by S. Ganley
"Sir, we are seeing people based on severity of their case, if you want first come first served you will need to go to the bakery just down the street and take a number. As long as you are here you need to just take a seat and listen for your name to be called." She ended her tirade by staring a hole straight through Carl's soul as if daring him to say anything else to further his argument.
Carl considered a smart ass reply but he knew that would only result in him climbing higher up this woman's shit list and end up with his name falling even further down the bottom of the list of people waiting to be seen. Accepting defeat, he swallowed the little bit of pride he had left and slunk away from the desk only to find his seat had been claimed by a homeless man who looked like he was just about to die from liver disease at any moment. Carl waded further into the growing crowd of attention seekers until he found a small unoccupied piece of floor where he could sit down and lean back against a wall to wait his turn.
Even though he didn't realize it at that moment, he had already extracted his revenge on the charge nurse who had refused to listen to his pleas for help. He had infected her along with everyone else who had come and gone from the emergency room. Everyone who had entered the hospital with an imagined disease was now leaving with a very real and active infection that would run its course over the next few hours. None of those directly infected by Carl would have the strength to try to return to the hospital by the time the full effects of the virus hit them. Each of them would continue to spread the deadly germs to anyone who came within a few feet of them and by the end of the day the virus would be spread too wide and far for any quarantine efforts to contain it.
Carl curled himself into a tight ball on the floor leaning up against the wall by pulling his knees in tight to his chest and wedging his feet under the legs of a nearby row of chairs currently occupied by a family of five complete with three young children all of whom had tiny rivers of snot running unchecked down their face and dripping off the edges of their lips. Carl concentrated on these kids for a few minutes, watching as they bounced from seat to seat while coughing and sneezing on everyone nearby. His vision started to blur a little bit as he felt another headache coming on, this time he could tell it was going to be one hell of a whooper. The pain in his head continued to grow in intensity until he was forced to squeeze his eyes shut as tight as he could and bite down hard on the inside of his lip to keep from crying out. Carl involuntarily pounded his fists against the outside of his thighs as wave after wave of pain stabbed through his head. The pounding motion of his hands caught the attention of the little snot nosed rug rats who stopped their jumping around for a couple moments to stare in wonder at the strange man who was rocking back and forth against the wall while punching himself in the side of his leg. They were familiar with how homeless people would sometimes sit along the sidewalks in the middle of downtown and act the same way, for kids this age this type of activity was fascinating. As the children watched they noticed that Carl's face was turning a dark shade of red as the pounding against his legs grew harder and harder. After a few moments the tears that had been running down his cheeks from his tightly clenched eyes started to become tinged with blood as a massive aneurysm ripped through his brain rupturing blood vessels along the way. In seconds the tears were completely replaced by rivulets of dark blood sliding their way down his cheeks and that was quickly followed by an even thicker and faster flowing river of red pouring from both of his nostrils. With his dark colored work shirt it was difficult to notice the growing blood stains as his internal hemorrhaging reached a crescendo and the last few pumps of his heart forced the pooling clots formed in his brain to exit from his eyes, nose and mouth. To a casual observer it looked as though Carl might be drenched in sweat or simply soaked from walking through a sprinkler outside. The three children who were keeping a close eye on the spectacle had no idea they were watching the man die, to them it was simply another strange man with his own set of peculiar habits. When the blood streaks stopped running and Carl's hands dropped from his side to rest on the floor the children realized the show was over and turned their attention back to picking on each other over who had the biggest bubble of snot frothing from their nose. They giggled until they started coughing and their mother finally reached over to swipe a dirty Kleenex across their filth covered faces while halfheartedly asking them once again to sit still. Her glance fell across the still figure of Carl scrunched between the end of her row of chairs and the wall and she wished that she was able to take as relaxing a nap as he appeared to be. With her children settled down for a few seconds she strained her head towards the television and tried to follow along with the show, it was probably going to be at least a couple more hours until her children were finally seen by a doctor and this was an episode she had not had a chance to see before.
