The Rabid

by Ami Urban

  "My husband understands how big of a break this is, but he's being an idiot about how to deal with it. He kept raving about the doctor who'd cut it off saying it was expertly done."

  "But he didn't hire me." I felt the anger bubbling back up inside me.

  Catherine looked at the ground. "Malcolm is very private. He means well, but he needs to realize that we're in it together. These are my children too."

  I wasn't sure what she meant, but her tone suggested not to touch on the subject. "Is there a reason why you came here so late?"

  She looked me straight in the eye. "I'm offering you a job at Malcolm's lab. I'm under the assumption that you have some information that could help us and I'm not going to let that go to waste."

  My anger faded completely. I almost felt as though a weight had been lifted form my shoulders.

  "He's brought so many doctors here, but you came here yourself. I took that as a sign."

  "Won't your husband be upset?"

  She screwed up her face. "Not if he knows what's good for him. Besides, I'm right and he's wrong."

  I could tell I was going to like Catherine Holmes. I invited her inside for some tea. She agreed with reluctance, letting me know she couldn't stay long.

  "Oh, my God. Your husband totally looks like Ryan Reynolds." Catherine whispered the words to me across the tiny kitchen table while Jack made tea.

  My synapses lit up. "That's what his name was!"

  "Whose what name is who?" Jack came back to the table, sliding out a chair and sitting backward on it.

  "I could see blood creep into Catherine's cheeks which made me smile on the inside. "Oh, um... I was just telling Lisa that you look exactly like—"

  "Ryan Reynolds? Yeah. I'm told that about eighty seven times a day."

  Our visitor looked my way as if she wasn't sure whether or not he was joking.

  "Okay, okay. It's more like eighty eight times a day, but who's counting?"

  "Oh!" Catherine's surprise was followed by a bout of giggling. "I'm sorry... It's been such a long time since I've heard a joke. Malcolm and our two children are so somber all the time."

  "So what did you do before the outbreak?" I asked.

  Catherine glanced down at the table. "I was a model."

  "Oh, really?" Jack seemed interested. "Have we seen you in anything?"

  Catherine shook her head. "It was mostly magazine covers and such. But after I had my kids I had to stop."

  We were silent for a moment until the tea kettle began to whistle. It startled Catherine who jumped a little. When Jack walked away, she leaned toward me, lowering her voice. "Just promise me that no matter what my husband says tomorrow that you stand up for yourself."

  I nodded. "Absolutely."

  From the Desk of Dr. Lisa James Reynolds

  December 27

  The next morning, I waited patiently for Dr. Holmes to come into his office. When the door opened and he saw me, he gave a heavy sigh.

  "Hello, Dr. Reynolds."

  "Good morning, Dr. Holmes." I almost couldn't hide the tinge of superiority in my voice.

  "I suppose I was wrong about you. My wife...informed me of your credentials, so I suppose I owe you a chance at this."

  "Yes, you do."

  "However..." He took off his spectacles and looked down his nose at me. "You have to do one thing for me."

  "What is that?"

  "Find me a cure."

  I nodded. "I'll do my best."

  "We shall begin with a tour of my facility."

  "With all due respect, sir, I'd like to look at the dissected specimen I brought in."

  Dr. Holmes waved a hand in the air as we entered the hallway.

  "Later. Someone with your credentials doesn't need to be bothered with busy work." Dr. Holmes walked me down the hallway while explaining that the facility doubled as the town"s hospital. The first three floors I could explore and work on cases as I saw fit as long as it didn't interfere with finding a cure. He informed me that I had complete access to the entire lab and hospital for whatever I needed.

  "I must warn you that I believe having a personal life outside of work is what is going to help us. I don't want half-asleep employees. Therefore, you are required to only work eight to ten hour shifts. But you must go home promptly at six." He looked me directly in the eye.

  We stopped outside a door that read, "Authorized Staff Only" in large bold letters. It piqued my curiosity.

  "What's in here?" I reached out to touch the card reader, but he grabbed my wrist.

