Sabrina thought of Matt just as she heard more screaming from the lobby she just left.
*****
Matt had gone on a gory rampage. The room he had died in was right near the lobby, just a scant fifteen feet from the flat screen television the crowd had all watched intently. Matt must have been able to leave the makeshift triage room and approach the crowd from behind.
As Cabot and Sabrina rounded the hall and came into the lobby there were several people wounded already. One person had been killed; their neck ripped open by yet another human bite wound. The burgundy colored rug of the waiting room was sickeningly blackened by the spread of blood from his still pumping neck. Three or four people were backing away from Matt as he stumbled into the ring of fleeing patients and family members. They were bitten, some badly, others not.
"Matt, stop!" Sabrina yelled, but he didn't respond.
Cabot pulled out his extending baton and with a whip of the wrist extended it to full length. He pursued Matt as the dead man stalked towards a pair of women that were pinned against a couch in the center of the room.
"Hey you!" Cabot barked, and somehow that got Matt's attention.
The dead white eyes that were starting to be all too common fixed angrily on Cabot. A silent snarl of rage crossed Matt's bloodied face and Cabot shattered it with a stroke of the metal baton. Sabrina's mind and eyes collected enough of the event to realize Matt's jaw caved in, broken apart like a tooth filled piñata. Matt simply staggered backward for a moment, and pushed forward at an incredulous Cabot.
"What the fuck?!" Cabot exclaimed as the man came at him, fury unabated. The large guard took a step back and hammered the baton down again, this time into the forehead of the man lunging at him. The blow would've knocked a horse senseless, but Matt pushed forward, the only affect appearing to be a dent in the brow where his skull had shattered. Cabot took another step back and whipped the baton across Matt's face, hitting him hard enough to spin him around and cross his feet up, causing him to lose balance and crash to the floor on his destroyed face. Cabot tucked the baton into his armpit and in an incredible display of quickness, agility and precision, produced a pair of cuffs and put the metal bracelets on the prone assailant in one deft maneuver.
"He should be fucking dead. Or unconscious. There's no fucking way a normal person could take those hits. No way." Cabot was out of breath from adrenaline and exertion. The five second encounter had been exhausting.
"Check his pulse Cabot," Sabrina said, taking stock of the situation in the lobby around her. More of the nurses and at least one Doctor were rushing into the room to help stabilize the situation.
Cabot looked over at her with dread on his face. He kneeled, reached down carefully and slid a pair of fingers around a slickened neck, and pressed them where the drumbeat of a pulse should have been. He left his fingers there, pressed hard against the struggling man's throat, and then moved them a bit, searching.
He looked up. "Nothing. This man is dead," Cabot said quietly. Only Sabrina and a doctor walking past heard her. The doctor froze and looked down at Cabot, clearly angered by the guard's assessment.
"Nonsense," the Doctor said. "Roll him over please."
Cabot looked at the doctor and shook his head. "You're fucking crazy if you think that's happening Doctor. You're welcome to check his pulse exactly like this if you don't believe me."
The Doctor looked furious that the 'lowly' guard had disobeyed his medical command, but Cabot's stature, even kneeling as it were was too intimidating for the Doctor to say anything. The Doctor dropped down to the writhing figure on the ground, and carefully slid a finger to the spot Cabot had tested for a pulse. After nearly a minute of searching, the Doctor moved his hand near Matt's mouth to feel for breathing. Matt's broken jaw snapped shut quickly at the Doctor's fingers, narrowly missing severing a finger. Cabot put a knee into Matt's skull to hold it still against the floor, and the Doctor returned his hand, suddenly appreciative of the massive security officer.
"No pulse, and as best I can tell, the only breathing he's doing is entirely based on how much pressure you're putting into his back. Hold still," The Doctor said, and Cabot obliged as best he could. After a few moments, the Doctor nodded. "He is dead. That… doesn't make any sense."
