CHAPTER 2: DIRTY LAUNDRY

July 13th, 1993

Anthony DelVecchio's alarm went off at 5am. With a groan, he folded his blanket over and swung his feet out of the modest queen-sized bed that dominated his hotel room at the Havisham. The early morning sun cast his room in a pale blue glow.

He was grateful NNN set him up with such a nice room, he wanted to enjoy the hotel's amenities but it was nothing but work on his schedule. Military blockades had been erected around the city the week before, and his manager saw fit to fly him out of New York on a redeye. Benzos only worked so well, he mused.

A quick shower and shave later, Anthony stepped into the hotel lobby. A crowd was inside, mainly tourists who had nowhere to go now that their big Fourth of July vacation was ruined. He strode past an elderly couple in Hawaiian shirts of all things to a pile of black boxes in the corner, with Vicky Vance perched upon the largest one. She was wearing a garish red sailor coat, bright makeup, with her curly hair pinned up and behind her head.

"Morning." She said curtly, not looking up from her cell phone. "I've been trying to get Houndsley on this damn thing but none of my calls are getting picked up. Even the landline shit the bed." She clapped the phone shut and chucked it into her pocketbook with a huff. "If I miss a single fucking fax I'm going to walk to our Cincinatti bureau myself!"

Anthony chuckled as he stood before her. Vicky was a top-notch journalist, great on-air presence, but behind the scenes she would make a sailor blush.

"And what's so fucking funny?"

"Havisham's gonna fall off the Forbes 500 list based on how pissed these hicks are that their reservations won't be extended." Vicky let out a long groan.

"As if anyone will hear about it, that airhead at the front desk says all their computers are down." She looked around. "And where the fuck is Timmy? We gotta get our shot up by 7."

"You know, I haven't seen him since last night at the hotel bar. It's terrifying what he can toss back in a single night."

"Hey!" A shout echoed through the lobby, the crowd of angry tourists quieted briefly before resuming at full volume. Tim Gallagher, tech-op to the stars, sauntered over in his usual attire of a dark hoodie and blue jeans. He was shouldering two giant spools of XLR wires on either shoulder. "Jesus, those folks are awfully ornery aren't they?"

"Ornery? Is that from your word-a-day calendar?" Vicky spat.

"No, that's from your performance review." Tim shot back. Vicky cackled.

"What took you so long, blondie?" Vicky unseated herself from the equipment box. Tim lifted his left hand, sporting a bandage.

"Some fucking nutjob attacked me last night at the bar. Not this bar, the other bar across the street."

"So those five beers didn't do it for you, huh?" Anthony resisted a laugh.

"Putting up with the two a' you? Not enough liquor in the world." Tim let out a hearty laugh that turned into a cough. "Anyway, 7 AM live shot/. You kids ready?"

"No," Vicky and Anthony said in unison.

"But I got bills to pay," Vicky began, "so let's-" she was cut off by a gunshot echoing through the lobby. Three more shots went off in quick succession and the crowd of angry tourists turned into a torrent of terrified travelers as they scattered. Anthony, Vicky and Tim all ducked down.

"What the fuck? What the fuck!" She screamed. Anthony peered over one of the equipment cases to see a man standing by the front desk, a smoking pistol in his hand.

"Where's the fucking camera?" He turned to ask Tim, when another gunshot rang out, followed by a thump. He looked back, the gunman was down. Anthony cautiously stood up to see three others writhing on the floor around the shooter. A woman in blue scrubs and a face mask ran over to attend to the injured.

"We almost got our heads blown off and you wanna stop to do a fuckin' white balance?" Tim screamed.

"No! I don't know! What the fuck is going on?" The three journalists squabbled in the corner for a minute before Tim's shoulder-cam whirred to life, Vicky strapped on her IFB kit and Anthony grabbed his notepad.

"Are we rolling?" Vicky asked as the trio strutted to the scene of the shooting. The nurse looked up, confused.

"Uh, ma'am, I'm sorry but you can't just- wait, Vicky Vance?" Her tone flipped.

"Yes, do you have a minute to talk?"

"No, no this woman was just shot and-"

"Tim, get in there! This is just like Miami." He looked uneasy, but stepped closer to the carnage. The nurse was too busy arguing with Vicky to stop him. His camera panned to the woman the nurse was helping, blood gushed from her neck. The other two victims were struggling to breathe. The gunman's head was cracked open by the gunshot, pink brain matter and crimson blood decorated the dark lobby tiling. The woman with the neck wound reached out to Tim, begging for help between choked breaths. Tim put his camera down.

