Contagious

by Druga, Jacqueline

  “I will.”

  “Don’t wait too long.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  “Amita, know that there is no shame in saying you are done and you need to be with your family.”

  “I know this.”

  Before Amita could get emotional, Tony squeezed into the picture. He was smiled. “Hey, honey. I bet you’re dancing a jig there.”

  “Over?” Amita asked.

  “The cure. We heard the President’s speech. Won’t be long until we see you.”

  “Tony, you stay there until I say so. Please?”

  “Sure,” Tony said. “Are you coming?”

  “No matter what, I’ll be there in a few days.”

  “Good. Good. And this cure ... the one they’re talking about. It works, right?” Tony asked. “I mean, they wouldn't say anything if it didn’t.”

  “It shows promise.”

  “Then it works.”

  Amita paused before answering, then forced a smile so as not to worry her family. “I hope.”

  The Missing Piece - 3

  The Crucial Error

  SATURDAY, MAY 9

  This is how it ended.

  Valerie Holstein started her shift as a New York Department of Health physician in Infectious Diseases division. She started it at three am. She had a team of four health professionals. A small team that would work as hard and diligently as the previous shift.

  Those who had been given the experimental vaccine were moved to a large FEMA tent outside of County General. Like most, she was not privileged to know what the vaccine was; only that it was a curable virus that was defeating BV-1. Any virus that beat the global killer was a good virus.

  She arrived for shift an hour before hand, excited to find out how things were going.

  Her job was simply to oversee the patients and to have her team get blood to turn over to the CDC. She couldn’t help it, she kept calling. She loved hearing the positive progress reports.

  We did it, she thought, we’re kicking its ass.

  Eight hours after receiving the vaccine, the patients showed remarkable recovery. Fever dropped, coughing stopped, no cold or flu symptoms. And the previous shift reported, when they went into take blood at midnight, the patients were relaxed and hungry.

  When Valerie arrived at two am, the last rounds had been made a half an hour earlier. It reported that all patients were resting and asleep.

  Things were moving like a factory, take blood, turn it over, run tests.

  Valerie was anxious to see what the four am blood tests would show. She was certain by morning it was a complete recovery.

  It was indeed on its way to being a miracle cure. She was even downgraded to a face respirator instead of full bio hazard suit. That was hopeful.

  Until Valerie walked into the quarantine tent.

  The dimly lit room was an optical illusion at first. The blue hue misrepresented peacefulness. She was early but she wanted to take a peek.

  It was when she grabbed the clipboard, that she heard a rattling, it was steady, like a drum. Walking into the tent, the illusion cleared and she saw not a single patient.

  Gone.

  Every cot was empty.

  No one person was in the tent.

  Except the source of the noise. One patient remained. A woman that thrashed back and forth on her cot.

  “We have a problem,” Valerie radioed. “Everyone is gone.”

  ‘Gone as in passed away?” he supervisor asked.

  “No gone as in gone. Only one remains.” Valerie rushed over to the convulsing patient. Her head thrashed side to side. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. A thick pink foam seeped from her mouth. It sprayed everywhere. A speck of it landed on Valerie’s cheek. Valerie called for help and a sedative. Whatever was happening to the woman wasn’t the BV virus, it was a result of the cure.

  Thinking ahead, Valerie braced the woman’s arm, reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out one of the hubs for taking blood.

  Assistance arrived quickly, and Valerie gave the woman a sedative. After waiting for it to take effect and feeling it was safe, Valerie proceeded to draw blood. She removed the single tube and leaned over to check on the patient.

  Surprising Valerie, the woman sprang to a sitting position, screamed out, her arms waved frantically, and in doing so, scratched Valerie on the side of the face.

  It wasn’t a bad scratch. It barely bled.

  Valerie cleaned it and even took a dose of antiviral as a precaution.

  The CDC and WHO personnel on hand agreed it had to be something to do with the cure. But where did everyone else go? Did they feel fine and get up and leave?

  It wasn't even four am when Valerie started feeling poorly. She had chills and a headache that made her feel as if her brain were going to explode. Her thoughts grew foggy. She was smart enough to know, something was wrong and she stayed in a back office.

  The last Valerie looked at her phone to check the time it was nearing four thirty in the morning. A man came into the office and said something about staying in and staying safe. Things were going crazy outside.

  She didn’t process anything that he told her. She never heard him tell her that the cure mixed with the virus created a strain that was far worse than BV would ever be.

  Even though Valerie knew the man for five years, at that point, when he walked into that back office, she hadn’t a clue who he was, what he said or what he was doing. All she knew is that he made her angry. So angry. In fact, Valerie was so enraged and when he approached, she felt threatened and her defenses kicked in. She kicked, screamed and scratched him, then after nearly stumbling over his fallen body, she fled for her life.

  She ran and didn’t stop running. She struck out at anyone that got in her way. She scratched them, bit them and spit at them. Whatever it took to stay alive. Valerie had never felt so much rage. She wondered why everyone was trying to hurt her. Her instinct was to fight to stay alive.

