Devoured (The Hunger #1)

by Jason Brant

  “…total is now at twenty-eight in twelve different states. There is still no official story on what’s causing the quarantines, but unnamed sources have told us that the CDC is heavily involved and that more cities are likely to be affected in the near future…”

  Lance hurried down the hallway, padding past the nurses’ station without looking at any of the busy bodies inside. He wanted to get past them unnoticed if possible. He needed to find Doctor Brown ASAP and figure out what was going on.

  He’d told Liz and Don to stay in the room and wait for him to come back, but they wouldn’t listen. They followed a dozen yards behind him, not wanting to appear as if they were together, hoping they would draw less attention that way.

  “Sir? You can’t go back there!” Pam pushed herself out of her seat, pointing at Lance as he slipped by.

  With the military arriving, Lance figured he didn’t have much time to get answers. He expected everyone to be locked in their rooms in short order, so he pushed on, ignoring the nurse that gave chase.

  An ear-piercing shriek filled the hallway, stopping everyone in their tracks. Lance made eye contact with another patient in the hall, a portly woman of sixty or seventy, and saw the unbridled panic in her. He tried to force a smile but found that he couldn’t do it. He was as scared as she was.

  Another siren song echoed across the hard surfaces of the hospital.

  A scream of agony followed it.

  Lance broke into a run, heading toward the sounds of conflict.

  Liz hollered his name from somewhere behind him, but he ignored her. He had to know what they were dealing with.

  Around the next bend, he stopped outside of a glass-walled observation room, his mouth agape at what he witnessed.

  A dozen doctors surrounded the woman from the street.

  Her condition had deteriorated dramatically in the few hours since Lance had seen her.

  Her eyes were milky and shriveled, like white raisins in their sockets. The veins in her face stood out from her deathly pale, sunken skin.

  Her lower jaw hung low, yawning so wide it neared dislocation.

  She shrieked again, the shrillness of it stabbing at Lance’s ears despite the wall of glass between them.

  A doctor staggered toward the door, clutching at his left wrist as he stared at the place where his pinkie and ring fingers should have been. Blood covered his white coat, dripping to the floor as he cried out. The color drained from his face as he pushed into the hallway, his stumps wriggling as if the fingers were still attached.

  Bile stung the back of Lance’s throat as the doctor stumbled past him, moaning in pain and shock. He turned his attention back to the sick woman to see her pounce on an orderly, her teeth snapping at his hands as he tried to ward her off.

  Doctor Brown stepped forward, grabbing her around the shoulders, giving the others time to react. They grabbed her legs and lifted her from the ground, fighting against her wriggling body. She snapped at them, dead eyes lolling in their sockets.

  It took five of them to get her strapped to a bed, arms and legs bound by straps with buckles. Cords stuck out in her neck. Her muscles bulged as she tried to break free.

  Lance watched the events, unable to speak or react. Seeing a woman who looked sick earlier, now appearing closer to a corpse in less than a day, scared the shit out of him. If he contracted whatever she had, he would rather jump off the top of the hospital than have his eyes shrivel.

  The woman writhed on the bed, struggling with her restraints, shrieking like a banshee.

  “Sir, you can’t be here!”

  Nurse Pam grabbed Lance’s bicep and tried to pull him away from the window. He jerked his arm free, never taking his eyes from the ravaged woman on the bed.

  “What’s happening to her?” Lance whispered. His voice sounded distant, as if it came from someone else.

  “If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to have you arrested!”

  Lance ignored her. “Is this going to happen to us?”

  Doctor Brown spotted him through the glass. He quickly walked to the hallway and shooed the nurse away. “Mr. York, now isn’t a good time.”

  “Now is the only time,” Lance said, peeling his eyes away from the mad woman. “The military just arrived, for Christ’s sake!”

  “They what?” The doc’s forehead wrinkled. “No one told us anything about that.”

  “A whole shit ton of them just pulled up in fucking tanks. I want to know what’s going on, right now.”

  Brown rubbed the top of his balding head. “We haven’t figured out much since we last spoke.”

  “Well, how about you start with what’s wrong with her eyes?”

  “I,” Brown scanned around, making sure no one could hear, “don’t know exactly. Her body is doing things that shouldn’t be possible. Her metabolism is through the roof. We’re pumping calories into her at a ludicrous pace, but her body is burning them off faster than anything I’ve ever seen.”

  “Doc, she’s acting like an animal. An animal with rabies.”

  He nodded. “Her higher brain function is failing at an alarming rate. We still don’t know what’s causing it. She’s lost all ability to speak.”

  “So that’s it? That’s all you guys have figured out? What’s the CDC saying?”

  “Not a whole hell of a lot. They’re listening more than informing.”

  Lance’s shoulders slumped. He kept hoping he would wake up from this nightmare soon.

  “What should I do?” he asked.

  “Pray.”

  “You want me to pray? The military is storming the castle, a woman is turning into a goddamn zombie, and you want me to pray? Do you know this is happening all over the country?”

