Pandora - Contagion

by Eric L. Harry

  Just after sunset, the living room of the main house was lit only by the flickering screen of the big TV. His family’s faces were masks of intense focus, as if something they might see in the news reports—some small detail or anecdote—might one day save their lives. Natalie even took notes, but Noah had no idea of what. Chloe hugged her knees, which in turn pressed a pillow to her chest in a fragile cocoon from which she watched the horrors wide-eyed. Jake repeatedly flicked the selector switch on the rifle he’d just cleaned from safe to fire and back—click, click, click.

  “So, Boston is gone,” Natalie said, keeping track on her pad. “And so are Paris and Montreal. And just in the last day,” she consulted her notes, “it’s broken out in Toronto, Brussels, Frankfurt, Toulouse, Providence, Kolkata, Buffalo, Calais, Amsterdam, Bangkok…”

  The familiar “Breaking News” splash interrupted the broadcast yet again, and Noah braced himself. “This just in. CNN regrets to inform its viewers that the first signs of outbreak have reached our newsroom in Detroit. To repeat, it now appears confirmed that Pandoravirus has broken out in Detroit, Michigan.”

  “It’s everywhere,” Natalie said, tossing her notepad onto the coffee table. “There’s no stopping it. Soon, there won’t even be anywhere to run.”

  “Mo-o-om?” Chloe cried out in fear.

  Thirteen-year-old Jake loaded a magazine into his assault rifle. “Not in the house, Jake,” Noah admonished. His son ejected the magazine. Click, click, click.

  “I’m gonna go check the fences,” Noah said, rising.

  “I’ll come too,” added a restless Jake, clambering to his feet and again slapping the magazine into his AR. Natalie objected, but Noah assured her it was all right. What he didn’t say was that Jake needed some time spent in the darkness, in the woods, with his rifle, getting acclimated. They all did.

  Once outside in the brisk night air, both pulled the charging handles of their AR-15s back to chamber rounds with nearly simultaneous clacks, but kept their weapons safed. Noah headed past the barn for the fence line. Jake followed too closely, so Noah had him hold back until he could barely make out his son’s dark profile. He could, however, hear each crunching step taken by his heavy-footed and ungainly boy.

  Noah saw human profiles in every shadow. Kneeling men. Crouching men. Men pressing their backs to tree trunks. Men slithering beneath bushes whose leaves rustled in the intermittent breeze. But he knew that what he really saw were his fears.

  The gently sloping ground of the compound was still. They completed their circumnavigation of the unbroken fence having seen and heard no one and nothing. But after Noah’s eyes were fully adjusted to the darkness, the main house looked lit up like a Christmas tree in spite of their energy conservation measures. When they returned, Noah locked the door and lowered both sets of storm shutters: inside and outside.

  The noise of the electric motors startled Chloe. “Jeez!”

  Noah rejoined them in front of the TV as the shades’ motors all shut off in rapid succession. The sealed room seemed tomblike. It felt less like they were shutting out the rest of the world than that they were imprisoning themselves, both physically and emotionally. As if it would be possible to wall themselves off from what was happening. Noah couldn’t help but wonder how many plans like his had already failed in Asia, and were currently failing in Europe?

  “It feels like we’re living in a cave,” Chloe said. She eyed the shutters covering what had previously been tall and welcoming windows, then wrapped her skinny arms around her knees, which hid the lower half of her face.

  The only sound was the low monotone of the TV newswoman. “The White House has resisted calls from members of Congress, now back home in their districts during the temporary recess, for much more forceful attempts to enforce quarantines. Demonstrations in Chicago, St. Louis, Orlando, Dallas, and Phoenix called for shoot-to-kill orders and employment of heavier military firepower to contain the spread of Pandoravirus carriers, but Pres. Stoddard has said only that all options remain on the table. As it stands, the only advice given by DHS to citizens who confront an Infected is to flee, phone in a report of the contact, and fight only as a last resort if necessary for self-defense.”

