A tense silence filled the air. Steele gestured with a thumb behind him. “We need help. Do you have any EMTs with you?”
Nothing. If these assholes shoot me, I’m gonna be so pissed.
“Drop your guns and kneel with your hands on your heads.” Steele was disgusted. After all his team had been through, these federal goons were going to treat him and his team like common criminals.
He considered the people behind him. Once we give up our weapons, there is no guarantee we will get them back. It is part of the process. The warm wind whipped off the concrete tarmac and ruffled his tactical striped button-down. Weariness cut him to the bone. From experience, he knew that dark bags hung low beneath his eyes, and as he glanced down at his clothes, he realized he was covered in shit, piss, blood and who knows what else. I must look like them. The dead on the plane. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to focus. He was almost surprised they hadn’t just shot him already.
But what can we do? We are at their mercy and isn’t this the mission? Retrieve the staffers and protect the doctor; the guy the government needed so badly. Three of them had already died for it. Wheeler needed medical assistance immediately. This was no time for having a dick-measuring contest.
He slowly bent down, setting his SIG and badge down on the concrete. “Everyone do as they say.”
He lowered himself onto the tarmac and rested his hands on his head, interlacing his fingers, feeling the grime and sweat that caked his skin. Exhaustion set in through his chest and arms from holding his weapon at the high ready for so long. Slumping forward, he let his knees grind painfully into the hot, weathered concrete.
People shuffled around behind him as the tired group quietly complied with the unnamed agents. As soon as the last person knelt in a position of disadvantage, the black-geared agents surged upon the survivors. Thick boots kicked their guns out of reach, and rifles pointed in their faces.
“You realize that’s taxpayers’ money you’re scratching the fuck up,” Mauser scolded an agent who walked past him.
“Shut up, you,” the gorilla responded, giving Mauser a boot to the stomach. Mauser bent over, wheezing.
“Same team, assholes,” Steele said, his hands still folded on top of his head. The handoff team simply ignored him, too focused or too arrogant to care.
One of the agents held a picture up against each of their faces. When he got to the doctor, he stopped.
“It’s him,” the ogre grunted, putting a hand on his earpiece. “We have the package.”
Two agents grabbed Joseph by his elbows, hauling him to his feet. Another grabbed his bag.
“Wait,” Joseph pleaded.
They hauled Joseph away and shoved him into the back of the unmarked SUV. Really? This is how the handoff was going down. This is definitely going in my report, but I’m not sure anyone will care.
“Can we get up now?” Steele called out to the speedily retreating agents. His only response was the slamming of car doors. “Where are the paramedics?” he shouted.
Engines revving, the vehicles made sharp U-turns and sped back down the runway.
The SUVs shrank smaller and smaller and faded away all together. Everything seemed so far away from the middle of the tarmac. The terminal buildings rising up like some mythical mountain range. It was like being on an island in a vast ocean of concrete runways.
Steele collected his handgun, inspecting it for scratches and finding a deep gouge running along one side of his slide. He rubbed the groove with his thumb. That would never come out. A reminder of the time he was disrespected.
“Who are those fucks?” Jarl asked. His English always became more broken and his accent more pronounced when he was tired or had a few too many beers.
“I assume they’re the handoff team, or we’re as good as fired,” Steele said, looking up at his hulking colleague. “They hung us out to dry, too. Didn’t even call the paramedics.”
He ripped out his phone and dialed Operations again. Busy. Then he dialed his boss. Busy. Then he dialed 911. Busy. What the hell, man?
At this point, they should have had upper management calling for their badges and guns for shooting civilians, even if it was justified; even if the bad guys were eating the other passengers.
Steele was still trying to get his head around all the virus talk the doctor had been babbling. Secunda mortem; it sounded like a drink you get at the swim up bar at a Mexican resort. Could there already have been a widespread outbreak in the United States?
The virus couldn’t be connected to the phone outage in Operations. There is no way it could have spread so fast; it just isn’t possible. But things are bad, and no one is responding.
“What do we do now?” Captain Richards queried.
“Where should we go?” asked Mauser.
Steele simply didn’t know any more. Everything that was supposed to be wasn’t. Desperate faces stared back at him, but he ignored them and dialed a number on his phone.
Gwen. Oh God, was she all right? The woman who made him a better man. Checking his recent calls, he scrolled to her name and hit dial. Please pick up, honey. Silence. Please get through. Please get through. A low ringing buzzed through his phone.
“Yes,” he exclaimed. He had gotten through. The phone buzzed and buzzed, but no one picked up. Damn it Gwen. The dead line battered his worn spirit. What now? He squatted down in exhaustion, anger and frustration. Heat rose from the tarmac in wavy lines. We are alone. The whole thing is FUBARed: fucked up beyond all recognition and we are in the middle.
“I’m not going to stand around here while junior makes personal phone calls,” the copilot said, hands on hips. Steele gave him a dirty look.
“Feel free to do whatever you want,” Steele said, standing upright. He had no problem smacking this guy in the face. The copilot stood upright raising his chin, a posturing move to seem taller, but if he were a fighter, he would have tucked his chin down lower.
