Medora: A Zombie Novel (30 page)

Keith dropped both the backpacks he was carrying and took out only the aluminum bat. Grabbing Ellen’s hand, he led them both through the crowds, looking for a way off the freeway. They weaved further to the side of traffic and came to a railing that overlooked a steep hill of gravel. Dropping one leg over the side, he assisted Ellen and Jayne over, looking past them towards the invading crowd. They all seemed like healthy, non-infected adults, but he knew that there was a growing tumor of the sick behind them, perpetually biting and infecting the crowd as it moved along.

They
slid half way down the bottom of the gravel hill and made it onto the street below. The traffic was less than on the freeway only because people had taken the liberty of using all available shoulders and sidewalks. Keith had no idea where he was taking his family, but he did know that movement was good.

He stood for a moment, deciding which way to go when Ellen nudged him from behind. “
It’s okay, Dad, just pick a street. You’ll keep us safe.” She smiled confidently at him.

Taking her
hand, he stooped into the street and waved at a car to slow down for them. The car slammed on its brakes and honked its horn at them until they had crossed to the other side. Suddenly, another car pulled right in front of them from the street and mounted up onto the sidewalk making Keith stumble back into Ellen.

“Hey!” He ineptly yelled at the car. The car screeched its wheels trying to accelerate too fast and ran into a streetlight.

Keith kept running, holding Ellen’s hand as they moved. He was searching for something but he didn’t know what; some car to drive off in or a building to hide.

“Keith!” Ellen tugged on his hand.

He turned and saw the gravel hill down the street that they came from. A wave of people was sliding down the hill, frantically stumbling over one another to stay in front what could only be a horde of the infected.

They ran a few more blocks and Keith finally saw what he didn’t know he was looking for: a large military transport truck full of men in fatigues with rifles. The truck was slowly moving through traffic,
blaring its horn in an attempt to clear the road in front of them. They ran up to the truck until they were moving briskly along with it.

“Hey!” Keith yelled up to one of the men above who was looking out towards the traffic. He looked down at Keith and dismissively looked away.

“Hey! Uninfected bitten person!” He yelled again. The man either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him.

“Hey!” Ellen yelled and started pounding on the side of the truck. “You need to take me to the CDC
. I got bitten, but I’m not sick!”

“Several more of the men looked down. One of them yelled, “
Keep clear of the truck!”

“Can you hear me?” She shouted.

“Keep clear,” he replied.

Keith walked up to the driver’s door, hoisted himself up on a metal step and slammed his palm on the window. “Stop the truck!” He yelled.

The driver jumped with surprise from Keith and angrily shook his head. He cracked the window and yelled at him, “Get off this truck right now or we will shoot you.”

“My wife has been
bitten, but she’s not sick. Stop the truck and take her to the CDC!” Suddenly, the driver door opened forcefully, knocking Keith off the step and onto the ground. He winced in pain from landing hard on his tailbone. The driver’s door slammed shut again and the truck began to move slowly.

Keith looked up at Ellen who gave him a surrendering expression. Looking past her, he saw the same wave of people
seeping in between the jumbled traffic. Getting to his feet, he grabbed his baseball bat and approached the side of the truck again. This time, he moved to the hood of the truck, which came up to the level of his head. Pacing himself until he was walking at the same speed as the truck, he again hoisted himself up onto the bumper and then lifted his body up onto the hood. A few soldiers who were sitting in the open bed of the truck took noticed and aimed their rifles at him.

“You have five seconds to remove yourself or you will be shot!” One of them yelled.

Ignoring them, Keith managed to kneel on the hood while lifting the bat over his head. Without hesitation, he slammed the bat directly into the windshield, fracturing the glass without actually shattering it. A single burst of a rifle shot out at him, hitting him in the thigh.

“Keith!” Ellen yelled from below.

Keith slumped back down onto the hood, trying to grip the edges, but slowly slid down the front and hit the ground in front of the truck. The driver of the truck briskly got out and came around to the front.

“What in the hell are you
doing, you idiot!” He grabbed Keith by the armpits and started dragging him into the gutter, out of the path of the truck.

Keith gripped the man’s hands, turned around and started
trying to climb up the soldier’s body. He held closely onto his jacket and looked up at him.

