The conversation about the 'Hilary' vaccine was less cordial in other places, such as the trailer of three brothers who sat around a table filled with bags of white powder and a mirror covered in samples of the same.
“Dude, no fucking way!” said Al Tadler, the oldest of the three, as he rolled up a twenty dollar bill. The Tadlers did not carry one hundred dollar bills since they found out from VOICE that they contained a tracker in the ink, to ensure that they knew who was holding large amounts of money. “That shit has something in it! If it’s free, it fucks you!”
“That’s the truth, bro!” said the youngest of the three, Ty. “I swear there was a sign in the gun store about it! Says it’s gonna be free. Some billionaire IT guy is forming a charity to pay for it all. IT and injections: means only one thing, man!”
“Tracking devices, DNA profiling and all kinds of other NSA, CIA, FBI shit!” JD, the middle brother said, raising his .45 and shooting a picture of a cop on the wall. “They all wanna fuck us over. Not while I can carry a gun legally, dudes. No fucking way.” He took the twenty from his elder brother and drew a line from the mirror. “No fucking way,” he said and laughed.
Others, such as the undocumented population, also had their own suspicions about the drug, and simply did not register, for fear of deportation. In Brooklyn, NY, several members of the Russian mob, led by a particularly violent character known only as “Vlad”, had decided the chance of linking them to multiple crime scenes would be too great a risk, so they elected against it. Besides, their presence in the United States was not exactly legal.
The same was true of Mrs. Marisol Rodriguez, of Ecuadorian birth, who had moved to the USA in 1984. She had left home as a teenager, smuggled in the false compartment of a truck, as she had crossed into Texas. Her nightmare had truly begun at that point. The men that had brought her across the border had demanded more money of all of those who had come through. Once they took everything they had, they drove them onto a farm about three hours north of the border.
As they were taken from the vehicle, the women were led into the barn and handcuffed to the cattle rings on the cowshed walls. The men were taken elsewhere, the location of which she did not know. She had heard the distant gun shots and recognized the smell of whiskey on the men when they returned. They also held a look in their eyes that she knew was not good. It was the look of the devil.
When they took what they wanted from the women, it was brutal, violent and painful. Scream as she may, it did not stop. For three days they kept them there, chained up and used. Then, on the last day, they walked in and shot the first woman. Her English was not good, but she understood that the leader was angry at the shooter for wasting ammunition.
“The heat will get them” the leader had said, and then they were gone.
The next three nights were cold, and the days so hot she felt as if she were suffocating. But three days was how long it took her to shake the screws loose on the wood. Her only water was from the moisture she gathered licking the stone floor. Hardly enough, but it kept her alive. Her will was stronger than the other two survivors, and while they succumbed to the beatings that they had endured, Marisol grew stronger in her determination. As that last screw came loose, she slipped to the floor and wept. She cried in pain, she cried in dry sobs, too dehydrated to produce even a single tear.
Marisol rose to her feet - she felt the bruising in her ribs, her thighs and her ankles where she had been held open and helpless by the devil’s men. She climbed to her feet, still bound at the wrists. The skin was rubbed raw. She knew by instinct that she needed water quickly, or she would not last, but thankfully, and ironically, a cool pool of water sat only a few yards from the cowshed that had been her prison.
As she came back to reality from the horrific flashback, her son entered the room. He was a product of those days in the cowshed - a secret she had shared with no one except the woman who had found her wandering the roads helplessly. She paid for a ticket to New York, where Marisol had family. She was unaware of the life growing inside her that day when she stepped out of the New York Port Authority bus terminal, and headed to the address she had memorized a hundred times over; The very same address that she sat in today, twenty-seven years later.
“Mama, come on, we need to register for the 'Hilary'," her son had said in Spanish.
