Outbreak: Emerald City
Jay K. Anthony
Outbreak: Emerald City
A Story of Survival During the Zombie Apocalypse
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Jay K. Anthony
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
www.jaykanthony.com
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v20151217b
for Tammy
CLARK
Running a hand through his thick brown hair, thirty-six year old Dr. Clark Mason leaned back in his chair and checked the time on his watch. He was so tired he could not focus on the numbers. He rubbed his eyes and looked again: 8:30 PM. Damn, it feels like a lot later than that, he thought and looked around his office deep inside the aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Johnstone. It was one of the few U.S. military outposts left, and he had been sequestered on the ship in order to have time to come up to speed on the virus. Clark had spent the last twelve hours reading medical journals. There was a mountain of research which had been collected over the last few months, all focused on the new disease turning humans into cannibalistic sociopaths. Looking at the stacks of papers on his desk, Clark sighed. When the internet had gone down for the last time, everything went back to paper. Reams of research and data had been printed and forwarded to him from around the world. Thank God the military has been able to keep a closed network up and running, Clark thought. Through the ship's satellite connection, he was still able to access the few remaining databases that were still online and in operation. There was no Google anymore, but it was better than nothing. Then, there were the stacks of handwritten notes. Trying to decipher some of the handwriting had been a chore, but the good news was that his reading had at least been interesting and useful. Learning about how the disease had led to the outbreak was fascinating. It was so engaging, Clark had read through both lunch and dinner and was now famished.
The strength of his interest and his desire to learn in such detail surprised him. For most of his life, Clark had disliked school and had skated through the majority of his medical classes, doing just enough to get by. In truth, he had gone to medical school for one reason and one reason only ... the money. Money and everything that came with it. Cars, a lavish apartment, concerts, celebrity parties, red carpet events, box seats at the home games! Damn, that had been the life, he thought. Before the outbreak, Dr. Clark Mason had been the “Breast Man”, a renowned plastic surgeon for the stars. At his practice in Beverly Hills he had operated on the rich, famous, and exclusive. He still took pride in knowing he had helped quite a few starlets advance their careers.
Looking back over the stacks of papers in front of him, Clark pondered how, before he had started reading the documentation, he had not known about the evolution of the virus. This surprised him, and not because he had been completely uninterested in furthering his education, but because the deadly strain had been created by doctors and scientists from his own profession … plastic surgeons experimenting in the science of making people look younger. Clark shook his head and flipped open one of his binders. On the front page, he had summarized what he had found out. The disease had started as an experiment to extend life. It was created in the timeless quest for eternal youth and beauty. The scientists responsible for the virus had been trying to keep human skin cells from growing old and from the documentation in front of him, Clark now knew the developers had succeeded in a way to greatly slow down the aging process. Unfortunately, the experiments had also yielded unexpected, and horrifying, results. The virus they had created slowed the ageing process down so well that it also slowed vital body functions, including heartbeat, breathing, metabolism, and core body temperature to the point that 99% of those infected died within twelve hours. For the remaining 1% however, the victim of the infection was still very much alive.
Of the 1%, the problems started with the slow pulse rate. One beat per minute did not provide enough oxygen to the brain for healthy function. This in turn reduced consciousness to the infecteds most primal level. Emotions were muted to the point of nonexistence. Rational thought no longer occurred. All that was left were the most basic instincts and the one that stood out above all the rest was hunger. Studies quickly determined the infecteds most vital function was to feed. To make matters worse for what remained of the human race, the virus mutated somewhere along the way and become as infectious as the common cold. The problem was further exasperated by the germs themselves, because they had such a long life, sixty times longer than anything studied before. If the virus contaminated food or was left on even a door handle, it lived longer than any other germ studied in recorded history. Endurance was part of the most basic makeup of the disease. It was designed to live forever.
It had been a long two weeks of intensive reading and study, but Clark finally felt like he had a handle on what was going on and why. Scratching at the stubble on his chin, he realized he needed a shower. Then he looked at the papers on his desk again and had second thoughts. After reading about long-life viruses turning people into something that resembled the living dead, the last thing he wanted was to step into a communal shower. Instead, he thought about getting up and taking a look around the ship. Since he had arrived, he had been heads down in documentation. His meals had been delivered and about all he had seen was his apartment, which was so far into the center of the ship that he did not even have a porthole to look out through. The isolation was starting to get to him. He knew the ship was well over capacity, but the military had given him his own small quarters to use as his home and office. One of the perks of being a specialist, he thought.
Pushing himself back and away from his desk, Clark got up and stepped outside his room. Standing in the hallway, he closed the door behind him and looked up and down the corridor. He could hear the sounds of people to his right and not knowing where else to go, he went in the direction of the noise. He stepped through two doorways and came to a crowded recreation room. Men and woman sat at tables or on couches all around the room and the volume of conversation was loud. This ship is packed to the seams, he thought and worked his way into the room. Trying to look like he knew where he was, Clark walked over to a large television on one side of the room where a movie was playing. There was a gorgeous blond in the movie talking with some guy who looked like he had just gotten out of a fight. The characters in the movie were in a doctor’s office. Clark checked out the blonde's body. She was fantastic and Clark wondered who had done the work on her.
