by S. Ganley
Dr. Woods waited patiently as he watched General Page and President Maxwell have a discussion with their volume muted. He knew that with this being an election year and President Maxwell already falling behind in popularity due to some unpopular tax initiatives and health care reforms that this was going to be a hard sell. What he was basically asking was for the military to roll into central New Jersey and form a tight net around a large swath of land leaving close to two hundred thousand people trapped. The political implications were staggering, if it turned out to be a false alarm he would be murdered in the polls. But, on the other hand if he took only limited or no action and this outbreak cost more lives because of it, that was political suicide as well.
"Dr. Woods, I am reluctant to impose a massive quarantine over such a wide area until we have more solid evidence that this is an actual epidemic we are dealing with and not just isolated incidents," The President said and held up his hand as he saw that Dr. Woods was about to say something in reply, "but, I will order National Guard units deployed to the staging areas in preparation for a quarantine if one is so ordered. My suggestion to you is to obtain your samples and get confirmation to this administration of your findings as soon as possible."
Dr. Martin leaned in to whisper in his ear before he replied, "take what we can get at this point, as long as we have the ball rolling we are ahead of the game. It is unlikely that any victims who have come in contact with the virus would be in any condition to travel beyond the affected area anyways and we might get lucky that this limitation will work to help contain it for us."
"Thank you Mr. President, we will continue working on this end to obtain samples and update you with our findings."
The President signed off and the screen went black at that point.
"He's not much on chit chat, is he?" asked Dr. Woods.
"No, and I am not surprised. Coming this close to an election, he is on the fence with either distancing himself from this or jumping in front of it. This is coming at the worst possible time from a political stand point, something neither of us really have to worry about but unfortunately something that we need to consider when looking for support," replied Dr. Martin.
Dr. Woods checked his watch, they should be hearing something from their response team pretty soon. The helicopter flight from Philadelphia to the Deborah Hospital Foundation medical center in Browns Mills, New Jersey was due to arrive in the next few minutes. The mixture of FEMA flight crew along with CDC response personal were tasked with entering the medical center in complete contamination gear, they would assess the condition of the center and obtain samples for testing at a secure mobile testing facility already waiting for their arrival in Philadelphia.
#
The orange and white marked chemical warfare modified Blackhawk helicopter circled wide of the medical center searching for a suitable landing spot. The facility was a regional center for a rural community and did not have a dedicated helicopter landing pad. The parking lots surrounding the buildings were chocked full of cars, trucks and ambulances, from the air the scene below looked confused and disorderly, the collection of vehicles were parked along curbs, in grassy areas and even on sidewalks. From several hundred feet in the air the helicopter slowly circled the area while the occupants carefully scanned the ground below with high powered binoculars, all efforts at reestablishing any form of communication with the staff inside the buildings had failed, because of this they wanted to get a good idea of the situation on the ground before touching down. What they were seeing now sent cold shivers down their spines. Bodies littered the ground all around every entrance to the medical center, so many prone forms were visible that it was impossible to get an accurate count. There was no doubt that anyone still alive on the ground would have heard them hovering close by just above the facility and made at least some effort at visual communication, but they could see no movement at all to indicate any survivors were on the ground nearby. Everyone on board this flight from the pilot to the crew chief and the CDC ground crews were fully covered in self-contained environmental suits with independent air supplies and internal radio systems. The suits would keep the men safe from even the tiniest of microbes that they may encounter. Using these suits gave them the disadvantage of a compressed time frame in the field. With two hours of oxygen supply and taking into account flight time both ways as well as decontamination upon their return, they were left with only thirty minutes on target. The pilot identified a clear strip of grass just over five hundred feet from the main building that was large enough to accommodate the helicopter and he signaled the ground team in the back to prepare for landing.
Moving as quickly as caution would allow in the bulky suits, four men jumped to the ground from the back of the helicopter and proceeded directly to the marked emergency entrance of the medical center. The team leader stopped for a moment just outside of the downdraft of the helicopters' rotor wash and deployed a small device with a battery operated motor that powered a small fan, this would move outside air through five separate filters of varying density and ultimately into five hermetically sealed test tubes which would trap air samples for later study. Two men carried digital camcorders and were tasked with recording significant details of the scene for later study. Both men were now panning their cameras back and forth as they passed through a small parking area clogged with ambulances as well as a number of civilian vehicles. The back of one ambulance was hanging wide open and the team could see a medic slumped over a prone body still strapped tight to a gurney. The medic appeared to have suffered from a violent round of vomiting tinged with blood before finally losing his fight against the virus. This scene in the back of the ambulance gave them a visual representation of just how fast some victims must have succumbed to the effects of this illness. One cameraman paused for a few seconds making sure he fully documented this single scene inside the back of the ambulance. Even though these men had all seen death in many forms throughout their careers, when the cameraman finally realized that the covered form on the gurney underneath the body of the medic was that of a small child no more than seven or eight, he had to turn away and try to concentrate on something else while he continued panning the camera back and forth.
