Dead Meat Box Set, Vol. 2 | Days 4-6

by Clausen, Nick

  First, his movements became dull and even less coordinated than they were already. He obviously had trouble holding himself up, and finally sank to the floor, his free arm still reaching out for her.

  But his eyes didn’t close. And his groans continued.

  The morphine, strangely, seemed to only affect his body, leaving him conscious—if you could call his present state conscious at all, of course. The result wasn’t as much a sedation as paralyzing, and to Dorte, it looked very much like Peter was still suffering just as much, except now he couldn’t move, and she waited impatiently for the effect to wear off. Luckily, it only lasted a few minutes, which was a lot shorter than anticipated.

  All in all, what is going on with Peter is a mystery to Dorte. She has never encountered anything in modern medicine able to explain how his state of consciousness can be unaffected by a high dose of morphine; let alone move without a heart rate or measurable brain activity. And on top of it all, she hadn’t been able to find anything in the tests.

  She has run out of ideas, out of options, and she’s at a dead-end. The clock is approaching six, the day is beginning outside, and soon people will start to show up to start their workday. And the knocking on the door from Rikke is starting to drive her mad.

  Which is why she finally decides to call the authorities.

  She steps out into the hallway and finds her phone, searching for the number of the local police online and makes the call.

  “Østjylland Police, how may I help you?” a cool female voice answers right away.

  “Yes, hello, um … my name is Dorte Møller, I’m calling from Aarhus University Hospital. I have, um … I have two people here with me, both have contracted the virus currently being contained in Viborg.”

  She pauses to let the woman reply.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman says, sounding hesitant. “Are you by any chance referring to the Rhabdovirus?”

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  “All right. And what makes you suspect the persons are suffering from this particular virus?”

  “All the symptoms fit. And one of them got into contact with another infected, then she transferred the disease to the other person with me now.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “In Viborg.”

  “And you are now in Aarhus?”

  “Yes. Could you please send someone who—”

  “Are you aware that Viborg has been under complete lockdown as of last night? No one can enter or exit the city.”

  “I’m aware of that, yes. We managed to leave anyway.”

  A short pause. “That was highly illegal.”

  Dorte takes a deep breath. “I know. And I take full responsibility.”

  She can hear the woman converse briefly with someone in the background. When she comes back, her voice is slightly flustered, but still professional. “We’re sending someone out right now.”

  “Thank you. We need two ambulances and—”

  “Please give me your exact whereabouts.”

  Dorte gives her the information. “Like I was saying, please send two ambulances so we can transport the patients separately. Also, we need police in protective armor and restraining equipment to secure them, as they’ll attempt to bite or scratch anyone who comes near.”

  “We’ll take care of that.”

  “Good, because it’s very impo—”

  “Have the infected been into contact with anyone else?”

  “No. They’ve just been with me the entire time.”

  “Have you yourself had any physical contact with any of them?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t contract the virus.”

  “You can’t know that for sure; the virus might be transferred through physical contact or—”

  “No, it doesn’t. It spreads much like rabies; through saliva and blood. The skin needs to be penetrated, and I don’t have any scratches or puncture wounds. Also, I have no symptoms.”

  A brief pause. “How do you know all this?”

  “I’m a doctor. Please make sure the people you’re sending take the proper precautions. The last thing we need is a second outbreak.”

  “That wouldn’t have happened, had you stayed inside the quarantined area, Doctor.”

  The ironic emphasis on that last word and the tone of the woman’s voice makes Dorte want to tell her to go fuck herself, but she knows that won’t do her any good, and she also knows the woman is right. Maybe she should have stayed. Maybe she should have followed the official instructions.

  But she just couldn’t sit back and watch her sister die from an unknown illness, not as long as she was convinced the cure was fairly simple. So, she talked Peter and Rikke into it. And she lied to Martin, her childhood friend. This was all her doing. And it turned out she was not able to help either of them.

  “We’ll have someone with you in five minutes,” the woman tells her, pulling her back. “You stay where you are.”

