The Zulu Virus Chronicles Boxset (Books 1-3)

by Steven Konkoly

  “Jeff, is this a list of what you’re seeing across the spectrum of patients? Or a spectrum of symptoms seen in all patients.”

  “The latter. Not every symptom is present in every patient, but nearly everyone has initially presented with fever, fatigue and severe headaches. The other symptoms are spread out a little more. We’re seeing a lot of speech pattern disruption and erratic behavior.”

  Based solely on the symptoms described, Chang’s first guess would be some form of encephalitis. But in these numbers? Only a bioweapon could produce such a widespread outbreak.

  “You said or worse,” said Chang. “What did you mean by that?”

  “Some patients get aggressive,” said Owens.

  “How so?”

  “They almost all start out verbally abusive and quickly progress to physically violent. We’ve restrained any patients displaying neurological symptoms beyond headache.”

  “What are you seeing in terms of numbers for the aggressive patients?” said Chang.

  “One in five. It used to be more like one in ten. My fear is that the number will continue to climb until everyone is affected.”

  This changed everything. Only rabies and anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis caused aggressive behavior in this percentage range, and they were both extremely rare diseases. Only two other possibilities existed. Neither good, but one was far worse than the other.

  “That’s a disturbingly high number, Jeff,” said Chang. “Kind of narrows things down a bit unless this is a novel, contagious disease.”

  “It presents like herpes simplex encephalitis until patients start getting violent. And I can’t wrap my head around the volume of patients. HSE in the ER is like a once-a-year diagnosis. Maybe.”

  “Rabies and anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis cause aggressive behavior in this percentage range, but cases of either are even less common than HSE,” said Chang.

  “God, I haven’t seen a case of symptomatic rabies in the ER for years. Like two decades. And I’ve never heard of the anti-whatever thing you just mentioned.”

  “Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. It’s an autoimmune disease. Very rare,” said Chang.

  He didn’t want to bring up the possibility of the disease being a weaponized form of herpes simplex virus. Not until he’d run some tests. He wasn’t sure that was even possible without clearing some serious red tape.

  “So what are my chances of taking a look at some patient samples?” said Chang. “In my lab.”

  “One hundred percent,” said Owens. “I just need to sneak a patient away to do a spinal tap. I can have one of the police officers meet you at NevoTech with the samples.”

  “Can you have one of your staff bring it to my apartment? A police car pulling up to the laboratory complex and delivering a package will draw attention. Security is pretty tight at the facility.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Owens.

  “Thank you. I live one block away from the NevoTech campus. I’ll walk it right over and get started before the rest of the lab arrives. It’s not unusual for me to arrive at five in the morning from time to time.”

  “Sounds like perfect timing. As soon as I hang up, I’ll put my plan in motion. Probably take me an hour to steal a patient and do the spinal tap. I’ll call you when the package leaves the hospital,” said Owens.

  “I’ll be ready,” said Chang.

  “I really appreciate this. We’re getting close to zero guidance from the hospital administration. Nobody seems to know what to do. I haven’t heard word one from my boss about state CDC direction. If we had some idea what we’re dealing with, I could make a strong case for moving the infected patients out. The sirens you keep hearing are police responding to violence in the city, and the police are sick, too. We’re barely keeping up with what the ambulances deliver. At this rate, we’ll need those beds. If not, we’ll have to permanently shut down the ER.”

  “I’ll focus all of my attention on those samples until I have something for you,” said Chang.

  “Thanks, Gene. I’ll be in touch shortly.”

  Dr. Chang sat on the edge of his bed, thinking about what Owens had said at the very end of their conversation. He made it sound like the city was out of control and had been for the better part of twenty-four hours. Aside from the constant wail of distant sirens, he had witnessed nothing in the city to support the ER doctor’s assessment. When he had stepped out of his apartment building to get a bite to eat, nothing had jumped out at him as abnormal.

