Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse

by Sean Schubert

  Jerry lifted the camera, saying, “Do you mind if I have a look?”

  Jules, partly surprised to have an adult ask her permission to do anything, nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Okay, how do you...oh, never mind, got it.” Jerry pressed two buttons and was then advancing rapidly through a day’s worth of tourist photos. Barely pausing to even see the pictures as they passed, he asked, “What are we supposed to be looking for? What did the Doc want us to find?”

  The next image was his answer. What he saw in that picture was frightening. “Is this real?”

  Both kids nodded to him.

  “Where was this?”

  Jules, lifting her shoulders, said innocently, “Far away...in Alaska.”

  Danny added, “I think I heard something about a place called Seward somewhere close by, but I don’t know for sure. This is my first time up here.”

  Almost as an afterthought, Jerry said absently, “Welcome to Alaska. First time, huh?

  “Yeah.”

  Jerry couldn’t change the camera’s digital facade. The face contained therein was horrifying and a little familiar. He had seen faces like this one before but never in his wildest dreams did he think he would see them thus.

  The face was hideously disfigured and grey, with skin stretched tightly across his cheekbones and jaw. In some places, those same bones were emerging from breaks and tears in the upper layer of tissue. There were no eyes in the empty and blackened sockets, but the face did seem to be looking, searching. His gums were the same color and seeming consistency as tar and were spread out over his few brown jagged teeth.

  This wasn’t a caveman as the kids had suggested, but he couldn’t get his mind around what it appeared to be. Things like this existed only in horror movies or video games. He knew that for him to tell someone—anyone—about his suspicions, he would first be laughed at, and then sent to the lab to have a urinalysis drug screen performed. How could he possibly approach someone, especially someone of authority, and tell him that he thinks they have a zombie problem?

  The screaming down the hall had intensified to an almost feverish pitch. Jerry could tell that the level of activity and, in all probability, chaos, had also increased. There had been several calls for security personnel over the public address system. To the chorus of screaming had been added an accompanying rhythm of smashing furniture and a melody of shattering glass.

  Instinctively, Jerry knew that he needed to get out of there. He looked at the two kids in his charge and paused. What was he to do with them? He could just say that he had to get out of there and leave them to their own luck. He could venture down that hallway and try and find their dad or at least the doctor with whom the dad seemed to be working. Or...

  He looked at the little boy. “What’s your name?”

  “Danny.”

  “Where’re you from Danny?”

  “Minnesota.”

  “And how about you?” he asked looking at the cute little girl.

  “I’m Julie...Jules, and I’m from Minnesota too.”

  “You guys brother and sister?”

  Danny answered, “No, I’m up here with her family on vacation before the school year starts. It was her brother who got bit and got sick.”

  “If it’s okay with you two, we’re gonna go find some place safe to wait until all the shouting has stopped. Okay?”

  The shouting and screaming was moving closer down the hall. Then they heard what could only be described as a gunshot that reverberated down toward them. For a second or two, the loud resonance banging around inside their heads was all that any of them could hear.

  Jerry looked one more time down the hall to try and discern if either the doctor or the dad was coming back. Scared faces hurried from the hallway, some pushing people in wheelchairs and some pushing beds and gurneys with sheet draped patients still on them. He said to the kids and to himself, “This is going to get really bad really quick. I think we better get out of here. I promise I won’t let anything happen to either of you and as soon as they get all of this sorted out, we’ll come back here and find your mom and dad and brother. How does that sound?”

  Jules was hesitant at first until another gunshot got her back to her feet. She was ready and with that so was Danny.

  Chapter 6

  While Jerry, Danny, and Jules were attempting to get the camera to work and Jerry was coming to the realization of what was happening, something very different was occurring down in Martin’s room.