  “Don’t worry,” Dorte says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  EIGHT

  Henrik has turned away to go back inside the bedroom and pack a fresh set of clothes, when Kirsten screams.

  He spins around and sees Finn come lunging out from Jennie’s old room, throwing himself at Kirsten, who backs away into the wall in a vain attempt to get out of reach. But it’s too late, and Finn bites down hard on her neck.

  Kirsten’s scream turns even higher and more piercing.

  Oh, Jesus Christ!

  Henrik runs down the hallway and grabs Kirsten’s flailing arm. He begins tugging hard to get her away from Finn, but Finn acts like a predator who just caught his breakfast and isn’t intent at all on letting it go. He bears down harder with his teeth, growling and blowing bubbles in the blood from Kirsten’s throat. He also reaches up and grabs her by the grey hair, yanking her head sideways.

  Kirsten screams again, very high-pitched, but a little weaker than before, and for an awful moment, she looks like a piece of toy torn between two big kids, as Henrik pulls her one way, while Finn pulls her the other.

  “Let go of her!” Henrik shouts, and then, without thinking, he lets go of Kirsten with one hand in order to throw a punch at Finn. His knuckles connect with the old guy’s temple, and his jaw pops open for a moment, as he blinks his dead eyes and staggers backwards, loosening his grip on Kirsten’s hair and allowing Henrik to pull her free. She almost collapses into his arms, and Henrik half drags, half lifts her backwards down the hallway, away from Finn.

  But the neighbor quickly regains his bearings and comes waddling after them, arms stretched out, the lower part of his face smothered in blood.

  Behind him, another figure comes out of Jennie’s old room. Henrik briefly recognizes Lone, even though her head is tilted awkwardly sideways and her neck is all torn open. Behind her, a younger woman and a teenage boy appear. The three of them crowd the hallway, and more seem to be pushing from behind.

  Jesus Christ, how many were in there?

  Kirsten has almost lost consciousness now, and she can’t keep to her feet, which means Henrik can’t get her out of the way in time.

  “Get back!” he roars instead at Finn, who completely ignores the command and simply comes at them even quicker.

  Henrik steps forward and, still supporting Kirsten in an awkward half-embrace, throws a hard kick at the old guy’s leg. His heel lands perfectly on the kneecap, and there’s a loud, crisp and very satisfying snapping sound as Finn’s leg bends backwards, then collapses on itself, sending Finn to the floor.

  Henrik stares at his old neighbor for half a second, taking in the absolute absurdity of the situation, and realizing peripherally that he just busted up Finn’s bad knee, which was already damaged from a motorcycle accident forty years back—Finn once told him about it one summer evening, where the two of them had shared a beer in the back garden, while Dan ran around in his diapers on the lawn, chasing butterflies and laughing.

  The memory flies by in a flash before it’s replaced wi
th what’s in front of Henrik now: Finn, sprawled out on the floor, growling and scrambling, his dead, white eyes rolling in their sockets.

  Even though his leg is now angled the wrong way—which looks both bizarre and incredibly painful—Finn immediately tries to get back up. And when it doesn’t work, he elbows his way forward, clawing at the carpet.

  Lone catches up with him and, instead of stepping around him, simply waddles over him, getting her feet entangled in his legs and falls over on top of him.

  Henrik has won the few seconds he needs to haul Kirsten backwards and reach the bedroom. He slams the door and turns the key, then drags Kirsten over to the bed. He puts her down next to Trine and rolls her onto her back.

  “Kirsten? Kirsten! Can you hear me?”

  The bitemarks on Kirsten’s neck look really bad. Finn apparently tore off a big chunk of skin, severing several tendons and veins. The blood is hardly flowing anymore, and Kirsten’s breathing is almost gone.

  “I’m sorry, Kirsten,” Henrik pleads, knowing it’s way too late, knowing all the CPR in the world won’t safe her.

