Plague Nation

by Dana Fredsti

  Jeff gave a bark of laughter.

  “Do they grown them in vats or what around here?” He shook his head. “I swear, this is either total inbreeding, or we’ve seem the same damn family a half dozen times today. It’s like Children of the Damned, but all smiling and shit.”

  “And without the glowing eyes.”

  Steph snickered and pointed again, this time over toward the entrance of the Temple Gardens, where another almost identical family was walking down the sidewalk.

  “I’m voting for cloning vats,” she said.

  Jeff laughed, the sound merging into a wracking cough. He’d been feeling punk since they’d landed in Salt Lake City for World Horror Con. It seemed like at least half the other attendees were coming down with the same bug. Steph seemed to have avoided it, probably because she carried a bottle of hand sanitizer and used it liberally.

  Jeff’s approach involved the judicious internal applications of booze, bought at the State-run liquor store a few blocks from the hotel, but after a while, even that hadn’t helped. He looked almost jaundiced now.

  “You okay, hon?”

  “I’ll live. But some coffee wouldn’t hurt.”

  Steph consulted the little guidebook she’d grabbed from the hotel concierge desk.

  “City Creek Mall is right down the street. It’s a mall, so they’ll have to have a Starbucks or something, right?”

  Wrong.

  After walking up and down the length of a very pretty outdoor mall with an abundance of fountains and a man-made “river” running the length of it, they’d found a specialty tea store, but no coffee shops. They’d gotten a lot of stares from the conservatively dressed crowds, though. Salt Lake City didn’t seem to have a lot of Steampunk fashionistas.

  “I guess coffee qualifies as a Big Bad right up there with alcohol, here in Mormon Land.”

  “Yeah.” Jeff coughed again, a wave of weakness washing over him. Steph eyed him with concern.

  “You look kind of like hammered shit, baby. I think you might have jaundice.”

  “No way.”

  “Seriously. The whites of your eyes aren’t white. They’re, like, Simpson yellow.”

  Jeff laughed.

  “And this, Steph, is but one reason why I worship you above all other women.”

  Steph smiled smugly. They really were a match made in geek heaven. But she’d known that the night she’d gone to the premiere of Serenity, all dolled up in a painstaking recreation of one of Inara’s outfits. She’d seen Jeff standing in line, resplendent in his brown coat, slightly skinny for Mal Reynolds. But then again, Steph herself was on the voluptuous side, especially when compared to Morena Baccarin.

  They’d both captured the spirit of the characters, and more importantly, there had been fucking fantastic chemistry between them.

  Jeff coughed again, spasms wracking his body.

  “I need to sit for a sec, okay?”

  Steph rubbed the back of his neck as they found a bench across from a fountain. This one was level with the ground, with a dozen or so jets that randomly sent sprays of water straight into the air. A little boy, maybe three years old, was having the time of his life playing chicken with the geysers. When the water missed him, he did a little victory dance. When it hit him, he giggled with delight.

  “Isn’t he cute?” Steph smiled.

  Jeff didn’t answer.

  “You okay, baby?” Steph glanced over at him, then gasped in shock.

  Dark fluid ran out of his mouth, while his eyes leaked tears of blood. His body spasmed, and a gout of foul smelling fluid spewed from between his lips.

  Steph screamed, leaping to her feet as Jeff collapsed onto the pavement, the fluid running into the fountain area and mixing with the water.

  The happy toddler stopped in mid-frolic and stared as Jeff’s body gave one final bone-breaking shudder, and stopped.

  “Jeff?” Steph’s voice broke as she fell on her knees next to him. “Jeff?”

  A fountain of water erupted next to his body, soaking both of them. The toddler gave a hesitant laugh, but the chuckle died in his throat when Jeff’s eyes snapped open, revealing milky white corneas cradled in blood-streaked yellow. Another spray of water shot up next to him. He sat up, oblivious when it hit him in the face, grasped the toddler by an arm... and bit into it.

  The little boy shrieked in pain.

