Just then, the two of them heard a phone ringing in an open office to their right. It rang three times, then stopped. Then it rang another three times and stopped. As it began to ring again, Dr. Caldwell picked it up and cautiously answered, “Hello? This is Dr. Caldwell.”
“Doctor,” a voice began, “I need you to head to the top floor. Do everything you can to block any and all doors. We’re going to get you out of there, but you have to put some space between you and them. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but how do you—”
“We’ve been keeping an eye on you with the security cameras. The trackers are about two floors down from you but headed your way. We need you to get moving now. Get upstairs as fast as you can, but remember to block the stairs and any doors as well as you can. Do any of the maintenance men with you have their keys on them? Can they lock the doors?”
“No. Their keys don’t work in this tower but we’ll do our best.”
“Doctor, I don’t want to hear that you’ll do your best. We need you to take charge and get those people out of there. Do you understand me?”
“Yessir.”
“Okay, if you get to other phones and need help, call me back at extension 1138.”
“Thanks, but who is this?”
“My name is Simon.”
Chapter 13
Owen Hollander, battalion commander for the Anchorage Fire Department, was only vaguely aware of the scale of the chaos in the hospital area. He was acutely aware, however, that Providence Hospital, one of the most important emergency response centers in the city, was burning. The lack of any firm communication from the area caused him even more concern. While he had heard of looting and some possible homicides being committed, he was relatively certain that even looters and murderers would allow a fire engine to pass. Even at their worst, most people recognized the value and benefit of a functioning hospital and would not interfere with firemen trying to do their jobs.
With that in mind, he ordered two engine companies of firefighters to report to the hospital with a third to stand in ready reserve. These men were dispatched within minutes of the onset of the tumult at the hospital. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen atmospheric interference, he had lost contact with his men shortly after their arrival at the scene. After several attempts using a wide range of tools to re-establish a communication link, he had decided that he and the third engine company would wade into the fray to lend their support to their comrades already engaged.
He climbed into his red sport utility vehicle that served as his command vehicle and led the way. As they got nearer, he saw more and more people running from the scene. It must be worse than he originally thought. There were abandoned police cars on either side of the road and other vehicles scattered here and there, some still in the road with engines idling. The sun was still coming up, so he was unsure what the objects were that were lying about, though they seemed eerily similar to bodies. He was suddenly worried that perhaps there had been a chemical spill of some sort that was posing a respiration hazard. He called back on his radio to the engine following him and voiced his concerns about possible toxic fumes in the air. He and the company chief decided that they needed to press on and would observe the strictest caution in their approach.
They were soon on Providence Drive and only a handful of blocks from the hospital. It was here that things really began to sour. Owen could see the pulsing lights of one of his engines in the distance. It didn’t appear as if it had actually made it to the hospital. He tried to reach his silent teams with his radio and then with his cell phone. Nothing. He was going into the emergency scene completely blind as to what to expect. It was troubling, but he was a firefighter and, as such, was expected to think on his feet and use his better judgment in just such scenarios.
He pressed his accelerator and sped ahead of the more cumbersome fire engine. If he could get a better idea of the nature of the emergency, he might be able to better prepare his men for what to expect. He wasn’t quite sure what to anticipate himself, but for what he saw there was no anticipating.
One of his dispatched fire engines was just around the bend in the road and just short of the hospital. It was sitting slightly off the road with its lights still flashing. The eerie thing about it was that there was no one around. Not a single one of his men could be seen. There were helmets and some other emergency gear scattered around, but no firefighters. He called again on his radio. Still nothing. He slowed his vehicle to get a better look, then lowered his window and called on his radio again. Even from there he could hear his voice come from the radio in the open cab of the large emergency vehicle.
Then he saw a body lying face down on the side of the road, wearing a firefighter’s heavy coat. He slammed on his brakes and leapt from his truck. Instinctively, he put on his helmet and ran across the road to the fallen fireman. Owen ran through his training and followed the proper routine for approaching a potentially injured person in an emergency setting.
He called as he neared him, “Can you hear me? I’m here to help. Are you okay?”
There was no response. He picked up his pace and was almost next to the man when he noticed some movement. A group of screaming, fleeing people caught his eye and distracted him for a moment. He looked back down and the man was slowly lifting himself up onto all fours. Owen leaned down and got an arm under his fallen comrade to help hoist him up onto his feet. His hand was immediately wet and sticky. He withdrew it involuntarily and was disgusted to see that it was covered in blood...rich, bright red blood. He almost fell backward.
When the firefighter was fully on his feet but still not facing him, Owen asked cautiously, “Are you okay?”
The stricken man spun around and grabbed hold of the Battalion Chief, sinking his teeth into his cheek. Owen kicked the other man hard in the leg, knocking him off balance enough to get away. He turned to escape, but ran headlong into another person, a woman, whose left side of her face was mutilated. Her eye socket was ripped open horribly and her eye was gone. Her ear was also missing and huge swaths of skin from her neck had been shorn away by something. Owen tried to speak, but she was on him before a single word could be uttered. The firefighter still behind him was also grabbing at him as the two pulled him from his feet.
