Zombie Ocean (Book 3): The Least

by Michael John Grist

  INFECTION ATTACKS USA – SEEK QUARANTINE – SEEK SHELTER

  "The cameraman just fell," the anchor shouted, half to the camera and half to the studio behind the camera, pointing haplessly. She turned to the side and pressed her fingers to the bud in her ear. "Brett, did you see that? Shit, did you see that?"

  "He's OK!" someone shouted from off-camera. "He's just pale."

  "Oh my god, it's in here with us," the reporter muttered, perhaps unaware that the mic pinned to her dress lapel picked up every word and beamed them right to Cerulean.

  A title card popped up for a second stating CNC in large letters, followed by a few seconds of an ad for Dub Lite beer, then the image scrolled back to the footage of more bodies sprinting down city streets.

  Was it a hoax, still?

  "Mom!" Cerulean yelled at the stairs while hurriedly tapping at the computer screen. "Mom you have to see this!"

  He cleared out of Deepcraft and brought up a search bar, typing in the address of another news site, Box. It took a long time to load and when it did all there was across the whole front page was a single headline, eclipsing the masthead and the adverts in the sidebar.

  GET AWAY!

  He scrolled down as the rest of the article loaded.

  "Mom!"

  The video on his phone spurted out tinny clips of sound as the transfer rate slowed right down. How many thousands, how many millions of people across the world were doing just what he was doing right now?

  The article loaded and he raced through it.

  A seemingly fatal wind-borne virus has struck the Eastern seaboard of the United States with unparalleled ferocity, infecting an estimated twenty million in its first hour.

  "I urge all Americans, all peoples, to seek out shelter at once," the President said shortly after midnight, while standing on the steps of Air Force One before Secret Service agents pressed her into the body of the plane.

  This agency has since lost contact with its reporters on the ground in Washington, with bureaus equally going dark across New England and south down the East Coast through to Florida.

  Infection appears to be a mass event originating from New York, or carried inland by the cross-Atlantic Gulfstream. Reports suggest entire populations become infected at once then begin a frenzied rampage, slaughtering anything in their paths with their hands and teeth.

  "It could be a temporary strain of madness, like a super-flu," said expert Mathias Goren from MIT Infectious Diseases, "or even a fatal rabies-like virus, we just don't know. They're turning into what look and act like zombies. Shelter in buildings or in remote areas doesn't seem to prevent the spread. I'm afraid I can't offer any advice, only luck. There is nothing we can do but pray."

  Update us with the hashtag #outbreak. All reports will show here. May God have mercy on our souls.

  "MOM!" Cerulean shouted. He remembered the red panic button by his side and punched it. Up above a siren rang.

  The Box front page refreshed itself with a flurry of tweets coming in from reporters on the ground, government bodies, FEMA and various emergency services.

  #outbreak The lights all across Baltimore just went out!

  I see a horde of them coming. Help me! #outbreak

  Jackie Rosen in Albany isn't answering, does anyone have eyes on? #outbreak

  The whole #outbreak is a goddamn fakeout, cool your shit, Ameritards…

  #outbreak #FEMA Satellite imagery shows a flood of infected humans rampaging northwest along I26 from Columbia.

  #outbreak #gov DO NOT attempt to intervene with an infected. Find higher ground.

  #outbreak Seek refuge in your cellar.

  The @surgeongeneral advises you tape down windows and doors, wear a breathing mask, cover your eyes, stay calm and wait it out. #outbreak

  He stared but they just kept coming, message after message, many contradictory, each panicked, reporting a disease wave-front moving like a storm across the country, eating up people and towns and states in minutes.

  #outbreak Colorado is infected! I heard on KR653 radio and the DJ just got it and everybody started screaming.

  #outbreak Augusta is infected.

  #outbreak Macon is infected.

  It's terrorists. It's a dirty bomb and we need to strike those bastards hard with nukes, now! #outbreak

  #outbreak I-75 is backlogged with traffic after a plane came down outside Tallahassee. People are getting out of their cars and running.

