Pandemic i-3

by Scott Sigler

  It would be nice if she could kill Ramierez. But to murder Clarence? That wasn’t just a luxury — more and more, Margaret needed that as much as she needed to breathe.

  Maybe her kind would descend upon this hotel and slaughter these soldiers. She would have them string Clarence up by his feet, cut him apart a piece at a time. She’d slice off his eyelids so he wouldn’t be able to look away as people smiled at him and ate those pieces.

  She stared back at him, not wanting to give him any satisfaction at all, not wanting him to think that things were okay between them. Until she had a chance to kill him, she wanted him to hurt.

  He turned away, walked into the hotel. Margaret smiled a little, then forced that down. She was still surrounded by the enemy. She had to be careful.

  She heard gunshots from inside the hotel. She heard men yelling but couldn’t make out the words. Those sounds were lost as one of the helicopters roared overhead.

  A bullet plinked into a car to her right. Then something hit her, knocked her face-first to the glass-strewn entryway, pinned her there — the soldiers realized she wasn’t one of them anymore, they were going to kill her, slide a knife into her back, they—

  “Sniper,” Ramierez said. “Stay down, Doc.”

  From high above, the helicopter let out a new noise, a short-but-intense demon’s roar. The faraway sound of tinkling glass smashing against concrete joined the cacophony.

  Ramierez rolled off her, lifted her to her feet. He looked her up and down. “You okay, Doc?”

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  Broken glass, I was rolling on broken glass…

  “Ramierez, do you see any cuts in my suit?”

  He gave her a cursory glance. “The suits are thicker than that, Doc, you—”

  “Just look!”

  Ramierez nodded, then checked her all over — placatingly, but also thoroughly.

  She was entering a building crawling with the hydra strain. This place was death. Any cut, no matter how small, could spell the end.

  “Looks clear,” Ramierez said. “You’re fine, Doc. And this lobby is secured, so you can relax.”

  She let out a genuine sigh of relief.

  Ramierez led her deeper into the lobby, which looked even more like a war zone than the streets outside. She recognized details from the YouTube video: the fire pit, now spotted white with windblown snow; corpses that had frozen solid and still wore jeans and winter coats; the soot-blackened ceiling; the shredded reception desk. The only thing missing was the body on the spit — maybe some of her kind had come in here, decided not to let good food go to waste.

  To the left of the fire pit, Rangers were unfolding portable tables and unpacking the equipment she’d asked for. Tim stood there, directing them, using what was left of the reception desk as the lab’s main area.

  Margaret looked around. The CBRN-suited Rangers seemed to be everywhere. They were setting up more of the tripod-supported weapons by the ruined door and also in the lobby’s broken windows, creating a field of fire out onto Chicago Avenue. More Rangers were undoubtedly setting up similar positions all around the hotel. If her kind attacked, these soldiers would mow them down by the hundreds.

  Other Rangers carried large weapons to the elevator, which, surprisingly, seemed to still be working. She saw Klimas conferring with the Ranger commander — Dundee was his name — at what looked to be a hastily constructed command center, complete with laptops and soldiers already working away on them.

  She saw Klimas reach up to the small earpiece at his right ear. He stared off, listening, then said something she couldn’t hear. He jogged to a stairwell door, calling out as he went.

  “Ramierez, Bosh, Roth, with me! You too, Otto. We’ve got reports of hostiles in the building, so we’re going straight for the package. Elevator gets us there the quickest, so let’s move!”

  On the way in, she had been “the package.” Now that they had reached the hotel, that term referred to someone else: Cooper Mitchell. Klimas and the others were headed to the eighteenth floor. On the form he’d submitted online, that’s where Mitchell had said he would be waiting.

  In room 1812.

  UNDER THE BED

  Cooper heard a helicopter. It sounded big, loud, like military helicopters did in the movies. He also heard occasional blasts of gunfire. It had worked: someone was coming to save him. He just had to stay alive a little bit longer, and hope the rescuers got to him before the cannibals did.

  The hotel still had heat. Anywhere but downstairs, where winter winds swirled snow through the lobby, the Park Tower remained well above freezing. At first, that had been a welcome discovery. Now, not so much.

