Pandemic

by Tinnean

  Now he could see why. People were mobbing the front doors of the big store, fighting savagely to get in while those already in fought just as savagely to keep them out. None of them wore face masks, and no one seemed to have guns, but from the looks of it, teeth and nails were working just fine and were twice as savage.

  That was when his gut clenched and he knew this had been a bad idea—a very bad idea. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Why hadn’t it occurred to him this could happen, especially after those looters in his parents’ house?

  A police car came tearing down the street, its siren wailing, and Laurie backed into the relative concealment of a store’s entryway. Two cops got out of the car—cops, not the National Guard. Where was the Guard?—and one swaggered forward to try to break it up, while the other stood behind the passenger door, resting a shotgun on the top of the door.

  “Come on, people, knock it off. You want to—”

  Laurie never learned what the cop thought the crowd would want to do. A dozen or so people broke off from the main group and attacked him. He went down before he had a chance to protect himself. His screams were high and filled with panic and pain, but it was even more shocking when they suddenly stopped.

  “Oh shit.” Laurie hunched in on himself, so scared he nearly pissed himself. What the fuck is going on? He’d been cautious because he didn’t want to come across men like those who’d broken into the house where he’d grown up, but he hadn’t been serious when he’d toyed with the idea of a zombie apocalypse; he hadn’t really thought anything like that could happen in real life.

  The second cop didn’t bother shouting a warning. Laurie could tell by his actions that he’d cocked the shotgun. He used his open door as a shield and began firing over it into the men and women outside the warehouse. The swarm just kept coming. They didn’t seem fazed by the bullets that tore chunks of flesh off their companions. In a matter of seconds that cop was overrun by them and disappeared under the wave of bodies.

  Laurie wasn’t going to hang around in plain sight, but he’d have to act fast, before the mob saw him and came after him. The store behind him was in darkness—the lights were out, and someone at some point had covered the windows with plywood.

  If he was lucky, it would be empty. If not…He rested his hand on the hilt of the knife he carried in his belt.

  He kept his gaze on Last Chance. The mob was still piled on the two cops, only now they seemed to be attacking each other. He backed toward the doors. Usually they would slide open as a customer approached, but of course they wouldn’t now—no power. However, Lync, who’d worked in a mall whose stores had doors like these, said all you had to do was put pressure on the door and push to the side to manually slide them open. As long as it wasn’t locked.

  Please, God, don’t be locked. He crossed his fingers and backed a few more steps, not wanting to turn away and lose sight of the mob until the last minute. Another step, and he jumped when an arm came around him from behind and dragged him into the store. “Shh,” someone whispered in his ear. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.” He urged Laurie farther into the store. “You don’t want to be out there.”

  “I sure as hell don’t. Thank you. I don’t know why you’re helping me, but thank you.” But Laurie had no intention of letting his guard down. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Rod, the pharmacist.” The man was short, chunky, and balding, and he wore a medical face mask. “This is my store. As for why I helped you, I wouldn’t let my worst enemy face a mob like that, but…you’re a customer. I recognized you.”

  “Huh?” Laurie looked around and realized that yes, he was in the small drugstore where he usually bought condoms and lube. “Oh.” He blushed, not that Rod would be able to notice his discomfort, not with Laurie’s face mostly covered. And wait—how could Rod have recognized him?

  “Here. Put this on. It’ll work better than that bandana.” Rod handed him a face mask before Laurie could ask. “Come back to the breakroom with me. Some of the other employees are there.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?” Laurie hurried to replace the bandana with the face mask, then stuffed the bandana into a pocket.

  “I’m kind of like the captain of a ship. Not everyone left when the National Guard came by, so if they need help, I have to be available.”

  “And the others?”

