Slow Burn: Zero Day, Book 1

by Bobby Adair

  Murphy said, “You know we’re screwed.”

  I looked at Murphy, with a question on my face.

  “They’re going to round us all up, eventually. We’ll get a year or more just for busting out of jail. We’ll get time for rioting, and maybe even capital murder for that dead cop you saw.”

  My mouth hung open. I hadn’t thought of any of that. Finally, I said, “But we were running for our lives. We were in as much danger as the cops.”

  Murphy shook his head. “A jury in Travis County might believe that about you, if you hadn’t already stabbed your stepdad thirty-seven times, but look at me.”

  I nodded.

  “No, look at me, Zed.”

  I did, “What am I looking at?”

  “You’re looking at a big black man who’s gonna be sitting in front of a bunch of white jurors in Texas who are gonna be looking to blame somebody, a lot of somebodies, for rioting in a jail and killing some cops.” Murphy shook his head and his gaze drifted down to the floor. “Damn, I get hauled off to jail for fighting and instead of a couple of nights, I’m gonna end up on death row.”

  I thought the big man might start to cry. It was hard to watch, really hard. I wondered what would become of us.

  More silence.

  Finally, I said, “Murphy, there’s got to be something else going on here. There are too many people just going crazy.”

  Murphy shrugged.

  “What do you want to do, then?” I asked.

  Murphy shook his head. “I can’t do anything, Zed. I can’t begin to tell you how bad I feel. I’ve never felt this sick. I have to get to a hospital, or I think I’m going to die.” Murphy’s eyes fixed me in place and I knew he was dead serious.

  “You don’t think you’ll make the hike to Brackenridge?”

  Murphy shook his head.

  I pondered that for a minute. “Murphy, I have an idea. If you can make it out to the road, just across the basketball court, maybe I can flag down a car to take us over to the hospital.”

  Murphy shook his head again, “Ain’t nobody in his right mind gonna stop for us with everything going on outside. I’m sure the jailbreak is all over the news.”

  I disagreed, “It’s okay, Murphy. This is Pease Park. Gay guys come down here all the time for…well, you know. They’re always getting busted down here for getting busy in the bushes.”

  Murphy said, “So?”

  “So, I’ll get a car to stop. They’ll think I’m gay, and I’ll tell them that my friend and I got mugged while we were walking in the park. Nobody is afraid of gay guys. Can you make it out to the road?”

  Chapter 10

  “This traffic is nuts,” I said.

  Phil, the Good Samaritan who picked us up, agreed.

  “Is there a concert tonight?” I asked. The Erwin Center, where all the big bands played when they came to Austin, sat across 15th street from the hospital.

  “Not that I know of,” said Phil.

  “Sorry you have to wait in all of this.”

  “No big deal,” Phil told me. “With the jailbreak today, I didn’t want to stay home by myself anymore, especially with all the sirens and gunfire. It’s not safe. There are crazies running around all over Central Austin.”

  “I hear you,” I agreed.

  “It’s just a few more blocks, anyway.”

  A stoplight changed to green and we inched across the intersection.

  “Those look like military trucks up there,” Phil observed.

  I glimpsed between the cars ahead. I didn’t know what to think of that.

  Phil checked his rearview mirror. I glanced back at Murphy. “Are you doing okay, Murphy? We’re almost there.”

  Murphy grunted and nodded.

  “We’ll make it pretty quick now,” Phil reassured him. “I wonder if this all has to do with that flu coming out of Europe.”

  I shrugged.

  “You don’t think so?” Phil asked.

  “I was talking with a police detective about it and he assured me that the flu business in Europe was all hype,” I answered.

  “What then?”

  “He said something about the marijuana being laced with PCP or something.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, Zed, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Why would the Army be at the hospital?” Phil asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe they’re preparing, just in case. I heard the mortality rate for the flu is pretty high. There’s lots of footage on TV about rioting in Europe.”

  “I saw some of that,” I said.

  “I think I’m safe though,” Phil told me. “I get a flu shot every year. Do you get a flu shot, Zed?”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re young and healthy. You’re probably safe anyway. As for me, I’m playing it safe and heading to Waco tonight. I think with all the craziness here, I’m going to stay with my parents for a few weeks.”

  “Probably a good idea,” I agreed.

  We passed another block and it became clear that the military had cordoned off the hospital complex and the surrounding blocks. They were diverting traffic off to side streets.

  We got to the corner and a policeman waved us off to take a right turn.

  “Can you drop us at the curb there, Phil?” I asked, pointing. “We’ll have to walk the last block.”

  “There’s got to be a place for me to drop you guys at the emergency room.”

  “We’ll be stuck in traffic for another hour trying to find it, Phil. It’ll be faster to walk, I think.”

  “Okay.” Phil pulled the car over.

  The cop at the corner pointed and waved vigorously. He was none too pleased with our choice to stop.

  “Can you walk a block, Murphy? We’re almost there.”

