by S. Ganley
Chapter 13
It was well into Sunday morning before Dr. Woods and Dr. Martin learned of the loss of the CDC field center. When they missed a scheduled conference call at nine that morning, Dr. Woods had their own communications people begin attempting to raise them with no results. It was only after tracking down the day shift supervisor at the CDC communications and monitoring center that they learned there was a problem. When the CDC was also unable to raise their field center they began sifting through the logs from the night before to find the last entry for when they had confirmed communication with the unit. It was in those logs that the supervisor discovered the entry detailing the alarm activation and how the overnight shift had followed the procedures manual for initiating what Brian Cansler had simply noted as an 'incineration event' in accordance with the instructions from the manual. The supervisor was caught off guard by the frankness and brevity of the entry describing how their entire field team had been summarily reduced to ash without a single notification outside of the communications room having been made. The day shift supervisor immediately began lighting up phone lines all over town and into DC as he spread the word about the loss of their people. A helicopter response team was organized and directed to the location of the field center to verify the destruction of the facility and search for any potential survivors. Federal agents were then dispatched to the home of Brian Cansler to pick him up and deliver him back to the CDC for questioning and to face possible charges. His vision of being the heroic leader during a time of crisis was about to come crashing down around him. It was unfortunate that he would be dead long before he could face charges related to this incident, along with anyone else who would ever have knowledge that it had even happened.
Hearing the news about the loss of the field center Dr. Woods had to sit down for a minute before his spinning head caused him to pass out. The personal they lost in that incident were absolutely irreplaceable in terms of their collected knowledge and experience in dealing with the type of outbreak they were facing. Added to those loses he had to also consider the work they had done to date on how to fight this virus. The only known immune survivor of the original strain of the virus and all samples collected from her were also lost. The last data dump had been only a partial retrieval of their stored computer files. Information systems technicians had identified a network glitch that had prevented them from backing up all of those files to the CDC computers, in the meantime they had been accessing the information while it was stored on the hard drives and server that was in the field. Only a small portion of the research and findings was now available on other computers in the crisis center or with the CDC, it all amounted to them being pushed right back to square one in terms of finding a way to defeat this virus.
Looking up at the maps depicting the spread of the virus, Dr. Woods now realized that starting over from scratch was never going to make it. The virus had reached almost every major city in the United States and it was harder for him to find a country anywhere else that did not have confirmed cases than those that did. The last word they had from Washington was that the President was being kept under close medical watch on bed rest after having come down with the flu. While his test results were still pending, it had been discovered that one of his Secret Service agents had been found dead in a bathroom of the White House apparently from the virus. The body of that agent had been moved immediately under guard to Quantico, Virginia were it was about to be examined in the FBI laboratory there and it came back to life, forcing three agents to tear it to shreds with automatic gunfire. Unfortunately, it managed to take a bite out of one agent’s leg before it was finally put down for good with a head shot. Two members of his own team at the crisis center had called in sick that morning and reports from other supporting agencies were showing similar absences as well. He reminded himself that this was still the weekend and the following day when thousands of workers took to the streets on their way into offices across DC and other major cities, the virus would have a chance to pick up even more speed. The next round of decisions that needed to be made were based on whether or not it was time to start activation of the emergency broadcast system. His recommendations to General Page and the members of the cabinet were that all schools and government offices be closed and that private business owners were highly encouraged to ask their own employees not to come to work for the next couple of days. He wanted to extend that warning for at least the entire coming work week, but he knew that would not be received very well. The longer any business was shut down the more money it lost and that was just not an acceptable proposition for this administration.
He had to give General Page some credit though, even with his early reluctance to take more decisive action in the area surrounding the quarantine zone in New Jersey, as soon as he saw the video images from the drone at the National Guard checkpoint he had mobilized Guard and active duty troops to help quell any civil unrest in major population areas. Every city with a population of 50,000 or more would soon have military units deployed and ready to react if more people sick with this flu started to become hostile to any local or government authority. Although he was still unwilling to use the term zombie in his description of these people he did agree at least in principle with the theory that they were dealing with people who were coming back to life after a period of being deceased. The troops being deployed were given clear rules of engagement this time. Their orders were that if faced with any threat of force from civilians, armed or not, they were to use all means at their disposal to avoid allowing civilians to come in physical contact with them, up to and including deadly force. A caveat to that order made it clear that head shots were to be the attempted at all times, this included a brief explanation concerning virus carrier’s ability to absorb multiple gunshot wounds to their torsos without slowing down.
With their field operations now gone, the labs at the CDC were instructed to shift gears back to studies of the virus itself and attempts to break the RNA coding that made it so difficult to treat. What they would now have to do was test samples of the virus against known vaccines used to combat similar illnesses. This basically amounted to a task that was impossible, finding a cure by trial and error with existing vaccines was such a remote probability that Dr. Woods considered it a waste of time, but he knew that they had to at least be trying something.
