Ellie abruptly realized Hal had been shifting uncomfortably while she was lost in her ruminations. “It was about as amiable as a divorce can be,” she said reluctantly. “My attorney wanted me to go for blood, try to get the best possible deal for myself, but I didn't see how that would be good for any of us. Nick, my ex, also wanted to be fair, so we tried the best we could to arrange for equal custody and child support, and shared out our assets as evenly as we could. And we try to be flexible to each other's situations when stuff comes up.”
The young man was quiet for a few seconds. “I don't know what to say without sounding . . . I don't know, out of place. But good for you, I'm glad you managed it.”
Again, there was that long pause where he could've said something about his own experiences. But he didn't.
Before the pause could turn unbearable again, the intercom finally crackled and the pilot's voice came over it. “Good morning, passengers. We appreciate your patience with this unprecedented delay, and again apologize for this situation. The good news is we finally have some information for you about what seems to be going on.”
Next to her Hal straightened from his slouching position, expression intent. Around them other people were also sitting up attentively, heads craned to look at the speakers above them.
“It appears the reason Hawaii has closed off its airports is because people suffering symptoms of a new and very virulent disease have been found in over thirty airports across the globe. Air travel is obviously spreading the disease at an alarming rate so many places, including Hawaii, are closing themselves off to it.”
Ellie felt a chill run down her spine. Thirty airports across the globe? That couldn't have happened overnight, so why hadn't she heard a thing about this up til now?
Her thoughts, focused on the big picture, hadn't arrived at a more immediate problem. But Hal's had. “Is someone on this plane infected?” he called out. There were shocked gasps from the passengers around them, then calls of agreement and demands for answers.
The pilot had continued talking, starting to list the names of the cities where outbreaks were occurring. But mid-word he paused, either hearing the commotion from the rest of the plane or being informed of it. “Please, folks, stay calm,” he said in an easygoing tone. “We have no evidence of the disease being on this plane. In fact, there's no evidence of it being on any plane at this airport. This is merely a precaution.”
The man went back to listing the names of infected cities, and Ellie found a new and far better reason to panic. There were eight major cities in the US on that list: New York City, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, Portland, Chicago . . . and Kansas City.
A soft gasp escaped in spite of Ellie's best efforts, nearly drowning out her seatmate's own sharp intake of breath.
How, out of all the possible cities in the country, was her home one of them? The place where her family was waiting, vulnerable and possibly exposed to this mysterious disease. She had a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to pull out her phone, threats of criminal charges notwithstanding, and call Nick. The fact that so far it seemed like only airports were hotspots of this disease, and her family had no reason to go to an airport themselves, stopped her.
This was just undue panic. Ricky and Tallie were safely in school, and Nick would probably be in the middle of one of his afternoon naps after a late night of working. They'd almost certainly be given plenty of warning by Kansas City officials of any threat, and be able to respond to it.
Although it wasn't just Nick and the kids she had to worry about.
Ellie was an only child and her parents had had her late, so her extended family were all older and she didn't know them well, or were younger and she'd never really been in their lives. Of her parents her dad had died of natural causes a few years ago, but her mom was still in Kansas City in a home, being treated for early onset Alzheimer's.
That was a much more likely source of concern, since she had no idea if her mom's caregivers would be exposed to other medical professionals who might be working to treat people sick with this mysterious disease.
The thought filled her with anguish. Caring for her mom in her current state had been difficult to the point of impossible with all her traveling for work, and even more so since her divorce. She already felt guilty enough about not visiting her often enough, even when on half of those visits she might as well have been a stranger.
But the thought of losing her mom to some disease because she'd been stuck in a place where she'd been exposed to it was unbearable. Which just made her all the more desperate to get home.
To Ellie's vast relief, once the pilot finished naming off airports he immediately shifted gears. “The other piece of news is a bit better . . . although we cannot disembark or approach the airport, we've finally been given clearance to refuel and take off again.”
The announcement was met with a chorus of cheers, although some people, obviously those who'd been heading to Hawaii as their destination, looked disgruntled. “Where are we going?” a man's voice near the front of the cabin called out, fairly uselessly.
Although it was an obvious question, and the pilot answered it anyway when he continued. “You might be wondering about our destination. First off I regret to inform you that we cannot return to Japan . . . just like Hawaii, it has closed its airports to all but emergency landings. Since we're unable to go back there, and the officials here insist we refuel and depart, we will be traveling to Los Angeles International Airport. We've been given leave to land and disembark there, and assured that as long as none of our passengers present with symptoms by the time we arrive, none of us will be placed under quarantine.”
That news was met with an even louder round of cheers, Ellie and Hal joining in enthusiastically since that's where they'd been headed anyway. Although Ellie felt bad about all the Japanese passengers on the plane who were stranded away from home.
“We'll be taking off shortly,” the pilot concluded. “And I'm pleased to report that along with fuel, we'll be taking on enough food to see everyone comfortably fed to our destination. Please settle in and enjoy the rest of your flight, and thank you for your patience in these trying circumstances.”
