She let out an audible sigh, which didn’t go unnoticed by the watchful commander.
Dr. Evans stood to the side of the door and impatiently waited as everybody left until she was alone with General Chance.
“Spill it,” he said.
“Sir?”
“I know you well enough to tell when something’s on your mind, and something’s definitely on your mind.”
“Sir, we might have a lead on the investigation into the spread of the contagion.”
“The Rive,” he said, catching her off guard.
“The Rive, sir?”
“That’s what the USAMRIID are calling them now, Doctor. Teams of scientists from all parts of the world are all over this study now. The East Coast may be without power, but where there’s a means, there’s a way. The USAMRIID has code-named the pathogen Omega-V; some others refer to it as the O-virus. Regardless, they’ve been identifying the creatures as ‘the Rive,’ and USAMRIID have the best scientists and physicians available to work on it.
“Kindred countries like Australia, the UK, France, and Spain are all pitching in their finest because they understand that if we don’t get this thing under control fast, we’re going to have a global pandemic. I want you to cease and desist any and all studies regarding the matter. The USAMRIID has taken over CDC functions, and there is no longer a need for us to be spearheading such an operation when they have superior capabilities. Do you understand, Doctor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, now finish up your investigation and take whatever actions you have to in order to remedy the situation.”
Dr. Evans was fine with dismantling the Rive experiments. They made her especially nervous, and with Dr. Carter’s obsession now looming over the facility, everyone was being jeopardized.
Dr. Evans stormed out of the morning briefing and made her way to the laboratory where Dr. Carter was already at work on Private Smith.
“What are you doing, Dr. Carter?” she asked with intensity in her tone. She had suited up as fast as she could so that she could confront him about his actions.
“Private Smith fell into a coma last night. The fever must have come back to him, and now I’m looking into the matter to see what’s wrong with him.”
Dr. Carter didn’t know the details of her job as the team leader, which entitled her to computer-generated readouts of all of her subordinates’ activities through the night.
Dr. Evans was nervous, and Dr. Carter sensed as much from the tremor in her voice. He wasn’t sure if she was nervous about the story he had told her or if she was onto his lie.
As he stood there studying Private Smith, she looked at the IV drip that led to his arm. It was labeled “sodium thiopental,” a coma-inducing chemical generally used for people undergoing surgical procedures. She chose not to acknowledge the drug until Dr. Schott could be present to witness the event. Dr. Schott’s absence aroused her curiosity. She was never late to work and usually reported several minutes early.
“Where’s Dr. Schott?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her.”
Dr. Carter was lying to his team leader.
Thirty minutes earlier
Dr. Carter was already at his workstation when Dr. Schott arrived.
“Good morning, Dr. Carter,” she said, entering the laboratory.
Dr. Carter acknowledged her, but there was an awkward pause from the time she spoke to him until the time he finally responded, “Good morning.” He was obviously focused on some matter of importance.
She had entered the room so hastily that she failed to see the man lying on the exam table. “What’s this? What’s going on?” she asked with concern. She recognized him as Private Smith.
He had an IV drip in his arm, causing a medically induced coma. This type of thing would have been common knowledge and everybody in the laboratory would have known about it. When somebody fell ill in an emergency-type situation, a Code Blue was called. It was the Code Blue that notified any and all physicians that there was a medical emergency, and it was normally announced on the intercom system so that all required personnel could respond. For Private Smith there had been no such notification.
“He must’ve fallen into a coma last night when the fever came back to him. I’m trying to find the cause for its return and possibly avoid it with the others.”
“Dr. Carter, we’re scientists, not physicians. We draw their blood, scrape their nodules, take saliva swabs, and we test them; that’s all.”
Dr. Schott didn’t seem to be getting much of a response from him, so she upped her game. “Why do you have a medicinal coma-inducing chemical drip on the patient?”
“It’s for posterity, Dr. Schott,” he answered, drawing blood into a syringe.
“We can’t do this! This man belongs on a medical gurney, not a science lab table,” she insisted. “I’m going to get Dr. Evans,” she said, turning to walk away.
Dr. Carter grabbed her by the arm.
“Let go of me,” she demanded, striking at him with a hammer fist. He wouldn’t let go, so she became more violent. He was easily overpowering her when she began to call for help.
Afraid she might be heard and he would be caught red-handed in the act of workplace violence, he wrestled her to the ground and removed her isolation mask. He mounted her, and she rolled over onto her stomach to avoid him, but it only gave him more advantage. He placed his hands over her mouth and nose and applied the necessary pressure to keep her from breathing. He found himself caught in the moment, perplexed by his own actions. It was too late to stop now, he thought to himself. His career would be over for the aggression alone. The US government had a zero-tolerance policy for workplace violence, and he would certainly be terminated for the unauthorized experiments on Private Smith.
He held onto Dr. Schott until she stopped moving. The end result was that she had died at his hands, and he reasoned that he needed to hide her body and work on an explanation. There had to be a connection between the carriers and the turned, but he couldn’t figure it out. He was confident that he would be able to make that connection and somehow blame her death on the contagion.
