Z1N1: The Zombie Pandemic: 2012 Was Just the Beginning

by Mitchell Layne Cook

  “Theo, you’ve done a tremendous job here,” Sully Howard began.

  “Thank you, Mr. Howard. It’s been tough…and I know we’ve been behind on a few weeks of totals, but…”

  “Let’s not dwell on the past, Theo. Let’s be more forward thinking. There are a lot of sick people out there that need our treatment. Besides, some folks are not cut out for management anyway.”

  “That’s very true,” Theo replied blissfully unaware that Mr. Howard was referring to him.

  “I’m glad you understand, Theo. Let the professionals take care of this. We’ll get you and the rest of this place back on track.” Sully left the conference room after delivering the verbal dagger to Theo’s chest.

  Theo felt like he had just taken an uppercut directly to the family jewels; he felt as if all the wind had been sucked out of his body. He sat down on one of the conference chairs to collect his thoughts, but soon, he began to feel ill to his stomach. Theo played the last few weeks over and over in his mind trying to see where he failed. Where did he screw things up? He had planned things so well, driven the others at the facility to work harder, longer hours and even invested tons of overtime himself to meet the demands for the vaccine. None of it made any sense. Theo prided himself on his work ethic, but maybe he had deluded himself… maybe he really wasn’t cut out to be a leader.

  Theo sulked for a bit longer and then left the conference room. He walked downstairs to one of the break rooms thinking that maybe some food would ease up the gnawing pain in his belly. The words of Sully Howard bounced around in the back of his head. As he walked to the back of the room, he grabbed a cup of coffee and didn’t even notice that Craig and Julie were in the room enjoying an early lunch.

  “Hi, Theo,” Julie said.

  Theo just walked by and sat at a table in the far back corner.

  “What’s up with him,” Craig inquired.

  “Not sure, but he seems really down. I’m going to invite him over to our table. Be nice, OK?”

  “I’m always nice.” Craig feigned a look of innocence.

  “I mean it.” Julie stood up and walked over to Theo’s table. With some determination, she convinced the younger man to join her and Craig. Both walked over to Julie’s original table and sat down.

  “Hey,” Craig said.

  “Hey,” Theo replied. “Am I a bad boss?”

  “Yes,” Craig answered and was swiftly rewarded with a severe shin kick from underneath the table. “Ow!”

  “What Craig meant to say,” Julie began, “is that you could use a bit more people skills, but for the most part, you got things up and running quite smoothly here in very little time.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say,” Craig grimaced as he rubbed his shin.

  “The lead IPPC guy told me I wasn’t cut out for management. It’s just that I’ve invested so much time in this job trying to please others and I mean, I really wanted to do a good job.” Theo took a drink of his hot coffee.

  “Theo, don’t worry about those guys,” Julie said after a few moments. “You’ve worked very hard to make a name for yourself and to make this company a better place.”

  “Thanks,” Theo said after taking another sip of his drink. “It’s just that I’ve never second guessed myself like this. With as smart as I am, everything comes so easy for me.”

  Julie quickly shot a glance at Craig that yelled for him to keep quiet. Craig acquiesced, but it took all of his strength not to let his inner smartass escape. Theo’s arrogance irritated Craig. And while he kept quiet, for Julie’s sake, he had to be honest with himself. Seeing Theo knocked down a few pegs made him feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

  Chapter 11

  March 22, 2013: Friday, 11:53 PM – Stockholm, Sweden, the Hub, the office of Pamela Bristow …

  “Dr. Bristow – there is a Code One priority message coming in for you from one of our agents in Colombia,” the young supervisor reported, out of breath after running full speed to his boss’s office. “Oh, sorry Mr. Bryant…I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Put the call on the secure line, Rick and return to your desk,” Pamela said. Within moments the phone began to buzz loudly. Donovan nodded for his two guards to exit the room and to close the door behind them. Pamela pressed the intercom button.

  “Come in Hub Operations,” a panicked, garbled female voice pleaded. “Can you read us? Please respond!”

  “This is Pamela Bristow, who am I speaking with?”

  “Oh thank God. We’ve been trying KRZZT you for almost KRZZT. This is Dr. KRZZT Finch.”

  “You are breaking up, Dr. Finch. We are having a hard time understanding you,” Donovan stated.

  “I don’t KRZZT time. The vaccine KRZZT… kind of mutation. People KRZZT died and come back somehow… KRZZT…infected attacking villagers… KRZZT…”

  “Where are you, Dr. Finch?” Donovan inquired.

  “Two miles KRZZT of the city. KRZZT…repeat, two miles east of San Juan de Pasto. KRZZT…”

  “Christina!” Pamela yelled as she impatiently waited for her friend to respond; there was no answer. Pamela angrily pressed the button over and over again but only static returned. “Donovan, we’ve got to get people down there. Something is wrong in Colombia. Our specialist group is in trouble - seems like something went wrong with the vaccine.”

