by Schafer, Jon
A research lab was hastily set up in Nebraska, and the first few cases, consisting of people that were determined by the CDC to be in the early stages of the disease, were collected from the Q zone in Little Rock to be sent there for study. When the first fifteen at risk individuals were finally put together in a group, they were herded onto a C-130 transport plane and turned over to the flight crew.
Not knowing what he was dealing with, and not having been told anything beyond the final destination by the escort that dropped their quasi-prisoners off, the pilot of the transport took pity on his charges. After the plane was airborne, he allowed the group to get up and walk around the spacious cargo area of the airplane.
Forty minutes after takeoff, the National Guard C-130 nose-dived into a field at over six hundred miles an hour. If, in the ensuing chaos that was tightening its grip on the nation, the FAA had gotten a chance to investigate the crash, their findings would have been simple. Pilot error.
CHAPTER FOUR
Clearwater, Florida:
Steve Wendell drove his Jeep through the light fog blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico. Tonight was bowling night, followed by date night. For the first time in weeks he felt free. He had finally found someone to cover the midnight to five AM shift at the radio station.
The individual who would be taking over went by the name of Tripod, causing Steve to question what happened to radio names like Wolfman Jack. He shrugged it off. Sex and sexual innuendo sells, and in the competitive business of radio you needed every edge you could get.
Free from worries about the station, Steve’s thoughts turned to what he referred to as his on again, off again, on again, off again, and what now looked like on again, pursuit of Virginia Marston. She of the long legs and most perfect ass.
The reason for the on again, off again feelings about their relationship was the fact that while they had a genuine connection in the bedroom, the rest of the time they had little in common. Steve oftentimes excused this by saying that, due to his work schedule they sometimes had a hard time getting together and this is where the difficulties arose, but he knew it was more than that. There was also the age difference. He was thirty-eight and she was twenty-four, which resulted in them running in completely different circles and also having a variety of different likes and dislikes.
Another sticking point for Steve in the relationship was that they started seeing each other shortly after he came to work at KLAM where Ginny was employed as the personal assistant to the owner of the station. Thus breaking one of his cardinal rules of never dating someone he worked with. Although this shouldn't have been a major problem as long as they kept their personal and professional lives separate, Ginny sometimes made it difficult by asking for unearned privileges. She had even gone so far as to ask for a raise she didn't deserve. Steve put this off as age and immaturity, but sometimes he wondered where the relationship was heading.
If I could just get Ginny to at least like bowling, life would be easier. Then they would have something, besides lust, in common to start from. But he knew it was unlikely that she would attempt to bowl again. The one time she had come with him, she had a miserable time and refused to ever try it again. Steve couldn't understand what her problem was but deferred to her wishes.
As he prepared to turn into the parking lot of Seminole Lanes, he reflected on how eerie the fog made everything seem. He had noticed only a few other cars on the street during his drive but passed it off as the time of year. This was a tourist city, and the snowbirds wouldn't be flocking until after Thanksgiving.
As he pulled up to the building, Steve looked around at the almost deserted parking lot and wondered if the bowling alley was shut down for maintenance. Maybe he should have called first. Parking next to the entry doors, he looked back over his shoulder at the huge neon sign depicting a bowling ball hitting a pin. It was lit, so that meant that the bowling alley should be open. The other times when he had driven by and the alley was closed, the sign had been off. Turning forward, he saw light coming from the double glass entry doors to his left, so he grabbed his ball from the passenger seat and got out of the Jeep. Steve walked tentatively up the stairs to the entrance but couldn't see anyone inside and almost turned to leave. Just to be sure though, he reached out, grabbed the door handle and pulled, surprised when it opened. With a shrug, he went inside. The first thing that struck him was the lack of noise. Once in the building he realized that normally he could hear the sound of balls rolling down the alley and crashing into pins when he was ten feet from the door, but tonight the sounds were muted even inside the building. Seeing that only five of the lanes were occupied explained everything though.
At a loss as to why the bowling alley was deserted, Steve consoled himself with the fact that at least he wouldn't have to wait for a lane to open up. From the look of things, he could have his pick. He called out a greeting to one of the regular bowlers he had gotten to know over the past few months then headed for the counter to secure an end lane before anyone else came in.
As he approached the shoe rental area, he found himself glancing around for Heather, the regular attendant. Besides looking forward to bowling on Thursday nights, he also looked forward to the time he got to spend with her. There was nothing going on between the two of them beyond friendship, but for Steve that was enough. He had spent so much time on the job since moving to Clearwater six months ago to work at KLAM that he hadn't had the time to meet anyone outside of his co-workers.
Steve was surprised when a younger guy with a pierced nose and gauge earrings came out of the back room to wait on him. He vaguely remembered the kid's name as Jax or something like that from when Heather had introduced them once before.
"Where’s Heather?" Steve asked, trying not to let the disappointment show in his voice.
"She got called into work tonight," Jax replied. "They're calling in all the off duty deputies."