  “We’re like family. They don’t have anyone, so when they learned I was staying, they decided to stay also.” Rod pushed open a door that led to a short corridor dimly illuminated by light filtering out from under another door. “We’re okay in the store. The restrooms are right here, there’s plenty of food in the grocery aisle and water in the storeroom, and we’ve got a generator. It’s supposed to be for the meds that need refrigerating, but it keeps the refrigerator in here working, too. I turned off the lights in the store so everyone would think it was closed.”

  Laurie blinked in confusion. Wouldn’t that make people more inclined to try to enter? He didn’t ask, though. He was just a tin knocker who would rather have been a hairdresser.

  Rod opened the door to a good-sized room. Three people—two women and another man—were sitting around a table piled with boxes of protein bars, and they turned to look at him. They all wore face masks as well. It was kind of creepy.

  “Who’s this, Rod?”

  “My name’s Laurie.” He wasn’t surprised when they snickered. Everyone did when they first learned his name.

  “And this is Annette and Marilyn.”

  “Ladies.”

  “Where were you headed, Laurie? Camping?”

  “Huh? Oh, you mean the…the backpack. Heh-heh. Yeah.” He wasn’t going to tell them it was a bugout bag. “I didn’t have breakfast—no food in the apartment—so I was going to Last Chance to get something.”

  “Not a good idea,” the man murmured. “I’m Al.” He didn’t offer his hand.

  “Hi, Al. No. All hell’s breaking loose out there. Is it…is it likely they’ll try to get in here?”

  “Not a chance. Not when this store is locked up tight and they have everything they could possibly need right where they are.”

  Rod suddenly looked uneasy. “Excuse me a minute.” He left the room.

  “Have a protein bar.” Al offered Laurie one, taking care not to touch Laurie’s fingers, although nothing had been said about the disease being transmitted through touch.

  “Thanks.” He tore off the wrapper, slipped it under the face mask, and bit into the bar. Mmm. Peanut butter. And it actually tasted like peanut butter.

  “So what’s the story with that knife you’re carrying? You planning on carving up a Thanksgiving turkey?” Annette asked.

  “Uh…no, it’s for protection.”

  “Have you had to use it?” Al eyed him nervously.

  “Not yet, although I thought I might have to when some men broke into my parents’ house.”

  “Damned looters.”

  A sudden squawk made Laurie jump again. “What’s that?”

  “It’s the dual band radio.” Al fiddled with a dial on the radio, and a voice filled the room.

  “…and the reports from the CDC are bullshit!”

  Huh? “What’s she talking about?”

  Al and the women gave him pitying glances. “Listen.”

  “This situation isn’t under any kind of control. There is no Patient Zero, not like they want you poor saps to believe. Some bacteria that had been kept dormant by the ice caps revived when the polar ice began melting. That’s what’s responsible for this—for everyone getting sick and losing their minds—and the government is doing nothing but lying to us about it.” Her voice became hard and cold. “Because this isn’t a fucking isolated event!”

  “Shit. Uh…excuse me, ladies.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Annette said.

  “If you’re listening to this, make sure you wear face masks. At least that’s one thing those fuckers got right. This virus is spread through vapor droplets.”

  “Uh
…didn’t she first say it was a bacteria?”

  Marilyn snapped off the radio. “We’ve heard all the pertinent information,” she explained. “This newest message will just keep repeating until someone from the FBI or Homeland Security track it down and stop it.” She sighed. “A sign you’ve caught this disease is confusion. You spike a temp—a really high temp—your brain fries, and finally you become so confused you can’t tell people who are trying to help you from people who are trying to hurt you. You don’t react well once you’ve reached that point, and God help anyone you come into contact with.” And from her tone of voice, it was obvious she knew whereof she spoke.

  Laurie thought of the two cops the mob had torn to shreds and felt sick.

  “Then you die,” Marilyn continued.

  “What happens after that?”

  “What?”

  “Please don’t tell me we reanimate.”

  “Don’t be silly. This isn’t a George Romero movie.”

