“Thank you, now about an Ebola book.”
“Yes, Ebola. I'm sure we can find something around here that suits your fancy.”
They looked through the shelves, and Veronica found two books on Ebola written in the 1990s and another book about epidemics throughout history. Greg came across some technical books explaining decontamination procedures, which looked painfully tedious to read, but informative nonetheless. He felt as if he had enough to digest over the next few weeks. The Internet would take care of the rest.
Veronica took him up to the checkout counter to ring up his purchases. The elderly woman was nowhere to be seen. Greg looked around the bookstore, taking notice of how tightly contained everything was. It felt stuffy inside, and there were people everywhere. It was at that moment when he decided to start gearing up. He would need masks, HAZMAT suits, and decontamination gear. He would have to take whatever precautions necessary to combat a possible outbreak. If he was wrong in the end, he still considered it an endeavor worth making.
Veronica placed his books in a beige tote bag and handed it to him with his receipt. “Here you are, Greg. You get a free tote bag with buying three or more books.” She leaned in closer, held her hand to her mouth, and whispered. “Only if you're a valued customer, of course, so don't tell anyone else.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
Veronica's eyes dropped, and a more serious expression came over her face. “Are you prepping for Ebola?”
“How'd you guess?” Greg asked semi-sarcastically.
“You really think it's that serious?” she asked. “I mean, is it something I should be concerned about?”
She was aware of his past history of book purchases dealing with everything from natural disasters to economic crashes, and knew that he had serious views. Veronica wasn't a prepper, but whenever she saw Greg, he got the wheels of concern turning in her mind.
“I think everyone should be concerned about it. Ebola has only been around a few decades, and the last outbreak in West Africa was the largest ever.”
“But that could never happen here, right?”
Greg looked into her eyes and tried to give his most honest assessment. “I don't know. But I plan to be ready for it.”
Veronica looked up and saw that there were other customers standing behind Greg. “Keep me posted,” she said, looking past him.
Greg turned slightly and noticed a bespectacled man waiting behind him. He turned back to Veronica and held up his tote bag with a smile. “I sure will. Thanks again, Veronica.”
“My pleasure. Don't be a stranger.”
Greg wasn't sure what made him do it, but something pushed him to add one fleeting comment. “Of course, if you'd like to get coffee or something sometime, we can talk about it some more.”
Her face was hard to read, and she didn’t respond right away, but she didn't seem opposed to the idea either. It almost looked as if Greg had made her blush. “Sure, that would be great.”
Greg drove home with a lot on his mind. He had a busy work week ahead of him, and he had a lot of prepping to do on the side. There would be plenty of chatter about Ebola in the prepper chat rooms that he could draw from. Like many others, he considered the possibility of the disease going airborne but also believed the chances relatively slim.
Just because Ebola couldn't be airborne doesn't mean that it wasn't highly contagious. He thought of his coworkers and their concerns, and about what measures he could take to prep his house for an outbreak. Lastly, he thought briefly of Veronica, and how he wanted to help her, if things came to that.
The outside air had noticeably cooled with evening’s approach. Along the street, pine trees swayed in the slight breeze. Dogs barked into the night as airplanes flew overhead. Beyond the routine normalcy of quiet neighborhoods and the busy lights of Carson City, a desert lay in the distance, looking like an ocean of black.
Somewhere in the heart of the city, among the skyscrapers, restaurants, hotels, traffic lights, and theaters sat Carson Tahoe, Northern Nevada's main hospital. Within its walls, in an undisclosed location, Sergeant Tim Shields was being held and treated for the Ebola virus: one of many medical or military personnel who had somehow carried the disease back home despite a lengthy screening process.
Greg drove under the streetlights of his residential neighborhood until reaching home, conveniently located at the end of a cul-de-sac. Living at such a spot gave him a view of anyone driving through their neighborhood. He wasn't a paranoid man, but he knew that there were some people still out there looking for him, people from a life he had led before moving to Carson City under a new identity. It was a past he rarely gave much thought to as of late, but the memories still reared their ugly head every now and then. Greg believed in pushing forward, and above all, survival. He parked his van in the driveway and went into the house, carrying his tote bag of books.
Lights were on in the windows of the homes around him. It was dinner time, and almost everyone was home from work, eating and watching TV. Greg's home was first among four others that circled the cul-de-sac. His modern, one-story two-bedroom was not as imposing as the larger homes nearby. Most of them were two-story or, if one-story, at least twice as long as his. It was a nice neighborhood though, for the most part. There were families, couples, and retirees in the diverse and friendly neighborhood.
Greg, however, remained low-key, trying not to draw too much attention to himself. His prepping was his business, and he was a strong believer in exhibiting OPSEC, Operational Security, in any situation. The less they knew about him, the better. His Red Light Security van was unmistakable though.
As Greg walked in, Captain rushed to the door to greet him. It was obviously the most exciting part of the dog's day as he jumped up and stood with his front paws against Greg's stomach, panting exasperatingly.
“That's a good boy. Are you happy to see me?” Greg said, patting him.