  The restaurants on Virginia Avenue hadn’t been as crowded as he’d anticipated for a Thursday night, but the ever-present tipsy laughter and clinking happy hour glasses drifting onto the street from the numerous café patios felt right. People were walking and bicycling along the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, taking advantage of the late sunset and warm weather. After a while, the sirens kind of faded into the background, replaced by the bustle of Virginia Avenue’s young, upwardly mobile vibe.

  He’d returned to his apartment after a leisurely meal on one of those lively patios, thinking all was well in the world. Or not thinking about the world at all. A stark difference from Jeff Owens’s evening. He truly wondered if it was possible for the two worlds to exist side by side. More importantly, how long would it take for enough of Owens’s world to spill into Chang’s, permanently unbalancing the entire system. He hoped there was a reasonable explanation for what Owens had described, and that they weren’t headed for the kind of disaster he had spent a lifetime trying to prevent.

  Chapter 8

  Dr. Lauren Hale turned her Honda Civic onto Virginia Avenue, barely slowing for the red light. She was in a hurry and hadn’t seen more than two cars on the road since she’d left the hospital. Neither of them police cars. The police had bigger problems right now, or thousands of small problems depending on how you looked at it. Right now, everything looked normal for four thirty in the morning. The street was empty and presumably quiet. The sirens had been mostly silent when she’d retrieved her car from the parking garage. Even the ER had been eerily calm when she left. The sick had to sleep, too.

  Her phone’s navigation app told her Dr. Chang’s address was less than a quarter of a mile away, on the left. She came up to another red light at College Street and slowed long enough to determine she was still the only car on the road. Two red lights blown in the name of science, or whatever she was doing. She was too fucking tired to ponder the question. In all truth, she probably shouldn’t be driving. She remembered a 60 Minutes segment about truck driver fatigue. The numbers cited were hazy right now, but she was pretty sure her driving was impaired at a .10 BAC equivalent based on the segment’s science.

  A long, four-story building loomed over the street ahead on the left. Her destination, most likely. Street-side parking had been full since she made the turn onto Virginia Avenue, so she turned into the empty parking lot of her absolute favorite breakfast spot. For the first time ever, she found a space. If only she could have made the trip two and a half hours later. Not even an ER full of raging lunatics could have stopped her from sitting down to a carrot cake waffle. It was probably for the best that the timing didn’t work out. She might never leave.

  Hale got out of the car and retrieved the cooler from the trunk. Owens didn’t want to risk losing the samples to a carjacking. She thought he was being a little overcautious, but hadn’t argued. She also hadn’t brought up the fact that he hadn’t once mentioned her safety. He had come out of the spinal tap single-mindedly focused on the cooler, and that was fine. Dr. Owens had probably expended the remainder of his mental focus on the delicate procedure.

  Cooler in hand, she crossed the road and approached the front entrance to the apartment building. Dr. Chang appeared in the lobby and opened the door as she arrived. She was surprised by his younger appearance, having assumed he was in his mid to late fifties like Dr. Owens. Handsome and fit, Chang couldn’t be more than forty. Possibly younger. It was too hard to tell in the subdued light, and she was too tir
ed anyway.

  “Dr. Hale?”

  “The one and only,” she said, not sure why that came out of her mouth. “Dr. Chang?”

  “The one and only,” he said, holding the door open.

  She approached the front door, looking past him at the sleek, modernistic lobby. Definitely a few levels above her pay grade—for now.

  “Sample was taken at four twelve, packaged, then run out to my waiting car,” she said, holding the cooler out to him.

  “Eighteen minutes. Not bad,” said Chang, accepting the cooler.

  Chang appeared to give her a once-over, which she’d normally find offensive. However, given her state of exhaustion, she really didn’t care. All she wanted to do was get back to the ER, where Owens had promised her a few hours of sleep. Chang could pinch her ass at this point, and she’d make a beeline for her car. With the cooler delivered, sleep was her number one mission.