  Steph yelled in shock and surprise, leaping up at the same time the kid’s parents did on the other side of the fountain.

  She reached Jeff first, grabbing him by the hair to pull him off the now screaming boy, a chunk of the child’s arm caught between his teeth. The parents swooped in, snatching him away, shrieking hysterical threats.

  Jeff ignored them, turning toward Steph as he finished munching on the chunk of flesh in his mouth. Steph froze for a millisecond before throwing herself away from him, feet slipping on the slick pavement. She fell, another torrent of water jetting up into her face. Steph sputtered, momentarily blinded, but still possessed of enough self-preservation instinct to continue scrambling away from the spreading puddle of blood.

  Poor little guy... he’d been so happy...

  Steph choked back a sob as another explosion of water gushed up in front of her. She looked over to see Jeff reach out and grab a man by his ugly yellow tie, pulling the hapless Mormon closer and taking a ravenous bite from his windpipe.

  She got to her feet and ran as best she could in her high-heeled boots, colliding with other tourists and locals like a pinball careening off its drop targets. She didn’t even try to apologize. She just wanted to get away, back to the hotel, where the horror was fake and manageable.

  Emerging onto West Temple Street, directly across the street from Temple Square, she found a horde of white-shirted men, big-haired women, and blond kids being swarmed by gore-drenched doppelgangers.

  That sent her bolting to the left, past a knot of screaming children, and sprinting toward the Radisson, a few short blocks away. The sounds of agonized screams dimmed as she left Temple Square behind.

  She hit the revolving doors of the Radisson at a full clip, stumbling into the lobby. Her heels slipped on the tiled floor and she fell again, taking the brunt of the fall on her hands and knees. Winded, she lay there for a moment, then pushed herself up to a sitting position, hair falling into her eyes, wondering why none of the hotel staff had come to help her.

  She pushed her hair back and looked up, to find a dozen or so fellow Horror Con attendees—as well as the concierge and hotel bartender—converging on her from all sides, their eyes boasting the same horror movie FX of milky white corneas, yellowed whites shot with red. Black, viscous liquid dribbled out of their mouths.

  As they reached for her, Steph thought vaguely that maybe this was a publicity stunt for the convention. Then the concierge bit her, and all thoughts were driven from her mind by white-hot pain.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  * * *

  Whupwhupwhupwhup...

  Oh jeez, I was gonna barf. I didn’t generally get motion sickness, but then I wasn’t generally however many gajillions of feet above the ground in a tin can with rotors keeping it up in the air like some sort of metal insectazoid. So sue me—I always thought helicopters looked like bugs.

  And now here I was inside of one, with not nearly enough extra space between me and the sky. At least in a plane you had the illusion of that self-contained environment between you and death. I kept hearing Arnold yelling, “Get to the choppah!” and visualizing the movie poster for Black Hawk Down.

  We’d been separated into two groups, with me, Gabriel, Lil, and Tony in the helicopter whimsically named Zed One, while Mack, Gentry, and Nathan were in Zed Two, with two ZTS snipers filling out each team. Our snipers, both male with similar angular features and compact muscular builds, looked so much alike that I’d nicknamed them the Gunsy Twins.

  Dr. Albert was also with our group, the better for Gabriel and me to keep an eye on him.

  “You okay?” Eve
n without the specialized wired earplugs and headgear to facilitate communication, I recognized Gabriel’s voice, as well as the feel of his hand on my arm, warm and reassuring. I vigorously nodded “yes” without opening my eyes.

  “Liar.”

  “I hate heights,” I replied. I really did. And it wasn’t helping that Lil was bouncing up and down in excitement, seemingly okay with the fact that we were in a tin can in the air without even drinks and peanut service. Granted I’d seen too many movies where the helicopter door popped open and someone went into freefall, but damn, she made me nervous. Stomach-wrenchingly, full-on, wanna throw up my cookies nervous.

  So I kept my eyes screwed shut and tried my best not to hear anything beyond the goddamn whupwhupwhupwhup of the rotors.

