I just sat at the galley table, nibbled on a cracker, and stared at my now cold clam chowder. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him studying me.
“You know we all made the decision. It was unanimous. We needed food and water. We needed rest.”
“Yeah, but at least we should have sailed around the rock. Maybe then, we would have seen it. I noticed the tide change when we went down to the boat, it just, it just never crossed my mind that...”
“Too tired! Too thirsty! We had just spent the good part of a week getting our asses kicked! Hell, we were worn thin and barely keeping it together. We can go round and round over this, John, if I had my charts, if we had more water, if my fucking tablet worked, if this whole shit storm had never happened! We all screwed the pooch and you and I are just plain fucking lucky to be alive. End of story.” I had never heard him raise his voice and I did not want to see him really pissed off.
“Right, Robert, end of story,” I said, in a voice that sounded like complete defeat. Of course, I knew he was right. We had made stupid mistakes before, at the barn, getting out of Bangor, when we changed the tire... Shit, I didn’t want to think about that one, not yet, maybe not ever.
Robert mumbled something to himself and went aft to get his bottle of Dewars. I grabbed a blanket and sleeping pad, and went up top to lie down. The night was warm, the water calm, sky clear, and the stars were magnificent. Most people in the US never get a chance really to see the stars. With the electricity out, it was like being in the backcountry, the night sky is a physical presence and you can understand why ancient people venerated it. I found some comfort with the stars. They were forever. Beyond the obvious, what bothered me the most right then was that I knew there were probably not many people around to appreciate or contemplate them, and our numbers were dwindling every day.
I watched Scorpio rise, my birth sign, and tried to identify other constellations. There was Orion and I think Leo, lots of satellites (as if we need them now) and ... oh fuck! It made an arc from east to west, starting out dim, but moving fast and becoming the brightest object in the sky for about two minutes. How could I have forgotten, it was the International Space Station. What the hell were those poor bastards going to do? How many are on board? What did they see when they passed over the night side of our planet? Could they all leave? Where would they land? I’ve only heard of Kazakhstan as the landing site. I guess because it’s big and flat and hard to miss. I tried to imagine what I would do. I think in the end, I would stay, I mean, what a view!
I closed my eyes and tried to shut the same old questions out. With all our science and technology, were we that easily defeated? How long is this going to last? What is the decomposition rate? How much time? How the hell can we get through this? My mind raced, yet I still came back to Zombies! The world is going to end because of zombies! You have got to forgive me but, Fucking Zombies?
I now had accumulated enough time in the ‘What outer ring of hell is this and can I get off now?’ zone, and had thought through all the various scenarios. Unfortunately, every way I looked at it, humanity was in very deep kimchi. Fantastic, I get to personally experience the greatest genetic bottleneck in human history, while never playing for our team (read, I don’t have any children). There are over one hundred billion galaxies in the known universe. That means there has to be a hell of a lot of intelligent life out there. Maybe it’s just one of those things, statistically speaking, that every now and then, a sentient species gets taken out by its own zombies.