"Look, unless this is YOUR hotel you can't tell us where we can and can't report the news! I know my rights!" Vicky was furious with the nurse, who tried in vain to stop the woman's bleeding. A trio of Havisham security guards sprinted to the scene from deeper inside the building.

"Hey! This bitch is trying to record on company property!" the nurse shouted as she turned to the guards. Two of them knelt down to treat the other wounded patrons, while the third walked up to Tim and tried to snatch his camera.

"Hey fuck off man! Where's your manager? I'm gonna have the Supreme Court crawling up your ass if you think you can grab my shit!" Tim and the guard struggled for a minute before Tim pulled his camera away. The guard reached for his hip and pulled out a nightstick.

"HEY! Hey hey!" Anthony inserted himself between the two men as Vicky watched the carnage unfold. "We don't need to do this! We'll leave, we're getting out of here."

"Ma'am? Ma'am are you okay?" The nurse was crouched over neck-wound, who struggled on the ground. But her face was… wrong. She was deathly pale. Her eyes had all the color drained from them as they darted left and right before locking onto the nurse. "You need to lay still until the EMT's arrive."

Tim trained his camera on the two, when neck-wound grabbed the nurse by her hair and pulled her down. The nurse's brief confusion turned to excruciating pain and terror as neck-wound took a chunk out of her face. The nurse stumbled back, blood pouring down her as she screamed. Neck-wound didn't waste a moment, crawling on top of the nurse and continuing to feed. Anthony felt like the floor just fell out beneath him as Vicky let out a blood curdling scream.

"And then we ran," Anthony continued in between bites of canned peaches Harlan provided, who was entranced by his story.

"We ran and we ran until we found our van in the parking lot. I drove us through the city as… everything melted down around us. We tried taking 65 out of town, but it was blocked by a sea of cars. We hopped on… Dixie something, that took us out of town until we hit another roadblock in West Point."

"We lost Tim there. He said," Anthony sighed, "he told us he heard that it was the bites making people sick, and he was bit at the bar the night before by someone who looked like he was… one of those fuckin' things."

"We hit a roadblock that was swarming with them, he hopped out and opened the gate so Vicky and I could pass through, but he was… swamped. Screaming for mercy."

"Vicky and I kept heading south, we tried filling up at a gas station but they were coming out of the damn trees." Anthony laughed lightly, looking Harlan in the eyes, "That bitch stole the van! I was filling it up when they got the drop on us. We had a few minutes before they reached us, but she threw that thing into drive and gunned down the highway with the fuckin' nosel still stickin' out the gas tank. Last I saw, she was headin' west."

"What did you do then?" Harlan asked.

"I ran. I followed the highway south until I hit a town called Muldraugh. Whole place stunk to high heaven, overrun with the dead, so I kept movin'. It took me days to make it through the woods. I was eatin' bugs, worms, random berries, whatever could keep me going. I was throwing up from the water I found, but I had nothing else."

"Then I found a supermarket." Anthony waved his hand at Harlan, "then I found you." Harlan sat back in his seat and stretched his arms above his head.

"That is… a hell of a tale, Anthony."

"I'm a journalist, we tell stories."

"Did you ever work with a uh," Harlan was thoughtful with his next words, "with a guy named Mike? Mike Nowak?"

"The name rings a bell, why?"

"He was a friend." A lot more than a friend. For five years.

"Oh," Anthony scooped more food into his gullet, "NNN's a big company, lots of friends." His train of thought derailed mid-chew. "Have you heard anything? From the TV?"

"Nope, the radio cut out a few days ago. Whoever it was on Hitz FM said he was the last guy left. All the other stations have gone silent, except for the weather." Harlan scratched his head. "Just the fuckin' weather."

"What about Triple-N?" Harlan shook his head.

"TV went first." he sighed and leaned forward, looking at his feet, "Before the broadcasts stopped, they said infection was global. In Europe, Asia, Africa, probably Ant-fuckin'-arctica by now."

Anthony was silent.

"Yeah."

"Is this the end?" Anthony asked. Harlan sat back but kept his eyes on the floor.

"Maybe. Maybe this is how we die."