  "You do not have access to this room."

  I sized him up for a moment. "With all due respect, Dr. Holmes, if I'm going to be working to find a cure, I'll need—"

  "Yes. And you have access to the entire lab. Except this room."

  I didn't argue further as I was eager to get to my specimen. The tour lasted longer than I would have liked, but I stuck to it. When we were finally back on the lab floor, he could see I was becoming anxious.

  "All right, Dr. Reynolds, let's take a look at your specimen."

  We entered the lab where the associates in white coats stopped what they were doing to watch us. I felt as though they knew who I was.

  "Please bring out the slides of the leg."

  At Dr. Holmes's words, one of the assistants scampered over to a locked cabinet, used his card reader to open the doors and took out a box of slides. My fingers felt itchy. I snatched the box as soon as it was handed it me and found the closest microscope.

  The slides were unlabeled which irritated me, but I picked one out of the box without a word and slid it into the teeth of the scope. My heart beat like a jackhammer as I looked into eye piece.

  And saw nothing.

  I shut my eyes tight for a moment as if to clear my head and looked again. And again I saw nothing. Clearing my throat for fear of berating the poor assistants, I fished in the box for another slide. And found another slide of nothing but skin.

  At that point, I became frantic. I plunged my hands into the box and slipped slide after slide into the scope"s teeth, but each time, only flesh was visible.

  "What is it, Dr. Reynolds?"

  I'd had no idea Dr. Homles was still in the room when I slammed a fist down on the metal table.

  "These slides are useless." I looked up at the assistants. "Where's the saphenous nerve? Where's the popliteal vein? There's nothing here but flesh."

  No one said anything.

  "Where's the leg?"

  "It was destroyed," one of the assistants said.

  "What was that?" I could feel the stress and anxiety rise up into my chest again.

  "Protocol is that any and all specimens containing the disease are to be destroyed once dissected." Dr. Holmes approached the microscope.

  I shook my head as if that would cause everything I'd heard to make any kind of sense. "I should have been the one to dissect the leg. I should have been here to oversee the slides. I can't do anything with what I have and now we're back to square one!"

  January 1

  It was a completely innocent night. My turn to be watch came up and I was excited to make new friends. What I wasn't expecting was to get handed an AK-47 and sent up to the top of the wall. That gun wasn't going to hit shit. The guy I was watching with agreed.

  "Paul, let me ask you something, Paul." I pulled at the Kevlar vest they'd put me in.

  Paul laughed. "Yeah, go for it."

  "You really think this shit's gonna kill one of those Biters if they attack us?"

  "You sayin' I'm a bad shot?"

  "Nah, man. I'm saying these things suck. They spread. Sure, you can get a bigger target range, but your probability of hitting something is like, one in a fucking million."

  Paul was quiet for a second. "Man...I don't know what the fuck you just said, but it sounded smart."

  I felt a smile on my face. "I don't hear that nearly often enough."

  The two of us sat back on a bench facing away from the open world. It was a rickety bench
with one broken foot, but it was nice to get a load off.

  "Your wife wear the pants in the family?"

  I snorted. "We both wear the pants, man. Makes for an interesting living situation."

  "She nag a lot?" Paul picked at a stray thread on his shirt sleeve.

  "Nah." I leaned back and looked up at the stars. "She's amazing. Super smart. Super hot. And super wild in bed."

  "That's what I'm talkin' about." Paul lifted a hand to give me a high five. I stared at him.

  "That's my wife you're talking about, dude."

  He lowered his arm. "Sorry, man."

  I laughed and gave him a well-deserved high five. "Just kidding."

  We sat for a few moments in silence. If we weren't on watch, I was positive we could have shared a beer. A light wind picked up. Someone at the top of a nearby tower shined a light at us.

  "Your turn," I said.

  Paul rolled his eyes. "It's just a security check."

  "I know. But I don't feel like gettin' up."

  Groaning, Paul stood and stretched his arms above his head. Then, he flipped me a thumbs up and walked toward the tower. I relished a bit of quiet while enjoying the cold wind. The bench creaked beneath me.

