Sleep Tight

by Jeffrey Jacobson

  “Please, please,” Dr. Menard begged softly.

  The owner of the laptop felt differently. He snarled, leapt forward, and slapped the laptop out of Dr. Menard’s hands. They both went down, sprawling down the bus aisle. The movement and noise woke some of the others up. They groaned, whipping their heads back and forth, trying to claw their way out of a sea of bad dreams.

  Frustration exploded in Dr. Menard. He drove his knee into the side of the man’s face, knocking him into another seat. The occupant of the new seat moaned in pain. Dr. Menard grabbed at the laptop and scooted backwards. A quick glance at the screen told him the pages were loading. Slowly, but they were loading.

  He had a signal.

  He snapped the laptop shut and clutched it to his chest. Too many people were waking up on the bus. They were starting to keen and shriek as they swam up to consciousness, only to find unimaginable pain waiting for them at the surface. He stumbled back down the aisle, fighting his way through the outstretched arms until he fell down the steps to the cool grass outside.

  He rolled over, and found the field was infested with the walking infected. They were up and moving, but they didn’t understand what they were looking for, only that the loud noises and bright lights were unbearably painful, and they would hack and slash at anyone in their path. Dr. Menard folded his arms over the laptop and held it tight against his chest, then marched forward, eyes only on the driver’s door of the prison bus.

  He darted across the narrow space, climbed up into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door behind him. He shot the bolts, locking himself inside. He took a moment to assess the infected lurching about the front of the bus, then put them out of his mind, opened the laptop, and fished around for the jump drive.

  The Man was not happy. “You told us you could handle this, that if we evacuated the city, the situation would improve. But from the reports we’re getting, it sounds as if things are getting worse.”

  “I promised no such thing,” Dr. Reischtal said into his phone. No video conference this time—he stood outside one of the many FEMA trailers set up around Soldier Field, staring at the lake. He was not focusing on the president. Instead, he was looking forward to getting Tommy out to the medical lab out on the warship. “I merely gave you my opinion on how best to contain this pandemic.”

  “Let’s not split hairs. Not with this much death. I need to know right now what is being done to stop this virus from spreading. As of right now, I have three major airports under lockdown. Those damn bugs have been discovered in luggage on flights from Chicago. Flights from Chicago have been quarantined, and are sitting on runways. We’re running out of time. I will ask you again, what is the next step?”

  “The next step has been taken, Mr. President.” Dr. Reischtal didn’t elaborate.

  “And that would be . . . what, exactly?”

  Dr. Reischtal responded with even less emotion that usual. “I have ordered a chemical agent to be dispersed throughout Chicago, once the soldiers have finished clearing out the rats.”

  “What kind of chemical agent?”

  “Something that will clean Chicago.”

  “Listen, doctor, you either start giving me straight answers or I’ll have my boys on you so fast it’ll make your head spin. You want to be a smart-ass with me, you can disperse aspirin to convicts at San Quentin, you follow?”

  “Very well. It is called two-four-five Trioxin.”

  “It will kill the bugs?”

  “It will kill everything.”

  “The virus?”

  “It will kill everything.”

  “Why the secrecy? Why didn’t we just bomb the bugs in the first place?”

  “Two-four-five Trioxin is perhaps the most lethal chemical weapon in our arsenal. It is not available to the Armed Forces.”

  “Why?”

  “The effects are devastating and immediate. Nothing else we possess is capable of that much power. Kill rate is one hundred percent guaranteed. The only drawback, other than it will kill anything and everything in the dispersal zone without discrimination, is that the half-life is unfortunately, somewhat lengthy. If it becomes necessary to release the agent, Chicago will be uninhabitable for the next five to seven years.”

  “What? Are you joking? Who the hell gave you the clearance to use this shit?”

  “With all due respect, sir, the president’s authority is not enough to sanction the use of two-four-five Trioxin. That power lies solely with the head of the special pathogens branch of the CDC.”

  “You, in other words.”

  “At the moment, yes, sir.”

