Zombies! Episode 2 - Abby's Bad Day (6 page)

She gulped in air as she sensed his
frustration. It ate at her that she was intimidated by this man,
but it was a feeling she couldn't escape and fell into desperation.
"You don't understand. This is not an isolated event. If I can't
figure out how to stop this infection, it'll make the black plague
look like the common cold."

They stood there silently after that, each
trying to make heads or tails of the other's motivations. Heron was
keenly aware of the seconds ticking by, seconds during which the
infected security guard was still loose in the building.

"I have to go," he said to her. "Let Dr.
Mancina open the ER and I'll put you in charge."

Her eyes flared. How dare he presume to hold
authority over her?! But the spiteful retort died in her throat. He
did have authority. He had an entire police force with sledge
hammers and chain saws. All she had was Dr, Mancina. Gulping,
unable to speak, she nodded.

"Listen to me very carefully," Heron said as
he turned to Culph. "Only a bullet in the head is going to have any
effect. Any other shot puts a zombie closer to you and you closer
to being a zombie. If
any
of you get bitten then this ends
as badly as she says." He jabbed his thumb towards Luco.

"I understand," Culph said.

"Good. She's in charge, which means she tells
you how to go in and how to get those people out. No dead cops
today," he said firmly. "Not one."

Culph nodded again and Heron ran off to deal
with the other situation.

***

THE
streets were cordoned off for two
blocks around the hospital. That almost blocked off
Push
Ups
, which was where Martin stopped first. It was busy and
Whitaker was beside himself. When he saw Martin, he saw an avenue
for him to vent his frustrations.

"Where's Abby?" Martin said, cutting him
off.

"She took a customer over to the hospital and
said she'd be right back. It's been over two hours, man."

"Didn't you hear the bloody sirens?"

"This is freakin' Brooklyn. All I ever hear
is sirens."

Martin went behind the counter and began
changing channels and raising the volume. A few customers looked up
angrily at this disturbance. The screen filled with the scene of
police cars blocking the streets surrounding
Sisters of
Charity
. A helicopter camera showed the expansion of the police
perimeter. They could see that perimeter was two blocks and
absolutely no one was getting in.

"There's no word yet on what exactly is going
on inside but there have been reports that both the police chief
and the mayor are on the way," the newscaster, a once pretty lady
in a suit that was cut for a much younger woman, was saying.

"Holy crap," Whitaker mouthed.

"Two blocks away and you have no idea, you
dimwit," Martin spat at him. But he wasn't really angry and
Whitaker. The past several months without a job and with Abby and
her family supporting him and his child had left him irritable to
say the least. He snapped at Abby and sometimes he snapped at
Sammy. He was cold to her parents who had never been anything but
supportive. He incessantly bugged her about going back to England
even though things were no better there. In fact, they'd probably
be a damned sight worse considering that neither of them would have
a job and everything was more expensive. Deep down he knew that he
only wanted to even the playing field between them. It was a
selfish and childish attitude.

Martin left the gym without further
acknowledging Whitaker. Over and over he played his conversation
with Abby in his mind. People dying and getting up didn't make any
sense. It sounded like a zombie movie. Of course, there were those
rumors of zombies in Manhattan, but that was just internet fluff.
No respectable news agency had done a report on it so Martin had
dismissed it. But the sensational always has a way sticking in the
back of one's mind. It tickles the adventure nerve. But what sounds
so exciting over the information superhighway is simply terrifying
close up.

Zombies! It would explain why the media had
been blocked off from approaching the hospital and why there was no
information about what was going on. If it weren't utterly
fantastic, it would explain everything.

Trapped in the emergency room. She had said
that, too. Trapped by zombies.

There was a throng of people approaching the
barriers but Martin was not to be deterred. He was a big man who
seldom used his size to any advantage but today was a very special
day. Allowing the frustration of the past several months to fuel
his ardor he pushed forward eliciting angry snarls from people he
would never see again. It took him almost five minutes to go forty
feet but he finally pushed his way up against one of the blue
wooden barriers. The officers stood with their backs to the crowd
and did their best to ignore the shouts and calls. At the front,
Martin was mostly surrounded by microphones and cameras. The
reporters had been the first on the scene and had gotten the best
seats.

"Hey!" Martin called out to the nearest
officer. The officer did not turn to face him. "You listen to me. I
need to get through. My wife is trapped in that hospital."

The officer would have probably
still
ignored him if the surrounding media hadn't suddenly taken a great
interest in him. All of a sudden, all of the microphones and
cameras were being aimed at him. Questions were being fired his
way.
Is she a patient? Have you spoken with her? Do you know why
there's such a huge police presence here?

"Shut it, you jackals!" Martin shouted at
them, oblivious to the cameras. With one arm, he swept the
microphones away from his face and ducked under the barrier. The
approaching policeman was on the radio, no doubt calling for
backup.

"Sir, you have to stay on that side of the
barrier…"

Martin lowered his voice and spoke directly
to the cop. "Unless you want me to tell the newsmen that my wife is
trapped in the ER by
zombies
, you'll let me through."

The officer, a young black man with a flat
nose and thick eyebrows, suddenly looked uncertain. Another
officer, this one much older and much heavier, was approaching. The
first man spoke into his radio again. "I've got a man here who says
his wife is trapped in the ER by zombies."

There was some static and then an answer but
Martin couldn't make it out.

"What's your wife's name, sir?"

Martin calmed. "Abby. Abby Benjamin."

The officer repeated the name into the radio
and was given a series of instructions.

"All right, sir," he said. "Follow me."

