His eyelids lifted slowly, revealing deep crimson orbs. I jumped back from the bed. The whites of his eyes were filled with blood. Elliott didn’t react. I don’t think he even knew I was there. He just stared at the ceiling, motionless. I stood there breathing heavily, chuckling to myself for having been so squeamish.
Barry and Janet weren’t looking much better. Their skin had begun taking on the charcoal tone, and fresh volcanic sores erupted from their necks. While I stood there looking at the three of them, I felt alone. My new companions were not going to make it. There would be no mutiny. No cryonic uprising. It was just me against the world, once again.
10.
I was thrilled when Dr. Feng finally barged into the room. If there was any hope for them, he was it. The doctors poked and prodded the sick. For more than an hour, they debated and obsessed over the imagery produced by their holograms.
Alex came in next holding a cherry red instrument the size of a soda can. He handed the device to Dr. Feng who used it to generate a hologram of Elliott’s brain. The men in the white coats oohd and ahhd at the image projected. To me it looked like any other brain. Dr. Feng frowned and sat down on the edge of Elliott’s bed.
Alex worked his way over toward me.
“What’s happening?”
At first he spoke under his breath and feigned checking on my machines. “They are really, really sick. The doctors don’t know how to stop it.”
“Thanks, genius. You don’t need grad school to see that.”
Ambushed yet again by my sarcasm, Alex whipped his head in my direction.
“It’s something they’ve never seen before. Some sort of variola virus.”
“Tell Feng to give them some antibiotics.”
Alex rolled his eyes. He looked over his shoulder. The men in the white coats were too focused on their work to pay us any attention. He loosened up a little.
“Are you serious?”
“Sorry, doctor.”
“Look, this is something very serious. Shhh, shhh, hold on a second—” Alex paused.
“You speak Chinese?” I whispered, as if that would somehow allow him to listen to me and still hear them.
“Shhhhh! Just a minute. Let me listen.” Alex hung on their every word. “The virus is eating away at their brains. It has specialized prions that are selectively destroying the areas responsible for higher-order thinking.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the lights are on, but nobody is home.”
“How did you pick all that up?”
“It’s what the doctors are saying.”
“You speak Chinese?”
“Of course I speak Chinese. I’ve been living under their rule for ten years. If you don’t pick it up, you don’t do so well around here. Wait a minute, something else is going on.”
The men in white coats were gathered around Elliott, and two were locked in an intense argument. They called Alex over. He fiddled with the dials on the machine and explained something to the group. The entire group began debating. Alex slipped out from the middle of the fracas and came back over to me.
“What is that all about?”
“His oxygen levels are so low that they thought something was wrong with the machine. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t believe he isn’t—” A long shrill beep from the same machine interrupted him.
It was a sound I’d heard before. Elliott was flatlining. The men in white coats panicked. They tried desperately to revive him, but it was no use. Then Janet’s machine went off. The entire team save two men ran to her bedside. They weren’t working on Janet for two minutes when Barry’s machine went off. Half the men at Janet’s bedside ran to work on Barry. It was complete chaos.
Alex ran over to help with Barry, though he kind of just muddled about waiting for instructions from the men in white coats. The doctors gave up trying to revive Elliot and joined the efforts at reviving Barry and Janet. Several minutes passed while I sat in my bed watching the bedlam. I was mostly watching the men in white coats working on Barry. His bed was adjacent to Elliott’s, and it looked like they were going to give up on him as well. That’s when I noticed something moving in my periphery. Elliott’s arm rose slowly from the mattress
“Hey look, look, he’s still alive!” I yelled across the room. I pointed and gestured maniacally in Elliott’s direction. No one paid me any attention.
The same arm reached over and grabbed hold of one of the men in white coats. Elliott pulled the man backwards until he fell on top of him and then he wrapped his other arm around the man and held him tight. Once Elliott had a good hold on him, he took a vicious bite out of the man’s neck. I ran over to Elliott’s bed on instinct, more for Elliott’s sake than anything. If he wanted to maul our captors, that was fine with me, I just wanted to make sure they didn’t retaliate.