His radio was squawking desperately as the fire engine following him arrived on the scene.
Chapter 14
After their official, if brief, introductions, Neil and Rachel formulated a plan, deciding what was absolutely necessary should their time be cut short. She was going to get a cart and head toward the canned foods, bottled water, granola bars, and anything else that required the least amount of preparation. He headed for the Sports Department to look at the guns and camping gear.
The Sports Department was more or less in the middle of the store. Even without the signs pointing him that way, he could have found it by moving toward the fishing poles whose long necks peered up and over the tops of the tall shelving units that delineated shopping aisles. In the midst of the department sat a locked glass cabinet, behind which stood a bank of carefully displayed rifles and shotguns. He had never owned a firearm before, but was not intimidated by them either. He realized, however, that he wasn’t entirely sure what to get. He climbed over the counter and was immediately overwhelmed with the varieties. He knew that he wanted at least one hunting rifle with a scope, maybe a couple of shotguns, and at least one smaller rifle. The glass cabinet holding the handguns was also of interest to him. He wanted to have everything that they might need. Deciding on the handguns first, he retrieved a fire extinguisher from a support column and smashed the top of the cabinet. He just started grabbing everything onto which he could lay his hands. He grabbed heavy revolvers and lighter, sleeker automatics. There were some laser sights and other accessories in the bottom, but he elected not to get these. He then moved his shopping cart over to the wall behind and by the armloads started to empty the shelves of ammunition. He grabbed everything; not a bit was left. On
top of all of this he piled several rifles, more rifles than he had originally intended. Of course, all of the firearms had locked security bolts essentially freezing their triggers. Noting this, but deciding to move on and deal with it later, Neil next went to the camping section.
From these aisles, Neil put his hands on sleeping bags, hooking them to the outside of the cart. He was just about to pile in a small tent when a voice behind him made him jump.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He turned to see the woman whose voice hard startled him. It was the manager...or at least a manager of the store. She seemed too young to be the general manager, but her nametag, which read “Meghan”, also boasted that she was “Management.” She glared at him with her intense blue eyes, demanding a response.
Neil was embarrassed during the brief silence that ensued. Looking down at the shopping cart and at the potential arsenal in it, he was at a loss for words to explain his actions. He was finding it hard to immediately explain to her why he was doing what he was doing. He wasn’t quite sure how many laws he had broken but he was relatively certain that it was more than he could imagine. It just wasn’t in his nature to break the law and yet he hadn’t even hesitated to steal and vandalize.
More annoyed than anything else the woman asked, “What the hell is going on today? Has everyone gone crazy?”
Stuttering, Neil tried, “I...um...I...”
“I mean, first no one shows up for work this morning...last time I’m hiring college students that live on campus. I mean, you’d think as close as it was it would be a snap to get here for work. And then you...are you looting?”
“No.” Of this Neil was adamant. Looting just seemed too random and self-serving. What he had done was self-preserving. “Have you turned on a radio this morning? Watched the news? Anything?”
Thoughtfully, she answered, “Uhhh, no. My radio is on the blink in my car and the music in here is a recording.”
Knowing that this would be the quickest way to get his point across, Neil suggested, “Why don’t you go call the police. I’ll come with you.”
They went to the front of the store to use the phone at the Customer Service Desk. Meghan was careful to go inside the enclosure and leave Neil standing on the store sales floor. In case he was off the deep end, she wanted to have something between her and him, even if it was only the pressboard walls of the customer service island. After she dialed and heard the same recording Neil had heard earlier, she dialed her home number; same recording. She took her cell phone from her pocket and tried that as well only to get the same frustrating message.
Neil said, “Let’s go over to the Electronics section and check out the news. Maybe someone is still broadcasting.” Test patterns were on every television from every station; a simple message ran along the bottom that a word from the Emergency Broadcast System would follow shortly.
Meghan asked again as she accompanied Neil out to his van which was parked just outside the doors, “What’s going on?”
Seriously, almost apologetically, Neil looked her squarely in the eyes and said, “I don’t honestly know for sure. I just saw the most disturbing and frightening thing I think I could ever imagine.”
And so, as they finished unloading the supplies he had gathered into the rear hatch and back seat of his van and then went back into the store to load the cart with other necessities such as matches and fire starting bricks, batteries, first aid supplies, and anything else they thought might be useful, he told her about what had happened to Rachel and him at their office building. Neil avoided any speculation or editorializing about the events; there really wasn’t any point. The facts themselves were staggering enough without side comments.
Perhaps it was because of the way that Neil had talked about it, but Meghan felt compelled to believe the story. When she saw Rachel pass by with a cart so full she could barely push it, she knew they were telling the truth. There was something that still clung to Rachel’s face and eyes. A sense of fear and doubt just seemed to cling to the other woman.
They were startled when a new voice shouted from the front of the store, “Hellllllooooo! Is there anyone herrrrreee? Can anyone help us?”
