Stop the Sirens: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 3

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “This is a serious question, kids. Let me ask you this another way. To protect medical privacy and all that. Have you ever been on medications, for any reason, longer than a week or two?”

  Liam searched his memory. For a long time as a child he took medication for his attention deficit disorder. He took it for years before he grew out of that particular need.

  Victoria looked down, but said nothing.

  “I'll take that to mean you both have taken some kind of medication. Now, think about your parents. Do you see them popping pills every day? I'd wager they probably do, or have in the past, or will in the future—well maybe not in our current future, but they would have. Everyone takes medications these days like it is perfectly normal and expected. Even Duchesne over there is on something, I'm sure.”

  If he was, the agent gave no indication. Liam was less hostile now that he understood the direction this was going.

  “The thing that makes your Grandma special is that she has never taken medication a day in her life. No high blood pressure pills. No cholesterol meds. Not even vitamins as best we can tell.”

  “What about pain pills? She broke her arms a few years ago. Surely she had pain pills?”

  “Undoubtedly she did, but the effects fade quickly. She only took them for a very short term. The main thing is that she has no cellular damage or mutation which is indicative of longer term medications so common in the world today. And, even more peculiar is that at her advanced age she has taken no medications that are so common with her peers. She's almost unique in that regard. I should know, I've examined her blood several times.”

  “So, you aren't a truck driver, are you?”

  Eons ago it seemed, Liam and Hayes discussed his job function at the CDC. He said he was in logistics, and Liam believed this to mean he was a truck driver.

  “What? No. I'm sorry I had to bend the truth on that, but my cover is more important than just tricking a couple of kids like you. I'm an immunologist in a world swarming with viruses. I'm too valuable to die in some futile battle against the undead.”

  “We get it. You're so important you didn't want to fight with us to get out of the city and you study the virus that destroyed the world.”

  “Yes, but I've come to understand something that my—uh, colleagues—have missed. This business with viruses started at the end of flu season in the United States. This spring we noticed the flu wasn't petering out like it normally would as the weather warmed up and people started getting out of confined spaces with each other. The CDC, along with the World Health Organization, began doing extensive research on the phenomenon. I won't bore you with the details, but the bottom line is that we realized there were two versions of a nearly-identical strain of flu. They were identical on the surface and in behavior but the resistance of the clone was enhanced—making preventative health measures ineffective. We thought this deadly pairing could be solved before a real emergency evolved. Many nations quietly fought the flu internally, though most publicly wrote it off as a last hurrah of flu season. No one wanted to cause a panic.”

  Liam couldn't remember anything about a flu epidemic, but was a self-proclaimed news-avoider.

  “But that isn't what ended the world,” Hayes continued.

  “You aren't making any sense. What could be worse than two flu viruses working together?” Victoria inquired.

  “Because approximately a month ago, just as the flu problem was at its height, we became aware of a mystery virus already present in every man, woman and child on the planet. That virus was custom-made and it worked together with the already deadly pair to form a mutating triad. Actually, we don't know how many versions are out there now.”

  Liam finally understood. “I'm going to take a wild guess. You had something to do with the mystery virus, didn't you?”

  “I understand why you hate me, Liam. And Victoria: I shot you, after all. But you see now the stakes I was dealing with. Why nothing can get in the way of understanding this unholy trinity of viruses ravaging the planet. I assure you I had nothing to do with the mystery virus.”

  He hesitated as he finished his sentence.

  Victoria spoke up, “But?”

  Hayes looked at her as he spoke. “But, I know who created the cloned flu virus.”

  Finally. We're getting somewhere.

  “So who ended the world?” she asked.

  “The people who released the mystery virus.”

  “You mean flu virus.”

  “No, the virus we can't identify.”

  “I'm not following you, Hayes,” Victoria lamented.

