This Would Be Paradise (Book 1) (2 page)

“Holy shit,” Zoe said as she absentmindedly sat down on the bed corner.

The report echoed through my head.
Am I infected with this viral thing now? What kind of treatment is there for it?
I didn’t feel like I was going to have some violent outburst like the woman from the lobby.

Zoe just stared at me wide eyed as the news continued: “Due to the unusually high number of cases, all mass transportation has been suspended until further notice to help contain the viral outbreak and to prevent the infection of mass numbers of people. Please arrange for other transportation or other living arrangements if you are away from home, as we do not know when the airports and trains will be back to their regular schedule.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Zoe exhaled, rubbing her temples.

“Do you think it’s like the H1N1 scare that happened a few years ago?” I asked, trying to convince myself that everything was going to be okay.

“I don’t know,” she muttered scrolling on her smart phone. “It looks like our flight is cancelled.”

With both of us being twenty-two, renting a car would be out of the question. Never mind the insane bill we would have racked up driving all the way back to B.C.
Shit
. This day could not get any worse.

We both jumped at the sudden onslaught of fists banging on our hotel room door.

I take that back.

I stared at the door, not wanting to get up and see who or what it was. Zoe walked over to answer it, but I grabbed her arm as she passed by.

“Are you insane? That could be the crazy, sick woman,” I hissed.

“I’m just going to look through the peephole,” she answered, removing her arm from my grasp.

Zoe approached the door, peering through the small eyehole. Before I could say anything more, she ripped open the door. A disheveled guy in sweatpants and an unkempt beard burst into the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Mike, what the hell?” Zoe demanded of the scruffy man.

“Zoe,” he huffed; a thin layer of sweat coated his pale skin.

I noticed his left leg was bleeding. The blood had seeped through his ripped sweatpants and had started to drip onto the carpet.
There goes our damage deposit.

“Are you okay?” Zoe asked, taking a step back from Mike. His eyes were darting all over the place rapidly, like he was searching for someone.

“One of…” Mike took a deep breath. “…one of my buddies got sick, I think. He bit my leg!”

Zoe ran into the bathroom for our last clean towel and he placed it on his leg wound as he sat on one of the beds. Sitting seemed to calm him down; he didn’t look as panicked as he did before.

“I’m Bailey by the way,” I said, with a noncommittal wave.

“Mike.”

I wanted to say, “Yeah I got that,” but I held my tongue for once. I grabbed Zoe and ushered her into the bathroom.

“Uh, who’s that?” I asked.

“He’s the guy from last night.” She at least had the good graces to look embarrassed. I rolled my eyes.

“Hey, you girls see the news?” Mike yelled from the other room.

“Yeah, there’s some serious shit going on,” Zoe said, leading us back to where Mike was sitting. “We were about to head to the hospital.”

I glared at Zoe for telling him, undoubtedly he would want to come along.

“Mind if I go, too? I think I need to have this looked at,” he motioned to the still bleeding wound that adorned his lower leg.
See, I knew it
.

“Well if we are going to do this, let’s go,” I sighed, grabbing my bag with all my documents in it.

The motion of putting the bag strap on my shoulder pulled my wound taut and I sucked in a breath at the fresh wave of pain that radiated from my side.

“You got bit, too?” Mike asked.

“Scratched, by some crazy woman downstairs,” I answered through clenched teeth.

“Should we be going back down there then?” he asked, a scared look flashing across his face.

“How else do you suggest we get to the hospital?” I countered.

“Call for an ambulance?”

“No ambulance would come for a scratch and a bite,” Zoe sighed, grabbing her own purse.

I had briefly thought of calling the police to report the attack, but I figured I would have to fill out something at the hospital, so I would just do it all there.

“We should call a taxi, though,” I suggested, as the idea came to me.

Zoe nodded and flipped through the ratty phone book beside the room phone. She found a number and dialed. Mike and I just watched in silence as she held the receiver to her ear.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Zoe gritted as she slammed it down. “No one is answering there either!”

