Eves of the Outbreak

by Lilith Assisi

  “Turned? What exactly are we dealing with?” Linda asked.

  “Weren’t you listening Linda? They said zombies earlier,” Rick scoffed sarcastically.

  “This is no laughing matter Rick. You didn’t see them. Would you like me to escort you in to the other half of the building to encounter one first hand?” Stannish said.

  Rick rolled his eyes but remained quiet.

  “This is some sort of genetically modified hybrid organism with viral and bacterial parts, one created by the laboratory I escaped from in the Philippines. Something went wrong, and it’s causing these people to become, well…” Judy trailed off, not knowing what to say.

  “Turning them in to fucking zombies,” said the young officer that had recently joined them.

  “Infected,” said Stannish with a stern look, though the chuckles that followed made it clear he was trying to be sardonic.

  “Basically,” Greg responded. “And Judy here has information on her laptop that might help find a cure or stop it. That’s why she fled the laboratory. They didn’t want her to have that information, and she wants to stop this thing.”

  “But then why did the FBI deliver us a truckload of infected? Do they want a chance at a cure to be stopped?” asked the younger officer.

  “And here I thought conspiracy theories only happened in the movies,” Linda said.

  “Is this X-Files or The Walking Dead?” asked another officer jokingly, though his face revealed he knew this was no laughing matter.

  “Both,” said Greg with all matter of seriousness, getting all the chuckling to stop abruptly.

  “Mike, we can’t let them leave. They’re wanted terrorists! The feds would arrest us!” Rick was pleading directly to Stannish. Judy realized he must be the authority in the group of them, and his comment about moving up in the ranks early was referring to his status at the station.

  “The feds seem more interested in killing them, and us for that matter, than worrying about what we do now. Yes Rick, yes we can let them go, and we will. And if it weren’t for my family I’d be going with them. But I need to get home and make sure Maria and Liam are safe. So I understand if anyone else needs to take care of personal endeavors first too. If any of you don’t have someone, or something, tying you down, I’d like to encourage you to help these two make it to their destination. It might be the best chance we’ve got to help them try to stop this infection.”

  “Judy has a friend in a top-notch virology laboratory in Boston. Seeing as how things are falling in to place we realize taking the airways is probably out of the question. Before we got picked up by your force we were planning to drive cross-country there. My son is also in Chicago, and I wanted to pick him up along the way,” Greg informed the group. “If we can have access to our Jeep and supplies that would be helpful. Supplies would be nice too.”

  “Sorry but your Jeep is at the impound a couple miles away. I think I can do better than that. Stannish and many of these boys have families to get to. It probably makes most sense for you all to try to keep things under control locally too,” Linda was speaking now. “But I don’t have any relatives to go home to here. All my family is on the east coast, so heading along with you would be a mutually beneficial undertaking for me too. If Stannish is willing to part with one of the Chevys I’d be happy to help you get to Boston. Plus we could raid the store room before leaving.”

  “Are you kidding me? Linda, you believe this crap?!” shouted Rick.

  “Rick, I know I haven’t seen as much crazy shit as you in my career, but I’ve been flooded with text messages from my friends and neighbors about what they are seeing out there, and it’s horrifying. Plus, the State Trooper Barracks AND the National Guard aren’t taking calls! This is serious stuff Rick,” Linda said to him, trying to speak some sense in to him.

  Judy was in shock taking this all in. Not only had she been expecting the worse less than ten minutes ago, they now had allies and people volunteering to get them to Boston.

  “I can come too. My parents and my brother’s family are just outside of Chicago,” said another young officer with blonde hair. Judy peeked at his badge and read “J. Patrick.”

  “Thanks Jason. Of course we can lend you guys a paddy wagon. Then I say those of us here come up with a plan of who is going to help relocate the bodies in the building as well as get the injured to a hospital. We should find someone to go to the staties’ barracks as well and see if there is still anyone there left we can join forces with.” Stannish was definitely the leader Judy thought he was after listening to that speech.

  He continued discussing options with the group and got on his radio to tell all remaining officers except for someone named Allen to come and meet with them in that room, while Allen was to stay and help the civilians until they regrouped.

  Judy, Gregory, Jason and Linda stepped back from the group and circled together.

  “Name’s Jason by the way,” said the young officer as he held out a hand and shook Judy’s with a smile. “Your brother is one piece of work. Glad to have you both on our side.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Judy started.

  “Don’t say anything. Go get your bags and stick with me. We’ll get some supplies from the garage and take one of the Chevy Suburbans.”

  “Is our Jeep in the garage? There were supplies in there as well that we had already purchased,” Greg asked.

  “Sorry, like Stannish said, your Jeep is over in the impound lot. But I think we can find some useful supplies in our garage. Luckily all your personal belongings are here at the station,” Linda said.

  “My computer? Is that with all our personal belongings?” Judy asked, a bit of panic creeping in to her voice.

  “Yup. I’ll start driving the first leg and hopefully we’ll be out of the state by nightfall. I never thought I would be saying this, but for the first time ever I can’t wait to get back to the east coast and see my family,” Linda told them. “And I can’t wait to get out of this state before all hell breaks lose.”