  Once again, I tilted my head back to look at the stars. As I began to relax, I studied the constellations. It was amazing that even though the entire world had changed, the universe stayed exactly the same. We were just a speck of dust in an ever-expanding dark void.

  Something suddenly didn't feel right. I felt like I was losing equilibrium. The stars weren't the same. They were falling. No. I was falling.

  The bench had tilted too far back. It couldn't handle my weight and I went tumbling right over the wall into the open world.

  ***

  I had no idea how long it had been since I fell. I woke up to clouds covering most of the sky. My only light source was dampened by weather. I lifted an arm. Branches and twigs stuck to my sleeve. I'd landed in some bushes. Itchy bushes.

  "Ugh." I groaned to myself as I stood to brush dirt off me. Luckily there were no Biters around. I stooped to pick up my gun. Swinging it over my shoulder, I took a good look at the area surrounding the town.

  Grass and trees littered a small hillside. I could see down to where there probably used to be a small town. I imagined lights twinkling as people would be sitting down to dinner.

  But I had no time to muse. I had to get back inside so I could continue the watch. I was halfway between the barbed wire defense and the wall when I heard someone call out. But it wasn't from inside the city or up by the watch tower. It was from outside.

  I stopped in my tracks to listen. For a while, I heard nothing. Not even crickets. But then, I heard it again. A weak voice was calling for help. I looked around for some sign of a human being, but saw nothing.

  Venturing closer to the barbed wire, I strained to listen once more. The voice came again, on my right. To my surprise, a woman was tangled in the wire. Some of her clothes were shredded, but I couldn't see much as she was wearing darker colors. But her white skin contrasted with the black night. When she moved her hand, I rushed over.

  "Don't worry! I'm coming! Hold on!" I ran over to the woman with the gun I'd been given bouncing against my back. Her choked cries became clearer as I neared. But when I got to her, she'd stopped. She was still. I bent forward to feel her pulse and immediately pulled away. She was ice cold. Had been dead for a while. A large chunk of flesh was missing from her left calf. She'd been bitten. And it looked as though it had happened ages ago.

  Then whose voice had I heard?

  I didn't have much time to think it over because a long sorrowful howl caught my attention. I squinted into the darkness, but all I could see was the faint light coming from the town gates.

  And then a Biter appeared out of nowhere, coming out of the light and into the shadows toward me. It was fast. It was on me sooner than I could react.

  "Oh, shit!" I fell backward trying to grab my gun and landed on my ass. Bringing the gun forward, I didn't have time for a cool catchphrase, so I just pulled the trigger.

  And got nothing.

  "Oh, fuck's sake! Seriously?"

  The Biter was closing in. When he lunged at me, I swung the butt of the rifle into its head. A crack told me I'd made contact and the thing fell to the ground in a convulsion. Shaking my head, I stood to see what the hell was wrong with the gun.

  I checked it over. It seemed fine until I reached the magazine. The damn thing was stuck in place. My brain went straight to whatever-mode and I started toward the gates again.

  Another howl caught my attention. But this time it was behind me. Right behind me. I swung around in time to see a Biter jump from a nearby tree onto my side of the barbed wire. Okay. It was time to fix the gun. While backing away, I pounded the magazine with my palm. Nothing. I tried the trigger again. Still jammed. I shook the damn thing, but that didn't work.

  "Help."

  I stopped dead. The Biter had slowed down and was actually grinning at me. Those garbled scratchy words had come from it.

  "Help." The foam-tipped smile grew wider somehow. Then it made a half-bark, half-heaving sound. It was laughing at me while its throat convulsed from muscle spasms. It had somehow tricked me into thinking the dead woman needed help.

  "Well, fuck." Without another moment's hesitation, I threw the AK-47 at the monster and turned tail to run. I heard the gun hit the thing, but it only slowed it down. I was almost at the gates when I felt its fingers wrap around my wrist.

