Z Strain

by SJ Morris

  “Now that’s not funny at all. If I didn't have to stop and fill these damn things up I wouldn’t have had to risk my life killing two zombies or having my kids watch as some hillbilly prick ripped his friend to pieces. I really wish that Troy had put you and me in contact with each other yesterday so we could have worked together on a game plan.”

  “There was no time for that yesterday, Abby.”Chris’voice softened,“I’m sorry your kids had to see that and I am sorry that you had to kill those people yesterday.”He put his big hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes.“You did what you had to do to get you and your kids here safely, and you did a great job. That’s all that matters.”

  Just then, Dan came running out of the house yelling for Chris and Tom.

  Through their conversation, I pieced together that, the fences were not only keeping things out but they were also equipped with video cameras every forty feet, or so, and there was a special room downstairs by the apartments that was the control room, of sorts.

  Dan was doing his shift, watching the monitors and said he saw a group of little kids run past one of the cameras at the east end of the property.

  Chris, Tom, and I went downstairs to see what he was talking about and sure enough, a few minutes after getting in front of the monitors, there was a group of young children that had to be no more than five or six-years-old, creep past one of the cameras.

  We didn’t see anything in the cameras behind them so we weren’t sure what they were running from, but what other reason would a group of young children be running around in the backwoods of Northern New Jersey?

  I could only think of one thing and that was that they had zombies after them. I burst from the room and ran upstairs to my closet. I grabbed the bag I had my extra set of leathers in and started getting dressed. Chris barged in just as I got down to my underwear, of course.

  “Don’t you knock?”

  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Where do you think you’re going, Abby?”

  “I’m getting dressed and I’m going out there to help those kids.”

  “You most certainly are not!”

  “Chris, they are just little kids, you saw them! Did you see the looks on their faces? They were scared and they were running from something. I would bet everything I own, it’s zombies.”

  “That’s exactly why you are not going out there, Abby. Let me go out with Tom. We have guns and more gear than you can imagine, not to mention we also have the training to handle these types of situations. We can get the kids and make sure they’re safe.”

  “Well, you better hurry up and get your gear on, because all I need to do is tape up and get my helmet on, and I am going out there. Remember, this is my house Chris, I still get to make the rules.”I grabbed my helmet and ran out of the room past a very large and very angry Chris.

  I grabbed Lance as I was running out and told him to get his helmet and gloves on, at least and to meet me outside with his bow and arrow. I ran to the truck and retrieved the handgun from under the seat while I waited for Lance.

  Lance came out with everything on and was soon followed by Chris and Tom in full SWAT gear, including helmets and rifles.

  They certainly were a sight to see; Both of them, towering over six-feet-tall, in helmets and body armor, was very intimidating.

  We made a plan fairly quickly that included Lance staying behind the chain-link fence, following the two commandos and myself on the outside of the perimeter. We were to keep to the tree-line, out of sight until we spotted the kids and figured out what the situation was going to be.

  Lance could take out any zombies from the protection of the fence if needed, but that was only as a last resort.

  Apparently, Chris and Tom had silencers for their huge guns so we didn’t need to worry about the gunshots attracting the attention of anyone or anything we didn’t want. They also happened to have a silencer for my nine-millimeter that Chris insisted putting on for me.

  We set out and I became overwhelmed with fear almost instantly. The three of us got outside of the fence together and my two friends pretty much disappeared. There was no noise from their movements and I only saw a flash of black race by some trees every once in awhile. They were very good at what they were doing...Too good to be hanging out with the likes of me. I was going to have to ask them to train me to be so quiet and stealthy if I made it out of this alive.

  I spotted the group of four children about ten minutes after we hit the trees. I was told that once I spotted them, that I should whistle twice and not approach them. Chris and Thomas would find me by sound and check out the area before we approached the children.

  I froze in place, fighting the urge to run out to the frightened kids that looked like they stopped for a breather.

  All I wanted to do was grab them and tell them everything was going to be okay and that they were safe now.

  All four of them were crying and looking around furiously.

  There was one little boy who seemed to be kneeling on the ground, clutching his wrist. This worried me intensely. I tried to whistle but my mouth and lips were so dry that nothing came out.

  I started to panic a little, trying to figure out what I was going to do to try and get Chris and Tom’s attention when a huge hand grabbed mine and I heard a shushing sound from my left.

  I almost peed myself when Tom did this. He was very quiet and it didn’t help that my stupid helmet blocked my peripheral vision.

  Chris showed up on my right soon after and made some hand motions to Tom. He nodded and Tom went off to the left. Chris lifted my visor and looked me straight in the eyes.

  “Do not move until I give the all clear, do you understand?”

  I just shook my head in agreement.

  “Now I mean it, Abby, don’t go being a hero. I know you want to run to those kids and get them to safety and so do I. But if we run out there without being safe, none of us may make it back, if there’s any infected out here. I’ll check out the right side and once you see me go like this, that means you can come help us with the little ones.”He motioned with his hand in a circular motion over his head.

  Just like that, he was gone again. Chris melted into the trees.