For now, he had to act fast. He knew Dr. Evans would be leaving her morning briefing soon, so he rushed to drag Dr. Schott’s lifeless body to the cooler. He hid her behind some boxes and left, being careful to close the door behind him.
...
“What do you mean you haven’t seen her?” Dr. Evans asked him. “She’s always on time—early, in fact.”
Dr. Carter turned from his experiment to face her. “I said I don’t know.”
His new attitude toward her signaled red flags that something was very much wrong with the situation. She knew that somehow, someway, Dr. Carter was right smack-dab in the middle of it. She couldn’t help but feel he was responsible for her disappearance. She did what any good supervisor would do and went for the phone.
Dr. Carter looked over his shoulder and saw her dial the extension for personnel. Dr. Evans had the phone up to her ear and it didn’t even ring once before Dr. Carter snatched it out of her hand and hung it up.
“What are you doing, Doctor?” she asked.
“I’ve accomplished too much for you to pull the plug now,” he answered.
“We’ve been shut down, Bradley,” she said, calling him by his first name.
“Shut down, how?”
“I’m informing you that we’re done here. USAMRIID has taken over the entire project. We’re no longer the premier case study. In fact, we’re no longer operating as the CDC. If you desire to continue your work, I recommend you transfer to Fort Detrick, because that’s the only way you will continue experimenting.” She paused to look around the room and could no longer ignore the IV drip on Private Smith. “Tell me, Dr. Carter, was Private Smith alert when you entered his room this morning at 3:36 a.m.?”
Dr. Carter’s mind began to race as he searched it thoroughly for an acceptable answer to the damnable question. “Th
e last time I saw her was early this morning. I asked her to grab me some more insulin out of the cooler,” he said. His objective was to follow Dr. Evans to the cooler and silence her there. In his mind, she was the only living witness to his crimes. After that, Dr. Carter had decided to leave the Cheyenne Mountain Complex and seek a transfer to the new CDC in Maryland.
When Dr. Evans headed for the cooler, he followed not too far behind. She opened the cooler and was shocked to see Dr. Schott standing there facing the wall. “Dr. Schott, are you okay?” she asked.
Dr. Evans’s comment scared Dr. Carter, who knew he had killed her. In a panic he ran toward Dr. Evans, hoping to push her into the cooler with Dr. Schott, but he was cut short when he heard a scream come from the cooler and saw an undead version of what used to be Dr. Schott jump out of the fridge and onto Dr. Evans. She screamed in terror and called for Dr. Carter’s help, but he was already headed in the other direction. He tripped and stumbled as he tried desperately to reach the decon room, but all the noise he made didn’t seem to affect the creature, which was feeding on Dr. Evans twitching body.
He sat on the floor, petrified at what he was witnessing, and watched until Dr. Evans’s body stopped moving. At that point, the creature let out another scream and ran at Dr. Carter. He picked himself up and entered the decon room and attempted to secure the door. He was too late. The creature had its arm in the door, grasping for him and screaming as it tried to snatch its prey, but all it could grab was his lab suit.
Guards on the outside of the decontamination room saw Dr. Carter struggling to close the door and tried to get his attention, but he wasn’t responding. It was at that point that they realized he was in trouble.
One of the two guards pushed the control center communications button and requested an immediate override. The control center staff, seeing there was a problem in the decon room, granted the request and hit the emergency override button and overrode the normal protocol that prevented both of the doors from being opened at the same time. When they did, both doors opened.
They rushed in and saw a Screamer attacking Dr. Carter. They opened fire on the creature, but it didn’t seem to be affected by the ammunition they were using. One of the guards tried using the buttstock of his rifle to hit the creature on the back of the head. It was momentarily stunned, allowing Dr. Carter to break free of his attacker and run out of the room.
The guards tried to do the same, but the creature recovered from its trauma and attacked the next closest guard. It went straight for the jugular and ripped open the man’s throat, expelling streams of blood that the creature seemed to be chasing like a child playing in a water fountain.
The second guard tried shooting at it some more, but was not having the desired effect. About that time, a second Screamer came running out of the laboratory and knocked him to the ground. He recognized the first as Dr. Schott and the second one as Dr. Evans. When he was knocked to the ground, he slid a couple of feet out of range of the Screamer’s grip. He stood up and ran as fast as he could, making his way to a control center that was located in the middle of the sector.
There were two guards on the inside that were trying urgently to unlock the door to let him in. At the last second, they were able to open the control center door. When they did, both the Screamer and the guard ran in, and both fell to the floor, blocking the door from closing. Now that the Screamer was on top of its prey, it began biting the man on the neck. The man struggled to break free from his attacker, but was hopelessly weaker, especially since he was facedown.
One of the control center personnel grabbed the guard’s rifle and started shooting at the beast, but it ignored them completely. The other guard hit the facility-wide emergency notification button on the control panel, which activated red flashing lights and sirens all across the facility.