Steve nodded. Heather only worked at the bowling alley part-time to help pay off her student loans. Her full-time, day job was as a Deputy with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office.
"Something going on?" He asked.
Jax waved his hand in the air, "Everyone's worried about this munchin' madness spreading down here. They got a couple of cases reported in Georgia so now everyone's all paranoid."
Steve had been following the news reports and the stories on the Internet and knew that munchin' madness was what they were calling the disease that had first popped up in Little Rock a few days ago. He remembered reading about it when it first happened. How a patient had gone crazy and started biting the hospital staff, and how the virus was now rumored to be spread by being bitten by an infected individual. Follow up stories had reported that the disease was breaking out across the country, but with AIDS, the Hantavirus and other communicable diseases so widespread, it seemed no one was paying much attention.
Maybe that's changed, Steve thought. If people are hiding in their homes, maybe this is worse than the media is reporting.
Steve had seen some items on the Web that stated the virus was causing people to go crazy and actually try to eat each other but he passed it off as hype. And like the song says; don't believe the hype.
He was about to ask for more details when Jax leaned over the counter and said in a conspiratorial voice, "The Internet is saying that it's a Government virus that got loose from one of their secret labs. They say it's a variety of mad cow disease."
Steve raised an eyebrow at this and felt the urge to let out a long 'mooo', but instead said, "Like the X-files."
Jax leaned back with a satisfied expression on his face and said, "Exactly."
Steve smiled. He trusted the mainstream media, and the Internet news services and blogs, about as far as he could spit a dead rat. He knew that each only gave out a small bit of useful information, so if he sifted through both sources carefully with a little bit of common sense, he would come up a good idea of what was really going on.
From watching the news over the past
few days, he’d seen the local and cable stations reporting that the problem was an isolated one, occurring in California, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and a handful of other states. On the other hand, the Internet was reporting that this was a catastrophe on the scale of biblical proportions and was spreading like wildfire. To his way of sorting things out, this meant that it was a moderate problem that might have spread in a patchwork fashion as far as Mississippi and Georgia. This meant he had plenty of time to bowl a few games before heading to his local civil defense shelter to duck and cover.
With Ginny, of course, to keep him warm.
"Let me get the end lane," Steve told Jax. "If anyone with munchin' madness comes in, tell them to bite me."
Jax found this hilarious.
Steve was well into his second game, and had just converted a difficult split, when he looked up and saw Heather in full cop regalia standing by the scoring computer.
Pleased to see her, he asked with a smile, "Am I under arrest?"
Heather gave him a serious look and replied, "Not yet, but I’ve dealt with you radio guys before and sooner or later you will be."
Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "When I do get busted, can I get strip searched by someone like you?"
With a smug smile, she said, "If you want. I can get pretty nasty with people who resist though.”
"Well I have been bad lately and I need a spanking," Steve replied, "so this might work out well for both of us."
Heather couldn’t help herself and started laughing. She was a good-looking woman in her early thirties, and even though they both knew that the other was in a relationship, they still flirted shamelessly with each other.
"I can always count on you for a good laugh," she said. "And tonight I can use a few."
"A little quiet tonight," Steve commented on the lack of people in the bowling alley.
At this, Heather's good mood went away fast and she said, "That's why I'm here. We're going around to places where people congregate and asking them to go home voluntarily."
Steve felt a wave of apprehension at hearing this. If the police were going around and breaking up public gatherings, then munchin' madness was worse than he originally thought.
"Martial law?" He asked loudly in disbelief.
Heather shushed him and looked around to see if anyone had overheard. Quietly, she said to him, "Not yet."
"Yet is an acronym for You're Eligible Too.“ Steve replied.
Heather started at this and then studied Steve as if she was trying to decide something. Finally, she said, "If I tell you a few things that are going on, you have to promise me that you won't broadcast them. By tomorrow night it's going to be all over the news anyway but we don't want to start a full-blown panic before we get our people into position. We don't need Joe Citizen running around getting in the way. The press has been down playing the whole situation since this all started but it's gotten so bad that now they have to report on what's really going on."
Steve wasn't a journalist so he felt no moral or ethical obligation to put out a story just so that the public could be informed. Many times this caused people to go into a panic, and while he hated anyone who controlled the press, he absolutely loathed the fear mongers who hyped a story, not caring how it affected the public. To his way of thinking, those reporters seemed to do more harm than good.
Holding up his hand in the Boy Scout salute, he said, "I promise not to tell." Loyalty to KLAM came through a bit so he added, "But let me be the first to break the news."
Heather took a deep breath and held it for a minute before slowly letting it out. "Right now the Governor is working on a plan for when Florida needs to declare Martial law. There have been ten reported cases of the HWNW virus in Orlando and a few dozen in Miami. Things in Tallahassee, Jacksonville and Pensacola are already getting pretty bad and there's talk of relocating the capitol until after the crisis has resolved itself."
Relocating the capitol? Steve suddenly felt the need to sit down, but it passed quickly. This was way worse than anyone was saying.
