This chapter is very long, and might seem kind of strange because of the way I split up all the small sections of narrative. I felt it was better to do it this way than to split it all into separate chapters. I wanted to really explain how the infection first hits the city and the residents' initial reactions to it.
Chapter 136
"Man, it stinks down here," Charlie said, setting his lantern on the wet concrete. He sniffed the air, made a disapproving face, and stepped away from the ladder. He spied a rat along the other edge of the sewer tunnel, scurrying into darkness.
Steve and Benny came down the ladder after him. All three of them wore dingy orange overalls and white hard hats, the official outfit of the Raccoon City Utilities company. Steve had a worn leather satchel hanging over his shoulder, and a tool belt full of wrenches jangling at his hip. He frowned and shined a flashlight into the dark tunnel.
"You always say it stinks," Benny said, rubbing his hands together. "Figure you would be used to the smell down here by now."
"I never get used to it, man."
"It's not so bad," Steven said. "You ever been to the sewage treatment plant? That place smells horrible, I can't even describe it. It just smells like mildew down here."
"You're just cranky cause we got stuck on third shift," Benny said.
"Tell me about it," Charlie said. "Should be asleep in my bed right now."
Together, they walked down the tunnel, their dirty work boots scuffing loudly and their flashlights and lanterns piercing the damp darkness. Charlie kicked a stray soda can into a puddle of murky brown water.
Two hundred feet down the tunnel, they came to an electrical box with rusted edges and a huge padlock hanging on the door. Benny dug out his keys and jingled them loudly in his hand while Steve pointed his flashlight on them.
"You always do this," Steve said. "Why don't you label the damn things?"
"No fun in that," Benny said, flipping through the huge ring of keys. "I keep all the keys together like this."
Charlie sniffed again, still thinking that it stunk down in the sewers no matter what Steve said. The combination of stagnant water, mildew, mold, garbage, and rat droppings just seemed overpowering to him. He swung his lantern left and right, shining light down the long, curved tunnel. Water glistened on the walls.
"You hear that?" he asked.
Benny found the key he wanted and stuck it into the padlock. The door to the electrical box opened with a rusty squeak. "Hear what?" he asked.
"I dunno," Charlie said. "Sounded like somebody splashing in the water."
Steve chuckled. "Wouldn't want to splash in this water. Who knows what might be floating in it." He pulled a voltage reader out of his satchel and traced his finger on the electrical diagram on the inside of the box.
"Yeah," Benny said. "This place ain't exactly a public swimming pool."
Charlie was about to say something when all three of them were shaken by the sound of a tortured scream echoing down the entire tunnel. Charlie staggered backward, his lantern shaking in his hand, making the light seem to tremble.
"Jesus, what was that?" Steve asked, stepping away from the box, aiming his flashlight. Benny looked over his shoulder and then glanced back behind them.
"I don't ..." Charlie whispered. He took a step backward, nervously pawing at his chin. "Listen, let's get out of here. Let's call the cops."
"You heard that scream?" Benny asked. "Maybe someone's hurt."
"That wasn't no person screaming."
Steve walked a few steps down the tunnel and shouted, "Hey! Is someone down there?" His voice reverberated down the tunnel, repeating the question half a dozen times before it faded into eerie silence.
"I'm out of here," Charlie said, turning around and walking quickly past Benny, who grabbed his arm.
"Come on, man. You're freaking out."
"Damn right, I am. I'm telling you that scream was not a person."
"Then what was it, the Boogeyman?"
Steve squinted his eyes, making out a strange shape far down the sewer tunnel, just at the edge of his flashlight's effectiveness, barely illuminated but still visible. The shape moved and the faint ray of light revealed something that was not human, something Steve had never seen except in horror movies.
"What the ...?" Steve whispered, his eyes growing wide. He backed up and stumbled right into Benny and Charlie, before trying to push past them. "Go, go," he insisted. "Let's get out of here."
"Why?" Benny asked, annoyed. "What did you ..."
The creature loped out of the darkness like a nightmare bursting forth into reality, its human shape distorted by the long arms, shredded clothing, glowing eyes, and a huge pulsing eyeball on its shoulder. It shrieked madly, saliva streaming from its twisted mouth, and its huge arms swung toward the three workers.
"Jesus Christ!" Charlie screamed, pushing Benny aside and taking off down the tunnel. His work belt clanked hard on his thighs and his hard hat toppled from his head, clattering to the ground behind him. Water splashed under his feet as he ran, his lungs gasping for breath.