Even in death Carl continued to pass along the virus he carried, with the emergency room staying full throughout the day, it would be well into evening before anyone noticed that the still figure with his knees bent and back pressed hard against the wall might need someone to take a look at him. By that time the entire hospital staff, all visitors, patients and more than a quarter of the city would have contracted the infection in a manner which ultimately could be traced directly back to Carl.
Chapter 6
Garrett loosened his tie and sat down in a booth with a menu open wide in front of him and an already half empty frosty mug of beer in his hand. The interview had gone much better than he had anticipate, in fact, they had offered him the job on the spot and even gone a little beyond his requested salary range. The department manager and HR representative that had conducted the interview explained that the position he was applying for had been vacant for several months now and they were eager to finally fill it. When Garrett had inquired why it had taken them so long to advertise the job they had told him that a budget cut had suspended hiring for that department until just recently. He had been surprised to also learn that only three other applicants had even been considered for the interview process, but they had put his application on top and as long as he interviewed well they had intended to offer him the job. The managing director of the company was a Vietnam era veteran and once he got a look at the notations on Garrett's application about his military service and that he had been wounded in action he had personally instructed the department manager to ensure that he was given the highest level of consideration for the position. Garrett personally would have preferred that his actual skills and abilities related to the job were the factors they looked at, but he figured what the hell, getting a decent job offer like this in a struggling economy was enough of a challenge. Now that he had his foot in the door, it was up to him to actually prove his worth and that was something he planned to do by hitting the ground running from day one. They asked him when he would be able to start and seemed relatively surprised when he told them he was ready immediately and could start as early as the following Monday if that worked for them. The department manager had anticipated he would have wanted at least two or three weeks to tie up any loose ends. Garrett told him that he had left all his loose ends back in the Middle East after his last deployment and was eager to get back to work. Following the interview, they led him on an extended tour of the facility where he would be spending the next twenty to thirty years of his life. He was shown a spacious work cubicle with a modern and updated computer system with dual monitors, Cisco networking phone, a collection of office supplies and a separate work bench already well stocked with tools and parts. He was told that he would have a generous spending account and that he should feel free to take advantage of it as soon as he started to order anything else he needed to make his job easier and more productive. Garrett was impressed with the full service cafeteria and wide range of their daily menu, he also liked the fact that the company had dedicated almost the entire basement area as a workout space and gym complete with high tech nautilus equipment and free weights and including a full locker room with showers. They
informed him that the company’s philosophy was that a happy worker was a productive worker and they were more than willing to go that extra mile to make sure all of their employees were as happy with their working environment as possible.
With a weekend looming and the start of a new job following directly on its heels, the chore he had dreaded more than anything about this process was now staring him in the face. He laid a small pocket notebook out on the table in front of him and withdrew a pen from inside his jacket pocket, the suit he was currently wearing constituted the bulk of his civilian business dress wardrobe. Reluctantly he started making a list of new clothing that he would have to shop for in the next few days. Most of the workers he observed during his tour of the building seemed to fit what his idea of a business casual environment required in terms of dress. He would need at least two new sets of shoes somewhere between a sneaker and the wing tips that were currently cutting off the circulation to his feet, five pairs of slacks, ten shirts ranging from full button downs to polo’s and maybe one or two Henley's, several pairs of Dockers and a couple sets of slacks. With each addition to his list he thought of accessories he would need, socks, underwear, scarves, and belts, it kept growing and growing until he finally set his pen down with a sigh. He had not yet received his first pay check from this company and already he was about to spend what was likely going to be close to two grand just to get the bare bones basics of a civilian wardrobe. This was yet another area where he found that he would miss military life, in the army he had a total of three possible uniform combinations. Physical training shorts, shirt and sweats, two variations of dress uniform for extremely rare occasions when formality was required and the ever present battle fatigues, worn in peace time or war. Wearing the exact same uniform several days in a row was common place, now, he had to worry about someone possibly recognizing that he was wearing the same socks more than once in a work week. Putting aside his list for the moment, he picked the menu back up while waving his empty beer glass towards the nearby waitress for her to bring him a refill. He figured he owed it to himself to throw back a couple over a hearty meal to celebrate the official start of his new life. There was still the entire weekend ahead of him to finish his list and get to the nearby mall for a frenzied shopping spree.