  What Valerie didn’t realize was that it wasn’t everyone … it was her.

  No one was trying to hurt her.

  Valerie was sick. Instantly infected with the hybrid virus.

  One that moved fast and furiously.

  Had she been in the right frame of mind, she would have heard her colleague say, “I don’t think we can beat this one. What have we done?”

  Valerie never heard him. She only saw red when she raced from the hospital grounds.

  She made it to the end of the hospital property and then she was stopped.

  Shot.

  Unfortunately, before being killed, through a simple scratch or speck of saliva, Valerie infected another twelve people.

  Chapter 16

  Cleveland, OH

  SATURDAY, MAY 9

  Randall was done. Not that his work was complete, but there was nothing more to do. In a nutshell he gave into peer pressure and it ended up going against what his gut told him.

  New York officials reported that shortly after midnight, those receiving the vaccine, which in fact was the rabies virus, were nearly recovered. Treatment against rabies commenced. They expected a full recovery of patients by eight AM.

  After all, rabies, if caught before symptoms developed, was treatable.

  So when Cleveland officials asked them at midnight to administer the miracle antidote to the twenty people at the hospital that were infected, Randall said ‘why not’. After all, not an hour before, Senator Adams and his crew had been given rabies.

  No sooner had he initiated doses of rabies, then he received the news. Not three hours later, he was informed that around the ten hour post treatment mark, the virus returned with a vengeance and mixed with the rabies made for not only a rage induced patient, but a highly contagious one at that.

  ‘If we thought BV was fast, this knocks it out of the park,’ said a colleague, “it is very scary to look at under the microscope.’

  Basically, the rabies, even the tiny dose, entered the blood stream and it didn�
��t defeat the virus. Unlike anything they had ever seen, the rabies broke up the BV virus into cell like structures. After ten hours, the cells regrouped, and mutated with the rabies virus, creating a monster of an infection.

  It consumed the blood stream and bodily fluids so much that the simplest amount meant infection to a new host. The hybrid virus entered the blood stream, took over the new victim and in some cases, as soon as fifteen minutes, the victim showed outward signs.

  The only positive aspect of it, at the rate the cells reproduced within the body, like BV, the BV-R strain, killed its host just as fast. In two days they’d be dead.

  But in the interim, how much damage could one single person cause?

  Enough that one health care worker in New York, infected with BV-R, attacked and infected, nearly twelve people before she was shot. One of those she delivered a death sentence to, was responsible for passing the virus on to over thirty more.

  It was out of control.

  While the few in Cleveland that received rabies were in good spirits and feeling better, Randall knew their fate.

  And knowing their fate, knowing what was happening in New York, what would happen in Cleveland and Cincinnati, Randal placed a call to Amita and then quietly slipped away. He was going to head to the mountains.

  Had he answered his phone or been there, he would have received the instructions to terminate those who had received the rabies treatment.

  Randall wasn’t there, the instructions would arrive to his colleagues much too late and those with the mightier strain, would wreak their havoc until their death.

  <><><><>

  Mobile Lab – Ambassador Suites

  Europe didn’t run with the test vaccine of rabies versus BV. They just decided to let the pandemic sweep across the continent, each potential victim waiting for it like a repeat of the black plague history.

  But there was one similarity that Amita saw between all other countries and the United States. Total breakdown of society. Riots, power outages, pillaging. Violence at the airports as people tried to get out. When news of New York reached the mobile lab before it went public, the final CDC workers asked to leave.

  It was over according to them. Once the riots started, once the infrastructure fell and the President gave that speech, they knew, like Amita, it was a matter of time before it hit bottom. Civilization whether it survived the virus or not would have to rebuild. It had hit that point.

  Amita simply told the workers to go.

  There were two diligent soldiers holding post and Amita told them, they too, could leave if they wanted to. There was nothing to protect the city from when the city was already infected.

  The soldiers thanked her and told her they’d stay until they received orders to pull out. After all, it was quiet at the hotel. People forgot about it. The city, like many others was falling and becoming increasingly dangerous, yet that remote hotel area twelve miles from the airport and outside of Cleveland was calm and quiet.

  They had a point.

  Amita debated on telling those in the hotel about the fewer soldiers. And the weakened quarantine knowing they’d be sick soon, or most of them, in her opinion, they were better off and more comfortable just staying there. Not to mentioned safer.

  She did one thing for them.

  The box of confiscated phones was in her reach after the other CDC workers left, and she took that box of phones to the hotel. She placed the box at the hotel lobby door with a note.

  Things are not well in the outside world. Call your families.

  That was it. That was all she told them. Amita probably could have even released them. Knowing what the new hybrid virus would entail and suspecting that like BV, it was airborne, for their protection, she mentioned nothing.

  After all, most of them would not be around much longer. It was just a matter of days.

  Amita returned to the lab, she had notes to take, things to finish and a letter to leave in the lab. One telling of what happened, just on the outside chance, that when BV was all said and done, when it spread its wrath and took all that it could, someone, somewhere at some point in time, would know she tried. She really had tried.

