Medora: A Zombie Novel

by Welker, Wick

  The room was filled with noises of paper shuffling and muffled conversations interjected by more audible sentences that caught Stark's ear, like, “No, no those details were not released to the media,” and “...the radius of reoccurrence would be slower, much slower than an initial site...”, “... Newark, Annapolis, and Boston are already sending supplies with more health care providers...” Amidst the conversation, a small man in a suit stood up with a glass of water and cleared his throat. His subtle gesture to silence the room had little effect.

  “Ladies and gentleman, we are going to get started with a briefing from Dr. Lou Beckfield about the current volume overflow happening in the New York area.” After the room quietened down, he turned to a tall man with small shoulders and a stern jaw who stood up from his slouched position in his chair.

  “I don't know how many of you have been informed of the details of the current situation in the New York area, so that's why I'm here, to get you caught up. What you're seeing on the news has only come from media sources and not from any official report issued by this or any other department of the government. As it stands, every hospital in Manhattan and most of the boroughs are operating way beyond their maximum capacity in terms of patient volume, staff and medical supplies. The streets of the Bronx and Brooklyn are becoming chaotic. Riot police have already been set up all over the city, especially in those areas with the highest volumes of patients. The Mayor, along with some of us here in D.C. has already coordinated with eight cities in the surrounding area for supplies, physicians, Life Flights, etcetera. All of that has arrived or is en route.” He stopped to rub his fingers over his eyes.

  “It appears from throat swabs taken six days ago in the New York area that a variation of the H5N1 flu is what has caused the high patient volumes. It is the opinion of the institution that I represent that a random mutation in one strain has caused a particular resistance to standard vaccinations, which has caused high virulence in the immediate population. It will require three doses of three separate vaccinations that have already been tested and administered in a Vietnam outbreak of the same virus that occurred twenty years ago. We have determined that a minor change in the dosage and drug content has eradicated the new mutated virus in vitro in the lab. Without getting into too much of the specifics of the medicine involved, I'll be more direct. The challenge that we present to you and your respective committees is providing the funds, manufacturing and distribution of the vaccines within four days. We have estimated that, within this time period, we can maintain the virus in reasonable city boundaries with no quarantine, given that the public is informed on certain preventative measures.”

  A hand shot up. “Do we have an estimate on fatalities?”

  “At this point, it is extremely difficult to do any sort of analysis on patient death outcomes in these hospitals, due to high patient volume. At this time, I cannot give any estimate on fatalities, nor whether this flu strain has even caused any fatalities. Having said that, we don't expect this flu to be particularly fatal only that it is highly contagious.”

  “How are other city functions being affected? Traffic, shipping, businesses?”

  “I'm sorry, I don't know those specifics. That’s why we have...” Beckfield glanced over his glasses around the room and then focused on a person sitting directly across from him, “Ah, Jason Straus, the Deputy Mayor of New York.” He motioned to the man, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Straus.”

  Straus stood up as a man before a board of trustees about to break bad stock news to them. He looked like a polished businessman with an expensive suit that shone in certain angles of the light. He had an air about him that suggested he should always have a cigar between his fingers and a drink in the other hand.

  “Ladies and Gentleman, the Mayor has decided to declare a state of emergency in New York City given that the flu has spread and has increased patient volume by a factor of seven in a little over six hours. This unprecedented outbreak of illness has the city’s hospitals ill prepared. Within the next few hours, we will undergo the process of clearing all major roads of traffic and we will be setting guidelines for all citizens in regard to the illness. Dr. Beckfield will be in charge of the public health announcements. We have coordinated with law enforcement at least to double the police presence in the city. As more physicians and healthcare providers arrive from surrounding states we are coordinating with, the city council is setting up makeshift medical facilities that will be placed all over the city. As of yet, no official statement has been made from the Mayor's office to the public but we expect that to be issued within the hour.”

  He glanced down at his watch and continued speaking. Stark sat in his chair massaging his leg, completely perplexed. He had no idea why he was there. He looked over at the only man who wasn't intently listening to the Deputy Mayor, flipping through some papers from a manila folder lying on the table in front of him. He read the papers as if he were leisurely brushing up on business documents in his private office. He seemed not to be listening nor reacting to a single word that was being spoken, which contrasted with the piqued faces and dead silence in the room.

  After the meeting adjourned, Stark walked slowly down the hallway outside of the conference room. He felt someone briskly grab his arm from behind and quickly spun his head around. It was the man who was carelessly flipping through papers during the meeting. “Hello, Dr. Stark.”

  “Oh, hello...”

  “I'm Larry Rambert. I talked to you over the phone.”

  “Oh, yes of course, Secretary Rambert. I saw you in the meeting.”

  “I hope the flight was okay. I know it was rushed. Were you able to pack everything you needed on time? If not, I'm more than happy to get you some toiletries.”

  “No, no everything is fine.” Stark stared at Rambert, completely bewildered by his own presence in Washington, unable to understand why this man was still asking him about his flight. Sensing that Stark was growing weary of the formalities, Rambert finally changed the subject.

