Carrying the Fire

"New's reports of the Chicago Cub's game canceled due to last night attacks occurring in Illinois, with military now using Wrigley's Field as the city's safe zone...

"Disneyland is reporting to be shut down and has yet to release a date of it's reopening in Anaheim, California. After the Screaming Over California Roller coaster accident caused by a sick employee, representatives of Walt Disney Co. are fearful of the fever epidemic throughout California...

"Mass murders reported at a Best Western in Ann Arbor, Michigan near the cities local university. At 12 o'clock this morning, a whole floor of resident's staying at the hotel were found dead by a guest returning to their room...

New's Reports in Albany, Georgia of husband and father Bruce Barbosa, assaulted his family late last night around 4 A.M. Unfortunately, wife Marta Barbosa was found deceased and their two children are in critical condition. The bizarre aspect now made apparent when police released Marta Barbosa's cause of death was from lethal avulsions to her jugular while the children received similar flesh wounds..."

Turning from the television hanging in the break room of St. Joseph's Hospital, teeth tugged against my bottom lip at the sight of the phone glued to my hand still showing zero texts or calls. I'd been trying to get a hold of Todd all morning, but of course, he was ignoring my calls. Today wasn't the time to be spiteful as the new's reports over the past week were getting stranger and had abruptly come closer to home. Albany was only a few cities away. My dad had called yesterday informing me how back in California, freeways were parking lots and had prevented him getting to work that day. Los Angeles was practically quarantined off last night, but with all these different crazy stories flying everywhere no one knew exactly what to believe. Todd had told me his brother was saying hospitals were overcrowded and even beginning to turn people away. Those with symptoms of extreme fevers, chills, vomiting, and even dementia were being told to report to UCLA's Medical Center to be treated but had been unsuccessful at calming the sick as everyone flocked to LA. This contagious virus was spreading throughout major cities the quickest, Seattle and Houston were taking a hit just as hard. Then amongst the bewilderment, it was released that this infection was being transferred through direct fluidic contact which floored everyone causing a chaos of people turning on people. Everyone was afraid of someone who could be infected, so they called them. Warnings about symptoms of intense pain or numbing and discoloration from wounds were also now surfacing. What kind of disease was this shit? I'd been nervous about leaving for work the past couple days, but at three A.M there hadn't been any occurrences in Georgia yet to really hinder me from going. Yet it was today, a Wednesday morning a few hours into my shift, I came back from our last call to catch everyone drawn to the news like one would see flies hover towards a light. Being EMT's in a hugely populated city of over 400,000 people, we were all wondering if we'd soon be getting calls for similar appearances in Atlanta now that rumors were spreading of it close by.

"It's starting to sound scary serious, isn't it?"

Nodding, I turned to see the worried creases in my usually easy-natured pal Zhao, having just gotten back with me after our last call he stared just as strangely at the news with other EMT's inbetween runs. Zhao met my glance, offering his usual small, sheepish smile that would have normally comforted me, and placed his hand on my shoulder for a moment. "Albany's close... you get a hold of Todd yet?"

Zhao Vin was one of the first few friends I made when transferring to Atlanta as we were often put together on the same EMS crew and had gradually bonded over some of the shit we had to see in our line of work. My Buddhist acquaintance from work had grown into a good confidant once I finally learned to pronounce his name correctly- even though I now intentionally call him Jwoww as a running joke. Ironically, despite his religious upbringing, I recognized we shared similar interests after discovering we had both been Astrobiology majors briefly during our college careers. We could compare opinions on documented explorations and talk about literature of evidence for prebiotic chemistry or habitable biospheres for hours over a few cold Bohemians. Contrary to the usual stereotype, I had inquired once why Zhao wasn't a surgeon or at least interning for a residency in a hospital by now, to have him answer me back with a joke about how there was such a thing as a lazy asian. He soon became a guest invited over regularly for dinner (drinking) and even Todd took a liking to my friendly co-worker besides getting over us having to cook vegetarian meals for his visits.

I humored him with a small smile for his concern but had to sigh as I stared back down at my phone impatiently. "It's not just Todd. My dad was telling me yesterday it's getting weirder in California, and now I can't even reach him either. Can you believe the National Guard actually closing down LA? Where are people even supposed to go now? I've been trying to get a hold of my sister, but of course she never picks up- she can post shit on her facebook but can't answer the phone?" I huffed. Zhao chuckled softly and shook his head, trying to act more sympathetic for my predicament once I threw him a dark look. "And don't even get me started on the other one. I'll leave a voicemail and won't hear back for a week from her... New York isn't sounding any better."

Being the middle child of three girls in a household with just my father for most of my teenage years growing up, our catty antics towards each other had grown familiar over the years. My older sister Natalie, had always been the one getting in trouble; constantly breaking curfew, ditching school, or sneaking out to parties. Our dad had become so passive after our mother was incarcerated and knew little about controlling a rebellious sixteen-year-old. Nat took off to New York first chance she got after turning eighteen and hardly called and even more rarely came back to visit. With such a tiny lithe body and sharp features, she worked in some boutique but pursued a modeling career from what she told us and would send copies of her shoots every so often. Though I expected that had run to it's expiration by now. Nat and my younger sister Jemma, had both inherited our mother's lovely high cheek-boned face rather than my dad's much rounder and softer features like I had.

Jemma on the other hand, had once been closest to me all her life but only just recently grown an ocean apart. Born with such in age difference between us, Nat and I practically raised her. But now, she was a moody seventeen-year-old who talked to me with an attitude ever since I moved to Atlanta. From the result of being gone from our lives for fifteen years, Jemma hardly acknowledged our mother or went to her visitations once she began to mature and realize how selfish she had to have been to land herself in prison. Even after getting out a couple years ago, it was a lost cause for Rhian to reach out any more to her daughters. I don't know how, but I had taken on the role of trying to rope in Nat constantly from being expelled from school or getting arrested while causing havok with whatever current boyfriend of her's at the time, or watching a baby Jemma to help my father with his shaky parenting. My concern was often rejected and my sisters now accuse me of being meddlesome and display every sign of their annoyance with me, constantly trying to sever a bothersome tie it almost seems.

I'd shared these frustrations with Zhao at some point, having four sisters of his own, so he understood how frustrated I got when it came to my family and it showed as he gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"They'll call. You know how it goes," he assured. Before we could say much more, Dr. Alicia Kuhn bustled out with charts already in hand and in a brisk stride while continuing to look them over. A dark skinned, short haired, middle aged woman, Kuhn was the hospital's medical director in charge of the EMS division hired for St. Joseph's who ruled with an often exacting fist. Others lingering between calls to watch the news also noticed Kuhn coming our way and got up from watching to gather together.

"Alright people, St. Joseph's has been notified that we are to assist the CDC until further notice," Dr. Kuhn announced, finally looking up from her clipboards. "Your job from this point on is to transfer the care of any patients with suspicious fevers and bite or scratch victims to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, despite any and all insurance claims. So that mean ya'll will be checking in with EMD frequently, they'll be your best friends today and you'll be reporting your status regularly to dispatchers. So no stones unturned folks, we're being thorough- no obsessive vomiting, no discoloration to any open lesions, avulsions, or lacerations, and no complaints of joint pains are to pass through these hospital doors. Anyone else, bring em in."

We all looked around uncertainly.

"Bite victims?"

I wondered if I should've said to hell with work today as this was beginning to sound dangerously consequential.

"Atlanta, ladies and gentleman, is to be quarantined off," Kuhn informed us almost impatiently, like it was any other busy day waiting for the rest of us while we connected the dots on how this afternoon was going to go. "We're just waiting on the National Guard, then they're preparing to block off roads leading in or out of the city and broadcast Atlanta as a refugee zone for civilians to evacuate to. It's our job to keep the infection outside the city to the CDC."

It was a heavy weight thrown at us and I could tell it hit everyone collectively what this meant. My hand jerked to clutch the phone in my pocket.

"I'll give ya'll a couple minutes while I'm waiting on the others to come back, every EMT will be on today. Call your families and tell em' what's going happening. Keep in mind people, we're practicing highest levels of prevention, watch all blood pathogens! I don't need any ya'll infected and bringing it here. Dallas, Owens, Edwards you'll be heading on out once you're done, we got a collision down on 7th just off of Midway. Iha, Palacios, and Soto you'll be following. It's right before the on ramp people, so it's gonna be piled up, we needa' be in and out."

Both EMS teams looked apprehensively at each other, but nobody had any real balls to speak up to Kuhn until Amanda Palacios, a small hispanic girl with her hair tied back in a high bun spoke up. "What's going to happen once military does get here? Is Atlanta going to be sealed off like New York and LA?"

"Yeah, I heard they've lost all communication in Seattle, too. I got a family Alicia, I commute as it is and I can't get stuck in downtown," Will Soto piped up somewhere behind Zhao and I. There were other murmurs of agreement amongst the group of EMTs, stopping Kuhn from her distracted reading and looked up from her charts to actually notice our worried faces. Dr. Kuhn's expression turned hard as she slowly steered her gaze around at us all, her arms dropped to her hips and lips pursed. When her dark eyes eventually met mine, I couldn't help but grimace and look down at my sketchers to avoid her scrutinizing.

"You people are first emergency responders, and you're trying to tell me you want to take the day off?" she asked slowly but loudly. Nobody had much to say about that, feeling a little guilty myself. "Fine Soto, go 'head and go home. You wanna go too, Palacios? How bout you, Iha?"

Amanda didn't move or say any more, and neither did Jimmy Iha who seemed upset he'd been dragged into the conversation without having said anything, but just shook their heads. Kuhn looked back over at the rest of us as if we'd spoken out just as much, "Anybody else?"

When no one else spoke up, Kuhn shoved one of her clipboards at Liam Owens, not looking at him much as she continued to survey over us. "Four car collision, don't know how many have any bites, but there's one who is reported to been bit for sure."

Liam accepted the chart silently, Leanne Dallas and Jared Edwards following his lead outside to prepare their assigned ambulance.

"Be lucky ya'll have a head ups. Safest place is here at the moment and I'd suggest you inform your families of that." Alicia's eyes must have finally found what she'd been scanning for and called, "Cassidy, take over Iha's ambulance. Vin, Somerset, get going."

Nodding briefly, I turned to go meet the others by the ambulance to try and reach Todd again before we left while Kuhn assigned other calls. I didn't know what to make of this and I was becoming anxious at how surreal this all felt. Reaching into my jacket's breast pocket, I pulled out my inhaler and pushed down on the plunger to huff in a light wisp of medication to try and put my tightening breaths at ease. Zhao went to retrieve our chart while I hurried to get fresh air outside on the way to our ambulance and to do a check on supplies. I took my phone back out and felt my chest continue to constrict; still no word from Todd. Later I would probably be excessively busy from the sound of it, so phone time would be little to none once I headed out. So upset and pissed he'd do this to me at a time like this, I was just as worried for my own family being so far while shit like this was starting to go down, but I dialed him again anyways.

Let down once again as the line went to voicemail, I squeezed my eyes shut and hiccup-inhaled another breath in frustration.

"I wish you'd stop being such an asshole right now Todd," my voice said, cracking a little as I gulped back panicking tears and tried to remember I was still at work while speaking into the phone. "They're telling me here that they're gunna start telling people to evacuate Georgia and blocking off Atlanta as a safe spot. I haven't been able to get a hold of a-anybody and I don't know if I should leave work and go home o-or stay here in the city- I don't know what I should do and you won't answer- !"

Not realizing I was beginning to shout until I could hardly breathe properly, I rested the phone face-down against my chest while I choked back my blubbering to take another inhale of my inhaler. Blinking away tears off my eyelashes, I pinched the bridge of my nose to get a hold of myself before I raised the phone back up to finish my message in a more composed voice. "When you get this, get to Atlanta, Todd. I'll be at work."

Hanging up, I waited and gathered myself as completely as possible before dialing my dad. Oddly, instead of ringing, the call was directed straight to voicemail as well. After a few more tries without getting any better of a result, I tried calling Jemma again. The same result. Nat's number did the same. Frowning at how completely alone I was feeling at not being able to get in contact with anyone, I had to resign to switch the ringer off and stuffed it back in my pocket.

