I grab every bag and sack I can find and load them up on an empty gurney, going from room to room, on the world’s creepiest treasure hunt. I don’t know how long I’ve been at it so far but I’ve covered two floors and made four trips back to my stolen ride.
I’m nearing the gurney’s capacity as I try to navigate the rooms no one but the doctors are supposed to be in when I hear something move out in the hall. My mind goes back to all the bodies I’ve seen and imagining them rising up, still covered in blood and hungry for flesh. That would be just my luck.
I stop and listen. Sure enough, there’s the shuffling sound of someone, or something, moving quietly outside. I take up the fire-ax. The weight feels good in my hands.
With all our travelling growing up I never really got to play team sports. When I expressed an interest in baseball, Mom made it a point to take me to the batting cages in whatever town we ended up in for about three years. There were plenty of men there willing to teach me how to swing the bat. I put up my elbows and hold my ax in that old, familiar pose, ready to sink the heavy metal head into whatever it is that’s out there.
I’m not going to sit here and wait for whatever is to come kill me. I listen, waiting for the shuffling to get closer, then I burst through the door, pulling the ax around for a wild swing, screaming at the top of my lungs.
Max Dryden screams to and topples over backward.
I’m barely able to stop myself from carrying through the attack so it’s probably a good thing he fell over.
“What the bloody fuck?” he demands from his position on the floor.
One of his legs is wrapped up in an improvised bandage. That must have been what was causing the shuffling sound. He’s walking with a limp. It’s also about that time that I notice all of the red needles sticking out of him. It looks like he and I are in the same boat.
“What are you doing sneaking up on somebody in a place like this?” I demand.
He holds up his hands and I realize I’m brandishing the ax. “I choose the answer that doesn’t get me chopped into firewood.”
I roll my eyes and toss the ax back onto the gurney before giving him a hand up. “How’d you find me?”
He gives me a deadpan expression. “Seriously? Mate, you still haven’t unfriended anyone in the game.”
I don’t bother hiding my puzzlement. “I thought you weren’t logging in.”
“Desperate times,” he says. “Speaking of….” He reaches into his pocket and produces my smartphone.
“All charged up for you,” he says as I take it. “Courtesy of the Game Master’s implants.” He shakes his right hand. The pale scar at the base of his palm is barely visible and intimately familiar. In a more serious tone he continues. “I think ours might be the only working phones in the city. I couldn’t make any calls but email’s working just fine. They’re calling that new kaiju Plague Doctor.”
“Plague Doctor,” I say, shaking my head. I guess it’s a fitting name, what with the proboscis on that thing and all the sickness and death it’s causing. The thought brings me up short and I stare at Max. “You’re not dead.”
“Um, no,” he says. “I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible too.”
“No, I mean that you’re covered in those needles,” I say.
“Yeah, so are you.”
“And neither one of us is falling over sick or dying,” I say. “I thought it might have something to do with whatever the Game Masters did to us, but this confirms it.”
He scowls. “They put a chip in us, Aaron, not a vaccination.”
“We don’t know what they put into us,” I say. “For all we know, it’s not even a chip at all. Think about it. Have you been sick at all since they put it in you?”
His brow furrows in thought. “That’s…that doesn’t prove anything.”
“What kind of chip in your hand would make you see things or put your mind in another body?” I begin pacing. I’m having some kind of brain blast here. “Whatever it is, it’s changing us. The doctors that sent me here for supplies, they wanted blood samples. Do you think our blood might be able to cure the survivors?”
He stares at the scar on his palm. “Maybe? I don’t know. Think I’d rather someone study my blood first before going all reverse-vampire on people, yeah?”
Fair enough, but Dad’s in a bad way. “Come on, help me get the rest of this stuff to my car. We need to get back to Paris.”
I have to explain to him that Paris has become the survivor refuge. The fact that I know something he doesn’t for once brings me a petty sort of one-upmanship pleasure. It’s gone almost as soon as it appears though, leaving me wondering what exactly he’s been up to in the hours after the attack.
I redouble my efforts to get everything loaded in my stretch-Hummer. Max is of limited use with his leg, but he makes an effort and it does help. Fortunately, I think I’ve got everything the doctors ordered. My realization has me anxious to get back to them and give them our blood to look at. Thoughts of developing some kind of vaccination or inoculation against the stuff Plague Doctor left behind fill my mind right up until I get into the driver’s seat.
The movement pulls my pocket tight and reminds me that I’ve got my phone back. Max said that he couldn’t make any calls out but that he was able to send emails. It takes a few moments but I stop and pull up my email. In a few seconds I’ve drafted a quick message to Mom, letting her know I’m alive and trying to help Dad.
It’s time I can’t really afford to spend and I can feel myself twitching to move with every moment I’m writing up the email. I have to remind myself that it’s not that much time and just what exactly it was that got me into this mess. I can spare a few seconds to let Mom know I’m alive and that I love her. I don’t know when or if she’ll get it, but I make the effort.
That’s got to count for something.
