The Fall

by J. L. Wood

  Chris pulled the heavy black shoulder straps on his backpack to the side, giving his shoulders a little relief from where the straps were beginning to dig into his skin. Dr. Katz had requested that he deliver supplies to Greenwood Elementary and to hurry, but he was now at a standstill. His thoughts shifted to the vision of Nancy again, and his hands began to tremble. He immediately felt uncoordinated and unstable. Screams and gunfire erupted down the hallway, and Chris began to suffocate. Unable to catch his breath, he grasped at his neck and fell onto his side, his vision blurring, his mind drifting to darkness, the loud gunfire blasting through the halls, waking him each time his mind began to fade.

  “Someone, please shoot him,” he whispered silently, sucking in air that never filled his lungs.

  The screams and gunfire diminished, giving Chris’s lungs permission to accept his next breath. And he did, the sharp, cool air drew in, irritating his now dry and coarse throat. He pushed off his backpack and rolled onto his back, coughing violently before holding his hand to his mouth, attempting to suppress the sounds. Slowly, he inhaled and exhaled until that tiny tickle in the back of his throat subsided and the color in his face returned to normal. The sounds of terror outside of the small bathroom ground to a halt, prompting Chris to get up.

  Slowly, Chris walked to the phone in the hospital room and picked up the receiver. He dialed 911, but the line was busy. Next, he dialed security, and then the cafeteria, and finally the receptionist, but those lines rang continuously, with no one picking up.

  I need to get out of here, he thought. I need to make a run for it.

  *

  Chris ran down the hallway, his sneakers softly clapping against the hard floor, his backpack, stuffed to the brim, swinging wildly behind him. When he reached the edge of the hallway, he came to a halt, his left shoe scraping against the floor and pushing him forward, his arms stretched forward in a push-up position, lessening the blow of the fall.

  “Tim?” a hushed voice inquired at the end of the hall. “Hey, Tim, is that you?” Chris clenched his left fist, angry that someone knew he was behind the corner. “Tim,” the man continued, his voice worrisome. “We gotta go. That guy…that guy won’t stop till he finds the doctor. We can’t hide anymore. Come on, hurry.”

  Chris rested his back against the wall, his heart racing, the thump of each beat rocking his chest. He could taste the sweat dripping from his face to the sides of his mouth, the salty sting of fear. He was afraid to speak should the assailant hear him. As he scooted his back on the wall, closer to the corner that led to Tim’s friend, the man called out, “Who’s there?” His voice sounded terrified and shaky.

  Cautiously, Chris peeked around the corner, finally able to view the man. He was older, perhaps in his late fifties. His hair was thinning and gray, carefully parted and combed over. He wore red scrubs, the color of employees that cleaned contaminated areas. Chris watched as the man took several steps back, his hands in the air in front of his face in full surrender. “No, please! I had nothing to do with anything. I just clean. I didn’t see anything.”

  Several bullets flew through the air from the other side of the hallway, tearing into Tim’s friend, his arms flailing in the air, the wall behind him spattered with his warm blood. Tim’s friend lay slumped over, an overkill for his assailant, annihilated execution style.

  Every moment Chris stood exposed, the corner of the wall the only barrier against him and the assailant, he could feel his life trickling away. Tiny granules in an hourglass, the bottom bulb nearly full. A mission that had ended before it truly began. He could feel the sweat seeping through his scrub top, hitting the cold hospital air while his face burned from despair. He could not surrender. His only choice was to run.

  Chris eyed the hallway that held the doctors’ offices. Slowly, he made his way to the wall, trying to put some distance between him and the assailant. Each step was carefully calculated. Heel first, then toe. Slow movement to halt the noise. When he felt there was enough distance, he entered Dr. Katz’s office, leaving the door ajar, and hid behind the large wooden desk.

  He will think it’s empty since the door is open, Chris reasoned. If he passes this way, I can make it to the exit. As he sat in silence, hoping that someone would arrive to instill order, he heard a set of footsteps running in his direction. His stomach clenched as he thought of dying defenseless like Nancy. He would rather have died trying to save her than as a coward behind the desk.

