August Burning (Book 1): Outbreak

by Lahey, Tyler

  “The fuck?” Jaxton stood, suddenly feeling excited. Jaxton’s heart was suddenly thumping, though he hadn’t noticed it before. He scratched his own beard distractedly and leaned in. “When’s the last time anyone heard from their parents?” He did his best to affect a casual demeanor, knowing they would respect him less if he seemed too invested or panicked.

  Liam snapped forward, suddenly losing all of his casual drunkenness.

  “Same story as this afternoon. Maybe two hours ago, my parents and brothers were still stuck on the highway coming south.”

  Jaxton rose to his feet, his eyes darting around the room, trying to shake the effects of the whiskey. “I tried calling my mother coming down a bit ago, and it went straight to voicemail.”

  Bennett looked at them in bemusement, “What are you guys even saying? There’s a ton of people coming into town for all the universities that have graduation ceremonies. Everything is probably just moving a little more slowly.” He looked to Adira for support, but found none.

  Troy frowned, caught between his suspicions and not wanting to overreact. Adira laid her piano fingers on this hairy skin. “Is there anyone you can call? Find out if something is going on?” Her dark eyes pleaded shamelessly.

  “I’m just in ROTC, I’m not really sure-“ He started. Then he gathered himself, feeling moved to action by Adira’s plead. “Let me call a friend.” Without another word he strolled into the hallway, any prior sign of indecision gone.

  Bennett leaned forward, looking incredulous. “What are you guys so worked up about? What Liam is saying would be, ya know, like an EMP.” He laughed, but it sounded forced.

  “I’m telling you what I just saw on the TV.”

  “What stations were reporting it?”

  “All of them.”

  “Everyone try your parents again.” Jaxton said sternly. He tried his mother and brother, both of whom were supposedly shuttling through Northern Maryland in the family’s little SUV. His brother picked up on the final ring.

  “Jaxton. Jaxton. Can you hear me?” His brother’s cracking voice cut through on speaker phone.

  “Brian, what the hell is going on, you guys were supposed to call me hours ago.” Everyone in the room stopped to listen to the conversation.

  “We’ve been trying to. For hours. There’s something going on…in the city. Me and mom are in a motel off the highway…still like an hour north of you. But we can’t get back on the road. They’re all blocked.” His voice was laced with admirably contained panic. The boy was only sixteen.

  “Put mom on.” Jaxton demanded, meeting the eyes of his friends around the table. He saw Harley step out, her eyes glued to her phone.

  “Jaxton?” A shrill female voice interrupted them.

  “Mom. What’s going on?”

  “Jax, I don’t know. There was traffic for miles. I’m sorry we couldn’t make it tonight sweetie. We’ll be there tomorrow.”

  “Mom you sound worried. The news is reporting a blackout in New York.”

  There was a noticeable pause, before the voice lost all its shrillness. “Your brother had the news on. CNN said there was some sort of event inside New York….no electronic devices of any kind are still working? I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ll be there tomorrow, don’t worry.” She finished with a pleading tone.

  “Alright listen, let’s check back in if we learn anything new. Both of us.” Jaxton was beginning to feel a knot of concern building in his gut.

  “Ok. Ok. Ok, love you. We’ll talk later, ok? Love you.”

  “Love you both. Bye.”

  “There’s people walking around the streets,” Bennett said faintly, his head pressed against the glass to look ten stories below.

  “Guys. Listen.” Harley burst back into the room, her face flush from the vodka. “I couldn’t reach them by phone. My dad texted me an hour ago, it looks like, and I just got it. He said he had been talking to his police friend as they were stuck in traffic on 95. There was apparently some sort of disturbance at a hospital, in downtown New York, before their own call was disconnected.” She stopped talking, her face stricken in fearful confusion.

  “Well! Spit it out!” Jaxton’s neck strained as he spoke.

  “Some dispatchers were reporting the patients were attacking the officers on scene. I don’t know. That’s all I know.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Bennett returned from the window, his earlier ambivalence gone.

