Book One: Run!
1
“Daddy!” yelled a little girl, waving across the busy airport terminal. A man in the crowd waved back.
“I see you, sweetie!” the man called to her.
An airline attendant brought the young girl by the hand through security to the waiting man. “Thanks Debbie!” the girl said to the attendant.
“Of course, Sammy,” the attendant replied, “you were my favorite passenger.”
“Nobody calls me Sammy and lives!” the young girl said in mock anger. Sammy tried to tickle Debbie, and Debbie burst out laughing.
“You must be Sam’s father?” Debbie asked the man.
“I sure am,” the man replied, “I’ve been waiting for the little punk-sickle all day!”
“Daddy! I’m no punk! I’ll beat you down!” Samantha ran to her father and jumped into his arms. She squeezed him tight. “I missed you,” she said quite seriously.
“Me too, honey,” he replied quietly. “Thanks for taking care of this little creature,” the man said putting Sam down. He extended his hand and said, “My name’s Rick.”
Debbie shot her hand out, “Debbie. She was no problem at all, I was glad to hang out with her. I do need some form of ID, though,” she continued. “Regulations and what not.”
“Understandable,” Rick said, and dug for his wallet. “Will this do?”
“Wow, Detective… sure, this will do.” Rick handed her his ID, and she verified his name with some information on a card around Sam’s neck. “All set!” Debbie declared.
“Thanks again, pleasure to meet you.” Rick took back his ID and shook Debbie’s hand once more. “Let’s go, kiddo!” he said to Sam.
“Bye Debbie!” Sam called as she and her father turned toward baggage claim. Debbie waved at her and headed toward the exit, her small, wheeled luggage bag in tow.
“I liked her, she was nice,” Sam said to her father.
“Me too, kid,” her dad agreed, a thoughtful look on his face. Rick made a backward glance to catch one more glimpse of Debbie, but she was gone.
“Whatchoo lookin’ for Daddy?” Sam asked, a sly grin on her face.
“Don’t make me whoop you, girl!” Rick growled, in mock anger.
“OOOHHHH! Daddy you LIKE Debbie!” Sam cooed.
“She was pretty, yes, but I don’t know her. Maybe I shoul-”
Sam cut him off: “Shoulda asked her out, at least gotten her number, big dummy.”
Rick looked at his daughter with raised eyebrows. “Oh yeah… You’re gonna get it now.” He said. “Let’s get your bags, troublemaker.”
Father and daughter walked over to baggage claim and sat down on a bench. The baggage wasn’t on the carousel yet. The carousel wasn’t even moving.
“Looks like we got a couple of minutes kid, how was your flight?” Rick glanced up at the TV near the baggage claim. There was a news bulletin on, but the sound was muted.
“It was ok. Debbie made it fun, she stayed with me most of the flight.” Sam continued but Rick wasn’t really listening. He was watching the news unfold on the television. Although there was no sound, there were video clips of riots in what appeared to be Boston. The newscaster put his finger to his ear and looked down as he listened to some feed. The caster then turned to the left with raised eyebrows. He returned to focus on the camera, and looked grim. He said what was obviously the
this is not for the faint of heart and children should look away now
, line that anchormen live for. The feed switched to a local reporter, who looked quite frightened. A group of about thirty haggard people were encroaching upon a police barricade. The barricade looked to have been hastily erected, and consisted of two police cars parked nose to nose, with some barbed wire and sandbags a few yards in front of them. It blocked passage across most of the street. Behind the cars, the cops leaned over the hoods and trunks with weapons drawn. The news camera caught the reporter against this backdrop with the approaching crowd in the distance. Suddenly, and without provocation, the police opened fire on the group of unarmed civilians.
“Jesus!” Rick whispered to himself. Samantha didn’t notice and kept talking.
On the screen, the civilians jerked and shuddered, some falling immediately under the barrage of gunfire but the majority of the people didn’t even slow. Rick could see that there were terrible wounds on the people coming toward the police. At this point, one of the cops turned and shouted at the reporter, pointing back behind him and his camera man. The view shifted to the reporter and both members of the news crew fled. The camera remained on, and provided a bouncing image of the ground as the crew ran. The feed cut out after a few seconds, and the original anchor came back on. The whole scene had played out in a bizarre and eerie silence.
“Daddy? Daddy!”
Rick tore his gaze from the screen.
“Weren’t you listenin’?” Sam asked looking at him.
“Sorry honey, there was some important news on the TV,” Rick answered. The baggage carousel began to rotate, and luggage began to spit out from a square portal in the back wall. “Let’s get your stuff,” he finished.
