by Deb Rotuno
My dad’s hand landed flat in the middle of my chest. “Only if you calm down, son. I mean it. This won’t be an easy conversation, but you need to hear it. Promise me you’ll stay calm, and I’ll explain everything.”
His voice, his face, his furrowed brow told me that he wasn’t to be fucked with, but his unshaven face, the dark circles under his eyes, and the state of his clothing told me there was a bigger picture here and I needed to let him lead.
“Okay,” I whispered, looking between them. “Can I get up?”
They glanced at one another, but my dad nodded. “Yeah, let me get this IV out of you.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, and I squinted a little when my mother turned the lights back up so my father could get to work. He carefully removed the needle in my arm, wrapping it up with gauze and tape. He stepped to the cabinet and pulled out a pair of scrub pants and a white T-shirt, setting them on my lap.
“I’ll help you dress. You’re gonna be sore, Jack, so just let me help you. You’re not the only one who needs to be…briefed. Joel’s awake too.”
I nodded, setting the clothes aside and carefully pushing myself up off the bed. My right leg was sore, and my limbs felt weak. There was a bandage wrapped around my calf, just below my knee.
“Damn, how long have I been out?” I asked him, pulling the shirt on over my head.
“Ten days. Some of that we kept you under to help you heal.”
My eyebrows shot up. “You’re joking…”
“No, son, I’m not.” He held my arm while I pulled the loose pants up over my underwear. “Sit for just a second, please.”
Nodding, I did as he said and sat on the edge of the bed. He stood in front of me, shining a light in and out of each of my eyes. He stayed quiet as he checked me over, finally placing both his hands on my shoulders.
“You were in the north section of the base when it collapsed. Some debris fell on you, which is where your concussion came from. There was an explosion, and shrapnel lodged in your leg. It wasn’t too deep, and I was able to repair it, but you’ll have to give yourself time to heal completely.”
When I nodded, he smiled a little, but I noticed it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You said you had a hard time remembering stuff,” he stated, and I nodded again. “Like what? Tell me.”
“Um, I remember getting to Florida, the storm…I know why I was here. I remember calling Sara after the storm, but I can’t remember why I was so urgent. I can’t remember how I got hurt…or how I lost my company.”
My dad’s face was clear of any expression, but he nodded. “You had a pretty bad concussion, Jack. So your memories may be spotty for a little bit.” He smiled, patting the side of my face. “Do you remember what you said to Sara?”
Frowning, I nodded. “Yeah, that if something happened, to get to the cabin, but I don’t know why I’d say that…or I can’t remember.”
“That’s okay. It’ll come, and we’ll help you.”
“Maybe if I could just talk to them…”
“No, son. You can’t. The phones are down—both landlines and cell service.”
“Damn, how bad was this storm?”
“It’s not the storm, Jack. It’s what the storm…unleashed,” he stated with a dark look, helping me to my feet. “C’mon. Joel’s in the next room asking the same questions you are. I might as well tell you both at the same time.”
Suddenly, it occurred to me how quiet the hospital was—no bustling nurses, no overhead pages, nothing.
“Um, where’s the staff? Nurses?” I asked him, following him out of my room and down one door.
“Just wait. I’ll explain,” he sighed wearily.
The next room was identical to mine, from the cabinet to the hospital bed. Joel, however, was sitting up, letting my mother look him over.
“Jack,” he greeted with his usual grin, but he looked like I felt—tired, sore, groggy. “What the hell do you remember?” He held up his arm, which was wrapped up in a temporary cast.
I snorted. “And I was hoping you’d tell me.”
“I got my ass kicked. That’s what I know.” He held up his Velcro cast again for emphasis. “I know you’ve been out longer than me, but you kinda took the worst of that explosion.”
“I don’t remember that part. The last thing I remember is calling Sara.”
“Oh.” Joel looked confused but nodded. “But, dude…that was a few days after the hurricane hit.”
