Contagious

by Druga, Jacqueline

  Another tap of her screen, and Ava looked at the time of after nine AM. Three hours. She just wanted to cry.

  What happened if they were all infected with some sort of deadly virus? What if, in like some sort of science fiction or action thriller movie, they just took the van somewhere and left it? What if they left them locked in a hot van with no air, no food or water?

  Surely, within days, they would die.

  Infection contained.

  Then Ava remembered. Rayne. She had exchanged numbers with him at the seminar. Had he been taken? Maybe he was overlooked because he wasn’t registered.

  She opened up her messaging.

  Calvin asked. “Did Dad reply?”

  “No, I’m texting someone,” Ava said. “He was at the seminar. I want to see if they picked him up.”

  “Rayniac?” Calvin asked. “If they did, he may not have his phone. You were smart enough to grab your purse.”

  “It’s worth a shot. Maybe he knows what’s going on.” Ava began to text.

  “This is ridiculous,” Joel said. He used coffee cups in that small back office, and found a bottle of water in the drawers. He tossed Rayne a peanut butter cracker.

  Rayne leaned his face on his hand as his body tried to get comfortable in the desk chair. “Thanks,” Rayne took it. “They can’t keep us in here forever. What did your wife say?”

  “She peeked out and said there was a lot of movement out there. A lot of people arrived in the last hour. They were all military and white suits.”

  Rayne looked down to the text and it made him sit up.

  The text read. ‘I was taken and quarantined. What about you?’

  Rayne asked. “Hey, Joel, would you say we’re quarantined or detained.”

  “Quarantined.”

  “Thanks.” Rayne replied ‘yes’ and hit send.

  Bleep.

  ‘We are in a van. Sixteen of us. My kids and me. No air. I think they are trying to kill us. I don’t know where we are. Where do they have you?’

  Upon the response he replied, ‘not in a van’ and sat up. “Walter did you say there were vans outside?”

  “Last I saw, yes, that was hours ago. Why?” Walter asked.

  Rayne stood up and headed to the door.

  “Whoa. Whoa.” Joel stopped him. “Where are you going?”

  “My friend is in one of those vans. Look.” Rayne showed him the phone. “Packed them in like sardines and they’re scared. You think this is bad? Think of them.”

  “That’s terrible Rayne, but what can you do?”

  “Get them.” Rayne opened the door.

  “Wait. Stop. They said not to go out there.” Joel warned.

  “What are they gonna do? Shoot me?”

  “Um, yeah, they could.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m guessing.”

  “They won’t.” Before Rayne opened the door, he turned to JJ who sat in the corner of the room. “Rap boy, get on your little chirping thing and tell them we’re being treated like prisoners.”

  JJ shrugged. “Ok.”

  Rayne opened the door and stepped out.

  No one was there.

  Easy enough. He walked around the front desk.

  There was something eerie about the house music system playing in the empty lobby. He peeked around the corner and saw the open courtyard. There were men in suits out there along with military in gas masks.

  Thinking so much for securing them in that office, Rayne turned to his left and walked out the front doors just a few feet away.

  Apparently, the powers that be that controlled the quarantine hadn’t landed like Normandy Beach, because those around were scarce. The sky was bright, there was a big metal tube building in the grass area encircled by the driveway.

  Then Rayne saw them, the white vans. There were four of them parked in front. No one was around. Without being noticed, or so he thought, he headed toward the vans and when he did, he stopped. From where he was he saw the quarantine.

  It wasn’t on the property, it was below where the driveway started. He could see only a portion but enough to tell him they were sealed in. The flashing police lights, and a mob of people were on the other side of a road block protected by soldiers.

  Had they forgotten about the people in the vans? Or, like Ava believed, had they been left to die?

  Ava had helped him when he needed it, and he wasn’t about to let her down. If he was confused and was semi aware, he could only imagine how she felt.

  He walked to the first van and to the back doors.

  There were no windows on the back end so he couldn’t see through. What made it worse there were stealth locks on the van. No handles, the ultimate protection on cargo vans.

  Are you kidding me? Rayne thought.

  No side door either on the elongated van. Rayne took a moment to assess the situation and figure out what he could do. That was when he spotted the hotel shuttle parked not far from the lobby doors. As if he weren’t in a quarantine zone and no one even noticed him, he went to the shuttle, opened the driver’s door and popped open the back luggage compartment.

  Just as he thought, there was a spare tire and tools to change one. With a smile, he grabbed the tire iron and walked back to the first white van.

  Rayne was well aware of how strong he was. If anyone could break the back doors, he could.

  Almost at the white van Rayne heard someone yell out. He didn’t think anything of it and placed the flat end of the tire iron in the crease between the van doors.

  “Stop!” The male voice yelled.

  Were they talking to him? More than likely it was someone trying to break the quarantine barrier.

  “This is your final warning. Stop.”

  Rayne grunted and pried the door. The iron slipped out the first try, but he wasn’t giving up. The second attempt didn’t work.

  “Are you deaf? Stop!”