  Harley squinted at her phone, the soft blue glow lighting her face. “Apparently all the electronics went out simultaneously. In like, a wave.”

  “That’s an EMP!” Jaxton wagged a finger violently, caught up breathlessly in the conspiracy. “Terrorists?”

  Liam was typically the voice of calmer reason, but he too was caught up in the fever. No one could deny it. “Could be the government. Connected with the situation at the hospital…I’m not sure. This is big. Something’s up.”

  Adira had joined Bennett at the window. His hand was settled on her waist. “Guys, we need to go outside.”

  As a group, they rose and scurried downstairs and out into the chilly night. They emerged onto the street, now crowded with people. Families clung together and students gathered excitedly, speaking to other groups in search of information. The mood seemed more curious than fearful, Jaxton thought, as if they were learning of some far-off natural disaster.

  Liam read from his phone as people scuttled all around them. “The Associated Press is now officially reporting that some sort of electronic event occurred in Lower Manhattan at approximately 8:13pm…no electronics of any kind are operational within a nine or ten mile radius…the roads outbound of New York are totally blocked with traffic. Nothing about a hospital disturbance.”

  “What was that?” A middle-aged father dragged his family closer to Liam. His eyes peered out feverishly. As he spoke, he clutched his two frightened young daughters tight to him.

  “We heard this whole thing started because of an incident at a hospital in Manhattan,” Liam said calmly.

  The man drew even closer, his fatty jowls quivering. “A hospital? What’s going on?”

  Jaxton frowned, cutting the man off, “We know as much as you do.” The man clenched his daughters till they were squirming and dragged them off to another group of people, where he demanded the same answers.

  Troy frowned at his phone. “My parents said their flight was originally delayed a few hours. Now all outbounds to New York, Boston, and DC are cancelled. The National Guard showed up to clear the airport.”

  The sound of sirens wailing threw their nerves on edge. A police cruiser halted in front of the mass of mingling people. “Everyone clear the street!” “Clear the roads!” A young officer, looking smart in his pressed Capitol Police uniform, set his jaw against the complaints of the crowd. Two more cruisers came roaring down the street, and the people scattered to the sidewalks. The cars took up position at each intersection, stopping the flow of traffic.

  Within a minute, a motorcade whipped past them, tiny American flags snapping in the evening breeze. Four motorcycle cops led the way for a series of black SUVs, flanked by another police cruiser.

  Harley raised a quivering voice. “People are gathering at the student center. Elvis’ is there with his parents.” She spoke to the group but her hazel eyes looked to Liam’s imposing form for direction.

  Jaxton didn’t let him answer. “Let’s move.”

  Chapter Six

  45 minutes after Outbreak. Washington, D.C

  The entire sprawling Student Center building occupied half a block, its massive glass windows stretching two floors from roof to ceiling. Almost every single seat in the dining hall was taken, all eyes fixed on a series of huge TV screens posted on the wall.

  “Guys!” Elvis emerged from the crowd, waving them over aggressively. Admirably, he was still trying to look poised, Jaxton noticed.

  “You heard?”

  “Yeah, come watch this. Come here babe.” He reached out
to Harley, who awkwardly moved a bit closer to him.

  Elvis’s mother and father sat attentively in the corner, their faces transfixed on the TV above. They gave Elvis’s friends only the slightest of acknowledgements before the older man began spewing out a fast rhythm of observations and speculation.

  Elvis locked eyes with Harley, and tried to smile calmly.

  “-That’s right Ted, we are currently heading into the Newark, New Jersey area, where the blackout extends.” A booming female voice was echoing in the student hall. The monitors showed aerial shots of a smartly dressed anchorwoman sitting in an open door news-helicopter. She was shouting to be heard above the wind, even with her microphone clutched tight. She gestured out of the helicopter door, “As you can hopefully see in the station, the blackout zone starts right here.” The landscape was sharply divided in the night, as if a line had been drawn in the earth. Closer to New York City itself, there wasn’t a single light. To the west, they could all see thousands of twinkling little lights as if nothing had ever happened. The helicopter passed over the line, its blades thudding relentlessly.

