Season of the Dead

by Adams, Lucia

  “Lieutenant,” she said, nodding to a young man in Navy whites who had a steel suitcase handcuffed to his wrist. Stepping forward, he laid the case on the table and unlocked the cuff.

  “I did a lot of begging and pleading, and when that didn’t work, I did a lot of yelling and cursing to get you this information,” she said, clicking the lock on the case.

  “I believe, as a scientist, that we need all of the facts, not just the convenient ones.” And with that, the lid popped open. She reached in and took out an iPad.

  “You will want to change the password on this,” she said handing it to me. “I must remind you that what you are about to read is highly classified.”

  “Why me?” I asked, taking the tablet.

  “We’ve had you checked out,” the General said. “You passed the screening, and are very respected in your field. Why not you?”

  “Passed the screening?” I said, bristling at the idea of them investigating me. He blinked, but said nothing. I wouldn’t get any answers from him.

  Dr. Anders unloaded the case. Inside were several paper files and a small temperature controlled case that had been nestled in a foam cut-out. “These are your samples. I suggest you use them carefully. It will be… difficult… to get you more.”

  She had brought up the files she wanted me to read on the iPad, and immediately I fell under the thrall of the unknown. Patient Zero was one Malik Hauksson. He had lived in Niaqornat, a small town in Northwestern Greenland. The rest of his personal information had been redacted. The file said that he’d participated in a seal harvest where via a bite, it was suspected he contracted a virus. He did not present symptoms at the time, stated one of the men he had worked with.

  The Hauksson virus, as they dubbed it, was fatal. Within the first ten minutes, the infected person tended to exhibit symptoms of the disease. Symptoms included cold-like nasal discharge, increased aggression, profuse salivation, and a high pain tolerance akin to someone on PCP. Death usually occurred within four hours, and resurrection followed shortly after. I paused.

  “Resurrection?” I asked, frowning. “How can that be?”

  “Read on,” she said. I did. Similar to AIDS, fluid exchange was the only means of transmission, which explained the copious salivation. It didn’t appear to be airborne. That was good news. The report stated that the virus took control of the hypothalamus. Since that portion of the brain controlled body temperature, hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleep, and circadian cycles, it fit with the urge to bite. Make a body think it’s hungry, take away its ability to reason, and you had yourself a biter.

  The cerebellum was also targeted. That part of the brain controlled all the voluntary actions, making it possible for the virus to animate the body after death.

  “Surely, you aren’t suggesting that this virus…” I couldn’t even bring myself to say it. It was too ridiculous.

  She blinked at me and waited. I exhaled through my nose in frustration and wondered if I was the subject of an elaborate hoax. Touching the screen, I scrolled to the next page. The pictures that greeted me were so gruesome my stomach turned, and I nearly dropped the tablet.

  Subject Zero had returned home, where he lived with his girlfriend and her two children. Complaining of a headache, he went into a spare room to sleep it off. Sometime during the night, he died and was resurrected. The woman and her two children—a boy aged seven and a girl aged eighteen months—had been reduced to bloody pulp. There was a photo with an evidence tag numbered nine, which showed a small hand clenched in a fist. There was no arm attached to the small fist.

  My stomach finally made good on its threat. I managed to make it to the sink just in time. No one spoke. A hushed silence fell over the room, almost as if everyone knew how I felt and was content to give me the time I needed to collect myself.

  After rinsing my mouth out and splashing some cool water over my face, I returned to the table. I sat back down, trying very hard not to look at the photos. I swallowed and met the sad eyes of the Doctor.

  “Of the fifty-eight people who lived in that town, there are three survivors,” she said quietly. “We have been trying our best to contain this, but it has proven… difficult. From what we know, the virus sticks strictly to mammals. We have several cases of animal to human contamination. The symptoms present the same in the animals as they do in humans, only there is no evidence of resurrection.”

