But she opened her mouth wide moving toward him.
He raised his pistol and sadly whispered, “Rectify.”
Bang.
He lowered his weapon. “I’m sorry, June.”
THREE – CLOSURE
When he was twenty years old, James gave up the habit of biting his nails. Yet as he stood on the street across from June’s home, he bit them until they bled.
He went through a range of emotions, sadness, guilt and relief when he saw Major Tom come from the house.
Major Tom walked directly to him. “I’m sorry, Doctor Ung.”
“I feel horrible for calling.”
“No, you did the right thing.”
“I just … I just knew. I couldn’t go into the house, I pounded on the door, she didn’t answer. I knew she was weak.”
“She was … she was more than that,” Major Tom said. “She revived.”
“Oh my God.”
“From what I saw, she took a bite to the neck.”
James closed his eyes briefly.
“These .. these were in there.” He handed him the envelopes. “She knew she was going. She took the time to write the note and it appeared she tried to rectify herself by suicide. It didn’t work. She died holding pictures of her children.”
“Her poor girls.” James looked down to the notes. “Did she … June believed a part of the person remained. Did you notice, or see anything like that?”
“For a second … a split second, I wondered,” Major Tom said. “Then she opened her mouth to bite. I’m sorry.”
“No. No.” James waved out his hand in a no worry manner. “I understand. I was just kind of hoping that for her sake, a part of her remained, and for all of her believing it, that maybe she was right.”
“For what it’s worth, I was hoping so, too.” Major Tom placed his hand on Ung’s arm. “Clean up crew will come by shortly then the family can come in and handle the effects. Do you need me to tell them?”
“No, I will.”
“Look on the bright side Doc,” he said. “A cure is on the horizon. It’ll be over soon.”
“That will be a good day.” James gripped the letters, one of which was addressed to him. He had to face her family, tell them the news. He had told them previously that she was ill and he would inform them she passed away from the injuries. He would leave out she had revived and became just another monster. Or that all of her insistence and determination attributed to her own death. They didn’t need to know she was wrong about Melinda, or that despite what she believed and wanted, the June they knew left when her heart stopped beating. He would simply tell them to know June went peacefully, holding their photos.
They were her last thoughts.
That was all they needed to know.
When he saw them carrying out her body, James almost found his own closure … almost. There was something he had to do, first.
FOUR – TO BE SURE
It was a vision forever set in stone in James’ mind just as he was told it would be. He had seen countless dead bodies, a hundred rectified remains, but June’s body was different, this was his friend.
After Major Tom handed him the letters, James could have walked away, got in his car and went home. After all, it was his only time to sleep before his shift. Instead, he went into June’s house using his medical identification as his pass inside.
Melinda’s body had already been removed and the clean-up crew was inside, probably retrieving June’s body.
The rotten egg mixed with skunk smell had lessoned some since he was there in the morning. The windows and doors were open and Melinda’s body gone, which was the main source.
James heard voices up above him on the second floor and he followed them up.
The two men wearing the clean-up uniform were by the bathroom.
“Grab the bag,” the one guy said.
“No,” replied the other. “It will be easier to bring her in the hall and bag her.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Wait,” James called out to them. “Please.”
They both turned around and looked at him curiously.
“Please, before you take her.” James held up his hand in a halting manner. “Let me see my friend.”
“It’s not a good thing, man,” one said.
“I’m a doctor. I’ve seen many.”
“Yeah, well how many of them did you know personally?” he asked.
“None.”
“You’ve been warned. It stays with you. I know.” He stepped from the way to let James in the bathroom.
The bathroom was narrow and not very big at all, so James was immediately greeted with the sight of June’s body.
There was a single bullet hole to her forehead, she had been thrown back from the force and was wedged between the toilet and tub. Her shirt was burnt and her hair was singed badly.
James looked around the small room. The bathroom vanity was a mess. Staple gun, bloody gauze, a scalpel. The sink had dried blood and there was old blood on the floor. It was probably where she sliced her own flesh like some sort of luncheon meat for her child.
“He said she killed herself,” James looked at the clean-up crew. “Do we know how?”
“My guess,” one of the cleanup crew replied and pointed to the filled tub. “Blow dryer. Her shirt was burned. Probably tucked it in her shirt and jumped in.”
“Nah,” Second Clean Up Guy replied. “She fell backwards in. The shower curtain is off. She was either sitting on the edge of the tub or lost her balance while getting ready.”
James assessed the situation. If June was trying to be the subject of her own experiment, she would have timed it. She wouldn’t have killed herself to get there, she knew the process. She had to die first ... June had spoken about what it would take to rapidly revive the body, and James believed she figured out how to accomplish that. To do so, she would have had to be electrocuted shortly after death. Only way for that to happen would be to position herself to fall in when she died.
“Only thing I can’t figure out,” Clean Up Guy One said. “Is how she got out.”
