Thunder and Ashes

by Z. A. Recht

  We left the modified cage with our infected mouse sitting next to a cage with the healthy mice. A simple curtain device was placed between the two cages so we could cut off the infected rodent’s line of sight of its prey at will.

  Here is what happened as we tinkered with our variables:

  WHEN PREY WAS VISIBLE:

  The infected mouse was unaffected by extremes in either heat or cold. If we darkened the cages, the hostile reactions increased. We speculate that the virus, using whatever mechanism it has within it to turn a rational rodent feral, also turns them nocturnal. When we increased the brightness of light past levels of natural sunlight the reaction was opposite: the feral rodent seemed more subdued. It was still openly hostile, but seemed slower, more cautious. It spent more time looking down at the floor of the cage and less time trying to climb the sides. It seems that carriers of Morningstar are photosensitive.

  WHEN PREY WAS NOT VISIBLE:

  The infected mouse’s behavior was still unaffected by extremes in either heat or cold. However, there seemed to be slightly more activity in periods of warmth. In total darkness, activity increased significantly. When we turned up the lighting, the host retreated to a small burrow and refused to emerge.

  Generally, the feral hosts don’t seem to wander around all that much, at least when you compare them to a healthy specimen. They don’t use their exercise wheel and don’t explore their cage. Most of the time they just sit, and wait. It’s creepy—reminds me of trapdoor spiders. Patient little predators that dig a hole and just sit inside, waiting for an insect to come by to be grabbed and dragged down to be eaten.

  And that’ll about do it for me tonight; I’ll have to check the sheets in my bed for spiders again. I hate the little things.

  We’re learning bit by bit how the symptoms of this disease affect the host. I’m guessing today’s experiments won’t be all that important in the scheme of things but, hey, I needed a light day.

  Anna grinned as the she read over the log entry. The real-world laboratory they had all been a part of over the past several months had certainly vivified that particular theory. The carriers were indeed reclusive in the day, active at night, and single-minded about pursuit of their prey. She wished she hadn’t had to have seen it in action on the streets of Washington, but then again, she had a lot of wishes for her life and, like nearly all wishes made worldwide, it hadn’t been granted.

  Her grin faded into a thin-lipped frown. For all the days, weeks, even years she’d spent working on the virus, all she’d seemed to come up with was data that any surviving human being was well aware of. She scrolled through entry after entry, reading excerpts from experiments on more of their ill-fated lab mice, bits and pieces of RNA sequencing, and epidemiological simulations. Her dark-humored mood took a turn for the worse when she came upon one of her later entries, after she’d spent every day for two months working on an epidemic projection.

  May 21, 2005—Log Entry #978

  I’ve concluded my work on the epidemiological projections for the three strains that are remaining within our department’s authority—Hanta, Zaire, and Morningstar. The simulations look grim, for the most part.

  The Hantavirus, being native to our shores here on the US, isn’t an unfamiliar disease. We ran worst-case scenarios and they were not particularly disturbing. The virus is hard to detect as the symptoms resemble the flu at first, but once Hanta has been identified, quick action can stop the outbreak in its tracks. Assuming the mass media was informed, simple instructions such as wearing facemasks or avoiding contact with contaminated areas showed the virus outbreak burning itself out in a minimum of three months with a maximum of eight months. Fatalities can be rated as “insignificant.”

  Ebola Zaire presented a trickier situation since it’s hard to predict rates of infection. It is a fast killer, which means that there is a significant chance of it burning itself out before expanding from an outbreak to a full-fledged pandemic. It’s native to Africa (hence the river it is named after), unlike Hanta, so we have a geographic buffer between us and the disease. Further, villages in this area of Africa are not unfamiliar with the virus and will take steps to quarantine themselves, which adds an additional buffer.

  However, we ran the worst-case scenario as requested and the results were not pretty. Assuming worldwide infection and factoring in the fatality rate of the virus (90% +/- 5%) we estimated that one in three people would be killed. Fatalities can be rated as “catastrophic.” Projections indicated just over two billion dead.

