by Guy James
“Fat, pig-like man,” she muttered. “Just like my son. A hell of a lot uglier though, I tell you.”
Milt watched the proprietor muse go. Then he got to his feet and sat down on the edge of the bed facing the broken window.
“Quite a pity,” he said, looking at his defunct van. “A truly irreplaceable artifact has passed on.” Milt sighed. “But this is insignificant in the larger picture that is my journey. The plan is in motion and there is no point dwelling on lost relics, great though they may have been. Now I shall collect myself, and then I shall proceed to the appropriately-named Convenience Market across the street, where I shall purchase some liters of Coca-Cola and several bags of Snickers treats with which to mull over the great events that I have, in my unlimited bravery and commitment to the greater good of the universe, set into motion.”
He stood, and his higher vantage point allowed him a fuller view of the abandoned, partially quartered van.
“Still, it is a pity that the ripened van revealed itself to be an unreliable ally in my quest,” he said, shifting unsteadily on his feet in an effort to remain upright. “It tugs at my quite ample heart strings.”
Then Milt remembered that the proprietor muse was to bring him some sustenance in partial recompense for the tragic events that had just befallen him at her establishment. “Yes,” he said, “that is so. I shall wait for her, then cross the street in order to acquire further delicacies.”
Milt stood waiting until the proprietor returned. She walked in, a freshly-lit cigarette protruding from her sallow lips. Held out in front of her, she carried a plastic tray overflowing with steaming onion rings and mozzarella sticks.
“This is my son’s favorite snack,” she said. “Two parts onion rings mixed with one part mozzarella sticks. Seeing as how you two have pretty much the same build, I figured you’d like it too.”
She stood in front of Milt, offering him the tray.
Suddenly, Milt lost control of himself and his arms jerked upward, upending the tray and sending the hot, precisely prepared mélange of onion rings and mozzarella sticks flying up into the air over the proprietor muse’s head.
Milt lurched forward, grabbed the proprietor by the shoulders, pulled her toward him, and bit her neck, tearing into her jugular vein. She screamed as her knees buckled and fried food rained down on top of their heads.
Overcome by flesh-eating spasms, Milt twisted his head back and forth until he had torn away a substantial piece of the proprietor’s neck. The torn and bloody piece of neck flesh hung askew from his mouth. He growled, victorious.
The proprietor of the Lucky Charm Motel fell backward on top of the art print in its broken frame. She began to convulse in a growing puddle of her own blood.
Milt’s mind returned to him and he looked in disgusted horror at what he had done. He spat the torn flap of neck flesh from his mouth and wiped his blood-stained tongue, lips, and chin with a sleeve. He spat several times, trying to rid his mouth of the taste of the proprietor muse’s blood, which had a cigarette tang to it that Milt found especially disagreeable.
“What a muddle I have made here,” Milt said. He wiped his mouth again and looked at the proprietor muse’s body in disgust. “Will she continue to bring me mental clarity after she transforms? Is she even capable of transformation? Should I leave this place?”
Milt sat down in a lotus position in front of the proprietor’s body, closed his eyes, and focused his mind. As soon as he began to evaluate this new development in the grander scheme of his plan, intermittent thoughts of the scattered onion rings and mozzarella sticks pierced his focus and distracted him. Milt pushed the thoughts away and went deeper into his mind. Then he decided.
“This minor infection is irrelevant to the approaching, larger infection. I shall let it grow in this motel and it shall be a beautiful, small epicenter in the place where the large epicenter was seeded. It shall have an artistic quality, inspired by none other than the hideous proprietor muse, whose looks were stripped from her by this world and replaced with an unrivaled ability to stir the creative juices in those around her.”
Milt opened his eyes. The proprietor’s convulsions were becoming less violent and less frequent. The running of blood from her neck was slowing. Her sallow skin was losing even its sickly yellow color.
“There is naught left for me to accomplish here. I am now to linger and pass the time until the moment is ripe for me to embark on my journey to...” Milt grinned. “To the city where dreams are made.”
The room’s heater emitted a rasping sound and gave out, admitting defeat to the unending onslaught of cold air that was coming in through the broken window. As Milt picked up and calculatingly ate the scattered fried food, the temperature in the room plunged.
12
CITY HALL, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
“You’ve taken to your position,” Mallory said, “that of New York City’s first Outbreak Contingency Planner, quite naturally. Like you were made for it.”
Sven shrugged. “Unfortunately, I think I was. The outbreak made me for it, and after surviving the outbreak, I see a lot of what could go wrong here, if the same thing, God forbid, was to happen here.”
“God forbid.” Mallory took a deep breath. “So here you are, deep in the chill of a New York winter, the frenzy of the mayoral inauguration behind you. You’ve begun to evaluate New York City’s vulnerability to an outbreak, our chances of surviving, and contingency plans. I understand that a number of your plans are being implemented already. Can you tell me about some of the initiatives that are coming out of your office?”