The doctors ran to their colleague’s aid. He screamed and flailed, kicking his legs in the air as he struggled to break free from Elliott’s grasp. Blood came gushing forth from his jugular in rhythmic pulses, splashing on the men’s lab coats. As soon as they got the victim loose, they held Elliott down and activated the restraint system, which held Elliott firmly in place. Alex froze in horror.
Elliott looked mental. A thick glaze dulled his eyes, and his pupils were hyper-dilated. He was taking hurried shallow breaths, and strained to lift his head as high off the mattress as the restraints would allow. Saliva gathered around the perimeter of his mouth, and anytime someone came near he groaned at them and gnashed his teeth.
“You! Back to your bed!” Dr. Feng barked. He pointed toward my bed.
When I didn’t move quickly enough, he and the other doctors grabbed me by the arms and pulled me down onto the mattress. Dr. Feng stomped on the pedal that activated my restraints.
“Perhaps now you’ll stay where you belong,” Dr. Feng hissed.
Dr. Feng ordered two of the men in white coats to take Elliott’s victim away for treatment. Janet and Barry lay there just as they had before, silent and unresponsive. Dr. Feng observed Barry closely. He searched for a pulse and pried his eyelids open to check his pupils with a flashlight.
“They’re dead, genius,” I jeered. “You and your machines took great care of them. Way to go.”
Dr. Feng didn’t even look in my direction. He studied every inch of Barry. The instant Barry opened his erubescent eyes, Dr. Feng restrained him. A moment later, Barry was moaning and snapping his teeth at Dr. Feng.
Feng pointed and yelled to his colleagues at Janet’s bedside, imploring them to restrain her before she reanimated. As he held his arm out above Barry, the sagging sleeve of his loose lab coat dangled just within Barry’s reach. He craned his neck and bit down tight on Feng’s sleeve. Once he got a hold of the sleeve, Barry snapped his neck back so hard it pinned Feng’s shoulder to the mattress. Feng propped a foot up against the bed and used it along with his free hand to push against Barry’s grasp. Their tug of war swayed back and forth until the sleeve tore free from the lab coat, flinging Feng backwards into the metal frame on the side of Elliott’s bed. He slumped to the floor in a heap, his derriere landing right on the pedal that controlled the restraint system. The restraints retracted, and Elliott sprang into action. He chomped down hard on Feng’s shoulder. Feng shrieked and pulled away. A jagged chunk of flesh tore free from Feng’s shoulder and hung limply from Elliott’s mouth.
Dr. Feng scrambled to his feet and backed away from Elliott in a panic. When he turned and ran out the door, Elliott lumbered off after him. The remaining men in white coats left Janet’s bedside and gave chase down the hall and out of sight, save one who was caught by Janet’s arm and dragged to the ground. The men in white coats had been too distracted to restrain Janet. She was still during Feng’s episode, but came to life just in time to grab the doctor’s leg as he bumped into her on his way out. Janet hung on tight to the man in the white coat. He kept on running, pulling her out of the bed and onto the floor. She got a hold of his foot with
her other hand and pulled him down. She flipped him onto his back, held his arms down with her legs, and proceeded to devour his face and neck. His desperate cries were choked with blood. It wasn’t long before they stopped. Janet kept on eating, pulling and tearing at the flesh with her mouth and hands.
Alex stood petrified in the corner of the room. I heard bones crunching while Janet tore into the man in the white coat. I didn’t know why the other cryonics became homicidal cannibals, but I knew if I stayed strapped in that bed I’d be on the menu.
“Al,” I said just loud enough for him to hear. I was trying not to draw Janet’s attention, since she was positioned between Alex and me. I motioned with my head for Alex to come over. He shook his head.
“Get over here!” I yelled through gritted teeth. Janet didn’t even look up. Neither did Alex. He stared at his feet like a child.
