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Authors: Joseph Talluto

Born In The Apocalypse (24 page)

BOOK: Born In The Apocalypse
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The third message was a voicemail from Josh who informed Joe that the miners that had not died in the initial explosions were being taken by ground and by air to a number of hospitals. A dozen or more helicopters were coming into Grundy Municipal Airport to transport them by air to trauma centers in Charleston, Winston-Salem, Roanoke, Bristol, Kingsport, Johnson City, and Pikeville. The rest of the injured were being taken to local hospitals in Grundy, Richlands, and Joe’s local hospital in Tazewell. Bluefield, Lebanon, and Wytheville hospitals were anticipating arrivals as well. Josh went on to say nearly every emergency room within seventy five miles was receiving injured miners. The affected group of people were numbering around two hundred fifty, with no official word as to what caused the event or what was being done. Chaos and disorder were ruling the day. Josh had a pang of fear in his voice that Joe had not noticed before. Something did not seem right.

Now well past the last climb of his journey to work, Joe had plenty to digest as well as a gargantuan feeling in his gut that was telling him something was amiss. Larry and Josh were both freaking out. His wife was still none the wiser that far away from home, the world was coming apart at the seams. The incident looked like a full twenty-four to forty-eight hour shift ahead. He would not be getting home anytime soon. The influx of family members and outside help was going to wreak havoc on the small mountain area. The scope of the accident assured him that he was going to have to sleep at work until the situation calmed down. At least he had two MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) in the trunk from his last field training exercise. He also had a case of water that he sipped on when there was too much month at the end of the money and could not afford the fast-food luxury.

* * *

As he neared town, Joe began to notice the traffic on the normally quiet Route 16 was picking up, as well as seeing what was going to be the first of many medivac helicopters. The choppers were flying off to the south, likely headed towards hospitals in Tennessee and North Carolina. He headed toward the main four-lane highway and immediately wished that he had stayed on back roads instead. He had never seen a traffic jam of this kind of proportion in a county that had less than thirty thousand residents. Vehicles lined the east and west bound lanes to the point that it was impossible to get on the highway, let alone get anywhere fast. Joe reached down and flipped the dash lights on in his car, installed back in the day before he was paid to do what he did. The red and white LEDs quickly lit up, but to no avail to the passing motorists. Cars were moving at a snail’s pace and a few drivers rolled their windows down to ask how their loved ones were doing or where they were being taken after seeing that a person of authority was trying to get through.

“How the hell should I know?” Joe mumbled under his breath as he turned down the emergency lane to get moving toward the station. He made a point not to make eye contact for the next few miles until he reached his destination, which looked like a free all-you-can-eat buffet at a fat kid’s birthday party. People were already lined up outside the station wanting to know what passing travelers had just asked of him not five minutes earlier. Joe got out of his car and a young woman immediately hounded him. She looked to be around twenty years old, and was asking about the whereabouts of her boyfriend.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I just got here I don’t have any more information than you do,” Joe said as calmly and sincerely as he could muster. Joe looked around at the irritated people standing in the doorway of the station and drew his gaze back at the woman.

“How is it that this many people know about all of this already, anyway?” he asked.

“It was all over Facebook right after it happened. Everybody is posting about it!” The woman said, a little too gleefully.

“Oh, I see,” Joe said, trying to act as if he gave two shits about Facebook. Damn social networking is going to be the end of us, he thought.

“Hey Joe!” A voice rang out from behind the doorway; it was Jamie, Star Ambulance’s resident gun nut. Jamie had a collection of weapons that would make the National Guard Armory look like the sporting goods section at Wal-Mart. He was a great guy. Jamie was in his early forties but had the sophomoric sense of humor of a sixteen-year-old kid. He looked worried, very much contrary to his normally calm demeanor.

“Be right there, man!” Joe responded and slunk away from the woman who was now using her cellphone. Probably posting more useless bullshit on Facebook, Joe thought.

Joe opened the trunk and got his personal three-day assault pack out of the back of the car. He stuffed his two MRE’s and a couple bottles of water as well as his CamelBak. The water bladder was still relatively full from last weekend’s hike that he had taken. His tactical tomahawk and bowie knife were both still in the bag as well, also from his outdoor excursion. Probably not going to get any chance to get this stuff later, he thought, and closed the lid. He made his way through the crowd of people into the station. Jamie caught up with him in stride.

“I don’t like the look of this,” said Jamie nervously.

“Me either, dude, it sounds like this is the real deal from what I’ve heard from Josh down in Grundy,” Joe replied.

“How bad are we talkin’ here?”

“Somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 miners, not including collateral damage from all the people trying to get around to the different hospitals. Hell of a mess.”

“Jesus Christ, man.” Jamie grabbed his belt and noticeably shifted something underneath his shirt.

“You packin’ for this?” Joe asked sheepishly, knowing Jamie probably had at least one gun on him right now.

“Damn right I am! You don’t think I just keep ‘em around ‘cause the look pretty in the case do ya?” Jamie said with a shit-eating grin.

“Good,” Joe said, relieved that Jamie had his back if the shit hit the fan, and essentially, it had.