Moving into the building they were confronted with a scene right out of a horror movie, bodies were everywhere, lining floors, on gurneys, slumped in chairs and they even saw one man who died standing up. The body was held in place between a pair of vending machines the fronts of which were still coated in a glistening glaze of vomit, his pants visibly soaked from the crotch down where he had evacuated his bladder and bowels when the cold hand of death finally reached out to embrace him.
"We've got some live ones here." The call came over their built in radio systems. Taking a closer look through the victims scattered throughout the facility they now started to find more and more people who were still clinging to the last vestige of life. A cursory examination of a few of these survivors revealed that their vital signs were rapidly declining, there was little the team could do to help them, their job was to secure samples and document the scene, giving aid was not possible or even feasible.
"Hey, I've got one without any symptoms here." The team leader called out. All four men gathered around a girl no more than thirteen years old who was still sitting in the waiting room. She was a cute little brunette thing with her hair pulled into a tight pony tail and wearing a concert t-shirt adorned with what may have been her favorite singer, but it was hard to see through the blood and sludge that covered her from her chest down to her lap. She was sitting in the chair with her knees pulled up to her chest rocking back and forth with a catatonic look on her face, her eyes wide open but not appearing to see anything clearly. She was mumbling something but the hoods of their suits prevented them from clearly hearing what she may have been saying. A quick check of her person revealed no visible wounds that would account for the blood and her mouth was clean and free from any signs of vomit, the slick coating of slime over her body must
have come from the bodies collapsed on the chairs and ground all around her. This entire portion of the waiting room seemed to be covered in all possible forms of human waste and excretions which gave testament to what the people surrounding her had suffered in their final moments of life.
Two of the men tried talking to her through the external speakers on their helmets, but she merely continued rocking back and forth and staring straight ahead as if looking right through them.
The team leader helped the girl to her feet and guided her to the exit. He had to handle her rougher than he would have liked but she was clearly in a catatonic state and barely responsive to his efforts at guiding her along. There was a good chance that some of the bodies around the area they had found her were from her own family. While she physically appeared ok, her mental state was something else altogether, if she survived this experience there was a good chance that she would never fully recover from watching her own family die along with dozens of others right before her eyes. His primary concern at this moment though was that she did not seem to have been affected by the virus, finding someone with a natural immunity to any new disease or virus could be a major step in the right direction to developing a cure. Once he reached the door he pointed out a middle aged man sitting in a chair in the lobby and instructed the rest of his team to load that body into a body bag and bring him along with them. He selected that particular man because his age and overall physical condition led the team leader to believe he was more than likely in physically good shape before falling victim to the virus. This would hopefully allow them to get tissue samples that were not otherwise contaminated with any preexisting condition.
With the body stuffed into a carefully sealed body bag and their survivor in tow, the team moved back towards the helicopter where the team leader stopped for a minute to collect the air sample analyzer he had left in place before they reached the building. The body and air samples were secured in air tight storage containers stored underneath the passenger compartment of the helicopter. Before boarding they helped their new passenger suit up into a similar containment suit as worn by the rest of the team. This step had little to do with protecting the young girl but was instead designed to ensure that she was unable to spread any germs she may be carrying.
The team was once again airborne and with their remaining time the team leader instructed the pilot to make a lazy circular pass over the central part of town where they would continue recording video of the conditions inside the city. While that was occurring he plugged into their long distance radio system and relayed the status of their mission to the crisis center headquarters in Washington, DC. Even before subsequent testing was conducted on the samples they had collected it was imperative that word be passed along that based on the teams observations in Browns Mills they were clearly facing a deadly and virulent pandemic. The recommendations of the team leader would be to immediately implement quarantine procedures for this entire area.
#
With all the stops he had been forced to take along the way, his drive towards Camden was taking much longer than he had planned. Despite not being able to hold down any food or liquids his unsettled stomach had forced him to drive from toilet to toilet where each time he would suffer violent and painful bouts of diarrhea. His last two stops had really caused him to worry about how severe his condition was, during those episodes he had noticed that the toilet had been full more with dark blood than anything else. His trip was further delayed when his fever had reached a point that he was unable to concentrate on the road. He had pulled into a roadside rest stop and stretched out across the bench seat of the truck where he had fallen asleep for close to two hours. He had awoken covered in sweat but relieved to note that his fever seemed to have died down enough that he felt it was once again safe to continue on.