***

TODD
Mayfield was holed up in an
alcove near a service exit. In the intervening minutes between
Heron's first being informed of Mayfield's location and his orders
to track the guard, he had tried three exits, all of which were
manned by security personnel on the inside and police on the
outside. To his credit, Mayfield wasn't doing anything rash or
stupid. His panic had long since diminished so all he was doing was
sitting down on the floor and taking a breather. When Heron walked
up to him, he just looked up.

"Is it because of this?" He held up his hand
and there was blood on the knuckles.

Heron nodded.

Mayfield shook his head. "Of all the dumb
luck. I took a swing at the guy and hit him right in the teeth. It
would have been a great punch against anyone but a zombie." He
laughed and shook his head again. "I'm sorry I ran out on Sven. Is
he okay?"

Heron made no move at all. Mayfield looked at
him for long moments, waiting for that confirmation.

"Damn." He indicated his knuckles again.
"Does this kill me?"

"I'm not the guy to ask," Heron said.
"There's a doctor down in the ER who's been working on this. Her
name's Denise Luco and she's brilliant. If anyone can help you, she
can."

"But you don't think anyone can help me."

Heron's radio squawked, saving him from
having to answer that question. Mayfield seemed stable enough so he
took a chance and answered it. It was a patrol cop on the outside
asking about someone named Martin Benjamin. He was Abby's husband.
After some garbled talk, Heron said, "Let him inside the perimeter
but not into the building. You can tell him his wife's all right
for now."

Holstering the radio, he turned back to
Mayfield. "Are you coming?"

Mayfield nodded, standing up. Flanked by
security, Heron led him back down to the ER.

***

A
WEEK
before, Denise Luco had
been a successful, if not particularly ambitious pathologist. She'd
always been hardcore about her work but didn't really care about
making her way up the ladder of success as long as no one stood in
her way on the ladder of discovery. It was this devotion to the
science rather than the politics that had gotten her the call when
the Koplowitz family had been discovered. It was that call that had
changed her life.

Luco was thirty six years old, but looked
older. She was tough but acted tougher. No one ever gave her an
inch and she was disinclined to be forgiving about it. Throughout
her time working for the city of New York, she'd seen mostly your
average run of the mill diseases. The flu was the most common.
Every year the flu claimed thousands of lives. And it would be that
way for ever more. Or, at least, it would have been. Now there was
this…this thing.

In the first two days after the discovery of
the bacterium that caused the zombie plague, she'd learned a lot.
There was a flood of information. In the first place, the bacterium
was not at odds with the human immune system. That was what made it
so strong and so resistant to antibiotics. It actually strengthened
the immune system, making other, normal bacteria in the body
powerful. Antibiotics, which came with a whole host of side
effects, didn't really stand a chance. In fact, Luco had early on
hypothesized that a course of antibiotics actually had opposite the
desired effect.

She had spent a number of nights awake
wondering if she hadn't in fact killed Heron's partner by ordering
the strong course of medicine.

As she had told Heron on that first evening,
the germ had all the telltale signs of being manmade. Its lifecycle
and development were unnatural. Millions of them seemed to group
and actually work together to keep the body functioning. The normal
decay that you would see in a typically dead human being was slowed
to the point of being unnoticeable. Despite the grayish pallor and
vacant eyes, Zoe Koplowitz had shown little signs of change. Since
the immune system is largely responsible for keeping people from
decaying while they're alive, the bacteria essentially acted as
protection for the body. Even Detective Stemmy's body, never
animated due to the brain damage caused by Heron's bullet, was
decaying at the tiniest fraction of the normal rate. Luco still
didn't know how or why the germ activated the motor centers of the
brain, but she did know why it needed to feed. The germ was a hard
worker. And there were trillions of the little buggers. They ate
just about anything organic, even microbes in the air. At that
rate, a zombie could survive almost indefinitely. But it was
strongest when devouring live flesh. Animals,
all
animals,
were teeming with other forms of bacteria. An entire microcosm
existed on a child's little finger. For the zombie, that wasn't
just a meal. It was a feast. Even though Zoe hadn't been given
anything to eat, the bacteria inside of her fed off of the
environment whenever they opened up her cell door.

All of that seemed like a great start but
after the two days, Luco hit a brick wall. No more information was
forthcoming. There were reports of some cases in some other states,
but she couldn't get confirmation and she definitely couldn't get
her hands on specimens. Only one other zombie had been sighted in
New York during the course of the week and it had burned.

Now she would have what she needed. There
were blood and flesh samples all over the ER. There were zombies
trapped inside a room, all with open wounds. Those wounds were
important. They would let in bacteria of decay in droves. Dr. Luco
would have the opportunity to see firsthand how the zombie
infection would fight against those.

Events proceeded quickly after Heron left.
Luco took charge of the situation confidently, forgetting all about
the way he made her feel. She never addressed Culph directly,
instead speaking with the seven officers as a group. She put on a
serious face and tried very hard to relate to them in a way she
didn't fully understand.

"Every one of you that goes in there runs the
risk of infection." They all turned green at that. All except Culph
who looked almost eager. Luco was no psychiatrist but she guessed
that Heron's deference to the kid had buoyed his naturally eager
personality. "If you're careful, you should be okay. You can't get
it by breathing it in." That was sort of a half truth. She didn’t
think
you could breathe it in but she really didn't have any
way of knowing. She continued. "Don't touch anything or anyone.
Especially if you're sweating, it can enter your body through your
pores. The zombies are in exam room one and shouldn't be able to
get out. They got lucky pushing inside but there's very little
chance they'll stumble upon pulling the door open, even if they
manage to work the handle. There's no intelligence. They're all
motor function and instinct. I need one man to guard that door. The
rest of you will
direct
the survivors to the other exam
rooms. Don't touch them. Don't let them leave the ER."