Mauser drew Steele back from the edge. “We’ve got some people coming toward us.” He pointed to the edge of the terminal. A group of people half-walk, half-stumbled toward them. There was no strategy to their approach.
“Look at em’,” Mauser said in disbelief.
“Just like the infected on the airplane,” Steele barely got out.
The pack was led by a man in a Steelers jersey who’s head hung limply to the side as if the tendons in his neck had been severed, but he continued to move along with the others as if he were going to a game.
Steele slipped his tactical badge back around his neck. I am still a federal agent, and I have a responsibility to the public. I have to get these people to safety, one step at a time. They would work this all out later. Compartmentalize.
“Everybody up. We’ve got to make our way to the terminal,” Steele said. People groaned. There was no time for dissent.
“Nobody’s coming to get us; we’re on our own. Let’s move to the terminal and find help.”
“Finally,” the copilot said, but Steele ignored him. He could have ‘words’ with him later.
“Good, let’s move. Stay quiet. We don’t want to draw any more attention than we have to,” Steele said, wiping his brow. The beard he wore made it hotter than normal, and the heat was uncharacteristically high for September. He bounded forward. You can rest when you’re dead. Or can you? He was too tired to ponder the thought.
JOSEPH
Chantilly, VA
Starfishing in the backseat of the SUV, Joseph held on for dear life. The SUV flew through an open gate, taking the on ramp to the highway too fast. Shifting hard to the left, the vehicle clung to road with what felt like two wheels. His head whipped back and forth. This guy is a mad man.
“Slow down, Jake,” the passenger agent said.
“I can’t see shit in this mask.”
The driver ripped off his mask. “I hate wearing those things.”
“Protocol states that we must wear the mask while dealing with potential infected persons.”
“Screw protocol, Mike. He ain’t infected,” Agent Jake said. They each gave him untrusting glances.
Joseph adjusted his glasses, trying to compose himself.
“I’m not infected. I would have already turned at the current mutation rate.” The agents said nothing.
“Why did you leave the other team?” We just left them standing there. Who could know their fate now? The two men on the runway were infected. Praying wasn’t his thing, but he made a silent prayer to God in case he had been wrong.
“Excuse me.” Neither of the agents acknowledged his voice. He waited a second and plunged in. “Excuse me, what’s happening? Are there sick people here in the U.S.? Has the outbreak struck here already?”
The chisel-jawed Agent Mike in the passenger seat turned his face to the side, eying Joseph. “You’re on a need to know basis. You’ll be briefed upon arrival.” He faced back to the front.
These guys were hopeless, but Joseph didn’t need them or a briefing to answer his question. The signs were everywhere.
The convoy sped down the highway; just slow enough to avoid the other traffic. The traffic was ungodly. Cars honked and people shook fists at one another. People rushed to leave the area. It is already happening. People are panicking.
Then he saw them. They moved without grace or conformity, and stumbled from car to car, slapping windows with gore-covered fists.
Joseph pulled his safety belt around his waist, clicking it closed. Traveling upward of 50mph, as fast as possible in the congestion, the g-ride avoided other traffic but the flashing lights of the lead SUV had little impact on the passing civilians. People tried to wave them down, but the government vehicles flew on by black, sleek and unfeeling.
The driver swerved into the grassy median to get around the people at the side of the road, causing Joseph to bounce around the back seat. They huddled over a body, tearing meat from its torso. Joseph grabbed the handhold and closed his eyes.
The infection was here in the United States; that was clear. His eyes shot open. The village of Kombarka did not contain the original virus or ‘patient zero.’ He glanced over at his satchel. His dirt-covered, bloodstained bag holding thumb drives, his computer and blood samples that men had sacrificed themselves to obtain were mostly irrelevant. His importance in this fight was quickly diminishing.
He wondered if the government knew. They have to know. It is happening all around them. It would be best to keep his mouth shut. Although his satchel contained plenty of information on the disease, the information would no longer be groundbreaking.
I must have a use. Maybe I am the only doctor with any firsthand knowledge of the virus? I could be the go-to expert to decode the disease. In a scramble like this? Me, be the lead? I am just a researcher, not a conquering hero.
The SUV veered again. Joseph set his head back in his seat, feeling queasy. He had made it this far, and he knew he was still alive for a reason. If it wasn’t for divine purposes, maybe it was for secular ones.
Taking a deep breath, he collected his thoughts. The virus had a much faster gestation period than he had originally perceived. People must be expiring and reanimating under an hour, depending on the location of the bite on the body. The turn rate onboard the aircraft was so much faster that the mutation must be accelerating. The idea was more terrifying than even he could imagine.
Estimating from the time he had first seen the infected people in Kombarka, to the time he saw them rise up from the dead, to the time the DRC collapsed, he strained his mind. It couldn’t have been more than a few days before the DRC’s collapse, and the DRC only had a few major urban centers. Once the disease hit Kinshasa the government had quickly been pushed under by waves of the infected.
