The Coalition: Part 1 The State of Extinction (Zombie Series)
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The white sterile masks concealed most facial expressions, but the haunted looks in the four pairs of eyes above the masks were grim reminders of the task before them. Dr. Erin Costner, Chief Virologist for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, didn’t want to admit it, but she was just as bewildered as her team, who was gathered around her.
“Damn,” she exclaimed, as she gazed at the scanning electron microscope monitor, blinking away tears. “This is the third mutation we’ve seen this week.” Her eyes burned from the hours of staring at the screen and she longed to rub them, but she resisted the urge. The latex gloves she wore should be sterile, but she could take no chances, not with the deadly H5N1 virus they were observing.
“Perhaps the microscope at Cal Tech would yield a more detailed pict . . .” Dale Cuthbert began, but she cut him off sharply.
“At nearly a million dollars, I believe this SEM will suffice. Lack of clarity is not the problem. The damn virus keeps mutating.”
A second colleague, Lyle Medford, coughed through his mask. Erin tensed, but then relaxed when she realized he was simply clearing his throat before speaking. So far, none of them had succumbed to the Avian flu that was now pandemic throughout the world. With officers from Homeland Security replacing the normal CDC security guards, they were virtually prisoners in their own offices. She wasn’t certain if the stone-faced men in suits were there to protect them or to keep them inside.
“We can try a BSE image,” Medford suggested. His curly brown hair, usually neatly combed, now sprouting wildly at odd angles and his rumpled lab coat were only the more visible indications of his fatigue. His voice was equally as weary, its soft New England crispness now raspy. “The SEI doesn’t reveal enough detail.”
Erin nodded. Medford had worked longer hours than most of them during their confinement and she was grateful. “Yes, a back-scattered electron image might reveal features that a secondary electron image doesn’t. It’s worth a try. Please initiate the process as soon as possible.” She hated to pile more work on his already heavy load, but Medford could do the job much quicker than one of the technicians, and time was of the essence. No less than the fate of the world rested on their shoulders.
At 0.1 microns, or one ten-millionth of a meter, the H5N1 Avian Flu virus was a difficult bug to scan properly. Each new mutation slightly rearranged its topography, changing its neuraminidase protein covering, making an anti-viral inhibitor, the most effective method of preventing the virus from releasing from its host cell, impossible. It was like trying to fit together pieces of a puzzle, when one piece morphs its shape, just as you think they match. One mutation looked like a WWII sea mine, spherical with spiky protrusions. A mine indeed, she thought, and I fear our ship is about to collide with it headlong.
The President wanted results. FEMA wanted results. Even the head of Homeland Security had dropped by to see how much progress they had made. So far, she had nothing to show them, but a series of spectacular failures. They weren’t even certain which virus strain was the culprit. Each produced much the same flu symptoms, but the mortality rate was rapidly increasing, now up to nearly fifty-five percent. She was beginning to wonder if the current flu vaccine might be a causative factor. That was a view the Surgeon General did not hold and did not wish investigated. Few knew, as she did, that the Surgeon General owned a great deal of Bio Con stock, the vaccine’s developer.
“Susan,” she said, turning to Susan McNeil, a young epidemiologist Erin had brought to the CDC from John Hopkins. “Can you please produce a graph of the spread of the virus over the past two weeks, paying particular attention to the population areas most recently vaccinated?”
Susan’s look of puzzlement didn’t surprise Erin. Erin knew she was clutching at straws, but she was rapidly running out of options.
“Certainly, if you wish,” Susan responded.
As Susan opened the decontamination chamber door, a sudden gust of air rustled Erin’s short brown hair. Pressure inside the sterile electron microscope room always remained lower than that outside the room, preventing contaminated air from rushing out. Susan endured the decontamination cycle, dropping her mask, gloves and one-piece coverall into the disposal as she exited. As Susan tossed her head to untangle her long blonde locks confined by the cloth skullcap she wore inside the chamber, Erin watched her through the double-paned observation window. Susan was beautiful and she knew it, often using her good looks to charm men and a few women, but Erin knew she had won her credentials by hard work and not favoritism.
