Pain

by Harry Shannon

  “Leave that to me.”

  Leanne sized him up. She let Burkhalter know she found him wanting. “I don’t like it. I’ve been around. I know a poop storm when I see one.”

  “What are you talking about.”

  “Sir, if I had a dick, I’d likely be stepping on it right about now, and I don’t care for the feeling.”

  9:49 PM

  Boffo the Clown was on the waiting room couch, just about to nod off into a Vicodin haze when he heard footsteps approach, someone kind of jog-dragging up the driveway. He rolled carefully to one side and struggled to sit up. Someone banged on the ER door. Boffo answered with a shout.

  “We’re closed.”

  The man outside bellowed, “Open this fucking door! Now!”

  Boffo limped over to the door. He left the chain on, peeked out. There were soldiers on the porch. Their faces were sweaty and smudged with grime and they were heavily armed. Behind them a man, a fat woman and a teenaged girl came trotting up the sidewalk. Boffo stared out through the chain. No one paid any attention to his red rubber nose and makeup. Boffo tried again. “Sorry, man. The ER is all closed up”

  Cap Rogers slammed against the door. The frail chain snapped. Boffo’s immense bulk was driven backwards. “Hey!”

  One of the soldiers was wounded, Boffo saw. He softened a bit. Looked over their shoulders, out into the night. “Who’s that with you?”

  To Boffo’s shock, the two soldiers panicked and swung their weapons around.

  The woman said, “Excuse us, we’re lost. We just gave these men a ride under duress. Can we ask how the hell to get down into Clove Valley from here?”

  “I told you that road is closed,” the soldier said. “And until further notice. Now all of you, get your asses inside.”

  “Excuse me? You don’t have to be rude.” The fat woman, puffing herself up. The wounded soldier jerked his weapon loosely towards the ER. “Lady, just do it. Now.”

  “Well, I never…”

  The teenaged girl seemed to welcome the drama. She raced inside. The man, who clutched a bag of knitting needles close to his vest, hurried to follow. The overweight woman took her time. Boffo disliked her instantly. The taller soldier shoved her from behind, drew a filthy look, and once in the waiting room he slammed and locked the door.

  “Is your phone working?”

  Boffo shook his head warily. What the hell was going on? “Doc says it’s already down. I tried a minute ago, no cell service either.”

  Cap surveyed the room, sent Bowden to the couch with a gesture, the wounded soldier moaning softly as he sat down. The others watched the blood seeping from between his filthy fingers and exchanged nervous glances. How had this man been hurt? What were these two running from?

  “That sucks. Well, either help or get out of the way.” “Excuse me,” Boffo said. He stepped closer and his long shoes flapped against the floor. He seemed oblivious to the absurd picture he represented under the circumstances. He addressed Cap sternly. “Just who are you folks?“We’re the Calvary, clown. Bring me a hammer and nails.”

  “What did you just call me?”

  The woman snapped. “Listen to him, Bozo!”

  “Boffo.”

  Boffo stepped back, uncertain how to de-escalate. Just then Callie appeared in the doorway with her clipboard. She distracted everyone by briskly collecting names. Boffo learned that the woman who’d spoken to Boffo was named Theresa, her husband Timothy, their daughter Champ.

  “Okay, now what’s going on? Sir, have to tell you one thing, none of you can stay unless you’re maybe two inches from dead. We’re closing down indefinitely.”

  The soldier named Cap spoke firmly. “A hammer. Nails. Now.” He parted the curtains, peeked out the front window. It had security bars. He checked to see they were locked, then closed the window and carefully locked the wooden shutters. The others watched him, their anxiety growing. Who or what was a military man so afraid of?

  Callie, “Excuse me, did you hear what I said?”

  Boffo was still standing there, reading both puzzled and pissed. Cap glared at each of them. Champ read his rage, judged him as a threat. She jumped to her feet. She was accustomed to defusing situations. “Hammer and nails. Just tell me where to look, I’ll do it.”“Champ, no,” her foster father mumbled. “Stay with us. Mister clown, please, just do as he says.”

  “Call me Boffo.” After exchanging looks with Callie, Boffo limped away. Theresa knelt by Bowden. “Nurse, this man needs medical attention.”

