Apocalypse (The Wasteland Chronicles, #1) (5 page)

I went to the bedroom, and lay down on the
corner bunk. It was a while before I fell asleep. After what Chan
told me, it was a wonder I could sleep at all.

I could only hope the morning would bring
answers and resolution.

The next morning, I went to class. It was
hard to concentrate as Mrs. Watson introduced the class to
geometric proofs.

When lunch break came, Khloe walked up to
me.

“What happened last night?”

“It was fine. He didn’t get anything out of
me.”

I turned around to leave.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I need to go see my
dad.”

I stared at the wall, so frazzled by
everything that had happened that I wasn’t sure I could function
anymore.

“Need company?”

I nodded. “Sure. I could use the moral
support.”

Khloe and I left the classroom and headed for
the medical bay. It wasn’t far. We were there within a minute.

But when we entered through the double doors,
it was completely empty. Not even my father’s assistants were
there.

“Did everyone go home?” Khloe asked.

That’s what I thought, at first. Then I
realized…

“He must be with the patient.”

We walked toward the operating room. Through
the small window in the door, the patient lay sprawled on his back,
motionless. But that’s not what worried me. CSO Chan was standing
next to my dad and two assistants. All wore face masks.

We ducked out of the way, before any of them
saw us.

“What is it?” Khloe whispered.

“Chan’s in there,” I said.

“Should we leave?”

“No. I want to listen.”

“Oh, Alex. Do you really want to get into
more
trouble?”

“I’m already in trouble. Besides, this is too
important.”

Khloe sighed. “Fine. I’ll stay too, I
guess.”

I leaned against the door and listened.

“Will he expire soon?”

It was Chan. I heard whispers from the
assistants, followed by my father’s voice.

“Yes. He is dead now, in fact. But the virus
is still changing him. It must take a while before it expires,
too.”

“How is it still transforming him?” Chan
asked, his voice both awed and horrified.

“I have yet to run a DNA sample, but as you
can see, all of his hair is gone. The muscles have thickened, and
an MRI has shown that there has been a great reduction in brain
matter. There are so many changes being made that it is impossible
to take note of them all, much less determine their implications.
But of note is a strange knot forming in the brain, where the
amygdala and hippocampus are. They far exceed the mass of a normal
person.”

“What does that mean?”

“We have no idea. Those areas of the brain
are related to memory and emotion, to put it very simply. Why there
is growth in both of them and deterioration in other areas, I don’t
know. It may not even matter. One way or the other, the patient is
dead. His body temperature is the same as this room. No one could
survive that.”

They were all quiet.

“Well,” Chan said. “Perform what tests you
need to. Learn all you can. When you’re finished, have him
incinerated. I will not risk him infecting others.”

At that moment, Chan’s voice tapered off. I
leaned closer, thinking they were only speaking more softly.

“Is…is he moving?” one of the assistants
asked.

There was a long pause. I stopped breathing.
My curiosity won over caution, and I lifted my eyes to the
window.

All of them were so transfixed on the body
that they were not even looking in my direction. The body of the
man from Bunker 114 was still, inert. Dead.

Khloe stood next to me, also watching through
the window, her eyes wide. Chan was facing away.

The body jerked, causing all the men to jump
back. The legs convulsed, swung down from the table, and planted
themselves on the floor. The eyes opened, revealing two completely
white orbs that almost glowed in the semidarkness. As the men cried
out, the man’s arms grappled for one of the assistants.

“Get him away!” he screamed.

Chan pulled out a handgun and pointed it at
the patient.
“
Freeze
!”

The patient pressed forward, paying no heed.
He leaned into the assistant.

Chan fired. The bullet entered the patient’s
head, splattering the wall and the assistant with purple and
grayish brain matter. The patient collapsed to the ground, and the
ensuing stench of rot was so foul that it seeped through the edges
of the door. I gagged.

Immediately, Chan turned, his eyes burning
into me like fire. They narrowed as he scowled, his left cheek
twitching. It was the most emotion I’d ever seen out of him, and it
terrified me.