Seeing Susan outside the chamber, Erin suddenly felt the effects of the long hours of confinement in her muscles. The slight tremble in her right leg had been steadily getting worse. “Let’s take a break,” Erin said to the others, stretching out her leg and massaging it.
She repeated Susan’s decontamination procedure, stripping off the uncomfortable coveralls and stretching her weary arms. Outside the chamber, she leaned against a wall, removed her glasses, and rubbed the bridge of her nose where her glasses had rubbed. Her head throbbed from concentration, but she had gotten used to that. Her headache had lasted two days so far, and she did not expect it to lessen, despite the aspirin she had been eating as if they were M&M candies. She walked the short distance to her corner office with her normally confident stride reduced to an unsteady gait caused by her exhaustion. She glanced out over the city wondering how many people had died since morning began.
They were no closer to an answer than they had been a week ago. So far, they had discovered five distinct Avian Flu viruses, each with several mutations. The current vaccine was proving ineffective and no antigen they tried had worked against more than one virus. She was not one to admit defeat, but she was tired – and clammy.
“Perhaps a shower will help,” she said to herself.
The stringent smell of antiseptics no longer disguised the increasing odor of unwashed, perspiring bodies in the confined space of the labs. A small bath with shower adjoined her office, one of the perquisites of her position. She dropped her dirty slacks and shirt to the floor and kicked them into a corner, along with the bra and panties she had worn for forty-eight hours straight. She rubbed her breasts where the bra had chaffed the skin. At thirty-five, her 35-B breasts had not begun to droop, a fact of which she was proud. Stepping into the shower, she let the hot water gently massage her aching muscles and remove the accumulated sweat and grime of two days. However, it did nothing to ease the heavy weight of responsibility that pressed down upon her like the uncountable gravestones of the dead she could not save.
The CDC was the shining beacon the country now looked to for answers. Saving lives through prevention was their creed and they were failing. She was failing. Miserably. For several long minutes, she leaned against the wall of the shower, letting the cold tile support her tired body. The moment, she stepped out of the shower and dressed, she would have to resume her role as buttress for the others. Her colleagues, a collection of dedicated but fragile egos, depended on her for guidance and encouragement. She could not fail them as well.
The water chilled, reminding her that it was time to get back to reality. Cleaner, even if not revitalized, she briskly rubbed her short, reddish-brown hair with a towel, swiped it over her body for a quick dry and donned a fresh change of clothes and lab coat from the rack behind her door. Glancing in her mirror, she wished she could apply makeup to cover the worry lines and dark circles under her bloodshot green eyes, but she could not afford the time. More slides were waiting for her review.
A loud, “My God!” erupted from down the corridor. She recognized Susan’s high-pitched voice and peeked out the door. Susan held out a graph she had just pulled from the printer. Her hands shook nervously as she motioned for Erin to join her in her cubicle, one of several dotting the floor of the main office. The office was empty except for Susan, Erin and Ang Lee, a technician, who was too engrossed in his own work to pay attention to them. Everyone else, except Lyle Medford was still
inside the clean room setting up the backscatter image. His private office was two doors down from Erin’s office. Erin hurried to Susan’s cubicle and sat on the edge of her desk, glancing briefly with envy at the photos of sandy beaches and palm trees pinned to Susan’s cubicle wall.
“The rise in mortality corresponds to the most heavily vaccinated cities, almost as if they were the same graph,” Susan said.
Erin was dismayed, but not surprised. She had advised the CDC director that they had rushed the last vaccine too quickly, but he had been under political pressure to comply with the President’s order to vaccinate everyone against the deadly disease sweeping toward America like a tsunami. She simply nodded her head and sighed.
Susan continued. “But this means, the vaccine is . . . I mean it looks as if the vaccine is accelerating the mortality rate.”
“It’s just as I thought,” Erin replied.
Susan stared at her dumfounded. “What are we doing, Erin? I mean, we’re making it worse.”
