Teddy waved the hand aside and climbed out by swinging one leg at a time over the edge. He cringed as the lip of the dumpster rubbed against his bloody gauze and then plopped down on his feet next.
Ein looked at his blood-stained shirt, frowning. “Did you pull your stitches?”
“I was feeling them with my thumb earlier just to check things out… I think I broke one or two, but it stopped bleeding. Hopefully, I have enough antibiotics floating in my system to keep all the nasty shit away.” Teddy glanced down at his bandage, tightened it, and smoothed his shirt over it.
Ein looked down at his garbage-soaked outfit. “We need a change of clothes or who knows what we’ll catch.”
“One thing at a time.” Teddy turned and started walking down the middle of the alley. “First, we need to find a place to rest for tonight.”
“Dumpster’s not good enough for you anymore?”
“Poke fun if you want, but I saved you. You would’ve gotten shot if you tried running back inside like a loon. And if those drones saw us? Forget about it.”
“Just warn me before you do something crazy like that.” Ein looked up at the apartment’s balcony as he walked. “Almost broke my wrist.”
Teddy placed a hand against the small of his back, frowning. “You’re the one who threw my back out… Heavier than you look, kid.”
“Maybe you’re just getting old.”
“Too old for this bullshit, yeah—I agree.”
Near the end of the alleyway, they came across a battered service door held shut by a rusty padlock.
Teddy rummaged through piles of trash until he found a broken cinderblock. He struck the lock repeatedly until it gave and fell to the ground.
They passed through a brightly-lit restaurant kitchen.
Even with the electricity restored, evidence of disuse was everywhere: dishes with caked-on food lay piled in the basins, and the produce left on the countertops had rotted away into shrunken black heaps.
To Teddy, the smell of decaying fruit and vegetables was a welcome change from the sickly-sweet stench of human remains.
Ein pushed past the swinging silver doors and walked out behind the counter into the café.
The pastries in the glass display case next to the counter were stale and rotten. Half-finished breakfast platters and old cups of coffee littered the bistro tables, and most of the chairs lay toppled.
Whoever was there left in a hurry.
“What happened here?” Ein picked up the remains of a blackened bagel, looked at it with disgust, and hurled it over his shoulder.
Teddy shrugged. “Someone probably coughed… I imagine it wouldn’t take much to spook folks back when this all started.”
“Think we’ll be safe here?”
Teddy pointed at the rolling corrugated steel security shutters that had been pulled down over the café’s windows and doors. “I’d say we’re safe enough.”
Ein wandered in-between the tables and casually dug through purses and briefcases that were left behind. “Now, what do we do?”
“Not much to do.” Teddy looked at the jackets still hung on the back of some of the chairs. “Look around… Maybe you can find some fresh clothes.”
“Good idea.”
Teddy thumbed back towards the kitchen. “While you’re doing that, I’m going to go check the storeroom for some canned shit for dinner.”
“Dinner?” Ein looked over at him. “Just how long do you plan on us staying here?”
“To be honest, I haven’t gotten to that part yet. Right now, all I want to do is sit down, relax, and take a goddamn breath.” Teddy cocked a brow at him and crossed his arms over his chest. “Sound good, or do you have another plan?”
“Given the alternative of going out there again?” Ein glanced at the door with a frown. “I think I’m just fine where I’m at.”
CHAPTER 39
JANUARY 12th
12:28 AM
Teddy and Ein managed to find some chef whites branded with the company’s logo hanging back near the freezer and then made beds out of flattened cardboard, but sleep proved an impossible task.
As the evening waned on, a raucous crowd took to the street outside of the café. Sirens, breaking glass, gunshots, and the whirl of low-flying helicopters blended into a cacophonous exhibition of civil unrest.
They sat uneasily inside and listened as people banged and thumped against the steel shutters and as police officers barked orders to disperse over loudspeakers.
Smoke and tear gas hung in the air and crept in from underneath the shutters.
