Chapter 1
The click released the kink and the drip began its deadly drop into the boy’s bare chest. The nurse offered a miniature cup of water from a silver tray.
“We don’t drink the water,” the boy’s mom insisted.
The nurse put the cup back on the tray. “The water is tested weekly so there is no danger.”
If anyone had a water tap running, everyone was afraid to drink. One month had passed since the Center for Disease Control had exploded and an alleged theft of a toxic chemicals had been taken.
It was news of this explosion was broadcast nationally before the Silence came. Every reporting analyst supported the idea that an attack on the nation’s water supply could be immediate. Milk and bread were no longer the survivors pick. The water bottle became the horde of choice. A nurse walked past the open curtain and began ringing a hand bell, as if she was collecting change for the needy.
“I need to flush this line,” Elias’s nurse said with a quivering hand.
His mother became alert. “We just started. Is something wrong?”
“We talked about this moment Elias,” the nurse said to the boy.
Karen stood up. “We can’t just stop now, like this. Just finish, please.”
“You will need to find a place to get treatment. They are taking over this hospital.”
“We walk five miles each day,” Karen pleaded. “Where are we going to go?”
There was a stampede of footsteps and chatter beyond the curtain. The nurse began unhooking the IV from the boy’s chest port. She kissed Elias on his head, squeezed his mother’s hand, and reached deep to stall her emotion when the pleading eyes of a mother connected with hers. The nurse left the bedside and never returned. Karen parted the room curtain and peered out to see the makeshift lobby.
Hospital rooms were too dark so the nurses erected curtained rooms in the lobby to allow sunlight from the windowed walls. Moms and dads were poking their heads out of their curtain rooms and sharing a look of dismay. These parents knew that within fifty miles of the perimeter, it would be hard to locate a hospital that wasn’t taking care of wounded fighters.
Another mom stuck her head out of her son’s curtain room. “Is the building on fire?”
Again, the nurse paced the lobby waving a hand bell and announcing, “Moms and dads, it’s time. Please go home and be safe.”
Karen looked back at her son sitting up straight with wide eyes. “We need to leave honey. Get your shirt on.”
She grabbed Elias by the hand and looked deep into his life. She sobbed and like a kitten, rubbed her cheek on his smooth head.
Karen sniffed between tears. “Don’t ever forget how much I love you.”
Elias flipped his shirt on and grabbed his tattered baseball cap to conceal his shaven head. Karen pulled her son’s hand and together they dodged their way through frantic families scattering like the wacky neon patterns of the lobby carpet.
A doctor remained in the middle of the chaos, “Please be calm and safe. Look for the exits and don’t run down the stairs,” he repeated.
Karen reached into her purse and stretched her arm out to the doctor with an envelope in her hand.
“Doctor Blake. Please Doctor Blake, I think it’s time.”
The doctor took the sealed envelope and hugged Karen.
“Find peace in this new world. I pray for your journey,” he said.
As Karen and her son reached the stairs, she froze. Marching through the door was a small stature woman dressed in a black battle uniform. She extended a long gun from her shoulder and pointed it just above the face of Karen.
“My god,” Karen said before breaking into a full scream. She threw Elias behind her and backed up slowly. The woman moved past Karen in a robotic manner.
“Clear the rooms,” the woman aimed and barked. “All doctors are needed for the wounded. Clear the rooms now.”
“These are the children’s rooms,” a mother said with her daughter at her side. “Most of these children are being treated for cancer here. You just can’t...”
The mother was interrupted by the end of the gun pointing at her face.
The uniformed woman declared without a stutter,
“Presidents orders ma’am, I’m sorry.”
“The president is dead,” someone cursed.
“He’s in hiding,” someone else rebuked.
The uniformed woman continued down the lobby throwing curtains back and ordering nurses to prepare for wounded soldiers.
“Let’s go mom,” Elias said pulling his mom’s hand toward the dim stair well.
Footsteps echoed down the stairs like heavy rain. With each floor they passed, a commotion could be heard beyond each door. They reached the bottom floor to find military green and police blue officers corralling people at the entrance.
“Go home and kiss your family,” a voice shouted.
“Wait here,” an officer commanded. “The fighting is getting close. You need to stay undercover of the building.”