  “Get back here, Katz!” the assailant yelled from down the hall. Chris peeked behind the desk and watched as Dr. Katz ran into the office and attempted to close the door, the assailant overpowering him and pushing his way in.

  “Well, well, well. You know this is all because of you, right? You killed my son!”

  Dr. Katz backed against the wall, shaking in terror. “I…there is no cure. This sickness is relentless. We know nothing!”

  The assailant grabbed Dr. Katz by his neck. “Then why are some walking away and some dying? You chose favorites. I saw you save some of those kids. You operated on them. But my boy…” The man wiped at his face. “My boy died for nothing!”

  Dr. Katz shook his head. “No, no, that wasn’t it at all. We experimented on the sickest ones at the time. The ones that Sim-Six couldn’t save. We tried to reduce their brain swelling. Erick died all of a sudden. He didn’t even go into a coma. He was just gone!”

  “Not good enough,” the assailant replied, tightening his grip around Dr. Katz’s throat. “I’ll make you suffer like my boy suffered.”

  Chris watched as Dr. Katz’s eyes grew wide and his face flushed. Slowly, he picked up a globe paperweight from Dr. Katz’s desk and walked behind the man, who was so zeroed in on the doctor that he could not feel the person behind him. Chris raised the paperweight over the assailant’s head and slammed it down onto his skull, knocking him over. Dr. Katz slid down the wall onto the floor, grasping his throat with his hands, trying to catch his breath.

  “Should we tie him up?” Chris asked, his eyes wild with excitement, relieved that he was not the coward he thought he was.

  Dr. Katz pushed the assailant onto his back and pulled a scalpel out of the front pocket of his lab coat.

  “Wait!” Chris yelled, his heart pulsing, unsure of what the doctor intended. “Officer Bryce has handcuffs. I can run and get them off—”

  Without hesitation, Dr. Katz slowly slit the man’s throat. “Too much of a risk,” he replied. “I’m giving him the easy way out.”

  Chris stood back, horrified, and leaned his weight against the desk. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. The assailant deserved it. He deserved every second of it. Thin droplets began to trickle out of the thin slit in the assailant’s throat, and then the lower half of the slit began to sag, exposing the red flesh underneath. Slowly, the blood poured out of the gap until the entire cut erupted in an explosion of blood, like lava erupting from a volcano.

  The assailant frantically reached for his neck, his hand too small to cover the entire wound as the blood poured out. His eyes were wide, as if staring at something in the distance, and he tried to speak, but only a gasp escaped. As quickly as it began, it ended. The blood quit pouring, his life-force gone, leaving an empty hull of contrition. The two remaining men looked at each other, now partners in this crime, forever linked with the story of the assailant and his killing spree.

  “He killed Nancy, Dr. Katz,” Chris whispered, watching the blood slowly travel toward the desk.

  “I’m sure he murdered a lot of people,” Dr. Katz replied. “You need to go. I’m sure relief is on the way. I’ll handle this. And call me Jeremy. I think we’re past formalities after this.”

  Chris scratched at his sandy-brown beard, the result of spending nine days working nearly nonstop without tending to his personal needs. He wondered if there was truth to what the assailant said. As far as he knew, no one knew how to cure the illness. It was too unpredictable. “Was it true? The experiments?”

  Dr. Katz nodde
d. “Yes, we believe we’ve found a way to help, but it’s too soon to be certain. And it can only be after Sim-Six, never before, as the children are too weak and the sickness too unpredictable. Now, you should go. Sherrie needs those supplies so that she can try the same procedure. Be careful out there, and thank you.”

  Chris nodded and turned to leave. He had never seen anyone killed before, and today he had witnessed four murders. Although he was numb earlier, that numbness was beginning to wear off. It made him feel sick, but he fought the urge to rest. He needed to keep moving.

  “Wait!” Dr. Katz yelled while he pulled the gun from the assailant’s holster. “Take the gun with you. If this was able to happen here, who knows what could happen at Greenwood.”