#
Waking up Sunday morning Garrett felt much better than he had trying to fight crowds in busy shopping centers while nursing a hangover and getting by on limited sleep the day before. He had crashed early on Saturday evening, thankful that Calvin was tied up with a date instead of trying to convince him to continue celebrating his new job. Calvin would use that as an excuse for as long as he could or until some other equally worthy life event cropped up to take its place. Garrett half expected a call sometime today from Calvin that they needed to celebrate the fact that he managed to get laid two nights in a row by the same woman, most of his post-divorce escapades tended to be of the one night variety.
Feeling much more refreshed, he climbed out of bed and right into his running clothes, a quick cup of coffee and a check of his email and he hit the road for a brisk run to get him in the right frame of mind to tackle the day ahead. He knew that after he started work the following day it was probably going to be better if he started doing his workouts in the evening hours during the week. Even though he was not a stranger to conducting unit PT, the familiar military acronym for physical training, in the wee morning hours, it was a habit that he was now more than willing to give up. He had also noticed that many more of his neighbors who were into running and working out also tended to use the after work hours as their primary time to work up a sweat. It would be nice to start making some more civilian friends who shared such interests, running alone tended to get boring.
Walking from his front door to the nearby sidewalk where he would take a minute to stretch, he noticed the red flashing lights of an ambulance pulled up to a townhouse about six doors down fr
om his own. A police cruiser was also on the scene and there seemed to be a great deal of hustling to and fro from the parking lot to the wide open front door of the unit. He wasn't sure of the name of the couple that lived there but he recalled that they were a younger pair, he had looked to be in his mid to late twenties and she was probably still finishing up her last year or two in college. He didn't think they had any children and it seemed that he worked a regular nine to five job somewhere and she came and went on a much more flexible schedule. He decided to walk a couple houses closer and do his stretching against a fire hydrant that seemed to offer a better vantage point to see whatever was going on. He wasn't exactly a rubberneck in terms of sticking his nose into these types of situations, but other than that pain in the ass Carlos and his malcontent roommates, this was generally a very quiet and unassuming place to live. Seeing an ambulance and police cruiser in front of a neighbor’s house first thing on a Sunday morning was very out of the norm.
Starting a prolonged stretching routine, Garrett watched as a single police officer stationed just outside the front door of the town house spoke frantically along with highly animated hand and arm gestures into a cell phone. Garrett could hear his voice but was still too far away to follow the conversation outside of an occasional word or two. Finishing his conversation the officer turned and marched back into the open door of the townhouse. He got the impression that someone inside the house was sick and they were preparing to transport them to the hospital. He found it unusual that the police would respond to the scene of a medical emergency not involving some type of violence. Garrett had half expected a domestic incident even though the couple had seen very happy together and he would not have pictured the guy to be the wife beater type. Something else caught his attention as he his eyes took in the parked emergency vehicles in the parking lot. The back doors of the ambulance had been left standing open and Garrett now saw that a gurney was already situated inside. He knew that it was possible in a mass casualty situation to configure ambulances to carry two gurneys at a time by using a narrower model of gurney and reducing the amount of equipment stored in the back. Since this configuration did not allow for a paramedic to ride along with the patients and render treatment during travel, this was a setup that was set aside for the most catastrophic of circumstances where medical transportation would be stretched thin. Right now Garrett could see that this particular ambulance had been set up for just that type of situation, even more unnerving was the sheet draped figure laying on the single gurney already in the back of the ambulance.
As he dragged out his stretching routine and continued to watch the townhouse he saw a paramedic backing out the front door guiding the second gurney along with him as he dropped the wheels onto the sidewalk at the bottom of the small run of stairs leading to the doorway. On top of the gurney and partially covered with a white sheet Garrett saw the young wife of the house with an IV line attached to her arm fed from a bag that had been laid across her chest. Garrett couldn't clearly see her face from his position so he was unable to tell if she was conscious or not, but he did see one thing very clear that made him realize this was anything but a routine medical run. While there were several straps attached across her legs and torso to prevent her from falling off the gurney, her left arm was sticking out of the sheet and dangling slightly down along the side of the gurney. Garrett at first thought he was seeing things but as the paramedic moved the gurney further along the sidewalk and started to move it into position at the back of the ambulance he saw more clearly that her wrist was secured tightly to the side of the metal framed gurney by a thick plastic zip tie. When the police officer stepped back out from the townhouse behind the paramedic Garrett also noticed that he had an assault rifle carried by a sling over his shoulder, Garrett knew there was much more going on here than a routine medical emergency.