A pink Littlest Pet Shop backpack came around on the carousel, and Sam shouted “That’s it!” Rick grabbed a strap and shouldered the pack. “How’s it look?” he asked.
“Daddy!” Sam barked, “It totally doesn’t go with those shoes.”
The pair walked from the airport terminal laughing.
A crowd had gathered in front of the silent TV, the baggage carousel forgotten.
2
Sam had been in San Francisco for three days, and she readily went to bed between eight and nine. Rick and Sam had eaten some burgers from McDonalds for dinner, and he put her to bed at about eight thirty with her stuffed tiger from the newest Disney movie. She had gotten it in her Happy Meal, and was instantly in love. After carefully closing the door to his daughter’s room, Rick turned on the TV in his apartment. The TV was still buzzing with news about this outbreak. The words
infection
and
plague
were thrown about almost casually earlier in the day, but now the news anchors looked frightened.
No real information was coming out of New England, and Rick couldn’t get in touch with his ex-wife Brenda, who had moved back east with Sam following their divorce three years ago. He was becoming more and more worried about his ex-wife. Brenda was the type to call every night to talk to Sam while she was visiting her father, and she hadn’t yet called. Not only that, but Rick couldn’t get in touch with her. Neither her home phone nor her cell was active. The home phone gave the “Not in Service” recording, and the cell went right to voicemail. He just couldn’t get through. Rick had a buddy in the SWAT program in Boston, but there was no reaching him either.
Suddenly the phone on the end table rang loudly. Rick picked it up on the first ring, as he didn’t want the phone waking Sam. “Hello?”
“Rick, this is Meara, I’m gonna need you to come in tonight,” said a disembodied voice.
“Mike? You scared the ever-loving-shit out of me!” Rick breathed into the phone.
“Rick, you’ve got to come in tonight, no shit.”
“Are you kidding, I’m on vacation, I’ve got my kid here, you know that!”
“Cancelled, get a baby sitter. We’re calling in all uniforms and detectives. There’s some uber weird shit happening, something like what’s been happening on the east coast,” Mike said.
Rick’s blood went cold. He had been hearing some strange things on the news concerning this outbreak, people acting violent and attacking strangers.
“It’s ten o’clock, I can’t get there until 7 AM at the earliest. I can’t get a sitter until tomorrow.” Rick replied. “Maybe I can get my dad,” he added.
“That’ll have to do then,” Mike said. “See you in the morning.”
Mike hung up, and Rick followed suit, cursing under his breath. “How am I gonna tell Sam?” he thought. “She just got here and I need to go to work?” Rick picked the phone up and dialled his father.
“Hello?” Rick heard. “Hey Pop, how you doing?”
“Rick! Hi! Are you guys still coming tomorrow?” Rick’s father asked.
“Yeah Dad, about that,” Rick started.
“Rick, if you cancel on me I’ll friggin’ kill you,” his dad said. “I haven’t seen Sammy in two years.”
“No, no Dad,” Rick began, “I got an emergency call to work, and I need you to take Sam for the day.”
“Oh, that’s ok, no problem. Is everything ok? It isn’t anything to do with this crap back east is it? I saw some stuff on the news about it, some type of super-rabies or something.”
“Might just be, Pop. Meara called and he said that all units are getting the call, so something’s up. You still locked and loaded?”
“No Rick, I got my service piece confiscated after my little incident with that punk. They haven’t given it back to me yet, and won’t until the investigation is over.”
“You’ll get it back, Dad, you did what anybody would have done,” Rick said. “That little shit killed two people that night, and you saved that guy at the gas station by taking out the trash. I’m proud of what you did, you know that.”
“I’m not proud that somebody died by my hand, but that gas station attendant’s wife was damn happy I happened to be there when he was getting robbed,” Rick’s father returned. “She brought me over some delicious Cuban sandwiches with those pickles. She said she would pray for me. Regardless, in 30 years on the force, I never fired my weapon at a suspect. One month retired, and I shoot somebody. Damn. One less crack-head I guess.”
“It was a good thing you did, Pop, he won’t be killing anyone else. Anyway, I’ll bring Sam over about 6:30 in the AM, is that too early?
“For me? Son, you know I’m up before the rooster. I’m an old man now, I’ll get the sleep I need when I’m dead.”
“Dad, don’t say that,” admonished Rick. “Even though it is kind of funny.”
“Give an old man his pleasures, boy.”