Captain barked as Greg scratched his head behind his ears vigorously. His brown eyes gleamed. His teeth were exposed in an opened-mouth smile.
“You wanna go outside? Is that what you want?”
Captain barked again.
“Then let's do it! Let's get you outside!”
Greg ran to the back door as Captain followed. As soon as the door was opened, Captain shot past him and ran outside into the back yard. Greg watched Captain with affection as the dog grabbed a purple ball in his mouth and darted off behind the bushes. He was a fine-looking German shepherd and a loyal companion at that.
After feeding Captain, Greg took his boots off, got out of his work clothes, and changed into shorts and a T-shirt. He turned the TV on, as he always did when making a meal, and heated up some leftover pasta in the microwave. Not surprisingly, more Ebola news echoed throughout the living room. Greg sat in his favorite recliner with the warm pasta bowl in his hand and flipped through the channels in search of any new developments.
All the nightly newscasts carried the same reports of Ebola patients in the US. It was a particularly hot issue because the patients contracted the disease following a military deployment, which, in some circles, put the blame squarely on the federal government.
An agitated male pundit in a TV roundtable discussion continued. “What do we even know about this disease other than what the CDC tells us? It seems like it changes every day. We hear of medical personnel in full protective gear still getting infected. And when that happens, the CDC blames the victim by saying that they must not have followed procedures correctly.”
A woman with frizzy hair interjected. “The CDC has remained consistent on its procedures from day one. This is a desperate attempt by opportunists like yourself to gin up panic where it needn't be.”
“You're deflecting, Mary. Americans have every right to be concerned. We were promised that all personnel from Operation United Assistance would be screened prior to returning to the US. We were told that the chances of Ebola spreading were unlikely. Now the government is wrong on both account
s. And you want to just keep believing whatever they tell us. It's unacceptable.”
The host of the show, a man with a British accent, cut in. “I think it's fair to say that there is a certain amount of incompetence on the part of the government in dealing with this disease, but we also have to consider the overall low numbers of those infected with Ebola when compared to other contagions.”
“I'd take the flu over Ebola any day,” the man said back.
Greg shut off the television and rose from his recliner. TV time was over. He walked down the hall to his computer room as Captain followed, and placed the bag of books on top of his desk. He turned on his laptop and the overhead office lamp. He knew the basics of hunkering down in the event of an outbreak: bleach, Lysol, windows duct-taped, controlled ventilation, and plastic lining to cover the windows, but he wanted to know more. After some brief Ebola page-turning, he typed up a shopping list:
N95 respirator
Surgical mask
Surgical hood
Face shield
Eye protection
Long-sleeved waterproof gown
Coveralls
Waterproof gloves
Latex gloves
Closed-toe shoes and shoe covers
Plastic lining
Duct-tape
Bleach
Peroxide
Sanitizer
He felt strange compiling the list, as if he were some mad scientist. However, during a real epidemic, he'd have no choice but to hunker down to avoid contamination. He began to estimate his current food and water supply and came to the conclusion that he had enough food to last him six months.
For full protection, he knew that he’d have to get a full HAZMAT suit—two suits, just in case. An on-line search showed them in prices ranging from one thousand to two grand. During his search, he also read an article about how the government had spent billions of dollars, just in the past year, purchasing HAZMAT suits at an unprecedented rate. Such a mass purchase was driving up the costs among retailers through simple supply and demand. But Greg did have a lifeline, a man he knew with real connections who could get him just about anything.
From his mysterious past, Greg knew the man as Xavier. They were associates once—spies in another life. Xavier, like Greg, was living in secret somewhere in “normalville,” USA. Greg didn’t like to reach out to him unless he really needed something. In this case, he needed two complete HAZMAT suits, and Xavier was the man to get them. Contacting him wouldn’t be easy. Greg knew the drill; He’d first have to get a disposable phone to make the call. He added it to the list and continued to prep.
Greg's garage had been transformed into a storage unit of sorts with just enough extra room for his weight bench and exercise gear. Near his washer and dryer machine he had a pallet of MREs hidden under a thick tarp. He also had a large rack containing five-gallon jugs of water. He was prepared for both food shortages and loss of water in the most extreme circumstances.
In the kitchen, his pantry was stocked with a variety of dried, canned, and pickled foods. Stored throughout his house were medical supplies, batteries, para cords, water filters, and items that could run without power, such as solar-operated hand-crank radios and flashlights. In addition to that, he had several boxes of chemical lights, or “ChemLights,” self-contained sticks which glow upon being snapped.
In the living room, there were plenty of books and jigsaw puzzles to keep his mind occupied. Greg owned an M4 Carbine rifle, a Mossberg 500 shotgun, and a 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol, all secured within his biometric weapon safe. The price of ammunition had been going through the roof, and his attempt to keep a healthy reserve of rifle, pistol, and shotgun ammunition on hand didn't come cheap.
Out back in his padlocked shed, he had tools, nails, and plywood. He even had a five-thousand-watt KW tactical quiet generator on hand. Fuel storage often proved problematic, due to the lifespan of stored fuel in containers; however, he regularly kept the generator topped off.
