WHEN THE DEAD RISE
D.K. FRASER
When the Dead Rise
Copyright Willowtree Press.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission from Willowtree Press.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons - living or dead - is entirely coincidental.
WHEN THE DEAD RISE
Book 1 : The Outbreak
By D.K. FRASER
Thank You
There are so many people in my life that helped make this possible! From encouraging me or just giving me ideas, this story would not be possible without a lot of people. Thank you to my wife Kimberly; without you I wouldn’t have been able to put my story into words. You let me sneak away and lock myself away to finish chapter after chapter. You supported my crazy idea 120% from the beginning. Thank you to my family for putting up with me missing out on things to get this done. Thank you to the late George Romero, the pioneer of the Zombie Genre, for Night of the Living Dead! He made the undead legacy what it is today.
Thank you, Chris Weatherman for the Home series which awakened my love of books and writing. Both Shawn Chesser and Joe Zuko who are fellow scribblers for the motivational words, great advice and some phenomenal books!
Terra and Samantha from ACE Publishing for making it easy for me to just get my head down and write without having to worry about anything else.
My amazing editor Sabrina Bourque who was able to decipher my mess!
Lastly, Thank You for taking the time to read what I put down on paper. I hope you enjoy it!
Dr. Ferguson
Lance Ferguson slumped himself down on a bench at the light rail station in downtown, the same station he’d been using to catch the train car home every day since he’d arrived here in Portland. He was exhausted from a grueling day at OHSU where he taught medical students and where he also gave medical diagnoses from local hospitals a second opinion. Lance sat there relaxed in the uncomfortably hard chair that right now, after being on his feet all day, made him feel like he was on a cloud. As with the last couple of days, he rubbed his temples, contemplating why he chose this new career path. This wasn’t the reason he’d left his job as a lead Supervisor at the CDC in Atlanta. In fact, it was the opposite, he’d come here to get away from the seemingly endless workload. A “cushy number in the Northwest” his good friend and former colleague Malcolm had said.
He was distracted by some girls laughing loudly and he looked over to see a group of girls with signs. Another group of people were walking onto the platform being rowdy and also holding signs. For a moment he was puzzled then remembered there was a protest going on in downtown Portland. There had been a lot of absences due to people being sick, both teachers and students. He couldn’t help but think maybe a few of the students not being in class or even professors he’d covered for had played hooky to attend these protests. He looked up and down the platform and saw there were dozens of people all waiting to head further downtown on the light rail.
“Dr Ferguson!” a girl’s voice said loudly. He looked round to see Cheryl, a student nurse from one of his classes, walking towards him smiling. “Are you headed downtown to the protest?” the young girl asked.
Lance smiled and shook his head. “Afraid not. Headed home, it’s been a long day, in fact it’s been a long week already,” he said with a small chuckle.
“I bet it's flu season,” Cheryl said, smiling.
He nodded in agreement with a forced smile, he wanted to correct her that the flu isn’t a season, it’s a virus.
“You stay safe, Cheryl, and I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and smiling.
The young girl nodded smiling then waved goodbye before turning and walking towards a group of girls who were just arriving at the platform.
All day at school then protests and partying, oh what it must like to be young and have all that energy again, Lance thought to himself smiling. When a girl like Cheryl called him by his title it always made him feel old and reminded him of his age.Lance felt the phone in his pocket vibrate just like it had been doing all day. Being so busy with lectures and covering for other doctors who had come down sick, he’d barely had time to even look at his phone. His wife was probably upset that he’d not texted her or called her all day. Pulling his phone out, he was surprised to see it was Malcolm on the caller ID. He hadn’t spoken to Malcolm in months, not since he left the CDC in Atlanta. The two had exchanged some texts and funny emails and he kept meaning to call but was just too busy.
“Hi, buddy!” he answered the phone.
“Lance! Thank god you answered!” Malcolm said sounding flustered.
“You okay? What’s up? Sorry I haven’t called but it's been so busy settling in-” Lance began but was cut off.
“Look, Lance I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all day, so have a few other guys and we’ve sent you some emails” Malcolm said.
“Sorry, I’ve been so busy today I haven’t checked them yet and was going to check them when I got home… is everything alright?” he asked.
Lance knew if Malcolm and some of his other former peers were trying to get in touch with him must have been important.
“We need you to take a look at some test results and samples we have. There’s been a few major outbreaks of an unidentified virus in countries all over the world. The world health organization is in a panic and have been blanketing as much of it out from the media as they could for the last three weeks” Malcolm said taking a breath before continuing.
“We got some samples from a couple of the countries and now we’ve gotten a few dozen samples back from here in the US too that are matching.” Malcolm said sounding scared.
“What kind of virus are we talking about?” he asked.
