by Evans, John
Jerome veered right, zigzagging blindly to put the cops behind him. He plunged through the doorless threshold of a derelict building and took refuge in its shadows.
Breathing hard, Jerome picked his way through the gloom of a long-closed bank lobby. An asteroid belt of dust drifted in the rays of light filtering through breaks in the walls.
Running across the dark room, he sought another way out. There. A broken window beckoned from the other side of the building.
Jerome ran heedlessly through the debris in semi-darkness. He shot a glance over his shoulder to check for pursuers. No one yet. Passing a dark stairwell, he didn’t see the furtive shape rising up the stairs…
Until it was too late. A leprous green arm shot between the rails to seize his leg. Jerome screamed, loud and hard. He tore away from the claw-like hand but the bony fingers had already dug through his jeans and deeply into the muscles just above the knee — a handful of meat stayed in that vile grip.
Leg pumping out blood, Jerome half-crawled, half-ran across the debris.
Behind him, a hideous ghoul clambered over the rail in one uncanny, almost graceful movement. It had a green complexion, black-pit eyes and long stringy hair. The stink of well-advanced decomposition was stomach-churningly rank. This guy had been dead for awhile.
As the grotesque creature shambled toward him, Jerome found that he could put no weight on his injured leg. Wriggling desperately for the daylight, his plaintive scream gave voice to the certainty that a terrible death was only moments away.
#
Hearing the boy’s scream just instants after he disappeared into the crumbling hulk on the corner, Winter shared a grimly knowing glance with Nic. It was doubtful the boy had only tripped.
Confirmation came in a sharper, more ululating cry from within the building. A telltale sign.
They ventured inside at a trot, snapping halogen torches onto their gun-barrels.
Their high-intensity beams roved the space in quick, controlled sweeps until spotlighting the decomposing corpse marionette-walking toward the screaming, crying teen.
In tandem they lifted their rifle-stocks to their shoulders and in a single burst, cut down the sickening monstrosity.
It crumpled near the teen, putridly liquid brain matter oozing from a shattered skull.
Winter panned his flashlight over the whimpering kid. His leg was torn open. A glance at the corpse revealed fresh blood smeared on its hands. But the kid shook his head, fear and a wrenching desire to live making his eyes pulse with desperate energy.
“Please,” the teen begged, clutching his bleeding leg. “Don’t.”
Winter tried to aim his weapon at the kid’s head, training robotically kicking in, but the barrel was unsteady. He tickled the trigger. Wiped the sweat from his face.
The report of a gunshot made even Winter jump. The teen flopped on his back, shot through the head.
Winter looked over at Nic. Her eyes were fixed, almost blankly, on the teen’s still and forever-silent body. Her weapon was still extended as if another bullet might be necessary.
“There is no cure,” she whispered softly, monotone voice as empty as a library after hours. Ever so slowly, she lowered her weapon. But her stare never left the dead boy.
“Come on,” Winter said huskily. He tried to touch Nic’s arm and winced inwardly as she shied from him, moving away without expression.
They left the building. No one would come for the remains — the threat of infection in an unsecured area was too great for the niceties of burial. A shroud of dust would be the only covering for victim and attacker where they slept forever, joined here by a dread disease for which there was indeed no cure.
CHAPTER THREE
BONE TIRED
EVALUATION CENTER 14 was located in the Ravenna district of Seattle, formerly a quiet bedroom community favored by families and retirees. The cyclone fences that ringed the converted hospital were capped with greased razor wire. Sentries with rifles manned guard towers on every corner and atop both gates. For good measure, each tower was equipped with a tripod-mounted, 60-caliber recoilless rifle.
The measures were not designed to protect the facility from invasion, though there were ample supplies of morphine, epinephrine and other desirable drugs within its walls. No, like a prison, Evaluation Center 14 was designed to keep its patients in. Unlike a prison, more than half of its charges could be described as “on Death Row.” Figuratively, anyway.