Screams behind him, human screams. He dared not look back, running toward the ladder that led back to the surface. He screamed himself then, over and over, praying that the other workers atop the sewer entrance would hear him.
"Help!" he screamed. "Help me!"
Something huge landed directly behind him, shaking the ground, and he was thrown into the air as if he had been struck by a speeding car. He landed on the ground in a heap and gurgled helplessly, feeling blood in his mouth. Gasping for air, he could no longer feel his legs. Blood seemed to flow freely out of his mouth, down the side of his face, his labored breath making bubbles in the torrent of blood.
"Help me ..." he breathed. But there was no one there to help him, and even if there had been, there was nothing they could have done anyway.
***
Johnny Tuesday had only just gone to sleep, but he was awakened by the sound of scratching on the floor underneath his bed. He rolled over on the old, stained mattress and sighed. He had no blanket, just the shabby coat he usually wore, but he wrapped his arms tighter around himself and tried to fall back asleep. The scratching sound continued, more urgent than before, and he finally gave in and sat up in bed.
He walked over to the edge of the loading dock and flipped a switch on the wall, turning the large overhead lights on. He didn't like using the lights, because he was worried the building owners would know someone was there when they saw their electric bill had gone up. Of course, Johnny had been staying there for over eight months now, almost since the company had folded and the building became abandoned, and no one had shown up to evict him yet. He hoped no one ever would, because he had nowhere else to go.
The loading dock was empty except for a stack of old wooden pallets and some metal racks, empty now. The only other piece of furniture was the old mattress on a plain metal frame, that Johnny had found leaning against a dumpster a few months before. He had brought it here and it was the nicest bed he had ever owned, much better than the pallets he had slept on previously.
When his eyes became accustomed to the bright lights, he could see a pair of rats running around under the bed. He had found rats in the building many times, and he usually paid them no mind. But they usually did not interrupt his sleep.
"Go away, rats!" he yelled at them, but they did not listen.
He picked up a broken plank of wood from one of the pallets and smacked it against the floor a few times to scare the rats off. Normally, that did the trick, but for some reason, these rats did not seem scared by him.
Johnny got onto his knees and swung the piece of wood under the bed, knocking one of the rats clear out from under it. The small animal slid a few feet away from the bed and scratched at the floor. Johnny went over to it and hit it with the piece of wood.
To his amazement, the rat barely seemed to notice. It just sat there on the floor, scratching over and over like a broken toy. Johnny could see cuts and bite marks along its back and down its tail.
He walked back over to the bed and reached down to swing the plank of wood at the other rat. It squeaked at him angrily and jumped onto the piece of wood, climbing right up to his hand before he could pull away. He shouted in surprise as the rat jumped onto his hand and sunk its teeth into his thumb.
"Ow! Let go!" Johnny shouted, swinging his hand. The plank of wood flew from his grasp and clattered to the floor. He swung his hand left and right frantically as the rat held on, biting deep into his finger. Finally, with a scream of pain, he shook the rat off and it flew across the room, smacking right into the wall.
Blood poured from the torn skin and dripped onto the floor, and Johnny winced in pain, pinching his thumb with his other hand to try and stop the flow. The rat hadn't even let go of him, it had taken a piece of his flesh with it when he had shaken it off. He looked over at it, and to his amazement, the rat was still moving around. In fact, it was scurrying towards him.
When he glanced back at the other rat, he saw that it too was coming in his direction. So were the four other rats that appeared from behind the pallets. Suddenly, Johnny felt very outnumbered. He ran to the door and left the building, not even bothering to turn the lights off after him.
"Stupid rats," he muttered. He took a dirty handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around his thumb, wincing again in sharp pain. He would come back in the morning, when the sun was out, and find whatever holes the rats were coming through and fill them up. The stupid rats weren't going to bother him again.
He walked down an alley adjacent to the building and found a blocked off doorway that he could snuggle down in to catch some sleep.
***
Thomas Duckett came awake as his wife Carla gently shook his shoulder. He mumbled sleepily and looked at the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock on their nightstand.
"Honey, wake up," Carla said, shaking his arm again.
"I'm awake," he muttered. "It's two-thirty in the morning, honey."
"I hear someone on the back porch."
"What?"
"Listen," Carla whispered. "Someone is on the back porch."
Thomas listened carefully and heard a quiet thump and the unmistakable sound of someone stepping on the loose board right behind their back door. He sat up in bed and was immediately awake. There was someone out there.