  Hiding in your basement won't do a damn thing- I just watched a family live-casting from their New Jersey bunker turn white on air. We can't escape! #outbreak

  #outbreak He tore him apart! He just tore him apart, and there's so much blood, oh my God, what do I do?

  "Mom get down here!" he cried. There was an answering thump from upstairs.

  Then the video on his phone re-buffered and kicked in again. The same news anchor was sitting at the desk with paper all around her. Monitors in back showed a mixture of white static and dark, empty streets.

  "Hello America," she said, staring right at the camera. "If you're watching this then you know we're in the midst of an extinction-level event. The tide is lapping at our doorstep and I expect we'll be washed away within the hour. We're showing now footage of widespread infection in Kentucky, Alabama and Arkansas. My team and I are determined to stay on air until that moment comes. The studio doors have been barricaded. I want to tell you, hold your loved ones close. Barry, if you're watching this, I love you. I'm sorry I can't be there. Jemma and Albi, I love you both. We'll see each other soon, OK? I'll be right there. To anyone else still watching this, I want you to know this is for real. This is really happening. It-"

  She stopped talking abruptly. There was a crash off camera but she didn't react. Her head inclined slightly and she closed her eyes. A long, silent moment passed, then she opened her eyes, and they were a bright and glowing white.

  Cerulean jerked in bed.

  A second later she stalked away out of the camera's field of view. There was clattering and crashing, something like a scream, then the scene was silent.

  He watched the empty news desk like that for almost a minute, peering at the tiny images on screens behind the desk, until there was a loud scampering sound from somewhere behind the camera, a strangled moaning scream, then a thump, heavy instruments being knocked over, a crunch, and then the grinding, lip-smacking sound of something being chewed and swallowed.

  Long moments passed and Cerulean couldn't look away. The wet sucking and tearing went on and on, until it stopped and the news anchor came back into shot with her back to the camera. Each step was a wet slap, her gait was strange, and there was red running down her bare arms.

  Something mewled behind the camera, there was a scratching sound, and she turned back to it. Cerulean gasped. All around her mouth was a mass of blood and pink and bits of purplish meat, spreading down her throat and open-cut dress to flow between her breasts and down her legs

  Cerulean gagged.

  Her white eyes focused on something and she ran at it. There was more thumping and clattering and another strange scream, then the signal cut out back to the signal card.

  Cerulean stared. The emergency warning message continued to scroll across the bottom of the screen. The image was down but the sound continued, as the anchor killed and ate somebody else. Numbly he switched it to mute.

  Zombies?

  "Mom!!" he cried.

  He clicked off the video and fumbled through the phone's icons to get to his mom's cell number. He dialed and it rang, and rang, and finally was answered.

  "Robert?" came his mom's voice. "What's all that racket? Is that the alarm?"

  He almost wept to hear her crotchety, middle-of-the-night voice.

  "Mom you've got to get down here, there's some kind of infection, get down here in the cellar right now!"

  She didn't answer.

  "Mom!" he shouted.

  She didn't speak again. The alarm siren he'd triggered with the red button was still
going off overhead. He looked across the dark basement to the stairs and the door leading up. She'd be out of bed by now. She'd be coming down the hall. Perhaps she'd dropped the phone. It might have cut out, that was entirely possible, as how many people were overloading the lines right now making desperate last-minute calls?

  She'd be in front of the basement door. She'd be reaching for the handle.

  THUMP

  The impact came right on time and shook him like an icy finger down the spine.

  "It's open, Mom!" he called.

  THUMP THUMP

  He stared as the door trembled. It wasn't a strong door. His Mom was a big, strong nurse. If she had rabies or some disease like it?

  He steeled himself and closed his eyes. It was going to hit him any second. He pushed aside the thumping sound with the skill of someone who'd been pushing aside the pain and panic of the demon for a full year.

  In the darkness he found focus. He thought clearly.

  He didn't have it yet. He still didn't have it.

  He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. They were his hands still. He looked at his legs, which usually brought on the demon, but in that moment he realized demon was gone.