  Finally, we ran the Morningstar simulation, complete with the data we’ve acquired on the predatory nature of infected hosts, and we scared the shit out of ourselves. We ran the worst-case scenario (Morningstar escaping its natural habitat, infecting major cities and travel routes, etcetera) and I felt like tendering my resignation right there and moving to the middle of the mountains somewhere, far, far away from any other people. The projection showed Morningstar jumping from the level of an outbreak to pandemic within one week. From that point, casualties increase exponentially. The fatality rate of the virus was tricky: since the virus seems to leave its host alive, is it really a fatality? We decided that, in the case of these simulations, we would count a live, infected host as a fatality.

  Factoring in the rate of infection and fatality rate (100% +/- 0%), we projected a nearly total obliteration of the human species. We estimated that approximately thirty-five million people would survive the pandemic. In other words, for every one survivor, one thousand seven hundred and fourteen people would die. Most of the survivors would be relegated to rural areas, cut off by natural distance or geography from population centers.

  Cities and towns that are infected give the survivors worse odds. We ran those numbers as well, using Philadelphia as a model, and found that for every one survivor, there would be five thousand nine hundred and eighteen dead.

  May God have mercy on us if this son of a bitch jumps its banks.

  Anna sighed, blinked slowly, and lowered the PDA to her lap.

  “Why the long face, doc?” Mason asked, looking over from his pile of weapon parts.

  “Nothing much,” Anna replied, still staring down at the journal entry. “I’m just feeling a little bit like a prophet of doom.”

  “What’re you reading over there?” Mason pressed.

  “Daily logs,” Anna said. “It was a kind of diary for me. I kept hard data in separate files but made entries into a log every day to describe what we’d accomplished. Reading over it now is making me feel like a latter-day Nostradamus.”

  Anna held up the PDA so the screen faced Mason. “See right here? Predicted the pandemic. Scroll up a little bit and I’ve got the behavioral characteristics of the carriers all spelled out. It’s eerie.”

  “Well, that’s what they paid you for,” Mason said, snapping the last piece of his pistol back together and checking chamber. “You’re the world’s Morningstar expert.”

  “Yes, that’s what everyone keeps reminding me,” Anna drawled, shaking her head.

  “What kind of hard data do you have on that thing?” Matt asked, looking over from his spot at the rear of the bed. “I mean, is it useful stuff? Things you can turn against the virus? Like, maybe instead of a vaccine, we could make something that destroys the virus so it doesn’t matter where you shoot them, they go down.”

  Anna grinned and Mason actually chuckled out loud. Matt looked hurt for a moment, but Mason jumped in to explain their reaction.

  “We’ve thought of it,” he said. “And, actually, it’s a great idea. I mean, if we can’t find a way to keep the virus from hurting people, maybe we can hurt the virus, right? Thinking of that option just shows you’re brighter than average.”

  Matt looked pleased at the compliment.

  “Then again,” Mason went on, “Anyone left alive by now had better be brighter than average.”

  “So, where are we, Doc?” came Julie’s voice. The journalist was still reclining in the corner of the bed,
eyes closed, but apparently had been following the entire conversation. “Take a break from those notes and load up the GPS.”

  “We’re well on our way, Julie,” Anna said, frowning. “Relax.”

  “Come on, humor me,” Julie pressed. “Humor me or I’ll start repeating, ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we—’”

  “All right, all right!” Anna snapped. “Give me a second.”

  She busied herself with loading up the requested program on the PDA, taking care to save her notes as they were. Matt seemed to have lost interest in the conversation and was back to staring at the road behind the truck, resting his chin on closed fists.

  Mason noticed the intense look in the young man’s eye, but thought nothing of it.

  “Here we go,” Anna said, squinting at the PDA. “Well, damn. I can’t get a connection. Maybe that satellite’s finally moved out of its proper orbit. We might have to rely on old-fashioned maps again if it doesn’t come back up.”

  Matt leaned forward against the tailgate, staring back down the road, eyes half-closed against the sunlight.