All right, at this point the situation was starting to make me nervous. One thing after another kept happening; I was attacked by some crazy woman who appeared to have ripped open another man earlier, the news was going on about some virus, and flights had been cancelled. This was like something straight out of a B-List Hollywood horror movie and I was having a hard time believing it was all real.

Maybe I was still hungover, asleep. At that thought, hope bloomed in my chest. Then I remembered the radiating pain from my wound and I knew I wasn’t imagining all of this. Unfortunately, I was living it and first things first, I needed to get my side looked at.

“Well, I guess we’ll be walking so let’s go,” I said as I headed toward the door.

“Are you going to be able to walk?” Zoe asked Mike.

“I should be able to hobble there, it’s only got to be like a ten-minute walk from here anyways,” he said, heaving himself back to a standing position.

I opened the door a bit and peeked outside, looking down the hallway for signs of any sick people. The coast was clear, so I stepped outside with the other two following me. Mike was limping, slowing us down as we walked quietly to the elevator. I wasn’t going back to the stairs again and this time it had nothing to do with my laziness. Plus, Mike wouldn’t take the stairs too well either, he was going to slow us down enough as it was.

“Should we be taking the elevator?” Mike asked as I smashed the down button.

“The place isn’t on fire.” 

The ride down was awkward; we were all looking anywhere else but at each other.
Oh look, a stain on the floor how interesting.
This is what I hated about elevators. They turned everyone into socially awkward weirdos. With a ding, the elevator opened up to the first floor, but none of us made a move to get out. I was about to say, “After you,” when Zoe took the plunge and stepped out first. I glanced around trying to spot anyone or see if that crazy lady had escaped the stairwell.

“Wow, there really is no one down here,” Zoe said quietly.

“What, did you think it was all an elaborate hoax?” I asked, and she glared at me. The pain continually throbbing along my side was making me even more unpleasant than I normally was when I woke up hungover.

We walked outside, and instantly I noticed all the activity outside the hotel. Cars were rushing and honking all over the road, people were running along the sidewalks, and sirens were going off all over the place. Since this was Mardi Gras, all the activity wasn’t that unusual, but the atmosphere had taken on a panicked feel rather than one of letting loose. I was almost run down by some guy pushing an overflowing shopping cart he had stolen from a local Walmart, but I managed to dance around him as he sped by.

“Excuse you!” Zoe yelled after the guy, but he was long gone.

“So I don’t think we will be able to get a taxi,” I sighed as I started the walk to the hospital.

I could see the giant H sign from our hotel, but like everywhere in the city, all the buildings were farther away than they looked. With Mike slowing us down and all the craziness going on, the ten-minute walk would most likely be stretched out. We almost got mowed down while crossing the street and Mike barely hobbled out of the way in time.

“Jesus!” Mike yelled as he stumbled to find his footing.

“This is like the L.A. riots!” Zoe said.

“Zoe, you were like four when the L.A. riots happened.” I shook my head.

“Well Bailey, there’s this magical entity called ‘The Internet’ that gives you information for things that you weren’t there to see happen in person,” Zoe shot back.

“Anyways, it doesn’t look like there’s any looting going on yet,” I said and as soon as the words left my mouth, one of the store front windows crashed in on the other side of the street.

Zoe shot me a smug look and I gritted my teeth. I gave a quick glance over to where the noise had come from and thankfully I didn’t see anyone carrying off a TV set, but people were filing in through the open store front window. Jay’s Pharmacy didn’t stand a chance. Looking up, I could see that we were closer to the hospital, but a lot of the traffic seemed to be heading that way so I took that to mean I wouldn’t be getting treated anytime soon.
Maybe I should have hit up that pharmacy…

“How much longer do you think it will be?” Mike asked, pain dripping from his voice.

“I think we’re pretty close?” Zoe offered.

An ambulance whizzed past us with its sirens blaring and tires squealing. I heard a scream from behind us, and we wheeled around to see what happened. A woman had been tackled by someone who looked like they were infected with whatever the crazy woman from the hotel had. The guy launched himself on top of her,
tearing
into her, causing blood to spray everywhere and pool around her. Her muffled screams soon stopped and new screams of the people who witnessed the attack erupted. People scrambled to get away, and we were forced to run before we got trampled by the panicked group now heading in our direction.

