“Sure,” said Terry. “You were friends with that little guy who owned the place. Mister Pho, right? He was such a sweet man!”
“Yeah, well that sweet man used to be the headman of a village of Montagnards, and the Viet Cong knew him as the Python. He put their heads up on pikes along the trails just to warn the others to stay the hell out of his territory.”
“Oh my...”
“So wherever this parasite crops up, the Green Berets are calling it in and leading parties out to search and destroy,” Evan said.
Owen nodded. “Sounds like Nam all over again.”
Evan nodded back. “And wherever they fight it, they’re sending back videos. And bodies. They’ve even captured some of them alive. We’ve got them in medical facilities somewhere overseas. I don’t know where, but they’re not over here. The President was adamant about that. The government is hoping the Atlantic will act as a buffer but I have my doubts.”
Owen said, “It won’t. It’s here already.”
Evan looked at him sharply. “Where? How do you know?”
“Let’s come back to that later. Keep going.”
Terry broke in, “So what is this thing. Do they know?”
“It’s some kind of parasite. It attacks the nervous system and takes over the body, travels up to the brain and shuts it down. Then the heart and all the other organs shut down. No heartbeat, no breathing, nothing. But the body keeps on going.”
“That’s awful! If there’s no heartbeat, then how is the person still alive?”
He paused and shook his head. “They’re not. They’re dead, but somehow this parasite is still operating the body.”
Terry said, “That’s incredible, Dad. That sounds like something out of a science fiction novel!”
Dan chimed in, “Yeah, Dad. This is pretty much one grade-A genuine zombie apocalypse.”
He nodded. “I agree. So does the Army. So does the President, in fact. He’s gotten together with the Joint Chiefs and the leadership in Congress and they’re working on plans. There’s going to be an announcement in the next day or two.”
Dan said, “You know there’s already a big thread about this on Reddit. They’re calling it the Bluescale disease. Like the Grayscale on Game of Thrones. They say people turn blue when they catch it.”
“Yeah, that’s what some of the people at AMRIID were calling it. Nobody’s allowed to use the word ‘zombie,’ even jokingly. So most of them call them ‘zekes.’ Or ‘the Infected.’”
“So do they? Turn blue, I mean?”
“Yes, blue-gray. The parasite itself is blue-gray, and when it spreads through the body, the body starts looking blueish. Without red blood cells, the body gets really pale and washed out, like any other corpse, so the parasite really stands out. The longer they’ve been infected, the darker the color gets until they end up covered in an ugly, splotchy bluish gray that looks like a moldy vegetable.”
“Ew,” said Terry.
He paused, remembering the hours he’d spent talking with other docs at AMRIID. Some of the best medical minds in the world, and Evan could recall the looks of stunned disbelief on their faces.. “Here’s the crazy thing. They have no idea what it is. At all. It acts sort of like a fungus, but not like any fungus known to science. You know how DNA is a double helix, like a railroad track that’s been twisted into a spiral? RNA is the same way. But what this has instead is a triple helix. Three strands in a spiral. Triple helix DNA exists in a few instances in nature but it’s very rare. And the way it’s structured is different from anything they’ve ever seen.
“In nature, when triple helix DNA does occur, it’s in the form of some partial strands attaching themselves to one side of the chain. With this stuff, it’s three complete strands equidistant from each other like an equilateral triangle, with each part attached to the other two, so at each level there’s a triangle of proteins, instead of a simple crossbar. No one has been able to figure out how it can possibly work.” Evan had taken two sabbaticals from his practice and the clinics, once for four months and another time for almost a year, to work at the CDC in Atlanta. Nothing they’d ever faced was remotely this… alien.
“So how does it spread, and where does it come from?”
“They have no clue where it comes from. They know it’s transmitted through bites, that’s obvious. But in almost every outbreak, there are one or more Infecteds who show no bite marks. It can’t be something that can only be transmitted human to human, like the flu, because some of these individuals who contract it are in really isolated places. One guy who caught it was miles from anywhere in the middle of the jungle studying chimpanzees. They wondered if maybe he caught it from the chimps so they sent hunters out after them, but they couldn’t find a chimp for fifty miles around. So it has to be something in the environment. They’ve had Army Special Ops people in bio suits search around infected areas to swab every surface, collect air samples, plant samples, everything. So far they haven’t come up with anything, but they know it has to be out there.”
Dan and Terry sat together on the sofa. Evan saw her glance toward the ceiling. The girls’ bedrooms were right above them, he knew. “Is there a vaccine?” she asked quietly.
“Not yet. Without knowing what’s causing it, there’s not much they can do. It might be different if they could find antibodies, but that’s another weird thing, Normally, any time the body is infected, our immune system immediately starts producing antibodies. The body’s task is to produce enough antibodies fast enough before the disease kills the host. Even if the patient dies of something like Ebola, the body should be full of antibodies that lost the battle.
“But with this stuff, they aren’t finding any. No antibodies, just an elevated white blood cell count and a mild fever. It’s as if the body is completely unable to respond to the attack.”