  “Smack it a couple times,” Julie said, smiling widely. “That’s how I used to get my cellphone to pick up a signal.”

  “It should be working just fine without resorting to physical violence,” Anna retorted.

  “What’s so interesting, Matt?” Mason asked, ending the banter. Both women looked over at the young man, intently studying the road behind them.

  Matt looked over his shoulder at the trio and shrugged. “Not sure. I thought I saw a flash of light back there. Maybe it was just a heat wave. There aren’t any other cars out on this road but us and the junkers.”

  Matt nodded toward one of the abandoned cars they’d dubbed the ‘junkers’ as they passed it by, a bright blue flash of a battered sedan turned up on its side off the edge of the interstate.

  Mason moved to sit next to Matt and began rooting around in his backpack.

  “What’re you doing?” Matt asked.

  “Hunches are a good thing to follow up on,” Mason said, locating the binoculars he’d been searching for in his pack and pulling them free. The strap caught on the zipper and he impatiently yanked it loose, holding the lenses up to his face and studying the road as it led off into the distance behind them.

  “See anything?” Matt asked after a moment of silence.

  “Road,” Mason quipped from behind the binoculars, a grin appearing on what was visible of his face. Suddenly, the grin was gone, replaced by a look of apprehension. “Uh-oh.”

  Far in the distance, just cresting a hill that sloped so gently it was nearly unnoticeable, came a glint of sunlight off of a windshield.

  “Is that a car?” Matt asked, pointing.

  Anna and Julie had abandoned their respective projects and were now crowded around Matt and Mason, looking over their shoulders with anxiety written on their features.

  “No, it’s not a car,” Mason said. His teeth ground together. “It’s a Land Rover. Black.”

  Anna and Julie looked at one another silently, eyes wide with fear.

  “Does that mean what I think it means?” Julie whispered.

  Mason let the binoculars drop to his lap and turned to face the two women. He drew his pistol, so recently cleaned and oiled, slapped in a magazine, and racked a round into the chamber. “Yep. Sawyer’s back.”

  Abraham, Kansas

  March 08, 2007

  0923 hrs_

  FRANCIS SHERMAN STOOD NEAR the border of Abraham, looking out through the chain-link fence as the sun burned the last of the spring fog off of the fields. His hands were clasped behind his back, unconsciously at parade-rest, as he surveyed the surroundings. The night before had been one to remember.

  Unfortunately, he doubted half his entourage would have the capacity to remember it once they woke up. Eileen’s husband’s beer would have seen to that.

  Sherman’s raid on the bandit headquarters had ended up saving the lives and freedom of eleven women and cost the bandits, at their best estimate, a dozen of their number, not to mention a significant portion of their makeshift fortress.

  The people of Abraham were more than overjoyed to hear that news. They’d been taunted and terrorized by the raiders since shortly after the pandemic struck, and five of the rescued women were citizens of the town itself. Further, some of Abraham’s men had been killed when they had defied the raiders abroad. The town was looking for vengeance, and they had found it in Sherman and his soldiers. They had found more than that, though: they had found heroes.

  The night before was a virtual whirlwind of celebration. Cheers and rallies in the streets led to Sherman and the rest attending a dinner in their honor, with freshly baked bread and spring vegetables lining the table. They hadn’t eaten so well in months. All of their food had been prepackaged and preserved. Some of the townsfolk had taken up their instruments and an impromptu concert sprung up. The men and women played whatever tunes they knew, and the people of Abraham had danced and eaten and drank more than their normal share over the course of the evening.

  Especially drank, Sherman thought. Brewster had picked up where he’d left off, downing pint after pint of Eileen’s bitter brown lager, and the last the General had seen of him, he was dancing with one of the girls of the town, barely managing to stay on his feet. Thomas, in true form, had remained aloof, eating quickly and with purpose, politely declining all offers to dance, and then vanished to seek out a bunk to sack out in for the evening.

