It Falls Apart Series | Book 1 | It Falls Apart

by Napier, Barry

  Paul and Devon slipped their masks on, gave one another an uncertain look, and then stepped out of the patrol car.

  The noise swarmed them at once and it was almost too much for Paul to take. He had to close his eyes against it for a moment, reorienting himself. When he opened them again, he saw the driver from the car that hit them coming forward. He was a younger gentleman, maybe thirty, dressed in a white button-down shirt and khakis. There was alarm in his eyes, as he was clearly torn between speaking with Paul and keeping his attention on the absolute chaos taking place all around them.

  “I’m so sorry,” the driver said. “I didn’t see you and—”

  “Sir, are you okay?” Paul interrupted.

  “Yeah, I…just trying to get home to my wife.”

  “Then carry on. Just watch where you’re going.” Sure, it wasn’t correct protocol, but who had time for forms and accident reports at a time like this? Such formalities seemed a little ridiculous in the wake of this madness. If his chief wanted to take issue with it later, that was fine. But in that moment, the very concept of later was a hard one to understand.

  The man nodded lazily, as if in a dream. Paul didn’t even watch him get back into his car. He was too busy looking frantically around for Devon. Paul spotted him, weaving between a running group of people headed in the opposite direction, trying to get to the man that had been riding the bike.

  As Paul headed in that direction, he heard someone screaming not too far behind him. It was a scream of pain and fear, the sound of a terrified child coming from the throat of an adult. It seemed to sum up the morning so far, sending a chill right down his spine.

  Paul approached the ambulance, which was still struggling to make the turn at the light without hitting anyone else. People were running across the street in both directions, pushed by panic. It wasn’t quite a stampede, but it was getting close. Some of the people on the run were crying, but most had that same dazed expression Paul had seen in the man that had struck the police car. They were, like him, absolutely stunned and confused.

  “Paul!”

  Devon was looking up at him, waving him over. The man that had been speeding around the corner on his bike was laying in the street, his head just a few inches shy of the front tire of a parked car. Devon was crouching near him, looking for injuries with that same crazed expression.

  “Is he okay?” Paul asked.

  “From the crash, maybe,” Devon said. His already thin voice sounded strained through the surgical mask. “But Paul, this guy is burning up. I just barely touched him and…”

  He stopped there, unable to come up with any suitable way to finish the statement.

  “Hey, officers?” a voice said from behind them.

  Paul turned around and saw that the ambulance driver had rolled down his window and was leaning in their direction. He also wore a mask, only his was one of the fancier ventilated kinds. A pair of tired blue eyes peered out to them from over it. Something about seeing the ventilated mask set a fire of worry off in Paul’s stomach.

  “He okay?” the driver asked.

  “If he’s not, it’s not because of you,” Paul assured him.

  “He sick?”

  “I’d say so,” Devon said from the ground. “He’s burning up.”

  Paul quickly stepped forward, approaching the ambulance. “Come on, man. Level with me. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

  “I wish I did,” the driver said. “No one’s telling us anything. I heard a news report about maybe something with the Coast Guard, but…I don’t know. And my supervisors at the hospital seem just as clueless. What I do know is that I’ve watched eight people die this morning. I was working on three of them the moment they died. All three had temperatures of around one hundred and four.”

  “Is it a virus?” Paul asked.

  “Maybe. But if it is, it’s not like any I’ve ever seen or heard about. This thing kills quick. Too fast. Based on what we’re seeing, by the time symptoms pop up, it’s too late.” He sighed and for just a moment, Paul thought the driver was going to start weeping. “Hey, can one of you guys get in front of me, help me through? I need to get back to the hospital. It’s a madhouse over there and they…”

  “Yeah, we can do that,” Paul said.

  Paul looked back towards Devon to make a plan and saw the man from the bike struggling to sit up. Then, as fast as a blink, he threw up. Devon went sprawling backwards to get away from it. He again starting rubbing nervously at his chin, as if he were a philosopher deep in thought.

