by Jason Offutt
“Ophiocordyceps unilater …” Jenna started.
“If it is determined you are infected with Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, you will then be placed under isolation where you will have no contact with another human being until either the fungus has run its course, or you accept Option Two, which will be discussed in full at that time.”
Bodies. The bodies of all those people lay strewn in rows in the zoo parking lot. Jenna wondered if they chose Option Two.
“Any questions you have,” the soldier continued, “will be answered after you receive a thorough medical evaluation.”
Jenna watched as Nikki’s mouth opened to say something, then closed, her eyes dropped to the pavement. Yeah, babe. From here on out we gotta pick our battles.
The Army made the Nebraska Medical Centre ready for an invasion. A twelve-foot-tall chain-link perimeter fence lined with razor wire surrounded the complex in a two-block radius. Soldiers patrolled the fence, machine gun nests sat atop the three-story parking garage, and other tall buildings around the hospital. That’s just what Jenna could see. She knew there had to be more, a lot more. A soldier in olive drab on guard duty, no biohazard suit here, baby, pulled open the gate and the line of Humvees rolled through.
“When…” Jenna started, but a soldier’s black-gloved palm stopped her. She didn’t try again.
People in biohazard suits – doctors Jenna thought; they didn’t walk like military men – escorted them to different rooms. Two chairs, one a rolling stool, sat next to the wall, a countertop with a sink held glass jars with tongue depressors and Band-Aids; the center of the room dominated by an examination table where she sat in a paper gown. Jenna’s doctor smiled at her through his biohazard hood.
“What’s your name?”
“Jenna. Jenna Elaine Mullins.”
The man scratched her name onto a form on a clipboard. “How old are you, Jenna?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Do you smoke?”
The doctor ran through a long list of medical questions, and no, she’d never had unprotected sex with a man from Algeria before 1985. She wanted to cry, needed to cry. As she lay on the examination table atop a long strip of sterile paper, she knew she couldn’t. Everything she had was gone, taken by something they now called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. Now this whateverthefuck threatened to take the rest, too. The only thing she still had was somewhere in this building, his leg broken. He was in pain; she wanted to stay strong for him.
“Now I’m going to take some blood,” the doctor said, wrapping a rubber hose across her arm just above her elbow. “This will let us know if you have Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. Make a fist. Keep making it. Now … oh, that’s a good vein. You’re just going to feel a little pinch.”
Jenna didn’t see anyone other than a series of male nurses with side arms for three days. On Day Four, her doctor returned, without his biohazard suit; however, a mask covered his nose and mouth, safety glasses covered his eyes.
“Hello, Ms. Mullins,” he said. She thought he smiled under that mask. Jenna wondered if it were a real smile, or just good bedside manner. Sorry, Mrs. Smith, your husband is dying of syphilis, but doesn’t my smile make you feel better? “Every test checked out fine.”
She sat up in bed. “What were you checking for?”
He leaned back into the counter, holding her clipboard to his chest. “HG-17, a mutation of the fungal infection brought on by the antidepressant Ophiocordon, which is made from the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. This mutation is delivered by the fungus itself, after it has consumed a body. From the …”
“Spores,” Jenna said. “Yeah, I saw it. Those stem things explode.”
The doctor nodded. “It comes on like influenza. Aches, pains, slight fever, but after a couple of days HG-17 shuts down the higher functions of the central nervous system, meaning the thought process, and leaves everything else to take care of the fungus’ only function. To reproduce. It’s highly contagious.”
“And I don’t have it?”
“That’s right,” he said. “You’re perfectly healthy.”
“Great. Can I go?”
His smile faded. “It’s not going to be that simple. HG-17 has wiped out a massive part of the world’s population. It’s surprising how many people are on antidepressants, even for me. And I’m a doctor.”
Jenna looked at the doctor’s kind, clean-shaven face closely. “Are these things zombies?” she asked.
