Degeneration by Mark Campbell Page B

want someone with natural immunity but I’d bet money that they already have a fucking vaccine for this shit in storage! ”
    Green, ignorin g his partner, climbed on top of a stack of luggage to reac h Terry when the corpse dangling next to Terry suddenly twitched.
    “Christ, the one beside him just moved, too,” Green said.
    “Aw, fuck, her e you go again. It’s just rigor mortis or something ,” Small grumbled.
    Green reached a hand up and pressed two gloved fingers against the side of Richard’s throat.
    “No, he’s alive, too! Christ!” Green shouted.
    Small threw his hands up in the air in exasperation and shook his head.
    Green pointed the infrared thermometer at Richard and frowned as he read the results. “38.4 °C. He’s within the infection suspe ct range.” He paused and turned towards Small. “There’s a chance that the observation center won’t accept him. If you’re worried about making two trips, we can leave him and just drop off the first one. I’m not saying kill him, I won’t agree to that, but we can leave him for another team to find . It’s up to you.”
    Small stared up at Richard, thinking. Finally, he shook his head.
    “W e’r e already taking the first one so, fuck, we may as well drag the second one along for the ride,” Small said, shaking his head.
    “W ho knew you had such a big heart,” Green said, chuckling.
    “Me? Hell, you’re the bleeding heart snitch . I’d say shoot both of them.”
    “Well th at isn’t happening,” Green said. He cut Terry out of the seatbelt and carried him down over his shoulder. “Believe it or not, I still have somewhat of a c onscience .”
    “I don’t see how, considering the shit we’ve done here today ,” Small said . He climbed up the luggage pile and cut Richard ’s seatbelt.
    Richard collapsed on top of the luggage pile and his medication bottle fell out of his pocket.
    The two wh ite-suits hauled Richard and Terry ’s unconscious bodies out of the derailed train car and loaded the m into the back of a white van.
                  Green stared at the crash site in the rearview mirror a moment and then turned the engine.
    “If we stuff anymore in the back of the van we run the risk of cross-contamination. We’ll have to come back,” Green said.
    Neither of the men really wanted to return to the accident and, since they supervisor was AWOL, neither of them would.
    The van swerved around abandoned car s as it sped down the deserted downtown streets towards the CDC ’s medical observation center es tablished at Central Hospital. D owntown Raleigh had become a ghost town within a matter of hours . Skyscrapers draped in clear plastic towered high along every street while soldiers wearing white hazmat suits hurriedly covered the bottom floor windows of the plastic- draped buildings with plywood . The looting was taking its toll on the shops and cafes, but all of the looters, confused on-lookers, and responding police officers were all herded into and hidden away the plastic-draped tombs by the besieging military.
    Central Hospital’s parking lot was filled with FEMA busses and hun dreds of civilian vehicles. Near the building ’s entrance , National Gua rd soldiers wearing gasmasks were unloading plywood and rolls of plastic off of flatbeds.
    G reen and Small rolled Richard and Terry along the sidewalk towards the hospital’s emergency room entrance using two wheelchairs they found in the back of an empty ambulance. One of th e masked National Guard soldiers stopped unloading plywood and looked at them .
    “New admission?” the soldier asked, his voice muffled by the gasmask .
    “Yeah, CDC is still insi de, right?” Green asked, staring at the stacks of plywood and plastic sheeting ; he knew that it could only mean one thing.
    The soldier nodded.
    “They’re still in there,” he said, picking up a pneumatic drill off of the ground. “They’re not having much luck though, I hear. Ever yone who was brought