by Damon Novak
“Hit the brake!” shouted Clay, and I didn’t know if he was talkin’ to me or Tanner. Tanner’s eyes were closed.
We hit 89 miles per hour.
“Tan, hit the brake!” I shouted.
He didn’t hit the brake. His hands left the steering wheel and he started clawin’ at the seat. Lucky I was still holdin’ onto the wheel when he let go, because we were comin’ up on a slight bend, and we would’ve gone right off the side, into the gator-infested ditch that runs alongside The Alley.
I knew I didn’t have a choice. I unbuckled my seatbelt and pushed myself off the passenger door, slidin’ right into Tanner on the bench seat and shoving him into the driver’s door. I moved my legs over to the driver’s side floorboard and kicked his foot off the gas pedal.
Then I hit the brake, hard.
The tires locked up – no anti-lock systems on that old Rover – and it went into a straight skid for about thirty yards before beginnin’ to spin to the left. I cranked the wheel right to counter the slide, and before I knew it, we came to a stop, now perpendicular to the traffic lanes.
“Nobody’s coming!” shouted Clay. He jumped out of the back seat and yanked Tanner’s door open. My next oldest brother’s mouth had begun to spit some kind of foamy, yellow bile, and it ran down his chin.
Clay reached in and unfastened his seatbelt, then put his big arms around Tanner and dragged him out of the driver’s seat.
We had to hurry – not only because of my brother’s obvious medical situation, but because I could see day running headlights comin’ up behind us, and we didn’t need to be slammed into by an over-the-road trucker who’d had about ten hours less sleep than they should’ve.
Clay drag-carried Tanner to the rear door and practically threw him in, then he jumped in beside him. He slammed the door and shouted, “Get to the hospital, man!”
I dropped the tranny into drive and said, “What the hell’s wrong with him? Is he breathin’?”
Tanner had been the healthiest of us all. While Clay had dealt with some back problems from a young age, and I’ve needed injections for a persistent pain in my shoulder, Tanner seemed to cruise through life with nary a headache.
“Sounds like a grinder, but he’s breathing,” said Clay, his voice at least an octave higher than normal.
I glanced in the rear-view mirror as I brought my speed up to 88. Seein’ Tanner like he was scared me. I couldn’t help but wonder if that damned black rain had anything to do with it. As I drove that Rover for all it was worth to Collier County Medical Center, Clay held my other brother in his arms.
The dashes on the roadway could not have felt longer.
Ω
I was so distracted by Tanner’s condition that I almost missed the driveway for the CCMC. I glanced back at the road just in time and cranked the wheel.
It had begun to rain again – water this time – and the roadway was wet, so when I turned hard, applying the brakes, the rear end of the Rover broke free of the slick pavement. Red Rover slid into the center median of the driveway and the tires bounced up and onto the curb before rolling back to the asphalt with a jarring thud.
“Watch it, CB!” shouted Clay.
“Sorry, man! I almost missed it! How’s he doin’?”
I had regained control, and now I floored it through the congested parking lot as I drove toward the ER entrance.
“Shit! I think he stopped breathing!”
I reached the emergency room entrance, but there were already three ambulances there, all private companies. I was surprised to see so many parked here when I knew the trouble Lilly had when trying to reach 911 earlier. They should’ve all been out there, tending to active calls.
Drop off and take off. So what was happening here?
There was a large, striped area with the words NO PARKING – EMERGENCY VEHICLES ONLY emblazoned on the space. Despite the large number of people gathered outside the doors to the ER, apparently nobody else had the balls to violate those rules.
I sure as hell did. With my brother in the goddamned Rover, it was an emergency vehicle.
I screeched to a stop right over the printed words and threw the truck in park, unfastening my belt and throwing my door open. I reached the rear door before Clay was able to get it open, so I yanked it open and he jumped out.
Together, we manhandled Tanner, me grabbing him by the arms and Clay taking his legs. I ran backward, relying on Clay’s guidance to get inside.