  “I’ll try,” he grunted.

  Moments later, we were on the curb. I thanked Phil as profusely as I could before he made his escape from the chaos.

  With Murphy leaning heavily on me, we waded through the crawling traffic and up to a break in the barriers manned by four soldiers and three police officers.

  “We were mugged,” I told them loudly, as we neared, “My friend got hurt. He needs to see a doctor.”

  A soldier waved us forward. “To your left, sir, into the triage area.”

  I looked left, past the entrance. Indeed, a large green tent stood back in a grassy area. We had no real choice on direction, the cordons guided us, and with all the uniformed men standing around with tense faces and ready weapons, I gave not a single thought to crossing a barricade and making straight for the hospital building.

  The soldiers stood back with watchful eyes and made no move to assist me with Murphy, so I continued helping him myself.

  As we entered the tent, I saw a soldier to the left and one to the right, weapons pointed down but with hands near the triggers. Two nurses wearing surgical masks met us, but were also in no hurry to provide assistance or even come close. They stood back five or six feet.

  “What happened?” the nurse on the left asked.

  “He’s bleeding,” I told them, pointing up at Murphy’s shoulder with my free hand.

  The nurse nodded and asked again, “Yes, but what happened?”

  “Can he sit down? His name is Murphy. He needs medical attention.”

  “Yes, but what happened?”

  Damn, persistent bitch! “I was…we were…jumped by some guys, and during the scuffle, one of them bit my friend.”

  Everyone tensed.

  The words I’d planned to say next stopped in the back of my throat.

  The nurse on the right turned and called over a few orderlies, also in protective gear.

  Behind and to my left, I noticed one of the soldiers nervously level his weapon at Murphy’s back.

  “He’s sick,” I pleaded. “He needs to see a doctor.”

  The nurse on the left said, “It’s okay. Calm down. We have a war
d set up, offsite.”

  “A ward?” I asked, feeling lost in my inability to understand any of what was going on around me.

  “Has he been violent?” the nurse asked me.

  I shook my head, “He can barely walk. He’s got a fever.”

  “When did this a happen?” she asked me.

  “Um…earlier. A while ago. It took us a long time to get here,” I told them.

  The orderlies took Murphy’s weight off of me and helped him toward a doorway on the left side of the tent.

  I started to move after them and the nurse put a hand out to stop me.

  “You need to stay here.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t go into the quarantine ward.”

  “What?”

  I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder and a voice said, “Sir.”

  I turned to see a soldier there. I started to say something to him, but the nurse asked, “Sir, what happened to your arm?”

  I looked down at my scabbed, oozing wound. “Um, I got bitten. I need to see a doctor about that too.”

  “This looks days old,” the nurse said.

  “It happened on Sunday.”

  “On Sunday?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Was it an animal or a human?”

  That seemed like a very odd question to me. “My stepdad.”

  “And where is he now?” she asked.

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  The nurse didn’t believe me. I couldn’t see her face behind her surgical mask, but her lengthy pause gave it away.

  “And this happened on Sunday?” she asked me again.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “Come over here for a moment.”

  I followed her and one of the soldiers followed along behind. She sat me on a cot and shoved a thermometer into my mouth. She pulled an Otoscope from her pocket and pushed my forehead back with her hand.

  “I think it might be infected. I need to get some antibiotics,” I said.

  “Keep your mouth shut while you have the thermometer in.” She shined the light into each of my eyes, first in, then away, then in again.

  I squinted at the harsh little light.

  “Have you taken any drugs today?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, indignantly.

  “Mouth shut,” She told me. “Any sensitivity to light?”

  I nodded.

  “Fever?”

  I nodded.

  The thermometer beeped. She yanked it from my mouth and looked at it. Her shoulders sagged. She was disappointed.

  “What?” I asked.

  She looked to the soldier and nodded. The soldier turned and called for someone.

  “What?” I asked again.

  She turned to me. “I’m sorry, you’ll need to go with your friend to the quarantine ward.”

  The quarantine ward! That didn’t sound at all like a good place to be.

  “I’m fine. I just need some antibiotics.” I raised my voice. “What’s going on?”

  The soldier’s rifle came up and pointed at my chest. Another soldier hurried over, as did a few orderlies.

  “Calm down, please,” said the nurse.

  “I am calm. I just want to know what’s going on.”

  “Please,” she said, “just go along with the orderlies. You’ll get all of your answers in the ward. I need to see to other patients.”

  “What?”

  “Please,” she begged.

  One of the soldiers pushed the barrel of his rifle against my chest.

  “Look,” It was my turn to beg, “I’m not sick. I don’t need to go to a ward. I’m fine. I just needed some antibiotics.”

  The nurse looked at me. She seemed torn between choices. Nobody moved. Finally, she said, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  She walked across the tent and approached another nurse. They began talking in hushed tones, casting glances my way. They were not in agreement, that much was clear. The conversation came to an end and my nurse came back over, with her head hanging a little lower, and her shoulders sagging a little more.

