“What’s going on?” Alec asked. “Davidson called me in and told me that there were riots going on. I get that it has something to do with the virus. Is everyone panicking because they’re worried about supply shortages?”
“You would think that, but it’s not exactly that rational. In past cases, panic over an epidemic probably would spur some overexcited people into stockpiling goods in case things got bad. But you know, things never escalate that far.”
“Then what’s going on now?” Alec asked.
Hardwick grimaced. “I don’t want to over exaggerate, especially when everybody is going crazy over this thing, but it might actually be that bad. Even the station has ordered a bunch of goods in case we have to stay holed up in here. The Washington National Guard has already been called in.”
Alec suspected that he had a drinking problem, but he knew for sure when his first concern about the madness was that he wouldn’t be able to stockpile enough alcohol before things really got out of hand. He made a mental note to stop at the store whenever he was relieved of his daily duties.
“You missed the briefing earlier, so I should probably fill you in,” Hardwick continued. “It’s believed that a lot of people out on the streets right now already have the virus. There are probably some crazies who don’t have it yet, but if they stay out there too long, they’re bound to catch it. Not only do we need to go out there and break up the crowds, but we need to try to determine who’s infected and who’s just a little too riled up about this disease.”
Alec scoffed. He knew this game too well. “How the hell are we supposed to do that? We’re not trained doctors. I can’t perform a blood test on every person who looks a little crazy. That’s just about everybody.”
“I know,” Hardwick said softly. “All I know is that I just want to get the streets cleared as quickly as possible without getting hurt. My family has been stuck inside for days, and the last thing I want is for something to happen to me. Or worse,” he said grimly, “I don’t want to be the one bringing the virus into our home.”
Alec nodded, but he wondered if anyone would really miss him if he were gone. He was single, and his family lived out of the state. Plus, things weren’t great at work, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever have the chance to rise through the ranks again. If he caught the virus, would anyone even care? Would he just quietly ride out the symptoms at home and pass on?
He shook the thoughts out of his head. He had just read an article that described the psychological effects the virus had on the body. Catching the disease meant that he would probably put others in harm’s way. That was the last thing he wanted.
The reason he became a cop in the first place was because he truly cared about the safety and wellbeing of everyone—those he knew, and those he didn’t know. While traffic stops and busting teen parties were just an annoying part of the job, he really cared about the big stuff. He wanted to rescue children from abusive homes, stop violent offenders from hurting or killing citizens, and maybe even save the odd cat stuck in a tree. He wanted to do good in a world that so badly needed it.
Alec was walking to the breakroom for one final cup of coffee before going out when the memory of the last time he went out on patrol hit him. He slumped into the chair, the memory of what happened overwhelming his senses.
Before the virus became well-known, he had been sent out on a call about a belligerent woman causing all sorts of problems. Being newly promoted, he was eager to scope out the situation. He drove out to a shopping center to find a crowd gathering outside. In the middle of the commotion, a teenage girl wielded a steak knife at strangers in the crowd.
Chaos ensued. Even though people were running from the scene, it seemed as though just as many were running to watch. Something about violence really drew a crowd. When he saw what was happening, he immediately called for backup.
The first thing he tried to do was clear the entrance of the mall. Alec shouted for everyone to back away and go home, but there were still gawkers standing around with their phones out, ready to take a video of the young attacker.
The thin, blonde girl in her school’s cheerleading uniform was covered in blood. Alec wasn’t sure if it was hers or someone else’s. He called out to her to get her to stop, but she didn’t listen. It was as if she could hear that he was making noises, but she had no idea what he was saying.
After a few attempts at telling her to drop her weapon, the young officer approached her. She was pretty small and starting to get tired, so Alec knew that if he lunged at her, he could tackle her and hold her down for long enough to get handcuffs on her.
After one final plea for her to drop her weapon, he strode toward her, gaining speed with each step. Instead of carrying on in her dozy manner, she suddenly became enraged, as if she were possessed by a demon. She screamed a high-pitched howl and raced toward him, the blade of the knife aimed straight for his neck.
What happened in that next split second was still hazy for Alec. He remembered seeing her coming toward him, but he couldn’t remember any thoughts or memories he had before he drew his gun and pulled the trigger. The witnesses said that he was completely silent as he took one perfect shot to her chest.
Alec’s body camera and all of the witnesses with cellphones painted a perfectly clear picture of what happened. He was well within his right to use deadly force as she was running straight toward him with a weapon in an attempt to seriously wound or kill him. Legally, he did nothing wrong.
However, there was some controversy surrounding his case. Many argued that he could have stopped her with a non-lethal weapon or simply shot her in the leg. The girl was so small that a lot of people figured a man of his stature could stop her with a takedown maneuver.
