The Infected (Book 2): Karen's First Day (15 page)

“There is an infection spreading quickly through bites.
It’s chaos out there.” Troy let go of Valerie’s hand and pulled at Poole’s cell
door to see if he was truly locking himself in. He had. The door did not budge.

“So you’re just going to sit there and do nothing?” Karen
stepped closer to the bars.

Poole carefully laid out his cards to begin his game.

“Families are dying! You need to do something!” Troy
kicked at the bars.

Poole sat on the bed with a straight back. Karen got a
strong military vibe off Poole. He struck her as the type that got up early
every day, even if it was his day off and his bed would be perfectly made
before ever stepping a foot outside.

“Please.” Karen’s desperation filled the room.

“I had front desk duty this morning. We had thirty
officers calling in for backup by eleven. In half an hour there was no one left
to send. I was supposed to retire this year. Me and my boat, fishing every day until
I die. That was the plan. I have no interest in getting torn apart to save a
couple of people.”

“We have kids here!’ Karen implored.

“I’m not stepping outside this cell until the Army has
cleared the area.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Troy grunted at the old
man.

“Not my problem.” Poole laid out card after card until
his game was set and ready to play. He never once looked up at his guests.

Time seemed to drag for Karen. Seconds felt like minutes.

She was about to fall over, “Could you please look at my
wrist?”

Poole turned over a king of diamonds. He took a deep
breath and chewed at his bottom lip.

“Come on Sergeant Poole. Help the lady out.” Leon let go
of his bars and moved to his bed to lie down.

Poole flipped over a queen of clubs and placed it on the
king, “There is a locker room to the right of the office. It has medical supplies.
There should be a field guide on injuries. Help yourself.”

Valerie let out a cough.

“Give the kid a lozenge. I have a bag in the center
drawer of my desk. I don’t want her driving me nuts with that cough,” grunted
Poole.

Troy led Karen back to the office and helped her down
into a chair.

“You girls be good while Uncle Troy looks for something
to help your Mama’s hand.” Troy kept the girls occupied with their own rolling
chairs. The children took turns spinning each other as Karen closed her eyes
and tried to drift away.

Using what little energy she had left, she transported
herself through time and space to a 2007 Las Vegas trip she took with Jim. It
was two years before Valerie was born and it was the last time the couple had
gone on a real vacation. Jim had saved money for a year and they spent the
whole week at the brand new Wynn Hotel and Casino. They never left the property
for the whole four days they were there. They spent their days by the topless
pool, soaking up the hot summer sun with a cold drink in their hand. At night
they ate at the best restaurants the hotel had to offer. Then they did a little
gambling, a little drinking and a lot of love making. It was the best
pre-children week of their lives. The memory helped her float out of her
contemporary body and into a place where there was no more pain. No death. No
infection. No injured wrist. Only the warm feelings of the sun and the love she
shared with her soul mate that week so long ago.

The dream was interrupted by Troy as he crashed through
the locker door. Slung over his shoulder was a red duffle bag with a white
cross on it.

“I got it.” Troy rushed to her side. She could hear him
talking but she was no longer able to respond. The little ones looked over his
shoulder as he unzipped the bag and dug through the contents.

“Is that the medicine?” Valerie inquired as she touched
her uncle’s shoulder and leaned in to get a better look.

“Mama, medicine,” Robin said as she pointed. It was time
for her hourly update.

Karen nodded her head and muttered, “Mm-hm.” 

It was enough to confirm the update for Robin. The
toddler dropped to her knees and helped her uncle take out some of the packed
supplies. Troy found a textbook style medical guide at the bottom of the bag
and some generic aspirin. He pulled a dirty coffee cup off of one of the desks,
ran back to the locker room, cleaned the cup, filled it with cold water and ran
it back out to Karen.

“Here’s some aspirin and water.” Troy handed over the
pills.

She popped them into her mouth and took the cup of water
with her good hand and drained it. Troy opened to the table of contents and
found the section on dislocations. He carried it over to the desk next to
Karen. He read and studied the photos.

In his late teens Troy had become the man of the house
when his parents separated and he stayed with his mother. Fixing appliances,
yard work, routine car maintenance and carpentry all became his responsibility
and he faced it head on. He took great pride and comfort in repairing broken
items. It made him feel complete when he was in charge of the organization and
upkeep of the home. He never visited a shrink or took a psychology class in
college, but it didn’t take a genius to recognize that a child of divorce loved
a sense of control. Even if his power to control only extended to the perfect
organization of the garage, it still felt great for Troy to know everything had
its place and he was in charge. This was the main reason he excelled at his
job. He was a shipping and receiving clerk at a major electronics company in
Vancouver. Products and paperwork had to be precise. You misplace a box and
there went ten thousand dollars of equipment.

