First Days After

by Jay Vielle

  We rolled forward on Route 15 to the outskirts of Thurmont, heading south to Frederick. As we neared the exit for the road up to Cunningham Falls, near where Camp David was, we saw a line of military vehicles, including at least four tanks, blocking the road. Everyone in the bus went silent. There were troops there manning the vehicles. Nobody was getting up either of the roads that led up the mountain. The mountain was closed. Route 77 came in from above in Smithsburg—that would have been easily blocked off from the north. The only other road nearby was Route 550, which led to Catoctin High School, our rival. It was much older, more traditional, and completely inaccessible now thanks to the U.S. Military. The whole scene was disturbing. There was no doubt as to the fact that somebody important from the U.S. government was in Camp David. Whether it was the president, the vice president, some generals—who knew? But somebody was there. And nobody was getting in.

  “Lots of tanks. Can’t say I’ve ever seen that many tanks side by side in one place,” I thought aloud. Jake heard me.

  “Yeah. That’s actually pretty rare,” said Jake. “Even in a forward assignment. Scattered around, maybe. But not lined up. It’s unnerving.”

  We rode by the two roads up the mountain looking for signs of people. Nothing on the road, near the tanks, or moving around in town. Where were the people? The town wasn’t huge, but big enough to support a high school, a zoo, a national park, and a decent amount of businesses. We only lived about ten miles away from this place, and we saw people the first two days in the streets of Emmitsburg after the bombings. Thurmont, however, was empty. We rode past the local zoo, which was visible from the highway. Empty. No people, no animals. Nothing. As we headed towards Frederick, which was a small city by most standards, I wondered what we would see.

  Turns out we would hear it instead.

  “Hello? May Day! Emergency! Hello? Is anyone there?” It was a woman’s voice. Jake picked up the CB.

  “Roger. Who are you? Where are you? What do you need?” said Jake, unsure of how to answer the call. He looked back at me and shrugged. The others were listening intently.

  “My name is Wendy. I am at Fort Detrick. Building H. We’re locked in. We’ve been here for three days. My supervisor is not doing well. We don’t know what’s out there. Can you help us?”

  “We are a few minutes from Fort Detrick, but I don’t know one building from the other, and there’s no internet, no Google maps we can use.”

  “When you drive in the East Entrance off of Shookstown Road, there’s a large sign there with a campus map. It will be the first right off of the entrance, then we’re near the end of that street. Please hurry. I think the Colonel is dying.”

  Jake jammed the pedal down and zoomed down Route 15. He turned onto Shookstown Road, then pulled up to the main entrance of Fort Detrick and slammed on the breaks. The gates were closed, but something had ripped them apart.

  “What the hell did that?” asked Maureen. Jake shook his head.

  “I have no idea,” said Jake. “Al? Any guesses?”

  Al was awestruck. It looked as if something had just ripped it open with hands. It wasn’t run over by a truck, or even shoved out of the way like a bulldozer might. It looked as if someone had walked up to it and from the bottom ripped a man-sized hole in it and stormed out. Jake revved the engine and blasted the bus through the hole. Screeching noises came from the chain link fencing scraping the sides of the bus. Jada winced. Estela plugged her ears. The noise was incredibly loud and creepy. The bus rolled forward towards the map.

  “It’s a right. Like she said,” I yelled. Building H is at the end of this street, on the left.”

  Jake drove another quarter mile and pulled the bus to a halt. He pulled the doors open and started to get up.

  “What the hell?” he remarked. “Does that street look—I don’t know—orange to you?”

  “What are you talking about—holy shit!” I shouted. “It is orange. What is that?

  “I don’t know, but it can’t be good. Everyone grab two grocery bags and tie one around each foot. We should have plenty back there. Whatever that stuff is, it’s probably best if we don’t get it on us if we can help it,” said Jake.

  “Um, should we all go?” I asked.

  “Maybe not,” said Jake. “We don’t know what’s going on here. I’ll go. Glen, come with me. You’re a big kid. The rest of you can stay if you want.”

  “No,” said Estela. “Voy contigo. Y tú, Eddie?”