  <><><><>

  Paparazzi guy, David placed on his best journalist hero hat and braved the outside. He had been watching from the fourth floor window. He couldn't see far, in fact they were too removed from the city to see what was going on.

  The barricade for the quarantine looked weak, unlike what they saw on the news two days earlier.

  It was a chance, he believed to leave.

  Slip out of the hotel and go.

  “Go where?” Sean asked. “It’s kind of scary out there. We’re safe here.”

  “But do you want to stay, really?” David asked. “People here were exposed to that woman. They’re gonna start getting sick. Do we want to take that chance?”

  “We’ve been near them.”

  “Not near anyone who was around that woman,” David said. “I say we leave.”

  “I don’t know,” Sean said. “We have the story right here.”

  David laughed, “No one cares about this story. The virus is all over now. It’s everywhere.”

  “Then what better reason to stay put?” Sean said. “Maybe we weren’t exposed yet. Maybe going out there will expose us. Besides, JJ Wylde was with that woman. He slipped into her room. At the very least, don’t we want to watch him get sick?”

  “Yeah, true, we do.” David bobbed his head. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll hang today. But tomorrow, I think … I think I’m gonna try to leave.”

  “If JJ Wylde isn’t coughing up a lung tomorrow, then I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go with you.”

  “Deal.” David shook Sean’s hand. He’d wait one more day. After all, really, what was one more day?

  <><><><>

  Before they discovered the box of phones, they discovered what was happening to the world by way of the news.

  The broadcast was fuzzy, often times the picture distorted almost as if there wasn’t cable television.

  They sat in the courtyard watching the televisions and the news that was so disheartening.

  “What was hailed as a miracle cure has tuned into no less than a nightmare,” the reporter said. “Three hundred victims suffering from the new virus, have turned into thousands. Authorities right now, with the President are trying to handle a situation that has spun out of control.”

  An exodus had commenced in New York despite the quarantine.

  Soldiers left their posts.

  The news told of rumors that the miracle cure wasn’t just limited to New York, that other sites with outbreaks were given the treatment.

  Phone camera footage taken from a traffic jam in the exodus showed unequivocally how horribly the virus had transformed. Out of control victims pounced on cars, fought and screamed, and raced to the next person.

  While their physical attacks didn’t cause fatal injuries, the lethal dose of virus they passed on did.

  “Rabies?” Joel questioned. “They used rabies to beat the virus? Hell, I’m not a scientist and even I know that’s a horror movie waiting to happen. Rabies?” his voice squeaked upward.

  Walter sighed out heavily. “They’re at their wit’s end, Joel. The virus is spreading. It’s deadly. They just want to try anything.”

  “Yeah, well, now instead of hundreds getting infected we have thousands. Rabid animals. You saw them. Like ten thousand Cujos on the street.”

  “Oh, Joel,” Bianca whispered then nodded her head at Ava.

  “Sorry, it’s ridiculous,” Joel said. “Now they say they tried it in Ohio and Nevada. What the hell.”

  “In their defense,” Rayne said.

  “Here we go.” Joel held out his hand. “Please, Rayne, say it.”

  “Rabies is curable.” Rayne stated. “The theory was good. Take something strong and defeat it with something stronger. Problem was they didn’t wait to see how it played out. Then again, they didn’t have the time to wai
t. The plus side to this is that it will end sooner. You heard them; they think they’ll die in two days.”

  “How is that a plus?” Joel asked.

  “If the world’s gonna end, then let it end,” Rayne said. “More people will get it at once and die at once. Just have to hunker down and play it safe until they all die.”

  “That’s just sick thinking,” Joel said, “because you know the way I look at it? Someone who wasn’t supposed to get sick with that virus will get sick because a lunatic decided to scratch them. And what the hell is that box by the door?” Joel’s demeanor and topic of conversation switched as soon as he noticed the lone box by the door.

  They had been so wrapped up in watching the news report they didn’t see it.

  Joel went over and lifted the box. He was stunned to see the contents. It wasn’t the note inside that frightened him, it was the symbolization of the phones being returned.

  Letting them have communication again meant one of two things. Either the threat was over with or the quarantine was meaningless. Joel was wagering on the latter.

  <><><><>

  Ava’s phone was dead. It wouldn’t even power up, but luckily JJ had a charger and once she was able to turn it on, she started to call Darren. It took nine attempts and just as she placed Landon down for the evening, finally he answered.

  “Darren,” she gasped out. “Oh my God, I have been trying to reach you.”

  “I know.” His voice cracked. “I … got messages.”

  “Darren …”

  “Is it true?” he asked. “Was Cassie shot?”

  The tears had just stopped and as soon as Darren asked her that question, Ava started to cry again. “Yes.” She peeped out the word. “I am so sorry.”

  She heard what sounded like a muffled sob. “I just … They told me,” he said. “I didn’t believe it was true. Not my Cassie.”

  “I’m so sorry. Calvin isn’t good, Darren. The quarantine, I think it's falling apart. We need you. Can you come for us?”