Dead, but Not for Long (22 page)

As they sat in the dark, Snake talked to one of the CNAs to pass the time, hoping the power failure was temporary.

In the lab, Doune lit a lantern and went back to work. Autumn didn’t seem to have a problem with it, but Lindsey started feeling
claustrophobic in the small dark room. She went out to the ER waiting room which was just as dark, but more open.

Within two minutes, the power came back on, though it got everybody wondering just how long the generator would last.

“We’re going to need more diesel fuel,” Jack
said. “We have maybe a two-week supply and that’s if we use it sparingly. So
far the electricity has been off almost as much as it’s been on, so we may have
to depend on the generator completely before long and it needs a lot of work.”

“That’s not all we need,” Lindsey pointed out. “If
help doesn’t come soon, we’re going to start running out of food. We also have
an extremely limited supply of meds for the patients.”

“I doubt that the local grocery store and pharmacy will still be open,” Jack pointed out.

“Well, we have to do something. We can’t let our patients die,” Lindsey said.

“We have enough food for a week or so,” Snake told
them. “The freezer is pretty full and there are a lot of canned goods. Let’s
give it a couple days and see if anybody is still out there to get things under
control before we go crazy and start looting.”

“Your guys have been picking stuff up at the home
improvement store,” Lindsey pointed out. “Was it still open?”

Snake shrugged and said, “No, but we left an IOU in the register with a list of what we took.”

“Seriously?” Lindsey asked.

“Seriously,” Snake said. “Without
the materials to block off those windows and doors, we’d all be dead now. Maybe
the stuff we took for the wall wasn’t quite as necessary, but then again, with
all the dead I’m seeing out there today, it just might end up saving our butts.
We took what we needed to keep us all alive. But if everything is back
to normal in a week, I want to make sure that we do what’s right and go back
and pay for what we took.”

Lindsey thought this over and nodded. What choice did they have, really? This seemed to be a
decent solution that should be fair to all.

“Listen to this. We got something on the TV,” said one of the bikers, a portly man that Snake had
dubbed “Smiley” due to his gold front tooth that shone when he smiled.

The others walked over to join him.

A man in uniform stood at a podium and Lindsey
thought she recognized him as a general who was often in the news. This was
verified when his name was flashed across the bottom of the screen along with
some information about where the press conference was being held.

“Central America has been blocked off completely,
that’s a fact,” said the general who seemed to be trying to send the message
out that everything was under control. “The Panama Canal has been closed down
and is being carefully guarded by troops from Colombia, with the help of other
South American countries. We’re all working together to get this under control.”

“And what about containing it to the north?” a
dark-haired male reporter asked. “It’ll just spread up through Mexico.”

“There are U.S. and Mexican troops along a two hundred mile section of land in southern Mexico.
It’s close to the border of Guatemala.”

A map flashed on the screen, showing the southern
end of the Gulf of Mexico with the city of Coatzacoalcos highlighted. Salina
Cruz was highlighted as well, about two hundred miles to the south of
Coatzacoalcos and a highlighted line flashed on the screen between the two cities.

“A fence has been erected along this stretch and
it is being well-guarded. We’ve had offers of more troops from other countries
as well so manpower will not be an issue. We have complete confidence that we
can keep the infected from passing through the two barriers.”

“What about boats?” someone asked. “There was that
raft with infected refugees that was found not far from Florida.”

“And they were apprehended before reaching land,”
the general said quickly. “Our Coast Guard and Navy are vigilantly patrolling our shores.”

“Isn’t it a little late for that?” asked a blond
woman reporter. “We’ve got outbreaks in at least four cities in Mexico and
three U.S. cities. These can be traced to infected persons flying in from
Central America. Then there’s the most recent outbreak in Springfield, Missouri.”

“Which was quickly contained,” the general noted.

“Right,” the blond nodded, “but what about Salt
Lake City; the group of missionaries that returned from Central America and
infected most of the flight before they landed? We hear that the military is
losing the battle there. The whole city has been devastated by this plague
along with Lansing, Michigan. A bartender from a cruise ship flew back and went
straight to the hospital. It spread from there and now the whole city is overrun.”

