Degeneration (25 page)

             
“Your cell phone!
CELL PHONE!
” Richard screamed, agitated.

             
Terry
blinked and
fished his cell phone out of his fr
ont pocket, fumbling with it in his hands
.

             
“S
till no signal,” Terry muttered.
He tucked the phone back in his pocket and staggered towards
the
p
ounding door.

Richard watched him walk towards the door
, frightened.
He
ran towards Terry, shoved the gurney out of the way, and pushed
him
away from the door forcefully.

The pounding against the door intensified.

             
“Don’t
fucking touch m
e!” Terry yelled. He erupted into a coughing spasm and staggered back towards the door.

             
Richard
’s words fell into hysterics as he begged Terry not to open the door.

             
There was a gunshot outside.

The pounding against the door immediately ceased and the only sound echoing in from the hallway was the sound of laughter in the distance.

“Get out of my way,” Terry said. He pushed past Richard and carefully turned the knob.

The door flung inward as
the
teen girl
rushed into the room, knocking Terry down onto his back. She straddled
Terry
and pinned him against
the floor, holding his arms down with her lacerated hands.

Terry looked up at her blood-smeared
face and screamed.
He struggled in his sickly state, but she kept him pinned down.

Richard stood frozen in horror, trying to calculate his next move.

The
girl
lowered her head
closer to Terry
and vomited
directly
on
his face. C
oagulated chunks poured into his gaping mouth and
covered his eyes.
After she finished regurg
itating her bloody bile
, she
immediately lost interest in him
and turned her head towards Richard.

Richard panicked, turned, and grabbed
one of the
metal IV pole
s next to the
gurneys.

The girl leapt off of Terry and darted towards Richard, reaching
out for him with bl
ood-
s
tained fingers, screaming.

Richard swung t
he pole at the girl and struck her in the side of her head.

Her head co
ntorted to the side with the blow and she went stumbling backwards against
one of the gurneys.

Richard raised the IV pole above his head and
brought
it down against the top of her head,
hard, repeatedly.

The girl
’s feral screams stopped and she collapsed
against
the
floor. B
lood began t
o pool out of her shattered skull
.

Ter
ry rolled over
onto his hands and knees,
dry-heaving
.

The laughter in the hall continued unabated. There was another gunshot, closer.

Richard stared at the blood-streaked pole and threw
it down. He
ran ov
er and closed the
room door
.
He
stared down at
his trembling hands and leaned
against the closed door, heart beating madly
.

Someone
from the hall started pounding against the door.

Ric
hard bolted away it.

Terry
slowly
stood up, trembling,
shirt caked with vomit.
 

“What was wrong with her?” Terry asked, voice shaking.

Richard wrung his hands together and started pacing back-and-forth in the room, staring down at the ground.

Terry stared at Richard, coughing, heart beating wildly.

Richard stopped pacing and pointed up at the television.

“You saw the news. Remember the quarantine? That’s what this is about… That… flu virus or whatever they were calling it,” Richard said, pointing at the dead woman. “That’s what this is! The virus on the news!”

You’re smart, Richie.

(Stop mocking me.)

No, I’m being genuine. You always were smarter. I mean that.

(I know you are mocking me, Andy. Stop it!)

No, I’m not mocking you… but he is.

Richard looked at Terry and saw that the man had a smile across his lips.

             
“You’re… serious aren’t you?” Terry muttered. He
let out a roll of f
rightened hysterical laughter. “You honestly think that this is the
flu
?! You’re fucking insane!”

             
He thinks
you’re a
lunatic
.

             
Richard spun
Terry
around and pinned him
aga
inst the wall.

             
That’s right, kill him.
You can’t trust him.

             
“Shut up
!
Shut up! Shut the fuck up!
” Richard screamed into Terry’s face.
“Stop laughing at me!”

             
He’ll never stop. He thinks you’re insane!

             
“Shut up, Andy! You’re not really him!” Richard shouted, spitting as he yelled.

Terry paled as he stared into his homicidal eyes and weakly tried to struggle free
but Richard
kept
him pinned
firm
ly against the wall
.

“Stop… let me go… please…
” Terry cried.

Richard pressed his forearm
against Terry’s throat, gagging him
.

Do it! He thinks you’re a fool!