An Evaluation Center was where you brought people who might need to be removed from the population. Those who were, invariably, did not end up relocating to tropical climes.
Sprinkled by light, cold rain, a bus adorned with flashing yellow lights was cleared to pass through the front gate.
The bus pulled up to a pair of automatic doors. It disgorged first armored Virus Control troopers and then a stream of dejected civilians. All were old and infirm or visibly injured — there were wheelchairs, walkers and bandages aplenty in this melancholy group. The new arrivals were herded, single file, toward automatic doors as the P.A. system repeated the same message over and over again in a soothing, maternal voice. “Welcome to your Evaluation Center. Please obey all staff instructions. Security personnel are authorized to use lethal force. We thank you for your cooperation.”
Meek as Scottish sheep, the weak and the wounded filed into the Center. Among them, Myra McCarthy quailed at the sight of a gruff, rifle-brandishing trooper posted at the door. He gestured impatiently with his free hand. “Let’s go, let’s go. Sooner you’re in, the sooner you’ll be processed. Come on, keep it moving!”
Processed, Myra thought. Like you were a cut of deli meat being glazed with preservatives to last longer in a display case.
She hurried inside. “Receiving” was a large, grimy room overcrowded with glum patients milling around uncertainly. If anyone had a notion to “take a pass on this whole evaluation thing,” each exit was flanked by two equally imposing troopers. Exhausted staffers rushed in and out, calling names and taking medical histories.
The same woman’s pre-recorded voice repeated another looped message in here. “You are now in evaluative custody. Failure to cooperate will result in assignment to a detention zone. Security personnel are authorized to use lethal force.”
Myra queued up obediently, taking in her chaotic surroundings with wide eyes. A ten-year-old girl waiting in the reception area took a blast from her inhaler. Her worried mother squeezed her hand, feigning confidence.
Myra smiled at the child, hoping to impart some comfort on an innocent even if she could feel none herself.
Myra was seventy years old at a point in American history when old age was viewed with suspicion. Being a burden to the young was one thing; being dangerous was quite another.
It took twenty minutes for a haggard physician’s assistant to conduct Myra’s preliminary interview. He asked for Myra’s name and social security number, which would of course yield her true age. The layers of makeup on Myra’s face were convincing (to her eye, at least) but there was no arguing with a computer. She complied.
Next question. “Why don’t you have a health certificate?” The man asked. A perfunctory matter that would have little impact on Myra’s case. But she stammered, feeling as persecuted as a murder suspect on the stand.
“I…I lost it. My purse was stolen, you see… But it was valid and up to date, I swear to you…”
The physician’s assistant nodded, devoid of emotion. Taking notes on a tablet computer, his questions came in a hurried barrage, by rote.
“Have you been treated in the last six months for any medical condition? Are you on any medication, or have you been on any medication in the last six months?”
“No, sir.” Myra had in fact been on black-market arthritis medication, but she knew better than to disclose that. Any potential risk factor was a red flag. Too many of those and you were headed for a “camp.” But not the kind with canoes.
The physician’s assistant pressed on.
“Roll up your sleeve, please.”
He pressed a pneumatic syringe to Myra’s arm and she felt a sudden jab. In an instant it had sucked a full blood sample into its reservoir. Myra watched him snap a yellow-capped tube off the needle and carry it to a nearby analysis machine. He slid the sample into a self-loading tray, an amber light flashed on, and there was a high-speed whirring noise.
It was a breathless moment. Though Myra was certain she was uninfected, she still had the sense she was playing Russian roulette. If somehow that light turned red, she was dead. Simple as that. The possibility, however unlikely, was enough to whiten her knuckles.
The light flashed green. Clean.
Myra realized that she’d been holding her breath. She started breathing again. One hurdle cleared….
The PA reappeared. His demeanor was matter of fact, showing no pleasure or relief at her test result. She suspected that his expression wouldn’t have been much different if the test had come back positive.
“Okay. Given your age, a mandatory physical must be conducted by the next available physician. Sit tight — you’ll be called when they’re ready for you.”
