And then everything they saw on the way over. All that unexplained violence. And what made them any different? Why weren’t they affected by whatever it was? His head starts to swim as the questions build up faster than he can come up with answers. And for every question he can’t answer several more take its place until he feels like he is suffocating under it all.
He jumps up out of his chair and exhales forcefully. He rubs his hands into his face and walks to the kitchen.
“You alright man?” Isaiah asks. It’s like they are just taking turns being the sane one. They are keeping each other from losing it in their own stride.
“Yeah, I’m OK,” Daniel replies, “It’s just all of this. It’s too much. I can’t even think. I mean it’s only been like an hour since we were just sitting there.”
“Yeah I know what you mean. It’s going to be OK though. I’m going to see what I can get on the TV.” He grabs the remote and presses the power button. The TV turns on and a wash of static fills the room.
Daniel grabs a cup from the counter and fills it with water. He is hungry but his stomach is so knotted he knows he wouldn’t be able to eat anyways.
Isaiah flips through a few channels only getting dead air for a while. “I’m just going to keep trying man, there has to be something.” He continues flipping through the channels.
Daniel sits down heavily in a chair by the kitchen table and absently traces circles on the dark wood. Trying to think of anything other than what is going on out there.
4
Reverend Jackson shifts in the reclining chair, the worn, brown leather is warm to the touch, comfortable. It creaks under his immense girth. He reaches onto his desk and picks up a picture of his family, his beautiful wife and their 7 year old daughter in her school uniform. She loves school so much and she is doing well, art classes are her favorite.
He lets out a sigh and sets the picture back down. Stacks of paper, mostly emails and pictures from his sizeable congregation cover the desk in a haphazard fashion.
Rain beats against the windows drowning out the world outside. The sirens stopped a few hours ago. He isn’t sure if that is a good thing or not. It is unlikely the police have been able to fix everything. Like something straight out of Revelations, hell has literally broken loose on earth this day. With shaking hands he grips his Bible as tight as he can, willing his body back into his control.
He is alone in the church long after everyone else has left. When they first got the reports of what was going on he sent them all home. He knew they needed to be with their families and he wishes desperately that he could do the same.
But God has other plans for him.
A heavy camera waits across the room, cables running from its bulky black side and snaking their way through the office into the wall. It looks as though a hurricane has hit the place but in reality this is something far worse. Nature can throw some nasty curveballs but whatever this was, whether man made or legitimately a curse of God, it will not be over quickly. And the death toll is sure to be huge.
Being a Reverend he has seen a lot of bad things, he knows the depths of human depravity and has helped a lot of people in very difficult situations. This is different. This is not something he can help. This is the end of the world and probably humanity with it.
He curses himself silently for not trying harder. Oh, he has worked. He is a faithful man but he can’t help but think that there was something wrong with all of this. God was supposed to take him out of here before all this happened.
Why are he and his family still stuck here then?
He shakes his head. He can’t allow himself that type of thinking. He needs to be level headed as he delivers his final sermon, and in his heart he prays it will hit with the force of Biblical Isaiah for anyone who might catch it.
Jackson has a contact inside the local news station and this camera will play anything he says on TV, at least to a couple local channels. It might not reach many people, but at least it will be broadcasted immediately.
Reverend Jackson shifts his body again trying to focus on the next several moments. He knows what he needs to do and he just wants to do it. He reaches onto his disaster of a desk and grabs the remote for the camera. Looking into the blank lens he blinks a few times and swallows a deep breath that tastes like bile.
“Lord help me,” he mutters and flips on the camera. The blinking red light glares back at him. He is live now. Maybe no one will ever hear this but he has to try.
“To anyone hearing this,” he pauses gathering his breath one final time. “Today God has struck down our unbelieving world. We are being judged for our sins and the time to repent is now.” His hand falls heavily on his Bible and he continues on as he leafs through the pages.
5
The sun is going down and clouds have moved in letting in a heavy rain. Isaiah is still flipping through channels, desperate now, when something finally comes through. “The time to repent is now.” They catch the end of a sentence as a heavy set man slams his hand on a worn Bible.
“Hey Sasha, Valentine, come out here. We might have found something,” Isaiah calls to the back room. They dash out of the room, curious as to what he has finally found. Sasha sits down next to Isaiah and mutters in his ear about Chloe falling asleep.
They all watch the TV as the Reverend continues talking on screen.