When I made it to ambulance #06, Zhao was waiting for me and brought me up to speed with the 911 call we'd been assigned to while unlocking the back of the cab. Steven Cassidy, the AEMT of the group with the most seniority of the team walked out after us, a pale thirty-eight year old fellow that reminded me of Todd with his thick goatee, only darker and trimmed neater. After pulling open the doors, Zhao tossed the keys over for Steven to catch but seemed to have disrupted him out of his thoughts when they just hit his arm before he could react fast enough to catch them.

"Shit- sorry Steven," Zhao called. I bit my lip to keep from snickering a little, but Steven didn't seem to be in the mood to fool around with us like usual as he threw Zhao and I a dirty look before bending down to retrieve the keys off the ground. I glanced over at Zhao who also raised a careful eyebrow at Steven's bad mood while I heard him open the driver's door and start the engine.

Zhao sat across from me on the other side of the stretcher and reached over to close his side of the ambulance's door once we briefly double-checked our equipment. As I reached over to close my side, I caught the last of the night shift's ambulance pull up with it's sirens still blaring. It screeched to an abrupt stop outside the hospital's trauma entrance and the doors burst open as I saw the familiar faces of Carmen Floyd and Max Stoltzman rush out a woman screaming strapped down into the stretcher. There was blood all over everyone as I saw Carmen with her fingers plugged up the woman's stomach to keep from spurting out a fountain of crimson and intestines. Residents quickly rushed out from the sliding glass doors to meet the paramedics; all bedecked with standard surgical masks and gowns over their scrubs with hands already sterilized in plastic gloves. This sight disturbed me, but Steven was yelling back at me to close the door so we could leave.

I sat up front with Steven and buckled myself in, Zhao strapping himself into the seat just behind me and heaved a heavy unsettled sigh. Two cop cars were quick to flank us as Steven began to pull out of the hospital's parking after Liam, both the ambulance and police sirens blaring in sync with each other.

"You hear from anyone?" Zhao asked over the sirens as we drove behind the police, parting the light flow of cars so far in our path.

"Nope. Nobody," I replied darkly, trying to suppress my upset tears again.

"Me neither." I turned back to see Zhao staring down at his feet with a deep frown carved across his usually soft baby-cheeked features.

"Same here," Steven piped in after a long silence between us. His eyes never left the road in front of him, constantly scanning his mirrors to avoid any oncoming idiot drivers not paying attention or pulling over enough.

"Sorry," I muttered, understanding how lost we were beginning to feel in these turn of events. Aware that Zhao had quite a big family just outside in Senoia, Steven with a wife and little four-year-old girl as well, I knew they were hurting with worry just as much as I was. Yet they'd stayed. If this was a mistake, we'd soon find out.



The streets had been completely congested with practically dead-stopped traffic as we made our way through in the center dividing lane, the police still guiding our way as Jared Edwards could be heard instructing cars out of the way through the intercom up ahead, sirens still blaring. It had taken us even longer when we had to maneuver ourselves out of the way of another ambulance speeding back trying to get by us. Finally getting closer on 7th Street, we began seeing the pile up with police already gathered around. Steven pulled up to park as close enough out of the way that traffic could still be directed to get by and radioed back to dispatch of our arrival while Zhao opened the back and I hurried out to follow.

While we walked by to make our primary assessment and were debriefed by police of the severity of injuries, I glanced over to see Leanne and Jared wheeling out their stretcher from the back of ambulance #04 to Liam who was crouching beside an open car door checking the pulse on a barely conscious driver and applying pressure to stop the bleeding that was spilling out from a wound under the man's shirt. Disconcerted that a three car bumper-to-bumper pile up could cause such a severely bleeding wound, but didn't have much time to worry about Liam's patient before I was being called after.

The woman who had hit the first car with the bleeding man inside because he'd made such an abrupt stop she said, Kate Henrys she told us her name was, had been on her feet outside her car looking on guiltily while the police were taking her statement. We moved her over to sit in our ambulance after the cops were done and moved on to the other woman who'd been the last car in the accident. There was no serious damage to her other than a cut she received just above her brow from hitting the steering wheel. I surveyed the collision over again and looked back to see Leanne and Jared loading up and strapping down the now seizing man.

"Aye Owens!" I called, waving my arms to get his attention. "St. Joseph's?" I asked when his gaze darted to find who'd called him. Liam paused, his sombered expression letting me know before he shook his head and hopped in the driver's seat, swiftly closing the door to pull back out with his sirens back on.

Fuck, already.

While the last person in the collision refused the ambulance, we loaded up Kate in the back as we prepared to travel her to St. Joseph's after recording her injuries and reporting it back to EMD. As Zhao and I continued to check over her, I placed my stethoscope to document her heart rate to find it was racing. Not unusual for someone just experiencing a car collision, but as I glanced up at Kate, I noticed her repeatedly keep wiping sweat from under her bangs. Catching Zhao staring back over me, I realized he was noticing at the same time as I.

"Did you start heating up like this before the accident?" I inquired, looking back over to the patient and feeling Steven beginning to pull back out into traffic.

"Nah, no, I'm just stressed out, y'know?" she assured, attempting to laugh but it came out more like a shaky high-pitched breath. "Insurance was high enough on that car without adding an accident now."

She took another swipe over her face but smiled back at us. Nodding my head, keeping this as casual as possible while watching Zhao rip open the plastic wrapping of a thermometer, if the surgical mask wasn't covering my mouth, she would have seen me grin back and began adding notes on her condition to our chart.

"Eesh, don't gotta tell me twice about insurance rates," I assured easily, setting down the chart and plucking some moist gauze to clean off some of the blood that dribbled from her cut. "Coulda' been worse though, no?"

"Yeah, I guess," Kate murmured.

"Miss Henrys, if you could just say 'ah' for me please?" Zhao interrupted, pulling his mask up for a moment to mimick how wide he wanted her mouth open. Complying, Kate followed Zhao's instructions as he slipped the thermometer under her tongue. "You can go ahead and close now. This will just be a minute."

Aware Zhao was intentionally acting blase about taking her temperature, I felt nervous but did my best with keeping myself busy giving her a physical exam, palpating for more injuries but she continued to insist it was just her cut that was causing her light-headedness. When there was finally a small little beep indicating the thermometer was done registering the temperature, Zhao extracted it back from her mouth and turned his back to us as he read the stick. Without a word, Zhao threw the disposable thermometer in the hazardous waste bin before turning back around and began twitchily adding the temperature to her chart. If you didn't know Zhao, you'd be none the wiser.

"We'll be to the center in just another couple of minutes, ok Kate? It's just the traffic we got to go through is making this a longer ride," he assured, placing his gloved hand over her own before turning to walk towards Steven driving up front. My heart plundered at his reference to a "center" rather than the hospital and I wasn't sure how to approach this situation now. Half of me was now afraid for my own health, but I realized how easily it could be to frighten this poor woman and just remained as neutral as possible.

"You sure you’re feeling OK other than that cut? No nausea of any kind?" I continued to question like any other patient. Shaking her head negative, I continued to play along with her. Excusing myself, assuring Kate I was checking on how much longer it would be and approached my colleagues.

"...this girl's running a 104 degree temperature and her heart rate is borderline tachycardia- she should be about to stroke," Zhao hissed from the passenger seat next to Steven who, I'd noticed was no longer taking the streets back into the city.

"We're not taking her back," Steven muttered, not looking any where but the road with a stoic stare.

"She's not telling us something," I interjected, whispering to keep Kate from hearing our conversation over the sirens. "There's no bites we can see... you think we need to start shredding clothes to see if there's something she's not showing us- or maybe isn't aware of?"

"What're we going to tell her? Slicing open her jeans and taking her to the CDC's pretty extreme for a minor car accident," Zhao exasperated. Something must be unnerving my friend, but I couldn't tell if it was guilt at having to surrender her to quarantine or the the prospect of traveling to the CDC- and I could understand that.

"We tell her we're doing our job," Steven bit back sharply. "Kuhn said no suspicious fevers, and it's not gunna be on my ass to bring that shit in."

Zhao and I exchanged looks, understanding quietly what had to be done, not just because it was a job.



When we pulled into the CDC, it was like we approached a military base rather than a medical research center. I watched eerily as we passed by tanks driving down streets, soldiers flanking around the perimeter stopping and questioning any vehicles attempting to enter. This was fucking barmy I thought, never having seen an army tank in person yet here they were in Atlanta, Georgia, with soldiers waving and directing us to another line of various paramedics other than St. Joseph's being opened and searched through.

Informing Kate of our instructions to take her to the research facility rather than the hospital hadn't gone too well. She had thrown a fit, demanding we pull over and let her out even. I felt terribly apologetic trying to explain our reasoning, tasting like fake empathy in my mouth just listening to myself before she burst into distressed tears. In her breakdown, she finally confessed, at last pulling up the bottom of her pant's leg to show us a hideously deep scratch below her ankle that had been bleeding into her sock. She explained how she'd been walking to her car from class and came up on a girl she thought was passed out in the parking lot. When she approached, the woman grabbed on to her and held on so tight that when she yanked her leg back. she'd scratched her hard. I assured her that she'd be in good hands under the care of some of the best doctors in the country, yet as we begun witnessing soldiers ripping patients from ambulances and strap them down for them to be whisked off in such a terrifying rush, this did little to comfort Kate.

When it came to our turn, a soldier began asking Steven about who we had with us and asked to see all our identification badges from the hospital and EMT licenses. In the middle of answering questions, the back twin doors were opened to flood the air conditioned interior with the humid flush of Georgian heat and Kate shriveled back as guns were pointed in at her, then back towards the three of us being questioned up in the front. My eyes must have turned into dinner plates when I whirled my head back to look horrified at these soldiers surveying us through the sights of their guns.

"Where's the infected area?" the soldier inquired, his voice muffled behind his own prevention mask and wasting no time in pleasantries. Kate seemed too shocked to speak as she just reached down with tremendously shaking hands, pulling up her pant leg again to reveal her enflamed scratch. Wordlessly, he looked over the wound, still training the gun with his view while aiming it back up at us. "How about any of you? Has anyone else been scratched or bit, any fluidic contact?"

"Can you please not put that gun in our faces?" I snapped, shocked at how traumatizing they were making this out to be.

Before the soldier had time to respond back, Zhao interrupted, "No, there hasn't. We just disinfected the small laceration on her head before she told us about the ankle."

Nodding, he kept his eyes trained hard on mine as I shot him just as nasty of a look before signaling for two others, giving no further warning as they hauled themselves inside the back and pulled Kate down to strap in her arms and legs as she began now crying and begging to know why she had to be restrained.

"Just a precaution Mam'," they assured her as they wheeled her on the stretcher out the ambulance. The intensity of fear on Kate's face made me feel severely guilty and was what spurred me forward to grasp a hold of her strapped down hand.

"You're gunna be fine, ok Miss? Don't be scared," I assured her as I squeezed her palm under my gloved fingers and pulled down my mask to show her a reassuring smile, however small it was. I only walked so far with her before I was pulled back and left standing horribly lost outside the ambulance doors.



The way back had been completely silent between the three of us. After radioing back on our return, Steven sat in silence behind the wheel as we waited through traffic. Zhao wasn't much better staring out the window at the tanks now actually appearing in the city than just around the perimeter of the CDC. I looked on quietly with my jittery friend, not belted in and looking over the seat to watch what was beginning to happen. Traffic was practically stand still as we barely inched forward every so many minutes, but I was glad for it, a little scared myself about having to pay another trip to the CDC. Everything was still trying to process and filter through my brain, still winded about having to drop someone off first go out. They were making this a safe zone, so there shouldn't be that many more trips eventually. Right? As we approached St. Joseph's, we realized that most of this traffic was for the hospital. We held our breathes when we began to see just how jam-packed of a parking lot it was outside. And the panic. All the panic of people scrambling to get inside the hospital doors- and there were soldiers here too now. What the hell had happened while we were gone? I watched from the window as a woman was staggering helplessly to the emergency entrance, her hands clamped tightly over a wound on her neck that was gushing blood through her fingers and all over her clothes. Two others were trying to help a man limp inside, every step leaving behind a trail of blood coming down his leg to trickle across the ground. Tons of other people with similar visible avulsions and lesions were trailing towards the entrance that looked to be a madhouse for the doctors and nurses trying to block their passage through.

