Dead Air (Book One of The Dead Series) Read online

  "Yes, yes, the blood pressure it is?" Rahjib demanded.

  "Zero over zero." She replied.

  All eyes broke away from their various tasks to stare at the moving body on the bed. Doctor Wendover broke their trance by gently easing the nurse out of the way and inflating the blood pressure cuff himself.

  Looking at the reading he said, "It must be broke. Someone go get another machine from the room next door."

  A nurse hurriedly left as Rahjib asked Wendover, "What is it reading?"

  "Zero over zero," he answered, "it's got to be broke." Turning toward the door, he yelled after the vanished nurse, "We need that machine now, on the double. Chop, chop."

  The room now held six medical staff and the patient, but it wasn't crowded. The rooms in the ICU had been designed with twice the space of those in the rest of the hospital to accommodate situations where the patient needed multiple hands on them to keep them alive. The nurse came back in with a blood pressure monitor and strapped the cuff around Darryl's arm. The machine whirred as the cuff inflated and deflated. Looking at the readout she said dumbfounded, "Zero over zero."

  Frustrated that nothing seemed to be working right, and worried at his liability in this situation, Doctor Rahjib let loose his anger on the nurse.

  "Why isn't that heart monitor hooked up?" He demanded, as he pointed to the wire leads hanging loose over the side of the bed. "Do it now," He barked.

  The nurse hurried to reconnect them to the monitor. When she was done, she jumped back quickly from the slowly writhing, teeth gnashing body on the bed. She had only worked in the medical field for two years, and didn’t have as much experience as some of the others in the room, but she had a strong feeling that something was wrong here. The grotesque head injury could explain the way the patient kept biting down as if trying to chew but she had been in the room when the man had died and she knew he was dead. She had been amazed, upon first seeing him as he was wheeled onto the floor, that he had even lived through his initial accident and had prayed that he went peacefully instead of suffering.

  The heart monitor came to life, showing a flat-line and the digital readout showed a steady pulse of zero, but the gauge monitoring the patient’s body temperature did give a reading of 94 degrees.

  "You incompetent," Rahjib burst out. "You need to make sure that the leads are connected correctly to the patient."

  Pointing at where two of the round discs had been removed so that the attendant could get the chest strap around the body, he said angrily, "Reconnect them now, you idiot."

  The young nurse, tired of the arrogant way Doctor Rahjib ordered the staff around and generally freaked out and scared by the present circumstances, snapped back, "Do it yourself you Pakistani goat fucker," and stormed from the room, grateful to be gone even if the outburst had cost her job.

  Rahjib considered going after the insolent nurse and firing her on the spot but decided to deal with it later. Right now he had to clean up, and cover up, the mess he had made when he pronounced an obviously living patient as dead.

  After removing the cervical collar and failing to find a pulse at his patient’s throat, Rahjib leaned over to loosen the chest strap so he could reconnect the leads for the heart monitor. This was when he noticed the patient’s eyelids fluttering. The man had been keeping them tightly clenched up until now and the doctor took this new development to be a good sign.

  As Rahjib loosened the clasp, letting the restraining belt fall to either side, the thing that had been Darryl Turp rolled its eyelids wide and let out a whine. Slowly, it opened its mouth in what Rahjib took to be a smile so the doctor leaned over and smiled back saying, "You're going to be all right now, sir. You have the best medical staff in the world working on you. Just relax."

  ***

  It opened its eyes to a red blur that slowly began to clear. It had no conscious thought of who or what it was, or who or what it had been, as it had no memory to call upon. To It, Darryl Turp did not now or ever exist. The red tint remained as its vision cleared and it struggled to focus on the object in front of it. Moving felt awkward and sluggish, and if it had a memory, it would equate the sluggish motor responses to the time Darryl Turp had drank a bottle of tequila and then ate the worm. Although its reactions were slow, its senses were tuned to a fine edge. It realized quickly by the rich, salty smell that in front of it was its one purpose for being, the one thing it craved above all else.

  Food.