“That was also contained,” the general said. “The
hospital was closed down and the situation is under control.”

There was a chorus of ‘what?’ and ‘liar’ and ‘you’ve
got to be kidding’ before someone hushed those in the ER so that they could hear the rest.

“So Lansing is safe now?” the woman asked.

“Yes, it is,” he replied. “We have five thousand
troops on the ground there as well as helicopters in the air. When we get a
report, it is dealt with immediately, but we have full confidence that Salt
Lake is our only problem in the U.S. at the moment and we are close to having it contained.”

“I have a caller on the line from Lansing now,”
someone said offscreen. “I’d like to put them on. “Hello?” There was a long
pause. “I guess he hung up, but he said that Lansing was a war zone.”

“You need to check your sources a little better,”
the General insisted. “I repeat; the situation in Lansing has been controlled.”

The picture suddenly disappeared from the TV and was replaced by an emergency signal.
The biker tried the other channels with the same results.

“Can you believe this?” a CNA asked. “Have we been cut off?”

“Looks like it,” Dr. Chan replied. “Not that I’m
surprised. They’re probably trying to avoid a panic but it makes me wonder how
many other cities are
under control
.”

“I’ve got no phone service now,” someone else
said, holding up a cell phone. Others picked up their phones to check as well, with the same results.

“And what was that about the five thousand troops
on the ground? Has anybody seen a single military vehicle anywhere? How can
they not know we’ve been overrun?”

“I don’t like this,” Lindsey said, going back to
the lab to update Doune on what they’d heard.

~*~

The military arrived the next day. Several black
helicopters flew over the neighborhood slowly. Jack ran up to the roof and
waved his hands in the air to get their attention, but there was no indication
that they saw him. Eric and a couple of the bikers followed and soon they were
all waving frantically. One of the utility helicopters finally turned around
and came back toward the hospital. It landed on the roof while an Apache attack
helicopter hovered ominously nearby.

After a few moments, the pilot stepped out with an
armed guard and walked over to the group assembled on the roof. He introduced
himself as 2
^nd
Lieutenant, Lee Reynolds, U.S. Army.

Jack introduced himself and the others and before
long, Snake joined them as well. While Eric walked over to chat with the guard,
who was also the copilot, Jack and Snake questioned Reynolds on the outbreak.

“I don’t know a whole lot, myself,” Reynolds
admitted. “It’s not just Lansing. There are outbreaks in several cities but we’re
doing our best to contain them.”

“Is all of Lansing like this?” Jack asked
gesturing toward the area around the hospital. “Snake and his guys have been
out there a few times and it sounds like it’s completely overrun.”

“We only covered a small part of the city,” Snake
admitted, “but what we saw was pretty nasty.”

“Unfortunately, the whole city is a mess,”
Reynolds admitted. “We’ve given up on trying to stop the outbreak here and are
just working on containment and getting survivors out.”

“So it’s safe outside the city?” Jack asked.

“Well, it’s safer than it is here, but I don’t
know how long that’ll last,” Reynolds admitted. “From what I hear, our guys in
the rural areas are busy night and day stopping small outbreaks before they can
turn into big ones. In the first few hours, people left the city in droves and
a lot of them brought infected friends and relatives with them. Some of them
didn’t get far, but we know that others did, because we’ve found infected all
over the state with Lansing addresses on their driver’s licenses.

“So where are you taking the survivors?” Snake asked.

“We’re working on getting large shelters set up in
remote rural areas,” Reynolds said. “At the moment we’re still putting fences
up and bringing in supplies. Until that’s done, survivors are going to
temporary shelters outside of Lansing.”

Jack nodded. “I feel pretty safe here right now.
Snake and his men reinforced our first floor windows and doors with cinder
block and brick and we’re working on walling in the parking lot.”

“Excellent,” Reynolds said, pulling out a small
notebook and jotting something down. “Tell me, do you think you could take in
some survivors until we finish up with the rural shelters? We’re running out of
room at the other temporary facilities. Also, every time we have to do a
transport out of town, it costs valuable time and lives are at stake.”