Chapter Nineteen
⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎
Paris is too quiet when we get back. It wasn’t exactly bustling before, especially with all the gaming machines shut down, but that many people can’t help but noise.
Max and I wheel the gurney we took from the hospital, loaded high with medicine and equipment through the front doors and are immediately hit with the stink.
You expect a certain amount of stench with so many people unwashed and crowded together. You don’t expect that stench to be laced with the coppery tang of blood or that sickly-sweet smell of overripe fruit that’s just begun to go rotten. And let’s not forget the pungent spice of fresh vomit added to the mix. The stench is so powerful that it’s like walking into a cloud of freshly sprayed cologne. I can feel it settling into my skin and clothes.
I double over and try to retch, which reminds me how long it’s been since I last ate, because I’ve got nothing but dry heaves. Funnily enough, I’m not hungry right now. When I pull myself upright I notice what I missed before.
There are still people crowded in the French-themed casino, it’s just that most of them are horizontal and the people that are still moving are mostly trying to arrange the dead or care for the dying. There’s more of the former than the latter now. In the few hours I’ve been away the situation’s gone from bad to horrible.
I pull away from Max and the gurney. I have to get to Dad and Isabella.
Two of the doctors from earlier intercept me. Here’s hoping the third is off doing some good. It’s Dr. Golf and Dr. Kitten-face. They need nametags. Aren’t doctors supposed to wear some kind of ID at hospitals. Then again, I got the impression that these doctors were here on vacation. Probably not how they envisioned spending their time off.
“You got it,” says Kitten-face.
She’s pale and sweating. There are shadows under her eyes. Same with Dr. Golf.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Everyone started getting sick, what’s it look like?” Dr. Golf snaps. “Here’s hoping we can
do some good with that medicine. Dr. Norman can you help out Dr. Klein while I take Aaron’s blood?”
Before she can answer I’m struck with a terrible thought. “Are Dad and Isabella alright?”
The doctor’s share a quick look. “Hard to say,” Dr. Norman—who I’ve been calling Kitten-face, says. “But with your blood we might be able to help all of the survivors, not just two. That thing left behind more than just those webs and needles and it’s making everyone sick.”
But it’s those two that I care about so much more than any of the rest. Isabella was right. I am a selfish bastard. And right now, I don’t give a fuck.
“I want to see them,” I say, and make to move around them.
Dr. Golf steps in front of me. “Aaron. Do you have any idea how serious this is? We need to take your blood.” He starts to reach out. To put his hand on my shoulder. To grab my arm. I don’t know. I never find out because his wrist is grabbed before his hand makes contact and Isabella seems to materialize by his side.
“Don’t touch him,” she says. She’s pale, sweat beads on her forehead, and her eyes are shadowed. The effect when combined with that look in her eyes as she glares up at Dr. Golf is unnerving.
Clearly Dr. Golf agrees with me because despite outweighing her by at least sixty pounds, he takes a nervous step back.
“Aaron’s not the only one immune,” Max says, speaking up for the first time. He’s been leaning against the gurney for support. Between his wounded leg and the long red needles sticking out of him, he looks like he’s been through a warzone.
For the first time the doctor’s really take him in, eyes going wide as they note the amount of pointy things embedded in his flesh and his apparent absence of illness. We don’t know that he or I are actually immune or what but the doctor’s light up. We’ve given them hope. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
Dr. Norman puts Max’s arm over her shoulder and Dr. Golf pushes the gurney along, turning to look at me. “We still need your blood. The more samples the better.”
“I’ll find you in a bit,” I say, then turn to Isabella? “Dad?”
“He’s bad,” she says, then glances around. “Everyone is.”
She leads me past the dead and over to the dying. Nobody laying down on the improvised cots in this section is getting up again. They’re wasting away, covered in blood, phlegm, sweat, and puke.
Dad’s set up against a mural of people on little boats. I think they’re called gondolas. He looks awful. He’s soaked in fluids and white as a sheet. He looks like he’s lost at least twenty pounds just in the few hours since I last saw him.
He groans as we kneel down beside him and opens his eyes. They’re bloodshot, the whites yellow, and it takes him several tries to focus on my face.
“Aaron,” he says, and there’s something about the way he says it that makes me think he might not actually be seeing me. He reaches up with a shaky hand and cups my cheek. “You need to shave? I haven’t taught you to do that yet. It’s important. When you become a man, you’ll need to know.”
My cheek’s wet. Why is my cheek wet? I’m crying. Fuck.
Dad never taught me to shave. He left us before I had any need to learn.
“You’re shooting up so fast,” he says. “Going to be a doctor or a lawyer I’ll bet. You’re such a smart kid.”
I hate being called kid. I clench my teeth. Then realize what’s really happening. I was more right than I knew before. Dad’s not seeing me. He’s seeing little me. He’s seeing his son back when I actually was his son and he actually was my dad.
“Yeah, something like that,” I say, hating the idea. But for once I can’t bring myself to argue with Dad.