  His jaw dropped and he sat there reeling as the truth of it flowed over him. For perhaps twenty minutes already he'd been watching shocking TV, surfing shocking websites and shouting his head off, but still the demon hadn't hit.

  He laughed. Of all the times. He was healed! Praise Jesus and Hallelujah, in the midst of this?

  It was some kind of bad dream, but he wasn't waking up.

  THUMP

  He had to act. He had to do something.

  "I'm coming, mom," he called.

  He tried 911 and got a busy signal. He dialed for the University reception desk, where a security guard at least should have answered, but no one did. He called Coach Willings. He called old school friends, the pizza delivery line, his eighth-grade teacher Mrs. Fent whose number had gotten into his phone back around the time of Zane, but nobody answered. Not one.

  Panic thumped down alongside his mother's fists, but it was nothing next to the old sensation of drowning, and he was a master at managing that. He pressed on. He brought up the Internet again, the Box front page with its twitter feed, and saw the stream was slowing down.

  He fired a message out, hash-tagged to get through.

  #outbreak I'm in Memphis Tennessee and I think the infection just rolled through. I'm uninfected, in my basement, but nobody else is. Get underground!

  Dozens of responses poured in @DeepDiveMemphis, demanding to know how he'd sealed off his air, what kind of tape he'd used, what air filters he had, how deep his bunker was, how thick his blast doors were.

  He tried to keep up with the replies.

  #outbreak It's just a residential duplex basement- I didn't seal it up, I'm just down here. It's cement-lined.

  He looked around the walls hungrily for detail. Anything might be important and explain why he was still uninfected.

  #outbreak There's newspaper and magazine cuttings all over the walls. Maybe there's something in the ink. There's mold in the air, maybe that's making a barrier.

  People answered, begging for more detail. There had to be something he'd done. What could they do? Their families were down there with them. Their children. What could they do?

  He tried to help them. He answered as many replies as he could, but one by one they faded away, until by 3:30 in the morning the tweet stream dried up and the only person left updating the site was him.

  #outbreak Is anybody out there?

  He typed the words into the void and nobody replied.

  #outbreak Is anybody out there?

  #outbreak Is anybody out there?

  #outbreak Is anybody out there?

  #outbreak Is anybody out there?

  No answer came.

  The siren far above died. The thumping continued. The door scraped on its hinges.

  He flicked through the channels on the TV but nothing was happening. A few untended live streams on YouTube showed top-down views of city streets and interiors of studios devoid of people. In some of them hordes of white-eyed zombies were roaming freely.

  He hopped through websites. He tried the BBC but their tweet stream was dead too. He searched for Russian sites and Japanese sites but the ones he found were all silent. He brought up the Twitter main page and posted his call there, but not a soul responded.

  Nobody moved. Nothing happened.

  Lying in bed he stared at the screen.

  THUMP

  came the sound of his mother from above. It felt like someone knocking on the door to his soul.

  THUMP

  THUMP

  THUMP

  He was alone. The whole world had died and his mind was all right, and that was more than he could take in.

  He laughed again. It was ridiculous. It was unseemly. Zane had said he would save the world, but now there was nothing left to save.

  Except maybe…

  Amo.

  His brain lit up, making connections the demon had prevented it from for a year. Amo had had the same coma and the same pain, triggered by a moment of high stress at the exact same time. Hadn't they said his symptoms had been turning pale, glowing eyes, a desire to wander?

  Like a zombie…

  Revelation after revelation tumbled through him. If he was really immune to whatever this was, and it hit at that moment at the top of the platform, then perhaps that meant Amo was immune too. That meant Amo might still be alive.

  Amo had been on a date with a girl in New York, against all advice of his doctors, in the epicenter of where the disease first struck. New York.

  The epiphany that hit then was overwhelming. Could all this somehow, possibly have started with Amo?

  He brought up Amo's address via the Skype app and rang it but no answer came. He'd be asleep now with his phone off, and Cerulean didn't have any other numbers for him. Still he had to do something, and fast. He didn't know how long the door would hold against his mother, and he didn't want to think about what followed next.