“Yeah,” Clean Up Guy Two said, agreeing. “You’re right.”
“Excuse me?” James asked.
“Clearly she was electrocuted,” Clean Up Guy One said. “Clearly, she’s wet, she was in the tub. But how did she get out? They don’t. I mean …” he looked at the other Clean Up Guy. “How many have we found in their tub? At least a dozen. Death by suicide, sliced wrist, plastic bags.”
“And they stay in the tub,” he replied. “They lack the physical ability and agility to get out, especially with water. And in a tub that full? It’s baffling.”
“Maybe she didn’t die in the tub,” Clean Up Guy One said.
“Maybe she was already half out,” replied the other.
James didn’t respond out loud, but he thought it. ‘Or maybe … she knew exactly what she was doing’. He stepped closer to June’s corpse and stared. ‘Did you, June? Did you know?"
Unfortunately, for James the answer to that question would never come.
FIVE – TRAPPED
It wasn’t as simple as going to sleep under a veil of normalcy only to awaken the next day and find most the world had transformed into maddening, undead-ish creatures.
It wasn’t that simple or scary.
It was more heartbreaking.
There was a plague, or at least that would be how Ella Hoffman would describe her eye witness account to her children, should she ever have any.
The news had it all wrong. Not even in the vast faux news of the internet did the stories even come close to the reality of it. At least not in Ella’s recollection.
She had heard about a new virus, one making the rounds as a final hurrah to the cold and flu season. This one had a fever, chills, body aches and blood shot eyes.
When she first heard of it, she knew of no one that had it, then within two weeks, everyone seemed to contract it. But there weren’t any, “How long were y
ou sick until you felt better questions bobbing along between friends and family."
No one got better.
They all fell like dominoes.
Ella was newly married, then in the same breath she was newly widowed. Most of their month long marriage was spent facing what they both believed was the end of the world.
In fact, it was.
A lot of the world just didn’t know it yet, or they were too blind to want to see it.
Before that, Ella lived a normal life.
She and her husband, Bruce lived in an apartment in a large apartment community. Her grandmother lived in the same community in the building next to her. It was an awesome place to live, the grounds were country and suburban-like, but two blocks away down the hill was the bustling south side area of the city.
Bruce worked for a local and small moving company and Ella, often labeled an underachiever thirty-something, was a pharmacy tech at the Rite aid down the street. It wasn’t her dream to work as a tech, she wanted to be an Olympic runner. Ella was a great runner, fast, too. She made the Olympics, then a minor car accident had major consequences when she suffered a knee injury.
The Olympics were out. A career as a runner was out. Ella healed and could run again, but her speed was never what it used to be.
As the world was cast into a sort of apocalypse, Ella was running again. She was fast enough to run where and when needed.
Just after the virus took hold and everything fell apart, Ella ran out for supplies … literally, including raiding the Rite Aid where she used to work.
That was when there were no police, no law and order, and those things ran amuck everywhere. It was before someone, somewhere decided to put it all back together.
At the time, her apartment community had dwindled down to a handful of people in one building. Family members of those who remained, wandered outside in a post infection state of danger and hunger. Every day it was increasingly deadly.
Someone had brought up the industrial park by the river. A large area with dozens of buildings, surrounded by high and sturdy fences.
Go there, wait it out, be safe from those … things.
In order to get there, they had to make their way through the South Side, which was swarming with the risen.
Bruce went ahead to check it out, he had his moving truck and could plow through the infected with ease.
When he got there he learned people were already living there. They welcomed Bruce and the others, but they had to bring their own supplies.
In order to get some extra supplies, Bruce made a mad dash thought the hordes of South Side infected. It was somewhere in his shopping extravaganza that he was bitten.
He said nothing to Ella. Upon his return, he loaded the remaining survivors from the complex into his truck and headed to the industrial park.
The area was safe. The fences were thick steel with a tilted top wrapped in barbed wire.
After Bruce unloaded the truck, the survivors and Ella, he backed out the truck, asked them to lock the gates, told Ella he was infected and said his goodbyes.
He died outside the fence and rose again almost immediately.
Bruce and hundreds like him walked all day and night around the perimeter. Each day he decomposed a little more, but he never left.
Ella swore it was because he didn’t want to leave her.
She went out daily to see him. Sometimes she’d sit by the fence for hours.
They were safe and alive in that industrial park, while outside the fence the whole South Side district swarmed with revived.
Ella and a couple others were the only ones out of a hundred that ever left the fenced in area, and that was to forage for supplies.
It was dangerous, but Ella was fast and was able to do the task.
But the South Side area that surrounded the complex was as far as they ventured on a regular basis, only in desperate situations did they leave the area and that took being stealthy.
Desperate situations arose a lot more than they liked.
Ella always was the one to go. She had her safe, secret way.
For everyone there, leaving was impossible.
