Hour 23 (25 page)

At the north wing of the mall, in a Sears that had been gutted and transformed into a makeshift welcome center for EV1 patients, Dr. Merrill and Agent Litchfield waited with a group of nurses and doctors.

Two stretchers burst through the wide front doors of the entrance. An ambulance with its lights still flashing parked haphazardly on the curb outside.

“What’s going on?” Dr. Merrill said, running alongside the ambulance crew.

“We were ambushed by a group of them while doing recon work on the south end of Riverside,” a young man in military garb said.

“A…group?” the doctor asked.

“Yeah, a fucking group. At least five or six.”

“All infected?”

“Every single one of them. I lost one of my men out there, these two here were bit. The one on the left—Medina—he’s got your fucking vaccination. It better work. My guy on the right, Olivarez, he’s—”

Olivarez screamed from the tight bounds of his gurney.

Dr. Merrill understood, and ordered that they be sent to separate quarantines for observation. The two men were wheeled off in different directions.

Agent Litchfield walked up beside Dr. Merrill and patted his shoulder. “I guess we’re going to find out how effective those vaccinations are.”

***

Sherri stood in Dr. Merrill’s doorway.

“Medina’s dead.”

“
What?
” Dr. Merrill shouted from behind his desk. The doctor had run back to pick up some files and notebooks to help document the new arrivals.

“He turned five minutes ago, and he was on the DLL list.”

The DLL list was a ghoulish, yet necessary list that many of the Riverside staff had democratically enacted. They wanted to work and help in New York, yes; but they also understood the very real possibility of becoming infected themselves. Many opted to be put on the DLL list—“don’t let ‘live’”—in the event that they were exposed to EV1. Should someone on the list become infected, the medical staff would compassionately euthanize them as quickly as possible.

“And Olivarez?”

“Turned, sir. They have him strapped down in the east wing.”

Dr. Merrill stood silent and still before grabbing his desk by the front drawer and flipping it over in one quick blur. The doctor’s computer monitor and table lamp crashed against the floor. Loose papers floated and glided throughout the room.

“Sir?” Sherri asked meekly.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Dr. Merrill said with an unnerving plainness. “Get out now.”

“I’ve never seen you drink before,” Litchfield said, holding an empty bottle of bourbon in his hand. He sat at the foot of Dr. Merrill’s bed. “Isn’t this stuff banned on the premises?”

“Shut up,” Dr. Merrill said.

“It’s disappointing news,” Litchfield said, trying not to grind his teeth. “But it’s no excuse for you to act like a fucking baby, Paul. I had to come in here to wake you because you scared Sherri half to death. She’s still rattled.”

Dr. Merrill grunted. “Let me sleep.”

“This hurts us all, Paul. It will take months before we have another stab at a vaccination pinned down. But we’re all in this together, for Christ’s sake. Get up.”

Dr. Merrill rolled over, turned his back to Litchfield, and muttered, “Get out of here.”

The doctor tried to drift to sleep, but all he could think of were the calls to Agents Perry and Ritchie that had gone unreturned. The bitter voicemails he had left them, cursing and screaming. He put his neck on the line and they betrayed him.

You lied to me,
the doctor thought.
You lied, you lied, you lied.

***

Dr. Merrill heard a terrible pounding. At first he thought it was coming from inside his head, but slowly he realized it was reverberating from the cheap, plywood door at the end of his room.

“Out here, now,” Agent Litchfield demanded as he opened the door.

Dr. Merrill opened his eyes. The room was blurry and stunk. He looked at his watch.

“How long was I out?”

“Too long,” Litchfield said.

Dr. Merrill finally focused his eyes enough to see that Litchfield was in his hazmat suit. “Suit up, now. We need you out here.”

Dr. Merrill stumbled out of his full sized bed and pulled a hazmat suit on. The solid piece of material went on easily—for a moment he recalled the days of duct taping his wrists and ankles at the hospital.

The doctor followed Litchfield out of the department store and into the long, western wing of the mall.

“They should have never killed that Medina kid,” Dr. Merrill said, before letting out a burp that disgusted himself.