"My god..." I couldn't help but gasp as I felt the air disappear out of my chest.

"Fucken really? Oh Jesus Christ!" Steven suddenly shouted as he waved his hand up to gesticulate frustratingly. The car in front of us had completely put itself in park, the driver jumping out and running to pull a woman out of their passenger seat. She looked chalk white and her eyes were closed with such an agonized expression while she was vomiting blood all over herself even as the man picked her up easily in his arms and ran her to the hospital's entrance- completely abandoning his car.

Steven then turned on the siren to get the lane next to us to stop so we could maneuver the ambulance around the car to make our way to the ambulance lot. Zhao radioed in our predicament to dispatch, but strangely received silence which was now not surprising to see why. As we eventually began pulling up to the EMS parking, Steven honked a bit hesitantly when we saw the gates were closed. It was then that soldiers ran out and opened the gates, waving us in urgently, realizing why when I saw out the back windows how fast they closed it behind us on people beginning to run and protest for admittance here as well. Taking another intake of air from my inhaler, I turned to see Zhao staring out the back too. When Steven finally pulled us into a space, he put us in park and hopped off without another word. Zhao and I seemed to be frozen in place for a few moments as we just stared out at the riot of injured begging for entrance. So many. How could this have happened so fast? When we shook ourselves, Zhao exited out first, holding the door open for me to step out after but was immediately met with more soldiers, acting just as paranoid of us as the ones back at the CDC, one already talking to Steven in hostile tones.

"Any bites, scratches?" he asked, waiting little time in looking over me while jerking up my sleeve to get a look at my wrists and then crouched down to inspect my ankles.

"Uh- no," I stuttered, backing up and scowling at them in disbelief. "Sir, please keep your hands off me."

The other soldier was checking out Zhao just the same, but he just warily allowed it to happen as he kept staring at the people pleading against the parking lot gate. I was about to snap back at this bold soldier as he just continued to try and finish a better inspection of me until I saw Dr. Kuhn rushing out to us from the EMS entrance.

"Ya'll bit? Scratched?" she demanded while half out of breath.

"Nah Alicia, we're all fine," Steven answered for all of us while Zhao and I nodded. Kuhn waved off the soldiers before reaching to grab a hold of my arm above my elbow and yanked me with her, gesturing for Steven and Zhao to follow at a fast walk, practically jogging.

"There was an MCI at downtown's mall. These people can't be treated here," Kuhn explained as we followed her through the unusually crowded hallways of St. Joseph's. "This is a military decision now. You're not doing calls, you'll be transporting the wounded out to the CDC to be taken care of there instead. They're about to announce it in just a few minutes outside, we're waiting on Owen's team to get back."

"You mean like an outbreak?" Steven called before he caught Kuhn's arm and stopped her to face us. "Alicia, what going on?"

"What's going on is some shit just bled all over downtown Atlanta an hour after broadcasting this is supposed to be a safe zone!" she whirled around to snap back. And I realized. Kuhn was just as freaked out about what was happening as we were. I'd never got to know her too well, but I heard she commuted from work outside the city herself. She kept a picture of a little fourth grade boy on her office desk, so I knew she must have other places she was wishing she could be as well.

We remained quiet after that as Steven let go of Kuhn, reaching up to wipe his eyes briefly and sniffing. Kuhn's stressed ridden face softened.

"Owens and them aren't back yet?" I interrupted quietly.

"Yeah they should be back by now," Zhao agreed. "They even left before us."

Kuhn nodded, deep worried wrinkles seeped back into her face as she thought to herself for a moment.

"Last response back was almost a half hour ago, saying they were on the way to the CDC," she informed us. On the way? It was strange for them not to have even reported they were on their way back by now. "So if they're not back by the time we tell em' outside, I'm sending ambulances #03 and #08 to back ya'll up when they get in."

My chest was rapidly beginning to clench and my breaths were becoming smaller and sharper. Kuhn looked thoughtfully at me as I shook my inhaler to take another dose.

"This something you guys think you can do?" Kuhn asked in a more serious tone, yet it was the most empathetic I'd ever heard it. "If not, I can trade ya'll out, but you needa give me a heads up now."

There was a pause between us all as we shared looks. I could feel my mouth about to blurt yes! trade me out! It had been scary enough just to visit the CDC once, let alone making multiple trips back and forth with nothing but infected people. But when I reached back into my pocket to peek at my phone, there were still zero alerts. With another huff from my inhaler, I shoved the phone back away and nodded to Kuhn who'd been watching me.

"I can do it," I assured her, tucking my inhaler away as well.

"Yeah, I'm ok," Zhao added shortly after.

We all glanced over at Steven who was gnawing on the inside of his cheek and staring down at the floor. He sniffed again and looked up at us with watery eyes. It always unsettled me to see grown men cry, especially Steven who always kept a calm and collected composure through some of the most gruesome accidents I've seen him deal with. I couldn't help but let my thoughts wonder to how Todd was taking this situation. Was he worried enough to the brink of tears somewhere?

"I'm sorry," he finally said, clearing his throat as he continued, "I can't guys."

Taking this with a surprisingly easy stride, Kuhn nodded, accepting ambulance #06's keys back from him.

"Alright Steven, when ambulance #02 gets back you can head out and do calls-"

"No Alicia," Steven interrupted softly. "I can't."

Shocked, there wasn't anything I could say and I had no words of persuasion to offer. Zhao however was nodding in understanding, a sad and concerned look stilled across his face, yet he had no words to offer either.

"I'm sorry. I gotta find my family. My wife- she's still in crutches and can barely drive," he said, wiping his eyes more with the back of his hand. My heart sank a little for him, remembering him saying a few weeks back his wife had broken her ankle. This made me worry even more for Todd. How would I find my family?

"Steven we can't just jump ship now! If we don't keep this contained out of the city-"

"Oh my God!"

Everyone's conversations died when everyone began rushing towards the televisions hanging up in the hospital halls. Approaching ourselves, I couldn't believe what my eyes were watching on the television screen. News footage from a helicopters vantage point was shooting New York City immiting nothing but smoke rising from the city like a steaming pot over a stove when you released it's steam from under a lid. And as another video was played of a closer up look, what was read to be Central Park below on the new's caption, the acre of trees and greenery were completely up in flames. Screaming, gunshots and sirens could be heard- but no one was putting out the fire. The news was reporting the ravaging flames were consuming the city yet there were no firefighters in sight after an hour of being called and it was just police at this point. The new's reporter then cut to a woman in a hysterical state, the side of her face caked in blood as she cried into the microphone.

"They-they were dead. My mom stopped breathing and her heart stopped beating but she came b-back to life and tried to eat me!"

This all felt like some movie, a really bad apocalyptic movie. But it was real, all real, and my sister was somewhere in that fire engulfed city.

"I'm sorry guys." Dislodged out of this paralyzing fear gripping the entire hallway of everyone watching the woman sob about her family having turned cannibal and attacking her, I saw Steven start to step away, slowly parting from the group who'd huddled around to watch the news before turning around completely to walk out. Alicia called after him but he didn't look back as he turned down a hallway to an exit.

Kuhn looked almost lost as she eyed up the two of us that remained. I'm sure it was a shabby sight; Zhao was never know to be the bravest and was the most nervous of us during evaluations, and me, the asthmatic girl who'd only been working here for five months. Steven was supposed to be the more experienced and professional to tie up the group. I felt myself trying to rise to the occasion and ease back the terrified expression that must have been plastered across my face, composing myself for Kuhn's sake.

"When're they announcing about the CDC?" I asked.

"Any minute now, I need to start heading over..." Kuhn said looking down at her watch.

"If the other's aren't back by then, me and Zhao will just start till they get here," I assured, trying to grab a hold of a logical thought through all the other panicked thoughts whizzing through my brain. "Zhao's been getting better on his driving, he can be on the wheel while I'm in back, we'll take turns."

"Are you sure, Olive?" Kuhn asked austerely, still looked at us with a deeply troubled expression but I just nodded at Zhao. I never thought Kuhn even remembered my first name.

"It's cool Alicia. You cool Zhao?" I assured, looking to my partner as he nodded back, still looking a little wary but less scared now.

"Alright," she said slowly, still in thought. "Alright, you guys go get ambulance #06 ready then."

Kuhn handed Zhao back the ambulance keys and we turned to head back out but I felt Alicia catch my arm again. Zhao stopped too as she looked at us with an emotion I couldn't quite believe. Since when did Dr. Alicia Kuhn look admiring to someone?

"Ya'll be careful. However you may feel about these people, you ain't gunna be helping nobody if you go and get yourself infected too. Don't do nothin' stupid for no one," she told us sternly before releasing me. We nodded back, I felt if I spoke all this composure I was trying to hold together would unravel. "Be safe."

"You too."



Zhao and I prepared the ambulance as sufficiently as we could manage. Normally, we'd try to avoid squeezing two stretchers in at a time, but we brought the extra in any way. I snatched extra blood bags and IV's, knowing we'd run out fairly quickly with the amount of people at the entrance, but the nurse only let me grab so many so I took more to stash from the supplies equipped for the other EMS supplies not being used. Zhao managed to grab a few more boxes of gauze and bandages before we could no longer stock up ambulance #06 without me being unable to move around enough as it was.

My hands had been shaking while I hurriedly loaded up the medical supplies, but I couldn't worry about that now as I purely focused on getting my breathing under control. With my lungs threatening to tighten up again, I continuously took deep breaths through my nose and out through my mouth. Knowing this was the quiet before the shit storm, I wouldn't have time to deal with this while transporting severely wounded people. Infected people. I wondered if I had woken up early this morning knowing what I know now, would I have still come to work? Ninety-nine point nine percent of me guaranteed work would be the last place I would have chosen to be while this world occurrence was going on. And ninety-five percent of me wanted to flee even now.

Peace out. Like Steven- I gotta find my family.

What if Todd did listen to my voicemail, was on the way here to meet me, but I'd be out back and forth to the CDC? How would he even find me through all this chaos?

What if he was one of those people bleeding out there?

That other five percent of me reached out and felt empathetic to these people pleading outside the hospital for admittance. What if it was Todd, Nat, Jemma, or even my father were begging right now? Would I want others to turn their cheek on those I loved and let them succumb to the fate of their infection? Just thinking of Todd, or even my baby sister looking so ghastly pale like the woman I'd seen earlier carried from the car made my chest ache.

There was no way to prepare us enough with the time we had before a soldier jogged over to inform us of the announcement was being made. Packing everything away, I sat up front with Zhao who started the ignition, checking and readjusting his mirrors before backing out of Steven's previous parking. The attention from the back gate was currently being distracted by the announcement happening up front, but those who still made attempts to try to sneak in through the back entrance were ordered back with guns in their faces by the soldiers guiding our way out. We drove slowly as more army protection flanked us out of the ambulance parking compound, keeping all out of our way as we maneuvered to park closer to the hospital's entrance. In front of us, we could see two U.S. Army armored cars also being directed towards St. Joseph's emergency entrance. We were waved to follow right behind, military back up having cleared our way through with the entrance looking much more organized than when we first came back. In the general parking lot, there were tanks parked in a formation to allow us to park and await patients without being completely mobbed. Zhao parked us inside the military's barrier easily enough, putting us in park and turning the keys out. Neither of us were really sure what to do but wait.

Curious of the armored cars rather than ambulances, I got off to gather more information on this plan we were going to be pulling off. Approaching one of the large transportation vehicles, it's driver exiting as well, I called out for his attention.

