Supervisors were in different pods, assisting. The Operations floor was in frenzied disarray.
It’s a Tuesday. Rarely is it this busy unless it’s summertime. Or like I’ve said, a holiday.
More than six hours left to go, I thought. I sit. Listen. Police have the scene. Nothing more I can do from here anyway. Despite being in queue, I am not going to disconnect the call. Not yet.
“Officers down,” Allison yelled.
That did it. There was sudden silence, but it didn’t last. But there it is. For just a moment our job captured every one's attention.
Supervisors had plenty to do when a responder was in trouble. Milzy rushed over to Allison.
Kenya’s house would be swarming with cops.
“Kenya?” I said. “Hello?”
The struggle continued. All calls were recorded. A playback would be used in court. I’d have to testify. No way around it.
We’re forty calls in queue. The number kept climbing. I’d never seen this before. Heard it happened once when a tiny earthquake shook part of the county with little more than patio furniture tipping over during the aftershock.
I logged the job number down on a pad so I could check on Kenya’s situation later. I didn’t want to hang up, but it truly was no longer my concern.
Again, just the way it was.
# # #
I took the next call, and thought, it’s going to be one hell of a Happy Halloween. The crazies were getting cranked up and primed early.
“Nine-one-one Center,” I said.
“It’s my fault,” he said.
“What’s your fault, sir?” Another cell. I rebid the call. He’s at a park in Mendon.
“This is. All of it. It’s my fault.”
“Where are you, sir?”
“I’m going to Hell.”
You might be. “Well, where are you now, sir?” I’ve got a pretty solid location. His verifying it would be helpful. It’s a big park. Lots of entrances. Lots of trails.
“We knew what we were doing. We knew it was wrong. At least, I did. I knew it was wrong. But that didn’t stop us. It should have. But it didn’t. It didn’t.”
“What was your fault?” I asked.
“The tests. The H7N9 testing.”
I sighed, knowing I needed to control the call. Incoming ones kept stacking. “Sir, do you need police, the fire department, or an ambulance?”
I could click on a button and this guy is connected to Lifeline, where people are trained to talk with loonies who just needed to be heard, talked out of suicide, and sometimes just given info on how to get fed or where to find shelter for the night.
“There’s no stopping it,” he said.
“Stopping what?”
“Sure. You could try and blame Strong, or the U of R. It was their money. Their labs, but I could have quit. I could have walked away.”
Strong? “The hospital?” I asked and cringed, upset with myself for feeding the shitstorm conversation.
“They’re hungry. They’ll just keep eating and eating.”
I closed my eyes. “Sir, I’m going to send an officer out to talk with you. He’ll just be coming by to make sure you are all right. Where are you in the park?”
“There’s no point. I have a gun.”
Everything changed. The call just became serious, more than checking on a caller’s welfare. “Sir, why do you have a gun?”
I entered the location strictly from mapping, and put that fact on the text line. Police then know I don’t have an exact, verifiable location. I add: M WITH GUN—POSS SUICIDAL. “Sir, why do you have a gun?”
“Because. I don’t want to die that way.”
“What way?”
“They’re not dead though. They look it. But they’re not. Their bodies will continue to decay, but they’ll keep going, keep coming after you, keep eating until they just can’t do it anymore. They get all dumb, and forget how to do things, but not how to eat. They remember that. And how to run. My God, they’re fast. So, so fast.”
“Who forgets things?”
“Who?” he laughed. “All of them. Everyone who got the vaccination.”
“What vaccination?” I asked.
“For the flu. Aren’t you listening to me?”
“Sir, I’m trying to understand what you’re telling me. But I first need to know where the gun is?”
“Here. It’s right here. In my hand. The barrel is under my chin.”
I added that, and sent the job. “Sir, why don’t you put the gun down while we talk about this?”
He laughed, again. “Are you thick, son? There is nothing to talk about. There is no cure. There is no healing them. We should have let the stupid flu run its course. Someone suggested that. I don’t know who it was. They were right. But no. The government wanted the vaccination mass produced to cover up their man-made flu in the first place. With the flu and the vaccination combined—what have we done? I mean, what have we done?”
“Sir, sometimes things look bad, hopeless even, but after a good night’s sleep—”
“You don’t want to be around tomorrow,” he said. “The lucky ones, the smart ones, will do what I’m doing—and end it.”
“I don’t know you, sir. But I am sure you have plenty to live for.” I talked out of my ass. King Bullshit. What did I know? Maybe he had nothing to live for. “Friends, family…”
Silence.
“Sir?” I paused a beat. “Sir?”
“I just wanted to call as a way of apologizing.”
“Apologizing to whom?” I asked. I didn’t ask ‘for what.’ He thought he already told me. Too many questions in the wrong direction, and I risked angering him further. I wanted him calm, and thinking that I was helping him.
“Everyone. It won’t make a difference. To me, it’s at least something.”
It sounded like he was wrapping up, getting ready to take action. Most suicidal callers call 9-1-1 because they aren’t ready to die, and the call is an actual cry for help. This guy, he sounded different. Serious. I believed him.
“Sir, put the gun down.” One of my hands went to my stomach. I winced as I sucked in a deep breath.