  On his third try though, Rayne felt he had it just right and with every ounce of his strength, gave it his all and with a high squeal, the van door popped open.

  The van was packed with more people than it should have been. Every single person gasped out and looked so grateful when they saw Rayne.

  But he didn’t see Ava. That’s where his focus was. She was in another van and he’d find her.

  “Thank you,” A woman said as she moved to the door. “Thank you so … watch out.”

  Rayne blurted out a ‘huh’ and turned around. He didn’t get a chance to register all that was happening, however, he did see the butt of that rifle careening toward his face.

  Then it was lights out.

  Chapter 7

  Ambassador Suites

  The mobile lab was finished and Amita arrived moments after they got communications up and running. There was some commotion out front, but she didn’t get to see what it was. Randall immediately suited up and went into the site, while she prepared things inside.

  What made this so special? Why was it so different than the other sites? Initial lab tests on the coffee shop girl confirmed not only a highly mutated strain, but one far more aggressive than the others. The numbers were staggering to Amita. A highly contiguous virus that she found weeks earlier had taken hold.

  It didn’t go away, it just quietly crept through the streets of the cities, carried in the breath of travelers. A contagion that not only thrived in the air, but lived on surfaces as well.

  The Paris hotel was still showing the live virus in the room of Bella Lorenz. That was not the worst of it. It was confirmed that over eighty percent of those who had direct and indirect contact with Bella were now ill.

  The Ministry of Health in Paris was now reporting the BV-1 outside of the Plaza.

  People quarantined in Heathrow airport had started coughing ten hours earlier,

  They were ill in New York.

  Two more days, Amita figured and they’d see how far the virus had actually traveled, other than New York, Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.

&n
bsp; What was going on across the ocean, she was told, was no longer her concern. Her focus had to be at home and what needed to be done to contain it.

  “Are we going to be successful?” asked the Secretary of Health in a phone conference she had en route to the hotel.

  “Officially, yes. Unofficially, we don’t know. Not yet. We’ll know in a few days.”

  “What are our numbers?”

  “One hundred eighty-four. Six at JFK, including Grimly, eight outside of JFK that we know of. We have traced every single person we could. But who knows from the burger boy to the coffee girl....who got infected.”

  “Any suggestions?” The secretary asked. “I am thinking of moving the President.”

  “If you want to cause panic, sure. Moving him will do that. We should focus on awareness. Awareness can be done by what we’re doing now. Make people aware. ”

  “So you want to release the whole truth about this thing?”

  Amita rubbed her forehead. “No. No we can’t. If this gets out of control, we aren’t going to be able to care for all those who get sick. We don’t want chaos on top if it all. So it’s best to downplay it.”

  “Doctor, I understand what you’re saying. But we have to protect people. Any ideas on that?”

  “You can’t shut down whole states. But, air travel should be suspended in the affected areas. However, that's not going to stop people from driving out. Again, suspending air travel will cause panic. Maybe we need to educate airport security to look for symptoms and rely on thermal scanners. Problem that you’ll see with all that is, despite however many warnings, however many quarantines; there will still be people who will refuse to believe they have it. It happened with MERS.”

  “So basically, you’re saying if this thing ends up in Florida somehow, then we missed a piece.”

  “It was a loose end we didn’t tie up.” Amita replied. “Yes.”

  “Did we, in your opinion?”

  “In my opinion we did the best that we could. At least with Miss Grimly, her buck stopped here. She never left the hotel since her arrival.”

  The car telephone conversation ended with the Secretary of Health stating he would touch base once she was completely settled at the Ambassador site.

  It was the first opportunity Amita had to be on site for the onset of the outbreak. She wanted to stay in Paris, but had to follow the virus to the United States.

  CDC of Vermont took over the JFK quarantine, but again, this one was different, it was a mutation. Semora Love was actually Patient Zero of the strain and there was a lot to be learned. Amita couldn’t imagine it mutating any worse. Then again, it was a virus, it was unstable, and on its current path, it was without a doubt....unstoppable.

  <><><><>

  The dead speak, but the living speak louder, especially when it comes to infection. While there was a lot to be learned from those who died from BV-1, now being labeled BV-2, more could be learned from those who were experiencing it.

  Caroline Grimly or Semora Love was dying. A special infected area and care area was being set up in the ballroom of the hotel. Randall knew Semora wasn’t going to make it.

  She had suffered and he was there not only to learn, but to make sure her last hours were comfortable.

  She didn’t cry and still, despite her illness, she tried to be brave and strong, believing she would recover even as she dabbed the tears of blood that ran down her face.

  Randall attributed that to the medication. She was answering strong at first but faded into a drowsy state within minutes.

  He told her who she had caught the infection from.

  Her reply was, “I figured as much. He was very ill.”

  “Were his eyes bleeding when you saw him?”

  “He slept the last five hours of the flight. I didn’t notice. I’m sorry he died,” she said groggily.

  “We are too,” Randall said. “When did you start feeling ill?”