The doctor smiled again, then shook his head. “No, of course not, although at the onset of the infection, people do look like something from a George Romero movie. They’re brain dead, and if one bites you…”
“You turn into one, too,” she whispered.
The doctor laughed out loud, the smile behind his mask grew bigger. “No, but you might get a nasty infection if you don’t clean the wound. Human saliva is swimming with bacteria. However, the spores are another story. The government is conducting a massive operation so this fungus doesn’t kill the human race. We’re taking precautions.”
“What does that mean?”
The doctor’s voice smile disappeared. “I think it best you get that from Col. Corson. Now, come on, let’s go see your friends.”
A nurse, the military belt that held a .9mm handgun out of place around purple scrubs, took the doctor’s place in Jenna’s room and stood quietly, his back to her as she got dressed in a pair of hospital scrubs (just until your clothes are washed, the doctor told her), then escorted her to the elevator. When the doors slid shut, he pushed the button marked “B”. Jenna’s stomach lurched as the car dropped. She’d always hated elevators.
“Where are we going?”
“Ma’am,” the nurse said, not taking his eyes off the elevator door. “I’m not authorized to answer that question.”
“You can’t even tell me where you’re taking me?”
He stole a glance at her. “Sorry. Cafeteria. The doctor thought you could use a meal not brought to your room on a tray by a man with a gun.”
“What’s going to happen to me after that?”
“I’m not authorized to answer that question.”
The door slid open after a four-floor drop and they got out, a green line on the floor took them to the cafeteria. The nurse opened the door and held it open. “Ma’am,” he said, nodding at Jenna. She stepped in and he shut the door behind her, a slight click told Jenna he’d locked her in.
Nikki, Terry, and Doug sat at a table lined with steaming bowls of food set up family reunion style; Doug at the end in a wheelchair, his left leg in a cast up to his knee. Jenna ran to him, pounced in his lap and kissed him deeply, his clean-shaven face smooth against her skin. When she finally broke off, he smiled.
“I missed you, too.”
They talked during the meal, the same doctor telling them the same story. They were all healthy and, at least weren’t some kind of fungus monster. Terry drained three beers during the meal; he grabbed a fourth and pushed his plate away.
“They said I could have as many as I want.” He grinned like a kid. “They don’t know me very well, do they?”
A half-hour later the same armed nurse in purple scrubs opened the door; an officer walked in. Terry and Nikki started to stand, but the man shook his head and motioned them to sit.
“No need for that,” he said, his voice firm, but calm, his big face friendly around his breathing filter. He grabbed a chair turned it backward and sat, resting his arms on the chair back. “I’m Col. Corson. I was briefed about your collection.” The word ‘collection’ hung in the air like a heavy cloud. A grin broke across his face. “A bear, huh? If it makes you feel any better, the moron who opened all the cages didn’t make it past the bear. You’re lucky to be here.”
“Was that bear a, a …” Jenna asked.
“Zombie bear?” Corson said. His grin disappeared, his face pure military. “I would say I’m not authorized to say that, but I am. I hate throwing that damned word around, but yes, the bear had
become infected with the HG-17 fungus, and if he’d bitten you …”
“I’d be a zombie?” Terry asked.
The colonel smirked at Terry. “No, you idiot. You’d be in his fucking stomach. It was a goddamned bear. Besides, there ain’t no such things as zombies.” Then he pointed at Nikki, then Jenna, and Doug. “You three, however, might have become infected if you’d waited around for the fungus to kill the bear and send one of those stalks shooting up through its chest.”
“What’s going to happen to us, Colonel?” Doug asked.
“You’ll be relocated,” he said. “To ensure the survival of not only our country, but our species, the United States government has established a number of secure communities in areas of Nebraska, Montana, and Wyoming. There are thousands of survivors like yourself living in these safe, comfortable communities until we get this mess cleaned up.”
“How long do you think that will be?” Nikki asked.
“Not sure, ma’am,” Corson said. “There’s a bus leaving tomorrow morning to take the survivors we’ve collected to this compound. You’ve been assigned to Community Number Six in western Nebraska.”
