This Rotten World (Book 1)

by The Vocabulariast

  Dustin walked over to his bike, picked it up off the ground and straddled it. The woman looked at him doubtfully, and for the first time he noticed how attractive she was, despite the fact that her nose was crooked and blood was pouring down her face. The shirtless man down the street groaned loudly, and that made up her mind for her. She hopped on the back of the bike, and stepped on the pegs. Her arms gripped his shoulders tightly to the point of being painful. Together they took off into the night.

  Chapter 30: Molly

  Molly stared at the door to her cell. She had never imagined that she would wind up here, quarantined in the hospital that she had worked at for two years. She held her hand up in front of her, admiring the rough edges between her thumb and forefinger. The bleeding had stopped, and what was left was a bite-shaped wound with blackish-reddish edges. For a second, it looked like the overcooked inside of a marionberry pie. The bite didn't concern her as much as the heat that her body was putting out. The radiating red streaks that were inching their way up her arm from the bite wound were also somewhat concerning.

  But, more than that, Molly simply wanted to eat. She banged on the door with her good arm. She pressed her face to the tiny square window, unbreakable glass reinforced by wire, and yelled, "Can I get some food in here?"

  As had been the case for the previous hour, there was no answer. She pressed her face to the glass some more, angling her head to try and peer up and down the hallway as far as she could. To the left, she heard a door open. As two men in biohazard suits wheeled a gurney down the hallway, she completely ignored the bloody sheets and yelled at the men, "I'm starving! Pease bring me some food."

  They didn't even bother to look at her. Either they couldn't hear her, or they didn't care. As she backed away from the window, she saw sweat from her forehead run down the glass. She plopped on the bed, and began rocking back and forth, her knees drawn up to her chest, her hair plastered to her head, and visions of people who weren't actually there dancing in her eyes.

  She saw her grandfather, long dead, fiddling with an old black and white TV in the corner. "Put on the game," she said.

  Her grandfather turned around to face her, only his face was rotten and blood dripped from his mouth as he smiled and said, "What game?"

  Her grandfather melted away. She waved goodbye to him as she leaned back on the bed. Her body began convulsing, and Molly's eyes rolled up in the back of her head. She bit the tip of her tongue off, and then she was still. All that was left was the hunger.

  Chapter 31: Observation

  Joan watched Molly die from a monitor in her own cell. They called them rooms to patients, but they were obviously just cells. The cameras in her own cell allowed her to watch the patients without endangering the rest of the medical staff. She hated that she had to trick Clara and Molly into entering into quarantine, but if what she suspected was happening was happening, then it was obviously the lesser of the two evils. The other option was to let possibly infected people go out into the world and continue infecting other people.

  Thoughts rolled around in Joan's head, piles of doubts and worst-case scenarios flitted about the edge of her rational mind. How widespread was it? What if she was wrong about everything? What if there had actually been some way to save Molly?

  She didn't feel any different than she had this morning. She wasn't covered in sweat as Molly had been, but she had been in close enough contact with the infected to be a risk. The question was, "How long would she be a risk for?"

  Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Molly convulsing. She had been a good nurse. Her bedside manner left a little to be desired, but she didn't deserve anything that was happening to her. Joan looked at her watch and paged the security guards.

  The intercom in her cell was another perk that the usual quarantine patients didn't have. There was a knock at her door, and she pressed the button on the intercom to allow her to speak to the guards in the hallway. "The patient in room 231...," she hesitated as guilt gnawed at her conscience, "Molly, isn't doing too well. I need you guys to check her vitals."

  "Can do," the guard in the hallway said. She didn't know him. No one knew any of the quarantine staff, except for the hospital director. It was protocol. The last thing you wanted was to have an infectious disease get out because so and so used to go drinking with this person, or that person was married to this person, and what would he tell his wife if something terrible happened? It was the hard reality, but the men used for this work were cold, scientific and completely impassionate about anything. When she had first suspected an epidemic of some sort of new disease at play, she had initiated the quarantine protocols even though she knew very well that this would mean being confined in a cell for an undetermined period of time. She was free to move about the quarantine wing, but she would not be leaving until she was sure she was fine.