"Do you hear it?" Carla asked nervously.
"Yeah," Thomas replied. "I hear it."
He slid out of bed and crept over to the window. Their bedroom was on the back side of the house and the window looked into the back yard. Very carefully, Thomas slid the edge of the curtain aside and looked toward the back porch. The rear porch light was on, as always, and Thomas could clearly see someone standing right next to the back door, wavering unsteadily on his feet, although he had his back to Thomas.
Their house was on the very edge of Raccoon City, and his backyard ended where the Arklay Forest began. He had no neighbors close by, no one who would have any possible reason to be trespassing on his property at this time of night. With that in mind, Thomas moved away from the window and walked over to their bedroom closet.
"Is someone there?" Carla asked, holding the blanket up to her neck.
Thomas opened the closet and dug around quietly in a small plastic chest on the floor, taking out a small wooden box containing his personal firearm. "Some guy standing on the back porch. Looks like he's drunk or something."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going outside to scare him off. I want you to call the cops right now."
As Carla fumbled with the phone, Thomas loaded a clip into the pistol and flipped off the safety. While surely no expert with guns, he had bought it for home safety a few years before and fired it a few times at the local shooting range, so he knew enough to use it properly.
Wearing just a pair of loose pajama pants, he walked through the house and went out the front door as quietly as possible. The front porch light was on as well, and there was no one in front of the house. In bare feet, he walked across the lawn and around the side of the house.
He took a deep breath and held the gun firmly in his hand. If the trespasser was a burglar, he would have already broken into the house. He wouldn't just be standing stupidly on the back porch. Thomas assumed he was some homeless drunk or maybe a drug addict just wandering around. He was prepared to just scare the man off, but he wasn't going to take any chances.
He edged around the side of the house and aimed the gun at the man standing on his back porch. The light above his head illuminated his blue work shirt and trousers, like the outfit a mechanic or janitor might wear.
"Don't move," Thomas said loudly.
Right away, the man on the porch jerked up at Thomas' voice and turned around to face him. His face was filthy dirty, smeared with grime, and the look on his face was completely blank, like some kind of store mannequin. He opened his mouth and let out a soft groan that raised the hairs on the back of Thomas' neck. The man took one step down off the porch.
"I said don't move," Thomas said louder, the gun trembling in his hand.
The trespasser did not seem to her him, or if he did he just ignored it. He staggered forward on clumsy legs, staring blankly forward like a robot, mouth agape. Thomas took an unsteady step backward.
"I said don't move!"
The man kept coming, one awkward step at a time. When he had traversed half the distance to Thomas, he lifted one arm and moaned again.
"Don't come any closer!" Thomas shrieked.
The gun went off suddenly, and the trespasser jerked sideways as the bullet ripped into his shoulder. He almost lost his balance but quickly regained it, wobbling back and forth and staring down at the hole in his shoulder. He said nothing, and then returned his attention to Thomas and took another threatening step forward.
Thomas held the gun in both hands and pulled the trigger, the gun jumping up, the recoil hurting his wrists. He fired again and again, each bullet hitting the man in the janitor outfit right in the chest. Fabric split apart and spurts of liquid burst from the bullet holes, but the man just kept walking forward, barely even noticing the gunshots. Each burst of light from the gun barrel reflected on his lifeless white eyes and illuminated the grime on his face, which Thomas realized was not dirt at all, but dried blood.
When the gun clicked empty, Thomas was too afraid to move. The trespasser came at him, arms outstretched, and lunged right at his throat. Thomas screamed as the man bit into his throat, and tried to fight him off. But it was far too late for that. He fell backwards, the man falling down right on top of him, biting further into Thomas' neck, tearing into the flesh and splashing blood.
***
The paramedics pushed the gurney through the doors and into the emergency room, the motionless body of Benny lying on top, his entire body splashed with blood. Nurses pulled the gurney to one of the beds and quickly moved his body. His shirt was ripped open to show several long gashes across his torso and on his arms as well. One of the nurses placed an air pump over his mouth and began squeezing it, taking his pulse.
"What happened to him?"
"No idea, they said he was attacked by some kind of animal."
"What kind of animal did this? A mountain lion?"
Dr. Gary Winslow came into the room, pulling on his rubber gloves. A white face mask dangled from around his neck. "What do we have here? Tell me what's going on."
"We have blood loss and tissue damage, maybe internal injuries as well," one of the nurses said. "Pulse is weak and breathing is shallow."
