This Would Be Paradise (Book 1) (3 page)

He started to cough violently with his back hunched over. His messy hair obscured his face, but I could see the steady stream of blood dripping from his mouth onto the dirty titles. When he finally looked up, his teeth were stained red and the vessels in his eyes seemed to have taken over the whites. He coughed and blood misted into the air. 

“Holy shit!” Zoe and I jumped up as he started to go into convulsions. “Help!” she screamed in panic.

I just stood there, not having a clue what to do and hoped I wasn’t next.

Two men in hazmat suits rushed over with a gurney, squishing through the sea of people just to get to us. It took two doctors to restrain Mike enough to get him onto it. I was no doctor, but I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to try to move someone while they were having a seizure.

“Hey!” I yelled to the suited men. “Should you be moving him right now?”

They completely ignored me as they strapped Mike down and shoved us out of the way, carting him off to one of the rooms down the hall.

“Hey!” I yelled again, but it was to no avail.

Mike was still thrashing around when they opened up one of the doors and tried to push the gurney in. But before they could, another patient rushed out of the room snarling and clawing at them. The doctors lost their grip on Mike, and he was pushed up against the wall as they tried to subdue the crazy patient. The deranged man had waxy, grey skin and his eyes were beyond bloodshot, almost as if all the vessels in his eyes had burst. His jaw dripped with red, as did his clothes and hands.

One of the doctors howled in pain as the man’s teeth sunk into his arm.
I guess those suits weren’t bite-proof.
The suited doctor tried to pry the lunatic off, but he was stuck on there good, and it didn’t look like he was going to let go anytime soon. The other doctor stood still for what seemed like forever before he took off running in the opposite direction. That was when all hell started to break loose. All the patients around us started to panic, and screams soon erupted all over the waiting area.

“Bailey!” Zoe yelled, as she was shoved out of the way when people started to dart all over the place.

I tried hard to keep track of her, but was soon lost in the crowd of scared people trying to get off the floor. I found myself being ushered against my will toward the hallway, where the deranged patent was now fully on top of the suited doctor. His blood ran down the sides of his bright yellow suit, pooling under him.

The crazed man on top of the doctor snapped his head up, chewing and snarling at the same time. Red stained pieces of the doctor’s skin and hazmat gear were sprayed all over the place. The sick man scrambled over the doctor’s unmoving body and lunged at the group of us who were being pushed toward him. I felt panic grip my body as the man started to rush us. People screamed, arms and limbs where bumping into me from all directions, then someone was shoved callously right at the approaching crazy patient.

“Help!” the woman shrieked. For a reason that I could not explain, I reached out and tried to pull her back.

But it was too late. The man latched onto her like a rabid dog and soon her screams turned into gurgling then stopped all together, as the blood poured from the bite wound in her neck. The doctor who had been viciously attacked first, started to sit up slowly and I knew that meant it was time to run. Putting the terrified face of that woman out of my mind, I tried to shove my way back through the crowd toward the stairs. I found that if I stuck close to the wall, I was better able to move through the crowd.

I frantically looked around for Zoe, but I couldn’t see her over the mass amounts of people. Her straight, black hair was camouflaged among the horde of heads, even though she stood over 5’10. She managed to make me look short at 5’5.

“Zoe!” I yelled as hard as I could over the chaos, but if she heard me I got no reply.

I had to make my choice fast. Either I kept trying to search for Zoe in here and possibly get trampled to death or try to get out and hope Zoe did the same.
Soon that choice was made for me as the doctor in the bulky bio-hazard suit, joined in the fray, attacking people. His teeth were rendered useless as the face shield protected the unfortunate individual he had grabbed. It looked like the woman who had her neck bitten was starting to convulse on the ground as the virus wracked her body. I don’t know how that was even possible. At this point, more of her blood was coating the linoleum than pumping in her veins, if her heart was even still working.

I took one last look back and wished I hadn’t. One of the patients in the waiting room must have had a gun – this was America after all – and shot the crazed sick man. The loud sound from the gun caused everyone to duck and scream anew. The crazed man was shot point blank in the shoulder, causing him to whip around from the impact sending a spray of dark blood all over the wall behind him. I watched in mute horror as the sick man pulled himself back to his feet, his left arm barely hanging on. The bullet had punched a wide hole in his shoulder, and the tendons now looked like wiggling ground-up meat. Still snarling, he walked unsteadily toward the shocked gunslinger. The brief thought of why no police where here yet crossed my mind.