  Greg shook his head at both of them. “I think it already has.”

  PART 6: PREY

  "Take, for example, the African jungle, the home of the cheetah. On whom does the cheetah prey? The old, the sick, the wounded, the weak, the very young, but never the strong. The lesson? If you would not be prey, you had better be strong.” -G. Gordon Liddy

  Chapter 28

  “You ok?” Travis asked.

  His roommate Daniel had just come back in to the living room after being in a rather loud argument on the phone in the adjacent hallway.

  “Yeah,” he said as he plopped down on the couch and set his phone on the coffee table.

  “Who was that?” questioned Travis.

  “My dad. I think he’s finally gone off his rocker,” he replied.

  “How so?”

  “He and my aunt are driving here right now. They seem to think there is some crazy outbreak occurring and told me to stay put in the apartment until they arrive. They sounded nuts!” Daniel said.

  “That is a little weird, but this stuff on the news is sounding creepy too. California sounds like they are having a rough go of it,” Travis said.

  “Well they sure as hell aren’t keeping me from my date with Tara tonight. I’ve got reservations for us at Beatrix,” Daniel said.

  Travis made a low whistle and raised his eyebrows at Daniel.

  “What about you dude? How was your date with Jessica yesterday?” Daniel asked.

  “Superficial,” Travis said as he took a swig of his beer and turned back to the TV.

  “You’re too picky Trav. Mary was telling me she was really in to you,” Daniel said.

  “Well I’d rather focus on school until the right person crosses my path. Speaking of, you still on for tomorrow’s career fair?” Travis asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Sure thing, unless this stupid viral apocalypse my dad was preaching about comes true,” Daniel sniggered. They both laughed.

>   Chapter 29

  I swallowed another spoonful of stale, dry cereal down and tried to think of calm imaged. Instead, I was overwhelming compunctious. My mind wouldn’t stop replaying the escape from the hospital.

  Pandemonium was the best word to describe my flight from the hospital. And I wish my mind stopped going over it again and again.

  I remember getting back to the offices to warn the others of the zombies stumbling in behind me. Needless to say the screams coming from the people getting attacked in the ICU was probably enough for them to figure it out on their own. I had selfishly realized as I sprinted away from David and Sam I had two choices: to turn left and warn the people in the ICU, or continue forward down the hall and warn the crowd by the offices. I had decided, but deep down I didn’t know if that was because there were more people there after everything that had happened with Marge, or if it was because I knew I had a better chance of grabbing my emergency pack and escaping myself.

  I was indeed able to grab my pack and weapons before heading towards a side exit where we stored most of the cars.

  I think most of the people made it out ok. Or at least I hope they did. But since we didn’t have an escape plan I think most people just ended up in small groups at the cars and ended up going whichever way seemed like the path of least resistance.

  I’m sure some of them went to deserted homes. Some probably went towards big cities. And others might have headed towards the county. At least I wasn’t one of the people who had been alone, or on foot.

  I ended up in my truck, but with the dogs I could only fit one other person. Before I had a chance to look for someone, Tracy ended up hopping in. I had kept my truck full of some supplies in the back like canned goods, dog food, and bottled water just in case this happened, and I was so grateful I had thought ahead to do that as we tore out of the parking lot.

  We spent that first night just driving as far as we could from campus.

  After about thirty minutes we pulled over on the side of the road to figure out a game plan. It was lightly snowing, and getting cold fast. It was perfectly warm in the truck, but running the engine all night to keep us warm was a sure-fired way to end up with a dead battery or empty gas tank.

  Ultimately we decided we both felt better having walls around us. After searching around some suburban neighborhoods, we pulled in to what looked like an abandoned but intact house.

  Sadly some quiet knocking on the door revealed it was not abandoned, but still inhabited with two zombies. Probably a mother and son before they had been infected.

  I didn’t tell Tracy that our knock had awoken some other mindless prisoners in other houses on the street, but she had probably noticed as well.

  I will admit I felt a little sad dispatching of the mother and son. But it was quick and easy. It had been getting easier and it hadn’t even been a month since this all started. Still, I didn’t volunteer to start taking care of the others on the street. Since they hadn’t found a way out to bother us, it was doubtful they would overnight.

  After we dragged the bodies outside we cleared the house. Having two zombie sniffing dogs helps, just like I used to tell myself as a child: no ghosts or other monsters could get me when I had my dog in my bed.

  I closed my eyes and forced myself to stop thinking about the previous night’s horrors, and tried to focus on our next step instead.

  Tracy and I were sitting in the kitchen eating the most stale Frosted Flakes I had ever tasted, but I was grateful for the sugar.

  “I think we need to put Percy in isolation,” I said.

  Tracy coughed on her cereal.

  “We’re not in the hospital anymore Dr. We-, Diana. We don’t have an isolation to put him in,” she said.