"Get him an IV drip, stat. Get him hooked up."
Winslow ran a finger across Benny's bloody chest and did a quick visual examination of his external injuries. "No head trauma, just the cuts here. They don't look very deep, he may have broken ribs though."
Just as they attached him to the life support equipment, the heart monitor beeped loudly and then blared its alarm for cardiac arrest. The nurse with the air pump put her hand to Benny's throat and cried out, "No pulse!"
The nurses scrambled as Winslow rushed to the body and began emergency CPR, putting his hands together and pressing hard on Benny's chest. The blood made it slippery and the doctor's hands slid across the gashes unsteadily.
"We got nothing!" a nurse shouted. "No pulse, no breathing!"
"Get the defibrillator ready!"
They pushed the tray next to him and he grabbed the two paddles in bloody hands. He shouted, "Clear!" before pressing the paddles to Benny's chest and hitting the trigger, blasting a shock of electricity into Benny's body. It jerked up off the bed and landed flat, the heart monitor still blaring its high-pitched alarm. There was no response, so Winslow hit him again with the paddles, but the result was the same. Someone finally hit the silence button on the alarm.
Winslow leaned against the edge of the bed as the nurses looked on in dismay. He shook his head and set the defibrillator paddles back on the cart. It was no use, they couldn't even treat him without any information about what he may be suffering from.
"Okay," he said slowly. "I'm calling time of death at exactly two-forty-nine in the morning."
"What do you think happened?" a nurse asked.
"I have no idea. Cardiac arrest caused by severe bodily trauma, I guess. I wish we had some idea what caused these injuries."
"There are some police here," a nurse said. "I think they might know more."
The doctor glanced at Benny's body. "Too late for him." He shook his head again and walked out of the room, pulling his gloves off and tossing them into the wastebasket.
One of the nurses pulled the sheet up from the bed and covered Benny's body. The other two disconnected the life support monitors and tried to start cleaning up. One of Benny's arms slid off the bed and dangled over the edge.
"Poor guy," the nurse said, taking Benny's arm to put it back on the bed. As soon as she touched it, Benny's arm twitched and he grabbed onto her hand.
She screamed and tried to pull away as Benny's body jerked upright, the white sheet fluttering to the side. Benny stared at her with insane eyes and pulled her arm toward him, groaning with his teeth bared. The other nurses shouted in surprise and ran to the bed to push Benny back down.
"Doctor! Get back here!"
Benny shoved the nurses aside and bit down hard on the other nurse's arm. She screamed and tried to pull away, and Benny grasped the front of her white uniform and tumbled off the bed, pulling her to the floor with him. He groaned and bit down on her arm again as she tried to scramble away.
Dr. Winslow ran back into the room, followed by the two police officers. They grabbed Benny and tried to pull him away, and he jumped to his feet and turned on the doctor, grabbing his neck and lunging toward him. They skidded across the floor and smashed into the tables of medical equipment, knocking the tray with the defibrillator over. The nurse with the bitten arm shrieked in pain and crawled away.
Benny pushed against Winslow and bared his teeth, trying to bite him. The police officers pulled him back, but Benny shook them off and roared furiously, blood spitting from his mouth. Winslow managed to lift one foot and kick Benny in the chest, knocking him back. He staggered backward but didn't fall over, and soon rushed to the side to attack one of the police officers.
"Freeze!" the other cop screamed.
As Benny rushed the cop, a loud gunshot rang out. Benny spun sideways with blood erupting from his chest and crashed into the wall, sliding to the floor with a streak of blood leaving its mark across the wall. He got his feet back under him and lunged for the cop again. The next bullet hit him right in the temple and he fell straight to the ground, landing in a heap on the white tile floor.
"Jesus ..." the cop whispered, lowering his pistol.
Winslow tried to catch his breath, staring in disbelief at the body lying on the floor. Five minutes before, the corpse at his feet had been unconscious and unresponsive. Two minutes before, he had been legally dead. And then ...
"What the hell is going on here?" he asked to no one in particular.
***
The east side Wal-Mart was open twenty-four hours. Late night to early morning, from around one o'clock to four o'clock, was always the slowest time, and most of the employees working that shift were either cleaning up or stocking shelves. Kelly and Debra were cashiers, and when no one was in the checkout line, they stood beside one of the registers near the front doors.
"Oh God, look who just came in," Kelly muttered.
