Contagious

by Druga, Jacqueline

  Ava saw the look of ‘what are you up to’, her husband gave Bianca, then after setting down the packages, followed Bianca to the corner where JJ was seated.

  “What’s going on?” Ava asked.

  “You said a little bit ago, you felt abandoned because you couldn’t get a hold of your husband.”

  “I did. But what can I do?”

  JJ stood and walked in his room without saying anything.

  Bianca whispered. “Go in.”

  Ava walked by Bianca into the room with JJ. She watched Bianca peek out, shut the door and then close the drapes.

  <><><><>

  David, one half of the dynamic duo paparazzi, belly crawled to the balcony and stayed low. The one thing they didn’t take was his ‘Go cam’ for his game system. Admittedly, he and Sean didn’t think of it either. But it was a means to communicate with the outside world.

  They didn’t shut down the internet in the hotel.

  Get the pictures, type a short story in the description and upload.

  David got the shots. He knew something was up when he saw the manager’s wife sashay to the young pop star. He got the shots, one right after another and hurried back to the room before being spotted.

  “Did you get them?” Sean asked excitedly.

  “Oh, yeah.” David shut the door. “Who needs your body guard? A picture is worth a thousand words.”

  “Better be, because we can’t fit a thousand words on the upload.”

  “These are good,” David said. “Seriously, in quarantine this kid does not stop. Now he takes on not one but two older woman. Unbelievable!”

  “Almost disgusting.” Sean added. “I mean, this proves for sure he set up this whole quarantine as a ruse.”

  “Yeah, all for the attention. At the very least he’s eating this up.” David held up the camera. “But we got pictures. The world is gonna be so glad we are in here. They may not know our names right now, but they’ll know them soon.”

  “And they’ll be rooting for us,” added Sean. “If this virus ends up being real, they’ll want us to emerge because we’ll have the JJ scoop.”

  David walked to the door. “I’m gonna head back out to get exit pictures. Just in case they do things fast.” He paused. “You don’t think people are gonna think we’re idiots for worrying about this stuff when there is supposedly a killer virus, do you?”

  Sean laughed at that. “No, we’re gonna be heroes in all this. The eyes inside. The journalistic soldiers on the germ filled battleground.”

  “Oh, that’s good. Remember that line.”

  “Absolutely.”

  David sneakily opened the door and crept out.

  <><><><>

  Mobile Lab

  “What are those two up to?” Randall asked.

  Amita didn’t know what he was talking about. She only half heard him. She was too busy looking at her phone, ear piece in her ear, listening to the video message from Tony and Casper, her son.

  “We’re going to Uncle Bruno’s.” Casper said excitedly in his three year old dialect. “Who is he?”

  Amita laughed.

  Tony took the phone. “Hey, babe. We tried to call. We’re heading out. Things … things are bad here. Lots of traffic. Everyone is trying to get out of the city. We’ll call when we do. There’s rumors it’s here.” He exhaled. “Your mom is fine. Call you soon. Love you.”

  Amita moved her mouth to the words, ‘love you, too’, wiped the tear from her eye. Uncle Bruno was a code name they had no matter where they lived. A contingency they only had to use once and that was before Casper was born. It turned out to be a false alarm, but Amita couldn’t take a chance with her husband and mother.

  Uncle Bruno was an RV, they purchased in America when they bought the house. Before moving, Tony did some research and found a remote camp site in West Virginia and parked the RV there.

  One thing Amita was grateful for, she was close to the camp site if she needed to go.

  While the virus showed no signs of weakening, eventually it would and then would burn out. She hoped it would. It had all the markings of that. It was just a matter of when.

  Isolation was the best defense.

  Amita was already in a depressed mood, the New York cases were confirmed. How that would be handled she didn’t know.

  She set down her phone, then noticed Randall watching the security footage of the hotel. “What are you doing?”

  ‘The couple on floor four. The honeymooners?” Randall said. “They’re up to something. They keep sneaking out and crawling on the floor.”

  “For what?”

  Randall shrugged. “Looks like they’re watching the pop star.”

  ‘They’re probably fans.” Amita picked up the phone.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Dr. Sanders.” Amita stated. “Tony said there’s a lot of movement in Atlanta over this virus.”

  “We don’t have a case in Atlanta.”

  “That’s what I’m finding out.” Amita continued to dial. After a few transfers she finally reached her desired party. “I’m fine, thank you, Matthew,” Amita said in her greeting. “I know you’re busy. I heard a rumor. Now, I know what you’re gonna say, and of course, I would know if this was true, but … is Atlanta hit?”

  She pulled the phone from her ear at the silence.

  “Matthew?” she called. “Did I lose you?”

  “No, sorry, it's just … I didn’t know what to tell you. Yes, we have fourteen cases and it’s gonna get bad. All these are stemming from our Paris outbreak eight days ago. It’s rippling now.”

  “Are we moving teams in?” Amita asked.

  “We are stretched to the limits here. We have to pick and choose our battles. FEMA is going to have to take control of this one.”

  “Why didn’t I know about Atlanta?” Amrita asked. “This is my baby.”