He rushed off, and Myra began the waiting game all over again. She wasn’t out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. If the physical turned up anything of concern, she could still be deemed a v-risk. That meant a one-way ticket to the camps.
Everyone had heard the stories, even virtual shut-ins like Myra. Only the hardiest of souls survived “re-assignment,” and only with luck. “Supervised Living Shelters” were designed not to help people recuperate and return to society, but to give them a safe place to die.
Almost an hour passed before Myra was called behind a flimsy curtain for her physical. The doctor was in her early 30s with long dark hair, high cheekbones and archetypally feminine features. There were faint circles under her eyes and she had an impatient, distracted demeanor. Still, Myra felt a surge of hope when they made eye contact — there was real warmth in this young woman’s demeanor. A marked contrast to the icy detachment of everyone else she had interacted with since this terrible day began.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Gladden,” the woman said.
“Myra McCarthy, nice to meet you,” Myra said, trying to sound hale and hearty.
What came next was difficult. Myra reluctantly undressed and submitted to the physical, knowing that her sagging flesh would betray her. However decrepit her form might be, Myra wasn’t ready to die. She enjoyed her garden, and her grandchildren, far too much. But the doctor didn’t convey any judgment or concern as she went through the practiced routine. She was calm and gentle. Until she used a stethoscope to listen to Myra’s heart.
Myra saw the frown flash over Dr. Gladden’s delicate features and in an instant was certain that her weary body had consigned her still-lively mind to a grim fate.
“Hmmm. A murmur,” the doctor reported. “Taken with that high systolic number, it makes two risk factors.”
Myra launched a desperate protest. “I’m fit as a fiddle! Live to be 100!”
Unmoved, the doctor jotted an assignment on Myra’s chart. “That’s the spirit. Two weeks observation at a Supervised Living Shelter, a few more tests, and that will do it.”
Myra cried quietly into her hands. Yes, it would. She would never survive two weeks in the overcrowded, pestilent conditions of a camp.
She looked up, unable to accept a death sentence from someone who had such obvious compassion.
“Please…. Don’t do this. If I felt sick, I would turn myself in. I swear. I’m fine. I’m not ready to die!”
Though Gladden’s face betrayed nothing, her hand trembled as she completed the “paperwork” on her tablet. “Then you will be just fine. The will to survive is everything.”
Her eyes remained focused on the screen until Myra touched her arm. The doctor was so startled by the unexpected contact that she looked sharply into Myra’s eyes.
“Please,” Myra said. “You must have heard about the camps…. No one comes back. No one.”
The doctor’s professionalism suddenly gave way. She grabbed Myra’s arm and spoke in an urgent whisper. “All right, I'll clear you. But take better care of yourself, okay?”
Sobbing with relief, Myra tried to embrace her but the doctor deflected her with a wary glance around the curtain.
“Myra. Please. Around here, acting happy is very suspicious.”
#
Winter picked his way through the lunar terrain of the ruins, following Nic. Neither had said a word since she’d euthanized the teenager.
Winter saw Gary Smith and Juan Ortega standing over the bodies of three civilians. Beside them, an HD camera was smashed in the street.
“Well well, it’s the Wonder Twins,” Gary said, nudging Juan. “Where you been hiding?”
“Nowhere, mormally we just see you first,” Winter said. “Don’t worry, won’t let it happen again.”
Gary Smith was husky, blond, and usually sporting a shaggy porn ‘stache. Even by his standards, today it was pitifully unkempt. By way of answer to Winter’s volley, he aimed his service pistol at one of the corpse’s heads and pulled the trigger.
Juan, baby-faced but hard, squatted beside one of the bodies. “Hey… Wait a second. This used to be Jeanne Moreno. Channel 4, dude!”
“She’s looked better,” Gary quipped.
Juan cackled at that. “Yeah, celebrities never look as good in person, you know?!”
