The Z-Day Trilogy (Book 3): Plague of the Living Dead

by Mark Cusco Ailes

  He held his hand out to her. “Come on; let’s get you out of here before any more of those things find us.”

  She took his hand and let him guide her to the door. She was trembling. Officer Delgado knew how she felt. He coughed and made his way into the hallway. He felt dizzy and his hands had become clammy. He grabbed his partner’s arm.

  “Wait a second. All of a sudden I’m feeling sick.”

  Officer Cline stared at him. “You don’t look so good, Delgado. Do you feel strong enough to fight your way out of here? We have to get her out of here.”

  “I can make it. It’s probably nothing…I’m just tired. I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. You know with all the extra shifts I’ve been taking.”

  Officer Cline stared at him concerned because of the way he kept coughing. “I’ll take the girl with me. You go check out the hospital. I’ll meet you there. I’m going to stop and check on my wife along the way.”

  “You do that. While I’m at the hospital I will get some cough syrup. Come on; we still have to get to our cars.”

  They stood at the rear entrance of the police station staring at the zombies walking around. They were spread out and not paying any attention to them.

  “I hope I have enough ammunition,” said Officer Cline. “We should have raided the armory.”

  “It’s too risky. I didn’t see either Officer Simmons or Hooks inside. They could be inside the armory as zombies. We’ll have to make due with what we have left for now. You still have your shotgun in your car?”

  “It’s fully loaded. Besides, I got extra ammo and guns at home. I’ll pick them up when I stop to check on my wife.”

  Officer Delgado checked his weapon and looked at Officer Cline. “Well, buddy, I’ll see you at the hospital.” He burst through the door and swiftly made his way to his squad car and shut the door. He peered into the rearview mirror and watched his partner and Becky follow suit. He waited until they left the parking lot before following behind them. They went in opposite directions after leaving the parking lot.

  Officer Delgado felt feverish as he continued down the street heading for the hospital. He felt beads of sweat cascading down his cheeks. He looked at his image in the rearview mirror and wiped the beads of sweat with the sleeve of his uniform shirt. His vision was becoming blurred, causing him to have difficulty maneuvering around the abandoned cars littering the main street in the downtown area. What a time for me to get sick. We’re in the middle of a zombie epidemic for goodness sake. I don’t have time for this. I have the public to protect. I have zombies to kill. He suddenly swerved to the left to avoid running over two young zombies shambling in the middle of the road. He sideswiped a refurbished classic Ford, scratching the new paint job. Normally something like that would bother him, but with how he felt, and seeing they were in the middle of a zombie outbreak, he didn’t care. He continued down the road doing the best he could to battle the urge to pass out.

  He reached the emergency room within fifteen minutes and brought his car to a screeching halt against the side of the building, barely missing a gurney with a zombie strapped down to it. Its limbs were sprawling about, trying to bite the paramedics trying to roll it into the hospital. He opened his door and fell to the ground and rolled onto his side. The last thing he remembered was a tall man wearing a white lab coat standing over him.

  He awoke inside a room with a nurse taking his vitals. She looked at him and smiled. “The doctor will be in to see you in a moment.”

  “Nurse, what happened?”

  “The doctor will be in to see you in a moment.” She left and closed the curtain behind her. He could hear her discussing something with somebody on the other side.

  “He’s exhibiting the same symptoms,” he heard her say. “Nobody seems to know what’s happening around here. He’s the eighteenth person tonight and the shift is only half over.”

  “I heard a rumor it could be the start of a new plague. This one makes the Black Death look like the flu.”

  “Helen, don’t believe every rumor you hear. Everything that’s happening around here can be explained. The doctors will figure out what it is.”

  “But nobody on staff has ever encountered a disease like this before. All they know is it starts with a fever and ends with death.”

  “Keep your voice down; we don’t want to alarm the patients. We don’t know for certain everybody is going to die from this. We simply don’t have all the facts. Once we have them, then we can start the proper treatment. Whatever you do, keep your opinions to yourself or I’ll have to report you.”

