Degeneration (45 page)

             
The strobe lit again, revealing Medford standing in the center of the room, face badly lacerated and bleeding. He was holding a screwdriver and giving a toothy skeletal grin. He took short gasping breaths, stepping back slowly.

             
“You’re… too late, Colonel,” Medford said, voice shaking in-between his manic chuckling.  “It’s all hopeless, don’t you see? I’m saving you from yourself! False hope is a dangerous thing…”

“No, you’re just a sick, selfish fucker,” Mathis murmured, lowering his weapon. “Give me the door code and I’ll make it fast for you. I’ll keep you from turning into one of them.”

Medford stared a moment, mulling on his thoughts.

“4… 2… 7…
1…
”
Medford strained before laughing again.
“
Not that it even
matter
s…. I ruptured the air tanks! You will die here, just
like me…
Just accept things for what they are.
”

Mathis stepped towards the doctor and raised his pistol as the strobes flashed again.

“Make it quick,” Medford said, holding his arms out at his side and closing his eyes.

             
“No, I’m not going to die here. You forgot a tank,” Mathis said, smirking. The strobes lit. He nodded towards the oxygen canister attached to Medford’s suit.

             
Medford’s face sunk and he quickly reached down to–

             
The room went dark.

             
Mathis blindly fired three times. The pistol’s muzzle flash briefly bathed the room in orange light.

             
The doctor made a wheezing noise and then collapsed against the floor.

Mathis reached down and removed it from Medford’s suit.

He then fumbled with his own empty canister and pulled it off of his suit abruptly. He attached the full canister to his suit and opened the valve, taking a deep breath of the pure air.

             
He turned towards the door.

             
Richard was standing silhouetted in the doorway with his pistol aimed at Mathis. He took a deep breath and fired.

             
The shot narrowly missed Mathis and struck the wall in the back of the room.

             
“Stop! It’s me!” Mathis shouted.

             
You missed him, you idiot!

             
Richard pulled the trigger again–

             
‘CLICK’

             
Mathis shoved through the doorway past Richard and ran out into the hall. He grabbed the depleted pistol out of Richard’s grip and hurled it across the hall.

             
The pistol went skittering across the floor out into the customer service lobby.

             
Richard stepped back, frightened, weaponless.

             
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Mathis exclaimed. “I said that it was me! You need to stop being so jumpy before you get us both killed!”

             
“I thought… I thought you were one of them,” Richard lied. “It was dark in there.”

             
That’s right, play nice and buy some time until you get your hands on another weapon. He’s a risk, Richie. He left you behind! We can’t trust him!

             
“You left me behind back there!” Richard yelled.

             
“Quit being so needy and lose that victim mentality. I had to get the door code from the doctor,” Mathis said flatly, annoyed. “Besides, you handled yourself alright. You didn’t get bit,
right
?”

             
Richard shook his head no like a scolded child.

             
In the distance, Mathis heard the infected and the vaccinated cadavers fighting, devouring each other. Judging by the sound of it, it wasn’t clear which group was winning, but he had no intention to stick around and discover the victors.

             
“Hurry before they make their way back here,” Mathis said as he walked over to the ‘Operations Section’ door. He punched ‘4271’ on the keypad and the door’s battery-powered lock disengaged.

             
Mathis entered the room slowly with his pistol drawn.

             
Richard followed, habitually wringing his hands.

             
Behind them, in the storage room, Medford coughed, choking on his own blood.

             
The room labeled ‘Operations Section’ was once the loss prevention office for the store and was running off of an internal generator. The fluorescent lights overhead were still lit and stale air churned out the ventilation shafts. The room housed a waiting area with a security guard’s desk next to an office door in the corner of the room. The waiting room sofas had been shoved to the side of the room and crates marked ‘US ARMY’ sat stacked in the middle. The guard’s desk was piled with boxes of tightly-packed EMP-hardened satellite laptops.

They didn’t even have time to finish setting up the command center, Mathis noted, shaking his head.

             
The television on the wall was broadcasting a cable news station and the signal was badly speckled with static.

Richard stared at the television, transfixed by the images on the screen.

Mathis followed Richard into the room and closed the door behind him. The electronic device attached to the door locked back into place.

On the television screen, the news camera swept along the expanse of E. 23
rd
street, showing hundreds of people clashing with NYPD officers clad in black riot gear. The air was hazy from the tear gas and smoke that permeated the entire city block. The panicked crowd was jostled with the police officers, trying to force their way into a Walgreens pharmacy. Behind NYPD’s defensive line, people trickled out from the pharmacy’s shattered windows in steady waves carrying armloads of looted merchandise.