  “Why did you close the shutters?” Natalie asked. She had been staring at Noah since he’d sat down in the plush armchair: his seat in the family’s hierarchal seating plan. “Did you see anything?”

  The kids listened; rapt. “No. It was just…the house was pretty bright. I figured lowering the shutters—just at night—might help with that some.”

  Chloe said, “That’s the truth, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “’Cause parents lie to kids all the time when something bad’s about to happen. Justin’s parents told his little brother and sister that SED was like the chickenpox. Like it somehow makes it better when they find out the truth.”

  “No, Chloe. I wasn’t…”

  “Just tell us the truth, okay? I don’t mean about the shutters. I mean…whatever’s gonna happen. Whatever’s coming. ’Cause if we can’t trust you to do that, we can’t ever relax, ya know? I mean, like, we’ll always have to be ready ’cause we’ll never know.”

  Wow, Noah thought. That sounded more mature than almost anything his daughter had ever said. He glanced at Natalie, then said, “Okay Chloe. Jake. You’re right. You need to know. I’ll…we’ll always tell you the truth. Promise.”

  “Okay,” Chloe said. Both she and Jake sat up and turned toward Noah as if he’d demanded their attention, which he most certainly had not. “What is coming?”

  Noah opened his mouth to say, I don’t fucking know! But he looked at Natalie, who listened to him every bit as intently as the kids, and caught himself. “My best guess,” he struggled in saying, “is that the disease is going to spread across the whole country, just like it did in Asia and seems to be doing in Canada and in Europe.” That sounded like the beginning of some significant observation, but Noah meant it to be the end of one. His family, however, awaited his plan. The one in which they all survived unscathed.

  “Uhm, so the violence seems worst when the infection first sweeps through. If we can ride that out, hopefully things will die down. Isabel told me that a significant percentage, like, I dunno, five, ten, fifteen percent of the Infecteds who turn are highly dysfunctional and won’t last too long. After they…die off—get killed—then the other Infecteds maybe won’t be so crazy. And they also won’t be able to infect you only by breathing after a couple of weeks. If we can keep to ourselves up here long enough, maybe some form of peaceful coexistence might be achieved. Maybe we can join up with surviving Uninfecteds. Or maybe even there’ll be peaceful, mixed communities of Infecteds and Uninfecteds.”

  Jake said, “But between now and then…?”

  “There will be violence.” It was Natalie who had answered. She rose, headed to the hall closet, and returned with her own assault rifle, empty though it was, which she cradled across her yoga pants before turning up the TV news and grabbing her notepad.

  Click, click, click.

  Chapter 13

  NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

  Infection Date 47, 1700 GMT (1:00 p.m. Local)

  Isabel, Rick, and Brandon wore full personal protective equipment as they climbed out of the armored Humvee on the working-class city street. The EMTs emerged from the ambulance in front of them, and soldiers from the two Humvees behind them, including Vasquez and his men, all similarly clad, head-to-toe, in impermeable one-piece suits and hoods, gloves, disposable boots, and face masks and shields. The machine gunner atop the vehicle behind them swiveled his large gun toward the front door of the row house.

  Residents of the mostly African-American neighborhood stood in their doorways with cloth covering their noses and mouths, keeping their distance. Someone had called about a possible infection breaking out in the unpainted, narrow, two-story home, at whose front d
oor troops and the medical team gathered.

  One of the EMTs pounded loudly on the front door with his fist, then again, then shouted, “New Haven EMS! Open up! Wellness check!”

  The soldiers all held their rifles at the ready. When the door cracked open, the muzzles rose to it, then lowered several inches. A child peered out. Her pupils were popped and black.

  Everyone backed off the porch without being told. “I’m gonna have to ask you,” the EMT said, “to come outside.” The girl stared back but did nothing. The paramedic stood with one foot on the porch and the other two steps below. He leaned over, rested his forearm on his raised thigh, and said calmly, “Sweetie, we’re not gonna hurt you. But you’re gonna have to come out here.”

