by Caleb Cleek
I ducked down in my patch of weeds, trying to ignore the mosquitoes whining around my head. I could feel them landing on me and sinking their subcutaneous drilling rigs deep in search of blood. I didn’t dare swat at them for fear of giving my position away.
In thirty seconds, the van pulled up twenty feet short of the patrol car. The front passenger door opened and a contractor clad in black exited the van. An MP5 submachine gun, matching the one in my hand, hung from a sling around his neck and shoulder. His right finger was riding along the frame of the gun, just above the trigger. The muzzle was pointed higher than the situation dictated. The message was clear.
Don't mess with me.
Matt had been on the van side of the car as the van approached. As it got closer, he had moved to the far side of the car. The contractor hastily, and in no uncertain terms, told Matt to move the car.
"I can't do that." Matt replied, doing a bad impression of a southern accent. "The family in the house was exposed to the infection. They died and then came back. I’m maintaining a perimeter."
"That's all the more reason for me to get up there. Move the car! I can see that our other team is already here. I'm going up to assist them. I'm either going around you if you move your car, or if you don't, I will go through you."
"I don't think you understand what’s going on here," Matt said as dumbly as he could. "This road is closed."
The contractor was going to blow his top. Homeland Security had given them carte blanche. As far as he was concerned, he could do whatever he wanted and that included passing through the road block.
"The problem,” Matt said, “is your first group wouldn’t listen to me either. I told them I had to contain the scene and they roared past anyway. Look where that got them. The infected family killed all six of them. I watched it go down from right here with my binoculars. I have strict orders not to let anyone else pass. It’s for your own good.”
“I am not going to ask you again,” the contractor said with a cocky smile on his face. “The United States Government has given me the authority to do whatever I see fit.”
“I’m sorry, Sir”,” Matt said, continuing with the southern accent. “This is a county road. That means it’s the jurisdiction of the sheriff department. You have no authority here unless you are authorized to annex this road as a federal highway and start paying for its maintenance. This situation should be resolved in a couple hours. What’s left of your friends will be taken to the morgue. You can pick them up there.”
It was becoming apparent that even the dumb hillbilly act wasn’t going to bring this to a peaceful resolution. There was no way the guy was going to back down. I placed my thumb on the safety and flicked it to the fire position as quietly as I could.
"I warned you," the contractor said as he dropped his finger to the trigger and released at least ten rounds at Matt over the hood of the patrol car.
Matt had been anticipating the move and dropped to the asphalt when he saw the trigger finger drop and the muzzle of the gun come up. As soon as he hit the ground, he picked one of the MP5s from behind the car. Laying on the ground, he fired a burst, under the car, aimed at the contractor’s feet. The contractor stumbled to the ground as the hot bullets burned through his boots, skin and bone. He screamed in agony as he rolled toward the drainage ditch.
I didn't look to check on Matt’s battle. The patrol car’s spotlight facing toward the van would have destroyed my night vision and I knew Matt would take care of his part of the plan. Katie and I were responsible for the van and its passengers. So far, everything was proceeding according to our secondary plan.
Matt immediately started rolling to the left toward the front bumper of the patrol car. As we had discussed the plan, we both agreed that if things went badly, the driver would probably ram the patrol car in an attempt to squash Matt. It is what both of us would have done. Matt didn’t want to be ground into the asphalt under the weight of a patrol car.
The driver hadn’t put the car in park. As soon the contractor when down, the back tires of the van chirped as the engine roared. It surged ahead and closed the twenty feet instantaneously. The van hit the patrol car dead center and pushed it backwards five feet before the friction of the car’s tires gripping the pavement and the tireless rims digging into the asphalt brought both vehicles to a stop. Before the metallic clang of the collision had ceased to register in my ears, contractors were spilling from the van’s sliding doors on both sides. As soon as they cleared the vehicle, their guns were stabbing short bursts of flame toward the last position Matt had been seen.