“Watch out!” shouted Clay, just as either I hit someone or they hit me, knocking me sideways. I managed to hang on to Tanner’s arms, and when I turned, I saw that I was almost to the doors.
They were closed, even though dozens of people were standing on the sensors that should’ve triggered them to slide open. That was when I first noticed that same bunch of people was pounding on the door.
I intended to push my way through the crowd, but suddenly, something changed. Now, everyone was screaming, and the next thing I knew, something slammed hard into the doors – from the inside. I stared at the person, unwilling to believe my eyes.
A woman, her left arm hanging broken, was using her other hand to claw at the people in the waiting room just inside the glass doors. While those outside the doors had, just a few seconds ago, seemed desperate to get in, now they looked terrified.
The tide shifted, and now more people were tryin’ to get out than in.
“What’s goin’ on, CB?” called Clay, who couldn’t see past me.
I heard what he said, and I knew he deserved an answer, but that wasn’t where my head was at right then. I realized, watchin’ that woman, that it wasn’t just that she was tryin’ to attack ‘em. It was what else was wrong with her.
When she turned toward a little girl, her body wrapped in a blanket as she lay unconscious in a chair, I saw the other side of her face.
Her eye hung from the socket. The skin on the left side of her face had been torn away. She had clearly been in a severe accident of some kind. Her complexion was ashen white and her eyes were clouded, like cataracts had set in big time.
She dropped down on that sleepin’ little girl and started tearin’ the blanket from her. The crowd around her didn’t try to stop her; they just screamed and ran for the doors, leavin’ that child to fend for herself.
The lady buried her face in the girl’s neck, and the next thing I saw was a stream of blood sprayin’ the window.
I screamed, “Stop her! Look! Stop her!”
Nobody could hear me. The crowd inside now pushed so hard toward the outer edges of the room, that people were crushed up against the glass windows and doors. The thought crossed my mind that if I was inside, I’d prefer to be there than exposed to whatever’d gotten into that woman.
“What the hell is it?” shouted Clay again, but with the crowd inside pushing toward us, the entire glass front of the emergency room was beginning to creak and bow.
“Back! Back!” I shouted, but I didn’t know if Clay heard me or not. Everyone else was shouting, too.
I turned around. “Clay, go, go!”
He saw my eyes, I’m sure. I had to look like a combination of a deer in headlights and roadkill, because what I was seein’ was beyond anything my simple mind could process.
“Jesus, CB!” shouted Clay, his eyes looking beyond me as we tried to push our way back from the crowd, and toward my Rover. I turned back to chance another glance at the hospital entrance.
A nude man just inside the door, his gray, front side splayed open from what was clearly an autopsy incision, gripped a nurse by her head and was tearing into the side of her face.
“Go, go, go!” I shouted. “Back in the truck!”
Clay didn’t argue. We cleared the main part of the crowd just as the glass front of the hospital’s emergency room gave way, first cracking, then shattering with a huge explosion, the squares of tempered glass raining down on top of everyone.
As we rounded the bumper of the Rover and reached the open door, I turned back
again to see everyone from inside had now fallen forward, the attackers dropping down where they could to tear into the frightened crowd. The screams were no longer only of desperation; now they were cries of terror and agony.
We literally tossed Tanner into the back seat. He had passed out now, so was easier to handle, but to me, he looked dead. I jumped into the driver’s seat, and Clay sat in back with Tanner, cradling him.
I dropped it into low gear and floored it. I never saw the man running toward us, and I’d never put on my seat belt, so when my Discovery slammed into him, I flew forward, my chest ramming the steering wheel, my head just avoiding the inside of the windshield.
The man flew forward and hit the pavement, rolling clear of my tires.
“CB, stop!” shouted Clay, but he clearly had no idea about my current mental condition, because I was gettin’ the fuck out of there, and no number of felony traffic infractions would stop me.