So no one else would overhear the conversation, Erin spoke quietly, “I think it’s out of our hands, or soon will be. FEMA is chomping at the bit to take over, and declare a state of emergency. So are the President and Congress, those still in Washington that is. All we can hope for is that . . .”
Gunshots from down the hall interrupted her before she could reveal her hope to Susan. She stood on her tiptoes and looked over the cubicle wall just as one of the few remaining uniformed security guards raced down the hall chased by a naked man. Erin watched, horrified as the guard turned, and fired three shots into the man’s chest from a dozen paces distance. To her astonishment, the wounds barely bled. The man did not even slow down. At just that moment, Medford stuck his head out of the office to see what the commotion was. The naked man saw Medford, veered toward him like a wild animal and bit deeply into Medford’s right cheek, coming away with a chunk of bloody flesh. Medford’s shrill scream of pain reverberated down the corridor. The guard fired once more. This time, the bullet struck the naked man in the forehead. He fell to the floor, no longer moving, with the piece of Medford’s cheek flesh still clutched tightly in his jaws. Everyone froze, including Erin, ignoring Medford’s moans as they stared dumbfounded at the dead man, uncomprehending. The guard gazed at Erin, his face pale and his hands trembling.
“He was dead,” he said. “He was dead.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
The guard pointed the gun at the fallen man as if he might get up again. “He was dead. He was on a table in the morgue, but he woke up and attacked two attendants. I heard the screams and went to investigate. He . . . he chased me.” He paused. “I shot him four times and he didn’t stop.”
“He’s stopped now,” Erin said, tired of the guard’s foolishness. “Obviously, he wasn’t dead before.” She turned to Susan, who continued to stare at the corpse, while Medford’s moans and groans filled the corridor. “Will you please see to Lyle before he bleeds to death?” Susan snapped out of her trance and went to Medford.
The guard shook his head. “He was dead,” he insisted. “I heard other stories like this; people rising from the dead like some kind of zombie . . .”
Erin cut him off sharply. “Don’t be ridiculous. The dead stay dead.”
“He was dead,” the guard repeated, ignoring her as he stared at the corpse.
Susan had managed to silence Medford, seated him in a chair and was pressing a bandage to his bleeding jaw. No one approached the corpse to see if he was dead. There was no need. Most of the back of his skull was missing and a slowly spreading pool of thick blood surrounded his head. For a moment, Erin studied the corpse, thinking it odd that blood would move so sluggishly. She glanced back at the guard, who still shaking.
“He’s just overworked,” she whispered to herself, “Imagining things.”
“He’s right.”
Erin turned to see Elliot Samuels, the southeastern area FEMA director standing behind her. She blushed slightly under his intense gaze, ashamed of his effect on her. His 6’2” frame highlighted his GQ good looks, flat abdomen, and in most cases, a meltdown smile. However, this time he did not smile.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“People have died and then revived a short while later, attacking others in a violent rage.”
“That’s . . .” she started to say ridiculous, but something in Samuel’s dark eyes stopped her. He did not seem the type either to be a compulsive joker or to make inaccurate statements. In her dealings with him, he had always been professional, deliberate and self-assured; qualities she admired as closely mirroring her own. “What’s going on?”
“The Avian flu has progressed from a widespread, deadly epidemic to an unknown entity. People are dying in increasingly alarming numbers and coming back to some sort of pseudo-life as zombies, in Europe and Asia at first, but now here. The first cases began a few days ago in New Jersey.”
“Zombies,” she repeated in disbelief. “Zombies are a myth.”
He shrugged and brushed a finger across his thick, black mustache. “That’s the only word I can think of, and they are not the slow lumbering creatures from old horror films. They come back to life as animals, hungry for live flesh, and only major brain trauma can incapacitate them. Like him,” he pointed to the corpse on the floor.
“It’s unbelievable,” she gasped. “Why haven’t we been informed?”
“The Pentagon clamped down on the information to avoid a panic. There have been a few unconfirmed reports making their way onto the internet, but even the World Wide Web is failing.”
