by Owen Baillie
BREAKDOWN
An Invasion of the Dead Novel
(Book 1 of the Tasmania Trilogy)
By Owen Baillie
Copyright 2017 Owen Baillie
PHALANX PRESS
Copyeditor: Sara Jones
Developmental Editor: Trevor B. Bacon
Cover Design: Clarissa Yeo
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events, or places are purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people, or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.
Acknowledgments
This book spent a lot of time in early draft. It wouldn’t have progressed further without the assistance of my old mate, Trevor Bacon, who did a lot of heavy lifting to help weed out irrelevant plot lines and character stupidity. Trev’s brutal commentary and sharp observations are a gift, and I am indebted to him for his work yet again.
Thank you once again to Kim Richardson for her brilliant insights, plot suggestions and thorough analysis of all story aspects. These stories just wouldn’t feel right without Kim’s skillful touch. To Karen Dziegel for her prompt and accurate suggestions, once again providing valuable advice on crucial scenes. And to my wife, Donna, who offered a number of excellent observations that made a lot more sense.
Thank you to Sara Jones, who edited the work in the most professional manner. I have extreme confidence in her ability to improve my work and she accommodated my slow progress with patience and flexibility.
And finally, thank you to the readers who are still with this series. Once again, I hope this book is worth your valuable time.
Preface
TASMANIA: With a landmass of 26,410 square miles and a population around 515,000, Tasmania is surrounded by the Indian and Pacific oceans and separated from the Australian mainland by 150 miles of treacherous water known as Bass Strait. Shaped like a heart, it is a savage, wild land, whose isolation and harshness is matched by its breathtaking beauty. Uniquely different to the Australian mainland, it has more than 40% of its land in reserves, national parks, and World Heritage Sites, including the Southwest National Park, containing some of the most inhospitable land in Australia. From the wide grazing grasslands and button grass plains, to the towering, evergreen eucalypt forests hugging rocky mountain ranges, nature has cast her magic afoot. The endless reach of giant ferns and gnarling bush borders thousands of miles of winding roads. Beyond the blacktop might be the last temperate rainforest in the Southern Hemisphere, or a thousand square miles of thick, primeval scrub. Boasting a number of unique and wild creatures, from the robustly tenacious, to the gently enigmatic, and even the apparently extinct, the fauna is never far from sight. Its rugged plains and mountains cradle endless rivers and lakes, many of which start life in the Central Highlands and fill the deep, rugged crevices of the region. A generally temperate climate, this incredibly diverse place can be bone-dry—or desperately cold as streams of freezing air rush north from the Antarctic to create blizzards. Dubbed a “brutal beauty,” it is nothing short of spectacular. But with such beauty, comes an uncompromising ruggedness.
(i)
2:00 am, January 5th, 2014.
Bunker A Military Complex
Central Highlands
Tasmania, Australia
Few venture to the Central Highlands outside of summer. Flat button grass plains extend as far as the horizon, sketched by dark, jagged mountain peaks reaching for the blue sky. Endless lakes full of sparkling water surround the land, crisp, clear, untouched. Pale grey highways wind their way through rocky cuttings and boulders lining the roadside. Nature rules this central heart of the state, accessible to the remainder of the island within a few hours’ drive: the perfect place to hide a secret military installation.
The air inside the bunker was clean and cool in contrast to that on the hot, infected surface high above. The room was carpeted in beige, the walls painted off-white, a long oak table at its center around which eight chairs were placed. In them sat four men: Major General John Fulton, Colonels Ron Dennison and Neil Prentice, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gibbons. It was 2 am and as the state’s highest-ranking military officials, they had been summoned to a secret military base on the southwest edge of the Central Highlands. They were waiting on their final colleague, Lieutenant Colonel William Hansen, who was, by Fulton’s watch, late. But that was no surprise, really. Fulton had seen Hansen the day before, and he hadn’t appeared well at all. Hansen had spent the time coughing and spluttering, watery-eyed with a dreadful cold. The edges of his flared nostrils were flaming and crusty, his eyelids red. Fulton had recommended he get some rest. Hansen had staggered away and at the time, Fulton wondered whether that would be the last he saw of his old friend. Seems the thinking might have been on the money.
As Fulton took the yellow folder on the table before him, an image of his wife, Emma, and his two girls appeared in his mind. He knew he should be getting them to safety, over to the country cabin on the west coast, where the population was much reduced, or perhaps even bringing them to the Mole Creek Base, where the sick would be quarantined. He would attend to either option after the meeting. For now, he had a job to do.
“Let’s begin,” Fulton said, taking a slip of A4 paper from the folder.
Neil Prentice, with his slick dark hair and thick mustache, turned his wrist over and glanced at his watch. Fulton knew it was only a minute past two. “You don’t wanna wait for Bill?”
“Bill’s not coming, Neil. In forty years, I’ve never known him to be late for a meeting.” Prentice nodded. The other men exchanged solemn glances.
