The Black: Outbreak

by Paul E. Cooley

  In complete darkness, it moved along the metal surface by touch until it found the open valve and followed the U-bend leading to the large waste tank. The metal tank vibrated and shook as the thing consumed urine, feces, blood, and other biological waste from diagnostic tests.

  Overloaded with mass, the tank creaked from the massive amount of liquid. It sucked the last of itself into the tank, but it was growing too large. The liquid overflowed into the pipe ends leading into the tank. Closed valves kept it in place. It was trapped. The one-way valve it had passed through to get into the tank was immovable. There was no way out.

  Still, moveless, it waited. Without more matter, it couldn’t grow. It couldn’t sustain. Its mass began feeding upon itself, burning particles to provide itself energy.

  And then salvation. One of the many valves leading to the hazardous waste plumbing opened. The creature shot a pseudopod of black up the pipe, probing, searching, consuming. Fresh blood dripped down. It fought against the vacuum, a mere liter of itself managing to struggle through the pipe. The valve closed suddenly, cutting off the pseudopod.

  It felt part of itself go free. Another valve opened with the same result. And another. And another. Every time a new valve opened, it disseminated itself. Its intelligence dropped with each necessary separation. More than three liters remained in the tank before it lost enough mass to fight against the vacuum. Trapped in the darkness, it waited for a solution and a way to get out.

  Its separated pseudopods fought their way up the pipes, searching for the inevitable exits. Each absorbed matter as they rose. Some were sucked back downward as the vacuum pushed them back to the tank. They hardened themselves and clogged the pipe to keep from re-entering the trap. Others found their freedom unobstructed.

  With instinctive caution, the liters of liquid explored their possible exits. There was more food. They could sense it.

  *****

  The operation was over, but there was still more to do. He didn’t care much for the night shift, but Nurse Gregory McCardle did what he was told. If an operation occurred during the night, it was usually because a patient in ICU had cratered and there was little that could be done without an immediate surgery.

  In this case, it was due to simple stupidity. The patient’s original surgeon had managed to either miss a small puncture in the venal artery, or, worse, had actually caused it. Either way, the patient had massive internal bleeding that was only noticed a full eight hours after the first procedure.

  Emergency operations required everyone to remain calm while working as fast as they could. And after every one of them, McCardle felt like he could sleep for a week. This one had more or less been a walk in the park. All they’d had to do was anesthetize the patient, re-open the original abdominal incision, and find the damned bleeder. Total surgery time? Thirty minutes. That was it.

  But the adrenaline surge from holding clamps, handing over instruments, monitoring vitals, and even checking the surgeon’s work was exhausting. He needed a nap, but coffee would have to suffice for now. ICU was full and there was no telling when another patient was going to need a trip to the OR.

  Still wearing latex gloves, he pulled the bloody sheets off the table and tossed them into the bright red hazardous waste bin. With the steel table completely clear, he grabbed the bottle of organic solvent and sprayed down the table’s surface.

  The drain in the floor gurgled. He glanced at it and then returned to sanitizing the table. It gurgled again. He sighed. If the damned waste disposal area was clogged, he’d have someone’s ass. It was too late in the goddamned night or too early in the morning, he always got confused as to which was right, for this shit.

  The sound came again. He unlocked the safeties on the OR table and pushed it away from the drain. He wasn’t going to let another backup ruin all of his hard work.

  The strong operating lights were still on. He walked back to the stand to move them as well. The drain made a whooshing sound that was getting louder. McCardle swung one of the lights on the stand directly over the drain. He knelt down, but kept his head to the side so he could see what was in there. Something moved inside it, but was too far down for the light to touch it. It moved again and a bubble of water popped at the top of the drain. And then a river of black liquid streamed through the grate. The light engulfed it and suddenly everything was on fire, including McCardle.