  “Dr. Owens underrepresented your appearance,” said Chang.

  What? Maybe she’d make a beeline to her apartment instead, after she read Chang the riot act. Owens could make do without another doctor.

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  “He told me you’ve been awake for the better part of forty-eight hours. That you’d look like—reheated dog shit—I believe was the term he used,” said Chang. “He wasn’t sure about sending you out alone.”

  “Oh. Right,” she said, nearly too exhausted to feel bad about misreading him. “I’m fine. He promised me a few hours of sleep when I get back.”

  “You look like you could use a few days of sleep,” said Chang, stepping through the glass door and opening it wider. “Dr. Owens asked if you could crash here for a few hours. I have no problem with that.”

  “Here? At your place?”

  The offer was beyond tempting, but felt a little odd. He seemed to read her mind.

  “I’m heading right to the lab. I need to start processing these fluids immediately. You’ll have the place to yourself,” said Chang, nodding for her to enter. “There’s a deadbolt that can’t be opened from the outside.”

  “I didn’t mean it to sound like I thought you might—”

  He cut her off. “Dr. Hale, I completely understand. You can’t be too careful.”

  A siren cut through the silence, resonating through the buildings. Red and blue flashing lights reflected off a tree across the street, quickly vanishing. Chang glanced up and down the deserted avenue as the siren faded.

  “How bad is it out there?” he said.

  “I’m probably not the right person to ask. This is my first trip outside the ER,” said Hale. “It almost feels normal. The hospital has been a living hell for the past twenty-four hours.”

  “You’re experiencing a form of concentration or choke-point bias,” said Chang. “Neither of those are official psychology terms. It’s how I look at it. You’re seeing a concentration of the problem because everyone with the problem has shown up at the ER’s doorstep.”

  “It’s bad, Dr. Chang. I’ve never seen anything like it, and neither has Dr. Owens.”

  “I’m not saying it isn’t,” said Chang. “I’m just comparing what Dr. Owens reported and what I’m seeing out here. Until his phone call an hour ago, I had zero idea anything was wrong.”

  “How is that even possible?” she said. “The hospital hit surge capacity early yesterday. This should be front-page news.”

  “The hospitals will do whatever they can to minimize the press surrounding one of their dirtiest little secrets,” said Chang. “Most hospitals operate year-round at near full capacity because they have to. An empty bed doesn’t generate revenue. All it takes is a severe pileup on the interstate to tie up every hospital within a twenty-mile radius. Same thing but worse happens in an epidemic or pandemic. Medical services shut to new patients very quickly.”

  “Do you think this is a viral epidemic?” she said.

  “I should have a pretty good idea in a few hours,” he said, and then held up the cooler. “So. Are you staying or heading back?”

  She felt guilty staying away from the ER, where the rest of the staff would undoubtedly catch little sleep, but she didn’t have the willpower to refuse at the moment. The prospect of lying down and closing her bloodshot eyes, in a clean, quiet apartment, for a few hours had no competition. The fact that her favorite restaurant was right across the street sealed the deal. She’d put in a huge order to take back to the ER when she woke up. That was how she’d make amends when she slinked back into the patient-clogged ER. Chang caught her looking over her shoulder at the restaurant.

  “They open at seven. Best breakfast in town,” said Chang, holding out a notecard. “The codes to this door and the apartment. Number 318.”

  Hale stumbled inside, the full weight of the past forty-eight hours smothering her. A quick glance around revealed a tasteful, but sparsely appointed apartment. A wall-mounted TV, couch and circular table with two chairs made up the furnishings. Definitely a bachelor pad. Like a dream, she soon found herself lying on an oversized sectional couch in a dark apartment, the thin memory of turning the deadbolt on the door slowly drifting away. A window shattered somewhere in the neighborhood, jolting her upright on the couch. She listened for several moments, finally picking up on a heated argument between a man and a woman, followed by a door crashing shut. It almost sounded like the door had been slammed inside the apartment building.