  Callie called out “Doc? Could you please come out here?” She went to the couch and tended to the soldier’s wound. Billy Ray appeared in the doorway behind her, four bars behind the rest of the band, as usual. By then, Cap was shoving heavy furniture, chairs and couches, towards the window and front door.

  “Hey. We’re closed, man. What the fuck?”

  Cap looked back over his right shoulder. “You. Give me a hand.”

  WHAM! Everyone froze in place at the sudden thumping noise. They exchanged looks. Someone was pounding on the front door. A voice from outside, on the porch. A woman. “Open up, open up. Please! Please! Help me!”

  No one moved. The pounding continued. The woman was sobbing now, her terror increasing. “Doc, Callie! Please, they killed my partner. They’re right behind me. Please open this door.”

  “It’s Officer Paris. Let her in.”

  Doc Roth stomped into the waiting room. He stormed down the hall, crossed the floor. He elbowed by Boffo and Cap Rogers. He didn’t hesitate and immediately unlocked the door. Cap pulled his 9mm and aimed it at Doc. Seeing this, Callie screamed. So did Billy Ray. In fact, Billy Ray said, “Whoa. Easy. Fuck that shit. Doc, back off.”

  Doc paused, looked down at the weapon and then directly into Cap’s eyes. Time slowed down. Neither man flinched. Outside on the porch, Officer Paris was moaning now, moaning and pounding, out of breath.

  “I can’t let you open that door, Doctor,” Cap Rogers said, but something less certain had crept into his voice. He lowered the pistol and jabbed it into Doc’s belly.Bowden managed a supporting statement. “He’s right, sir. Believe me, it’s for your own safety.”

  “This is my ER,” Doc said, softly. “You’d best get the hell out of my way.”

  “Doctor, we’re here to help.”

  “Then help me get that woman inside safely. And don’t point that fucking thing at me again.”

  Seemingly a bit amused, Cap lowered the gun. The room relaxed. Doc turned sidewise, edged by Cap and opened the door. Cap kept the weapon trained on Doc the whole time, clearly ready to shoot anyone or anything as required. The door opened. Officer Paris burst in, splattered with someone else’s blood, clothing torn, panicked.

  She threw herself into Doc’s arms.

  “Close it. Lock it. Hurry. Oh, Christ.”

  Cap stepped around her. He slammed and locked the door.The tension ratcheted back up a few notches. Cap barked, “Get busy, everyone.”

  Timothy and Theresa returned to moving furniture. Champ tried to help. Billy Ray stood by bewildered. Cap eyed Doc with grudging respect. A nod passed between them. Boffo returned from the back with a large tool box. Cap gestured for the others to grab something to work with. “Okay, let’s move. You three? Lock every door. Figure a way to cover all the windows.”

  “Wait,” Doc said. “Hold it, everybody. Stop. Right. Now.” Everyone one froze as the two alpha males faced off. “Your name is Cap? Okay. So tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “They’re coming,” Cap said, as if that explained everything.

  “Who?”

  Officer Paris screamed. “Listen to him, Doc. They’re coming.” And they were.Because they could all hear sounds outside now. Feet shuffling, voices mumbling and moaning. A mob coming up the driveway. A mob of what?

  “I asked you nicely. Who?”

  Frustrated, Cap grabbed Doc by the arm, walked him to the front door.The others tensed up, terrified. Cap kept Doc close to him. Swallow
ed, and focused on the door. Without warning, he quickly unlocked the door and yanked it open. Cool air and darkness. And then a howl as a giant, shirtless man with flayed skin, wild eyes and a white beard appeared in the doorway. He came forward without pause, arms out, fingers wide. Something had done horrible things to his face and torso.

  There were others behind him. Dozens.

  The man went for Doc, who jumped back and BOOM Cap fired. The man’s face collapsed inward into a black hole as the back of his head exploded into pink mist. He fell backwards, and took two of the other monsters with him. Doc was stunned into silence. Cap moved fast, slammed and double locked the door.

  “Them.”

  “Oh.”

  “Got it now? We all on the same page?”

  Billy Ray bellowed, “Shit on a shingle! Yo! Damn! Jesus on a surfboard. What the fuck was that?”