“Are you just going to let her eat us?” I struggled against the straps.
Alex looked like he might cry.
“Well, are you?”
He didn’t even look up.
“Come on, now . . . grow a pair!” My volume made Alex nervous. He placed an index finger across his lips, pleading with me to keep quiet. “Oh, oh, I see! You want to watch her eat me, don’t you?” I screamed.
Alex trembled and shook. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he clasped his hands together, pleading with me to stop.
“Jaanet, ooooh Jaaanet . . . come and get me, Janet!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Big Al wants to watch you rip me apart!”
Alex started shuffling anxiously along the perimeter of the room like his shoelaces were tied together. He fixed his gaze on the floor, save an occasional peek in Janet’s direction. She paid him no mind. When Alex reached the middle of the room and was nearest to Janet, he was forced to maneuver around a large machine. This pushed his path even further in Janet’s direction. When Alex came near, she stopped eating for a moment to glare—a lioness guarding a fresh kill. Alex closed his eyes and kept on shuffling, opening them only when the restraint release pedal was within reach.
As soon as the straps were off, I ran toward the door. Alex opened it, and we shot through the door into the hallway. The hallway was empty and quiet, just as every other time I’d been in it. But this time there were bloody footprints stamped along the corridor floor.
11.
“What now?” I asked.
“Um, we need to get out of here before they quarantine the building. They’ll seal it off, and we don’t want to be inside.”
“Won’t they come looking for us?”
“Probably. Depends on how long it takes to clean up this mess.”
“Hold this open for me.” I cracked the door to the room and peeked inside. Janet was still on the floor, gorging on the man in the white coat.
Alex hugged my waist and tried to yank me back into the hallway. “What are you doing?” he grunted.
“Just keep the door open. I’ll be right back.”
I wriggled free from Alex and tiptoed into the room, making my way toward Barry’s bed. He was still a rabid dog, growling and biting at the air, spittle flinging from his mouth. I surveyed my surroundings for something long and settled on an IV stand. I loosened the knob on the side of the stand and extended the pole as far as it would slide. I tightened the knob and held the stand out above the release pedal for Barry’s restraints. I paused to judge the distance. I figured I had roughly a seven-foot head start on a horse that was going to be quick out the gates. I took a deep breath and let go of the stand, turning for the door before it hit the ground. As I dashed for the door I could hear the whine of the retreating straps and could feel Barry’s clumsy feet stomping on the linoleum. Alex held the door as requested and I slipped through the crack, turned, and slammed it shut. I could hear pounding on the other side of the door that sounded like more than one person. I must have riled them both up. When I peered through the observation window, I saw Barry and Janet pounding on the door and running into it like a couple of mental patients.
“What was that for?” Alex was furious.
“Just making a bigger mess,” I said with a smile.
“All right, let’s go. I know a way out.”
We ducked through a door just down the hallway from my room. On the other side was a concrete stairwell. It was cool and a bit damp in there. I heard screaming and banging on the floor above us, haunting sounds that seeped through the walls and echoed within the concrete passageway. We ran down three flights of stairs before we reached the ground floor. Alex cracked the door, and we peered outside. It was a marble-floored lobby, and daylight shone through the glass doors of the building’s entrance just ten paces to our left. Two macabre figures in orange hazmat suits waddled through the front door. We pulled the door tight as they made their way past us.
Alex cracked the door again and peeked out.
“You see anybody?”
“No, it’s clear.”
“Let’s run for it.”
Alex swung the door open, and we ran for the entrance. We opened the building’s glass entrance doors and stepped outside where we were greeted by the hissing of air brakes. I grabbed Alex and pulled him over a short cement wall that ran perpendicular to the edge of the building’s façade. A large black personnel carrier climbed the curb and parked against the building’s steps. A dozen soldiers leapt from the back of the truck and sprinted toward the entrance, forming a human blockade in front of the doors.