  “I know you're probably wondering why you're here, given that what you just heard in that conference room has nothing to do with any research or clinical experience that you have. Would you mind taking a ride with me?”

  “Well, I flew out here, so I might as well.” He forced a small laugh.

  Stark followed him to a black car with darkly tinted windows. As the driver began to pull away, Rambert cleared his throat. “Dr. Stark, I want you to forget about everything you heard in the meeting, every single bit, except about how there's a bunch of sick people in New York. That part is very true.”

  “So the rest of it wasn't true.”

  “I know you've never worked in Washington, so just do me a favor and don't worry about what's true right now. Have you ever been to Medora, North Dakota? Ever heard of it?”

  “No, sounds small.”

  “Very. Look, I'm taking you to a very special facility and I'm giving you an enormous amount of resources at your disposal. There is a sickness in New York but it is not the H3N whatever flu that they were talking about in there. It’s much, much worse than that.”

  “How do you know that, if the outbreak only started this morning?”

  “I told you to forget about everything you heard in that meeting. Before I go on with any further explanation, I need to hear more about your work in the UK with CJD. Tell me about more about the actual mechanism of the disease that you proposed.”

  Stark leaned downward and rubbed his eyes in his hands. He felt tired and tense at the same time. He bent his head to one side until there was a pop in his neck, and then he focused on Rambert’s face. “Well, what exactly do you want to know?”

  “Did you ever know if it was bacteria or a virus?”

  “You would think that that would be an easy question to answer, but it’s not.”

  “How so?”

  “There was an enormous amount of dispute amongst the researchers about what was actually causing the disease but no one could agree.” />
  “Why not?”

  “Dr. Crimmel, one of the researchers from the pharmaceutical company insisted it was caused by prions, a protein that would build up in the brain. Prions are transmitted through bad meat but I never once found any evidence of prions in the brain samples of those that had died and neither did Dr. Crimmel. Everyone from the pharmaceutical company agreed with Crimmel and everyone else at the hospital, including myself, disagreed.”

  “Why was there a division?”

  “I always assumed that Crimmel was covering something up. A lot of the sick patients had been receiving treatment already from Dr. Crimmel and his company. There was something going on that they didn’t want to talk about.”

  “So what caused the disease?”

  “It was not a virus or bacteria that I’m familiar with. I ran thousands of blood cultures and nothing ever grew. I performed blood tests for every known pathogen and came up with nothing. If it was a pathogen, it was a ghost. And it was one hell of a ghost.”

  “How so?”

  “When these people became infected their different tissues no longer relied on each other. Some organs didn't need the heart anymore because they had become completely anaerobic. Other tissues no longer needed the intestines because they didn't need a break down of normal metabolites. Other tissues would simply start to digest surrounding cells for nutrients. Some body systems just died but the person continued to live. I could never prove it because I didn't have time, but I had a patient who was living for four days without his liver functioning. Only the organ systems that could become self sufficient survived.”

  “And you think it was a pathogen that did this?”

  “Probably. The problem was that none of the patients survived long enough for adequate research to be done and most of the bodies were cremated immediately. I was lucky to do a few autopsies, but once Crimmel found out I was doing them, he kicked me out of the morgue.”

  The car pulled up to a building complex and rode past a guarded entrance. Stark followed Rambert through an enormous labyrinth of security doors and armed guards as they traveled down long elevators and vast hallways throughout the building. Stark was mesmerized by the various departments and hidden wings that were contained within the building. Rambert took him to a small room with one table and two chairs sitting opposite from one another at the table. There was a one-inch stack of papers with a pen resting on top.

  “You have one hour to read those documents and sign them. In any case, if you decide to not sign, I'll have a plane waiting for you.”

  Stark looked over at the desk and scoffed. “What if I have questions about what I'm signing? Can I ask you?”

  Rambert held the handle of the door in his palm, and said, “No, you cannot.” He left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Stark began a meticulous investigation of the papers, but began to become weary of the paperwork. He felt a slight nausea in his stomach, not from sickness, but excitement. His mind was dazzled with the potential of testing his long forgotten theories and he wondered at the mystery of the epidemic in New York. Rambert was smart not to explain anything until he signed all his legal rights away. A scientist can never resist the approach of a new horizon of discovery that is shrouded in a veil of mystery. Stark quickly scribbled his signature on dozens of confidentiality pages without reading and went out in the hall to find Rambert. He was leaning against the wall casually eating an apple knowing that it would not take the full hour.

  Rambert took the stack of papers and shoved them into a manila folder. “I think you're ready for the show.”

  Chapter seven

  Only five employees had remained at the advertising firm. Keith, Dave, a young internist, a skinny accountant and a middle-aged receptionist with red hair. All were bound together by the guilt of leaving a sick person alone, locked in a room. No ambulance had ever come and 911 wasn't responding to calls. They sat together around the bleak break room eating whatever lunch anyone had left over. There wasn't fear in their hushed conversations but impatient boredom. Strangely, the Mayor's face on the screen announcing a state of emergency had helped solidify the intangible fear they had into a solid lump of acceptance that they could more easily manage because it was less vague than the phantoms of precarious panic that lingered in their minds. They took comfort in the fact that fear loses its force when it has the consent of the majority.

