The Suburban Dead (Book 2): Emergency

by Sorsby, T. A.

  It didn’t take long for someone to arrive. No sooner than Emile put the radio down, in fact.

  ‘Good afternoon!’ Dr Grey called down the corridor to someone we couldn’t see. ‘You must be Captain Hale?’

  When we didn’t hear a response, Emile and I looked at each other, and began to move over to Grey.

  ‘W-what are you doing?’ he stammered down the corridor, taking a step back.

  We got there just in time to see a running figure in military gear, head down, sprinting straight for the doorway. He took a running jump over the blood, clearing it with a great stride, but Asturias was bringing his shotgun to bear. Unfortunately for Dr Grey, Emile was a police officer, and there were certain stereotypes to be followed.

  ‘Stop, freeze!’ he commanded.

  The running soldier let out a snarling, animal screech, and leapt again through the air, arms outstretched this time. It bore Grey to the ground, knocking Emile and I off balance. I caught the wall for support, but Emile staggered and fell, keeping a grip on his shotgun rather than putting his hands down to cushion the fall.

  I pushed myself back off the wall and ran to Grey’s aid, grabbing the shoulder straps of the soldier’s vest to pull him away from Grey’s neck. But it was like trying to hold the leashes of a dozen excited Alsatians.

  Fortunately, the doctor was no slouch. He’d put his left arm to block the infected’s jugular trajectory, buying himself precious seconds. My strength alone wouldn’t be enough to save him. I was stopping the snarling, thrashing soldier from getting any closer to Grey’s neck, but it was a losing battle, I could feel it.

  Suddenly the infected changed tactics. It clamped its jaws down on Grey’s forearm, trying to bite through his white coat and the shirt beneath. The human jaw can exert some serious pressure, and Grey began to yell his way through the pain.

  The shotgun stock came into play, like a baseball bat swung at a low pitch. The force of it took the infected off to the side, but I had a good grip on that vest and ended up stumbling along for the ride, getting my foot caught on Grey as I went.

  The infected landed, face down, and I came to an uncomfortable landing on one knee, almost straddling its legs. It gave me a good view of Emile’s shotgun butt coming down once more, this time delivered from above.

  Once, twice, three times he struck, but the infected was thrashing and trying to push itself back up. I held it down as best I could, but either that soldier’s head had been unusually thick in life, or with all its struggling Emile just couldn’t land a killing blow.

  The end came when Grey jumped onto its back, both feet at the same time. It drove the infected back down to the concrete, and gave Emile the opportunity to flip his shotgun back around, press the barrel to its head, and pull the trigger.

  Loud doesn’t cut it.

  When you see them in movies or on TV, shooting away at those underground firing ranges. There’s a reason they wear big yellow ear protectors. Now, I was just about deaf, nothing but buzzing in my ears and the dull muffle of Grey asking me if I was alright.

  ‘Fucking deaf!’ I told him, waving him off as I went to the door, closed it, turned the lock, and put my back to it. I did not want any more company.

  A couple of hours ago, I was administering tests on these things. Poking and prodding and taking notes. It’s different, being so close to one, when they aren’t strapped down and muzzled. This one especially – it seemed livelier than the average. They shouldn’t have been so light on their feet. It was an aberration, and I was certain Dr Lines would like to take a look at it. I wonder if he was pissed off I’d not gone back to work with him.

  Emile and Grey were looking down at the dead soldier. I couldn’t see the full extent of the damage from here, but a point blank blast from that shotgun must have been close to decapitation. I was already fighting my heart back into my chest, I didn’t need a battle with my stomach too.

  I’m no stranger to blood, guts and bodily fluids, but there’s a time and a place – usually in a clean room with some bandages and anaesthetic. Not here, in a concrete tomb, swathed in blood, ears ringing. We left my comfort zone back in those linoleum corridors.

  Happy-go-lucky-Katy needed a break to get her shit together, and Stressed-out-Katy was going to take over for a bit. I brought my arms up to hug myself, taking in a deep breath with my back to the door.

  ‘Is he the one you saw earlier?’ Emile asked me, still sounding to my ears like we were underwater.