Karen felt trapped in an uncertain situation. As military tried to control everyone, people continued inching their way to the defective sliding doors of the entrance. Elias noticed one of the black uniform officers was separating men from women and children.
Even with military guns pointed in all directions, no one was listening. Fear was driving emotion and people were demanding to leave. Karen approached a police officer at the door who put a pistol in her face with a small tremor in his hand.
Karen’s voice cracked. “Are you going to shoot people who are in the hospital to be cared for? Does that make sense?”
“I have every right to leave this building,” a man’s voice barreled. “There is no law that says you can keep us here.”
“You have the right to leave when we can regain order and keep the public safe,” an officer reported.
A thick man behind Karen attempted to push through the crowd. An officer retracted a metal baton and cracked the man on the leg who crumpled to the floor yelling in pain. Still, no one backed away. As more people filed down the stairs, the agitation of the crowd swelled.
“You all have the right to leave when we regain order and keep the public safe,” repeated an officer.
The sound of a gun cracked off in the building and with a collective scream, everyone ducked. Karen turned and reached for Elias who was squatting on one knee.
“Remain calm,” a military man shouted.
A screeching explosion propelled everyone off their feet. A burst of screams turned to a deathly silence of voices. The glass walls the lobby spit shards of sparkling pieces. A body landed on Elias knocking him flat on his back. He sucked in air like a sock stuck in a vacuum.
“Mom?” Elias heaved.
Elias clasped the cheeks of the bobbing head that lay over him. He freaked when he realized it wasn’t his mother. Elias rolled the body of a moaning police officer off him. Elias pushed to his knees and yacked the fruit juice he thought he could keep down until lunch. An umbrella of sprinkler water hissed from the ceiling and showered his head.
“Mom?” Elias choked. “Somebody help me.”
As water and dust dribbled into his eyes, he stretched his arms out to feel for the hand of his mother. He could hear people starting to moan and moans turned to crying. People spilled out from the stairwell and stopped in awe of a helicopter penetrating the lobby. Elias got up and looked around. He tripped over bodies that laid like tousled sleeping bags.
When the sound of metal smashed to the pavement, it sounded like a giant who was groaning and throwing toy cars. Their alarms echoed one after the other. Elias flinched with every crushing sound. Fire breathed from the body of the lobby wreckage. Elias stumbled to the jagged window frames. The tail of the metallic dragon had separated and laid in the roundabout. Shreds of metal and licks of fire were scattered around the parking lot.
Nurses and doctors fled down the hospital stairway and began checking the bodies on the ground.
A military officer was pulling himself up while managing to bark orders at the doctors and nurses. “You need to make room for the war wounded. These people are dead,” he said pointing around.
Elias turned and called out, “Please help my mom.”
One of the doctors was bent over helping a woman sit up. He saw the dazed look on the boy’s face.
“Elias. Which one is Karen?”
Elias instantly recognized his oncologist, Dr. Blake Bongard.
“She was there...or there,” Elias said pointing and spinning around. “She was hit by the bomb.”
Water rolled down his face and he wiped his eyes and looked across all the bloody faces.
“She was here,” Elias cried.
Dr. Bongard observed a group of military men entering from the far end of the lobby.
“We need to get you to a better place,” the doctor said.
“I can’t leave without my mom.”
Outside, rolling blocks of tanks and trucks were parading through the drive way. More doctors arrived into the lobby looking at bodies and greeting soldiers. “We will do what we can but...”
“You will do this for your country,” barked a military officer. “The fighters will get priority. Anyone else needs to wait.”
A female doctor stepped forward. “The emergency entrance is on the south side. All doctors will be available there.”
“Thank you doc. All able bodies who can fight, meet our men out front now,” commanded a military man.
Dr. Bongard put his hand on the shoulder of the boy in shock. “Elias, you need to run home. If something happened to your mom, she arranged for you to be picked up.”
“I can’t go home without my mom.“
“Someone will be looking for you. They will help you, I promise.”
“Who is...”
Outside, rapid fire pinged into the metal of the military tanks. The engines roared to life while men and women in the pixel pattern camouflage followed behind the tanks that lurched forward. A police officer spotted Dr. Bongard and motioned for him to come.
The doctor approached the officer with a grip on Elias’s arm. “This is Elias,” Dr. Bongard introduced. “His mother is lost. I am heading back, but I didn’t want to leave him alone.”
