Containment (34 page)

“...gold have value?”

“I would typically bite and ask why but what does the question have to do with anything?”

“It’s not that profound really. Gold has value because people have arbitrarily assigned value to it. I think there might be valuations that cause the value to fluctuate from time to time, but really that just determines the degree of value at the moment.

“Some time long ago, probably before recorded history, some guy had this rock with a little bit of sparkle to it that he cleaned up, heated in his fire, banged into shape with another rock, and then rubbed and polished to a shimmer. Someone else saw his shiny, shaped rock and decided they wanted one too. And then the guy who found that first hunk and knew where more of it could be had became the first gold merchant.

“It’s a soft metal that is easy to shape and never rusts or tarnishes. But really that’s about all gold has to offer.”

Dave laughed a humorless hack of a chuckle. Shaking his head and starting to question his own judgment in people, he asked, “Is there any other worthless information you’d like to pass along?”

“You’re missing my point.”

“Apparently.”

Still looking out the window on the door, Art said, “The only reason Neil and his co-stooges are in charge is because the others have let them be. We just have to offer a better alternative. You know, give ‘em platinum when the other guy offers gold. At least make them feel like you’ve got platinum, whether you’ve got it or not.”

“So what’re you gonna do?”

Art shushed him and looked into the darker corners of the garage. “I think there’s someone there,” he whispered.

“Who?”

Not seeing anything specific but feeling less than alone, Art said, “Probably that crazy fucking cop.”

In the garage’s darkest corner, furthest from the slither of light fighting desperately for its shrinking foothold on the wall, Officer Malachi Ivanoff was rousing from a senseless stupor; or, more to the point, he was shifting from one flavor of senseless stupor to another.

He looked up and saw, just inside the door, a pair of glowing wraiths clacking their fangs together as they whispered curses between one another. Their bottom thirds shrouded in shadows, the menacing figures seemed to float like bad dreams waiting to pounce on their hapless victim. He immediately knew that his father had sent them. He’d sent them for him, and they were conspiring and deciding how best to steal his soul and flee back to the dark pit with him in tow.

He tried to shrink himself into the same tiny ball that he became when he was a little boy and wanted to be unnoticed or forgotten. Sometimes it worked well enough that he wouldn’t get new bruises to cover those that he’d received the day previous.

It didn’t work this time, though, because when he tried, the glimmering translucent spirits heard him. He stood as still as he could, but they looked right at him, right through him. Like electrified, milky white opals, the beings’ eyes cast about in the darkness fixing on him with predatory intent. One of the spirits barked some curse at Malachi in his demon tongue, the voice cold and poisonous.

Malachi bowed his head and held his breath. In a fleeting lucid moment, he doubted that any of it could be real. He tried to convince himself that there was no such thing as monsters but that conventional wisdom and the past reassurances of his mother were both nullified by the monstrous terror that lurked and waited for them all throughout Anchorage. Still, those creatures who had hunted them incessantly for weeks now, those zombies, were once men and women but had been driven to their current state by an infection.

Were there monsters now? That question, that doubt, melted away the last vestiges of his tenuous hold on reality. When he looked back up, he clearly saw monsters. They were two phantoms that had emerged from the depths of Hell to perform his father’s bidding.

His eyes adjusting to the scant light, Art thought he could make out the shape of someone sitting in the corner but he wasn’t entirely sure who it was. He asked into the darkness, “Malachi, is that you?” There was no response but he did think that he could hear breathing. The hair on the back of his neck and arms stood on end. To Dave he said, “I think we need to get out of here and carry on somewhere else.”

Dave asked, “D’you think he heard us?”

Art shook his head and said dismissively, “Who the Hell’s going to listen to him anyway? He’s off his nut.”

Dave agreed and turned to make his way out behind Art, but in doing so he nudged a pile of cans stacked atop a couple of boxes and the whole heap tumbled down with a crash.

On the heels of the ruckus, the deafening, echoing, raging reports from Malachi’s sidearm caused both men to jump. The first couple of shots went wild, but then the police officer’s aim found its mark. Dave screamed as bullets struck him in the chest, shoulder, and neck. He was flung lifelessly against the garage wall, and then crashed to the floor violently.

Malachi didn’t stop shooting. He continued to fire his pistol until there were no more bullets to shoot. After he’d pulled his trigger a handful of times with no result, he returned the handgun to his holster and waited for a second. The stillness was surprising; the smoke from the discharged bullets forming a lingering, nose-stinging cloud.

They were men and not specters as he had thought. And now those men were on the floor in spreading pools of thick crimson that were seeping from their bodies. At once, Malachi knew what he’d done. He’d broken a cardinal sin of both his faith and his profession. He’d killed in cold blood. He’d taken lives that were not his for the taking. He also knew that his shooting would likely draw the attention of the creatures from which they were all hiding. He’d endangered all of them.

With his mind still taunting him, he ran through the house, found one of the new M4 assault rifles, and then bolted out the front door.

Everyone else, still in the backyard but now planted firmly on their faces following the sounds of gunshots from the garage, heard Malachi run down the street yelling at the top of his voice. He wasn’t making any sense, just noise. His voice became fainter and fainter as the distance grew. Shortly thereafter, his voice was replaced with the rat-a-tat of the M4. Even the gunshots, however, seemed to be coming from farther and farther away with each passing breath.

Dr. Caldwell crawled to the door leading into the garage. The window, though still in its pane, was shattered and bore a small hole right in its center. He listened, his head cocked to one side. He heard breathing, panting really, like someone struggling for breath. There was no movement and no other sound.

“Is there anyone still in the garage?” he asked into the room. When no one and nothing answered, he made up his mind that he had to go investigate. From his hip holster, he eased out the big Smith and Wesson revolver that was always at his side. “Neil, I’m going in. Got my back?”

