The NEXT Apocalypse (Book 2): AFTER Life: Purgatory

by Chute, Robert Chazz

  The crewman sounded scared. “She says she has two patients. The man on the gurney is her prisoner. Her partner needs a ride, too. He may be infected and needs a doctor.”

  Judging by his wounds, I had to assume there was no way he couldn’t be infected. The thin man in scrubs struggled with the big cop for a moment. The officer’s weapon went off. The young man’s knees bent and he looked like he would rise again for a moment. Then he flopped to the catwalk as blood blossomed across his stomach. Still, weak as he was, he reached for the cop’s legs.

  The next attacker, a lanky black man, leapt at the cop, his arms outstretched as if he was doing an imitation of Superman in flight. The cop saved his ammo and knocked the man aside. The attacker fell off the side of the walkway but caught the railing and hung by one hand.

  Three more attackers fell back as the cop fired. The police officer was a large and formidable man. He might have done better to make his stand on the ramp and take on all comers. Instead, he turned to lumber down the ramp toward us to escape as more zombies poured out of the roof exit and added to the chase.

  I wanted that cop aboard our helicopter. Despite his wounds, he didn’t appear to be infected like the others. Even if he was infected, what accounted for his resistance to Picasso? What made him different? What factors governed how quickly the nanites took over a human brain? Perhaps he had some immunity. I needed blood samples and time. Unfortunately, I would have neither.

  The officer pushed the gurney ahead of her. The cops had apparently prepared him for a safe and quick transfer into the helicopter’s cabin. Chains bound the patient’s ankles. His wrists were strapped down. As the cop pushed the gurney, the crewman grabbed his end of the gurney and yanked the restrained man into the helicopter. The patient was a dark-haired man, maybe thirty or a little younger, handsome in a rugged way. He wore a mouthguard that was strapped around his face so I could only see his brown eyes.

  Halfway in the helicopter, the female officer waved her partner forward. She screamed so loud, I heard her. “C’mon! C’mon! Run for it, Don, you fat shit!”

  It was a nurse and a shirtless man in jeans who wrapped themselves around the big man’s legs. He looked like a football player determined to slog his way to a touchdown. He was too slow. The zombies were too fast.

  The medevac’s crewman tried to grab the female officer’s arm and drag her inside as the rotors’ whine amped up to a higher pitch.

  She shrugged him off and sprinted back down the ramp.

  “Idiotic!” Thomas yelled. “Leave them! Go!”

  “No! I need that officer,” I said. “He’s wounded but not turning.”

  “Those aren’t necessarily infected wounds!” Thomas argued. “Could be just from fighting. Doesn’t matter, we’ve got to go!”

  I couldn’t decide whether the men were cowards or shrewd realists. Soon, it wouldn’t matter. The big cop fired the remainder of his mag into the oncoming horde. Some were wounded but kept coming, limping and shaken, but determined. I watched as a tiny nurse wrapped herself around one of the officer’s arms and sank her teeth into his left wrist. Blood spurted out and she shook her head to better open an artery. His shirt in tatters, the officer pulled his arm away for just a moment before her face contorted in fury and clamped down on his left elbow.

  I couldn’t hear the man in uniform but I could tell by the way his mouth stretched wide that he was screaming. I unfastened my seatbelt and yelled as loud as I could to the officer in the gas mask. “Can you save him? We need him!” Rigg tugged at my shoulder and it occurred to me to speak to the pilot. “Don’t leave her. Not yet! She still has a chance!”

  The wounded officer clubbed his attackers with his pistol. He managed to grab one snarling Asian man by the throat and push him over the railing. The zombie flipped backward and slid down a slanted roof. The man caught himself on a vent before he could go over the edge. However, when he tried to stand, he slipped and fell forward to bash his head on the vent’s steel housing. Dazed, the Asian man tripped. I gasped as I watched him fall over the edge, seventeen stories to a shattering stop on the sidewalk below. I wondered if he killed anyone on the ground.