  ‘Think so, but I’m not sure. His throat had been slit. You could look?’ I suggested.

  ‘I’m in no hurry to do that.’ Emile confessed.

  ‘I was actually thinking our man Grey might have a gander. Being the medical examiner.’ I added, with medium sass.

  ‘Ah, of course. One’s work is never done. Nor is it pleasant.’ Grey sighed, rubbing at his wrist.

  He turned the body over, and I saw the same bloody mess down the front of its uniform that I’d seen before. But then I remembered.

  ‘The one I saw earlier,’ I said, a fresh wave of cold dread washing old worries away. I pushed myself off the door for a closer look, trying not to linger too long on what was left of its head. ‘The one I saw, it didn’t have a bullet proof vest, just fatigues. Same damage though – one gash across the throat.’

  ‘Could it have put the vest on after?’ Grey asked. ‘When he – it – came around the corner, it was walking normally, like a person. It only started running when it was closer. You’ve spent the day with Doctor Lines, is that even possible?’

  ‘It’s not an aberration we’re aware of. Screamers, runners, I wouldn’t know what to call this.’ I shook my head.

  ‘Dead.’ Emile said, with some satisfaction.

  ‘It shouldn’t have even been alive…’ I muttered, looking down at it, my clinical detachment returning. ‘If these were the soldiers stationed down here, how did they die? And how did they get back up again so fast? When the virus takes over the dying, it should take longer for reanimation. This doesn’t make sense. It’s as if he went from healthy to infected, cutting out everything in between.’

  Suddenly, the door handle rattled.

  Emile snapped his shotgun to the door, Grey and I jumping behind to give him a clear shot.

  ‘Officer Asturias, you in there?’ a male voice called out.

  ‘Yes. Are you from Sydow Sec?’ Emile asked back.

  ‘Indeed. Captain Graeme Hale. My understanding is you’ve discovered something amiss down here. Hell of a mess in this corridor.’

  ‘You could say that…’ Emile said. ‘We’ll open the door.’

  ‘I’ve got it.’ Grey said, adjusting his coat sleeves and walking over.

  Once the door was opened, the half dozen soldiers on the other side of the room took one look at the scene before them, and pointed their guns at us.

  We were standing above the remains of one of their comrades, decapitated by shotgun blast, with one of our number holding a shotgun.

  ‘This is not what it looks like.’ Emile said.

  Ten

  I cradled the warm mug in my hands, trying to keep my fingers from going numb. The temperature had dropped with the setting sun, and an overzealous intruder had smashed the window in protest of how we were mistreating his family. Figure that one out.

  Like me, Captain Hale knew you didn’t just go down from the virus and get right back up again. There wasn’t a whole lot of doubt as to why we’d killed his man, but according to the Captain, the timeline didn’t add up. Even though he knew we’d shot an infected undead, there were discrepancies. There had to be an investigation. It wasn’t exactly the best time for it.

  Still, we hadn’t been treated unfairly, unless you include sticking us in the room with the smashed window, but space was at a premium, so I forgave them that. They’d let the canteen staff bring up the tea and coffee trolley, Emile, awake since the early hours, opting for the latter. There were also a few beds, and we’d each picked one to make ourselves c
omfortable on, sheets draped as blankets around our shoulders. Grey looked like he was about to offer me his coat at one point, but decided against it. Eventually, curiosity got to me.

  ‘How’s your wrist?’ I asked him, pointedly.

  ‘Fine. It’s fine.’ He said.

  The hell it was.

  ‘Did it get you?’ I pressed.

  Emile had been zoning out a second ago, but from the tilt of his head, I knew he was listening now.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Grey asked.

  ‘You’ve been fiddling with your coat for the last hour, and you keep staring into space. You’re wondering if it got you.’

  ‘I’m not bleeding.’ Grey said, drawing the blankets around himself tighter.

  ‘Didn’t break the skin then? That’s good, Grey.’ I reassured him, standing up, and setting my mug on the bedside cabinet. ‘Let me take a look at you.’

  ‘I’m capable of examining myself, Nurse!’ he protested.

  ‘Doctor…’ Emile firmly said. Just one word of warning.