"Hey! Excuse me," I hurried to catch up as he paused for a moment to take me in. "Military's gunna help with taking people to the CDC?"

"Appears so," the man answered through the surgical mask over his face, having stopped and allow me to catch up, dressed in the standard uniform like every other soldier besides the red cross on his helmet. "Short on ambulances so we're taking some of the less severely infected 'til your people start showing up."

This disturbed me to hear teams still weren't back yet, this was beyond unusually late.

"For sure," I muttered, my head trying to adapt to keeping itself straight. "Well we got two spots for the most critical, maybe two more that'll have to sit."

"Christ, that's it?" I could only see his eyes, but they were darting rapidly as he was surveying our vehicle. "We got room for a good half dozen in each of ours- but we can't overload these vehicles with too many we won't be able to handle if any of 'em start turning..."

I could see he was trying to scrap together a way to organize this plan just as much as I was, but I had to interrupt his train of thought when that last part of his sentence troubled me.

"'Start turning'?" I repeated back.

The confused look on my face seemed to unsettle him just as much at me having to ask, but before he could articulate a response back, shouting and screaming was rushed towards the blockade of soldiers. St. Joseph's head of surgeon must have finished the announcement. I couldn't believe how desperate these people were growing as the soldiers were hollering demands at the crowd to get back. Zhao was calling for me as he began to wheel out one of the stretchers to prepare to take the first to transport. I was about to rush back over as I saw everyone beginning to prepare, but was stopped quickly by a firm grasp on my shoulder. The soldier was eying me with a look I was unsure to place.

"Anyone flatlines on the way- you do not resuscitate," he yelled over the crowd.

It seemed like there was more he wanted to say and I was trying to ask why, but the rest of his team were calling for him as well. Pulling away, we went our separate ways and I ran back to the ambulance to help Zhao pull out the other stretcher.

A thick mass of people began pushing to break the line of soldiers containing the transporting vehicles from being overrun. I was realizing just how the soldiers were becoming increasingly aggressive at pushing people back, guns in citizens' faces that were growing increasingly desperate for medical attention.

"Everyone listen! Please, everyone needs to get back!" one soldier in particular was hollering. "We are taking a few of the most severely sick and injured first!"

This did little to organize the mob as all began insisting they were in critical condition. Soldier seemed to look at one another, unsure of how they'd even separate out the sick to the sickest. And I couldn't blame them. I wouldn't want to be the one selecting who should be attended to first. Finally, two soldiers seemed to snap to it, spreading the crowd with waving rifles until a few of his brothers quickly followed after to help part the crowd. One of them dragged forward a chalk colored skinned man who's clothing was almost completely stained in his own blood that was gushing out through the crevices of his fingers tightly clamped over the grotesquely obvious wound on his neck, lymph muscles in tatters looking like wires someone had yanked out from behind a tv. A woman, possibly this man's spouse, was clutching tightly to him with her own hands pressed over the gash and was sobbing, blood seeping onto her own fingers as well. The soldier pried the woman's hands away, explaining loudly for others to hear as well that they could only take the sick. I watched as the woman was finally shoved back, still sobbing and left behind with nothing but the blood on her hands. While I was lost for a moment in horror, Zhao rushed forward without a second thought it seemed. More military men were quick to flank the stretcher as Zhao wheeled it forward and immediately laid the man down, sticking his own fingers on the bleeding while he and the soldiers quickly whisked the stretcher back to the ambulance. It didn't escape me as I saw the soldiers strapping this man's legs down and were going to pull his hands away to tie down as well before Zhao stopped them, explaining he needed him to keep his hands to help him apply pressure to his wound.

Not having much more time to watch, another soldier was thrusting forward two young girls, both supporting another girl who's leg all the way up to almost her knee was gone, the bottom of her pants were in tatters with make-shift bandages over the ribbons left of her shin. Snapping out of my haze of shock, I wheeled my own stretcher towards the barricade of tanks, soldiers parted while two others flanked me just as they had with Zhao. The girls wasted no time trying to lay their friend on my stretcher, doing their best to keep her leg supported as she screamed in pain when trying to lift her. The soldier that had pulled them forward had little patience for the time their gentleness was taking and heaved the girl's body in one motion onto the stretcher, causing her to shriek even louder before already ordering us to move back behind the tanks. Trying to determine the attention I should give to this girl's leg in the meantime until we would be arriving to the CDC, I also was looking around at more bloodied people being brought forward.

"We can take two more," I informed the soldier who had brought the girl over and was now strapping her arms down as we were approaching the ambulance. "Not like this. It's just me back there- two more that aren't as critical who can squeeze in the cab."

Cursing, the soldier nodded and was swiveling his head around to try and figure out this loading process. "Where the hell are your other EMT's? There's supposed to be more of you!"

"I don't know," I yelled back. "One's been M.I.A. for almost an hour now. All the rest are out taking calls."

"Fuck the calls! All of you need to be here, we can't just take two highly infected people at a time," he shouted as we began loading up the stretcher into the back of the ambulance next to Zhao who now had bundles of gauze pressed against his patient's neck.

"Don't take it up with us man," I snapped back. "I have no idea where anyone else is!"

Accepting my answer with no more words for me, he jogged off back to the barricade. Now left alone, I looked down at this girl barely staying conscious with her head lolling around and her forehead beading down heavy droplets of sweat. Just touching my gloved hand to her skin I could feel her burning up through the plastic. Wanting to attend to her leg before they brought us more of the sick, I wheeled her into the back with another soldier's assistance and cut open the whole side of her pants, including the bandages her friends had used to try clotting the bleeding to peel back and examine the leg. My stomach flipped over and I had to control my hand from clutching over the surgical mask to keep from being sick. This girl's leg was in shreds of barely attached skin, any muscles on her feet looking brutally torn right off to just reveal tatters of bones that had once been her foot. How was this an infection?

Blood was pouring out onto the sheet of the stretchers like a breached dam as soon as I pulled back the material. Stuffing as much gauze as I could to block the bleeding again, I wrapped more bandages around the ripped apart stump to hold it over while I rushed to the cooler in our ambulance to start grabbing ice packs to stock around the limb. It was the only thing I could really do until we got her to the CDC.

"It's gunna be ok, you just stay awake," I soothed, patting her cheek and trying to get her to focus as her eyes were rolling in the back of her skull. "Hey- hey Miss look at me 'kay? What's your name, can you tell me your name?"

I began ripping open a wrapper to another disposable thermometer with my teeth as I kept one hand pressed tightly to her leg. The girl's color was paling rapidly I figured from all the blood loss but her lips were mumbling very faintly as I watched her try to focus her gaze on me. "S-Steph...anie..."

"Stephanie? 'Kay Stephanie, we're gunna hurry and get you outta here," I assured her before sticking the thermometer under her tongue. Looking out the ambulance I could see soldiers bringing in more people to load into the armored cars as well. With all the blood Stephanie was losing, I was surprised she hadn't lost consciousness already, especially when I pulled out the thermometer to see she was running a 106 temperature.

"Hey stay with me still," I continued. "I need you to help me, ok Stephanie? I need you to sit up-" Adjusting the stretcher, I reclined her to sit up, causing her to whimper but nod her head tearfully at me. "And I need you to press down."

Grabbing one of her hands, I pushed them down over the bandages on her stump of a foot. She weakly obliged me and after informing me she was A positive blood type, I hurried to grab the blood bags I stored in our supplies. I tried to be as fast as I could setting up the IV to pump more blood back into her to keep her from going into shock. Once injecting the small little tube in the vein of her forearm, I replaced my hands back over Stephanie's tattered stump of a leg to allow her to ease back flat on the stretcher and elevated her lower half instead. Looking over, Zhao was having just as difficult of a time, maybe even more than me trying to cease so much of the bleeding but his patient's hemorrhaging was just not letting up and the man was heaving gasps for breath inbetween mouthfuls of blood.

When I was about to yell to a nearby army man to hurry up, we needed to transport them as quickly as possible, a group of soldiers were assisting two others our way. Beckoning them inside, I directed them to sit in the available seats behind me before surveying over them briefly. Grateful I could see that one man, a tall and tan-skinned, was clutching a bandage already over his forearm but didn't seem to be too crucial. However, the other guy, a red-faced stockier man, seemed capable enough but was shaking uncontrollably and bent over himself to clutch his stomach once he sat down. When we had everyone crammed inside, Zhao called over to the taller patient who obliged with wide eyes.

"I need you to hold your hands over him," Zhao instructed, not waiting for an agreement before pulling the mans hands to replace his own over the patient's spurting neck. "Just keep applying pressure. Just stand here and be here for him."

Without another word, Zhao hopped out the ambulance and closed both back doors before climbing into the drivers seat and switching on the sirens. I was relieved that at least one of us was stepping up. All my courage from earlier was quickly dissipating while left alone and overwhelmed in the back with four infected victims. As we began to pull away, Zhao honked our horn a few times to alert we were set to go. Soldiers began waving Zhao in the direction to pull out while soldiers swarmed around us to part the crowd and allow us passage.

I stopped paying attention to what was going outside and began looking over the victims we were transferring. My attention was instantly attracted to the man crumpled over in his seat.

"Sir? Please, where are you hurt?" I asked as gently as my shaking voice could allow.

Looking up at me, as if confused and trying to understand what I was asking, he doubled over again. This time, with a loud heave, the man threw up all over the floor in front of him, spraying some of the blood he was vomiting up on himself and on my shoes. I grabbed the closest waste bin and tossed it in front of him before he could spill anymore blood bile on the floor.

Then, the man who's neck was peeled open began choking and heaving as well. Before I could react, the man was already throwing up blood as well and trying to gasp for breath after every heave. The less sick of our group who Zhao instructed to help was backing away a little in revulsion, letting his fingers go and more blood squirted out. Rushing over, I turned the man's head to the side to throw up on his side, replacing my own fingers over his jugular while trying to clean the blood around his mouth with more gauze. It took every ounce of self control to keep from throwing up myself while these two men were vomiting up black blood everywhere, liquid crimson beginning to drip and spill over the side of the stretcher, with every retch more blood pressed to spurt out of the man's leaking neck.

With only one of me, two puking their blood out, a woman with a gnawed off leg, I felt overwhelmed with my fingers stuck up this man's neck. Although medically trained, we were no surgeons. I was aware of different procedures that could be done for these people; a triple endoscopy needed to be preformed to save this man's airways and vocal cords while nerve and tissue damage needed to be checked before stitching the the skin back over the bone of the woman's amputated leg, yet I had never done such a surgery and couldn't remove my fingers from this man's throat to stitch anyone. I still needed to probe the wound on the other man's arm who was now standing as far away from the others looking on in abhorrence and figure out what was causing the other one to clutch his stomach so painfully. I could only just stand there and hope we reached the CDC soon before anyone bled out.



Reaching the CDC had been a war zone. Tons of other armored cars had zoomed by right with us as we made trips back and forth. After a while, we took turns driving to give me a break from the sickness happening in the back of the ambulance. Our first few trips had been the same as our previous visit. The man I had my fingers buried in had been ripped unceremoniously from me out of the back. The same for the woman who's foot had been nothing but bloody bone staining packs of ice. Soldiers took one look and abruptly yanked them from the ambulance without letting us know much more and hardly seemed to care about taking any charts so we stopped writing them. While observing the few times we'd dropped off, Zhao mentioned how we were one out of only a handful of paramedics even helping transport and deliver medical attention to the wounded. Military was just ushering out as many sick as possible, no matter if they were bleeding out in the back or not. All stories were the same. These people were being bitten- by other people. At first I couldn't quite believe or comprehend just what these victims were explaining to us, but as I began to examine these common gashes, it did indeed look as if something had taken a chunk out of these people's flesh, with teeth. But if I was to take a first glance, I'd imagine wolves or a bear taking such a huge bite out of someone, not another human-being. What kind of sick fucking people were these?