“ It’s mimicking symptoms. of Ebola and Rabies but with rapid incubation times, we’ve had conflicting reports of how it’s transmitted and that it mutates” Malcolm told him.
“Jesus…” Lance muttered to himself.
“Lance, the virus is spreading rapidly… A few of the guys are talking that it’s following the path of the model you did a couple of years ago” Malcolm said.
Lance knew exactly what his friend was talking about; he had done a projection based on a bioweapon attack on the US utilizing the hand wipe stations at various large supermarkets like Costco and Walmart. The ones used for wiping the carts which not only infected the people using the carts but spreading to everything else they touched.
Lance felt his gut twist as he knew he had taken a very aggressive approach when designing the model and calculating the infection rate of the biochemical weapon. If someone had in fact released a virus spreading like this then an epidemic would be inevitable.
The fact that Malcolm was stating the symptoms. were like rabies, Ebola and then mutated reeked of a man-made bio engineered virus. “Have you guys been working on anything like that? Do you think someone got a hold of the model and used it to let this virus loose?” Lance asked.
“We’re not sure, The World Health Organization is putting pressure on us to release all the information we have on viruses and strains we’ve been working on, the model simulation you designed as well as containment and quarantine measures” Malcolm said.
“You’re wanting my help?” he asked knowing Malcolm and
his former peers needed him onboard ASAP.
“You are the best person we know who has experience the Ebola virus, projecting infection dynamics and you’re one of the few people still alive who were there for the initial incident in Somalia” Malcolm said.
The light rail train arrived, and everybody started to board but Lance sat there on the bench still on the phone looking at all these young people boarding to head to the protest. He couldn’t help but feel sick to his stomach that all these people gathered together with a virus like this was a recipe for disaster. As the train pulled away, he saw Cheryl on the train laughing happily and he knew he had to do what he could.
“ I can be on a flight tonight!” he said knowing if there was some kind of mutating virus that was sounding bio engineered, he would have to be there in person to get the best results and experiment hands on with live specimens.
“What else can you tell me about this virus?” he asked, needing as much information as possible to come up with a plan and timetable for infection, incubation, and contamination.
He could do this while on route to the CDC in Atlanta as time was of the essence and every second right now counted.
“Lance. There’s more...a lot more” Malcolm said.
Lance could tell his friend was hesitating now. He wondered what his friend was holding back.
“While we’re not exactly sure how the virus is transmitted, whether it’s a blood borne pathogen or spread via bodily fluids or it could be airborne. The end result has reportedly been the same, though. That it starts with a high fever, some highly aggressive behavior in some reports, bleeding orifices and then leading to death...” Malcolm said but Lance knew there was still more by the way his friend was talking.
“Go on Malcolm… I can tell there’s more” he said, wondering what his friend was keeping for last or just hesitant to tell him.
“Once they flatline, they reportedly…come back alive- but not as themselves...like cannibals, more aggressive, limited awareness, high pain tolerance.” Malcolm said.
“You mean like zombies?” Lance asked.
“I wish there was a better word, Lance, I do but we’ve not been able to hold a live specimen so I’m just going by the footage and reports we’ve read,” Malcolm told him.
Lance didn’t know what to say, he’d seen zombie movies growing up and always thought to himself that these stories must have originated somewhere. After all, his grandfather always told him all made up stories come from some truth. Could this new virus or pandemic, as it was seeming to be turning into, be the cause of zombies? The genre that so many movies and video games had been based on?
“Lance they’ve been rushing orders and containment plans through for the last couple of weeks, involving FEMA, the National Guard, and all branches of the emergency services. We’ve asked for several doctors that we need to be evacuated from their current locations and brought here” Malcolm said.
“My God! Malcolm, I need to see these samples ASAP, I can talk to the wife and be on a plane in a few hours!” he said, knowing something like this, no matter how far fetched it seemed, needed to be addressed. If it was true, then this was the type of virus that would be a nightmare for not just the CDC but the whole world.
This was the reason his friend had been trying to get a hold of him, he thought, they needed his expertise on virus mutations and spread patterns. Better to analyze and thoroughly investigate the virus before announcing to the world that there is in fact a real Zombie virus.
The pounding of his heart was echoing in his ears as it thumped dully inside his chest.
“There’s no need to fly here, Lance….” Malcolm said and Lance could hear the tone drop in his friend's voice. Sirens from emergency vehicles were filling the air making it hard for him to hear his friend.
“Sorry, Malcolm could you speak up, it is crazy here because of these protests,” he said covering his other ear with his hand to try and hear his friend better.
“That’s another reason why I’m calling.” Malcolm began, “A few of the test results we’ve been sent from inside the US are from hospitals in Portland. Yours.”