  Helen glared at her. “And I truly believe you would.” She stormed away and disappeared behind one of the closed curtains. The nurse went back in to check on her patient.

  “I hope you didn’t overhear any of that. I must apologize for the nurse if you did. She has a bad habit of blabbing nonsense.”

  He looked wearily at her. “What’s your name? How did I get in here? How…”

  “Slow down, officer. You’re not inside one of your interrogation rooms. Now, to answer your first question, I’m Nurse Harris. My first name you don’t need to know. What was your second question…oh, yes, how did you get inside the emergency room? One of the doctors found you passed out by your car. He had you moved inside here. He’ll be in to speak with you in a moment.”

  “Yes, you keep mentioning that. Am I all right? What’s wrong with me?”

  “The doctor is working on your prognosis right now. You’ll have to be patient. The emergency room is busy this evening. The doctors are doing the best they can to keep up.”

  “I’ve seen some horrific things tonight that you wouldn’t believe,” he said, trying to make sense of it in his head. Was a zombie apocalypse happening or was it part of some delusion brought on by whatever illness he was experiencing?

  She looked at him curiously. “I’m going to go check with Doctor Crownover. I’ll be back with him as soon as I can. Just stay here and rest. If you’re cooperative, perhaps we’ll fetch you a bowl of hot chicken broth.” He watched as she left him alone once again.

  He looked around the area that was completely enclosed by a white curtain. His head still ached, but at least his blurry vision had recovered. He tried to move his arms, but for some reason, he was strapped down to the bed. He tried to move his legs, but they too, were also strapped down. Until now, he hadn’t realized he was being treated like a criminal. He had been too focused on the conversation happening outside of the closed curtain. He pulled on his restraints but they held firm.

  The curtain opened and a man dressed in a white lab coat entered the area followed by Nurse Harris. Officer Delgado looked at his restraints.

  Doctor Crownover smiled and pointed at them. “I’m sorry about the restraints, but it’s for your own protection. This disease you’ve been afflicted with causes violent outbursts.”

  “Level with me, doctor, what exactly is wrong with me?”

  The doctor frowned and moved closer to him and placed the clipboard he was carrying on a chair next to the bed. “I’m afraid we don’t know. Our lab is running tests right now, but that’s all I can offer. The medical community has never seen anything like this before. All we know is what the side effects are from contracting it. We don’t even know if it’s airborne or not.”

  “So everybody here could be affected?”

  “It’s a good possibility,” said Doctor Crownover. “I wish I had the answer to that. That’s why no one can leave here, at least until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  “Do you know what’s happening out there, doctor? A damn zombie apocalypse is happening outside of the hospital. Keeping me in these restraints is putting my life in danger. You have to release me!”

  “Settle down, Officer Delgado. We were able to contain a zombie outbreak here earlier. I suspect you have a disease that will eventually turn you into one of them.”

  “That’s absurd!” screamed Officer Delgado. “Don’t you have to be bit by
one of them to turn into one of them? Check my body for bites. I haven’t been bitten!”

  “We already checked. You’re right about not being bit. We couldn’t find a bite mark anywhere on your body. That would only suggest one frightening thing. Whatever this thing is, it has to be airborne. Our lab is working hard to confirm my hypothesis, but for right now, we just don’t know.”

  “But if it is airborne, then the community is screwed! This damn thing is going to keep spreading. It will spread until every last living thing turns into one of those damn creatures.”

  Doctor Crownover retrieved the clipboard from the chair. “Now you can appreciate why we took such drastic measures by tying you down to the bed.”

  “What about you and your staff?” asked Officer Delgado. “If you have the disease, who’s going to tie you down? Who’s going to keep you all from going on a murderous rampage? If you turn into one of those things, who’s going to hold you accountable?”

