by JE Gurley
“Everyone! Stop what you’re doing and shut down the equipment. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we’re taking a break, starting now.”
Lee stared at her. “But we …”
“We all need to take a break, take a few steps away from our work, and see if inspiration strikes us.”
“Wahoo,” Susan McNeil yelled. She threw off the hairnet she was wearing and shook out her long blonde hair. At twenty-seven, she was younger than the others were and suffered the most from their self-imposed isolation. Most who saw her, considered her beautiful, and those who knew her, labeled her vivacious, but no one ever doubted her ability or dedication to her work. “I feel like some music and dancing.” She looked at Elliot and winked. “How about you, Elliot?”
He felt his face turning red. She had once had a thing for him, but his interest had lain in Erin. She still enjoyed flirting with him. Erin didn’t seem to mind, so he ignored it.
“I have two left feet,” he replied.
Susan sighed and shook her head. “You men. You would think at least one of you would know how to dance.”
Seth Brisbane, one of the technicians thrust into the position of researcher by the expediency of surviving the plague, raised his hand timidly. “I can dance,” he said. The others turned to stare at him. Brisbane, a few years older than Susan, was quiet, unkempt, and awkward around women, but he attacked his job with a single-minded perseverance that overcame his lack of formal training. His admission surprised them all.
Susan smiled. “Well then, Seth. You and I can take a turn around the dance floor while the others watch.”
He withered under her smile and gaze. “N-n-now?” he stammered.
She placed a hand on her flat belly and laughed. “No, silly. Tomorrow at our party.”
He smiled back. “S-s-sure.”
“Be sure to return all cultures to the incubator in the Level 4 lab,” Erin reminded them.
“I’ll do it,” Brisbane announced.
“Okay, Seth,” Erin replied, “go ahead.”
While the others shut down the equipment, Brisbane gathered the tubes of cultures the others had been examining into a slotted carrier. They had almost finished by the time he donned a bright blue biohazard suit salvaged from a FEMA medical center and cycled through the decontamination lock. He held his arms wide to allow the disinfectant and UV lights to scour his suit of any contaminants. The Level 4 lab, really just a ten-by-ten sealed cubicle in a corner of the building, maintained a lower air pressure than outside air in case of minor leaks. The door hissed as he swung it open. A single, double-paned acrylic window allowed outside observers to watch workers inside the room. Brisbane carefully attached the coiled air supply line to his suit, crossed the room, and opened the sealed incubator.
Elliot glanced at Brisbane while the others shed their lab smocks and prepared to leave. At first, he paid no attention to Brisbane’s grabbing the air hose with his right hand. The looped coils sometimes became tangled and needed adjusting. When he set the carrier on the edge of a desk and yanked the hose with both hands, a loose aluminum strut supporting the hose mechanism pulled away from the ceiling and struck him in the shoulder. As he staggered backwards, his flailing hand knocked over the carrier, spilling its contents on the floor. One of the vials broke. Almost immediately, a biohazard alarm sounded, startling everyone.
“Seth!” Erin yelled and raced for the airlock. She was sobbing by the time Elliot joined her.
Brisbane rose from the floor, startled, and surveyed the overturned carrier. He then examined the broken strut. “I’m sorry, Erin. I’ll clean this up.” His voice was shaky, but calmer than Elliot would have expected it to be under the circumstances. When he turned his back, he heard Erin’s gasp.
“Seth,” she said with dread filling her voice, “look at your suit.”
The strut had ripped a hole in the tough material of his biohazard suit just beneath his right arm, and as he had fallen, the airline had separated. He was breathing contaminated air in a compromised suit. Rather than panic, Brisbane turned to look at Erin through the glass.
“The Blue Juice might save you, Seth,” she said. “Decontaminate in the lock, and we’ll administer another dose.”
He smiled and shook his head. “The vial that broke was one of the concentrated samples. Just my luck. If I open the inner door, I’ll contaminate the airlock. I don’t think the mist and UV lights are enough. I’ll expose all of you.”
