Surviving The Evacuation | Life Goes On (Book 2): No More News

by Tayell, Frank

  “There’s no point,” Mack said.

  Olivia picked up her phone and tried anyway. Frustratingly, Mack was right. The call didn’t connect. Noting the bloody fingerprint she’d left on the phone, she put the device down, and went to the kitchen sink to scrub her hands. “We have to take him to the hospital.”

  “We can’t,” Mack said. “It’s chaos out there. The world’s ending. It’s the apocalypse. The end of days. Judgement. I knew it was coming.” He walked into the kitchen nook, and sat down at the small table on which Nicole had placed Dante’s gun. He pulled up his grey and now blood-stained hoodie and extracted an identical handgun of his own, placing it on the table next to Dante’s. “I knew something like this would happen. I said. For years, I said.”

  “You saw the news, Livy?” Nicole asked.

  “There was an outbreak in Manhattan,” Olivia said. “I’ve been watching it on TV all day.” The cat-and-mouse wall clock showed nine-thirty. “Why didn’t you come home earlier?”

  “After the news broke, we closed up the store,” Nicole said. “You know what’ll happen. There’ll be looting and chaos. It’s not like any more deliveries will come in.”

  “You closed the store so you could keep the food for yourself?” Olivia asked.

  “Not really,” Nicole said. “Just to stop people stealing. But they came anyway. They broke in. Not at first. Not until a few hours ago. That’s when Dante got shot.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” Olivia asked.

  “Because there are no hospitals anymore,” Mack said with furious exasperation. “No cops. No law. No order. No help. It was a cop leading the mob.”

  Olivia walked back over to the couch. Dante’s face was increasingly pale. Eighteen months ago, she and Dante had been on a date. One date. Only one. It had taken twenty minutes for her to realise the man wasn’t just pining for his ex, but dreaming of an entire forest. “There’s no exit wound,” she said. “I think he’s bleeding internally. There’s nothing I can do. In an hour or two, he’ll be dead. But a doctor could save him. How many zombies did you see out there?”

  “What?” Nicole asked.

  “Zombies. How many are out there?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Well, how many did you see?” Olivia asked. “How many were there at the grocery store?”

  “It wasn’t zombies. It was people,” Mack said.

  Olivia nodded. “You didn’t see any at all?”

  “It’s people who did this,” Nicole said. “They came to take the food.”

  “Manhattan is seven hundred miles away,” Olivia said. “I seriously doubt, from what I saw, that zombies can drive.”

  “So?” Mack said.

  “So they aren’t in South Bend,” Olivia said with a firm conviction she didn’t entirely feel. “Looters came to your store. Dante got shot. That’s all. There’s no reason not to take him to the hospital.”

  “What is it with you girls?” Mack growled. He picked up one of the handguns. “Look at this! It’s the end of the world. Survival of the fittest. People are killing each other for food.” The gun waved wildly as he spoke.

  “Put the gun down,” Olivia said calmly. “We can take him to the hospital. Or we can try. He might die in the car, but he’ll die on the couch if we don’t.”

  “And we don’t really need a hospital, right?” Nicole said. “An ambulance would do. You could save him if we had an ambulance?”

  “Me? No. But I guess a paramedic could,” Olivia said.

  “Why don’t you listen?” Mack said, now waving the gun like he was conducting an orchestra. “Why do girls never listen? It’s help yourselves out there because no one will help each other. You saw it, Nicole. You saw what they did. No one will help.”

  “Put the gun down,” Olivia said, hands raised in front of her. “Just put it down. I can’t help Dante. You can’t. If he stays here, he’ll die. And none of us want that.”

  “Always talking, never listening,” Mack fumed. “Never listening!” He turned around and paced the two steps back to the table, slamming the gun down. And, as he did, it went off. The bullet went wide of Olivia by six feet and forty degrees, straight into Nicole’s chest. She blinked.

  “Nicole!” Olivia said, rushing to her friend’s side, catching her just as her legs gave. “Nicole!” All she could do was lower her friend to the floor, cradling her in her arms as Nicole met her gaze, wide-eyed and confused.