  THUMP THUMP

  Focus.

  He focused like he was standing on the platform about to dive. The obvious truth was staring him in the face. If the world was truly overrun with the infected, and if the infected were anything like the one he'd seen on CNC, then he wasn't going to survive. He just wasn't. His mother would come down and take him out of the world just like she'd brought him in, and that was that.

  He laughed again, this time loud and long. Screw the demon right in the ass. It wasn't his first time to face death.

  "You think I give a shit?" he asked the silent basement. "You think you can scare me with this? Next to diving into concrete this is some weak-ass shit."

  The basement didn't answer. Screw the basement. He knew what to do, what Zane had told him to, what his mother had always taught him: do what he could to protect the least amongst his brothers and sisters. That meant helping Amo.

  What would Amo need? What would any survivor need?

  He started searching online with a furious focus, darting between sites like a picker in the Yangtze darkness. He collected page after page of images, video and text from prepper and survivalist sites, gigabyte after gigabyte of data stacking up: how to light fires and purify water; how to know if canned food is safe to eat; how to find, clean, load and use all manner of weaponry.

  When that was done he started on a Yangtze message, to be delivered to Amo by his parrot avatar. He did it with a smile on his face throughout. This was his fate and he accepted it. Amo would need something to laugh about too, dealing with all this. His mother thumped at the door. It sounded now like she'd been joined by a bunch of friends, all of them thumping, scraping and scratching at the door and maybe even the floor. He smiled and typed. This was for Amo who'd helped him so much.

  When it was done he sent it all to Amo's email, then settled in to call until he answered.

  7. AMOr />
  The early morning passed in fits of drowsiness and hilarious anger, broken by the calls he made to Amo every few minutes. This was truly a shitty lot in life to be dealt, but it was his lot.

  At 7:23 Amo answered.

  "Cerulean," his voice said, scratchy through the Internet connection. He sounded out of breath and panting. "Holy shit, Cerulean you're alive."

  A moment passed while Cerulean lay there with his jaw open. Despite all his efforts he hadn't really expected Amo to reply, but here was Amo. Amo was really alive. He almost started to cry. If Amo was alive and he was alive then surely it was the coma that joined them, and maybe there really were others too.

  "Amo?"

  "It's me, I'm here, shit I saw your message earlier, I thought you were talking about the date then I went outside and damn, it's been crazy, the girl's gone, the whole city's been turned to zombies, what the hell is going on?"

  "Amo," Cerulean repeated, getting control back. There wasn't time to be overawed or worry about the path of the infection. "I'd just about given up, I've been calling and texting you for hours. You say you went outside?"

  On the other end of the line Amo took a deep breath, then started to cry. It made Cerulean want to cry even more.

  "The twinges are gone," Amo said. "I went out to get coffee and the world's gone crazy. They're everywhere. They chased me up and down Mott Haven. Planes were falling from the sky, New York is burning. What's going on?"

  Cerulean shifted up onto his elbows. This was where he could help. This was what he'd been preparing for.

  "Calm down," he said. "Amo, I know. I've been watching it all night, it started around midnight and it spread across the country in hours. They were calling it a disease vector carried on the gulfstream, until it got them too and most of the news outlets went out. Twitter went down while they were trying to evacuate, but most people were at home asleep in their beds. The whole country's gone down, I'm surprised the internet is even up still, phone service and texts went down hours ago. I thought I'd call you until my uplink went dead, and then…"

  Amo's voice sounded far-off. "The whole country's gone down?"

  "They're all zombies, Amo. This thing is instantly virulent, one breath and you're infected. You've seen them so you know. I saw them on the news; there were videos up on YouTube before that went down too. A few websites are still working, so I Googled everything I could find and downloaded it to our shared drive on your computer. You'll need to know this stuff, I've got reams on the prepper lifestyle, survival tactics and strategies, how to make weapons and how to find weapons, how to rig a generator and hotwire a car, siphoning fuel from a station, all that kind of stuff. It's good I did because Wikipedia has just gone down, I guess they didn't get enough donations."