Chaos

“What about if we just cover the doors like we did at Freddie’s?” Robert asks.

“No, I have this one. You just stay here and don’t go exploring.”

I pass the rear of the ambulance to the emergency entrance room doors. The back end of the ambulance is empty with the stretcher missing and there are a couple small pools of dried blood on the floor. I’ll grab the med supplies out of here as well, I think to myself turning once again to the doors.

The main doors are double glass doors that slide open automatically with a glass, push-open door flanking each side. Approaching from the right side, I see that quite a bit of ambient light reaches inside illuminating a black and white checkered linoleum floor. I kneel by the red brick wall and peek through the right hand door. It appears the room opens up to both the left and the right with a hallway leading off into the darkness directly across the room from me. A large nurses’ station counter abuts the back wall to the left of the hallway entrance and is dimly lit by the light. The left and right walls are shrouded in darkness.

I reach over to the pull bar on the right door and give a pull. The door gives a fraction of an inch before stopping with a metallic thud. Okay, I try pushing. Same thing — locked. I sidle over to the pneumatic doors keeping my eyeballs on the interior. I don’t expect them to automatically open, and they don’t, but I try pulling them apart. They don’t budge. I try the left door but it only gives the same response as the one on the right. Righty-O then. Another tape job coming up.

I am a little worried as I have snuck onto a military base, taken a couple of their vehicles and weapons, and am about to break into a building. If I do run into anyone on base, they are going to be slightly displeased. And, with what I am sure is a martial law status going on, that displeasure could sting. Wait until I take one of their airplanes. They are going to positively love that!

Leaning my gun against the brick wall, I peel off strips of duct tape and tape the lower pane of the glass door on the right. Taking out my knife, I bash the handle end against the glass. My knife rebounds without any resounding crack or shattering of glass. Another bash gives the same response. Damn, this has always worked before, I think giving one more smack. “Okay you son of a bitch! Be that way!” I mutter as I turn and walk back to the ambulance.

Climbing into the back, I lift the bench seat lining the right compartment wall. Inside are folded blankets and small pillows. I grab three of the blankets and a pillow, close the lids, and walk back to the titanium door that has cleverly disguised itself as glass.

I fold two of the thin blankets slipping a pillow between them. I put the pillow sandwich against the glass and hold it there with my shoulder. I take my Beretta out and drape the other folded blanket over it and my hand. Putting the draped pistol against the blankets on the door, I remove my shoulder and fire. The shot sounds loud but is muffled substantially by the blankets. There is no rebounding echo off the buildings around so I know the shot couldn’t have been heard from very far away. I chip away the rest of the glass starting at the bullet hole until the entire pane comes clear.

Grabbing my M-4, I turn on the flashlight and pan it around the room. The light comes to rest on several bodies lying on the floor. From this low angle, I can’t really see much of the room, but of what I can see, nothing moves. I crawl into the room and stand up at the entrance. The smell immediately hits. It smells exactly like the inside of the truck I opened yesterday; blood, vomit, and feces. It’s like a solid cloud permeating the room, gagging me. Taking short, shallow breaths, I shine the light around the room. Molded plastic chairs line every wall except where the nurses’ station is. Double wooden, swinging doors are set into the far right wall. The hallway across the room and in front of me stretches away past the limit of my light tapering off into unrelieved blackness.

The bodies scattered across the waiting area and are in the same state as the corpse in the guard post. They have been stripped of most of the skin and tissue with only small strips of tendon and muscle still clinging to the bone. Most still have their hair attached to the top of their heads. Pieces of entrails stretch away from some of the bodies and the floor is covered with dried blood. I have seen many, many things in my life; badly burned bodies, disembowelments, bodies of villagers killed, mutilated and stacked like cordwood, bodies thrown from speeding vehicles; but never anything like this. The darkened room, with only my light illuminating the ruin as it pans its way around the room, coupled with the overwhelming stench, is enough for me. I scramble my way out of the door and lean against the brick wall outside, letting the nausea subside.