  The helicopter rocked and lurched up off the pad about a foot as Rigg pulled me back and roughly shoved me into my seat. I was still screaming to the officer with the gas mask. She ran toward her partner just as the nanites took over the big man’s body.

  I could see the difference in the cop’s face. He stopped struggling and just stood there for a second while the cannibals chewed on his flesh. They drew more blood but he was past caring. Then the zombies stopped their feeding frenzy and detached from him. It was as if they’d heard a bell ring, telling them to stop at once, to find new victims.

  The cop started toward his partner, his face contorted into a mask of murder.

  So much for immunity, I thought.

  The female officer only went far enough down the helipad’s ramp to draw her weapon and take careful aim. She shot her fellow officer. Maybe she was aiming for his head, I don’t know. The shot took the big man in the neck. He sank as if his knees had suddenly turned to melted wax.

  She didn’t wait to watch her partner fall face first to the deck. She turned and sprinted back to the helo’s open door. The mob converged on the fallen man and began to feed once more. Some of the larger cannibals pushed the smaller ones aside to take their place at the feast.

  I couldn’t look away. The horror of it was one thing, but part of me was fascinated with the evaluation that was apparently involved. The predators had converted the big man to become one of their own. However, I guessed that since his gunshot wound was mortal, they’d set upon him again. Or perhaps it was more visceral than that. Maybe he’d bled so much, their instinct of primal bloodlust had been triggered somehow. It didn’t have to be a conscious choice. It might be something as simple as the smell of blood that made them turn on one of their own, like sharks.

  A little bald girl in a hospital gown ran past the feeding zombies and up the ramp toward the helicopter. As the gas masked officer climbed in, the crew member slid the door closed behind her.

  My eyes locked on the little bald girl. Her gaze seemed to lock with mine through the Plexiglas. I worried that she was still human, that she might wave me to come back to rescue her.

  We lifted off and I kept staring, unsure if she was one of us. Then the helicopter tipped and peeled away at a steep angle. I think she was one of the infected. She must have been. I hoped so but I could never achieve the comfort of dumb certainty.

  That was the moment when I really began to understand what we were in for.

  Chapter 16

  DANIEL

  Behind the thick glass of her gas mask, Shelly’s eyes were wide. Adrenaline cranked high, her pupils were dilated. I sensed less fear and more rage now and it was me she was mad at. “This prick better be worth it!”

  Yelling over the din of the rotors, a woman in a fancy dress asked Shelly, “What’s your name, officer?”

  “Constable Shelly Priyat, 13th Division. That was Don Roberts out there.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you, but a lot of people are losing today.”

  Bracing herself by a hanging safety strap, the woman stood and gently squeezed Shelly’s shoulder before guiding her to a nearby seat.

  The copter’s crewman retreated to a seat at the rear of the cabin and said nothing. He struck me as a sulker. He stared at my ankle chains, mouth guard and restraints but refused to meet my eyes.

  The guy in the double-breasted suit, goggles and mask introduced himself as Dr. Ken Rigg. He was a stiff representing the government’s health department. Lots of people joked about the zombie apocalypse. I knew a lot of cops who, unkindly, referred to the city’s homeless that way. However, I doubted the government had prepared for a real zombie outbreak.

  Rigg introduced the pretty woman with flawless mocha skin: Dr. Chloe Robinson. She was the only one who bothered to look me in
the eyes. She didn’t wear a mask. She had large eyes, a button nose and a kind face.

  My stomach rumbled. I worried that I might try to lunge at her and eat that lovely face. It’s not me. It’s not me. It’s not me. The monster in chains only looks like me.

  The scared-looking businessman, Robinson’s boss, was Thomas Dill. That name sounded familiar. Hamish Allen had mentioned him. So that was Hamish’s boss. I wondered how much Dill knew. Had he seen me and Hamish on surveillance recordings yet? Or was it all such a mess that they didn’t even know Hamish Allen had sabotaged the Box and killed everyone in a misguided attempt to make this new killer technology go away?

  “What’s going on down on the ground, constable?” Rigg asked Shelly.

