by Bryan James
But that wasn’t the worst of it. That was just the beginning.
As the day wore on, hundreds of patients became thousands, and thousands became tens of thousands. Emergency responders were overwhelmed by a deluge of frantic calls from helpless people. As one patient was delivered to the hospital, ten more called in. Police and fire units began to respond, to give the affected some sense of normalcy. To help assure people that help was coming.
Then, the unthinkable began to occur. Those who had so recently perished from this rapidly onsetting disease, those who had so recently been alive and well; those whose bodies now jammed the morgues and makeshift mortuaries in hospitals and fire stations and churches across the country; those people began to rise again.
By mid-afternoon, even as Louis was closing his car door and walking the long, lonely walk to the front door of the large banking building--hours before he would stand huddled in the employee lounge bent over a small cellular phone--reports of the dead rising began to make their way to the airwaves.
***
Louis shook his head in disbelief, unable to believe that the power outage was somehow related to this story--this story that was only a blip on the news when he drove to work only hours ago. He had dismissed it then, as he was tempted to dismiss it now. Some sort of SARS, pig flu, bird flu, yada yada crap.
He never bought into that shit. It was always overhyped and overdone. Sensationalized.
It had to be something else.
But what if it wasn't?
What if it was a plague or an epidemic or something like that? And they were all trapped in a windowless, locked, dark building together.
A building in which anyone could be infected.
He looked at Cam and back to Antonio, eyes uncertain hand shaking slightly as he handed the phone back. He stepped back until he felt his back hit the cheap gray counter next to the sink.
“What, Louis? You can’t tell me that you’re pushing this shit too, are you?” Antonio’s voice was raised and anxious, his hands moving quickly as he talked. From the room outside the lounge, a single emergency light popped and fizzled out.
Louis gestured at Cam, who handed the phone to the larger man. His eyes still dubious, Antonio took the small device and started reading. Louis turned around and walked woodenly to the soda machine, plunking three quarters in and pressing the button. Nothing happened. His quarters shot out the bottom and he tried again. Nothing. Then he remembered, the power was out.
Right.
Its funny how your body remembers motion and habitual action, even when your brain knows better, he mused.
“Well this has to be a joke, right? I mean, I saw all that bullshit on the news this evening too, but the news always makes mountains out of chipmunk asses, right?” Antonio’s hand was shaking slightly as he handed the phone back to Cam. “I remember the SARS scare and the bird flu and the monkey flu and the elephant flu and all that crap from years ago. Didn’t come to anything. Why should we think this is any different?”
His voice was aggressive, as if hoping to pummel Louis and Cam into submission on this point. They were silent, thinking of the implications. Cam was staring at the phone, trying to get the rest of the page to load.
“Shouldn’t be doing this,” he muttered, voice trailing off into a mumble as he stared at the small screen.
Antonio continued, “We have to see what’s happening outside. That’s probably where Rajesh and Tiny went, right?”
He turned, walking out the doorway leading back to the front entrance. Louis nodded mutely and awkwardly fumbled the three quarters back into his pocket, still wondering absently whether the pop inside was still cold.
Cam was staring at his screen, still muttering.
“Cam, you coming?”
For several seconds he was silent, then spoke softly.
“I think the internet’s out.” Cam’s normally boisterous voice was soft and quiet. As if such a thing we not possible.
Louis stared into space for a moment, then simply turned and left the room, leaving a confused looking young man, staring at a blank screen in the dark.
***
The first report of a bite was in Washington D.C.
A hot dog vendor on the mall was attacked from behind by a homeless man. The assailant had died the night before, huddled in the corner of a national park restroom in a pool of his own vomit.
Park police took the man down, two of the officers suffering bite wounds in the altercation. The vendor, a recent immigrant from Guatemala, fled the scene immediately, afraid that he would be forced to go to the hospital and present documentation. He couldn’t be deported, he had a family. The wound was small, and although his shoulder throbbed painfully, he decided to pick up his daughter early from school and go home.
He made it to the school, but he never left. Nor did his daughter.
The two officers received basic first aid for the wounds on their arm and hand respectively, and were cleared to return to work. One returned to his post at the Lincoln Memorial before keeling over on the monument steps merely hours later. The second was admitted to George Washington University Hospital amidst a wave of suspected flu patients.
As unbelievable as it seemed--so unbelievable that news organizations were hesitant to report on it until well into the event--throughout the city, and around the nation, the recently reanimated were rising from the dead and attacking the living.
When every person who was bitten joined the ranks of the infected, this plague, this new winnower of humanity, moved from being a mere biological epidemic to being an exponential conqueror of an entire race.
***
“What else did it say?”
“Did you get through to anyone?”
The voices rose almost as a chorus as they sat in a large circle between cubes and rolling chairs. One loud, indignant voice cut through the rest.
“Are you fucking kidding me, man? You have got to be joking. We’re not drunk high schoolers on a field trip here. You are not going to scare us with some story about gonorrhea-ridden homeless shits stumbling around the parking lot. This is a group of grown ass adults at the end of a long, soul-killing night shift. If you are even moderately being a dill-wad about this shit, I swear to God ...”
