Before The Outbreak: Short Stories of the Apocalypse in the Z-Strain Universe

by Morris, SJ

  The passengers started getting loud like the other people at the terminal before we left were.

  A very tall man towards the front of the plane stood and yelled for everyone to calm down and be quiet. He announced himself as an air marshal and he would ‘take anyone who caused a scene into custody.’ This seemed to settle the people on the plane as they all quieted quickly.

  Shortly after the air marshal yelled at everyone, the captain came back over the loudspeaker, asking everyone to put their seat belts on, telling us that we would be landing in the next ten minutes.

  I made sure my seat belt was tight and looked over at my mother’s to be sure hers was fastened as well. I smiled at my mother through my mask, and I saw her eyes brighten, knowing she was smiling back at me. We both were excited to be landing. The plane jumped slightly, and I felt my stomach flutter. I grabbed my mother’s hand tightly, and she held mine. I looked out the window, past my mother and I saw land coming up quickly. Soon after, the tires connected with the runway. The flaps on the plane went up, and the brakes were applied, slowing the plane rapidly.

  I hated the landing the last time I flew, and I hated it more this time because I was so worried about going back into another airport like the one we had left.

  Chapter 4

  We landed, but no one clapped. I guess everyone was just as worried as I was to get off the plane now too.

  The lights went on, and the “fasten seat belts” light was turned off.

  I remembered the last time I flew as soon as the seatbelt light was turned off everyone seemed to jump up as one grabbing for bags and into the aisle so they could get off. However, this time, people quietly unbuckled their belts, still sitting, and waited for instructions.

  The women that worked for the plane started telling the people at the front of the plane to begin getting off, and most were slow to listen, but they eventually did.

  Soon, Mother and I were called, and as we exited the plane, the loud roar of people talking and yelling was almost deafening.

  It was such an abrupt change from the quiet airplane to the busy terminal. There were people everywhere with bags, and everyone was pushing to try and get to our plane, but the police were there, holding them all back.

  At this airport though, the police officers had gas masks on. I didn’t understand why, but it made me feel for my paper mask to make sure it was still in place, and it was.

  As we got off the plane, there were five well-armed men, wearing military uniforms and they each had a thermometer gun in hand, checking the passengers that just got off the plane we were on.

  A woman with a baby did not pass, and the soldiers took her away quickly. There was a man behind her who started yelling at them, I guess it was the woman’s husband.

  He yelled for them to stop - that he had to go with her, but they took the baby from the screaming woman and handed it to the man and finished pulling her out of line. The husband just looked at the baby and then at the soldiers, taking his wife away. He just stood there until he was pushed by another soldier to make way for the next people in line and he moved on.

  The couple in front of us was acting very odd, grabbing onto one another saying how they would never be separated and they were crying.

  As soon as one of the soldiers took the woman’s temperature, I saw the gun read 103 degrees, and the woman was ripped from her partner’s hands.

  The man screamed furiously that he would never let them take his wife from him, and he reached for one of the soldier’s guns. He successfully grabbed it, and I pulled my mother behind me, backing up as much as the crowd behind us would allow. The soldier screamed that the man had his gun, and the already crazy panic turned for the worse. Alarms began going off as the soldier fought with the husband, trying to get the gun from his hands. The strap was still around the soldier’s body so the husband would never be able to get it completely away, but they continued to wrestle with one another over the gun.

  The wife broke free from the soldiers grasp in the madness and ran for her husband, yelling for him to stop, and the gun went off.

  There was silence now in the airport. The bullet the husband had accidentally shot off, struck his wife. The woman crumpled to the floor, grabbing at her stomach, and the husband dropped the gun, reaching out for her.

  The soldiers grabbed the man and threw him to the floor.

  You could hear every awkward breath the woman now took over the quiet of the crowd as everyone watched the horror unfolding before us.

  The soldiers stayed clear of the pool of dark red, almost black blood coming from the woman.

  People in the full-body yellow jumpsuits and funny white boots I had seen at the last airport came from out of nowhere, running to her.

  No one touched her, nor did they go anywhere near the blood, but they made sure to back everyone away from the body.

  I heard them asking if she was infected and a soldier told them she had a fever of 103 degrees before being shot. One of the men in a yellow suit mumbled something into a radio, and shortly after, another two men wearing yellow suits came running over. They had a white bag with a red symbol on it that looked like three half-circles, and I think the words on the bag said biohazard.

  I don’t know what that meant, but they quickly started picking up the woman’s body just after she took her last breaths and put her body in the bag. They zipped it up quickly and took her away. More people in yellow suits came with bleach and other cleaning solutions as they sprayed down the blood on the floor, soaking it up with towels that turned black from the blood. They put the towels in bright red bags and were quickly off. The soldiers taped off the area where the woman was shot, even though it was cleaned so well you could barely tell anything had happened.

  A soldier stood on a chair and spoke through a loudspeaker saying that this area had to be cleared of all non-military personnel immediately and that everyone should follow him to be screened before we would be allowed to leave the airport.

