by SD Tanner
The woman turned to him in disbelief. “What the hell…?”
Having seen the blackness under the woman’s skin, and felt her almost mechanical fingers digging into his throat, he was unsurprised she’d landed so well. Nothing about the woman had reminded him of anything human. When he turned to stare through the door, people were still making their way along the corridor, only now some were looking into their room curiously. Given they weren’t attacking one another, he thought it was safe to assume they were all like the woman they’d just thrown from the window. It would only be a matter of seconds before they realized they weren’t one of them.
“We have to go.”
Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the woman by the arm and ran from the room, turning in the opposite direction to the elevators and public stairwell. The hospital had been custom built, and on the other side of the building were staff stairs and a service elevator. Skirting the walls of the corridor, he rapidly made his way along it, heading for the rear of the hospital. People were brushing past him, and when he glanced into each room he passed, all he saw were bodies and blood. Travelling in the opposite direction to everyone else, they were gaining more attention, and it would only be moments before they were discovered. Some of the people were wearing scrubs, others were casually dressed, and even more were clad in their pajamas. The oddest sight he witnessed was a man, still naked, with his entire chest exposed. Instead of a smooth chest, the man had a black, rubbery hole where his heart should have been.
Pushing open a door on his left, he dragged the woman into the room behind him. Turning abruptly, he slammed the hydraulic door closed as quickly as it would shut. Next to the door was a heavy set of cabinets on wheels, which he pushed it in front of it. Kicking the wheels sharply, he felt his big toe break, but he continued to hammer at the wheel until it snapped and the cabinet drooped on one side. The woman copied him, and together they broke the wheel on the other side. It wouldn’t hold the door for long, and he grabbed the woman again, pulling her towards the next set of doors.
The next room was another ward, only this one was larger. With twelve beds, six on each side, he dragged the woman through the aisle down the center, and tried to ignore the bloodied beds.
“What’s going on?” The woman asked breathlessly.
He couldn’t answer that question, other than to say people had gone completely insane, and appeared to be turning into rubbery monsters, intent on killing everyone. It didn’t strike him as a sane answer, and he didn’t have the breath to spare so he didn’t reply. He needed to get to the service elevators. Not the ones they used for visitors or even the extra-large ones they used for surgery. Originally, the hospital had been funded by a very wealthy man who’d insisted on having a top floor office. Given he’d donated all the money to build and run the hospital, when he’d asked for his own private elevator, the architects had simply added one to the plans. Their crazy benefactor was long gone and, with the endless budget cuts over the years, the elevator was no longer used or maintained. Their only hope was to find that elevator and ride their way to freedom. The hospital was lost. All of his patients had either turned into killers or had been murdered.
In all the years he’d practiced, he’d never given up on a patient no matter how terminal their case, and he wasn’t about to give up on himself either.
CHAPTER TEN: Home Sweet Home (Leon)
The recall had been abrupt and uninformative. Judging by the long queues at every military base they landed at, absolutely everyone was being called home, but no one had offered an explanation as to why. To his surprise, every airport was under heavy security, and not a single television was working. He’d tried his cell phone continuously and got no signal. Clustered together in groups of dusty, camouflaged sandy brown, they’d all guessed about what was happening, but no one had any real information.
The mass exodus was being done in any way possible, and now he was sitting in a C-5 Galaxy transport plane with hundreds of other troopers. They still had their packs and guns, and were leaning on one another for support while they tried to sleep. Unlike a typical military flight, everything inside the plane had been ditched to make room for people, and many were lying on the floor, using one another and their woobies as pillows. Leaning back in his narrow seat against the side of the plane, his own lightweight poncho lining was tucked behind his head. From the rumors he’d heard, all of the ships had been loaded with more troops and were heading home. Another story he’d heard was all commercial flights had been grounded and only the military were using the airspace.
There must have been two hundred and fifty men and women in the belly of the transport plane, and he was sitting in a line with Tuck, Billy, Donna and their ill-tempered Navigator, Lexie. With food and coffee, she seemed to have recovered from her ordeal, and while he gingerly fingered the knife wound on his neck, he couldn’t fault her commitment. She’d saved their lives and he supposed she was entitled to a small tantrum, if only as tension relief from a tough situation that could have killed them all.
He had no idea how close they were to landing, but they’d been flying for hours. The transport plane had a top speed of five hundred and eighty miles per hour, and it was a long flight home. At first he’d been tired, but now he was bored and idly flicking through the pictures on his camera. In one picture, Amelia was smiling at him. Her face was framed by a poufy veil, and her lips were a bright red in stark contrast to her white dress.
“What’s that?” Lexie asked loudly in his ear.
With the droning of the plane, he could hardly hear her and shouted back, “Amelia. My wife. She’s pregnant. Our baby’s due in four months.”