  Laurie sighed in relief. At least they wouldn’t have to deal with zombies. Something else occurred to him. “Wait, how do they know this? I mean everything was fine last night when I went to bed.” Wasn’t it? “It only happened overnight, didn’t it?”

  “No. It’s been going on for weeks—people getting sick—only nobody knew enough to put two and two together.”

  He remembered Mom saying something the week before about an early flu season. Had it been happening then?

  “It started really slow, but before anyone realized what was happening, it snowballed, and now it’s getting worse and worse. Like Revere said, back when she could still keep her facts straight, the government is useless.”

  “Uh…Revere?”

  “That’s her on the radio.” Al looked scared. “She started broadcasting about a month ago, trying to spread the word. You know—like Paul Revere? No one knows her real name. The government tried to shut her down, but she got away. She’s had to keep on the move ever since.”

  “How do you know this?”

  The three looked at him as if he were nuts. “She told us,” Marilyn said.

  “Damned government kept saying nothing was wrong, but if they’d just acted, just accepted global warming was actually happening, they really would have had it under control. But now…”

  Now the shit had hit the fan.

  Rod burst back into the room. “Oh God, they’re in the store,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I forgot to lock the door. Someone must have seen me pull Laurie in here.”

  “Will they hurt us?” Laurie asked.

  “Yes.” Annette looked more than scared—she looked terrified. “Like Marilyn said, another symptom is uncontrollable rage.”

  Laurie remembered bodies that looked as if they’d been battered by a tire iron. “What do we do?”

  “You have to get out,” Rod said. “Go through the emergency exit. The alarm won’t go off because there’s no power.”

  “But you said—”

  “What?” Rod snarled. His eyes had a reddish cast to them.

  “Nothing.” Laurie swallowed hard.

  “Take these.” He gave each one of them a box of face masks and a reusable canvas bag filled with protein bars. The bags had the pharmacy’s logo on them. Laurie’s mom had mentioned that a lot of businesses in Laurel Hill were going that route because the bags were better for the environment than disposable plastic bags. “There’s some bottles of water in there, as well as all the meds I could get my hands on. They should help with any infection, bacterial or viral. Just make sure you take them after you’ve eaten something. The last thing you need is a stomach or intestinal upset. And damn, I should have included probiotics.”

  Laurie’s bag was heavier than he expected, and he nearly dropped it. And when he felt how hot Rod’s hand was…

  “Where’s the emergency exit?”

  “This way.” Rod led them out to the corridor and then pointed to the right. “Now go.”

  “What about you?”

  “Captain of the ship, remember?” The face mask concealed Rod’s expression, but the skin around his eyes was tight, and Laurie could hear the nerves in his voice. Rod pulled open the door, and the alarm began to wail. Yeah, Laurie had been afraid Rod might have become confused after Ron had originally told him they had the generator hooked up. “Go! Go!”

  They slipped out.

  “This way,” Marilyn said, and she began trotting down the alley toward the parking lot. “We’ll be safe at my house. It’s not too far.”

  And they’d be together. Laurie slowed to a walk, while the other three kept weaving through the cars in the parking lot, not even stopping to get into one of their cars. When none of them looked back to see where he was, he turned on his heel and began jogging in the opposite direction.

  He had to get out of there, and he’d remembered something Lync had told him—his dad had a bunker out in the woods outside of town. The thing was, he’d need a car to get there. Laurie had seen a bunch of cars in driveways and at the curb on the trek from home, but he didn’t have the time or the knowledge to hotwire one. He’d have to go for his own car; he crossed his fingers that it was still where he’d left it.

  He took the side streets, using caution, and he had a couple of close calls, but finally he reached the parking lot behind the bar he’d been in the night before.

  His piece of shit car was still there, a parking ticket stuck under the windshield wiper. He threw it away. Like the courts were going to haul his ass to jail because he didn’t pay the fine. He tossed the bag Rod had given him onto the front seat, then unstrapped the bugout bag and swung it in as well. Finally, he pulled out his keys and climbed into the car.