  But if what she thought was going on was going on, there was no place in the world that she would rather be right now than behind a locked door in a secure facility with a nice reinforced steel door to keep any sort of infection far away. Sure, there was a chance that the disease was airborne, but she didn't think that it was much of one. The old lady in the E.R. didn't have a scratch on her, but had merely been complaining of dehydration and illness. Her now dead husband had said that she had been sick for about a week, and he hadn't shown any signs of infection after being in close contact with her.

  Of course, there was no way of knowing the gestation period of this particular bug. Was it a strain of flu or something completely new, a random mutation that struck the jackpot with a new brand of twisted lethality?

  The men in the biohazard suits entered the room. The taller of the two checked Molly's vitals, while the smaller man held a submachine gun aimed at Molly. After checking her blood pressure, temperature, and pulse, the tall security guard looked up at the camera in the corner of the room and made a slashing gesture across his throat.

  Joan was prepared for this, but she still felt a rush of blood to her face as she couldn't help but feel that some part of Molly's death was her fault. She hid her face behind her hands in an effort to keep from crying. When she pulled them away, the soldiers had left.

  Joan stared at the screen, waiting for nothing to happen. She didn't know what she was doing. Waiting for her own body to start sweating? Waiting for Molly to miraculously spring to life?

  She began again, examining all of the information that she had available to her. So far she had established, through conjecture and a limited amount of observation, that some sort of contagion was running around the city. The infection could be spread by a very weak airborne pathogen or by a seemingly more virile version of the pathogen that either lived in the victim's saliva or blood.

  So she waited. What was that saying? You couldn't prove a negative? She wished the saying wasn't true. Joan checked in on Clara, who was in another cell. Numerous others had been quarantined as well, including the bitten security guards, numerous patients, and Miles the orderly who had initially pulled Clara's boyfriend off of Molly. These were the ones that were likely to develop the infection, along with herself.

  Clara sat at the edge of her bed, her head in her hands. Things hadn't changed much. Joan almost felt a pang of remorse at her treatment of the woman. She had liked her well-enough, but when it came to the safety of patients in her hospital, nothing could be left to chance. Joan didn't have a lot of women friends; hell, she didn't have a lot of friends period. It's hard to keep friends when you have a fucked up schedule and a sense of duty that won't quit, but she had liked Clara right from the start.

  If there was a chance that she could get Clara out of quarantine, then she would make it happen... although, she wasn't likely to like what she saw. Joan switched the camera's feed over to show Courtney's cell. He was still bound to the bed, his arms and legs struggling to free himself. She switched the channel again. Sick guards. Again. The crazy old lady bound to the bed. Again. More sick guards.

  She cycled through all of t
he cameras and came back to Molly's room. This time a tear did come to her eye, but it had barely formed before it was forgotten.

  "What the fuck?" The words tumbled from her mouth unbidden as Molly sat up and began banging on the door to her cell. Joan put her hand to her head to make sure she didn't have a fever. Either she was infected and hallucinating, or Molly had just risen from the dead.

  Chapter 32: Boot Camp

  Zeke didn't fight the cops as he was led into the station. There was no point in it, and honestly, he doubted the cops would believe a word he said after having heard the EMT's side of the story. The cops hadn't said more than a few words to him anyway. From the ever-present chatter on the radio of the police car, Zeke understood that it was kind of a busy night. He didn't realize how busy until he was shoved through the tall double-doors of the police station.

