The dark blanket of hair covering the calf said it had belonged to a man.
Reid pointed to a solid metal bone saw hanging by its handle from a hook on the wall. “Hand me that, would you?”
Zach took it down and slid it across the counter. Whatever was about to happen, he’d recently seen worse. Still, the prospects made him squeamish.
“You have to make the pieces smaller to fit in the microwave.” Reid held the frozen limb and sawed through slushy tissue and bone. Flecks of bloody skin caught in the saw’s teeth and spattered Reid’s uniform. He put the pieces into the microwave and hit the reheat button. “Normally, you hit this button for one minute. Bigger pieces take longer and reheat seems to work.”
Like a breakfast burrito. Zach tried for emotional distance.
The skin bubbled and hissed. A boil erupted from between the big and second toes and burst, splattering the microwave door. Zach breathed through his mouth to avoid the smell, but the air moving down his throat strengthened the urge to heave.
Reid popped open the door and reached for the foot with a pair of tongs. “Get the other piece, would you?” He opened the drawer to the right of the sink and pulled out a prefilled syringe of brown liquid. “These are Nixon’s vitamins or whatever. They get this every time we feed them.” He injected the skin to the right of the erupted boil.
I’m not going to puke. I’m not going to…
The remnants of a turkey sandwich crept up Zach’s throat and he swallowed. He put the second half of the leg in the microwave and watched it spin on the bloody carousel. The timer ran down and when the beep came, he wondered if he could open the door.
“Come on, before this gets cold.” Reid waited impatiently in the hallway.
It’s like a roast. That’s all. Like a piece of beef.
Zach took the rest of the calf out of the microwave and struggled to remember what Reid said happened next. Don’t forget the shot. He injected the vitamins into the tissue and cringed when the needle tip hit bone. You can do this. He hyped himself up. Don’t pass out. Don’t let this Neanderthal see you acting like a pussy. Don’t let him get the best of you. He held the leg at arm’s length and followed Reid to the first Id’s cell.
Zach pressed his face to the window just above his eye level and the thing on the other side rammed the door. “Holy shit!” He stumbled backward and nearly dropped the leg. The infected had moved so fast he didn’t see it.
Reid laughed. “We call that one Bull. He does that every time.” He bent down, lifted the gate on a tiny pass through in the door, and dangled the warm foot from the tongs. “They’re attracted to noise.” He pounded on the jamb. “Come and get it, you sick fuck.” Bull charged and Reid pulled the foot away. “You hungry? You want this?” Bull clawed and reached through the too small hole in the door. Exposed bone scraped on the metal and a swath of flesh tore from its near bare arm.
Zach watched the taunting and teasing and smirked when Bull caught the foot and pulled the tongs from Reid’s hand. The snatch and grab pulled Reid forward, Bull’s ragged claws narrowly missing his skin. One scratch, one bite Nixon had warned. Better luck next time.
8.
Miranda couldn’t get Iris’s worry out of her head. The path to the Nixon Center had been paved with warnings. The gray cloud hanging over the building was the last of them. She withdrew the keys from the Explorer’s ignition and drew a long breath. You’re fine, she told herself. This is new job anxiety and that’s all. This is your fresh start.
She straightened her uniform shirt and headed for the main entrance. The front doors were nestled between two towers, one slightly taller than the other, and opened to an all glass atrium that reminded her of a park or a high-end shopping mall. Inside didn’t even smell like a hospital. Deceptively calm and beautiful. Her mind recalled memories of a dozen or so recent newscasts: bomb threats, attacks on staff, and a violent break-in. The place was too nice, embroiled in turmoil, and twenty miles away from anything. The voice in her head screamed for her to turn back.
There’s nothing to go back to.
She took a scrap of yellow legal paper out of her pocket, checked the name of her contact, and followed the signs and arrows to the security office.
Brian Foster.