“Do we have a choice in this?” Doug asked.
The colonel shook his head. “Not any, I’m afraid. Consider this your duty, not just as an American, but as a human. Our race depends on this.”
They couldn’t see their driver. The cab section of the olive drab bus was cut off from the passengers by a sheet of reflective, two-way glass, probably bulletproof. Ten other people sat in the bus that was designed to hold five times that many. A number of the people slept, some cried; in the back, someone coughed.
“How long we been on here?” Terry asked.
Doug shook his head. “I don’t know, four hours, maybe more.”
“I don’t like this,” Nikki said. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“They’re going to kill us,” a gravelly voice said from behind them. A man, too young to sound so rough, leaned over the back of Nikki’s seat.
“How do you know?” Nikki asked.
He scratched his stubbly chin and frowned. “You got that ‘good for the human race’ speech, right?”
She nodded.
“I got the feeling Mr. Military Man thinks I ain’t good for the human race. So, that means you ain’t good for the human race either.” The man leaned back and threw an arm over his face and coughed.
“I think you’re wrong,” Doug said. “They wouldn’t have bothered to fix my leg if they were just going to kill us. Doesn’t make any sense.”
The man finished coughing and snorted snot back into his sinuses. “Whatever. I just ain’t gonna gloat when I’m right.”
July 17: The Community, Western Nebraska
Chapter 40
The “Community” didn’t look anything like any community Doug had ever seen, and he didn’t like it. A soldier in a biohazard suit stepped from the cab of the bus, unlocked and slid open a gate in a fence that stretched as far as Doug could see. Barbed wire lined the top of the fence on metal poles, which pointed inward.
Terry leaned over his seat and whispered to Doug. “That’s not for keeping things out,” he said. “That’s for keeping things in.”
The bus pulled into the Community, tents and Quonset huts labelled by letter and number, A-4, B-5, dotted the ground. The bus door slid open.
“We have now reached your Community,” an emotionless voice spoke over a loudspeaker. “Please disembark and report to the Community Hall for assignment to living quarters, and food distribution policies.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Gravelyman said from behind Nikki. “You can kiss my flag-waving American ass.”
Doug pushed himself to one foot, Jenna helped him with crutches and they left the bus in a line with the other ten people who accompanied them on the nearly five-hour bus ride. With so few people, Doug couldn’t help but think the Army was about finished rounding up survivors. What’s next? Jenna wrapped an arm around him as they walked along a path between the tents and temporary buildings, people, most covered in filth, stared at them with blank, empty eyes.
“Hey, I’m an American citizen, you can’t do this to me, goddamn it,” Gravelyman screamed behind them. A soldier in a biohazard suit dragged the kicking man off the bus and threw him into the dirt. “I’m an American citizen.”
The bus drove back the way it came, and the gate slammed shut. They were prisoners.
“How many people you suppose are here?” Terry asked as they walked slowly toward something they didn’t know. “Hundreds?”
“Thousands,” Doug said.
Nikki shook her head. “I’d say a lot more than that. A lot more.”
“All these people look sick.” Jenna kept close to Doug. “The doctor told me I was fine.”
“Me, too.” Nikki walked next to Terry, the dirty, silent faces that stared at her from open tent flaps and doorways were unnerving.
“Yeah, he told me that. So why are we here?” Terry asked.
“I don’t know, Terry,” Doug said. “Let’s find out.”
Signs led to a large green tent, the sign “Community Hall” hung on a pole high overhead. They walked to the door flap, followed by the stragglers from the bus, the Gravelyman nowhere to be seen. A blank-faced fat man in a Big Bang Theory T-shirt and dirty cargo shorts wobbled past them as Terry held the flap open and they hurried in. Water spigots lined one wall, nearly empty baskets marked “clothes” lined another. A speaker and large red button sat in the center of the tent.
“Push it?” Jenna asked.
Doug and Terry nodded; she wrapped her hand in her shirttail and punched the button.