  “The thing my colleagues don't realize is that the second version of the flu was actually a human-created clone. It was designed very cleverly to be more effective at delivering its payload. Very nearly 100% effective, I'm afraid. Almost impossible to detect the human signature. If nature had been left to take its course, the clone flu would have compounded flu season and become a deadly, but manageable plague upon mankind. It wouldn't have led to...what we have now.”

  “Are you saying there are two man-made viruses working together out there?” Liam started to understand the problem. Humans always seemed to be more scary in their actions than Mother Nature. Even the zombies eventually paled next to the potential for trouble from other men and women.

  “No, I'm not.”

  “But you just said—”

  “No! I said there's a man-made clone flu virus and a mystery virus. We can't figure out how the mystery virus was made.”

  Oh. Crap.

  4

  “A great story, Hayes. But as usual you leave out the highlights.”

  Hayes glared at him, but refused to be baited.

  “OK, I'll fill in the blanks if you're going to be shy.” He stood up again, but stayed close to his tall friend. “We'll start with all the dead bodies in this building. Hayes' little petting zoo.” He pointed to the floor. “Riverside? You want to tell them why I had to fight to get into Riverside?”

  Duchesne gave a withering look at Hayes, and that seemed to do it.

  Hayes laughed tightly.

  “Riverside. That's this place. I was assigned to an Army unit when things began to fall apart. I guess the thinking was the military would protect me while I did my work. In the beginning they were annoyingly strict on following protocol—even refusing to let me cross that bridge when you two saw me talking with them over the Mississippi River. But in a world of fewer and fewer resources, the Army pulled more and more of my protectors away until I was left with only a fraction of what was necessary to guard an operation of the scale I needed. Rules got lax. Orders were lost. I guarded those remaining resources jealously. As communications became sporadic, I explained what I was doing to cure the plague and the remaining men and women agreed to follow my orders until the end. Today, they met that end.”

  “Killed by the Marines?” Liam asked.

  “Nope. The Marines were collateral damage. Most of them died down below, fighting to get in. They came up here and didn't know friend from foe—killed everyone they could—but there weren't enough of them. Most of the killing was by the NIS guys. National Internal Security. One of the labyrinthine layers of government contractors and security. Sort of the Secret Service for the Secret Service. Even talking about them can get me killed, but seeing as one of them is sitting right in this room, I'm not going to worry about it.” He nodded at Duchesne. “These boys came in to stop my research. They're the ones who killed both the Marines and the Army remnant protecting me—my research.”

  Duchesne made a clicking noise with his tongue. “No, that's not it at all. Tell them who you really are.” The two men stared at each other for a long few seconds before Hayes looked away.

  “I'm NIS, too. At least I started out with them.” He turned to Liam, “I told you back at your house I was able to pause the hit put out on your family. I could do that because I was originally part of the team that put the list together. But the virus was the priority. Killing one fami
ly on the whims of some politician held no interest for me. So I stopped it.”

  “You tried to stop it. You should know better than anyone, a top-level directive can't be stopped,” Duchesne mused.

  Liam was naturally suspicious of government functionaries, and he couldn't tell who was telling the truth here. He had several questions he wanted to ask, but had to stay focused on what was happening in the room. “So you're saying that government contractors came in and killed government soldiers and Marines, just so they could take my grandma?”

  “No, you fool. I'm saying they were here to kill the 'rogue unit' and usurp my research. Bring it back on the reservation. The only reason they're still here is your Grandma. They couldn't have known she'd be here.”

  “Yes, she's a peculiar piece of research. A real coup. After all the killing and dying getting in here, I'm trying to make this trip worthwhile to my bosses. My colleagues and I were discussing her fate when you two wandered in.”

  Victoria addressed Hayes, “But would it kill you to go back to doing research with the government? Surely you'd have more resources than you do out here by yourself?”

  He seemed reluctant to answer.

  “Hayes?”

  Liam was about to ask him, too, but Duchesne beat him. “Why don't you tell these fine kids what this is really all about?”