  She willed herself off the couch and checked the deadbolt, not trusting that faded memory. For good measure, she wedged a kitchen chair under the doorknob, not exactly sure it would make a difference. She’d only seen this done on TV or in the movies, but it made her feel a little better. After the behavior she’d witnessed at the hospital, she wished she hadn’t turned down her dad’s offer to give her one of his many handguns. She’d feel a lot better with a gun.

  When she got back to the couch, the argument had moved onto the street or a balcony. Hale really hoped it wasn’t a balcony. She could justify sleeping through an argument, but would be on her feet in a second if someone fell to the street. Drifting in and out of consciousness through a seemingly endless tirade of slurs and foul language, she was relieved to hear a car door slam shut, followed by screeching tires. As one half of the argument sped away, the screaming intensified until it barely sounded human. One of her last thoughts before falling asleep was that the woman was smart to get out of here. The guy sounded homicidal.

  Chapter 9

  Jack Harper spit a mouthful of toothpaste suds into the bathroom sink and let the water run over his toothbrush for a few seconds. He carefully put the toothbrush in the stainless steel cup on the sink counter, trying to keep it from clinking too loudly.

  “Make sure you rinse the sink,” Emma suddenly announced from behind the closed bathroom door.

  He jumped at the sound of her voice.

  “Jesus! You’re like a stalker,” he said. “Except I live with you.”

  “Yeah. I need to stalk you to keep this place from looking like a frat house,” she said, jiggling the door handle.

  “Hold on,” he said, opening the door.

  Emma stood there in gray sweatpants and a pink, oversized Indiana University T-shirt; her brownish-red hair was tied in a ponytail. She looked exactly like she did when she woke up.

  “What?” she said.

  “You look beautiful as always.”

  “Nice try. I look exactly like I did when I woke up,” she said, glancing at the sink behind him. “I heard like two seconds of faucet.”

  “Two seconds?” he said, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her close. “Sure it wasn’t three?”

  “Pretty sure,” she said, pressing against him.

  They kissed passionately, Jack thinking that a delay in his scheduled departure time might be in order. Emma disengaged from the kiss first, pecking him on the cheek.

  “Hurry up and get back,” she said.

  “That’s it?” he said, pulling her back in.

  “You don’t
want to keep your parents waiting,” said Emma.

  “They’re retired,” he protested.

  “On a strict schedule. You don’t mess with the Harpers’ breakfast time,” she said.

  He kissed her again, nibbling gently on her lower lip before releasing her.

  “Point well taken,” said Jack, stepping out of the bathroom. “They tend to misbehave with low blood sugar.”

  “We all do,” said Emma, smacking him firmly on the behind.

  “What was that for?”

  “Leaving me with a toothpaste-slimed sink,” she said, half smirking, half frowning.

  “Hey, can’t keep my parents waiting,” said Jack.

  He grabbed his wallet, sunglasses and car keys from the corner of the kitchen counter next to the door leading to the garage. Emma appeared in the hallway past the kitchen table.

  “When do you think you’ll be back?” she said.

  “It’s seven now,” he said, pausing to think it through. “I should get there about eight thirty their time. Leave around ten or eleven. I’ll be back by two at the latest?”

  Properly coordinating the two-and-a-half-hour trip to northwest Indiana required math. Nothing complicated, but he’d arrived an hour early on more than one occasion after failing to account for the time change. His parents lived in the one small swath of Indiana that hadn’t lost its mind and gone to Eastern Standard Time several years back. That played a big part in why he hadn’t left an hour ago. It was still dark when he wanted to get up, which kept him pressing the snooze on his smart phone until Emma pushed him out of bed.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll grab some lunch for us on the way back from grocery shopping. Any requests?”

  “Sushi would be nice,” he said. “We haven’t had Japanese since we left.”