Degeneration

by Mark Campbell

  At 5:28 A.M., the entire Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area simultaneously lost all cellular access, landline access, and internet access.

  Meanwhile, at 5:32 A.M., the first military transport and attack helicopters landed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, ignoring the frantic orders of air traffic control.

  Inside, travelers watched in horror as the large flight board flipped to 'DELAYED' behind every in-bound and out-bound flight.

  Army personnel swarmed onto the tarmac, pushing back the frightened ground crew and RDU security.

  By 5:56 A.M., the military had successfully blocked off all major highways leading in and out of the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area and quickly established a no-fly zone over the entire metro area.

  With the larger secondary quarantine surrounding the city established, at 6:01 A.M., a convoy of National Guard Humvees, black SUVs, and Raleigh police cars sped along Glenwood Avenue towards downtown to establish the primary quarantine.

  At the same time, in other parts of the city, soldiers and Federal Agents stormed the News14 studio, NBC 17, WTVD, and six other local television and radio stations mid-broadcast. Non-essential personnel were forced out of the buildings while FEMA and FBI officials wearing respirators coerced the remaining producers and anchormen, dictating the cover-stories they should report.

  It was rather hard to argue or even raise a dissenting voice while soldiers stood in the corner of the studio toting assault rifles.

  Meanwhile, the national news outlets were already spinning–

  “Sorry to cut you off, Roland, but we just received breaking news out of Raleigh, North Carolina,” the troubled CNN anchorman said, interrupting a political pundit mid-rant. “The Department of Homeland Security has just confirmed that they have received creditable information about an imminent attack somewhere in the Raleigh metropolitan area. Secretary of Homeland Security William Rushmore is expected to give a live press conference within the next few–”

  The image on the screen switched to that of an empty podium adorned with the Department of Homeland Security seal. Multiple microphones lined the top of the podium and a royal blue drape served as the backdrop.

  Within a few seconds, the Secretary of Homeland Security walked up to the podium and cleared his throat.

  “We have confirmed intelligence that a major terrorist attack is imminent in the vicinity of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina and we believe the attack to be biological in nature. This is not a test. This is not a drill. The nature of the toxin is unknown. All federal agencies have been mobilized and, rest assured, that we are doing everything in our power to keep the residents of Raleigh safe.”

  He paused, cleared his throat, and brought out a sheet of paper from his suit jacket. Lowering his bifocals, he looked down and read.

  “As such, FEMA has issued the following mandatory evacuation orders for the entire Raleigh metropolitan area…”

  7

  The Amtrak train rattled on as it pushed closer to Raleigh.

  Richard blankly stared out the window, dozing in and out of sleep, shifting in his seat. The whispers always seemed to subside when exhaustion got the better of him. It was tragic that some of his sanest moments came when he couldn’t stay awake long enough to enjoy them.

  The rising sun threw hazy beams of orange light through the train windows, awakening passengers and making them shuffle in their seats.

  Both of Richard’s legs stung as they both fell asleep. He groaned, shifted, and accidentally knocked into the man sitting next to him with his knee.

  The man sitting next to him jolted out of sleep and mumbled something under his breath.

  Richard felt embarrassed; it had to have been the thousandth time he knocked into the man throughout the night. Besides, he figured, perhaps this guy could offer some conversation. After all, it was visiting day, and he had to keep himself awake and focused.

  “Sorry,” Richard mumbled to the man with an awkward smile. “My legs keep falling asleep.”

  The man looked over at him with bloodshot eyes and his stare softened some. In his lap a paperback novel lay open, unread for hours.

  “It’s fine, I know how these coach seats are,” the man said, thinking about offering a quick smile. He decided on an understanding nod. He settled, looked down at his book with crossed eyes, and felt his eyelids slowly begin to–

  “Richard.”

  A hand adorned with tacky gold rings flew in front of the man’s book, inches away from his face. He startled awake.