  “Yeah. I’ll go I guess. Al, will you stay here with Maureen and Jada?” Al looked disappointed and relieved all at the same time. Maureen grabbed his shoulder, and he put his hand on hers and nodded.

  “I’ll stay,” he said. “But first, I have an idea.” Al went to the back of the bus and fiddled around one of the boxes, pulling out some things.

  “Al, we don’t have time,” said Jake.

  “Just wait a second, will you?” said Al. He started putting something together. After another thirty seconds or so, he held up two hands with walkie-talkies.

  “Ta-dah,” said Al. “We can talk to you on the CB. You guys take these. The walkies only have five channels, so I’m turning the CB to channel one. Got it?”

  Jake smiled and nodded, “Good thinking.” Al smiled back triumphantly and the four of us were on our way. We all tied the bags around our shoes and hopped out. Everything had kind of an orange tint to it. The trees, the benches, the streets. Everything. I turned around to see how much of it there was. Except for the main entrance, flecks of orange were all over the place. There were a few spots that had somehow escaped it, but there was no pattern to it that I could tell.

  Jake went up to the main door. It was open and swinging slightly. It looked bent, like the gate. Jake stepped in gingerly, looked left and right, then moved ahead.

  “Wendy?” he yelled. “Where are you?” A muffled sound came from the back right portion of the building. Jake led, and everyone else followed. We went through three sets of doors made of wired glass and metal. They all seemed propped open and off track somehow. As we neared the back wall, we saw a set of double doors that was heavily dented but still closed.

  “What the hell did that?” I asked. Jake’s eyebrows raised. He knocked on the doors.

  “Wendy? Are you in there? I’m the guy you just talked to on the radio. These are my friends.” There was some shuffling, then a latching sound came from the other side, and the doors mechanically opened to reveal a disheveled but beautiful Asian-looking woman standing on the other side. She slammed into Jake and hugged him.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” she sighed. “I thought we were going to die in there.”

  “My name is Jake. You’re gonna be alright. You’re safe with us. Where’s your partner?”

  “Colonel Cannaveral. My supervisor. He’s right over there. On the ground. Ray?” she called. “Ray, can you hear me? People are here. Tell me you have some water,” she said, looking at me. “We haven’t had anything for I don’t know how long,” said Wendy. I had brought the bottle I had been sipping on with me out of nervous habit. I handed it to her. She grabbed it and gulped half down immediately.

  “Thank you,” she gasped. “Ray, take some of this.”

  On the ground lay an older man in uniform. He looked to be in his fifties, maybe older, with a tight military haircut tinged slightly with grey. He was wearing glasses and a camouflaged top and bottom set that Jake would later tell me were his BDU’s, or “battle dress uniform.” Jake told me that the military had used BDU’s from the 1980’s to the early 2000’s, then replaced them mostly with digital style camouflage. Ray took the bottle from Wendy and sipped it slowly. He was in bad shape and looked weak. The water instantly revived him. He gulped down the rest of the bottle, took a deep breath, and sat up on the floor.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You saved our lives. But if you don’t want your efforts wasted, we need to get out of here, fast.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Jake and Glen helped
the Colonel up to his feet. He was wobbly. He had already downed the water and was trying to straighten the wire rimmed glasses on his face.

  “What do you mean, Colonel?” asked Jake.

  “I’ll explain once we’re moving,” said the Colonel. He was beginning to get his legs back as we walked. Wendy led.

  “How far away are you parked?” asked Wendy nervously.

  “Right outside,” I answered. “It’s a school bus.”

  “Thank God,” she said. They both got on the bus, which was still running. They grabbed the first couple of seats and plopped down. The rest of us filed in quickly and found seats.

  “Go. Now,” said the Colonel.

  Jake hopped into the driver’s seat and zoomed out. Wendy and the Colonel looked around nervously as we moved. Jake didn’t spare the horses. He was taking curves quickly and headed back towards the entrance we had come in. He didn’t know what it was that the Colonel was afraid of, but he knew fear when he heard it, and drove accordingly. He turned left hard and we looked up at the gate we had crashed through. There were people there. Sort of. They were moving around strangely, almost like apes, occasionally using their hands to touch the ground. And they were orange.