Troy read and reread the section on dislocation for half
an hour. He held up the example photos next to Karen’s wrist. He calculated an
eighty percent chance it was dislocated and not broken. He poured over the
chapter on how to set and properly wrap a wound like this. Once his brain ached
with knowledge, he put the book down, rubbed his eyes and walked over to his
sister. Karen had put herself into a light trance. She was no longer able to
carry on a conversation or parent her children. Her eyes opened only when Troy
took her by the forearm to look over the now purple colored wrist.

“Okay, I think I got this,” Troy said as he put on a
brave face but his sister could see the truth. This was not something in either
of their wheelhouses. She was just getting used to the kids skinned knees and
bumped noggins. This was another level of injured she had never experienced.
She didn’t have a lot of choices. It was not like she could run across town and
ask for another doctor’s opinion.

Karen muttered, “Do it,” and turned her head away from
the carnage. Troy got a good grip on her forearm and then around her fist. He
didn’t give her a warning. He just pulled.

POP!

Karen’s screams filled the building.

“Mama, you okay?” Was the last thing Karen heard before
she passed out.

Penny stared out the front window of her home. It had
been thirty minutes since Troy had dropped her off. He left to get Karen, the
girls and god-willing, Jim would be home too. It was silent in her house. The
only sound was of her nervous breathing. Outside the house was a different
story. Screams and sirens filled the neighborhood. Someone on this block was
being murdered. It was difficult to tell where the cries were coming from. Maybe
three houses down. Maybe two. This nightmare was moving closer.

She had forgotten her phone at work. She didn’t really
forget it. Troy grabbed her and forced her out the front door. He didn’t wait
for her to gather her things. Years ago she’d had the landline turned off. It
was a waste of money. No one ever called her except for telemarketers.

No cell. No landline. She was on an island. All alone. No
way to know if anyone was ever coming. Penny limped over to the front door to
double check that it was locked. Her ankle was acting up again.

Maybe it was going to rain?

She reached out and pulled at the door. The sore ligament
in her shoulder ached. She hurt it eight years ago. It wasn’t a car accident or
a bad fall that injured her. She was putting a box of cereal away and lifted it
up onto her refrigerator. Then her shoulder popped and that was it. She needed
surgery to get it back to one hundred percent.

Next month she was finally going under the knife to get her
muscles stretched or ligaments tightened or whatever they were going to do to
fix her. The door was locked, of course. It was locked the last time she
checked it and the time before that. Her anxiety had been building all
afternoon. She could feel her heart beating in her chest. It reminded her to
take her blood pressure medication.

She was in her early sixties and falling apart. She had
watched her mother go through the same thing twenty years ago. Penny limped
back into the kitchen, got her pills and a cold glass of water. She tossed the
medicine into the back of her throat and chugged the water.

The sound of an explosion blasted through her
neighborhood. The noise scared her so badly she dropped her drink mid-sip. It
shattered on the hardwood floor. Bits of glass spread from the dishwasher to
the dining table in the next room. 

“Shit,” she cursed as she leaned over her countertop and
moved in closer to the kitchen window to get a better look outside. A mushroom
cloud loomed in the distance. Judging by the size of the cloud and its location
from her house, Penny suspected that her favorite gas station was no longer
open for business.

Damn, they had the best cheap coffee.

A full fifty cents cheaper than any other station in this
zip code. A car sped down her street. It was streaked in red. It took her brain
three beats to calculate what was covering the vehicle.

Blood.

She hated the sight of it. Blood always made her sick to
her stomach. The back of her throat had begun to fill with saliva. After seeing
that much blood she thought she was going to vomit for sure. It had to do with
the fact that it was pumping through your organs and without it you were dead
meat. Seeing it on the outside of the body where it does not belong made her think
about death.

Even just thinking about thinking about it made her sick.
Penny high stepped over the glass to the broom that rested against the corner
wall of the kitchen. She worked at sliding the shards into a small pile. Busy
work always helped calm her nerves. As she pushed the pile of glass into the
dustpan then she emptied the dustpan into a half full garbage can under the
sink. She thought about emptying the dishwasher. More busy work to keep her
mind off nagging thoughts.  