It won’t be long before the flies and disease crop up from so many bodies. Most of the diseases, plague, cholera, and typhoid in particular, will become rampant in the most populated areas. I am not so keen on going back in there. I just won’t shine my light on the bodies and head over to the nurses’ station, I think reaching down and taking the pillow case off the pillow. Folding the pillow case into a triangle, I tie it around my face covering my nose and mouth; not so much as a precaution for disease, but more so for the smell.

Crawling back in, I keep the light and M-4 pointed at the ground straight ahead. Approaching the counter, I notice bloody footprints leading down the hall. Not just one or a couple, but lots of them. Too many to count and they form a trail. I suppose they could have been from hospital workers here before or during this tragedy, but with my experience from the gas station and the footprints there, I am going to assume there are a few of those things in here. My thumb subconsciously slides the selector to ‘burst.’

Stepping behind the counter, my light catches a multitude of charts and papers lining the desk. Some charts lie open and others are just stacked on top of each other with individual papers scattered in every way. I shine my light on the charts hoping for a folder that would give me information on what I am looking for but they only have individual names on them. Keeping my ears open, I check out the various papers on the desk. One is a memo detailing the immediate cessation of the Cape Town flu vaccinations, another outlining a quarantine area and ordering those with flu symptoms to report there or medical staff observing these symptoms in others, to call security. I search through files and desk drawers but come up empty on anything related to CDC or military findings. So, that leaves the medical services commander or hospital administrator.

Near the phone in middle of the desk is a hospital telephone directory. On the top page is the commander’s name, Col. Sarah Jensen, ext. 2856, room 350. Of course it would be on the third floor, I think setting it down and looking at hospital diagrams taped to the top of the counter. Using my folding blade, I liberate the diagrams from the counter, each diagram depicting a floor of the hospital. I notice the commander’s office two floors above me on the complete opposite side of the hospital. Wow! Two for two. A third strike and I’m outta here, I think stepping from behind the counter and into the hallway.

Heading quietly down the hall, I come to an elevator and a steel stairway door to my right. The bloody footprints continue down the hallway fading and disappearing altogether a short distance away. I shine my light at a doorway across the hall from the elevator and see a black engraved sign on the wall that reads ‘Dispensary.’ The door is a half door in which the upper half can be opened separate from the bottom half with a small counter separating the two halves. And, the top half is open. Aha, my luck seems to be changing, my thought bubble hanging out there in hope.

I edge across, alternating my light between the dispensary opening and the hallway. Reaching the door, I pan my light around the small interior of the room. Bottle-filled shelves line the walls with three smaller bottle- filled shelves in the middle of the room creating small aisles between them. A small, open doorway opens in the middle of the left wall.

Entering the room, I quickly clear the small aisles inside and swing back to the open doorway. It is a small storage room and is empty with the exception of several open cardboard boxes filling the wall space to the left. Bringing the empty boxes into the dispensary room, I fill them with various bottles. Now, I am no Pharmacist by any stretch so I start with the ones I do know. Various antibiotics and pain killers start the transfer from shelf to box followed by most everything else I can pack into them. Time to sort later, I think filling box after box. There is a Pharmaceutical book on the counter so that goes with. Can’t Google stuff anymore so we’ll need this. After the boxes are filled, I bring them to the front doors making several trips, making sure to keep an ear and eye alert for any sound or movement.

I head back into the hallway and the metal fire door leading to the stairwell. Yes, I plan to go further inside than what I told the kids. I pull slightly on the handle and the door swings open. Opening the door, I shine the light inside while holding the door open with my foot. A flight of concrete stairs leads upward to a landing with another flight of stairs leading off in the opposite direction to the next floor. I step into the stairwell noticing only a folded wheelchair next to the wall in the alcove next to the stairs as the door slowly closes behind me. Focusing my light on the stairs and landing above me, I step onto the first stair. The stairwell is completely dark except where my flashlight radiates a small circumference of light. Away from the light, an oppressive darkness prevails and presses