Exit Zero

by Neil A. Cohen

  “None are infected?”

  “No sir, one is way too large to even have early infection.”

  “Who are they, anyone of importance?”

  The sergeant took a step forward as if to make the point that he had something important to convey. “I would say yes, sir. One is Middle Eastern, says he is a researcher. The other also says he is some sort of scientist. One claims he was a janitor, but it sounds like bullshit. Why would he be driving around with two from the lab? He is probably an executive looking to cover his tail.”

  “And the fourth?”

  “That’s where things get weird. He is a priest or minister or something,” the sergeant replied, flipping open his small notebook.

  “So two scientists and a priest?” the colonel asked for clarification.

  “Yes, sir, sounds like the beginning of a dirty joke. Now they need to walk into a bar together. Actually, I believe he said he was a reverend.”

  “Okay, see what you can get out of them and report back to me within the hour.”

  “One more thing to add to the weirdness, sir,” the sergeant said. “They had a girl in the trunk. Infected. Her hands and legs were bound and mouth taped shut with duct tape. The PCRC three are claiming they did not even know she was in there. The reverend said she was a parishioner that he was trying to take to the hospital for being violent but they were not actually heading in the direction of any hospital.”

  The colonel stood up and looked out the window for a minute. “Please bring the reverend up to see me. That will be all. Thank you.”

  “Yes sir.”

  A few minutes later, the sergeant was at the door with the requested guest.

  “Reverend….?” Colonel Tindall asked, seeking his name.

  “Reverend Bob.”

  “Reverend Bob…?” the Colonel continued as if he were playing Mad Libs, looking for his guest to fill in the blanks.

  “It’s actually Bob Featherstone. You can call me Reverend Bob.”

  “Reverend, what were you doing with a woman in your trunk?”

  “This is embarrassing… I thought I could help her. She showed up at my church last night, she was crazed and tried to attack me. I tried to reason with her but it was useless. I managed to overpower her and tie her up. I was taking her to the hospital when I realized that she was not the only one and this was affecting hundreds, if not thousands, of people.”

  “And your three passengers?”

  “They did not even know she was in the trunk. I came across them on the highway. They were being chased by a large mob of people. I pulled over and let them in to get them away from their attackers.”

  “And yet you kept the woman in the trunk? You were not traveling in the direction of any hospital.”

  “I realized the hospitals were going to be overrun. Once I saw the magnitude of this sickness. I felt …I don’t know if I feel this anymore, but I felt that if I could find someplace safe to take her, somewhere that I could secure her while I reasoned with her, pray with her, well, that maybe I could save her.”

  “Reverend, do you really feel these people can be saved?”

  “Yes sir, I do. There is something affecting their mind and soul, and I think I can help them, bring them back.”

  “Reverend, this goes beyond the soul.”

  Reverend Bob gave a weak smile. “Colonel, nothing goes beyond the soul.”

  “Do you know what we are doing here on this campus, Reverend?”

  “No sir, I don’t.”

  “This is the last military presence in New Jersey. This is Forward Operating Base Prince, or FOB Prince. The jokers call it FOB Brains. The brains reference is partly because this is, was, Princeton University, a place for people with big brains, and partly because the men think these people have become zombies and are looking to eat brains. Do you think these people are zombies, Reverend?”

  “No, I don’t. I think this is some sort of mass hysteria, a delusion that has affected a number of people, perhaps people that were susceptible. People who were lost or confused and some sort of ….possession, for lack of a better word, overcame them.”

  “So you think these people are possessed by the devil?”

  “No. I don’t believe in the devil, nor do I believe in evil.”

  The colonel, a deeply religious man, gave the reverend a dubious look.

  “I do believe in the absence of god in people’s lives,” the reverend went on, “but I don’t believe that there is a red man with horns and pitchfork sitting in a pit of fire somewhere. Evil is not red, it comes in shades of gray. All men have a capacity for what could be perceived by others as evil. Forgive me, but can you say there is no one out there that has ever considered you or your actions to be bad or even evil?”

  Colonel Tindall thought back a couple of days, to when he shot his neighbor, a man that was not only a neighbor but a friend. He’d shot him point blank in the chest on the man’s own front lawn. He did so to protect for his wife and daughter. At least that was his intention at the time. He had not even given that act a second thought until now. Was he evil for what he did?

  “Our presence here was to stop the spread of this sickness,” the colonel explained. “When that failed, our mission changed to containing the sickness so it would not spread beyond ground zero, then beyond the county. Now it is to ensure it does not spread beyond the state. I really hoped we could do that. I live here, just like these poor souls you see ripping each other apart in the street. My wife, daughter, and I call this state home.

  “I think we have already failed at saving this state, and possibly failed at keeping the containment within New Jersey, but we have to do what we can. By any means possible.”

  “I understand,” Reverend Bob acknowledged. “Did your wife and daughter get out?”

  “My daughter was airlifted out yesterday, along with most of the men here. There are only a few of us now. My wife,” the colonel paused, “my wife stayed behind. We have the capacity to chopper the rest of us, and the survivors we have been able to save, out of the state.”