Electricity came and went and then finally went away from good sometime after sunset.
Teddy managed to whip together a few cans of beans and fruit salad in a heavy syrup, but neither of them had much of an appetite as they kept their attention fixated on the door.
“What do you think they’re rioting about?” Ein asked in a quiet voice.
“Not enough food, not enough water… Who knows?” Teddy took one of the jackets they found and wrapped it around himself. With the electricity off and the central air shut down, the temperature inside dropped considerably. “How did things look when you first showed up?”
“Not desperate… Things looked orderly for the most part. There was a police checkpoint, though.”
“A checkpoint?” Teddy looked over at him. “For us?”
Ein shook his head. “I think it had to do with Devin’s group.”
Teddy scowled and kept quiet as he stared at the door.
“Hey, do you think this has anything to do with him?” Ein asked.
“Devin?”
“Yeah.”
“Doubtful.”
“What then?”
“Couldn’t say.” Teddy covered himself with another jacket and leaned back against the counter. “Try to get some sleep.”
Ein lay down and rolled over onto his side.
Teddy sat staring at the door, thinking.
Devin was coughing…
He remembered how fast it hit Lizzy.
He remembered how her grandma was sick as well just after one night.
It moved fast and insidiously, striking recklessly at anything in its path—who knew how many people Devin came across while he was sick?
Hell, who knew how many people Ein crossed during their brief time inside the safe zone?
Teddy had some notion of what people were suddenly panicking about, but he didn’t dare say.
CHAPTER 40
By the time sunrise came, the street was quiet.
They gathered some canned goods together along with some water bottled up in old containers and stuffed it all inside some employee’s backpacks left behind in a small breakroom.
Wearing a varied assortment of chef’s whites and outerwear, the two men strapped on their backpacks and headed down the alleyway towards the street.
Neither were prepared for what they saw.
Bodies, hundreds of them, lay sprawled across the asphalt along with sacks of looted goods and hand-scrawled protest signs that read ‘give us the cure’ and ‘no more lies.’ Many of the dead had been victims of gunfire, but others looked as if they dropped where they stood.
Shops had their windows smashed, and many of the smaller buildings were utterly razed to the ground by fires that continued to burn and blot out the sun.
Vandalized police cruisers and armored military vehicles blocked off intersections and cordoned off streets.
Teddy stepped out on the sidewalk and looked at the bodies.
Most of the dead had telling purple growths around their swollen necks. Dried blood was around their nostrils and ears from when their fevers peaked to fatal highs.
Teddy shook his head and muttered softly. “Son of a bitch…”
“Teddy…” Ein’s voice was shaky—he sounded terrified.
Teddy spun towards him. “What?”
Ein stared open-mouthed across the street and pointed.
Teddy looked.
Some of the dead ro
se to their feet and started shuffling towards them in a delirious, fearful state. They clawed at their swollen necks and gasped as they sucked helplessly for air.
Not dead, Teddy quickly realized, but not far from it.
Others wandered out from doorways and in-between buildings, wheezing and gasping as they called for help that neither Teddy nor Ein could provide.
Teddy backed away as he stared at the growing crowd.
A woman who lay sprawled in front of Teddy grabbed his ankle with a boney hand. She coughed up yellow phlegm out onto the pavement and looked up at him with milky eyes. Her voice was rattily and raspy—it was the voice of death. “Help… me… please…”
Teddy tore his leg away and started walking hurriedly down the sidewalk, giving a considerable distance to the bodies sprawled nearby. “Come on.”
Ein stayed on his heels and kept looking over his shoulder as he clung onto his backpack straps.
They passed some charred police cruisers in the intersection and came to an abrupt stop when they saw a FEMA officer slouched next to one of the vehicles.
The officer had his helmet and respirator off and stared down, whimpering, and coughing. He scratched at the bulbous pustules on his neck with one hand while holding a pistol in the other.