“Welcome to Community Six,” a computerized voice said. “Water and toilet services are located at various points throughout the compound. Food drops are twice per week. Please take only what you need. Avoid anyone with a cough. Avoid anyone with white eyes. Avoid anyone who won’t respond when you address them. Unclaimed living quarters can be found.” The computer paused. “Between X through Z, twenty-two through fifty-nine. Frequent this Community Hall for updates. Enjoy your stay in the Community.”
“Automated,” Nikki said. “There’s nobody in charge here but us, whoever we are now.”
“What do we do?” a crying woman from the bus asked, bright crimson blood leaked from her nostrils.
Doug grabbed Jenna’s shoulders and pulled her away from the woman. “Let’s find our new home,” he whispered.
As they made their way deeper into the Community, Doug swinging between two crutches, the butt of the metal poles digging into his armpits despite the padding, he knew Nikki was right. There weren’t just thousands of people here. There were tens of thousands, probably a hundred thousand or more.
“That crazy bastard on the bus was right, wasn’t he?” Terry said. “They’re going to kill us.”
Doug gritted his teeth, and stared straight ahead. “I’m starting to think so.”
The tents that lined sections X through Z, twenty-two through fifty-nine, each held two sleeping bags, eating utensils, empty water bottles, two chairs and a chamber pot. Doug and Jenna took one tent, Terry and Nikki another, a bit too close. As the days passed, Doug almost grew comfortable listening to their rutting. A food drop hit the next morning. The roar of military planes pulled Doug from sleep, sunlight slipped through the tent flaps. Pain ached through his leg, the itching under the cast quickly becoming unbearable.
“Hey, Jenna,” he whispered. “There’s a plane. I think we’re getting food.”
She rolled over and opened her eyes; Doug couldn’t believe someone could look so beautiful in the morning, in a tent, in what he knew now was an internment camp. She smiled. “Let’s go.” Dust encrusted people appeared from their tents along with Terry and Nikki, as the airplane flew overhead, a black spot appeared in the sky underneath, and the plane kept flying. A big, white parachute opened above the black spot and the crowd slowly moved to where it fell. The mob might have turned
violent, but it seemed like no one was in a hurry. Most people around them, pulling open boxes, didn’t seem to have the energy to fight over the food. Many of them didn’t look like they could figure out how to open the boxes.
Jenna, Nikki, and Terry each carried a box of canned food back to their tents; Doug limped on crutches behind them.
“What are we going to do, Doug?” Terry asked as they sat on chairs outside Doug’s tent eating cold SpaghettiOs out of cans with plastic spoons. “Just wait?”
“What can we do?” he said, holding up the spoon. “Dig under the fence? I don’t think there’s anything we can do but wait and see what they’re going to do with us.”
Terry almost dropped his breakfast as he broke into a coughing fit. Nikki put a soft hand on his shoulder.
“You okay, bud?” Doug asked, his voice as calm as he could muster, waiting for the blood to shoot from his face, waiting for Terry’s death knell.
Terry wiped tears from his eyes and swallowed hard. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He held up a half-empty water bottle. “Just went down the wrong hole.”
Doug and Jenna woke the next morning to Nikki shaking them. “Jenna, Doug,” she whispered hurriedly. “Wake up. Something’s happening.”
Doug winced as he pulled himself up on the sleeping bag, stiff pain shot through his rebuilt leg.
“What is it?” Jenna asked, following Nikki outside into the warm light of the dawn, the eastern horizon smeared with watercolor. Doug heaved himself into one of the folding metal chairs, “Scotts Bluff UMC” stenciled on the bottom, before he pushed himself onto the crutches and lumbered out through the flap. Nikki stood with Terry and Jenna; she was right, something was happening. A steady hum of far off airplanes played under a long series of distant pops, the ground vibrated slightly like driving over a stretch of rural road.
“What’s going on, boss?” Terry stood in dusty jeans and T-shirt, holding Nikki gently in his arms.
