He returned to the hall and went to the next room. He cleared two more rooms in a similar manner before reaching Danny’s room. He didn’t know why he expected to find Danny sitting in there waiting, but he wasn’t. Mathias sighed as he looked around his little brother’s room. There were video game posters all over the walls and model helicopters and aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling. He spotted a small, stuffed elephant poking out from under Danny’s pillow. Scooping up the raggedy bean-filled thing, he stuck it in his thigh pocket. When he found him, he knew Danny would appreciate that he had grabbed it for him. Mr. Ears was a family heirloom after all. He couldn’t be left behind with the fish.
After fully checking Danny’s room, Mathias went back to searching the rest of the upstairs. He reached the last door and placed his hand on the handle. That’s when a burst of rifle fire crackled from downstairs. Mathias turned his head away from the door, toward the steps, and took his hand off the knob. The door opened behind him anyway. A woman lurched out at Mathias. He spun and fired off a shot, but he wasn’t fast enough; he only hit her in the upper chest. The woman crashed into him, snapping her teeth, but both of them managed to keep their feet. He grabbed her throat in an attempt to hold her back. Her nails dug into his shirt as she tried to pull him toward her.
“Get out of the way!” Mathias heard Bishop shout from down the hall.
Easier said than done. He swung the zombie woman sideways and slammed her into the wall. He still needed both hands to hold her though, and couldn’t bring his rifle to bear.
The sound of a pistol shot rang out from down the hall, and the woman’s head blew out sideways. Mathias let her go as she slid down the wall to the floor. When he looked down the hall, he expected to see LeBlanc, but only Bishop stood there.
“You’re a hell of a shot,” Mathias commented as he went back down the hall. He had checked a bathroom earlier and went into it now. Turning on the sink with his elbow, he stripped off his fingerless leather gloves and checked his hands for cuts under the running water.
“My grandfather was an expert sniper in World War II and taught my parents, me, and my siblings how to shoot.” Bishop stood in the doorway.
“Thank God for that. Just keep an eye on that room.” Mathias didn’t want any more zombies rushing out at them. Although telling this to Bishop was unnecessary, as she was already alternating between watching him and the room.
“What are you doing?” Bishop gestured at the sink.
“Well, when you blew her brains out, some blood got on my hands,” Mathias explained. “I may have broken skin on my hands from when I fell in front of your ambulance. I forgot to check. If I did, I may have just become infected.” He turned off the tap and towel dried his hands. After a close inspection that determined there were no wounds, he put his gloves back on. “I’m good though.”
Mathias started heading down the hall toward the room, rifle raised. Bishop followed behind him, but kept a safe distance.
“So this virus is blood born,” Bishop noted.
“Blood and saliva. Also, it’s apparently a prion, whatever the hell that is,” Mathias corrected.
“Prions are terrible infections,” Bishop frowned. She seemed to know what they were. “All known prion infections attack the brain and have no known cure. They’re what cause mad cow disease.”
“You know, that makes a lot of sense.” No one had told Mathias about the mad cow connection before.
“Still, this strain must be very different to do what it does.” Bishop was clearly trying to get information out of him.
“They mentioned viruses a lot. I think somehow they combined the two or something, I don’t really know that part. But yeah, nearly any bodily fluid can infect you. Thankfully, you can’t be infected through your pores, but if you get their sweat on an open wound, you’re probably dead.” He entered the final room and started his sweep, while Bishop stood guard at the door. “Their sweat is the least likely thing to infect you though. Blood to blood contact is like a 95% chance of infection. It depends on how fast you can irrigate the wound. Same if saliva drips into a wound. A bite that breaks the skin is pretty much a guaranteed infection, so is saliva to saliva contact. You haven’t kissed anyone lately, have you? Or had sex? That’ll infect you too.”
“No,” Bishop shook her head. She wasn’t embarrassed by the question at all.
“I assume you took all the normal precautions at the hospital. I figure you work at a hospital because of the ambulance.” Mathias finished clearing the room. No one else was in here. Where the hell was Danny?