I knew Robert was right and I damn well understood that the two of us had dodged a bullet from hell, but all our friends were gone. All that effort was gone. All that trying to be human was gone. It just didn’t seem right to have endured so much, just to end up as one of them, slowly rotting away in eternal rage. I had thought of going back and retaking the island to ensure everyone was really dead, but with only Robert and me, it was just too impractical. I never even mentioned it to him. Times like this, I wished I had smoked. At least it would give me something to do. With the gentle rocking of the boat and the soft sound of waves lapping against the hull, I calmed down and slowly drifted off to sleep. Eventually, I dreamed of better times, I dreamt of Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was a student in my paleoanthropology course, The Evolution of Ancient Hominids. She was about the same age as me, slightly taller, with long brown hair and average features, but the kind that made you look twice. She was going to school finally to get her B.A., one that she had given up decades ago to get married and to raise a family. Now with her children grown, and a divorce, she was free to do the things she thought had passed her by. She loved to travel and wanted to live life for life. She told me once that all this freedom was like learning to breathe again. I was in a funk, not having dated in a while and not really looking. I had resigned myself to a life of bachelorhood, too old to have children and only now regretting it. After the fourth class, she stayed late to ask me some questions on the similarities between Afropithecus and Sivapithecus and the conversation drifted, we hit it off right away. After several long coffee talks at the Store Ampersand, we found out that we liked to do similar things, we read the same books, watched the same movies, and wanted more adventure. Dating someone taking your class is strictly forbidden, but she was a biology major and this was her last anthropology course. As the semester wore down, we saw more and more of each other. When the class ended in December, she went to New York to spend the holidays with her mother and I went to visit my family in Rhode Island. We talked every day and made plans for a backpacking trip in Utah next spring. I knew I was a goner, she was just too nice and after everything I had been through, my life was finally getting itself turned around, the timing was impeccable. Just after Christmas, her mother died suddenly. I wanted to go see her and help in any way I could, but she said no and would give no real explanation. Later, she told me that her ex had come out and she wanted to avoid the inevitable awkward situation. I was hurt and confused, but when she ended the call with “I love you”, I was rocketed to the stars. I was not teaching next semester, just working on some papers and leaving for South America in March, hoping that after I returned, things would really take off. Life is good.
Chapter 3 ~ Plague
May 31st
The suns hot rays brought me back to the real world. I will never get over that unique disappointment you feel when waking up and knowing it was all just a dream. My watch read 5:41 am. The crystal clear sky gave every indication of yet another broiling day, but man, what a sunrise. I rolled over and studied the shore. The small cove we had anchored in was densely forested with pine and deciduous trees, and the shoreline was covered in smooth blackish-grey rocks. It was a serene place and would be absolutely sublime when the fall foliage peaked. I was pleased to see that there was no one waiting for us. I knew our plan was to head south and hit moored boats for essentials, the last thing we wanted to do right now, was to set foot on the mainland. Too early to wake Robert, I put am arm across my eyes to block out the light and dozed.
~
By the time I got back to Bangor from South America, it was obvious that things were rapidly spiraling out of control and I was lucky not to be in some quarantine hellhole in Florida. The only thing saving my ass in Miami was: A. South America had yet to report an infection, B. I was a U.S. citizen in good standing and C. I was just one plain lucky SOB. Everyone at the airport seemed stunned, like they just woke up.
I quickly found out that this illness or whatever it was, had been going on only for a couple of weeks, in small isolated places no one had heard of. Nothing big in the mainstream news, just strange reports here and there, I think we may have been desensitized by all the hoopla surrounding the H1N1 pandemic and the threat of bioterrorism. Then some video leaked from a UN medical team on the Ukok Plateau in the middle of fucking nowhere Russia. Online so rapidly that you might think you were seeing it all live. It was like John Carpenter decided to do a remake of a remake of The Thing. Most of what was posted was rea
lly shaky, often slightly out of focus, hard to make out exactly what was going on, but one thing was clear, something really bad happened, was happening. Nevertheless, it was okay. I mean the Ukok Plateau? Give me a break. A day or two after that, and over eight million views on YouTube, it just took off. The press put the Ukok incident and isolated news reports/stories together and came up with the obvious conclusion, ‘We Are All Going To Die A Horrible Plague Death!’ Odd considering this speculation was correct. The news got worse by the hour. Soon, reports were coming in from relatively large cities in China: Turpan, Qumul and Ürümqi of ‘strange demonstrations’ and a disruption of internet and phone. CNN reported that the Chinese and Russian military had been placed on high alert.