"Sure as shit doesn't Doc, now does it? I'm thinking we are in a very bizarre world all of a sudden," Cabot said.
Sabrina started to think out loud, "What do we do? How do we treat the dead? I bandaged him up perfectly, and he still died. All of these people are bitten, and if the news was right, they are all going to die, and they are all going to do exactly what Ma- AHH!" She stopped suddenly as she felt a stabbing pain in her hand.
Looking down, she saw the man with the severed neck artery biting her hand at the base of the pinky finger. His teeth were sunk in deep enough to be locked into the bone, and her training kicked in. She grabbed the man's head and pressed it against her hand, all the while pushing the blade of her hand deeper into the man's mouth, trying to feed the bite, and trigger the gag reflex to get him to stop. It was textbook self defense when bitten, and it would’ve worked, if he was alive. At her expense they had just learned that dead men don't have a gag reflex.
Instead it gave the white eyed dead man more flesh to bite, and he eager chomped his teeth up and down over and over, rendering much of her hand pulpy and ruined. She screamed over and over until Cabot's massive black boot came down on the back of his head, rescuing her and shattering the skull of the man, smearing brain tissue across the wine colored carpet. Sabrina's stomach heaved, and a jet of vomit, still mostly coffee came out across the dead man's body. She pried the man's mouth open, and backed away, holding her damaged hand up, and staring wild eyed at the corpse of the man who just bit her.
Cabot watched her scurry backwards until she hit a chair. Sabrina gasped for air and wiped the thin vomit from her chin with her good hand, her mind obviously not functioning in the shock of the moment. Cabot called out to her, "Sabrina. Sabrina!"
She snapped to at the baritone of the large man. "What? What? I'll be okay."
Cabot knew she probably wouldn't be. "How long do you think that guy lasted between being bitten, and dying and doing this?" Cabot gestured at Matt's dead, and still quite active body.
Sabrina thought about it carefully, and took a wild stab, "I don't know. An hour. Maybe an hour and a half? Why do you ask?"
Cabot's face became dark, and sad, "You have a kid at home right?"
Sabrina put the two elements together, and her emotions welled up, causing wetness to flow down her face. "Yeah. I should probably go to them shouldn't I? Just in case the bite really is fatal."
Cabot simply nodded.
"Okay then. I'll get my purse."
"Angela, remember. The bitten are violent when they die, or so it seems right? If you die, you might harm them. Make sure you don't do anything horrible, trying to do something nice."
Sabrina simply nodded, holding her ruined hand high.
*****
Her exit from the city was disastrous. Everyone else in the mid sized metropolis had the same idea as her, and the traffic, coupled with the idiotic driving, cost her extra minutes, and blood from her wounded hand. She'd bandaged it up in the car on the way out, and while stuck trying to get around a vehicle roll over just off an exit, but she'd still lost a lot of blood. The ragged wound had refused to knit enough to stop the blood flow. She felt lightheaded, and the wound itself burned like unnatural fire. She tried to call the home landline to get in touch with her husband, but that rang busy. She also clumsily dialed his cell number, but the cell networks were overloaded. She might as well have tried smoke signals.
She and her family lived in a condo complex near the center of a small town about forty five minutes from the city. It was a forgettable town, off a forgettable highway. A few businesses were there, keeping the town afloat, as well as a large private school nestled in the hills that employed a good number of people. It was a nice place to rai
se her kids, and she figured it would be a good enough as any place to die.
By the time she pulled off the small highway and onto the town's surface streets, she knew she was a goner. Her temperature had soared, and her vision was complete shit. Her skin was a pasty shade of pink, like the skin of a chicken in the butcher's plastic wrap in the grocery store. The bite had drained her of life, literally and figuratively.
She pulled off of the street and into the back section of the condo complex. The neighborhood of townhouse style condos was almost terraced, with her row of homes being the rear, and higher buildings. Hers was right near the street, and she only had to drive in a few doors before she aligned her car between the white lines noting where her familiar parking spot was. Her husband's pickup was still there.