There hadn’t been enough time to experiment with any of the infected to understand whether they retained their memory or other basic skills. He was torn on the issue, but then he wasn’t there to make ethical decisions. If they retained their memory, they were still human. On the other hand, if they retained no memory, what was there to save? Could they even be considered human?
Every organism had basic needs. Viruses contained genetic material, both replicated and evolved. Organisms from the animal kingdom had more complex basic needs, air and water usually being the most important. Food coming secondary but necessary. Shelter was a ‘need,’ but it wasn’t strictly necessary.
People were more complex still. Sharing the same needs as animals, people also needed shelter and social interaction. The infected persons operated at the most basic of microbial levels, having diminished human needs. Once a person became infected, they seemed to be driven by the need to feed or ‘fuel’ themselves and procreate. But they weren’t procreating in the traditional human sense. They replicated themselves using the microbial trend; by spreading the virus to new hosts. They transmitted the microbial data held in the saliva or blood into the new host, enabling the virus to inject the new DNA into the host’s cells.
On a molecular level, the virus was breeding continuously. If they were only biting to spread the disease, it would make sense for the infected person to bite a potential host and move to the next potential host. Therefore, he could infer that the infected must acquire some energy transfer from the consumption of human flesh. Or it could be a byproduct, side effect or symptom of the disease, much like rabies. Take the host away and it could force the infected to either eat other animals or to face starvation. Maybe they would eat each other. He speculated that this would not be the case, but he didn’t know.
A man stepped into the road. He waved his hands over his head, trying to flag down the speeding vehicle.
“Look,” Joseph shouted, pointing forward.
“Shit,” the driver cursed. He turned the wheel hard. The SUV swerved and clipped the man, slamming Joseph’s head against the tinted glass window. It was a painful reminder of the horror of the situation. The vehicle threw the man to the side like dirty laundry, and the driver struggled to straighten it out.
Joseph thought back to Agent Reliford’s attack. Reliford had retained much of his impressive strength and speed during his assault on Bowali, while the weakened villagers were still slow and debilitated from the illness that had wreaked havoc on their bodies.
The agent had exhibited no recognition or sympathy for the man he once knew. Joseph would have to make notes about that in his research. They needed more time and more experimentation on the infected to find out whether any of his assumptions were true.
Given all of these facts, his aircraft must not have been the first to transport the infected to the United States. Considering the number of large cities combined with the landmass of the United States, the U.S. probably had less than a month before the entire nation was overrun. Combined with international travel from other countries, the infection could potentially spread even quicker. The infection would spread slower in rural areas, but it would still spread, creeping anywhere a person could go.
Had the government known anything at all? Was I even supposed to come out alive? The thought made him a little more suspicious of his new acquaintances.
There were too many questions and not enough time. As if to accentuate the fact, they passed four police officers that were beating a man with nightsticks. It spread so fast. They needed to warn people to stay inside, avoid the infected and stockpile food. Hospitals needed to be prepped for safely treating infected people. Police and military needed to be briefed to deal with mass evacuation and safe handling of infected persons. Anything. Whatever emergency plan the government had, it needed to activate now.
“When did you first see the infection here?”
The agents exchanged a look. “Sir, no more questions please until we reach the facility,” Agent Jake said.
Joseph shook his head. Zero help from these goons.
“But off the record, the first Zulu I saw was three days ago,” he said.
Zulu? “What does Zulu mean?”
“It’s what we call them. Zombies.”
/> The passenger agent stared ahead, not acknowledging his partner.
“Thank you,” Joseph said.
“For what?” Agent Jake said.
Joseph nodded. The conversation had never happened.
This was very bad. Mentally, he envisioned a map of the United States with D.C. and other East Coast cities on which small red dots represented infection. As the weeks went by the dots grew in diameter, with wider and wider circles spreading across the country until the U.S. was one big blood-red outline.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Oh God. This disease could have the same dramatic effects smallpox, influenza, bubonic plague and other diseases had had upon Native American populations during the first European contacts. Except those had killed ninety percent of indigenous people over hundreds of years, and those who had died stayed dead. And when the Europeans had first interacted with the Native Americans, people weren’t living nearly as close together.
He had to stop the microbe or there would be no world left. He needed to be updated on what was happening elsewhere.
A new sense of urgency took hold of him. The two agents sat in silence as they drove.
“Where are we going?”
Agent Jake turned his head halfway toward Joseph. “A secure location,” he said, taking the car into a ditch and gunning it, causing the turf to fly up from the grassy center median.
They flew by cars that were stuck in traffic. Nowhere would be secure for long if they couldn’t come up with a way to combat the virus. These guys have no idea, thought Joseph.
“How much longer before we get there?”
“We’re thirty minutes out. People will be wanting to talk to you when we arrive,” Agent Mike said.
Joseph folded his arms across his chest, sulking down in his seat a little.
“I bet they will,” he murmured under his breath. He closed his eyes, shutting out the chaos that zipped past him. Feeling sick to his stomach, his mouth started to water. He wasn’t sure if he was getting carsick or if it was simply a bodily response to envisioning the impending doom of mankind.
End Time Page 19