  Mother grabbed me and turned me towards her, “I know this is scary, but we will get out of here. Are you okay, Zhang Wei?” She asked as tears streamed down her face.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer. I knew what had happened, I saw it all very clearly, but I didn’t know what to make of it. I had only seen things like that happen in movies, movies I saw at my friend’s house. My mother would never have allowed me to watch anything that violent, but my friend’s mother didn’t care. Just as long as we were quiet and not bothering her, she let us watch anything we wanted. Still, seeing it happen in front of you was very different.

  I didn’t know if it was real or if I was going to wake up in my bed to the smell of my mother cooking me congee.

  “I’m okay, I think. What is happening, Mother?”

  “We are getting out of here as soon as possible,” she said as she kissed my face through her mask and hugged me tightly.

  I didn’t want my mother to let me go. I wanted to stay right here with her holding me. I wanted to close my eyes and have everything that had happened today all be a bad dream.

  However, the safety of my mother’s arms, holding me was broken by a shrill scream that once again silenced the airport. There was another scream, followed by a mass of people running away from the direction they took the bag with the woman’s body in it.

  Mother pulled me to the wall so we would not be trampled by the large number of people running and screaming. There was nowhere else to go, so we stayed against the wall until there were no more people running and pushing past.

  There were people who had been tossed to the floor and trampled on who were crying out for help, but no one came.

  Mother and I just stood against the wall, waiting to see what happened next and if we were going to be able to get out of here.

  One of the people on the floor, an older man, was groaning in pain but stopped suddenly, staring blankly at something down the hall we could not yet see.

  There was quiet in the terminal again, but it wa
s soon followed by a slow shuffle and groaning sound. I pulled myself away from the wall to see if I could tell what the noise was or if I could see what the old man on the floor was staring at.

  What I saw made all of the hairs on my body stand up. It was the woman who had been shot only minutes ago. She was walking towards us, dragging the white bag with the red markings on it behind her, stuck to her foot. Fresh, bright red blood was all over her face, and it looked like pieces of someone’s ear was hanging from her mouth.

  I stopped moving. I didn’t know what else to do, so I grabbed my mother’s arm tightly, backed up against the wall again with her and froze.

  The man on the floor finally reacted and tried to drag himself out of the path of the hurt woman.

  When he moved, I guess she saw him and began moving much quicker towards him with her arms outstretched and making horrible grunting noises. The man screamed as she fell on top of him, clawing her way through his arms as he held them up, trying to block her. Her mouth came down on his face, and she ripped and tore at him with her teeth while her nails tore bits and pieces of skin from his body.

  She ate the pieces. She ate the man.

  I realized it was time for Mother and me to go. I looked up at Mother. She was just as stunned as I was a few seconds ago, but I now realized that we had to leave. We had to run, so we did not end up like that old man on the floor being ripped apart.

  I refused to speak. I was afraid to draw attention to us. So, I shook Mother out of her trance as she watched the undead woman eating the old man on the floor. I made her let go of the large bag she was still holding, and I turned us away from the woman to run.

  I didn’t want to look back, but I had to.

  When I did, I saw the woman was no longer eating the old man. She was chasing us. She didn’t seem to be able to run but more walked quickly as her jaws opened and closed, biting the air towards us.

  Suddenly, I saw more of them, lots more. There were so many of them now, rounding the corner from the hall with a white tent. The tent was torn to pieces and covered in blood and pieces of people. All of the things coming at us had bright red blood on their faces, and some were missing whole body parts.

  There was a man who was still wearing the yellow bodysuit, but his face mask was missing, and he also had a large piece of his neck and shoulder ripped off.

  How were these people walking? Why were they killing other people? I thought death meant that your body stopped working, and your family burned you? Why were these people not staying dead?

  Mother and I ran as fast as we could, dodging suitcases that were abandoned all over the halls. We rounded a corner, and there was a line of police officers and soldiers with their guns drawn at us.

  We skidded to a stop before them.

  “Get down on the ground!” one of the soldiers yelled.

  “We cannot, we must run! The dead are coming for us! They are right behind us!” Mother screamed at them as she tugged at my arm, trying to get me to move.

  I refused. I did not want to move because I knew the soldiers would shoot us if we didn’t listen to them.

  “Behind them, here they come! Fire at will!” another one of the soldiers shouted.

  Mother grabbed me and pulled me to the floor. We lay down flat on our bellies with our faces to the floor as the soldiers and police began firing over our heads. Soon, the firing stopped, and the soldiers began to turn and run away themselves as the dead got closer and did not stop, even after being shot multiple times.

  I stood first, grabbing Mother and telling her it was okay to get up now, that we had to run and she finally listened.

  We ran.

  We saw the doors to the outside, the doors that would lead us out of this horrible nightmare, but they seemed so far away.

  Just then, Mother tripped over a bag that was abandoned by its owner. I reached out for her, but she fell hard on her side, and I think she hurt her shoulder.