  I waited for what seemed like forever, staring at these helpless little children and finally Chris exited the wood line about fifty feet away from where the kids were. They hadn’t seen him yet since he was coming up behind them. He put his hand above his head and made the all-clear sign.

  I took my helmet off and tried to walk up to the kids as slowly as possible, so I wouldn’t scare them.

  “Hey guys, are you okay?”

  The kids jumped at the sound of my voice and huddled closer together. One of them, a little girl with dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes stepped out from the group.

  “My friend, Cooper is hurt and we’re tired of running from the bad people. Do you have any juice? We’re thirsty?”

  “Oh sweetie, it’s okay. You can stop running. My name is Abbigail and my friends and I will help you.” I motioned for Chris and Thomas to come over.“These guys are like police officers and we’re going to make sure that you’re all safe, okay?”

  The kids all looked cautiously at me, and then Chris and Tom. Their eyes lit up, seeing the two men fully clad in riot gear and shook their heads yes.

  “We’re going to get Cooper’s arm fixed up and get you all some juice and snacks. How about that?”

  “Thank you. Miss Sammy didn’t get to give us our snacks yet today.”

  I couldn’t imagine what these children had all been through but they apparently had been taken care of earlier this morning. Now they were dirty and sweaty from running through the woods. I grabbed who I assumed was Cooper, since he was holding his right arm which was bleeding pretty badly. Even through his clothes, I could feel his body temperature was extremely high. I immediately thought back to the little boy with one arm I had seen yesterday on the news attack and devour his mother. I was scared for this littl
e boy. I was scared for him instead of scared of him, like I should’ve been.

  This is probably why the virus was so successful. Our own humanity made it that way. Instead of staying away from those that we knew to be infected, we automatically wanted to help and treat them.

  I pushed the thought out of my head to leave this little boy here as soon as I had it.

  I looked up at Chris with a very sad face and held up this little boy’s arm. I showed him what was an obvious human bite wound and he shook his head solemnly.

  Yet, he lifted his face mask and spoke in a very happy tone to the kids.

  “My name is Chris and this is Thomas. How about we get going, kids? I think I want some chocolate chip cookies, how about you?”

  All of the kids, even Cooper looked up at him and said“Yeah!”

  In a matter of seconds, Chris had made these kids happy and let them forget whatever it was that they had just experienced.

  I could have kissed him.

  We all walked back to the gate together. I stayed in the back of the group with Cooper, since he was walking slower than the others. He seemed like he was just tired, but I knew what would be next. I just had no idea how we were going to deal with it.

  Troy would hopefully be here by tomorrow night, so maybe he could help this kid, but something told me that Cooper didn’t have until tomorrow night.

  I hoped I was wrong.

  Chapter 8

  We were met by Lance at the gate and then, by the rest of the group at the front door.

  Justin saw that one of the children was bleeding and looked at me. I couldn’t help but shake my head and he quickly grabbed Jessica, Dave, Allycia, and Christine to shuffle them in the house. I knew what was going through his mind, he wanted to keep all of our children safe and I was glad he was thinking of them, rather than the feelings of these children.

  No one said anything as we walked up to the house with our new guests.

  What do you say when four kids under the age of six show up at a secluded cabin in the woods with no adults, possibly carrying a virus that’s all but sure to wipe out mankind?

  I crouched down to the kid's height and looked at Cooper, who seemed to be declining quickly.

  He was already sweating profusely.

  I decided I needed to introduce these kids and get them inside and snacking so I could pull Cooper aside and take a look at him away from everyone else.

  “Everyone, this is Cooper and his friends. They are going to stay with us for some snacks and lunch. What are your names?”

  The kids introduced themselves. Amelia, the blond girl with the pretty blue eyes and she said she was five. Gia was adorable, with her short bouncy brown curly hair and she was four, almost five. Last, there was Christian. He had light brown hair and green eyes. He was very quiet and just seemed scared.

  Amelia jumped in and said he was five also, just like her. Everyone said hello to them and we all walked in the house.

  Afterward, we got the kids settled at the table for some juice and cookies, which Tom was delighted to serve.

  Tom seemed like he was going to turn out to be a very big teddy bear with the little ones.

  Chris pulled me aside and asked me what I wanted to do with Cooper since we knew he was already infected.

  I explained I had already seen his symptoms worsen in the last fifteen minutes, so I wanted to separate him from everyone else. I needed it to be somewhere no one could hear him if he started to change.

  To this, Chris informed me of yet another wonderful thing about my cabin I didn’t yet know. Downstairs with the underground apartments was an infirmary. Good to know we were going to be able to have some sort of handle on any medical situations that may come up.

  Cooper only took one bite of the cookie in front of him and drank all the juice he was given. I remembered that being one of the main symptoms the soldiers I previously treated had; being incredibly thirsty.

  I went over to him and told him I was a nurse and I needed to have a better look at his arm but he didn’t want to leave his friends. I decided to take a very basic approach with him.

  “Sweetie, I need to clean up your boo-boo. Let your friends eat their snacks and I’ll have you back in no time.”

