Sleeper Cell Super Boxset, page 75
“Goddamn thing never stays charged.”
Mike pulled out his own phone. The screen was completely black. He held the power button down, but the phone wouldn’t turn on. He knew it had a full charge this morning when he left for work.
One of Mike’s co-workers smacked into his shoulder, rushing past him. He looked up from his phone and saw some men in the front of the group rushing toward the parking lot. Soon the rest of the group started running and Mike was caught up in the current of people herding forward. Mike pushed his way to the front of the pack next to Don.
All of the cars along the highway were completely still. Wrecks dotted the road for miles. People were outside their vehicles checking the engines. Some were walking toward the city while others sat on the side of the road expecting someone to come and get them.
“What the hell?” Don asked.
Mike thought of the back-up generators that hadn’t turned on, the machines in the yard that had shut off, and the dead cell phones. All of it added up to one thing.
EMP burst.
The Streets
Mike was the first to break for his truck. A few other people followed him, but most people stood in the yard staring at the stalled cars along the highway. Gravel kicked up behind him. He stuck his hands in his pocket, fumbling for his keys in mid stride. The truck door flew open and he reached for the glove box yanking out the small bag inside. The hospital where he dropped his dad off was a few miles away. If he kept up a steady pace he could be there in thirty minutes.
The factories and warehouses on the edge of the city slowly morphed into office buildings and small businesses the closer he moved to the hospital. The silence of everything was eerie. No engines running. No horns blaring. No power lines buzzing. There was only the silent murmur of crowds piling into the streets looking confused in the motionless city.
People held their cell phones in the air, looking around, asking questions to one another. Growing crowds surrounded the police officers stationed on corners. Mike could hear the bombardment of questions and pleas:
“What’s going on?”
“When is the power coming back on?”
“Why isn’t my phone working?”
“My car got hit back on 4th street and the guy took off!”
“Help me.”
Mike’s pace slowed. He squeezed in and out of the growing crowds piling into the streets. He could feel the restlessness growing in the people around him. He thought of what this mob would start doing once they realized what he already knew.
Yesterday Mike watched two men get into a shoving match over a fender bender. On Monday when he was standing in line for coffee the woman at the front had an outburst because the barista said they were out of the white chocolate creamer she liked.
Now, there were wrecks on every corner. There wasn’t Internet, or transportation, or a way to keep people’s food from spoiling. There weren’t any ATMs that were working, no way to call for help or to check to see if someone’s friend or family member was okay. There wasn’t even any power to turn on the barista’s coffee machines. The whole city was shut down.
After twenty minutes of running, Mike clutched his ribs. A knife-like pain was digging into his side, running from his hip to his shoulder. The ring of sweat from the summer heat formed around the collar of his shirt. The crowds had grown so thick now there wasn’t enough space for him to run. He slowed to a brisk walk. He stared down at his feet, feeling the throbbing ache of running in boots.
Mike stepped up on the platform of a street lamp to get a better view of what was in front of him. A large crowd had gathered in front of the precinct a block away. A line of police stationed outside was attempting to control the hordes of people rushing to get inside.
Just beyond the precinct he could see the front of Allegheny General. Behind the crowd in front of the police station, on the other side of the street, a space opened up where Mike could get by. He jumped down from the lamppost and made his way toward the opening.
Mike pushed his way through crowds of people on the other side of the street, his fingers gripping the small bag in his hand. Elbows jabbed his side, shoes stepped over his boots, and shoulders collided with him. The summer heat combined with the sweaty bodies around him made the air thick and hard to breathe. The crowd was hot, uncomfortable, and irritable.
An officer’s voice boomed through a bullhorn outside the station. He kept his hands up in the air addressing the crowd. Officers in riot gear appeared from the side of the station wielding shields and batons. The crowd hadn’t noticed them yet.
“I need everyone to please remain calm. We are working with state and federal officials to figure out what’s going on and when the power’s coming back on. I need everyone to make an orderly line and I assure you one of our officers will be available to address each of your concerns individually. Anyone that does not comply and becomes disruptive will be arrested.”
People on the outside of the crowd in front of the station started pushing their way to the front. One man grabbed a woman’s shoulders and threw her backwards. An officer in riot gear subdued him before he made it into the crowd. A teenaged girl had a backpack on and the woman behind her pulled the backpack down smacking the girl into the pavement. The riot officers grabbed the woman’s arm and cuffed her as well. All around the outskirts of the crowd shoves and punches started to breakout.
One by one the mob outside the station was being curtailed, but others were showing up gathering behind the riot police and trying to get in the station.