  The Man spoke to someone else on his end. “You getting this? Okay, okay. Find wherever they’re keeping it; I want this shit confiscated, yesterday.” He came back to the phone. “Okay, Dr. Reischtal. It’s all over. The evacuation will continue, but I will be starting to pull the troops out. We need them in other areas. As for you, you’re finished. I am officially removing you from this operation. Your replacement will be contacting you shortly.”

  “That’s all well and good, sir, but I’m afraid you simply don’t have the authority. I am the one in charge. That is final.”

  A soldier burst around the corner of the trailer and stood at attention next to Dr. Reischtal. He didn’t want to interrupt the phone conversation, but the look on his face made it clear that this was an emergency.

  Dr. Reischtal was aware of the soldier, but chose to ignore him for the moment. “If you check the laws concerning pandemics, you’ll find that the CDC has a surprising amount of power, and I’m afraid this authority is absolute during times of national emergency.”

  The Man wasn’t giving up without a fight. “No, doctor, you are the one that is mistaken. You have no right.”

  Dr. Reischtal held the phone to his chest. The Man was still yelling. He turned to the soldier. “Yes?”

  “Sir, we have just received word that your patient is missing.”

  “My patient?”

  “Yes, sir. Tommy Krazinsky.”

  Dr. Reischtal hit END CALL.

  Huddled against the light post at Adams and Clark Street Ed and Sam and Qween decided they needed a place to hole up for a while, just to catch their breath. The majority of the soldiers seemed to be still working their way through the subways, but Clark was too well lit, so they crept back up to LaSalle and didn’t have much trouble slinking through the shadows. Still, the helicopters were stabbing searchlights down on the dark streets, and Qween and the detectives knew they had to get inside somewhere.

  Sam suggested the Chase Tower. Someplace above everything, away from all the shooting. Just down the street, a few blocks away. “Get up high. See if we can’t see anything.”

  They made it without incident and found the front doors locked. Qween said, “I can get us in.”

  “One of your shortcuts?” Ed asked.

  Qween said, “Sure,” and heaved a newspaper vending machine through one of the windows. A strident alarm bleated out of the building and filled the street with its uncomfortable rhythm and pitch. After thirty seconds, Qween said, “Let’s get to it.”

  The lobby was big and dark and silent. Lines of bank tellers’ windows and half cubicles fought for space among large poster advertisements for the bank. The ceiling stretched up into the unknown, into the shadows. The whole place was empty.

  They decided to take the elevator, just to get as far away from the alarm as possible. Sam hit the top button, and they got off on the fifty-ninth floor.

  The elevator bank unfolded into a dining room, filled with spotless tables and chairs surrounded by a stunning view of downtown Chicago. The Chase Tower took up one full city block, bordered by Clark, Dearborn, Madison, and Monroe streets. The deep impression and its endless cement stairs were sunk into the south side, along with Chagall’s Four Seasons mosaic. Except for a few buildings popping up that blocked their field of vision, like the big red CNN building, they could see most everything in all directions. They wandered around the p
erimeter, but still nothing much was happening on the streets.

  Back near the elevators, they found a food prep area with a small TV on the counter. It was tuned to a sports channel. They switched around to find the news.

  The anchor was saying, “. . . potentially graphic, so parents may want children to leave the room. This raw footage was uploaded less than an hour ago, and again, while we feel it needs to be seen, it could prove upsetting to sensitive viewers.”

  They switched to blurry, shaking video, obviously from a smartphone, as someone panned too quickly around an expensively furnished high-rise condo. It must have been shot earlier that day because the sun was shining and downtown Chicago could be seen through the windows. A woman’s voice, tight and shrill, was saying, “And then we started finding them everywhere.” She got closer to the leather couch and reached out to overturn one of the cushions.

  It landed on the floor and reddish black bugs spilled out of the seams. The woman squealed and the phone went berserk as she stomped on the bugs. “Everywhere!” The footage spun back around, up the two steps from the sunken living room and into a huge white kitchen. “I will sue this landlord for everything!”