When I walked into my condo, something switched inside me and I was home, I was comfortable, and everything was going to be alright. The guy next to me on the flight to Boston was a doomsday asshole, it’s not that bad. I pulled blinds and opened windows; the fresh air and sunlight, yes, everything will be okay. I didn’t feel like playing with the computer or the idiot box, so I turned on the radio. NPR was reporting that Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, was infected, although I could have sworn the British reporter on the ground said ‘infested’. The U.S. was responding to the growing crisis with the activation of something called a National Strategy for Homeland Security (read Marshal Law), along with a flood of travel restrictions. The Armageddon dude might be right. The switch inside me was now turned off and things and were not going to be alright. I was absolutely stunned and went for the full sensory override, TV. I decided to forgo reason and head straight for hysteria, so I turned to Fox News. It took only a few minutes of watching to begin to realize that humans might lose this one. The blowhards were going off on the government restricting our rights and our need to fight and restore America. The little time the network allotted to the real problem had a distinctly religious bend when it came to the ambiguous wherefore and the why. I shouldn’t pick on a specific network, since all they were, was ahead of the curve.
For maybe the sixth time in the last couple of hours, I tried to get Liz or anybody from my family, but couldn’t get through. I ran into one of my older building mates picking up the mail, an actual retired Maine lobsterman. Danny was a widower and loved to gossip. He told me to ignore everything.
“Listen, Professor, it’s all the Liberal Media’s doing. We’re like sheep to them. Turn left, we turn left. Okay, a couple of Chinamen get the flu, God rest their souls but let them figure it out. We got enough problems.” He put a heavily weathered hand on my shoulder. “Listen to me, Mongolia? Are you kidding me? Professor, you and me know that Mongolia ain’t been around since the time of Genghis Khan. Who do these Harvard ass wipes think they’re dealing with?”
The next day, the shit hit the fan. Our military, hell the world’s military, was placed on the highest level of alert. The UN was called into a special session. I ran into a fireman who lived a few floors below me on his way to work, but with a backpack and duffel bag. Everybody who had anything to do with local law enforcement, fire, EMS, the whole works, was called in. “Circling the wagons,” he said. I can’t explain it but the total vibe was one of muted fear.
“Plan on staying for a while?” I asked casually, as we stepped off the elevator.
“Yeah.” He walked a couple of steps, stopped, and without turning, asked, “Have you ever heard of the national response framework?”
“No.”
“Good.” And he just walked away. I forgot his name, but, unsolicited, Danny had filled me in on all the pertinent stuff: his messy divorce, that he doesn’t watch television or keep up with sports, had been decorated by the department for something-or-other and is a nationally ranked chess player. Now I was officially fucking scared.
In Central Asia, things were moving fast. All of China was under martial law with vast areas in complete blackout and almost no news coming from Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong. What little did get through was obviously heavily censored and with each passing broadcast, became more and more surreal. All signs indicated that something beyond belief was happening. China is the most populous nation on Earth, world-class scientists and a totalitarian government that can deal with this kind of situation, but she's dying.
By the end of the week, China was gone and Taiwan was about done – just a few reports from bloggers describing massive death and destruction, real Hell on Earth stuff. South Korea had outbreaks in every major city and there were rumors of the U.S. Military pulling out. North Korea was massing its armies on the border, but we knew they had it. Japan had outbreaks. The government just kept insisting the disease was under control. Later that day, India started issuing an eerily similar notice.
Within the next few days, Nepal, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia, all had officially declared outbreaks and plenty of rumors said that it was in western Russia, parts of the Middle East, and Africa. Crazy news reports suggested it might have even originated in Central Africa, where humans became Human, but why the hell did China get whacked so quickly? Nothing was making sense. We just were not getting enough information. Everything was confused with reports constantly contradicting themselves. The one thing that was clear was that humans were the same old asshats they have always been. Looting and riots seemed to be the SOP for every city infected. With civilization crashing around you, why the hell would you want to steal a wide screen LCD HD 3D TV? All the chaos did, was to hasten the destruction. We all held our breaths and prayed. I simply started at my computer screen for hours on end with my brain screaming, No this cannot happen! Every Western country, or for that matter, every country, had now imposed some form of quarantine, with Great Britain being the strictest. There were videos of the British Navy shooting sailboats trying to cross the channel. They would all fail, miserably.