  I turned to look behind us, and the dead were almost on top of us. I screamed for Mother to get up, and she scrambled to her feet. Mother started to stumble again, so I pushed her out of the glass doors.

  As I pushed her, I felt a tug at my right arm and a burning sensation. I turned, and one of the dead men in the bright yellow suits had a hold of my arm and was biting through my shoulder. I looked out the doors to my mother, and she was still running away, she had my bookbag in her hand so she must have thought I was still there too. I watched her join the group of other people outside as she turned and realized she had my bookbag and not me. She tried to run back for me, but I saw the police officers grab her and hold her back.

  I felt the burning in my shoulder but no real pain. I felt my body go warm as I watched the man in the yellow suit pull my arm away from my body as he devoured it.

  I remember falling to the cold floor when my arm came free. I looked up at the glass ceiling of the airport out to the bright blue sky.

  I closed my eyes and saw my mother’s smiling face, telling me she loved me and that she was proud of me for saving her.

  I did something useful with my life. I saved my mother.

  I could die now and go to that forever place that no one knew where it was, but that it was forever.

  The End

  Before the

  Outbreak:

  Jessica

  Chambers’

  Story

  "But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

  ― 1 Corinthians 15:12-14

  Chapter 1

  It's a ten-minute walk from my apartment to my office through the bustling city streets of Bordentown, Indiana. I walk past the same shops every day nodding to the men and women who work there. They know me only by face since stopping in their stores is not part of my daily routine. In high school, I once read that sticking to a good routine is the key to a successful life, and I have lived that mantra ever since.

  I work as a proofreader at BNK Industries, proofreading mortgage documents. It's a good job. I make decent money, and I know what to expect each day. I get a stack of papers, and I go through them until they are perfect. Every day my life is planned from when I open my eyes in the morning until I go to bed at night. I enjoy knowing what to expect, and my life is simple.

  I swipe my keycard at the main entrance of my office building, but instead of hearing the pleasant beep with the green acceptance light as the turnstile clicks to let me through, I'm greeted by an obnoxious screeching sound and a red light indicating I am not allowed to pass. I try my card again with the same frustrating result. People who also work here look at me with distain as they choose to go through another turnstile.

  I put my head down, feeling awkward as my expectedly typical day has turned into something unexpected, and I don't quite like it. I walk to the security desk and present my badge to the security guard, "My card appears not to be working. Can you help me?"

  The guard smiles at me, "Sure thing. Are you sure you haven't been canned?" he laughs.

  "Ugh, no. I have not been 'canned' as you say."

  "I'm just joking. It's probably a mix up in the computer is all, Miss. ugh... Jessica Chambers," he says, smiling as he holds up my badge reading it, "You're on the tenth floor with BNK Industries, right?"

  "Yes. My supervisor is Tom Cranton if you need to verify my employment."

  "Oh, I know you work here. I've seen you every day since I started working here myself. I've always wanted to talk to you but never had the chance. It looks like the stars have aligned and we finally get to meet. I'm Jacob," he says, smiling as he extends his hand to me over his desk.

  His response throws me, and I'm not sure exactly how to respond. I haven't had a boyfriend or even an acquaintance for that matter since high school. I've always had academics or work to focus
on, so I don't really have a social life. Friends want to go out drinking or dancing, but that doesn't fit into being up early for work in the morning. Even when asked by workmates, I've always come up with an excuse to not partake in after-work functions. I also realized that I hadn't been asked to hang out with anyone in quite some time. It's like I forgot how to respond to being social.

  I gathered my thoughts as quickly as I could, ignoring his outstretched hand, and said the first thing that popped into my head. "I really must get to work Jacob. Maybe we can talk another time... when I'm not running late perhaps?"

  Jacob's smile turns sour as he puts his hand back down. "Sure... whatever you say, Miss. Chambers."

  I know I've upset him, but I really must get to work. It is not part of my routine to ever be late, and I pride myself on my punctuality.

  Jacob returns to the computer angrily typing while periodically looking up at me with a snark expression.

  "Here's your card. It should work now," Jacob says coldly, sliding the card on the desk to me as he now avoids all eye contact.

  "Thank you. I'm sorry I can't talk right now, Jacob. I'm sure we'll catch each other at another more convenient time. I really do have to get to work," I say trying to smooth things over since I seem to have annoyed him.

  "It's no problem. I've only worked here for eight months, and you've never noticed me, but the one time we get to interact with each other, you can't even be bothered to be nice. It's not a problem. It tells me a lot about who you are. Now I know you aren't worth my time. Have a good day," Jacob replies as he turns his back to me.

  His abrupt response shocks me. I have never been talked to that way by someone I don't even know. Was I really that unkind? I don't think so. I merely told him I have to get to work, which is the truth. I don't have time for idle chit chat, but that's not my fault. How many times have I been inconvenienced by someone at work who decided to take way too long prattling on with a coworker instead of finishing up a project I needed to work on next? Countless times. I would never do that to someone else.