“Jesus, how many days have I lost?” I yelled, glancing around the room.
“Like I said, you were unconscious for ten days. The fact that your memory is sketchy isn’t exactly a surprise,” my dad explained. “It’s been four weeks since the storm touched land. It traveled across the state of Florida, right through the center. It moved slowly, destroying just about everything in its wake. It was a category-five storm, which rivaled that of Katrina or Andrew.”
“And I was there when you called Sara,” Joel stated. “We were barely getting a signal as the storm passed over us. You were freaking out ’cause you’d overheard someone say something about a security breach and Department of Defense.” He rolled his eyes to my dad. “Okay, Doc, let’s hear it.”
My dad pinched the bridge of his nose, sitting down heavily in the chair. “Sit, son. This won’t be easy to hear for either of you.” He gestured to the chair in the opposite corner, while my mother stood beside him.
We were all silent for a moment. The atmosphere in the room was tense and heavy. Again, I took in my parents’ disheveled appearance. Normally they were better put together than what was in front of me. My dad hardly went a day or two without shaving, but he had what looked to be almost a full week of growth on his face. Reaching up to my own face, I had about the same. My mother, on the other hand, was the one who worried me. She was gaunt, her skin sallow, and her hair, while usually perfectly combed, was drawn back in a low ponytail.
Frowning, I waited because I had a feeling I was about to hear some heavy shit.
“This isn’t a hospital,” Dad finally stated, gesturing a finger around the room. “This is a part of the remaining north section of the base—the laboratory that survived the storm.”
There wasn’t a window in the room, so I couldn’t exactly verify that piece of information. I nodded for him to go on.
He closed his eyes, shaking his head, but looked up to my mother. “This…this is really your area of expertise, so maybe you should explain.”
My mother nodded and stood up straight. She ran a shaky hand over her face before saying, “Dexter Air Force Base houses one of the laboratories that works with communicable diseases. It also studies bioweapons. You and your company were brought in here to secure this location, should the storm cause damage, but as Hurricane Beatrice hit the warm waters of the gulf, it grew in speed and power, beyond anything anyone was expecting. Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater are gone…simply flooded out. MacDill Air Force Base is no longer standing—well, it’s standing, but it’s standing under water. What didn’t flood was destroyed with winds and heavy rain, never mind the tornadoes.
“It was the latter that hit here,” she continued, starting to pace, but she pointed to the floor. “It took out the power, the phone lines, and the north side of the base…this side.” Her eyes filled with tears, and it was all I could do not to go to her, but my dad’s hand slipped into hers. “Jack, Joel…when the building collapsed, it not only shut down the containment for the laboratory’s storage, but it shattered several vials—no, not several…most of the vials of an experiment the military was trying to contain. In doing so, a virus was unleashed into the base.”
Joel and I locked gazes for a moment, both of us confused, but I had to ask a question. “Okay, so…we’re in some sort of quarantine? And how were you here? I mean, I knew you had clearance to be on base, but…” I waved a hand around me to indicate this specific place, and I didn’t mention the fact that I was a little unnerved that I’d still seen no si
gns of others—nurses, faculty, officers. No one.
My dad sat forward, his face solemn. “You know Major Mathis and I were good friends,” he said, and when Joel and I nodded, he went on. “Well, he allowed us to wait out the storm here on base, said that we could help, should anyone get hurt. We obviously agreed. We had no problem helping out. We weren’t far from you, from this section, when the explosion went off. So we…” He grinned a little, locking gazes with me. “You’re our son, so…” He shrugged a shoulder. “Mathis allowed us in here to get to you, to your company.”
Mom pointed to Joel and me, saying, “You two were the tail of your company. You were the last in the group to step foot inside the north section. Up until that point, you’d been patrolling other areas of the base. However, you were the last team brought into contain—” She stopped, her face going even paler than before. “Um, there was no getting to your men. Two very lucky things happened at the same time. The explosion created a barrier between you and the farthest part of the building. It severed you away from the…the worst part of it.”