“No,” she replied with a smile. “I think it best if not, son,” she added, and confessed everything in that moment. Her son, Enrique Raul Rodriquez listened and understood his mother’s fears. She told him he was not to be angry, he was not to blame anyone. She had forgiven as God had taught her, and been blessed with a beautiful son. Enrique “Hubcap” Rodriguez did as she asked, and they spoke of it never again. He, like his mother, never took the 'Hilary' vaccine.
Yet most people did take the Vaccine, upwards of 90% of the population of North America had been vaccinated by the time John Woodwind came back on the news thirteen months later on a late winter's evening, and announced that in the last Flu season, reported cases were down by almost 99%, along with sales of cold medicine, allergy medicine and a host of other drugs that had been sold almost as a staple of the American diet for the preceding seventy years.
But what was most important, what everyone wanted to hear that night was that there were no new cases of cancer reported in the USA for the past month.
“It would seem,” said Woodwind to the camera,” that this reporter has the honor of saying the suffering of cancer is behind us, and we can move forward with a greater hope than before. 'Hilary', it would seem, is the miracle that the whole world had prayed for.”
Except that it wasn’t.
It was the nightmare no one would have expected.
3
Landfall
Number 1 did not like sirens, the screaming filled his ears to the point it made him howl in pain. A part of him was glad that the door was open to his Master’s rooms. He bolted away quickly as the siren screamed. The noise was louder in the halls, screaming in concert with the flashing red lights in the dark and a voice screaming the same words repeatedly. The words were not words that he understood. Not words like “sit” or fetch”, they simply made a noise to him.
Had Number 1 understood, he would have heard them as “Containment breech in lab 42.”, but he did not understand, so he simply ran, seeking out a silence to stop the pains in his ears. He ran harder and faster, panting more heavily, desperate to drink, but not so much that he would stop.
As he bolted into a room with a large open metal door that rolled up rather than swung, he headed towards the dark. His legs felt unsteady as the thirst and cold air burned inside of him. Dashing between the cars away from the loud voices giving chase, Number 1 made a path towards the clean-smelling air. It was a new smell of salt and water, and something else. It was a sweet smell. As he ran out into the night air he heard new sounds among the sirens, a loud noise followed by a whistle that flew past him. He also heard another word. It was a word he was very familiar with. “No!”
As Number 1 heard the word “No!”, there was a symphony of noises and feelings he was unfamiliar with; A whistle, a soft thudding noise, and a sharp pain in his hind leg that screamed in agony when he tried to put his rear leg to the ground. A yelp escaped his mouth as the pain tore through him - and then the explosion and rumbling thud as the air grew yellow and orange behind him. The siren continued.
As he moved slower, driven by the smell of water, Number 1 limped onto the rocks and found a small pool of water. He lapped at it, but the taste was salty and unpleasant. He continued up the rocks, and although the siren was quieter in the distance, there was a soft, more welcoming sound. Number 1 did not really notice this noise, but found the lapping of the water against the rocks comforting.
He moved towards the soft sound, and as he reached the higher rocks, he saw the vast sea of water before him. There were lights in the distance, on the other side of the water. Number 1 - being a dog - would not have understood that this was the
community west of Orient Point County Park, the traffic on New York Route 25, and the lights of the Cross Sound Ferry Docks.
He was mesmerized by the water and the lights, yet the whistle that shot past his ears snapped him back to the moment. Seeing the water, he had nowhere to go, so he turned, and barked and growled at the men approaching him. They had pointed sticks and there were more loud bangs and whistles, followed by another sharp pain. Number 1 struggled for balance, but found none.
Slipping from the rocks and hitting the cold water, he swatted with his paws. He was facing the lights and headed towards them. He wanted to be away from the noises and the pain, and the soft beat of the sea sounded so much more peaceful as he paddled on.
There were more whistles, bangs and new splashing sounds, but no more pain came. He continued on, and as the lights seemed to get closer, Number 1 closed his eyes and drifted into a sleep. The waves carried him away from the lights. As he slipped into a state that was dream-like, neither dead nor alive, he drifted out further. Out to the sound and away from the noise, the pain and Plumb Island.