  “Whoa, calm down there, Dr. Bristow. I don’t know how you jumped to that conclusion. There is nothing wrong with our vaccine. More than half of that message was jumbled up static and…”

  “Donovan, you heard what Christina said. She was reporting that something was terribly wrong with the vaccine. We have to put a hold on production until we get this worked out. If there’s been a mutation, then we need to research why the H1N1 vaccine has changed. I’m calling for a full stop on the current runs until we get more information.”

  “I think you are overreacting, but you’re right. Just calm down and listen. You’ve had a hard week and it’s late. Go home. I will get Gaylord on the phone immediately and we will halt production until we figure out what is going on. Just go home and relax. I’ll call you in the morning with details.”

  “She sounded so afraid,” Pamela said as she stood up and gathered her stuff, fearful that her old college roommate was in terrible danger.

  “Don’t worry, Pamela. I will get this fixed. You have my word on it. Will you be OK driving home? I can send one of my guards home with you if you want.”

  “No. I’m fine.” Pamela grabbed her briefcase and jacket and opened the office door, heading toward the elevator. Donovan’s two guards entered the room as she exited. Pamela pushed the basement floor button of the elevator and soon arrived in the parking deck below.

  “Agent Templeton,” Donovan said, waving the man in closer, like a child about to spill a precious secret.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You and Roberts follow her home. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Both agents rushed out of the small office and quickly made their way to the garage area below. They entered a large, dark blue Chevy Suburban and squealed the tires on the smooth pavement. The vehicle shot up a small exit ramp out of the building and for the briefest of moments, the vehicle was airborne before gravity once again made its presence known.

  Donovan closed the door and walked over to Pamela’s desk and sat in her comfortable leather chair. He lifted up the phone receiver and dialed a secure line to Gaylord Hastings. After a few rings, Gaylord answered.

  “What?”

  “Gaylord we have two problems,” Donovan began.

  “Stop right there, Donnie. We don’t have any problems. You get paid tremendous amounts of my money so that we don’t have problems. You have problems. Fix them.”

  Donovan could visualize Gaylord emphasizing each word, maybe even using “finger quotes” to further clarify his message. “It’s about the vaccine…”

  “Fix them.” Gaylord hung up the phone.

/>   “Mother fucker…” Donovan said in disgust as he slammed down the phone receiver. “Oh I’ll fix it all right.”

  Donovan hurriedly left the Hub’s main office and entered the parking deck below. He raced over to his GMC Yukon, where two of his other guards were waiting. Donovan entered the vehicle through the back passenger side door. Once inside, he dialed Agent Templeton.

  “Yes, Mr. Bryant?”

  “You know that problem that you are following up on for me? The one we just discussed in the office? Take care of it, now. It’s in the best interest for our business that the issue is taken care of promptly.”

  “Understood, sir,” Agent Templeton replied. As he slid his cell phone cover closed, he turned towards Agent Roberts who was driving the large SUV a comfortable distance behind Pamela Bristow’s Honda Accord.

  “What’s up?” Roberts inquired.

  “Run her off the road. Make it look like an accident.”

  Agent Roberts thrust his right foot on the gas pedal. The large SUV sprung to life with an angry roar of the V8 engine. The metal beast soon closed the distance with the small family car ahead of it. Roberts flipped on the high beams and the fog lights simultaneously; Pamela instinctively slowed down, unable to see.

  The SUV shot around the beige colored family sedan and raced ahead at speeds approaching one hundred miles per hour. Within moments, Pamela couldn’t even see the taillights of the maniac driver that had just passed her. She regained her composure and continued on her way home. The voice of her frightened friend echoed throughout her mind as she continued home. She slowed down as a dangerous curve was coming up; she never liked driving this road, even with a clear mind, but many long nights at the office forced her to do so. The last stretch of the road prior to getting on the expressway was a narrow two-lane concrete bridge.

  As her front tires touched the bridge, the large SUV shot out from a side road, clipping the rear end of her car in a modified PIT maneuver. Pamela fought to control the vehicle but over compensated. The rear end fishtailed and the sedan flipped over twice, finally coming to a stop right side up. Pamela could feel blood oozing down the side of her neck where her laptop computer had catapulted out of the passenger side seat, gouging into her forehead above her right eye. She breathed a sigh of relief. While her body screamed in tremendous amounts of pain, she was still alive; the seatbelt had done its job and held her in place.

  Pamela unclasped the seatbelt and grabbed the door handle. It was stuck. She wrestled with the mechanism for a few moments and the door partially opened. Her only thought was to get out of the car. She didn’t smell smoke or gas, but she knew the vehicle couldn’t be safe to stay in much longer. Pamela leaned into the door with her left shoulder and pressed her feet firmly against the floorboard shoving her body outward. The door opened about half way.

  She grabbed the door frame, careful not to cut her hands on the broken glass. Then she heard the roar of the V8 engine. She turned her head towards the end of the bridge where the growling motor waited. The RPMs revved and the bright lights were suddenly flipped on. Pamela covered her eyes, recoiling back into the confines of the car. The SUV raced towards her at more than fifty miles per hour. The deafening impact slung the tiny sedan off the bridge to the darkness below.