“You can stop them. It’s futile really, but you can stop them.”
He had my attention. I wanted to understand. I wanted to help. The job might be full of political shit, but helping people every night was rewarding. Gave me purpose, something I’d been running thin on since the divorce. “Stop who?”
“You have to destroy the head. The brain. It’s the only way really. You take off their arms, and they’ll run at you, remove their legs, and they’ll use their arms to drag themselves at you. They’re relentless. Fucking relentless.”
This is too much. I checked the job. Police have been dispatched, but no squad cars were assigned to the job yet. I glanced at the electronic job board. It flashed in purples, yellows, and greens. There are hundreds of jobs waiting for available responders. Hundreds. Never have I seen anything like this. Never. “Sir,” I said.
“The vaccinations—they were infected, a broken vial. A contaminant was released during production. No one knew. No one understood. We were under the gun. And once we did realize it. . .the government demanded a cure for the public—a prevention. We didn’t have time to remake it, any of it. So we didn’t stop. We just, ah God, we just kept plugging away. It was only later, you’ve got to believe me, it was only after that when we truly realized, really understood we’d made a huge error—that the antibody had horribly mutated. By then, what could we do? What could we do?”
I tried to put all of his nonsensical ranting into some kind of order. I couldn’t. This guy was either an overworked scientist, or a nut. I’d of gone with nut at the beginning of the call. Still leaned toward nut, but . . . either way, I felt kind of sorry for him. His words made my stomach muscles tense, and ache. I couldn’t seem to detach myself from his nightmare.
“Sir, what is your name?” I hoped I sounded friendly. Not like a cold call take
r just doing a job.
The sound of a gunshot boomed in my headset.
I pushed back in my chair, away from the keyboards, and stared at the woods on the mapping monitor, as if I saw him. A lone man in the woods, surrounded by trees and darkness, leaning on the trunk of a Volvo or Lexus before blowing out his brains. “Sir? Sir?”
I add info: GUN SHOT. POSS D.O.A. Sent it.
I needed a break, time off the floor.
Chapter Five
“Supervisor,” I yelled. Waited. Looked around. Everyone was still busy. We had over a hundred calls in Que.
I sent a message to the supervisors’ pagers to look at the job. Nothing more I could do. Nothing they’d be able to do. At least I’d alerted them for when authorities called with questions.
Permission or not, it’s break time. I needed a couple of minutes to get my head back together. I needed a cigarette. As far behind as we were, breaks would get skipped. I set my headset down, inactivated my terminal and walked off the floor. I wanted to look back, see how Allison was doing in the police pod, but didn’t want to risk eye contact with a supervisor--didn’t want to get questioned about why I was up and walking off the floor with so many calls waiting to be answered.
I patted my pocket to ensure my smokes were there, headed off the floor, through the halls, and toward the back door. The rain had stopped. The night had cleared. No need for a coat. Moon’s out in a cloudless sky. Looked peacefully deceiving.
The perimeter was fenced-in. Secure within its confines. I figured I had fifteen minutes and wasn’t wasting them thinking about work.
I thought about Kenya. And the scientist.
I lit my cigarette.
“They’re saying they’re like monsters.”
I looked up. Laforce is standing there. “What?”
“On the news. The city’s full of these monsters. They’re attacking people. Eating them.”
“Eating them? What, eating people?” I thought of the suicidal guy, what he’d said. I almost smiled. It sounded foolish. It was foolish. Best I knew, George Romero wasn’t shooting a new film in Rochester.
“Yeah. It’s becoming, I don’t know, like an overnight epidemic.”
“What, like all of Rochester?”
“I heard New York. Chicago. Pennsylvania.” LaForce took my cigarette. “You mind?”
I eyed him curiously, as I lit another. “You don’t smoke.”
“Right now I do.” LaForce took calls, dispatched both fire-EMS and police, and when needed, acted as a supervisor. He had access to more information than a schmuck like me did.
“What do you mean ‘it is’?”
Laforce took a long drag. I waited. Almost counted down from five out loud. He went into an expected coughing jag. Smoke escaped from parted lips and nostrils. The big guy looked like a mildly retarded dragon.
“Give me that.” I took the cigarette from him. Dropped it. Crushed the lit head with my heel.
“Guy on the news said something about scientists here at the hospital breaking some vial, and covering up the mistake. Had something to do with that flu.”
“And the vaccinations.”
“You already knew?”
“Just a guess,” I said. I tried to swallow. Mouth was too dry. “You get one of those shots?”
“Yeah. They kind of forced everyone here to get ‘em. Didn’t want us getting sick and missing work, spreading it around to everyone,” he said, smiled. “Why, you didn’t get one?”
“Figured if everyone else got one, I wouldn’t need it,” I shrugged. No one can make me get a shot. I wasn’t a conspiracy theorist, but I didn’t trust the government much. Which, I guess, made me a conspiracy theorist.