“I’m only going to say this
once, you stupid son of a bitch. That woman over there was bitten on her shoulder over twenty-four hours ago and has not shown a single symptom of the disease. You get her over to the CDC right now. Have you seen anyone else get bitten and not turn into a monster? Are you actively trying to stop them from making a vaccine?”

The soldier dropped Keith and methodically walked over to Ellen while the street began to fill with the sounds of impatient car horns. Ellen put Jayne down as the soldier moved the top of her T-shirt down, exposing a
well demarcated tooth bite that had dried over with blood.

“In the
truck, let’s go,” he ordered. “You can bring your daughter, but there’s no room for the man.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you people. You shot my husband!” She yelled, turning to Keith. Before she could reach him, the soldier grabbed her by the arm and began pulling her to the back of the truck while Jayne followed, holding Ellen’s hand.

“Hon, you need to go. I will be okay. I don’t think my leg is shot that bad. I love you,” he said. At the moment he felt no pain, but he could tell by the weakness in his leg that the bullet might have damaged the bone.

“No!
Keith, you’re coming!” She clumsily hit the soldier on the shoulder who only more forcefully lifted her up into the back of the truck, out of Keith’s sight. The soldier then picked up Jayne, put her in the back and closed a green canvas, covering the truck.

The driver stopped for a moment and fished around in the front seat. He produced a small first aid
kit, threw it at Keith’s chest, and then got into the truck.

“Thanks
,” Keith said meekly. He wanted to be outraged that they were taking his wife and daughter and leaving him shot in the street, but he accepted that this is how the world was now.

As the truck started to move again, he could hear Ellen screaming as loudly as he had ever heard her. She was a caged lioness, he t
hought, loving her deeply. Here’s to you, Dave and Dean. You died so that I could get Ellen on that truck.

Scrambling backwards into the
gutter, he was able to get a view of the fleeing freeway crowd as they began to run past him. Then he saw them at the top of the freeway gravel hill. Hordes of the sick had amassed at the top and were spilling over the freeway railings into the streets below just a few blocks away.

Keith looked at the truck that was carrying his family as it found a pocket of free space on a sidewalk that it was able to drive through. It then turned a corner, out of his sight. He looked back at the
horde, down at his bloodied thigh and then at the tiny first aid kit on his lap and finally laughed for the first time in day.

White coats and scrub nurses busily crossed back and forth around the patient floor. Dave was waiting for the surgical team to step out of Ortega’s intensive care room and he was exhausted from the heat. He realized that the hospital was sweltering in humid summer heat because it was only running on auxiliary power and they probably couldn’t run the air conditioning.

The overhead intercom was continually paging his name, asking that he report to a basement room in t
he hospital, but Dave ignored it. His eyes were heavy and his head bobbed up and down from resisting sleep. Realizing that he hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, he stood up from the chair he was sitting in to make sure he didn’t nod off. He was not going to miss one last talk with Ortega, having him wheeled away to some military facility.

The surgeons opened the curtain into Ortega’s room and left down the hallway. Dave quickly rushed down the white tile floor and quietly passed through the curtain into his room. Ortega lay supine with the back of the bed propped up, staring straight forward at Dave.

“What are you doing here?” Ortega said to him plainly.

“What did Anderson
know?” Dave replied.

“Get out of this room.”

“Did you have Medora One killed?”

“I didn’t kill them
. Those damn Brits killed them.”

“You ordered them to do it.”

“Yes, I did, but they were orders given to me.”

Dave knew he had caught him right at that moment. Ortega would never have attempted to explain his actions to Dave, a civilian, if he weren’t trying to lie about something. He knew that Ortega was trying to sell a story to him because he realized Dave would be talking to other higher ups about what happened in Baltimore.

“No one gave you those orders. You weren’t even talking to anybody on your radio.” He had only guessed that this was the case, but reminded himself that there was always a clever way out of everything. “You were just stalling to fabricate whatever lie you needed to make sure Anderson was dead.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Remember talking to me about Macbeth? All the talk about whether it was better for everybody if you were dead?”

“No.”

“Well, you were losing a bunch of blood into your belly, so you probably don’t remember too well, but some sort of guilt came spilling out of you.”

“We were ordered to defend Baltimore and that’s what we did.”

“A small military group was ordered to defend an entire city?”

“If you don’t get out of here right now, there will be serious consequences for you.”