  “Terry,” he said in a tired voice, taking Richard’s hand in a weak handshake. He looked at the collection of cheap-looking rings as they glistened in the morning sun and yawned deeply.

  “Sleep on here and all you get for your troubles is a stiff neck, right?” Richard said, laughing.

  Terry smiled and grunted. His eyelids slowly started to–

  Richard elbowed him jovially.

  Terry jumped, settled, and slowly started to nod off again.

  Richard frowned.

  “I’m headed to Butner, you?” Richard asked.

  “Newark,” Terry mumbled with his eyes closed.

  Newark, New Jersey. Thoughts of his ex-wife, Patricia, crept into his mind and roused him out of his sleepy state. Sleepiness was replaced by depression as it started to wrap itself around him. He needed a distraction.

  He opened his eyes and looked at Richard.

  “What’s in Butner?” Terry asked, yawning.

  “My brother,” Richard said proudly, cracking his knuckles. “What takes you to New York?”

  “Newark in Jersey,” Terry corrected, rubbing his stiff neck with his left hand; the silver wedding band he wore glistened in the early morning sunlight. Even after all she did, he still refused to take it off. “Newark is home.”

  Richard stared at the wedding band and nodded.

  “Where’s the wife?” Richard asked, and then pointed casually at the wedding band. “Or do you frequently vacation alone?”

  Terry quickly lowered his hand to his lap and covered it with his right hand, feeling violated.

  “We… don’t travel together anymore. We’re… separated,” Terry lied, as if it was a temporary situation.

  Terry was used to hearing the insincere ‘I’m sorry to hear that’ or something along those lines, but Richard didn’t put up any false pretenses. Instead, an awkward silence settled between the two men.

  Richard frowned; his intended conversation fell flat. Andy was always a better talker. Andy was better at a lot of things.

  A woman in the front row mashed on her smart-phone, cursing.

  “Stupid Verizon!” she exasperated. She shook her husband awake to see if his phone had a signal; of course, he, and the rest of central North Carolina, did not.

  Richard leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes as they pulsed under his lids. His head started to twinge and his left ear started to ring. It was time for another dose, even though he hated to visit Andy while medicated. If he didn’t, though, the whispers would arrive and distract him.

  Richard couldn’t afford to be distracted on visiting day.

  He frowned, slid his hand into his front pocket, and retrieved an amber pill bottle. He twisted the white lid off and dumped a pill into his hand. The pill bottle read ‘Chlorpromazine – 100mg’.

  Richard dry-swallowed the pill, snapped the lid back onto the bottle, and slid it back into his pocket.

  Terry stared past Richard and looked vacantly out the window at the passing trees, lost in thoughts about Patricia. It would be a long time before he got any sleep.

  Howell sat with his fingers laced together, licked his lips nervously (an old habit of his), and threw the old black woman next to him a cautious glance. She was dead asleep and had a line of saliva dangling out of the corner of her mouth. He had tried to catch some sleep, but he was too wired to unwind.

  His eyes kept wandering down towards the duffle at his feet.

  The doors at the front of the car
slid open and two Amtrak police officers stepped into the center of the aisle. The few passengers who were awake started murmuring, knowing that something was up.

  One of the officers held up his hand and the passengers silenced.

  Howell’s face froze with terror.

  “May I have your attention, ladies and gentlemen,” one of the officers announced loudly. “There has been an incident in Raleigh, so we will not be stopping at the downtown Raleigh station.” Angry grumbles of protest greeted the news and made the officer speak louder. “We have been ordered to continue through to the next available station in Virginia, for your safety.”

  “I don’t need to go to no damn Virginia! My flight leaves out of Raleigh! RDU!” a man shouted from the back.

  “Sir, I understand that, but–”

  “What sort of incident? Was it the Muslims?” a woman shouted from the middle.

  Panicked murmurs echoed through the car.

  “–the orders came directly from FEMA,” the officer continued. “We will receive farther instruction once we get to the station. Right now, our communication equipment is acting up, so we’re in the dark.”