Where were her children and grandbabies?

On the quick drive from her office back to her home she
had seen many horrific acts of violence. She had been born and raised in the
South and every Sunday went to church with her family. She had listened to
preachers talk about hell and damnation. Some of the church leaders would go on
at great length about the types of tortures a sinner might encounter by the
hand of the devil. When she was twelve years old the church got a new preacher.
Preacher Jenson, he loved to go on and on about the devil tearing you apart,
putting you back together just to tear you apart the next day. What Penny saw
happening to her fellow humans on the ride home, the biting and tearing of
their flesh, was spot on with Preacher Jenson’s idea of hell.

Penny opened the Whirlpool dishwasher and rolled out the
top rack. The clanking sound of the porcelain bowls banging together as she
stacked them on the shelf was normally as soothing as a rainforest soundscape
to her.

It wasn’t working this time. No matter how empty the
dishwasher and sink were she couldn’t turn off her brain. She was going nuts. Forks
and knives rattled in her shaking hands as she dropped them into their proper
slots. This was how the start of a nervous breakdown would begin. The next step
was mumbling to herself all of the different scenarios that could happen to her
children. Cursing out loud was the next step to the breakdown.

“What the hell is going on?”

“I can’t believe this shit.”

“It’s a goddamn mess.”

“This world is so fucked up!”

Throwing f-bombs around meant she was at the tipping
point and she needed to go lay down in her recliner and start her deep
breathing exercises. Otherwise she might pass out. Penny left the kitchen with
the Whirlpool half full. As she exited the room she turned on the teapot she
got herself for Christmas that year. A strong cup of tea would help.

She worked her aching body down onto the soft recliner,
put up her feet, closed her eyes and concentrated on relaxing.

Everything is fine.

Traffic is bad and holding them up.

They will be here any second.

Everything will be okay.

Don’t worry about not having a way to contact them.

Don’t think about them getting killed or torn apart by
those monsters.

Don’t think about your grandbabies being scared and
alone.

Or dead!

“Damn it!” she cursed at her brain. She started off so
good and then tripped right back into the negative thoughts. Every minute that
passed drove her a little crazier. She knew how long it took to get from her
place to Karen’s and back.

They should be here by now.

She needed to try again to relax. This time she should
focus on the warmth of Valerie and Robin’s hugs. The little extra slobber that
came with every kiss from their sweet puckered lips. She had to focus on the
heart-warming sound of her daughter’s laugh. The bass of Troy’s booming voice
as he said “Hello Mama.” All of those thoughts calmed her hyperactive heart.

All of the anxiety Penny was trying to squash in her mind
and heart felt like the same level of nervousness she had twenty years ago on
the first night without her husband. She was all alone, just her and the
children. The divorce was about to be final and Karen and Troy’s father had
taken a new job on the other side of the United States. It was up to her now to
find a job and finish raising two teenagers. The responsibility was crushing.
The fear kept her up late most nights. But the first night alone was the worst.

At three in the morning she couldn’t take it anymore.
Penny climbed out of her bed and snuck into her thirteen year old daughter’s room.
Karen woke up enough to make space for Penny in the bed.

Young Karen whispered to her Mama, “I love you and don’t
worry we’ll be okay.” 

It was exactly what the nervous Mama needed to hear.

Penny had relaxed so deeply on her recliner that she
finally fell asleep. The whistling sound of her teapot woke her. She fought her
way out of the recliner and back into the kitchen. She turned off the pot and
the loud whistling came to a stop. Penny picked up a box of teabags and worked
one out of its package. She placed the bag into her favorite cup and poured the
hot water over it. She needed to let it steep for a few minutes.

Something moved outside in her backyard. It put her on a
razors edge. Something moved again past her back sliding glass door. It was a goddamn
chicken.

I need to put those little buggers up or they might
attract one of those sick people.  

Maybe I should wait for Troy or Karen to do it?

Troy had told her to stay inside. Penny walked slowly
over to her sliding glass door. Half a dozen feathered friends pecked at the
ground outside their cage. She rubbed at her temples and then popped her
knuckles. It was a routine she would do every time she was planning something.
A little rub and pop before making a decision. 

She looked around the backyard and everything was totally
normal. Two chickens started to fight over the same worm and they made a lot of
noise. That sealed it. She had to put the ladies up for the day. The heavy
glass door was hard to get moving on the dirty track. She had to use both arms
to get it going and both to get it shut.

