“Everyone stay calm and listen.” Bobo said. His voice, though louder, didn’t quite carry as much as Mr. Soul’s trained tones. Everyone heard him though, and heads turned. Bobo lowered the pistol slowly, but kept it in his hand and in view. “Some of the people on the news is using the word zombies. And the pictures they showing make it hard to argue with them.”
“You for real?”
Bobo shrugged, but he also nodded once. “That what happening. Downtown, around Atlanta, and now here.” He gestured at the dead kids, and at the wounded. Some people were busy using paper towels and washcloths to clean and slow the blood flow. Ratboy was lying flat on the ground, slowly bleeding out. Darryl was already thinking of him as dying, rather than merely wounded. There was just so much blood on the grass around him.
“So what that got to do with us?”
“It got everything to do with us.” Bobo said tightly. “We here, ain’t we? Zombies here, ain’t they?”
“Ain’t no zombies here.”
“No? What you think they was?” Bobo demanded, pointing at one of the kids he’d shot.
There was silence. Darryl looked, like nearly everyone else, at Mr. Soul. The preacher smiled and spread his hands as if welcoming their questions. “Evil takes many forms, for Satan is eternally devious and patient.”
“Look.” Stony stepped out from the densest portion of the crowd, near the clubhouse. “I ain’t disrespecting you Mr. Soul. But just cause you say they zombies . . . that crazy talk, ain’t it? Zombies ain’t real.”
Mr. Soul shrugged slowly, as if the challenging question was of no consequence. “You’ve eyes so you might see what God wants you to see, even if Satan tries to trick you. Look now at what has happened here, and know truth.”
“Yeah, look.” Bobo said, moving to the closest of the wounded Dogz. “See, that ain’t no cut, and it ain’t no tear neither. That a bite, a full on taking a chomp and eating it bite. See, come look. Don’t just hear me and wonder. Walk on over here and look.” He pointed at the gaping hole in Ape’s arm, and in Hooligan’s too. Darryl looked, and couldn’t think of anything else to call the wounds than what Bobo had. They were bites, sure as sure could be.
“So, they was trying to eat people?”
Bobo nodded.
“Why?”
Bobo shrugged and glanced over at Mr. Soul as if asking for help.
“We have always been caught between Heaven and Hell.” the preacher said. “Today, Hell is a little closer than it was yesterday. We’re to overcome it, same as we are everything else Satan sets in the path we walk to God.”
“How?” Darryl was startled to discover he’d asked that question.
Bobo turned to him, giving him a measuring look. Darryl was suddenly a little embarrassed; Bobo had tried to warn him about this a couple of hours ago, and he hadn’t listened. Now four people were dead, and five others were hurt.
“We need to stop fucking off and get ready for what’s coming.” Bobo said. “There new rules in play, and we gotta know that or there ain’t gonna be no tomorrow for us.”
Bobo looked around slowly, taking his time to study each face before moving on to the next. People shuffled their feet, or glanced around to see how others were responding, but no one said anything. Bobo finally finished his survey and moved towards the fire pit.
“Rule One. Until we know how people turning into zombies, everyone gotta be watchful. Stay in big groups, don’t wander off in small ones. Big group, there a chance to stop someone if they start trying to eat somebody. Small group, more likely a zombie gonna get you.
“Rule Two. Everyone armed, all the time, everywhere. Even in the bathroom. If you old enough to drive, you old enough to help defend us.”
“We ain’t got no guns for that.” Shooter said. “I mean, I can loan someone my backup piece, but even then . . .” he shrugged. Darryl knew he was right; appearances of being big bad bikers to the contrary, the majority of the Dogz were just guys who enjoyed riding motorcycles and hanging out with their friends. Even without checking there would be few weapons available to put in people’s hands.
Bobo nodded. “I getting to that. Rule Three. Dogz first, everyone else second.”