  “We don’t know if there is a possibility for human to animal contamination, as the animals that are attacked are… well, there isn’t much left. And since there has been no resurrection with the lab animals, we feel it is safe to say that infection is a one way event. For some reason, reanimation requires a human brain. We don’t know why,” she said.

  The puzzle that the virus presented was quickly working to overcome the horror of the photos. I picked the tablet up again and scanned through the rest, forcing myself to view the carnage that had once been a small coastal town. “You said you are having a difficult time containing it. Can you elaborate?”

  “As I said, the animals are carriers.”

  “It has spread out from this initial location then?” I asked. At her nod, I continued. “How far has it spread?” I asked.

  “We have had to quarantine all of Greenland. We are advising travelers it is purely cautionary.”

  “Which means…?”

  “Greenland has...” she paused “had a population of just over fifty-six thousand.”

  “And now?” I asked, bracing myself for the final number.

  “It’s been reduced to less than fifty.”

  “Why hasn’t an alert been sounded?” I asked. My mind was racing, imagining so many dead.

  “What would you have us say, Doctor? Should we tell the general population that the zombie apocalypse has begun?”

  Those words coming out of her mouth struck me as funny, and I giggled. It was a bad habit. I tamped it down quickly before they thought I was insane.

  “There must be something we can tell them. A new strain of rabies perhaps, warn them to be leery of animals with certain symptoms. We have to tell them something. If we don’t, this will quickly get out of control.”

  “I’m afraid it already has. We have confirmed cases on six continents.” I blanched, but she didn’t give me the chance to respond, she just kept talking. “But your PSA is a good idea, Dr. Pennington. And coming from you, that type of warning will carry a lot of weight. Write it up as a press release, and we will distribute it.” She stood then, her metal chair scraping on the tile floor.

  “We have to find a preventative measure. We are hoping you will be able to help us.”

  I rose as well. “We won’t be looking for a cure?” I asked, thinking it odd.

  “The subjects are dead, Doctor. So far as I know, there is no cure for that.” And with that, she turned and walked through the gathering of uniforms who parted for her, just as they had before.

  I stared in shock after her, trying to process what I had just learned.

  “You will be assigned two guards,” Colonel Marks said, speaking for the first time. “They will ensure that the information you have remains classified.” I looked up and met a pair of fern-green eyes in a deeply tanned face lined with the echoes of countless smiles. Somehow, knowing that he had cause for happiness enough to leave such tangible reminders calmed me.

  “We will station a guard at your building, not outside your door, but in the parking lot. We need to keep you safe.”

  I nodded, not sure what sort of response was required of me.

  General Daniels nodded smartly, and he and his entourage left. Alone again, I sank back down on the chair and rested my forehead on the cool steel of the table. A single tear trailed down my cheek and puddled on the shiny surface. I swiped it away hastily.

  With a deep exhale, I rose from my seat, and noticed the two uniformed men that flanked the door. “My own personal goon-squad,” I grumbled. Opening the small case with the samples, I prepared the slides, settled them
beneath the microscope lens, and sought out the virus that could resurrect the dead.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sarnia, Ontario, Canada

  Gerry

  It had been about an hour since the last of the gunshots fired from inside the building. I’d climbed up to gaze out my little window a few times since Jack had collapsed into the chair nearest to my cell. My window gave little view of the city, but the alarms and unchecked fires told me all I needed to know: Sarnia was burning. Beneath the car and fire alarms, sporadic gunfire and mingled screams sent my imagination into overdrive.

  Jack wasn’t sleeping; his current stupor seemed like there was some sort of internal struggle going on. If his pained expression was any indication, he was losing. When he finally stood and nodded to himself, I jumped. Before I could speak, he turned, swayed for a few seconds, and then walked to the door leading to the remaining three cells. I’d been so taken in by the happenings outside the jail that I’d forgotten there were three other people back there. I think Jack did too. With his hand on the doorknob, he spoke without turning to face me, his voice so soft I had to strain to hear him.

  “Did you ever seeLassie?”

