The Plague Years (Book 1): Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here (14 page)

Chris dove behind the retaining wall behind which he was taking cover while the corporal fired three quick rounds from the door into the engine of the Mustang before he too took cover behind the door jam.

The larger man dove for the ground while the smaller got in the car and tried to drive away. Unfortunately, the larger of the two thugs landed almost face to face with Chad.

May 18
th
, Monday, 8:53 pm PDT

Chad was just beginning to think he would live to see his family again when a face with three days growth of beard and curly blond hair plopped down right by the wheel well. The both stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity and then Chad pointed his pistol at the young man’s head and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. He realized with a sickening feeling in his gut that his Colt wasn’t cocked. It had seemed safer to carry it with a magazine in the well but no round in the chamber, figuring he could cock it when it got greasy.

He rued that decision as he reached up to cock the piece. Blondie grinned and reached to grab the pistol just as the slide went home. They wrestled for a second over control of the pistol and then it went off.

Blondie screamed and rolled away grabbing his thigh. There was blood all over as Dave had thoughtfully loaded the pistol with hollow point bullets so the round had entered his leg with a neat little entry hole but had torn out a huge chunk of flesh as it exited.

There was a string of Spanish profanity and the slamming of a car door. The Mustang pulled out, spitting gravel. The engine in the Ford, which had run so well in the chase, now sounded like a lawn mower that had been left all winter with bad gas. Without thinking, Chad aimed and put three rounds in the general vicinity of the rear tire. One must have hit because the car slewed to the left and banked off a light post in the parking lot before coming to rest.

There were running feet as at least three police officers ran from the building.

“Toss out your weapon and come out with your hands up!” said someone over a bull horn.

Chad was not inclined to argue. He safed the pistol and pitched out from under the car.

“I am coming out! Don’t shoot!” he yelled and then began crawling out from under the car. He looked up and saw what appeared to be the Holland Tunnel staring him in the face. It took him a second to realize that it was the business end of a twelve gauge shotgun. Behind it was the familiar face of Chris Vaughn.

“What the hell …” began Chris.

“Chris, it’s not what it looks like.” said Chad.

“If I had a dollar for every time I have heard that, I could retire. Come on, get out of there,” said Chris as he moved the shotgun to his left hand and helped Chad up with the other.

“Put your hands on the hood of the car and spread them. I need to search you.”

Chad was beginning to crash after his adrenalin high and meekly complied. The search was swift, thorough, and professional. He found Chad’s wallet, his shoulder rig with spare magazine, keys and a pocket knife. He was also sure that Chris knew he was circumcised and wore boxers.

“So what gives?” said Chris. “Who are those guys and why do they want to shoot you? Some kind of drug deal?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Chad saw that the other driver was cuffed and being questioned as well. There were medical folks working with the blond man.

“I wish I knew what they wanted. I have never seen them before in my life, and no, drugs were not involved, at least on my side,” said Chad. “The car though, it matches the one that was driven by the guys that took a shot a Clinton Taylor.”

“You know this Mr. Taylor?”

“Yeah, he works at the lab where I do as legal counsel for our non-profit.”

They were interrupted by one of the nurses working on the blond assailant.

“Shit!” said the nurse. “I think he’s got it!”

Both Chris and Chad looked over and saw that the nurse had slit open his pant leg and there were two ugly looking bite wounds, one on the calf and one on the thigh.

May 19
th
, Tuesday, 1:03am PDT.

Mary Strickland was driving her mature Subaru wagon out to pick up Chad at the police station. She was a mix of mad, worried, and frightened. Mad because the phone call she had received from Chad had been very brief; just that there had been a shooting incident, he was fine, but they were questioning him. Worried because Chad had used that reassuring tone of voice that he used when he wanted her to think everything was alright when it wasn’t, and frightened because she had spent too much time watching the news now that she wasn’t working and knew that there were more and more violent incidents with people who were infected with the ‘Zombie Plague.’ She knew they really weren’t zombies as Chad had carefully explained what was known about the disease but it was what the news readers were calling it.

She pulled up in the parking lot of the police station and sat in her car a minute to gather her thoughts. It had been one crisis after another for the last week and she was used up.

“SMASH!”

There was a loud crash and Mary looked up to see her windshield was covered with a spider web of cracks.

“SMASH!”

“Come out of the car pretty lady!” said a voice.

Mary saw that the windshield was worse and it looked like it wouldn’t take many more whacks like that. The voice was coming from a frail looking older man who was swinging a crow bar for all he was worth.

Raising two kids and running a tasting room and restaurant had made Mary good in a crisis. She immediately leaned on the horn and simultaneously tried to start the car.

“Thank God for Chad’s car fetish,” she exclaimed as the engine roared to life.

“SMASH!”

“I know you’re in there, come out, come out!” said the old man.

The crow bar broke through the window but thankfully did not shatter it, but Mary did not hesitate. Even though the windshield was a mass of cracks and now almost completely opaque, she put the car in gear and hammered the accelerator. As she started to roll forward there was a shriek from the old man and a glancing blow on the driver’s side window that cracked it.

She was going almost twenty miles an hour when she hit the back of a parked police cruiser. The Subaru’s air bag deployed, the alarm in the police car went off, and Mary was momentarily disoriented so she was surprised when the old man yanked the door open with more strength than she believed his slight body had.

Now that he was close, she could see the sickly pallor of his face and noticed the familiar smell of rotting meat. It reminded her of the Hollywood type in Bookwalter’s right before she got laid off. This guy had the plague.