  “Devon are you—” Paul started.

  But then he caught sight of two men rushing the ambulance. One was dressed in a white tee shirt and pajama pants. The tee shirt was splattered with blood and what Paul assumed was vomit. This man’s face looked nearly as red as the bubble lights on top of the ambulance. He staggered towards it, slapping at the hood. The man behind him looked like a younger version of the first—father and son, Paul assumed.

  “What is this?” the red-faced man howled, staring through the windshield at the ambulance driver. “Please…help.”

  The driver looked conflicted for only a moment, but then got out and went to the man’s side. The younger man helped the driver escort the red-faced man to the rear of the ambulance while Paul opened the doors for them. The entire ordeal took about thirty seconds, and when the father and son climbed into the back, Paul could smell the inside of the ambulance through his mask; it reeked of death, plain and simple.

  He slammed the rear doors closed when the men were secured inside. The driver headed back to the front and Paul went to fetch Devon. He had no idea if a panicked crowd would part for a cop car if they wouldn’t part for an ambulance, but they had to try.

  “Devon we need to get going.”

  Devon was getting to his feet and didn’t bother to wipe the tears from his eyes. They ran freely down his cheeks, cutting wide arcs around the edges of his mask.

  “What is it?” Paul asked.

  Devon looked down to the man that had been riding the bike—presumably riding to the doctor or a hospital. “He’s dead,” Devon said. “He died right there, in the street. And he was healthy enough to pedal a bike five minutes ago. Paul…what is this? What’s going on?”

  “Don’t know,” Paul said. “But we have a job to do and—”

  For what seemed like the hundredth time that morning, Paul was interrupted by an unexpected sound. This one tore through the screams and sirens without much of a problem; it was a sound Paul instantly recognized.

  Gunshots. Two of them, coming from about a block further ahead. This was followed by a series of screams and the sound of glass shattering.

  Paul was overwhelmed, but knew he had to keep a steady head. He craned his head slightly and pushed the send button on his shoulder mic. “Shots fired on Mill Street,” he reported. “Officer going to investigate.”

  There was a brief scrambling of static before he got a response from the open channel. “Same here. Shots fired,” reported a cop that sounded out of breath. “At least three different guns. Um…Officer Nelson is down. Not shot…but he got sick and…”

  The report was broken up by someone screaming in the background and the officer panting furiously.

  More shots rang out up ahead, followed by more screaming. Paul took a deep breath and looked to Devon. “Get in the car. Lead the way for this ambulance. Keep in touch with me on the radio. Stay on channel nine.”

  This was a sneaky tactic; channel nine was their own private channel for when they were out on patrol; staying on it would keep Devon from hearing the nightmare scenarios being played out on the open precinct-wide channel.

  “Paul, no. I can’t leave you here to—”

  “It doesn’t take two cops to drive a car,” Paul interrupted. “Do it. Help that driver and then come back for me.”

  “But the—”

  “Do it!”

  Devon flinched, having never heard Paul scream before. He nodded and hurried to
the car. He had to push past a few people to get to the car, his eyes still wide with fear. Paul waited until he saw Devon behind the wheel and cutting out in front of the ambulance, blaring the siren as he did so.

  Only then did Paul run toward where he’d heard the gunshots. To his right, a man fell down and was trampled by a group of seven or eight others. To his left, a middle-aged woman stopped right in the middle of the street and seemed to pass out. She clutched her stomach and began to dry heave right in the middle of the road as cars blared their horns all around her.

  Briefly, almost habitually, Paul looked at his watch. Somehow, it was only 9:06 in the morning. He could recall being briefed that morning when he and the other units had been instructed to go out and keep the peace—back when he thought the world felt as if it had slowly started to unravel. But if it had only been unraveling in that moment, it had started to burn since then. And from what Officer Paul Gault could tell, there was no way to stop the flames from spreading.