Joe did not have time to further his conversation with Jamie as they walked into the station’s living room where most of his coworkers stood and waited. There was Donnie, a tall, dark haired father of two whom, like Joe, had served his time in the military and had got out when the getting was good. Then there was Andrew, a young, skinny EMT from Marion, near where Joe lived; Kody, an English major who was also one hell of a Paramedic, Kody did the job to pay his way through school. And, last but not least, there was Aaron a.k.a “Cornbread,” a big guy with a bigger smile and, like Joe, shared a love of video games. Of course, the two rookies, David and James were there as well. They were all too busy having conversations with one another to notice that Joe had come in, so Joe headed towards Larry’s office instead. Larry was on the phone with his wife, as it appeared, and was consoling her and telling her to get the kids ready to go if need be. Joe waited until he had finished his conversation and gave Larry a puzzled look.

“What’s up with that?” Joe asked nodding to Larry’s phone.

“Paige is just worried about the kids being exposed to something,” replied Larry.

“Should she be?” Joe asked.

“I’m not sure at this point. There’s some people coming in from the CDC and some people from the US Geological Survey to try and find out exactly what happened.”

“Why do we need the CDC? It’s not contagious, is it?”

Larry paused and opened his mouth as he was going to say something then shook his head in a You wouldn’t believe me if I told you kind of look and smiled nervously. Larry motioned Joe to follow him into the living room. “All ya’ll need to hear this,” he said. Larry and Joe made their way into the living room. Joe had a seat near the door and waited to hear what his boss had to say.

“Can I have everyone‘s attention?” Larry said. “We have a ton of work ahead of us, so I’m gonna make this as short as I can. There is some unsettling news to go with all of this. We have had reports of some people being attacked and hurt pretty bad. Some of these miners that they are bringin’ in – miners that you guys will be taking care of, transporting, assisting flight crews, and assisting the hospital with – have hurt people. We don’t yet know what is wrong with these fellas. You will need to take all body substance isolation protocols very seriously. There are some rumors goin’ around that people have been bitten and seem to contract the same illness and symptoms that the miners have. Whatever this is, it seems to be contagious. That is no big deal compared to the fact that, according to rumor, these miners were already dead when they took a bite out.”

“Wait, you mean like zombies?” asked Joe.

“Dude that’s fuckin’ stupid,” chortled James.

“Shut the hell up," Joe fired back, glaring at James. “Have you ever watched a zombie movie before? Shit like this is how it all starts; some kind of unexplained accident happens and then people start fuckin’ eatin’ each other.”

“Are we seriously having this conversation?” Larry interjected, obviously not interested in the subject. “The truth of the matter is that Tazewell Hospital is overrun with a hell of a lot more patients and problems than personnel and solutions. We are going up there to help in any way that we can. If they need doughnuts, go get ‘em, if they need you to do things out of your certification level, do ‘em, if they need you to transport...”

“Lemme guess, do ‘em!” James said, laughing.

“Unless you want a new job that involves touching other people’s shit with your hands, I suggest you do what the fuck they tell you,” barked Larry at James with an emphatic finger aimed at him to drive the point home. James mumbled under his breath and sat down on the couch, rocking back and forth. All of the workers of Star Ambulance looked over to the couch at James. He was not being the pillar of reliability that they needed right now.

“Crew assignments are as follows,” said Larry, getting back to more pressing issues. “We will be running three-person crews since we only have three trucks available. There will be one ALS person and two BLS people per truck “I will be with Missy and Andrew in Unit 41. Joe will be with David and James in Unit 49, and Cornbread and Donnie will be with Jamie in Unit 33.”

“What about me?” Kody said with a frown. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“I need you to hold down the fort here at the office. Our dispatch is going to be useless for this, so all calls are going to come through the station here to avoid confusion as much as possible,” said Larry.

Larry turned back to his employees and reminded them to grab extra supplies, just in case they ran out. The employees then started towards their respective units. Joe grabbed his assault pack and headed toward Unit 49 to see if he needed anything before heading out. James strode past him and bumped into him while heading out the door. Joe frowned and wondered if there really were going to be zombies running loose if he could feed them the fat one first, like in the movies. Joe grinned at this possibility and went outside. It was amazing to see so many people out in the pre-dawn hour. Joe walked past the curious family members to his truck to head out for his assignment. As he got closer to Unit 49, he noticed that James was already in the driver’s seat, ready to go.

“What the fuck you think you’re doing?” Joe asked, irritated that the new guy apparently thought he was going to drive.

“I’m driving,” said James, with an angry look on his face. “You can get in the back and ride so you can check the truck off on the way to the hospital.”

Joe knew he was right, but he did not want to admit it. He needed to take stock of what all he had since he had not been in the truck last and wanted to make sure he had everything available. Frustrated, he went to the back of the truck and got in. He began to look around to make sure he had everything when his other ignorant-ass partner came to the back of the truck.

“What do you need me to do?” David chimed in. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but at least he followed orders.

“Get in the truck and make sure that idiot doesn’t kill us on the way to the hospital,” Joe said flatly without looking up.

“Okay, but, uh, I never really done nothin’ like this before. What am I supposed to do?” David said, fidgeting nervously.

Joe looked at David, irritated. “You get in the passenger seat and make sure we get to the hospital in one piece. After that, we will play it by ear, okay?”

“Alright, man, I’ll do whatever you need, just gimme a break if I screw up, okay?”

“Just don’t screw up and we won’t have to worry about it.” Joe said and waved David to go get in the truck. He closed the door behind him. Joe heard Larry talking over the radio telling them it was time to move out. The three units headed out in unison with lights and siren going strong to Tazewell Hospital and the enormous task ahead of them.


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BOOK: Born In The Apocalypse
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