Lexie was dressed in her under gear including her hydraulics, but her armor was piled at her feet and she was using it as a footrest. His face reflected at him through the visor covering half of her face and he decided, despite sleeping most of the flight, he still looked tired. The past eight years had aged him, but he couldn’t work out if he’d developed lines due to what he’d seen, or his body had simply leaned down with age and fitness. Gone was his rounded face, and it had been replaced by a chiseled jawline topped with deep-set hazel eyes. The corners of his mouth had developed deep creases, and his cheekbones were slightly hollowed. He’d long given up any attempt to control his hair, and it was shorn close to his scalp. One of his incisors had been chipped by the recoil of an M4, and he thought he should get it fixed, but he didn’t really want to waste the money. He suspected Amelia would think differently, and he’d find himself at the dentist the moment she got her hands on him. Thinking about Amelia reminded him he was soon to be a father, and he continued flicking through the pictures on his phone.
“What’s that?” Lexie asked again.
On his phone was a picture of him and Amelia at San Juan Island, and he replied, “Our honeymoon. We only got married three months ago. She was two months pregnant.”
Lexie didn’t reply and he looked at her quizzically, but instead of seeing his reflection in her visor, she was looking at someone at the front of the plane. Glancing to his right, he tried to see what she was looking at. Seeing nothing other than a clump of troopers lying on the floor, he asked, “What are you looking at?”
With only her mouth and nose on display, he couldn’t read her expression and she pointed. “That guy. The one at the back.”
“Why?”
“His read is funny.”
“Like funny ha ha or funny weird.”
“That’s a stupid question,” she replied bluntly. “His signal isn’t right.”
Turning to face Donna sitting next to her, she seemed to disappear into a conversation with her. Obviously she was done talking to him, and he continued to flick through the hundreds of images on his phone. He was excited about going home. Usually they were deployed for up to twelve months, and he’d prepared himself for the worst case scenario where he’d miss the pregnancy, birth and first six months of his son’s life. Being recalled was an unexpected bo
nus and, despite the strangeness of their situation, he was looking forward to surprising Amelia. She’d gotten pregnant within a week of them meeting and it was a shotgun wedding. He was excited about becoming a father, but he wanted to spend some uninterrupted time with Amelia. They didn’t really know one another, and swept up with the idea of becoming a father, he’d married her hoping it would all work out in the end. It wasn’t a good way to start their lives and his parents weren’t happy.
With the loud droning of the plane it took him a while to realize something was happening at the front. It was only when the people at his feet began to rise from the floor that he looked up. There seemed to be some sort of argument going on at the front of the plane, and soldiers were piling on top of one another.
“Do not fire!” A voice roared.
The order was relayed around the cramped plane and more people were moving to the back. As soldiers scrambled away, the fight at the front was becoming an isolated area of its own. Dragging men and women out of combat, and then dumping them into an emergency recall, was a sure fire way to stress them out. It didn’t surprise him that some people were losing their cool, but the panicked movement in front of him seemed to be an overreaction to a simple brawl. He looked around for his CO, or at least someone senior, only to realize he was the one in the middle of the fight. No one was throwing any punches, and the group of ten or so men appeared to have someone pinned to the floor.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Tuck asked in a disgruntled tone.
He was about to say he didn’t know, when another soldier approached the free-for-all, and jabbed his fist into the spine of a man lying on top. Assuming he’d landed his punch, he was surprised when the man then lifted the other man from the top of the pack. He must have been holding onto his spine, and the other man lifted into the air briefly, until his bodyweight dragged him down again, leaving the man with a part of the spine in his hand. Without thinking, he dropped his phone and grabbed for his gun.
“What the fuck…!”
“Do not fire! Do not fire!”
The order echoed from person to person, and he dropped his gun again, reaching for his knife as he did. A surge of bodies hit him from his right, and he was pushed along with them to the back of the plane. Unable to see anything other than the people around him, he grabbed the webbing on the wall behind the row of chairs, and hauled himself up until he was standing on a seat. From his higher vantage point, he watched the escalating fight at the front of the plane. The man who’d torn the spine out of the other man was now falling under the bodies and knives of more soldiers. Where he would have expected the man to collapse, he didn’t and he was tearing into his assailants with his bare hands. Clearly their blood was flowing, and the floor of the plane was growing red and slippery. Directly in front of him a man began to assault the soldier next to him. This one was using his knife to good effect, and bodies were falling around him. Still holding onto the webbing, he lashed at out the man with his blade, slicing him across the cheek. Instead of sinking into his flesh, the knife skidded across the surface of the man’s face. Tuck was standing on a chair beside him, and he used the butt of his M4 to smash the top of the man’s head. Both attacks had no effect, and the man continued to stab at the people around him. Blood was spilling and draining into the grills on the floor, and people were sliding and falling.
The central area of the plane erupted into violence, and all he could see were blades and bodies slamming into one another. He wanted to help, but it was impossible to work out who was attacking who. The floor was a sea of violent movement, and while he watched in shock, their Navigator stood up in front of him. Without much regard for either side, Lexie appeared in full armor and began to push bodies aside as she targeted a soldier. With a swift motion, she grabbed the man, flipped him on his stomach and held him down. Seeing her actions, other soldiers grabbed at the man and kept him pinned to the floor.