  If it were below freezing, the dead bodies up here wouldn’t have rotted, bloated, and the corpse he hid beneath might have been frozen solid instead of turning into the wet, reeking mess that sagged down around him. The smell was enough to make him vomit, but to do that would be to make noise — to make noise was to die.

  Die, or worse.

  You ain’t gonna eat me, motherfuckers, you ain’t gonna eat me…

  The motherfuckers in question were close. They were searching every room in the hotel. Earlier he’d risked moving down a few floors, just to keep checking his surroundings. On the fifteenth floor, he’d heard two men talking; talking about his YouTube video, talking about their search — for him.

  It had seemed like such a good idea to upload that video, to make sure people knew who he was so the government couldn’t just make him disappear. He felt so, so stupid now, but it had never crossed his mind that the video would make all the murderers in Chicago want to waste him.

  Cooper had thought about running to a higher floor, but he’d waited too long and now he didn’t dare. They were on the eighteenth floor. He’d barely had enough time to implement his next bright idea: dragging a sloughing corpse into room 1812 and hiding beneath it. His brain didn’t seem to work right anymore. Too much stress, too much horror, he didn’t know. He was smarter than this. He knew he was. If only—

  Noises, coming from the next room. He moved slowly, adjusted the weight of the body on top of him, pressed his ear against the wall. He could hear muffled voices.

  “Check under the bed,” one said.

  “Stop telling me that,” said another. “There’s no space under these beds.”

  Cooper started to shake. He slowly shouldered the corpse a little higher, so he could reach down to his back. Quietly, so quietly, he drew Sofia’s pistol.

  Ain’t gonna eat me, Sofia, not like I ate you, no fucking way, I got four bullets left…

  THE PACKAGE

  It seemed so odd that the hotel still had power. Clarence was grateful for working elevators, though — climbing seventeen flights of stairs would have done him in. He was the only one wearing CBRN gear, which made him feel oddly out of place among Klimas, Bosh, Ramierez and Roth.

  Beep… they passed the fifteenth floor.

  “We’re almost there,” Klimas said. He reached to his chest webbing, pressed a black button. “Radio check, do you read?”

  The three SEALs — Bosh, little Ramierez and the big fella, Roth — all nodded. Clarence nodded as well.

  Beep… they passed the sixteenth floor.

  “Bosh, cover the right,” Klimas said. “Ramierez, the left. Roth, out and left. I’ll go out and right.”

  Bosh and Ramierez knelt by their assigned corners, M4s pointed straight up. Noise suppressors attached to the barrels made the weapons look long and mean.

  Clarence drew his Glock 19 from the thigh holster strapped to the outside of his suit.

  “Where do you want me?”

  Klimas raised an eyebrow. “You? I want you to stay out of our way and move when we tell you to move.”

  Maybe it was the impossible stress of the situation, or maybe his frustration with Margaret sitting squarely in harm’s way, he wasn’t sure, but Clarence felt a wave of annoyance.

  “I know what I’m doing in a fight, Klimas,” he
said. “I was Special Forces.”

  Ramierez laughed and shook his head.

  Klimas grinned. “Special Forces, huh? How nice. Know what you’re not? A member of this team. You’re here because Margaret doesn’t want anyone exposed to Mitchell’s hydras. You’ve got the CBRN suit so you can handle him. Other than that, kindly stay out of our way.”

  Beep… they passed the seventeenth floor.

  • • •

  Cooper heard the door open. A rectangle of hallway light filled the dark room, lit up the face of the bloated corpse on top of him.

  “Gross,” one voice said. “It stinks in here.”

  “Dead body,” said the other. “Damn, it smells too far gone to eat.”

  Cooper couldn’t see them. He heard their feet shuffling across the carpet… coming closer…

  “Check under the bed,” one voice said.

  “Chuck,” said the other, “if you ask me to look under the bed just one more time I will shoot you in your stupid face.”

  Something in the dead body popped softly, bringing with it an even more rancid stench. A trickle of fluid leaked out, ran down Cooper’s forehead and onto the bridge of his nose. His left eye closed automatically as the foul liquid trickled across his eyelids.

