needed was for all the decent people to die out or give up on doing the right thing.