Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 (17 page)

Bosley sat up in his chair, looking right at him. “That's
exactly correct, son. And now that you've pointed us in the right
direction we can investigate this angle. But there's something you
have to understand about the medical profession. About these
hospitals. About the world out those windows.” He pointed
behind him. “Hard decisions had to be made about the medicines
and time of our staff. The added stresses...”

He faded out. Sat back in his chair.

Doctor Yu, perhaps sensing her duty as the medical professional,
took up the story from her boss. She stood and spoke in a low voice.
“I'm sorry to say, most of the elderly were the first to be,
um, let go. When it was clear what this disease was, and how it was
affecting the city, we decided it was best to discharge the patients
with the least chance of surviving without extensive resources from
our diminishing stockpiles.”

“When you say discharge, you really mean you sent them to
die, right?” He knew it was sensible, and he'd seen more dead
elderly since the sirens than probably anyone else in the room. But
it didn't make him feel good that his great grandma could have been
tossed out, had she been here.

Victoria held his hand. She knew the implications.

“I'm sorry, that's correct. We helped make them as
comfortable as possible if they weren't able to live without help.
Others, we tried to ensure they had someone who could take them home.
Friends. Relatives. For a while there were enterprising people
driving cars for food. Some went with them. Where they went from
there, we'll never know.”

Liam again saw the ironies in his life. After weeks of time trying
to keep his grandma, and others like her, alive in the face of
zombies and malicious CDC agents...these people were tossing those
same elderly people out the door like so much garbage. Now, when
everything depended on finding test subjects to help track down the
cure, none could be found.

An unsettling thought flew into his brain. Something that made his
empty stomach churn.

He was in the same position as Douglas Hayes. He needed elderly
test subjects.

What the hell is this world coming to?

6

“So you're telling us you have no one of sufficient age here
in the hospital, or out there?” Lana pointed to the large crowd
out the window, though they couldn't see them directly from inside
the room.

“We have no one here in the hospital over the age of about
eighty. To be fair, we had to turn a lot of people younger than that
away, too. Everyone has high blood pressure these days. Almost
everyone is on medications of some kind, you know. Some of those
medications are actually keeping them alive. We had to retain some of
those medications for future purposes, rather than let them get
consumed for no good end. Supplies of new drugs stopped on day one.”

It all made sense, but Liam hated the thought.

Bosley continued. “And down there? No one of sufficient age
could live in a sweltering tent for three weeks, without well-stocked
food or medications. Many people lined up to get into the hospital,
claiming their loved ones had the right to be saved. Those lines are
gone...” He trailed off, obviously not proud of that aspect.

“But you have to understand. This was all done so that the
rest of us could survive. The strong. The healthy. The young.”
He pointed to Liam and Victoria as if they were spokespeople for the
youth contingent.

“Sir, it's urgent you help us find someone of sufficient age
to test. If my great grandma were here I think she would even
volunteer for it, now that we know real medical people are after
this. The disease is worse than you can imagine. Victoria and I have
seen it affect people even after death.”

He explained the exhumed soldiers they'd encountered down in the
pit mine.

“Impossible!” He slammed his fists on the desk in a
surprising reaction. “This disease is not some supernatural
horseshit. The dead are dead, and will stay dead, do you understand?
We have to focus on the living.”

Everyone's eyes were on Bosley.

“Miki, would you be kind enough to show our guests to the
front door?” Then he looked at Liam as Lana rose. “I wish
your Grandma was here. A cure might be as simple as comparing her
blood with another infected victim. I just don't know. I don't know
how we can make this right.”

Liam saw the worry in the man's face. He'd been remarkably calm
while they were speaking, but the talk about the elderly seemed to
shake him. As if he'd come to regret his part in that decision.

You and me both, friend. Hard choices enough to go around.

They left the office and regrouped back at the windows near the
elevator, away from the two military-looking men guarding the doors.

“I'm sorry for that. He carries the weight of this place on
his shoulders. We were lucky he saw us, actually. I radioed up after
we talked and he insisted he meet you.”

There were no other people in the hallways. Liam absently wondered
what other commitments the man had. He should be swimming in
meetings, he guessed.

Miki carried on. “And I think I can help us find a suitable
test subject. But I'll have to break some patient confidentiality
rules to do it.” She smiled weakly. “Follow me.”

In moments they were at a nurses' station and she was punching up
some records. There was no one else around, which was enough reason
to ask about it.

“Uh, why aren't there people in these rooms? Where are the
nurses?”

The doctor didn't respond right away. She appeared lost in the
names and data on the screen.

When he repeated himself, she responded. “Oh, yeah. The top
ten floors are empty. There aren't enough nurses for starters. Many
of them ran on those first days to get home with their families. A
few brought their families here, so they could work. Most never came
back. But beyond that, we don't have bedsheets, supplies, medicines,
or any of the other million things it takes to run a hospital. Bosley
and his team made the right call on that. We focused on who we could
save, and we focused on running the hospital with only the amount of
staff that could handle it. These rooms are empty because every piece
of equipment and supplies was moved down and consumed on the lower
floors.”

She returned to her screen.

“Here he is.” She pointed her finger at the screen,
touching it. Liam used to think of this as a
fingernails-on-a-chalkboard annoyance, but these days he let it slide
like he did back in the mine.

“Hans Grubmeyer. Aged 105! Wow. I didn't know he was that
old.”

“You know this man?”

“Know him? No. I met him here in the hospital. He came in
with severe headaches and, uh...I'm not really supposed to share
this, but he needed glasses.” A short laugh. “He was
pretty 'with it' for the most part, but the thing that stood out was
that he had no other medical conditions. He didn't take any
medications. No nothing. With all the other old people we turned
away, I had it in my head this man might be able to make it.”