“We have lived too long without regards for His holy law. We debase Him with our actions and our lives and this is the judgment for those actions.” He speaks emphatically, his charisma all but shouts that he is accustomed to addressing large crowds. “Most of you watching this will have seen what happened out there today. In just minutes people everywhere lost their minds! They gave in to their evil nature and attacked each other in the most cruel and inhuman ways possible. You must repent now! The Lord is taking his due from us, and it is being done with our own hands.”
He stops and takes a ragged breath. “In old days we were punished with the great flood that wiped the earth of sin that had so corrupted it. This flood is one of human destruction. Look at the bodies in the streets. Look at the way we have spilled each other’s blood on this day and seek forgiveness. God has spared some of you for His own purposes, and you will turn to him or die with those heathens in the streets!” He is practically screaming as he finishes. “It is declared in Revelations…”
Isaiah turns the channel and shakes his head. “Just like those religious freaks to use this to get some attention.”
White noise from the TV static fills the room. If there is a God where is He, wonders Daniel.
Valentine stands up from the couch as the TV goes back to static. “Um, I’m going to make some dinner are you guys hungry?” She tries to change the subject. None of them think they can eat but they know they need to.
“Yeah that would be nice,” Sasha responds for all of them. “We can wake up Chloe when it’s ready.”
“I’m going to see if there is some actual news on here,” Isaiah says and goes back to flipping through the channels.
Daniel sits, his mouth pressed into a tight line. He isn’t overly religious but his grandpa always believed in all of that stuff. He would drag him to mass as a young man and the guilt never really left him even years after he stopped going. He still attends, only on holidays, but saying he believes would be a long shot.
“Can you help me?” Valentine asks him setting her arm on his shoulder. She must have seen him brooding. She is trying to get him moving so that he doesn’t get swallowed by his own grief.
Daniel follows her into the kitchen. She offers him a knife. “I need these cut into cubes.” She slides over a cutting board and a bowl of washed, red tomatoes.
Sasha is on the couch running through her contacts list, trying to get anyone on the other end. Occasionally someone will answer and there will be a brief conversation. Then she hangs up the phone and tries the next one.
“Is there anyone you need to call?” Daniel says, dicing the tomatoes.
“I should call my sister,” Valentine says, “She lives in Oklahoma.”
“Here let me take care of this, you try and give her a call.”
Valentine gives Daniel’s forearm a small squeeze and grabs her phone off the counter. It rings for a while before she cancels the call and sets it back. Tears brim in her eyes, but she maintains her composure.
“I’m sure everything is fine,” Daniel says. Dread sits in his stomach like a knot, maybe everything isn’t fine. Maybe this is happening everywhere.
6
Harsh fluorescent lights glare in the corridors of Denver Health. As a trauma hospital this close to Downtown there is never a shortage of patients. Victims of crime or situations that arise on job sites are the most common. Of course there are always other more unusual events, kids trying to fulfill a dare, exes gone on a rampage, or the ones who tried to commit suicide and couldn’t quite get it right. Today however, is even busier as the victims from all the random violence pour in.
It’s an impossible tide of patients.
Whatever the problem is doesn’t make any sense yet. The doctors are saying that large groups of people are suddenly becoming afflicted with something, they aren’t sure how to label it yet, that causes victims to lose all higher level thinking and become extremely violent.
All those affected died within minutes to cardiac arrest as their body literally destroys itself from the inside out. The victims of this senseless violence still need to help though. The police are swamped trying to get all the injured to hospitals which are already over full capacity.
Ashley even heard one of the doctors say that a plane crashed downtown. How the fuck does that happen she wonders, don’t they have fail safes for that type of thing? Whatever it is, she knows it’s big and the bodies just keep coming in.
She scrambles through the hall, already it is 3 hours past her normally 12 hour shift and this is to be her last check in.
Her scrubs hang from her thin body, she has always been small and finding scrubs that fit seemed so impossible that she at last settled for these bulky ones that could just as easily have been a large trash bag.
Her patient is in room 259 and as she passes through the intake hall she sees it filling up with even more people.
Children scream for their mother’s attention. Businessmen talk on cell phones, young couples sit holding hands, crying. The usual madness of the hospital is reigning supreme here, a fevered pitch of barely maintained chaos.
As Ashley stops to grab her uptake information on her final patient three cops burst through the entrance of the hospital half carrying half dragging a man who looks to be in his early twenties. He has what looks like bite marks on his arms and neck.
Shortly after entering the doors, his head hanging like he lost all consciousness, the cops slump him into the first chair they can find, pushing another patient out of the way. A doctor rushes into the room to check on him and as Ashley is leaving she catches the doctor’s words.