Someone had thankfully silenced the alarm. The room was now deathly silent except for Brisbane’s labored breathing coming from the intercom speaker.
“You know what you have to do,” he added.
“No, Seth,” Erin pleaded, “I can’t.” She turned away and began to sob into Elliot’s shoulder.
Susan’s eyes were moist as well as she said, “You owe me a dance, Seth.”
He smiled; then turned away. Elliot saw Brisbane’s shoulders shaking and knew he was crying as well. “You’re more practical that the rest of us, Elliot,” he said with his back turned. “Will you do it?”
Erin grabbed his arm to stop him, but she knew Brisbane was right. She could do nothing for him. He was a dead man. The Blue Juice vaccine would not protect him from the concentration of lethal viruses contaminating the lab air. It was just a matter of time before he died and the virus changed him into a zombie.
The Level 4 containment lab had a failsafe system. The large red button sat discretely in a metal box behind a glass cover on the wall. Its presence was known by all, but largely ignored for the implications of using it and what it would mean. By pressing the button, a flash fire fueled by natural gas would raise the inside temperature of the room to two-thousand degrees Celsius in a matter of seconds, immediately incinerating any viruses in the air or contaminating any surfaces. Unfortunately, it would do the same to Brisbane. Elliot hesitated, and then smashed the glass covering the red button. He hesitated again, his hand hovering over the button. He felt Erin’s hand cover his.
“Together,” she whispered.
He pressed the button and covered his eyes from the brilliant flash, as fire swept through the room. Liquids hissed as they boiled away, and metal screamed as it twisted and warped from the intense heat. Brisbane collapsed to the floor, barely visible through the flames as the heat scorched the inside of the thick acrylic window. Thankfully, the intercom went dead before they heard his horrible screams. Elliot held the button down until the natural gas tank emptied. Overhead, a powerful fan throbbed as it sucked the burning exhaust gases away from the building and expelled them harmlessly into the air from an outlet a hundred yards away. The sprinkler system sprayed the room until the flames died away.
The scorched and blackened window obscured their view of the aftermath of the fire, but the room was safe, its deadly contents vaporized. The intense heat would have left very little of Brisbane to remove. The damage was extensive. It would be hours before they could see what they could salvage, if anything. They would have to rebuild the Level 4 lab from scratch, a time-consuming effort.
“The rest of you go ahead,” he told the others. “I’ll take care of things here.”
No one protested or offered to help, too stunned by the sudden sequence of events to comprehend fully what had just happened. All they knew was that they had lost a colleague. It would dawn on them later that many weeks of hard labor lay before them before they could continue their work. Perhaps Erin had been right after all. Taking time to give thanks for their bounty seemed incongruous now.
4
Salt Lake City, Utah
It hardly mattered to Bahati Adib that she was probably the only Coptic Christian in a land of Mormons. The daily tedium of simple survival erased most religious, social, and racial barriers. Few people had the time or energy for intolerance. The Mormons practiced their faith as they always had and bothered no one, allowing Christians, Buddhists, and atheists alike to do as they saw fit. Bahati had been an exchange student studying at Brigham Young University
when the plague struck, with no way of returning to her native Alexandria, Egypt. Her name, Bahati, meant ‘Fortune’ in Arabic. She was not so certain of her fortune. She had no idea if any of her family had survived. Now, stranded in a foreign land among people she barely knew, she was trying to make a new home for herself.
To fit in, she had discarded her traditional Egyptian long-sleeved, long-hemmed thobe and sandals for Western wear – jeans, shirt, and boots. Even as a Christian, she did not wish to draw attention to her Arab origins. Some people held Muslims responsible for the plague, though Arab countries had been among the first to suffer and, with few hospitals or medical personnel available, had suffered harder.
She had joined in the massive effort to dig the Big Ditch, saving Salt Lake City from the zombie horde migrating northwards. The zombies had eventually scattered into the mountains to the east, but the city remained a virtual island, isolated from the rest of the country by mountains, desert, and the narrow band of water of the Big Ditch. The few airplanes that flew in brought mostly medicine and military supplies. No one left. There were few places to go.