  It reached up with a tentative hand and suddenly knew that if it didn't move faster its prey was going to back away and escape, leaving it hungry. With a sudden lunge, it grabbed the food in front of it and dragged it down to its mouth.

  Doctor Wendover let out a scream like a little girl watching her pet dog getting run over in the street when he saw the patient grab Rahjib by the hair at the back of his head. His eyes bulged as it pulled the doctor's face down to his mouth and tore a chunk out his lower left cheek with its teeth. Blood gushed, but even through the torrent of red Wendover could see Rahjib's jawbone glaring white through the gaping wound as a huge flap of skin and meat were ripped away.

  The room broke into pandemonium, with cries of revulsion and calls to restrain the patient coming from all sides. Two nurses struggled to pull Doctor Rahjib from the grip of his attacker but only succeeded in being bitten themselves, one on the arm and the other on the little finger. Both nurses fled the room trailing blood. Rahjib straightened up as he tried to back away, dragging his assailant into a sitting position as he beat helplessly against its back.

  Still holding onto Rahjib, it chewed quickly and swallowed the small chunk of flesh it had bitten off the nurse’s arm before plunging its teeth into the soft neck of its original food source, this time severing Rahjib’s carotid artery and sending a fountain of blood into the air.

  Chewing vigorously on a wad of neck muscle before swallowing it and then tearing loose another, it seemed unaware of the people running around the room screaming until it realized that the food in its grip was dead. Although it would eat dead meat when none other was available, it preferred fresh. It dropped the body of Rahjib onto the floor and then looked around the room until its eyes locked on Doctor Wendover, who stood frozen in shock a few feet away. A surge of saliva rushed out of its mouth, mingling with the blood on its face and tingeing it pink as it dropped its feet to the floor and advanced on the Doctor in three quick steps.

  ***

  When the two security guards arrived on the floor, they were greeted by confused shouts and orders coming at them from all directions. They finally made out enough of the story that the frightened nurses and interns babbled at them to figure out that a patient had gone berserk and was attacking the hospital staff.

  Although the two men carried tasers, they were hesitant to draw them from their holsters. They knew that even tasing a crazy person who was attacking someone, could leave them liable to a lawsuit. After a quick conference, they decided to check out the situation and then move in and overpower the patient from different directions. Both men were over six foot tall and weighed over two hundred pounds, so they were confident that they could subdue even the most violent of suspects.

  Cautiously, they approached the room where they had been told the attacker was hiding. They reached the door and the first guard peeked around the corner but then quickly withdrew. Turning, he raced past his partner and began vomiting onto the floor. The sight he had just witnessed would be burned into his brain for the rest of his short life.

  Seeing this reaction from his partner, the second security guard moved forward and hesitantly looked into the room, fearful of what he might see. The thing that caught his eye was the blood. At first glance it appeared as if someone had filled a super soaker squirt gun with the stuff, pumped it up to full pressure, and then let loose on the walls, floor and even the ceiling. The guard then noticed a body lying crumpled next to the bed and a nude figure bent over another body in a red lab coat stretched out on the floor near the back of the room. I
t appeared that the naked man was giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the supine man but the guard dismissed this as he focused on the body in the lab coat. Something was wrong with this picture. The guard's shocked mind tried to register why the man lying on the floor was wearing a red lab coat instead of a white one but came up blank. Then in a flash, he realized that the coat, like most other surfaces in the room, was soaked in blood.

  Since he saw no one else in the room waiting to attack, the guard thought he should move forward and assist the man trying to revive the doctor on the floor. As he opened his mouth to say something reassuring, the nude man looked up at him and whined.

  The second guard now realized why his partner had lost it and started vomiting. He wasn't sure what exactly his associate had seen, but if it were anything like what he was watching, it would be a wonder if either one of them kept their sanity.

  Hanging from the mouth of the nude man were the freshly bitten off lips of Doctor Wendover. Looking closer at the body on the floor, the security man could see that half of the doctor's face had been chewed away. He switched his attention back to the nude man and watched as the blood covered thing that had once been Darryl Turp reached up and pushed the dangling lips into its mouth before chewing and swallowing.