Debra turned around and someone walking slowly toward the inner door. He reached out weakly as the automatic door opened for him, and then half-stumbled into the building. He was a dirty-looking young man with a shabby brown jacket and dirty blue jeans. He took awkward, jerky steps forward and looked around as if walking in his sleep.
"Who is that guy?" Debra asked.
Kelly snapped her gum. "That homeless guy who stays around here. I've seen him before, he comes into the store sometimes."
As if hearing them, Johnny Tuesday looked in their direction with an empty expression and began to walk unevenly toward them.
"He must be drunk or something," Kelly muttered.
Debra sighed and wandered over to her regular register. She watched as Johnny walked in her direction, and tilted her head, looking at him suspiciously. She knew what drunk people looked like, and he didn't look drunk.
"Hey, mister," she asked. "Are you sick or something?"
Johnny did not respond, but at the sound of her voice he seemed to speed up. She walked towards him, trying to get a better look in his eyes. "Hey, what's the matter?" she asked as Johnny came up to her. He moaned something and swayed on his feet, fumbling weakly at the sleeve of her shirt.
"Hey Kelly, get security over here. I think this guy's sick or something. Maybe we should call him an ambulance."
As Kelly dialed on her phone for store security, Debra reached up and put her hand against Johnny's damp forehead. He reached and touched her hand and seemed to grumble something, his eyes rolling back in his head.
"You feel cold," Debra said, and then turned to say something to Kelly.
Johnny grabbed her arm and stuck her hand into his mouth, biting down on her fingers. Debra shouted and pulled her hand away, looking down at the bloody mark across her knuckles, as Johnny stumbled towards her.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" she shouted, stepping away.
Two security guards came toward the registers and Debra waved them over as she ran from Johnny, who continued to stagger towards her. She showed them her hand and said, "The crazy son of a bitch bit me! I think he's sick or on drugs or something."
Kelly leaned against her register and looked at the guards, not knowing what else to do. She heard Johnny come up beside her and flinched as he grabbed her arm as well. She screamed and the guards ran to pull Johnny away, but he managed to bend down and bite onto her forearm before they could get him off of her. He struggled against the guards and bit down on the shoulder nearest to his mouth, but the shirt was too thick and he didn't break skin.
Kelly put a hand on her bleeding arm and grabbed the phone again to call the police. As the guards tried to subdue Johnny, he groaned loudly and pushed one of them away, lunging at the other to bite down on his shoulder again. The guard pushed him back and slammed him into the wall.
"Don't move!" the other guard yelled, drawing his gun. Some of the Wal-Mart employees had been upset to learn that the security guards there had firearms, but now all their complaints and worries seemed irrelevant. The guard pointed the gun at Johnny and shouted again for him not to move, but he thrashed wildly and knocked the other guard away.
"Don't come any closer!" the guard shouted, his hands trembling.
Johnny growled and ignored the order, rushing forward. The guard pulled the trigger and shot Johnny directly in the center of the chest. He toppled over backward and fell to the floor. Kelly screamed and ran away as Debra stared in horror at the scene in front of her.
"Oh my God," the guard mumbled.
The other guard shook his head and looked over at Debra. "You guys called the cops, right?"
"Kelly did," she whispered.
"Alright, when they get here we have to –" he said, and then suddenly shouted in surprise as Johnny grabbed his leg and bit down on his ankle. The guard lost his balance and fell down with Johnny gripping his leg. He fumbled with his gun as Johnny sat upright and reached for his throat, groaning horribly.
He managed to pull his gun out and shove the barrel directly into Johnny's mouth as he lunged for the guard's throat. Reflexively, in a moment of panic, he squeezed the trigger and a geyser of blood blasted out the back of Johnny's head, splattering against the wall behind them. Johnny gasped and tumbled to the side, a thin trail of smoke coming from his mouth.
Debra raised her hands to her face and screamed.
"I shot him!" the first guard shouted frantically. "I shot him right in the chest! How could he still be alive? How?"
***
When the police pulled up in front of Thomas Duckett's house, the red and blue lights on their patrol car flashing across the entire street, they immediately saw someone standing in the front yard. The driver, Officer Dan Howard, radioed in to the police station that they had arrived, while the other cop, Officer Paul Simmons, immediately got out of the car.
He placed one hand on his weapon and held his other hand out. "Don't move," he announced loudly at the figure, who stood in front of the house, his face obscured in shadows. The front porch light was on, but the figure stood in the long shadow cast by tall bushes next to the porch. The cop car's flashing lights flickered red and blue across the figure's body.