  “They are why you all got the order from Homeland Security to evacuate. You shouldn’t have dragged your feet, but lucky for us you did. Doc, you satisfied?”

  Doc nodded. Wiped his forehead on one sleeve. “Okay. Do as he says everybody.”

  “We’re going to lock this place down,” Cap said. “We’ll set up a defensive perimeter, try to hold them off until we can get some help. I’ll coordinate everything from right here.”

  They all nodded miserably. Only Doc said, “Okay.”

  Cap took his arm. “Doc, you come with me. The rest of you get busy. Lock everything up tight, board up every entrance.”

  9:59 PM

  After the horror they’d just witnessed, Timothy, Boffo and Champ worked like a smooth team, wordlessly passing nails and boards back and forth. The ER was a blur of moving people, running on pure adrenaline. Hands locking doors and windows and nailing boards into place. Folks moved boxes still packed with narcotics and medical supplies, blocked the front entrance and the rear exit, boarded up windows. Meanwhile, Doc and Cap stayed on the move, touring the ER. Cap wanted to know everything he could about the position they’d have to defend.

  “Doc,” he said, “any guns here?

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well, you’re going to need to invent some weapons. Think fast. Make spears, grab steak knives, boards, use anything you can get your hands on.”

  They passed Theresa and Timothy, grunting loudly, moving furniture. He still had that knitting bag under one arm. Doc noticed that the wife had far more upper body strength. Up in the attic Officer Paris went down on one knee, began nailing up some slat board to cover a small side window. Billy Ray joined in. Pounding away. His eyes were wide with anxiety. Callie tended to Bowden on the couch in the waiting room. Downstairs, Fred sat by the bed staring silently at an unconscious Riggs. He yawned, then frowned. Fred loved speed and disliked the effects of the sedative.

  Doc and Cap moved up the stairs heading for the attic. A small room, with a few empty cardboard boxes. One window winked down through a skylight. Billy Ray was finishing up. Officer Paris was combing her hair as if to avoid thinking about the blood on her blue blouse.

  “Good job, Officer.” Cap pointed to Billy Ray, dropped his voice to a coarse whisper. “Who is that wimp?”

  “My assistant. His name is Billy Ray.”

  It was clear that Cap had already written Billy Ray off. “Somehow that figures. You can almost hear the banjo.” He raised his voice. “Billy Ray? When I send everyone to their stations, you and the lady cop park up here.”

  Billy Ray blanched. “Alone?”

  “Yes, hero.” Cap shot Officer Paris a sympathetic look, then said, “Doc, come on. We don’t have much time.”Billy Ray whined. “Can’t we stay with you guys?”

  “No,” Doc said, with a certain relish. There was some small consolation in discovering that Billy Ray was a flaming coward. “Just do what he says.”

  They started back down to the ER. A few creaking steps down, about halfway, when they were almost in total shadow, Doc lost some of his legendary patience. “Let’s stop for a second. Right here.”

  “Yeah?” Cap seemed impatient to get moving.

  “What are they, damn it?”

  “They? Infected folks who got out of Two Trees before the quarantine. We have to keep moving, there’s no time.”

  Reluctantly, Doc joined Cap and continued downstairs, where they began to make the rounds one final time. The defenses seemed as solid as ten minutes could make them. While Officer Paris continued to work to barricade the attic and frowned at his back, Billy Ray followed the two leaders as discreetly as possible.

  Down below, Cap examined the small curtained area in ER one, the large window now covered with boards. “We station two here. Your nurse and the clown.”

  “Okay, okay. But keep talking to me, Captain. These townspeople got infected by what exactly?”

  “Pain.”

  Doc shook his head, confused. He followed Cap down the small hallway to the back door area and watched as Cap tried the lock, the latch. He wasn’t satisfied. Doc bent down, grabbed some tools and hammered another nail in the board over the tiny window built into the back door. That did it.

  “Now go on, damn it,” Doc said. His voice drew a line in the sand. “Fill me in on the rest of it. Right here, right now.”

  The two men squatted down on their haunches. Billy Ray, masked by the white ER curtain in room one, watched from a few yards away. Cap Rogers lowered his voice again. He coughed into his fist. “Okay. Listen up, Doc. PAIN is an acronym for Psychogenic Anticholinergic Infectious Neuropathy. It’s a biological weapon, all right? That old base up the road? It was stored there for over thirty years.”