  Krueger and Denton had spent their evening egging on Brewster and getting the soldier to drink more than he could handle. Sherman had sat close enough to them at the banquet table to overhear them placing bets on the soldier.

  “My good knife says he passes out before six pints,” Denton had said, slapping a K-Bar combat knife down on the table.

  “I’ll see your knife and raise you a survival compass, complete with waterproof matches, that says he makes it to at least seven,” Krueger had said, adding his items to the table.

  “Bet?”

  “Bet.”

  Sherman had chuckled at the scene. He hadn’t paid enough attention to Brewster afterward to find out who was able to collect and who went home the loser, but he’d had enough on his hands.

  The sheriff, Sherman had noticed, was conspicuously absent from the banquet, and as soon as he was politely able, Sherman had excused himself from the celebration and gone off to find the man. He’d failed, and eventually he had turned in, accepting the offer of a bunk at the town mission.

  He’d awakened as the sun rose, did his morning calisthenics in the tiny room in the mission house, dressed, and went outside for a long walk. He’d walked down one side of main street, up the other, and around several of the surrounding blocks, thinking over their current situation.

  The mechanic, Jose, had been so overjoyed at the return of his daughter that he’d nearly kissed Sherman the night before and had promised that he would keep up his end of the bargain and throw in more to boot. He said it would take around a week to effect the repairs, and in the meantime, the group should relax and rest.

  Sherman was just going over the mechanic’s promise when he found himself at the border of Abraham, staring out over the fields at parade rest. The mornings in Abraham were quiet. Nearby, a guard stood in one of the two makeshift towers that protected the only real entrance into Abraham, but the man paid the General no heed. He simply looked out over the same field with a pair of binoculars. Sherman was used to more hustle and bustle in the mornings.

  On the road, when the group began to awake, things always happened very fast. Gear had to be packed up, people had to wash (if possible) and change their clothes, and banter would invariably be shooting back and forth like a ping-pong ball at the Chinese championships. Here in Abraham, people woke up at their own pace, in their own homes. It was almost like things were back to normal—if only the ten-foot chain link fence and makeshift guard tower weren’t there to remind Sherm
an otherwise.

  “Good morning!” came a familiar voice from behind the general. He turned to see Sheriff Keaton approaching, a rifle slung over his shoulder.

  “Good morning yourself, Sheriff,” Sherman said, shaking the man’s hand. “I have to tell you, your people sure know how to play host.”

  “What, that little party last night?” Keaton asked, chuckling. “Not my idea. Sort of an impromptu display of our appreciation, as it were.”

  “I noticed you missed it,” Sherman said. “I was looking for you.”

  “Sorry,” Keaton replied. “I was out patrolling the borders.”

  “Well, the whole thing was very much appreciated,” Sherman said, nodding his approval. “My people really needed something to bring their morale up a bit.”

  “Uh-huh,” Keaton said, also nodding in agreement. He seemed to be holding himself back, and Sherman noticed.

  “Is there something on your mind, Sheriff?” Sherman asked.

  “Well,” Keaton started, then trailed off. “Probably nothing.”

  “Nothing’s nothing,” Sherman disagreed. “Come on, what’re you thinking?”

  “Well, Sherman, you fellows dealt one hell of a blow to those raiders last night,” Keaton said. “It’ll be months before they feel like the kings of this county again.”

  “It was our pleasure, Sheriff,” Sherman said.

  “No, it goddamn well wasn’t,” the sheriff snapped, suddenly angry. He caught himself, took a deep breath, and apologized. “I’m sorry about that, Sherman, but let’s face it, it wasn’t your pleasure. You did what you did because you needed Jose’s help with your big truck. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that,” Keaton went on, holding up his hands to forestall protest, “but it wasn’t because you’re our friends, if you follow.”

  “I follow,” Sherman said, nodding slowly. He felt somewhat subdued. The sheriff’s remarks were dead-on. “Though I’d like to mention that if things keep going the way they’re going, it won’t be long before we’re doing things to help you truly because it is our pleasure to do so, as friends.”