The Infection

“When the first Infected woke up and spread out into the city, the first responders brought the victims of the violence here, to the hospital,” says Ethan. “Gift-wrapped for the rest.”

“It looks like some concerned citizens then showed up and firebombed the place,” Wendy says, kicking at the ash and raising a small cloud of black dust.

The place gives them the creeps. The hospital seems eerily deserted except for the charred dead. It is not hard to imagine doctors and nurses hurrying across this noisy room to greet hardworking first responders bringing in broken and dying people for life-saving treatment. But this is where Infection started. After the Screaming, the people who fell down were brought here and to the ad hoc clinics. Three days later, they woke up and slaughtered and infected the people who had been working around the clock to keep them alive. They slaughtered and infected their own families coming to visit. Then they went out into the city in the early morning hours, driven by the virus’ simple programming: Attack, overpower, infect.

Now it is a killing floor. A dead place. Sarge regards a wheelchair crumpled in a corner, the walls above it riddled with bullet holes. Wall-mounted electronic medical devices hang uselessly. Disturbed by movement, black ash swarms in drifts in the air, acrid to the nose and bitter on the tongue.

Ethan studies the faces of the other survivors, searching for encouragement and finding none. The others look as damaged as he feels. The place has an almost supernatural aura about it. As familiar as the hospital is in some ways, in many ways it feels like the unknown.

♦

Paul wishes the dead had come back to life to eat the living. That there was truly no room in hell anymore and the end of days had come. Because then there would be evidence of a supernatural cause instead of just a bug created in a lab by men to kill other men. There would be evidence of a hell and true evil and Satan. And if there is a Satan, there is a God, and if there is a God, then death is not the end, but the beginning. Man’s suffering over a lifetime is nothing compared to an eternity of bliss in God’s direct presence. To see the dead rise is to see the end of days and with it, the end of faith—the beginning of certainty. With such certainty, Paul would willingly walk into the embrace of the dead and let them tear him apart and eat him. Did Christ not suffer more on the cross? What use is this old fleshly cage when paradise awaits the spirit?

His wife had always laughed at him when he would watch quasi-religious films about Satan visiting the earth and trying to trigger the end of the world, only to be stopped by an action hero with a shotgun. He would cheer for Satan to get on with it. He would yell at the action hero: Why are you fighting God’s plan? Let Satan win already so we can all go to heaven!

♦

“We can’t stay in this room,” Sarge says, finally breaking the spell. He crosses his arms and nods to Anne. “What’s our next move?”

Anne shakes her head, looking back at him with raised eyebrows.

“We treat this like climbing a mountain,” Wendy says. “It’s too big. So we conquer it in stages. But first we need a base camp.”

“Sarge has military experience, Wendy,” Anne says quietly. “I think we should ask him what he thinks we should do.”

Sarge nods at the transfer of authority, which he expected. “There are some simple tactics for taking down a building. Wendy, that analogy of yours was actually very good.”

“Go ahead, Sarge,” the cop says. “It’s your show.”

“All right,” he says. “Here’s how I see it. There are three things we need to do. One: secure a piece of this building for ourselves. Two: strip it down of anything that we can use that will keep us alive. And three: avoid obvious signs that the building has new ownership. We all agreed on that?”

The survivors nod.

“The crew and I will get the rig under cover. Out of sight, but not too far. Anne and Paul, find a janitor’s closet and get as much bleach as you can. Then find a broom.”

“You want us to clean this room?” Paul says, incredulous. “Just the two of us?”

“No. Later on, we’re going to make it exactly as it was before we showed up. We’ll need to get rid of our footprints and we’ll need the broom for that. Okay?”

They nod.

“And while you’re doing it, take a look and see what kind of supplies might be around that we can come back for later,” Sarge adds.

“Got it,” Anne says.

“Wendy, Ethan and the Kid will go up to the third floor, seal themselves in, and then start clearing it of anything living.” Sarge grins. “Then we all get to do some cleaning. We will need to scrub that level from top to bottom with bleach and air it out before we can move in. But only the rooms on the side of the hall away from the windows. Don’t clean the rooms with the windows, since again we don’t want to advertise to anybody that the building has new ownership. Just seal those rooms and leave them. Okay? Once we get all that done, we can do some exploring.”