The Serophim Breach (The Serophim Breach Series) (39 page)

“I can’t shake the feeling that we’re running out of time,” he said quietly.

Kai ignored the last statement and asked Mike to keep looking for the best route to a harbor or marina and to let them know once he had something. Then he hooked the radio to his belt and turned the static down. Something had begun to nag at him, and he wanted to take a look around the room.

He couldn’t bring himself to go back into the cell, but he stood outside the bars for a long minute, surveying the bodies that were visible on the top of the pile. He counted at least eight people in the small cell, then turned and headed out into the lobby. There, he found another twelve, their bodies slumped over each other, limbs askew and intertwined.

“What are you looking for?”

Paul’s voice at his shoulder made him jump. He turned to face his brother.

“The way these people were shot . . . most of them have body wounds, bullets in their arms or torsos. But every one, at least every one I can see, has a head wound.”

Paul’s eyes widened, and he briefly looked around the room to confirm his brother’s observation. When he looked back at Kai, his face was pale and stony.

“So, what does that mean?” Jones asked. He had remained huddled in the corner, shadowed.

“I’m not sure. My guess would be those guys mowed everyone down first, and then went around and put a bullet in everyone’s head,” Kai answered. Even as he said it, he felt a hard knot tighten in his stomach. These people had come here looking for an evacuation center. Instead, they had found an execution.
It’s only a matter of time before a quarantine turns into a kill zone
, he heard Jones’s voice echo in his head.

When his vision cleared, he found Paul kneeling over Nordec’s body again. Now that he was closer, he could see how truly ruined the man’s face and body were. What hadn’t been ripped away by the shotgun blast was already maimed, beaten to a pulp, or clawed, his black clothes shredded in places, revealing more gory wounds. Paul had his hand deep in one of the side pockets in Nordec’s vest; after a second, he pulled free, clutching a small piece of paper.

He walked over to join Kai near the desk, unfolding the wad of paper. The top page was a list of addresses, matched with words in bold: 2776 Kalama’ani Way was matched with VIPER, 331 Ohana was matched with EAGLE, and so on. They counted fourteen bold words in all, each one matched with a certain address. Paul fingered the address of the Pearl City police station, which was matched with TRIDENT.

They flipped the page and found a list of names, three columns across the page, each one listed under another name in bold: RED, BLUE, and BLACK. Paul was beginning to turn the page when Kai slammed his palm down on the paper, his eyes glued to one name in particular. Paul started to question him, but stopped when he saw the look on his face. He followed his gaze down and found the name as well: Kavida, Brandon.

Kai was unable to speak. His mind reeled; the new information—this strange list and all the implications—overwhelmed what was left of his nerves. Finally, Paul pushed his hand aside and flipped through the rest of the pages, each covered with either names or addresses. At the bottom of the last page, in bold, were the words COMPLETE SANITIZE.

Without thinking, Kai’s hand moved to the radio at his waist. He turned up the volume and held down the call button.

“Mike, find us a way off the island. We’re leaving the station now, but we’ll have the radio. Touch base every fifteen. Over.”

“Okay, Kai. Where are you guys going?”

“To the hospital. We have to get Brandon.”

From the corner, Jones asked weakly, “How long do you think that will take?”

Kai was trying to come up with a rough estimate, but before he could answer, he heard a choking sound coming from behind him. When he turned to look, he found Jones convulsing violently on the floor.

~

The first gasp of air flooded her lungs, and she felt nothing but the sizzling pain: no relief from the oxygen or from the feeling of her chest expanding; nothing but the aching stretch of the skin over her ribs and a strange kind of crackling in her lungs. She coughed, violently, sucking in ragged puffs of cool, sterile air, her eyes watering as she clutched at the sheets.

“Karen?”

Thad’s voice was close to her ear, thin and tense, as if he had too been holding his breath for some time. She opened her eyes wide and immediately squinted against the glare of the overhead fluorescents. Her whole body hurt, but the pain seemed to be radiating out from her chest. As her eyes focused, she realized she lay on the gurney, still half-naked; gingerly, she reached for her shirt to cover herself back up.