“Sure,” Sven said. “Basically, we’re working to implement all of the strategies that we campaigned with. So, while the scientists are hard at work studying the information we were left with so that they can prevent another outbreak, my role is to ensure the survival of as many New Yorkers as possible in the event of another outbreak. Survival actually encompasses a broad set of strategies, because there are a lot of different angles that it can be approached from. The most effective way to promote survival is to educate people on how to be prepared for an outbreak and how to act during an outbreak, so our efforts are currently concentrated on providing people with educational resources and access to survival resources so that individuals and families can be prepared for an outbreak.
“I’m spending a lot of my time here preparing, reviewing, and helping to distribute informational materials that expand on the information that we provided during the campaign. I think that the more detail we can provide to people, and the more examples we can give, the better prepared everyone will be. Our number one distribution priority right now is the schools. School administrators need to know exactly what to do, and children need a clear set of instructions on how to behave in an outbreak situation.”
“Can you take me through the basics of what some of these instructions are?”
“Absolutely,” Sven said. “I think it’s helpful to go through how to act in different settings. Maybe we can talk about the school setting, the apartment or house setting, and the street setting. Do you think we have time for that?”
“Of course,” Mallory said. “I do, anyway.”
“Great.”
“As you know, the overarching strategy is to get to a safe hiding place with supplies, where you can wait out the outbreak. From our limited experience with the virus, we know that the infection is more or less self-contained, and as long as people don’t come in contact with infected individuals or the virus itself, they remain unharmed. The first step in being able to get to your safe place, even before having a safe place, is avoiding exposure to the odor that the virus generates in infected individuals.
“To that end, New York City has entered into contracts with manufacturers of gas masks, and I believe that the latest numbers have mask distribution throughout the city at about seventy percent. We’re not there yet, but we’ve done a great job considering the short amount of time we’ve had to distribute the masks. In another week o
r two, we project that the distribution number will be over ninety percent. We’re encouraging New Yorkers to have their masks with them at all times. It’s another thing to carry, but considering the danger that we’re working against, it’s worth it.”
Mallory nodded. “I’ve got mine in my bag right now—” she patted her bag, which sat on the floor beside her chair, “—and some replacement filters for it, too.”
“That’s good. And with the masks we’ve been providing pamphlets that describe proper mask use and care, and there are demonstration videos on the New York City Outbreak Readiness Public Forum website that we established. The videos have only been up for a few weeks now, and one of them has over forty million views, so we’re confident that most, if not all New Yorkers have watched them, and other Americans are watching, too.”
“So in that sense,” Mallory said, “New York City is being a leader in outbreak preparedness, as Mr. Melling hoped. The rest of the country is watching, literally.”
“Right. Okay, so, the idea is that at the first sign of infection, New Yorkers put on their masks and move to their hideouts, then—”
“Sorry,” Mallory said. “Can we talk about some of the signs first, so that we know what’s prompting us to put the masks on?”
“Oh, you’re right. I’m getting ahead of myself here. Before putting their masks on, we’re telling New Yorkers to look for the telltale signs of an outbreak, and we advise caution above all else, so if you have any doubt about what you’re seeing, put the mask on and wait until the situation becomes clearer or we issue an official alert on the New York City Outbreak Readiness Public Forum. The physical symptoms to watch for in others are extreme loss of coordination, rapid degeneration of the skin and body tissues, and attempts by the infected to grab and bite uninfected individuals.
“An infected person’s appearance and behavior are so severe that I don’t think anyone would have much trouble recognizing the condition. What we’re trying to do here now is get ahead of that, so people won’t have to make that kind of judgment in a dangerous situation. We’re working to put an early warning system in place that would warn of the presence of the virus before it develops full-blown symptoms in any of the infected.”
“So you have access to the virus?”
Sven looked at Mallory and saw that she was focusing all of her attention on him now, as if everything hinged on the answer to this question.
“No,” Sven said, and Mallory deflated. “That’s one of the problems that we’re experiencing in trying to develop a system that’s truly an early warning system. Like I said, none of the samples of the virus gathered in Virginia survived for more than a few days after the end of the outbreak, even in laboratory conditions.”
“Any idea why that is?”
“No. Harry has organized a group of scientists who are independently trying to dig up some information that would help us, but they haven’t been able to answer that question so far, and I don’t have much leeway in what I can say about their activities.”
“Okay,” Mallory said. “Fair enough. Let’s return to survival in the event of an outbreak. In our hypothetical situation, a New Yorker has spotted the signs of an infection and has put on his mask. What does he do next?”
“Next, he goes to a safe location that has been set up in advance for the specific purpose of living through an outbreak. This location must be sealed off so that the infected can’t get into it, and it must be strong enough to withstand their attempts to get in. Fortunately, from the perspective of reinforcing your safe location I mean, the infected are not able to mount coordinated attacks. That means that wherever you’re staying has to be strong enough to resist masses of infected piling onto the door, but not attempts to pick locks or find alternative ways in. They can’t climb or devise plans, so your safe location has to be strong, but not elaborately made. The location must also be stocked with enough food, water, and other supplies to allow the survivor to make it through the duration of the outbreak.”