After a hand-full of trips, we no longer seemed to be medical responders but more like transporters for the severely sick. It was beginning to look like a murder scene in the back with so much blood stuck on the floor and our stretchers stained more with copper than an actual white sheet. In the matter of a few hours, I'd seen more gruesome injuries than in the past two years working as an EMT. This 'disease' had no discrimination; children with half their faces chewed off, women with eviscerations with their stomachs leaking out, elderly with their throats torn open. At any other time, it would have been completely unacceptable and a breech of a million health regulations the way we were stuffing all these bleeding and sick people in the back of our ambulances, but it no longer seemed the hospital was supervising these transports. I hadn't seen Dr. Kuhn and almost just as less hospital personal, we were being directed purely by U.S. military. Two more EMT teams had finally shown back up, but I didn't fail to notice Owen's ambulance had still yet to appear. We eventually discovered that like Steven, many EMT's, even doctors and nurses alike, were taking off to find their families or just getting the hell out of dodge. Despite our efforts to keep those infected out from the city, we seemed to barely make a dent amongst the crowd of people every time we pulled back into the hospital.

Every person we drove, I reassured them they'd be taken care of at the CDC, no matter how severe of a wound they were suffering from. That was until we arrived after several trips. I was driving while Zhao was in the back trying to sustain the blood loss of our newest patient oozing out from shallow chunks missing all over his face, the skin practically peeled completely off to show just strings of pulled muscle.

Bringing our ambulance to a halt, I could not believe what my eyes could be showing me just up ahead and could just stare at what was construing in front of us. Gunshots were being fired amongst the formation of soldiers dividing the crowds of civilians. Any semblance of order was completely muddled in chaos of screams, crying, and gun fire. In front of us, an armored military vehicle was emptying out it's injured. Rather than leading them all towards the CDC, they were rounded up and shot dead in a neat row, like it was a goddamn massacre and the U.S. Army was it's firing squad. Soldiers opened fire on all the sick lead out, gunned down in a hail of rapid fire just a few vehicles in front of us. My hand flew up to suppress a scream as I watched the last of the group's bodies fall to the ground. Shot dead by their own country's army. As my gaze flickered passed the line of vehicles still trying to enter the disorder of the CDC, I could see more being rounded up and shot down, pleading from the bindings of their stretchers to be shot mercilessly in the face without second thoughts.

My chest began to feel as if a heavy weight was caving in on my lungs, my breaths growing heavier to draw while I watched this scene before me fall apart in a million fucked up pieces. I felt extremely sick. These were people I'd helped bring here. People I'd promised would find refuge here in the care of the CDC. All of them just lined up like animals to the slaughter. With four other sick in the back of this ambulance, I couldn't bring myself to pull us forward and hand them over. Glancing back, I watched a woman we picked up shuddering weakly, her sternum practically clawed wide open, but Zhao was doing his very best to apply enough pressure to try and sustain the flow of her blood. All the while, another man was laying motionless close by, his nose and flesh around his mouth were completely ripped off leaving a mangled blood-drenched face. He might as well have been a rotting skeleton already and I wouldn't be able to tell if he was even alive anymore if it weren't for his shuttering eyelids. Our two other patients suffered much smaller wounds then the others, two sisters with injuries I'm sure they could survive with. One had a large bite wrenched out of her wrist, the stringy muscles and nerves in tatters under the bandages we urged her to clot the bleeding with. Her sister however had large lacerations slashed down her face, blood dribbled down every few seconds to wipe away as it splashed off her eyelashes every time she blinked. Unlike the others we helped transport, the military had made it a strict rule to keep the sick separated from the rest of the population and kept out of the ambulances, but with the lack of supervision each time we returned to St. Joseph's, we made an exception for the woman who's chest was cleaved open and allowed her boyfriend or whatever on to offer support. Daniel he said his name was, a hippie looking guy if I ever saw one with blond hair almost as long as my own hanging down his back. He was actually assisting Zhao very generously with the others injured, offering his help disinfecting the two sister's wounds and holding the hand of the man who's face was ripped off. How could I surrender these people?

"What is that- what's going on?" one of the sisters breathed as she tried to look over the seat, no doubt everyone else hearing the gun fire.

Yanking the wheel around, I busted a bitch and sped off, putting as much distance between us and the research center. I floored my foot on the gas, speeding past traffic on the shoulder of the streets and flicking my siren back on to get cars to move out of the way. With no idea where to take these people, I realized I had no destination in mind either. I couldn't allow them to be treated at St. Mary's but two of these people wound die very soon without proper medical attention. Either way, death was impending.

"Hey, where're we going?" I could faintly hear Zhao call from the back as I continued to speed and weave through traffic. "Olive- where- what're you doing?!"

Only the thoughts of those faces ran through my head to fuel our acceleration away from that death camp. Terror shinned through their eyes, before the back of their skulls crumpled as bullets punctured through brains. Swerving around a car that had tried to make it's way around the lane of traffic to turn before it heard our siren, I still couldn't bring myself to explain what I was protecting us from.

"Olive- you're gunna get us killed! Olive, stop!"

Wedging us in the nearest empty spot against the street curb, I pulled us into a spot and parked the ambulance, jerking us with the intensity I braked.

"What the hell are you doing! We need to get these people seen-"

"There is no being seen!" I hissed breathlessly. My chest was heaving up and down as I tried to collect myself, hands clenching so tightly to the steering wheel the bone under my knuckles were turning them white. Zhao was staring down at me incredulously, bewildered and concerned by my freak out. I glanced over at Daniel, replacing Zhao with holding his girlfriend's chest together, looking just as confused over at me. So were the sisters, now holding hands, but I could see the one who glanced around from behind the seat look on in at least a shred of understanding.

"Olive?" my gaze hazily looked back at Zhao who looked at a loss for words. "What'd you...what'd you see?"

That was the question I was still asking myself. What the fuck was I seeing?

"We can't take them," I breathed.

"What'dya mean? Lady, she's gunna die if we don't take 'em somewhere-"

"We'd be dead for sure with a bullet through the head," the sister who had the bitten wrist piped in. I realized she must had seen enough to understand my haste to escape the CDC. "They're not curing us...they're getting rid of us."

"But the broadcast- they said- this is supposed to be a refuge center! They said they were working on a way to take care of this-"

"Yeah, they're taking care of us alright," the girl snapped but I could see the glistening of tears in her eyes.

"Where can we go now?" the other sister sobbed, her eyes were saucers with blood still dripping down her face. We looked back at Daniel beginning to sob over his now unconscious girlfriend, panic etching across his face like the rest of us. Zhao and I shared gazes, both of us looking as if this was our first day on the job. Neither could make out each other's expressions too well with the surgical masks strapped over our faces, but that didn't cover the terrified gleam in our eyes. We didn't know what the fuck to do either.

We were jerked out of our silence by shots popping off outside, and it sounded like more than just a couple guns being fired. In the city? Everyone capable leapt to look out through the back window, even myself as I crawled out of the drivers seat to the back of the ambulance. People were running. Out of buildings and even abandoning cars right in the middle of traffic. Tanks were plowing through the streets headed our way, soldiers with gas masks heaving abandoned cars blocking the the street to the side while the front ranks formed a tight barricade. Some one was screaming as we watched citizens pelted with gun fire and nudged out of the street to make way for the oncoming military. My stomach rolled as soldiers even shot those they'd already taken down through their heads for good measure.

"We gotta get out of here," Zhao breathed, his hands still pressed on his patients chest as he looked on over our heads.

It began to dawn on me how among those who were fleeing weren't just running from the military's gun fire. My gaze found a man, stumbling very uncoordinated and unbalanced no doubt from his leg ripped in pieces similar to Stephanie's wound we attended to earlier. Rather than running for safety, I realized he was chasing after a woman who was trying to bolt for a nearby store to run into. She tried to yank open the glass door but it appeared to be firmly locked no matter how much harder she pulled. This seemed to demean her to panic as she screamed and banged on the glass for someone to open the door for her. I then saw who she was yelling to, a man had locked himself in but was shaking his head from behind the glass and seemed to be gesticulating for her to run elsewhere. That selfish son of a bitch would not budge in letting the woman in no matter how much she sobbed at his door and I wanted to yell at her myself to keep running. During all her pleading, the man pursuing her had dragged himself closer, so close I realized he would corner her. I felt myself about to yell for her, but she seemed to turn around like a deer in headlights to see how close he'd gotten. In such proximity, this seemed to motivate this man's pursuit as he sped up to lunge for her. She screamed as she huddled against the door, petrified too much in fear to run out of this man's arm reach before he grasped onto her shirt collar and hair to drag her down in front of the door. I'll hand it to her, she didn't go down without a fight as she kicked at his frantically, getting a few good shots at his face but this seemed to affect him very little. When she tried to pound on him with her fists, he was able to grab one of her arms and yank it forward, before he leaned over and sank his teeth into her.

A scream from inside the ambulance erupted and I forgot it wasn't just me witnessing this. Was this for real? As the woman tried to yank her arm back, another woman out of my peripheral seemed to have caught sight of what was happening. I felt relieved someone was hurrying to go help, but then watched in horror as she all but joined in and crouched over the kicking and screaming woman to take a bite out of her thrashing arms. My hands covered my mouth to tame the vomit that threatened to escape as tendons were torn out and snapped like wires. Blood spurted out against the clean glass door and the man just continued to watch behind his see-through barrier. The woman was soon buried from sight and her screams grew dimmer as another man ran to join this cannibalistic feeding frenzy. I could only see her feet from under these monsters ripping her flesh apart and eating her- all while she was still alive- but her legs were now motionless and had stopped kicking. Similar occurrences were happening amongst the street, people being brought down like gazelles amongst a pack of lions to be mauled to death, and I now understood why soldiers were ordered to open fire.

All the while I'd been watching people eaten, kicking and screaming, I hadn't realized Zhao had been yelling at me until I felt my shoulder shake roughly. I snapped out of my petrified state to see Daniel shaking me and my ears finally tuned into what was happening inside the ambulance.

"-c'mon we needa go! Olive?! OLIVE!"

Zhao was standing over the bleeding girl, having made the less of the bleeding sisters hold pressure over her wound while he was now performing CPR over the no-faced man. The ringing in my ears I realized had been from his heart monitor flatlining. Daniel was shouting at me, but I couldn't really make out what he was saying, I could only find myself focusing on his tears leaking down his face and the blood. All the blood streaming from his girlfriend's chest. We were putting our hands against a dam.

"Fuck! Fuck man, they're headed this way- we gotta fucking go!"

My head snapped around to see that Daniel was indeed right, military was getting awfully close. From witnessing their own lack of discrimination of who was infected and who wasn't, I knew they'd find us and had a strong feeling they wouldn't think twice of shooting us all just by seeing the two especially critically injured people we carried. Finally I felt I was able to pull myself out of the fog I was dazed in and nodded my understanding. Hurrying back to climb into the drivers seat, I stuffed ambulance #06's keys into the ignition and started our engine, peeling off once the gear was switched from park to speed away from the curb I had stopped us against. I knew from my training we had to take it easy on turns and sharp maneuvers to keep from jostling around those in the back, but I had no choice but to jerk us out of the way multiple times to avoid abandoned cars and people running amuck in the streets. The thing about driving the ambulance, was to be aware you had heavy cargo and it was very easy to tip over. I was now pushing fifty as I sped us away from the approaching soldiers who were putting down the infected, and with all the left behind cars and streets crowded with people running from (or people running after other people), I was swerving and weaving quite a bit. The only thing I could think to do was return to St. Joseph's- where the fuck else could we go? Maybe if we could just get our hands on equipment from inside, we could treat these people outside the hospital.

It took us longer than usual, even with me speeding as fast as I could without killing anybody. I'd had to turn around and try different streets that lead back to the hospital due to roadblocks police and soldiers had put up on main streets. Buses were even parked in the middle of intersections and used as substitute barricades to keep from overcrowding the street, I couldn't see from what or why but I didn't have much time to inspect further before turning the ambulance in another u-turn to try a different route. All the while, I couldn't help myself trying to desperately keep from clamming up in frustration and suppressed a panicked sob as the ringing of now both heart monitors flatlined in the back. Zhao was still attempting CPR on the faceless patient while yelling instructions for Daniel to preform resuscitation on his girlfriend.