  “Livy?” Nicole whispered. The last syllable ended in a splutter of blood. A coughing gasp. She went limp.

  “Nicole?”

  Her friend didn’t reply. But there was a desperate cough from Dante, on the sofa.

  “I… didn’t mean to,” Mack said. “I… do something.”

  Mack had, at last, put the weapon on the table, but he was on a tighter trigger than the handgun. Nicole was dead, and a growing weight in her arms. Carefully, gently, Olivia laid her friend down. Dante gasped again, clearly struggling to breathe. He was still alive, and he might still live, but only if he received proper treatment immediately. Nicole was dead, but Dante might live. Decisively, Olivia stood.

  “There’s only one thing we can do now,” she said firmly. “I’ll be back in a minute. Open the door on three knocks.”

  She crossed quickly to the door, opened it and stepped outside even as Mack asked, “Wait, where are you going?”

  Not bothering to reply, Olivia jogged along the corridor, wondering if any of the other apartment doors would open. They didn’t. Nor from behind any did she hear a sound. Her neighbours must have heard the gunshot. Maybe they were all calling 911. Maybe. Hopefully. But hope alone saves no one.

  She sprinted down the stairs, and only as she opened the lobby door, and a blast of frigid air slammed into her face, did she remember she’d left her jacket upstairs. And her keys. And her phone, her pocketbook, and everything between. She was wearing sneakers and sweats, now drenched in blood. No matter. She knew the way and it wasn’t far.

  She jogged along the sidewalk, focusing on putting one foot in front of the next, barely registering how deserted the roads were. Distant sirens blared. Nearby, a whiff of acrid smoke tickled her nostrils. There, then gone, and back again as she ran across an empty intersection. Above, light streamed from windows, but just as many were dark. The city wasn’t asleep; it was hiding.

  After a leg-burning run through the ominously empty streets, the hospital rose like a bright beacon ahead of her. The parking lot came into view, and with it, more lights. Flashing lights. But not from ambulances. A pair of police cars had been zagged across the road, on either side of an ambulance, collectively blocking the entrance. A portable spotlight on each of the police cars’ roofs shone on the road, until one swivelled to focus on her.

  “Stop!” a male voice called. “Stop there! Don’t take another step!”

  She raised her hands, and slowed her run to a walk, but she didn’t stop. “My friend was shot. Please. I just want to get help for my friend. I need a doctor. An ambulance. No one was answering 911.”

  “Shot?” the voice asked. Two figures stepped forward. Both men. Both in police uniform. One far younger than her, the other far older.

  “What do you mean, shot?” the older man said, and Olivia realised it was him who’d spoken earlier.

  “My roommate came home from work less than an hour ago. She came with two men, two of her co-workers. One had been shot in the stomach. I wanted to bring him to the hospital. The other man, he wouldn’t let me. He… his gun discharged. He shot my roommate. It was an accident, but she’s dead. The other man, Dante, he’s still alive, but he won’t be for long. He’s bleeding out.”

  “Whose blood is that?” the young officer asked.

  “Not mine,” Olivia said.

  “Are you bitten?” the young officer asked.

  “Stow it, Officer Herrera,” the older man said. “Two men and a woman? The man who was gut-shot was about six-feet-two?”

  “That’s righ
t.”

  “And the other man, can you describe him?”

  “Mack? Um…. five-eight, I guess. Wearing a grey hoodie over his work clothes. Long-ish greasy black hair. Not quite shoulder length. Small, sort of wild eyes. I… I never met him before today.”

  “Where does your roommate work?” the officer asked.

  “The grocery store on Western Avenue.”

  “It’s them,” the younger officer said. “You’re under arrest.”

  “No she’s not,” the older man said. “But you will have to come with me. Officer, you stay on watch, but you keep your weapon holstered. We’re keeping the peace, not starting a war. Ma’am, if you’ll come with me.”

  It wasn’t a request, but she didn’t mind. With someone else taking charge, she finally felt able to release a little of the tension that had been keeping her going, and keeping her upright, since the nightmare began.