The police officer dressed in deep blue was wet and caked in dust. He took his decorated rimmed cap off and ran his hand through his hair. “I am rounding up men to fight right now. Son, stay with me until we find your mother.”
Elias jerked back, “I’m not going to fight!” He looked at the doctor with grave concern.
“Don’t worry son. Just stay close to me.”
Elias was pulled from the loose grip of the doctor who never looked back as he turned around and left.
Dark smoke rose from the city to engulf the hot blaze of the sun. Sirens repeated their annoyance in the distance. Each minute produced a faint explosion and another collection of drifting dark smoke.
An anarchy of cars was abandoned on lawns, sidewalks, and the middle road lanes. Military vehicles rolled to the south end of the building. Elias followed behind while he watched new recruits in their civilian clothes run along behind a tank which pushed cars out of the way like they were shoveling rocks off the street.
One of the following military trucks ran over the curb and unloaded bodies piled in the back. Doctors greeted all the men with beds ready to take in the wounded covered with blood soaked clothes.
Elias looked up to see white slashes of trails scratched into the sky. Metal birds of thunder roared over their heads. He was tired and nauseous but his adrenaline was pumping and fear was driving it. Elias took a deep breath and bent over with a dry heave.
He tapped the shoulder of the leading officer. “I need to sit down.”
The officer lead Elias into the waiting area of the emergency room packed with wounded men and women sporting their gnarly stained bandages. A smelled of burned trash and ammonia stung his nose.
A nurse standing by with a clip board pointed to Elias. “Civilians are no longer being treated in this hospital.”
The lead officer pushed Elias forward. “He’s not injured so don’t worry about him. He is looking for family.”
The lead officer put Elias against the wall and stepped away.
Elias stood next to a boy who look to be a few years older than himself. The teen was slumped in a chair resting his head back with his arms folded across his chest. He extended his legs in a V shape as if to trip someone. His face was covered in a white ash and his hair crumbed with dirt. The jeans on his right pants leg was torn off from the upper thigh and substituted with a tight wound scarf caked with blackening blood. The lounging teen opened one eye to see a shaky kid gnawing on his index finger and fixating on the wounded leg.
“Psst,” the teen spit.
Elias looked at the older boy, relaxed with his one eye open.
The teen asked. “You been fighting?”
Elias shook his head slightly and noticed the boy had only one shoe and a bloody sock on the other foot.
“You need to sit? I can sit on the floor,” the teen offered.
Elias shook his head again and looked around the room to see every chair occupied with injured bodies.
Elias looked at the boy’s leg and asked, “Are you fighting?”
“I was. I got stabbed from a paratrooper who came down on top of me. It was dark so I never saw it coming. I’ve been sittin’ here all night and all mornin’.”
Elias was curious. “Your parents ok?”
The teenager closed his eye and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen them from the beginning. Where’s yours?”
Elias was feeling queasy again. “I don’t know.”
The man sitting next to the older boy fondled through the pockets of his own jacket and pulled out a half-eaten granola bar. Elias noticed the shakiness of his red hand. His pinky finger was missing and the skin of his ring finger was shredded, exposing a bone jutting upward. Next to him was a man in a black uniform with his head wrapped in bandages. If he moved, a layer of ash would have clouded the people around him.
“He is with the officer. They are gonna make him fight,” Bone Finger said.
“Nah, he’s too young,” the teen said. “They are only drafting sixteen and up.”
“They made you fight?” Elias asked.
“I’m sixteen with a license. They put a gun in my hand and drove me to the front line of interstate 285. They gave me instructions on the gun and said good luck.”
A man sat across from the teen with his arm bandaged and a coin size red mark in the middle. Gauze covered an eye and his brown skin nose was crooked from a break. Elias could see his good eye was prickly red. The man leaned forward.
“I volunteered,” he said. “No man’s gonna come and take what I worked for.”
“I saw you fight Joe,” the teen said. “It was raining soldiers and Joe was picking them off one at a time.”
“Joe,” someone cheered.
“Mojo,” another man responded.
“Mojo,” the group said in unison.
Joe leaned back in his chair. “My commanding officer told me the last words of the President. ‘If you require services, be a part of the service we provide. Assistance will be given to those who are willing to assist America in surviving this horrific attack.’”