  “I’m not sick,” I said, as she walked up.

  “You’re symptomatic. You’ve got a low-grade fever. Your pupils are fixed and dilated.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They don’t contract when I shine a light on them.”

  “Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything? I’m not sick.”

  “Tell me about your stepdad. Was he sick?”

  “I…”

  “Was he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But he bit you. Why?”

  “I don’t know. There was something wrong with him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I didn’t like where this was going. “He attacked me.”

  “Were you having an argument?”

  “No, he was just crazy. I––”

  “I understand. What about after? What did he do after he bit you?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? He just left you alone?”

  “He’s dead.”

  That stopped the conversation.

  My nurse took a moment to recover. “What happened?”

  “The police shot him.” It was the first lie I could think of that seemed plausible.

  “Because he was attacking you?”

  I nodded.

  “And this happened on Sunday?”

  “What about you? What happened after?”

  “I…I guess I passed out.”

  “You fainted?”

  “I don’t know. I think I lost a lot of blood. But I’m okay now.”

  “Your fever, have you had this ever since the bite?”

  I nodded. “It was higher at first. I felt pretty crappy. Now…I didn’t even know I had a fever. I thought it broke.”

  “Look, Mr…”

  “Zane.”

  “…Mr. Zane. Let these men take you to the ward. I’m sure you’ll be fine, but we have to follow the protocols.”

  “Why?”

  “For everyone’s safety.”

  “So this is that flu from Europe that I saw on TV?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Mr. Zane. Please, let them take you to the ward.” She turned and walked away.

  The orderlies grabbed me by my elbows and guided me out of the same doorway through which Murphy had gone a few minutes earlier.

  Backed up outside the tent was an enclosed military truck the size of an ambulance, but with benches along the sides like a paddy wagon. Four people were seated in the truck. Murphy lay on the floor on his face, like a dead man.

  A half-dozen soldiers stood by, ensuring that all of us quarantine patients made it from the tent to the truck without wandering off.

  I was guided into the truck, ordered to take a seat, and told quite firmly not to get back out.

  I felt angry and defeated, caught again in a net of rules backed by the force of guns, in the hands of people who prejudged me as guilty of something I wouldn’t even understand until it was probably too late. A glance up at the soldiers with their murderous weapons assured me that it was already too late.

  I put my head in my hands and looked down at the floor. Murphy was moving slightly with each unconscious breath. How long would he live without medical attention?

  I started second-guessing my choices: calling the police from my mom’s house, telling the police the truth, escaping the prison, and dragging Murphy to the hospital. They had all seemed like the right things to do at the time, but each had just led me further and further down a hole that seemed to have no bottom.

  “Mr. Zane.”

  I looked up. The nurse who’d examined me stood a few feet away.

  One of the soldiers was immediately beside her. “Ma’am, you shouldn’t be out here.”

  “I need to give this patient some medication.”

  “Ma’am, our orders––”

  In very stern tone she said,
“Sergeant, this is a hospital. I am a nurse. It is my job to care for these people, no matter what is going on. Now, I’m going to give this patient his medication. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you talk to your commanding officer, who can talk to my boss. But until you do that, you need to let me do my job.”

  That was that. The soldier backed off.

  The nurse came over to me and pushed a pill bottle into my hand.

  “What’s this?” I asked. “Antibiotics?”

  “No,” she answered in a hushed tone. “The bottle is empty. My name and cell number are written on it.”

  “What?”

  “Listen! You shouldn’t be going to the ward.”

  “So I’m not sick.”

  “Yes, you are but…listen, Mr. Zane. You have the symptoms. You caught whatever this is, but you seem to be recovering.”

  I asked, “Are you saying that most people aren’t recovering from this?”

  She shook her head.

  Crap!

  “Mr. Zane, your blood probably has the antibodies that might help in making a vaccine, but nobody here wants to hear that. Avoid the ward if you can. Slip away if you can, but don’t lose my number. Call me. I need to see what I can do about getting you hooked up with a real doctor. And for God’s sake, please stay away from people if you do get away. We don’t know all the ways this can spread. You might still be contagious.”

  “Why should I stay away from the ward?”

  “Just avoid it if you can.” She turned and walked away.

  “The other truck is back,” I heard one of the soldiers outside say. Without another moment’s pause, the doors of the truck slammed shut.

  I looked around at my companions in the truck. None looked well. Two sat with elbows on their knees and faces in their hands. One stared at me with wide, fearful eyes. The last had passed out and fallen over sideways on the bench. All showed signs of recent, bruising struggles. There was at least a little blood on each of them.

  Not good.

  Chapter 11

  The engine started and the truck rolled across the grass. We bounced over a curb and accelerated away from the hospital.

  In the dim light inside the truck I looked down at the empty brown pill bottle. “Steph G.” I memorized the number and stuffed the pill bottle into my pocket.