His nametag made him an easy find and he wasn’t what she expected. Five feet, five, his men’s uniform was ill-fitting. A belt, tightened to the last hole, cinched his slacks around his boyish waist. Dark-framed glasses contrasted his otherwise thin and pale face and nothing about him was remotely intimidating. He nodded at Miranda from behind the counter but didn’t invite her back.
“Excuse me,” she said, confused. You can see the uniform, can’t you? “My name is Miranda Penton. I’m supposed to start work here today.”
In front of him sat an inch thick file with her name on the tab. He studied it, flipping through the pages. Still, he said nothing.
“Hello?” Is there some reason you’re ignoring me? He closed the file before she could get a look at what he was reading. First day jitters. Don’t let him get to you.
Foster slid a paper clipped packet of new hire forms across the counter. “Do you need a pen?” He said his first words without making eye contact.
“No, thank you.” She took her favorite one, a cheap advertising pen she’d fallen in love with because of the way it wrote, from her pocket and showed it to him. It was hard not to dwell on why he was acting so strangely.
You’re being paranoid. There’s no reason to worry. He’s just shy.
She read sadness in his downcast eyes. What is going through your head? She smiled at him, hoping to warm him.
He only withdrew further.
I guess I’ll fill this out here, then. Miranda looked at the table and chairs across the counter and when Foster didn’t invite her to sit she completed the withholding worksheets standing. More reminders of Scott. Her divorce status came up more in the past two days than it had in the months since it was finalized.
Foster positioned a laptop in front of a small, table-mounted camera and connected the two with a length of cable. He took her completed forms and lifted a section of counter to let her through. “You’ll need to wear your ID badge at all times. Have a seat, please.”
She sat in the small chair across from the camera, the short distance between her and it making her self-conscious. Every photo ID she ever had looked distorted, her smile awkwardly fake and her features out of proportion. Hurry up already.
“Look here, please.” Foster hit the enter key and without showing her the digital photo, sent the file to the printer. She wasn’t even sure she’d been looking when he snapped it. He clipped a breakaway lanyard to the unflattering ID and handed it to her.
She flipped it over and noted a brass contact pad. “A smart key?” she asked, thankful she didn’t have to carry a bulky ring.
He nodded. “It unlocks any of the above ground doors, but it won’t work for the elevator to the basement.”
It seemed an unnecessary piece of information, but she thanked him and put the lanyard around her neck, pulling her ponytail through.
Foster scribbled on a requisition form and handed it to her. “The lab is on the second floor.”
Lab? She scrunched up her forehead only half-expecting him to respond.
“You’re working in a hospital. Vaccines are required. I checked your file and I don’t see an attestation from your physician so the lab will draw a titer, a test to confirm antibodies, before giving you an unnecessary shot.”
He’s not a robot after all. “After I go to the lab, do I come back here or is there someone else I should talk to?”
“Back here is fine. Reid and Zach should be back by then.”
Please let anyone other than this guy do my training.
The first day was losing its luster.
* * * * *
Reid seemed to enjoy feeding time, the taunting part anyway.
“How many infected are there?” Zach asked.
&nbs
p; Reid pounded on the next door and nothing happened. “Seven.” He shook a hand and forearm through the feeding pass and knocked again. “Hellooooo.” He didn’t hide his annoyance. “Fuck.” He flung the arm into the cell and it hit the floor with a wet slap.
Looks like this one doesn’t want to play.
Zach looked through the window at the familiar infected slumped in the corner. The one who no longer had teeth. Dark blood stained its chin and the front of its shirt. His hands rested in his lap and his straightforward stare was lifeless, even for a zombie.
“Maybe he’s dead.”
Reid cocked his head. “You think?”
“I mean, maybe he’s dead dead.”
“You want to go in there and check? Hand me food for the next one, would you?” They had done a mass reheating and kept the parts on a foil-covered tray.
Zach lifted the corner of the foil and picked out a small foot with the tongs. Feet and legs were the bulk of their stock. Legs and wings and thighs. The analogy settled his stomach but he might never eat chicken again. “Here.”