  Grey breathed in deep, and let it out slowly. ‘Fine.’

  I took his wrist in one hand, and moved his sleeve back with the other. The infected had left clear teeth marks through his white coat and shirt, two rough semi-circles of flourishing red bruises.

  ‘Gods, if you hadn’t have been wearing that woefully impractical white coat it’d have gone through your shirt like paper. We’d have been forced to shoot your arm off.’ I tried to make it a joke, but my bedside manner must have been off.

  Grey pulled his arm back. ‘I’m fine, you see? No bleeding.’

  ‘Then what’s got you so spooked?’ I shot back, returning to my tea.

  ‘Saliva…’ he said quietly, eyes flicking to the door. ‘I could feel it salivating on me. Ugh, slobbering like a dog with a bone. That, with my damaged skin…I don’t know. I will admit to being concerned, alright?’

  ‘I don’t think you should be.’

  ‘No?’ he asked, faint hope in his voice.

  ‘I’m not an expert. But no, not yet. Save your concerns for if you become symptomatic.’

  ‘If you were trying to fill me with confidence, it’s not working.’ He said, eyes returning to his own mug.

  Emile walked over to the window and looked out over the front of the hospital, leaning on the wall to keep Grey in the corner of his eye. He was beginning to show fatigue now – a weariness in his posture, long blinks and frequent yawning which I was starting to find contagious. The fresh air might have been all that was keeping him awake.

  Silence loomed for some time – approximately how long it took to finish my tea and for my hands to become cold again.

  There came a polite knock on the door, followed by someone letting themselves in. I looked up to see a familiar young soldier enter, gun over her shoulder, with an apologetic smile on her face.

  ‘We’re really sorry about this, but you can all go now. Captain Hale wanted you to know that he didn’t find anything on the CCTV that’d explain what happened down there, but that the sensible thing to do would be to let you get back to work. Again, we’re sorry for the inconvenience.’

  ‘I understand.’ Emile nodded, shuffling out of his blanket and folding it onto the bed.

  ‘I will be having words with him.’ Grey said, standing up, back straight. The soldier looked over at him, the affable smile suddenly evaporating. ‘When it’s convenient.’ Grey quickly added.

  I folded my blanket over the bed, re-making it in under a minute, the motions basically muscle memory at this point. When I looked up, Grey and Emile were gone, but the soldier remained.

  ‘I know you from somewhere?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t recognise me without my leathers and helmet?’ I said, flashing her a quick smile.

  Realisation hit. ‘From this morning, right! At the checkpoint. You have that bike with the dangly bits on the handlebars. I’m sorry, I forgot your name…’

  ‘It’s alright, people tend to remember the bike instead. Katy. Was it Chantelle?’ I asked. I’m good with names – and I had a clue from her uniform – “Sgt. C. Bailey” on her breast.

  ‘Yeah, but, Sergeant Bailey right now.’ She said, the apologetic smile returning. ‘Have to be a bit more formal here. Captain Hale, he’s a bit of a stickler. Not so much a people person.’

  ‘Boss riding you pretty hard then?’ I sympathised.

  ‘He’s a good C.O.’ she said, perhaps a little defensively, ‘He’s decorated, and he’s on the Board. He asks a lot, but it’s because he knows you’ve got it in you.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said, though the closest I could compare would be the brutal training schedule the ward sisters inflict on junior nurses. ‘You heading anywhere, Sergeant? I think I’ll be needed back in the A&E.’

  Dr Lines must have found somebody else to help with his experiments, or I might have been bailed out sooner.

  ‘Nowhere urgent to be. I’ll walk with you.’ She said, gesturing for me to lead the way.

  ‘Thanks. I heard Captain Hale is responsible for keeping Sydow Sec here. That he’s disobeying orders to pull out?’

  ‘Technically we’re removing essential equipment and personnel. You might say it’s going slower than anticipated.’ Sergeant Bailey said, with an exaggerated shrug.

  I chuckled. ‘Essential personnel too then? Like Dr Lines?’