“Holy shit!” Mike yelled as he tried to keep up with us despite his injured leg.

Zoe sent me a look that could only be summed up as, “What the hell did we just witness?”

For that, I had no answer. It did help shine some light on what happened to me in the hotel lobby. I had come so close to ending up like that poor woman back there, the thought made a shiver run down my spine. I had no desire to end up a human chew-toy.

Panting with exertion, we had finally made it to the hospital thanks to the group on our heels forcing us to run. My side was burning anew from the heavy breaths that were wracking my lungs and chest. Mike seemed to have it worse, he was now wincing with every step he took and his skin had taken on an ashen color making him look sickly. He reminded me of the woman who attacked me in the breakfast room. I shuffled to the other side of Zoe, as far away from him as I could go without looking suspicious.

I unconsciously touched my side and looked at my reflection in the glass windows surrounding the hospital. I didn’t have the sickly appearance, so maybe a scratch didn’t have the same effect that a bite did. There was only one-way to find out.

“Shit, we’re going to be here for hours,” I grumbled as we walked into the crowded lobby.

We had to squeeze our way through the masses just to get to the front desk line. People were yelling and crying all over the place. Some people had bloody rags pressed to their wounds, dripping blood all over the place. This had to be the most unsanitary hospital I had ever seen. Others were trying to calm down the hysteric patients, not having much luck. Finally, we had gotten through the line and had our turn at the desk.

“Number of people and emergency,” the frazzled receptionist stated.

“Uh, two injured with a bite and deep scratches,” I said adding an extra bit of pain into my voice hoping she would not just send us away.

“We’re only taking emergencies at the moment due to the high volume of incidents,” she stated.

“We were bit and scratched by someone who has that sickness or whatever it is,” I reasoned.

Her eyes flashed to mine. She knew something we didn’t.

“Fourth floor, take a left at the elevators.”

I was about to ask her why, when she yelled, “Next!” and we were
effectively
dealt with. I motioned for the stairs, and Mike grimaced, but it looked like the two elevators would be busy for a while judging by the crowd waiting to get on to them. The door to the stairs was held open due to the steady stream of people going up and down not wanting to wait for the elevator.

“It’s only the fourth floor,” I shrugged after Mike said he wouldn’t be able to take them.

My attitude toward stairs had changed abruptly in the last twenty-four hours; not that taking the stairs appealed to me, just that they would be quicker. We squeezed into the cramped flow of traffic heading up the stairs, with Mike being prodded on by the people behind him. Now came the tricky part of being able to stop long enough to get through the door we needed. I managed to open it enough so that I could get through, much to the dismay of the very vocal people behind us. I flashed them the middle finger for their troubles.

Unfortunately, the fourth floor was just as crowded as the downstairs and even more alarming was the fact that some doctors were coming in and out of certain rooms in bulky biohazard suits. Every seat was taken up with sickly looking people, and pretty much every square inch of the walls were lined with people just waiting to be treated. Going past the elevators, we found yet another desk to approach and told them what happened.

“Take a seat, and we’ll call you when it’s your turn,” the nurse said from behind her glass wall, taking one last look at my Canadian driver’s license before she handed it back.

“Let’s see if there’s any space by the water fountains,” I said, leading Zoe and Mike away.

Once we found enough space to claim as our own, Mike plunked down looking worse than ever. It seemed like he wasn’t able to catch his breath, even though we had more than enough time to do so while standing in line at the desk. Zoe plunked down beside him, then I gingerly sat down on the other side of her, my side protesting the whole way. We sat there for a good hour watching person by person being called, new people taking their vacated chairs and spots.

What I didn’t start to notice until just then, was the fact that we never saw them leave through the lobby area. It didn’t look like there was another way off this floor other than the area we came in through. The biohazard men were mainly sticking to the rooms at the end of the hall, which only the worse looking patients were being ushered to. It all seemed very suspicious, made more so by the fact that the staff refused to answer anyone’s questions. 

“Girls, I think it’s getting worse,” Mike said. We turned to him before slowly scooting away.