  The other guard returned from emptying his stomach contents onto the hallway tiles and joined his co-worker. The two exchanged a look of resolution as they moved into place in the wide doorway leading into the slaughterhouse. They entered in one quick motion while talking soothingly to the man, who had gone back to cannibalizing Doctor Wendover's face. They split up in order to circle in from different directions, using hand signals to alert each other as to their future moves as they quickly wove their way around the medical equipment now littering the floor.

  As the two guards closed in on it, it noticed them and got jerkily to its feet to meet their attack. At this point it had no intention of feeding off the intruders. It simply wanted to defend its food. If by chance it ripped off a piece of flesh in the process of doing this it certainly wouldn't spit it out, but the sooner the interruption was over, the sooner it could return to feeding on Doctor Wendover.

  The security man on the right moved first, lunging for the assailant. At the same time the guard moved, the late Darryl Turp attacked, leaning forward to let its weight fall into the guard. The dead and the living grappled for only seconds before the guard jerked back with a bite on his forearm.

  The second guard had moved in by this time and put it into a chokehold. The nude thing thrashed back and forth, trying to throw off its captor. In the long run, it would succeed for the simple reason that it would outlast the guard. It had no need of either air or blood flow and did not require rest.

  The first guard recovered quickly from the shock of being bitten and had the presence of mind to see that they weren’t dealing with something that could be subdued with ordinary methods. Drawing his taser, he yelled to his partner, "Let him go, I'm gonna zap his ass."

  The second guard realized this was easier said than done. If he let loose the chokehold, the madman would whirl around and attack him. The old saying about riding the tiger flashed through his mind.

  Frantic now, it clawed at the arm around its neck, digging furrows in the skin with its nails as its saliva flowed into the fresh wounds on the guard’s arm. Still shaking back and forth, it suddenly stopped moving as it lost interest in the struggle. The need for food had once again taken over to dominate its entire being. Since it could not reach the arm that had grabbed onto it, it looked around for something else to eat. Sensing that the one it had been feeding on earlier was still alive, it turned around to resume eating. Ignoring the security guard still hanging from it, it moved toward Doctor Wendover. Seeing his chance, the guard took this brief respite and pushed the nude man away with his free arm before jumping back. As the walking dead man bent over the barely breathing body of Doctor Wendover to continue its meal, there was a sharp popping noise as the guard with the taser pulled the trigger on his weapon. The prongs dug into its back as a half second later, 70,000 volts of electricity surged through its nervous system.

  Although a charge of that strength would normally render its victim immobile or unconscious, when it struck the dead man it did much more than that. With its primitive nervous system functioning in fits and starts as it propelled the corpse in its search of food, the charge from the taser instantly disrupted this erratic series of electrical pulses and caused the late Darryl Turp's nervous system to shut down completely. This time permanently.

  Shaken, the two guards surveyed the room, unable to do anything but stare at the carnage.

  Curious about the sudden silence in the room, after the screaming and crashing of the fight between the madman and the guards, a nurse tentatively looked into the room. Seeing the patient immobile on the ground, she called for help. The room quickly filled with medical staff that turned to the task of tending to the dead and wounded.

  The two security guards were ushered into another room where their injuries were treated. The intern who cared for the men, who had himself been bitten on the forearm a few years previously while trying to subdue an out of control crack head, warned them to keep the wounds clean. He used the scar on his own arm as an example and went on to explain that a bite from a human being was more likely to get infected than a bite from any other animal because the human mouth carried so many germs. Both men took this advice and sincerely promised to wash their injuries three times a day and to use the antibiotic ointment provided them.

  The intern, though correct in his concern that germs could contaminate the bites, was too late with his warning. An infection was already coursing through the two men he was treating and everyone else who had been bitten.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Clearwater, Florida:

  Steve Wendell stood up, relinquishing his chair to Mary Oliver as he asked, "Where in the hell is Kemp? You're on in two minutes."