  ***

  The gunshots had come from inside a small drugstore, a family-owned business called Reid’s Drug and Sundry. Paul heard one more gunshot as he neared the business but even before he reached the front door, his morning somehow got worse. There were three bodies on the sidewalk in front of the store. It was clear that one had been shot; the evidence was right in the center of the stomach and a dead-center shot between the eyes. The other two bodies, though, reminded Paul far too much of the man that had begged for a ride in the ambulance—red-faced and somehow drained.

  Paul drew his sidearm—a standard issue Glock 19—just as his shoulder radio squawked at him.

  “Officer down,” came the report in a whispered sort of whine from the open channel. “That’s Emerson, Ramirez, Haskins…all dead. Sick. And I’m feeling great…this is…”

  Feeling a lump form in his throat, Paul switched the mic from the open channel to channel nine, anticipating Devon’s call. With the chatter silenced, Paul sidled up to the front door of Reid’s Drug and Sundry. His mask was sticking to his face, as his sweat formed a very crude sort of gel. He found it hard to breathe and nearly decided to tear it off. But he recalled what the ambulance driver had told him and placed it on the heap of scattered information he’d put together for himself.

  Temperature of one hundred and four. Violent vomiting. Excruciating headaches. Dead in about half an hour. Yeah, he’d keep his mask on at all costs, though it might be good to somehow get another one soon.

  Paul took a deep breath, steadied himself, and pivoted through the doorway. He saw the shooter right away, a large man standing by the counter on the right side of the store. But it was hard to focus on him when he could also see at least five bodies on the floor. Two were directly in front of him, only a few feet away from the door. One had clearly been shot, a red hole torn through their chest. But there was also vomit on the floor, making him assume one had died from whatever was killing so many others out in the streets.

  Paul felt a tremor of nerves snake through his forearms but he willed it to go away. He leveled his Glock at the shooter, who hadn’t even noticed Paul yet. The shooter was carrying a large hunting rifle with one hand and rummaging through a bin of medicine on top of the pharmacist’s counter with the other. Paul hurried down the aisle, stepping carefully over the bodies. As he rounded the corner at the end of the aisle, he saw another dead body; this one had fallen on a rack of sunglasses, taking the rack down to the floor with him.

  As Paul closed in on the shooter, he realized that he could hear a woman whimpering from nearby. She seemed to be somewhere beyond the armed man. Paul assumed she was cowering behind the counter. Six dead bodies and a woman trapped behind the counter…it called for immediate action as far as Paul was concerned. Besides, if he waited much longer he felt like he might go crazy.

  “NYPD,” Paul said, injecting more bass into his voice in an effort to hide the terror and panic.

  The armed man stopped for a moment. His left hand was still in the bin of meds while his right held tightly to the rifle. But he did not turn around. Behind the counter, Paul heard the woman mutter a very weak “help” through her weeping.

  “Drop the gun and turn around, sir.”

  The man chuckled a bit. It was a wet sound, like someone trying to laugh while drowning. The man did turn, though he did it slowly and without dropping the gun. He was slightly overweight, his black tee shirt drenched in sweat. When he was fully turned, Paul was not all that surprised to see that his face was incredibly red. One of his eyes also appeared to be bloodshot.

  “How about you?” the man asked. “You have any ideas what’s going on out there?”

  “I don’t,” Paul replied quickly. “But I do know what’s going on in here. You have a rifle in your hands and I’ve seen at least three people dead from gunshot wounds ever since I approached the front door. Sir…I know you’re scared, but—”

  “Scared?” the man screamed. “I watched my wife die this morning. Puked her guts up. I took her temperature…and it was damn near one hundred and five. She was fine when she went to bed. She was fine! And then she died. Went out for the newspaper and then she was dead. Just like that! So I ask again: What’s going on out there?”

