Pestilence

50

Duncan Adams waited for a long time outside the hospital. He spent most of that time walking around. He went across the street to a convenience store to get a drink. The cashier, who was reading a magazine, looked up.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Duncan said.

“Just so you know, the credit card machine is down.”

“I’ve got cash, thanks.”

He went to the fridge, picked out a chocolate milk, and went to the cash register. He laid the cash on the counter. As the cashier counted out Duncan’s change, he picked up the phone, put it to his ear, and then placed it back down.

“Can I ask you something?” the cashier asked. “Is your phone working?”

“No. No one’s is.”

He shook his head. “So weird.”

Duncan went back to the hospital entrance and sat at the curb, drinking his milk. He checked his watch, and almost an hour had passed. He threw the empty bottle in a trash bin and went inside.

The hospital wasn’t extremely busy, and two staff were talking about how bizarre it was that they hadn’t seen any stabbings or shootings that night. But they had treated a lot of people with the flu. He told them that anyone with flu-like symptoms should be quarantined, and they stared at him as if he were a crazy person off the streets. He decided he had to find Sam. Maybe she could help convince them.

As he walked around a corner, he stepped around something on the floor, slowly realizing it was blood. Cautiously, he followed the small trail around a desk.

A nurse with a hole in her head was lying on top of a police officer. He bent down to check their pulses but then didn’t. Their eyes already had the grayness of death. They had been gone for a while.

He stood up to go notify the staff, thinking they needed the police or more guardsmen at the hospital. Suddenly, another thought hit him, and he nearly lost his breath. Sam.

He ran to the elevator and took it to the quarantine floor. He dashed into Jane’s room. The door hit someone and knocked them forward as Duncan saw the man standing next to the bed, with a pistol in his hand.

Without a thought, he ran at him.

The man fired the pistol, and the bullet grazed his shoulder as Duncan leapt on the man, who twisted him around and flung him into the wall. Duncan ran at him again, and at the last moment, he ducked and grabbed the man’s legs, taking him down.

“Run, Sam!”

Samantha was screaming something, but he couldn’t hear it because the man had slapped both his ears. The intense pain and the ringing told him that his eardrums had been ruptured. But he still had both hands on the man’s firing arm. Samantha picked up a chair, ran over, and struck the stranger with it.

He reached up the arm to the pistol. The stranger was clearly too strong, and Duncan couldn’t wrestle the pistol away. Instead, he stuck his finger over the trigger and fired. Four shots went off, four quiet spits that went into the ceiling. And the gun clicked empty.

The man punched him in the face and then savagely elbowed him multiple times. Duncan’s grip loosened as Sam ran over with something else.

“Run, now!” he shouting at her as the man was getting to his feet. He wrapped both hands around Duncan’s jaw, and the last thing he heard was Samantha’s scream-and the crunch of his own spine.

Samantha screamed and ran out of the room, fear overtaking her. She was sobbing as she ran down the hall to the elevator and pushed the button. The stranger came out of the room and sprinted toward her. She kept pushing the button, refusing to acknowledge him, but she knew she wouldn’t make it onto the elevator.

She backed up against the glass as he ran at her. He wasn’t slowing down, and right before impact, she wrapped her arms around him and pushed back with her legs. His momentum went forward and hers went back, sending them crashing through the thin window.

A sensation of flying hit her, and she twisted to the side before they both slammed into the lawn from thirty feet up.