"Come toward me, very slowly, with your hands in the air," Paul said.
The figure took a hesitant step forward, and then another, his hands at his sides. It stepped out from the shadow and into the light of the front porch.
"I said put your hands ..." Paul started, and then went silent.
The man, wearing dark blue pants and a blue shirt, walked toward him. His face was drenched in blood, and it was spilled down the front of his shirt almost down to his waist. He stared with wide eyes, his mouth open, with saliva and blood dripping off his chin. The police lights seemed to entrance him, the light glinting off his eyes and teeth, making him appear to be smiling gruesomely.
Paul drew his gun, and Dan, still standing by the patrol car, drew his as well. Paul said, "Don't move. Put your hands in the air right now."
The man lifted his arms up as if to follow orders, but he merely reached out and groaned, more blood drooling from his mouth. He staggered forward, his pace quickening.
"Jesus, look at him," Dan said nervously.
"Do not take another step!" Paul shouted. "Or I will open fire!"
The man paused and took one more step. Paul pulled the trigger and shot him square in the chest, but he only leaned back with the bullet impact instead of falling over. He groaned again and suddenly staggered forward in a rush.
Paul fired three more times, hitting him in the chest and throat. He backpedaled quickly as the man came at him, arms outstretched. Dan shouted something and opened fire as well, striking the man in the shoulder. The man stumbled back, the bullets knocking him off balance. Dan fired again and the bullet struck him in the side of the head. He gasped and pitched over to the side, falling into the grass.
"God," Paul whispered, staring down at the body. "I don't believe this."
Dan immediately sat back down in the car and picked up the radio. "This is car twenty-nine, please send backup. There has been an officer-involved shooting. We approached a suspect and he attacked us."
"Backup is on its way, twenty-nine. Emergency services have been notified," the radio announced.
"Thank you," Dan said, hanging the radio back up. He got back out of the car and walked around to where Paul was kneeling beside the dead body. He hadn't smelled it before, but he suddenly got an overpowering whiff of decay.
"This is all wrong," Paul said, as if to himself. "This guy smells like he's been dead for a week. And he walked right through four bullets. I don't understand this."
"I called for backup. You gonna be okay?"
Paul nodded. "Yeah, I guess so."
"He came right for you. We didn't have a choice," Dan said supportively.
"I know that. But I'm wondering about all that blood on his face."
Dan looked up as the house's front door opened slowly and a middle-aged woman poked her head out. She wore a blue nightgown and slippers, and took one step out the door before stopping, covering his mouth with her hands. "Oh my God," she squeaked.
Dan rushed over to her. "Ma'am, it's okay ..."
"I heard gunshots," she whispered, staring past the officer to the dead body lying in her front lawn. "Where ... where is Tom?"
"Who?" Dan asked.
"My husband," the woman said, her voice unsteady. "He came outside and he ... I heard gunshots ..." She swayed on her feet, as if about to faint, and Dan grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling over.
"Over there!" Paul shouted, and Dan looked up to see a man stumble out from around the side of the house, wearing nothing but thin pants. Before he could react, the woman pushed him away and ran off the porch.
"Tommy!" she cried. "Honey, are you –"
The man turned to face her, and she screamed when she saw the huge gaping rip across his throat and the torrent of blood that had spilled down his bare chest. He grabbed her arms and she screamed desperately, trying to pull away, her feet slipping on the wet grass.
"Freeze!" Paul shouted, running forward with his gun out.
Thomas Duckett growled and bit down on his wife Carla's arm, his teeth sinking hard into her flesh. She screamed even louder and managed to pull away when Thomas opened his mouth to take another bite. She fell to the ground, blood oozing from the gory wound on her forearm.
Paul and Dan opened fire simultaneously, blasting Thomas with bullets. He jerked backward as bullets tore through his chest, twitching left and right with blood spurting from the wounds. Carla's continuous, agonized scream was drowned out by the sound of rapid gunfire. One of the shots got lucky and struck Thomas in the eye, and he toppled over backwards.
Dan pulled Carla to safety as she continued to scream, blood from her arm smearing across her nightgown. Paul looked in disbelief at Thomas' body and the jagged wound across his neck. He slid his pistol back into its holster.
A few minutes later, the backup arrived.
***
"Kelly? Kelly, can you hear me?" the nurse asked, gently touching her face.
Kelly, lying motionless on the hospital bed, managed to nod slightly, her eyes glassy and her mouth hanging open. Each breath seemed shallower than the last, and her vital signs were dropping like a stone.
