Room 309

Room 309
Written by
Christopher Mancuso


Thursday, Sept 12.
1:09pm

Pedro Alvarez swam in and out of consciousness, bathed in slick sweat. He heard voices whispering. He saw blurry faces hovering curiously over him as he drifted in and out of blackness. Delirium was setting in as a result of his high fever. The bed sheets were wet; he had pissed himself. A flood of images assaulted him. He sat bolt upright in the bed and desperately called out for his mother as he swatted at a giant, green chicken flapping in air above his head. His mother wasn’t there. No one was. The room was empty of people and chickens. Coming to his senses, Pedro discovered that he was in a nondescript hospital room. He had no recollection of how he got there. Was it of his own accord, and if not, where was the person who had brought him here? Did they just leave him to die alone at the hands of his delusions? It was an enigma and he was a man who didn’t like unsolved mysteries.
The bright sunlight shining through the window hurt his eyes and pierced his head like a thousand rusty razorblades. Without warning, a wave of nausea seized him. His stomach lurched making him spew vomit over the bedrail. Suddenly alarmed, his eyes drifted to his mangled left hand, which had swollen to twice its normal size. His three remaining digits resembled over stuffed sausages. The fingernails were flaking off in small, broken chips. The hand ached dully, throbbing with every beat of his pounding heart. He stared at it for a long time and tried to wiggle his fingers. He couldn’t move them at all. Red lines were slowly spider-webbing up his arm as the poison worked its way through his bloodstream. His leg was in even worse condition. There was a huge chunk of calf muscle missing, bitten almost clean to the bone. The bandage was soaked with blood and yellow pus. Upon removing the gauze, he saw that the flesh around the wound was necrotic. The skin was blackened and blistered. The smell emitting from the gore was putrid, like rotten fish smothered in old cheese. He had completely lost sensation from his knee down. The infection was spreading. It was only a matter of time before Pedro Alvarez would be dead.
In a brief respite from his hallucinations, he prayed to whatever god might be listening. He collapsed weakly back onto the mattress and wept in self-pity. Alvarez tried to remember the days leading up to this one, but his mind was a complete fog. Where was he? Which town? Hell, what state? How did he wind up in a hospital bed? Although he couldn’t remember being attacked, the nature of his injuries was obvious enough. A Dead Walker had sunk its teeth into him. Infected him. Doomed him. But where? When? The unanswered questions bothered him almost as much as knowing his own inevitable fate.
A former Los Angeles Detective, his police instincts kicked in and Alvarez tried to piece the story together as best he could. However, there were too many missing pieces and empty holes for any scenario to make much sense. He went over the facts again and again in his mind trying to uncover a new, crucial, piece of information that would shed some light on his current situation. He could recall that he and fourteen others had been heading east, toward what was currently named Mason City. Alvarez had known there were survivors living in the town, protected by a twelve-foot high concrete perimeter. At last count there were 741 alive within the walled city. His group had been in contact with them for almost two months before deciding to risk the long journey to Mason City. But that was weeks ago. What had happened since then? Had his group of refugees been ambushed by a swarm of Walkers? Were his companions all dead…or worse? He searched his mind and came up blank. Short-term memory loss was an indication that he was in the third stage of the sickness. Alvarez knew all the symptoms. He had seen them a hundred times over, first with his wife, then all four of his children. Then with countless others he came across within the last sixteen months since the outbreak began. He knew what to expect and his short time left was grim. The fever would spike again, higher than before. Within hours he would have no memory at all. He would lose all reasoning and motor skills. Soon after, he would fall into a coma and eventually succumb to a fate worse than death. He would become one of the millions of Undead who preyed on the warm flesh of the living.
He reached for his pistol; a bullet to brain was one of the few ways to ensure that he would not resurrect as one of those mindless Dead Walkers. A Catholic, Alvarez had always believed suicide to be a mortal sin. Not anymore. Someone had changed the rules and suicide had become a noble act for those unwilling to be damned. Besides, he was already dead and he knew it. A bite, or any fluid exchange from a Walker was a certain death sentence. No one ever got better. He refused to walk around as one of those cursed things. Just a simple squeeze of the trigger and it would all be over.
His 9mm was not on the table next to the bed. It was not in the bed with him either. Or on the floor. It was nowhere to be found. Where the hell was his weapon? He always kept it close at hand. Could he have been so careless as to lose it or leave it behind? That wasn’t like him at all. Perhaps someone had stolen it, maybe the same person who left him in this room to die of his wounds. Alvarez began to panic, should a Dead Walker shamble into his room, he was completely defenseless. He might as well serve himself up on a silver platter for those zombies.
What the fuck happened to me? The question plagued him.
There was little time left to figure that out now. Alvarez tried to think of another way to destroy his brain before he turned. What floor was he on? Maybe if he jumped out of the window and landed on his head… That was not a guaranteed solution and he didn’t like to gamble, especially not when the stakes were so high. He’d have to think of a better answer. Was there something he could use to impale his skull with? Maybe he could make it to one of the operating rooms. There would be drills there.
Alvarez struggled desperately to get out of bed, but found the effort to be too much strain on his body. White pain shot through his limbs and torso. He could barely sit up. For an instant, he had thought about giving up and allowing the infection to run its course. No, he said aloud in Spanish, I will not be like them. Never!
Maybe if I can just…
…for God’s sake, someone kill that chicken, I’m freezing out here. I have a teswaklybrrugheeee…
Pedro Alvarez sank back into a delirium from which he would never recover.