  “I’m Sergeant Tom Wilgus,” the cop said, leading her through a parking lot full of quiet ambulances. “What’s your name?”

  “Olivia,” she said. “Olivia Preston. What happened at the grocery store? I mean, something did. Something bad, right?”

  “Your friend and her co-workers barricaded themselves inside. When customers came to stock up, they were refused entry. A standoff became a riot. Two of our officers died.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Did Mack and Dante shoot them?”

  “No,” Wilgus said. “We got the shooters, but those two stole our officers’ sidearms and ran. I’ll need your address. I’ll send a tactical team, and a medical unit. Until the situation is resolved, you won’t be able to go home. In here, please.”

  Chapter 3 - Impatient Inpatients

  St Patrick’s Memorial Hospital, South Bend

  The police sergeant didn’t take her to the emergency room’s main entrance, but to a side door guarded by an elderly security guard wearing a holstered sidearm, stab-vest, and a lifetime’s worth of worry on his aged face. Though he was armed, both his liver-spotted hands tightly clutched a flashlight as a preventative against shooting at shadows.

  The sergeant gave the elderly man a brief nod, and led Olivia inside, into a waiting room, though not one for the obviously sick. Four rows of joined-together chairs were a quarter occupied by individuals on their own, most of whom had their heads buried in their phones. Following the sergeant’s direction, she sat while he went to the unoccupied desk at the hall’s end. Next to the desk, a pair of swing doors led into the hospital proper. Behind the desk was a small door belonging to a glass-windowed office crammed with ancient filing cabinets. The sergeant went through the small door and into the office, disappearing behind the wall.

  Feeling eyes watching her, she looked up and around. Those of the waiting area’s occupants who weren’t watching their phones were now watching her. She looked down, staring at the floor, trying to make herself invisible.

  An achingly long few minutes later, the sergeant returned.

  “I’ll be back in a few hours to take your statement,” Sergeant Wilgus said.

  “You’ve sent an ambulance to my apartment?” she asked.

  “I called it in, yes,” he said. “So wait here. When the shift changes, I’ll be back, okay?”

  “Sure. I’ll wait here,” she said. Even if she wanted to leave, she had nowhere else to go. The growing sense of lonely isolation grew as the sergeant returned outside, leaving her alone with the other… patients? Who were these people? Were they all witnesses to similar crimes? The man on the chair closest to her didn’t look injured. Not unless his wound was hidden beneath his thick coat. She realised she was staring at the same time she realised he was staring at her.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He didn’t reply, but stood and walked over to a seat on the far side of the clinic.

  As her eyes followed him, she realised that nearly everyone was looking at her now, so she looked down, staring at her blood-drenched shoes.

  The hospital was clearly working as normal, the police checkpoint notwithstanding. If Nicole had brought Dante here, he would have been treated. She would still be alive.

  Nicole.

  Nicole was dead.

  This morning, they’d had plans. Crazy plans. Driving off into the unknown together. Starting over with all the possibilities of a blank slate. Now they had nothing. One minute Nicole had been alive. Now she was dead. The first real friend she’d made since school, since her parents’ divorce, since she’d cut out on her own. Since—

  “Excuse me,” a woman said. “You’re Sergeant Wilgus’s witness? Olivia, yes?”

  She looked up, and saw a stern-faced nurse towering over her. “Yes. Olivia. Hi,” she said.

  “Olivia, I’d like you to come with me, please.”

  Olivia stood and found her feet unsteady.

  “Were you hurt?” the nurse asked.

  “No, just tired. It’s been a long day.”

  “Hasn’t it?” the nurse said, leading Olivia to the desk, then into the office, and to a door nearly hidden behind the gun-metal-grey filing cabinets. A swipe of her keycard got them access to a staff break-room, where tables and lockers battled with burst-seamed armchairs, and where a snoring doctor lay sprawled across a sofa. The nurse led Olivia on, and into a corridor with curtained exam rooms, where sobbing emanated from behind at least three.

  “In here, please,” the nurse said, pointing to the first set of open curtains.

  Olivia stepped inside. The nurse pulled the curtain closed.