“And the second thing?” Joel asked, looking between my parents. “I mean, I remember the patrols when the power went down. Don’t you, Jack?”
“Barely,” I groaned, rubbing my face, but I looked to Dad to answer Joel’s question.
Dad smiled ruefully. “The second thing was we were able to get to you two, get you out of there and into another wing. We’ve closed off this portion of the building, focused the generators on our area.”
I sat forward, rubbing my face with both hands, only to rest my elbows on my knees. “Okay, um…I get all that. And…well, thank you. Both of you.”
“Definitely,” Joel concurred, nodding like a kid.
“But I have a question.” I held up a finger. “You…” I pointed to Dad. “You said the storm ‘unleashed’ something. The collapse of the building wasn’t the worst part, was it?”
Both my parents shook their heads slowly.
Mom stepped forward, her hands shaking a little as she ran her fingers through my hair like she’d done my whole life—just like Sara did to Freddie—and my heart literally ached to see my family, to see my sweet, gorgeous wife and my little boy. They had to be worried sick about me, with so much time since our last call. And remembering that call made me nervous; that couldn’t have made things any easier for my Sara. Shaking my head to clear it, I focused on my mother.
“The virus that was in storage was set free.”
That statement landed heavily in the room, and Joel and I looked to one another with wide, shocked eyes.
“Um, so…we’re sick?” Joel asked.
“No, you’re fine,” Dad stated, standing up from the chair and looking to my mother. “We’ll have to show them in order for them to understand.”
She nodded, turning to the cabinet next to Joel. She handed him the same thing to put on as my dad had given me.
“Put this on,” she said and then turned to me.
“This virus is like nothing I’ve ever seen, not in…reality. It’s been discussed for decades, and there have been theories on it, but the truth is much worse than the Hollywood version.”
Joel snorted as my mother helped him dress due to his encased arm. “What? Aliens have landed?”
“Uh, no.” My dad’s answer was firm and without the humor Joel usually brought to a room, despite the tenseness that filled it.
“Aw…and here I was hoping for those egg-laying, acidy-spit drooling things Sigourney Weaver so epically battled,” he added, and I chuckled, shaking my head.
“Only you would wish for acidy-spit,” I told him, standing up gingerly on my sore leg when he finally had the scrub pants on.
My father led us out of the room, but it was my mother who was spewing medical facts and statistics.
“The growth rate of this virus is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Those at the center of the original source—the stored vials—were sick within…seconds. Probably less than a minute. The explosion caused it to go airborne, and what normally would’ve killed them…well, didn’t. The tissues reanimated.” She stopped at the end of the hallway, turning to face us. “The problem wasn’t that the virus was set free; it was the fact that several of the people working in the lab panicked and got out.”
My eyes narrowed. “Got out…as in…out, out?” I jerked a thumb behind me in a useless gesture, but they knew what I meant. “As in off base?”
“Yes,” they both said.
“And if my calculations are correct, if what we heard before communications went down is true, then the virus will spread…everywhere. Very, very quickly.”
Again, I noted the silence and the lack of people in the hallway, but I merely waved her on.
Mom turned to open the door in front of her, and we entered another hallway, only the lights were dimmer, flickering. At the end of that corridor was a set of double doors. What normally would be push-to-open doors were barricaded with mop and broom handles. What caused the hair to stand up on the back of my neck was the rather large pile of automatic weapons leaning against the wall off to the side.
I reached for the broom handle, and both my mother and father yelled, “No!”
I froze, glancing back at them, but my dad’s hand slipped up the wall to a light switch, flicking it up. The windows in the double doors lit up with more flickering lights, but something told me I didn’t want to look. Dad jerked his chin toward the window.
“Oh my fucking hell,” Joel groaned, taking the left window, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in shock.