             
“
I said SHUT UP!
Look,
I don’t care what you think about me, but w
e have to get the hell out of here. I have a plan. It’s simple, but it’s a plan. And to do it, we have to leave this place. You can either come with me, or stay here.”

Richard relaxed his grip some, and T
erry gasped for breath
. The
frantic
pounding at the door continued.

“I don’t know how things look outside
the hospital
, but I imagine it’s not good
if the hallway is any indication
. So if you do come, be ready to fight
. These people… are sick and crazy. They butchered each other in the hall. There is blood everywhere
,” Richard
said
as he lowered his arm and let Terry go.

Yo
u should have snapped his neck. Those doctors and their pills really did castrate you, didn’t they? You’re going to let this man disrespect us? He called you crazy!

“Stop it… just…. Shut up,” Richard muttered to himself.

You can’t shut me up anymore. I’m here to stay, brother.

Terry sat on the gu
rney, coughing, rubbing his
throat.

“So… um… a
re you coming with me or are you staying here?” Richard asked.

             
Terry glared at him, and then stared
down at the dead woman, saying
nothing.

Richard picked up the bloody IV po
le
and reached for the doorknob with one hand while holding the IV pole like a spear with the other. He slowly turned the knob.

“Get ready, I’m opening the door,” Ric
hard said
.

“Jesus! Don’t
!” Terry cried
.

The door flung open and a doctor rushed in with half of his fa
ce gnashed off. He lunged
at
Richard, snarling and yelling.

Richard shoved
the man
back
wards
and drove the IV
pole through the doctor’s mouth. T
he pole
shot out
the back of the doctor’s
skull, coated with
gore.

The
impaled
doctor f
roze, collapsed backwards
, and slid
down
off of the pole.

“Fuck,” Richard muttered to himself. He
quickly backed away fro
m the corpse, trembling, gripping the bloodied IV pole. He looked over at Terry.

Laughter echoed from down the hallway.

There were two more gunshots, making Richard and Terry flinch.

             
“I don’t want to stay
in
here
with them,
” Terry
said as he
pointed
towards
the
two
corpses o
n the floor
. “What is your plan?”

             
“W
e
’ll
go to Butner,” Richard whispered.

             
“
Butner? Why?” Terry asked in disbelief.

             
“I’m going to break my brother out of prison.
I’m not about to let him rot away inside a cage, starving to death, jus
t because the world is
going to hell,” Richard whispered while peeking out cautiously into the hall.

             
Terry scoffed.

             
“And you assume that the guards will simply
…
hand him over?” Terry whispered back.

             
He’s mocking us, again.

             
Richard tried to mask the rage that contorted his face.

             
“
I’m going on
the assumption that they’ve either turned into homicidal lunatics like the people in here or that they left the inmates behind to die
,” he
said
coldly.

             
“So you assume this…
virus or psychosis or whatever… made it all the way to
the piss-poor town of
Butner
and got inside the prison
? And
that your brother survived the virus,
somehow
,
if it did?”

             
Richard clinched his fists tightly around the bloodied IV pole.

             
“My
…
brother is a fighter
.
And if I am wrong, and if it’s s
till business as normal and virus-free at the penitentiary
, then I will simply continue on my way north far away from this shit. Butner is right along I-85, which is a
straight shot into Virginia.”

             
Richard paced back-and-forth in the room, deep in contemplation.

             
“It’s a dumb idea,” Terry said, coughing, shaking his head.

             
Richard stared at him in disbelief.

             
“What?”

             
“Your plan,” Terry continued, “doesn’t make sense. It’s a stupid unnecessary risk based off your assumption of a situation you know nothing about. Does that spell it out clearly enough for you?”

             
Richard felt his body tense up. His grip tightened on the IV pole and his knuckles turned white.

             
“He’s my brother,” Richard said with forced composure.

             
“I can understand why you want to rescue him, but I think… I think that the best thing to do is to find a safe area of the hospital and wait for help,” Terry said. “They’ll send somebody in here to get this situated… I mean, they have too!”

             
“
HE’S MY BROTHER
!
” Richard yelled, ignoring everything Terry just said.

             
“I get that!” Terry shouted, coughing. “I just don’t think that the best thing to do is to try to go outside in the middle of this killing spree! We don’t even know how bad it is outside… If you want me to stick around, I will, but only if we wait for help. I will not go on some stupid quest to break someone out of prison!”