  Keith sat up from a forced conversation with the receptionist and walked over to the conference room where Janice was held. He looked into the darkness and could make out her pasty arm lying under the table. He knew what it meant. She was dead. He sighed and licked his lips, tasting the salty perspiration from his mouth. He took off his tie and started to wrap it around his nose like a surgical mask.

  “Hey, Dave? Can you come over here?”

  Dave walked up and choked at the smell that was now easily diffusing from the conference room and had filled up the entire work floor.

  “We have to go in there. I think she's dead. I can see her lying on the floor under the table, not moving at all.” Dave sighed heavily not knowing if it was from the prospect of Jane death or disposing of her body. He looked at the tie wrapped around Keith's face and would have laughed at him if he didn't find himself doing the exact same thing.

  Keith moved the filing cabinets from the door and slowly turned the handle. He held his breath, knowing that his tie was not enough to stop the smell. When he breathed in, the stench turned to a palpable presence in his mouth where his senses no longer distinguished between smell and taste. He clutched the frame of the door and vomited on the carpet. Ignoring the vomit, he turned on the lights, but a flash of sparks spewed from the socket in the ceiling. Janice had apparently broken the light bulbs. The overhead projector that had earlier been used to display cough syrup animations was crushed and broken apart from its casing on the floor. There were small standing pools of blood and fluid throughout the room giving it the appearance of the workshop of a butcher.

  He slowly crept up, hunched over, to approach the table. “Janice, can you hear me? It's Keith. I want to see how you're doing.” He could only see her arm extending from underneath the table. He slid his foot under and nudged her pudgy hand with his foot. There was something entirely peculiar about how the arm shook from his nudge. It rocked back and forth like a piece of driftwood bobbing carelessly in a lake. It moved too easily given the small force with which he pushed it. Before he could understand the implications, he saw Janice fall toward him from a dark corner in the room. She collapsed into his chest, her face exploding with fluid and pus onto his shirt and into his face and eyes. He fell into a chair with Janice's swollen head digging into his chest. Lifting her head up, she started to bite at the air. Her mouth had become the only recognizable orifice on her face.

  Dave stumbled from behind. His body twisted so quickly around the chair that Keith was sitting in that one of his shoes flipped off and flew into the air. Dave pulled at Janice's shoulders from behind and lifted her bloody, cauliflower face off of Keith. They then realized their mistake in entering the room. They saw that Janice's arm had been crudely gnawed at the bicep and what they thought was Janice lying dead under the table was her decapitated arm. The stump that she had chewed at had ragged muscle and tendons swinging in the air, flipping droplets of blood in every direction. Dave pushed her to the ground as Keith quickly placed both his feet on her face and pushed off in the rolling chair, propelling him toward the door. Sitting on her knees, she started to pump her remaining arm into the air in a futile attempt to land a blow. They could see a necrotic and eroded wound on her arm where she had started to chew through as well. Dave ran from the room and slammed the door behind him.

  “Okay, okay. This is beyond anything... That can't happen. These things don't happen in the real world.” Keith was catching his breath and watching Janice from the windowpane.

  “She gnawed it off! Her entire arm! Holy shit how could someone chew through their entire arm?” Dave bega
n pacing the carpet. “Let’s get out of here, man!”

  Keith's mind jumped quickly to the enormous amount of infected pus and blood that was covering his face. A cold panic had grasped him telling him to wipe his face with anything possible. Shoving his hand in his shirt in between the buttons, he ripped it open. The buttons flew off in all directions, ricocheting off the glass window. He took it off and shoved his face into the crumpled up shirt, rubbing it up and down his eyes and nose. He then ran to the bathroom down the hall and scrubbed his face with hot water and soap.

  When the other employees in the break room saw him running past with his face wrapped up in his shirt, they put down the coffee they were casually sipping on and burst out into the office. They turned to Dave who was leaning against a table with his tie wrapped around his face. The red haired receptionist looked at him and spoke up. “What happened?”

  Dave took the tie from his face. “I'm sorry, but Janice is gone. That's it; we all need to go home, right now.”

  “Gone? Is she... dead... in there?” Her frightened eyes started to bob in the direction of the conference room.

  “No, she's not dead, but there is nothing we can do for her now. She is sick beyond anything you've ever seen. Janice isn't Janice anymore. We don't need to wait for an ambulance, because they couldn't do anything anyway.”

  Keith silently walked up to the room with disheveled hair and a red face. “Okay everybody, there's nothing else to do for Janice. We should all go home now.” The fact that Keith and Dave said almost identical words to them after leaving the conference room with Janice made them queasy with dread. They immediately became suspicious knowing that something had occurred which made Dave and Keith mutually vote on going home with no further discussion. They also realized that they were not going to discuss whatever it was that happened.