Dave could see the emptiness in the man’s threat as he lay, bandaged around his abdomen in a hospital bed. “I think you meant to get those guys killed, and maybe even yourself, too.”

Ortega’s forehead clenched
tightly and he attempted to get up but reeled back in pain from his abdomen.

“No, don’t get up
. I’ll get your bag for you.” Dave lunged for the beige pack that he had seen Ortega carry and swung it over his shoulder. “I’ll just take care of this for a while.”

“Drop the bag right now.”

“Good bye, Captain Ortega.” He turned around and ran out of the room while Ortega yelled and slapped down onto the tile floor trying to run after him.

Dave moved quickly down the ward floor
, reaching into the pack and producing a few loose pages. Suddenly, a doctor in a white coat approached him from in front and placed his hand on his shoulder.

“David
Tripps?”

Dave stopped and looked at the
man, putting the pages in his jacket pocket and adjusting the pack to his other side. “Yes?”

“We’ve been paging
you, sir. We’d like to run some tests and talk about how you got out of New York. You were with Medora One, right?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Dr. Sabin. I’m a military doctor and have been authorized to debrief you.”

“Okay,
good, because I have some important information about Captain Ortega.”

“Follow me then.” The doctor smiled and led Dave to a few floors down to a small office.

“Please sit down.”

“How is Richmond doing right now? Is there an outbreak here? I noticed that we’re not on normal power in the hospital.”

“Yes, Richmond is perfectly safe,” he reassured him with a smile.

“Okay.” Dave slumped down into padded chair with cracked vinyl, his body screaming for sleep.

“What can you tell me about Captain Ortega?”

“Well, first off, I’m pretty sure he commanded Medora One to attack the British without any command to do it. I think he was trying to get rid o
f the whole team and trying to cover something up. I think that’s why he ordered that airstrike on the tiny town where that plane crashed.”

“There was an airstrike?”

“Yes, in Strykersville. Didn’t you know that?”

“Well, yes.” He paused. “There’s been a number of airstrikes all over the Eastern Seaboard the last day. It’s hard to keep straight where exactly they’re happening.”

“Okay. Anyway, towards the end before the whole team was killed, I think Anderson was onto him about something.”

“Do you know what it was that he
might have been hiding?”

“No, not really.
Fortunately, I have his pack here.” Dave lifted the pack that he set on the floor up onto the table. “Might be something in here to indicate him.”

“I will be confiscating this bag, now.” The doctor took the handle briskly and set it at his feet.

“Oh, yeah okay.” Dave was annoyed. “Just as long as you get to the bottom of why he ordered his unit to death for no apparent reason.”

“Oh yes, Mr.
Tripps, that’s what this is all about.” He reached down and began searching the bag, producing several clips of gun ammunition; a water flask, bandages, and a small cylindrical metal container that looked liked an egg-shaped soup thermos. Dr. Sabin also took out a brown wallet, began flipping through the cards, and stopped at the driver’s license. He was silent for a moment as he stared at the picture.

“Very good work, Mr.
Tripps. I believe this material will shed a lot of light about what happened with Medora One.” He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “Now, you were in Manhattan, yes?”

“Yes, I work there.
Well, I did work there.”

“
Okay, excellent, we’re going to want to run some blood tests on you.”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

“Did you get bitten?”

“
Hell, no, do you think I would be sitting here if I did? People who get bitten turn in about three seconds.”

“Oh, I’m well aware of that.” He laughed quietly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment and just wait right
here, someone will be in shortly to transfer you over to the CDC section of the hospital. It’s just a few short walking bridges over there.” Dr. Sabin got to his feet and hoisted the pack over his shoulder.

“Yes, that’s fine.” Dave awkwardly tapped his fingers on the edge of the table while Dr. Sabin walked out.

Dave breathed deeply and felt relieved that he was able to explain to someone what had really happened in Baltimore. He was afraid Ortega would get to them first and try to discount anything that Dave had to say. A few minutes passed with no one coming into the room to get him and he quickly fell asleep in the chair, wondering where he would go after he left the hospital.

The door opened abruptly and another doctor in a white coat walked in with black glasses and dark hair. “Mr. David
Tripps?”

Dave abruptly woke up from his slumped position in the
chair. “Yes, that’s me,” he said rubbing his eyes. He looked up at the wrinkled face of a dark haired doctor.