Eventually I was able to squeeze our ambulance through a few backstreets to reach the other side of a few main streets that had been blocked off earlier and at last I'd gotten us to the street that would lead us a straight shot back to St. Joseph's and I was more relaxed into the speed we were going. It was until we made it closer to the hospital did I start having to slow down as more people and cars began to crowd the streets. Seeing us however, created a frenzy. Out of my side mirrors I could see people running after us, waving and yelling for us to stop. Even people who'd been ahead were running back to the sound of our sirens and trying to wave us down, which began to really cause for problems as I had to swerve twice already to avoid hitting someone trying to grab a hold of the vehicle. Still trying to attempt to hurry, I began to lessen my foot on the gas though as I was having to dodge more cars and attempt tighter maneuvers.

Everything from then on happened so fast. As I'd just rounded around a few rows of parked cars, an oncoming truck was speeding away from the hospital and didn't seem to notice us in time to react. We both attempted to swerve and miss each other from having a head on collision, but still it clipped the passenger's side of the ambulance, totally spinning us. I felt as if time slowed as I watched the outside world swirl by as we screeched in a 360 before everything began to tilt and break. Any lights coming from the back cab flicked off as we slid in darkness, an even darker thickness rolled over my vision



I don't know how long the blanket of unconsciousness laid over me, but it must not have been for too long when I could finally pry my eyelids back open to see our crash was still fresh. I was hanging heavily against the seatbelt that kept me from falling down to the passenger's side we'd tipped over on. The windshield had not been completely broken, but was so shattered I could barely make out a thing through all the tiny cracks. Looking back into the darkened cab behind me, I had to squint to see the stretchers were all but flipped over and thrown with everything else that crashed to the side the ambulance had fallen on; heart monitors were tossed, one even sticking legs up lodged around bodies I couldn't recognize yet. I could hear myself wheezing and gradually begun to feel my airways flaring up with the seatbelt pressed so firmly into my heaving chest, I attempted to try and readjust myself but groaned as I felt a sharp pull in my arm. With my other arm, I pushed down on the strap pulled across my chest so I could get my breathing back under control. I was shaking as I fumbled to grab my inhaler and shake it before inhaling, having to really concentrate on taking it slow. However, I wasn't allowed much time before light flooded into the darkened vehicle and blinded me. Hands yanked and pulled me hard against the restricting seatbelt, causing me to screech in pain at my arm being pulled. Realizing I was restrained by the belt, whoever was tugging me out unbuckled me and rather abruptly I felt myself dropped against hot asphalt. Looking around in a daze, when my eyes finally adjusted to the bright sun to see the back of the ambulance's doors had been thrown open with people swarming inside, taking all they could grab their hands on- even the stretchers they unstrapped and pulled our patients off from. Their was screaming and shouting from inside.

"Zhao?" I croaked, my heart was pounding so loud in my ears I could barely hear glass being smashed open to allow more people to gather inside through the front. Things were just as loud as I'd remembered them earlier, if not more with the addition of this crowd of people pillaging off our crash. There were no words I could babble to describe how shocked I felt at what had become of the street and the disarray of people in such a short amount of time. Trying to push my body back up, I hissed as my arm protested but I would have to examine it better later. I called out again and I saw the mob of scavenging people shove out a disheveled Daniel who was trying to push back through the crowd after his girlfriend but seemed too disoriented to get through far enough. Not too long after, I spotted Zhao stumbling out of scrambling hands, a cut above his brow smeared blood across his forehead and his clothes in disarray as he just watched on in the same daze I felt myself looking on with. My stomach was plummeting imagining what the state of St. Joseph's would be in if the street just a few blocks west was in such condition. People and blood. It was everywhere, covering every inch of the street. If it wasn't someone running (the opposite direction of the hospital I noted) through the overcrowded block, there were splatters of blood and carcasses. And oh my god, the bodies. All that was left of most of them, was nothing but left over skeletons of what were once people in puddles of mushed flesh and liquid crimson. Some were spared with enough flesh left on their faces to maybe identify a few. No longer able to control my stomach, I was at least able to turn to the side and heave what little I had eaten from the day. After a few horrid last dry gags, I sucked in a few shaky breaths to ease me out of my extremely upset state. Balancing myself against our crashed vehicle, I squeezed my eyelids tightly together and shook my head into my hand.

This isn't real. This isn't real. This can't be real.

I was trying to convince myself this couldn't really be happening. Just a normal day without people eating people. Screaming, crying, growling, and gun shots began coming from every direction causing a few to scatter for cover. There was a screech of tires burning across asphalt that wafted so close and the smoke caused my eyes to water as sickening squelch of flesh and bones smacked against metal. I tried to muffle the scream that shook through me after a final crack and splatter against the asphalt close to me was the body of the girl with the bitten wrist, her legs splayed in odd angles and face busted open in her own blood and former light blonde hair now practically stained scarlet that she was leaking everywhere. People continued running around her body as they just rushed towards another wrecked car, mobbing it even while some were pelted with rounds. I felt my shoulder nudged a few times as people trampled past and let myself drift a small ways towards the crashed ambulance. As people began scrambling away as soldiers began releasing more rounds of fire, I could see the inside of what was left of our ransacked ambulance. The man with the ripped apart face and Daniel's girlfriend were lying as motionless as they had been even before the accident, the latter's boyfriend weeping over her discarded body on the floor. Not too far away, the dead girl's sister was also lying crumpled against the roof of the overturned ambulance, her neck twisted in an unnatural angle and her eyes glazed over. I couldn't help but think she looked a lot like her sister even in death. The car that had hit the girl wasn't too far away, completely flipped upside down from swerving too fast no doubt.

What really began to help spread the trickle of realization through me was when I began to notice just what all these people were running so disorganized from in the first place, the reason soldiers were open firing. A woman, I would assume at a first glance was just another somebody. Levi blue jeans, some Forever21 looking blouse and flats, she was once a young girl. But as I looked, even from a distance I could distinctly see a pale face that couldn't possibly contain anymore blood from the looks of her dark protruding veins up her arms, yet they were outstretched and feverishly grabbing. And her eyes. They were shrouded in a haze of an almost whiteish grey, clouding any pupil and masking any kind of emotion. I felt like I was back home; at the beach where the edge of the sea lapped at my bare feet and wet sand eventually buried them in place with every wave. My feet felt buried as I watched this woman who had been running halt her original pursuit, and turned to kneel next to the dead sister thrown twisted in the street. It happened so fast, none of us had a chance to stop it. She looked as if she just grabbed for the first limb she could reach and bit a chunk from the girl's forearm. Hardly taking time to even swallow everything she chewed, this woman gnawed feverishly on her like one would to a chicken wing. Down to the bone. Before we knew it, a hand full of sick I hadn't even noticed among the flock of civilians ran to pick at some of the flesh as they could crowd around themselves.

There was a strangled shout and I could see Zhao from my peripheral view lunging forward with disgust as he tried to defend the girl's body. The man Zhao yanked away by his shoulder fell backwards to reveal his intestines practically pouring out of his torn open stomach when he fell back. A chill crept up my spine as it let out an inhumanly guttural cry and before Zhao could pull off another, it didn't take the man long at all to stumble back up despite what should have been mortal injuries and lunged after my friend. Grabbing onto Zhao's elbow from behind, it seemed to drop all it's weight on him as it desperately pulled for his arm. Yanked backwards so abruptly, Zhao was caught off guard when he turned back to be caught with this man's open teeth. I watched in dismay as this man dug his teeth into my friend's chin and tear off his flesh, pulling skin from up his cheek.

I'd never heard Zhao, the small and quiet witted man I'd grown attached to, make such a retching scream. I hadn't realized I'd been crying after him until the infected man took a deeper bite, ceasing my friends piercing cries into choking gasps as his jugular was ripped into and a fountain of crimson gushed past ripped vocal cords and ligaments. Feeling my feet begin to propel me forward and shove people absentmindedly out of my way, I tried to run to Zhao's aid but a hard grasp over my wrist stopped me.

Daniel stared wide eyed as he looked back and forth between me and Zhao who was rapidly being mauled. Shaking his head, seeming to have embodied himself to leave his deceased girlfriend, he steeled his gaze away from those eating my friend and pulled back harder on my arm.

"He's gone," he shouted over everything happening around us. "We gotta try and get back to the hospital!"

Helplessly I looked back at my poor friend's gurgled wails as he crumpled to the ground with the weight of another man bearing down on him to take his share of Zhao's flesh. Frozen in such a catatonic state, too paralyzed to weep I couldn't help but stumble over my feet trying to keep up after Daniel as he yanked us away, leaving my friend under a pile of infected. While running the opposite direction, it felt like trying to squeeze between a thicket of weeds as we had to push past people mostly running the opposite direction. A few times I'd almost been shoved down, but Daniel clutched my arm tight and steadied me yet didn't glance back as he lead us through the panicked crowd. Everything was in just such a blur of people running in all directions, I couldn't tell the difference between who we should be looking out for- everyone seemed to be bleeding in some way if not covered in it somehow.

Continuing to follow Daniel, I began to hear the cracks of gunshots sounding closer. Like swarms of fish, people ducked and covered as shots ran through the street again. Looking back, still being pulled forward as the shots didn't seem to deter him, I began seeing more soldiers and tanks trying to eliminate the infected amongst the crowd. What it seemed the military hadn't quite been anticipating was how many were flocked amongst the block. Those being eaten alive were relieved of their excruciating deaths as they were ambushed with bullets just as much as the people gnarling on them. This wasn't selective shooting I thought while witnessing this decontamination. They weren't planning to weed out those attacking. They were clearing out the street.

This realization seemed to spur some speed into my steps, panting in fear and ducking down with Daniel as we ran but almost slammed right into his back when we faltered so abruptly. Peeking around, I saw Daniel had stopped us from running into a man that might as well have been shirtless with only a tattered shirt collar left hung around his neck; scratches and gouges of missing flesh were leaking across his chest and abdomen in flaps of skin. His expressionless gaze seemed to fall on us at the same moment Daniel jerked me back into a sprint as we ran off to the side to try and outrun him. I screamed as I could feel it reaching right behind me, its jaws snapping wide while it groaned after us. We swerved, trying to zigzag the guy off our tail around another up until I was suddenly yanked down and behind my guide in this chaos as he whirled around to try and kick the mans legs out from under him. Effectively tripped, the man fell to the floor but just as quickly began trying to pick itself back up to crawl after us. Daniel had already yanked me back up and was attempting to back us away but it was still dangerously close to our feet as we had to hurriedly scramble our feet back from being grabbed. Swinging his foot out, Daniel kicked him in the face hard to knock him backwards enough to give us some time to put more distance. Our attacker was suddenly smacked away by an intervening baseball bat, the force of it knocking it to the floor before the man wielding the club smashed it back down over it's skull to cease anymore advances. We stared back in utter shock at having seen this man's skull concaved and its brain's leaking across the street, but our savior just panted and nodded back at us before continuing in the direction he'd been running. Taking the baseball bat guy's lead, I saw Daniel scramble to retrieve a long, jagged piece of glass piled beside a car who's windows were busted. Despite the sharp edge pricking into his skin, Daniel clutched it in his hands carefully.

"Come on!" His voice still sounded high pitched with a prick of fear,but he practically pulled me by my collar with the glass still in his hand, and pushed me to continue on running. It was sad to say though, our run was again interrupted. Daniel all of a sudden dropped flat to the ground as more bullets sounded out and I quickly followed suit, burying my head between my arms. When it sounded like there was a pause in their firing, I looked up to evaluate what cover we could run behind to avoid being executed on sight. Spotting an abandoned car that was parked at a running distance, I turned to tell Daniel so but was immediately struck silent. Stifling a sob, I realized Daniel's eyes were eerily open and unseeing, his shirt was rapidly growing an almost black-red blotch from the exit wound of a stray bullet. Shakily, I let go of his hand and gazed mortified down at this young guy who was quick to try and get us through this madness. He knew I was just as terrified, and took it upon himself to try to save us.