When the other Screamer had finished with its quarry, it stood up and ran for the control center. It tripped over the dying man and the other Screamer that were fighting in the doorway, and crawled up and over them, trying to reach the two control center guards.
When they realized they couldn’t stop either of the Screamers with bullets, one of them began beating the one on top of the pile over the head with the rifle; wielding it like a baseball bat, he slammed it in the back of the skull, over and over again, until eventually the creature’s behavior changed. Each time the guard struck it, the beast seemed to have a little less fight in it. Eventually, there was enough head trauma to cause the skull of the Screamer to cave in. The creature kept screaming as it reached for them, but the guard kept hitting it and its scream diminished with each passing blow. Eventually, it stopped altogether, and stood up, wandering with no apparent direction, but the other one was still attacking the guard in the doorway, who was still fighting for his life.
The guard with the rifle started pounding it on the back of the head. On his second or third swing, yet another Screamer was heard off in the distance. It was the first guard who had died between the overridden containment doors. He ran up and over the two in the doorway and attacked the rifle-wielding soldier, taking a bite of the man’s face. He tried to fend the monster off with the help of his associate, but the creature turned on him too. The struggle lasted long enough for the living Screamer in the doorway to join in on the fight. In a matter of moments, both of the control center guards were dead. The soldier in the doorway had died facedown and soon reanimated to join the ranks of the undead.
...
General Chance was at Command Point NORAD several floors beneath the research facility when the red emergency hazard lights began to flash. They were accompanied by an annoying warning siren that drowned out every other noise in the vicinity.
“LT,” the general said on the phone, “what’s going on up there?”
“Sir, the CDC-level control pod activated the emergency evac system. There were screams, and I couldn’t make out what was being said; something about an outbreak and dead soldiers.”
“Quarantine the building immediately and every building adjacent to it. Evacuate everyone else,” the general said, hanging up the phone.
The order was given, but it provided the lieutenant with little comfort. Quarantining those buildings adjacent to the research facility meant Command Point would have to go on lockdown. Nobody leaves and nobody enters. The lieutenant gave the order to his subordinates, who, in turn, ceased all movement, secured both twenty-three-ton blast door entries, closed all hallways and ramps, and ceased all transport to and from the outside world.
Haven
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Shemika said, kissing Mason on the head.
“She caught the fever,” he said, looking into her eyes. It was the first thing that came out of his mouth. He had dreamt of Lydia the whole night through, and the memory of that moment where he saw her with a gun to her head haunted his sleep.
“Mason, I’m so sorry,” she said in a solemn voice.
“All hope is not gone,” the preacher said, walking into the room. He was standing guard at the door when Mason spoke his first words for the day. “We must trust in the Lord, for He knows our needs from our wants. He gives and He takes away.”
“Preacher, I don’t know if you know this about me or not, but I’m an atheist.”
Shemika was shocked to hear it. The preacher looked at Mason and said, “I already knew that.”
“How did you know that?”
“The Lord spoke to me about the man who would be the death of Romeo. He said it would be a man without faith and fear.”
“But I didn’t kill Romeo. She did,” he said, pointing to Shemika.
“I didn’t kill Romeo.”
“You said you took him out.”
“Yeah—I took him out. I didn’t kill him.”
“I don’t know the difference, then,” Mason argued.
“As in, I took him out of the game. He’s still alive. I shot him in his gun arm, freed the preacher, and handcuffed Romeo to the top rung of the ladder. He’s stuck on to
p of the wall.” She laughed. “It didn’t feel right killing a man tethered to a man of God.”
“Whatever. Look, we gotta come up with a plan to get my daughter back. You guys have done so much already,” he said, standing up. “If you want out, now’s a good time.”
“I’m with you ’til the end,” the preacher said.
“You know I’ve got your back,” Shemika said.
“Okay then. It’s risky, but here’s what I’m thinking…”
...
Back at the administration building, the Colonel was sitting at his desk with Lydia not far away. The old fireplace was burning logs, and she was playing with toys on the carpet just in front of it to enjoy the heat when she said, “Mr. Sanders, I don’t feel so good.”
The Colonel stood up and walked over to the little girl. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“I’m cold.”
The little girl was covered in nodules. Sanders lifted her pant leg and saw that she was covered from head to toe. He’d had experience with this outbreak before. Not long after the Flash, he took in a homeless man that was infected. At first, the bumps appeared and looked like tiny pimples. Eventually, they grew into pus-filled sacks that hung from the body. Once the nodules reached every extremity, there was an accompanying fever. After the fever came the contagion.
Sanders knew he could not allow Lydia to stay with him. If he was to accidentally break one of the nodes and get the contents into an open cut or in his eyes or mouth, he would be infected. On the other hand, he knew she was leverage against Mason. He had to make a tough decision. Her condition warranted treatment that he couldn’t provide her, and although he had scared her half to death by holding a gun to her head, he never had any intention of causing her any physical harm. Sanders might have been a lunatic of sorts, but he wasn’t one to harm children.
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