The sick man lunged at the guy holding the handgun, and soon a barrage of bullets impaled him. Not until one of the bullets hit the sick man in between the eyes, did he stop his assault. The body slumped to the ground finally unmoving and didn’t get back up. The man lowered his emptied gun, the barrel smoking at his side. Panic rained all around and I stood frozen, too shocked to move. I had seen a lot since I woke up this morning, but somehow seeing a man shoot another in the face was enough to hit home. Something was happening, something big. I knew right in that moment life would never be the same.

“Bailey!” I heard my name screamed over the noise, but I didn’t move until fingers wrapped around my wrist. I barely registered the tugging at my arm. “Bailey we have to leave!” Zoe shouted, trying to pull me along.

I stumbled behind, Zoe dragging me by my arm, still in a daze from everything. My mind was trying to play catch up to all that I had witnessed. I could no longer shrug this off as another episode of H1N1, nor could this be a horribly vivid dream. The stairs were even worse going down now that everyone was trying to flee the fourth floor. A man was shoved down, taking a bunch of people with him, but no one stopped to help. Instead, they just tried to jump over the pile of bodies in their attempt to get out. It was every man for himself.

Zoe continually gave glances back to make sure that it was still my arm she was grabbing. My legs managed to work even though I was not really there, it seemed. I was turning into one of those people who froze up and shut down in emergencies.
They were always the first to go…
At that thought my mind tried to snap itself back into place, self-preservation taking over. Like hell I would be one of the first knocked off.

We managed to overtake the stairs as one massive group, bursting out onto the first floor. People jumped up from their chairs and dodged out of the way, as we all poured out into the lobby in an attempt to escape the hospital. A shrill alarm went off, the emergency lights blinking.

Why did we even come here in the first place?
If this infection was spreading, then the hospital is where the sick would go. I wished I had clued into this earlier. But, then we would have been stuck with Mike when the virus took over and did whatever it did to him. Guilt wasn’t something I was accustomed to feeling, but I felt a twinge of it at the moment knowing we left Mike behind. I tried to justify it to myself by saying he was doomed either way, which was unfortunately true.
Was I next?
I wasn’t bitten, just scratched. I had lasted this long when it looked like it over took all the others quickly by comparison.

Soon, the people in the lobby started to join our massive group and ran for the exit as well. It must have been a sight to see; hundreds of people pouring out of the hospital doors, running onto the roads and sidewalks. Car tires were squealing as people were pushed out into the flow of traffic. Zoe had managed to steer us back toward the direction of the hotel and we took off in a sprint, no longer slowed down by Mike. After what seemed like hours, we finally stopped running to catch our breath and give my side a break.

“Zoe,” I huffed and pointed to the corner store.

“It’s going to be just as bad in there.”

“I know, but I’m going to
need
some antiseptic or something for my scratches.”

Zoe gave the store a skeptical glance, but nodded. We jogged over to the entrance, the automatic doors opening for us. The inside was pandemonium; people were grabbing everything they could. I made a dash for the first aid section, scanning the shelves around the people looking for anything I could use. I managed to grab a couple bottles of spray antiseptic and gauze. I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was until I saw the hanging strip of beef jerky packages, so I grabbed a couple of those as well. And a bottle of Flintstones vitamins just to be on the safe side.

I jumped in the back of the long line, with Zoe joining me with her arms full of stuff. I had to continually elbow people out of my way, not unlike shopping on Boxing Day. We handed the cashier some money when got up to the till, not even bothering with our change as we ran out of the congested building. I stuffed my haul into my pack as we continued back toward the hotel.

“What do we do?” Zoe asked quietly after we had been walking briskly in silence for a few minutes.

“I have no idea,” I shrugged. “Not something we can prepare for you know?”

And I used to laugh at my Dad and brother for watching those crazy survivalist, doomsday TV shows. If I was in a laughing mood, I would have laughed at the irony.

“We need to get back home,” Zoe said.

“We would basically have to cross the entire U.S. to get home,” I groaned at the thought of the daunting task. “With no airplanes or trains, unless we steal a car, that’s out of the question as well.”

We fell back into a silent trot the rest of the journey back to the hotel. The streets hadn’t improved at all. An ambulance had crashed into the front of one of the stores; its siren still going off as it lay, still embedded in the wall. One guy was running down the streets yelling about zombies and that was probably the sanest thing I had seen all day.