Fulton had witnessed things in his time; from the Vietnam as a wet-behind-the-ears eighteen-year-old in the late sixties, to the Gulf War in the early nineties, and on to Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s. These were wars where the enemy was a tangible entity firing a weapon or setting a bomb. But now, they were dealing with an enemy at a microscopic level, invisible to the eye. And whilst they couldn’t see that enemy, the outcome of its effect was tearing apart their existence.
Fulton knew Hansen represented many of the people they had read about in the reports, the ones who were sick and on their way to a terminal end. But what he’d read in the reports before him, the contents of which he was about to inform these men he had fought alongside for decades, was even worse. Dying was one thing; to end their time like this was …
“John?”
Fulton shook free of his thinking. “Sorry, gentlemen.” He peered up at the three men, reading the concern on their faces. Only the most serious of scenarios warranted a midnight call out. “Further to our meeting the day before yesterday, this thing has gone well beyond initial expectations. I’ve brought you in this morning to brief you, make sure your military resources are properly allocated, and then give you a chance to make safe plans with your families.”
Dennison grunted. “Is there anywhere safe, John?”
“Perhaps, Ron. We’ve gone beyond the point of isolating this virus. It’s essentially out of control. The expert information I’ve received from our best virologists suggests it could reach 99.5% communicability.”
Prentice let out a short breath. “What’s the incubation period?”
“Ranges between six and thirty-six hours. Depends on the individual’s health, their s
ize, even race. A small percentage will fight off the initial virus. Many will die.”
“What is Canberra saying?”
“Not bloody much. I’m pushing for more, but so far, they’ve essentially been silent. I guess they’re busy too, though I’m told the Health Minister is holidaying somewhere in Asia. My contacts on the mainland have been forthcoming, but they don’t know a lot more than I do.”
Colonel Dennison leaned forward and folded his large hands on the table in front of himself. He had neatly combed gray hair, a wide face, and flat head. “Ninety-nine and a half percent communicability equals a lot of dead people. What about the attacks they’re reporting on the TV networks? A flu pandemic is one thing, but it appears as though this thing is making people aggressive. I saw a woman attack a man and bite him.”
“It’s correct, Ron. You get bitten, you’re guaranteed to be sick within several hours, and completely infected within twenty-four to thirty-six.”
“So not only do we have a high number of people at risk from influenza, but those who end up sick will attack.” Prentice’s forehead creased. “Why?”
“I’ll get to that in a moment,” Fulton said. “There’s quite a bit more.”
Gibbons took a glass of water off the table and sipped. “Is this the big one, John? Is this the one the doomsday people have been talking about for years? The religious nuts?”
Fulton shook his head. “No, it’s worse.” Fulton met each man’s gaze. “We’ve got an unprecedented level of viral communicability on our hands. We have a communicable viral disease that’s passed on as easily as the common cold. Many of the sick are dying. Some are getting to a stage where the infection is making them very aggressive and they’re attacking non-infected people and infecting them.” He paused, partly to emphasize his next words, but also to gather himself. “And we’ve got those who are dying coming back from the dead.”
Gibbons dropped the glass onto the table with a thud. “What?”
Prentice gave a humorless chortle. “I haven’t heard that.”
“Documented evidence from reputable sources.”
“Who?” Dennison asked. His usually unflappable nature was waning, his olive complexion washed pale.
Fulton snatched another piece of paper from the folder. “I’ve got reported cases from Perth, Adelaide, half a dozen in Melbourne, and a dozen in Sydney of this very thing happening. It’s real. We need to accept it.”
Gibbons’s face twisted with concern. “Dead people are coming back to life?”
In a soft, clear voice, Fulton said, “That very thing.”
A silence fell over them. Prentice removed his glasses and pinched the corners of his eyes. Dennison fell back in his seat and put his hands on his head. Gibbons fiddled with his glass of water, staring into it.
Dennison sat forward. “I don’t doubt your belief, John, but have we got conclusive proof of this?”
“If you consider Major-General Harris’s word conclusive, then yes. He’s one of the few people who has actually been helpful and forthcoming with what they know.” Fulton sipped at a glass of water, knowing none of them would argue Harris’s word. “He watched it happen with his own eyes. I made him say it again, just in case I heard differently.”
“Unfortunately, in this case, I’d trust Harris any day of the week,” Dennison said.
“Not only that, but his team captured several infected people and kept them in one of the containment cells at the base in Canberra.”
“He studied them?” Gibbons asked with incredulity.
Fulton nodded. “They’ve identified three stages of the virus so far. Most of the infected wander in an almost vegetated state, searching for food. They will attack, but only if they get very close. They can roam very long distances in search of a food source and will move on once it has been expended.”
“What of the aggressive ones?” Dennison asked. A thin spot of sweat had broken out on his upper lip.