But, as the autopsy report proved, the girl was suffering from an early mutation of the virus. She was perhaps the first that mania was associated with. Her brain had become so addled by the disease that the honor student went into a rage. First, she cut herself to release the pathogens in her body, then she tried to attack others so they would become infected. By stopping her from cutting anyone, Alec had saved a large crowd of people from becoming infected. That didn’t make him feel any better about it though.
The police department decided to put Alec on leave for a little bit. He was allowed to do paperwork and write reports, but he couldn’t go out into the field again until the police chief deemed him ready.
That was fine with Alec. He was really shaken up about it and had no interest in getting himself back into a position like that. He told the chief that he’d take one week at home and then he’d come in to do administrative work. But two weeks had passed, and it wasn’t looking like he would return anytime soon.
So, it was apparent to Alec that something had gone terribly wrong if they wanted him to work. He tried to push the incident with the girl into the back of his head and focus on the fact that his city needed his protection.
“Good to see you, Lawrence,” Officer Davidson said. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“You were the one who called me in,” he replied.
Davidson looked him up and down as if he could tell his mental state from a cursory glance. “I wouldn’t have called you if I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary. If you get into any trouble, I want you to come straight back here and we can deal with it, okay?”
Alec furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure what kind of trouble I’m going to get into when I don’t even have a gun.”
Davidson blinked slowly and sighed. “I think I’ve changed my mind on my previous stance.”
He handed Alec the key to the gun safe.
“Understand that we want as little violence as possible today, but you need to protect yourself if you find yourself in extreme danger. Especially,” he added, “since many of those causing this problem might not have much time to live as it is.”
3
Dr. Bretton Vincent sat tensely in his leather armchair in his home office. Today, like every other day for t
he past few weeks, he sat with a cup of coffee—or scotch, depending on his mood—and watched the news.
He watched to get a good sense about what was going on in the world without actually going out there to see it himself. Plus, he was occasionally mentioned, and he liked that celebrity status. Furthermore, he needed to ensure the stories that involved him suited his best interests. He needed the truth to be heard. Elaina Morgan, his associate, had created a dangerous virus strain which was causing complete pandemonium in Seattle. In no time, it would spread across the world.
When he really thought about it, he couldn’t stand Elaina. Thirteen years her senior, he was on equal footing with her when it came to their careers. He worked his ass off and earned his doctorate while trying to raise a daughter with his ex-wife. He was just starting out in his dream job, beginning to get noticed, when this girl strolled into his lab.
She was fresh off her dissertation and thought she ruled the field. What she had accomplished was impressive, but when Bretton considered the facts, it made sense why she had done so much in such a short amount of time.
Throughout his academic years, he lived a very well-rounded life. He was active in extracurricular activities in his undergraduate years. Then, he met his wife, married her, had a child, and divorced her within ten years. All of this happened while studying for his doctorate.
Elaina, on the other hand, had few life experiences. From what he gathered, she had all the personality of an empty Petri dish. From childhood, she did nothing but study. She had no friends, no family, and no romantic partners. When you replace everything that makes life interesting with academia, you’re bound to impress people. But at what cost? If Bretton didn’t despise her so much, he might have felt sorry for Elaina.
But it was hard to feel pity for someone who annoyed him day in and day out. Although he felt sick and could hardly sleep about what had happened in his lab, it made him feel a little better to know that she was getting all the heat for it. For once, it paid to be a supporting character in the cast. His time was coming, though. He had waited in the shadows long enough. Soon, he would be a star.
Bretton Vincent knew something that very few people knew to be true—while he didn’t create the Morgan Strain, he was solely responsible for releasing it into the outside world.
Perfect little Elaina Morgan had created the strain in an attempt to introduce a virus that was capable of attacking cancer cells without causing harm to the patient. In early tests in mice and rats, it appeared that her plan was working exactly how she wanted it to.
This was too much for Bretton. It was already too much for him to bear that some young girl took over his lab, but for her to discover something that could potentially cure cancer would kill him. If she succeeded, he would forever be a lowly assistant for some savant freak.
In early tests, the virus killed cancer in rodents, but not without leaving them with horrible boils. These lesions eventually went away, but it turned them into disgusting little critters. He figured if he could infect a few healthy people, they would believe that what she was doing was harmful and shut down her strain.
In the meantime, it was Bretton’s plan to work on a way to create a virus with all of the same benefits while removing all side effects. Once he figured out how to do that, the Vincent Virus would probably win a Nobel Peace Prize. He would be more rich and famous than he ever thought a scientist could be.
But, he got too greedy after launching his plan. He started working on his new strain immediately. He managed to fix whatever was causing the sores, but somewhere along the line, he went terribly wrong. Focused on the wrong aspects of the virus, he didn’t account for any other side effects. He ran a few quick trials on rodents, realized that they weren’t showing outward signs of illness, and decided that he was finished. His plan was moving a lot faster than he thought it could.
With two tiny vials of the virus, he decided to run his own human trials. Not fully confident in his work, he found two interns new to the lab and infected their lunches in the breakroom fridge. As far as he knew, they were both perfectly healthy, so the virus shouldn’t have shown any side effects.