  “From this point forward all electronics were simultaneously rendered unusable at about 8:13 pm this evening. Experts in electronic warfare are pointing to signs of an electromagnetic pulse.” The lady leaned precariously close to the open door, peering into the blackness now stretching all around her. “I can see several cars moving west, towards the unaffected zone. Obviously these must be older models.”

  “Be careful Diane.” The shot cut back to the newsroom, where three very stern looking anchormen sat with furrowed brows and sharp suits. The lead anchor spoke with his left eyebrow slightly cocked, his smooth jaw line jutting impressively. “Let’s bring our viewers up to speed. We’d like to share all the information we have this point in time. In the twenty-five minutes preceding the electronic blackout, this station received several reports of strange violence at a local downtown hospital. According to sources who were in Manhattan at the time, the NYPD began responding to calls of patient violence against hospital staff at 7:45pm.” The cameras switched and Ted turned grimly to face it.

  “We would now like to bring you a man in Connecticut, who says he received a call from his brother who works in that very hospital.”

  The camera remained on Ted, but a voice compounded by static cut in, “Hello. Yes, Hello.” The male voice spoke with a thick Spanish accent.

  “Carlos, this is Ted Warren, CNN International. You’re live on the air right now. Tell us exactly what your brother told you on that phone call.”

  “Yes, Ted. Ted I got a call, eh, from my brother about ten minutes before the blackout. He is a nurse, at uh…Manhattan Memorial. He sounded really scared. He, uh….he told me he was leaving work early because something was happening on the Emergency Room floor. He told me one of the patients became, ehh, like an animal, very violent, ehh, and did not listen to anyone. The patient attacked and bit a few people before they were able to tie him down. They-“

  “Carlos. Carlos we lost you for a second. Carlos can you hear me.”

  “-bit two more people, just attacked them with their own teeth. Ehh, the doctors called the police but the people kept going crazy, more and more of them. They tried to tie them all down but a police-man got bit… That’s when my brother ran away.” Carlos ended his ramble ruefully, his voice twinged with subtle panic.

  “Carlos, have you been able to reach your brother since?”

  “Eh, no Ted. No.”

  Ted turned back to the main camera, staring directly at the viewers. “Carlos, thank you for these stunning revelations,” he said with practiced poise and empathy.

  “Well folks, you are now in the same boat as us…we plan on keeping you posted throughout the evening with our all night-coverage. Diane, how is it from the sky over the blackout zone?”

  The cameras cut back to the interior of the helicopter, with Diane sitting calmly near the window, her usually perfectly coiffed blond hair blowing haphazardly. “Ted, as you can see, we are passing over the Hudson River. To my left is the George Washington Bridge, and…” She pressed her earpiece,

  “Jimmy, can you take us north, we need a shot of the bridge.” Then she turned back to her cameraman. “Our pilot is going to take us to the bridge, where we hope to get a look at any traffic that might still be using it.”

  “Diane, can you show us the city?”

  The camera jostled as the chopper continued to surge north. The view that filled the screen hushed even those who had continued to speak during the earlier broadcast. The Manhattan skyline was outlined faintly against a stormy night-sky. Dozens of silent and black towers stood menacingly, bereft of lights and life. They stretched north and south, and for the first time in its history the skyscrapers in Manhattan looked utterly devoid of life.

  “There are stars,” Harley murmured. They all exhaled in wonder, realizing for the first time that without the lights, hundreds of isolated pixels were visible in between the black buildings. Then Jaxton felt a twinge of momentary horror, as he considered the possibility that there was a furious panic raging in darkness on the streets below.

  The helicopter was nearing the bridge. Diane was leaning dangerously far out of the open window, completely oblivious to her peril. A burly producer’s arm reached out and pulled her a few inches back. She flashed a quick flash of gratitude backwards, her eyes alive with excitement.