He nodded toward Medford. “They also transmit the mutated virus through saliva, which means he’s infected. Only a few hours remain before he dies and becomes one of them.”
Medford rose from his chair and looked at Samuels horror-struck. “Don’t be stupid. It’s just a bite.” He rubbed the bandage covering his cheek. “It hurts like hell, but I’ll live.” The numbness of his cheek made his speech slurred and he winced as he spoke.
Samuels shook his head. “I’m afraid not.” He motioned with his hand, and two soldiers in fatigues and wielding automatic weapons, came around the corner. “Take Dr. Medford and the guard to the infirmary downstairs with the others.”
The security guard made a motion with his pistol. Both soldiers jerked their weapons up and aimed at him. As they disengaged the safeties on their rifles, the loud clicks reverberated down the corridor.
“Drop the gun or they’ll blow your head off.” Samuels did not raise his voice, but there was no mistaking the seriousness of his command. The frightened guard complied, dropping his pistol on the floor, while looking to Erin for help. She was appalled, but could do nothing except protest.
“I’ll speak with Dr. Isakson about this,” she assured the guard, glaring at Samuels.
Samuels shook his head. “He’s no longer in charge. The President declared Martial Law an hour ago. All medical facilities are now under the jurisdiction of FEMA and Homeland Security. For all we know, this mutated virus is a direct attack on the United States by a foreign power.”
Erin drew herself as straight as she could and faced him. Her head was spinning from a mixture of fatigue, anger and disbelief. The President’s actions stunned her. “That’s ridiculous. People are dying everywhere, not just the U.S.”
Samuels’ grim smile distressed her. “People make mistakes, Doctor Costner. Someone might have committed the biggest screw up in history this time. I’m sorry, but we really need your cooperation. You and your people are now a national asset, like gold bullion in Ft. Knox. My job is to keep you safe so you can find a cure for this damned disease.”
She sighed in irritation. “We’ve been working on it, but it seems we’ve been kept in the dark.”
Samuels looked chagrined. “Not my fault, Doctor Costner. I’ve been under orders. Now, my orders are to keep you fully informed to the best of my ability.”
“We’ll cooperate, but I need Lyle Medford.”
“That’s . . .”
“That’s the way it is, Doctor,” he said, abruptly cutting off her protest. “On this, I will not relent. If this disease becomes airborne, like the H5N1 virus, we’re looking at a global apocalypse. Judgment Day,” he added in a whisper, shaking his head.
Something in Samuels’ tone cut short the angry retort she had been about to utter. “Do you believe in the Bible?” she asked.
He looked thoughtful for a moment before answering. “I didn’t. Now?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Does it matter?”
Two men appeared around the corner wearing sealed, white biohazard suits. They pushed a gurney before them bearing a black body bag. Erin wondered how Samuels had contacted them; then noticed the video camera in the ceiling as it slowly panned the room. Are we under constant scrutiny, too? She wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. At a motion from Samuels, the two men picked up the body, sealed it in the body bag and placed it on the gurney.
As he followed the four men herding a dumbstruck Medford, the dead man and the nervous guard down the hall, he turned to add, “We’ll get through this, Doctor Costner. I have faith in you and your team.”
Erin noticed blood seeping through a rip in the disconsolate guard’s shirt and shuddered. If Samuel’s was right, then he too was a walking dead man. She stared at the dark red bloodstain on the white tile floor and felt suddenly queasy and disoriented. She reached out a hand to touch the wall for reassurance as images of a filthy Rwandan refugee camp in Zaire flashed into her mind.
Four years earlier, she had traveled with a contingent of World Health Organization doctors to stem an outbreak of cholera sweeping through the camp, but shelling from Rwanda and bloody reprisals by rebels, living among the refugees had forced them to flee into neighboring Tanzania. Dead bodies marked the trail like grisly road markers – men, women and children murdered indiscriminately because of their tribal affiliations. The room spun for a moment until she wrenched her mind back to the equally un-real reality she now faced.