Fortunately, in the midst of the collision Matt had scurried into the drainage ditch at the side of the road and was no longer in the path of the bullets. Katie and I opened fire from either side of the road.
The first aggressor out of the van began walking toward the patrol car, firing short bursts over the hood. He didn’t take more than three steps. I aimed at his chest, squeezed the trigger and held it. Bullets struck the center of his body and began walking their way up his body as the muzzle raised from the recoil. His body armor probably stopped the first ten or twelve shots. As the recoil raised the muzzle trajectory above the top of his body armor, the bullets stitched a line of holes up the side of his neck and head. He crumpled onto the pavement.
As I turned to engage the second man coming out of my side of the van, I could hear Katie’s gun chattering away from the other side of the road. I could also hear return fire from the far side of the van.
My front sight lined up with my second target. I saw flames leap from the barrel of his gun. I immediately felt a tremendous impact slap my abdomen as I was squeezing the trigger. I felt another hit mid way up and another hit my chest. The man in front of me fell to the ground. All three shots from my short burst hit him in the face. As his shots had hit my vest, I was knocked backwards. I stumbled and the barrel of my gun was lifted as I squeezed the trigger. Somehow his rounds had missed both of my arms and my gun, which were in front of my body.
Getting shot probably saved my life. Had I not been knocked off balance, my shots would have hit him in the chest where I was aiming. His vest would have stopped the bullets and he would have hit me above the vest in his next couple shots.
No one else exited my side of the van. I stepped backwards on the grassy shoulder looking for another target. As I backpedaled, my feet caught on something behind me and I fell backwards. I quickly righted myself and saw I had tripped on the contractor that had shot at Matt at the outset of the fight. Matt had finished the job after the guy had crawled out of the road. It was suddenly quiet, eerily quiet.
I saw Matt behind me. He was moving across the road to get a better view of the driver’s side of the van.
“Are you okay, Katie?” I yelled toward where she had been hidden. There was no answer. I ran around the back side of the patrol car to avoid backlighting myself. When the far side of the van came into view, I could see Katie standing in the lane with her gun still to her shoulder, pointing at a body on the ground. Matt was approaching the driver side window to make sure the tight circle of holes in the left side of the windshield had found their target.
I moved to Katie’s right side and realized that her finger was still holding the trigger back. The only reason the gun had gone quiet was because the magazine was empty.
“It’s over,” I said, placing my hand on top of the gun and wrenching it from her iron grasp. It was one thing to shoot a man in the back at eighty yards. It was completely different to kill a man from seven feet away while looking into his eyes. I could tell this was going to haunt her for a long time to come.
“Do you think he had a family?” she muttered, her wide eyes still looking at the lifeless shell of a man who, seconds before, had been trying to kill us.
“Try not to think about it,” I whispered into her ear as I placed my hand on her side. “He knew what he was doing when he signed on for this job. He came out here to take lives. I don’t want to think about what we�
��re going to find tomorrow morning. They were busy all day. I’m afraid we’re going to find a trail of bodies everywhere they went today.”
While I was talking to her, I realized that my hand was wet. I pulled it back and held it in the beam from the spotlight. It was bright red. I looked from my hand to Katie as she collapsed to the ground.
Chapter 17
“Katie!” I knelt beside her. She had fallen at the side of the beam from the patrol car’s spotlight. My body was between the light and her body, casting a shadow that prevented me from seeing anything other than her outline in the darkness. I moved so she was between the light and me. With her body illuminated, I tried to assess her condition. I could see her chest rising and falling slightly. The left upper corner of her shirt was saturated with blood.
“Help me!” she begged, “I can’t breathe.”
I pushed down on the knobby extension of the back of my knife blade as I pulled it from my pocket. Pushing the extension opened the blade some fifteen degrees and then the spring assist took over and the blade snapped the rest of the way open without any further effort on my part. I placed the knife blade under the collar of her shirt. With an upward motion, I pushed the knife toward the waist of her pants. The razor sharp blade parted the fabric to the bottom of the shirt without resistance.