*****
Number 1 was found in fishing nets at six o’clock the next morning by the fishing trawler Newport Maiden. She was a small fishing boat that made a modest living through the winter, but her main trade was the fishing trips that the summer crowds brought in the late spring though the early fall. As it was only a few days until Easter, the boat was making some practice trips, cleaning up the gear and running the boat and crew through their paces. It was when they were just north of Fisher Island off the coast of Connecticut that they pulled in the nets, ready to head back up the coast to Newport, RI. The greenhorn they just called Primo, was in charge of hauling in the nets, and spotted the black Labrador in them.
“Hey, skip,” he called up to the man on the bridge, which was little more than a raised platform with a wheel and a tarp attached.
“What is it, Primo?” he called back, a half-burned cigarette hanging lazily from the corner of his mouth, exaggerating his New England drawl.” We got a dead dog in the nets here, does that usually happen?” the young man asked, not too sure why he was asking.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” the skipper muttered to himself, “Not with the bait we are using. Cut it out and throw it back,” he yelled down before turning around to his snoozing deckhand. “Bob, go help the greenhorn cut that dog out, we don’t want him puking anymore on this trip.”
“Sure, skip,” he replied, dropping whatever it was he had in front of him and heading down to the net booms. “Ah, you caught ya first Labrador I think, kid!” he called to Primo, laughing to himself as the greenhorn was gingerly pulling in the net. "C’mon kid, you gotta pull it in hard, or it’ll get away from ya,” added Bob, grabbing at the net and pulling at it.
All at once the dog growled and snapped at his hand, sinking his teeth into Bob’s flesh and shaking its head roughly. Bob let out a blood-curdling scream as the dog’s teeth sank down to the bone, gnawing away at Bob’s hand, refusing to let go. Primo grabbed the axe from the deck and swung it at the dog, smashing into fur, skin, and bone, but the dog still did not let go.
“Get the fucking thing off me!” screamed Bob in agony, ducking as the axe swung down again, almost decapitating the dog. But still it would not let go. A third swing, catching the dog and the net, Primo heard the ropes and the dog's spine snap as one, and the now dead canine fell back to the water floating lifeless, in a crimson aura of blood. Bob’s hand, except for the thumb, floated on the surface, near the dog for a moment, and then sank below the already diluting bloody water.
******
“So…” the old man asked, dropping the binoculars down to his chest and looking north at the smoke and burning buildings on Plumb Island. His vantage point was near the ocean as well, but on the northern tip of Gridlines Island, approximately five miles from the point where Number 1 had fallen from the rocks, and twenty-three miles southwest of where a deckhand named Bob was clutching a blood-soaked towel to his mangled left hand, awaiting a helicopter from the United States Coast Guard to fly him to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. “So,” he repeated, “what the fuck happened?” The expletive was asked in the muttered tones of a sigh, not as a reprimand where it was used to emphasize his annoyance at the situation. He was annoyed, but now was not the time to show it. Now was the time for answers.
“Sir,” said a younger man, wearing a suit and rubber boots which, combined with his glasses and 'CDC' cap, made him a ridiculous sight in the eyes of the older man. “The facility was conducting experiments using jewel wasp venom on cases of livestock infected with hoof and mouth. Lab 42 was looking for ways to stem the effects of ALS, Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s in humans. Since Hilary showed up, everyone is looking for these miracle cures. It seems some corners were cut to speed up the process and…”
“Corners cut!” the older man snapped in interruption of CDC Cap, “It’s a goddamn fucking mess! You see that smoke? How the hell do we explain that to all those rich pricks in the Hamptons? Sorry, we cut a corner? Are you aware of what the conspiracy nuts think of that damn island?”
“Yes sir, I am, but I did not cut corners in this report, the people on that island did, sir.” CDC Cap replied with a confidence that surprised the older man.
“I am sorry, please continue,” He said, turning to face the younger man, a hint of respect entering into his voice.