  It took three tries before the piece of shit started, and he nearly pissed himself, he was so scared someone—well or sick—would come to investigate the noise. Finally he got the car in gear and headed toward Knob’s Hill Road. It ran parallel to Main Street but a few streets to the east, and it led toward the woods out of town. The best thing was Knob’s Hill Road wasn’t used much this time of day…What was he thinking? It wasn’t likely it would be used at any time of day anymore.

  * * * *

  If Laurie was good at planning, there was something else he was even better at, and that was finding a place he’d never been to after he’d been given the directions to reach it. Lync hadn’t known that. One night, while Laurie tried to get up the nerve to tell Lync he wanted his lover to take him over his knee and paddle his butt until it turned bright red, Lync had talked about the bunker. His words had distracted Laurie, and he’d listened, fascinated, while Lync mentioned landmarks and distances, never realizing he’d as good as drawn a map for Laurie.

  The road leading to the woods was empty of people, but there were cars crowding the two-lane highway, and he had to weave his way carefully through wrecks or cars that had simply run out of gas and were abandoned.

  A lavender Rolls Royce, half in the culvert on the side of the road heading east, caught his eye. He knew that car—or knew of it, at any rate. It belonged to the Dupuis family, one of the richest families in this part of the state, second only to Harrison James, who was high on the list of the world’s wealthiest men. Lync had a thing for the society page and read it whenever there was mention of Adam James, IV, golden boy of the family that, unlike the Dupuises, who’d lived here since the flood, were fairly new—meaning only a couple of generations—to Laurel Hill. To tell the truth, Laurie had found it confusing. Why would a blue-collar boy from the poor side of town be fascinated by someone who’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth?

  But Laurie had liked the story behind that lavender Rolls. Mr. Dupuis had bought it for his wife, because it was her favorite color, and had given it to her on their wedding day. No one had dared to mock him for it, at least not to his face.

  Now Laurie slowed his piece of shit car and stared at the Dupuis’ Rolls Royce.

  It looked abandoned. The driver’s side door was open, as well as the passenge
r doors and the trunk, and his gut clenched as he remembered the car up the road from Lync’s apartment. He pressed down on the gas to drive past, lifted his foot to let the car slow, pressed down again, then finally stepped on the brake and put the car in park. If the piece of shit didn’t make so much noise idling, he’d have left it that way, but he just couldn’t take the chance it would draw attention to his location, so he turned it off. He left the key in the ignition, though, and checked the area multiple times before he got out and approached the Rolls.

  A body was crumpled on the backseat and blood was drying in the fair hair, but he could see the man’s chest rising and falling. How long had he been lying there? Laurie hurried around to the other side—no way was he going to wedge himself into that confined space—and spared a glance at the contents of the trunk. It contained a case of water and a box of nonperishable food, as well as one of the largest suitcases he’d ever seen. Later he’d have time to wonder what it held, but for now, he had to see how the man in the backseat was doing.

  Laurie arrived at the right passenger door and looked down into the pale face. Although the lower portion was concealed by a mask, Laurie could see the sinfully long, thick, ink-black eyelashes that fanned out on the man’s cheeks—odd to have such dark lashes paired with such fair hair…

  No, he couldn’t let himself become distracted. From above the top of the mask he could see a bruise blooming. When the car went into the culvert, he must have gotten banged up pretty good. The man was dressed in casual clothes, but Laurie hadn’t gotten his gay card for nothing. He could tell in spite of being casual, the clothes were expensive. Even discounting the Rolls, this was one rich dude.

  He rested his palm on the man’s forehead. Fortunately it was cool, so he wasn’t sick. At least not at this point.

  The lashes fluttered and the man groaned.

  “Shh,” Laurie whispered. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

  The man looked at him with dazed eyes that sharpened with fear. “You’ve got a knife!”

  “It’s okay. It’s just for protection.”