Thursday, Sept. 12
5:27 pm

Doctor Amanda Woo looked on through the observation window at Room 309. Although only thirty, she looked nearly twice her under the sallow glow of the fluorescent lights. Her hair was unkempt and her clothes were wrinkled. Lines of exhaustion had etched themselves into her pale face. She’d been on duty for over twenty-four hours. Waiting. Watching . Hoping. Woo shook her head sadly as she observed Alvarez. His body involuntarily convulsed sporadically in his bed. He was dying. There was no hope for the poor man.
Mason City’s chief doctor and namesake, Kenneth Mason, joined her and peered through the window with cold, scientific curiosity. His black complexion was contrasted by his stark white beard. He was almost seventy, but one would never know it. He moved like a man twenty-five years younger.
“You look like shit, Amanda,” Mason said.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“Still having those nightmares, eh?”
Woo nodded.
“You can take something for that, you know.” He offered, “I can write you up a prescription. You’ll finally get a good night’s sleep.”
She waved off the suggestion and changed the subject. “Has there been any progress with the other remaining patient?”
“CZ-14 died an hour ago, ” he said.
Woo’s shoulders slumped. “So soon? And…?”
“And she resurrected within two minutes,” he sounded almost amused, “I think that’s some kind of a record.”
Everything seemed so hopeless that Woo felt like crying, but she bit back her tears. “I don’t understand. CZ-14 died only three hours following exposure, CZ-11 in less than twelve. How is it that we can make the infection worse, but not better? Can you answer me that, Dr. Mason?”
“We’re getting closer,” Mason assured, “I believe discovering the antidote is only a matter of weeks, or months away now.”
“You don’t have to hear them scream when we force them down to the basement and let the Walkers at them,” she snapped, her voice cracking. “I feel more like a murderer than a doctor.” Tears stung her eyes. She could still hear the echo of Pedro Alvarez begging for his life in the back of her mind. She could hear the pleas of the dozens that came before him. “How many innocent people do we have to infect, Mason? How many do we have to kill?”
“As many as it takes to develop a cure, Amanda,” Mason said softly. He gently placed a hand on her skinny shoulder. “I don’t like these experiments anymore than you do. I’m not a monster, I take no pleasure in watching people suffer and die, but I made a promise to the people here. I know these experiments are regrettable, but they’re a necessary evil. We’re conducting important tests here. The most important work ever in the history of modern medicine. May I remind you, the continued survival of the human race depends on us.”
Dr. Woo said nothing. Mason might be right, but she didn’t have to like it. And it wouldn’t stop her nightmares.
“How’s CZ-9 doing?” he asked curiously eyeing his charts. “Male. Hispanic. Approximately forty years old. Says here you had him tested with bites to his upper and lower limbs. Any signs of improvement?”
“No, he’s dying, just like the others,” Woo said flatly.
Mason raised his eyebrow. “It says he’s currently at sixty-nine hours post exposure. Well… that’s good news, isn’t it?” The old doctor sounded hopeful. He had seen thousands of cases and no victim had ever survived for more than forty-eight hours after being infected. “I’d say that’s a big improvement, the best yet, in fact. Sixty-nine hours. We could finally be on to something this time, Amanda. I’ll have to go back to my lab and reanalyze the compounds in serum CZ-9.” He started to go.
“That man in there is still going to die.” Woo said sadly.
Her words stopped him in his tracks. Mason polished his glasses with his tie and nodded solemnly. “Yes, he will, but who knows, maybe he’ll just stay dead. Wouldn’t that be something, dear? Then we can finally start developing a vaccine to immunize our people from resurrection. Even if we haven’t cured the virus, at least we can keep the undead population from increasing. ”
“Yes, that would be something,” Woo agreed, but she was reluctant to hope. “What if he doesn’t – stay dead, I mean?”
Mason thought for a moment before answering, “No need to put him down for good, we may still have use for him. I’ll have the orderlies cage him in the basement with the rest of the Walkers.”
“We’re all out of human test subjects,” Woo informed Mason with a heavy heart. She never took her eyes off the man in the bed.
Mason waved his hand dismissively, “Not to worry dear, there is another group scheduled to arrive at noon on Saturday – all the way from New York City, if you can believe that. There’s only five or six of them, but once they get into town I’ll have the sentries escort them straight here so we can resume our work.”
A single tear slid down Amanda’s cheek as she hesitantly nodded.
Behind the glass, Pedro Alvarez took his last breath.
Woo looked down at her watch and cleared her throat. “Nurse, note TOD on subject CZ-9 as 5:33 pm,” she said.
“Yes, Doctor Woo.” a nurse sitting behind a desk answered.
Mason offered a wan smile, “Well, we didn’t cure the infection this time, but maybe he won’t wake up dead.”
Amanda Woo crossed her fingers and prayed to whatever God that may be listening. Mason took her hand and held it in his.
They waited.


Copyright2010 Christopher Mancuso