“It’s crazy on the fire side. We’ve sent every unit out on EMS calls. We’ve got fires everywhere. There’s no one left. I mean, no one left. We keep putting out tones, and voicing out jobs. Inventory showed every piece of equipment at--what, forty departments-- are being used. The county has nothing left. We tried getting fill-ins from other counties. No one has anything to spare. Not a squad, not a buggy. Nothing. We’re out of ambulances, too. I talked to Taylor. The police -- same thing, all out. No cars left to send to any of the newer jobs. Bunch of cops aren’t answering the radio at all. So that’s got cops coming off of jobs to go check on the other officers.” LaForce shook his head.
It was too much to take in. I understood what LaForce said. I kept running through my conversation with that suicidal scientist. “Yeah, it’s crazy on ph—”
“Grahhhhh.”
I looked up at LaForce. Did he just, Grahhhhh, at me?
His eyes were open wide, stared over my shoulder.
I spun around.
A man had his hands on the bars of the perimeter fence. Blood dripped from his mouth, was smeared on his face, and coated his clothing. Milky, glazed over eyes vacantly stared back at us. Black veins webbed his forehead and face, pulsed. . . no, moved. I watched what looked like small pebbles being sucked up through thin straws.
“What the hell?” I backed away from the fence. “Go tell someone! Get a supervisor, or something!”
LaForce stood for a moment longer, staring. He backed away, one shuffle, then two, then finally turned and ran back into the building. I should have followed.
“It’s all right, sir,” I said. It’s a lie. He looked sick. Like he’d died and no one had told him.
It was there. In my mind. After the call I’d just taken, after talking with LaForce. But I wouldn’t say it out loud. Wouldn’t even let myself form the complete thought in my head. Wasn’t believing it. No fucking way zombies were real. Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, The Walking Dead – Fuck no. Fuck Milla Jovovich and all of that shit.
This guy’s arms snaked through the bars, fingers flicked, reaching for me. His face was pressed tight against the metal slats like he thought he could fit his head through. Worse, like he wouldn’t stop shoving himself until his head did fit through.
I didn’t see the second man until he was directly behind the guy trying to slide through the bars.
The second guy swung a baseball bat as if he was in the box at home plate. The bat connected. The first guy’s skull smashed with a sickening, almost hollow-sounding thwack!
The face that was pressed against the bars was now halfway through. Bulbous eyes bulged from bleeding sockets. Blood oozed from a gaping mouth.
“Ah shit, man.” It was all I could say. May have said it over and over. Certainly more than once. The need to turn and run back inside filled me. There was no reason to stay out here and witness a murder. There was no way I could do anything to stop it. Decided, I was ready to flee.
LaForce and Milzy stood behind me. Their mouths open. They stared at the beating taking place behind me.
“We need police,” I said.
Milzy got one hand on his cell. The other reached for his waist, like he thought he wore a holster. Like his fingers were reaching for the memory of a handgun.
I couldn’t look away from the --you couldn’t call it a fight—scene, as the guy with the bat swung again. Blood sprayed like mist in all directions from the back of what had to be a pulpous mess of a skull.
Milzy yelled at the guy, “Put the bat down! Just put the bat down!”
When the assault finished, murder committed in front of us, the guy held his bat like a sword. “You have to destroy their heads, man. It’s the only way. They don’t go down otherwise. They just keep at you. You have to—”
Three more men came running up on the man with the bat, tackled him.
Good Samaritans?
At least, I thought that until—once they had the bat-guy on the ground—they didn’t just restrain him, they devoured him.
Faces got buried in bat-guys gut, on his arm, and leg; teeth tore clothing off flesh and flesh off limbs.
One guy’s head rose, intestines hung from the corners of his mouth. I wanted to look away as he gnawed and chewed and ripped the thick twisti
ng snake of innards in half, but couldn’t.
I just stood there. Thoughtless. Staring.
“Let’s get inside,” Milzy said. “Now!”
# # #
The 911 Office was supposed to be impenetrable. A fortress. There was a mirrored backup operations floor within the facility, and ready to go to in case the main operations area was destroyed or compromised. There were showers and rooms to rest in should a crisis present itself and we’re forced to stay at work until the situation is resolved.
I figured it might happen during a major snowstorm, or some kind of terrorist attack. The idea of needing refuge from monsters on the loose never entered my mind. Never.
“I had a call, Milzy,” I said. “Some guy said he was a scientist. That this was his fault. I mean, I thought he was crazy. I sent a page to you guys.”
We entered the building. Milzy locked the doors.
“Saw it. Not now,” he said, “save it.”
“He told me the only way to stop these things was by destroying the head. Just like that guy with the bat said just now. Same thing. Destroy the head.”
“Not now,” he said, again.
He also told me the infected ones were people who’d received the H7N9 vaccinations, I thought.
“Get back on the phones.”
The supervisor knew something. I could tell. I was shocked by what I’d just witnessed. A brutal slaying.
Milzy looked shaken. Not shocked.
Someone must have given information about what was going on to management. Just not to everyone, I guess. Not to us. An email. A memo. Department of Defense? The Center for Disease Control?
I’d been off the operations floor for maybe ten minutes?
When I walked back on, people were missing. Too many. “Where is everyone?”
“Sick. Lot of people seem to be coming down with this flu,” Milzy said. “We’ve got them lying down in the bunker area.”
“Everyone?” I asked.
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