Thad, immediately embarrassed, looked away, sneaking a concerned glance at her face.

“Yes, Thad, I’m okay,” she croaked. Every inch of her mouth and throat felt parched, almost cracked. “Can you bring me some water?”

He was gone from the room and back almost instantly with a small cup of tepid water from a fountain, which she sipped carefully. She was unsure of how her body would be reacting at this point, and the last thing she wanted was a bout of vomiting, even if it was only water.

“Don’t ever make me do that again,” Thad finally spoke up after watching her drink for a few seconds. Karen smiled thinly, and assured him that she hoped the situation would never present itself again.

“But we’ve got fifty percent of an answer. I survived. Now we have to check my blood,” she continued, her voice still grating in her throat.

He helped her down the deserted hallway; the pain in her leg was more severe now, and she was having trouble putting any weight on the ankle at all. In truth, any kind of movement caused her body to ache, but she wanted to be in the lab with Thad as he ran the tests. They were nearly there when the eerie silence of the hallways finally overwhelmed her.

“I haven’t seen anyone up here in hours,” she murmured, glancing into empty rooms as they passed. “It would be nice to know a little bit more about what’s going on outside.”

As they neared the last corner before the elevators, they heard low voices ahead of them. Without knowing why, Karen stopped and motioned for Thad to keep quiet.

“Everyone except psych has been moved to the first floor, ER, or triage outside,” said one of the voices. It was male, young and tentative, with an edge of concern. The voice that answered was older, more confident, and female.

“Good. The Marines and corpsmen are assisting in triage, correct?”

“Right. Mostly the navy guys are helping the docs. The Marines are providing security, checking people in . . . they’ve got a perimeter set up around the parking lot already, assessing people as they arrive. We’ve already had two attacks in the streets nearby.”

“I heard that. Matana told me there’s some kind of group of deranged people out there.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. If this is biochemical, whoever got it made some very crazy shit. Pardon me.”

There was a brief pause, and then the female voice spoke again.

“Any details on the attacks?”

“The Marine I spoke with was one of the guys who went out to help. They’ve been instructed not to shoot, so they’re using tear gas and some kind of spray. The stuff really did a number on him, but he said the crazies in the pack didn’t even react. Like they didn’t feel a thing. He and a couple of his guys managed to grab the family and get back to the parking lot. But several of them, including him, were wounded.”

“Have you heard anything from Washington? Or the CDC?”

“Nothing. Radio silence. We haven’t had a response since the Marines got here.”

“Go check with whoever is in charge down there. Find out if they’re getting orders from the mainland.”

The elevator bell let out a soft ding, and Karen heard the soft metallic slide of the doors opening.

“Also, I talked to one navy guy who said part of that pack out there was testing the fences.”

“What do you mean?” asked the female voice.

“He said they show up every little while and try to get in. The guys guarding have tried all the riot gear stuff, but nothing seems to drive them off. And we don’t want them firing any shots. We’d have panic . . .”

Their voices were abruptly cut off when the elevators closed. Thad angled his head awkwardly to look down at her.

“What the hell was that all about?” he asked.

She had recognized the female voice as belonging to the hospital’s director, Manaia Freshwater; the male must have been an assistant of hers, or a liaison from the military. Whatever the case, their discussion had made one thing very clear: things were deteriorating at the hospital, and quickly. She was glad they had not seen her up here and in her condition. They would have had a series of questions for her that she could not yet answer. Karen hobbled forward again with Thad supporting her, and they waited for the next elevator silently.

She was staring off into space trying to imagine the scene outside when the elevator arrived, the doors sliding open in front of her face. Suddenly, she realized she didn’t have to imagine what was going on in the parking lot. Instead of stepping into the elevator, she pivoted on her good foot and started to move weakly toward the nearest room. Briefly, she paused in the hallway, cocking her head to the side and closing her eyes as she envisioned where she was in the building and its orientation. Thad had moved up beside her again without questioning, and waited for her to move again. Satisfied that her instincts were correct, she hobbled into the nearest room and toward the window.