  The red-headed woman hopped off the sill, and stood next to Hayes. She wrapped her arm around his waist, bolstering him. Then she said, “Those men are trying to destroy all of humanity. We are trying to save what's left of it.”

  “This is Jane. She's absolutely right.” He let out a pained sigh. “There are three viruses out there. By a mad piece of luck, the flu this year was a particularly nasty strain. It was similar in many respects to the Spanish Flu of 1918. That killed millions, though today with better medicine and heath care, it wasn't on track to even be noticed—a few extra sick here or there. But someone cloned that virus; made it an even more efficient killer. If things had gone as planned, it would have killed or sickened hundreds of millions worldwide. A terrible plague, yes, but one we could have survived.”

  After too long a delay Duchesne prodded him, “But?”

  “But we realized, too late I'm afraid, there was a third virus floating around. It was several orders of magnitude smaller than any living organism we knew about. We weren't looking for it. We really only know of it second-hand, even now. We can see its effects, but it's beyond our ability to see it with our equipment.”

  His brow furrowed. “And...unfortunately for you and me and billions of others...the clone virus was adversely affected by the theoretical one—we dubbed it the Quantum Virus because of its size. Our research teams watched as the flu virus was modified in various ways, depending on geography. We've studied dozens of zombies from around the world, each with their own adaptations based on where they originated.”

  Hayes let out another long sigh.

  Liam was horrified, even though he'd seen the Chicago climbing zombies.

  “In the end, instead of a manageable disease sickening hundreds of millions, it became a global extinction threat. It could kill every single person on the planet. Only dumb luck saved us. It was released so late in flu season it didn't have time to spread around to everyone through the typical coughing and sneezing.”

  Victoria's interest was medicine, so she pressed for answers. “But the virus is everywhere. Look around. Look out your window. There's nowhere the virus hasn't spread. So how can we have been saved?”

  “What you see now is the vector of transmission for the Quantum Virus—the one they dubbed Extra-Ebola. It's spread primarily through saliva—biting. Anyone infected with it dies, but becomes desperate to continue ingesting more of the virus in the bloodstream. It wants to be spread into every living human and it uses the human host as the most efficient means of that transmission. It wants to spread into other animals, too, but fortunately there aren't many animals the stupid things can catch.”

  He looked directly at Victoria. “Our best guess is that just as the clone flu was affected by the Quantum Virus, the clone flu also affected the Quantum. They work together.” With a fake laugh he said, “When flu season comes around again, we're going to have a doozie.”

  Victoria shook her head in disbelief.

  Liam listened in rapt silence. He was finally getting his answers. He was dismayed to realize they weren't what he expected. No secret cures were out there. These are the men who would know. And Hayes had been fighting the virus all along. He had difficulty squaring that with the sight of him trying to kill Victoria. Was he himself responsible for hindering Hayes in the discovery of a cure? Something more was going on. One phrase was festooned with neon lights in his head from Hayes' explanation.

  “Our virus.” He spoke it out loud, quietly. “You said, it was 'our virus' didn't you? You made the clone.” He pointed.

  Hayes was good at pretending to be sheepish. Liam had seen it before. This time, his embarrassed look was completely authentic.

  “I'm afraid that's true. I helped make it.”

  Chapter 13: Patriot Snowball

  “Now we're getting somewhere.” Duchesne seemed to enjoy Hayes' forced admissions. Liam's questions stacked up in his head.

  Before he could ask, another NIS contractor walked in the room.

  “The charges are set, sir.”

  Liam turned, thinking the voice was familiar, but he didn't recognize her.

  “Excellent. Grab these guns,” he pointed to Liam and Victoria's guns on the floor, “put them somewhere safe. Then just wait outside. We're almost ready.” He turned to Hayes. “I'm in a hurry. Tell these kids about their Snowballer Grandma and we'll move on to the next order of business.”

  Liam involuntarily gulped. He knew this wasn't going to end well. But, he was also terminally curious.