  “I was sneezing a lot when I arrived. Then I got cold symptoms, nothing major. I woke up yesterday feeling like I got hit with a bus. But a nice drink and some healing energy helped.” Her eyes rolled some as she fought not to fall asleep.

  Randall didn’t want to bother her too much with questions. Her voice was weak and she struggled to breathe. The oxygen seemed to help her some.

  A CDC nurse was on hand in the room to care for her.

  Even though the hotel stated she had eaten every meal there, Randall asked. “One more question and I’ll let you rest. Did you leave the hotel at all after you arrived?”

  There was hesitation and then she said, “Not that I recall.” She closed her eyes and fell asleep. Randall knew, more than likely it would be the last time he spoke to her.

  He took some photos for documentation and grabbed the tubes of blood that had been drawn from her arm. “I’m gonna take these to the lab and then interview people here.” He told the nurse and stood.

  “Randall.” The nurse called from across the room. She stood in the kitchen portion of the suite. “We have a problem.”

  “What is it?” Randall asked.

  The nurse turned around holding up a blue and gray Bargain bag. She pulled out a receipt. “Seems Miss Grimly left the hotel yesterday at five pm to get medication.”

  “Maybe she didn’t go. Maybe someone went for her.”

  “They used her credit card.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything.” Randall took the receipt. “Of course, we can’t take a chance. This is discouraging. If she said she didn’t leave, I have to believe her. No, I want to believe her. Because if she did leave … then lord knows how many people….” He glanced down to the receipt. “Employee 1162, rang up Semora Love's purchase of her bottle of Nyquil.”

  The Missing Piece - 2

  The Loose End

  Bargain Mart employee 1162 was unlike many others. She liked her job, she spoke to a lot of people and was personable. It was an honest living and things could be worse. That was always her attitude, ‘things could be worse’.

  After losing her job as a real estate agent late in life, the fifty-two year old woman was glad to have a job, even if it was at Bargain Mart. It paid the bills and had health insurance. At first it was difficult. Then she moved in with her recently divorced daughter and suddenly, sharing expenses, life was easier. No stress over closings or selling houses. Just put on the apron and a smile and go to work.

  Bargain Mart was convenient. They scheduled her shifts around her availability and that left 1162 time to babysit her grandchildren and of course, to go on that dating site she enjoyed.

  She was what they called a serial dater.

  After her own heartbreaking divorce, never again would she get emotionally involved.

  Things could be worse. She could be alone.

  After three years at Bargain Mart, it was time to take a vacation. Her daughter got a wonderful tax refund and purchased 1162 the package as a gift.

  “You deserve it. Go away and have fun.” her daughter said.

  1162 recalled the last time she had gone away and that was when she was in her early forties. She planned and saved so that she would have enough spending money to make the vacation a once in a lifetime experience.

  She worked hard, she really did.

  In fact, 1162 worked right up until the day she would leave to start her vacation. Weeks before, she posted on the employee board a countdown sheet. People were thrilled for her.

  Two weeks to Vegas.

  One week to Vegas

  Three days …

  Her last day at work was busy for some reason with tons of customers, but with her Vegas vacation on her mind, 1162 kept up her spirits. Excited, she was all packed and when she got home from work on that Wednesday evening, she played with the grandkids and then decided to go out.

  She grabbed sushi with friends and before she went back home for the night, snuck by her ‘friend with benefits’ house for a wild romp before stumbling home with sex weakened legs at two AM.

 
After a nap, 1162 gave a round of kisses to everyone in the sleeping house, put her bags in the car and drove to the airport. Her flight left at seven. It was a four hour direct flight and she slept through most of it.

  1162 felt upbeat, alive, and perfect.

  She was going to take Vegas by storm and have a trip she would never forget.

  She was scheduled to arrive on Thursday morning and leave on Sunday. Sadly, 1162 would never leave Vegas. It was an understatement that she would take Vegas by storm. She would. Certainly, 1162 would have a huge impact and Las Vegas, Nevada would never be the same.

  Chapter 8

  Ambassador Suites

  If emotional energy could be converted to physical matter, Ava was certain that the energy generated in that van would have created a tornado.

  They sat there for hours. No water, no food. A few people even wet themselves waiting on someone to come. The emotions went from confused to sad, then worried and finally angry. Ava tried to keep calm, she really did. Her own children, with the exception of Landon, started blaming her. Why did she have to go to the seminar?

  But they knew nothing. They were told nothing. No one returned to the van. It had a horrible odor from anything and everything in there which only made Cassie complain more.

  “Why hasn’t my father gotten back to us?”

  “I don’t know.” Ava looked at her phone. “Maybe he’s flying.”

  “Don’t you know his schedule?” She snapped.

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  “What good are you?”

  “Good enough to get you stuck in a van with twelve other strangers waiting to die.”

  Cassie gasped.

  “Look,” Ava said. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to be here anymore than you do.”

  “It’s your fault.”

  “How is this my fault?”

  Then some man from the packed van, barked. “Will you two stop? We are all sick of hearing you two. Shut up!”

  Ava snapped a glare in his direction. “Don’t tell me to shut up. You shut up!”