  A boy, maybe ten, pointed up at the massive ventilation hood over the stove island. Bugs were crawling out of it by the dozens. Some fell out onto the black cast iron grates.

  The woman leapt to turn the burners on. Flames licked the bugs. She hit the exhaust fan on the hood, which slowed the bugs’ descent, but they still kept emerging. The video whipped across the floor. More bugs were crawling out of the heating and air-conditioning vents. Some squirmed out of an electrical socket. Her son had a can of Raid, and bent in front of the camera as he blasted them.

  A bug trundled across his white T-shirt. His mom slapped it away. She started sobbing. She ripped the shirt off his back and held it up to the phone. Several more bugs crawled along the seam around the collar. Then she really shrieked and grabbed her son and ran for the door. There were a few more seconds of blurry footage before the network cut back to the anchor, who seemed to be at a loss for words. Maybe the teleprompter wasn’t ready.

  He shuffled his papers and cleared his throat. “At this time, we are unable to verify the status of the woman and her son that you have just watched in the video. We are assuming that they were evacuated, along with the rest of downtown Chicago, but we have recently lost contact with our field reporter on the scene. We have been following disturbing reports emerging from within the Soldier Field FEMA decontamination camp.”

  Ed switched the TV off. Nobody protested. Ed scratched at his back.

  He wasn’t the only one. Sam suddenly felt itching slither all over his body, and a hyperawareness of the bugs began to grow. Sam tried not to scratch anything, because once he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. Instead, he turned, let his breath out slowly, and started searching out crevices and shadows and under the toaster.

  Wordlessly, they began to strip, examining every minute fold and stitch. Eventually, Sam turned his back, stripped bare, and gathered up the handful of clothes and stuffed them in the microwave. He stepped back and bent over, watching as his clothes rotated slowly. The zipper metal sparked, sending flashes bouncing around the inside of the microwave. “That’s right,” he said. “Ride the lightning, bitches.”

  Qween laughed. “You got the skinniest white ass I ever seen.”

  Sam was the first to take all his clothes off and cook the hell out of them. Qween made them leave the room when she disrobed. When they came back, she was climbing back into her layers. The kitchen smelled like a wet dog that had been rolling in a dead moose.

  Qween glared at Sam, daring him to say anything.

  Sam raised his hands. “Not one fucking word, I promise. God knows I could, though. . . .”

  Ed stepped out of his jeans and threw them in the microwave. “Wish you two would stop flirting and just kiss. Get it over with.”

  While Sam and Qween settled into a table along the southern windows, Ed found the light switches and turned most of them off. The lights of downtown snapped into life all around them. They opened the MREs the detectives had taken off the dead soldiers and ate without talking. Sam passed his flask around. For a while, it was rather peaceful, resting in the dim light, silently looking out over the city, with the gunfire, the bugs, the blood, far, far beneath them.

  Sam squinted and sat up, peering through the window. He fumbled for his glasses, couldn’t find them. Pointing down at Grant Park, he asked, “What’s that?”

  Ed and Qween followed his gaze. The headlights of a vehicle had just left Lake Shore Drive and were now tearing across the baseball diamonds at the southern end of the park. At least two Strykers appeared to be in pursuit. They were too far away to hear the chatter of gunfire, but they all saw the unmistakable flashes of heavy artillery.

  Ed dug around in the pack and pulled out one of the soldiers’ walkie-talkies. He couldn’t figure out how to disengage the earpiece, so he stuck it in his own ear and listened for a minute. “Damn,” he said. “It’s Dr. Reischtal himself. He’s pissed. Wants this dude taken alive. No more shooting.” Sam started to ask a question, but Ed held up a finger, listening intently.

  Ed met Sam’s eyes. “They’re after one of those rat guys from City Hall. Tommy Krazinsky.”

  CHAPTER 70

  8:48 PM

  August 14

  Dr. Reischtal stared down at the body on the grass. The paramedic’s mouth was open, as if he was still protesting being slashed and bled out. A ripe, foul odor wafted up from his pants; his bowels had emptied in death. Maybe he was pissed about that too.