It would seem that before the Ebola news, Greg had thought of almost everything. He had once earned a 95 percent rating from an on-line assessment in his prepper group. Through all of his hard work in acquiring a sustainable supply of good materials, he had been prepping for an economic collapse or natural disaster. Now he was changing his tactics to consider the possibility of an epidemic, despite the CDC's claims that such a thing would never happen.
With Captain sleeping by his feet, Greg devised a hunker-down plan similar to the response he might develop for any disaster. The fundamentals were the same. His home would become an isolated safe house, and he’d have to be able to sustain himself within its walls for an inordinate amount of time. The gruesome pictures he saw both on-line and within his books propelled his decision. He always knew that Ebola was a terrible disease, but the images of patients with swollen glands, and covered in red spots, burst blood vessels, and feces were too horrifying to consider.
He highlighted a passage in his book:
The virus itself attacks every organ and tissue in the body, causing blood clots and hemorrhaging, vomiting, stomach pain, and internal and external bleeding. Ebola ravages the body slowly and painfully from inside until there is nothing left.
It was no wonder the disease had such a high mortality rate.
Greg tabbed certain pages and went back to typing his list. He considered that there would be a point where he would have to leave the house for supplies. The hunker-down plan would work temporarily, but it was not a long-term solution. He took a deep breath and added “HAZMAT suit and M-95 chemical mask” to his list.
He thought of the people in his neighborhood—good people, mostly—and thought of ways he could help them. Perhaps he could call a town meeting and discuss the potential outbreak. Would people go for it? The time, he felt, was now. Ebola was back in the news and bigger than ever. Then he thought of the dangers that existed: the people who posed a threat, those who would want what he had, and those who would take what he had in an act of desperation. There was a risk in alerting his neighbors to anything.
If word got out that his house was some kind of decontamination zone, they would overwhelm him the minute the shit hit the fan. Then it was decided: he would have to secure his home more rigorously than he had planned. He'd have to make traps and set a security perimeter. If there was one thing that Greg understood, it was how to crawl around tight spaces and connect wires.
Lying in bed that evening, Greg flipped through the dusty old book Veronica had picked out for him on the history of epidemics. His smart phone lay on the night stand next to him, the alarm set for eight in the morning. He rarely used the phone, as he preferred to keep his communications private, and therefore face-to-face. However, he did frequent prepper chat rooms under the guise of anonymity. He had to be cautious with his new life in the Nevada suburbs. Ebola, unfortunately, had complicated everything for him.
He read on under the dim light on his nightstand and found himself fascinated. In biblical times, typhoid and smallpox plagues occurred, killing hundreds of thousands around the world. The infamous bubonic plague, known as “Black Death,” killed forty percent of the population in the mid-sixth century. It was a horrifying disease and highly contagious, with symptoms every bit as ravaging and painful as Ebola.
To top off his night, Greg continued reading about the smallpox and measles plagues in early American history. In the past two centuries—in America and throughout the world—there had been yellow fever, cholera outbreaks, typhus, malaria, tuberculosis, influenza, AIDS, and Ebola. Epidemics had come and went, and Greg wondered if it was not time for a new outbreak—something that could mutate and flourish even within a highly civilized society. Were they any more immune?
New York City
It was just another hectic morning in Times Square as the city awoke to its own vivid routine. Gigantic flashing signs and tickers buzzed from overhead while plasma screens the size of a theater screen displayed news from several different channels. Skyscr
apers looked down upon the city's millions of inhabitants, shielding many of them from the rising sun. A swarm of yellow taxi cabs moved at a snail’s pace, together with a convoy of all kinds of other vehicles, packed into every conceivable space.
Construction boomed loudly along Seventh Avenue, with workers tearing up the sidewalk to make room for a new lane. As always, commuters on foot outnumbered vehicles. Masses of people moved together in large packs—tourists and residents alike—across the busy intersections, down the pedestrian plaza, and through the Broadway Theater District. Many were simply trying to get to work, while others snapped pictures enthusiastically everywhere they went.
This, the busiest neighborhood in Manhattan, was a feast for the eyes, featuring giant Broadway show billboards, movie ads, golden arches, and towering buildings that housed the offices of renowned financial institutions, news agencies, and major publishers.
As perhaps the most famous hub of activity known, there was no place like Times Square, and no place more visited. It was where they celebrated the New Year's Eve ball drop, the epicenter of excitement. And, as one of the most recognizable places in the world, it was frequented by more than three hundred thousand people a day. Times Square's history and reputation made it a symbol of the American dream. There was also no place more suitable for an epidemic to spread.
Laura Walsh had just made it to her news office headquarters moments before her morning meeting with producers. Formally a small-town journalist from Virginia, Laura had moved to the city to join the big leagues and try her hand at a major news division. Outside of the major networks, the Cable Broadcasting Network, or CBN, had risen to become every bit as large as its behemoth counterparts, especially in investigative reporting.
Its weekly broadcast Your News Now was known for its heavy-hitting news segments and no-nonsense approach. When Laura was offered an internship two years prior, she didn't hesitate to take them up on their offer, and she immediately relocated to the big city.
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