             
“Panic continues to grip the streets here in New York City despite the government’s repeated assurances that no cases of, what is now being dubbed, ‘Piedmont Influenza’ have emerged outside of North Carolina’s affected areas,” a pleasant sounding female voiced-over the footage. “It is important to stress once again that there has not been a single reported case of the illness outside of the state since the first cases emerged inside Raleigh. With the recent widespread and uncontrollable rash of forest fires that northern North Carolina is experiencing, believed to be caused by anti-government domestic elements, it is doubtful that anybody affected with the flu will be able to leave the affected area any time soon. However, those assurances have not deterred panicked residents in multiple surrounding states to take up arms with authorities.”

             
After a few more minutes of futile jostling with looters, the overwhelmed NYPD riot police officers stepped aside.

             
The swarm of looters, most wearing ineffective paper germicidal masks and latex gloves, flooded past the officers into the Walgreens.

             
“There have been widespread reports of looting throughout
New York
, mostly targeting pharmacies and small doctor offices,” the female
newscaster
added. “The problem has
deteriorated
in some major Virginia cities, where
the
violence has
gotten so bad that news
crews have not even been allowed in
due to safety concerns
.”

             
The image on the screen switched to a well-groomed CNN anchorman sitting behind a newsroom desk with a troubled look on his face.

             
“Very disturbing,” he said, shaking his head. “Are there any new developments out of Harlem?”

             
The image on the screen switched to footage of a large apartment building engulfed by flames.

             
“Nothing new,” the female voice said. “The fires are still burning and have spr
ead to surrounding structures. From what I have been told, e
mergency crews are having a difficult time
responding to the fires due to
the crowded streets in order to get to the affected areas.”

             
The image switched back over to the anchorman.

             
“Thank you,” he said somberly. “That was Patricia Evans with our New York affiliate. We now go live to our affiliates in Portland, where similar scenes of panic and flash-mobs have recently–”

             
Mathis unplugged the television and frowned, looking over at Richard.

             
“See? It’s contained. No virus outside of this hellhole. We need to hurry, though, and we certainly don’t have time to watch television,” Mathis said. “We need to find that DSN connection, so stay focused.”

             
Richard turned away from the screen and upended one of the US Army crates. The top fell off and multiple bottles labeled 'Potassium I
odide
130mg’ spilt onto the floor. He frowned and upended another crate, revealing multiple sealed
Geiger counter
s and radiation suits.

             
Mathis walked over and examined the spilt contents, frowning, but he was not especially surprised.

             
“What does all of this stuff mean?” Richard asked, dumbfounded.

             
“It means we better get far away from Raleigh,” Mathis said.

             
Mathis walked towards the office door next to the security desk. The door was labeled ‘CCTV Room’.  He felt a chill run down his spine when he noticed that the knob was stained with old blood. Slowly, he opened the door and held out his pistol, methodically scanning the room.

             
The CCTV room had multiple folding tables lined up along the side of the room, stacked with refrigerated metallic crates labeled ‘VAC SAMPLE A001’. Rows of camera monitors lined the wall, all of which were speckled with static. A white dry erase board sat at the front of the room, listing evacuation destinations. All of the destinations were crossed out.

             
A circular table sat in the middle of the room, littered with loose sheets of paper. A secured satellite phone and multiple laptops were lined around the table.

             
A man wearing the tattered remnants of an army uniform sat huddled in the corner of the room with his back turned towards Mathis.

             
Mathis let out a loud whistle, aiming his pistol at the man.

             
The soldier slowly turned around, chewing what remained of his left arm. He was gnawing on a thin strip of torn muscle tissue. He had already reduced his left arm to a mangled nub.

             
The soldier, eyes fixed on Mathis, stood and started to lurch towards him, chewing as he moved.

             
Mathis fired a single shot directly into the center of the soldier’s forehead.

             
The soldier’s head snapped backwards as he collapsed against the wall and slid down to the floor.

             
Richard was still staring at the blank television screen, opening and closing his fists.

             
Infected started to pound against the hallway door, snarling. The hall was thick with them.

             
Richard startled and ran into the CCTV office where Mathis was busily pressing buttons on the DSN satellite phone’s keypad.

             
“They’re right outside in the hall!” Richard announced.

             
Mathis frowned and continued to mash buttons.

             
“Yes, I can hear, thank you,” Mathis said, frustrated.

             
The phones screen kept flashing the same error message:

‘Cannot connect with rooftop satellite relay’

             
“Damnit!” Mathis shouted as he slammed his fist against the table.

             
“What’s the problem?” Richard asked.

             
“Something is wrong with the rooftop antenna,” Mathis said, exasperated. “We can’t bridge the connection and get through the disruption signal unless that relay is operational. We’re going to have to climb up there and fix the antenna.”

             
Mathis cursed under his breath and slid the satellite phone underneath his arm.

             
In the hallway, Medford dragged himself across the floor, snaking his way through the besieging infected, determined to make it to the sealed door that Mathis and Richard had entered.