  “What the hell are those?” asked Al.

  “Don’t stop,” said the Colonel. “Run through them if you have to.”

  Jake revved the engine and the bus started to accelerate quickly. It was one of the newer, automatic transmission busses that the school system had now. The orange colored people were starting to move towards us. Their hair was white, those that had hair at all, and their skin was a bright metallic orange. Their clothes were fairly tattered. Some had shoes, some did not. Jake turned to the Colonel.

  “Through them, sir?” asked Jake.

  “Through them,” the Colonel answered. Jake bore down once more and winced. We could hear the sound of the bodies bouncing off the of the bus, like hitting a herd of deer. Bodies flew out of the way.

  “Díos mío,” shouted Estela.

  “Oh my God,” echoed Maureen, almost simultaneously.

  “Hold on,” yelled Jake. The bus slammed into what was left of the gate. The metal scraping on metal sound returned and made my spine hurt to hear it. Jake bounced the bus onto Shookstown Road and headed towards Route 15. He exhaled audibly as we pulled onto the ramp.

  “Whew,” exhaled Jake. “Eddie. Go into the back and grab our new guests something to eat and drink, would you?” Wendy looked up thankfully. The Colonel kept his Stoic gaze forward. I found some granola bars and some bottled water.

  “Thank you,” said the Colonel.

  “Mmm,” said Wendy biting in with eyes closed, savoring every sliver. “God that’s good. Thank you so much. We haven’t had anything for days. This is heaven.”

  Both of them munched through the granola bars and downed the water in short time. Nobody spoke while they ate. Jake steered the bus along Route 15, looking for the exit to Interstate 70 West, then took it as the bus picked up speed. We were still the only vehicle on the highway. The silence started to become awkward, and never enjoying awkwardness, I piped up.

  “So I’m Eduardo, this is Al, Maureen, and Estela. Those two young folks back there are Glen and Jada.” Al nodded, Maureen waved, Estela smiled weakly, and the students barely looked up, as they were obviously talking about what Glen had seen on the trip inside Fort Detrick.

  “It’s nice to meet you all,” said Wendy. “Where are you from?”

  “Most of us work—er, worked, rather—or went to school at Hunter’s Run High School, just outside Emmitsburg. Estela worked at the Wal-Mart next door.”

  “What brings you all this way?” asked Wendy. “That’s a good half hour West, and you’re all on a school bus?”

  “Jake—that’s Jake, driving, by the way—is headed south to find his sons at college. We’re tagging along. We all got stuck at the school after—after the bombing began. We met Estela when we ventured out to find provisions,” I said.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t stay at the school,” said the Colonel. “That’s a big, safe space. Very secure.”

  “We had, uh, a difference of opinion with some of the other folks we were sharing the school with. We decided to join Jake,” I added.

  “Hmm,” said the Colonel, pursing his lips. He looked at Jake for a moment. Jake’s tight hair cut and broad shoulders must have looked familiar. “You ever in the military, Jake?” he asked.

  “Yes sir,” said Jake. “Marine Corps. Iraq and Kuwait. Recon.”

  “Recon, huh? You must be fairly tough, then, son.”

  “Not as tough as I used to be, sir,” said Jake. The Colonel smiled just barely.

  “So what—or who—were those things we saw at the gate, sir?” asked Jake. It was the question everyone had on their minds, but no one wanted to ask. The Colonel stiffened up.

  “I’m not sure I can tell you, son,” he said. “It’s classified, for one, and for two—I’m one of the few people alive who can answer that right now.”

  “All due respect, sir, some of those rules are out the window now,” said Jake. “I’m not even sure we have a government at the moment. Nobody knows where the president is. Internet’s out. Nothing on the radio. Nobody on the roads at all. Heard nothing for several days. I’m not really sure what we’re facing. I don’t think anybody is. But if I have to face those things again, I’d sure as hell like to know more than I do right now.”

  “We have to tell them, Ray,” said Wendy.

  “Wendy, you’re a civilian. You don’t understand,” said the Colonel.