  He recalls from a documentary he watched recently that the human body contains somewhere between one and one and a half gallons of blood, and most of Kirsten’s blood is now on her clothes, on Henrik’s clothes, on the floor—anywhere but where it should be: inside Kirsten’s body.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispers again, tears filling his eyes, causing his mother-in-law’s pale face to go blurry in front of him.

  Then, to his surprise, she talks in a low, strained voice: “It’s okay … It’s okay, Trine … I love you darling …”

  Henrik squeezes his lips together, glancing over at his dead wife, who looks so peaceful, she could be simply sleeping.

  “She loves you too,” he croaks, fighting back sobs. “You’ll see her soon, Kirsten.”

  Kirsten doesn’t answer, but a hint of a smile drifts over her face, before she turns her head to the side. Then, with one last breath, she whispers: “Where’s Dan?”

  Henrik stares at her as she dies; he can tell the exact moment it happens. It feels like some sort of energy leaves the room.

  I’m the only one left alive in this house.

  From out in the hallway, the sound of the intruders grows louder, as more of them are probably spilling into the house through Jennie’s room. Apparently, they can sense the nearest source of fresh meat—him—because they begin scratching at the bedroom door.

  Henrik looks to the window. There are no figures visible through the curtain. They must have all clambered to the open window in Jennie’s old room.

  He looks down at Kirsten and notices the greenish hue her skin has taken on. It’s probably only a matter of minutes before she wakes up again.

  Then he turns his gaze to Trine, and a thought comes with surprising clarity: This will likely be the last time I see my wife’s face.

  He reaches out and strokes her cheek. It’s soft and very cold. He gives off a low moan of grief and pain, then he gets up before the emotions can overwhelm him.

  He’s thankful she won’t come back as a mindless monster. At least there’s that.

  He collects the fresh clothes from the closet—what he originally came in here for—and then goes to pull the curtains. The bedroom faces the side of the garden, and there is no one in sight. He opens the window and climbs out.

  He darts one last look into the bedroom—and immediately regrets it.

  Kirsten is sitting bolt upright. She slowly turns her head to look in his direction, and he gets a glimpse of her dead, milky eyes, before he turns and runs.

  NINE

  Those five minutes feel more like half an hour, but finally, Dorte hears someone calling from down the hallway.

  She has been standing outside the door to the kitchen, listening to Peter’s groans and moans from the other side, staring at the wall and not really thinking about anything.

  “Hello?” a male voice calls.

  Dorte blinks. “Down here!”

  Two officers appear. They are wearing regular uniforms and no particular protective gear. One of them is wearing large, retro glasses which do nothing good for his face, and the other one is very tall.

  “Are you Dorte Møller?”

  “Yes, that’s me; I’m the one who called you.”

  The two men stop a fair distance away from her.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not infected,” she tells them with a tired smile. “I would have had symptoms by now.”

  “Are the infected people in there?” the tall officer asks, nodding towards the kitchen door.

  “Yes. Peter Nielsen is in the kitchen, and my sister, Rikke Møller, is in the cantina.”

  “And you secured them both?”

  “Well, Rikke is locked up and Peter is tied to a table.”

  “Is it safe to open that door then?”

  “Sure. But you really shouldn’t go near any of them without—”

  “We’re not here to deal with the infected,” the officer with the glasses tells her in an irritating, nasal voice. “The task team will arrive shortly. Please show us the infected.”

  Dorte opens the door and shows the officers in. They squeeze past her, making sure not to touch her.

  “Holy hell,” the tall one exclaims when he sees Peter, who immediately attempts getting to them, but is stopped by the strap.

  “What did you do to him?” the other one asks, looking from Dorte to the helmet and electrodes still attached to Peter.

  “I tried to measure his brain activity and heart rate.”

  “Uh-huh,” the officer says, eyeing her. “We were told you were a doctor.”

  “That’s right. I work here.”

  “So you thought it a good idea to bring two infected people here?”

  “Look,” Dorte sighs. “I already got a talking to from the woman on the phone. Could we please just skip that part? I tried to help them, okay? I was sure I could cure them somehow. Or at least figure out what’s wrong with them.”