The shouts from the bullhorn faded behind Mike. He glanced back and could see the swarm of bodies overwhelming the officers. He still had his eyes on a man being thrown to the ground and handcuffed when the gunshot rang out in the alley behind him.
A solid ringing went through Mike’s ears. The shot was close. Mike dropped to his knee and the crowd around him ducked and scattered like cockroaches being discovered when a kitchen light turns on. He rose from his knee and was smacked in the face by a stray elbow from the crowd around him. More bodies ran into him, tossing him around like a pinball machine. He could see a man in the alleyway, clutching his stomach, sliding down the wall of the building behind him.
Mike pushed through the crowd, the ground seeming uneven beneath him from the blow to his head. The ringing in his ears subsided and was replaced by screams and cries for help.
“Guy f-fucking shot me. I d-didn’t even have any c-cash on me,” the young man said.
“What’s your name?” Mike asked.
Mike opened the bag he brought with him. He rummaged through it pulling out white bandages.
“G-Garry,” he said.
Garry’s entire body was shaking. Mike lifted Garry’s hands off the wound he was covering and shoved bandages in its place to staunch the bleeding.
“Garry, I need you to keep pressure on this okay?” Mike said.
Blood soaked Garry’s shirt and the red stain was growing larger. Mike kept both his hands over the wound, helping to keep pressure on it. Color faded from Garry’s face.
“Am I gonna die?” Garry asked.
Mike felt the spasms of Garry’s body against his hands, the struggle to stay alive. The eyes staring back at him were scared, tired, and losing their fight. Garry’s green eyes seemed brighter against the pale flesh of his cheeks. Mike’s son’s eyes were green.
“Allegheny General is just a few more blocks. I need to move you there now, but you’ll need to keep pressure on the wound,” Mike said.
Blood spilled from Garry’s gut when Mike removed his hands from Garry’s stomach. Mike threw his arm around his shoulder and took the bulk of Garry’s weight onto it.
Mike pulled Garry from the alleyway, his feet dragging behind him, drips of blood splattering against the concrete underneath.
When they appeared out of the alleyway, people just stared at the two of them. Everyone took a few steps back. Nobody was sure what to do. Mike stared into faces filled with fear, panic, and uncertainty. A guy in a business suit came up and threw the young man’s other arm over his shoulder.
“Thanks,” Mike said.
The crowds outside the hospital were enormous. The shouts, cries, and pleas for help drowned out any sound or ability to hear. The three of them kept moving forward, each bump into the person in front of them cleared a path to the hospital’s doors.
People jumped back in revulsion. Most people had minor injuries and the sight of blood dripping from Garry’s stomach, his head hanging limp on his neck, caused them to get out of the way.
Nurses and doctors ran around the lobby. Patients were being treated in the chairs in the waiting room. Trails of blood stained the hospital’s tile. The only light visible shone through the glass doors from the entrance. Mike could see a few candles down the hallways, offering a slight glow in the darkness.
Mike reached out and grabbed a doctor’s arm passing him.
“I’ve got a critical patient with a gunshot wound to the abdomen,” Mike said.
The doctor’s eyes fell on Mike, Garry, and the man helping them. He lifted Garry’s head up and opened his eyes. He placed his fingers on the side of Garry’s neck. The doctor shook his head.
“I’m sorry, boys. He’s gone.”
The room around Mike went into slow motion. The frantic nurse that rushed up and stole the doctor, family members begging with the medical staff to do more, and the blood dripping onto the tile from Garry’s stomach seemed unreal. Ten minutes ago the man he was holding up was alive.
They dragged Garry’s body over to a corner of the room next to a door with “MAINTENANCE” written in white bold letters, and set him down. Mike grabbed a sheet off a stretcher and tossed it over Garry’s body. Mike turned around and the man that had helped him was gone. Garry’s blood was still warm, lingering on Mike’s hands. He smeared his shirt, attempting to wipe the red from his fingers.
No matter how hard he wiped the blood wouldn’t come off. The metallic stench filled his nose. He could feel it, taste it. He had to get out. Mike made a beeline for the door, savagely pushing people out of his way, and then he stopped suddenly.
“Dad,” he whispered.
Mike turned on his heel and grabbed another nurse rushing past him. He held her by both of her arms.
“I’m looking for my father,” he said.
The nurse squirmed to free herself from Mike’s grip. Her face twisted from the uncomfortable feeling of the unfamiliar touching her.
“Sir, please let me go,” she said.
“He came in for a blood test this morning.”
“I have to get ready for surgery.”
“Where is he?”
“I-I think they put all the non-critical patients on the third floor.”
Mike let her go and sprinted for the stairwell. The door was propped open. The light from the lobby doors and windows flooded the first flight of stairs. He could see faint rays of light above him from the open doors in the stairwell.
