Zombie Fever: Outbreak

by Hodges, B. M.

  There was a guard station and someone had locked one of the infected inside. He seemed quite frustrated about being held captive, banging and banging against the glass with the full force of his body, his blood and fluids smearing across the door.

  We ran underneath the striped car barrier and out onto the dark road that led into town.

  Quaid stayed in the lead, barely showing signs of physical strain, a testament to his physical trainer’s body. He turned back to us as he ran and said, “As far as I could tell, when I was doing a little recon before rescuing you all, save for the hospital, the town is totally abandoned. They probably paid off the townsfolk to leave before the infection spread to this area. I’d guess they didn’t want to mess around with questions from the yokels while conducting their research. Isn’t that right, lackeys?” He addressed the two workers jogging next to him that we’d saved earlier and were now sticking to us like glue. One of them nodded as he huffed and puffed along, clearly out of shape from living most of his adult life in the confines of a laboratory.

  We ran down a narrow street towards the smell of the ocean ahead and I spotted a sign that said ‘Ferry Jetty’ that gave me hope and I pointed it out to Jamie and Norris as we ran.

  Suddenly, there was a loud cacophony of engines behind us and four large trucks filled with Vitura personnel and lab equipment came roaring out of the hospital gate, breaking through the flimsy car barrier and barreling towards us. We jumped out of the road, but not before the first truck clipped the slower of the two lab techs, flipping him into the air and onto the ground. He had his chance. We weren’t in the business of rescuing fools so we just kept running. Do you blame us? It was all about self-preservation at that moment because the remaining fifteen or so infected let loose during Quaid’s jailbreak were sprinting behind the trucks, not just running but sprinting. And once they saw us on the roadside they changed course towards us when the dust settled from the passing vehicles.

  When you find yourself running for your life and on the razor’s edge of being eaten by infected jacked up on a mutated form of zombieism, that’s when you find out who you really are. It’s when you discover how deep you can draw from those reserves of fight or flight kept preserved since prehistoric man fought saber-toothed beasts.

  We ran, and I ran faster than I thought possible. I hate to mention it, but we caught a break when the remaining lab technician’s legs gave out about half a kilometer from the docks. It happened right when we were on a slight down slope under the light of the crescent moon. The infected out in front attacked him and the other ten or so slowed for a few seconds to see if they could get some, but then continued towards us.

  Quaid and Jamie were running together, I was right behind them, but Norris was losing ground from those loafers and his cramped feet. In torch relay fashion, I closed in on Jamie who reached back and handed me a flash grenade, I slowed a bit and handed it off to Norris. Norris pulled the pin and tossed it back and high over his head like a bride throwing her bouquet. Wouldn’t you know it? The Berjalan penyakit that was in the lead actually caught the grenade in his hands!

  Boom!

  And his zombie hands disappeared in a green mist as well as part of his face. Unfortunately, his body must have shielded those behind him because, while the infected coming up from the rear were caught off guard, they still had their eyes on the prize and rushed around the now lifeless body as it collapsed onto the road.

  Maybe they sensed they were about to lose their meal because zombies began to run even faster.

  We followed Quaid onto the docks and dashed by a tourist shack advertising speed boats to Pulau Tioman, a resort island off the coast.

  I saw Quaid leap into a boat up ahead and yell, “Untie us from the mooring points, girls!” as he started up the engine of an ancient longboat with a monstrous outboard engine jutting out of its rear. Jamie and I got the ropes and unwound them from the dock. Right as we finished untying the ropes, Norris dived into the boat between the two of us, and I pushed us off. Quaid revved the engine and we pulled out of the dock. The remaining infected ran full tilt off the dock towards us and we watched with relish as they drowned in the warm tepid water of the bay.

  Quaid angled the boat out away from the shore then turned the boat south. At the southern end of the dock a crane was loading the four trucks that had come from the hospital onto a converted supertanker painted pearl white with Vitura International Research Laboratory printed on its bow.