  “Yeah,” I said, even though I’d never seen the series.

  “I remember crying my fool face off and having nightmares for weeks after seeing it. My dad said it was the humane thing to do—you know, shooting the dog. That way, it didn’t have to suffer.”

  Old Yeller. He meantOld Yeller—the story about that rabid dog. I hadn’t seen it either, but I sure as hell knew what happened to the dog. It was like he’d tossed a pitcher of ice water in my face. Every nerve in my body sang in time with my heart. He was going to kill us all. As much as I wanted to be as far away from him and the disease festering within him, I had to do something.

  “Wait a minute. Why don’t we talk for a little while? You can tell me about Lassie.”

  He shook his head. Mucus dripped freely from his chin and dribbled to the floor. “Talking time is done, Gerry. Only one thing left to do: the right thing. And I need to get it done while I still can. ”

  I couldn’t pretend any more. “Why don’t you let us decide that for ourselves? Let us go. We could find somewhere safe to ride this shit out. That’s the fucking humane thing to do, Jack. What you’re planning to do is murder, plain and simple. Let’s talk about this.”

  “Can’t,” Jack croaked. “This isn’t a sickness, it’s a reckoning. The sooner we all see that, the sooner we can accept it. A few need to step up so that many don’t suffer.” He yanked the gun from his belt and thumbed the safety. “This is me, stepping up and doing my part while I still can. May God have mercy on us all.”

  “No, Jack. It doesn’t have to be like this. Somebody’ll come for us.”

  He tilted his head back and sniffed the air. A rueful smile died on his lips. “There’s somebody coming, but you don’t want them to find you—trust me.”

  With that, he bowed his head and opened the door. Even as it swung closed behind him, he aimed and fired. Muffled screams and calls for help mingled with the shots, with the chorus dwindling as each bullet silenced another prisoner. After a few minutes, there was only one person screaming: Jack.

  He stumbled into the room, coughing, nearly fell, then came to stand in front of me, his face inches from the bars. Earlier, when the shooting had started, I’d backed up to the far wall, but had since resigned myself to whatever God had in mind for me.

  Jack tilted his head and sniffed. “Say something, Gerry. I can’t see you in the dark.”

  The lights were on and I could see him just fine. His face was pale and glistened with sweat, and blood ran in tiny rivulets from each ear. His eyes, still wide and darting wildly back and forth, had dulled to a milky grey.

  “Like the song says, bud: just a little pin prick...”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but as I took a breath, he fired two wild shots into my cell. One ricocheted off the bed frame, and the other embedded into the back wall. I dropped quickly to my hands and knees, but couldn’t move. He screamed and groped further into the cell, swinging his arm back and forth, firing blind. Thinking fast—not something I’m generally known for—I crawled toward him, staying as close to the floor as I could. So far the shots had all been chest-level, but that could change. As he shot, he screamed in tandem. High pitched at first, it eventually became an inhuman growl, punctuated by sporadic coughing fits.

  Closing to within a few feet of his outstretched hand, I gave a short mental prayer, and then lunged for the gun. My hand closed over the barrel and searing pain shot up my arm, but I held on long enough to find my balance and drive my fist into the middle of Jack’s face. He let the gun go as he fell, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him close. In one quick move I tore the cluster of keys from his belt, and then let him fall.

  Now able to make noise without the danger of being shot, I screamed out in pain and tossed the gun onto the bed. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t lose any skin, but the burns from the heated gun barrel were already blistering. There would be a first aid kit out in one of the offices, and I could take care of the burns later. For the time being, I tore a sleeve from my shirt, soaked it in the toilet water, and wrapped my hand. I rinsed the blood from the hand I’d hit him with in toilet water and dried it on my shirt. Luckily, I hadn’t broken the skin when I struck him.

  Jack hadn’t moved since our tussle, and I was worried I might’ve killed him. My fears were put to rest as his fingers curled into fists, relaxed, then curled again. He was alive. He looked like death warmed over, but at least he was moving and making noise.