  Chris nodded and accepted the gun. He removed the silencer so that it would fit in his bag, then pulled back the man’s jacket and removed a full clip from his vest before stuffing both items into the front pocket of his backpack. When Chris stood up, he realized he had stepped in the pool of blood. It made him feel sick that he had a hand in death. Although he knew the reason behind Dr. Katz’s actions, it was difficult for him to come to terms with it. He was an accomplice. He couldn’t go back to jail. “I might come back. I don’t know. I’ll see what it’s like at the school.”

  Dr. Katz nodded. “Whatever you decide, son. You were never here.”

  When Chris closed the door, he could hear Dr. Katz kicking around items in the office. He had heard enough side conversations during his brief stint in lockup to know that he was staging an attack.

  *

  The hospital lobby was full of patients and staff waiting around for instruction. The crowd began to part, and a group of officers in full raid gear made their way through toward the stairwell. He wanted to stop and tell them that the assailant was dead but decided against it. He didn’t need to get involved anymore. He was already late in bringing the supplies to Sherrie Dressner.

  “Chris!” Meredith, a nurse from the children’s unit, came running over, a clipboard in her hands. Chris smiled when he saw her. He and Meredith were close, always on the brink of something special but not quite there yet. Meredith flung her arms around him, and Chris hugged her tightly, grasping her pink scrubs in his hands.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered into his shoulder. “I asked around for you and learned you were on seven. When I didn’t see you down here, I was so worried. I…I didn’t know if…I’m so glad you made it!” Meredith flipped through the papers on the chart in her clipboard and checked off Chris Link’s name. She then looked up at Chris, her eyes joyful. “How did you make it out?”

  Chris looked away, not willing to tell her his story. He wanted to keep it locked away, a deep, dark secret that he didn’t share with anyone. “I just hid, and then I ran.”

  Meredith looked around at all the people scattered around in the lobby. “I’m lucky I was in the cafeteria. When I heard there was an active shooter on seventh, I got so worried. Then when I heard he killed Officer Bryce, I just…I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay too. Why is everyone just standing around?”

  Meredith grabbed Chris’s hand. “There’s a lot of people outside too. We can’t evacuate the whole hospital. Officers arrived first. They’re hiding out on the other floors. I was told they needed to wait for the SWAT team to deal with the active shooter. And I have to check off names of missing people from seventh. Did the shooter kill anyone else?”

  The conversation made Chris uneasy. He didn’t want to talk about Nancy. He needed to leave. He tugged on his backpack. “I don’t know, I was hiding. Dr. Katz asked that I deliver this bag of equipment to Greenwood Elementary. I should get going.”

  Meredith gazed over his shoulder at the bag. “What’s in it?”

  Chris shrugged. “No idea, but it’s supposed to help the kids with the sugar flu.”

  Meredith withdrew. “Well, are you coming back to help? We need all the help we can get.”

  “Of course. Just give me a few hours.”

  Meredith reached out and hugged Chris again, her face pressed tightly against his chest. “Okay, until then.”

  “Until then,” Chris responded, returning the hug, the sweet vanilla smell of her hair calming him and pulling him into her. Reluctantly, he let go, cautious not to get too attached to the moment, and started off toward the garage, wondering when he would be able to see her again.

  *

  Chris put the key in the ignition of his 1984 Ford Bronco and turned it. His heart fluttered as the engine turned over and the muffler puffed—the love of his life was awake and ready to assist him in his journey. Although it was a combination of metals and liquids, Chris was closer to his truck than he could be to any human, even Meredith with her warm hugs and soft pink lips. At the hospital, he’d wanted to keep holding her, forgetting his promise to himself to keep relationships aside until he was stable. There was a magnetic effect about her, and so he needed to keep his distance. His Bronco was all he needed, especially now in an era of uncertainty.

  As he pulled out of the parking garage, he tried to peer into the hospital to get one more glimpse of Meredith, but the crowd hid her. Chris shrugged away the thought of running back inside as he heavy-footed the gas pedal, the muffler blasting a deep roar that caught the attention of a few in the crowd. As he drove to the school, maneuvering around abandoned cars and driving over medians, he remembered his older brother gifting him the same truck for his sixteenth birthday.