The hotel lobby was empty, but we booked it to the elevator anyways. Our hallway was still deserted except for the mess, luckily no sick people. Once we stepped into the quiet room, I finally noticed the ringing in my ears. I sat down and took a bite of my beef jerky just as my stomach started to growl. I offered some to Zoe, who gave me a bottle of water in return. We sat there eating and contemplating.

“Do you think you’re going to catch it?” Zoe asked me with concern in her eyes.

“I really hope not,” I said taking a drink of my water. “I don’t feel sick or anything.”

Zoe eyed me more carefully, nodding when she convinced herself it must be true.

“You don’t look sick, just pale,” she said. “But you’re always pale.”

We sat for hours flipping through the channels for any useful information, but all we could gather was that main transportation had seized and that emergency centers were being set up in the Superdome and nearby schools.

“Should we try for the arena tomorrow?” Zoe asked, pointing to the onscreen picture of the giant football field.

It sounded all well and good, but having that many people crammed into an area like that would probably have the same results as the hospital.
But what other choice do we have?

“I think the school would be the best option, since it would be less crowded, plus it’s indoors,” I said finally, and Zoe nodded.

I gathered up the sheets and pillows on my bed and carried them off to the bathroom.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to sleep in the bathtub just in case I do get sick or whatever it is,” I said dropping the sheets into the dry tub. “I can lock the door so I won’t be able to attack you or anything.”

Zoe stared at me, fear plain as day on her face. She gulped and nodded as she gave me a hug, her eyes a little glassy. I shut the door and latched the lock getting ready to try to sleep. I didn’t feel sick, but who knows how this thing went. I changed out my bandages and sprayed on some of the antiseptic, which felt akin to pouring acid in the wounds.

Is now the time my brief life is supposed to flash before my eyes in a moment of self-recollection?
If so, I really hope it was the good highlight reel, not the one that included me chasing my shoe down the hallway steps during the break between classes in grade school or the time I kicked a rock that turned out not to be a rock, but a very upset raccoon.

If I was wishing for things, I might as well wish to not catch this sickness. I wasn’t ready to die. Tears started to threaten at the thought, but I held them back. Crying would do me no good.

From behind the door Zoe said, “What do I do if I need to pee?”

I wiped at my moist eyes as I lowered myself into the makeshift bed, my thoughts returning to something less morbid.

“Should have thought of that before.”

The first thing my mind registered was the stiffness and lack of cooperation in my limbs. Images from the previous day roared through my head, forcing me from my dreamless sleep.

I’m alive.

My eyes flashed opened and I tried to move, but soon realized I was confined in a small, hard area. Right, I was in the bathtub. I sat up only to smack my head on the faucet.
Why the hell did I sleep with my head on this side?

Rubbing the sore spot on my head, I climbed over the tub wall. My limbs protested as I was finally able to stretch out. I used to sleep in the bathtub when I was sick as a kid, but didn’t remember it being so uncomfortable.

I lifted up my shirt to inspect my wounds and surprisingly they didn’t look worse like I thought they would. Whatever was in that antiseptic spray actually worked; for once the stinging was worth it. So I applied some more, wincing at the burning sensation before I taped the gauze over the wound.

“You still alive in there?” Zoe asked hesitantly as she tapped on the door.

I debated making a groaning sound in lieu of answering, but even I wasn’t that cruel. “Still kicking, though my side is killing me,” I admitted, opening the door.

Zoe gave me a brief hug, which added unwanted pressure to my pained side, so I politely shoved her off. Relief was plastered on her face, but her red rimmed eyes hinted that she had been crying.

“I’m glad,” she smiled.

“That makes two of us.”

“So does this mean you’re immune?” Zoe asked following me back out to the beds.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” I shrugged. “Maybe it only gets passed on through saliva.”

I turned on the news to see if anything had changed, and after watching for a bit I realized that they were showing the exact same newscast that was on the day before. The same reporter, the same clothes, the exact same words and expressions. Could they even do that?

“So are we heading for that emergency shelter?” Zoe asked.

“You think we should?” I asked turning from the television screen.

Zoe nodded. We didn’t stand much of a chance just waiting in the hotel room. The school would have supplies, guards, and maybe even transportation out of the city. We jumped into motion stuffing our bags with all that we had packed. I was glad I had brought my huge camping backpack even though I have never camped a day in my life; it just had all the storage I needed. And it came with a free compass, which was still wrapped in its original packaging in one of the various pockets. I hefted it onto my back to test the weight, and I almost toppled over from the added pounds.

“Do you think we can bring our suitcases?” I asked, looking longingly at my stuff that I really did not want to leave behind.