“Chief resident of the ER,” Bishop told him, “and yeah, we take a lot of precautions in case of HIV. I haven’t been bitten either, although I know some people who were.”
“Consider them dead.” It was harsh, but Mathias wasn’t in the mood to pretty things up. Not until he found Danny. He headed out the door, passing Bishop, and she followed him down the stairs. LeBlanc joined up with them at the bottom.
“I heard the gunshots,” LeBlanc commented. “You found one too, huh?”
Mathias looked behind LeBlanc, but Danny wasn’t with him. “Yeah, Bishop is a hell of a shot. No sign of Danny?”
“I guess it’s a good thing we ran into you then.” LeBlanc gave Bishop a wink. She just frowned. LeBlanc turned back to Mathias. “Sorry man, no luck. The door in the kitchen is all smashed out. Something went through it on its way in. I figure it was the chap I found in the basement. He had a lot of glass sticking out of him.”
Mathias only half listened to this last part; he was looking at the ground near the front door.
“What is it?” Bishop asked.
“The shoes.” Mathias pointed to a populated shoe rack. “Danny’s shoes aren’t here.”
“So he was probably out somewhere when these visitors popped in,” LeBlanc shrugged. “I’m sorry man, but we can’t go looking for him. He could be anywhere.”
“But he might be headed here.” Mathias figured Danny would head home seeing it as a safe place.
“What? You want to just hang around here and wait?” LeBlanc raised an eyebrow at him. “From what you’ve told me, your bother is smart, but he doesn’t leave the house very often. It’s likely that he ran from this place when the back door got smashed in. Why else would the front door be open?”
Mathias sighed. LeBlanc was being logical, when Mathias couldn’t be. He had hoped so badly that Danny would be here and that he would be okay. He could have just grabbed him then, and they would have headed out. Looking for him though… Mathias looked out the doorway at the streets. Somewhere in the distance, a fire had broken out, and smoke rose above the rooftops. Looking for him was a crazy idea. Leaving without him though, without even knowing if he was alive, was a crazier idea.
“How about this,” Bishop cut into his thoughts, “we’ll go to my place where I have some supplies. I also know of a place to go that should be safe. We can collect the supplies and start heading there, but before we go, we’ll swing by here again and wait awhile to see if your brother shows up. Does that sound like a good idea to you?”
Mathias thought about it. He weighed the pros and cons and logically came up with only pros. Illogically though, he thought up cons. This woman had a place to go, and supplies, two things Mathias knew he would need to survive. She also knew emergency medicine, which was vital knowledge during a time like this. Running into her was probably the best thing they could have done. She even had a running vehicle so he wouldn’t have to hot wire one.
“All right,” Mathias finally nodded, “but we’re going to wait for as long as I say so.”
“Sure thing,” Bishop smiled, but it was cold.
Mathias could see in her eyes that she was just humouring him. She would come back here and check again, but she wasn’t going to wait very long. Maybe Mathias could squeeze out a few hours at best. Still, it was better than no plan at all. And if Danny didn’t show up, maybe he could convince them to let him wait on his own with some supplies
and a map to wherever it was Bishop was going.
* * *
The trio left the house and headed back to the ambulance. Bishop climbed into the driver’s seat this time, with Mathias getting the passenger side. LeBlanc climbed into the back. As Bishop backed out of the driveway, Mathias checked his rifle again. It fired fine but he still didn’t trust it. At least that’s what he told himself. Really, he just needed something to keep him occupied. LeBlanc leaned between the seats, looking out the front windshield.
“If Danny does come back here, I hope he’s smart enough to wait outside,” LeBlanc commented.
Mathias frowned at him, “What do you mean?”
“Our gunshots seem to have woken up the neighbours.” LeBlanc pointed out a few zombies headed toward the house.
Mathias flipped the switch that turned on the sirens and left it on as they headed down the street. “And now they’ll all come further this way.”
After about a block, he turned it off.