  I snatched the gun from the bed and strode over to the bars. “I’m gettin’ outta here, Jack. It’s up to you if you want to come, but you’re not getting the gun back.”

  After going through half the keys, I found the one for my cell. As I pulled the door inward, I kept the gun trained on his chest. His eyes were open, but he seemed dazed. It was like he hadn’t even heard me. I stepped over him and headed for the door. I tried it, but it was also locked. As I fumbled for the keys, Jack rolled to his feet and dove toward me. Without thinking, I raised the gun and fired.

  The bullet hit him just above the hairline and cut a valley through the top of his head. The force whipped his head back even as his legs carried him forward. I sidestepped his body as it crashed into the wall and then crumpled to the floor.

  “Noooo,” I moaned. “You stupid prick! Why? Why’d you do that?” Tears stung my cheeks as I gasped for breath. “You’re crazy—this whole world has gone fucking nuts.”

  I’d like to say that I left him there and bravely sought out others who hadn’t been infected, but I’d be lying. I stood above his body for a long time, staring at the gun in my hand. Or maybe I was staring through the gun, looking back at all the people I’d known, and realizing right then that I’d probably never see them again. They were probably dead—just like Jack and the three people he murdered. Then I started thinking Jack might’ve been right—that we were done for and the easiest way to go would be to eat a bullet.

  As I closed my eyes and raised the gun to my head, a crash followed by hurried footsteps came from the other side of the door, and then something struck the door hard enough to crack the frame. I backed away, gun trained on the Judas window.

  “It was an accident,” I yelled. “He was sick. Look for yourself. He killed the people back there in the other cells, and what I did was self-defense.”

  I waited for a response, but the pounding gained in force, rattling the door with each strike. I crept closer and peered out the shatterproof window, and a face, or what was left of one, slammed into the window. Its lipless mouth snapped and snarled as bloody mucous smeared the glass. Without thinking, I stepped back and fired the gun.

  True to its name, the glass didn’t shatter, but the small hole in it, along with the ensuing silence, told me that whoever—or whatever—attacked the door wasn’t getting up again. I found the right key, unlocked the door, and whi
pped it open. There, lying in a widening pool of blood and chunks of brain matter, were the twitching remains of the police officer who’d arrested me. If not for the name tag on his uniform shirt, I wouldn’t have known. Most of his face was missing, and one arm, ending in a crusted stump, looked as though it had been chewed through by a pack of crazed beavers. The virus turned people into superhuman cannibals? I was going to need guns—lots and lots of guns. In a flash, all the so-called crazy rumours flooded my head: Patient Zero, the attacks uploaded to YouTube, and the conspiracy nut jobs claim that the government had unknowingly unleashed a highly contagious superbug. If they were right, we were screwed. I had to get far away from Sarnia before Chemical Valley lost power.

  I stripped the utility belt from the cop and buckled it around my waist. Aside from the bullets in his sidearm, a pair of pouches held six magazines. A gurgled moan from the darkness at the far end of the hall sent shivers down my back. I fought the urge to retreat to the relative safety of my cell and took off running in the other direction.

  The hall ended in a T, so I stopped and peered both ways. Bodies littered the ground, but none moved. Cautiously, I sidestepped a pair of corpses locked in what looked like a lovers’ embrace—one with a torn-out throat, the other with a crater blasted through the center of his face—and I proceeded down the hallway, heading toward the door marked EMERGENCY EXIT. I giggled nervously, pondering their definition of ‘emergency’. It fucking well couldn’t get worse than this! Still carrying Jack’s gun, I edged forward, checking each open doorway as I went, mimicking how TV cops would ‘clear’ a room. Each instance that I began to think I was wasting my time, I’d imagine one of those crazy bastards creeping up on me. No way. I was gonna keep on keeping on how I was keeping alive.

  At the second-to-last door, I swung the gun and entered the room. After a quick scan I turned to leave, but caught movement across the room out of the corner of my eye.