“Where would this location be for most New Yorkers?”
“This is where the settings come in,” Sven said. “In the school setting, school administrators would be charged with the role of leading the students to safety. To make that possible, Harry and I have been recommending the creation of safe rooms in all schools ever since we began campaigning, and we’re extremely happy to see that a good percentage of schools in New York City jumped on the recommendation and already have functional safe rooms set up either on location or in locations close enough to the schools that they are workable options.”
“Do you know the percentage off-hand?”
“I believe it’s in the low forties right now, and given the short amount of time that school administrators have had to do this, and the large amount of space and resources that are necessary to set safe rooms up for groups of students, I think the amount that’s been accomplished so far is incredibly encouraging.”
“Wow,” Mallory said, “that is encouraging.”
Sven smiled. “Yeah, and the school administrators now have clear instructions on what to do in an outbreak and they have begun to run safe room drills with their students on a regular basis.”
“In a nutshell, what happens after students are escorted to the safe room?”
“Basically, the school administrators and the students wait out the outbreak. The safe rooms are stocked with enough supplies to last up to six days, which is significantly longer than the expected duration of an outbreak. The Virginia outbreak lasted about two days, so we’re putting a buffer on top of that with respect to the supplies we’re requiring that safe rooms contain.” Sven smiled to himself, noting his own use of the phrase, “with respect to.” It was a phrase that Harry used often, and that Sven’s speaking coaches encouraged Sven to use. And he just had, and it had come naturally. He was starting to sound just like a real politician.
“Requiring?”
“Oh, right. I meant that we’re placing certain requirements on safe rooms that will be or could potentially be used by students. We can’t require that all New Yorkers do the same for their personal safe rooms, which in a lot of cases will be their apartments, but we do advise at least six days worth of supplies for everyone.”
“What about the schools that aren’t set up with safe rooms yet?”
“Our instructions to them are to either get their students to the nearest public safe room, which we’ll talk about in a few minutes, or to set up a makeshift safe room with whatever is at hand. We have a very detailed set of instructions for that circumstance, but the hope is that enough safe rooms will be set up in a short amount of time.”
“Is there a safe room at Stuyvesant High School, where Lorie is a student?”
“Yes,” Sven said.
“Can it accommodate all the students? Stuyvesant High School has a very large student body.”
“Two safe rooms were created, and the facilities that were available were expanded to make room for all the students.”
“That was fast.”
“We’re very happy with the progress that was made there. The principal at Stuyvesant has been extremely enthusiastic about getting all the necessary infrastructure in place as quickly as possible.”
“That’s excellent,” Mallory said. She shuffled through her notes. “Okay so tell me about the other two settings that you mentioned. I understand what will happen with students and school administrators while school is in session. What happens with people who are at home or just on the street?”
“We advise people who are at home to—once they’ve put on their masks—secure their safe rooms, which are in their homes or which the whole of their homes are. In Manhattan, for example, I don’t expect that many people will have a separate safe room that isn’t the whole of their apartment, unless they have an existing, and large, panic room that can be adapted for purposes of surviving an outbreak. And this is why we’ve been advising the adaptation of apartments to safe rooms with such urgency, because th
e fitting out of apartments that will make them survival capsules requires planning and is time consuming. We’ve tried to streamline the process as much as possible by preparing sample to-do lists of modifications that need to be put in place and by coming together with a group of vendors who have made themselves available for modification work at or below cost.”
“So New Yorkers who learn of an outbreak while they are in their homes should stay inside and secure their apartments, or their smaller safe rooms if they have those, and wait for further guidance?”
“That’s correct.”
“Okay, what about the final setting that you wanted to talk about, that of the New Yorker who is out on the street when an outbreak hits?”
Sven nodded. “This is where we encounter some problems. In theory, the New Yorker who is out on the street has two options: go to the nearest public safe room, or try to get home as quickly as possible to his apartment safe room. The problem is that the public safe rooms are still under construction, and due to the large number of New Yorkers who might need to be accommodated in these locations, it may be a while before adequate public safe rooms are available. Funding is a problem here also.”
“Do you have any idea of a timeline for completion of the public safe rooms?”
“At the current rate and with a lot of help in terms of funding, it’s hard to say. We’re still working on a projected timeline.” Sven knew that they would be working on the projected timeline for a while, because it was on the order of years, and the longer Harry’s administration could put off admitting that, the better.
“So, if an outbreak hit next week, for example, are there any public safe rooms that would be available?”
“Unfortunately,” Sven said, “no. Currently, there are no functional public safe rooms. There’s been a lot of red tape that Harry and I have been working through to get the public safe rooms underway. We’re hoping that we’ll have at least one functional public safe room within six weeks. The space exists, so it’s just a matter of getting it and converting it.”