Reid put the sore-covered foot through the door and a ravenous boy infected attacked it with the ferocity of a starved animal. “This kid’s a nasty little shit.”
Zach bent down and watched a dark-skinned boy, no older than seven, go at the foot with increasing frustration. He growled and grunted, baring his few teeth and scattering more bits with his thrashing head than he ingested.
Zach forced back the impending tears. It was the saddest thing he had ever seen.
Not one to miss weakness, Reid took the opportunity to knock him off-balance. “I should introduce you.”
Zach caught himself before he toppled over.
Asshole.
“You met Bull and I guess we’ll call that guy Toothless now. They were the two recovered researchers. That kid belongs to this guy. This is Pops.” Unlike the others, Pops was calm and pensive. His wrinkled, dark skin masked the sores that Zach wouldn’t have noticed if they didn’t glisten when he turned his head away from the scrutiny. “Pops is a real thinker. Nixon calls him an emotional test subject. He leashed him up and made him watch while he used his infected wife to test for weaknesses. Freezing, cutting, and fire, which killed her. Pops watched the whole thing and if he could have gotten loose, he would have eaten every inch of Nixon for sport.”
“You watched this?” He felt stupid for asking. Someone like Reid would probably pay for the show.
“Nixon loves an audience.” Reid shrugged and went to the next cell. “This one is Patient Zero, the kid that started it all.” The boy appeared less than ten-years-old and was also missing teeth, typical for kids at that age.
Zach couldn’t help commenting. “It’s a shame what happened to them.”
Reid shook his head. “Don’t let the innocent look fool you. They’re cold-blooded killers and you’re a hot meal.” That makes five. Zach had been keeping track. “And here we have our cautionary tale, Mitch.”
A spry male infected clawed at the cell window. His neck bore multiple burns consistent with a Taser and two of his fingers had been amputated.
Zach swallowed the dread lodged in his throat. “Why is he wearing a Security uniform?”
“Another story for another day, Zach. That one got Bull by the horns.”
9.
Miranda sat in the stiff plastic chair on the civilian side of the security desk, annoyed with her treatment so far. This was the worst first day, ever. She rubbed her arm around the emerging patchwork of purple and green bruises. No one ever had trouble drawing her blood before and it was another in a long line of warnings pushing her back to Scott.
Had she made the right decision?
Foster talked low on the phone in a back room and insisted Miranda wait where she couldn’t get into anything.
She was too lightheaded from the five failed needle sticks to fight with him. Nothing was worse than the anticipation of the needle. The tourniquet, pumping her fist, the phlebotomist feeling for a vein. She picked at the piece of satiny white tape holding a gauze square in place and scrunched up her face when the adhesive peeled away both hair and skin.
“The only way to do it is to rip it off quick.” The eye-catching man in the doorway smiled.
Finally, a friendly face.
“Oh, you aren’t kidding.” Miranda rolled her arm to show him the red welts erupting where she tore away the rest of the tape strips. “That’s how I got this far.”
“Name’s Keller, Zach Keller.” He didn’t hold back on his firm handshake and his green eyes made good contact.
Trustworthy. She assessed people based on their ability to look her in the eye. “Miranda Penton.” She gave him the once-over, checking his left hand for a ring. A distraction from thinking about Scott. Yep, there it is. Figures, the good ones are all taken. “So, did the bald guy mutilate you, too?”
Zach looked confused.
“The bald phlebotomist, mid-fifties. Terrible at his job.”
“I didn’t have blood work.”
A tattooed man, built like an action figure interrupted. “Speaking of which, Keller, you need to go down there sometime today for yours.”
Miranda sensed immediate tension.
Action figure held out his hand. “Name’s Reid, Max Reid.”
He shook her hand hard, igniting new pain in the puncture wounds. She ignored the ache and kept her eyes on Zach who now seemed on-edge. Like he was waiting for Reid to leave to tell her something he shouldn’t. It was getting harder to convince herself that she was being paranoid.