“Is it going to get me shot?”

“I was hoping for a simple yes.”

“Yeah, I’m there. Jerry?”

“Already on my way.”

Neil huffed while he crawled over to the door just behind Dr. Caldwell, “At least zombies don’t shoot at you.”

Before they could go, Art choked out, “He fucking shot us. He....” His voice was cut short by a sudden choking fit.

Dr. Caldwell couldn’t wait any longer. He sprang up and ran into the garage. The air was scorched with the acrid remnants of discharged gunpowder. He stopped awkwardly, allowing his eyes to adjust to the much more scarce light. Neil, of course, didn’t realize this and was into launching himself forward before he could alter his course.

Instead of entering the garage with poise and confidence, the two men tumbled forward in very un-hero-ish style, tripping over the fallen stacks of supplies that had been knocked over in the chaos. Neil clumsily punched the toe of his right boot into a large sack of rice, which bled little white beads from the plastic wound.

Still struggling to his knees, Dr. Caldwell called out, “Art? Where are you?” He looked around and saw a pair of legs emerging from behind a ladder and an unmistakable red pool. Neil was back on his feet and looking in the same direction as Dr. Caldwell. He too saw the legs. He was the first to step forward while Dr. Caldwell was still scanning the room.

Neil asked, “What are you doing?”

Dr. Caldwell said slowly, “He said ‘he shot us.’ I’m looking for the other...people that made up ‘us’.”

Neil nodded in understanding and picked his way through the mess. For all their efforts to organize and categorize, it only took one catastrophe to bring it all down around them and they were back at square one. Stacks of boxes had laid low piles of cans that had toppled over towers of bottles. There was dry cereal spread out and stuck to the floor by splashes of soda or juice. If not for the burnt smell of the gunshots, the garage would have been overwhelmingly sweet, approaching unbearable.

He got over to the pair of legs and rolled him over. “It’s Dave, and I don’t think he’s breathing. No pulse either.”

Dr. Caldwell yelled to Jerry, who was still standing in the doorway, “Go get the Med Kit! The one we pulled from that military ambulance.”

Dr. Caldwell panned the garage again and then saw him. “Art’s over there. Looks like he’s breathing.”

From outside and with a voice that was threatening to crack, Meghan asked, “What happened? Is everyone alright?”

Neil and Dr. Caldwell were leaning over Art, trying to ascertain the damage without adequate light. He was obviously hit; his clothes appeared as if they had been dipped in a vat of red dye and his skin had an almost glowing, pallid whiteness to it.

Meghan was much closer when she asked, “Need some light?”

“Yeah, that would be great,” Dr. Caldwell answered. “Where’s Jerry with my bag?”

“Right here,” answered Jerry as he tossed the backpack-sized medical supply kit.

With the aid of Meghan’s flashlight, Dr. Caldwell immediately tore into it, taking supplies and medications out in a furious pace. He cut Art’s shirt off and decided that the blood was coming from lower. He felt around and found the wound. How could he have missed it?

The color was so absolute, so deep, that he had assumed that Art’s pants were darker than they actually were. It took looking at his own rust-stained hands after he’d touched Art for the doctor to realize how badly Art was bleeding.

He had been hit three times. Under more normal circumstances, the wounds, though serious, would likely not be considered life threatening. Seeing the blood and feeling his frustration and helplessness to properly treat the injuries, Dr. Caldwell was reminded all too clearly that these were not normal circumstances.

The first wound was of the least concern. The bullet had punched a hole through the soft tissue on his flank and just above his waist, essentially poking a ink pen-sized opening in his love handle. There were no organs threatened in that part of his body and the heat of the bullet had partially cauterized the opening so as to limit the amount of blood loss. That’s not to say that it didn’t look bad, but the reality, as Dr. Caldwell knew, was that it was far from life threatening even with the most limited of care provided.

The second was more troubling as it was on his left leg below the knee. That hole was less round and more oblong than the other, evidence that the bullet had likely struck something else first and then careened into him as it traveled awkwardly end over end. Tiny flecks of white bone fragments near the surface of the oozing hole caught the light cast by Meghan’s flashlight. They resembled small white-sanded islands in a sea of meandering red.

Dr. Caldwell thought to himself that neither the location of the trauma nor the presence of the bone fragments boded well for him. Art would likely be incapable of walking for the next few weeks.

Of course the third and final wound was the most problematic. It appeared that Art’s hip had been pierced, which likely resulted in his pelvis fracturing. Without proper equipment, Dr. Caldwell couldn’t ascertain the nature of the internal injuries that were conceivably received as a result of that injury; not that he would be able to effectively treat them anyway. Just the amount of blood that Art had lost was starting to really concern the doctor. They had neither plasma nor a clean, sterile environment in which to provide even the most basic care to their suffering compatriot. He felt as in control as a Civil War era field surgeon whose only option for many injuries was amputation and then prayer.

They moved Art into the hallway near the front door. They tried to make him comfortable with pillows and blankets while Dr. Caldwell directed them in first aid for each of the injuries. They applied pressure to slow or possibly stop the bleeding and the good doctor worked feverishly to clean the wounds of bits of bone and other external matter such as shreds of cloth and minute pieces of plastic and wood. If there was any good news at all on which they could build, it was that each of the three bullets had exited the body, meaning that Dr. Caldwell didn’t have to go digging into the bleeding openings to retrieve any lodged offenders. There were both entrance and exit wounds for each injury.

Meghan held his hand and spoke slowly and reassuringly to him over and over. She wasn’t certain that he was understanding or even hearing what she was saying, but she continued to do it just the same. She rubbed his forehead and his cheeks soothingly and tried to provide both comfort and distraction.