The Doomsday Infection (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

ZERO HOUR

THURSDAY JUNE 30th

19.50 PM

Luke Spencer pushed forward on the control bar of his hang-glider tipping the nose downward, accelerated and soared up into the dazzling blue sky. He felt like a hawk as he lay in the supine position. He leaned his weight to the side and turned a slow circle back over South Miami Beach passing over the famous Art Deco hotels lining the beachfront. Once sleazy, the South Beach district was now chic and fashionable. He caught a thermal and spiraled upward. He’d been a fan of hang-gliding for several years now. He loved the silence and solitude as he soared high above the beach. The simplicity of the craft, using only his wits the simple machine made flight possible. He had trained to fly the motorized version but preferred the challenge of using his skill to fly, to catch a thermal to give him the necessary lift while gravity did its damndest to pull him back to earth.

The heat generated by the hot sand supplied ample thermals and he could stay up for hours, however he’d promised Kenny his cameraman it’d only be a short flight. He was an adrenaline junkie and he needed a quick fix.

Although he got his fix most days from his job as outside news broadcaster for a major network, which frequently took him into plenty of adrenaline-rush situations. Known to take risks to get as close to the action as possible, he ducked and dodged police cordons to get right into the heart of any action, be it an auto-wreck, or better still an ongoing gang turf-war dispute. He knew that gunfire always scored high on the nightly news, and possible bloodletting - not his, or Kenny’s preferably - would make the top of the hour bulletin, remembering the mantra of his journalist professor. ‘If it bleeds, it leads.’ Luke stuck to this motto and had gained national coverage more than once.

Although covering the gore was not his prime objective, he knew if he kept his face on screen, it would give him leverage with the network to go after larger stories, uncovering wrong-doing at city hall, unveiling the back-
handers and corruption at the highest levels.

This, of course, had made him a target from time-to-time of politicians and members of organized crime syndicates, although he felt more of an affinity towards the lat
ter; at least they were honest in their dishonesty.

He recognized the enormous shape of Kenny dashing down the beach, hard to miss really, five feet five, weighing in at nearly three hundred pounds, his flabby flesh burned by the sun, looking like a beardless Santa. He smirked and recalled how an extremely drunk Kenny had begged him to teach him to hang-glide and no matter how much he told him that he was far too heavy for flight Kenny had insisted and Luke relented. He helped him into a rig and checked the equipment. He instructed Kenny to rush down the beach until he reached approximately seventeen mph - the optimum speed for take-off. Luke had nearly burst a rib laughing as Kenny waddled along the sand
, jumping up into the air every now and then in a futile attempt to launch himself sky-ward with all the elegance and grace of a baby elephant until he ran out of beach and he pitched head-first into the ocean.

Luke could tell from Kenny’s frantic waving that it must be urgent and made his descent. Kenny had sensibly positioned himself far away from the few remaining sun-worshipers, and as the beach was practically deserted, Luke couldn’t resist the urge to show off his talents and ‘buzzed’ Kenny. He swooped down low, aiming to fly straight into him at full speed. Kenny saw the imminent danger at the last second and turned to outrun the inevitable impact, when Luke skillfully raised himself up a
nd flew several inches over Kenny’s head making him duck and swear.

Luke stalled the craft to land gently on the empty stretch of golden sand right behind the cameraman.

“You are one crazy sonofabitch,” he cursed, handing Luke his clothes.

“What’s up, man?”

“A riot. Come on, get changed, let’s go.”

“Where? Any deaths?”

“Where else? And of course; plenty.”

They leapt into the news truck and Kenny burned rubber, peeling from the beachfront parking lot. He jumped through the red lights and took the corner on two wheels in his desperate rush to be the first news team on site.   

Luke slipped on a shirt and tie, making himself presentable. He found it difficult to dress as the truck lurched, squealing around the bends. He patted down his hair, and checked out his appearance in the truck’s vanity mirror.

The streets looked more depressed and covered in graffiti the further t
hey drove away from the ocean and the closer they got towards Liberty City.

20.25 PM

Overtown
, northwest of downtown Miami, originally called Colored Town during the Jim Crow era of the late 19
th
and early 20
th
century and designated as a ‘colored’ neighborhood after the creation and incorporation of Miami in 1896. The residents barred from entering the nearby middle and upper income white areas of Miami Beach and Coral Gables without having the required passes.

Overtown
had served as the place to stay overnight for the black mainstream entertainers of the day such as Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole, who not unsurprisingly were forbidden from staying at the venues where they had just performed, such as the Fontainebleau Hotel and the Eden Roc.

As the I-95 interstate highway and other freeways were constructed, they fragmented the neighborhood, the district suffered serious decline, and the area became economically destitute as businesses stagnated and closed and the region became a ghetto.

The inhabitants migrated to the Liberty Square housing project, built during the 1930s the first of its kind in Southern United States in response to the deteriorated housing conditions of Overtown.

The civil rights act dramatically altered the neighborhood as increasing numbers of lower income and welfare-dependent families swamped to Liberty City following their displacement from
Overtown, leading to large-scale ‘black flight’ as middle and higher income families moved out to suburban areas like Florida City and Miami Gardens.

Crime grew prevalent in the increasingly poverty-stricken region during the
1960s. The ensuing problems of the poor and disenfranchised most notably culminated in the race riots of 1968, but still erupted into violence and large-scale disturbances to this day.

“Christ, it’s hot!” Luke said, leaping from the news-truck. He looked presentable above the waist in a smart shirt and tie, yet still wearing his Hawaiian shorts and flip-flops, as they would be out of shot during his report. The police cordoned off the area with tape strung across the street blocking their progress. He watched the riot from the safety point. “Is it me, or are there more crazies than usual?”