“I hope I’m as tough as you when I get to be an old fart, old man,” Rick chided.
“
I
get to call me old,
you
do it and you get an ass kickin’, kid,” his dad shot right back.
Rick laughed, “Ok potty-mouth, but no talking like that in front of Sam.”
“Sam who?” his father joked. “My Alzheimer’s is kickin’ in again.”
“I’m funnier than you, so quit trying, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Night then,” his dad said and hung up.
After he hung up the phone, Rick went to his bedroom and opened up a lock box. He pulled out his .40 caliber Taurus service pistol, and removed the trigger lock. He brought it out to the living room, and began to meticulously clean it. As he was doing so, there were sirens outside his apartment building. These were ambulance sirens, not cop sirens, and this was nothing new in the city, so he paid little attention. When he was done cleaning the Taurus, he replaced the trigger lock, and put the weapon on his nightstand under a facecloth. Rick then went to his closet, unlocking that and the tall steel case hidden inside. Within were an assortment of weapons, and he removed a well-oiled SPAS-12 semi-automatic shotgun. He loaded the shotgun, installed a trigger lock, put the weapon back in the case, and locked that. Rick brushed his teeth and went to bed, thinking the department owed him big for bugging out on his daughter for a day.
3
Rick woke groggily to a commotion outside his apartment building. The clock on the nightstand read 3:12 in green digital numbers. Someone was shouting, and Rick groggily trudged to his second story balcony to investigate. He could see the rotating emergency lights of an ambulance, and when he looked down at the street, he could see a paramedic pushing what looked like a homeless man away from him. A second paramedic was cradling his own arm and yelling at the homeless guy. Rick could see the paramedic was bleeding. The first paramedic gave the attacker a mighty shove, and the guy went ass-down with a half twist, landing hard on his arm. Rick could hear the guy’s arm snap from the balcony and shouted at the paramedic.
“Hey! Hey, what the hell are you doing!”
The paramedic looked up and said, “Go back inside sir, we’ve got this!” The guy with the broken arm started to get up, seemingly unfazed.
Rick yelled down again, pointing at the paramedic “I’m a cop, you stay right there!” He ducked back in the door and went to check on Sam, who she was sleeping soundly. He grabbed the Taurus, and as an afterthought, a pair of handcuffs. He removed the trigger lock on the pistol as he ran to his apartment door. Rick was a cop in the city, so he had a steel apartment door, with a two inch steel tube fitted from the center of the door to a recess in the floor. Nobody would break this door down easily. He removed the tube lock, and exited, locking the door behind him, and then took off briskly down the stairs.
The door to his neighbor, Mrs. McCreedy’s apartment was slightly ajar. She was in her eighties, and Rick liked to check in on her from time to time. Rick made a mental note of the door, and continued downstairs. When Rick exited the building, the homeless guy was once again moving toward the paramedics, his left arm dangling at an angle that was all wrong. His right arm was clawing at the air, and he stumbled toward the emergency workers, his back to Rick. Something was off about this guy, but that didn’t give the people who were supposed to be helping him cause to seriously injure him.
“Sir, I think you should sit down, and let these guys look at your arm,” Rick called from behind the homeless guy, “we’ll get to the bottom of this.” The guy paid no attention to Rick, but pressed on toward the paramedics, who were now backing away.
“Shit Don, that guy’s got a gun,” one of them yelled.
“I’m a cop,” Rick called back. “Sir, please sit down, your arm is broken, I think you should…” Rick then realized what was off about the homeless guy. He was in a business suit, with patent leather shoes. His attire suggested a fairly wealthy yuppie-type. The clothes he was wearing would cost more than Rick made in a month. Rick caught up with the guy and put a hand on his shoulder. “Mister, mister are you ok?” The guy turned around and lunged. Rick back-pedalled and got clear. The guy was five feet away, and swiped with his right hand. “Whoa buddy, calm down, I’m trying to help you!” The guy started advancing, and Rick began to back away.
“Dude! Look at his eyes,” one of the paramedics called. Rick tilted his head slightly and looked at the guy’s eyes. They were blood-red. Not bloodshot, like after a night of heavy drinking, but the whites looked as if the guy had taken a serious blow to the eyes. Both eyes were also bleeding, and there was a trickle coming from his nose. The guy hissed and came toward Rick. “Alright sir, that’s far enough,” Rick said, putting both hands on his Taurus, and pointing it toward the ground at the guy’s feet. The man either didn’t hear or didn’t care.
“Sir, I am a police officer. If you don’t stand down, I will have to take action.”