  The place appeared to be a madhouse. Officers were rushing around the room. Benches were lined with people in various states of injury and dishevelment. A large bald man erupted from the back area, and began yelling at the cops who were escorting him, "Where the hell have you been? All hell is breaking loose out there, and you two are out for a joyride!" The cop made to answer the man, who Zeke assumed was the police chief, but he just rumbled right on over them, "Stow that man, and get your ass to the briefing room. We've got a lot of shit going down, and we don't have time to observe the formalities. Someone will take care of him."

  One of the cops led Zeke to an open spot on a bench. Zeke plopped down, as the cops handcuffed one of his arms to a brass bar that was set into the concrete wall with heavy steel bolts. Without even saying goodbye, the two cops hustled out of sight and into a group of offices. All that was left were two officers doing booking and desk duty and a whole lot of people chained to a wall.

  Zeke didn't like being treated the way he was being treated. Looking down the bench, he didn't think anyone else did either. All he wanted was to get booked, get a cot, and get some winks, because the way shit was going down, he didn't know how much longer it would be safe to sleep anywhere.

  He rubbed his eyes with his free hand, and wished that this was the old days when a person could smoke anywhere they wanted to. He'd probably be issued a citation and be forced to put it out if he lit one up now. Oh well, they could bill his ass.

  Zeke watched as the two officers at the desk tried to book an obviously drunk man at the main desk. One man was standing behind the prisoner, a man in a reddish-brown leather jacket, whose swaying was making it rather difficult for the two cops to get his fingerprints.

  "Hold him still, Phillips," yelled the red-faced desk clerk.

  Phillips, the booking clerk wrapped his arms around the prisoner in an effort to keep him from swaying all over the place, "God this guy smells like shit. Hurry up, will ya, Dan?"

  Zeke pulled his pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He held them out to the man sitting next to him, a black man with a worried face and an air of shock about him. The only response from the man was a slow nod of his head as he declined. Zeke shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Suit yourself," and then he pulled a smoke from the pack. In one smooth motion, he pulled his lighter from his pocket lit the cigarette, and leaned back against the wall. He would have let out a nice long, "Aaahhh," but the sensation was too good to waste on words.

  The smoke billowed into the air hanging there like the soul of a dead man. He got two full, relaxed puffs out before the desk clerk noticed.

  "Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Dan yelled, his face looking like an undercooked sausage ready to burst.

  Zeke waved at the man, and took another puff. The desk clerk re-focused on the task at hand, but Zeke heard him mutter something about a "goddamn zoo" and "not making enough to deal with this shit." He ashed on the tile floor with his free hand, when the black man next to him spoke up.

  "It's all going down, man."

  Zeke blew smoke out of his nostrils and ignored the man, but he kept speaking anyway. "This is it. This is the end."

  Dan swore loudly as the drunk man knocked the ink pad off of the desk and onto the ground.

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Zeke responded.

  "Shit ain't right, man. The dead be up and walkin' around out there. These cops think it's some sort of game, but the shit is going down."

  Zeke's first inclination was to tell the man that he was nuts. His second inclination was to start thinking of a way out of the police station. His third inclination popped into his head suddenly... about as soon as he saw the drunken man take a bite out of the clerk who had temporarily relaxed his grip on his ward to pick up the inkpad.

  All chatter on the bench ceased as each one of the waiting men and women on the bench watched Dan pull his asp baton free and begin beating on the drunken man. The booking clerk, Phillips, screamed and thrashed, but the man didn't let go. With a scream, Phillips tore his arm away from the drunken man, but he was missing a good sized chunk of forearm. Dan moved his considerable girth around the desk and crushed the drunken man's leg with the baton. He fell to the ground, but still reached out for the clerk.

  Just then there was another scream; this time, it was from the bench.

  The black man next to Zeke leaned forward, obscuring Zeke's view, but the screaming and shouting intensified as one by one the men chained up on the wall saw what was happening. For a brief second, everyone aligned properly and Zeke saw a woman chomping on another man's throat at the far end of the bench. Blood sprayed the wall behind him, soaking into the gray concrete, as the woman gnawed on his flesh. She was as far away as she could possibly be, but Zeke immediately felt his instincts take over.