The military was slowly reclaiming the hearts of San Diego and Phoenix, and had established a base on Vashon Island across from Seattle. Most of both coasts were zombie occupied, as was the Industrial Northern Corridor from Chicago to Boston. Using ships from San Diego and Vashon Island, railroads from Phoenix, and air travel from both Phoenix and Salt Lake City, a thin line of communications was kept flowing between these far-flung outposts of civilization. America’s sparsely populated productive heartland had few large cities, most of which were deserted except for zombies. To rebuild the country, they needed farmlands and industry. For this, they needed people, but survivors were afraid of the military for their pogrom of capturing immune civilians to feed the blood bank mills that produced Blue Juice, the only vaccine available. Since its effects were only temporary, a lot of blood was required.
Only in Salt Lake City under the authority of Colonel Martin Schumer, was it safe for a munie to walk the streets. The Mormons donated their blood freely and without coercion. Their isolation enforced the colonel’s authority. The Ditch that had saved them had been his idea. As an engineer, he had implemented its construction with the same dedication that he devoted to protecting the people in his charge.
Bahati finished the sandwich in her hand, washing it down with a bottle of fruit juice. Around her, the other women were returning to their jobs in the food processing plant. She worked on the vegetable line, operating the machine that today dumped a pre-measured portion of cooked corn into aluminum cans racing down the conveyor line. Beyond her, another machine sealed the cans and sent them onto a labeler. Her world had become one of corn, peas, beans, and squash, but people must eat. Soon, the storeroom of aluminum cans would be depleted. Recycling wasn’t enough. Unless they reopened the mines and smelters, their diet would be limited to seasonal fresh produce and dried foods.
Her day passed mindlessly, hours of boredom interrupted briefly by a flashing red light accompanied by a lull in the noise level. She rose from her stool, cleared whatever had stopped the line, usually a bent can, pushed a button to restart the line, and resumed her seat. In this manner, the afternoon passed. She was aware of the time only when the whistle blew to announce the end of her shift. She donned her heavy coat, and with the other women, marched from the factory to the single women’s dormitory a few blocks away.
She passed a brochure in the common area of the dorm announcing a movie that night – You’ve Got Mail – but she didn’t want a reminder that such things as E-mail were obsolete. Her roommate, Elise Newman, another non-Mormon met her at the door of their room. Elise was short and somewhat unattractive, something she made no effort to alter by wearing her bright red hair short with deep bangs that almost hid her hazel eyes, which she framed with large, dark horn-rimmed glasses. She was thin, but well proportioned, and hid what Bahati thought was her best feature, her body, beneath bulky, formless dresses. By contrast, Bahati was tall and slim with long black hair and emerald green eyes. The blood of Cleopatra ran in her veins. She was aware of the looks of admiration she received from men, but ignored them. She had no time or inclination to fraternize.
“Are you going to the movie tonight after dinner?” Elise asked.
Bahati sighed. “No. I do not feel like a movie.”
She tossed her coat on her bed, unpinned her hair, which she had kept covered with a cap, and let it fall around her shoulders. She glanced in the mirror and wiped a smudge from the side of her nose with her finger.
“You can’t sit around moping all the time,” Elise challenged.
“I’m not moping,” she shot at her friend. “I’m tired.”
“You’re moping. I know you’re worried about your family, but …”
“And you’re not?”
Elise paused. Her face paled slightly and a quiver played on her lower lip. “My parents are dead. I saw them die. My brother … I don’t know what happened to him. He was in Chicago.”
Bahati plopped down on her bed and frowned. She could see that she had upset her roommate. “I’m sorry, Elise. I did not mean to be so rude. You go on to dinner and the movie. Once I’ve rested and cleaned up, I might join you.”
“Do. It’s Thanksgiving, Bahati – turkey and dressing. You need to relax.”
“We do not celebrate Thanksgiving in my country, and I do not see that we have anything to celebrate.”
