The Feeders

24-We're About to Find Out

Salem slips into the elevator and holds the door for me. I look at the complicating button panel, with five hospital floors, emergency buttons and who knows what else. Unfortunately, there's no sign anywhere that boasts: Zachary is on floor wherever. We're just standing in a metal box of mystery.

"How do we find out what floor?" I ask. "We'll never find him..."

"I saw the light switch from B to one before they came out, so here we go," Salem says. He presses the B for basement.

Great. Basements are never good, I think.

My mind goes to the images from one of the many news reports. I've seen a few Z's up close, but never anything as vast as the numbers of them I'd seen on the news. Hoards, they called them. What if we wander upon a hoard here?

I really didn't think this through.

I try to distract my mind with something else. This hospital smells different, I'm not only just noticing, I've been noting it in my subconscious since I walked in the place. Not like an alcohol-based sanitizer, like most hospitals smell. This is something stronger that itches my nose, even under the mask. It smells even stronger closed inside the elevator and I silently regret all the times I breathed fresh air without valuing it.

And then I think about other things I haven't valued enough. Salem ranks high on that list. Before this, I would hardly ever be in the same room with him. He was more into books and I was more into hanging out at the mall. He didn't care much about clothing labels, like I did. He would tell on me for sneaking out late at night to meet my friends. But now...now Salem has shown me that when it comes down to the bare bones of life, he's definitely on my side.

"Thank you," I say. "For everything. For trying to keep mom and dad alive, for keeping me safe, for doing this. Thank you."

He stares forward and doesn't say anything at first. I wonder if he heard me. I start to repeat myself but he finally speaks up.

"Don't thank me yet," he says. "We have no idea what is waiting for us in the basement."

Hoards of Z's? Surely it isn't...they've been exterminating them. They wouldn't let a hoard form. No way.

Maybe the basement just holds a lot of sick people that need saved. The elevator dings and the door starts to open.

"We're about to find out," I say.

As soon as the door is open and I fill my lungs, I want to gag. I know why the elevator smells so strongly now. It's to hide the smell. People must have been going in and out of the cesspool that is the basement, spreading the overwhelming stench of death. Rot has mixed with sick to make a perfect nightmare inducing stink.

I'm looking at a white wall, with some new signs I've never seen before. Isolation points toward the left, quarantine points toward the right.

"What's the difference?" I ask.

"Isolation is for people who have been exposed, quarantine is for people that are sick for sure," Salem says.

It's not lost on me that if we were true law abiding citizens, we would be here locked up in the isolation wing. We had spent a lot of time around mom and dad while they were sick. We'd have called and turned ourselves in, the way Zachary did. I couldn't do that. I couldn't leave mom and dad to fend for themselves. They'd never have left me, I know it.

Besides, I know if I had to endure full days and nights in this place, I'd have gone insane. How long has Zachary been here? Maybe he's out of his mind by now. Will he remember me? Or will he forget the way mom forgot so quickly and completely?

Salem cuts into my thoughts. "They know Zachary is sick already, no question about it, so we're going into quarantine."

He leads the way, while I follow, my heart pounding and my throat tight. Feeling like I'm under water, fighting my way to the surface. Down the hall is a door that didn't used to be here. There used to be a vending machine up ahead. There used to be paintings on the wall. Now there's an intercom with a button on the wall and above it is a note with the words: press for assistance. Salem, ever in charge, presses.

"Can I help you?" a high pitched voice asks.

"Yes, you may," Salem says. "We're from the CDC, here to procure specimens." He holds his fake badge in the air and I realize there a a camera there that he's showing it to. I rush to show mine as well.

"What happened to Stuart and Tyler?" the intercom asks.

"They took a night off. Guess the job was getting to them," Salem says.

"Shew," she says, "it's happening more and more often. Hard times."

"You got that right," Salem says. "We're Jannette and Salvador."

"Okay, I'll buzz you in," she says.