  “What is stopping you then?” Reverend Bob asked.

  “I have one more action to take before we can leave. Before I take that final action, I need to be sure. Reverend, do you still believe you can bring them back?”

  “Yes sir, I do.”

  The colonel paused. “Let’s see.”

  Chapter 60

  One More Step

  Gene Mulvane was late for his sales call. Every day it was harder to get started in the morning.

  His depression had grown worse and worse. He had suffered from clinical depression his entire life but it was only recently that he was finding it more difficult to mask.

  He did not suffer from your typical country song “my wife left and the dog ran away” blues, but real crippling, debilitating depression that could only be described as a black, lead filled fog that encircled him day and night. A fog that could not be diagnosed or medicated away.

  Even he could not place his finger on the infinite sadness that enveloped and choked him. He had no real problems, was in good health, always had friends, and was able to fake cheerfulness and sincerity enough to make a good living in business sales.

  Still, the moment he woke up in the morning, the minute he became consciously aware of his wakeful state, it was as if someone threw a wet wool blanket of despair across his body.

  He looked at the world and saw joy and happiness, love and togetherness, but it eluded and mocked him, and he received no joy from others’ wellbeing. He could only feel despair and anger, immense sadness, and regret, worthless, pointless and endless.

  It had been this way for thirty years.

  As the dismal thoughts ran in his head on a reel to reel of rumination, he stopped in his tracks.

  He just stopped.

  On the sidewalk of the busy commercial district sidewalk of Red Bank, New Jersey, he stopped and stood still as a statue.

  His suit and tie perfectly adjusted
, briefcase in hand, he stood in the middle of the crowded sidewalk as other shoppers and business people hurried past.

  Some passed at a leisurely pace, some walking with purpose, some running, nearly pushing him out of their way when they passed.

  What am I doing? he thought. I don’t care about this client or this account. I don’t care about this job. I don’t want to go to the meeting. I don’t want to take one more step. I don’t want to live for one...more…second.

  Gene Mulvane had lost the ability to will his leg forward to take one more step forward. He had finally reached a decision.

  He did not know how long he had been standing there. A minute? An hour? He stood unable to take one more step. It was an epiphany.

  What now?

  How could he end it, cease to be, snuff out?

  He did not want to wait to go home, to write a note trying to explain the unexplainable. He could not even afford the time it would take to ride the bus back home.

  The bus.

  It was down the street and heading this way. Quickly.

  His hand released his briefcase. It fell to the ground and landed with a thud, still standing straight up, filled with his samples of copy paper and office printer brochures.

  He turned to his left and stepped forward towards off the curb. Someone ran behind him down the sidewalk and hurdled over his orphaned briefcase like a track star.

  He took his second step into the street as the bus came into his peripheral vision.

  Time slowed.

  A woman screamed in the distance. She must have realized what he was about to do, but too late now, this was happening.

  He took a third step, placing him directly in the path of the bus, looking at the comic book store straight ahead across the street.

  Focus on the comic book store, Gene, not on the bus speeding towards you, straight at the store.

  He could feel the wind being pushed in front of the bus, it should be here now. Any second, one more step. And then the comic book shop was no more. It was a collapsed mass of glass and steel and bus. The bus came to a halt midway through the building’s façade.

  The windows of the bus were splattered red on the inside.

  A man’s foot kicked at the back window from within. The bottom of his foot slammed the Plexiglas until it shattered and the window fell outward to the ground.

  A panicked man in a blue suit tried to climb out, but a dozen thin, bloody arms pulled him screaming back inside, his legs flailing out the window as if they were trying to escape without the rest of his body. His left shoe flew into the air and he disappeared back into the bus.

  Gene turned around to see a woman tearing apart a man, or perhaps it was a woman, it was hard to tell. People ran in all directions. A fire truck was arriving on scene, followed by two dozen men, women, and children in various states of raggedness chasing after it like so many feral dogs.

  Gene stepped back onto the street and picked up his briefcase. He observed the world he had known for a lifetime being stripped away, and replaced with a new world filled with fear, and desperation, and uncertainty. He took another step. He walked forward.

  Chapter 61

  Pray or Prey

  Colonel Tindall led Reverend Bob to his personal quarters, formerly the dean of the school’s residence. The two men went upstairs to the master bedroom, which had not only a key lock doorknob installed, but a sliding bolt lock screwed onto the exterior of the door. Usually you lock people out of a bedroom, not in.

  Tindall opened the locks to display Mrs. Tindall, clothed only in a slip, strapped to the bed and gagged. Her gaunt, skeletal frame raged against her restraints, her once dazzling blue eyes piercing the two men when they entered. The bedding next to her was undisturbed, as Colonel Tindall not only had not slept next to his infected wife, but he had not slept at all in over seventy-two hours, and the effects were beginning to take their toll.