Darryl frowned, turning that one over in his mind. At first impulse, it sounded pretty redundant. The Dogz always focused on their own first. That was sort of the whole point of being in the club. But, as he thought a little more, his brow furrowed.
One of the women beat him to the conclusion. “What that mean? You kicking out anyone without a patch?” She looked familiar, and Darryl placed her after a few moments as an ex-girlfriend of Stick’s. An ex-girlfriend who’d been with Stick longer than most of his exes, one who might have maybe married him if things had gone a little differently. What was her name?
Darryl was still trying to remember that when Bobo replied. “Naw, that ain’t quite what I mean.”
“Well? What then?”
“If you got a patch, you a Dog. If you here now, or if you family, then you a Dog too.”
“My family ain’t all here.” Needles said loudly.
“Then make some calls. Everyone who got family left outside, you make some calls and tell them to get here. But they need to hurry, ‘cause based on what I seen on the news, there ain’t much time before things get real bad. But no one coming here is gonna stay who ain’t being vouched for by a Dog.”
Darryl saw a few of his brothers pull phones out, while a few more started trying to argue. Bobo shook his head definitely. “End of discussion.” he said flatly. “Now, here’s what we gonna do.”
* * * * *
Jessica
“You look tired.” Jessica remarked to Candice, who was belatedly covering a yawn as she sat back from the empty plate of cookies. “Why don’t you go take your bath and get into your PJs, okay?”
“Okay.” Candice said agreeably, pushing back from the table and making as if to pick up her plate.
“Thank you for remembering sweetie, but mommy will take care of that.” Jessica said quickly, making a motion for her to leave the plate on the table.
Candice nodded, then turned and left the dining room. Jessica surveyed the remains of the meal, one of her daughter’s favorites. Pizza with chicken and pineapple, French fries with barbecue sauce, and grandma’s cookies. Only a few pieces of the two pizzas were left on the circular baking pans in the center, though there were probably two or maybe three servings of fries still in the paper towel lined basket.
When she heard Candice’s footsteps on the stairs, Jessica waited another few seconds, then gave her mother a look. “Mom, did you dose my daughter?”
“Why Jessica, would I do that?” Sharon asked innocently as she nibbled on a cookie and raised her eyebrows.
“Yes.” Jessica said with a firm nod. “You used to do it to me until I caught you crushing up the allergy pills. The glass of milk you were going to hand me, with the pills in it, was right next to you on the counter.”
“Ah, and times were harder after that.” Sharon said with a smile. “Candice needs to sleep, and after what she’s been through it might come harder than you or she’d like. I gave her a children’s dose. Sometimes it can be handy if something induces drowsiness.”
Jessica sighed, but couldn’t really find an argument she felt like making. Her mother was probably right. “Well, I’d better get this cleaned up.” She said, standing and starting to stack plates. Sharon helped, taking the serving dishes into the kitchen behind her.
Jessica pulled down a pair of Tupperware containers to put the leftover pizza and fries in, and dumped the cookies into the cookie jar on the counter while her mother rinsed the plates and glasses before putting them in the dishwasher. She took the dish cloth into the dining room and wiped the table down, then came back into the kitchen just as her mother was tucking the baking sheets into the dishwasher next to the other dishes.
“There, now let’s sit down and find out what’s going on.” Sharon said.
Noddin
g, Jessica went into the living room, where her father had already claimed the remote and turned the television over to his favorite newscast. Jessica settled herself in the recliner Brett had always favored, while her mother joined William on the couch. Her father gave her a quick glance, his eyes warm and welcoming. But she could see the worry in them, especially as he flicked them back to the television.
The screen was displaying a map of America, with swaths of red and orange marked all across it. Cities were labeled with dots and text, black outlined with white that showed up quite well against the colors. She looked automatically at Georgia, and saw Atlanta was coated in red, with nearby Athens similarly crimson hued.
For some reason she found that, momentarily, funny. The color they were using was the same as the UGA sports teams. It almost made her smile, she felt her lips starting to curve for an instant, but then the image of Joey and Sandra earlier this afternoon flooded in to chase the humor away. She blinked twice and resumed examining the map.