  The initial scream that had spurred the doctor and Mr. Houser down the hall came from a nurse who had gone back into Martin’s room to check on the grieving Ginny. She was not at all prepared for what she saw. Ginny was lying on her back motionless, her head in a pool of thick, sticky, and steadily spreading very red blood. Hunched over her was the boy that only minutes before had been declared dead. The nurse heard a horrible wet tearing sound, followed by the unmistakable sound of chewing. When the little boy finally sensed the nurse’s presence, he turned quickly, his face covered in the soft, mortal remains of his own mother, and lunged at her.

  She pushed him away desperately, screaming for help all the while. He bit her on the wrist and with surprising ease opened her radial artery and vein. The pain immediately helped her get her wits about her. She positioned her legs as she had been instructed in self-defense class, one behind the other. Then she struck her attacker with the palm of her hand, hitting him on the chest in a very powerful downward thrust. He was pushed backward and tumbled awkwardly head over heel for a moment. That was enough for her to get out and shut the door behind her.

  Still leaning against the door, being nudged again and again from the other side, she applied all the pressure she could to her wrist. She slowed the bleeding somewhat, but the loss of blood was starting to make her feel weak. She was only partially coherent when all the others arrived...the doctors, the environmental techs, the other nurses...so many faces. Her consciousness was almost completely faded when Dr. Kozlov opened the door and released that maniacal child into the hallway. The battle. The pushing. The biting. The hitting. The beating. Less than a blur really. Cold. There was only cold now.

  “Jesus Christ! What the hell was wrong with that kid?” demanded Jackson Lynus. “Man, I didn’t know being a fucking security guard at the hospital meant that I was gonna be gettin’ bit.”

  Dr. Millenus shook his head and answered honestly, “I don’t know. We pronounced him dead. He was dead. We tried to resuscitate but got nothing.”

  Lynus tucked his chin closer to his neck, wrinkled his brow incredulously, and said, “You what? You mean he was...? But he was up and....what are you trying to say? Could you’ve made a mistake somehow? Maybe he wasn’t dead and just woke up real pissed off that you wrote him off so easy.”

  “No. He was dead.”

  “Then how the f...how do you explain this?” asked Lynus, showing the doctor his wound. “He sure bites awfully hard for a dead kid.”

  The sight of the security guard’s wound was enough to bring the doctor back. He tried to bring order to the hallway. He needed to know who all was hurt and then start to prioritize based upon severity of injury. He was reminded of his days as a field surgeon with the Army in Kuwait. There, he had to triage dozens of men with horrible shrapnel and bullet wounds, and had to do it sometimes with the sound of artillery resounding overhead.

  Mr. Houser and Dr. Caldwell returned somewhere in the midst of the chaotic aftermath. When Dr. Millenus saw Mr. Houser, he realized the poor father hadn’t even heard that his son had died the first time yet. The doctor was all set to deliver the terrible news and then the bizarre events following the boy’s death, when Mr. Houser recognized the dead child on the floor in the middle of the hallway.

  His face, chest, and legs filled with bewildering shock. He was utterly speechless, his eyes speaking volumes, asking questions, pleading for understanding. There were at least three white-clad hospital employees on the floor holding gauze to wounds on their legs,
arms, and one’s face. Then there was the large black security guard standing with Dr. Millenus; his hand was bleeding, but in the other he was holding a large, heavy black flashlight that was quite obviously shimmering with wetness. Mr. Houser quickly surmised that it was this man who had beaten his child to death.

  He fell to his knees at his child’s side, scooped the boy up in his arms, and then rolled him over onto his back. Mr. Houser recoiled in terror at the sight of his boy. The grey under his eyes had spread to most of his face while all of his veins, blue with oxygen-depleted blood, stood out like blue webbing just beneath his skin. The most startling thing though was the blood and other matter that was spread across his face, especially his mouth. He was an utter mess and barely resembled the boy who had been so excited to be in Alaska just a handful of hours ago.