  Doctor Crownover looked at him seriously. “That’s a bridge I’ll have to cross once the situation presents itself. I would worry about your own health. Relax, get some sleep; you’re going to be here with us for a while.” He left the room, followed by Nurse Harris making sure the curtain was closed behind them.

  Officer Cline pulled into his driveway and looked at Becky. “Stay here and lock the doors. There doesn’t look like there is many zombies in the neighborhood so you should be safe.”

  Becky grabbed his arm forcibly. He could tell by the look in her eyes she didn’t want to be left alone. He knew she had been through a lot, but he didn’t know what he was going to find inside his house. She would be safer if she stayed locked inside the car.

  “If anything happens, honk the horn,” he said, getting out of the car. He got out and ran to the front door and went inside. It was unusually silent inside. Usually his wife was listening to classical music, or she was watching one of her soaps or watching the news. He called out her name and listened. He heard her faint voice coming from down the hall in their bedroom. He made his way down the hall and entered. He saw his wife lying on the bed with a wet towel draped across her forehead.

  “What’s the matter, Trina? Have you come down with something?”

  She tried to turn to look at him, but she didn’t have the strength. “I have a fever,” she said wearily. “I must have caught something when I was at the store yesterday. It’s the only thing I can think of.”

  He stared at her for several seconds causing her to feel alarmed.

  “Why did you come home early? Is your shift over already?”

  “I need to get a few things. There is a lot of commotion out there today.”

  She coughed several times. “I saw the news before I lay down to rest. People are attacking people.”

  “It’s bad out there right now. Don’t concern yourself about it. You stay in bed and let me worry about the bad people.”

  She coughed again. “Can you get me a glass of water?” The fever burned into her brain. She felt as though her head was going to violently explode. She coughed again.

  “I’ll be right back.” He stood at the kitchen sink with tears forming. He knew his wife was in bad shape, and he feared the worse. He filled the glass with cool water and took it back to the bedroom. When he entered the room, he saw his wife’s breathing had become labored. He knew she needed to get to the hospital, but getting her there was going to be a challenge. His wife despised hospitals. She didn’t trust them. It stemmed from the last time she was there. It was the day she had lost their baby during delivery. She had never fully recovered from that day. She blamed the doctor, she blamed the nurses, and she blamed the hospital. To make matters worse, she had hired a lawyer to sue every single one of them, but lost the court case. The court ruled in the hospital’s favor. Since that day she vowed never to set foot inside another hospital as long as she lived.

  He heard her gasp for air and then went silent. He looked at her fearing she had died. He sat on the bed next to her and checked her vitals. Her heart had stopped beating. Tears welled in the bottomless blue pools of his eyes. He suddenly heard the horn from his police car. Reluctantly, he left his wife and ran out of the house. He stopped short and pulled his weapon from its holster. His squad car was surrounded by six of the walking dead, pounding on its windows.

  He looked at Becky who was staring frightfully at him through the windshield. He motioned to her he would be right back. He ventured back inside to retrieve more weapons and ammunition. They were stored in a large vault located in his bedroom. He went into the bedroom and looked on the bed. His dead wife was no longer lying there. Had he been wrong about her dying? He called out her name. All remained silent. He heard his horn blaring outside once again.

  He turned to leave the bedroom, crashing into his wife in the process. She stumbled several feet backward and then stared at him, growling ferociously. He looked at her wide-eyed. Her once beautiful hazel eyes were now clouded over. She grabbed at him with her outstretched arms. He took a step backward, toppling on top of the bed.

  “Trina, what’s wrong with you? I thought you had died! What are you doing?”

  He watched in horror as she mounted him and sank her teeth into his living meat. He screamed. Little by little, bloody strips of meat vanished between her teeth. The screaming stopped.