Realizing they needed to secure the manic soldiers, he began to pull at the webbing on the wall. It wasn’t designed to hold anyone, but he figured it could be used like a net. Lexie reached for another man, and grabbing him by the neck, she hurled him roughly at the front of the plane. With the strength of her hydraulics, the man flew through the air and landed against the bulkhead, sliding down and then bouncing to his feet. With the force of his impact against the wall, it wasn’t possible for the man to have felt nothing, and yet he was already up again and ready to assault another person.
He, Tuck and Billy, along with others, were tearing the netting from the wall. Without a word being spoken, other soldiers grabbed at the netting, clearly understanding their plan. With Lexie throwing the now enemy soldiers at the front of the plane, they gradually used the netting to form a barrier between them. Lexie was continuing to target soldiers in the crowd, and slowly a line of killers and defenders was forming. The front of the plane became the killers and the back the defenders. It was a life and death football match and the losers would die.
“We’re trapped. They’ve gotta land,” a voice shouted desperately in his ear.
The line of defenders cut across the plane, and they were hammering the butts of their guns into the netting. The killer soldiers were being pushed into the wall at the front of the plane. There were bodies lying prone across the floor, and people were clambering over them as if they weren’t there. At least a hundred men and women were now caught behind the netting, but it didn’t stop them and it offered no protection. The only thing keeping them alive was the relentless battering of fists and guns against the front of the crowd. They wouldn’t be able hold their impossible perimeter for long, before the killers would burst through the netting and the plane would erupt into hopeless violence.
Lexie was at the front of the plane adding her hydraulic strength to the battle. Thanks to the hydraulics, her blows were having more effect, but she was only one person against a hundred. The netting, which was a fairly useless defense from the start, was being torn away and some of the killers were emerging from the fray. Their faces were battered and torn, and under the bloodied mess, all he could see was a rubbery blackness.
It was only then he realized the plane was descending rapidly, but it was unsteady. As the plane rocked from side to side, everyone was being thrown around. With the netting gone from the wall, he had nothing to hold onto and was hurled into the sea of living and dead bodies. Rushing air was filling the large transport space, and the rear door was lowering. Obviously the pilot had decided it was better they fall to their deaths than die inside the cramped space. Struggling to his feet, and pushing himself against the bodies pressing on him, he stared towards the opening door. Caught in the fight, he hadn’t noticed their fast descent, and the ground was closer than he expected.
He clearly wasn’t the only one who understood what that meant, and behind him was the distinct crack of gunfire. They were firing on their own, but what choice did they have? The large door was almost fully extended, and with the sharp descent of the plane, he felt himself sliding towards it. Grappling with the floor and bodies around him, he tried to control his tumbling. There was no way he wasn’t going to fall out of the plane, but every second he managed to delay it would bring him closer to the ground. There was nothing to hold onto, and he tipped onto his back trying to minimize the damage, as he slid with everyone else towards the gaping door.
It was only as his body left the platform that he felt something grab hold of his belt. Fighting against the fierce wind whipping at his face, he saw a black arm and Lexie holding onto the edge of the door. Bodies were flying past him, bouncing onto the tarmac and skidding to a stop. Finally, the wheels of the transport plane hit solid ground and it began to lose speed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Until death do us part (Jonesy)
His apartment block was old and only four-stories high. When they’d married, Jenny’s father had helped them put a small deposit on the property and they’d long since paid it off. They’d lived on the third floor for thirty years, an
d unlike modern apartments, it had a balcony and generous sized rooms with high ceilings. Although they’d often talked about moving to the suburbs, the city was both his job and his home. They’d lived a simple life, and having always watched their money, he could retire early without having to take another job. He and Jenny had planned to enjoy living in downtown Albuquerque, but he guessed that idea was all blown to hell now.
Turning to Jas, he said, “You can stay in the car or come with me, but either way it isn’t safe.”
She’d said very little during their drive across the city, but he’d noticed she made good decisions. Even now, she’d parked the car as close to the entrance as she could without compromising their ability to leave quickly. When they’d witnessed the mob tearing their faces off, she hadn’t panicked and had driven away at a sensible speed.
“I’ll come with you.”
He’d armed them with an AR-15 and a shotgun from the trunk of his car, but neither of them were wearing bulletproof vests. Usually they were supplied by the precinct, and they weren’t something he’d ever thought to buy. Glancing through the windshield, he tried to assess the risks around them. Their apartment wasn’t on a main road, and they were parked on one of the narrower side streets. Cars had been abandoned along the sidewalks, and smoke was billowing from a window to his left. A lost dog was wandering down the road, and it stopped and nosed at a corpse half lying outside the passenger door of a car. He’d never been to a war zone, but he supposed this is what it would look like. Without the hustle and bustle of city life, the area had already taken on a dusty and abandoned look.
To his right were the heavy doors that led into his apartment block. Every level had four homes, and the whole complex had fourteen apartments. Unlike some of the modern apartment blocks, there was no doorman or reception, and only a wide set of stairs leading to each level. The double front doors had been painted a thick, dark brown, and one of them was slightly ajar, meaning it wasn’t locked. Usually the janitor only locked the doors at night, and he wasn’t surprised to see they were open. He supposed they should have been more security conscious, but nothing bad had ever happened on their street.