Dan’s phone began to chime. “It’s from the office. Sorry… Holy cow. The president has just banned all travel from outside the Western Hemisphere. North and South America are still open, but no one coming from Europe or Asia. Except diplomatic flights. That would be because the UN is here, I guess. Anyone who’s traveled outside the hemisphere in the last thirty days will not be allowed into the US from other countries in this hemisphere unless they’re US citizens or legal residents, and then they’re going to be quarantined! Holy shit. A lot of people are going to be real unhappy about that.” His phone chimed again. “There’s more. Foreign cruise ships are being turned around. Cargo ships will be allowed to dock and unload, but crews will be confined to their ships.”
“Wow, that was fast! Can he do that?” Terry asked.
“This guy doesn’t screw around.” They were all fans of the current occupant of the White House except Terry, who voted for Democrats. They loved her anyway. “Bush did it in less than eight minutes after that second plane hit the Twin Towers on 9/11. Shut down flights from overseas and all flights within the US.”
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that here.”
They spent the next hour going over their options. Everyone hoped this was something that could be contained, a vaccine found, and life could get back to normal. But just in case, Evan’s place downstate remained a possibility. If worse came to worst, there was Rick Cenarrusa’s ranch. The whole family had vacationed there a few times and everyone got along. The last time, Lainey even got the chance to name a newborn colt. Somewhere in Idaho there now lived a young mare named “Pinky.”
“There’s also my place in Telluride,” Owen said. “Hell, we could pack up everyone right now and get on a plane.”
“I don’t want to leave here if we don’t have to,” said Terry. “My family is here and all of our friends. Everything we have is here.”
Owen told them how he was stocking up his place in South Elgin, “I’m not leaving here without all of you.”
“I should head downstate in the next few
days and stock up my place too,” Evan said.
“I wouldn’t wait too long,” said his brother. “Once the shit hits the fan, it’ll be too late.”
Dan spoke up. “Isn’t a little soon for this kind of thinking? I mean, it’s all in the Far East, right? We don’t know if it’ll ever get here.”
Evan frowned at him. “The worst shithole disease-ridden country in the world is less than twenty-four hours away by jet. And about 200,000 foreigners enter this country every day, on average. If this thing has any kind of incubation period, there’s no telling how many people here already have it.”
The evening began to break up. Evan had decided to stay a few days with Dan and Terry and get in some quality time with his granddaughters, and Dan and Terry both had to get up early for work.
Evan turned to his brother. “Hey, what did you mean when you said that the disease is already here? They’ve pulled some people in at the airports and quarantined them, but it’s supposed to be a secret. How did you find out?””
“First I’ve heard of it, but I’m not surprised. Listen, this is going to sound crazy, but hear me out.” He told them about the sandhills and the other bird deaths he’d discovered. “Look, there’s a pattern. It moved from eastern Asia west over the course of a couple months. And now this disease is spreading the same way a few weeks later.”
“So what do you think it means?” Terry asked.
“I think it means the birds ran into something up there, something invisible. I think whatever it was projecting some kind of field so we couldn’t see it, and the moment those birds hit that field they shorted out and they died. Or maybe it left a poisonous vapor trail. I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure they’re related.”
“What are you saying? ‘They ran into something up there.’ You mean like aliens? Come on!” Evan looked at Owen sharply. Owen’s mind had always been a dark place, Evan knew, but this sounded like irrational.
“That’s exactly what I believe, and I think they were spraying the whole planet with something,” Owen said earnestly. “Think about it! This is something that scientist have never seen before, that the human body doesn’t even respond to. It’s not spreading like a normal disease, with one epicenter. It’s crossing the planet like a wave. And now it’s killing us!”
“Okay, but if aliens wanted us all dead, they could probably blow up the entire Earth. Even if they wanted to kill off all the humans, I’m sure they could come up with a disease that would be a lot more effective than this.”
Owen nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe the point is that they don’t want us all dead, they only want to set us back a few hundred years. Or maybe it’s some kind of experiment they’re conducting on us lower life forms. Or maybe they have motivations we can’t even guess at. Hell, they are aliens.”
Cuyo Island, Philippines
April 13th
“Rogers, to your left! Nine o’clock!” his earpiece crackled. He spun to his left as another zeke came crashing through the underbrush, brought up his gun in a classic two-handed stance and dropped it with a single shot through its open mouth. “Bulls eye! Nice shootin’, Buck!”
US Army Special Forces liked to say, “Your most powerful weapon is your mind,” but a 9mm Beretta came in pretty damn handy sometimes. Zeke hunting in the bush tended to be close-quarter work, and while some of the team preferred the M4A1s or the FN SCAR Mk17s, others like Rogers found them slower to bring to bear in a hurry and depended primarily on his M9.
Master Sergeant Marlon “Buck” Rogers continued to sweep the surrounding underbrush over the sights of his sidearm. He was sweating profusely in his bio-warfare suit. They were designed to be put on quickly in case of WMD attack, but they badly limited visibility and they were hot as hell. Even the suits his team wore, which were based on the British chemical warfare suit design and were supposed to be more “breathable” for tropical climates, felt like saunas. The watchword for everyone in the group was “Stay hydrated!”