We hid and sat with our backs against the wall.
“We need to get out of here, now,” Alex whispered.
“Shouldn’t we wait until those soldiers leave?”
“They won’t. As soon as reinforcements arrive, they’ll set up a perimeter around the entire building while the hazmat crews work inside. No one gets in or out.”
“And if they catch us?”
“We’re the exception. They’ll put us back in there until the quarantine is lifted.”
Images of bloody teeth and fiery eyes flooded my mind. There was no way the soldiers were getting me back inside that building alive. “Well, what the hell are we gonna do? We can’t just run for it. They’ll see us.”
With nowhere to go, we exchanged nervous glances between looks over the wall’s edge. I could hear the roar of truck engines approaching from down the block. We were sitting ducks. My newfound freedom was looking like it was going to be short-lived.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no.” He put his hands over his ears to drown out the sound.
I put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and peered over the wall. Two of the building’s doors popped open into the backs of the troops guarding them. Three female orderlies burst out the openings and over the fallen troops only to be tackled by the other soldiers. Groups of soldiers held each woman down. The soldiers picked the women up and carried them kicking and screaming back into the building. The women pleaded with the soldiers, pointing at the building and making biting and clawing gestures.
“Now’s our chance.”
I grabbed Alex by the collar and dragged him away from the building.
“What’s going on?”
“People tried to escape. Just stay low.”
We stayed low to the ground, struggling to move quickly without drawing the soldiers’ attention. Trucks pulled up as we reached the side of the building. We stood and broke into a sprint. It was still early enough that there were few people out on the street. Still, we cut down an alley a few blocks from the building and didn’t stop running until we were a good mile away. Alex put his hands on his knees and wheezed in and out with each breath.
“Here, here, put your hands behind your head. There you go, now look up at the sky—it’ll help you breathe.”
I propped Alex up behind a dumpster and looked up and down the alley. The alley was quiet and still and there were no signs of anyone pursuing us. Even though the reeking trash was overpowering, freedom smelled sweet.
12.
As we moved through damp alleyway
s and crisscrossed city blocks, I was surprised by the familiar surroundings interrupted occasionally by tall, undulating towers plated in translucent solar panels.
“Are we in Harlem?”
“Yes, we are,” Alex answered while looking nervously behind us.
“I can still recognize the place. I used to come here a lot on business. Where are we going?”
“My apartment.”
“You think it’s safe?”
“Better than staying out on the street dressed like this. We need to get you in some normal clothes. Plus, it’ll take them a while to piece together that we aren’t in the building. I know some other places we can go later on.”
“Where is your place?”
“Couple more blocks. It’s over on a Hundred and Twenty-seventh.”
The streets were bustling with late-morning traffic. As we waited to cross One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, I watched the morning commuters making their way to their destinations and began to feel as if I was in China. Everyone behind the wheel of a car was Asian.
Alex led me to the third floor of an ancient brownstone with cracked walls and a weathered, dilapidated front door. Alex’s apartment was a reflection of himself. It was uncomplicated, carefully organized, and sparsely decorated.
I leaned against the back of a sagging maroon couch.
“How’d you know they were going to seal off the building like that?”
“Oh. I’ve seen that happen a thousand times.”
I gulped. I read too many comic books as a kid, and my mind flooded with horrific images of futuristic societies where all hell has broken loose.
“Really? A thousand times before? People attacking each other and all that?”
“For heaven’s sake, no. I’ve never seen anything like that. I meant the quarantine. The government is always putting up quarantines—buildings, city blocks, even entire cities at times. A lot of the warfare these days is biological. You have two sides that want each other’s territory and, by and large, they want it intact. Especially here. The Chinese government has weaved their operations into the city. They keep us Americans living here working for them, which keeps the US military from destroying the city. I don’t know if they’d be willing to take out New York anyway, but at some point I’d bet they would do it if it would help them to get the country back. With a couple million civilians still living here it takes wiping the city out off the table.”