Ellie snorted bitterly at that; enjoying her flight would be a trick, considering the state of her family back home. She glanced over at Hal to find him brooding, a worried expression on his face. “I'm sure our loved ones back in Kansas City are fine,” she told him, briefly resting a hand on his arm.
The teenager gave a start of surprise and turned to her, forcing a smile. “Yeah, sure,” he said unconvincingly. “I just can't believe KCI is one of the affected airports.”
“Me either.”
He shook his head grimly. “I guess the silver lining on this cloud is that if people are catching this disease in airports, I'd rather be trapped in a plane.”
True, although that meant they might be at risk the moment they arrived at the Los Angeles airport. The pilot hadn't mentioned it on his list, but LAX was a major international hub; if the disease was spreading as fast as it sounded, it was highly likely it would spring up there before long.
On top of that, and even more terrifying, was the pilot's casual comment about none of them having symptoms by the time they arrived.
What if someone on the plane was sick? In that case they'd been trapped together for over two thirds of a day, and would be trapped together for hours longer. Plenty of time to infect everyone from first class to coach with whatever it was that was making officials panic to the point of closing off entire islands, entire countries, to keep it from spreading.
Forget quarantine, Ellie might be infected with something that would kill her before she ever got a chance to see her kids again. Sure, it seemed unlikely, but even the possibility was enough to terrify her.
She settled back to her own brooding, wishing she could use her phone. Please be okay, she thought to her loved ones back home. And to Nick, please, please take care of our children.
&nb
sp; Chapter Two: Falling Apart
The moment they got home the kids immediately rushed to kick off their shoes and toss their jackets and backpacks beneath the hooks for hanging them, then made a beeline for the kitchen to grab a snack.
Almost as if this was a regular day and they'd just got home from school at the usual time.
Well, Nick wasn't about to complain about them settling into that normalcy, considering the panic they'd just escaped. He took a minute making sure they were settled, and weren't so shaken by their experience that they needed him to stay with them. They didn't seem to be, so he let them know he'd be in the den and made his own beeline for the TV there.
In retrospect he probably would've been better off going for his computer in his office, since he spent a minute or so floundering around trying to find a way to look at the news on the TV.
Nick had to admit that he'd never even used it for local broadcasting, the stuff you used to get from rabbit ear antennas or as part of basic cable packages when he was a kid. He wasn't even sure his Smart TV worked for that, and poking around on the various devices he used to stream and record videos didn't turn up what he was looking for.
It turned out to be a case of being too smart to be stupid, though. Or maybe vice-versa. Pretty much all the major news channels put their videos up, and even streamed live footage; all he had to do was hop on everyone's favorite video sharing platform and type in “Kansas City”, and he was soon swamped with news.
More news than he wanted, really, considering the subject.
The first stream he hopped into on a local channel showed a horrifying image of an elderly man in a hospital bed, attached to monitors and with an IV in one arm. He had bandages over his ears, plugging his nostrils, and a nurse in a full hazmat suit was currently dabbing at bloody saliva frothing from his mouth as he wheezed weakly. His eyes were open and looking around with a sort of confused fear.
And they were rimmed with crusted blood while more red tears slowly trickled from the corners.
“. . . is Josh Thurston,” a grave woman's voice was saying. “He was on a flight from Boise to Kansas City, on his way home from a visit with family in Idaho, when he began showing symptoms of this mysterious new illness. He is just one of thousands of reported cases from all over the country, most discovered on airplanes or in airports.”
Nick felt his blood chill at the implications of that: it meant this disease was spreading by airplanes to, well, everywhere.
“According to a recently issued CDC statement, this disease, which has been designated Zolos, is a virus which survives for extended periods of time on any surface it's exposed to, and can also be waterborne or airborne. After infection the patient exhibits no noticeable symptoms at all for between two to four days, then swiftly exhibits the symptoms seen by Mr. Thurston, beginning with dizziness, chills, and excessive sweating, then swiftly progressing to bleeding from all orifices, debilitating weakness, severe stomach pains, and ultimately internal bleeding leading to death. The majority of patients live no longer than three days once they begin showing symptoms.”
The old man thrashed feebly on the bed, the nurse doing his best to restrain him while he spat out a glob of blood onto the nurse's sleeve. Even though the hazmat suit protected the man, he still shied away from his patient for a moment in clear terror.
The woman's voice had paused, but now continued grimly. “The CDC reports that when compared to other diseases that have caused concern in current years, Zolos is one of the most infectious on record, while simultaneously being one of the most deadly, with a staggeringly high mortality rate. Because of all these factors there is some speculation that it could not have occurred naturally, and has been engineered. At present there is no evidence supporting this idea or pointing to any culprit.”
There was another long pause as Josh lay limp and gray on his bed, slowly dying of a horrible disease. Then the woman finished in a quiet voice. “There is as yet no known cure for Zolos, and because governmental efforts to contain its spread have proved fruitless, they are urging everyone to avoid high traffic public spaces. Particularly airports, bus stations, docks, highways, and other places where you might encounter travelers. If at all possible, they recommend remaining at home with family in self-imposed quarantine, and only going out when strictly necessary.