  Becky’s heart hammered in her chest. She was frightened beyond measure. Officer Cline hadn’t returned to rescue her from her attackers. They continued to pound on the windows, trying to smash them to get at her. She kept honking the horn, hoping he would leave the house and deal with the zombies threatening to break through the glass. She looked around the car and saw a shotgun lying in the backseat. She picked it up and checked to see if it was loaded. She was in luck. She checked the glove box to see if there were any extra shells, but to her dismay, she couldn’t find any. Cracking noises alerted her they were finally making progress on breaking the glass. She laid on the horn once again, but she feared something must have happened to Officer Cline. She was sure he would have come to her rescue by now. Glass showered her and several decaying arms reached inside the car to grab at her. She moved to the other side of the car and watched in horror as a zombie tried to squirm his way through the broken window. She heard the passenger side window cracking. She knew she wasn’t going to escape them. She closed her eyes and said a prayer. She put the barrel of the shotgun inside her mouth and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Eight

  Doctor Krage was busy working with a zombified monkey when one of his scientists approached him in a panic.

  “You need to see this. Professor Hollman made a critical error in his formula.”

  Doctor Krage looked at him curiously. “Well, are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to guess?”

  “It’s airborne. I’ve gone through the whole formula, ran several tests, and found the mistake. You don’t need to be bitten to get infected! We all have been exposed!”

  Doctor Krage looked at him as if he were crying wolf. “You’re probably wrong. This isn’t the first time you’ve informed me of a problem that really didn’t exist. Do you actually expect me to believe Professor Hollman could have made a serious error such as this one? Do you really want to soil his legacy?”

  “It’s true! I’ve had a second opinion on his formula. I’m positive we’re right about this.”

  Doctor Krage looked concerned. “And you suspect we’ve been infected. What are the symptoms?”

  “They vary. The beginning stages start with a common cold, and then a fever develops. The fever ultimately leads to death. I don’t have to explain any further. If anybody gets sick, we need to quarantine them.”

  “It sounds vague to me. If you’re trying to convince me we’re infected, you’re not proving your point. Are you guessing about the symptoms?”

  “We need to perform more tests to know for sure, but I’m relatively certain that the tests will show that we’ve all been exposed.”

  Doc
tor Krage thought for a moment. “If this is true, how long do we have before exhibiting any symptoms?”

  “It depends on your immune system. We’re all relatively healthy. It could be a couple of weeks, or in a worst case scenario, a couple of days.”

  Doctor Krage became outraged. “How could something like this happen? We’ve taken every precaution to make sure nothing like this could ever happen. This can’t happen! America is depending on us to get this right. We’ve already made a mistake by letting General Poe talk us into his zombie park. Look how that turned out. And now you’re informing me Professor Hollman has made an error in his formula that will infect all of us. Leave me; I have to inform General Milkwood.” He watched until he was completely out of his sight. He retrieved his cell phone from his lab coat pocket and placed the call. General Milkwood answered.

  “General, we have a problem.”

  “What sort of problem, doctor?”

  “The virus is airborne. Professor Hollman’s formula is flawed.”

  “What are you telling me, doctor? Are you telling me you don’t have to be bitten by those things to turn into one of them? If that’s what you’re telling me, then President Andrews dropped the nuke on Valparaiso for nothing. You’re telling me this is going to spread like a plague. We won’t be able to contain it to one small area. You’re telling me we’re going to have a plague of the living dead.”

  “I know what I’m telling you. I’m telling you searching for General Poe’s body won’t make a difference. We don’t have to worry about him. Illinois has already been infected and it’s reasonable to think it will spread beyond its borders. Soon Michigan will be infected, and then Missouri, and then the entire United States.”

  General Milkwood remained silent for a few seconds. “Abandon the project?”

  “I don’t see any other way out of the situation. I would return to base for now. There is nothing you can do to help the situation.”

  “Doctor, a lot of people are going to die. Are you willing to live with this decision?” asked General Milkwood. “Wait a minute. What about the smart zombies? Is it possible for them to stop the process of the infection?”