The northeastern United States had a callout box in the upper right corner of the screen, since on the big map it looked like a solid red mass. In the callout, she saw every city that was marked was also covered in red. Glancing across the rest of the map, she noted that while the major west coast cities, like Los Angeles and San Francisco were red, nearly all of the marked and shaded areas in the adjoining states like Nevadan and Arizona were orange or even yellow.
She realized someone on the broadcast was speaking, a voice she’d been ignoring as she studied the map. Shaking herself mentally, she started listening properly so she could hear what was going on.
“–CDC is reporting outbreaks all across the country. While there are reports that even the smallest of communities have seen citizens come down with the disease, locales with the greatest population density seem to be suffering the worst. Schools and universities seem to have been hit especially hard, rough estimates put it at as many as two-thirds of the country’s student population having fallen ill.”
Jessica drew a deep breath, thinking of Joey and Sandra again, as she listened to the news anchor and his admirably calm and even voice. The graphic on the screen disappeared, replaced by the set of the ABC national newscast. Charlie Jennings’s suit was as sharp as ever, but his expression was touched, just a little, with an extra measure of graveness. His eyes seemed troubled, despite his professional demeanor as he faced the camera.
“We’d like to turn now to one of those experts, Doctor Peter Davidson, board certified in infectious diseases and internal medicine at John Hopkins. Doctor Davidson has consulted with the CDC and the World Health Organization numerous times over the past fifteen years, and is currently the lead researcher on a long term study into avian flu.”
The camera pulled back and panned a little to reveal a middle aged man in a suit sitting next to Jennings. His tie was knotted crookedly at his collar, and Jessica thought he looked rather tired. He didn’t smile as Jennings turned to him, only nodded as he waited for the first question. “Doctor Davidson, you’ve been in contact with colleagues around the country this afternoon, including some at the CDC. What can you tell us about the medical situation.”
Davidson hitched himself forward in his chair, frowning slightly as he opened his mouth. “I can say this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. There are still virulent and deadly diseases in the world, but we’ve never encountered one quite like this.”
“How does it differ?” Jennings prompted.
“Well, it’s an irrelevant argument which aspect of this disease is ‘worse’.” Davidson made little quote marks with his fingers, “But the fact that it seems to strike without any visible symptoms or signs before a victim is identified, combined with the unchecked aggression they thereafter exhibit, are among the most complicating factors for us as we try to get a handle on it.”
“Let’s talk a little about what symptoms there are once someone has become a victim.” Jennings asked, his voice still sounding professionally grave.
Davidson grimaced. “Aside from aggression, which is a very troubling symptom, victims seem to lose most of their motor coordination and become almost completely unresponsive to either verbal or physical stimuli. Additionally, their bodies seem to go into some form of hibernation or low metabolic state, similar to what we typically see in drowning victims pulled out of freezing water. Furt–”
“Let’s stay with that a moment.” Jennings said abruptly, clearly listening to his producer in his ear piece. “Because we’re seeing a number of reports from medical personnel around the country that victims seem to have no detectable signs of life.”
Davidson frowned slightly. “Well, clearly that’s impossible.”
“Why?” Jennings asked.
“Because if victims had no life signs, they would be dead.” Davidson said after a moment that he seemed to spend finding the right tone of voice that wouldn’t come out as too insulting. “And victims of this disease are clearly not dead.”
“Doctor Davidson, we have confirmed reports of, and in some cases have had copies of the monitor records faxed or emailed to us here at ABC News, of victims showing no activity on heart or brain monitors, that they are showing no lung function to indicate breathing.”
Jessica’s hand flew to her mouth in shock, and she was grateful Candice wasn’t in the room. Without the need to censor her reactions for her daughter’s benefit, she was free to vent the dismayed horror she felt at those words. Two of her children were victims, and even though the thought had occurred to her that they might well die of this, she hadn’t really faced that prospect head on yet. It left her feeling even more helpless than she already was.