With the shirt removed, I was able to see the damage. A bullet had struck her in the chest. I lifted her torso off the ground to look at her back. There was no exit hole.
“Matt, Katie’s been shot! I need the med kit from the car!” He had been examining the bodies to make sure they were all dead. He quit his inspection and ran back to where Katie was lying on the ground.
“How bad is it?” he asked as he knelt across from me.
“I’m not sure. It’s high enough, I think it missed her vitals. There’s a lot of blood, though.”
“I can’t breathe,” Katie gasped again, her body writhing as she struggled to fill her lungs with air.
“We need to bandage her up and get her to the hospital.”
Matt’s long strides to the car bespoke his concern for Katie and her injury. He returned with the med bag. He opened it and pulled out several packages of dressings. He had more first aid training that I did so I allowed him to work. He applied a dressing to her wound and taped it in place.
“Help me get her into the back of the van,” he ordered desperately.
I placed my hands under Katie’s arms and Matt picked up her legs. Together we moved her to the van and set her on the back.
“Stay in the back and keep pressure on the wound,” he said. “I’ll drive.”
He moved to the front door and pulled the expired driver from the seat, letting the limp body slide onto the roadway. He took a pack of gauze from the med bag and wiped the blood and big chunks of the driver’s exploded head from the seat. When he was satisfied, Matt scooted into the driver seat and turned the van around. The engine screamed as it attempted to accelerate the lumbering frame of the full size van toward town. The urgency of getting Katie to medical care drove Matt to push the van beyond what prudence dictated was safe.
And then he pushed it harder.
While Matt drove, I maintained pressure on Katie’s wound in an effort to staunch the flow of blood. I periodically checked her pulse. It was weakening. Her next gasping breathe was her only concern. Each one became more laborious than the previous.
Matt pulled into the hospital parking lot and brought the van to a stop in front of the emergency room ambulance entrance. “Stay here!” he exclaimed. “I’ll get a stretcher and the doctor. Keep pressure on the wound!” He hurried to the sliding door and rapidly punched in the numerical door code. The doors slid open, allowing him entrance. After he had passed, the doors silently slid back together.
Less than a minute later, Matt returned alone, without a stretcher.
“Where’s the doctor?” I asked shortly as he got back into the driver seat.
“They’re all dead,” he stated flatly without turning around. “The containment team sterilized the place. Everybody in there was shot: nurses, patients, everybody.”
I swallowed hard, “What about Doc Baker?” I asked urgently, holding onto hope.
“A bullet right through his gas mask; he probably wasn’t even infected. Dr. Ferb and Dr. Nelson were also there. They had both been wearing gas masks and both had bullet wounds to the head. I was around infected people all afternoon and the gas mask protected me,” he answered. “There was no reason for it. The hospital was the last place they should have shot up. They killed the only three doctors in town. I don’t understand what they were thinking.”
“What about Dr. Kemp?” I asked, referring to a retired surgeon who lived in town. He had spent his career working in a trauma center in the city. After retiring, Dr. Kemp moved to Lost Hills saying that he wanted a slower life around friendly people. “He’s more qualified than Doc Baker was anyway. His place is on Ash Street. Get us there!”
Ash Street was five blocks from the hospital. Once again, Matt pushed the van to its limits through the deserted streets of Lost Hills. I saw two different people running down side streets as we drove. Judging from the stiff way they moved, I was pretty sure they were infected.
Matt turned onto Ash Street and I pointed out Dr. Kemp’s house. “It’s the third one on the left, the brick house.”