Several miles east of Medford, New Jersey along route 70 he came upon a hastily formed state police checkpoint. While the police manning the checkpoint were funneling vehicles through a single lane of traffic they did not appear to be restricting movement in either direction yet. As Carl waited ten car lengths back for his turn to pass through the checkpoint, he watched as two large military transportation trucks pulled off to the side of the road by the police cars. Soldiers dressed from head to toe in chemical protective gear beginning jumping from the back of each truck and went immediately to work unloading supplies while a senior member of their group gathered the police officers off to the side for a conference. Carl could see that while there did not appear to be a sense of overall urgency in the efforts to unload and set up equipment, the state police officers appeared uneasy at the sudden appearance of a force of soldiers in protective gear while they had nothing more than surgical gloves and paper face masks for their own protection.
When it was his turn to pass through the checkpoint the state police officer manning the post saw the official looking emblem along the side of Carl's truck and waved him through without delay. As Carl maneuvered through the last few road cones at the end of the checkpoint he looked back in his rearview mirror to see a handful of soldiers moving in to replace the lone police officer who had just waved him through. With the exception of the car directly behind him that had already passed through the checkpoint the soldiers pulled a barricade across the road and began directing westbound traffic to turn back around. The roads leading out of the affected zone were now being closed as a quarantine was put into effect, Carl had made it out with only moments to spare. He now had another hour and a half drive until he reached the hospital in Camden, he was sure that if he could get checked in and started on some antibiotics he would start feeling better in no time. He concentrated on his driving as he felt yet another rumbling in the depths of his stomach and he knew it was time to start looking for another place for a fiery bathroom break.
#
It had been thirty minutes since they had received permission to institute quarantine procedures. Dr. Woods had relayed orders to the appropriate field sites and was now awaiting confirmation that their net was cast tight over the entire area. Once they had received the preliminary report from their survey team in Browns Mills and forwarded that information along with a brief segment of the video the team had recorded along the way, President Maxwell and General Page had complied with his renewed request to begin lock-down procedures.
The survivor along with the body they had recovered and the air samples were still making their way to the field center just outside of Philadelphia. The mobile center had the highest possible level of containment in place along with an external incinerator. If containment at that site was breeched in the slightest, their protocols called for the entire site, personnel and all, to be subjected to complete and total incineration.
Dr. Woods turned back to the computer monitor where the rest of their team was going through the video footage from inside the medical center in Browns Mills in slow motion. The sheer volume of casualties just inside this single rural medical center was astounding. From what they saw of the parking lot and surrounding streets it was clear that victims had swarmed the center all in a short period of time. The doctors in that facility likely spent the last few minutes of their lives already knowing that they were facing a losing battle and probably did their best just to keep people as calm as possible as their loved ones dropped off one after the other. The crises center staff considered how the same scene repeated at a larger hospital inside a major city would lead to mass panic when roads became clogged with cars and pedestrians all desperately trying to reach help.
#
The field center was made up of eight large hard plastic tents connected by pressurized tubes and manned by a team of thirty five. The plastic material used to construct each tent had been specially designed to react to pressure from within. Once set up and pressurized it formed a hardened shell that was impenetrable from outside or in. As long as the interior pressure running through the walls of the fabric remained flowing it was airtight and practically indestructible. Once the pressur
e was released the fabric could be collapsed and stored for easy portability, making the perfect arrangement for mobility and rapid field deployment. The personnel compliment was made up of twenty scientist specializing in a range of fields, ten analysts, and five support personnel who also doubled as security. Each tent was completely self-contained from the outside environment with independent air supplies and segregated power sources. Three service trucks were connected to the tents via a series of wires, cables and hoses, these trucks provided the work areas with electricity, water and compressed air. The entrance to each tent was clearly marked and color coded to represent the containment capacity for the individual areas starting at level two and going to the highest of five. To enter or exit any tent, workers first had to proceed through an enclosed channel where they would dress or undress into their hazardous material suits, immediately upon entering their work areas they would plug into a central oxygen system that provided independent breathable air. The decontamination area was segregated from the main facilities by a long rubberized tunnel connected to six hoses a little thicker than garden hoses. When activated, these hoses would use compressed air to spray anything inside the tube with decontaminating agents as well as sterile water and soap. To leave the decontamination area, a person would have to stop between two doorways, only one of which could be open at a time. Before the outer door would open a series of sensors would collect air samples and run them through a computer to detect any suspicious substance before allowing the outer door to open. A separate incinerator was dedicated to this outer doorway, if someone inside that section managed to open the outer door before the sensors showed them to be clean of contaminant, the incinerator could either automatically or manually be activated to reduce that entire section and anyone in it to a pile of ash in seconds.