  “We were supposed to be up on Eglinton when we got a call to get downtown by the Eaton Centre. Traffic was jammed tight. We ended up having to take a subway from Bay and Bloor, emergency personnel only. It was a mess downtown. They said it started a block south of Dundas so Don and I went to see what we could do. There was military down there, too. Guys with flamethrowers — ”

  “And your prisoner?”

  Shelly glanced at me. “We lured and trapped him in the back of an isolation van. Almost killed me. If not for pepper spray and two or three more of us for backup …. ” She blinked back tears. “Everything’s such a mess. I’ve shot my own.”

  “You made the right call,” Rigg said.

  “With all due respect, sir, shut it.”

  Shelly looked to Dr. Robinson. “You’re not wearing a mask. Can I take this thing off? I hate it.”

  Dill gave a smile. “I think you can relax about that.”

  “The weapon was airborne,” Robinson said. The way her eyes flashed with anger and how Dill’s smug smile faded told me everything I needed to know about her. “We don’t think it can last long that way, though.”

  “You might need protection in the immediate area of the outbreak,” Dill said.

  “But we’re not sure how much square footage ‘the immediate area’ might be, are we?” Rigg asked. He clearly preferred to keep his mask on.

  “Flying around in a helicopter, we’re safe,” Dill said. “The …uh … weapon … is dispersed on the wind but person to person contact remains the primary vector for the agent. If the agent remained viable on the prevailing winds, it would have spread farther by now.”

  As if that’s supposed to be some kind of grand consolation, I thought.

  “Person to person contact?” Shelly said. “Really? I’ve seen that contact up close. That’s not what I’d call it.” She pointed to me. “This one tried to kill me with his bare hands and came close to succeeding.”

  Robinson sounded calm and measured. “Judging from what I’ve seen, my boss can’t guarantee anyone’s safety but we are far from the epicenter. How widespread is a single dose on the wind, Thomas? What’s the data say?”

  Dill shrugged. “The theory was that Picasso would be dispersed from a crop duster with hundreds of pounds of it. The cache at that lab couldn’t be near that much.” He looked to Rigg and added, “We never went into production on that scale.”

  As if he deserves a cookie.

  “I won’t presume to tell you what to do,” Robinson told Shelly, “but if I thought I could get the disease without being bit, I’d be wearing a mask.”

  “With all due respect, we’re in a crisis and you’re wearing a party dress, ma’am.”

  “I was at a party when I got my surprise invitation.”

  Shelly looked to Rigg. “What about you?”

  “I’m wearing a mask. I’d keep yours on, were I you. Don’t take bad advice. Dr. Robinson engineers tiny robots but I’m a disease specialist.”

  Robinson glared at him. “You were at the site of the outbreak yesterday?”

  “I surveyed the area around the lab, yes,” Rigg said primly.

  “That the same mask?”

  “I’ve switched it out, of course.”

  “How many times?”

  Rigg shrugged. “At least three or four times, every time I wash my hands — ”

  “If you’ve worn the same paper mask for more than twenty minutes, your own respiration makes it wet. The mask is compromised.”

  “I know that.”

  “And so?” Dr. Robinson said. “Think it through. Take your time.”

  Shelly tore off her gas mask. “Screw it, this thing is way too hot. She’s not turning into a killer maniac so I guess it’s just ‘person to person contact,’” she said derisively. “I’ve seen a lot of that today. It’s awful.”

  Embarrassed, Dr. Rigg pulled his mask down to his neck. He wore a ridiculous waxed mustache and his chin was weak. He should have left the mask on, if only for aesthetic reasons.

  Chapter 17

  CHLOE

  Toronto’s cityscape took on more detail as the sun rose higher. Several plumes of smoke rose from downtown. “Why are there so many fires? Do zombies start fires?”

  “Some citizens are being proactive,” Rigg said.

  Maybe he thought he was amusing but, to me, Rigg looked like one of those irritating little shits who act like they’ve always got a secret they aren’t willing to share. “Meaning?”

  “Riots?” Constable Priyat suggested.