  “As you can see, the bridge is totally blacked out as well.” The chopper began to descend as the bridge loomed larger in the picture. Jaxton could make out the trusses and cables, even in the dark. All the viewers peered into that mass of metal shadows, looking for any clues. Without any warning, the camera focused and the picture exploded in movement. There were hundreds of little figures streaming west across the bridge, leaping and bounding over the blocked masses of stuck cars. “Jesus-“ Diane started. The thunder of helicopter blades overran her voice.

  A flash of blinding light filled the camera, and a curt voice boomed over a loudspeaker. “LEAVE THE BLACKOUT AREA IMMEDIATELY. LEAVE THIS AREA NOW. THIS IS THE UNITED STATES ARMY. LEAVE NOW-“ The voice continued as the news chopper swerved violently and dropped to the water. The other helicopter pointed two massive searchlights directly at them. The camera view shook violently, but the viewers could see Diane clutching the handholds with none of her previous poise. The news-helicopter appeared to level out and rise on the opposite bank of the Hudson before motoring west, back the way it came. The picture abruptly cut back to the news-desk and a hopelessly confused staff.

  “It appears the government is on hand to take care of this situation, and…uh…one can only pray for the safety of those poor people in Manhattan.” Ted was beginning to look mightily flustered. A glimmering sheen of sweat graced his upper brow. “Diane, hope you’re ok out there.”

  The camera lingered on the silent and befuddled news-desk before abruptly cutting back to the chopper-cam. Diane was staring back towards the east, till trying to regain her composure. “We have been told to leave, uh, by the authorities. The helicopter will now head back to the undisturbed part of New Jersey for-“ Ted cut her off.

  “Folks, we have another reporter on the ground at the edge of the blackout zone. Cheryl, what can you tell us about the situation?”

  This time the view changed to a well-lit woman, beautiful and ethnically ambiguous, standing in front of a highway sign. The hills beyond her rose eerily in the darkness. “Ted, I am currently standing on the edge of 78 East, just outside of Orange, New Jersey. This highway leads directly to the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, and surprisingly we found it was not empty.” Her voice rang merrily in the dignified yet unnatural tone all news-anchors train in. She paced a few steps to her right, and stood in the road.

  “As you can see, the Army is surging into the blackout Zone, which begins five hundred feet down this road. My experts tell me these are not National Guard units, but instead are Fast-Response Army Units designated for combat situations.
My team has counted numerous biohazard teams as well…” As Cheryl droned on, an endless stream of trucks and armored vehicles filled with soldiers in gas-masks roared down the road into the waiting blackness. One of the trucks stopped aggressively, and a crisp looking sergeant major with silver hair bore down on the reporter. He grabbed her roughly by the arm as the camera was jostled by unseen hands. The feed turned to black, then the view cut inexplicably to Diane, who began fumbling with a new set of ambiguous lines.

  Jaxton took a quick scan of the student center. Every pair of eyes in the packed space was glued to the screen. Dozens were furiously typing text messages or holding whispered phone conversations. Elvis stood right next to Harley, his hand clutching her own where no one could see. They all looked completely terrified, he thought. Only a fool wouldn’t be. Only Bennett met his eyes, for a brief moment of mutual understanding. Jaxton clenched his teeth together in anxious anticipation and hissed to his friend, “the shit’s about to hit the fan.”

  Adira’s eyes snapped to his own in a momentary rage, before cooling immediately and softening, almost to a plea.

  Diane’s cameraman was focusing on the now distant city. The black skyscrapers were barely visible against the starry horizon. Two muffled thumps halted Diane’s chatter immediately. Suddenly there was a violent explosion of fire on the left side of the picture. The trusses of the bridge were illuminated momentarily before the fire died to a barely visible speck. The viewers were taken back to the studio, but no one was paying attention anymore.

  “We need to move.” Jax clapped Bennett and Liam on their shoulders hard, indicating the doors with a stricken set of eyes. The crowd in the center began shouting and jostling all at once, knocking over chairs and bustling towards the exits. “Move!” Liam cried aloud, pushing the two girls in front of him and grabbing Bennett. Jaxton saw a tall father holding his crying young son high above the heads of the crowd. Women yelled and swore in shrill voices. Bennett spotted a shaved head bobbing in the crowd ahead.