  It was just a pile of junk back then, rusted, seats torn, a blown engine, but the brothers worked together to get it to pristine condition. It was a memory he held close, private and secluded. Tucked away in the innermost part of his heart, his weakness. The thought of his brother squeezed his heart, and he momentarily lost his breath, nearly ramming into a car that braked abruptly in front of him. It was a feeling from which even after ten years, Chris had never rebounded.

  The very best of mankind are taken too early, he thought as he reached for the radio dial to clear his mind and help him escape the dark thoughts that were slowly seeping in. After searching through several stations, he finally landed on a newscast and cranked the volume, the voice on the stereo loud enough to drown his thoughts.

  “…and there have been several reports of shootings at drop-off centers. The military is now involved and will be guarding these stations. A curfew has been put into place by the president. Anyone out after nine p.m. will be arrested. Everyone is encouraged to stay in their homes. The best and safest place for your children and you is at home. We cannot stress this enough. This situation does not need to get any worse. Now on to Erika with an update from Kinsley Hospital…”

  Agitated, Chris turned the volume down. He was disappointed in humankind, disappointed in how easily people could turn, how easily they could kill without mercy. Even he was an accomplice to murder, even if it wasn’t intentional. He could have stopped Dr. Katz if he’d really wanted to, but the thought of Nancy pleading for her life had made him numb. He had joined the ranks of the people he spent so long trying to escape.

  This city may not be worth salvaging, he thought as memories of his brother began seeping in again. The sickness and the assailant reminded him of civilizations that were now extinct. Communities that progressed only to be halted and destroyed in nearly the blink of an eye. He tried to rationalize that maybe the world was trying to start over—initiate a cleansing. It had happened before, and it could happen again.

  Chris turned onto a side road and cut through a grassy field used to house several power lines. This was the path he and his friends would take home when he was a youngster at Greenwood. They would cut through the field to avoid having to cross any streets, afraid that the police would spot them for truancy. The truck jumped and dipped on the uneven terrain, causing items in the truck to shake and rattle. Chris held the backpack steady with his hand as he continued down the grassy path, his truck leaving two large, deep tracks behind him.

  – 8
–

  Entrance

  Don slept the entire way to the old Cadence space station in Fresno, Texas. He always fell asleep when someone else was driving, and this was no exception, even with a stranger and a man he hadn’t seen in years. Justin was an expert navigator, finding all the back roads to get them past the road blockades out of the city. When Don was active at Cadence Science, Justin was his primary navigator, and like old times, he would be again today.

  As the car slowed for a turn down Venus Road, Don immediately woke up. The familiar twists and turns of the road were still deeply engrained in him. They were almost at their destination. From a distance, he could already see the outline of the station, dimly illuminated, a fading memory of some of the best years of his life. Now it stood nearly vacant, forgotten and dismissed, soon to be scrapped and demolished. A piece of him torn into a hundred pieces and discarded. Shame walked the halls undisturbed, uninterrupted, ready for a bittersweet reunion. Don could feel its reach even outside the gates.

  “Pull up to the gate and let me talk,” Don said from the backseat. The car slowed to a halt, and Don rolled down his window, then eagerly held out his hand. “Well, hey, Carl! Long time no see, buddy!”

  The guard grasped Don’s hand. “Mr. Wolf! I thought you retired! It’s great to see you. Are you here to finally shut ’er down?”

  Don let out a laugh. “No, no. Definitely not, old friend. We’re just going to check the station and take the Pitch out for a maintenance run. We’re thinking about adding her to the ship rotation again.”

  Carl beamed. “That’s wonderful news, sir! The Pitch hasn’t left the hangar in years. I hope she runs steady!”

  “Me too. We’re going to be here for a bit, so please alert the rest of your crew. It’s really good to see you again. Please, tell your wife I said hello.”

  Carl smiled. “Will do, Don! Take care.”