Two large orderlies carried an elderly man on a stretcher and were making their way down to Mike as he reached the second floor. Mike could see the white wisps of hair on the old man’s head, the limp hand hanging off the stretcher with a gold band around the ring finger, but couldn’t see his face. Mike’s heart leapt and he pushed the orderly aside to see get a better look.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing, man?” the orderly asked.
It wasn’t his dad. Mike let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d held.
“Sorry,” Mike said.
Mike moved to the side of the stairs and let them pass. On his way up the last flight of stairs he could overhear the two orderlies below talking.
“You think he’s gonna make it?”
“You kidding me? You see what’s happening right now? Anybody who’s dependent on modern medicine ain’t gonna last much longer. The old man’s a goner.”
Hospital
Mike leaped the steps two at a time. He burst through the open door into a hallway on the third floor. He looked left, and bright sunlight shone in from a window down the hallway. To his right, the hallway faded from the light into darkness. He rushed past nurses, doctors, and patients, scouring the floor for his father. Shouts from hospital staff filled the hallway.
“We need IV drips going in rooms twelve, nineteen, and seven.”
“We need a doctor in here now!”
“Ma’am, please, we’re doing everything we can to help your husband.”
“Any spare candles should be put in the operating rooms.”
Mike squinted, trying to make out the signs hanging from the ceiling. He read “ICU”, “ADMINSTRATIVE DESK” and “BLOOD LAB” on the bottom with an arrow pointing further down the hallway.
Mike weaved in and out of the traffic of people clogging his path. He passed room and saw the figures in bed, unmoving. He saw nurses huddling around candles, filling syringes by their light. He walked past the intensive-care unit. The silence of machines replaced by the sobs and screams of mothers, fathers, wives, and husbands slumped over lifeless bodies.
Beyond the ICU Mike passed the blood-soaked operating tables with doctors frantically trying to keep their patients alive. All of the technology used to aid them in surgery now gone.
The sign of the blood lab was plastered on the door. Mike bolted inside. The room was pitch black.
“Dad?” Mike whispered, but no answer.
Mike exited the lab. He stood motionless in the hallway. The hospital staff rushed past him. He had no idea where to look next.
“Michael!”
The light from the window down the hall outlined Ulysses’ silhouette. Mike couldn’t make out the reaction on his father’s face upon seeing him, but Mike knew Ulysses could see the relief spreading across his own.
“Dad,” Mike said, running toward him. He took his father in both arms, pinning him against his chest.
“I thought I’d lost you, old man,” Mike said.
“Not yet,” Ulysses replied. “I need your help.”
Mike tried to keep up with his father. He noticed the red bandage around Ulysses’ arm.
“Are you all right?” Mike asked.
“There are some people trapped in the elevator down the hall. I don’t know how many,” Ulysses said.
“Dad, did they give you any insulin?”
“I’ll need you to hold the doors open until I can pin them in place.”
“Dad!”
Mike seized his father’s arm. He whipped him around and the two stopped dead in their tracks. The flow of people moving through the hall rushed around them like water breaking on rocks in a river.
“Michael, I’m fine,” Ulysses said.
“Did they already give you your insulin?” Mike asked.
“The lights went out before they could give it to me.”
“We need to get you that medicine now.”
Ulysses jerked his arm out of his son’s grip.
“After we get those people out of the elevator.”
Ulysses marched back down the hallway and Mike turned his head back to the direction of the blood lab. He should have tried to grab the insulin before he left.
The shouts coming from the elevator shaft roared louder the closer they moved to it.
“You sure they’re below us?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, we need a drop key to get the doors open. I went looking for the maintenance room, but I couldn’t find it,” Ulysses replied.
“It’s downstairs. I saw it on my way up,” Mike said.
Mike flew down the hallway and rushed back down the stairs. When he reached the first floor, the number of people inside had doubled.
Mike stepped forward and his boot slid on the tile; he stuck his arms out trying to steady himself. He looked down and saw his boot print smeared in blood. His eyes followed the trail to other fluids staining the white hospital tile.
Mike pushed his way through the growing masses in the hospital’s lobby. When he reached the maintenance door he saw Garry was right where he left him. Mike paused, glancing at the covered heap of flesh.
The maintenance room was chaotic and unkempt. Mike hunted through drawers with mixed tools, light bulbs, and spare screws. Blue jumpsuits hung on a rack along the wall. He searched the pockets, turning them inside out. He reached the last jumpsuit on the rack and as his hand dug into the outer pocket he could hear the jingle of keys. Mike flipped through them until he found the three-inch long rod with a hinge piece hiding amidst the rest of the silver and bronze keys surrounding it.