  Our speed boat drew away and we turned to watch the tanker from the aft and saw that our little boat cruising along its hull had drawn a lot of attention on the deck. The deck was well lit and I could make out soldiers in camouflage combat fatigues leaning over the rails, their guns pointed at our tiny vessel. About four stories above them, on a smaller deck in front of the wheel house, I could make our Supervisor Bertrand and a couple of men in lab coats consulting together as they watched us. I pointed to him and said, “Bertrand!” and the others looked upwards to where I was pointing.

  He waved down at us as we pulled away into the silky black of the midnight hour, out of the bright lights illuminating that behemoth, which I believed, regardless of Quaid’s misgivings, ferried the apocalypse.

  Chapter 12

  QUAID leaned over, gently put his hand on my shoulder and shook me awake, “We should be getting close, wake up your friend and keep an eye out for buildings in the configuration of a tropical resort.”

  The boat sped along the smooth water without incident.

  “Yeah, that was a Mercy class ship alright,” Norris said over the growl of the outboard, “My father served on the USNS Comfort, one of two Mercy class ships in the U.S. Navy fleet when I was a boy. Both of them had been decommissioned long ago but it looks like that’s the USNS Mercy.” He had his bare feet out and was rubbing his toes, he looked up and was surprised to see that the others were actually listening to him, so he continued, “My father grieved over news that his ship was sunk to create a manmade reef to ease some of the high waves off the eastern coast of the US. It looks as if that was a lie and the Mercy had been sold to the highest bidder.”

  Jamie and I looked at each other and decided this was the best time to repeat what Supervisor Bertrand had told us about the vaccine, IHS-2 and the conspiracy to reduce the world population and save humanity through targeted outbreaks on undesirable people and countries. We took turns speaking and filling in the places where one of us forgot something or didn’t hear.

  Norris looked very concerned, “You know, at the time I couldn’t understand what was going on at that hospital. It had minimal staff and very few patients. Now it makes sense. If they were conducting clinical trials on healthy and infected alike with a vaccine and more potent strain of IHS, yes, it makes sense to do it under the cover of an outbreak. Now that they’ve completed their testing, with that ship I bet they can manufacture the vaccine and grow the new IHS strain while sailing to the targeted area. Then inoculate those deemed worthy and wait off the coast until the contagion has taken it course and burned out,” Norris said nodding at his own theory.

  “Oh come on, Mate!” Quaid yelled out over the engine noise, “What a load of crap! You can’t believe all of that nonsense. That’s not how governments function. They’re not hand-in-hand with ‘evil’ corporations out to cull the population! Ridiculous! These birds are daft for even thinking that guy at the hospital was telling the truth. I’m sure their research was much more benign and he was feeding them misinformation so that if they did go to the media with their story, they’d be discredited as conspiracy nuts! I think at this point, all you can believe is that they gave you three injections and called it a vaccine. It could have been coconut juice for all you know.”

  Norris brought everything back into perspective, “I don’t think I need to remind you why we’re in Malaysia in the first place. Let’s get to the helicopter, finish the race tomorrow, beat the remaining team, and if we’re still alive then worry about all that other nonsense.
We have near an hour left to dock the boat, find a suitable vehicle preferably with the keys inside, and drive the last thirty kilometers into town and find the signal beacon.”

  We agreed that in the grand scheme of things, what we saw in Mersing was not as important as getting to our destination and winning the race. If either of our teams came in first in the reality TV show and won the million dollars, then we’d be in a better position with the extensive media coverage to blow the lid off Vitura’s plans.

  We were getting close, so we decided to clam up and keep an eye out for the resort.

  According to the tachometer, we’d traveled ninety kilometers. The hum of the engine and the slow beat of the water on the hull had lulled Jamie and me into a half sleeping stupor. During the journey south, Norris and Quaid alternated between keeping the boat at an even keel with the shoreline and staring at the large ball compass sticking out on the dashboard above the steering wheel. No one was were wearing a watch, so we didn’t know exactly how much time we had left for evac.

  Jamie and I agreed to hand over our shotgun and remaining flash bangs to the guys. We got the two electric shockers to keep the zombies in the event the Ang Mohs couldn’t keep them back.