Jumping and awakening from my fright threatening to paralyze me, I gingerly removed the piece of glass out of his hands and ran practically half bent over in a crouch for cover behind the car I'd spotted, leaving Daniel's body behind like he'd made me leave Zhao's. Huddling against the passenger side door behind the car, I closed my eyes and prayed I wouldn't come across more rain of bullets. There seemed to be a battle of shouts and growls, men screaming and guns firing while the infected raged...but soon the screams seemed to soar to an even higher pitch. Peeking up over the broken windows, I watched with eyes that must have been bulging out of my sockets as the military themselves were being attacked. The number of infected seemed effected very little by the gunfire pelting at them- and living, breathing human-beings would be suffering from fatalities such as collapsed lungs, damaged main blood vessels, fatal internal bleeding- yet they were still walking and grabbing ever greedier.

While military seemed to be more focused on those enclosing on them, I took the opportunity to make a run for the hospital. Abandoning the cover behind the broken down vehicle, I sprinted up the street, keeping to the clusters of abandoned cars and road blocks. In such a petrified haze, I hadn't noticed just how close Daniel had succeeded in getting us to St. Joseph's when I already began to start seeing the familiar street signs directing towards the hospital. There were fewer people at the hospital, a lot of cars, but bare compared to the way we'd left it our last trip only just a few hours ago. There was no longer a huddled crowd threatening to stampede all barricaded perimeters into the hospital, I could barely make out a dozen or so soldiers scattered and running back and forth outside the entrance.

So frightened into my one-track state of mind, to just get to the hospital this whole time, I brushed past any thoughts of this suspicious emptiness and proceeded to run for the entrance of St. Joseph's. The automatic sliding glass doors parted for me as I darted inside but halted, thinking I must be lost when greeted by a bare disheveled lobby. Tables and waiting chairs were toppled over while a few overhead lights hung unhinged from the ceiling, even the front desks were empty. A scream startled me as the door to the hospital's staircase burst open and a woman dressed in scrubs ran with blood soaked completely down her front. She would have ran right past me if I didn't reach out and grab her before she could escape through the glass doors, her terrified eyes finally seeing me.

"What happened? Where-" I felt too breathless and overwhelmed by all these questions I was bursting with to accumulate coherent sentences. The woman in stained light green scrubs just sobbed and shoved so frighteningly away from me I released her as if she'd scalded me.

"I can't stay," she cried, snot and tears dribbling down to mix with the blood on her face. "I t-tried to stay as long as I could. T-they're killing everyone, I can't stay!"

Frozen after she spared me no other details and ran out, I never knew I could feel this kind of terror. They're killing everyone! She drove me crazier rather than answered my questions. I was uneasy of the staircase the woman had exited from, so I remained on the empty floor despite the elevator repeatedly dinging from the corner. Creeping past the security desk, I went the most familiar direction I could think of and made my way towards the trauma division of the hospital. Maybe I would find one of the other EMT's in our department, anybody. Papers, documents, even files were strewn about all over the floors, noticeably marked with splatters of blood trekked across the light tiled floors. My body trembled as I slowly staggered in a daze through the halls while bearing witness to the distinctive hand prints of blood smeared across the walls, different lights flickering off and on like uncoordinated Christmas decorations that illuminated the crimson painting the halls whenever they flashed on. Gun shots could still be heard from afar outside that I could almost pretend it was just drills outside from some construction, but it wasn't until they suddenly cracked through the halls did I practically lurch out of my skin. Sounding as if it was coming from the direction I was infact walking in, the shouts were coming closer, spurring me to run back and hide around another hallway. Running footsteps pounded across the hospital floors and the scuffle of shoes squeaked across tile while I just pressed my back to the wall praying I could remain hidden.

"Please, these patients haven't been infected," I heard someone practically pleading over someone else's cries. "This woman- this mother of one of our staff was cut from being trampled- she wasn't scratched- !"

This person's protests were interrupted as more horrifying shots resonated throughout the halls and I had to bite my lip from screaming with them. There were more desperate pleas and hysterical sobbing coming from down the hall, and I couldn't refrain from peeking my head around the corner and seeing what was unfolding. Soldiers had their rifles out and trained on patients and even doctors backed against the wall, and crumpled in a bleeding mess was a woman lying motionless in a hospital gown. A resident in blue scrubs was crying, half hanging on to another of her co-workers as they looked down in dismay at this execution while another doctor with a stained, once-eggshell white jacket was shouting and arguing with the armed men. To my dismay, I caught sight of the recognizable figure of Dr. Kuhn backed up against the wall with the others, staring silently but just as wide-eyed and unnerved watching the soldiers shoot more patients. It seemed as if she could feel my stare when her eyes searched for a moment before finding mine, but she remained motionless trying not to indicate she'd just seen me, yet her mouth gaped and quivered like she wanted to speak out. There was another shot and more screams from those facing the soldier's who'd become a firing squad. The arguing doctor flew back into the wall, the exit wounds from the bullets peppered across his chest staining the white walls behind him as he slid down them lifelessly. I felt so lost in this moment, I hadn't realized my fear for Alicia had me stepping from around the hall and she seemed to have noticed this when she shook her head stoically to stop me in my tracks.

This would be a last moment between us, as the soldiers then spared anymore prolonged fright and fired their rounds amongst the group of hospital staff and patients. Alicia no longer looked at me as multiple bullets penetrated her torso, sending her body to drape over other's shot before her. Holding back a shriek, I bolted to run up the hallway back the way I'd came, not caring that they would easily spot me and could shoot me dead, as long as I ran. Before I could even run past one of the next halls, I felt someone grab a hold on my shoulder that yanked me back and into the darker corridor where the lights were flickered off more than on. I howled in shock and thrashed wildly in whoever's grasp dragging me from my escape, but a hand was instantly clasped tightly over my mouth to muffle any of my screams.

"Shh! Olive it's me," a hiss chastised in my ear as I continued to fight capture. "Hey stop, it's me!"

Opening my eyes in surprise that this person wasn't tearing into my flesh yet and was met with an unbelievably familiar face. He dropped his grip to hold my face in his hands but I could only choke on a sob and plead this wasn't a cruel illusion.

"My God- Todd?"

Disheveled, his face was littered in angry red scrapes and I noticed the collar of his shirt was hanging loose halfway torn with his large bulging sports bag slung over his shoulder, but he was staring wide-eyed and short of breath in front of me, here with me and alive. I flung my arms around his shoulders, my face buried itself into his chest unable to contain myself from weeping in disbelief. He seemed to allow me a moment, possibly relishing in his own relief at finding me, before he pulled me back, quieting my gushing with a finger over his lips before looking around the corner he'd just jerked me from. My mind was still reeling that Todd must have actually listened to the message I'd left him earlier and actually made his way to St. Joeseph's, but I just nodded back limply. I hadn't noticed Todd wasn't alone until a dark skinned Indian-looking woman acknowledged me with a scared nod I could only return just as bashfully, I would have asked her name but quieted any introductions thinking it was best us all to keep silent. Todd turned back from scoping out the soldiers still shooting at the executed bodies, his breathing fast and loud as I realized he was clenching a rather hulking pistol in his hands, my eyes lingering to the finger he held over it's trigger. Any trace of light-heartedness I knew from him was wiped from his features to replace with a worried solemnity while he seemed to be deep in thought, his eyes continuously scanning our surroundings between clicking open the gun and counting his rounds briefly. I could only imagine he must be as scared as me.

"We needa find an exit- it won't be long till they come up on us," Todd panted, his eyes flashing with something I could only describe as wild. The gun shots I noticed had silenced from down the hall. I looked around myself in a panic at what that could mean and recognized we were near St. Joseph's insurance offices.

"There should be a human resource's office down this way," I whispered. "There's an emergency exit in her's I think. She might've left it unlocked."

Without another word, Todd nodded and pushed off from the wall, grabbing my hand to pull me in the direction I pointed to down the hall. The woman dressed in her dark sari shuffled in her skirts after us, when I glanced back to see Todd pulling her along with us I noticed there was a severe limp in his stride. I had been so taken away by finding Todd, I hadn't completely taken notice to what state he was in until now.

"Y-you're not...?" I could barely whisper past the lump bubbling in my throat, but the woman next to me seemed to have read my recognition.

"His injury was from an accident," she assured, her voice thick with a definite middle-eastern accent. "His motorcycle spun out, he's not sick."

"Oh my god, you came on that thing!" I hissed, appalled at the idea of Todd skidding across asphalt. Like the dead girl from the ambulance.

"It was the only way I coulda' made it through the traffic getting here," he tried to justify.

There wasn't much time to stay upset once we reached the door labeled Human Resource Director Dr. R. Brescia, gripping the door handle with relief as it turned open. Before I could push open the door, Todd nudged in front of me with his gun outstretched as he kicked it open the rest of the way. We were stopped in our tracks when a head rose up from behind a desk at our intrusion. Dr. Brescia's eyes were familiarly glazed over and blood was dripping rather disgustingly through her teeth and down her chin as she looked over at us and growled. Before she could get up too fast, I jumped as a loud shot rang out and the head of human's resources fell back beside her desk with a steaming hole now through her forehead.

"C'mon, they'll have heard that," Todd hissed and hurriedly ushered for us to follow him to the door in the corner of her office with a bright red exit sign posted above the doorway. The door was noticeably an alarmed emergency exit, but lucky for us, every alarm in the hospital seemed to already be going off. Transitioning from the dark office, we were blinded for a moment by the sun and all the gun shots that had sounded muffled from inside the hospital were loud and near. When we could finally make out the outside world, we quickly had to duck back behind the held open metal door as shots were firing deathly close and even catching the outside handle. Crouched low with my arms over my head, I could feel Todd draped over me and grunting at how close some bullets panged against metal or ricocheting. Peeking up, I recognized this was east side of the hospital, but I could also see off in the distance down the street aways people still struggling for St. Joseph's protection. But as I inspected a little closer, they were all in shabby shapes, practically tripping over each other and the closer they came I witnessed a few still walking even after being hit by the soldiers' bullets. Dawning on me these people were not seeking any type of refuge and the soldiers weren't intentionally shooting at us.

"We're trapped," the woman beside me cried over the fire fight, crouched low behind the door with us. Todd was seeing our situation for what it as well; it was only a matter of moments before the soldier's from inside would find where the gun shots had fired from. Adjusting the duffel bag wrapped over his shoulder, without saying a word with wide eyed fear I'd never seen resonate so intensely, and skittered forward in a pause of gun firing to drag a nearby shot woman. Motionless with a bullet wound through her forehead, Todd dragged her the short distance of the way and I abhorrently realized he was using her to keep the door propped open. Before I could protest or even stutter out any semblance of words, Todd grabbed a hold of the two of us again and pointed us down the end of the building.

"We gotta go around," he told us urgently. I looked back skeptically and saw these people lumbering closer- we'd be running straight in their direction trying to make it around.

"What? That's crazy!" I was crying, panic ripping at any shred of composure I was trying to still grasp. On queue, my chest began tightening and my breathing had turned into small sharp hiccups. Seeming to recognize I was working myself into an asthma attack, Todd held my arm with an iron grasp as he gave my body a quick shake and tried to meet my overwhelmed stare.

"Hey- you can't break down right now," he shushed almost harshly. "Just stay-"

Shouting from back inside interrupted us and Todd was already shoving me forward and urging me and the other woman to run. It felt like Todd was practically barreling me forward with his hand pushing against my back, keeping close to the building as we made our way towards the back of the hospital. While running, I had been growing fearful of one infected man who was closer than the rest and had picked up his pace when spotting us. However, a loud bang from over my shoulder put down the approaching man as well as a few others to give us more space and time. Shortly after, we could hear the surprised shouts from the soldiers led outside to follow with more rapid gun fire. Practically leaping around the end of the building to cover from anymore stray bullets, the woman beside me shrieked as another chewed up person ran in our path. Already preparing to scramble back for the other direction, this snarling former human-being was put down at the end of Todd's aim, hurrying us to run around the corpse. Making our way through St. Joseph's back courtyard, we were running through what felt like warfare; loud crashes could be heard from a distance with the ever continuous cracks of what one would think was a fire fight. Helicopters, news and military, were flying overhead no doubt surveying over the quick destruction that wrecked through Atlanta causing me to feel so miniscule in this chaos. I wondered if people were watching Atlanta implode from their television screens like we had been watching New York City up in flames only hours ago. We were finally able to make our way through one of the hospital's back parking lots for staff, and couldn't help but try to look for my poor honda civic I'd almost been finished paying off.