Jake
The yellow Nissan Frontier truck rocked back and forth as it bumbled along the pothole riddled back roads surrounded by huge open fields that led from the sleepy little town of Battleground to Vancouver. Jake sat in the passenger seat as the truck jerked at every bump of the road which hadn’t been taken care of since it had been built, he had always thought. This wasn’t the main route from Battleground to Vancouver but right now it was definitely the safest. Jake sat expressionless, sunk into the passenger seat staring at his hands hanging down between his lap. Blood covered them with some dripping on the floor mat of Benny’s truck with every bounce.
Benny was driving and without looking asked “Jake you okay, bro?”
Benny put his hand on Jake's arm and gave him a shake, Jake squirmed and sat up more “Yeah,” he mumbled “I’m fine… I guess,” he said as he looked at the mini dream catcher hanging on the rear-view mirror.
“We’re almost there, bro, you’re just in shock” Benny meekly reassured him. He sounded more like he was trying to reassure himself.
Jake zoned out again, wondering if this whole day had been a dream, but if it was, it was a nightmare. His eyelids fluttered and he rested his head back against the headrest, trying to remain calm. He thought about how the day had started off and how he had no idea it would have ended up like this or that he would have blood on his hands from taking a life.
Jake lay in bed blinking away the fogginess of just waking up, he glanced over at the alarm clock beside his bed, he wasn’t due to get up for another fifteen minutes but the noise of the boys getting ready for school and arguing over something had woken him up. He thought about laying there trying to get back to sleep before his alarm went off or he could even hit snooze a couple of times and just lay there but he realized that was pointless and climbed out of the sheets.
He pulled on his underwear and blue scrubs for work then headed out into the living room, still a little groggy from being woken up by the chaos in the small single wide trailer, he walked into his son Paul and his stepson Greg arguing over something. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What is going on?” He asked “You guys didn’t know how loud you were being or what? I had to work late last night!” he shouted.
Both boys stopped and looked at him, Paul opened his mouth to talk but was cut off by Greg.
“It was his fault!” Greg shouted, pointing to his brother, Paul.
“He wanted to watch the news, but we said last night we should finish building our castle in Minecraft before school,” his face was bright red and his cheeks puffing.
Emily came from the kitchen, the sun glowing behind her from the kitchen window, her dark skin and big brown eyes, bleached blonde hair, even first thing in the morning she looked super hot, Jake thought instantly, making him smile and taking the edge off his irritation.
“I told you boys not to wake Jake up! Go get your bags ready for school and maybe you can play some video games or TV before school, but I don’t want to hear another peep.” she didn’t shout but had an authoritative tone.
He just smiled as both boys wandered past him with their heads lowered. He was always quick to get angry, but his wife was always the cool tempered, level headed one. She walked towards him with two cups of coffee as if reading his mind.
“I love you,“ he said chuckling as she handed him a cup and flashed him a smile, “ I don’t know how you do it.” he complimented her.
She took a sip of her coffee and replied back “It still amazes me how after three years you’ve not gotten used to it or learned to drown them out,” she said and they both laughed.
“Why did you have to work late last night? That’s the latest you’ve had to stay,” she asked.
He turned and walked back into the living room taking a seat on the couch.
“This fucking flu or whatever it is, we’re short staffed with all t
he call outs and a lot of our patients are getting it bad,” he said, and he knew today would probably be the same if not worse.
Emily took a seat beside him and put her legs across his and cuddled into him. Emily always told him he cared too much for the people at the home he worked at.
Emily had been a caregiver before becoming a hairdresser, she knew how tough it was and how hard it was dealing with the elderly and not getting too attached.
She snuggled into him and kissed his neck “Aww, poor daddy, anything I can do to take your mind off it?” she asked in a sexy tone and he looked down at her but before he could answer they both laughed as the two boys walked back into the room, backpacks in hand.
Both boys stood there looking at them as if waiting for a verdict “So?” Greg asked, “What are we allowed to do?”
Paul spoke up “I just wanted to watch the news to see about the riots, my teacher said the protests today would turn into a riot so people could get free stuff.”
Emily started to laugh but Jake took a breath “Protests? Riots? Aren’t you guys a little young to be watching stuff like that?” he asked the boys as he didn’t understand why a teacher would be talking about protests and riots. Jake was curious, too, though as people at work were talking about the protests the last few days. “Okay we’ll put the news on for a minute to see what’s going on but just so you know, even if there are riots, you won’t be getting a free PlayStation.” He knew his son all too well and knew that would be what his Paul was going to ask for next.
“But Daaaad, if people are getting free TVs why can’t Greg and me get PlayStation?” Paul was so serious and Greg, smiling, piped in, “Yeah! Let’s watch the news! I love free stuff!” Greg cheered.
Jake smiled and he could tell Emily was trying hard to hold in her laugh, “It doesn’t work like that, buddy, if you want stuff you have to work for it.” he told them.
When The Dead Rise (Book 1): The Outbreak Page 1