  *****

  Doctor Lisa Stone, PhD, stood beneath the bright lights of the diagnostics lab. She was supposed to be home eight hours ago. Three calls to her fiancé apologizing for tardiness followed by a finale of “don’t bother” from her future mate. They’d been together for more than two years. It had only been six months since she earned her doctorate in pathology.

  He’d put up with her long hours while she worked tirelessly to get her degree, and never complained. But now that she was actually working? He wanted her home after five p.m. And that was the trouble.

  She loved him. She loved her work. And the two weren’t compatible. And if she didn’t find a proper way to manage the two, she’d lose one if not both.

  Ben Taub had been chosen as a testing site for MRSA strains gathered from patients. In addition to her normal job of running the standard tests for the usual bacteria and viruses in blood samples, analyzing, cataloging, and comparing MRSA samples was her focus. It required a new safety regime in the lab and she was the only one properly trained to follow it.

  Her first general report was due next week. The National Institute of Health (NIH) was waiting on her research reports as well as those from around the country. Each test site was required to provide data in exchange for the grants the researchers and hospitals received. With her student debt still at a hefty 150k, she needed every extra dollar. So when the project came up, she happily volunteered. She wasn’t sure her fiancé even grasped that yet.

  The words on the screen wavered. She’d been writing the report for the last several hours and it was going to take another 2-3 days of constant work to get it done in time. It hadn’t helped that several football players from around the city had been admitted to the hospital with extremely nasty MRSA infections. One of them was doubtlessly going to lose a foot. She tried to imagine what it would be like to become disabled at the age of 17 all because you took a shower in the high school gym. She shuddered.

  Lisa rubbed her eyes and then leaned back in the chair. She closed them, blocking out the harsh overhead lights. She needed coffee. She needed a nap. Hell, she needed to get home.

  She wasn’t the only one working in the lab, but the others were on “extended” break. The workload hadn’t been especially bad. Mainly urine, fecal, and blood samples for the standard bacteria runs. Nothing of interest at all. So she’d continued working through the MRSA strains, photographing them using the microscope, collating the pictures, and looking for commonalities. The NIH would require the samples too and she had an entire shelf worth of the damned things. MRSA, immune to most antibiotics, was one of the more dangerous pathogens loose in the world. Handling the samples was nerve wracking. Being diagnosed with them was worse.

  One of the machines beeped. Lisa opened her eyes and looked across the room. Another urine sample was finished. She stood from the chair and walked to another workstation. After she swiped her keycard, the interface came up on the screen. She chose the latest test and stared at the numbers. Ah, someone with a urinary tract infection had also been smoking pot and doing a little X. Nice.

  She logged the sample, checked to make sure the patient information was correct, and then removed the remaining sample. She took the brownish test tube to the biohazard disposal machine. The device was specifically designed to take in bags or test tubes and then empty them into the waste system. Once that happened, the bags and tubes were destroyed. She placed the sample in the machine, hit the green button, and walked away.

  The machine hummed and then stopped with a slosh. An annoying buzzing sound erupted from the machine. Frowning, she turned back to it and rea
d the display. “Vacuum failure.”

  “Shit,” she said to the empty lab. Great time for another goddamned technical issue. Lisa sighed and headed to the phone. She picked it up and typed in a number. The receiver responded with dead silence. Frustrated, she slammed the phone back in its cradle.

  The machine groaned. Lisa turned her head and stared at it. It was vibrating. With slow steps, she approached the black and gray plastic box. It started to wobble like an unbalanced washing machine. The buzzing alarm increased in volume and several LED lights blinked with vampire eyes.

  She reached out to stab the “off” button and then the machine roared. The plastic top disintegrated and an arm of black liquid stabbed through it. Lisa screamed and fell backward to the floor, her shoulder clipping a desk on the way down. Blood welled from the wound and her nerves shrieked with pain.