  “Tell me again why we had to split up the group between two helicopters?”

  “Redundancy and diversification,” Gabriel said soothingly. “If one goes down, we still have a fully equipped team to cover the mission.”

  Oh, that’s just great.

  It didn’t soothe me in the least, even though the logic behind the decision made sense.

  “How likely are we to go down?” I asked.

  “Not likely.”

  “Are we there yet?”

  He chuckled.

  “Almost.”

  “Ash, look!” Lil exclaimed. “It’s Alcatraz!”

  Ulp. “We’re over the water, aren’t we?” I said.

  “Sort of.”

  I ignored the laughter in Gabriel’s voice. How wonderful that he found my irrational fear so funny.

  So I kept my eyes shut.

  “Just tell me when we land, okay?”

  He patted my arm comfortingly.

  “Will do, Ash.”

  The helicopter dipped suddenly and my stomach did a drop and roll worthy of the Death Drop ride at Six Flags.

  Gahhhhh!

  “We’re heading in,” the pilot said.

  Great.

  “Where are we setting down?” I heard Lil ask.

  “The helipad at UCSF,” Gabriel answered. “Pretty much right on top of where the laboratory is located.”

  “Are we going to conduct the civilian evacs from there as well?” This was Dr. Albert. “Because that would be extremely distracting to me while I’m trying to work.”

  God forbid that saving lives might interfere with your work, I thought snarkily. Then I thought again, since part of his work included keeping Gabriel human.

  Crap, I hated these morally ambiguous Sophie’s Choice type situations.

  “No, those will be done from Golden Gate Park,” Gabriel replied. “We need room to land the Chinooks so we can move more than eight civilians at a time. Centrally located, but without the built in neighborhood populations of, say, the Haight or Noe Valley. We have a couple Chinooks coming in with more ZTS personnel who’ll secure the perimeter and start lifting people out.”

  “Are we looking for more wild cards?” Lil piped up.

  Good question. I wish I’d thought of it.

  “No.” Gabriel’s voice was regretful yet firm. “We have no way to isolate bite victims long enough—not until we have a safe refuge in the city.”

  “Until, or if we have a safe refuge?” I asked. “Is any place going to be safe? I mean, how the hell are we going to be able to contain this any longer?” I wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular at this point, but the silence that met my question got me to open my eyes, despite my fear. I wished I hadn’t bothered, after seeing the grim expressions both Gabriel and Dr. Albert wore.

  Shit.

  “We’re screwed, aren’t we?” I said.

  “Not if we can find the cure,” Gabriel answered. “Not yet.”

  “How fast has it spread?” I asked. “Do we have any new reports?”

  Everyone was listening now. Even Lil had stopped her enthusiastic bouncing to pay attention.

  “Not good,” Gabriel said. “It’s been contained in some of the smaller, more isolated areas with natural geographical barriers to augment the manpower. But in places with urban sprawl and no real borders, it’s spreading quickly. There’s been word of outbreaks originating in Lansing, Michigan and spreading to the surrounding towns and communities. Salt Lake City was hit hard, but so far the DZN have managed to stop it from spreading, with the help of the surrounding mountains and more than a few well-armed civilians.”

  Holy shit.

  “The most recent outbreak reported is in Borger, Texas, with news of a possible spread to Amarillo, but nothing is confirmed yet. And there are more.”

  There really wasn’t anything else to say. The mood in the helicopter was bleak enough.

  Since my eyes were already open, I tried to keep them that way as we whupwhupwhupped our way over the bay toward San Francisco. I tried not to look out the window to my right, but somehow managed to catch a glimpse of slate gray water frothing with white foam caps, the Golden Gate Bridge further away.

  “Wow, look at all those boats,” Lil said, pointing away from the bridge to the left.

  I looked. There were dozens of boats of various shapes and sizes—kayaks, motorboats, sailboats, you name it—all of them heading away from the city toward the north. Some seemed bound for the relative safety of Alcatraz, which wasn’t a bad plan, but the overall aquatic chaos was like the bounty hunter scene in Jaws. “They’re all gonna die” popped into my head.