  “No, actually,” Rigg said. “People are running around downtown. Some are infected and others aren’t. We suspect many people are hiding, trying to wait out the epidemic. The elderly, people who can’t run for whatever reason and people with young children are probably sitting behind locked doors and counting how many breath mints they happen to have with them. When they get hungry they’ll have to come out. I hope the healthy office workers had the good sense to run to the back of food courts and delis. A freezer might be safe as long as they don’t freeze to death. Any place with food and water so they outlast the infected.”

  I gave Rigg a hard look. “I asked about the fires.”

  “From what we’ve seen using remote surveillance, most of that is people trying to block off their streets. Unfortunately, it’s gone awry. Some fires are spreading. I can’t speak to all instances but I’ve received reports that may be representative of the sorts of things that are happening.”

  This guy can really drag shit out into a smear, I thought. “Go on.”

  “A few neighborhoods worked together to keep out people fleeing the infection. Blocking streets and sidewalks with cars and warning people off from a distance probably sounded like a good idea at first. We’ve discussed these sorts of scenarios. Isolation works until someone wants to let in somebody who is family. All hell breaks loose as neighbors argue about the risks of letting someone past their barricades. Inevitably, somebody sets fires to the barricade, the fire spreads and whole neighborhoods go up in flames. Even if firefighters respond, there are only so many fire engines.”

  “You say you’ve discussed this, like it’s happening or you predicted it.”

  “Both. We’ve got models of how these things go. It’s not exactly plug and play, but we’ve seen how epidemics play out before. Honduras in 1978. The Congo in 2014.”

  I looked to the man strapped to the gurney. The lower half of Daniel Harmon’s face was covered with a muzzle. He wasn’t what I expected from a rabid cannibal. He wasn’t snarling and pulling at his restraints like a wild animal. Instead, he stared at me. Somehow, that was more unnerving.

  He looked at me, pointedly. Then the patient moved his eyes to the left side of the helicopter. I followed his gaze and saw Lake Ontario rushing below us. Left side? That’s wrong.

  “Hey!” I called. “Pilot! We’re supposed to be headed to Aurora but we’re not headed north. We’re headed west!”

  The pilot clicked on in my headphones immediately. “We’re on the correct heading, Ma’am. I wasn’t told Aurora was our destination.”

  “This is Rigg. Aurora is not our destination. Hold your course, please.”

  “Roger that.”

  The pilot clicked off and I looked from R
igg to my boss. “Aurora has a lab.”

  Thomas stared at his feet. He couldn’t meet my eyes when he said, “Aurora is just a supply depot. It doesn’t have the facilities we need to remedy this situation.”

  “What are you trying to not tell me, Thomas?”

  He looked up. “There’s only one spot nearby that has the facilities and maybe the answers we need.”

  “You’re taking me back to the epicenter of the outbreak?” I said. “You son of a bitch! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was afraid if I told you the truth you wouldn’t come.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “You said that.”

  “It bears saying twice.”

  “We’ll meet a team there and we’ll have a military escort,” Rigg added.

  “I’m going in myself,” Thomas said. “I know the lab. We’ll put on Hazmats and then we’ll head down to Level 4 and see what happened. We’re going to stop in Port Credit for what we need — “

  “If you can give me a protective suit,” Constable Priyat said, “I’ll go, too.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said.

  She tilted her head toward Harmon. “Your patient, my prisoner. I want to make sure he makes it down there for testing. Don died so you could make this man your guinea pig. He better get where he’s supposed to be.”

  I would have been more angry but the logic was sound. Maybe they’d have a cure sitting on a shelf waiting for us. I once met a guy in a bar named Greg Fowler. He worked for Doctors Without Borders. We talked for hours about the work he did in small towns up and down the Ivory Coast combating river blindness.

  I asked him why he did that and he said, “An overdeveloped White Knight Syndrome. The people who need the most help seem to get the least. I can help.”

  I took him to bed that night and in the morning, over breakfast, he admitted that the other reason he worked for Doctors Without Borders was it got women like me to take him home. I laughed and laughed at that. A year later he died of kidney failure because of some bug he picked up in Borneo. I cried and cried.