The press simply called it The Plague, invoking the spectra of the Dark Ages. We had been told it was something like Bird Flu; a new virus that would require close contact with the infected, only then could you be contaminated. If this was true, why was it spreading so damn fast? Why was it hitting all age groups? If it is the Bird flu or some new strain of influenza, then a vaccine might be found. Something in the back of my head was telling me this was not an influenza virus. The government was quickly getting more and more involved with information dissemination, and by the hour, the bullshit started to pile up. The (official) incubation time between initial infection and the first clinical signs was unknown. This could potentially mean that an infected individual might be spreading the disease for days or weeks before they knew they were sick. Most news reports agreed that the virus brought high fever, incontinence, nausea, delirium, and wide spread hemorrhaging, and eventually death. I knew damn well that influenza, as primarily a pulmonary disease, does not cause hemorrhaging, so what the hell was going on? It had a very high mortality rate, (some on the internet reported 95 - 100%), with most victims dead in three to four days (although bloggers on the internet claimed it was only hours?). We were not officially informed about what happened after death, but with all the videos, eyewitness accounts, rumors, and unofficial reports, everyone either knew or put their heads in the sand and prayed. Doesn't matter, all the airways with were filled with fear, redemption, and the ‘End of Days.’ I was beginning to think they might be right.
After almost a week of isolation, and another frustrating day at home, trying to make phone calls, eating microwavable food, staring out over the city, and pretending this was not happening, I called a good friend at the Center for Disease Control. Dr. David Clark was not in infectious disease, but is unbelievably smart and high enough on the org chart to get at least a dim view of what was going on. I got through on my third try at his office number. Maybe calls to the CDC were somehow prioritized. We exchanged some tense small talk and he had me switch from my cell to a pay phone and a different number. Luckily, Bangor is a bit behind the times and still has pay phones. Aren’t payphones just pay cell phones?.
Anyway it was good to get out of the condo and as I wandered to find a phone, I realized there were few cars, hardly anyone on the street, and it was strangely quiet.
“Damn, David, what the hell is happening and what’s with this espionage shit?”
“Fuck if I really know, John, everything is in chaos.” David was not a small guy and he was already breathing heavily. You could almost feel him shaking. “Okay, this is what I do know. It’s in the filoviridae family, very Ebola-like right down to the Sheppard’s crook, but a big one, okay? This isn’t like eighteen or nineteen K long, we’re talking well over twenty K nucleotides! Way too fucking big. Something is peculiar about the composition and obviously, one we have never seen. John, there’s some kind of Prion shit going on that has nothing to filoviruses! This is bad. Okay, no one knows for sure, but it looks too familiar to be extra-terrestrial or some deep ocean vent stuff, there is talk, very credible talk that it could be human made.” Dave’s voice was now shaking with fear.
“What? Man made! Oh No, No, No! This fucking blows! You have got to be fucking kidding me!”
“You got it, brother. You think you are ready for something like this. You train, you plan a million scenarios on a thousand computers, and then we get zombies! John, some guys in Canada actually worked out a real mathematical model for an outbreak of a zombie infection? You know what they came up with? A rapid aggressive response! A bunch of dorks in Ottawa tell us we should fight back, shit man, their zombies were the slow type and even then, the odds were strongly against us.” Dave wanted to rant and the sound of his voice told me all I needed to know. “You know what R- zero is, right?”
“Sure, disease multiplier, right?”
“Well hold on to your britches, because this one’s coming in between thirty and sixty! It’s impossible to get credible data…this is so fucked up man! Hold on.” Dave covered his mouth piece, but I could still hear him talking with somebody. Between thirty and sixty! This means that each infected individual might be expected to infect up to sixty individuals. This is incredible, the R – zero for smallpox is something like between three and twenty! David came back on.
Brutal Planet: A Zombie Novel Page 3