“So you were going to tell me about what’s going on,” Bishop reminded Mathias and LeBlanc.
“Right,” Mathias nodded. “Well, as I mentioned in the house, it’s a highly contagious virus, or prion, whatever. There’s no known cure, like you said about those other prion things.”
“How does it work?”
“I’m not totally sure about how it works,” Mathias admitted. “The prion/virus spreads quickly, infecting every blood and organ cell from my understanding. It only needs a little bit of the body’s protein and the electrical output from the brain to keep it going, and it, in turn, keeps the brain going. Sort of. It’s self-sustaining. The organs all get shut down because it doesn’t need them. In fact, they’re more likely to hinder the prions, if anything. Once they’ve spread throughout the system, the prions can somehow pass energy from one… cell? Are they called cells? Prions? From one prion/virus thinger to another to another in a stagnant system. I’m not a scientist so I don’t actually know how all this crap works. I just know that it does and the hybrid infection - I’m going to call it that from now on, it’s easier – But yeah, the hybrid infection causes people to be dead, but part of the brain still lives, hence the walking around. The hybrid infection’s sole purpose is to spread itself. Bites are the most effective way of doing this. Zombies also bite to kill, because a dead body more actively infects other people than a live one. The hybrid infection is what’s in control. It wants to spread and spread. If you see a zombie actually eat, like swallow part of something they’ve bitten, that’s likely just some part of the brain’s old self, remembering that is what you do after biting something. You eat it. Although the hybrid infection probably uses the protein it gets. Sometimes pieces of the brain survive. Depending on the person and how they were infected seems to determine that. Some infected can’t even function enough to stand and walk, while others have the reasoning skills to run, open doors, climb ladders and stairs, and other more complex tasks required to get at whoever they are chasing. That’s why they came toward the gunshots, and now the siren. Sometimes, senses get shut down, like the eyes, but not always. The brain remembers partly how these work and what, say the sound of a gunshot, means. The hybrid infection is like its own brain, or reads the brain, or something, and it processes that gunshot equals noninfected person, equals go there and infect them. The brain is the only thing left running; that’s why you have to take it out. Pain is not something registered by it anymore, and it doesn’t think anything of the person that is left. Personality is destroyed. It’s a fever that kills those who escaped without mortal wounds. Picture it like someone going brain dead.”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” LeBlanc teased Mathias for his awkward explanation. “You know more than I do. I guess ’cause you hung around that Roy.”
“Roy hung out with me, not the other way around,” Mathias corrected him. He didn’t want to be associated with that son-of-a-bitch in any way.
“Roy?” Bishop frowned.
“One of the scientists who made the fucking thing.” Mathias ground his teeth at the thought. Not only did he help create the hybrid infection, but he was also part of the plan that nearly got him shot and barbecued. “Try not to think of us as bad guys. We didn’t make the hybrid infection, but we did work for the people who did.”
“Who made it? And how did it get out?” Bishop was a curious one, so full of questions. They didn’t sound judgmental though; she wanted facts.
“Keystone. There’s an underground facility just outside these suburbs.” Mathias pointed off in the general direction.
“We didn’t want to be there anymore, so they cut us loose. Actually, they tried to kill us, but we escaped. Well, two of us escaped. East didn’t make it,” LeBlanc looked depressed for a brief moment as he said that. It was eerie; LeBlanc never got depressed. He was the happiest bastard you could ever meet.
“The hybrid infection got out because some lab rats of theirs that were infected, got into a ventilation shaft or something and escaped,” Mathias told Bishop.
“That’s what they say happened,” LeBlanc corrected him. “For all we know they released the buggers on purpose.”
“True,” Mathias nodded. He had suspected that himself, but there was no evidence to support it.
“Rats can be infected also?” Bishop frowned.
“They’re carriers,” Mathias remembered the word Roy used. “Apparently, they only get a little more aggressive.”
“So it can be carried by other species,” Bishop sighed. “Which ones can carry it and which get infected?”