Someone asked. “When did he say that?”
“I don’t know, but I believed him,” Joe said.
Elias asked the older boy. “What...what happened to the paratrooper guy?”
“That idiot had a knife. I had a gun. Guess who won?”
The man with the bone finger chuckled. “You got that right Cayden!”
Cayden snorted and stuck his palm up to the bone finger man.
“Ha-ha, hi five bro.”
“That’s not funny.”
They both laughed out loud except Elias who slid down the wall and pulled his legs up to his chest.
“Sorry bro,” Cayden said to Elias. “We have to laugh at something when we’re all in hell. Keeps us alive.”
Elias heard the lead officer ask a nurse behind a kiosk if a woman had been admitted for injuries from the blast to the hospital. She reminded him, civilians were no longer permitted to the ER. Fighters, military, and officers were the only ones permitted to stay.
The lead officer looked around the room of carnage. He whispered to the nurse, but Elias could hear, “Where are the civilian bodies?”
“I wish I could help you sir,” she whispered back.
Steele Stanton laid in the dark waiting for the nurse to arrive with a light and painkillers. The floor began to vibrate under the bed he lay on. He knew others felt it to when there were plenty of yelps coming from around him.
A frenzy of lights and lanterns strobed like a party. The vibrations of a building was becoming common since many of the buildings would feel the buzz of nearby explosions or military planes flying low. Steele laid back and closed his eyes as people scattered.
“Clear the rooms,” was the mysterious command. “This is no longer a civilian hospital. You will need to make room for wounded soldiers.”
Steele knew it was coming any day since he had several paid insiders at the hospital. All patients in the care of the hospital were informed that the hospital could refuse to give care if the military took over. His contact at the hospital verified that the transition was coming since the land fight was moving into the heart of the city.
Steele felt the presence of his curtain open and he popped one eye open. The outline of a well postured figure stood with a rifle strapped around its shoulder.
“Get up and get out. You gotta move or we will move you.”
“Yeah, I hear ya,” Steele yawned.
His fingers traced the IV tube down to the top of his hand and he withdrew the needle. Steele gently guided his arms into his shirt and winced at the rotation of his shoulder. Steele slid off the bed and stuck his head out of the curtain into the hall. A hustle of nurses were clearing out the rooms and rushing in different directions. Steele grabbed a nurse by the arm and pulled him in.
“Can I at least get the anti-biotic before you forget all about me?”
“We have been instructed to only treat the real wounded officers coming in.”
“Anything for pain at least?”
“If you don’t let me go sir, that man with the gun will gladly help you if I call him over.”
Steele saw a finger pointed to the military officer with a long weapon slung over his shoulder. A military man was marching down the hall giving directions for the exit. Steele let go of the nurse and flipped the curtain closed in his room. He rummaged through the medical drawers next to his bed. Empty, empty, and empty.
He raised his sore shoulder and groaned. Steele looked both ways before entering the human traffic lane. A silhouette was walking straight toward him. Without acknowledging Steele, a nurse came through the curtain and laid an envelope on the bed with a bulge underneath.
She whispered. “He is here, now.”
As quickly as she came, the nurse merged into the crowd.
Steele slipped out the paper from the envelope but it was too dark to read. Under the envelope was a syringe with liquid in the chamber.
He grabbed the syringe, popped off the seal, and jabbed the needle into his thigh. With his thumb, he pressed on the top for a release, dropped the syringe, and grabbed the sheets off his bed. The sheets shredded easily into strips and he stuffed a few into his pockets for later.
Steele pulled off a police badge from his belt and stuck it into his pocket.
He clipped on a hospital ID badge he snagged from the nurse he pulled in by the arm. He passed through the hall and ducked into an office.
A candy bar, lots of papers, and a stethoscope was all he grabbed as Steele made a blind feel through the drawers of a small metallic desk. He felt a pinch of joy in a small discovery. On top of the desk was a key chain ring with a push-click mini-light.
He pulled out the paper from his envelope and saw a small squared picture of a boy in his race car hospital gown and a blue baseball cap pulled low on his head. On the back of the was a hand-written scribble.