  Just go away just go away I don’t want to be eaten…

  The elevator doors opened onto the eighteenth floor. Bosh and Ramierez, both still kneeling, leaned out and aimed their weapons down the hallway. Bosh’s weapon let out three snaps, click-click-click.

  Klimas stepped out with his weapon pointed to the right, stock tight to his shoulder. Roth moved out at the same time, his weapon pointing left. Klimas fired his M4 once, another snapping click.

  “Clear left,” Roth said.

  “Clear right,” Klimas said. “Otto, with me.”

  Clarence stepped out. One body lay down the hall to the right. A woman, face up, dead eyes staring at the ceiling.

  Klimas spoke quietly, firmly. “Bosh, take point. Let’s move.”

  The SEALs did just that, moving without a sound, moving faster than Clarence would have expected; he found himself jogging to keep up.

  As they passed the woman, Clarence looked down: three red spots were spreading across her chest. A fourth bullet had blown off the top of her head, splattering her brains across the carpet in a rough oblong. A black .38 revolver lay near her right hand.

  Clarence checked off the room numbers as he passed them by — 1804, 1805, 1806… Room 1812 would be down the hall, just past a left-hand turn. Coming from that direction, he heard the faint sound of men’s voices…

  “The lights don’t work,” said the first voice. “All the bulbs is broke.”

  “You can see fine enough,” said the second voice. “Man, look at that nasty body.”

  “That is sooo gross,” said the first voice. “Move it so we can see if anything else is under that desk.”

  “No, you move it,” said the second.

  Cooper felt numb, like he wasn’t even there, and maybe he wasn’t… maybe this was all a fucked-up dream and he wasn’t hiding under an oozing, rancid, bloated body, maybe he wasn’t hiding from two men who would shove a signpost up his ass and slow-roast him over a bed of coals.

  “Flip you for it,” said the first voice.

  “Okay,” said the second. “Call it.”

  Go away just go away just go away kill myself kill myself now Jesus please help me please

  “Heads,” said the first voice.

  “Asshole,” said the second. “Hold my gun.”

  Cooper felt the dead body on top of him start to slide off. He raised Sofia’s pistol and squeezed the trigger.

  Clarence heard the roar of four quick gunshots — a pistol, sounded like a .40-cal.

  Klimas’s calm voice in the headset: “Go-go-go.”

  Bosh and Roth sprinted around the corner.

  Cooper was still on his back, still covered in dead-person sludge, pointing his pistol up at the bearded face of a very surprised man. Cooper had fired four times — and missed all four times. His hands shook so bad that the gun looked like some poorly made stop-action movie.

  “That’s him.”

  The words didn’t come from the bearded man, but from closer to the door. Cooper looked over — a man wearing a red-and-black knit Blackhawks hat cradled two weapons against his chest, a shotgun and a rifle. “Holy shit,” the man said. “That’s him.”

  He fumbled with the weapons. He dropped the rifle, started to bring the shotgun up.

  The rectangle of light from the hallway wavered as someone stepped into it.

  Cooper heard a click-click-click: the man with the shotgun dropped. The bearded man turned to face the door. Click-click-click: he twitched, then fell to his back.

  He lay side by side with Cooper. The man’s chest heaved. His eyes blinked in surprise, but only for a few seconds — then they stared out at nothing.

  “Clear!” a voice called out.

  Another answered the same.

  Cooper looked at his hand, saw the empty pistol was still in it, then shook his hand to let it drop. To come through all this and then to be shot… what if it was too late, what if they were going to shoot him anyway, and—

  “Cooper Mitchell?”

  He looked up, saw a man in a gas mask, covered head to toe in a heavy chem suit. Through the eye lenses, Cooper saw the man inside was black.

  “Cooper Mitchell,” the black man said again. “You’re Cooper Mitchell?”

  Cooper nodded.

  The man reached down a gloved hand. “I’m Agent Clarence Otto. We’re here to rescue you.”

  Cooper couldn’t speak. His vision blurred as the tears started to flow. He reached out and let Agent Clarence Otto take his hand.