  The shoreline started to draw in into an inlet of sorts. Quaid eased the throttle into the shallower water and we slowed down under wake speed to lessen the noise of the taxed outboard, lest we draw attention from anyone or anything roaming the shore.

  Quaid leaned back and said under his breath, “That’s it up ahead.”

  We could see shapeless unlit buildings along the ridge line of the shore in the moonlight. According to Quaid, the resort was a great romantic retreat in less troubling times. Quaid steered towards the dock and as we got closer we saw someone standing on the end of the wooden planks waving a green glow stick, directing us in for landing.

  After the harrowing escape, it was a relief to see another uninfected human. We pulled up alongside the dock and the stranger helped moor us down and then gave us a hand off the speedboat before introducing himself.

  The young man looked to be in his mid-twenties. He was wearing a bio-suit similar to ours that was zipped open and tied by its arms around his waist, his upper body exposed except for a thin white tank-top barely covering his ripped chest and abs. He was a true specimen of a man, breathtaking really, that rare breed of tall and lanky with the chiseled looks of a runway model. Even in dim light of the night, you could see the angular cheekbones and dimpled chin under a bushy mop of hair. But most captivating of all, even in semi-darkness, was the penetrating gaze of his light brown eyes. When he grabbed my hand to help me out of the boat, his touch was electric and my knees buckled a bit, causing him to put his arm around my waist to steady my feet on the dock. Our eyes locked for a moment in time that seemed to last forever. Is there such a thing as love at first sight and if there is, could it happen in such dangerous and distressing circumstances? I noticed Jamie staring at me out of the corner of my eye with a look of irritation and, was that envy?

  The dock swayed back and forth. When he spoke, he kept his voice low for obvious reasons. He had a Canadian American accent and I could see Norris leaning forward, warming up to him almost immediately once he heard the familiar cadence of someone from his side of the world.

  “I’ve been tracking the four of you since your escape from the Mersing Hospital,” he said in a deep resonating voice. “The name’s Tomas Overstreet. I’m with Qual Pharmaceuticals. Let’s get inside where it’s safer. I did a sweep of the property at dusk but a straggler from town could have made his way onto the grounds.”

  We followed Tomas to a boathouse just above the docks and I did my best to stay as close to him as possible. My three companions were nearly invisible to me now. He led us inside and bolted the door shut. After making sure all of the windows were fully covered, he lit a couple of lanterns and flopped down on a lounge chair that looked to have been dragged from the pool area.

  The tiny room was a mess. There were two laptop computers running lines of data and some odd looking electronic gadgets hooked up to a long strip of plugs snaking to one contact point next to a coffee maker. A two-way radio and scattered papers were lying on the large teak table in the center of the room. Photos of the Vitura ship, Mersing and the hospital were tacked onto a cork bulletin board. Empty bags of crisps and candy wrappers were overflowing out of two garbage bins in the corner.

  Tomas sat in the chair quietly for a moment, his eyes flicking back and forth from the data on the two computer screens then to me and back again. He got up and went to one of the computers and began typing, saying he needed to relay a message to his superiors and anyhow, we probably needed a few minutes to settle down.

  But Quaid was impatient; we had less than forty minutes to get to the evacuation point. Maybe he also felt threatened by another alpha in the room, because he barked rather loudly at Tomas, “Who the bloody hell do you think you are? We don’t have time for this. We need to get going now!”

  Tomas ignored him and typed a bit more, then shut the notebook before we could see what he was doing. He got up, took a drink from a half-full cup of orange soda and, speaking directly at me but to everyone in the room, said, “Calm down, old man. I’m the last of a team whose been trying to infiltrate Vitura since the outbreak began. We were using this resort as our base because Kota Tinggi is the last place the virus will be allowed to spread before it is stopped and WHO swoops in for clean-up and decontamination.”

  I piped in, “We know all about the Vitura and Qual pharmaceutical war being waged. One of the Vitura employees let us in on the whole shebang.”