I spun the wheel left and dropped it into drive, flooring it. “Get on your phone and google doctors in the area!” I yelled. “Just get their names. If we can’t get Tan to a fuckin’ ER, then we’re goin’ to somebody’s goddamned house!”
“What kind of doctors?”
I’d never heard Clay sound so scared, and somehow, that scared me even more. “I don’t know! General Physician, I guess! Someone who can at least evaluate and prescribe somethin’!”
Clay used voice commands to search for general physicians within a five-mile radius. We got over 100.
“Start at the top,” I said. “But first, see if Tan’s phone is in his pocket. Mine is fucked from when I got soaked today.”
A second later he passed me my brother’s phone and I took it. “Okay, give me the first name, and you take the second.”
Cars were out on the road, and everyone seemed to be drivin’ with the devil in the passenger seat. I kept my eyes peeled for potential accidents, when I spotted an alley on the right. I checked my rearview mirror before slamming on the brake and cranking the wheel hard. The Rover slid into the alley, and I drove until I reached a business on the right side with empty parking spaces.
Cutting in, I slammed on the brake and threw it in park.
Clay said, “Dr. Larry Pearson!”
“Okay, okay, I said, fumbling with the phone. “How’s he doin’?” I asked, even as I looked back to see. Tanner’s face was as white as paper, and his breathing rattled low in his chest.
I used X-reference.com and punched in the name, using a five-mile radius. He clearly lived somewhere out of the area. “Nothing! Another!” I shouted.
Clay was ready. “Dr. Georgina Lake,” he said, his voice low and controlled. I could tell he was attempting to calm himself. Clay was like that. He could slow down and study a situation, applying logic to whatever occurred. Then he would break down problems and solve them.
I know workin’ at an airboat tour company in the Everglades may not seem like a job for a guy with those kinds of skills, but I’ll also tell you that Clay is the best problem-solver in our family. Shit comes up, he can figure out how to deal. I was the mechanical genius, but he made sure none of us ran our business into the swamp.
I searched for Dr. Georgina Lake. X-Reference came back, telling me she was a specialist of some kind, living about two miles away. I ordered my GPS to give us directions.
“Call this number!” I said. “If she answers, tell her what happened and that we’re on our way there.”
“This won’t work!” said Clay.
“I don’t see as we have any goddamned choice!”
The GPS got me to the right neighborhood – unfortunately, with a closed gate – fast. The guard gate appeared to be unoccupied, so I drove to the directory and picked up the phone. I found Dr. Georgina Lake and pressed the appropriate button.
A few seconds later, I heard, “Hello, you’ve reached the Lakes! Leave a message.”
Undeterred, I backed up the Rover and revved the engine. Then I dropped it back into low gear and floored it, aiming for the center.
When my front bumper hit it, the gate’s hydraulic arm bent backward at a 45-degree angle, and snapped with a sharp crack. I didn’t figure on any cops comin’ after me, especially if anyone had called them to handle the near-riot at the hospital. That mess would keep the entire force busy.
Right about then, my mind flashed on what all the cops out there were probably dealin’ with right now. My mind was on what we’d seen in the ‘Glades, with the half dead people – and then it hit me.
The two attackers inside the emergency room were just like the kids’ parents. All of ‘em dead, but somehow alive.
“Fuck!” I screamed, easing through the gate then flooring the gas pedal, somehow not expecting the speed bumps that could be found in every community like this one. The front tires hit the first one and I yelled, “Hold on!”
We came down hard and everyone bounced up, our heads smacking the ceiling.
“Calm down, CB,” said Clay, his voice smooth and controlled. I tried – I really did try – but I was past the point of being calmed by either soothing talk or screamin’.
His words went unnoticed and wasted. I’d admitted a long time ago that I was not my brother. I was a fuckin’ explodin’ star compared to his floating planet.
I was doin’ 30-miles-per-hour, so when we hit that speed bump, we definitely went airborne. I felt like we’d never hit ground again – in fact, I wished we wouldn’t. Now, it seemed my drivin’ was more likely to get us all killed than to save my brother.