  “Next time, let the authorities do the work,” the tall guy suggests with a scolding look. “Where’s the other one?”

  “She’s in there,” Dorte says, pointing to the cantina door.

  The officers look at her impatiently.

  “Could you please show us?” the one with the glasses asks in a mock courteous tone.

  “No, I can’t. We can’t open the door; she’s right on the other side.”

  “You sure about that?” the tall officer asks. He has stepped closer to the cantina door and is listening. “I can’t hear anything.”

  Dorte goes to the door, places her ear against it and listens. “She probably just tired out.” Without a second thought, she opens the door.

  Both officers instinctively jump backwards.

  But the doorway is empty. Dorte can’t see Rikke anywhere. She looks around the cantina, asking in a hopeful voice: “Rikke?”

  No answer.

  She walks in farther, scanning all the tables, the couch where Rikke lay earlier. “She’s not here anymore,” she mutters.

  “Then where is she?”

  The tall officer is suddenly next to her.

  “Christ, don’t tell me she got out,” the other officer says from behind.

  “Of course she didn’t,” Dorte says. “None of the windows are open and—” She stops abruptly as her gaze falls on the row of windows. One of them is open about a foot. Dorte suddenly gets a strong feeling of vertigo. “Oh, no … the cleaning lady must have … she must have forgotten to close it.”

  “Shit,” the tall cop growls and runs over to check the window. “There are footprints outside in the flower bed. She obviously—”

  He’s cut off by a sound coming from outside. It’s a car horn blaring a few blocks away, followed closely by a loud bang.

  Dorte shakes her head in disbelief. “Oh, God. That was probably her. I hope no one got hurt.”

  As though to answer her question, someone begins screaming. An
other voice soon joins in—a man, shouting. There’s fear in the voice.

  The tall cop takes a radio from his belt. “Four-four-seven, calling from Skejby, requesting immediate backup …”

  The cop with the glasses grabs Dorte by the shoulder and hauls her back towards the kitchen. “You’re coming with me,” he sneers, checking his watch. “It’s now … 6:24 AM and you’re hereby placed under arrest.”

  He leads her outside in the all-too-bright sunlight. Dorte squints as her eyes water, reminding her she hasn’t slept all night. The cop opens the back door of the patrol car and shoves Dorte inside. Then he bends down and hisses, close enough to her face that she can smell coffee on his breath: “I hope you didn’t cause this thing to run out of control, lady. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I was you.”

  Dorte opens her mouth to say something, but she has no idea what. He’s right. And he doesn’t wait for an answer, either, but simply slams the door. Even from inside the cop car, Dorte can hear more screaming and shouting, another car honking and the screeching of tires.

  No, no, please, Rikke, please don’t hurt anyone …

  At that moment, a larger cop car comes rolling into the parking lot, and a group of six armed men jumps out.

  “About time!” the cop yells at them. “One of them is in the kitchen. The other one got away. My colleague is calling it in now.”

  Dorte looks in stunned silence as the task force rushes into the building.

  TEN

  Henrik runs around the house.

  The sun is already up, but the morning air still feels slightly chilly, which is a welcome break from the baking heat that will resume in a couple of hours.

  As he reaches the driveway, he becomes aware that there aren’t that many background noises anymore; in fact, the town is eerily quiet. Instead, he can smell smoke and something else he can’t quite place.

  He runs to the Prius and gets in. Luckily, he usually keeps the key in his pants pocket, and today is no different, so the car willingly turns on as he presses the power button.

  As he carefully drives out onto the street, he’s met by a less than encouraging sight. Several cars are either crashed or parked in a hurry both in the middle of the street and on the sidewalk. Things are lying about, like clothes, a shoe, a suitcase, a cap, even a grocery bag with the contents smashed and strewn about. More than once, Henrik notices large, dark puddles on the asphalt, which can only be blood. He also sees a hunting rifle. He knows it’s no use picking it up, though; first off, he has never used a firearm in his life, and secondly, he would have no idea where to get bullets.