“He was on the list, Paul.”

“It doesn’t matter. The vaccination failed, we could have studied him—”

“For fuck’s sake, Paul, shut up. We have bigger problems than that right now.”

Dr. Merrill squinted. “Yeah?”

Litchfield gave the doctor a serious glance through his visor. “You’re never going to believe this.”

After a brisk walk, the two men arrived at the tent that housed Private Olivarez. He was strapped tightly to his gurney. Dr. Merrill looked him up and down at length. His flesh clung firm to his face, his eyes were clear and wide. His teeth gnashed together and clicked as his glance darted from nurse, to doctor, to officer, to nurse….

“
How long was I out?”
Dr. Merrill asked again.

Litchfield groaned. “Nearly a day, Paul. The way you were acting, we thought it was best if we just…let you sleep.”

“You should have woken me earlier,” Dr. Merrill said, studying Olivarez’s face. There were no bruises on his neck where blood should have begun to pool, no tears in his skin. No welts on his face.

Olivarez seemed alert and…irate. He pulled viciously at his restraints. He seemed strong.

“He’s approaching the twenty third hour now, Paul,” Litchfield said, and he pulled a chart from the foot of Olivarez’s bed.

“Who wrote this?” Dr. Merrill asked, holding the chart above his head.

The staff members in the room all looked at Dr. Merrill with worried faces.

“Don’t everyone speak up at once,” Dr. Merrill yelled. “Who fucking wrote this?”

“I did, sir,” an Army sergeant stated, taking a step forward from the back of the room.

“Who are you?”

“Sergeant Burt Arnold, United States Army, sir.”

“I remember you, you came in with this man—and the other one, Medina, right? You were the one who came in with them last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you filled out this chart?” Dr. Merrill asked, pressing a rubbery gloved finger on the clipboard in his hand.

“Yes, sir.”

“It says here—Private Olivarez, bite wound, right forearm, 7:08 P.M., with yesterday’s date. Yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Merrill glanced around the room and at the troubled faces looking back at him. “Everyone but Litchfield, out.”

Those in the room filed out one by one, each muttering something under their breath as they exited. Litchfield and Dr. Merrill took a seat at the foot of Olivarez’s bed. After some time had passed, Dr. Merrill finally broke the silence.

“What do you think this means?” the doctor asked.

Litchfield swallowed. “I don’t know, Paul.”

Dr. Merrill looked up at the wide, round analog clock on the wall directly above Olivarez’s twisting, hissing head. 6:22 P.M.

“What do we do?” the doctor said.

“We wait, Paul. Let’s just wait.”

Dr. Merrill thought of all the infected patients he had visited over the past eight months. With minor variations of five or ten minutes, they all died within twenty-three hours. Their skin drooped from their body, they became weak and frail, their extremities turned to jelly. They fell apart.

6:31 PM. Olivarez looks like he could run a marathon.

6:42 PM. Dr. Merrill gives Agent Litchfield a solemn, worried look. Each minute that passes feels like an eternity. Angered by their presence, Olivarez directs a frightening roar towards the men at the end of his bed. His screams are agonizing. Barbaric.

6:58 PM. The only sounds that Dr. Merrill can concentrate on are that of his own heartbeat and the ticking clock above Olivarez.
Tick, tock, tick,
and
thump thump, thump thump, thump thump.
Occasionally, the ticking and thumping are punctuated by Olivarez’s hisses, cries, and moans of anguish.

7:00 PM. Twenty-four hours have passed and Olivarez still shows no sign of relenting. The second hand of the clock pulses ominously, each movement echoing in Agent Litchfield and Dr. Merrill’s ears.

Tick, tock, tick.

About the Author

Robert Barnard
lives in Orlando, Florida with his two cats, Conan & Bella, and his dog, Lady. In 2014 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Legal Studies from the University of Central Florida.

When he isn’t writing, he enjoys reading, playing guitar, collecting retro video games, attending pop-culture conventions, and at least several other hobbies you would imagine an author of zombie fiction enjoying.