“Shoot him,” yelled one of the paramedics, “shoot that prick, he fucking bit me! He’s not right!”
“Sir! Stop right there or I will fire!” The guy kept advancing slowly, as Rick kept backing up. “Shit,” Rick said under his breath. He applied the safety on the Taurus, walked up to the guy and thumped him on the side of the head with his gun. All his training told him there was no way this guy could function properly after being pistol whipped. If done correctly the suspect becomes disoriented, and is immediately under control, with little physical damage. The guy went down like a stone. Rick continued past him to the wide eyed paramedics. “He’ll be ok. He’ll have a headache, and maybe need a stitch or two, but there’s no real damage. Can you check him out for me? I don’t want to get sued if…”
Rick noticed the paramedic he was talking to wasn't making eye contact, but staring past him down the street. Rick turned to see the unkempt guy that he had just pistol whipped almost back on his feet already.
Guy must be on PCP,
Rick thought. The man advanced toward the paramedics and police officer, right arm reaching. His upper arm bone was visibly poking through his bloodied business suit. The guy had to be in horrible pain, even on PCP.
Rick flicked the safety off. “Sir, I’ve been as nice as I’m gonna be. Stop or I will fire.” The guy advanced. Rick took up a firing stance, and aimed at the guy. “SIR!” he yelled. The guy kept coming. “God damn it!” Rick said, and fired a shot into the guy’s right thigh.
“Jesus!” breathed one of the paramedics.
Not only did the guy not stop, he didn’t even look at his wound. It didn’t slow him. He kept coming, twenty feet away now. Rick was unsure of what to do. The guy had no weapon, but he wasn’t listening to commands. He obviously wasn’t rational. The man had already injured one paramedic. “You guys will back me up on this, right?” Rick said with a dry mouth.
“Fuckin-A, drill him!” shouted Randy, the paramedic with the bite.
“Sir, please!” Rick pleaded. The guy showed no signs of slowing. All Rick could think about was the video feed of the cops in Boston firing on civvies. Rick shot the guy center mass in the chest. The guy went down on one knee, putting his right hand down on the street to catch himself, but he started to get up almost immediately.
“This gets a fifteen out of ten on my fucked-up-shit-o-meter,” one of the paramedics said.
The guy stumbled toward Rick, who shot him again in the stomach. This time the guy didn’t even slow. At ten feet, Rick shot him in the forehead and the guy fell on his back. “Fuck me,” was all Rick could say. He had just shot a one-armed man four times.
“Stay away from him,” he told the other two. “He might be infected with that Boston stuff.”
“No, No, NO,” said the injured paramedic. “He bit me! That means I could be in trouble.”
“Relax Randy, we’ll get you back and get it looked at,” the other cajoled. “It’s probably nothing.”
Rick cautiously advanced on the fallen man. He looked at the gunshot wounds and wondered how anyone could have kept going with the three shots he put into them prior to the head shot. “Gimme a sheet, I’m gonna cover him and call this in,” Rick said. “I’m also gonna need your ID’s. There’s definitely going to be an inquiry, and I’ll need you guys as witnesses.”
“No problem,” Don said, “you told him to stop ten friggin times.”
Don got a white sheet from the back of the ambulance, but seemed afraid to go near the dead guy to put it over him.
“I’ll do that,” Rick told him.
“Thanks, man. I kind of don’t want this job right now.”
Rick introduced himself, got their IDs, and told them to get the bitten paramedic to the hospital. “Normally, I would have you wait here, but you’ve sustained injuries, so you should go get checked out. There’ll be cops asking for you in an hour or so, be ready.” Rick covered the body with the sheet.
The paramedics hopped in the ambulance. “We’re gonna call this in, too,” said Don. “We’ll get Randy checked out soon, but I gotta let Control know what happened.” Rick was surprised at the lack of spectators for the event. Usually an officer involved shooting was the talk of the neighborhood, but there were only a few onlookers, who immediately dispersed when Rick started back toward his building. There were sirens aplenty, in fact more than usual for this early in the morning, but no emergency vehicles seemed to be coming in his direction.
He went back into his apartment building to call in the shooting. Mrs. McCreedy was in the hall, in a floral print nightgown, leaning against the corridor wall. She had her face turned away from Rick. He walked up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s ok Mrs. McCreedy, you can go back to bed. There was a disturbed guy out front.”