His team had received the call to scramble at 0400 that morning from Special Operations Command Philippines, located on the grounds of the old Clark Air Force base, now Clark International Airport. A windsurfing club on the northeast coast on this picturesque island had been overrun two days before and the infection had run rampant, and now the Philippine Army had set up a perimeter around Cuyo Town, the largest town on the island, and were holding out against sporadic attacks by groups of zekes while they evacuated the population. The Philippines had their own special forces, and they were very good; tough battle hardened troops tempered by years of fighting communist insurgents, and lately Muslim terrorists groups as well. But with all these Bluescale outbreaks they were stretched thin, and the US Army agreed to lend a hand.
Rogers and his team had come here to sweep the small island’s interior, eliminate any zekes they could find, and meanwhile check on the Australian environmental research group located somewhere in the island’s center. This was their third deployment in the last four days. No casualties so far, thank God, but that could change in a heartbeat.
Two more zekes broke through the brush, a woman and a little kid about nine or ten. The woman was Caucasian, while the kid looked Filipino. Both were naked and their faces and upper torsos were covered in dried blood. He hated it when it was a kid. “Two more, twelve o’clock!” a voice said in his ear.
“On ’em,” he said, and shot them both. The woman dropped like a stone, but the kid jinked as he fired and the bullet entered its right eye and exited in a spray of fragments over its ear. It stumbled but kept coming. “Crap!” he said under his breath and shot it again. This time the bullet hit dead center, right below its nose, and it went down.
Three days before the base medical officer, a major, had given a lecture on how to kill “the Infected.”
He projected a large diagram of a human brain on the wall. “Once the parasite takes over, most parts of the brain fully cease to function, and the brain dies. The heart and some of the other organs continue to function for a few minutes, but breathing stops almost immediately. In terms of senses, they retain hearing and sight, although both of these seem less than their human equivalents. They have no apparent sense of smell, since they no longer breathe. For the same reason, by the way, they don’t make any sound. Sounds are created using the movement of air through the mouth or throat. No air, no sounds. The lungs, like the other internal organs, are slowly cannibalized by the parasite.
“The areas of the brain that are still functioning and therefore vulnerable are these parts here,” he wiggled the pointer at the bottom center of the brain, “They are the midbrain, the pons and the medulla oblongata. Together they make up what is called the brain stem.
“According to the best information we have from USAMRIID, the parasite takes over these areas, merges them, and seems to construct its own control center out of them. I hesitate to call it a brain, because it’s really rudimentary. It’s more like the nexus of a neural network, like you might find in a sponge or a jellyfish. What I do know is that if you put a round anywhere in here, it’s lights out.”
One of the ops, a Chief Warrant Officer in the front row, said, “That’s a mighty small target, sir.”
“Yes it is, so you have to be on your game. It’s still likely you’ll get a kill with a shot anywhere in the lower skull because of the compression wave, but it’s not a sure kill.” A new image appeared of a zeke in the middle distance crouching over a victim, its face turned toward the camera. Mortised in the corner was a slightly grainy close-up of the same photo. It clearly showed the zeke’s skull and brain were entirely sheared off from the middle of the forehead upwards. There were several low whistles, and in the back of the room someone said, “Sheee-it!” The medico paused a moment to let the image sink in.
“Of course, you’re going to get some bone fragmentation if you hit it anywhere in the skull, and if any fragments hit the target
area, it’s goodbye, zeke. But as you can see, a near miss is not a guarantee.”
He stepped back and the diagram displayed again. “A hard blow anywhere on the skull might send enough of a shock wave to stun your target and in some cases even kill it. We have anecdotal evidence of crow bars and pistol butts delivering killing blows. But if you want to be sure of a kill, this is where you aim.”
He nodded at the CWO in the front row. “Chief, will you please come up here? Thank you. Now turn sideways.” The medial officer faced the room again. “So in practical terms, you’re aiming here.” He pointed to a spot behind the chief’s earlobe.
“From the front, that would mean here. Anywhere above the middle of the nose is likely to miss the target, although that close, again, the shock wave moving through the brain matter might do the job for you.
“Zekes have a tendency to charge with their mouths wide open, so if they’re coming straight at you on a level combat surface, a shot through the open mouth is the optimal target.”
“Any other way to kill them, doc?” the colonel asked.
“Yes, several. Cut off their heads for one. The head will survive for up to an hour as you’ve probably seen in the famous video, but the body will stop moving immediately. Another one is fire. These things will burn, gentlemen, although they seem largely unaware of the process while it’s happening. In fact, they seem to be somewhat more flammable than an ordinary human body. But remember, they appear to feel no pain whatsoever, so it doesn’t incapacitate them right away.
“You can also electrocute them. They appear to have a higher tolerance for electricity than the living human body does, but if you amp it up enough, it will work. Fries their circuits, apparently. Tasers will often kill them, especially if they’re tased anywhere near the head.”
The Old Man & the End of the World | Book 1 | Things Fall Apart Page 8