He still held the gun in his hand; after a
moment he holstered it. Suddenly, he calmed.

“Clean this mess up,” he snapped to the
assistants.

My father was now looking at me with his
soft, brown eyes, wondering why, of all places, I was here. I was
guilty – doubly so, because I had gotten Khloe into trouble too. I
would have to take the fall for that as well.

But Khloe was not even looking at me. She was
still looking, with widening eyes, at the body. She pointed through
the window.

“Oh my God…”

The body on the floor was bloating,
fattening, swelling in the limbs and chest like a balloon.

Everyone stared in horror at the body, now
fat and trembling uncontrollably. The skin stretched as liquid
beneath it bulged outward. It erupted with a sickening plop.
Purple, gray, and red splattered the walls, the ceiling, covering
the window through which I watched.

The stench made me vomit in my mouth.

I turned aside to spit it out. Khloe grabbed
me by the shoulders, pulling me into the main part of the medical
bay.

I didn’t feel merely physically sick, but
emotionally sick. My dad was in there.

My dad, who was probably now infected with a
human strain of the xenovirus.

Khloe pulled me away from the door and back
into the medical bay. We stood there, unsure of what to do
next.

“Stay here,” Khloe said. “It might be
okay…”

No words could describe the horror we had
witnessed. The man had come back to life and
exploded
. I
didn’t see how it was possible. But there was no denying what I had
seen.

The door opened. The four men walked into the
medical bay. The purple slime covered their heads, their bodies,
their mouths, their eyes. The odds of their escaping the xenovirus
were slim to none.

They stared at us, and I saw nothing but
horror in their faces. My father, his glasses in his hand, stared
at the floor. Chan, however, was eerily calm. Hate glinted in his
eyes, as if I were to blame for what had happened.

“Everyone, to the showers,” my father said.
He looked at me as he said this, though I knew he was not talking
to me. “There is still a chance it might not be too late.”

There was an air of defeat in his voice.

“Stay here,” Chan said to us. “You are not to
leave. And keep your distance.”

They filed off for the showers, leaving Khloe
and me alone in the med bay.

“Maybe…maybe they’ll be okay…” Khloe said.
“It’s not impossible, is it?”

“I don’t know.”

We just stood there, not talking, for the
whole time we waited. I could not suppress the sickening dread
mounting up. Ten minutes later, all four men reemerged wearing blue
scrubs.

Before anyone else could, Chan spoke.

“Stay here,” he said. “Stay here, and
wait.”

He raised his radio.

“Officer Hutton, report to the medical bay
immediately.”

Everyone waited in silence for the one minute
it took for Officer Hutton to come. When he entered the bay, he
stopped short, his normally stony demeanor betraying shock. He was
of average height and broad build, and had a trim black beard and
short black hair. Burt Hutton was Chan’s second in command.

“What is going on?” Officer Hutton asked, his
gaze running up and down the four men’s scrubs.

“Come with me,” Chan said. “All of you. Alex,
Khloe, Hutton… and stay on the other side of Dr. Keener’s
desk.”

We followed Chan into my father’s office. He
sat down in the chair. For the first time in my life, I saw Chan
scared. His face was white.

Khloe, Officer Hutton, and I stood by the
door. The other four men stood on the far side of the desk.

The room was quiet for a long while. Chan
looked up.

“There is not a small chance,” he began,
“that Dr. Keener, his assistants, Ybarra and Jones, and I will soon
fall ill and die.”

Hutton’s eyes widened. “What is this, some
sort of joke?”

“Officer Hutton,” Chan said, “you know full
well that there is no chance that I would joke about a matter of
such gravity.”

Hutton stared at Chan in shock. But Chan went
on regardless.

“In a matter of days – maybe even hours – I
will likely be dead, along with everyone else who was in the room
with the patient. We are infected with the xenovirus, a strain that
targets humans.”

I searched my father’s eyes for some other
answer – any answer save this. But he was grave and clearly
believed in his own doom as much as did Chan.