  “It’s a good question, sir,” Paul said. “But I really don’t know. I’m sorry as hell about your wife, but you can’t—”

  Paul saw movement behind the armed man and did his best not to draw attention to it. A small older woman, maybe sixty or so was rising up from the floor. She was wearing a mask similar to his, her dark brown eyes glaring from above it. She was trembling, causing the 9mm in her hand to shake. When Paul realized what she intended to do, he opened his mouth to tell her to put it down.

  But the sound of the gun going off interrupted him.

  Shaky grip or not, it was clear the woman had used a gun before. Paul turned his head quickly but not in time to avoid the sight of the shot passing through the very top of the armed man’s forehead. There was a tiny little explosion of red and then he simply crumpled to the floor. Maybe it was just his nerves, but Paul was pretty sure he saw a slightly relieved look on the man’s face as he fell.

  “Ma’am…” Paul said, lowering his weapon.

  The woman let out a low moan that turned into a shriek. It was muffled through her mask, but it still caused Paul to flinch. He slowly approached the counter, noting that she still held the handgun.

  “Ma’am, please put the gun down.”

  She looked to the gun with shocked eyes, as if she’d never seen it before. She then dropped it to the floor with hands that seemed to have forgotten their purpose. As Paul drew closer to the counter, he holstered his Glock and looked her in the eyes.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, letting out a series of sorrowful gasps from beneath the mask. “Sorry…sorry…didn’t even mean to shoot and…”

  Paul had no idea what to do. He felt that staying here with the older woman would be a waste of time. But to leave her alone in the store with so much death seemed like a strange sort of torture.

  Suddenly, Paul felt the weight of it all—of everything he’d seen, heard, and experienced that morning. He heard the chief’s very shaky instructions, saw the man bouncing from the side of the ambulance off of his bike, saw the armed man’s head splinter off at the top. The sirens, the screaming, the gunshots, this poor woman’s shrieks. It all started coming down on him as if the roof of Reid’s Drug and Sundry were collapsing.

  “One moment, ma’am,” Paul said. His voice came out thin and pinched. For a moment, he thought he was going to throw up—not because he felt sick but because it was the only way his body knew to react.

  Paul hurried out through the front door. The streets were still in chaos. Cars had started to back up, bumper to bumper. Horns were blaring, people were screaming in pain, horror, and anger. It all raked across Paul’s senses like jagged glass. Shaking his head, he hurried to the thin little alleyway between Reid’s and the building next door.
He made it three steps before he swiped off his mask, took a deep breath, and started to cry.

  It felt good in a strange way…better than puking, for sure. He gave himself ten seconds and then straightened up. He was going to go back inside, check on the woman, and take it one step at a time. He was going to—

  His shoulder mic hissed to life. It was Devon, on channel nine. “Hey, Paul?”

  Paul wiped some tears away, got control of himself, and replied: “Yeah, Devon. Go ahead.”

  “Um, I got sideswiped by another car, about three blocks away from the hospital. It’s um…it’s bad. I got out, got attacked by someone that I think was sick. Lost my mask…I um…I just threw up and I don’t think…Paul…it came on so damned fast. Paul, I’m scared and…”

  “Devon, it’s okay,” Paul said, though he found himself fighting off more tears. “I’ll come for you.”

  “No. Paul, let’s not be stupid. You’ve seen how it works. By the time you get to me, it’ll be too late.”

  “The hospital then,” Paul said. “Head to the hospital.”

  “It’s slammed, Paul. The traffic…it’s…”

  And then channel nine went dead. “Devon? Hey, Devon, come back.”

  But Devon remained quiet. And in the absence of his voice, Officer Paul Gault was pulled back to his current reality. He turned slowly back around to the street, slipping his tattered mask back over his nose and mouth as he did so.

  There were bodies in the streets and an almost comedic amount of stomach waste. Cars were packed along the streets without so much as a foot between their bumpers. But perhaps worst of all was that Paul found himself identifying with the man in Reid’s Drug and Sundry. He wanted answers. Yes, he knew he had to do his job and his duty to the city and the safety of its residents came first, but he felt he was owed some answers.