“Living. We celebrate just living.” Elise smiled at her one last time and disappeared out the door.
Bahati realized that Elise was right about one thing – she was moping. For days, doubts of her uncertain future had plagued her mind. Would she ever return to Alexandria? Did she have any family still living if she did? Could she adjust to life in a land with people so different from her? She had come to America to study economics and to improve her English skills to help with her family’s date export business, but she had never dreamed of living here. Now, unless something changed, she was stuck in America, in Salt Lake City.
She couldn’t recount the number the times someone had replied, “You must be used to the desert,” when she mentioned her origin. Did they think all of Egypt was desert? Her city, Alexandria, lay on the southern Mediterranean coast near one of the Nile’s two main outlets, a land of lakes, rivers, and the sea. Soft sea breezes swept inland and the scent of red lotus blossoms sweetened the air. It had been home to Cleopatra, most famous of the Ptolemy Pharaohs, and the city of Marc Antony’s death. It was site of the renowned Library of Alexandria. Her family’s house faced the sea along the El Geish Road in the El Ibrahimaia Bahary neighborhood. She grew up swimming in the Mediterranean’s blue waters. The Nile Delta was an agricultural region. What did she know of deserts and sand dunes?
She needed something to take her mind off her problems, but she was certain a movie was not it, certainly not a romantic comedy. She had no stomach for food, even Elise’s much touted turkey feast. Perhaps a walk through downtown would lift her spirits. She sighed. It would require wearing her heavy coat again. She did not think she would get used to Utah winters.
Her dormitory was located near the canning plant southwest of downtown in the Sugar House neighborhood, a once liberal bastion of small shops. Now, like many areas of the city, it was mostly deserted. The colleges had closed, though a few small schools still functioned for children. Two of the city’s TRAX rail lines still operated, though with fewer stations. She hopped on a train headed downtown, one of only a handful of passengers. Two young men stared at her and whispered to one another. She glared at them until they stopped. When she had first come to America, such crude displays made her nervous, thinking they were whispering about her foreignness. Elise had informed her that men found her strikingly beautiful. She had dismissed her friend as being overly complimentary, but she felt a secret thrill at men’s stares. She had lost her virginity in Alexandria to an older cousin at fourteen. She liked men, but at this time, had no
desire for even a casual relationship.
She left the train at Temple Square and walked east along South Temple Street. A few snowflakes floated down from the low-lying clouds, but no one had predicted any accumulation. There was little traffic. Fuel was too precious to waste on automobiles. Volunteer work parties had removed most of the abandoned cars and corpses from this section of the city and boarded broken windows, but many areas of the city remained untouched. Groups of people strolled on the temple grounds in spite of the inclement weather. Her destination was a small former sports bar and grill a few blocks from the Temple that had lately reopened.
The name Z-Bar had been the owner’s attempt to inject humor into the absurdity of the Zombie Apocalypse. The fact that his name was Miklos Zacharenias did not dissuade most patrons of the opinion that the name was an inappropriate reminder of the devastation surrounding them. However, it did not prevent them from drinking there. Bahati thought the name appropriate since most of the customers displayed the lifelessness of zombies, if not their penchant for devouring human flesh. The Z-Bar had a dance floor and a jukebox, but it was seldom playing, and she had never seen anyone dancing. Many of the patrons, far too many in her opinion, were individuals like herself, who simply sat alone and drank. She did not consider herself an alcoholic. She enjoyed the occasional dry martini, but she had never been drunk. In a community where even caffeine was frowned upon, a drunk would never have been tolerated.
As she entered, Miklos, a rotund former Athenian with a large black moustache and ever-present smile, nodded to her and began to prepare her martini. He knew what she liked to drink. She chose her usual table beside the jukebox, facing the street where she could watch passersby. The sun was setting, casting long shadows down the street and sidewalk. The glass windows of the buildings, those that still had windows, reflected a burnished golden aura. If not for the gaping, blackened windows and streaks of soot from fire-gutted buildings, it would have been a serene scene. Instead, it served only to remind her of where she was.