#
It was getting late in the afternoon of the second day of the outbreak by the time the field center staff was prepared to start the autopsy on the body recovered from the medical center in Browns Mills. The first step in the process was a detailed examination of the exterior of the body, the hair was carefully combed through and inspected and finally shaved completely off to allow an inspection of the scalp. The ears, eyes, nose and mouth were prodded and poked, measurements and still pictures were taken every step of the way. The scientists involved in this autopsy were intent on examining every single inch of the body, any unexplained abnormality, bruise, scrape or discoloration was carefully examined and cataloged. They worked their way methodically down the torso, the penis and scrotum were inspected, measured and then shaved clean and inspected once again. On the inside of the left thigh one of the scientists made note of a large abscess most likely caused by an ingrown hair, he injected the site with a hypodermic needle and withdrew a small quantity of the underlying pus for further study. It was at this point that they noticed something unusual.
"Did anyone else notice the left hand move somewhat in response to that needle?" Asked the technician charged with taking still pictures, he was standing a few feet back from the table while the rest of the surgical team were bent over various portions of the body and would not have been able to see the hands from their angle.
"Possibly late stage rigor affect?" asked a team member from the opposite side of the examining table.
"Doubtful," Dr. Woods answered from a room several hundred miles away as he watched the entire proceedings via satellite feed, "rigor has long since come and gone, the readings I am showing for the autopsy suite are fifty eight degrees, not cold enough to cause any type of degraded muscle reflex either. Have the oxygen levels on that technician's suit double checked." The request was not meant to insult or degrade, in this environment any abnormal action by either the subject being studied or the team doing the studying was to be investigated. It was not an unheard of situation where the oxygen mixture leading to one of those environmental suits became tainted by a kinked hose or possibly damaged filter inside the suit or one end of the hose leading to the oxygen taps running from the ceiling of the room.
All work at the table stopped for a minute while everyone used the buddy system to check each other’s oxygen mixture levels.
"What the hell?!" the exclamation came from the scientist who had been poking at the pus filled cyst on their subjects inner thigh, he was staring at the arm that the technician had thought he saw move. There was no doubt about what they were seeing now and any oxygen related hallucination was ruled out since everyone observing the room via the satellite capable camera system both in Washington, DC and at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia were also seeing the same thing.
Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at the spectacle before them. The left arm was now raised completely off the table and bent inward so the hand was hovering over the torso. As they watched, the hand opened and closed several times in a deliberate fashion. It was as if they were watching someone just waking up from a coma who was testing the response of their extremities a little at a time while they continued to gain more and more awareness of their surroundings.
"Jesus, the guy is still alive!" Exclaimed the same technician who had originally noticed the hand movement and now felt somewhat vindicated with proof that he had not been seeing things. In response to the sound of the man's voice, the head of the corpse turned towards him and the eyes snapped open. Everyone on the side of the room with a direct line of sight of the cadaver's face took a reflective step backwards when they saw those eyes. Instead of seeing a pair of white orbs with a colored iris surrounding a dark pupil what they were looking at were two bloodshot emotionless chasms filled with a milky white glaze more reminiscent of early stage decomposition. The collected scientists and technicians continued to watch and hold their breath as what only moments ago had been a lifeless corpse rose to a sitting position on the sterile gurney as it took stock of the rest of its body while keeping its gaze steadily fixed on the lone technician who had last spoken.
"Gentleman, can someone please explain to me exactly what the hell I am seeing?" asked Dr. Woods.
His voice coming over the computer speakers on a nearby workbench shattered the relative silence that had settled over the examination room as everyone stood perfectly still just observing the unbelievable sight of a man rising from the dead right before their eyes on the table in the center of the room. The reanimated corpse sitting on the glistening table jerked its head to the side to look towards the source of this new sound and at the same time it let loose with a fierce animal like growl that sent spittle and flecks of dried blood spraying from its colorless lips. Stepping off the table and onto its own two feet, it stumbled a little on weak legs and fell back against the table while trying to gain its balance. Acting on sheer impulse alone the scientist standing closest to that side of the table reached out and grabbed the living corpse by its arm to help it steady itself. As soon as the mans gloved hand wrapped around the bicep of the corpse its attention focused on the scientist and it propelled itself forward, knocking the suited man backwards where they fell together in a heap at the base of the workstation holding the communications gear and camera systems.