Two others in full battle regalia lay dead nearby while a sergeant lay across from him on his back and gasped his final breaths.
The officer’s weary, and teary eyes fell upon Teddy and Ein. Recognition seemed to strike him as he stared at them.
Teddy held his open palms out and took a step backward. “Look, we don’t want trouble. We just want to—”
The officer put the pistol barrel in his mouth, bit down, and pulled the trigger.
Teddy and Ein flinched as crimson flew out the top of the officer’s head.
The officer slumped over, and the pistol skittered across the ground.
Teddy reached down and grabbed the pistol. He wiped the blood off the barrel on his pants, tucked it inside his waistband, and continued down the street.
A sickly voice came over the police radios: “…to all healthy units… Priority alert—fall back to LZ. Final evacuation flights depart in 5 minutes. FAE sterilization will commence in 30. I repeat, priority—” The transmission ended abruptly as the speaker started coughing.
“FAE sterilization?” Ein asked. “What are they going to do?”
“What the fuck do you think they’re going to do?” Teddy snapped. He shook his head and walked faster.
Ein followed, but slipped further behind, pouting as he fidgeted and adjusted his backpack’s straps.
Teddy caught Ein’s sorrowful expression in the storefront’s reflection, and it only served to irk him more.
Was the kid that dense?
Did Ein not understand what caused it, or did he simply not want to admit it to himself?
Teddy wanted to grab him.
He wanted to shake him.
He wanted to scream in his face for going somewhere so densely populated.
“Goddamn fool…” Teddy muttered under his breath as he continued onwards.
Ein, oblivious to Teddy’s cold gaze, followed behind him and stared with horrified, detached wonder at the destruction and devastation. He craned his neck to stare up at the electronic billboards as he passed them.
The billboards flashed the same message over and over again: PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY—CURFEW IN EFFECT—ALL RESIDENTS MUST SHELTER IN PLACE—REPORT TO YOUR RESIDENTIAL TRIAGE CENTER—HELP IS ON THE WAY.
The billboards flickered with static as four military helicopters passed low and fast overhead.
Teddy looked up at the passing craft, squinting. He couldn’t help but wonder how many aboard were already sick.
Ein shielded his eyes with his hand and watched the helicopters disappeared into the smoky haze. “How many do you think made it out?”
The question made Teddy want to slap him.
Instead of responding, Teddy bit his tongue and stormed onwards.
Ein looked at him, frowning. He slipped his hands into his pockets and followed with a downcast expression.
Amongst the urban graveyard, there was a handful of healthy people who meandered aimlessly in the street with shell-shocked expressions.
Immunes, Teddy thought.
The poor fuckers won the genetic lottery and were able to survive whatever new strain Ein’s body brewed up.
Teddy cautiously placed a hand on the butt of his pistol whenever they neared a survivor, but there was no need—they took off running down side-streets or ducked into alleyways as soon as they noticed him.
After walking six more blocks full of the dead and dying, they arrived at the safe zone’s front gates.
All four vehicle lanes were blocked off with concrete jersey barriers and hastily constructed gunner’s nests.
Vehicles immobilized by high-caliber rounds clogged the street and jutted out onto the curb. Bloodied remains lay slung across the side of the buildings, and bodies lay crumpled across hoods.
Teddy slowed his gait and maneuvered uneasily in-between the stalls and around the barricades. He kept glancing at the gunner’s nests and the chromed .50 CAL machine guns that pointed out towards the street.
As he got closer and could see behind the sandbags, his fears subsided: dead soldiers manned the guns.
Two men in army fatigues sat on the ground nearby, but they were too sick and too delirious with fever to even notice Teddy as he passed.
Teddy and Ein walked through the security checkpoint, around the spools of razorwire, and were soon outside of the safe zone’s walls.
A bridge went over the Mississippi just a few blocks down, and a casino’s recreational pier wasn’t too far away from it.