Matt crossed over the southbound side of the street and parked facing the wrong way along the curb. Before the van had come to a stop, I opened the sliding door on the right side, ran around the back of the van and jumped onto the grass strip between the road and sidewalk. I ran to the house, my feet scarcely touching the ramp that led to the front porch. Encouraged by light emanating from the etched glass panels on either side of the door, I pushed the door bell twice and then pounded relentlessly, hoping my urgency would spur Dr. Kemp to answer the door.
Since his wife died last year, Dr. Kemp had kept mostly to himself. He quit attending church and social functions. Katie and Toby had tried to reach out to him, going to visit him and inviting him to dinner. He never accepted her invitations and rarely opened the door when they tried to visit. He was alive, but not living.
I prayed silently that he would open the door.
“Stop that banging,” I heard him yell from inside. “When your knees are eighty-nine years old, you won’t move fast either.”
I thanked God for answering my desperate cry for help. Looking through the etched glass, I could make out a distorted form moving toward the door. The uneven glass surface dispersed passing light randomly, and prevented details from being discerned. I heard the clackity clack of the wheels on his walker moving across the grout lines in the tile floor.
As the seconds dragged by, I willed him to move faster. He continued to plod at the same lethargic pace. He struggled to unbolt the door. It was all I could do to refrain from kicking it down.
Finally the door cracked open four inches, the security chain keeping it from opening further. “Connor?” he asked, puzzled. “Why are you banging my door down so late at night?”
“Katie’s been shot. I need your help,” I pleaded urgently.
“Katie? Shot? You need to get her to the hospital. I can’t do anything for her.”
“Dr. Kemp, please. You are the only one who can do anything for her. Everybody at the hospital has been killed. She needs your help.”
“Killed? How? I don’t have any equipment to work with,” he objected. “And I haven’t operated in over fifteen years.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’re taking you to the hospital. Is there anything here that you need?”
“No, I guess not,” he said as he closed the door. I could hear the chain rattling inside as he removed it from the door and swung it open.
I helped Dr. Kemp to the van as fast as his eighty-nine year old knees would allow him to move. I attempted to answer his questions as he hobbled. No sooner had I closed the sliding door than Matt gunned the engine and navigated a u
-turn which resulted in the two right wheels actually losing contact with the road as the centrifugal force caused a massive lateral weight transfer to the outside of the turn. Matt returned us to the hospital. I picked Katie up and carried her into the emergency room while Matt helped Dr. Kemp inside.
The inside of the hospital looked like a war zone. Bodies were strewn across the floor and atop other bodies. Blood smears blotted the walls and floor. Carts and wheel chairs had been tipped as people fled before their slaughterers. The walls were speckled with holes from stray bullets.
Dr. Kemp stopped as he entered the hallway. The grizzled carnage overwhelmed him. He kept looking back and forth saying, “What happened?” Then he didn’t say anything. It was like the horror before him shocked him into a wakeful coma.
I laid Katie on a bed in one of the rooms and righted a wheel chair in the hallway. I moved it behind Dr. Kemp. Matt and I sat him in the chair. His open eyes stared straight ahead, unblinking.
Leaving Dr. Kemp in the chair, Matt and I moved into the room with Katie. We picked up Sally Kolinsky’s stiff body and gently placed her in the hallway. She had worked as a nurse in the hospital for twenty years. Every time I saw her at work, she was cheerful and happy to be caring for the sick and injured. Even in the midst of death and destruction, we both felt obligated to treat the body with respect. We returned to the room and moved the second body, someone neither of us recognized, out of the room and laid it next to Sally in the hallway.
I frantically opened cabinets until I found the one I was looking for. It was the linen cabinet. Sheets were piled neatly upon folded sheets. I removed the top sheet from the stack and wet it in the sink. Using my foot, I moved the wadded sheet back and forth over the defiled areas.
The blood didn’t yield to my efforts. I was about to give up when I noticed that small patches were starting to come clean. Larger and larger blotches of the floor began showing with each pass of the sheet. Once the first small area of floor came clean, the rest followed like a chain reaction. In short order the floor was spotless.