  "You know he doesn't like it when you call him that," Mary replied as she sat down and adjusted the microphone in front of her. "He's known as Meat. You know, as in the Meat and Wood in the morning show. He's Morning Meat and I'm Morning Wood."

  Steve snorted in disgust. "All right then, where's Meat?" ·

  "Last I saw him he was headed for the bathroom to throw up. You know he gets nervous before the show," Mary replied primly, trying to protect her coworker.

  Steve shook his head as he looked at her with disbelief. He knew it wasn't nerves that caused Mike Kemp, AKA Meat, to throw up. It was the seven nights a week he spent partying at every dive bar in the Clearwater and St. Petersburg area that did it.

  Kemp claimed his drunkenness and hangovers were work related, in that he was doing location gigs for the radio station, but Steve knew different. The on-site, live shows that Meat broadcast never ran past midnight, which gave the man plenty of time to get his act together and arrive on time and ready to go for his morning show. The problem arose after Meat turned control back over to the midnight to five AM radio personality. Once free of his responsibility to the station, he would latch onto whatever available groupie presented herself and go on an all night tour of the bars and bottle clubs in the area.

  Steve constantly reminded himself that if Meat wasn't so damn good at coordinating the live events the radio station put on or got such high ratings, he would fire the disc jockey in a heartbeat.

  He checked the clock on the wall and compared it to the time remaining on the commercials he had cued to play during the switch over to the morning show. Noting that it was running short, he said, "I'm gonna go get him. If I'm not back in one minute, put on ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ by Iron Butterfly. The long version with the drum solo. That'll give me enough time to drag his sorry ass in here."

  Steve turned to leave the studio but stopped short when he saw Kemp through the glass partition coming toward him down the hall. With his long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing a dirty tie dyed t-shirt with a peace symbol on
the front and bell bottom jeans, he looked like a reject from a 60's sit in protest.

  Meat could tell that Steve was pissed, so as he entered the studio, he said, "Don't worry baby, I got this covered. I'm a professional, man."

  Plopping down in the chair next to Mary, Meat saw Steve open his mouth to tear into him so he held up his left hand in a 'wait' gesture while using his right hand to activate the control board, putting the station live on the air.

  The Meat and Wood in the morning theme song came up as Meat said into the microphone, "Good morning Clearwater, you’ve got Meat and Wood in the morning. Yesterday, Wood and I were discussing the recent shark attacks on the East coast over by New Smyrna Beach and some of our listeners called in to tell us what attracts sharks. One caller told us that urine does."

  Mary cut in saying, "Hey Clearwater, Florida, this is Morning Wood. We’ve got a special treat for you today. Our intern, Jonny G, has been sent out to Clearwater Beach where he will wade out into the surf and pee - can we say pee on the radio, Meat?"

  "Say urine," Meat chimed in. "As in, you’re in for a possible live shark attack." Meat laughed inanely at his own wit.

  Mary giggled before continuing, "So Jonny G is going to wade into the surf and urinate to see if it really attracts sharks. Let's go live now to Clearwater Beach. Jonny, are you there?"

  Jonny came over the live feed and started talking to Meat as Mary shot Steve a disdainful look and gave him the finger.

  Steve replied by flipping her bird with both hands and giving her a smile and a nod to let her know that while they had won this round, it wasn't over. He knew he'd been defeated for now, and would have to wait to tear Meat a new one, but that it was only a matter of time. Kemp thought he had saved himself from an ass chewing by going live, but he'd only managed to postpone the inevitable. At eleven o’clock he’d be off the air and fair game.

  Quietly exiting the studio, Steve went down the long central hall to his office at the other end of the radio station. On a normal day he would just be showing up for work, but since the regular midnight to five AM Jock had taken off for a job in Phoenix, Steve had to fill in until a replacement could be found. Jonny G had been pestering him about taking over the slot, but Steve considered the intern as nothing more than a crash test dummy, so that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.