“Hey, out of the way, buddy,” someone said and Clark stepped to the side.
“Sorry,” Clark replied and wandered back across the room where two young men and a woman, all sailors Clark guessed from the way they were dressed in matching blue and white uniforms, were shooting pool.
One of the sailors asked Clark if he wanted to join in their game. “We could play teams,” he added.
“No, thanks,” Clark replied. “I’m no good at shooting pool.”
“No worries, bud,” the sailor said. “We all suck.”
“Nah,” the woman said. “Only you suck.” They all laughed and Clark could not help but smile at their camaraderie, especially in the face of a world on the brink of extinction.
“I do appreciate it,” Clark said and turned back to the movie on the television. The characters were just leaving the doctor’s office and it reminded him of the research papers back in his quarters. He had worked his way through all of the docum
entation and wondered if anything new had recently come across the satellite network. “Hey,” he said, turning back to the three sailors at the pool table. “I don’t suppose any of you know where the research office is?”
The two men looked at the young lady and smirked like there was a joke there somewhere which Clark was not privy to. The woman put down her pool cue and stuck her hand out for Clark to shake. “Corpsman Nagashima,” she said. “I can show you where that is.”
Clark shook her hand. She was pretty and had one hell of a grip. Clark thought she would be even prettier with fuller lips and smaller ears, but he knew he needed to stop thinking that way. “Corpsman?” he asked. “Not Corpswoman?”
“I try not to split hairs,” she said and let go of his hand. She turned and started for the door. “Follow me.”
Clark did, and with her back to him, he took the opportunity to look her over. Her sailor’s uniform did nothing to enhance her figure, but Clark thought she had quite a body. If she looked good in uniform, she would probably look really good in clothes that were actually cut to fit. It’s just like the military to purposely make the uniforms as ugly as possible, he thought. Nagashima lead Clark past his room and then down an extremely steep flight of stairs. She slid down expertly, using the rails under her arms, and had to wait for Clark at the bottom as he gingerly climbed down, taking extra care to not hit his head in the tight space.
”First time on a ship?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” Clark replied. He had a ship of his own actually. A big one. A thirty five foot Bowman Yacht in fact. In the year before the apocalypse, Clark had netted just over two million dollars in income. He had enjoyed the lifestyle of working hard during the day and playing hard at night. He had been wealthy, not rich because not even two million dollars a year went that far in Hollywood, but he had been very comfortable and enjoyed his share of expensive toys. Lost in thought, he wondered if his yacht was still moored where he had left it at the marina. As much as it cost me per month to keep it there, it damn well better be, he thought. Clark wondered if he should tell Nagashima about his yacht. He had often used it as a way to impress women. But now that the world was in crisis, he was finding people were becoming less and less interested in his stories about monetary items.
“What do you do here?” Clark asked instead and looked around as they walked. He realized he was already lost and would have to ask for directions again when he wanted to get back to his cabin or if he ever wanted to return to the research lab.
“I specialize in blood work,” she said. “Originally they brought me on board just to do tests and to make sure no one with the disease made it on the ship, but now I do whatever the situation demands. Why are you here?”
“Research,” he said. “I’m working on a way to fight the virus.” He waited for her to say something, maybe how impressive that sounded, but she just kept walking. “I came from reconstructive surgery,” he added after a moment.
She stopped and looked at him. “Really? Like plastic surgery?”
Interesting, Clark thought. He always got strange reactions when he told people about his previous profession. Some people thought it was cool, others thought he was a monster. Maybe he would just have to start telling everyone he was a brain surgeon or something to keep it simple. “Yes,” he admitted. “Breast augmentation, primarily.”
“A lot of money in that?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” Clark said. “I did pretty well.”
“Must have been nice,” she said and started walking again.
Clark watched her. She appeared to be strutting now with a little more swing in her hips. Women, he thought. I will never understand them. He followed Nagashima through a series of oval doorways and saw a closed door to one side marked “morgue”.
“Hold up,” he said and she stopped.
“What's up?” she asked.
He wanted to take a look at some of the bodies. From his reading, he learned that everyone had different reactions to the disease and he wanted to see the varying effects it had on these victims. “I want to go in and see something,” he said and opened the door. The inside of the room was crammed full of bodies on gurneys, each covered with a white sheet. He paused. Damn, this is worse than I thought. He lifted one of the sheets. The corpse looked like a perfectly healthy young man. “Were any of these infected?” he asked, waving his hand around at the room
“One more room over,” she said. “These are all people who died of things other than the disease.”
“What killed this guy?” he asked.
Nagashima picked up a notebook. “Gunshot,” she said with what Clark thought sounded like a hint of sadness.