  “What happened?” a man near the front asked, voice shaking.

  One officer shrugged and the other shook his head.

  Richard didn’t care what happened, just as long as he could rent a car at the next station. Besides, he had no real business in Raleigh anyway. Butner was his ultimate destination.

  Terry stared at the two officers in a sleepy confused glare.

  “At this time, we know as much as you do, I’m afraid. As I said, we’re having some communication difficulties,” the officer said.

  The second officer stepped forward.

  “In the meantime, due to the increased security risk, we will be performing additional baggage screening. So please have any and all carry-on luggage out, unzipped, and ready to be searched. Thank you.”

  The murmurs intensified.

  Terry reached under his seat, slid out his briefcase, and plopped it on his lap. He didn’t particularly care if they skipped the stop in Raleigh; he just wanted to get the trip over with.

  Howell, just a few rows behind Richard and Terry, was absolutely terrified. I’ve been made, goddamnit! He snatched his duffle up from the floorboard and squeezed it tightly, holding the twenty pounds of plastiques close to his chest. Looks like I can’t make it to New York after all, he thought. He knew they were approaching Raleigh, a major city as good as any. He also knew that the Raleigh Amtrak station was downtown…

  Oh well, plans were made to be broken, right?

  Howell reached a hand into his duffle and activated the timer, just in case the Amtrak cops got to him before he could bring his alternate plans into fruition.

  8

  The helicopter continued along its ill-fated course as it hovered towards the edge of downtown Raleigh; it swayed from left to right, dropping altitude, and then gaining altitude.

  Two fighter jets approached the wayward helicopter, flew past it in an instant, turned in-between two skyscrapers, and then banked back towards the helicopter.

  The cockpit of the helicopter was splattered with death. Blood and vomit was caked on the inside of the windshield and across the flight controls.

  The pilot reached up weakly and smeared his bloody palm across the glass, creating some blood-streaked visibility.

  The pilot breathed shallow, rattling breaths while mucus ran freely out of his nostrils. He was slouched over the controls with both hands weakly wrapped around the cyclic stick. In his lap lay the nearly depleted pistol.

  Behind him, inside the cabin, came guttural screams and loud bangs. His infected comrades desperately tried to smash their way through the door into the cockpit, but the corpses of the co-pilot and sergeant were stacked tightly against it inside the cockpit. So far, the makeshift barricade held.

  The pilot struggled to remain conscious.

  “Whiskey-Tango to Eagle One, come in, over,” the helicopter radio chirped next to the pilot. “Eagle One, come in, over.”

  “Hawk Nest to Whiskey-Tango, go weapons hot,” Lt. Gen. Yates bellowed over the radio. “Quarantine is established down below and we cannot allow them to leave the downtown perimeter, over.”

  The pilot ignored the radio traffic and focused his energy on keeping the bird steady, destination unknown. He erupted into a rattling coughing spasm and sprayed the windshield with bloody mucus.

  “Whiskey-Tango to Eagle One, you are ordered to stand-down and accompany us to the designated downtown landing zone immediately. Do you understand, over?”

  The pilot continued to ignore the radio and kept peering through the smeared windshield. He couldn’t remember where he was going. He briefly remembered trying to find a hospital, but he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t feel much of anything anymore. He was drifting…

  “Hawk Nest to Whiskey-Tango, take it down! Take it down now!” Lt. Gen. Yates ordered.

  Below, at a small bar in the middle of downtown Raleigh, a group of regulars sat earlier than usual, watching cable news (most of the local stations were just static). They sat in their business suits and had their ties and tongues were well-loosened. The lead shit-talker, Doug, a tall lanky systems manager from Sysco, waved his beer at the television screen on the wall.

  “I’ll tell ya’ what this is,” he slurred out. “Nerdstrom-damious predicted this shit ya’ know?!” It was only ten in the morning and he was completely wasted, sitting inside a bar that was ordered to close hours ago.