Tunneling through the various chiropractic and dermatologist office or independent practitioner buildings nearby, we were at least able to distance ourselves further from the death trap of a hospital but I was now heaving rather raspily while I tried to run alongside Todd and the woman he'd brought with him. Fumbling for my inhaler, Todd was now leading and practically dragging me along behind him while we weaved through the back streets around the hospital. Taking a brief huff from the inhaler, I couldn't help but wonder where exactly we were trying to escape to. If Atlanta was supposed to be a refugee camp, where was there to go if the city went south? Remembering the overrun soldiers from earlier and their screams, I felt a dark terrible wrench at the severity of this national epidemic. It wasn't just us looking for a place to hide from the army's crossfire, others were running up and down Atlanta's medical offices, cars speeding by occasionally to still try and to travel around wreckages. It was until I recognized we begun running towards the next main street when our route was abruptly cut off by a tank parked directly center of Tudor Ave's intersection with armed soldiers lined up shooting with their machine guns from behind barricades. While seemingly distracted from our presence, we bolted to escape more military slaughter, expecting nothing from this direction of the city. Continuously we ran into barricades with more military trying to subdue the streets and we were continuously pushed back towards the hospital where we knew was a dead zone. We were all growing frantic and exhausted, yet with every person Todd shot down, more seemed to be trickling after our path's. Signs that military were failing to keep the dead contained.

Eventually, Todd cursed when he ran out of bullets and quickly ushered us into a nearby alley while he dug his fist into his duffel bag to search for more replacement. I could noticeably hear Todd's shuddered breaths as he hastily stuffed the rounds with tremoring fingers, causing me to clutch at my own wheezing chest a little tighter, comprehending just how scared he was too. No matter how many doses of my inhaler I took, I couldn't get my breathing under control and was erratically hissing for any gasp of air I could gulp down my constricted wind pipe. My world tilted and I didn't realize I had tripped until I felt my hands scrape and grab a hold of the building we'd ran behind. A gentle hold soothed against my shoulders as I looked back to see the woman with us was trying to steady me and telling me things but it was too hard to concentrate on anything for more than a few fleeting seconds between my distress. However, I was pulled out of the woman's hold to have Todd shove his face into mine, so much so that the tip of our noses were brushing and his forehead grazing against mine. While I stared wide-eyed into his watercolor-blue gaze, he reached down and clutched my hand in the one that wasn't vacated by a gun, and pressed it against my spasming chest.

"Shh, shh Olive, breathe," he soothed, softer this time. "Calm down, shh, c'mon longer breaths."

Reaching down, he took my inhaler, shaking it briefly before bringing it up to my lips and pressing the plunger down for me to take another huff. Todd continued to coach me quietly to inhale slower and longer with his hand pressed back over my chest to monitor it's rising rate, eventually succeeding in calming down the full blown asthma attack I was just about to have. Although, when it seemed my sternum finally began to rise and fall slower, a raspy moan other than my own disrupted the temporary quiet. We whirled around to see a woman lumbering towards us, her hair in tangles and her body so blood drenched, if she wasn't infected we sure didn't wait around to check as Todd swiftly pulled me back up and pushed us to run further back into the alley. I desperately tried to keep a grip on my inhalations while we ran, reminding myself to relax despite us being chased after a dead woman. As we ran around to the back a building I no longer recognized, surrounded by various others looking just as unfamiliar, probably meant for practitioner and office owner parking. Todd shot the woman pursuing us, pelting her clavicle and throat before she finally went down after a shot to the face. Almost instantly after Todd's shots, the back door to one of the buildings flung open and a hand full of disheveled diseased-looking tumbled out as if beckoned by the sound of his gun fire. Immediately Todd began shooting them back, but just as quickly, more limped out the opened door as if we'd punched a hole through a wasp's nest. There were so many, men and woman alike in all shapes and sizes, but all with gnarled, torn, or seeping wounds and glazed moonshine eyes in common. Even as Todd took down one person after another, more just came stumbling after us and didn't mind stepping over those fallen before them to do so. We were being pressed back the way we'd came, but a cry from the woman next to me alerted us of more beginning to file their way out of the alley as well.

We were trapped.

I knew that Todd couldn't possibly have as many bullets as people, and my heart dipped in my chest at the thought of our fates ripped apart like the other's I'd witnessed today. Instinctively, I reached out to grab onto the back of Todd's shirt and pressed my face into the fabric against his shoulder blades. Feeling tears dribbling down my face to dampen his shirt, I couldn't help but fear this could be the last time I could be close before we'd be ripped from each other. The last time before we'd be mangled and digested.

There were then several more cracks of shots that were no longer just coming from Todd, ceasing my despair to see a path through the mass of infected monsters we'd been trying to keep back thinned with the combination of another shooter.

"C'mon!" someone shouted and whistled sharply. "Ya'll make a run for it!"

Not needing to be told twice, Todd reached back to grab me and like a chain reaction I reached back for the woman cowering behind as well to pull her with us. Focusing his aim on the sliver of opening, we had several close calls with Todd having to shoot a few just before they were practically on top of us while the stranger covered him. When it seemed we made it through the thickest of the crowd, I finally glimpsed who had come to our aid from a ways up the alley. A man prominently at the head of his group was firing his own hand gun while two others were swinging crowbars to smash back the skulls of those starting to attract to their direction, one noticeably carrying a terrified little girl against him as he defended against the snarling infected with his other arm. As we eventually made our way closer, the group of men with the child were beckoning us to hurry as they began to retreat down the back row of the buildings.

"How much ammo you got for that?" Todd yelled as merged together and ran, pushing me in front of him as he lingered behind with the tall man to pick off those that continued to race after us.

"None once this is out," the stranger barked back with furrowed eyebrows, his eyes scanning around similar to Todd's as the two men sized up a way of escape. Todd eyed the revolver in the man's hands before shoving his hands back into his unzipped bag and tossed him a brick sized box that rattled when he caught it. Eyebrows rising in surprise, the two men just nodded in understanding towards one another as he began already shaking a few bullets out.

"Shit! Phil we got more of these sons'a bitches comin' our way!" one of the other men snapped as he bashed a woman trying to lunge at us from around another alley with the iron rod over the head.

Up ahead in the direction we were running towards was yet again being cut off as more limped in from another opening, like mice in a maze, we'd hit another congestion of cannibal corpses. In so much of a frenzy, we veered down another alley, praying for some kind of break in these walls and a way out from the massacred. Light was shinning down from the end of the street, but it wasn't what we'd hoped when I realized gates had been drawn closed by someone to keep out more dead who were already howling frantically from behind the gate trying to claw their way through. We all seemed to stop dead in our tracks as the realization of how deep of a trap we'd been caught in. Unable to suppress a sob of despair, I turned to reach for Todd who caught my hand just as swiftly, squeezing it tightly before continuing to pop off shots at those beginning to trickle in the alley after us.

"We can't just sit here with our heads up our asses," the shorter of the men vented rather harshly and looked to the man he'd addressed as Phil for some kind of solution.

"What do you want us to do?" the other lanky man with the little girl draped against his shoulder yelled back. The little girl was shrilly sobbing as even she seemed to understand our predicament and the young man refrained from any more arguing as he looked down fearfully for the child he looked like he wanted to soothe her, but was too frightened himself to do anything but press her head against his chest to block her sight.

Looking back up at the man at my side, my lips were quivering against my teeth and tears had unnoticeably begun pouring down my face as our doom seemed to seep closer.

"Todd..." I didn't know what I could tell him at this moment. But he paused to look back down at my sincerely, both of us stared with an intensity into one another, and no words needed to be vocalized between us at how much we loved and would soon die with one another, any pain and frustration we'd put each other through in the past months didn't hold any worth in this moment. He seemed to understand the point we were at and his arms, like his resolve, weakened as he begun to slowly let himself lower his gun, concluding our possibility of escape.

"Hey!"

At once we all seemed to jump as another living voice hollered from the alley. Looking around, there was no sign of anyone who did anything other than snarl toward us, but when we heard another call, the man with the little girl was able to spot who as he pointed up at one of the building we were pinned against. We all looked up to see out of the various windows and metal railing balconies scattered amongst the exterior of the building, one was hiked open with an older, elderly looking man hanging halfway out and waving his arms down at us. Squinting up at him, it dawned on me he was pointing towards his own balcony- one attached to a fire escape connecting with the other floors below it.

"He's telling us to climb," I was able to croak and point of the latter of the fire escape. Immediately, Phil and the shorter man out of the group began jumping for the latter, Phil eventually able to tug it down far enough for him to extend it down the rest of the way and was already spurring the man with the little girl forward, I could've guessed they were at least related by how similar they looked contrasted against one another. Rather than climbing up after him, Phil jerked his head to Todd who wasted no time pushing me forward. I climbed quickly, the woman I still didn't know the name of coming up after me, Todd, Phil, and the other man of their group bringing up the rear as we narrowly escaped the reaching arms of the infected dead now completely swarming the alley now below us, but not without kicking out at the closest body's head from the last of us. It was a tedious climb to the very top floor for being already exhausted by all the running amongst chaos and the stress of being so close to death at the hands of the infected dead.

At last we made it up to the top, my breathing wheezed and rattled in my chest but the relief of almost reaching the beckoning old man gave me a few fumes to make it with. The man disappeared back inside to reach back out to aid the young man as they helped the little girl through the window first before he squeezed his long body through after her. When it was my turn to clamber inside, I would have thrown myself through if both men didn't reach out and help steady me safely through. Collapsing against a nearby wall of what looked to be a living room in this apartment complex, my eyes felt exceptionally heavy as I surveyed the room while the woman behind me was helped inside, her hands fisting her skirts up to help get a leg over the windowsill.

It was a salmon painted room, very traditional in it's way with pictures lined in heavy rows along every ledge and shelf with various figurines and plants, a small kitchen in the corner from what I could see and only one bedroom I could spot. There was a tv on and airing the news, reflecting similar situations we had just escaped from outside. My attention found another man watching us apprehensively as we all climbed inside, his face half covered in thick glasses dressed in slacks with a long sleeved shirt tucked under, seemingly untouched by what was occurring just downstairs. Panting in silence with a few sniffs from the little girl who was now in the man Phil's arms. His eyes squeezed shut as he breathed heavily against her hair, her face pressed to his chest as he exhaled in what seemed like tearful relief before he kissed her brow and I knew he must be the father. Todd sank down next to me and I felt myself crumple into his embrace, still finding it unbelievable we'd actually found each other in this disaster.

"Thank you," the young man formerly holding the girl spoke up first. He seemed out of breathe the way his chest was rising and falling so rapidly, but extended a hand forward none-the-less to the man who's just saved all our lives to introduce himself. "Brian."

The man who let us seek refuge in his apartment from the surrounding dead seemed well aged, his softer wrinkled skin sagged on his face and his hands that he extended to clasp the younger man and gave it a surprisingly strong, almost reassuring shake.

"And I'm Phillip. Phillip Blake," the man carrying his little girl stepped forward to shake the elder man's hand gratefully as well. "Brian's my brother, and this is my daughter Penny. We'd be dead if you hadn't done what you did."

Nodding, the apartment owner swiveled around and beckoned his other companion forward who came to smile tentatively, but only fleetingly before he looked back anxiously to the tv.

"Michael Coleman," our savior introduced, motioning to his younger guest. "And my gentleman friend here is Milton."