Clark pulled back the sheet further and found a gunshot wound in the soldier’s abdomen. “Okay,” Clark said and replaced the sheet. “I’d like to go to the next room and view some of the infected.”
“Live or dead?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Clark asked. We’re in a morgue. Isn’t everyone dead?
“We have a live one,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” he replied.
“We have a live one,” she repeated. “A zombie. Want to see it?”
Holy shit! he thought. Yeah I want to see it! He had never seen a live infected up close. Shit, who am I kidding, I have hardly seen any of them at all. Clark’s experience was limited to what he had seen on the television when the outbreak had first hit the news. “That would be interesting,” he said, trying to sound casual.
“Come with me,” she replied and led him into a side room where the lights were off. On one wall was a large window which looked into an isolation chamber. The light was on inside and what had once been a man was strapped to a table with large leather belts over its wrists, ankles, waist, and chest. Clark looked through the glass. “Is this a one way mirror?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “As long as we keep the lights off in here, that bastard never knows when we are watching.”
Clark looked at the infected on the other side of the glass. It resembled something which had not taken care of itself for quite a while. It was unshaven, long haired, and filthy. The infected bared its teeth and Clark could see it had not cared to brush its teeth or practice any form of oral hygiene. What was left of its clothes was soiled and stained. It had blisters and sores. Somewhere it had lost a shoe and one of the feet had been worn down to a bloody stump. The infected was oblivious to their presence, but still pulled at the straps and glared at a light above the table.
“Where did you get it?” Clark asked.
“A tug boat drifted into us a couple days ago,” she said. “It was caught down in the hold.”
“Why hasn’t it been exterminated?” he asked.
“For samples and experiments mostly,” she replied.
Clark had mixed feelings about her answer. He had never been a big fan of the idea of anything being a guinea pig and this was still a human being, even if a horribly infected one. We are in the middle of a war, he remembered. A war that could wipe out humanity. Some rules need to be broken.
“Have you ever seen one of these monsters in action?” Nagashima asked.
Clark shrugged, still trying to be nonchalant. “Not lately,” he said. “Why?”
“They go from calm to crazy all the time. No one really knows why.” She looked at Clark. “Want to see what I mean?”
“I don’t know,” Clark replied.
Nagashima reached forward and flipped a light switch. Fluorescent bulbs came on over their heads. The infected did not react to their presence and did not turn their way. “Over here,” Nagashima sang and tapped lightly on the glass. Suddenly the infected raised its head and looked at them. A moment later it went completely ballistic, gnashing its teeth, slamming its head back onto the table, and convulsing as if it were having a seizure.
Clark took an involuntary step away from the glass. “Damn,” he said. “It’s really pissed.”
“Oh it’s not pissed,”
she said, grinning. “It’s hungry. Want to take a closer look?”
Clark did not feel sorry for it any more. “No thanks,” he replied.
TASHA
Alone and cold in the dark, Tasha sat in her sleeping bag and held herself with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She knew it was late in the day, possibly even night outside, but she could not find the motivation to get up. Letting out a long sigh, she held herself tighter. She had hardly gotten out of her sleeping bag the entire day, yet she felt exhausted. What if I just laid back down again? she wondered. No one would know. No one would care. The isolation was beginning to haunt her. It had been a long few months and even though she knew spring was coming soon, at least she hoped it would be soon, it felt like it would never arrive. Every time she crept outside, saw a little sunlight and got excited about the weather turning warm, thinking the last big storm was done and gone for the year, the weather would turn dark and it would begin to rain ... again. Rain was hardly even the right word for it. In the Pacific Northwest, it did not just rain, it stormed.
At least I am dry and fed, she reminded herself. The only positive thing in her life was her storage locker, her sanctuary. It was a good location. Hidden. Somewhere the creepers had never stumbled across and the other survivors in the city had never found. The locker was on the third floor of a large cannery and distribution center, and as far as Tasha was concerned, it was home. The space was battleship gray, and the locker was long, narrow and lined with cases of canned food. There were no windows and only one entrance. Her only real fear in the locker was that someone would come along, close the door, and trap her inside. So, she had spent her first two days at the cannery making it so the door could not be completely shut. That did not help with keeping it warm inside, but luckily over the winter, Seattle had never dropped below freezing and the locker’s walls were insulated enough that the temperature was tolerable. Plus, there was plenty of food. She had hardly made a dent in her supply. Her only real problem was all of the trash she made. Looking at the piles now, she knew she should move it out of the locker and into the cannery, but, like most days lately, she felt like doing as little as possible. She sighed again. What’s the point? she asked herself. Nobody is here to care. Putting her head on her knees, she let out a sob. Wisps of her long dark hair hung in her face and tickled her nose. Irritated, she quickly braided it and let it hang down the middle of her back. Her hair was oily and felt gross to her touch. God, I am so sick of this. What am I going to do?
Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City Page 1