“Well, it seems like one of the scientists took his pet dog onto the island and it stole a dissected brain from a cow that had been given the experimental drug. He bolted off, and the security guards fired on the animal. In the process, they accidentally shot a propane tank.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” he muttered to himself, “and what about the dog?”
“Missing, presumed infected,” said the younger man, looking down at the ground apologetically. “And the livestock have shown unusual cannibalistic and aggressive side effects, sir. Several people were also bitten in the melee that followed.”
“Infection?” he asked, puzzlement as much as curiosity in his voice.
“One of them is showing signs of a fever. The other was crushed in the stampede, back broken, and pronounced dead at the scene, the only symptoms showing are the blisters around the bite mark. They are awaiting an authority to perform the autopsy on-site, but most people are barricaded in the buildings. The animals are attacking wildly, and small arms are having limited effect. Tranquilizers seem to work, as well as cattle prods, but only as a temporary solution."
“Containment measures?” the older man asked, his tone revealing that he somehow knew the answer, but did not want to say it himself.
“Sir, I hate to be the one to say it, but I think this is a 'Tinderbox' situation”. CDC Cap did not want to look the older man in the eye as he said it, knowing only too well what such a measure would lead to. “They are reporting that the strain is 100% effective among livestock, and the blisters around the sites of the two human bites, plus the fever, it looks like the chances of anything reaching the mainland would be too bitter to contemplate. This is not like we are repeating the Lyme’s Disease cover-up, sir.”
The older man seemed to age ten years in ten seconds as he slowly shook his head. “How many?” he asked, turning to look back at the island.
“There are one-hundred and seven souls, sir. I am sorry. The helicopters can be here in seven minutes; they are waiting on word from the station and getting the pilots fully vetted.”
“May God forgive me,” he whispered before giving the order. Seven minutes and twenty seconds later, two helicopters disguised as commercial sight-seeing rides flew low over the island. The napalm they dropped incinerated almost everything within two minutes. Later that night, men equipped with flame-throwers would clear up anything that survived, and a press release was issued of a massive gas explosion on Plumb Island. Agricultural Research Center and the Center for Disease Control would cease to exist on Plumb Island. There would be no survivors. By 0100hrs the Plumb Island
incident was considered “contained”. Yet Admiral James Lewis remained in his spot until the containment order was given. Watching, CDC Cap at his side.
4
Transit
Excuse me?” said the young nun to the emergency room nurse, her voice soft and low and patient. She was almost apologetic for interrupting, but she, like the nurses, had a job to do this morning, and it was already after 2:00 am. She was tired, but someone needed her comfort, and that was more important than sleep. “I am looking for Sister Emily Rose? She was brought in with chest pains?” The nurse hurried past the nun, but apologetically called back over her shoulder.
“Yes Sister, she is in the bed next to where I am heading. Follow me - but I am in a hurry.” As the nurse passed the cubicle that held Sister Emily Rose, a nun in her early seventies being watched by a third sister, she pointed back to the younger lady and continued on her way.
The nurse barely heard the nuns talking as one was about to leave, and the younger nun took over the watchful duties. Instead, Angela Greene, RN headed into the cubicle next door and checked on her patient. The patient had lost a hand earlier that morning and had been flown into the ER. Cultures had been taken and he was awaiting a surgery team to come and attend to him. However, there had been a car crash on I-95 that morning, and the staff members were still trying to catch up on the multiple casualties. Nurse Greene was not particularly fond of the foul-mouthed patient and his clothing that stank up the ER with a fish smell, but the man was quiet now and his breathing shallow as he slept. She was leaning forward to wake him when the convulsions started. The man started thrashing up and down on the bed and let out a loud scream, spit and foam flying from his mouth. Had it not been for the foaming of the mouth, she would have thought it just an epileptic seizure. She reached forward to steady and protect his head while yelling for assistance, a large splat of spit landing in her face, eyes, and mouth as she yelled.
Zombie Outbreak Z1O5 (Book 1): Countdown Page 2
