Degeneration by Mark Campbell Page A

terrified.
                  The bomb’s timer, however, counted down dutifully.

11
     
    W hen Terry regained consciousness, searing pain was his first sensation. Ve rtigo overtook him . Briefly, he opened his eyes and saw his tie lolling side-to- side in front of his face. Another explosion of pain rippled through him.
    Ter ry screamed.
    His consciousness faded .
                  Bel ow Terry, a white-suit waded through corpses and luggage . He heard the scream and he quickly turned his attention up to wards Terry’s dangling corpse.
                  “Hey, Green, there’s a live one here!” the white-suit, Small, called out. “Test ‘em!”
    Green, donning his own white-su it, crawled into the upside-down train car and stumbled over a sprawled out corpse wearing a tattered Saks suit in the process.
    An interesting mixture of excitement and terror washed over both soldiers as t hey stared up at Terry since they didn’t find a single survivor from the train accident all morning.
    Green pointed the infrared thermometer at Terry.
    “37.2 °C,” Green said, reading off the red LED display on the device. “Slightly above normal but not quiet falling in the ‘ PT-12 ’ exposure range. Of course, the increase could probably be attributed to the accident trauma. I would say that it’s a passable reading.”
                  Small shook his head.
                  “I don’t know… It’s higher than normal, right?” Small asked while aiming his M16 up at Terry’s lolling head. “I’d say it’d be a waste of time to drag him down .”
                  Green put a hand on Small ’s rifle and pushed the barrel down.
                  “Jesus, Small, what are you doing? You know what the orders are. You must really want to piss off the Colonel , don’t you?” Green said
    “What, Green?!” Small cried out, jerking the rifle free from Green’s hand. “ Do you really want to waste time hauling him down , taking him to one of t hose CDC idiots in the hospital just so they verify that ‘oh what do you know, he is infected just like every one else we looked at’ , waste some more time out of our day by hauling him out f rom the hospital, and then haul him across down town to a skyscraper just to seal him inside with the other infected civilians ?!”
    “Thos e are the orders, ” Green said matter-of-factly. “If we find anybody without symptoms three hours after initial viral exposure , take them to the CDC triage center for close observation and lab work! They don’t want us arbitrarily shooting people in the street! That’s not what we’re here for! ”
    Small raised his rifle up towards Terry again.
    “Fuck that. I’m saving us both a lot of headache and I’m saving him from rotting inside some shitty downtown skyscraper tomb,” Small said, finger tightening on the–
    “Do it and I’ll report you,” Green quickly said. “Please, be reasonable and be somewhat humane .”
    Sma ll froze and slowly turned towards Green.
    “Who are you going to tattle to? The Sergeant already left. I guess he figured that he had more important shit to do then watch two ass holes do busy work,” Small said.
    “I’ll call Colonel Mathis himself, then,” Green said defensively.
    Small laughed.
    “No, you won’t,” Small said. “You know, you talk pretty noble for someone who was pic king the pockets of corpses and– ”
    “Yeah, well, if he isn’t infected, this is murder. And I won’t take part in cold-blood ed murder,” Green snapped back.
    Small and Green stared at each other a moment and finally Small lowered his weapon.
    “Fine, if it makes you feel better. But when we have to ha ul him out from the hospital because he’s infected and take him to another fucking building , don’t say I didn’t tell you so,” Small said, grumbling. “Nobody is immune to this shit , you know! CDC is wasting their time! Atlanta says they