Unfortunately, he was dead wrong. The interns showed no visible signs of illness in the first two days, so Bretton thought he was home free. He even started writing his research proposal after making casual small talk with them to ensure they were okay.
Then the symptoms developed.
Coincidentally, both interns called in sick on the third day. Lab management didn’t think anything of it. College kids spread diseases like kindergarteners.
But after the second day of their absence from the lab, Dr. Vincent made a personal call to them. Trying not to give away the nature of his call, he asked the students how they were feeling. They both reported high fevers, chills, stomach cramps, and strangely enough, mood swings. He wished them well, told them to get rest, and promised to check up on them later. He assured them that they’d just caught the influenza virus that was going around and if things got worse, he’d personally bring them a week’s dose of antiviral medication.
Being inexperienced with viruses, they didn’t realize that antiviral medication only worked when taken at the first sign of symptoms. But, since an expert was telling them that he would take care of them, they listened.
Instead, Bretton used them as his own human guinea pigs. He charted their symptoms for about a week before giving them a medication to help with their symptoms.
Within two weeks, the interns were feeling much better and had returned to work. But, as most busy college students can attest, just because they are allowed to stay home from their internship, it doesn’t mean that they stayed at home. The University of Washington’s student health records showed that shortly after the interns became ill, one hundred and thirty-five students were treated for flu-like symptoms.
Bretton was in deep trouble, and he knew it. If anyone realized that he was the one behind the virus, he would surely get fired and wouldn’t be able to work in another lab ever again. He either needed the virus to stop spreading, or he needed someone to pin it on.
In the end, only one option would work. As the epidemic took over the city, he leaked to the newspapers that Elaina Morgan’s experiment had gone terribly wrong and was causing people to become very sick. With no better information to go on, they took his story and ran with it. Eventually, Elaina had to go into hiding because the press and the general public were after her.
Bretton, on the other hand, was in pretty good shape. With Elaina gone, he could appear to be the hero in the department. Then, he would have all of his assistants at his disposal, helping him work on a cure or a vaccine. When it was ready, everyone would recover and the disease could be eradicated.
“Dad?” Bretton’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Natalia, asked him as she peeked her head into the study. “Are you busy?”
He took off his glasses and rubbed his temples. “Nope. What’s up?”
“One of my friend’s cars was broken into last night. It was weird, because nothing was stolen from it. All of the windows were smashed and the paint is all scratched up.”
“That sucks,” Bretton said. “Did your friend call the police?”
“Yeah, but they told her that they have so many of those reports that they probably can’t send an officer over until next week. Can you believe that? What’s going on out there? I used to think Seattle was safe.”
Bretton pursed his lips. Even though he only saw his daughter a few times a week, he still felt like he did a pretty good job raising her. She would be attending the University of Washington in the fall and had already decided that she was going to pursue a future in nursing.
She still spent most of her time with her mother, who was always a little more nurturing. Bretton tried, but he was never quite sure how to interact with a teenage girl. He found that she liked his money, so he often replaced human interaction with material gifts.
“I know things are a little crazy right now, but I�
��m sure everything will settle down soon. This is a good city with good people. There’s always the riffraff that hang in the shadows, but the police will put them back where they belong. Don’t worry about that.”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ve seen the news. It’s not just poor people out there looting stores. I’ve seen footage of women and men in business suits throwing bricks through storefronts. They say it has to do with the virus that’s going around. How could a virus cause people to act like that?”
He shook his head. “Whatever Elaina Morgan created was an act against nature. She created a madness in otherwise healthy people. But you don’t have to worry about catching it. All you have to do is avoid crowded places and wash your hands well after being with other people. No spending time with boys, do you understand?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve hardly left the house in the past week. I don’t think that’s going to be a concern.”
He smiled and turned back to the television. There was a new story about riots. The mayor was now urging all residents to stay at home and only go to work if absolutely necessary. He stressed that evacuation would not be necessary.
The color drained from Bretton’s face.
If the government was trying to downplay the scope of the virus and discouraging people from leaving the city, then he knew that it must be bad. He knew that the city would soon become a quarantine chamber and the virus would spread and kill everyone off before they had a chance to run.
“Pack a bag, Natalia,” he said flatly, turning off the television. “We’re going to your grandmother’s house for a little while.”
“But the news just said that everyone should just stay in the city.”
“I know more about this than you do,” Bretton argued. “Pack your suitcase. We’re leaving in an hour.”
“How long are we staying?” she asked.
“Just for a few days,” he lied, not sure how long it would take for everything to blow over. He wasn’t even sure if they’d ever make it back to Seattle. He could try to work on a cure from any lab in the world. All he needed were good colleagues who could put in a lot of long hours.
Last Man Standing (Book 3): Zombie Decimation Page 24