Foster emerged carrying a hefty stack of three ring binders almost up to his chin. He exchanged glances with Reid, but neither said a word. “Miranda, you can come on back.” He set them down on the table and a cloud of dust kicked up.
Bet you’re going to have to read all of them. There was little she hated more than reading procedural manuals.
“You read all of these?”
Zach grimaced and shrugged.
She wondered how else Nixon treated women differently and noted one piece of hardware no one had mentioned. Her patience was wearing thin. “So, do I at least get a gun?”
Foster, Reid, and Zach all had one holster and while it wasn’t certainly normal for hospital security guards to be armed, she suspected the recent threats were the reason for the exception.
Reid shot Foster a look of warning. “Keller, Nixon wants you to meet him in Allison’s room. I’ll take you up there.”
“I know where it is,” Zach mumbled under his breath.
“No, no. I insist.” Reid nudged him out the door.
Too chicken shit to even own up to their own chauvinism?
“Foster, what the hell is going on around here?” Her first day manners were gone.
“What do you mean?” He looked like he was caught in something.
Spell it out. She went out on a limb to ask the direct question. “Do I get a gun or are women not allowed to handle firearms?” She rolled down her sleeve and buttoned the cuff of her uniform shirt.
“Oh, oh yeah. Eventually. After your probation period.”
“And when is that?”
He handed her a binder. “About three months after you finish reading these.”
She smirked. “Then I guess I’d better get started.”
* * * * *
An impending springtime storm darkened Allison’s room, the weather decline corresponding with Zach’s increasingly sullen mood. Reid neither showed him, nor followed him, there. He used the excuse to get away from the new hire and Zach was afraid he knew why.
“Good afternoon, Zach.”
Nixon’s smile and presence made him uneasy.
“Good afternoon.” Zach tried not to show his concern for Allison’s sudden and rapid decline. If she saw his worry and panic, her fight would be that much harder. She looked to him for strength.
Allison mustered a pained smile. “Hey,” she said in a dry whisper.
“Hey.” Zach poured
her a cup of ice water from the pitcher on her tray and set his lips to her warm forehead. “How are you feeling?”
She sipped the water and her cracked lower lip left a bloody kiss on the rim of the white Styrofoam cup. “I’m okay,” she said, the gravelly tone slowly leaving her.
He opened the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a small tube of petroleum jelly. The task kept him from falling apart. He set the tube on the blanket next to her and washed his hands, afraid if he touched her lips that he would transfer germs. Several rounds of chemotherapy had her immune system so far down that she was susceptible to everything. He hadn’t even reached for the paper towel by the time she put the salve on herself.
Nixon lowered the head of her bed and examined her increasingly swollen abdomen. “Can you rate your pain for me, Allison?”
“Ten.” The word barely came out. She turned her head to hide her tears, but Zach saw her reflection in the darkened window.
Nixon drew up a dose of morphine and added it to her IV. He didn’t ask her if she wanted it and she didn’t argue as he prepared it. They had done this dance before. Zach wondered how long Nixon planned on keeping it to himself that her disease was measurably worse.
Long enough to force him to do his bidding was his guess.
Nixon hit the call button and a young, redheaded nurse appeared in the doorway.
“Yes, Dr. Nixon?”
“I gave Mrs. Keller another dose of morphine, but she needs to be freshened up. Now might be a good time to do that while she’s comfortable.”
The nurse nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
Nixon set his hand on the blanket covering Allison’s leg. “She’s going to get you in a clean gown and sheets and help you wash up while I talk to Zach outside, if that’s okay with you.”
Allison sniffled and nodded, folding her blanket over in embarrassment, but not before Zach saw the rose bloom of blood seeping through the covers.
“Zach, will you join me?” Nixon stepped out into the hall and held his hands under an automatic sanitizer dispenser.
CURE (A Strandville Zombie Novel) Page 4