Mrs McCreedy turned very quickly and grabbed Rick’s hand, bringing it to her mouth. She bit down hard on the outside of his palm, under his pinkie finger. It hurt like holy hell, and Rick howled in pain. He ripped his hand away from her and backed up. There was no blood. The older woman growled low in her throat, and lunged at Rick, slashing with claw-like fingers. Her eyes were blood red. She managed to grab his shirt, and attempted to bite his face. He pushed her away, but her grip was like iron.
Pretty damn strong for an old lady
, was Rick’s first thought. His second thought was:
Holy shit, she bit me!
Rick shoved his neighbor hard and she went on her backside. He inspected his hand, palm up, cradling it between the thumb and fingers of his other hand, turning it over a few times. There was a semi-circle red mark, but no blood. The woman started to get up, and Rick shoved her back down with his foot. She looked at him made a horrible hissing growl, her mouth going wide in a feral snarl. Rick saw blackened gums in a toothless mouth. She hadn’t put her teeth in! Rick gave her another booted shove before she could stand, and she went face down this time. He quickly knelt down on her back, effectively pinning her to the floor. Rick pulled out his hand cuffs and yanked her left arm behind her back, applying the cuffs. She fought savagely, but he got her right hand and completed cuffing her. She had been snapping at him the whole time. Rick dragged her into her apartment and shut the door. The guy in the business suit that Rick had just shot was a stranger. Rick couldn’t shoot Mrs. McCreedy, she needed help. Her struggles could be heard inside, as she tried to stand. She was knocking things over in her apartment, and Rick heard her lamp hit the floor with a crash. As an afterthought, he opened the door back up, locked it from the inside, and closed it again. He checked the door to make sure it was locked and went back to his apartment.
Rick went to the bathroom and washed his hands three times. The red mark was receding, but it was still sore. No broken skin though. He was relieved. “
Never again
will I grab somebody by the shoulder,” he said to himself, “friggin idiot, rookie mistake. Twice in ten minutes!”
Lights were flashing from outside. He walked to the balcony and looked down. The ambulance was still there, both doors open wide, but the paramedics were nowhere to be seen. Rick started to worry. He grabbed the phone from where he had left it on the couch, and called Meara at the station. There was no answer. Rick got his service radio from his bedroom and switched it on. He put in a radio call to the dispatch desk.
“Dispatch, this is 4044Denver, requesting code 30, repeat code 30, over.”
“10-2, 4044, are you injured, over,” came the reply. An odd question.
“Negative dispatch, 4044 reporting officer involved 34S with fatality, over.”
“Roger that 4044, were you bitten, over?”
“Say again dispatch?” Rick asked.
“Repeat for 4044, have you been bitten, over?”
“Negative dispatch, but I need assistance. Can you…”
Rick was interrupted by the dispatcher: “4044, is anyone else in your vicinity bitten, over,”
With an impatient voice, Rick answered, “Roger dispatch, an EMT was bitten by…” The dispatcher cut him off again.
“What is the bite victim’s 20, over?”
Rick walked from the bedroom to the balcony window, looking out into the night as he spoke to the dispatcher. A staggering figure was making its
way down the street away from him.
“Unknown, over.” The phone rang and Rick asked the dispatcher to hang on for a second.
“Negative 4044, too much traffic. Cannot comply with request, recommend you RTB or find secure location and wait for assistance, out.”
What the hell was this? He just told the dispatcher that he had fatally shot someone, and she acted as if it were no big deal. Find a secure location? What was she talking about? Rick answered the phone, “Hello?”
“Rick, it’s Mike.”
“Mike, what the fuck is happening? I just got off the radio with dispatch. I told her I just killed a guy, and she went on like I was asking for directions!” Rick ran his fingers through his hair and they came back damp. He realized he had been sweating.
“Dispatch has been told to inform all calling officers to either come in, or hunker down,” said Mike, “Rick, listen, you’re not coming in tomorrow. Get Sam and your dad, and get the fuck out of Dodge.”
“Jesus, what are you talking about?”
“You told me yesterday you were having trouble getting in touch with Brenda in Boston? The reason you couldn’t get through is because Boston is gone.”
Rick tried to cut in, “Mike wha-”
“Shut up and listen,” continued Mike, “This disease that’s hitting the east coast isn’t just on the east coast, it’s everywhere, here too. It’s been absolute chaos for the past few hours, everyone in the damn city has called 911, the board is lit up like a Christmas tree. A buddy of mine from USAMRIID called me an hour ago, he said that the infected people are incredibly violent, and extremely resistant to pain and trauma. There is no effective way to incapacitate them other than to destroy the brain. Boston is gone Rick, I’m sorry.”