  Tomas smiled and said, “I know all about your conversation with Bertrand. I have it recorded on that laptop there. And I know why you’re here.” He picked up a large envelope from the table, opened it and threw the contents across the table towards us. We were surprised to see our studio photos and press releases of Cera’s Amazing Rally Showdown.

  “I’ll help you get to your evacuation point, but first let me explain why I’m here and how important you now are to the rest of the world. Like I said, we were sent here to, well, spy on Vitura. Everything was going swimmingly and then two nights ago, we were raided by Vitura’s hired thugs who captured the rest of my team. I was patrolling the grounds at the time and managed to escape capture. Since then, I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out my next move. Most of my people who were captured are those ‘test subject’ mutated zombies in that hospital. In fact, most of the patients in the infirmary where you were held were my remaining colleagues who hadn’t succumbed to the virus. Fortunately, one of my teammates managed to grab a two-way radio and somehow managed to stash it in the infirmary and I’ve been eavesdropping ever since. Everything I’d picked up was mostly useless until their field leader, that Bertrand guy, came in to brag about their experiments on you. I know the three of you have been recently inoculated with Vitura’s latest IHS vaccine and I’ve reported this information to my superiors.”

  “So now you want to use us to take over the world like Bertrand?” Jamie interrupted, more to get him to stop staring at me than anything else.

  Tomas shook his head. Still continuing to stare into my eyes, he said, “Unlike Vitura, we’re not out to blackmail countries into paying for the vaccine before unleashing the zombie fever onto their countries. We want to stop the horror of IHS now before it brings on the end of days.”

  “Yeah right,” Jamie mumbled, unhinged at her inability to draw Tomas’s attention away from me and onto her like she always did with the cute ones.

  “It is of utmost importance that we evacuate the three of you safely,” he motioned towards Norris, Jamie and me, “and get you to our headquarters in Vancouver so that we can synthesize a serum from your blood and ship it worldwide before Vitura unleashes IHS-2. There’s no telling how a new strain of virus will spread or if it can even be contained for that matter. They’re relying too much on data from the original strain to evaluate whether or no
t IHS-2 can be controlled.”

  Quaid was tired of all the talk and the subconscious interplay between Tomas and the girls. Time was bleeding away and it was thirty kilometers to get to where we needed to be and we didn’t even know where the evacuation point was located within Kota Tinggi. “Listen, Mate,” he said through gritted teeth, leaning forward, his arms flexing from anger and adrenaline, “Right now, I wouldn’t care if you’re married to the Queen of Siam or if we could avert nuclear war with our urine. We need to find a vehicle and get the hell out of here now. So shut the hell up and help us or the only thing you’ll be seeing are your intestines when I shove your head up your arse.”

  Tomas finally looked away from me towards Quaid. He held up his hands, “Hold it, friend. I know you’re in a time sensitive situation and I know where to find your evacuation point. I picked up a signal from an ADF emergency beacon transmitter just before sundown and tracked this Cera team,” he pointed to Derrik and Lydia, “to the roof of a shopping complex in the center of town. I have a car prepped and at the ready and can get you there in less than twenty minutes, so long as the Berjalan penyakit are properly distracted and kept away from our car. That helicopter of yours is the fastest way out of the quarantine zone and I plan to go with you to Singapore where a non-stop flight to the laboratory in Vancouver awaits at Changi.”

  “Whatever, ‘Dude’,” Quaid said turning towards the door, mocking Tomas’s Canadian accent, “let’s get the shooow on the roood.”

  Charged up by Quaid’s aggression, Jamie chimed in, “Yeah, we don’t care about your bullcrap, we have a race to win.”

  Tomas stood there for a moment in silence with a look of disbelief in his eyes. How could they be so unfazed by the global importance of the situation they were in and their roles in it? He thought. He reached beside one of the computers, grabbed a leather satchel and attached it to his belt, brushed aside some papers and picked up some keys and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he unhooked the laptop he was working on, shoved it and a bunch of papers into a cardboard box from under the table and stuffed it all under one arm. He let out a sigh and said, “Let’s go.”