  Brown’s head rocked back. “What? Not just in Pittsburgh?”

  “They haven’t told you that either? Hell, we saw it on the news. There are twenty plus hospitals where this exact same thing is happening.”

  More of the doctors filed out of the room, animated chatter passing back and forth. None of them paid any attention to Brown or Lance. They had bags under their eyes, their hair messy.

  “This is going to shitsville, Doc. We need to get out of here.”

  “I don’t disagree, but—”

  The echoes of dozens of boots clomping on the floor came from down the hall. Soldiers marched toward them. Some stopped by rooms, barking orders at patients and nurses. Others kept coming, M16s held in front of them.

  They all wore gas masks. A few adorned full-body suits.

  “Everyone back to your rooms,” shouted the lead soldier. “For your own safety, we need you to cooperate fully. Everything is fine—these are precautionary measures only.”

  Lance didn’t buy that for a second. Precautions consisted of going outside when a fire alarm went off, or closing schools if it snowed too much. Precautions should never involve armed men occupying a building meant to care for the sick and wounded.

  Doctor Brown leaned forward, whispering to Lance. “I’ll stop by your room and give you updates whenever I can.”

  Lance gave him an almost imperceptible nod. “Thanks.”

  The soldier in front, whose nametag identified him as Reynolds, stopped in front of Lance. His blue eyes were visible through the plastic shield of the gas mask. The gold leaf on his chest signified he was a major or colonel—Lance couldn’t remember which.

  “Sir, I need you to return to your room right now. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

  “But—”

  “Eifort!” The officer turned to the soldier behind him. “Escort this man to his room and stand guard at his door. One of the nurses has informed me that he’s been taking some liberties around the floor.” He locked his steely eyes on Lance. “Don’t let me see you again.”

  The soldier, Eifort, stepped forward. She stood a little shorter than Lance, and had her brown hair pulled into a ponytail. The mask obscured most of her face. The three peaked stripes that made her insignia didn’
t mean anything to him.

  At that moment, he wished he knew more about the military than what he’d seen in movies.

  “Let’s go.” She gestured with the business end of her rifle.

  Lance considered arguing about his rights again, but the look in the officer’s eyes kept him silent. He had a better chance of escaping the hospital if he wasn’t hogtied to his bed.

  He walked in front of the female soldier, heading back to his room. More soldiers were stationed in the hall, one standing by every three or four doorways. People cast wary glances as Lance walked by.

  Some cried.

  “You’re scaring all of these people,” Lance said over his shoulder.

  The woman told him to keep moving.

  Pam scowled at Lance as they passed the nurses’ station. Lance gave her a smile, hoping it would piss her off. The way she gripped her pencil told him that it worked.

  They arrived back at his room a moment later. Liz and Don stood by the window, staring down at the street.

  “What’s your name?” the soldier asked as he walked inside.

  “Lance. What’s yours?”

  “You can call me Staff Sergeant Eifort.”

  “Well, how about you tell me what’s—”

  She closed the door in his face.

  He thought he saw her cheeks rise a bit and wondered if she’d smiled while cutting him off. Probably.

  Liz and Don left the window.

  “Damn nurses stopped us before we could follow you,” Don said. “Didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”

  “You don’t want to see what’s going on over there anyway. That woman is all kinds of screwed up.”

  Liz’s eyes were red-rimmed. “Is she going to die?”

  “I hope so.” Lance winced at his sore feet as he shuffled to the bed.

  “You what?” Liz frowned at him.

  “Believe me, she’s in bad shape. It would be torture if she lived. Her fucking eyes are shriveled in their sockets. They looked like they might fall out of her head at any moment. Did you hear that shrieking? That was her.”

  “Oh god.” Liz flopped into one of the seats, fresh tears streaming.

  “She attacked a doctor too. I think she bit his fingers off.”

  They contemplated their situation in silence for a while, watching the reporters on CNN speculate about was happening around the country. Fatigue started to take Lance when he saw a different headline flash across the screen. A new, older gentleman sat behind a desk, reading from a sheet of paper someone just handed him.

  “We’ve just received word that all flights in and out of the country have been grounded. All border crossings are now closed. Ships are ordered to return to their docks. All outside access to the United States is shut off. Make no mistake, my friends, these are extraordinary measures and they all point to the severity of the situation. Add this to the mobilization of the National Guard, and it’s clear that our country is in grave danger. Again, all flights…”

  The accompanying video showed overflowing airports and landed planes. It switched to a grocery store being looted by an angry mob. Shopping carts and fists flew around the building as police cars arrived and more violence broke out. The camera switched to the empty shelves of a Walgreens, all the medical supplies stolen.

  Don reclined in his chair, his head resting against the back cushion. “They’re shutting down the country. This is even worse than I thought.”

  “This is like one of those shitty zombie movies you used to make me watch,” Liz said.

  Lance didn’t know what to say to that. She was right.

  And this movie was just beginning.

  Chapter 5