“Sure, why not?” Zoe shrugged. “But you’re wheeling your own damn suitcase.”

“Oh come on, I’m injured,” I whined.

Zoe just shook her head.

We packed in silence for a little before Zoe spoke up. “I feel guilty that we left Mike yesterday,” she said quietly.

“I admit I feel a tad bit guilty too, but what could have we done differently?”

“I don’t know, something.”

“Like what? Run over to his gurney and have him attack us as we unstrapped him?”

She flinched. Mike had gotten whatever virus this was and would have eventually turned on us. None of the sick people we had encountered had seemed in their right mind; in fact, they didn’t seem to understand anything at all. Of all the infected people we saw yesterday, none of them spoke so much as a single word. Just snarls. And even a swift kick to the head didn’t seem to slow them down. We needed some sort of protection, like a gun, not that either of us knew how to shoot one.

“What do we do if we run into more of the sick people?” Zoe asked as she tied up her shoes. I noticed she fumbled with the laces, her hands shaking.

“Go Babe Ruth on their asses?” I joked to tried to ease the tension.

“And where would we get the bats, pray tell?”

“Walmart, sporting goods stores, pawn shops, take your pick,” I guessed running through all the likely suspects.

“We could add nails to them, too.”

“What kind of badass weapon would be complete without nails?”

I guess making light of the situation was a coping mechanism of sorts; it helped to take our mind off of the horrors of the past day, if only by a little bit. A gun would be our best choice but who would sell a gun to an unregistered, twenty-two-year-old girl who had never even held one before? I’ve played shooter games on Xbox, but that was all the experience I had in that department.

The mention of homemade explosives was tossed into the game of weapon roulette we seemed to be playing. My knowledge in that area was limited to putting a rag in a bottle of booze and setting it on fire, not that I had ever attempted that before. Knowing my luck, I’d set myself on fire instead.

We joked about the different methods of protection, but it felt forced. We were purposely avoiding what we wanted to say. Zoe stilled her mad packing, which was normally at lot more organized and looked me in the eyes.

“Bailey, aren’t you freaked out?” Zoe scrutinized me the way one would for a particularly hard version of the daily crossword.

“No, I’m perfectly at ease. Just another day in New Orleans.”

“You don’t have to be such a sarcastic bitch all the time,” Zoe scowled.

“What do you want me to say? That I’m freaked out because we’re trapped here, practically a whole country away from home?” My unease was starting to leak into my voice. “Or worried that I seem to be considering building an arsenal like the Unabomber? Or that we seem to be living a high-definition version of
Dawn of the Dead
?”

Zoe arched a brow as I stopped to take a breath, “Feel better?”

I sighed and plopped down on the bed, finally allowing my mind to process the last twenty-four hours. We were living the start of every zombie movie ever, and I chuckled at the thought. The laughter spread through me like an electrical current and soon I was clutching my sides as the peals of laughter just wouldn’t stop. Zoe gave me the look that meant she was contemplating my sanity. I had seen this look a few times throughout our years of friendship.

“You always laugh at the worse times,” she muttered. “So this must be serious.”

I wiped the unwarranted tears from my eyes and felt marginally better, like I had just undergone a twenty-second therapy session. But the hysterics came at a price. My side was starting to burn again from the sudden movement, and I held my breath, my usual reaction to pain. Once the throbbing started to subside, I turned back to our task at hand.

“So, just how screwed are we?” Zoe asked her voice uneven.

“Truthfully, I don’t know.”

I looked away, but not before I spotted the tear slipping down her cheek. I was not one for comforting nor did I have the capacity for it at the moment, so I just kept going on like I hadn’t noticed. Zoe sniffed and wiped at her eyes. I scanned the room for the Kleenex box and grabbed a tissue. She took it without hesitation.

“I wish I could deal with things the way you do,” she admitted.

I was rather shocked at her declaration, “Trust me; I’m just trying to keep it together.”

Zoe was the nice girl who got along with everybody, why would she want to be like me? I was the girl who made sarcastic remarks and managed to make more enemies than friends. If anything, I envied her ability to make friends and trust so easily. I shook my head, realizing now was not the time to go down that road.

With our bags packed, we took one last look around the room to see if we missed anything. It felt like we had taken everything that wasn’t bolted down. I peeked out the door and motioned for Zoe to follow when I didn’t see anyone in the hallway. Well, at least I wasn’t going to miss this place. I had to maneuver my suitcase through the mess that was the hallway, so that it wouldn’t tip over. I could hear noises coming from behind a couple of the doors, someone even rammed up against one from the other side. I looked at Zoe and she gave me a frightened look in return.