She had left the door open once while she was watering
her plants and two of the chickens let themselves right into her house. Penny
thought for sure they were going to shit everywhere and she had a hell of time
wrangling them up and getting the two buggers back out. From that day on no
matter how bad her shoulder hurt she made sure she shut the door after her. 
 

She called to them quietly, “Here chick, chick, chicky.
Here chick, chick, chicky.” Penny snatched up one of the gals from the ground.
It let out a loud “Bock!” She entered the cage area of the coop and helped the
chicken back into its home. Troy and Jim had helped her build the coop and cage
a couple years back. They had worked on it in the hot summer sun for a full
week. The coop area that the gals slept in was four by six feet wide and the
cage was ten by twenty feet. The cage area where she was standing had chicken
wire running from the ground to the slanted roof that stood six and a half feet
high. The wood in the cage area was stained a dark brown and the coop was
bright red. The structure dominated the backyard.

Penny plucked four more chickens from the ground and
dropped them off in their home. She heard a loud scream coming from somewhere
in her neighborhood. It sounded like a man calling for help. He was crying for
someone to save him.

Penny moved quickly across her backyard. At five foot two
she was way shorter than the fence that surrounded her yard and it gave her a
feeling of invisibility. She had been favoring her sore ankle and her adjusted
walk was putting a cramp in her other calf. Every step was so painful she
looked crippled as she fought her way over the uneven ground of the backyard
towards the last chicken. Her little egg-producing friend was hiding behind a
shrub and Penny had to give it a little kick to get it out of its hiding spot.

She carried the last lady back into the coop and dropped
her off with her sisters. Penny slid the door shut to the coop, locking them in
for the rest of the day. Something was on the other side of her fence. She
could hear the sound of footsteps crushing her flowers and kicking the bark
dust. Penny was still inside the cage of the coop and thirty feet from her back
door.

She held her breath and listened.

The steps moved closer to the gate. A set of fingers
curled up over the top of the fence. Penny’s heart came to a full stop. Its
head inched above the edge of the fence. Black eyes sat hollow in its skull.
Fresh blood encircled its unshaved mouth. It was missing teeth. It was the
creepy satellite salesman that tried to scare the shit out of Karen earlier
that day. Its black eyes spotted Penny inside the chicken cage. It pulled
itself up and over the fence in one fast move and crash-landed face first in
the dirt.

Penny raced for the coop’s open gate, but the cramp in
her calf and the sore ankle slowed her. It crawled along the ground on all
fours until it reached the chicken wire cage and pulled itself up off the
ground. Penny knew she wouldn’t make it to the house so she pulled the chicken
coop’s gate closed a second before the beast got there. Its body smashed into
the fence and it shook the whole cage.

“Someone! Help!” Penny sounded like all of the other poor
souls calling for help in her neighborhood. No one came to their rescue.

Would anyone save her?

She couldn’t lock the gate from her side. The latch was
hooked to the outside post. Penny could only pull it closed, but it left her
fingers exposed through small holes in the chicken wire. The infected tossed
its body over and over into the cage door. It noticed her pink digits poking
through the fence. Penny pulled her hand from the fence as its teeth grinded on
the thin metal wire. Its mouth played a horrible game of hide and go seek with
each of her hands. It would bite at her and she would pull her hand back a
split second before its disgusting mouth collided with the gate.

After only a few chops and near misses it dug its fingers
in between the fence wall and the gates opening. It pulled and yanked on the
fence with all of its might. The wire dug deep into Penny’s skin. Her grip was
about to give.

“Go away!” she begged. This was her first up close look
at an infected human. The open wound on its neck made her sick. The idea of it
touching her body sent her gag reflex into overdrive. She wanted to puke, cry
and shit her pants all at the same time. Tears formed and clouded her sight. Her
mind raced. She looked behind her and a metal bucket, half-filled with chicken
feed, sat on the ground. It was the closest thing to a weapon within arms reach.

The thing yanked the gate from her grip. As she stepped
backwards, Penny reached down and picked up the metal bucket and swung it. The
thing stepped into the coop’s cage, its arms reached out for Penny’s soft skin.
She backhanded the bucket at its snapping jaw. The metal rim at the bottom of
the bucket caught the back of its jaw and spun it like a top. The chicken feed
exploded into the air. It covered her and the monster with white powder and
dried corn.