“He was healthy? You kicked him out?” Liam sensed he
used a little too much accusation in his tone, but he couldn't help
what he felt.

“No, not at all. He wanted to leave. Said he had an
appointment or something. I thought he went nuts, but I watched him
walk across the street, into the park.”

“So why tell us about him?” Victoria asked.

“You guys look like you can handle yourself. You know the
stakes. I think you're perfectly suited for what I see on this
computer screen.”

With her dainty finger she pointed at the address where the man
lived.

“Like I thought. He lives close enough to walk home. His
address is just north of the park. If you can get him to come back,
we might just be on the road to a cure.”

Sounds easy as pie.

Victoria grasped his hand and squeezed.

Liam and Victoria sat together in the sunny afternoon air. A
thousand different smells wafted up from the large field full of
people below their shady hillside. They were far from alone, but it
was what passed for privacy in the crowded park.

“You know, we could tell them we'd bring Grandma here if
they gave us a boat.” She looked at him with a friendly smile.

Was this park safer than Cairo, Illinois? The place had the
numbers and they'd figured out how to keep the zombies outside the
perimeter all this time, but it had no formidable rivers protecting
it. Cairo would be nearly impenetrable once they got that canal built
between the two great waterways.

On the other hand, if government restored order in St. Louis, it
might become habitable again. That might be worth the risk of
grabbing her.

He was troubled by his thoughts of letting Grandma have testing
done to her. After all they'd fought against with Hayes and Duchesne
and his NIS team, would it be surrender to let Grandma be subjected
to testing anyway?

It matters who is doing the testing.

There it was. Testing wasn't the real problem.

“If they had a helicopter, I'd try it. I wouldn't mind
having Grandma here with us so we're all together, but I don't think
she'd make it on a boat. She wouldn't have made it on our last boat
ride—and that climb up the bluff.”

“Or the walk down into the mine,” she reminded him.

“No, she wouldn't have liked that one bit,” he
laughed.

“So then, do we go out and try to find this Hans guy? What
if he's dead already?”

“I don't know. Do we wander around going door to door
looking for other other hundred-year-olds? They have to be a rare
species now.”

Even before the sirens they were rare. Now...how many would there
be in the city?

He pulled out his phone. This was something he
could
answer. He got it out of the protective plastic bag and turned it on.

“We have a signal here!” He suspected as much when he
saw the mobile medical cart and functioning hospitals. They would
blanket the place with wireless access to the internet. They were
even kind enough not to require a password.

The phone still had good charge from when he had electrical access
back in Cairo. In a few clicks he found the information he needed.
Ironically, it was a government website for the 2010 census.

“Looks like Missouri had 1166 people over one hundred years
of age in 2010. It doesn't say how many are in St. Louis, but if this
is for the whole state, maybe half of them are here.”

“So about 550 as a best case scenario?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

From there they whittled the numbers down based on survivability.
If hospitals like this one had sent them home for lack of care, would
that be common elsewhere? Liam had already heard how retirement
communities had dried up and blown away. A certain percentage had to
have gotten in cars and drove with families to escape the city, much
as he and Grandma had done. Those that rode it out…

Victoria had leaned in to read his phone, too. “Wow, one
third of those 100-year-olds lived by themselves! I had no idea. I
thought your Grandma was unique when you said she lived on her own.”

His thoughts quickly turned dark. Those people would make the
easiest targets for criminals and hungry neighbors, much as he
worried back when he weighed leaving Grandma alone in her home so he
could go find help. If he'd done that, she'd almost certainly be dead
right now.

After all their calculations, the number they came up with was
100. And that was wildly conservative, based on a lot of hope.

“If there are 100 people over 100 left in St. Louis, and
they are spread out over the entire city and county, it could mean—”

“That we'd never find one by going door to door,” he
replied.

“We could check here in the park. Surely someone must have
come here and survived?”

He'd been sneaking looks as he walked to the hospital and walked
back. He hadn't seen anyone he'd consider to be retired, much less
elderly, out in the fields. If there were older people about, they
were well-hidden. Probably under the trees or inside one of the many
outbuildings throughout the park. He allowed there could be some
ancient survivors out there, but Doctor Yu said she hadn't seen any,
and it could take a week to walk all over the huge park.

On the other hand, they had the exact address of a 105-year-old
man. He looked at the note Doctor Yu had given him with the address,
then punched it up on his phone—thankful he had access to the
basics of the internet again—and was surprised how close it
was. He looked at the address, then looked to the north. He held up
his phone, lining up the map with what he was seeing. “His
house is right there.” He pointed to a large mansion which was
literally across the street from the park.

“No wonder he didn't want to stay in the park or hospital.
His house is here already.”

They both looked across the park to the distant mansion. It was in
a row of similar homes, like millionaires of the early 1900's had
agreed this was the ideal place to put down roots.

They had their destination.

2

When they got back to the medical tent, his mom had gathered Jason
and a handful of the other Polar Bears.

“Liam, Jason and these men and women would like to go with
you. I told them what you were doing, and why you were getting the
old man.”

He was inclined to wave them off, as he felt the most comfortable
when it was just him and Victoria, but they weren't asking.

“You helped get us out of that river. We'll help you with
whatever you need.” His partners all nodded agreement. There
were four men and two women, besides Jason and his mom. They were
passing ammunition around before he could say no, though he and
Victoria only received ten rounds of the caliber they needed for
their AKs. As rifles go, they weren't exactly common. The others had
AR-15s and one guy had a rifle he didn't recognize at all.