  DR. FEELY’S BEDSIDE MANNER

  Tim Feely had just finished setting up a centrifuge when the elevator opened. Two men stepped out: Clarence in his CBRN suit with combat webbing strapped to his chest and a pistol holster strapped to his thigh, and none other than the guest of honor himself — Cooper Mitchell.

  Mitchell wore a tattered, filthy winter coat. Gray slime smeared his face, making the whites of his wide eyes seem all the whiter. The man looked crazy with a capital C. Hell, probably even a capital Z to boot.

  Clarence guided Mitchell by an elbow, escorted him to Tim’s impromptu examination area. It wasn’t much: basic medical equipment set up on the reception desk’s remains, a portable table stacked with the centrifuge, a microscope and some other lab gear… just things that could be carried in by hand. The Rangers had thrown in a cushy swivel chair they’d found in the office behind the reception desk.

  Tim pointed to the chair. “Put him there, please.”

  Might as well make the crazy carrier of what could be humanity’s salvation as comfy as possible.

  Clarence eased Mitchell into the chair. Mitchell’s eyes flicked everywhere: left, right, up, down. Yep, definitely a capital Z.

  Tim also looked around. Where the hell was Margaret? She’d insisted on this mission. He saw her, over on the far side of the lobby — just standing there in a CBRN suit that was too big for her, staring at Mitchell, doing absolutely nothing.

  Why wasn’t she helping?

  Tim felt a hand on his shoulder: Clarence.

  “Feely, you want to get started, or what?”

  Tim turned to look at the shell-shocked Mitchell. The man had been through hell. He’d worry about Margaret later. This man needed help.

  “Yeah, I’m on it,” Tim said. He moved to stand in front of Mitchell. “Mister Mitchell. I’m Doctor Feely. Don’t mind this wacky suit, I assure you there is one damn-handsome man behind this mask. I’m going to examine you, okay?”

  Mitchell suddenly stood up, his fists clenched, his body shaking with intensity. Tim took a step back.

  “Examine me on the boat,” Mitchell said. “Or in the helicopter, or plane or whatever the fuck you’re using to get me the hell out of here.”

  Clarence st
epped forward, put himself between Tim and the crazy man covered with rotten goo. Clarence had his gloved hands up, palm out.

  “Mister Mitchell, please calm down,” he said. “Doctor Feely just has to run a couple of tests.”

  Tim moved to the side, used his best soothing voice. “It won’t take long, Mister Mitchell,” he said. “You look very dehydrated. I’m going to put in an IV and get you some fluids, okay? While I’m doing that, I need you to tell me your recent history — when you came to the city, what happened after that.”

  Mitchell closed his eyes, shook his head so hard his cheeks wobbled.

  “No-no-no,” he said. “All you need to see is this.”

  He pulled at his jacket sleeve, slid it up until half his forearm was exposed. He pointed at a puffy red spot a few inches above his wrist.

  “That,” he said. “These things pop, and a day later, those motherfuckers die.”

  Tim tried to control his excitement. A pustule, the same thing he’d seen on Candice Walker… was that little blister full of hydras?

  Slow down, Timmy Boy, do this right. Take care of the patient first, then go from there.

  “I see,” Tim said. “Mister Mitchell, do you mind if I call you Cooper?” The man shrugged. “Uh, sure. I guess.”

  “Good, Cooper. Now just let me get that IV into you, okay? Your body needs fluids.”

  Cooper stared off, nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, but I’m not crazy. I’m not.”

  “Of course you aren’t,” Tim lied.

  As Tim ran an IV needle into the back of Cooper’s wrist, the man started talking rapidly. His story began with a man named Steve Stanton and a trip out to Lake Michigan to find plane wreckage. Cooper’s best friend Jeff. Some guy named Bo Pan. A high-tech fish-bot. Arrival in Chicago. A night of drinking. A few days so sick he could barely move. Jeff, gone. The incident in the boiler room, where Jeff became something other than human. Fleeing the Trump Tower. Meeting a woman named Sofia, whom the bad guys murdered. The bad guys getting sick and dying. Making the video and waiting for help.