#
Drs. Woods and Martin watched in disbelief along with everyone in the examination room and at least another seven or eight infectious agent specialist joining the conference from Atlanta at what had moments before been a lifeless corpse suddenly springing to life and tackling one of the scientists in the autopsy suite. Both corpse and scientist tumbled backwards towards the camera and then dropped from view
as they fell to the floor just out of view from the table mounted camera. The only other camera source available to them was a ceiling mounted camera currently focused directly downward onto what was now an empty examination table.
"Did I really just see that happen?" Dr. Woods asked.
"I hope you did because otherwise I am the one seeing things, there was no possible way that man could have still been alive. What we just saw is impossible," stammered Dr. Martin.
Something was clearly still happening on the floor just in front of the table where the camera was mounted, they could see everyone else in the room directing their attention towards the spot where the struggling forms had landed. The camera view was shaking back and forth as if the table holding the camera was periodically be struck by a force off camera. The initial impact into the table must have jarred the connection for the microphone to the camera loose because they no longer had any sound coming from the speakers on their end. Dr. Woods knew that if the microphone had been working they should have heard something from the room, he could clearly see several of the suited men yelling towards the floor just out of camera view. One of the technicians in the room made a move towards the camera, on his way across the room he grabbed a stool from another work area and raised it over his head like a bat. As the two doctors watched, they saw the man swing the stool downward in a crashing blow against a target just off screen. A splash of dark blood shot from floor level across the man’s otherwise pure yellow protective suit, the stain pattern that materialized on the suit did not appear to be in a cast off pattern that should have been the result of the blunt force of the stool striking its target. In this case the blood pattern more closely resembled projected blood at a medium velocity which would be the result of blood being spurted out from a severed artery. The expressions on the faces of the gathered surgical team indicated that something very disturbing had just occurred, two men turned their heads away and another started moving quickly towards the sealed door in a bid to escape the carnage he was unable to witness any longer. A moment after the blood impacted the man’s suit he pulled the stool back into view and started to raise it again for a follow up strike. Before he could get the stool positioned over his head for the next attack a blur of motion shot towards him originating from a point just under the edge of the table. The technician was knocked backwards by the naked form of what should be a lifeless corpse, in this case even though they could only see his bare back and naked ass the coating of blood that covered his body was obviously not his own. The stool dropped from the technician's hands and both corpse and yellow suit covered tech fell onto the floor now directly in the line of sight of the camera. Without the sound it was easy for the men watching from hundreds of miles away to feel a certain detachment from the scene unfolding on the screen in front of them, almost like watching a full color silent film. With the bulky contamination suit on, the technician was mostly defenseless against the naked and nimble man. The attacker was raining blows down on the technician so fast that it was impossible to track either hand individually. More disturbing than the unending flurry of fists was the snapping teeth trying desperately to find purchase and tear away at the thick rubber suit. The technician had his left forearm raised and was able to keep his attackers face just inches away from his chest, for some reason it appeared that the man was more concerned about the possible damage from teeth than he was from the blows still crashing down on the rest of his body. As the fight continued, the tech managed to push against the man’s head just enough to spin them both to the left inadvertently giving the camera a better view of the naked man's face and bare chest. One look at the man and those watching the fight over their computers understood much better why the tech was more intent on keeping out of reach of those snapping teeth than he was about the crashing fists pounding him like there was no tomorrow. The man's entire face and chest was covered in a thick sheen of dark blood and gristle, even more telling about what may have happened during the tussle out of sight of the camera was a flap of gore covered skin hanging from the corner of the man's mouth as if still stuck between a pair of teeth. Seeing this, they reached the same conclusion about the blood splatter they had seen splashing across the techs suit just as he swung the stool downward a few moments ago. This crazed animal of a man must have bit through his victims neck and severed his carotid artery, what was left of his neck was now hanging from this things mouth like a large chunk of unfinished dinner.