  Mr. Houser’s weeping slackened just slightly and became concern when he realized that he didn’t see his wife anywhere amongst the faces standing around him. He looked at Dr. Millenus and demanded, “Where’s Ginny? Where’s my wife? What have you done with her?” He shot angry looks first at Dr. Millenus and then at the security guard, who was hiding the flashlight-turned-weapon behind his leg.

  Dr. Millenus had forgotten about the grieving mother who, to his mind, was probably still behind the closed door of the boy’s former room. He looked at the door and paused. There was a smear of red, more than likely from the nurse who had first been attacked and then held the door closed until Dr. Kozlov opened it. Mr. Houser was able to surmise the doctor’s thoughts and went to the door. He looked back at his dead son still lying alone in the middle of the floor, mentally trying to come up with a way to explain to his wife just what had happened.

  He opened the door and saw a pool of blood on the floor and footsteps leading away from it. They were smaller footsteps, so Mr. Houser assumed those must be from Martin. At first, he didn’t see Ginny. It appeared that she had already fled the room. Maybe she was down the hall being treated herself. Whose blood was that on the floor?

  Something, a kind of wet, tearing sound, drew his attention over toward the bathroom door in the corner. The door was propped open slightly and there on the floor on her knees partially in the doorway was Ginny. It was then that he saw there was someone else there on the floor with her...under her. She was straddling a pair of legs wearing white slacks and white shoes. Ginny was grunting and breathing very deeply.

  “Ginny honey, is everything okay?”

  He didn’t even have time to register surprise before she was upon him. They crashed against the wall with a thud that shook everyone still in the hallway outside. Drs. Millenus and Caldwell realized something was very wrong but it was too late. The first nurse that Martin had attacked and bitten on the hand shot up from the gurney on which she was laying and took hold of the orderly standing near her. Dr. Kozlov, who had been suffering horribly from the bite wound to his face, lost his balance at the same time and collapsed on the floor, convulsing as he lay dying.

  He was up again before anyone was able to pry loose the orderly from the nurse’s gnashing teeth. He leapt at Dr. Millenus, biting the back of the physician’s neck right at the base of his skull. The doctor tried to fend off his attacker, but the teeth were sunken in too deeply and the arms were holding too tightly. He spun around like a bronco trying to buck its rider but the teeth only dug deeper.

  There was no one who could help him, as everyone around him was fighting his or her own separate battles. Orderlies and security guards were attempting to hold at bay the multiplying assailants while, at the same time, ferrying away victims suffering from multiple wounds. Several of the guards themselves were bitten. Jackson Lynus, bitten three times in quick succession first by the initial nurse victim and then by the deranged Dr. Kozlov, fought tooth and nail, swinging his flashlight like a club until he too fell due to loss of blood.

  Two Anchorage Police officers arrived just moments into the scuffle and already the situation was beginning to look grim. To the officers, the chaotic melee dancing and swelling like a storm cloud in the middle of the hall appeared to be perhaps a group of deranged patients and even some staff attacking another group of patients and staff that was trying desperately to get away. From the other side of the melee, the officers could hear screams emerging from patient rooms that had been cut off by the battle.

  The tiled floor and once sterile walls were spattered with blood; the air was thick with the warm, salty smell of the fluid. Sergeant Gibson pulled his sleek semi-automatic pistol from his hip holster. With no clear targets and not sure what to do, he held the firearm aloft and fired into the ceiling, hoping to end or at least stall the fighting. It flew in the face of his training, but under the chaotic circumstances it seemed his most likely option. He hoped that the suddenness of his action, the sheer audacity of it, would force everyone to stall and things could get sorted. Instead, the shot had the same effect as a starter’s pistol at a race. Everyone...absolutely everyone still able to run began to sprint right at the two police officers. Sergeant Gibson and his rookie partner were hardly able to discern friend from foe. They both began discharging their weapons at the most threatening people and faces, but their bullets didn’t seem to have any effect. On more than one occasion, the 9mm slugs passed through the softer tissue of upper chests or lower abdomens, blood and sinew spraying behind, and yet the charging body scarcely showed any slackening in pace.