"She was absolutely fine an hour ago," another nurse said. "We've tried calling her family, but I guess they don't answer their phone this early in the morning."
Dr. Gary Winslow looked down at the young woman on the bed and spied the bandage on her arm. He looked up at the nurse. "She was treated for the bite mark on her arm, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"And all the blood tests came back negative?"
"Yes," the nurse sighed. "We checked her records too, and her medical history is clean."
Winslow frowned. "Who bit her?"
"The police told me that a homeless person came into the store she worked, and attacked her and another girl as well."
"Is that other girl here?"
"No," the nurse said. "She went home, I guess."
Winslow nodded to himself and looked down at Kelly. "What happened to the homeless man that attacked her?"
"He was killed by security guards," the nurse said, somewhat uncomfortably.
Kelly moved her head and took a laborious breath, looking up weakly at Winslow, who could do nothing but put his hand reassuringly on her shoulder. Since Kelly's arrival, her condition had steadily worsened. She had started complaining of dizziness and weakness soon after arriving at the emergency room, and soon could barely stand up on her own. By the time they got her into a bed and hooked up to the life support monitors, she was too weak to talk. The monitors told a frightening story; her vital signs were all rapidly deteriorating, and no one had any idea why.
Kelly took another slow breath and moved her lips. Winslow leaned over and put his ear directly over her mouth.
"Debra ..." Kelly whispered. "... bit her too ..."
"Is Debra the other girl?" Winslow said, and Kelly managed a barely perceptible nod.
"She was bitten as well?" Kelly did not nod this time, but she blinked. Winslow squeezed her shoulder and nodded himself. "Okay, try to conserve your strength, Kelly. We're going to find Debra, okay?"
Winslow and the nurse walked out into the hallway. "I want you to contact the police and tell them to find that other girl. Her name is Debra. And find out if anyone else was bitten by that homeless man, or even had any contact with him."
"You think he was carrying something?"
"Seems likely. And we don't have anything else to go on."
Winslow went back to the emergency room lobby to talk with the staff there, when there was the sound of tires screeching just outside, and a few seconds later the doors burst open and a man wearing a security guard uniform ran inside. "I need help here!" he shouted frantically. "I got a real sick person out here!"
Winslow called down the hallway for help, and soon several nurses were running outside to the guard's car to help the person inside. It was another man in a security uniform, and he was awake but completely unresponsive. They got him onto a wheelchair and quickly wheeled him into the emergency room as Winslow held open the door.
"What happened?" Winslow asked.
"He just started getting sick, man. I don't know. He said he was feeling kinda dizzy and sick, and then he just got worse and worse," the security guard babbled. "It happened so quick, I just drove here as fast as I could. I thought maybe he was having a heart attack or something."
"Did he have chest pain?"
"I don't think so, he just said he was dizzy. And he got real tired and was like, slurring his words. Some crazy stuff just happened to us and I thought maybe it was too much for him."
"What are you talking about?"
"We work at the Wal-Mart," the guard explained. "Some guy came in and attacked some of the cashiers, and we had to fight him off. We had to shoot him. I mean, we killed him. It was just crazy, you know? I never thought something like that would ever happen. We killed the guy, and I thought maybe Walt was having a heart attack because of the stress."
Winslow quickly led the guard down the hall as he talked, and brought him to the room where Kelly was. The guard stopped in mid-sentence. "Oh man, that's one of the cashiers. What's wrong with her?"
"I was hoping you might know," Winslow said. "What's your name?"
"My name? My name's Kevin."
"Well, Kevin, the police told us that Kelly was bitten by the man that attacked her."
"Yeah, I remember. I think he bit both of them."
"What about your partner?" Winslow asked. "Did he get bitten?"
A shadow of dread passed over Kevin's face. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, he did get bit."
Winslow went to the other room, where the nurses were already hooking the wounded guard up to the life support machines. They opened his shirt and placed electrodes on his chest to read his heartbeat, which bleeped weakly on the monitors. The man looked half-dead already, his face pale and his breathing so shallow his chest barely moved.
"Where were you bitten?" Winslow asked him. "Can you hear me?"
Kevin stood in the doorway, his arms hanging at his sides. "It's on his ankle. The guy bit Walt on the ankle."
Winslow pulled up the sick man's pant leg and saw a large adhesive bandage on his ankle. He pulled it off and looked at the two semi-circular lines of teeth marks. It looked like any other kind of superficial bite mark, nothing that would indicate how infectious it might be. It wasn't even a deep bite; it had barely drawn blood.