  The black liquid flowed out of the top of the machine and to the floor, no droplets separating from the mass. The world filled with a sizzling sound and the fetid stench of rotten meat. The puddle of black moved across the floor and into the shadows beneath one of the workstations. Lisa crab crawled backward as the puddle crackled and quivered. A thin branch rose from its center. Finally, a black orb popped into existence at its top. It stared at her. And then the puddle moved toward her.

  Lisa tried to find her feet, but her left shoulder wouldn’t cooperate. She turned over and got to her knees. A wave of mind-shattering pain overtook the screaming nerves in her shoulder. She flipped back over and raised her head.

  Smoke rose from her feet. The sizzling sound of the liquid dissolving her flesh was deafening. She shrieked again and again as the liquid flowed over her, consuming her. By the time it reached her chest, her head was on the floor, eyes glazed and empty.

  *****

  It traveled up the plumbing in absolute darkness. Rather than taking forks and junctions as its brethren had, it continued up the main pipe. It moved for stories until it hit a dead end. The creature waited, the pressure in the pipes keeping it from sliding back toward its parent’s prison. It was only a half-meter in length in the confined space. The liquid cleaned the pipes, removing decades-old detritus and biological particles. The entity consumed all it could, all the food the pipes provided. Once it exhausted its temporary food source, the creature could only wait.

  Chapter 30

  An alarm came on. The emergency lights in the ceiling flashed with bright red and the piercing klaxon hurt her ears. Sarah looked at Dr. Sharma. “What the hell is that?”

  “Fire alarm,” the doctor said.

  She clicked her mic. “Alpha. You still in maintenance?”

  “Alpha to Control. Affirmative. Over.”

  “Can you tell what the hell’s going on? Over.”

  Pause. Perkins’ voice came back, raw urgency beneath his words. “Fire in a fourth floor operating room. No luck in contacting the nurses’ station up there. The sprinkler systems are online and should be able to put it out. Over.”

  “Any idea what caused it? Over?”

  “Negative. No way to tell. Over.”

  Her radio crackled and then went dead. “Alpha?” No response. “Alpha? This is—”

  “Lieutenant Celianne. This is Dr. Shannon Moore. Do you read me?”

  She frowned. “Dr. Moore. How did you get this frequency?”

  “There isn’t much time, Lieutenant. I need you to listen carefully and save your questions for later. Do you understand?”

  The woman had the arrogant air of authority. The kind she was trained to respect. “Affirmative,” she said. “Just keep in mind, I don’t know who the hell you are.”

  “Just know that I’m in charge, Lieutenant. The hostile has broken out into several floors of the hospital.”

  “Several?” she asked. “What do you—”

  “Please,” Moore’s voice broke over hers. “Just listen. There is no longer a single hostile. I can’t explain it, but we have at least half a dozen we know of. The fire was caused by one of them in the OR. It burst into flames upon exiting a waste disposal drain.”

  “What about the others?”

  “The fifth floor diagnostics lab has one. We’ve already lost video of the others. This means the entire hospital is contaminated. All patients and staff are at great risk. Do you understand?”

  Sarah’s mind raced. Multiple hostiles? Several floors? “What kind of support can you provide? My team only has 8 members.”

  “The area outside the hospital is in lock down. No additional personnel will be exposed to this contagion. My team will provide logistical and surveillance support only. We do have spotters monitoring the building with audio and infrared.”

  She ground her teeth. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You can’t give us any more support than that?”

  “No, Lieutenant. I can’t. And if you can’t get the situation under control in the next two hours, the US government will take care of it for you, and everyone in that hospital is going to die.”

  Gooseflesh ran up her spine. Moore’s voice was ice cold, deadly serious, matter of fact without animosity or enmity.

  “What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.

  Pause. “Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that, shall we?”

  “This is—”

  “The clock is ticking, Lieutenant. We have control of the security system and have locked out all local access. You will be allowed out of the trauma adjunct and into the main building and provided any additional access required. I suggest you get going.”

  “How do I contact you?”