I actually touched the brake with my foot, however briefly, and as the GPS instructed me to make my next left, I followed her instructions. I made the next left and stopped at the house indicated.
We looked over. The lights were on. I said my first prayer since Sunday.
Ω
CHAPTER FOUR
“Let’s leave him here while we go up to the door. No sense in carrying him up there if nobody’s home.”
Clay was always thinkin’. I was just ready to haul him to the front porch.
Suddenly, Tanner’s phone and Clay’s phone both chimed at once. I didn’t have to wonder who it was. I pulled the phone out as we hurried to the door of Dr. Lake’s house.
WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? the text read.
“Lilly?” asked Clay.
“Yep. I got it.”
Clay knocked on the door as I punched back, TANNER SICK ON WAY HOME. WENT TO ER. CRAZY. STAY IN HOUSE. WILL COME OVER AFTER.
Lilly wasn’t havin’ any of it. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, she is not a sit and wait kinda girl, and she won’t be told what to do, not even by all her older brothers combined.
WHERE ARE YOU??
As much as I like to keep it to one-letter answers, I couldn’t, or Lilly’s goddamned head would explode. I texted back: YOU CAN’T HELP. WAIT.
Clay pounded on the door again, shouting, “Help! We need a doctor! Please!”
Before ten seconds passed, the door opened. The woman who stood there holding the knob was perhaps in her mid-thirties, her blonde hair in a ponytail. She leaned out from around the door, her brows furrowed with concern. I saw her look us both over from head to toe, obviously taking in our coveralls and wondering if we weren’t rapists or murderers, or at the very least, uninvited handymen.
“What’s wrong? Who are you?”
She leaned out a little more and looked down at her porch. “Why is everything black? Is that mold?”
Strange how fast you can get used to somethin’. Since the black rain had dried up, there was almost a graphite-like powder everywhere. I suppose me and Clay were so freaked out, we didn’t notice it anymore. I looked down at my shoes, which were stained black. Clay’s were the same.
I looked back up. “I’m Cole Baxter, and this is my brother, Clay. Where were you when it was rainin’?” I asked.
“If it was this earlier this morning, I was sleeping. I had a late shift, so I sleep during the day. How did you know I’m a doctor anyw
ay?” The door closed more, and now we could only see her eyes, nose and mouth through the crack.
“The stuff all over your porch is left over from the rain, and we don’t know why, but it was pure black. We were out in it, and a little while later, our brother got sick,” said Clay. “He’s in the truck over there, and needs help.”
“Why didn’t you take him to the emerg–”
I interrupted her. “Ma’am, we took him to Collier Medical Center, but it’s a mess. Chaos. Please, we need your help!”
The door eased open further, and now I looked down to see she held a gun. I’m pretty sure she noticed me see it, but neither of us acknowledged it. “We’re not here for anything but help,” I said. “I swear.”
“What are his symptoms?” she asked.
I turned and started running for the Rover. “You’ll see in a minute. Thank you, Dr. Lake!” I called. “C’mon, Clay!”
Apparently, her humanity took over. “Okay … just get the doors open!” she called after us. “I have a wheelchair in the garage.” She closed the front door, and a moment later, the garage door began to lift.
When the door got just four feet up, out came Dr. Georgina Lake, ducking beneath it and rolling the wheelchair down the driveway toward the Land Rover.
Together, we got my brother out of the SUV and into the chair, and I followed Dr. Lake as she hurried through the garage toward the interior door. There was only one car parked in there, and it was a real pretty, pearl white BMW.
She stopped before we reached the threshold. “I have a gun,” she said, then she slipped her hand behind her and showed it to us. “I’ll use it if this is some kind of bullshit trick.”
I nodded. “I saw it, ma’am, and I don’t blame you one bit. Colt Defender,” I said. “Nice, powerful carry weapon. You can keep that beside you, Dr. Lake. We just need help. Swear.”
“What were your names again?” she asked.