  “I’m scared. When my Mom cleans my boo-boos it always hurts and this one hurts bad already.”

  The fear was clear on his face; he knew something was wrong, even though he wasn’t old enough to really understand. I didn’t know what else to say when Amelia jumped in.

  “It’ll be okay Cooper. The lady is going to just wash your arm and put a band aid on like Miss Sammy does. Then, you can come back and we’ll see if there’reany toys to play with.”

  “I guess so.”Said Cooper with a sad face. I took him by the hand and walked him over to the kitchen pantry.

  “Do you want to see something really cool? It has to be a secret, though. Just you, Chris and I know about this, okay?”

  “Sure, I’m good at keeping secrets!”

  “Great! Well, the office that has all the bandages in it is in a secret place just in here. We’ll show you.”I motioned for Chris to pop the secret door in the pantry so we could go downstairs to the infirmary. When he did, Cooper's eyes went wide with excitement.

  “Wow, that’s so cool. It’s like a secret hiding spot!”

  Just then the light in his eyes dulled and he doubled over in pain. I picked him up quickly before any of the other kids heard him and ran down the stairs. Chris closed the door quickly behind us and once down the stairs, he ran to the door, punched in a code and motioned for me to follow him all the way down the hall to a door with a red cross on it. I guessed this was it.

  Chris opened the door and Cooper started sweating worse than before, complaining that his head hurt badly and he felt really hot all over.

  The room was more like an emergency room with the beds lined up against the wall, each with its own sink, oxygen tank and a cart that was full of tools.

  Chris led me to the end of the five beds where there were two sets of steel doors. Chris opened one and led us in.

  I put Cooper on the bed and looked around.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a fully functioning surgical suite. I still couldn’t grasp that I was underground and this was all underneath the cabin. It was like being transported to another reality.

  Cooper was asking for water in-between moaning in pain.

  I laid the bed flat for him so he would be more comfortable and went to the sink for a glass of water. I tried to get him to sip it but he was in too much pain that it just dribbled down his face, onto his cartoon character t-shirt.

  I saw the character with a big smile on his face giving thumbs up and I started to cry. This little boy who had barely begun to live was now going to die because of what was going on.

  I had no control over what was happening with his body and it made me frustrated.

  Chris came running back through the doors with restraints and started tying them up to the bed rails. He went to put the first one on Cooper’s wrist and I stopped him.

  “Not yet. I think I’ll know when to do this, but not now. Please?”I looked up into his face and we were both just as worried as each other

  He saw my tears and dropped the cuff to the edge of the bed.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Thank you... I need an IV bag of saline and where’s the morphine?”

  “All of the meds should be in that cabinet. It’s locked but the key is in the door since we haven’t really opened this part of the house yet.”

  “Well, I guess there is a first time for everything right?”I ran back to the cabinet and found the morphine. I went back to Cooper’s bedside where Chris was hanging the IV bag. I grabbed one of the nearby carts and found the catheters. I grabbed the smallest one I could find.

  “Chris, can you hold him down, please? I have to start a line and he’s already in so much pain I don’t think he is going to notice, but I need him to b
e still.”

  “Sure thing, Doc.”

  As Chris held the tiny little boy down I started the IV and pumped in a small dose of the morphine.

  Cooper seemed to calm down shortly after that and I was able to take his vitals. His bite wound was no longer bleeding but it was open, oozing black, and looked terrible. His temperature was at what I thought it was going to be, 105 degrees. His blood pressure was through the roof and his pulse was as fast as that of a hummingbird.

  “This is everything I’ve seen before in Georgia; the fever, the wound, the BP and heart rate, everything. Even him asking for water but not being able to take any is the same as the soldiers we tried to treat. I never saw the soldiers fully conscious, so I don’t know how long it took them to go from walking and talking to pain riddled and comatose.”

  “So, what do you think, then? What should we do now?”

  “The only thing we can do, I guess. Just try and keep him comfortable and keep everyone else away from him.”

  “Don’t you think we should restrain him if he is going to be out for a while?”

  “I guess so. It took almost seven days before they made us restrain the soldiers, but that was back then. This seems to be happening much quicker than what I saw eighteen years ago. I sure hope Troy makes it here and quick. Maybe he’ll know what to do.”

  “I sure hope so. He knows more than all of us combined. Even so, Abby, I think you did a great job with the little guy, here. You handled yourself very well in a chaotic situation. I see why Jack spoke so highly of you and the work you did. He would be very proud of you and what you did, yesterday and today.”

  I started to cry again but I managed a, thank you, to Chris for his words and then, we put the soft restraints on the five-year-old Cooper, whom we had all just met.

  Chapter 9

  I woke up to Tom’s hand on my shoulder shaking me a little.

  “Sorry, I fell asleep, what’s up, Tom?”

  “Sorry to wake you, Abby but I think you should get as far away from the little one as possible.”

  “What do you mean? Oh, my!”I looked up and Cooper had apparently died and come back while I napped at his bedside. Tom had already put a belt with a sock around it in his mouth so that he couldn’t bite.