“We have some room, but we’re getting pretty low on food and supplies,” Jack said.

“We can get you what you need,” Reynolds said,
jotting down a few more notes. “Get a list together and I’ll pick it up
tomorrow. We’ll drop off some basic supplies at that time.”

“If things get worse, we may have to evacuate,”
Jack said. “Will you help with that?”

“If your situation here becomes dire, we’ll try to
figure something out,” the pilot promised.

As the Lieutenant turned to leave, one of the bikers said, “Hey, one of
your generals announced yesterday on TV that Lansing was contained.”

Reynolds shook his head. “Not even close. I think
they’re trying to avoid panic, but Lansing is a mess. Salt Lake is a total
write-off, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

He ran back to the helicopter. Once there, Eric
turned his attention from the copilot and began to talk to Reynolds and it was
obvious that the pilot was having trouble getting away. Jack finally called
Eric over and told him to relieve the guard outside the lab for a while. Reynolds
grinned and gave Jack a thumbs-up behind Eric’s back before getting into the helicopter
and taking off.

Once it was in the air again, Jack said, “Guess we’d better get ready for more survivors.”

~*~

A dozen survivors were brought in the next day,
along with a large supply of bottled water, dried food and some badly needed
medical supplies. Lindsey had volunteered to be on the welcoming committee
since Doune didn’t need her help at the moment.

The new survivors were taken to quarantine, where
they would stay for a few hours. Lieutenant Reynolds had assured Lindsey that
all of them had been checked for bites and that those who had been bitten had
already been separated from the rest. She hadn’t asked what had happened to
them and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know.

While the newcomers were in quarantine, Lindsey had
them each fill out a questionnaire, providing some basic information including
any skills and training they had that might be useful. She found living spaces
for all of them, keeping families together in the larger rooms.

Many of the bikers preferred to sleep on cots in the
ER waiting room or up on the fifth floor in the observation room that the
snipers were using. For those that wanted something more private, patient rooms
were becoming available. The mortality rate was high due to increasing
power failures and a shortage of some necessary medications, but those who did
recover were given jobs and assimilated into the community.

~*~

When Lt. Reynolds showed up the next day with more refugees, Lindsey noticed that he looked tired. He appeared to be a little
frustrated when Eric once again walked over and began to talk to him. Reynolds excused himself after a moment and approached Lindsey. The bikers went back
inside the building, dragging Eric along with them.

“I hope I wasn’t rude to your pilot, but he’s very persistent,” Reynolds said.

“We have a pilot?” Lindsey asked.

“Eric. He keeps telling me that he wants to ‘take the
bird for a spin’ but I’ve explained to him that we can’t let him do that. He’s
quite determined.”

“I didn’t know he was a pilot,” she said. “He works
here as a security guard.”

“Well, that explains why he didn’t seem to know what
he was talking about most of the time,” Reynolds said, rubbing his eyes.

“You look tired. Are you all right?” she asked.

He managed a smile but he shook his head.

“I’m exhausted,” he admitted. “Since this whole
thing started, we’ve all been working sixteen hour days and the lack of sleep
is wearing me down.”

“Where do you sleep? Do you fly to a base or something?”

He nodded. “We’ve set up a temporary base, not far
from here as the crow flies. There are a lot of infected around and we have
snipers picking them off at the fences all night long.”

“No wonder you can’t sleep,” she said. “We get that
during the day here, but the snipers stop shooting at night unless we need to
let someone inside.”

“It’s a wonder we’re not all insane from this,” he
said. He glanced at the helicopter and when he saw that the copilot seemed to
be taking a nap, he continued.

“The noise is bad, but it’s not the worst part,” he
admitted. “We’ve lost so many men and women; some in battles with these
deadheads and some later, from bites. One of our pilots got bit and managed to
hide it but he turned during the night. I woke up hearing strange noises, so I
got up to check it out. When I shined the flashlight around, I saw him. He was
eating the man in the bunk next to mine. He had ripped off an arm and was
chewing on it while I stood there with the light on his face.”