She put her car shifter laboriously into park, and eased her head back onto the headrest of the driver's seat. One hand pulled the door release of the car, then freed up her seatbelt, setting her free. Sabrina's eyes closed, knowing she was home, and that she would see her kid and husband soon, she let herself take a short nap.
One from which she would never wake up from.
*****
"David, go ahead and get into the car. I'm sure you're Mother will be home soon son," Sabrina's husband Dominic said to their son David. David was that child that looked just like both parent's. Enough shared features that anyone could see both his mother and father in his face. Right now Dominic could see the worry in his wife's eyes on his son's face, and he wanted to get his son in the car quickly. His wife would have to catch up at their friend's house later. He'd tried to call her already to no avail. She'd know where to look.
"Dad we need to wait for Mom!" David pleaded from the doorway, screen banging against his back. The warm sun of the early afternoon was beating in from the open door frame, and Dominic worried how many of these days they'd be able to enjoy. The world definitely seemed like it was on the precipice of long and dangerous times.
Dominic lowered his voice, and tried to appeal to his son, "David. We need to leave right now. Your mom is a smart woman, and she knows we will be going to Uncle Jake's house near the lake. Remember the note we made for the door? See? It's posted right on the door there. She'll meet us there. I need you to go get in the car, and make sure that if you see anyone acting weird, you get in and lock the door, okay?"
David's facial expression was defiant, and as he stormed outside to get in the car, Dominic knew his son would be angry at him until they reunited with Sabrina. Dominic picked up the last box of stuff after slinging his hunting shotgun over his shoulder, and headed for the door. He backed out of the door, pulling it shut and seeing the note he and his son made. Before he turned, he heard his son's faint voice from the car a few feet away.
"Dad. Mom's home, but something's wrong."
Dominic turned, his mind filled with dread and diminishing hope for a happy outcome. When he finished his slow spin, he saw his wife's car parked in her regular spot. Inside the vehicle, he saw her sitting, looking around the inside of the car sluggishly, as if she were drugged. Dominic caught a flash of her eyes, and saw that all the color was gone just like the maniacs that were infected with whatever was causing this epidemic.
"David, please walk around to the driver's side of daddy's truck, and get in. Mommy might be sick and we don't want to startle her, okay?" Dominic slowly lowered the box he was carrying to the pavement as the son blindly obeyed his father. Dominic remained rock steady still as his son walked around the truck, and climbed in. When the door shut loudly, his wife snapped to attention.
Sabrina was feral. She whipped her head to the side where the noise of the car door closing had come from. Dominic saw her hand was bandaged, and judging that she'd died by so small a wound, she was either fully infected, or had been bitten. Either way according to the news, she was dangerous. Dangerous to Dominic, and certainly dangerous to their beloved son. As Sabrina climbed out of the car like some predator on the hunt, Dom got his shotgun ready, and racked up a shell in the chamber. The noise of the weapon's action twisted Sabrina's stare from the truck and their son, back to the father.
"Sabrina, please follow me. Talk to me if you can baby. Don't look at David."
She gnashed her teeth in response. No words came from her, or even the recognition that the words meant anything. Dominic backpedaled slowly, making sure he didn't trip over anything, or run the risk of backing up into an object that might cost him his life. All he had to do was get her away from David, and then pray for the strength do what he knew he would hate himself forever for.
"Baby, I love you."
The grinding of her teeth answered him. Dom had her twenty feet from the house, and the kid.
"David loves you."
A lunge. Awkward.
"I'll tell everyone you came to say goodbye."
A swipe from Sabrina's well manicured fingers. A stream of a husband's tears.
"I'll tell them you loved us." Dominic looked over Sabrina's shoulder and saw that David was watching out of the rear window of the truck. He motioned for David to turn around, and his eyes full of fear and tears, he did what his father asked him to do. Dom made sure he wasn't aiming anywhere near his son, and he raised his hunting gun towards his wife's head. The news said you had to shoot them in the head. Dom said his prayer.
