Infected (2 page)

Rob waved to their babysitter Melissa, who had to get to her second job. She waved back, pulled away, and beeped.

Kayla came up and threw her arms around Rob's waist. He hugged her back. “Ready?”
 

“You really have to work late?”

“I've got that conference call,” Rob said. “When I'm done we'll go home, pop some corn, and catch something on Nick, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

In the distance, not two miles away, he saw St. Mary's hospital, lit up like an ocean liner on the vast, calm waters. It was nearly seven P.M. and the fall breeze raked his neck. His conference call would be starting in a few minutes and he needed to hoof it upstairs. If not, Ramsey would have his ass.

They passed through the lobby, Rob's shoes clicking on the marble floor. Everything echoed in here, and the lights never seemed to penetrate the corners of the nearly one-hundred-year-old building. They rode the elevator to the eighth floor, Kayla taking out her iPod Touch and fooling around with the apps.

His cell rang, and he answered it as he got off the elevator. It was Emma.

“Hey babe,” he said.

“What's up handsome? I'm over at St. Mary's. Kayla get there okay?”

“She's at my side as we speak.”

“I'm taking care of a few things then I should be off after that. Still up for tonight?”

Emma had bought a box of goodies from Adam and Eve, something to liven up things in the bedroom. It had come in a plain brown box and she wouldn't tell him what she ordered. “You bet your sweet ass.”

“Save your energy.”

“You're bad. See you later. I gotta run.”

“Tell Kayla I love her. She'll probably conk out before I get home,” Emma said.

“Will do.”

He took Kayla to his desk, where he worked as an insurance claims analyst for Ramsey. His boss, and owner of the building, insisted on a conference call with their office on the West Coast.

“Will you be long?”

“About an hour. Hopefully not more. Got stuff to do?”

Kayla nodded.

“Good. Here,” he said, and dug two dollars out of his pocket. “You can go down to the seventh floor and grab something from the vending machine. But come right back.”

“Got it,” she said and took the two bucks.

Now to get this over with. Ramsey could be a long-winded bastard when he wanted to.  Rob had popcorn to eat with his daughter and after she was in bed, a night of debauchery with his wife. Or so he hoped.

Carl Faust leaned against the basement wall of the Ramsey building, pulled out a handkerchief, and spat a wad of yellow phlegm into it. He felt like dogshit warmed over. Chills racked his body, he couldn't stop sweating, and his lungs felt as if they had been filled with hot coals.

He'd been doing maintenance here for thirty-one years and had only missed one day, and that was due to passing a kidney stone. Plus his fortieth wedding anniversary was coming up and the kids were probably planning a surprise something for him and Pauline. He couldn't be sick.

What had he come down here for? Mousetraps. That's right. The cafeteria staff had complained about the critters. He coughed again, this time feeling as if something had torn loose inside his chest, a searing pain that radiated into his arms and groin. He fell to his knees, leaning on an old office chair for support.

His vision began to dim, his head spun, and all went dark.

Chapter Four

The sight of the man who had been Marty was making George's skin jump and dance. The guy's breath had become a wheezing rattle, and his freaky eyes made him look like something out of a horror movie.   Sweat ran down George's back. The sooner they got this over with, the better.

He walked alongside the gurney, which was being wheeled by a petite nurse in purple scrubs. The doctor had shot the man up with something to sedate him, but George wasn't taking his eyes off of the mutant. And he sure as shit didn't want any disease the guy carried.

They made it to x-ray, which was just down the corridor from the emergency room. As the nurse wheeled the gurney into the CT room, George saw a beefy man dressed in scrubs. His forearms were tattooed and he had a braided beard.

The nurse said, “This is Randy. He's going to help get our patient onto the machine.”

The nurse wheeled the gurney parallel with the CAT scan table, Randy moving to the end near Marty's head, and the nurse staying at Marty's feet.  They unstrapped him.

“On three?” Randy asked.

The nurse nodded. “One. Two...”

Marty's eyes opened. He slashed at Randy, the nails digging into Randy's neck and spraying blood on the floor. Dammit he was strong. Now the thing that was Marty sat up and looked around the room. To George, the thing looked like it wanted another victim.

Blood continued to pour from Randy's neck and he fell backward over the CAT scan table, staining the sheet and pillow red. The nurse screamed and backed away from the gurney.

The Marty thing rose from the gurney, swung around, and hissed at George. He unsnapped his holster and drew his Glock, but the creature (that's the only way he could think of it) slapped the gun away. It grabbed his wrist and threw him across the room. He smashed into the wall, amazed at how easy the creature had tossed him.

With a hiss, it loped from the room.

George shook his head. His shoulder throbbed and as he got to his feet, his back cracked. He scooped up the Glock and said to the nurse: “You have a code for something like this?”

She nodded.

“Call it.”

He went after the creature, Glock in hand.

In the basement of the Ramsey building, Carl Faust opened his eyes. His chest didn't hurt anymore and the chills were gone. He got to his feet. The smell of flesh and warm blood filled his nostrils. There were people in the building.

He would find them.

“Son of a bitch phone,” Jerry Ramsey said.

Mary Henderson watched her boss slam the receiver down on the base, the old man not able to get the conference with the Sacramento office working. She didn't care about the conference. In fact, she couldn't stop yawning.

What she did care about was sitting across the long, walnut table and his name was Ryan Madden. He was twenty-four, two years older than Mary, and he'd started here six months ago. They'd had their first roll and tumble in the back seat of her car a month after he started.

Ramsey, the boss, said: “We boring you, Mary?”