"It doesn't even look infected," Winslow said to himself.
"There's something else," Kevin said, still standing in the doorway. "That guy we shot, he was insane or something. Like he didn't even act like a person."
"Listen," Winslow said. "Go out and wait in the lobby. I'll be out to talk to you in a few minutes."
"I shot him right in the chest," Kevin blurted out. "And it didn't kill him. We thought he was dead, and then he just jumped up and bit Walt's leg. He was insane or something, he tried to bite him again. He went for his throat, like a wild animal."
Winslow led Kevin back to the lobby and pointed to a chair. "Take a seat. I'll be back here to talk to you soon."
He went back to the room where the sick guard was, and the nurse just shook her head as soon as he entered. "It's got to be the same thing," she said. "Some kind of infection. His vital signs are all low and they're dropping fast. We put him on an IV but I don't know if it will even help."
"Do whatever you can," Winslow said, but he knew it was a hollow statement. Without more information on what they were dealing with, any kind of treatment was just fumbling in the dark. "I'm going to call the police and find out about that homeless person. Let me know if anything changes, or if you get a call back about that other girl."
"Yes, Doctor."
Winslow paused on his way out the door. "Oh, have you seen Sandy anywhere?"
"I think she went home. She was kind of freaked out ..." The nurse paused and then glanced down at the man next to her. "You don't think that ...?"
"You better call her house," Winslow said. "Make sure she's okay. And tell her to get back here as soon as possible."
The nurse nodded and then hurried out the door to the front desk. Winslow took a deep breath and glanced between the two rooms, one with Kelly and the other with the security guard named Walt. Both of them were bitten by a strange man, and within two hours they were both barely holding on to life. Winslow would have given anything at that moment to know just what in the world that homeless man had contracted.
He walked into Kelly's room and looked down at her. Her skin glistened with a thin layer of sweat and her eyes fluttered behind her eyelids, her breath short and raspy. Nothing Winslow had ever heard of, no illness or disease known to man, worked so fast. To become so sick in such a short time was a symptom of poison, not disease. And her range of symptoms was astounding and terrifying. It seemed like her entire body was shutting down a bit at a time.
Winslow looked at the heart monitor and could almost watch as her heart beat slowed down. Her internal organs were suffering; both her liver and her kidneys were slowly failing. Even electrical activity in her brain was decreasing. Her body was working overtime just to keep her breathing at this point. And apparently, all this had transpired in the course of an hour.
Sandy was the nurse who had been bitten by the utility worker that had arrived in the emergency room about an hour before. Winslow didn't blame her for going home early. It was such a frightening experience, being brutally attacked by a man who had been pronounced dead just moments before. But Winslow began to wonder if she should have gone home after all.
Kevin mentioned that the homeless man had attacked them like an animal and tried to bite Walt in the throat. The utility worker had done the exact same thing to Winslow, after biting Sandy on the arm, just as Kelly had been bitten. The utility worker had been like a raving lunatic, growling and groaning, attacking anyone who got near him. Winslow had felt lucky at the time that he had gotten away uninjured, but now he felt twice as lucky. Sandy had been bitten, and now Winslow wondered if she had been infected with the same illness that Kelly and Walt had.
After all, if the homeless man was somehow infected with the unknown disease, then how could he have managed to violently attack anyone? Kelly had been exposed to it for less than two hours and she was practically on her death bed. And at no time during her stay had she become violent or agitated.
The homeless man, and the utility worker, seemed to be connected. But the utility worker had been attacked in the sewer by some kind of animal. Had the homeless man been attacked as well? Winslow couldn't shake the feeling that somehow the two events were related.
"Dr. Winslow," the nurse called out from the lobby. "I called Sandy but no one answered the phone."
Winslow only spent a second thinking about it. "Call the police. Tell them to check her house and make sure she's okay. And tell them to find that other girl named Debra."
He paused then and cast a worrisome glance back down at Kelly. "And after that, I want you to call the Health Department. And see if you can contact Dr. Russell and Dr. Singh. I think we need someone else to take a look at this."
"Good idea," the nurse said.
All of the hospital beds and stretchers, even the ones in the emergency room area, came with tough nylon straps that could be used to tie down violent or unstable patients, or just to secure patients who were likely to fall out of their bed. Winslow took out the straps and carefully tied Kelly to the bed. He decided it was better to be safe than sorry.