  “I found you some scrubs to wear,” the nurse said, pointing at the neat set, folded on the bed.

  “I’m sorry?” Olivia asked.

  “Your clothes. The blood. It’s scaring the other visitors.”

  Olivia looked down at the matted brown blood coating the once-blue and white sweats that had been worn and washed to a comfortable grey. “Scaring? I thought, in a hospital, you’d expect to find blood.”

  “It’s the news,” the nurse said. “Everyone thinks there are zombies everywhere. Zombies? Nonsense.”

  “You don’t believe it?” Olivia asked.

  “It’s nothing more than an exotic virus that an air-passenger brought into New York. I’m not saying it isn’t serious, but it won’t affect us out here.” She pointed to the scrubs. “Change into those, and I’ll find you some shoes.”

  The shoes fit almost perfectly, a well-worn pair of sneakers borrowed from the locker of someone not on duty. The scrubs didn’t fit her, but they’d been designed not to fit anyone. They were clean, which was one up on her own clothes. With the shoes, the nurse brought two transparent plastic bags. While she didn’t describe them as evidence bags, it was clear that was what they were for. A loud scream somewhere further down the corridor had the nurse hurrying away. Feeling increasingly like a criminal, and uncertain why, Olivia placed her old clothes in the transparent bags, sat on the bed, and waited for the nurse to return.

  Thinking about what the nurse had said kept her mind off the nightmare of the last few hours. She’d described the people in the room the sergeant had taken her to as visitors. Whom were they visiting? When? And the nurse had been dismissive of the idea of zombies. But there was little reassurance in that. Not when Olivia had spent the day watching the footage on TV. Which brought her back to the apartment, and to Nicole.

  Seeking a different distraction, she focused on the sounds outside. Crying. Moaning. Sobbing. Far quieter were the sounds of doctors and nurses practicing their craft. Far, far quieter. The hospital must be understaffed. And why were so many ambulances parked out by the entrance? Or was that because, with 911 down, there was no one to run dispatch? And again, her mind returned to Nicole. Her shoulders slumped as grief again returned, but before exhaustion could give misery a helping hand, her body reminded her of a more urgent demand.

  In the corridor beyond the curtained exam room, the bathrooms were well signposted, and a warm-water wash left her feeling alert if not refreshed. But while finding the
bathroom had been easy, finding her way back was not.

  The further she slowly ventured, the busier the corridors became. The curtained rooms were more densely occupied, with voices running through a procedural list with a practiced resignation that spoke of only one end for the patient on the other side of the curtain.

  At the intersection of two corridors, she nearly ran into a young doctor wrestling with a gurney on which lay a gowned and unconscious patient.

  “You! Nurse,” he called. “Don’t just stand there, help me.”

  “I’m just supposed to be waiting,” Olivia said.

  “You have arms, legs? Then push this gurney,” he said, bending over the patient. “We’re taking him to surgery.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Left. Right. Left again. Go,” he said with a volume that suggested he’d not stopped in hours. As he headed off in the opposite direction, she heaved the patient left then right, through the still busy corridors. Another left, and she nearly bumped into a nurse.

  “This is the pneumothorax?” the nurse asked.

  “Um… I don’t know,” Olivia said.

  The nurse looked at the chart. “It is. I’ve got him.”

  The nurse pushed the patient on, through a set of double doors that clicked closed behind her. Olivia, again alone, again wondering what to do, began retracing her steps. From the signs, she was miles from the emergency room. From the patients bumping knees in the corridors, emergency cases had spilled into the outpatient facilities.

  “Nurse?” a voice called from a partially open door. A bathroom, judging by the sign.

  “Um… yes?” Olivia said.

  “Please, can you give me a hand?” It was a woman in a wheelchair, with a bandage on her leg, another on her arm. “I managed to get here okay,” she said, “but getting back on my own will take hours. I don’t want to miss my cab.”

  “Sure. Of course,” Olivia said, relieved. “I can help with that. If you know the way.”

  “You’re new?”

  “Pretty much,” Olivia said. It was simpler than the truth.