Winter winced. Juan was as funny as a heart attack. Nic gave Jeanne’s remains a clinical look. “Headshot killed her, pre-infection. High-caliber round. Gotta be police issue. In the old days somebody’s ass got nailed to the wall for this sorta cluster fuck.”
She gave the police still clearing the area a hard stare. Pointed at the dead reporter and shouted, “Not the kind of story we wanted on the news tonight, huh?”
Gary snorted. “So it was friendly fire. Shit happens.”
Winter saw a rare burst of emotion from Nic. She looked like she wanted to attack him. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?!” she hissed.
“Well lookie here,” Juan said, piggish little eyes amused. “Somethin’ finally got to Frozen Waters.”
“And you know what it was, bro?” Gary added, obviously building to a punchline, “Bastards dusted a pretty girl!”
Juan laughed uproariously.
“That’s the only way you could hit one, isn’t it Gary?” Nic began. Winter knew he’d better intercede ASAP. He’d never seen Nic this volatile. He stepped between them, keeping his tone light, but all he wanted to do was roundhouse kick this clown right on the button. “All right, that’s enough. How about some respect for the dead here, huh guys?”
Gary turned away contemptuously. “Why? They got no respect for us. Death ain’t what it used to be.”
“Yeah well, neither are you, Gary,” Nic muttered and kept walking.
“See you, boys,” Juan said, falsetto, and gave a girlish little wave.
Winter trudged after Nic. They passed a riot cop whistling a cheery tune as he shot corpses in the head.
#
There was no doubt about it. Even with a patient of his own just down the aisle, Dr. James Voskuil saw Gladden issue the broken-down old lady a health certificate. She proudly showed it to the door guard to be let out. Though the woman’s clownish makeup made her age relatively indeterminate, she was obviously a v-risk. Some crone who keeled over watching her “stories” wasn’t gonna wait for the neighbors to wonder what stunk in apartment 237. She would lurk outside their door and wait for someone to come out.
Voskuil sighed and adjusted his slipping eyeglasses. He’d worked with Gladden long enough to know she was soft. Though he genuinely liked the woman, a bleeding heart could get them all into trouble.
He turned back to the anemic child he was examining. Borderline malnutrition; a neglect case. He’d clear her this time, but given her condition and threadbare clothes, he had a feeling the child would be back. Her deadbeat parents might just get
her sent to the camps. And rightfully so. Even a kid was a danger to society. Voskuil had heard of six-week-old feeders crawling onto their parents’ beds and, even with no teeth and the tiniest of fingernails, managing to infect them.
There was a gasp and a thump behind him. Voskuil turned just in time to sidestep a scrawny young man, all waxy skin and brittle red hair, charging past him. Junkie, thought Voskuil in an instinctive diagnosis. Martinez, the new intern, was picking herself off the floor.
“Stop him!” she shouted.
The door guard tried to bash Red in the face with the butt of his weapon, but the guy was slippery. In one lithe move he ducked it and wriggled by.
Voskuil craned his neck to see what happened next. His line of sight turned out to be perfect. Through the panels of the automatic doors, he saw the junkie dash a few strides over wet asphalt. Ten, maybe 15 feet. With the crack of a rifle shot, the runaway crumpled. A second shot rang out, convulsing the body. The coup de grace. Though he couldn’t see it, Voskuil had no doubt that Red’s brains had just sprayed the pavement.
Voskuil noticed the child, thankfully too short to see what happened, anxiously gazing in that direction. She could recognize a gunshot, if nothing else.
“It’s okay, honey,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”
She smiled tentatively but a trickle of urine was already pitter-pattering on the linoleum between her shoe-tops.
Voskuil sighed heavily. “Now look what you’ve done.”
No use trying to call an orderly over to take care of it. None would be available. He tore off a yard of gauze and swabbed the floor with it. The girl would have to endure her wet clothes. He had neither the time nor the inclination to do anything about that.
Voskuil glanced at the lineup outside his partition. While he’d been with the child five more cases had joined the queue. Long night ahead.