  Dr. Reischtal fought to stop his teeth from grinding together. He could hear his dentist’s admonishments. He was supposed to wear a special mouthpiece at night to stop the gradual demolition of his molars when he was asleep, and he certainly did not want to start wearing it when he was awake.

  Tommy Krazinsky had escaped.

  Patient 0.2. Gone.

  Until he had been interrupted by the president’s phone call, he had been watching that fool Shea attempting to hold a press conference in the middle of a quarantined city. While the current state of affairs was nowhere near as safe as the idiot kept pronouncing, as if saying it enough times would make it true, they were, at least, going according to schedule.

  But now, now the situation jerked at his fingertips, threatening to slip out of his grasp, like a pack of wild dogs going crazy on the scent of a bleeding pig. The urge to simply step back and burn everything boiled up inside of him, and he fought it, recognizing the feeling as panic. No. Someone with his control would not panic. Would not.

  No matter what.

  His voice was barely audible above the soft wind. “I expected this patient to be held until the laboratory was properly prepared. He is a confirmed bioterrorist and his escape is unacceptable.”

  The three soldiers surrounding the corpse nodded and grunted in affirmation.

  Dr. Reischtal said, “Ready the choppers. I want him delivered, alive and relatively unharmed, in less than thirty minutes.”

  Sergeant Reaves said, “Sir, most of the choppers have withdrawn. We only have two Apaches left, and they will be necessary when the squads move out of the secure areas. We have no idea how many infected are still—”

  Dr. Reischtal said slowly, deliberately, “My orders are quite clear, Sergeant. Please do not tell me you are suffering some kind of hearing disorder.”

  Sergeant Reaves nodded. “No, sir.”

  Dr. Reischtal went silent for a moment, thinking back to the press conference. He remembered who had been standing next to the fool. “I know his destination. He will be trying to reach the press conference, at Daley Plaza. He wants his daughter. Cut him off before he gets there. I want him brought back to me. Alive. Nothing else matters. His blood, his brain, may hold the key to this entire pandemic. Nothing else matters. Nothing.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “I certainly hope so. I want both
Apaches in the air. They can coordinate his location with the Strykers. Bring him back to me in one piece.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dr. Reischtal studied Sergeant Reaves in the bobbing glow of the flashlights and the dim spill of the floodlights that had been erected over the FEMA trailers. He had just come from Soldier Field, watching for their old friend Dr. Menard. Three days of no sleep and constant vigilance had taken its toll on the man. Exhaustion had crinkled lines into his face like an old map, leaving dark hollows and dry, red eyes. “Please do not tell me you are second-guessing my command, Sergeant Reaves.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then if you please, go catch that sonofabitch. Every moment we stand here exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen, Mr. Krazinsky is pulling farther and farther away.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When Sergeant Reaves turned to bark orders at the three soldiers waiting at attention at the head of the corpse, Dr. Reischtal saw the two little bugs, waiting patiently on Sergeant Reaves’s back.

  Dr. Reischtal did not hesitate, did not deliberate, did not think. He simply reacted. His hand flew down to his right hip, curled around the .45 Colt, pulled it out, raised it, settled the muzzle in the narrow groove at the back of Sergeant Reaves’s head, right where the backbone disappeared into the skull, and fired.

  The bullet spun through the very top of the spinal column, obliterating the connecting nerves, tumbled through Sergeant Reaves’s mouth, churning his tongue into mush, and exploded through his upper front teeth, spraying blood over the waiting soldiers.

  Sergeant Reaves slowly, hesitantly toppled over as if someone had given a sleeping man a gentle shove forward. The soldiers froze, their fatigues spattered in blood. Dr. Reischtal pivoted, raising his pistol slightly. Then he shot all three soldiers in the head. It couldn’t be helped. If Sergeant Reaves was infected, then it was only a matter of time before the virus latched on to those around him.

  When the initial blast of the four rounds had faded, leaving Dr. Reischtal alone with five corpses tangled together before him, he holstered his pistol. Two other soldiers came running at the sound of gunshots. They gaped at the pile of bodies.