"What happened to this man?" asks the doctor, tired stress evident in his voice.
The cop in charge replies, "We were out on a distress call. He was attacked by a homeless man who must have been hopped up on PCP or something. When we got to the scene he was literally trying to eat him. We were forced to detain the man and take him into custody. Even my partner took a bite to the forearm trying to subdue him."
The injured cop brandishes his arm, wrapped in gauze that has bled through to form a dark red ring. “The whole force is out there right now,” he says, “there’re problems everywhere.”
The doctor eyes the patient closely and calls for a stretcher to take him into ICU.
That is all Ashley hears as the doors swing shut behind her. Deciding that it is just another crazy story to add to her list of already crazy hospital stories she finds her patient. As she enters the room she notices that the bed is empty and that the sheets have been strewn across the room.
The guy must have gone to the restroom. Ugh people can be such morons, she thinks, now I have to pick up after this guy, I can’t be a mom and a nurse at the same time. Although most days it would appear that has become the extent of her life.
After cleaning up the room and still not having the patient come out of the restroom she decides to knock on the door and see if there is an issue.
The small bedside table still holds the man’s breakfast. A half-eaten mess that has been thoroughly smeared across the tray brings a slew of words to Ashley’s mind as she pushes the tray out of the way of the door. Taking a deep breath she checks her intake form for the patient that she only skimmed before.
Name: Jason Fuller, 30 years old, blah blah blah... useless information. The part that catches her attention seems to jump off the page this time though. Injury: several unexplained bite marks, high fever and delusional behavior.
She doesn’t miss the connection with the crazy in the entry room.
As Ashley nears the door she hears a low moaning coming from inside. What is going on today? People must be losing their fucking minds. Ashley knocks lightly and asks, "Jason? Is everything OK?"
When nothing but moans continued to come from the room she asks again, "Jason? I’m just here to take your vitals. Is everything OK?" It sounds almost like he is scrapping against the door and Ashley tries to push it open to see what is happening.
She is able to force it open, but she feels it knock Jason to the ground. Horrified that she might get in trouble for hurting a patient, she swings it open and begins apologizing profusely. The words fall dead on her lips however as she sees Jason for the first time.
His pallid skin is devoid of all color, a deathly grey like the corpses in med school. His arm has a gaping wound as if someone just reached over and chewed into the meat of his forearm. He is only 30 years old but his ashen skin made him look like he had come out of the wrong side of a grave.
Ashley bends down to try to check Jason’s pulse. As she leaned in he grabs her arm in a lunge that is too fast for her to escape. His moaning grows louder and he takes a deep bite into her shoulder. Ashley screams and pushes herself off of Jason. All concern for injuring him gone.
He is easily 50 pounds heavier than her but his grip was clumsy. The move causes the bite to take a chunk from her should. Ashley looks down to see the damage on her shoulder, she is stunned. The pain feels distant, like it is happening to someone else. There is no fucking way.
She has had a lot of patients do really stupid things but this has to be crazier than all of them.
Jason begins moaning again and tries to move towards the door but Ashley back pedals and slammed it in his face, whoever this freak is he is going to pay.
Rage and bright pain fill Ashley as she tears down the hallway trying to alert security. When she finally rounds the corner to the elevator she sees that it is several floors up and doesn’t look to be moving in her direction. Ashley winces as the pain in her shoulder causes her to stumble and catch herself against the wall. She decides that it would be better to just take the stairs and takes off towards reception.
When she finally makes it back a whole new type of chaos had erupted. Patients with the same dead look as Jason are attacking everyone in the room. Several cops have their guns drawing and are screaming for everyone to stop but the crazies don’t seem fazed. They just keep on their rampage of violence.
Ashley screams again when she sees that even the cop who was bitten earlier is attacking his fellow police. She spins around on her heels and runs from the room trying to get as far away from this hell as she can manage.
Panting she runs down the hall past several other nurses who are also running. It’s like the world has gone crazy in only minutes. She explodes out the east door she hears gunshots echoing down the halls from where the police must be in the waiting room.
The pain in her shoulder flares again and Ashley stumbles into the street just trying to escape. The glare of headlights stuns her, and it is just long enough for the massive truck to clip her as it flies past.
Her body is thrown to the ground like nothing more than a stuffed doll. Another flash of searing pain as her side is dragged along the pavement overwhelms her senses. Ashley’s eyes slowly fade shut as her shallow breathing fails to provide her brain with enough oxygen. Blackness claims her finally and she feels herself fade away.