Neil and Meghan pushed their full cart out to the voice, which happened to be on the way to the van parked out front. It was a younger man, not much more than a kid really, who waited for them by the Customer Service Desk. He had two young children who looked wild-eyed and scared with him.
Chapter 15
Jerry recounted to the others what had happened at the hospital, allowing Danny and Jules to fill in details of how it all began with poor little Martin and their caveman.
“...so, we got out to my car in the parking garage and then there was all this screaming and running all around us. There were people running every which way. Some were chasin’ and some were fleein.’ We were already in our car and moving, so we were able to get the hell outta Dodge before it was too late. There weren’t a whole lot of others who were that lucky though. A bus pulled up just as we got out onto Providence Drive. I don’t think the driver could see what was going on ‘cause he just opened his doors and waited, like everything was still normal and he was just going to pick up his passengers like any other day. Those things were on there before he could do anything. I think I saw the bus start moving again, but we just wanted to get away fast.”
Jules pulled on Jerry’s blue paper thin “scrub” pants and asked him but loud enough for everyone to hear clearly, “What about my Mom and Dad? Where are they? Are they going to be alright?”
Jerry couldn’t look down at her. He just couldn’t bring himself to do that. He knew the probable fate of the little girl’s parents. They had been there at the epicenter of all of the chaos. He touched her lightly on her head. He swallowed hard and instead looked at the other adults.
The question hung in the air, though, for all of the adults gathering around to hear, and Rachel had by then joined them. Meghan was still not sure what was happening. Neil and Rachel had seen an attack and were not sure of what they had actually seen other than a very grisly and bizarre murder. Jerry was the only one among them who understood and even he wasn’t entirely able to wrap his mind around the truth.
The air was heavy with unease and doubt. They looked at one another for a brief few moments unsure of what to do. Neil interrupted the silence with, “Okay. Unless there are any objections, I think we should try and sort things out somewhere other than here. Does anyone live close by?”
Rachel protested with a loud, “Fuck that! Oh, sorry kids.”
“D’you have a different idea?”
“Everything we need is right here. Why don’t we just stay here and wait for...” She trailed off realizing that she didn’t know how to finish her thought.
Neil finished it for her. “Wait for what? We’re on our own here. This is why I think we should get out of here and, by the way; the clock on that train is ticking away so I’ll make this brief. This place has too many windows that can be broken and too many lights to draw attention to itself. This place is bad news.”
Jerry added, “He’s right...Rachel is it? This place would be a deathtrap. We need to go somewhere that won’t attract a lot of people; because where there are lots of people there will be lots of those things. It’s that simple.”
Meghan summed up the decision with, “Okay. Then let’s get moving. If I’m gonna die, I don’t want it to be at work.”
Her candor and dry humor brought a smile to everyone’s face as they went back to the parking lot and their awaiting all-wheel drive life raft.
When they stepped outside, the sky was getting brighter, the smoke coming from near the hospital appeared to be getting thicker and broader as if the base of the flames was starting to devour the college campus as well as the hospital, but the most unsettling thing was the almost totally absent sound of emergency sirens. Not more than fifteen minutes prior, the air was filled with the clarion echoes of police cars, ambulances, and fire truc
ks. Now the only thing in the air was the smell of smoke as the city started to burn.
And then there was something else: a hum really. Jerry had once been to a horse race and it sounded strangely similar to that. He said uneasily, “I think we’d just better get outta here.”
Rachel asked, “What is that sound?” and stepped away from the van trying to see around the corner toward the source of the approaching sound. It grew louder and louder until they could make out what was undoubtedly screams.
The chaos had found them and was rapidly headed straight for them. They had to act immediately.
Meghan fished her keys from her pocket and ran toward her car. Neil shouted after her, “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m not leaving my car here. I’ll follow you.”
She stopped suddenly and ran back to him. “Here,” she said, handing him a fistful of keys. “This one should unlock the trigger guards on the guns.”
Neil smiled and said, “Thanks, and here,” passing her one of the two-way radios he had grabbed from the Electronics Department. “Stay in contact with us. I don’t want to lose you.”
She smiled and ran over to her car, which took several attempts to start. She then bolted over to the Tesoro gas station in the northwest corner of the parking lot. Neil, Jerry, Rachel, and the two kids all loaded themselves into Neil’s minivan and followed Meghan to the service station.
Neil was surprised when he got there to find that she wasn’t getting gas. She was corralling two other people, employees at the gas station, into her car. As he pulled up next to her, she gave him the thumbs up, rolled down her window, and asked, “Okay, so now what?
He wasn’t entirely sure what was next. They could get on the Glenn Highway and head north out of town. They could get on the Seward Highway and head south out of town. As far as getting out of town, those were the only two options. Neil was concerned that if this chaos, like ripples in a pond from a dropped stone, was spreading in every direction, then the highway north might be too snarled with outgoing traffic. He really didn’t relish the thought of getting stuck in a traffic jam and then having to beat this storm on foot. The southbound highway was a little more appealing, but once they headed south they were very limited with any other road travel. Of course, they could just find a good place to hide and wait. But where?
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