“Well, I don’t know all of them,” Mathias shrugged, “but primates become infected, so do pigs.”
“Zombie pigs,” LeBlanc chuckled.
“Rats are carriers, some bats, umm, I think sheep were.”
“Zombie sheep. Sheep get infected,” LeBlanc corrected him again, “I remember the zombie sheep.”
“Right,” Mathias nodded. He could remember the zombie sheep now, too. Weirdest eyes you ever saw. “Goats were the carriers. It’s hard to say because it depends on how they’re infected.”
“Some are carriers through a direct injection of the hybrid infection, but will become fully infected if another infected thing bites them,” LeBlanc explained. “Some things can only become infected through an injection of the pure hybrid infection though. Each animal it ends up in mutates it somewhat, so it depends on what the hell is giving it to you. Just our luck though, that it seems humans always become infected while those shifty rats are always carriers.”
“I see you listened sometimes,” Mathias grinned at LeBlanc this time.
“The word mutate was mentioned, so of course, I paid attention to that part,” LeBlanc laughed.
“Sorry, we’re not the best at explaining all this.” Mathias looked at Bishop again. “We’re just the hired goons.”
Bishop was frowning, probably trying to process all the information they had just given her. “Better than nothing. What are the symptoms?”
“There are none. A fever burns you out at the end of it, while all your organs shut down, but before that, you wouldn’t know you were infected unless you knew all this stuff and knew you came into contact with an infected or carrier,” Mathias shrugged.
The line between Bishop’s eyebrows deepened. “Is there any way to tell if someone is infected?” If that line got any deeper, Mathias thought it might never smooth out again.
Mathias shrugged. “If you had a microscope, it would probably show up in the blood. I also heard that one of the scientists trained a dog to smell it, but that could have just been a rumour.”
“I think it’s true,” LeBlanc voiced his opinion, “dogs are smart.”
Bishop sat in silence. She seemed to have finally run out of questions. Mathias turned his attention out the window and noted all the zombie evidence they passed. It made him think of Danny being out there though, so he stopped. Next, he turned to the CB radio and started scanning stations. Some came in clearly, othe
rs were very fuzzy. Many of them were filled with panicked people, asking for help, not knowing what to do. Policemen, firemen, paramedics, and average people. None of them really knew what was going on. Voices talked over each other constantly. Except one channel. It came through clear as a bell with a single voice. It was a man giving a sermon. It was a good sermon too. It didn’t seem to settle on one religion but dabbled in several, and didn’t talk about hell fires and the end of the world. It talked about forgiving one another and pulling together in these times, as opposed to apart. Mathias thought the man probably wasn’t even a priest, but that he should be. Eventually though, he decided to shut the radio off again. He didn’t bother scanning through the AM and FM radio channels; they would be mostly dead air, crazed reporters, or maybe even music, which would just be too odd right then, perhaps even creepy.
“I’ve turned that radio on a few times myself,” Bishop commented. “Sometimes everything comes in well, sometimes you get nothing.”
“That’s also Keystone’s fault,” Mathias told her. He suddenly felt very weary. “They own a lot of the buildings in this city and as things get out of control, they’ll be locking them down. Part of the lockdown includes systems that don’t allow signals in or out of the building. This tends to fuck up everything around them as well.”
“Why would they do all this?” Bishop finally brought up the million dollar question.
“Who the fuck knows,” LeBlanc’s voice sounded farther away. Mathias looked back to see him rooting through some of the supplies.
“You would need to kidnap a CEO to find that out,” Mathias agreed, “and even then, they might not know. They just… do stuff.”
The three in the ambulance were quiet after that, each closed off in their own thoughts. Mathias thought about Danny. He was so worried, it practically made him sick. Danny was smart, but unarmed and alone, and he wouldn’t know what was going on. In hindsight, he should have told Danny about the hybrid infection. He just thought at the time that he didn’t need to know, that the hybrid infection would never get out. He should have learned from those stupid movies and books. Shit like this always got out. Always.
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