He turned on the water. It blasted him with an icy cold, enough to make him shiver. He took a deep breath of bravery, stepped completely under the water and in thirty seconds it just stopped.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
He turned the shower knobs again and it was dry.
Thinking, ‘I’ll grab a shower at the hospital’, James dressed, grabbed his keys and phone, then stepped outside.
There was a weird quiet to everything. No cars, no sounds, no neighbors. It stilted him, and he looked around. When he did he saw him.
A Codie.
Never, since the beginning of the outbreak had he seen one on his street. It walked up the center of the road and then as soon as it spotted him, it made its way to James.
James hurried to his car, pressing the remote starter as he did.
He got inside and shut the door just as the Codie reached his hood.
This is insane, he thought. Where are the guards? The cleanup Crew?
He put the car in reverse and backed out of his driveway quickly.
James still had a headache and he far from had his wits about him, he reached for his phone, giving it a verbal command. “Call Major Tom.”
Typically, the phone would respond, “Calling Major Tom.” But there was nothing.
James tried again. “Call Major Tom.”
Nothing.
At the intersection stop sign, he grabbed his phone to manually dial and he saw it, no signal.
What was going on?
He reached for the radio … static. He pressed scan and it just kept scrolling numbers. Nothing was on the air.
It all started to register.
No water, no radio, no phone … no cars on the road.
James placed his car in gear and stepped out into the intersection.
There were no cars at all. It was the middle of the afternoon, where was everyone?
Thinking it was just some weird no traffic moment, or his imagination, James got back into his car and headed toward the strip mall with the coffee shop.
It was three miles away and the entire way there, James looked for a car, looked for a person, but the only movement he saw anywhere was that of Codies.
He started to panic, get scared and then he picked up the pace.
Upon arriving at the strip mall, he peeled into the empty lot.
“No. No.” He got out of the car. No people. No vehicles, every shop was closed.
James obviously slept through something, a major event. Was everyone evacuated?
He needed to get answers.
Zone One Barracks was only a few miles away. They had to have answers there.
James got back into his car and headed that way.
Dead end.
James felt as if he were part of some science fiction movie where he woke up and everyone was gone. At least that was what it looked like as he approached Zone One Barracks. It was a make shit military set up, spread across a two lane road. Built to check point people going into the city. The yellow roadblock horses were up, but from where he was, he didn’t see the soldiers standing guard.
Until he drove closer. He saw the body of one of the check point soldiers laying on the ground and James placed the car in park, jumping from it without turning it off.
His first thoughts were some sort of terror attack, chemical warfare, but the second he saw the soldier, he realized it had to be something else. The soldier, while slightly pale, looked as if he were sleeping.
James crouched down to him to feel for a pulse. There was one. He leaned closer to hear for breathing. The heartbeat and breathing were slow, but not ‘Codie’ slow. He checked him for bites and scratches … nothing. It was during that examination that he saw another on the ground. That body led to the discovery of another, then another. He stepped inside the barracks tents, to discover that those lying in their beds weren’t stirring.
“Wake up!” James shouted. “Wake … up!”
He hollered those words, over and over, louder and louder, but nothing.
Without an idea of what was wrong with them, James was lost on how to treat those at Zone One. His best option was to get one of them to the field hospital just inside the city. Once there they figure out what was happening, James could return to help the others.
While he considered himself a strong man, James wasn’t very tall, so he had to visually pick the soldier he believed he could handle.
The name tag on the uniform said, ‘Bradly’, he looked small in stature, and was smaller than the two women James saw there.
He locked his hands under Bradly’s arms, and walking backwards dragged him to the car. To get him inside was even more of a chore.
He had to prop Bradly against the rear of the car, open the back door, move the soldier over, climb into the car and bring him in that way.
If he didn’t still have that headache, James probably would have handled it better.
With all the moving, dragging and shoving, Bradly never stirred or woke.
That bad feeling didn’t dwindle as James drove into the city. There was still no traffic and an increase of Codies were in the tunnel, on the bridge and streets.
The entrance gate to the fence was ajar when James pulled up, he wasn’t hopeful until he saw movement. A man in scrubs walked to tent one and stood looking in.
“Thank God, everything is okay here,” James said to Bradly. “I’ll be back..” He turned off the car and got out.
Tent one was nearest to the check in tent, and was the one they used for those suffering from illness. But why was that doctor or nurse in scrubs, just standing there? Did he discover what the same thing that James saw at Zone One?
His mind raced of possible scenarios, then he called out as he hurried to him. “Excuse me.”
The scrub person walked into the tent.
Not wanting to leave Bradly in the car for too long, James ran. He ran to the tent. The plastic zipper door was undone and James reached for it.
He froze in complete and utter horror.
In all his years of medical practice, James had never had an instant vomiting reaction. He never thought it was physically possible, yet, the second he saw inside, vomit shot up from his stomach and straight out of his mouth.
The tent was full of Codies. They feasted on the ill who were laying on beds, fighting over the innards as they pulled them from their bodies.
Hand over mouth James spun and slammed into a Codie.
He shoved him out of the way just as he lunged to attack. James spun, in his turn, nearly losing his balance. He regained his footing and with the car as his destination, tried to run. Another Codie was there and James was playing a game of dart and go. Shoving, dodging, he tried tent two and it was the same thing.