  “Amita …” his exhale carried over the line. “I’m gonna give you a heads up. You and I know viruses. We know, despite our best efforts they can break barriers. We can miss windows. It’s no one’s fault. The best efforts were made, but this one …. this one, they're looking for someone to blame.”

  “There is no blame. It’s not a biological weapon. It’s nature.”

  “I know this. But I am fielding and ignoring calls. People want answers. Who let this slip through? Who didn’t contain it fast enough at ground zero? Ground zero was Bangladesh.”

  Amita lowered her head. “I’m gonna be the fall guy, aren’t I?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “Well, if this thing continues, no one is gonna give a shit about a fall guy, Matthew. There won’t be enough people left alive to care.”

  She ended her call, feeling even worse than she did prior to making it. She had her own agenda, and knew what she had to do and when. The ‘fall guy’ information was just a push.

  “Sorry,” Randall stated softly.

  “Did you know?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Just picking up one side of the conversation told me what’s happening.”

  She tossed out her hand. “Their keeping us in the dark Randall. Keeping us on this one only. They want us to work on what we can here and be given very little information.”

  “WHO is giving us information.”

  “For how long? CDC and WHO are working together now. We’re like one of our many outside agencies.”

  “So they confirmed Atlanta?”

  Amita nodded. “He’s right though. It’s rippling. It won’t be long before they shut this down and pull back the quarantine. There won’t be a need for it.” Her eyes lifted to the monitor and to the shot of the little boy, standing by the window with his hands against the glass, staring down below. “Look how sad he looks.”

  “He wants his mom.” Randall stated.

  “Well, time to let them mix. Lift the interior quarantine officially. They need to be together now. In a few more days most of these people are going to be too sick to enjoy their familie
s.”

  “Amita, I want to keep them calm,” said Randall. “I don’t want panic. You don’t think letting them mix will make them believe this is out of control.”

  “No, no.” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think they’ll just see it as us admitting we went overboard. No one really will be the wiser that this is just our ‘last supper’ to them.”

  <><><><>

  “What?” Joel asked Rayne.

  Rayne knew he saw the look on his face. Facial expressions were hard for Rayne to hide and he knew his pretty much said, ‘I don’t buy it.’

  “Go on,” Joel held out his hand. “Say something.”

  “No. I’m good.” Rayne stated.

  Joel received an in-house call from the CDC people telling him that they could let people cross the quarantine barriers. They had overestimated the virility of the virus.

  Rayne didn’t understand how they could come to that determination in just a day and a half. If it took three days for people to get sick, why wouldn't they wait to see who fell ill?

  They should have kept isolating the others.

  But they didn’t.

  That told Rayne either the virus truly was overestimated or, like he feared, was worse than they believed, so why bother separating people when they’d all get sick anyhow.

  The phone call was a spirit lifting thing to Joel. Even Walter showed he was happy about it. They took it as a sign that the quarantine wouldn't last as long as they had thought. Rayne decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

  Rayne received his instructions from Joel. He was, like Walter and Melissa, to start knocking on doors and telling people they could move about. Rayne knew who he was going to tell first. If anyone needed their spirit uplifted it was Ava. She needed to see and hold her children, and Rayne was grateful she’d finally get to do that.

  <><><><>

  It took four attempts and finally after the ninth text, Darren answered Ava’s call.

  “I am so sorry, I didn’t recognize the number.” Darren said. “I thought it was a reporter again.”

  Ava whimpered in her emotions, trying to hide them and staying strong. She clutched the phone and passed a look of gratefulness to JJ and Bianca.

  “How are you? How are the kids?”

  “They separated us, Darren. Because I was near the woman that died. They’re scared. I know they are.”

  “Senator Adams tried to get you out of there and tried to move you guys to another quarantine. They wouldn’t allow it. Ava, this thing … this thing is bad.”

  “Do you know something we aren’t hearing on the news?” she asked.

  “No. But Adams is trying to find out why there is so much secrecy around this. We dismissed it as a weapon, this inside person at the CDC said it was a virus. But that’s all they’ll say. Someone, somewhere knows something. I promise I’ll find out all that I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is anyone sick, there?”

  “No.”

  “I do know, there are reports of the virus in New York, Georgia and Colorado. The news doesn’t know this yet. Just do me a favor, keep the kids away from everyone.”

  “I will, I promise.”

  “I’m going to try to get there, somehow. But Senator Adams has three CDC quarantines right now in Ohio.”

  “Three?”

  “Two just went up this morning. I have to go. Take care of the kids.”

  “Darren, I love you,” Ava said with a hint of sadness.

  “I love you, too. Tell the kids I love them.” Darren paused. “Oh, and by the way. Rosie was found dead this morning of an overdose.”

  That was how he ended the call.

  ‘Oh by the way?’

  Ava was floored. Even more so than the tidbits about the virus, Darren just told her the mother of his children died of an overdose as if he were talking about the weather.

  She stared at the phone, not even blinking.

  Bianca placed her hand over Ava’s. “You okay?”

  “Uh, yeah.” She handed the phone to JJ. “Thank you.”