Chan was giving Hutton instructions. Assemble
the Officers, making them aware of the situation. Post a constant
guard of four Officers by the medical bay, allowing no one to enter
or exit. Chan gave Officer Hutton full authority to do all this
and, as Chan’s second, to assume control of the Bunker.

It sounded so clinical, the way Chan made
plans for four eventual deaths. How could his mind work so clearly
at a time like this? It made me hate him, the fact that he did not
even acknowledge the tragedy of the situation.

My dad was dying.

“Lead the children out, and return them to
their families.”

“This is my family!” I yelled, pointing at my
dad. “He is all I have!”

Everyone was looking at me. Khloe and my
father had tears in their eyes.

“It will be alright, son,” my dad said. “I’ll
be fine.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, tears
stinging my eyes. “You don’t.”

“You can stay with us,” Khloe whispered.

“That will do nicely,” Chan said, glad to
have me out of the way.

“Dad, is this it? Will I ever see you
again?”

He looked at me without a word. This time, he
did not lie. His eyes told me everything.

I walked up, meaning to hug him.

“Stop!” Chan yelled. “You are close
enough!”

I halted in my tracks.

“Chan,” my father said, “that is enough. This
is my son, and I will not have you speak to him that way.”

Chan, instead of lashing out as I expected
him to, merely became calm.

“I will not risk any contagion of this
disease. That I even allow this conversation is a mercy. The
children have both been in here long enough.” For a rare moment,
Chan’s eyes softened. “Children are not meant to see such things. I
should have sent them out to begin with.”

I looked at my dad, tears beginning to sting
my eyes.

“It’ll be alright, Alex,” he said. “You need
to do as Officer Chan says. I may yet be alright. I feel fine
now.”

“Dad…”

“Step away,” Chan said. “That is quite
enough.”

I turned to him, my fists clenched.

“Alex,” my father said. “Do not waste words.
This is not the end for you. I know you believe it is…but it
isn’t.”

I stared at him through my tears.

“You must be strong, son. There are people
depending on you. You are a man. Never forget that. What does a man
do?”

I recalled the words he had told me seemingly
hundreds of times.

“A man does not do what he wants,” I said.
“He does what he must.”

“Yes. Never forget it. I don’t want to stay
here, Alex. None of us do. But I must.”

“What will I do without you?”

He looked at me for a long moment, as if he
didn’t know the answer to that. “It’s not over yet. You must not
linger here any longer. You have a duty. To fill your role here. To
help people. To protect people. To give them your strength.”

Chan nodded to Hutton. Hutton placed a hand
on my shoulder. As he guided Khloe and me out of the room, I did
not resist him.

“I love you, Alex,” my father said. “Never
forget that.”

“I love you, too, Dad.”

“When you have escorted them out, Officer
Hutton, return here,” Chan said. “I will brief you on what is to be
done next.”

Hutton nodded. “Let’s go, kids.”

Grabbing each of us by a large, meaty hand,
he pulled us out of my dad’s office and across the bay. I was
trying to hold it together, but I knew it wouldn’t be long until I
burst.

Khloe and I were pushed out of the medical
bay, and Hutton turned back inside, shutting the double doors
behind him. Two burly Officers in helmets stationed themselves by
the door.

I walked across the corridor and sank against
the wall.

Khloe’s face filled my vision. She placed a
hand on my right cheek, wiping my tears away.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s get you
home. He might be alright, Alex. He seemed fine when we were in
there.”

“I hope so,” I said.

But even as I said it, I knew it was a long
shot.

She sat down next to me. We sat like that for
a while. People walked by, asking what happened. I didn’t answer.
Khloe didn’t answer. She just held me as if I were a child. The
guards quietly explained that the medical bay was off limits, and
gave no reason why. They mentioned nothing about my father, Chan,
or my father’s assistants.

“They don’t know…” I whispered.

Khloe didn’t answer. Soon there was such a
crowd that I couldn’t stand it. I needed to be alone.