I stepped to the right-side window, narrowing my eyes down another hallway. I could see the damage the storm had caused, not to mention the explosion. But it was the movement that truly caught my attention. I could see people, but they didn’t look real…or alive. With distorted faces, missing limbs, and destroyed clothing, they all looked like something out of a movie.
“Oh, shit…” I breathed, my forehead thumping softly to the glass in front of me as memories flooded me. “We were sent in, Joel. Remember? We were sent to contain this section. We were told to shoot to kill, that it was a breach in security.”
He huffed and nodded, turning to look my way. “We were ordered to kill, to contain…but these were…”
“Innocents.”
“Well, they aren’t human anymore,” my mother stated firmly behind us, reaching between us to bang on the door. “They’re killing machines.”
What happened next made me sick. The ten or twelve…things on the other side of the door suddenly shifted, almost as one—like a flock of birds. They shuffled, walked, dragged themselves toward us, and I took a tentative step backward. The stench that met my nose was putrid and foul. It was death and rot and decomposition. But it was fucking moving.
They hit the door, teeth snapping, with grunts and growls. They smeared a black slime—which I realized was dead blood, old blood—against the window. They pushed and shoved each other, practically ripping limbs off rotting bodies, in order to get to the doors…to us.
“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Joel breathed, stepping back, finally rounding on my parents. “Night of the living fucking dead? Are you fucking kidding me?”
I placed a hand on his chest but swallowed back bile and nausea as I recognized names on military uniforms, men I’d known, men who’d once had my back. When I felt I could speak, I asked, “What are they?”
“People. Or they were,” my dad replied, wearing a disgusted expression as the banging and clawing at the door continued uninterrupted behind me. “They’re not now. The brain…reanimates, but only the brain stem. There’s no more thought, no more emotion, no more…person inside. They only want one thing.”
“What’s that?” Joel whispered.
“To feed. On flesh.” My mother’s voice was barely heard over my labored breathing.
It was all too much. With my head pounding and the snarls behind me, my temper unraveled.
“Tell me I’m fucking dreaming!”
I snapped, pointing behind me. “Someone tell me this shit isn’t real, because…” I pointed to my mother, but she shook her head. “I gotta get outta here. I gotta get home.”
I started to walk by them, but my father stopped me, gripping my T-shirt and pulling me into the closest room. He shoved me to the window, tapping it harshly.
“There’s no leaving, Jackson!” he snapped, tapping the window again. “We’re trapped. We shut this section down in order to keep you two safe, and in doing so, we’ve cornered ourselves. We’ve been lucky so far because there’s a store of MREs on this level, but those won’t last forever.”
Looking out the window, my mouth gaped at the sight of an entire base filled with those mindless, foul…things. They were shuffling by the fence, wandering in and around the parking lot, and bumping into one another. I saw wrecked cars, crumpled fences, and dead bodies everywhere. Movement at the gate caught my eye, and I locked on to what looked to be one of the K-9s wandering around. It was a Rottweiler, a fairly large one, but it had missed a meal or two. It jumped back, ears flattened to its head as one of those things moved toward it. Several shifted at once, again like a flock of birds. They moved quicker than I was expecting, and the dog didn’t stand a chance. I swore I could hear the howl from that third-floor window as they landed on it like a football tackle for a fumbled ball. Fur, limbs, and what I imagined to be intestines were fought over. When one of those beasts looked up, he was covered in blood.
Gagging, I dropped to a knee, crying out when the wound on my leg protested and felt like it was ripped.
“We can’t leave,” my dad whispered, kneeling beside me and helping me to a sitting position.
When I leaned back against the wall, I gazed up at him. “We can’t stay here, either.”
I blinked when the power came on in the room. My mother stepped to one of the tables, picking up a stack of papers.
“Jack, Joel,” she called, and we both looked over at her, Joel barely dragging his gaze away from the window. “This virus has been loose for almost a full month. In that time, reports of an incurable flu have been reported…all over the world.”