He could see the masts of docked sailboats as they bobbed lazily in the water.
Surely something over there had an engine.
Teddy pointed out towards the pier. “There’re some boats over there. Let’s go see what we can find.”
Ein nodded and followed him.
Even outside of the safe zone’s walls, bodies still lay on the street along with suitcases and plastic sacks crammed helter-skelter with clothes and whatever personal trinkets they owned.
Most were flu victims, Teddy noticed, but quite a few looked like they had been shot cowardly in the back as they tried to flee.
He looked over his shoulder and leered at the guard towers positioned above the safe zone’s entrance.
Whoever had been firing from the towers wasn’t firing anymore.
Teddy went stumbling forward and almost fell on his face as his foot struck a body. He looked away from the tower, stumbled forward a few paces, and then quickly regained his footing.
A young woman wearing a purple jacket lay on the sidewalk near his feet. Her long brown hair spread open and draped over her pallid face and swollen neck.
Teddy almost turned and kept walking, but then noticed something else.
A tiny arm stuck out from underneath the woman’s corpse.
Teddy took a dry swallow to break the knot that had suddenly formed in his throat and reached a hand down to turn her body over.
He rolled the woman onto her back and recoiled his hand as he stepped back.
Underneath the woman lay a young boy no older than six. Ants crawled over his face and trailed into his orifices while he stared up at the morning sky with vacant, unseeing eyes.
The resemblance was too much.
It was more than he could bear.
Teddy turned away, hunched over, and retched.
Ein stopped walking. “Are you okay?”
Teddy kept his hands on his knees and took deep, unsteady breaths to remain his fragile composure.
“Hey man, are you okay?” Ein asked again as he took a step towards him.
Teddy slowly rose back up and glared at Ein. His bottom lip trembled as he spoke in a muted tone. “You… killed them…”
Ein cupped a hand around his ear and leaned close
r. “What?”
“You…” Teddy stopped and took another hard swallow. He balled his fists and raised his voice. “Don’t you get it yet?! Do I have to spell it out for you? Fuck, kid—can’t you see?!”
Ein stared at him with a sheepish, confused look. “See what?”
“You’re sick,” Teddy said in an exasperated tone. “You’re one of those carriers, just like the doctor back at the camp said.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and furrowed his brows as he tried to recall how the doctor explained it. “You’re sick, but you don’t show symptoms. Symphony-patic or whatever he called it. The virus changes inside of you and forms new, deadlier shit. Some people survive, but most die.”
To Teddy’s surprise, Ein chuckled.
“Come on… You can’t blame this on me,” Ein said. “Anyone could’ve been sick… Besides, it doesn’t spread this fast.”
“It does,” Teddy pointedly corrected.
“How would you know?”
Teddy hesitated. “Lizzy… She was sick.”
Ein lost his smile. “What are you talking about?”
“The girl was sick.” Teddy frowned and shook his head. “I should’ve told you earlier, but I didn’t want to make you feel bad…”
“It was food poisoning.” Ein sounded unsure himself.
“No… It was the flu. Lizzy's grandma caught it too.” Teddy sighed. “I saw it the day we left…”
Ein’s gaze fell to the ground. He stared down with hooded eyes.
“I’m sorry for not telling you the truth earlier,” Teddy said.
A squadron of fighter jets cut overhead, and the resulting sonic boom shook the ground.
Air raid sirens started wailing from the safe zone’s watchtowers as the automated alert systems engaged.
Both of them looked up as the jets passed.
There were explosions in the distance, but the fighter jets weren’t targeting the city yet—they were intercepting the evacuating helicopters.
Ein sniffled and then adjusted his backpack’s straps. “We… We better go before they turn around and take out the safe zone.”
Teddy nodded and tried to read his stony expression. “Are you okay, though…? I know I gave you a lot to process.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Ein replied flatly. “I’m not sick, you know.”
H7N9: The Complete Series [Books 1-3] Page 77