Louis had never particularly cared for Ty, the preppy looking kid in the skinny jeans and polo shirt, complete with popped collar and a Kabbalah bracelet. He was fresh out of some small, private college and was already working the wealth management portfolio, where the job paid hourly and on sales commissions. The kid drove a beamer already, and had a huge ego that was on display as he questioned Antonio.
Antonio was tired and his face drawn. He had spent the last half hour trying to open the three different sets of exit doors to no avail. They had been locked from the security booth, and couldn’t be opened from either side, something that they all considered to be impossible, unless Tiny had somehow tripped some sort of internal security measures that locked the building down. Otherwise, it was a massive fire code violation that could cost the company dearly in fines. Unless, of course, someone considered a municipal fine a small problem, compared to ... other things that might be happening. Louis was tempted to believe the latter, in light of the circumstances.
“I’m just telling you what we read. No Tiny, no Rajesh, and no exit. We spent some time in the security booth looking at the controls for the building, but wanted to give you all a heads up first. There has to be a master switch for the doors and the emergency systems, and we’ll find it.”
Ty guffawed loudly and crossed his skinny arms across his chest, purple polo shirt pulling tightly against his narrow shoulders below a smug grin.
“Yeah, you’ll find it. Like you found the exit? Like you read the ‘news’ about the evil, nastyplague outside?” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, and a soft chuckle drifted from a cubicle in the back of the group. Louis stared over the backs of the group, noting the numbers on the clock and wondering what time sunrise was today. Not that it mattered
in their windowless cell, but the thought of facing ... whatever was out there ... in the dark was much more daunting.
Antonio stood up, his large form tall and silent for a moment. Louis wondered if he would be so kind as to visit some manner of bloody violence on the preppy twerp, but was disappointed when Antonio’s maturity rose to the occasion.
“Listen carefully. All of you.” His voice was low and serious. “We know what we’ve told you. The news reported a disease spreading out there. That’s all we know. We can’t get the doors open to check it out, and we don't know exactly what happened to the power. We’re operating on limited information, so if it helps, think of it as rabies, or the flu, or the damn clap if it helps you relate.” He glanced quickly at Ty, and then back at the group.
“But the bottom line? We are trapped inside a windowless, powerless building. We don’t know if we can get out, but we know that outsiders can’t get in. So I suggest that we focus on finding a way out, but not using it until we know what’s going on. That means we need to figure out the security systems, and find functioning phones or internet or text or any other form of communication. Any bright ideas? I’ll take smoke signals if it’s necessary. How about you, frat-boy?” His eyes landed on Ty and the smaller man leaned back, a look of scorn drawing his lips back from his teeth. But he stayed silent.
Louis looked around and watched as Bridget raised her hand. She was sitting cross-legged on her desk, shoes lost somewhere beneath the mess of her cubicle.
“Doesn’t the VP upstairs have a portable stereo in his office? Maybe we can pick up a radio signal.”
Antonio smiled as he snapped his fingers and pointed at her.
“Great idea,” he said happily, even as Ty was interrupting.
“And how do you intend to power the radio, genius? The electricity’s out. You gonna blow on it?” His voice was wry, and his smile cocky.
She shot him a withering glance, blue hair dark red in the glow of the emergency lights. “I’ll leave the blowing to you, Ty. The rest of us grew up in a world where batteries exist. If it’s plugged in, it should be charged.”
Antonio gestured toward Louis. “Okay, a few of us will head back to the front and try to figure out the lock situation. There are external cameras that should be on some sort of back up power, but are switched off. Maybe we can light those up too.” He turned to Bridget.
“Can you head upstairs and check out the VP’s office? Take a couple of these guys with you. Let’s stay in teams of three or four. Anyone not moving from here try to consolidate our supplies and see if we have any food or water that we can use if we’re stuck in here for a while. We should probably have a couple more people upstairs trying to get a signal in the lounge. Any volunteers?”
Cam stood up, and several more hands shot up from the back row. Bridget hopped off her desktop and rooted through the debris under her desk for her shoes.
Louis stood up, leaning against the wall of his cubicle. His eyes were growing tired from the red lighting, and he rubbed his neck wearily.
“We should agree on something before we start fanning out,” he said, looking around the group. “Like Antonio said, we don’t know what’s going on out there. And we don’t know what’s waiting for us. A little while ago, I heard pounding coming from one of the doors. I thought it was a maintenance crew or something, but obviously it was ... someone or something else. It went away after we went upstairs, so it could have just been someone looking for a place to hide, but we need to be smart about this. We might not be able to get out, but that means no one can get in. We’re safe as long as we don’t open those doors. We should all agree on that.”
Antonio nodded, and a murmur of approval moved through the assembled group. Louis stared at Ty, the most likely to try go it alone and fuck everyone else over, and waited until his tight lipped frown broke and he nodded once, turning away and moving back to his desk, clearly not inclined to join in any of the tasks.
“Okay, meet back up in a half hour,” said Antonio.