There were so many revived in that section of the city, taking them out in military street sweeps was impossible, so the government sealed off the area like a major quarantine zone. No one gets out and only the dead got in.
Walking a hundred people to safety wasn’t feasible, it was like walking through a piranha mine field. And even if they found enough vehicles, the roads and access points were all destroyed, not to mention military snipers were set up at a distance and shot anything that moved coming out of the South Side.
The complex lost four people that way when they went for a rescue for the camp.
One man, Leonard, made it as far as talking to a soldier. He was lucky, because unlike the other four before him, he wasn’t shot sight unseen. He was told, everyone, even those alive and well were carriers and dangerous and could never leave.
Ella found that assumption to be absurd and based on ignorance.
She supposed it was the government’s way to give a false sense of security.
Through listening to a battery operated radio, Ella and the others learned the world got back on its feet. They were phased back into some sort of normalcy, with curfews and law. The revived were handled through professional means.
They lived their happy lives, feeling safe, and totally oblivious to what was happening in areas like the South Side.
Ella and the others like her were forgotten.
While those outside the South Side all lived a life of hope and optimism, Ella lived a life that was nothing but a nightmare.
She once heard someone on the radio say, "We as a civilization are one unrectified infected away from the apocalypse."
Obviously, to Ella, that radio person had not been to the South Side.
SIX – FIZZLE
The ice in the small plastic cooler was ninety percent melted, but the water was cold and that told James so were the beers in there.
He would have opted for coffee after catching a few hours sleep, but he didn’t have electricity to brew any. The rolling blackout would have his lights off for several more hours.
All he wanted to do was relax and clear his head. It was his first day off from the hospital in months.
Bringing his cooler to the front porch, James grabbed a beer, twisted the cap and sat down. As he brought the beverage to his lips, he noticed the R-Team at the house across the street.
They were exciting the house.
The Landons. They had three small children. He wondered if any of them made it out.
He felt bad … again.
For months, James tried to let nothing faze him, yet over the past week everything bothered him.
Once again, James found himself across the street from a house that had been rectified. And once again he watched.
Major Tom was one of the last to exit, James didn’t think he’d be noticed until the major lifted his hand in a wave. James lifted his hand as well, and Tom walked over.
“You ever sleep, Doc?” The major asked.
“Just woke up. Got three hours. You?”
“When I’m dead.”
“Beer?”
“Wow, yes, thank you.” Tom smiled.
James retrieved one from the cooler and handed it to him.
The major uncapped it and took a long drink, gasping afterward and smacking his own chest. “That hurt.” he smiled. “Thank you.”
“No problem. The uh … the Landons. Any of the kids make it?”
“All.”
James sighed out in relief, it was good to hear.
“The grandparents called. The father had revived and the mother wouldn’t leave him. When we went in, both were … they revived.” He took another drink of his beer. “Do you work tonight?”
“No. I … I called off. I just needed a break, after … after June and all.”
“I understand.”
&
nbsp; “Yeah, I usually work to keep my mind busy and off my wife and son.”
Tom paused in sipping his beer. “I’m sorry. Did they—”
“No. Well, I don’t really know what’s going on. Right before the virus they went to visit family in China. I was supposed to finish off the month long trip with them, but the world changed. Last I heard from them was after things just got up and running. My parents’ village was fine.”
“That’s good to know. And I hear China has it together better than us.”
“Let’s hope. One day … one day I’ll find them.”
“So, Doc, you ever think of venturing out?”
“What do you mean?” James asked.
“Well, all the doctors are in rural hospitals like Mon Valley. City is hurting. Especially the expedient med camps they set up. Seems like everyone is afraid to be down there.”
“Good reason. It’s a war zone.”
“Yeah, it is, but there are a lot of good men and women who fall ill or die when an amputation could save them. We try in the field, but the raw amputation kills them most of the time.”
“Whose taking care of them?”
“Nurses, volunteers, a lot of people without any medical experience. We can’t get doctors down there. Like I said, they’re afraid. They stay where it’s safe with a controlled environment, little rush and if you see an infected you send them to a ward or rectify.”
“What happens in the field?”
“Most revive before they are rectified. Then there’s the people who just need medical help but can’t make it twenty miles south. Diabetes, heart attacks and the common flu. It’s a mess down there. I was just throwing it out to you …”
“I’ll do it.”
“Excuse me.”
“I have two days off a week that I don’t take. I’ll do it. Count me in and I’ll toss some hours that way when I can.”
“Ah, Doc that would be amazing. Are you sure?”
James looked back at his house. “I don’t want to be here any more than I need to be. When I do, I worry and make myself sick. So, yes, I am sure.”
“Whenever you can. Go to Mercy Hospital area. If you head to the zone one barracks in Bethel we’ll get you a ride there. Just show up ... whenever.”
The Rectify Series (Book 2): Rectify 2 Page 2