  Bright red brake lights illuminated the night sky for a brief moment, soon followed by the screeching of tires on the dew covered road as the SUV came to a sliding stop mere feet from the edge of the bridge. Templeton and Roberts exited their SUV and rushed to the side of the bridge. They peered over the edge; Pamela’s car had burst into a plume of fire as soon as it reached the bottom of the eighty foot deep ravine. Both men looked around for signs of witnesses and found none. They hurried back to their SUV and sped off in the opposite direction.

  March 23, 2013: Saturday, 1:45 AM – Stockholm, Sweden, an undisclosed location on an almost empty expressway …

  As his first problem was being taken care of by his agents, Donovan Bryant tried multiple times to contact his well paid resource in the Colombian military. Almost thirty minutes passed before he actually reached his contact. Even the secure line that was specially installed for private communication between Donovan and his associates in Colombia suffered from minor communication lapses.

  “Diego, can you hear me?” Donovan asked.

  “Yes, but I am surprised you made contact,” Diego said with a thick Spanish accent. “Our communications are shit recently.”

  “We have bigger issues than your antiquated technology.”

  “Do tell, Mr. Bryant.”

  “How secure is this line, Diego?”

  “The most secure in Colombia, sir.”

  “That’s not saying much…” Donovan said callously but continued. “We have two issues occurring outside the city limits of San Juan de Pasto. The first is that there is some kind of situation; I don’t know the full details. Engage the ‘dragons’ and see what’s going on.”

  At the beginning of the year, specially designed modifications were made to two Colombian attack helicopters to deal with possible crises situations, all paid for by a dummy corporation owned by Gaylord Hastings. The main upgrades and the reason for the nickname were the napalm launching mechanisms located on either side of the helicopters. The gunships maintained enough raw firepower to level a small town.

  “Do we have the green light to cleanse the area if necessary?”

  “Yes, but I need you to get as much info from the village as you can – then you have the green light to burn that place down.”

  “And the second issue?” Diego inquired.

  “According to the phone call I had earlier, a doctor from our special ops team is reporting some kind of mutation that’s adversely affecting the villagers. Find her and contact me.”

  “And after I get the info you need from her?”

  “After that point, Diego, I don’t care what happens.”

  “I understand, Mr. Bryant. Can I assume this will be double pay?”

  “You will be compensated, but don’t screw this up,” Donovan said. “This could unhinge our whole operation. If the operation goes down, there will be no money for anyone.”

  Donovan turned off his phone and leaned back against the soft leather seat of the speeding SUV. For the rest of the ride home, he rested his aching head on the side of the window. He watched countless streetlights overhead whiz by as his SUV sped through the empty expressway.

  Chapter 12

  March 22, 2013: Friday, 8:45 PM – a small adobe structure, two miles east of the village square, Colombia…

  “We just have to sit here a bit longer, Alejandro,” Dr. Finch said in Spanish. “I’ve finally contacted my friends. They should be sending help soon. We’ll be able to leave this place.”

  Alejandro had barely spoken more than his name in the time the group had been together. The young boy was in a semi-perpetual catatonic state after witnessing the death of his mother and father at the hands of his deranged grandfather. The boy had to be force fed what little food his liberators could find. He spent most of his time wrapped up in a scratchy wool blanket, lying underneath a small table in the corner of the room.

  “It’s been over two hours since you made contact,” Colonel Chavez said in English. Both adults had previously agreed to keep the bad news or any negative updates of their situation in English. They didn’t want to upset the fragile boy if they could help it.

  “Give them time. The IPPC may have had trouble contacting your military. Something is seriously wrong with communications. Every day since this all started, we’ve both made multiple attempts to contact anyone and this was the first time we got through…we have to be patient just a little bit longer.”

  After their escape from the village square about a week ago, the group had found an abandoned adobe structure that they used as a hideout; most of their time had been spent in the lowest level of the structure. The building was strong and provided a relatively good amount of safety from the sick villagers. Sin
ce the structure was perched on a hillside, it was the perfect vantage point to try and get a communication signal out. Each day the adults had taken turns to make trips to the village square to return with water and food, careful to avoid any of the infected.

  Colonel Chavez and Dr. Finch had discussed many times over the preceding week whether to stay hunkered down in the building or to make a break for San Juan de Pasto to find help. If it had just been the two of them, they would have surely chosen the latter option. They opted to remain in their secluded hideout to wait for help to arrive. Had they known it would be over a week before the first contact got through, they may have opted for the escape. None of that really mattered at this point; help was now on the way.

  During the week, Dr. Finch tried to figure out what had transpired to cause the horrific chain of events that she had witnessed. Her initial hypothesis seemed to hold true. The first cases of the living dead occurred with the soldiers that had the earliest H1N1 vaccine treatment – the same soldiers that her group initially had arrived in Colombia to quarantine. Many other townsfolk had also been treated during the similar time frame. They too made the transformation after becoming violently ill and dying. She couldn’t narrow down the window of time, but there were some folks that had been vaccinated that did not turn, but most of them had been vaccinated at a later time. What did the different vaccination times, almost three months apart have to do with this? She couldn’t figure out that piece of the puzzle.