  He stood up, and spun around. As awkward as it was, he was still able to put quite a bit of force into his first kick. The force of the kick jarred his chained up wrist and made the brass bar he was handcuffed to vibrate violently. Without looking at the other men on the bench, he yelled, "Help me!"

  The black man to his right understood immediately, and he began to kick frantically at the brass rail as well. It was bolted into thick concrete walls. The chances of it breaking free of the wall were slim to none, but if enough of them worked on it, maybe they could all get out.

  Zeke's wrist was numb. He took a deep breath and looked around the room for anything that might help. That's when he noticed that the desk clerk and the booking clerk were both lying on the ground, bite wounds covered their body, and the drunken man was still there, severely damaged, but feeding steadily, almost at a leisurely pace.

  At the end of the bench, another round of screaming went up as the man who had long since died from his massive neck wound had sat up and was currently trying to get at the man that was cuffed next to him. The would-be victim was kicking as hard as he could, but the dead man clearly had no fear of his feeble and awkward kicks. Zeke imagined himself dead, chained to the railing for the rest of eternity with a bunch of other dead folks.

  The thought allowed him to find energy reserves that he hadn't felt in years, not since basic training a lifetime ago. His mind wandered as he beat on the bar with the heel of his boot; the screaming of the men next to him was different, but all too familiar as well. He could hear the desperation in their screams, the exhaustion. These were the times that men were made of.

  ****

  The sun beat down upon him. Drool dripped from his mouth. He was too tired to even keep his mouth closed. He was sucking wind through a throat that was raw, and his lungs burned with exertion. He was sure he was a beautiful sight.

  Each shovelful of sand seemed to weigh a thousand pounds now. The blisters on his hands were pink where the layers of skin had been rubbed off. He could hear the grunts of the men next to him, all lined up in a row, and making the same pointless hole that he was. This is what happened when a man lost his sidearm on the beach during an exercise. Hopelessly lost in the sand, the drill sergeant decided that maybe it had gotten buried in all of the commotion.

  He could hear his fellow soldiers grunting, p
anting, and retching all around him. In one case, he could hear crying. However, he was so deep in his hole that he couldn't actually see anyone. At this point, every shovelful of sand that was lifted over his head fell into a pile, and half of it drifted back into his hole. Sweat stung his eyes, and he thought about stopping to wipe his face with his arms, but he had already heard one recruit get dressed down for a "lack of proper shoveling form" when he had stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow.

  His mind wandered, lost in the rhythm and the pain. Nerve endings fired his mind into oblivion, and when he could no longer see sunlight in the hole that he had dug due to the angle of the sun, the drill sergeant appeared at the edge of the hole and smiled down at him. "You lost something, sweetheart." The drill sergeant tossed his sidearm into the pit, and Zeke's head hung low. The drill sergeant disappeared from the precipice, but he could hear him as he walked away, shouting to the rest of the recruits.

  "Fill 'em in, dirtbags. It looks like Rogers finally found his weapon. How it got so deep is a mystery for the ages, right up there with Easter Island and The Bermuda Triangle."

  For a second, Zeke thought about just staying in the pit he had dug. It was only a five second hesitation, but it felt like an eternity. Then, after tossing the shovel up top, he climbed out of the pit using his blistered hands and noodle-like arms. He could feel the stares of the other men as he emerged from his hole. He never misplaced his sidearm again... and he had never been as exhausted as he was that day.

  ****

  Until today. The bar's bolts rattled in the concrete, but there were fewer people kicking now. He had stopped briefly, to survey the situation behind him. Cops were trying to subdue the drunken man, the desk officer, and the booking officer. They had no trouble beating up on the drunken man, but trying to wrangle their own men seemed to be something of a task. Three of the seven people on the bench were dead now... kind of.