  ‘Not just Lines,’ Bailey shook her head, looking faintly surprised, ‘we’ve been told to see to the safety of as many medical staff as possible. In the event Greenfield falls, we’re to look after you, evacuate you to Sydow. I guess you were in the basement when the other medical staff were told?’

  I froze for a moment as we were passing by a long stretch of windows looking over the front of the hospital.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, shaking my head, struggling to keep up, ‘if you’re already set on evacuating personnel...Does that mean Sydow Sec thinks Greenfield is going to fall? As in the city will be abandoned?’

  Sergeant Bailey looked about the corridor, but we were alone. Still, she took a step closer to me, and gave a nod out of the window.

  Protestors were gathered outside, and not just at the parking lot entrance. They were in loose groups right along the street, forcing GFPD and now Sydow Sec to space themselves out to match them.

  ‘They’re going to bring County General down.’ Bailey said, her voice soft. ‘Captain says we can’t hold this position, one way or another, it’s going to fail. That’s why we’re being pulled out. But he wants to give us the most time to prepare, for Dr Lines to close up his experiments, and for us to salvage everything we can before those clueless civilians trash it all.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘We’ve loaded up some supplies into the trucks already, Lines’ team has begun dismantling some of the lab equipment – what they brought with them, and what was here already. They were going to be moving to Mercy so some of it was already packed up. No sense letting it go to waste. We’re expecting to be gone by this time tomorrow.’

  ‘With as much of County’s equipment as you can carry…’ I trailed off.

  ‘Equipment and supplies. Sydow is safe from the infection right now, but they’re getting swamped with non-infected patients being diverted from the rest of the county. It’s not safe to move the infected, as we’ve found out with our busses, but if we can keep everyone safe in Sydow, we’ll be alright…’

  ‘You are talking as if Greenfield has already fallen.’

  ‘Compared to Sydow, it’s looking that way. Back home we’ve got defences, supplies, emergency infrastructure. Greenfield is crumbling, slowly but surely. The police are falling apart, and the few Territorials who were here have been recalled to protect the government in Orphen. We can’t stay here forever to plug the gaps, not with the manpower we’ve got. SySec’s being called back home, from all deployments.’

  ‘What about the patients here?’ I asked, feeling my jaw start to tighten, my voice going lower. ‘What are
you going to do about them?’

  Sergeant Bailey’s eyes were on the crowd outside, distracted. Either that or she wasn’t quite the people person she tried to come across as – I doubt I’m any good at concealing my feelings.

  ‘We’ll have to discharge the un-infected. Captain Hale is talking to Dr Lines about the safest way to euthanise the rest.’ She said.

  ‘No.’

  Sergeant Bailey turned to look me in the eye, but I’m not as easily intimidated as Dr Grey. She looked away first.

  ‘This is a hospital, Sergeant Bailey.’ I told her, just to be clear. ‘It isn’t some battlefield triage tent, where we slap a bandage on and tell you to walk it off. We have a duty of care, a responsibility, to provide free medical treatment to the people of Greenfield. In times of crisis our presence is more vital than ever.’

  I took a step closer to her, but she only took half of one back.

  ‘First, I will do no harm. I will not knowingly take action which will unduly endanger those in my care. This above all else is my oath.’ I recited, ‘I see the reason for euthanizing the infected, but this hospital is much more than Dr Lines’ lab, or your supply closet.’

  I took another step and now I was uncomfortably close to her, but I didn’t care, my gut was full with the red hot indignity of it all, the worries and fears I’d been collecting were channelling themselves into anger. Who the fuck were these people, to decide life and death over this hospital? This city?

  ‘There are children here recovering from asthma attacks. Pensioners in post-op wards from hip replacement surgery. Chemotherapy, dialysis, x-rays, MRI, CT, it would be ethically unthinkable to discharge patients who are still in need of our care – doubly so, with the current state of this city, if all you say is true. So tell me Sergeant Bailey, with what authority does Sydow Security rule over the Voison Health Commission? What power does Captain Hale have that can make me ignore my oath?’

  Sergeant Bailey punched me in the face.

  She took a quick step backwards, and just slugged me. Bam. My balance went, my ears were ringing, and when I looked up, I saw her through a film of tears.