“No. You need my help with the phone?”

Ramsey frowned, his bushy eyebrows knitting together. “This is my damn building and I can't even figure out the phone.”

“Can we take a break while you figure it out?” Mary said.

The boss exhaled, then muttered “fuck” under his breath. “Take fifteen while I try and get this working. I'll e-mail Sacramento and let them know we're trying to get the phone up.”

“So you're going to try and get it up?” Mary asked.

Ramsey laughed, the dirty old bastard. Comments like that usually kept her in his good graces.

“Go take a break. You're too much.”

Rob Ross, the office's senior analyst, rolled his eyes. Screw him if he didn't like it.  She intended to work her way up to vice president. It beat living in her parents' beat-to-hell mobile home and cleaning up after their incontinent beagle, Teddy.

“Ryan, want to take a walk?”

“Cool,” Ryan said.

“Fifteen then head back here. Hopefully I can get this fucker working,” Ramsey said.

Mary and Ryan got up and left the conference room. She saw Rob's daughter – whose name was Kaylie  or Kate – sitting at Rob's desk. She was playing with an iPod Touch and humming a Taylor Swift song. Cute little thing.  She looked up and gave a little wave as Mary walked past. Mary waved back and the girl resumed playing.

Mary looked back, Ryan following with hands in pockets. When she was sure they were out of earshot, she said, “Our usual place?'

“We only have fifteen minutes.”

“That's okay. You can be quick.”

“Hey, that's not fair.”

“You want to or not?” Mary asked.

“Hell yeah.”

They took the elevator to the third floor, which was mostly empty. They got off the elevator and went to the end of the first hallway, where Mary had found an open office. They slipped inside the office, which smelled of new carpet glue, and closed the door. There was a desk inside, and Ryan pushed it against the door.  When he turned around, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard.

He returned the kiss, his lips tasting like wintergreen. His hands moved to her ass, squeezed. She let out a moan. They kissed harder, Ryan sitting her on the desk and she felt herself getting wet. She slipped her hand in his crotch. Nice and hard.

His hand slid up her inner thigh, her skin feeling supercharged. She had no panties on, and he slipped his finger inside her. She shuddered.

The thud at the end of the hallway made her tense up. “What was that?”

“Never mind,” he whispered in her ear.

A door slammed, and she pushed Ryan away. “We're going to get caught.”

“Haven't been caught yet,” he said, moving back in, but she put her hands on his chest.

“Cool it. Listen.”

She heard a low grunt coming from the hallway and it seemed to Mary like remaining quiet would be a very good idea. Ryan opened his mouth to say something and she slapped her hand over his mouth. “Shut up.”

The sounds grew louder, someone dragging heavy feet across the hallway carpet.
Shoosh. Thump. Shoosh. Thump.
Then it stopped right outside the door and she had the distinct impression someone was standing and listening. Her heart did a speed metal beat in her chest. 

Mary said, in a whisper: “Someone's outside the door.”

“So what?”

Mary pulled her skirt down and slid off the desk. She began smoothing out her blouse, just to have something to do with her hands. “Quiet.”

The same noise started up again.
Shoosh. Thump.
Except this time it was moving back down the hallway.  

The two of them waited another five minutes before Mary urged Ryan to move the desk. If they didn't get back upstairs, Ramsey would chew them both a new asshole. Ryan pulled the desk away from the door and Mary noticed the pouty look on his face. “Relax. You'll get more.”

They opened the door and went into the hallway. A thick, heavy odor wafted through the corridor, something Mary could only think of as a combination of body odor and garbage.

“Who the hell was out here?” Ryan asked.

“I'm supposed to know?”

“Lucky I didn't jack him up.”

“Honey, you weigh a hundred sixty pounds. No offense, but the only thing you're jacking up is a car.”

“I been working out.”

“Benching a hundred pounds yet?”

“Screw you,” he said, and stalked down the hallway.

Maybe she'd gone too far, but he was always a bit of a mama's boy when it came to teasing. He could never trade verbal jabs with her without getting soft. Nevertheless, she followed him down the hallway and would apologize to him later.

Chapter Six

Kayla Ross had played
Angry Birds
for twenty minutes, and when she'd gotten bored with that, she decided a snack sounded good. Dad's office always had strawberry Twizzlers in the vending machines, and she hoped they weren't out.

She wanted his meeting to end soon. Dad always made the best popcorn, even though it was from the microwave, it still tasted best. Sitting next to him on the couch made it taste better.

Kayla took the elevator two floors below and followed the signs that pointed to the cafeteria. She opened the cafeteria doors and turned on the lights. The far side of the cafeteria had a kitchen that served up hot foods. Next to that was the vending machines. She moved across the cafeteria, her sneakers squeaking on the floor.

While she was trying to decide between Twizzlers and Skittles, she heard a bang out in the hallway. Kayla looked back at the door and saw a shadow pass over the glass window. She turned around and watched the door. There wasn't supposed to be anyone in the building, was there?

The door started to swing open and Kayla scurried behind the lunch counter, where empty bins waited to be filled with hot mashed potatoes and gravy. Or at least that's what she liked to imagine. She ducked and waited. Behind her were the double kitchen doors.

A shriek reverberated through her bones, and she wondered if some sort of animal had gotten into the cafeteria.

She heard someone shuffling across the floor. The person grunted every so often, sounding like the apes they'd heard at the Buffalo Zoo last summer.

She jumped as something crashed. It sounded like someone had tipped over a table. Why did she have to come down here? She should've stayed up at Dad's desk. And what did the person want?