  The bridge was clogged with vehicles, but all the cars were headed north, even the ones in the southbound lanes. Military barricades had been erected at points all across the bridge, and it looked like so far they were holding strong. People were milling around the stalled vehicles, gesticulating wildly as they faced off with soldiers in full-on biohazard protective gear.

  How could they even know that an infected person— or two or ten or a hundred—hadn’t already crossed over to Sausalito on the ferry? What the hell was the point, anyway, since the damn virus kept popping up across the country?

  I shut that train of thought down before it sent me into a tailspin of hopelessness, and looked out toward the city of San Francisco itself. What I saw didn’t help my mood. Plumes of smoke rose from different points in the city, many in the downtown and tourist areas. I got a brief glimpse of the 1 on the other side of the bridge, backed up as far as I could see until it curved out of sight. Total gridlock.

  There was also a contingent of armed guards at the tollbooths, although whether they were there to deal with humans or zombies wasn’t immediately clear. I thought I saw the familiar lurching movements of the walking dead, but before I could really focus, the helicopter suddenly jerked in mid-air, forward momentum almost, well, stuttering, for lack of a better description.

  I sat bolt upright.

  “Is that normal?”

  “Jeez, Ash, chil-lax!” Tony said.

  I was torn between relief that he was talking to me again, and the more familiar irritation. Deciding both feelings were valid, I opened my mouth to tell him off, only to be cut off by another, more violent jolt.

  “Shit!”

  Wait. Was that the pilot?

  It couldn’t be a good thing that he’d said “shit.”

  “We have trouble, folks.”

  Trouble? No, no trouble—not when we’re up in the air, thank you. Not allowed.

  “How bad?” Gabriel immediately switched into business mode, or whatever the military equivalent was.

  “We’re losing fuel, and there’s something happening with the rotors. We’re going to have to set down immediately.”

  “Immediately, like in the water?” I squeaked.

  “Not that immediately, ma’am.” The pilot sounded amused. I would have been offended, had I not been distracted by a loud squawk from the com system.

  “Zed One, we’ve got problems.”

  “Roger, that,” I heard in the headset. From the look on Lil and Tony’s faces, they’d heard it, too. We exchanged looks. Lil stopped bouncing and settled into her seat.

 
“We’re setting down in Crissy Field,” our pilot said. “Hostiles identified, but nothing we can’t handle.”

  “Roger, that,” the other pilot responded. “We’re setting down near the Legion of Honor. More hostiles identified.”

  “Roger, that.”

  I turned my head to look at Gabriel.

  “Is this part of that whole redundancy thing? Two ’copters going down?”

  He managed a smile, despite his own obvious tension.

  “It’s going to be okay, Ash.” Then he added, “You might want to shut your eyes.”

  I did as he suggested, my stomach doing major acrobatics as the helicopter dipped and lurched its way toward land. I knew we were gonna crash and burn in one of those classic movie fireballs. I just knew it. I braced myself for the worst.

  * * *

  SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

  The room was purposefully dark in deference to his light-sensitive eyes. He’d never complained about the lighting, of course. After all, complaints were a sign of weakness, and to show weakness was as good as giving up, rolling over and exposing one’s belly to the claws and teeth of one’s enemies.

  He preferred to view the closed shades and dim lighting as a sign of deference from the staff, and respect from his colleagues.

  And perhaps some fear as well. He enjoyed being the source of fear, especially from some of the most powerful men and women in the world. Some of their names would be familiar to anyone who read The Wall Street Journal, or Forbes, or followed politics. Others could walk down the streets of any city and remain completely anonymous. For their power went far deeper than any political party or government position.

  They watched the screens—someone always watched them—following the spread of this wonderful new Walker’s virus. The mutations had been totally accidental, a combination of greed and oversight that had allowed the vaccine out into the world without adequate testing. Had the vaccine worked as intended, its creator no doubt would have won the Nobel Prize. No one could have guessed the horrific results.