***
Primary infection rates varied. Those who had ingested a contaminated sample infected with the primary pathogen tended toward a longer incubation period, but one that was still drastically variable, anywhere between two and twelve hours. The slow incubation in some allowed for movement of the infection. The rapid development of symptoms, delayed until the final stages of the infection, helped to slow the discovery of the disease.
Amongst those who were bitten, or infected by fluid transmission, the conversion rate was dramatically faster.
It was the worst possible combination of transmission modalities.
While the slower primary infection rate allowed for travel and the spread of the disease, unencumbered by the symptoms and indicators, the faster secondary infection rate, as spread by bites or other fluid transmittal, served as an accelerant to the dissemination of the illness.
In other words, the infection was perfectly adapted to the modern world. It could travel distances without revealing itself, and it could spread quickly and violently. It was ideally suited for a global pandemic.
It was ideally suited to destroy humanity.
***
Louis wasn’t a brave man. He had always preferred avoidance to confrontation. He didn’t like to put himself out there, and he couldn’t stand conflict; quite simply, he didn’t have an urge to be the best. At anything. He went to a middle of the road community college because he didn’t want to get rejected from anything better, and he dropped out because he was afraid of failing. He drove a cheap car and lived in a cheap apartment with crummy heat and smelly carpets because he didn’t want the pressure of getting a better job to earn more money to pay for anything more comfortable or prestigious. Even his sole romantic relationship--with the girl he started dating in high school--was an exercise in avoiding fear and let down.
He was a fairly cowardly man, and he knew it. He was fine with it.
Not great. Not bad. Just fine.
And that’s how he liked it, because just fine was all he knew.
As he walked toward the security office, trailing Antonio and trailed by several other customer service reps from the phone division, he grew nervous. He knew that he didn’t have the courage to bethe guy. He wasn’t going to be the man that walked outside alone, ready to brave a horde of sickos for the good of the group; he wasn’t going to be the guy to prop the door open so everyone could be saved, risking life and limb for the group. He just wasn’t. But if he was asked to be, it would cause a conflict between him and Antonio, and he hated conflict. So he was torn.
Louis resolved to sink into the background and participate without leading. He knew that he had taken the initiative earlier, but also knew that that was before he knew the score. He was just looking for his boss in a dark room before. Now, the stakes seemed a little higher.
He could let someone else be the hero.
Antonio stopped as they entered the entrance vestibule, turning toward the rest of them and holding his hand up, his head cocked slightly to the side. For a moment, Louis wondered at his affect, but as he got closer, he heard the sound. A dull thumping was coming from the external door to the left. Louis walked slowly to where Antonio stood, listening. The three other men behind Louis drifted to a stop behind him, one of them starting to speak but hushed quickly by the other two.
Antonio stepped slowly toward the exit door as Louis cringed internally. The sound was of something being beaten against the metal. Something both soft and hard, like a hand or a foot. The solid thunk echoed in the dark chamber, and the inconsistent beating was muffled slightly by the thick metal of the reinforced steel. Louis remembered passing through those doors when he left work. They were at least three inches thick, and had a variety of reinforcing technologies embedded inside the frame. Steel bars that extended out from the frame and magnetic locks were the mainstays, and he suspected that the mechanism of bars was at play now, since the magnetic locks would have been disengaged when the power went out
.
Antonio crept forward, his ears picking up the vibrations and his heart hammering in his chest. As he approached, his hand extended involuntarily toward the handle below before he realized his reflexive mistake. If you walk through the same door every day, you get used to the feeling, he supposed.
His arm dropped slowly to his side as he leaned his head toward the metal, placing his cheek against the cold steel. Outside the door, the staccato cadence stayed true. It was a mindless, repetitive sound. It was thoughtless and clearly not motivated by urgency or conscious thought. And it was decidedly the action of a human being.
Louis watched Antonio lean into the door and blinked several times, absently fondling the cellular phone in his pocket. Suddenly, the ringer erupted in the first bar from a Journey song he loved, and which he had set on his phone in an attempt at ironic humor that he hoped no one would peg as a true love for classic rock.
Antonio’s face ripped away from the door and his eyes widened. Behind Louis, one of the men from customer service started pawing at the phone which was emerging from his pocket with his hand. Louis brought the device up from his hip just as the older man from customer service was extending his hand to silence the intrusion. Louis’ hand collided with the other man’s sending the phone into the air and clattering back to the tile floor in an explosion of plastic and a loud, tearing electronic tweet as the volume of the ringtone increased suddenly before dying. Louis stared at the shards of his phone, stunned. Beside him, the older man shot him a withering look as Antonio froze near the door. Louis looked over slowly, recognizing the problem and cursing.
Outside, the pounding had increased.
And it was now coming from both sides of the entrance.
***
The infected were mindlessly violent. There was no explanation for their pathology or their behavior, nor was there any time to study it. As the infection rapidly took hold of large swaths of humanity, police forces and emergency responders fell in the first wave. Unable to hold back the teeming throngs of fleeing civilians, and unable to hold the line of emergency cordons hastily set up to contain those who had been infected, they were overwhelmed or overpowered. Those that refused to flee were killed.