  “We have to tell them,” she repeated. “This isn’t about civilians and military anymore. It isn’t even about being American anymore. This is, God, I don’t know what this is. Either you tell them or I will,” she said. Colonel Ray Cannaveral tightened his jaw, pushed out his bottom lip, and considered his actions.

  “We are part of the U.S. Military’s biological and chemical weapons defense team,” said Wendy. “Fort Detrick used to make biological weapons originally, but the past few decades we have focused on defending against them. Most of the things that are scariest, we focus on them. The public doesn’t even know most of them exist, because we’ve neutralized them before they ever get noticed. And then keep it to ourselves and don’t release news of any of it to the public.”

  “Wendy,” the Colonel interrupted.

  “No, Ray. They need to know. Everything’s changed,” she said. “We had been hearing that several countries were working on ways to weaponize the Ebola virus. To make it into something that can be contracted through airborne means.”

  “I didn’t think Hemorrhagic Fever could be contacted through the air,” said Al.

  “It can’t, or at least we’d never found examples of it passing through the air in any primates. Until now,” she said.

  “What? Oh my God,” I shouted. “Airborne Ebola?”

  “Not quite. It’s a synthesized strain, engineered genetically from a North Korean lab. It very nearly mimics Ebola in every way that counts.”

  “North Korea,” whispered Maureen. “God damn.”

  “Airborne Ebola? Are you kidding me? It would wipe out an entire country,” I said incredulously. “Fast.”

  “Pretty much,” said Wendy. “Somewhere between 85 and 90 percent of infected victims die, usually of internal bleeding or of some kind of organ failure within a few days,” said Wendy. “Untreated that number is very close to 100 percent.”

  “So, is that your area of expertise?” asked Al. “Diseases?”

  “Yes,” Wendy answered. “I’m from NIH. The CDC and the National Institute of Health have been working with the military at Fort Detrick to monitor and combat any attempts at using the Ebola virus as a weapon. Usually third world countries who do it use insects or animals to transmit it.”

  “You’re kidding me,” said Maureen. “Countries have been doing this? How? They just send infected animals on Federal Express and then turn them loose?”


  “Not quite, but not far from it. Some of the more ruthless warlords in small African territories send trucks full of apes and monkeys and have soldiers release them into major target areas.”

  “Jesus,” said Estela. “That’s inhuman.”

  “It gets worse,” said Wendy. “The Russians.”

  “Oh shit, Russians,” I said. “What did they do?”

  Wendy looked over at the Colonel. She cocked her head and stared at him for ten silent seconds or so. “Wendy,” he said. “I just don’t feel we ought to.” Wendy frowned at him. “Ray, look around. Do you see anything left of the fort? Anyone we even know? I understand your protocols. I have to adhere to some of them myself. But without these people we’re not even alive right now. Don’t we owe them a little information?” she said. He took a deep breath, looked around, and spoke.

  “The Russians were working on a way to use radiation sickness as a weapon. Current methods involving nuclear weapons are a bit unwieldy, and we actually agreed to reduce stockpiles of them along with the Russians near the end of the Cold War,” said the Colonel.

  “They actually complied with that? Did we? I thought that was all bullshit,” I said.

  “Both sides actually did reduce their stockpiles. Nukes themselves are an endgame. Governments prefer smaller battles to World Wars. Well, at least they did for a while,” said the Colonel.

  “Blowing things to smithereens also has its downside. You have to rebuild. The Russians want to win the war by maximizing human casualties while minimizing infrastructure damage. They want to move in and take over.”

  “Damn,” I said. “Maximize human casualties.”

  “Makes sense,” said Jake. “Instead of flipping the house, you move in turnkey style.”

  I looked at Wendy and the Colonel as they spoke. They were dehydrated and energy-depleted. Whatever they had been fighting or avoiding the past several days had worn on them. As they drank the water and ate the granola bars, you could see the strength coming back to them. As we spoke, I looked out the window to see where we were. Jake had passed Hagerstown, Maryland and had merged onto Interstate 81 south. We were nearing Berkley Springs, West Virginia, and headed south towards Virginia. The landscapes went from bleak to somewhat picturesque. I wondered if the people here were in anywhere near the conditions we found in Frederick.