“I wouldn’t be in a position to directly refute any results that I’ve not had a chance to review.” Davidson said on the television, his polite veneer slipping a bit as his annoyance, or maybe his impatience, with this line of questioning began to show. “But I can only say I’ve been in touch with a number of colleagues around the world, and I know they’re being overwhelmed with the size and scale of today’s outbreaks. Mistakes happen when a hospital becomes swamped with more patients than it’s designed to handle.”
“So you’re saying these reports must be errors?”
“They have to be.” Davidson said with a not quite sniff. “Without a heartbeat, without at least autonomic brain function, the human body ceases to operate; and the victims of this disease are clearly functioning. At least on some level. It’s simply going to take time to learn more about what this is, what causes it, and then ultimately how to treat it and beat it.”
“So you’re confident a treatment can be found?” Jennings asked.
“Well confident is a rather arrogant word for something as widespread and devastating as this outbreak, and only hours after we became aware of its existence. But I can’t imagine anything less than a near total application of our available resources being put to work on the problem. There shouldn’t be any of the usual delays of meetings and politics, both governmental and within the medical community, to prevent us from diving right in on the problem. I’m sure if our total resources are applied that we’ll be able to get some sort of a grip on this and work towards a treatment, and then a cure.”
Jessica had lowered her hands to the arms of the recliner, and was clenching her fingers tightly enough into the thick overstuffed cushioning to feel the hard wood frame beneath. She sent up a silent prayer as she hoped with all her being the expert was right. Jennings’ next question, therefore, did not please her at all.
“But with diseases such as AIDS, SARS, cancer, Alzheimer’s, to name but a few, still going unsolved, how can you be so sure?”
“Bastard.” Jessica whispered, hating the newsman for throwing water on the flicker of hope she was trying to keep kindled.
Davidson seemed to echo her sentiment, for now he openly scowled. “Charlie, I think we have to have hope a cure can be found. And I can only emphasize my faith in the ability of the worldwide community of medical prof
essionals to accomplish miracles when the funding is made available, and when the normal barricades and roadblocks that often get in the way of important research are removed.”
Jennings nodded, but he turned away from the doctor and faced the camera directly. “As we warned you at the top of the hour, the President is addressing the nation tonight. Our White House reporter has just told us the President is entering the White House Press Room now.”
As Jennings spoke, his image was replaced by a handsome wood podium bearing the Presidential Seal, with a pair of American flags behind it, and a layered blue background that had the oval White House emblem prominently positioned. A man with glasses who she only faintly recognized as maybe being the White House press secretary was talking, but the sound was still tuned to the ABC studio so the audience could hear Jennings. That changed after a moment, however, as the feed switched over.
“–stions on a limited basis, because most of the likely questions are better addressed by others we have standing by to answer them.” the man was saying. Jessica thought he looked a little harried, which she didn’t think was a good sign for someone who arguably had the preeminent job in the field of public relations. “And now, the President of the United States.”
There was no applause, and the press secretary didn’t even try to lead any, which Jessica thought was an even better sign of how serious things were. The familiar figure of the President stepped behind the podium, his appearance and face as poised and sharp as ever.
“Good evening.” the President said as he gripped the podium with both hands and gazed out across the room. “The events of today have thrust us into the midst of a crisis unlike any I think we’ve ever faced as a nation. From my meetings throughout the afternoon with my advisors, and with various state and federal government officials and agencies, I think it’s safe to say we are facing a crisis.
“So, first of all, I want to assure all Americans that your government is aware of the problem. Our full resources are being marshaled to deal with the events of today. Those resources will remain dedicated to the managing and resolution of this issue for as long as necessary until we can achieve that goal. I will not allow partisan divisions or politics as usual to divide us in this time of crisis. To put it simply, you are either part of the solution or part of the problem.
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