  After each had emptied his pistol to no effect, the two officers were simply absorbed in the wave of carnage that swept over them. And the wave, like the unstoppable and inevitable tides, spilled out of the Emergency Ward and into the rest of the hospital and street outside.

  Chapter 7

  Neil Spencer was content with his job, but definitely not happy. He worked with a mortgage originating company in Anchorage and as such, felt like he was in a position to help ordinary people realize their dreams. He was able, by getting his portion of the preliminary approval documents completed in a timely fashion, to make the oftentimes-intimidating process of becoming a first time homebuyer a little less traumatic for his “clients.” He also taught classes to help people understand Alaska Housing Finance Corporation’s rules and procedures; again, just trying to do more than his part. He wanted to have a job in which he wasn’t merely making rich people richer and that was how it felt throughout his first seven years. He had no illusions about that now though. His ideals of making grand sweeping political and social improvements had long since faded.

  There was a saying: “You can be an idealist and Democrat in your twenties, but you’re a fool if you weren’t a capitalist and Republican by the time you were in your thirties.” He wasn’t to the point of being Republican yet, but he had certainly scaled down his visions for social change. He could, however, help one family at a time and make a difference in their lives. It was for that reason that he came into work early every day. Maybe he hadn’t missed his chance. He found that his idealism was most prevalent early in the day, when everything still seemed possible.

  And there he sat, in his office...well, his cubicle. He was thankful that it was his own cubicle and he didn’t have to share his rat cage with someone else like so many of his colleagues. Small blessings could mean so much. It was just after seven in the morning, and Neil got up from his workstation to make his way to the window on the other side of the large office. The morning rituals...

  His morning rituals were important to him, and perhaps slightly humorous to the casual observer. He didn’t drink much coffee, but having that first mug from the first pot of the day was spectacular to him. Getting to look at the whole newspaper before it had been ravaged and separated and lost was such a treat as to motivate him to be at the office well before everyone else. And of course there was the most important moment in his morning ritual.

  She would get there soon. He wasn’t sure of her name, though he thought he had heard her called Lani in the lobby out near the elevator. She too got to work early every day, hustled into the buildi
ng, and then went upstairs to whichever company for which she worked. She dressed well but not exceptionally, which led him to believe that she was perhaps an administrative assistant, accounting clerk, or human resource specialist; working some position that did most of the work and received the least of the salary and distinction.

  Regardless of how she dressed, he thought she was stunning. He knew what Neil Young meant when he wished for a Cinnamon Girl. Her skin was as inviting as a sweet roll, and he could only imagine how sweet she smelled. When she ran, her long curls bounced and rolled on her back and over her shoulders. She really was a thing of beauty.

  Despite his attraction to her, he was still a little skittish about approaching women since his divorce. He watched every day as she backed her aged Ford Explorer into the same parking spot, checked her make-up in her rearview mirror with the colorful leis hanging from it, gathered her papers and folders from the previous night’s work, and then got out. More than once, he found himself hurrying to the office door and pausing before going out into the lobby. He just couldn’t bring himself to take that last but essential step. Besides, he reasoned, she was way out of his league anyway. She was beautiful and he was...well, he was him. Maybe today would be the day. Maybe he’d go out and actually strike up a conversation, introduce himself, open a door of opportunity perhaps. Maybe today he wouldn’t go out into the lobby only to head directly to the men’s room. She probably thought he had some kind of bladder condition, if she thought anything about him at all.

  He tried to shake off his doubts, sipping his coffee, flavored with a cinnamon creamer, in nearly complete silence. There was the buzz of the office computer server, the high pitched white noise of the computers themselves, and the barely audible click of the analog wall clock hanging near the door. The quiet was nice, comforting maybe. And so he waited for her.