  Billy Ray couldn’t contain himself, said, “Christ! What the hell happened?”

  Cap jumped, swung his 9mm around and then relaxed again. “Jesus, I told you to stay upstairs. Look, we don’t know exactly what happened. Earthquake, maybe. Old pipes nobody thought to reinforce. These things happen. Somehow it started leaking. And it got into the water supply.”

  As if on cue, a tormented howling began as a low tone in the deep woods. It rose slowly in frequency, not wolf-like but excruciatingly human. The men could sense increased movement all around the building. More of the infected townspeople were closing in on the ER, perhaps just drawn by the presence of the others.

  “Is it just me,” Billy Ray whimpered, “or does that seem like a lot?”Cap slapped his hands together. “Let’s wrap this up. Doc, you and the girl will be stationed right here. Watch the back door, okay? One last thing. Did anyone drink tap water the last day or so?”

  Doc caught on immediately. He swallowed. “Thankfully, no. I doubt that. For one thing, up here it just tastes awful. So it’s always been my policy to use nothing but bottled and sterile.”

  “Then something’s gone right tonight. Let’s go.”

  Cap led the way, looking for weaknesses in the perimeter. They felt along the walls, through the two small exam rooms, the waiting area, the back door, one more time the attic, carefully checking every window and opening they could find, making sure the townspeople would have as much difficulty as possible breaking into the premises. They were as secure as time and ideas could make them.

  Cap said, “Okay, that couple brought me and Bowden here? They watch the back window. And that’s it, that’s our line.” He started back towards the front desk.

  “Wait,” Doc said. “So it was in the water supply? How did you learn of it? Who blew the whistle? What happened?”

  Cap answered, all the while looking directly at Doc. “Yeah, what you’re thinking is true. This is bad juju. When the virus leaked, dozens of people in Two Trees drank the water and got sick. They started going crazy with pain, killing each other, infecting other people through blood and spit and God knows what. That’s when Homeland Security put the evacuation and quarantine procedure into effect.”

  They went into exam room one. Cap walked to the window by the rolling med tray. Big Riggs was on the bed, still unconscious. Fred the skinny driver sat there stoned out, right next to him
. He had managed to board up the window, but seemed pretty useless otherwise, as far as Cap could tell.

  “Fine,” Cap said. “This will have to do. Just leave these men here.” They started for the waiting room again.

  “Look,” Doc said, “have people been warned? If this thing spreads…”

  “The Feebs have it contained.”

  Billy Ray was still trailing them, wringing his hands. He whimpered. “Oh, so you call this contained?”

  The other two men ignored his vibe. Doc followed Cap into the waiting room. They stood by the intake desk. “How long have you been here?”

  “Me and the boys were inserted last night to look for survivors. Got ambushed. Only two of us made it through.”

  He opened the window shutters slightly, peered out. Doc felt his chest freeze. Faces, figures, moving shapes in the night. Way too many of them. He couldn’t see anyone clearly, but got the impression of torn clothing, splattered blood, distorted features. And that low moaning sound, broken by an occasional shriek. Doc shivered. Leave it to man to create something more hideous—and dangerous to himself—than anything previously existing in nature. Theresa and her family came close to the window, looked out and then jumped back with a trio of screams.

  “Oh, dear God!”

  “Good heavens,” Timothy whispered, “what happened to these people?”

  Bowden said, “Pain happened.”

  “Oh, man,” Champ said. “Holy shit.”

  “That’s enough.”

  Champ grabbed Doc’s arm. “Please,” she said. “Don’t ever let that happen to me.”

  They closed the wooden shutters, blocking the horrible sight waiting out in the front yard, up and down the driveway. A moment of quiet. Doc stared at Cap. Clearly waited for and expected more information. Cap just shrugged. “Seriously. That’s almost all I know, Doc. I hear they made it way back in 1978 or ‘79, before Reagan signed the treaty with the Commies. It’s a virus. Bad, bad mojo. Some genius decided to mix a cocktail with botulism, anthrax and a pinch of that bacteria that eats flesh.”