  It appeared that someone had noticed my absence as there were watchers yelling for me at the top of the wall. They were already getting ready to open the gates. I yelled at them to go faster, but the damn Biter sank its teeth into my shirt sleeve.

  "Oh, come on!" I turned and kicked the thing in its stomach. At least I had steel-toed boots. It let go of me, ripping a chunk of fabric out of my nice new shirt, and fell on its ass just as the doors opened behind me.

  I rushed the fuck inside as three other guys shut the gates behind me. I could hear the thing outside screaming and clawing at the metal. A gunshot rang through the air and all went silent.

  ***

  "Watch the alcohol, man. That stings." I swiped at the nurse assistant's hand as she dabbed a cotton ball on the scratches running up and down my arms.

  "Sir, you're lucky they let you back in. You were bitten."

  "Bitten?!" Lisa's voice echoed down the hallway. When she saw me, she ran. I stood to receive her and she almost pushed me over. "You've been bitten?!"

  I pushed her away lightly and showed her the hole in my sleeve. "Didn't break the skin."

  She fell to her knees before me. "Thank God."

  I went down and took her face in my hands, tilting her chin up until our gazes were level.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "Don't ever do that to me again."

  I laughed. "Don't worry. I'm a liability so they removed me from the watch permanently. Me and the bench."

  January 7

  After a bit of trial and error, we'd finally settled into a routine. Lisa would get up in the morning, get the kids fed and ready for school, then I'd get up and take them to school and go to the garage. It was refreshing to work again because it took my mind off the evils in the outside world. The town felt incredibly safe.

  There was always plenty to eat and do once the city had upgraded our living arrangements from apartment to four bedroom house. Lisa kept busy most of the days and I'd usually be home before her. So I'd pick up the kids after school, bring them home and made sure they ate. I never would have thought playing house would feel so satisfying.

  Unfortunately, the lab assistants had taken the leg and cut it into a thousand tiny pieces, destroying what Lisa had reviewed. The purpose was to make slides and see how the virus reacted to certain things, but they'd cut the wrong pieces and destroyed the rest. Now they had started at square one.

  But at least we were happy. Stressed, but happy. Lisa and I
didn't even argue about how to raise the kids. It was as if we fell into an instant rhythm.

  One particular night, Lisa came home explaining Dr. Holmes's wife had had some sort of breakdown and was hospitalized. Therefore, the lab was shut down until further notice. I could tell it bothered her as she'd flit around the house trying to find things to clean. And she could not cook to save her life.

  The second week she'd been home by herself, she'd surprised me by picking up the kids and making dinner. I still have no idea what the hell she made. She said it was meatloaf, but it tasted like a yak that had been hit by a bus carrying twenty-five sweaty weight-lifters.

  "Thanks..."

  Alex giggled. "That sucks, Aunt Lisa."

  "Well, my son seems to enjoy it." She eyed me while Rex shoveled food into his mouth with glee.

  "Uh oh. I'm in trouble."

  "Oooh." Alex's gaze darted between us.

  "What should I do to make it up to her?"

  Alex looked skyward and thought for a moment. "Dance with her."

  "All right." I stood up and put out a hand. But Lisa just stared at it. I wiggled my fingers, but she just sat there.

  "I don't know how you can have the energy to dance after not eating."

  "Oh, my gosh!" I bent down and picked her up in my arms. She yelped. "I am so insensitive! Will you ever forgive me?" I twirled her in a circle as she gripped my arms.

  "Put me down and I'll think about it."

  Alex laughed. Rex joined in.

  "I'll put you down when you promise to forgive me."

  "I'm starting to feel queasy."

  I laughed as I stopped dancing in circles. Her grip on me lightened. I took a good look at her face in the waning light of the day streaming through the windows.

  "You're stunning." I kissed her. "But you can't cook."

  Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. "All right. I won't cook anymore."

  "Rejoice!" I said as I set her down. The kids were still amused.

  "In that case..." Lisa sat back down. "What on Earth am I going to do tomorrow? There are absolutely no new cases at the hospital."

  "Maybe we should have a party." Alex suggested.