  It amused me that she still fell in to the habit of wanting to call me doctor. I had tried to get her to dispatch of that title when she first joined us at the school before the outbreak, but it often a tough habit for students and residents to break, even after graduating or when they became fellow professors.

  “Percy bit Ian. He freaking ripped out his throat. There is no way he did not ingest some of that flesh and blood. He might be infected,” I said.

  So much for the gentle soul I had thought he was earlier. But he was definitely a loyal and fierce dog. He wagged his tail as I looked down at him sitting next to us on the floor, and I tossed him some cereal. I heard River’s collar jingle as she look up and watch Percy inhale the bits off the floor. She put her head back down, showing me she wasn’t actually interested in any of the cereal for herself.

  “But we don’t know that it can infect dogs or not,” Tracy replied.

  I was a little shocked that I was the one being rational. All my life I always felt like I was the one fighting on behalf of whatever winged, furry, or four-legged creature needed my help. And here I was debating in my head whether or not we should euthanize Percy before he turned.

  “More importantly, we don’t know whether or not it does. Unfortunately we’d be better off playing it save and keeping him isolated until a couple days have passed. I think then we can know for sure that ingesting tissue from infected does not make dogs sick. Besides, an agile zombie dog is ten times scarier than a stumbling human.”

  Tracy scrunched her eyebrows furtively and stared down at the cereal in her bowl.

  “So what do we do?” Tracy asked. I smiled, grateful she had seen reason without an actual argument ensuing.

  “Well, we can’t just have him hanging out with us like this,” I looked over at him as I said this, and my heart broke a little as he continued to smile and swish his tail across the floor harder in response to the eye contact. “It’s too much of a risk if he turns and starts attacking us out of nowhere.”

  “We can’t just let him go either. Most of the others who turned showed some general illness before hand,” she said.

  She was right. By now the majority of people who had turned had been killed and then within two to six hours they would reanimate. But we had also rescued four different people with mild bites somewhere on their body. What typically happened was they started slurring their words and stumbling for at least a day before developing seizures. It was probably the fever from the uncontrollable seizures that would kill them, and like those that had died they would reanimate a couple hours after their death. Hopefully Percy would show us some sort of sign like this before turning. Though I don’t think I had actually met any people who had swallowed blood, so we just couldn’t know.

  Then I shivered at recalling Ian, who seemed to have skipped those phases and just turned in his sleep. I again tried to repress the mental images that came with recalling that incident.

  “I agree. Letting him loose would be cruel, and ineffective. He’s attached to us at the hip and would probably just follow us around anyways, or worse whine to get back in to the house and attract more zombies. But we can’t afford to have one of us on guard duty with him at all times. We both need to sleep. Maybe we can put him in a bedroom?” I suggested.

  “For tonight. But this is just a resting place for us, right? We need to go somewhere else. Or at least that is what I had assumed,” Tracy said.

  She was right, but I had no idea where to go. A city? Further in to the country? Roaming day to day?

  “You’re right. Hopefully we can come up with a plan later. I think I need to try to get some rest first,” as I said it I realized how much my body ached. The sun would be coming up in an hour or two, so hopefully my body could still sleep in the day as well as it had back in my veterinary school and internship days.

  I led Percy to the third and smallest bedroom on the second floor of the house and prayed he wasn’t one of those dogs that cried and whined until he was let out as he followed me in. I gave him a fresh bowl of water and a can of food from the bottom of my pack. Then I told him to go lie down. I shut the door, trapping him in. He whimpered a little as the door shut, but when I repeated my command of Go to bed he became quiet aside from the occasional rustling
that could be heard when he moved about the room and made himself comfortable.

  Tracy and I agreed it would be safer to share a bed in a bedroom with the door closed, giving us a numbers and safety advantage if it came to it. We were just down the hall from Percy’s room, and we had locked all the doors to outside. It was probably lucky that all the windows still had drapes on them, and though a lock isn’t as good as a fortification as boarding the place up might have been, it did give me some sense of security.

  I rolled over so that my back was facing Tracy, and River climbed up to lie in between us. As I closed my eyes my head had that rushing, flying sensation. The type of sensation you get when after a day at an amusement park when your body is trying to fight off a bad case of vertigo and enjoying that weightless feeling all at once. Still, I kind of enjoyed it. I found myself closing my eyes tight and relishing in the weightless sensation as my muscles and brain drifted off to sleep.

  It didn’t take long for the nightmares to start either.

  Chapter 30

  The next morning I woke up and found myself wondering when the nightmares would stop. I swore it had been screams that had woken me up, but now I had no idea if that had been real or a nightmare. At some point this was all going to be part of the daily routine, right?

  Or I’d be dead. I guess all I can do is hope it’s a quick death if that’s the case.

  It seemed dark outside, but I could see a little glimmer of light flickering in through the opening in the drapes. I checked my watch and saw it was ten am. I had been asleep for a solid five hours, not bad. I preferred eight hours, but being an on call surgeon I was used to shorter nights.

  I rolled over and saw Tracy was no longer in the bed and heard some rustling downstairs. She was probably checking the cupboards for whatever supplies we could add to our packs and the back of the truck.