Package ready for delivery to Oxaca
Doctor Bongard
Steele put the stethoscope around his neck and walked to the ER where he had stumbled in a few hours earlier with his own injury. A hand full of men carried hammocks through the open entrance that flooded light into the room. Arms and legs dangled as they gently placed the hammocks on the floor. A doctor with a blood smeared shirt bent over bodies lined on the floor and gave direction on where they could be taken. Other injured bodies limped in on their own and were asked three questions.
What year is it?
What is your injury?
Who is your commanding officer?
If their injuries were not critical, they were given pills, a cup of water, and a DIY bandage wrap if they required it. Those who were fighting were aware of the water crises and believed it a lesser priority of concern when they could finger the bullet hole in their body.
Steele passed through the crowd and out the front entrance. His eyes winced at the murky daylight as he tried to look for...little people. He couldn’t see past the tanks and the fresh trucks rolling in with their dead and injured.
He walked back into the lobby where the nurse glanced at his ID card as he passed by. To his right sat a kid with his back to the wall with a blue baseball cap resting on his bunched up knees. Steele stood in front of the boy and looked around at the chairs with wrecked bodies filling the seats. Elias felt a presence and he looked up at the dark figure standing over him.
“Hello big guy. I’m here to help you.”
“My name is Elias.”
“That’s what I said. Elias, I am going to get you out of here.”
“I can’t leave without my mom.”
“They are sending all civilians home. Let’s go check there.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a doctor.” Steele said partially showing the ID clipped to his pocket. My name is Dr. Steele Stanton. Call me Steele.”
Steele realized he just woke a sleeping pile of zombies hungry for information when the heads around him perked up.
“Hey doc, I’m gonna loose this eye if I can’t get help now.”
The bone finger man raised his hand. “Doc, I lost these fingers. I don’t wanna lose my hand.”
“Doc...hey, doc...doc. I’m having chest pains, man. I need immediate attention. Right now man.”
“Eli is a civilian,” Steele said.
“Elias.”
“Elias is a civilian,” Steele continued. “He doesn’t belong, so I’m going to have him removed. I’ll come back and take care of you right away.” He asked the boy. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then follow me, quickly.”
Steele helped Elias to his feet. They walked pasted the registration desk where fresh arrivals were distracting the attendant with shouts of questions about how long they had to wait and how important their injury was.
Steele pulled Elias through a door and into a dark hall where they heard the echoes of pain in the distance. LED lanterns cast shadows of men groaning restless in their beds. At the end of the hall, Steele found an exit stairway and they headed up.
Elias whispered. “You’re gonna help me find my mom?”
“When did you lose her?”
“A plane or something hit the hospital, there was an explosion and she...”
“She died?”
“No, no, stop.” Elias pulled away. “You don’t know that!”
“Whoa. I didn’t mean that,” Steele said turning and taking a knee in front of the boy. “Listen. They are clearing all bodies, living and dead, from the hospital. They are making room for anyone fighting and wounded. They either carried her out or she walked away.”
Elias pressed his quivering lip and he pulled his shirt up to wipe his face. Steele huffed and put his good arm around Elias to squeeze him gently.
“Hey, Elliiaas?”
Elias acknowledged.
“Hey Elias. Your mom’s name is Karen. If anything ever happened or...you got separated, my job is to help you survive. Right now, we need to leave this hospital or they will recruit us both to go fight.”
Steele stepped back and pulled the shirt down from the boy’s face.
“You and your mom walked here right?”
“We drove until our gas was stolen. Then we rode our bikes until they were stolen.”
“We had to come every other week for my chemo.”
Elias took off his hat and showed his bald head. “Cancer.”
Steele stood up, backed away, and rubbed his face.
“You can’t catch it,” Elias said immediately putting his hat back on.
“I know. I just have to figure out how to keep you healthy. Let’s take you home. If they made her leave, she went there looking for you.”
Steele pushed him forward and they resumed a hasty pace. The halls were the picture of a horror movie. There were long passages with blankets of shadows shaped from a mysterious light. Bodies, hunched like zombies, laid up against the wall resting and giving free passages to anyone who roamed the darkness. They were simply fatigued doctors and nurses seeking a quiet rest from the death and carnage of their current world.
At the far end of a hall Steele and his dragging companion found an exit leading to the outside back entrance of the hospital.