Kenny hoisted the news camera to his shoulder, and then jumped back in fright. “Shit!”

“What’s up?”

“A Goddamn rat.”

“Where?” Luke asked in alarm.

Kenny pointed. “There, and there! Christ, this place is crawling with them. Fuck, I hate rats.”

Luke kicked out at a rat and it scuttled away as dusk settled over the projects highlighting the burning flames of a looted store.

He positioned himself and made sure that the plumes of thick, black smoke would be in shot. He checked his tie, cleared his throat and counted down to the report. “In three, two . . . one. I’m Luke Spencer reporting from Liberty City, where, once again, the city is in flames as the police fight a losing battle trying to regain control of the streets -” he paused as rapid-fire from a machine gun echoed around him. “Their grievance, it seems, is due to the latest round of government cuts that have left the city woefully underfunded and naturally the poorest areas are the hardest hit. When will -” He stopped dead as a rapidly accelerating police car hurtled in their direction, Kenny filmed the retreating car as bullets from a rooftop gunman chased the vehicle down the street spewing up dirt.

The Police officer leaned from the passenger window, and shouted to his colleagues, “Pull back! Pull back!" He paused to sneeze. “Get everybody out! Go!” The police car zoomed off, leaving them dumb-founded.

A nearby cop waved to them. “You heard him, get going!” He scuttled off to a safer point. Luke shuffled after the cop, until he was distracted, then ducked under the tape and made his way closer to the action.

21:20 PM

Lieutenant Graves slumped against his ratty mattress propped against the wall of his crummy apartment in the Liberty City projects. He folded his eyelid back and inserted a hypodermic needle loaded with the heroin he had s
tolen earlier into the underside of the lid. He had to inject into his eyelid as the coast guard did cursory checks for track-marks on their personnel. Therefore, Graves had gotten devious; sometimes he injected between his toes, or the soles of his feet, and one time, only one time, into his penis.

He squashed down into the mattress to get more comfortable and waited for the narcotic to do its work and relieve him of his miserable existence. He
scratched under his armpit and discovered that his fingers were wet. “Hur? What the fuck?”

He lifted his sweat-stained t-shirt and found the black swelling in his armpit. He pushed against it and it burst covering him in thick, oozing pus “
Argh!” He recoiled as discharge ran from the lump. What the hell? he thought. He checked under his other arm, and felt a similar bulge. He stood and checked the growth in his broken shaving-mirror, and noticed his torso covered in raised boils and bumps. What is this? He gazed at his reflection for a long moment.

He scratched his balls and froze.

“Oh no...” He dropped his shorts and discovered buboes developing either side of his groin. “No, no, no. Not good.”

Bright light lit his room. A searchlight of a police helicopter shone a beam through his cracked window. He jumped back into the shadows instinctively. He sneezed and blood streamed from both nostrils. He wiped his nose on his arm, horrified by the amount of the blackening fluid. He squatted down on the mattress as the drug weakened him, and he slowly shut his eyes, but even this simple action caused blood to squeeze from his tear ducts. He touched his face and choked back tears unable to believe that his eyes were bleeding.

The roar of the helicopter got louder and the searchlight flicked around his grimy slum. He lurched under the mattress, grabbed his Sig Suer service sidearm, “Hey! People are trying to sleep in here!” He yelled and emptied the chamber aimlessly through the window at the noisy helicopter.

21.45 PM

Kenny filmed up, down, left and right at the sporadic gun-bursts. Luke stood with his microphone at the ready to address the camera. He motioned to Kenny to commence filming, when a hand grabbed his leg, making him jump out of his skin.

He looked down to see a Hobo had grabbed his ankle. “Get offa me, man.”

Kenny kicked out at the hobo for ruining the shot, “You drunken bum, Jesus. Can you believe that – begging during a riot?”

Luke pointed at the hobo. “What’s that on his face?” He pointed to the pus-filled black circles on his cheeks. He heard a commotion behind him and turned to see the police chopper flying in. He knew this could be a story. He concentrated and turned back to Kenny. “Ready?”

Kenny prepared to film when the Hobo screamed. Professional as ever, Kenny pivoted and trained his camera onto the god-awful sound the Hobo made. “What’s the matter with him, I thought he was dead?”

“His chest is moving,” Luke observed. “Oh, man! It’s a rat and it’s eating him.” He felt sick, and then it dawned on him. “This is fantastic.” Luke said knowing a macabre story would sell, when Kenny lowered the camera, “What’s wrong, man?”

Kenny smiled. “I’ve had an idea; why don’t you rescue him?”

“I ain’t touching that rancid piece of filth.”

“Think about it, imagine the headline: Brave hero reporter saves homeless veteran being eaten by rats.”

He smirked. “Let’s do it. Go on three...two -”

Luke rolled the Hobo over, and swiped
out at the gnawing beast. The vicious looking rat stared at him for a moment as if it thought about attacking him, then scampered away. “That was disgusting.”

The Hobo tugged at Luke’s sleeve. “Help . . . me . . .,” he begged as blood wept from his eyes.

Luke slapped his hand away. The Hobo vomited and convulsed, gasping for life. “Man, did you see his eyes?”

“Sure did. I want some of that.” Kenny stood over the dying Hobo and filmed a close-up, “Never shot someone’s dying breath before.”

“You worry me,” Luke said.

The Miami-Dade Police Department’s
Eurocopter AS350 hovered overhead. Kenny switched his attention to the chopper and filmed as it moved closer to the buildings.

Luke prepared himself, cleared his throat, and as Kenny lowered the camera to include him in a head shot said; “Three . . . two . . . one, once again a solitary police helicopter, the same old story of the police’s response to this poorly patrolled region; too little too late.”