  “Reverend,” the colonel said, while placing his hand gently on the reverend’s back, “I need to know if these people can be brought back, or if this is God’s punishment, we seek his forgiveness. I have never missed a Sunday worshiping God. Even when I was stationed in lands where simply wearing a cross could get you beheaded, I never wavered in my faith. I feel that is why this plague has spared me and my daughter. I need to understand why God has not shown such favor on my wife.”

  Reverend Bob’s eyes drank in every inch of the bound, infected, yet still stunning woman. “I must pray with her,” he assured the Colonel. “I must be alone with her and I will exorcise this curse out of her. But I must be alone, and you must lock the door behind you.”

  The colonel complied. He left the holy man to pray with and for his wife, while he walked back across campus to the cafeteria.

  When he entered the Prospect House dining facility, he saw some of the few remaining soldiers sitting and eating with the civilians they had rescued. Sitting with them were the three men that had been brought in with the reverend, all of whom had worked for PCRC.

  When they spotted the colonel, the conversation stopped and one of the young soldiers ran over to Colonel Tindall.

  “Sir, you have to hear this. Two of these men claim to be the scientists that worked on the virus that is affecting everyone. Based on what they are saying, we believe them. They know everything, the symptoms, the stomach brain thing, everything!”

  Colonel Tindall spoke with the two scientists, while Smoothie continued to raid the MREs. He listened to the tales of cellular research gone wrong, or perhaps gone exactly as planned if their wild stories were true.

  If this were the result of some sort of conspiracy to manipulate the nation’s food supply, then this was not supernatural and not the wrath of God. This was biological warfare, plain and simple. But who was the enemy? What was their purpose for committing this act of terror?

  What was he thinking? He was a soldier, not a politician or an investigator. If this was a simple act of warfare, he knew how to handle that. The two scientists then revealed to the colonel that there was no cure, that the only course of action was containment and extermination.

  He thought of his wife. He had left her with the reverend. What was he thinking? He didn’t even know the man. He had not even told his second in command about his wife being infected and yet, in his exhausted state, he’d entrusted her to some man that had been pulled off the street just because he thought he was a man of God. A man of God driving around with a near naked woman in the trunk of his car.

  He ran across campus back to his temporary home. He had been so tired, so stressed, that he simply trusted this man because he said he was a reverend.

  He burst through the front door and ran up the stairs. He reached his bedroom door handle but it was locked. He shook the lock violently but it would not open. He kicked open the door and stepped inside.

  Tindall stopped in his tracks. It took his mind seconds to comprehend what was happening, what this man was doing to her. To his wife.

  He pulled out his 9mm and emptied the clip into the man. He dropped the clip from the gun and let it fall to the ground. He removed a second clip from his belt, walked over to the former reverend and fired off several more rounds.

  He then walked over to his wife, placed the barrel against her stomach, and with a single shot, put her out of her misery.

  Colonel Tindall then walked out of his house and back to his office. He sat down in front of his laptop and began typing. He acknowledged to NORTHCOM that containment had failed. He authorized COBRA STRIKE plan, which meant full containment of the virus within New Jersey’s borders using chemical and nuclear assault. He called in an airlift of the remaining base personnel at FOB Brains so they would be far gone by the time the conflagration began.

  He hit the Enter key, securing the command.

  Chapter 62

  Dogpile

  Pat stood up from the crouching, nearly fetal, position he had assumed on the floor. The Skells were standing aimlessly, though a few were scratchi
ng at the cellar door trying to get at the two remaining survivors of the Plan B compound at Chadwick Manor.

  He quickly looked himself over for wounds. Surely he had been bitten and was in shock, not feeling the pain? But as he gave himself the once over, the only blood he found on him was old and smeared on him from the dog pile of Skells he was under.

  A Skell moved at him and he jumped backwards, but it did not touch him, just stood close and gazed at him with a confused look on what was left of its face.

  “Get the fuck away from me!” he yelled and all the Skells within earshot, at least those that still had ears, turned their gaze to him.

  But they did not charge. They simply gazed at him, almost as if waiting for instructions.

  Pat started walking through what felt like a cornfield of emaciated, ragged, bloody bodies. Each watched him pass, leered at him almost. After a few minutes, they turned their attention away.

  He walked out through the shattered front door and into the courtyard, where hundreds more had gathered. As he looked at them warily, he felt his foot step down into a patch of mud. He looked down to see his foot, ankle deep, in the exposed stomach of a deceased Skell.

  “Uggh!” He retched and again, all the Skells looked at him, almost as if a pack of wild dogs had heard a dog whistle for the very first time. They gazed at him for a few minutes, hoping perhaps he would say something else, but when he didn’t, they lost interest looked off elsewhere in no particular direction.

  The wind picked up and he could hear the thwap, thwap, thwap of a helicopter’s blades.

  He looked up and saw a black helicopter approaching, the words “Atlantic Plaza Casino” on the side in gold lettering.

  The copter landed right in the middle of the courtyard, slicing through the assembled Skells like a Cuisinart.

  The side door swung open and Black Malcolm White or BMW, sat in the cockpit waving for Pat to jump in.