"What about around here?" He asked.
"Nothing in Tampa or St. Pete yet. They've got the airport locked down and they're watching the Port of Tampa closely."
"Those are only a few of the ways into the city," Steve pointed out.
"We know it's just a stop gap measure so that's why we're going around as a precaution and asking people to go home and stay there. They put out the request earlier on the local news along with the usual bullshit about locking your doors and windows, looking both ways before crossing the street and not talking to strangers with candy." Heather laughed grimly.
"I missed the news tonight," Steve said. "I didn't know any of this was going on." Steve thought about it and asked, "Will staying indoors help?"
"Not if we have an outbreak," she replied. Looking around to see if anyone was nearby before continuing in a voice so low that Steve had to strain to hear her, she said, "One of our deputies worked in Little Rock a few years back so she called a bud of hers who's still on the force up there. This guy told her that things are bad, really bad. Once you get infected then that's it, you're through. The sickness is passed through bites or contact with infected body fluid on an open wound."
"Is there a cure?'' Steve asked.
"The feds say they're working on one but the virus is moving too fast." Heather licked her lips nervously before continuing. "The Little Rock cop told our person about the cure that they're using. They say you have to destroy the brain or the nervous system. A bullet in the head or at the top of the spine will do it, or if you hit them with a taser it disrupts the central nervous system and puts them out for good."
For a second, Steve felt a feeling of vertigo wash over him at the unreality of what Heather just told him. Then he thought that maybe she was putting him on and looked at her as if he didn't get the joke. Seeing the steely way she stared back at him told him everything he needed to know. This was no joke.
"You okay?" She asked. "I thought I lost you there for a second."
"I thought I lost me there for a second too, but I'm fine." Steve replied.
Heather studied him for a moment and then asked, "Do you have a gun?"
Steve felt his suspicions rise, as it was someone in law enforcement asking this question. Although it wasn't illegal for him to own a firearm, his paranoia stemmed from an incident in his past when he’d used one. Heather must have seen his discomfort at the question because she added, "If you don't, you should get one. I might be able to help you there too."
"Yeah, I've got a pistol," Steve said, then asked, "Do you really think I'll need it?"
"I’d rather you had one and didn't need it, then need one and not have it. The HWNW is spreading fast and from what we can see it's not stopping anytime soon. You'll have to make do with whatever ammunition you have on hand because we're locking down all the gun dealers and pawn shops starting tomorrow morning. Liquor stores will be closed too until further notice. The Sheriff doesn't want Pinellas County to turn into a drunken war zone. We'll have enough on our hands as it is. Another thing, if you can, stock up on supplies like you’re getting ready for a hurricane. A long-ass hurricane. You might have to look around for a grocery store that's open because they're all shutting down early tonight to get ready for the rush tomorrow when people start getting the word that Clearwater is next on the list of cities to be visited by the virus."
Steve digested this as he mentally calculated how much ammunition he had back at his apartment. Enough, he decided. Not so much that he was ready for all out war but enough to protect himself and - Steve's train of thought was interrupted as an image of Ginny flashed in his head. Feeling an overwhelming urge to call her and make sure she was all right, he asked Heather, "Anything else I need to know?"
Looking slightly uneasy, she said, "There's a couple rumors going around but I don't know how much truth there is behind them."
She stayed silent after saying this, so Steve prompted her by saying, "You
started this, so tell me."
"They say that the people who are infected are dead and that they're not just biting their victims, they're eating them."
Steve was so numb from all the information thrown at him in such a short time that he let these last little tidbits roll right over him. He had read similar stories on the Internet and didn't put much stock in them. At Heathers request they exchanged phone numbers, with her promising that she would keep him apprised of any new developments.
Before leaving, Heather impulsively hugged him and told him to be careful. Adding that, just because there were no reported outbreaks in Pinellas County, it didn't mean that there weren't any infected individuals running around.
The physical contact with Heather had an effect on Steve, making him wonder if it had been a friendly, ‘Take care of yourself hug’ or an, ‘I’m interested in you’ hug. Curious to see if she would send any signals his way, he watched her walk down to the scattered groups of customers in the bowling alley. She didn't even glance in his direction so he started watching how the customers reacted to the request that they go home and hunker down. He noticed some laugh at what she asked of them and return to their game, but a few others took the request to heart and packed quickly to go, one couple leaving in such a hurry they still had their bowling shoes on.
Heather disappeared into the office with Jax and a moment later the lights dimmed in the bar and snack bar area. Shortly after that, she came out and saw Steve looking in her direction so gave him a friendly wave before going out the door at the far end of the building. Taking this as his cue to leave, Steve gathered his things and went up to the counter to pay. As he pulled out his wallet, Jax told him there was no charge.
"Heather took care of it," he explained. As an afterthought, he added, "She really likes you, you know. She talks about you a lot. About how you make her laugh and stuff."
Guess that answers the question about the hug, Steve thought. Thanking Jax, he told him to be safe.