He saw a clearing between the tents and raced through there. He felt like he was in one of those haunted house, moving forward, waiting for something to jump out.
Nothing did. There were none in the area. They were consumed with getting those in the tents. Those helpless to defend themselves.
He rounded from behind the check-in tent, the car was in sight, but three Codies surrounded it.
“Shit. Damn it,” He grunted out in frustration.
“James.” His name was called out with such a sound of relief.
He spun around to the call of his voice.
Tom stood there. He looked as if he saw a ghost and ran to James.
“You’re okay,” Tom said grateful. “You okay.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I think.” James’ voice trembled as he spoke. “My God, Tom. What’s happening?”
TWENTY-THREE – HORIZON
“How did you make coffee?” James asked when Ella extended him a piping hot cup.
“Sterno and French press,” she replied. “Are you okay?”
“No. Yes. Shaken. This will help. What is going on?” He looked over to the couch where Bradly was laying down. Tom had carried him up the four flights of stairs with a lot more ease than James had pl
acing him in the car.
“We really don’t know,” Ella said.
“Nearest we can tell,” Tom stated. “Those who got the vaccine just started dropping on Tuesday afternoon. Everything went down, all coms, so it’s hard to tell how wide spread this is.”
“A lot more than we realize,” James said. “This is the side effect they were talking about. They should have told us.”
“it’s some sort of coma,” Tom explained. “They get drowsy, feel kind of blah and then fall. Like we thought happened to you.”
“Excuse me?” James asked.
“I drove to your house early this morning. Your doors were locked, but I was able to see in the window. I pounded on the window, called out for a good ten minutes. You didn’t respond, you were half on, half off the couch.”
“I passed out from exhaustion and booze.” James scratched his head.. “No wonder you seemed shocked to see me.”
“I was. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder. But I thought you maybe took the vaccine even though you gave Ella your only dose. Maybe found another. Who knows.” Tom shrugged. “I just thought you were one of the fallen. Now ... the problem is, there are more of the fallen than there are us to help them and more Codies than there are fallen.”
“The ones in a coma,” Ella added. “Are a virtual all you can eat buffet.”
“Yeah, I saw that.” James sighed heavily. “When did you guys find out?”
“Yesterday afternoon, late,” Tom answered. “We started to see a lot of the revived out there. I went down to the field hospital and it had started there.”
“But you’re fine,” James said to Ella.
“And Rhonda,” Ella added.
“She was given the cure strain,” James sipped his coffee and stood, pacing. “But if she’s fine, why isn’t any of the other infected fine. Why are you fine when you got the vaccine and the others who got it are not?”
“Pretty obvious don’t you think?” Ella asked. “Whatever they are giving everyone is strong. Too strong. When it comes to the cure it was too strong for those who were simply infected, but Rhonda she was basically dead. It wasn’t too strong for her. The vaccine is too strong for those not infected, but I was.”
James snapped his finger. “So, when given to a healthy person, the vaccine attacks because it has nothing to fight. It didn’t do it to you, because it had the virus to fight. Same goes in a different way for the cure strain.”
“The answer is simple,” Ella said. “The vaccine is the cure not the immunization and the cure only works on the revived that haven’t been revived long.”
“Yes,” Tom added. “They have to be fresh.”
“And we know this how?” James asked.
Tom looked at Ella then back to James. “We tried it on Rhonda’s neighbor. What I am curious about is, what happens when everyone wakes up. Are they going to be normal? Will they wake up?”
James walked over to Bradly. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
“Until then?” Ella asked. “We just let them lay where they dropped. Not do anything?”
“What can we do?” James shrugged. “In this city alone there were over a hundred thousand vaccines given. Sad thing is, if they don’t wake up, unless we find every one of them and hook them up to IV fluids, they will be dead in about four days.”
All expression dropped from Ella’s face as her hand swiped down across her mouth. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Neither did I.” Tom walked over to the window. I did think of something else. Since the initial rebuilding, R-Teams, curfews … we have had a sense of control. Now we don’t. The dead roam and rule. We are severely outnumbered and that number will grow.”
“What can we do?” James joined him at the window.
Slowly, Tom shook his head. “I don’t know. I just know we can’t stay here.”
James stared out to the street below, even in the short time that he had been in Rhonda’s apartment, the numbers outside grew. Almost as if they sensed them … smelled them, were just waiting for the right moment to attack.
For as much as James wanted to take a breather, get his head together, make sure Rhonda, the baby and Bradly were medically alright. He knew that wasn’t realistic thinking. They had hours, at most, to formulate a plan and do it quickly. That meant packing up not only a healing revived, but a newborn and comatose man. Where they would go, he didn’t know. He didn’t even know if anywhere was safe. They couldn’t stay put, that was for sure. Unless they left not only this neighborhood but the city, James and the others would be like the people in Sanctum … trapped.
The world was tossed into chaos when the virus first hit, yet, they emerged from it to take control. They moved forward, grasping at optimism with the arrival of the cure.
That page turned.
Now there wasn’t chaos, there was silence. And that frightened James.
He wasn’t sure what was ahead, but he knew he wouldn’t give up. He would keep going, keep hoping, keep fighting.
They rose from the ashes once … they could do it again.
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Thank you so much for reading into this novella. I hope you enjoyed it.
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