“Get the lights, Thad?” she asked, shuffling the last few feet to the window. He flicked the switch, and the scene outside appeared behind the glass.

A row of Humvees were parked at the far edge of the parking lot, nearest to the entrance normally reserved for ambulances. A chain-link fence had been erected in front of them, extending around the rest of the lot and presumably behind the building. She could see a few Marines either sitting or standing on and around each vehicle, their weapons in hand. Lights had also been set up, illuminating both the hospital grounds and a small area outside of the fence. Vehicles belonging to patients and hospital staff were all parked in one area of the lot, wedged in one behind the other. Briefly, she thought what a nightmare it was going to be trying to get that all worked out when everyone had to leave. The rest of the lot was covered in camouflage tents, well lit both inside and out.

Every few seconds, someone in uniform either entered or exited one of the tents, looking around at the crowds of people who waited in somewhat orderly lines. Younger people were sitting along the curbs or against trees, while many of the older adults had been given folding chairs or wheelchairs in which to wait. The uniformed official would wait at the entrance while an individual or couple approached, and he would lead them inside. For the most part, things looked to be functioning relatively well.

She pressed her cheek against the glass, trying to get a look at the dark field and neighborhood that lay to the east of the hospital. The Marines’ lights did little to illuminate far beyond the fence, but she thought she could see forms moving in the darkness. A few seconds later, she was sure she saw several human figures moving, crouched and stealthy, down a small side street. Something in their gait or the way they held their bodies made her shudder, and she wondered if that was the deranged group that she had heard Manaia talk about.

When she was satisfied that the scene downstairs was not the pandemonium she had imagined, she limped away from the window and back to the elevator with Thad. Minutes later, they were in his lab, where she sank gingerly into a rolling chair. Thad drew her blood in the efficient, practiced way he had earlier in the day, but she found herself gripping the side of the chair as the needle slid into her vein. The pain was significant—manageable, but not the usual pinch that she warned patients about when inserting IVs or taking samples.

“Geez, Thad,” she muttered.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Just be a little gentler next time,” she groaned, pressing a cotton ball to the bleeding vein.

Thad frowned at her briefly before he turned away in his chair to begin preparing the sample. At first she felt irritated at his reaction; he had hurt her, and she felt entitled to complain. But as she waited for him to get the samples up on the screen, she began to wonder about her own reaction. Thinking back to the hour before she had Thad defibrillate her, she realized that the pain in her calf and ankle, though difficult to ignore, had not been debilitating. Now, it was nearly impossible to even set the foot on the floor with any kind of weight on it. Her chest still throbbed where the paddles had sent the electricity into her body, and although she had certainly expected some burns and discomfort, she thought what she was feeling was much more significant than she had ever expected. And now there was the experience with the needle.

“Thad?” she said, not waiting for him to answer. “That guy in the hallway, he said the people attacking in the streets didn’t respond to tear gas or pepper spray, right?”

“Mm-hm,” he answered shortly without taking his attention from what he was doing.

She turned the new information over in her mind, poking and prodding it until she felt relatively sure she had a sound theory.

“Thad, whatever this is, it’s getting into the nervous system,” she finally said, her voice hushed. He set a slide on the microscope and glanced at her, his eyes questioning.

“It has to be,” she continued. “When the guy downstairs bit me, the pain was . . . significant. But when we went to resuscitate the girl and then when we tried it on me, I don’t remember really even thinking about it.”

“Well, you were under stress,” he pointed out.

“No, it was more than that. I can barely even put any weight on the leg now—it’s hard to even think straight, the pain is so intense. It’s like I’ve been on some kind of drug, and the effect has worn off. Just now, when you pulled the blood, the needle was excruciating. And I know you didn’t do anything differently than you normally do.”

Thad nodded his head, agreeing with her. She thought he looked quietly vindicated, which she tried to ignore.