  “Does he know anything?” JJ asked.

  “There’s more outbreaks than we’re told,” Ava said.

  Just as Bianca gasped in her shock, she screamed at the knock on the door. “Hide that,” she said to JJ, pointing at the phone.

  He placed it in this pants. Then walked to the door.

  Rayne stood there.

  “Hey,” Rayne said. “Just wanted to tell you, they lifted the interior quarantine. You can see your kids now Ava.”

  Ava didn’t ask, how, when or why. She blasted by Rayne with a murmuring, ‘thank you’, and flew from the room down the hall and to the stairs.

  She had reached the second floor and as soon as she arrived at the door, it opened.

  Landon stood there. His little face lit up and he shouted out. “Mommy!”

  An ache filled her chest and she groaned out, grabbing the little boy, lifting him to her arms and holding him tight. His legs wrapped around her. “My baby.” She kissed him. “I’m so sorry. We won’t be separated again.” She saw Calvin, and smiled at him, reaching out her hand.

  Calvin stepped into her and hugged her. “You all right, Ava?”

  “I am now.” She held him. “They lifted the quarantine in here. We can be together.” She searched and saw Cassie. “Cass.” Landon still on her hip, Ava held out her hand and stepped to her.

  Cassie just turned her back with folded arms.

  It caused Ava to feel a quake in her chest. Her breath quivered in her after an emotional moment, and she took hold of Calvin again. She knew what Cassie projected was just an act. An act to cover up for how scared she was. Ava would give her space.

  Soon enough though, they’d have another cross to bear. They would be crushed, whether they showed it or not, by the news that Rosie, their mother, had passed away. It was news she wished she didn’t have to deliver, but she would. Ava would tell them as soon as she finished absorbing the reunion moment.

  Chapter 12

  Mobile Lab

  They were limited and on their own. Amita knew it. They had to rely on the resources left with them in the mobile lab. When they first arrived the day before, aside from her and Randall, there were six others not including the over two dozen FEMA soldiers. Now, as they approached the afternoon of the second day, four lab assistants were moved and the soldiers were cut in half.

  The soldiers were moved to the bottom driveway to keep people from coming up and to secure the perimeter to keep anyone from leaving. Amita didn’t see anyone making a run for it. Why would they? But it was imperative they were placed on guard since it was confirmed that those in the hotel were indeed infected.

  Soldiers on guard still didn’t help Amita isolate the virus in each of the samples to look for differences. Over a hundred samples were infected, and she needed to break it down. BV-1 had mutated to BV-2, a stronger, more deadly strain. Amita prayed that it didn’t mutate any further. At least not in her samples.

  She was saddened. She worked so hard to get that new position only to be put in front of a firing squad, and she knew that was coming.

  Twice in an hour, the news spoke about Bangladesh. Senator Adams was on a conservative news station screaming out that budget cuts by the democrats caused inexperienced people to be put in the field. Had there been more funding, there wouldn't be an outbreak.

  Amita wanted to call him and school him. Politics didn’t play a role in any of it. They were dealing with a virus that mutated … period.

  It didn’t matter who was handling Bangladesh, the virus would have broken barriers. It was supposed to be, there were no coincidences in their universe.

  When she first told her mother what her chosen path was outside of medicine, her mother told her, “Amita remember, every generation chooses a path of blessing or curse. History reveals it all. One day the curse will be so great there will not be a next generation.”

  Amita found that so hard to believ
e until BV-1. It was a cleansing. Pure and simple. But as a scientist, she had to believe it could be defeated. She had to try.

  No early treatments in Bangladesh, Taiwan or Paris worked. It was a matter of wait and see. Each wave of patients was different from the previous one. It seemed that on its path of destruction, it would eventually be something so deadly as... breathe and die.

  What baffled Amita was the fact that it moved so fast. It infected too quickly. There were three levels of contact victims. Casual, which were those somewhere in the hotel not near Semora. The ones labeled ‘close contact’ would be those who touched or spent time with the high risk people. High risk contacts were those who touched or were near Semora.

  Theoretically and historically, eighty percent of the high risk contacts would show the virus in their blood stream first. Not eighty percent of all contacts. That was unprecedented. The only difference was the level of virus in the blood of each victim.

  Amita wished she had more time, more people, instead of breaking down the blood, she wanted to break down the virus. Despite the mutations, she needed to find a common weakness in each variation.

  She feared the virus would win before she got a fighting chance.

  Or would it?

  “Amita.” Randall rushed into her lab portion of the mobile. He had a brighter look on his face and something told her that he wasn’t bringing bad news.

  “What is it?” Amita stood stepping away from her computer.

  Randall smiled. “We have a recovery.”

  “What?” She gasped out.

  “New York. Two people just nixed the 100% case fatality rate.”

  “Oh my God. How far into the stages did they get?”

  “Slight brain hemorrhaging, but they are making a recovery. They are still unconscious.”

  “How do we know they are out of the woods?’

  “Fever is reducing, the brain is not hemorrhaging like the others. Breathing is normalizing. In my opinion, their bodies shut down to recover.”

  “What was the treatment?”