"I love you Sabrina. I hope I see you on the other side."
When the shotgun went off the birds in the sky flew away, and Sabrina's headless body fell to the ground, streaming her red blood across the pavement. Dominic, overcome with emotion ran off to his truck, and got inside to hold his son tight. They drove quickly away before anything got any worse.
When the shotgun went off, a man awoke in a nearby home. He'd been sleeping all day, but the blast stirred him from his slumber. Unknowingly, Sabrina's death, her final death, was the first event that would start a long series of events that would determine the true fate of the world.
Upstairs, just a few dozen feet away, Adrian Ring decided to investigate the source of the noise that woke him up.
December 4th
It occurs to me tonight that almost every plan I make hinges on something I know fuck-all about.
How many people are left?
I don’t know. I haven’t the goddamn foggiest idea, and wouldn’t even be able to hazard an educated guess. When the television died it seemed like there were still a lot of people around. Billions served so to speak. After the radio stations faded a week or so later, the reports made it sound much more grim. As in perhaps only a billion of us left. Math isn't my strongest subject, but that means about 6 out of every 7 people died, give or take.
Some areas of the world seemed to be faring much worse. Africa for example was wiped out almost immediately. They’ve always been on the razor’s edge for health anyway, and when this hit, they went downhill in a hurry. No infrastructure, shitty transportation resources, a general lack of secure locations, etc. I don’t know the exact details, but I recall the radio people saying Africa was bad, from what they could glean.
America and Europe, and most of Asia though… I just don’t know. All I can worry about is here though. America has a shitload of guns, tons of securable locations, solid infrastructure, decent healthcare, good media for communication, and plenty of food in the pipeline to maintain a large surviving population for some time. We also have huge tracts of arable land to grow food on after society has stabilized.
This is all assuming there are enough survivors to even establish some form of society though. It’s really hard to gauge what’s going on because I am so secluded. In a small town that’s off the beaten path at a private school that’s even further off the beaten path my intelligence on survivors is somewhere between slim and none. So how many people have survived? Where are they? Are they hungry? Starving? Have they reformed some kind of shitty government right down the street?
No idea. These are the things that keep me up at night. That’s not entirely true.
I t
hink about Cassie a lot too. Some nights when it’s cold and I’m feeling more lonely than usual my mind gets to wandering and I inevitably go full circle and come back to her. Recently it’s been worse than normal too.
Remember that black fancy car I saw drive by me the other day? The one with a couple of people in it? The one with the redhead in it?
Cassie was a redhead.
You have any idea how much that tears my ass up inside? Is it her? It could be. The color of red was about the right shade. Of course this could be my memory fucking with me. Being very selective about the details it wants to recall. It’s entirely possible the girl in the car had brown hair with red highlights, and my brain thinks of Cassie, then equates that with red hair, then I see the girl, then I think red hair, then I think; holy shit, that was a redheaded girl; it was probably Cassie.
Sigh Mr. Journal.
This is going to bother me. As I was thinking in bed last night with Otis sitting on my chest keeping me warm I was debating doing a stake-out. I mean literally sitting in one of the houses on the side of the road down there waiting to see if they drove by again so I could get a good look at them. You realize how stupid an idea that is Mr. Journal? It would be an enormous waste of time and energy likely for nothing.
The rational thinker that I am tells my idiot self that if Cassie were in fact alive, and had made the trip all the way out here, she would’ve come to the school looking for me. I took a lot of stuff from the house, which she would notice, and I always told that if the world ended, I would hole up here. So if that is her, it means she doesn’t care about finding me anymore.
Ouch. Just fucking ouch.
I don’t want to think about that. It’s bad enough that the undead are roaming the streets, let alone having to think about my girlfriend abandoning me up here.
Ouch.
I wonder if that IS her and she’s pissed at me because she thinks that I abandoned her.
Alone No More Page 7