“In some, the virus reacts very differently. Harris’s team has identified two more kinds. One is mildly coherent. It’s able to pick up objects and open doors. It will attack like the first type but is not anywhere near as aggressive as the third type. Those things are aggressive and intelligent. He was adamant the third type knew it was being watched. It was calculating in its movements and actions.”
“Example?”
“The scientists put a couple of infected in a cell together—an aggressive type and one of the slower types. At first, the aggressive type just stood in the corner watching. It wasn’t long before it attacked and bit the slower type. They all thought it was going to kill it, show its dominance, that sort of thing. But the wound was mild. Within the hour, the slower type began to recover, and within two hours, it displayed aggressive tendencies. By the evening, it had completely transformed into the third type.”
“Jesus,” Dennison said, leaning forward.
“That’s not the worst of it.” Fulton pulled another piece of paper from a yellow folder. “The Americans think it’s been deliberately released.” Eyes narrowed. “They also think it was manufactured.” They all stared.
“What does that mean?”
“They’ve found a synthetic component.”
Dennison’s eyes drew wide. “A terrorist attack?”
Fulton raised his eyebrows. “We think so.”
“Pricks.”
“There’s more.” Fulton knew what he was about to tell the men would shock each, despite their thirty plus years of military exposure. “The less aggressive types will feed on themselves if there’s no available food source.”
Prentice grunted. “What about the other types?”
“No.”
“So the third type won’t eat itself.” Fulton shook his head. “Just bite the first and second types, turning them into the third type?”
“Correct,” Fulton said. “Genius, isn’t it?”
“They’re the dominant class of the species. Populating to increase their strength,” Dennison said.
Gibbons asked, “What about a vaccine? If we can isolate the virus, we can create a vaccine and prevent people from getting sick in the first place.”
“CSL is working overtime on a vaccine, but that will take time.”
“So what’s the fucking answer?” Gibbons said, sitting forward, torso stiff with fear. “We have to do something.”
Fulton took his glasses off. “I’m afraid it’s too late to control the virus, Tom. It kind of snuck up on all of us. I don’t think the government realized early enough just how bad it was going to get.”
“But not everyone is sick yet. There’s still time—”
“It won’t be long,” Fulton said. “The hospitals are full. Most of the nurses and doctors are sick. Public places are empty. The police force has been decimated, and I’m sure you understand your battalions will be half full at best. Things are about to happen in a very big way. We have huge numbers of sick people nearing the end of this new cycle. It’s the most aggressive influenza virus we’ve ever seen, far worse even than the Spanish flu. Some will fight the virus and survive, but what they have to face will make them wish they were dead. Most will die.”
Nobody spoke for a long time. Prentice finally said, “What can we do for them?”
“Coordinate with the other branches of the armed forces and offer up as many personnel as we can. And we hope that people have the strength and fortitude to last. The will to survive. Our scientists are working on it, but who knows how long it will take. Other than that, hope and pray that we can hang on until then.”
Gibbons began to cough.
1
January 5th, 2014
12:10pm
Tasmania, Australia
“I’m not going,” Mac said, sitting on the soft edge of the couch in the living room. Along the front of the house, the curtains were drawn, and Jessica lay back with her legs up on the oak coffee table, holding two pain relief tablets and a glass of cold water. “It’s too bloody risky.”
“Risky?” Jess said. She placed the tablets on her tongue and sipped at the water, then swallowed. They went down easily. She leant forward and placed the glass on the table. “You’ve been to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban twice. How risky can it be compared to that?”
Mac stood and circled the lounge room in the cool darkness, stopping in front of an image taken in the mountains of Afghanistan alongside two of the boys from his team. Jessica was right. She was a soldier’s wife first; she understood the rules. When a soldier from your unit passed away, you paid your respects by gathering with the others shortly after his death and drinking until you were shit-faced.
“I’ll catch up with the boys when this thing blows over.”
Her face scrunched into frustration. “Mac.”
There were a number of reasons not to leave, least of all the government’s advice against all non-emergency related movement to prevent the spread of the sickness that had wiped out millions of people across the world, including all states of Australia.
“We’re not even supposed to go out. The government’s been warning people for days.”
She blew air out. Her stuffy head made her voice sound like his sister’s before she had her adenoids out when she was a kid. “People are still going out. And since when do you follow those orders?”
“Besides, you’re starting to feel sick.”
“I’m not too bad yet.”
Mac pointed at the box of Ibuprofen on the table. “You’re knocking down tablets.”
She waved it away. “It’s nothing. You know what I’m like with them. I get a sniffle and I start swallowing tablets. You’re going, Mac. I’ll be super pissed if you don’t.”
She was a good wife—no, better than good—great. She made allowances for his moods, not that he fell into them often, and understood his obligation to the men from his old unit. She had waited back in Tasmania during his tours of Afghanistan and received him with more love and attention than he had dreamt on his return. Now, she’d given him two children—a boy and a girl—and he was forever in her debt. Besides, he loved her more now than he did the day they’d gotten married.