“Ah, hello?” I asked as I approached the door labeled 315.

Instead of an answer, snarling erupted from the other side and whoever was in there started to hammer and bang against the door.

“Holy shit, let’s move,” Zoe said grabbing my arm and trying to steer me toward the elevator.

Why couldn’t the person open the door? Maybe the virus wrecked the brain so much that they couldn’t even figure out how to use a door handle. They could still move, so motor functioning wasn’t the issue. It was like once infected, the person turned into some mindless, violent predator only focused on attacking others. I was really trying to stay clear of the word
zombie
because it seemed so ridiculous, but it looked like Hollywood got it right for once.

We rode down the elevator for the last time and started on our long walk to the school. The streets were not as busy as the previous day, but the destruction and chaos were still evident. Stores were broken into and windows were smashed. Cars were all over the place, some just sitting in the middle of the road with their doors wide open but no one inside. It truly looked like a mass evacuation had gone on because no one would just leave their car sitting in the middle of the road abandoned. I had a rusty 2001 Honda Civic back home, and although it was a hunk of junk, I still wouldn’t have just left it.

People were still scurrying around; smoke was rising from some of the buildings on the east side of the city. Luckily, the school we were trying to get to was south and a good distance away from the billowing smoke. Downside to that was that it was a fair walking distance from where we stood.

“We could not look more like tourists right now,” Zoe sighed, as she rolled her suitcase behind her.

I chuckled, “Might as well have a ‘Please Rob Me’
sign plastered on our foreheads.”

Our joking cut off abruptly as we spotted a body lying in the street, next to one of the abandoned vehicles. There was bloody stain all around the unmoving corpse, and I could smell the rotting stench from the sidewalk. A flash of color in my peripheral caught my attention and I turned to witness a crazed man chasing a woman around the corner. At that, we started to walk faster.

After a few minutes of hiking, we noticed a crowd of people standing around on the sidewalk. When we got closer I saw the bus stop sign sticking up over the crowd.

“Aren’t the buses canceled?” I stopped and asked one of the people waiting.

“There was an emergency broadcast sayin’ that the buses are in use only for transportation to the shelters,” one lady answered, looking about her nervously.

Zoe and I shared a look then parked ourselves, and our bags, in the queue line to wait for the bus. All the people in line seemed to be in a daze, one child was quietly sobbing into her mother’s jacket, while others were whipping their heads around for any signs of sick people. Just as I was starting to get antsy, the bus roared around the corner, and everyone started to grab their bags in anticipation. Through the windows I could tell the bus was not completely full, which was good since there were at least a dozen of us.

“I don’t have any change,” I said to the driver as we boarded the bus.

“We’re not charging anyone since this is to go to the emergency shelters,” he replied, looking at me like I was retarded. I thought it was a valid thing to say.

There was no sitting room, so Zoe and I had to stand which, admittedly, was still better than walking all that way through the chaos. The bus driver announced that we would be going to the high school located on the south side of the city, and that if we wished to go to the Superdome, then we would have to wait until the next batch of people were picked up.

“God, I hate buses,” Zoe muttered as she looked around in disdain.

“Why, Francis? Why must you hate everything?” I joked and she cracked a smile.

Ironically, it was usually the other way around; I was the one hating everything. Zoe still calls me Daria as a joke every once and a while. The bus took a sharp corner, and I was thrown into the person behind me, my elbow connecting with their nose.

“Oh god! I’m so sorry!” I quickly apologized as I scrambled to get off the person’s lap.

I got a nasally response, “It’s all right; at least your giant suitcase didn’t come with you.”

The person I happened to smash into turned out to be a decent-looking guy with blond, shaggy hair and a grin plastered on his face, despite the fact that he was now holding his injured nose. His broad shoulders were framed nicely in his dark brown leather jacket. I found myself grinning back in return as I sat back up.

“Yeah, it probably would have done even more damage,” I said apologetically.

“What do you have in there?” he asked, eyeing the suitcase warily.

“Oh you know, everything.”

“I’m Darren, by the way,” he flashed his white teeth as he smiled; scrunching his nose, making sure that it was not seriously injured. At least I hadn’t made it bleed.

“Bailey, and this is Zoe,” I said pointing my thumb at her.

She wiggled her way over, the prospect of a good looking guy too much to pass up.