“
Oh, I’m sorry to wake you up, but thanks for waiting. I’m sorry no one’s been able to see you yet. I got held up over at the CDC. I’m Dr. Stark.”

“Oh, that’s okay.
Actually, another doctor was just in here talking to me.”

“Oh, really?
Who was that?” He had a slightly perplexed expression.

“It was Dr. Sabin.”

“Dr. Sabin? That’s funny.”

“Why?”

“That’s the name of a famous doctor who came up with the polio vaccine in the fifties. What was he asking you?”

“He said he was a military doctor and was asking me all about the unit that I got stuck with in New York.”

“Medora One?”

“Uh… yes
,” Dave said hesitantly, not knowing how much this doctor was supposed to know about classified information.

Stark got to his feet and leaned over the table. “What did this doctor look like?”

“I don’t know. He looked exactly like a doctor: glasses, grey hair, and uppity attitude. He was your basic doctor. He also took the bag that I took from the captain of Medora One.”

“How long ago was he here?”

“Like five minutes ago.”

Stark produced a photograph from his pocket and showed it to Dave. “Is this him?”

Dave responded instantly, “Yes, absolutely.”

Without another word, Stark ran out of the room and looked up and down the hallways. He flagged down a soldier who had been patrolling the
hallways, asking him to start searching rooms with him. After they searched several rooms, Stark got a page and stopped at a counter to call the number.

“Dr. Stark
,” he said.

“Hi, Dr. Stark.
This is Dr. Louis over at the CDC.”

“Yes, what’s up?”

“I think you should get over here right now.”

“I’m really in the middle of something very important over here.”

“We’ve got another healthy person who’s been bitten, but hasn’t become infected.”

“Alright,
well, just do the basic blood cell count to check for leukemia and I’ll get over there as soon as I can.” He thought of the several cases of uninfected people with bite marks that they had in the last few hours. All of them had undiagnosed leukemia.

“I already did
and it came up normal.”

“You’re kidding. Run it again.”

“I ran it three times. She does not have leukemia. Not only that, I ran an EM on her blood. The virus isn’t even present.”

“Did she even get
bitten by an infected person?”

“She swears up and down that she did and she definitely has a human bite on her shoulder.”

“Okay, yes, I will definitely be right over right now.” He hung up the phone and turned to the guard. “Hey, I need you to organize a search for a man going around this hospital calling himself Dr. Sabin. He’s not who he says he is and the White House believes him to be extremely dangerous.” He pulled out a stack of photographs. “This is what he looks like. I need you to distribute these and find him. He was last seen on this floor about ten minutes ago.”

The solider took the photos and stared back at him, doubtful.

“Look, just do it. We think he might be responsible for the outbreak.”

The
soldier’s face became more animated. “Okay, yes, sir.” He turned and marched off.

Stark turned and began his race back towards the CDC building but was stopped by Dave, who had wandered out from the office where he was waiting.

“Hey, I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but that other doctor took some pretty important stuff from that bag.”

“What was in it?”

“There was this small metal canister, not bigger than a baseball. I don’t know what it was, but that Dr. Sabin definitely knew what he was handling.”

“Oh, okay. And you got this bag from Captain Ortega?”

“Yes, and there was also a flight manifest from the crashed plane that we investigated. I actually have it right here.”

“May I see it?”

“Here you go.”

Stared scanned the pages for a moment and stopped, staring
at a single passenger’s name on the list. The name burned into his mind, infuriating him.

“Did you find any survivors of the flight?

“No, definitely not. If the plane crash didn’t kill them, the airstrike sure as hell did.”

“Ortega also had this small metal canister-looking thing in his pack that I think he got from the plane. That other doc took that. Was he not supposed to be in here or something?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Tripps, but I have to rush over the CDC right now, but please just hang around, because we have a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah, no problem.
It’s not like I have a home or anything to go to.” He laughed and then felt sad because it was very true.

“Thank you.” Stark turned and disappeared down the hall towards the CDC which was several walkway bridges and elevators away. He began to wonder
about all the possible reasons why Beckfield would have shown up in Richmond. What was this bastard doing? Why wouldn’t he just go into hiding? There must be something that he’s trying to figure out for himself. He was certainly not actively looking for a vaccine for the virus. It seemed as if Beckfield was trying to play some game with him, masquerading with the name Dr. Sabin as if he wanted everyone to know that he was some phantom around them.