He’s been making a real effort since Mom got sick. Sending me to college, coming all the way out here when I got taken into custody…I don’t know if I can forgive him for leaving. I also don’t think I’ve been entirely fair to him. He’s trying. That’s got to count for something. I hope it does.
“Maybe we’ll talk career options when we get home, yeah?” Why the hell would I say that? We don’t have a home together.
He grins up at me. There’s blood on his teeth. “You’ll like Glenda. She wants us to have dinner together. Get to know my little boy.”
I flinch. Glenda is his wife, the woman he left Mom for. I have never felt anything besides disgust, contempt, and hatred for that woman. It should be Mom’s names on Dad’s lips, not hers.
Dad grabs my hand with shocking strength. His eyes are alight, with madness or alertness I don’t know. “Take care of Glenda. Her and your mother. They need us, Aaron. We have to be….” He trails off, a string of bloody drool bubbling from his lips to trickle down his chin. I wipe it away. He blinks but doesn’t say anything. I don’t think he’s aware that I’m here anymore.
It’s several more minutes before he stops breathing. I scream for the doctors. None of them come. Some part of me recognizes that the area I’m sitting in has been set aside for those not expected to make it. There are so many people sick and hurt that there’s no way the doctors can get to them all. They wrote my dad off as a hopeless case the moment I stepped out to go get their medical supplies.
The silence that follows is interrupted when Isabella bursts into a coughing fit. I clap her on the back, trying to clear up her airway. She waves me off and meets my eye. The bags beneath them have gotten darker and the whites are yellowing behind the bloodshot. She’s getting worse fast.
“I don’t want to go like that,” she says, looking past me to Dad.
I cringe. He is gone. He’s gone and there’s so much…so much I don’t understand or know what to do with. I don’t even know if there’s anything I’m supposed to do with his body. It’s not like I can call up a funeral home right now. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.
“The doctors are going to come up with something,” I say. “Max and me’ll give them all the blood they need. They’ll come up with something to help you.”
Isabella makes a snorting sound and rolls her eyes. “Aaron, do you have any idea how long it takes to develop a vaccination? They aren’t going to be curing anything from this casino.”
Well yeah, but I sure as shit wasn’t about to say that. Hell, I was trying not to think about it.
“Okay,” I say. “What are you asking me to do?”
She looks down at Dad and then meets my eyes. “I mean I don’t want to go like that. When it gets bad for me, you kill me first.”
Chapter Twenty
⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎
“Fuck that!”
I’m on my feet with no memory of standing. I’m not killing my girlfriend. She can get as pukey and mucusy as she wants, I’m not about to do that. Hell no. How dare she ask me to do that.
“I’m serious, Aaron,” she says, getting to her feet, somewhat more unsteadily than she should have. One needle. She got stuck by only one needle. Even the people who didn’t get stuck are in horrible shape. She’s got what, a few hours left before she ends up like Dad, if that?
She points down at Dad. At his body. That’s not Dad anymore. I can’t let myself think of the corpse as my Dad. I’ll lose it if I do and I’m already sliding down a slippery slope.
“I am not going to die like that,” she says. “No sickness is going to take me out. That’s not how I go.”
“And how the hell are you supposed to go,” I snap.
“Mauled by a bear,” she says without missing a beat, which throws me off balance. That I was not expecting.
“But since there aren’t any bears in Vegas for me to piss off, I need you to end things before they get like that,” she says, nodding at Dad’s body. “I’m not going down because I caught some bug. That is not how my life ends.”
“It’s not ending at all,” I snarl and grab her arm and start dragging her behind me.
Under normal circumstances if I tried something like this she’d pr
obably kick my ass. These aren’t normal circumstances though. She’s sick, weakened, and off-balance. And I am seized by a mad idea that quickly burns into an obsession. If I can just make this happen she will be okay. I know it. I don’t know why or how I know it but I do know it and that’s all that I care about.
A part of me whispers from a corner of my mind that hope is dangerous. That I shouldn’t give in to it. That if I allow myself to hope I will be absolutely torn to shreds. That part of me is quickly beaten into bloody, silent submission with the ferocity only the truly desperate can match.
Dad is dead. Mom is dying and she’s not even here. I am not losing Isabella too.
“Aaron what are we doing?” she asks. “Where are you taking me?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. All of my attention is dedicated to getting us to our destination and achieving my goal.
The doctors aren’t hard to find. They’re all clustered around Max, who has fresh bandages on his leg and is mercifully free of red needles. They have several bags of his blood now and have set up a sort of impromptu lab where Dr. Norman is studying samples under a microscope—just one of the many pieces of equipment I loaded up on that stupid gurney and brought back to them.
“Aaron,” Max says in greeting as I draw near. He sounds light headed. How much of his blood did they take?
Blonde Dr. Klein looks up from patching up Max’s arm, grinning when he sees me. “Aaron! Thank you so much for bringing the gear and medicine. We can—Aaron?”
Kaiju for Dummies Page 10