Sticking a live patient in the back of an ambulance that was already loaded with the remains of someone else was not what Garrett suspected was standard operating procedure. Making it even more disturbing was the very high probability that the remains on that other gurney were those of the young ladies husband. The two gurneys were packed so tightly together in that small space that with her arm cuffed to the frame of her gurney she could reach out with her fingers and just about touch the still form next to her. The paramedic was finishing up his work in the back of the ambulance and Garrett heard the squelch break on the cop’s radio. He heard the man respond with his call sign and give his current location, there was a reply over the speaker that Garrett couldn't quite make out and the officer responded that he were just about to clear the current scene. He couldn't hear the nature of the next emergency but when the radio call ended, he heard the cop tell the paramedic that they had another one. With one final check on the paramedic, the cop returned to his cruiser and tore out of the parking lot with the emergency lights flashing.
Garrett waited until the ambulance had left the parking lot and was gone from sight before finally starting off on his morning run, he had chewed up enough of his day pondering over his neighbor’s misfortune and it was time to try and get his day started right. He felt bad for the young couple, if in fact that was the husband under the sheet in the back of that ambulance he knew that if the woman pulled through that her life would never be the same again.
#
Miranda woke feeling like a new woman, she couldn't remember having a better night’s sleep. The queen sized bed was more than twice the size of the small cot sized beds she had been used to for the past several years. Mrs. Carpenter had graciously loaned her some sheets, blankets and pillows until she had some time to get out and do some shopping in the coming days. It was such a great feeling to wake up in her own place on the verge of starting an entirely new life, she was feeling on top of the world and just for the hell of it she darted from room to room in her new apartment totally naked just to enjoy the feeling of ultimate freedom. Ending up sprawled across the living room couch, she realized that she was getting hungry and remembered her refrigerator and cupboards were still bare. Dinner the night before with Mrs. Carpenter and her very sweet and well humored husband, Andrew, had been very nice. Just as Mrs. Carpenter had promised, by the time they arrived at her house, Andrew was just unloading an impressive pile of barbecued ribs from the grill. Mrs. Carpenter had explained that her husband loved to grill, but with just the two of them he tended to cook much more than just the two of them could possibly eat. He justified this by telling Miranda that it was a waste to spend the time and material to get his grill going for just two small pieces of meat, so it was often his pleasure to give away plates of grilled meat to neighbors passing by or the occasional unexpected dinner companion which was exactly what Miranda had the pleasure of being the night before. The food had been wonderful and more than plentiful, the conversation had been very entertaining and overall she really enjoyed her visit. She felt that Mrs. Carpenter and her husband liked to consider themselves as friends with their tenants almost to the point of a large family, and Miranda had decided that she would be very happy with a relationship like that with her landlord.
When it was said that the apartment came furnished, she had expected only items like a couch, table, some chairs and a bedroom set, but what she found went above and beyond her expectations. The kitchen was appointed with all the basic necessities for cooking and dining, pots, pans, plates, bowl and two drawers with neatly arranged cutlery and other cooking essentials. The living room had the sofa and love seat, coffee table, and surprisingly, a large flat screen television mounted inside a very attractive entertainment center. Returning from her dinner with Mrs. Carpenter and her husband the sight of her luggage stacked neatly inside her living room next to the entertainment center brought back memories of the incident at the airport. She had turned on the television hoping to catch some information on the evening news explaining what had happened at Dulles Airport earlier in the day. Flipping the power on, she was greeted with a black screen telling her there was no si
gnal, a check of other channels showed the same message. Her experience with high end TV's and other such entertainment equipment was very limited due to her frugal life style so she assumed there was some type of technical problem. Mrs. Carpenter had provided her home and cell phone and told Miranda to feel free to call at any time with any questions or issues, she decided that a dead television warranted a call. It ended up be an embarrassing answer she received, while the television and other appointments came with the unit, services such as cable, land line phone service and Internet were left to the tenant to arrange for from a long list of competitive providers.
Following a refreshing shower albeit without soap or shampoo, Miranda dressed in some comfortable clothes and spent less than twenty minutes putting away the few personal belongings that she had brought with her. Sitting down to a cup of coffee thanks again to Mrs. Carpenter who had sent her home with a large cup full of coffee grounds, filters and some sugar, she went about making detailed lists. She had a short page that included to do items with the apartment such as contacting service providers and utility companies to have the proper services started and put in her name. This list she put aside for the time being, since it was Sunday there was little there she could accomplish until the following morning at the earliest. Her next list was over a full page in length when she was done and she was sure after a couple days in the apartment she would discover even more things she needed. Food, toiletries, makeup, toilet paper, paper towels, the necessities alone would take up half her Sunday and several hundred dollars. There was a shopping complex just under a mile away and she figured she would walk over there and take a cab back after filling up several bags with supplies. She thought that while shopping for food she might even pick up everything she needed to prepare a nice thank you dinner for Mrs. Carpenter and her husband and see if they would accept her own offer of hospitality later that evening.