“Why don’ you like old Archie,” said the old man as he hefted his crow bar. “I’m a nice guy, I really am. But if you don’ like me then jes one lil whack and it’ll all be over.”

Mary clawed at the seatbelt latch but in her panic, she couldn’t operate it.

“Put the crow bar down and stand away from the car”, said someone with a bullhorn.

Archie turned to look but had to cover his eyes as there was a bright light pointed at the car and Archie.

The distraction allowed Mary a few precious seconds which she did not waste. She looked down and saw that she wasn’t pressing on the release pad for the seat belt but rather the fitting directly above it. She shifted her grip and popped the seat belt. Then she lunged across the emergency brake and into the next seat.

Archie turned and swung his crow bar but the constricted space of the car made it a feeble poke in the rear end instead of a real blow. Spurred by the crow bar, Mary grabbed the release handle of the passenger side door, opened it and rolled clumsily onto the pavement on the other side of the car. 

She heard the “tack a tack a tack a” sound of a properly deployed taser and looked back to see two thin wires stuck to Archie’s shoulder. He looked annoyed more than in pain and brushed the wires away with the crow bar.

Then there was another taser deployed, and another and Archie became rigid and collapsed on the other side of the car.

“Ma’am, are you ok?” said a female voice.

Mary looked up and saw a female policewoman looking down in obvious concern.

“I think so,” said Mary sitting on the pavement shaking her head. She had a bloody nose from her rapid exit from the Subaru but was otherwise fine. Then Chad’s admonitions about infection control bloomed in her mind.

“Don’t touch him!” shouted Mary. “He has it. He has the Plague!”

The police officer looked momentarily shocked and then became professional.

“Yes, Ma’am, we have new procedures about that now. Let’s get you off the pavement. The EMT in our building will check you out.”

May 19
th
, Tuesday, 1:04am PDT.

Chad was sitting in the waiting room at the police station. He had been questioned six ways from Sunday about the two goons who were trying to kill them. He had said over and over that he didn’t know them, and no, there weren’t drugs involved, no they weren’t racing, and no, he couldn’t think of any enemies he might have that would want him dead. After checking his rather spotless driving record and finding nothing other than a couple of parking tickets, they let him go.

He had called Mary for a ride. He was also able to call Vincent’s Garage to have them go pick up his Camaro. Vincent’s had been his garage of choice and when he started rebuilding the Camaro, it was where he took it when things were beyond his abilities. Pete was almost as proud of the result as he was. In the process of rebuilding the car, Pete Vincent had become a friend and fellow hotrod admirer. It was Pete told him not to worry when he called about the car. He would go out, even though it was well after his shop had closed, and pick up the damaged car after the police had released it.

While he was ruminating on the day’s events, he heard a car horn go off followed by a resounding crash. Half a dozen police officers including his friend Chris Vaughn ran by and headed out the door. Chad’s father had told him that when there was a fire engine or a loud crash and you went to look, you forfeited your innocent bystander status so he stayed put.

Moments later, a female police officer came through the door with a disheveled woman wrapped in a blanket. A second look confirmed that it was his wife.

“Mary!” exclaimed Chad as he started to go to her.

A protective female police officer interposed herself between Chad and Mary.

“Sir, please step back …” said the police officer but Mary slipped by her and in a second was in Chad’s arms.

“Honey, what happened?” said an alarmed Chad.

“Some old man with the Plague tried to… I don’t know what, but he smashed the windshield with a crow bar and ….”

“Sir, this is a rough situation,” began the policewoman, “but she does need medical attention and we would like to question her.”

“She’s my wife and hasn’t done anything wrong!” said Chad. He was tired and grumpy from his ordeal and didn’t want his wife to go through the same thing.

“She was just down here to pick me up!”

“Chad, I’ll go with her,” said Chris in a calming voice. “No one wants to hurt her but we want to clear things up. The EMT is right down the hall. I’ll be right with her and as soon as they finish with her, I’ll come get you, promise.”

Chad unwillingly released Mary.

“Sweetheart, go get checked out, I’ll be right here. Chris will keep an eye on you.”

“No, I don’t want ….”

“Maam, did he ever actually touch you?” said a familiar voice. Chad turned to look and saw with a start that it was Lt. Miller, who had conducted the investigation for his son.

“No, just poked me a little with that crow bar,” said Mary.

“Any fluid exchange possible?” said Miller.

“Ech! Absolutely not!” said Mary.

“Folks,” said Lt. Miller load enough to be heard, “there is going to be a change in policy effective immediately. We have six assault cases in here tonight and they all are Plague related. More than half the on-duty officers are writing reports and questioning suspects. We don’t have the manpower to process them all and it will do little good anyway. Take the names of those in the incident who are not showing symptoms and who have not had fluid exchange and let them go. If they are showing symptoms, process them and get them sent to the high school. We need people patrolling, not filling out paperwork.

“Ms. Strickland, if you need immediate medical care, our EMT can see you but if it isn’t urgent, could I ask you to see your own physician?”

“Sure,” said a bewildered Mary.

“Thanks for that,” said Chad to Lt. Miller.

“It’s getting worse just like you said, Dr. Strickland,” said Lt. Miller ruefully. “Starting today, a lot of CYA procedures are going out the window. I am still going require our folks to do good police work but I don’t have the man power to cover all this.

“In fact, Sergeant Vaughn, if I could have my two officers back from the high school, I could really use them.”

“Sir, I wish I could help,” said Chris. “If they mobilize the National Guard, I should get some relief; maybe I can get back on the street too.”

“Be careful what you wish for Sergeant.”