  “Liam, surely you've heard of the Patriot Snowball, right?”

  “No, why?”

  Both men looked at him like he was telling a lie.

  “Seriously? That's impossible. Don't you read the news? Watch the news? Anything?”

  He was reminded of a similar conversation on the day of the sirens. The librarian seemed incredulous he didn't follow the news in any form or fashion.

  “Look guys, I don't read the news, I don't watch the news, I don't do squat with news. Just tell me already!”

  Hayes laughed despite himself. “Well, you continue to amaze. I thought you of all people might have guessed what this was all about. Your Grandma Rose never told you?”

  “Intel said she never contacted any of the family. She went completely off the grid,” Duchesne stated matter-of-factly.

  “Well there you have it. Your Grandma started the whole snowball rolling toward Washington D.C. and she was never heard from again. Still not ringing any bells?”

  Liam searched his memory. Surely he'd remember his own Grandma Rose—she was Great-Grandma Marty's daughter-in-law—doing something to bring down the government. But he drew blanks. His only interactions with her in the past six months were getting a Christmas card with a crisp hundred dollar bill as per usual, and then hearing his dad and Grandma Marty talking on the phone and mentioning Rose's name. That was once.

  “I have no idea what you're talking about.” He looked at Victoria, but she also had no sign of recognition on her face.

  “Neither of you kids knows what's happening in your own world? Wow.”

  Hayes sounded condescending, and Liam felt his hackles rising.

  “Are you going to tell us or not?”

  Duchesne laughed.

  Hayes was a little more measured. “OK, after the President was sworn in back in January a movement of malcontents popped up out in Colorado—surely you know your Grandma was a congressperson from Colorado?” He waited to see Liam nod in the affirmative. “The movement started as a highway blockage, holding signs and complaining about crooked politics. They wrecked traffic in the entire city for a full day. When they broke up, a smal
l cadre of people—they called themselves patriots—began walking toward D.C. with the express intent of overthrowing what they called the illegitimate government. They refused to follow a Socialist President.”

  Hayes watched for signs of recognition on Liam's face, but Liam had none to give. He shook his head and continued his story.

  “The protesters regrouped at Liberty, Missouri, stating their cause was Liberty itself. Many more joined up. They continued walking east through the winter and into the spring. They got into Ohio and Rose herself appeared at the head of the column. She made a plea, or threat depending on your point of view, stating that any of her fellow congresspeople who abandoned the corrupt government and joined her would not be run out on a rail when she arrived. No one joined her, but the people loved her. More and more patriots began to follow her as the spring arrived and the weather got better. The joke in the news was that her cause was growing like a snowball. They named their march the Patriot Snowball. And it was rolling right for the seat of the most powerful government in human history.”

  “Dutch, you want to take it from your end?”

  “Sure, partner.” He laughed. “I take my orders directly from...the top. Sometimes things need to be done outside the law, you know? My bosses wanted the problem—gone. I warned Rose privately what was heading her way, but she never took me seriously. One day—poof—she disappeared. She escaped us.” He let out a fake sigh. “Still, a warning without consequences is worth nothing, so we expanded the order. We jobbed up a list of Rose's family members—every...single...one—and got to work eliminating them. A small price to pay for threatening Uncle Sam, don't you think?”

  Liam finally found his bad guy. He was too exhausted to summon the anger he knew he deserved.

  “The Snowballers marched on to Washington and actually made it into the White House, can you believe it? The damned secret service wouldn't protect him against his own constituents. But he got the last laugh. He unleashed the plague on them—he thought it would be cleaner than nuking them. Hayes was busy in his government lab building his Frankenstein when the call from the President came in, and to his credit he did his duty and released it upon the world. The President put a bullet in his mouth when the dolt realized it was much more destructive than Doc H and his friends said it would be. I guess the old Socialist won in the end. We're all equal in the eyes of the infected.”