  The little girl, maybe six or seven, unchained the door and took a few steps out onto the porch. She was filthy, her nightgown covered in what had to be dried vomit and diarrhea. She jumped when she heard the crinkling sound as the EMT unfolded a clear plastic suit—in a child’s size—and then coaxed the girl into it. It had vaguely identifiable arms, legs, torso, and hood. He instructed the girl on how to breathe through what looked something like a snorkel’s mouthpiece that vented through filters to the outside air. He then zipped the suit closed, stopping several times to calm the girl by reassuring her that everything would be okay.

  But will it? Isabel wondered quietly. Once the Infecteds were all rounded up, the stage was set for a change of policy. Was this the first step in some new Holocaust? Had lowly German soldiers been tricked into roundups of Jews by the fiction that everything would turn out all right?

  “Is there anybody else in the house?” the EMT asked, his hand on the girl’s plastic-encased shoulder. When she nodded with a rustling sound, he led her off the porch, taking special care to support her as she awkwardly descended the few steps. A sergeant led his three men into the house. Vasquez and his men, there only to escort Isabel and her team, took up positions just inside the front door to support the soldiers clearing the home.

  Bam. Bam-bam-bam-bam. The windows lit with each round fired. Bam-bam-bam. Bam. Bam-bam-bam. After the brief spasm of gunfire there was silence.

  “Clear!” “Clear!” “Clear!” came staggered shouts. The army team streamed back out the door and doubled over, or leaned back against the front wall of the house, or clung to a post by the front steps.

  The sergeant yelled out toward the EMTs now gathered at the back of their ambulance, who took turns giving comfort to the little girl in the plastic suit. “We need a body disposal unit!”

  The little girl seemed uninterested in the happenings in the house. An EMT shouted back, “How many bodies?”

  The army sergeant, who had sunk to the steps and seemed exhausted, exaggerated his shrug so that the gesture would be visible inside his PPE. “Dunno! Twelve? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

  A middle-aged woman from down the block shouted, “They took in their cousins from Providence!” She’d uncovered her mouth to speak, but put the scarf back over her face when finished. The soldiers politely urged her to step back off the property, and she complied. “They all get shot?” she asked.

  The sergeant took it as an accusation. “No! No, no, no! Most were already dead. Stacked up in the back hall. The ones we shot came flyin’ at us with bedposts and tire irons.” In a quieter voice to Rick and Vasquez, the sergeant said, “It was a fuckin’ horror show in there.” He was rattled.

  In the distance Isabel heard more gunfire. Another house. More Infecteds carted away in zip-lock baggies. Heads turned to look that way. The sergeant got a call on the radio and ordered his men to mount up. When Rick got off his own radio, Isabel asked, “What’s going on?” as they watched the ambulance and Humvee depart.

  “Them? Same old, same old. Too many holes in the dike; not enough fingers. But we just got orders to get the hell outta New Haven. Shit must be hitting the fan.”

  “Where are we headed?” Brandon asked.

  Rick looked at Brandon, then Isabel. “New York. City,” he clarified.

  Chapter 14

  THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY, VIRGINIA

  Infection Date 48, 2300 GMT (7:00 p.m. Local)

  The terrain had grown so difficult that Emma was forced to stick to the two-lane state highway. That proved to be a mistake. She heard the car approaching from behind, but resisted the urge to run or to look back at it for fear of appearing apprehensive.

  A pickup truck slowed to a stop beside her as its passenger window lowered. It had police lights on its cab, and a sheriff’s shield on its door. The driver wore a white cowboy hat, a badge, and a pistol in a holster. “Evenin’, ma’am.”

  Emma didn’t risk any reply.

  “Sheriff Walcott. I take it from your gear you’re just passin’ through our fine county.” She couldn’t tell if it was a question, or a command. “Cat got yer tongue?” Emma knew it was best not to say anything, but that was proving difficult. “What’s yer name?”

  “Emma,” she replied, and to her surprise he didn’t demand her last name.