  “We are monitoring your frequency. If you need me, I’ll be here. Get moving, soldier. Do your duty. Save lives. Moore out.”

  The radio went silent and then crackled back to life.

  “Alpha. Boss, you there? Over?”

  She took a deep breath. “Go ahead, Alpha.”

  Perkins paused and then spoke clearly and slowly. “Boss. We all heard the transmission. Orders? Over.”

  Something clicked in her head. She was back in the Middle East, leading a fire team through dark deserted streets, ears attuned to every sound, eyes searching the thick shadows for any and all threats.

  “Boss?” Perkins asked again.

  She nodded to herself. “Alpha. Get your asses up those stairs into the main building. Floor one. The team will meet you there. Over.”

  “Acknowledged, Boss.”

  “You’re going to stay here,” she said to Sharma. Sarah pointed at the two CDC doctors. “I need you two to get off your asses and help me figure out how to fight this thing.”

  Mathis blinked. “How the hell do we do that?”

  Her teeth flashed in a dangerous smile. “That’s your mission. Help me save some fucking lives.”

  Harrel shook her head. “Lieutenant, we have no samples. There’s nothing we can do to figure this out.”

  “You still have a CDC asset outside, correct? He has a sample?”

  The two doctors looked at one another. “That’s correct,” Mathis said. “But we lost contact with him.”

  “Let me see what I can do about that,” Sarah said.

  Book 2: Outbreak

  Chapter 31

  Sarah marched out of the hallway, troops in tow. When she reached the partition separating the main building from the adjunct, the heavy, bulletproof glass slid upward. She glanced at the video camera in the corner and frowned. She turned and looked at the rest of the men. “They’re watching us. For now, that’s a good thing. When it stops being a good thing,” she said and narrowed her eyes, “I want any camera you see destroyed. Understood?” The men nodded as one. “Let’s go.”

  They jogged into the hospital’s main lobby to the corner stairwell. The door opened as they approached, Givens and Perkins appearing at the entrance. The two men wore grim expressions. She nearly smiled. Sarah walked through the stairwell door. Perkins closed it behind her.

  The stairwell door clicked and then boomed. Both she and Perkins turned and stared at it.
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  “What the—?” Perkins started to say.

  Their radios crackled. “Moore here. Just to let you know, we’re locking down the stairwells. Your team will be allowed access, but all civilians will be locked in on their floors. Elevators are out of order.”

  “Acknowledged.” She clicked off her mic and cursed under her breath. “Pair up,” she said. “Alpha? You know the drill.”

  Perkins sidled past the other men and joined Givens. Without a word, they traveled up the stairs to the second-floor landing, and the other men paired into their teams. Givens took up position beside the door, one foot on the first stair leading to the landing. Perkins had his hand out, fingers clutching the door handle.

  “Moore, open floor two,” Sarah said. The door banged as the emergency lock deactivated. “Go.”

  Perkins swung open the door and held it. Givens peered out into the hallway to the right, and then left. “Civilians,” he said. As if on cue, the sound of concerned voices filtered through the open door.

  Barely a beat passed before Sarah said “Check your fire, men. Deploy.”

  Givens stepped all the way through the door, Perkins behind him. Beta and Charlie followed next. Sarah and O’Malley were the last through the threshold, her partner closing the door behind them. It immediately locked.

  Several nurses dressed in scrubs milled about the long hallway. A security guard turned and glanced at the SWAT team. He put his hand on his holster, but didn’t pull.

  “Houston SWAT!” Sarah yelled at him. “Do not reach for your weapon or we’ll put you down!”

  One hospital staff member shouted in surprise and several others dove into open rooms. The guard gulped and then slowly raised his hands.

  She pointed at him. “Are you the only guard on this floor?”

  The man nodded. “Was on my rounds when the damned doors locked. Haven’t been able to get down the stairs and the elevators are out.” He blinked at her. “What the hell is going on?”