  The downtown skyscrapers had been closed and evacuated earlier that morning by the military while FEMA was busy shuttling people out of downtown by the busloads. All of downtown Raleigh had been ordered to evacuate and the result was utter chaos.

  The lanes headed out of downtown were congested to a standstill by FEMA buses and civilian vehicles, while, in the opposite lane, convoys of military flatbeds loaded with plywood and rolls of clear plastic steadily rolled into downtown.

  Despite the fear and sense of urgency, some people didn’t rush out. Many assumed it was just typical post-9/11 governmental overreaction in response to the Fort Detrick terrorist attack that occurred hundreds of miles away. People waited it out in their downtown condos and the military was having a hard time chasing them out. Most bars and churches refused to close since both establishments prospered during times of fear and panic. The governmental orders were falling on deaf ears.

  “Shh!” the bartender hissed at Doug. He turned the volume up on the television to drown out the wail of sirens outside and the loud-mouthed patrons inside.

  Doug belched, loosened his tie, and stared at the television.

  “–at this time it is unclear. Again, for those of you just tuning in, a biological terrorist attack has occurred at Fort Detrick early this morning. The number of fatalities is believed to be over twenty and that number is expected to rise as more details come in,” the newscaster coldly announced. “We now go live to our correspondent on the scene, Lisa Thompson. Lisa?”

  The image on the screen cut to a caravan of military trucks. The camera panned and revealed an attractive reporter. She held a clipboard against the side of her head, ineffectively shielding herself from the passing convoy’s dust storm.

  “Thank you, Matt!” she yelled loudly into the microphone, attempting to talk over the rumble of the passing diesel engines. “Vehicles have been rushing towards the base for the last hour or so. An official who wishes to remain anonymous told us that the incident has been contained and that they are now in the clean-up stages.” If she did somehow know that ‘clean-up operations’ consisted of incinerating corpses then her neutral expression hid it very well. “A large perimeter has been established and this is as close as we've been allowed due to the extremely communicative nature of the contagion.”

  “Have you learned any additional information about this contagion or the nature of the attack?” Matt voiced over.

  “Not yet, unfortunately. The m
ilitary has not officially released details yet, but sources inside tell us that it was a dirty bomb.”

  “Thanks, Lisa. Even more alarming is the breaking news coming this morning from Homeland Security. They claim that Raleigh is the target for a second–”

  Outside of the bar, there was an explosion high in the air. The television screen flickered, the hanging lights shuddered, glasses chattered, and the startled occupants ducked underneath the bar and tables.

  “What the fuck happened?” Doug asked, wide-eyed, sobering up.

  People in the bar slowly stood and stared out the window at Fayetteville Street and watched as a Prius slammed on its brakes in the middle of the busy street.

  A white FEMA evacuation bus slammed on its brakes, but couldn’t stop in time. It slammed against the rear of the Prius and sent the car flying against a SUV.

  The SUV skidded against another FEMA bus and shattered the bus windows.

  Traffic in the street came to a standstill.

  People abandoned their vehicles in a blind panic while throwing terrified glances above. Glass shards and smoldering debris pelted down into the street, shattering windshields and denting roofs. People scattered in every direction, some took shelter inside the Wachovia Center skyscraper across the street with their arms covering their heads. Others trapped inside the wrecked FEMA busses clamored over each other and banged against the windows, screaming. Sirens honed in from every direction.

  The bar patrons, confused, rushed towards the front door–

  A second missile struck the helicopter and sent another concussive blast hammering down. The blast imploded the front windows of the bar and sent the occupants flinging backwards.

  The flaming remnants of the helicopter crashed against the Wachovia Center skyscraper, blossomed into an orange fireball, and then plummeted down into the street below. The glass facade of the Wachovia Center shattered in the impact and large panes of glass rained down along with the flaming wreckage.

  The twisted helicopter remains landed in the middle of Fayetteville Street, crushing a crowd of scurrying civilians and flattening a FEMA bus full of people. The bus’ fuel tank erupted and engulfed other nearby vehicles.