“If you do need to go out, they advise taking precautions to avoid exposure to infection, such as gloves and face masks, or even full-body covering that can be taken off and sanitized once you are back in a safe place. Ideally hazmat suits are recommended, although they acknowledge that those are not practical for day to day activities. They also recommend hand sanitizer and cleaning high-traffic surfaces such as doorknobs with chemical wipes before handling them.”
Nick couldn't stand to stare at the poor old man anymore, so he backed out and sought out a different video, finally settling on what looked like a panel of newscasters and experts.
“You'd have to be insane not to find it suspicious,” a smartly dressed woman around his age was saying as the livestream loaded, scowling defiantly at the others around the semicircular table she sat at. The header beneath her identified her as “Susanna Barnes, KCNBS Evening Anchor”.
“Eleven airports all across the country, and more constantly being discovered,” she continued fiercely, “all reporting widespread cases from multiple flights and quickly spreading into the cities at large in the space of just a few hours or days at most, given the nature of Zolos. That looks an awful lot like a coordinated attack to me.”
A man across the table from her cut in mildly. “I've always believed we shouldn't attribute to malice what can just as easily be explained by incompetence. The CDC says this bug is shockingly virulent, and takes long enough to show symptoms for it to spread far and fast before it's been identified as a threat.”
“So it just appears out of nowhere and spreads across half the globe before anyone's aware of it, like that-” Susanna snapped her fingers for emphasis, “and you don't see anything suspicious?”
Her colleague scowled. “You know as well as I do that the government has done everything in its power to try to keep this problem under wraps while it tried to contain the outbreaks, and only publicly acknowledged it within the last few hours. These outbreaks could've been going on for weeks without our knowledge.”
An older man, whose header identified him as a guest expert on epidemiology from the UMKC School of Medicine, cleared his throat politely. “I think, given the growing crisis, we should focus less on pointing fingers and more on informing people about the steps they should take to protect themselves from this threat.”
To her credit, Susanna took a sharp breath and nodded curtly. “What steps would those be?”
The expert's shoulders sagged slightly. “Well first off, you may have heard a lot of good, commonsense advice about things like wearing gloves and face masks, sanitizing surfaces, and avoiding places like public restrooms. While all very useful, I'm not quite sure they're going to be enough with Zolos.”
“Why is that?” an anchorman identified as Gregg Ferdinand asked sharply. It was hard to tell whether he was displeased by the bad news or eager to get a controversial opinion.
“Because what we have here is essentially a super virus. Its ability to propagate as a waterborne and airborne contaminant, and survive extended periods of time outside a host body, means it's going to be fiendishly difficult to avoid being infected by it. To the point that if it is introduced to an area, the most realistic way to protect yourself is to avoid that area entirely.” The expert smiled grimly. “I'm afraid we will need to become a nation of shut-ins to avoid this turning into a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions. If it's not already too late.”
A grim silence settled. “Gregg mentioned virulence,” Susanna eventually told the epidemiologist, “what about lethality?”
The man's sickly smile became a grimace. “As you might know, there's generally a shifting scale between virulence and lethality.
That's because highly virulent, lethal contagions tend to burn out quickly in populations, since they usually incapacitate and kill off people too quickly to spread beyond the initial victims. Slow acting, less virulent contagions with high lethality, up in the eighty or ninety percent range, are what generally cause epidemic panics, because if they do spread they're so deadly. Conversely, more virulent but less deadly contagions tend to cause scares, but not generally panic.”
The other anchor, Randy Critch, cut in impatiently. “All very pertinent, Doctor, but what about this particular contagion?”
The expert shook his head, expression sagging. “I'm afraid it falls in the most dreaded category . . . it's slow to advance to initial symptoms, from two to as much as four days during which time the infected are still highly contagious, it spreads by just about every imaginable medium, and it has a projected lethality rate of up to ninety percent based on initial losses. Add to that the fact that transportation is so prevalent, with people constantly coming and going almost everywhere on the globe, and the spread can be horrifically thorough.”
Susanna's expression was grim, voice reserved when she spoke. “For those of us who can't unpack the raw data, Doctor, what does that mean in terms of our viewers?”
“It means,” he replied with slow, heavy solemnity, “if this crisis is not adequately contained, assuming it even can be at this point, it could potentially lead to the deaths of billions of people.” He took a long breath. “And considering the near certainty of societal collapse from losing so many people so quickly, and the inevitable social upheaval, we might even be facing a near or even complete extinction event.”
Randy gave him a dubious look. “You mean the extinction of humanity.”
“It is certainly possible.” The epidemiologist coughed. “Although that's not my field of expertise.”
“Then maybe we should avoid speculation that may cause undue alarm,” Susanna said sharply. She glanced to the side, off-screen, and her voice abruptly became brisk. “Let's go now to realtime footage from the sickbed of Josh Thurston, the gentleman whose infection led to the grounding and quarantine of Flight 53 early this morning, as we check in on his condition and cover the latest updates from the CDC.”
Isolation (Book 1): Shut In Page 4