  “Well, Miss Emma,” Walcott said, “we ain’t takin’ in anybody new these days. You keep headin’ on in this direction a few more hours and you’ll be clear outta my jurisdiction. That way we can stay friendly, like now. But you stop in this county—even if you get taken in by one of our more charitable households, bein’ as how innocent lookin’ you are and all—and we won’t be so friendly anymore, you and me. Understand me, young lady?”

  “You won’t see me again,” Emma replied, intending that to be true. She would make it a point to see him first. She would ensure that he remained oblivious to any future plans she might have for him…or for the shotgun in the rack behind him, or the pistol on his hip.

  Walcott slapped the side of his truck and said, “Then you have a nice day.” He touched the brim of his hat before driving off.

  When the taillights receded, Emma took deep breaths. She loosened her grip on the screwdriver she now carried in the cavernous pocket of the camouflaged hunting jacket she had stolen from the clothes line of the Barnwell family. When the lights in their hovel had been extinguished for the night, she had cut their phone line with the sharpened blade of her screwdriver. The jacket, hanging amid the small animal carcasses, was all that she had risked taking. They kept their weapons handy, especially their boy Ellis.

  She flexed and then rubbed her hand. Her grip on the screwdriver’s handle had been so tight that its imprint creased her palm, and her fingers cramped. Rather than continue her walk down the side of the highway or risk a cross-country hike as darkness deepened, Emma decided to make camp. She was getting close and would spend the next day checking out the town and searching for food and weapons. Noah and his family would be armed.

  Chapter 15

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  Infection Date 49, 2230 GMT (6:30 p.m. Local)

  The irregularly-shaped and oddly-colored twin American Copper Buildings in Murray Hill were a strange choice of headquarters for the defense of New York City. But the new luxury condo building had several advantages, said the NYPD lieutenant leading Isabel, Rick, Brandon, and their army team to the fitness center. The complex of two buildings was connected by a three-story, elevated skybridge, which Isabel supposed might allow rapid redeployment…or escape. And NYU’s medical center was next door, as was the East 34th Street Heliport and the East River Ferry landing on the other side of FDR Drive.

  Rick and Isabel exchanged glances. These stout defenders had provided themselves multiple “avenues of egress,” Rick had called it, which Isabel remembered because of the importance Rick had accorded the concept. Since most of the buildings’ affluent tenants had already fled the city, most of the apartments were empty. Quartering troops, she recalled from a White House NSC briefing, was unconstitutional. But who cares?

  The entire position was “anchored,” their guide said, by the 69th Regiment Armory, home to the New Yor
k National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry—a 600-person light infantry battalion—of the 27th Infantry Brigade, 42nd Infantry Division. There were lots of numbered units—battalions, brigades, divisions—but China, the Koreas, and Vietnam also had battalions, brigades, and divisions, also numbered, and they had been overrun.

  The gymnasium ceiling was high in order to accommodate a climbing wall, creating a cavernous, echoing space. In front was a projection screen displaying a video test pattern washed out by the room’s bright lighting. The place was abuzz with the conversations of dozens of soldiers, policemen, firemen, and civilians seated in a semi-circle of chairs facing the screen and the cameras pointing back in their direction. Vasquez and company peeled off when they found other camo-clad soldiers milling about the high stools of a juice bar. Isabel, Rick, and Brandon were escorted to the front row of unstacked metal chairs.

  “But if people start throwing themselves into the rivers,” said a Coast Guard officer seated behind Isabel, “we’ll need those ferries. We gotta get ’em out of the water quickly. Hypothermia sets in fast below sixty degrees.”

  “Even assuming,” the civilian next to him whispered, “we can muster crews, the people they rescue will be Uninfected and Infected. We’d expose people in the close quarters.”

  “Are you proposing that we suspend water rescues?”

  “I’m just saying I wouldn’t know where to put the people we rescue. And if they jump into the water, it’s probably because they just had a close encounter with a fucking Infected.”