The End of America

by Pete Thorsen

  “I promise to call you tomorrow and maybe I’ll be able to tell you that some facts will be on the news for a change. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  I immediately looked up the numbers for the local TV news channels and called each of them. I told them my profession and how I was involved from the beginning.

  I told them where and how this started in Guatemala, how it was brought to Boston by accident and without malice. I told them all the factual information that I knew to be true on how it was transmitted and how once the change to a zombie was complete they could never be changed back ever due to physiological changes to the body that could not be reversed.

  In each case they said they would ‘get back to me’. Next I called all the national news hotlines and gave them the exact same speech with pretty much the exact same results.

  For the remainder of the evening I was on the internet putting the exact same information out in every venue I could find. My only hope was with true information out maybe it would get around more and possibly due some good. Finally I shut down the computer and went off to bed.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning I watched the morning news and looked at the news websites. A few spots mentioned ‘rumors’ that amounted to what I had spread far and wide last night. It wasn’t much but it was something. Maybe the truth would spread. I started reading Dr. Renner’s notes again until almost noon when I got a phone call from a local TV station asking for an interview. I said sure and gave them my address but they wanted me to go down to their studio. I told them no just run the phone conversation that I am sure they taped when I called last night or they could come to my house for an interview. They said they would ‘get back to me’.

  It was lunch time anyway and I had a relaxing lunch and then called Lynn just to hear her voice. Neither of us had any news but we talked for quite some time on the phone just making small talk and talking about our lives. She did say many people were still coming to the hospital to see if ‘they were becoming a zombie’. She said her team and her had been helping with the simple tests. They just did a mouth swab and looked for the parasite eggs which just required low magnification with a microscope. Luckily there were very few positive readings.

  The positives were not forcibly detained but about half of them remained at the hospital under quarantine. The rest were let go and told that soon they would infect other people and then start eating other people. All were told the result was not reversible. She thought most wanted to commit suicide and the ones that left had the fortitude to do it themselves and those that stayed hoped the hospital staff would do it for them.

  We did try to keep our phone conversation upbeat but it was a difficult thing to do. We said goodbye and then it was back to the note reading for me. Three months of notes was taking awhile to read and I wanted to be careful so I did not miss something that could conceivably be very important.

  At about two o’clock the phone rang again.

  “Hello.”

  “We found something! Our test subject is dead. We think we have something to stop the parasite and we are now giving it to all those in quarantine here in the hospital.”

  “Slow down a little. So you gave a drug to your test zombie and he died, so now you are giving the same drug to all those that had tested positive for the parasite. Is that correct?”

  “Yes that is exactly it. It is a common drug that not surprisingly is used to treat parasite infections. The drug is nitazoxanide or a common brand name is Alinia. It is a very safe and fairly common drug.”

  “Have you notified the CDC of this drug?”

  “Yes. I called them first. But we will not know for sure until those that tested positive are treated and retested to show negative to say for sure that it works. But I am pretty sure it will work. This will mean we can stop this thing and save those that have not yet fully turned into zombies.

  And because it is a drug that that is already wide spread it will mean that it can be used immediately. We will have to boost production but the mechanics and recipe are already there so it should be smooth and rapid to ramp up production.”

  “This is great news indeed. You will likely get voted in to be our next President after this comes to light.”

  “I don’t know about that but it is great to be able to say that I am on the team that found the antidote that is if it works. But I am only one of those on this team. You maybe can’t tell but I am pretty excited.”

  “I think I could have heard you even if you did not use the phone. And you have every reason to be excited. This is the biggest thing ever. You will save millions of lives.”

  “I have to go, I have a lot to do here, and we are taking mouth swabs every hour on the positives to see how fast we can see results. I just had to spread the good news to someone.”

  “Well thank you for calling me and congratulations on your find.”

  “Thanks. Talk to you later.”

  I was happy for Lynn but I had my doubts that she was the first to make the find of the ‘cure’. There were many working the problem and that drug would have been a logical starting point in searching for a cure. Our government had been very quiet ever since this all began and I had wondered about that for several days now.

  They had information from the beginning that could have saved lives and they had remained quiet. It made no sense to me then or now. I was having very troubling thoughts about our government. I just couldn’t think of a reason they were acting as they were. A couple things came to mind and neither one shined a good light on our government.

  Why not try to save millions of lives by spreading what good information they had? If you don’t want to save lives that means you must want those people dead. Some kind of population control?

  Or you don’t really care one way or the other about the lives but you want a major crisis so you can implement Martial Law and totally take absolute control over this country. Or maybe to take total control it would be easier with a smaller population. Maybe you think you could weed out the population so only the smart, strong, and resourceful are left to make a leaner, stronger country.

  Or maybe they are just inept and are too busy trying to save themselves to worry about trying to save everyone else’s lives. Any of those scenarios paints a very poor picture of our government. And I never thought of myself as any kind of conspiracy nut. Instead I am just trying to come to a logical conclusion using what information that I have.

  I know for a fact that the government has at the very least the exact same information that I have and they received that information at least as fast as I did. It would also be very logical to assume that the government knew more information than I and that they received that information earlier. So either way I am back to the question of why did they not share that information when it would positively have saved many lives, both in this country and throughout the world?

  Tomorrow I will go to the news station here and do an interview. If the government will not spread the news I will do my level best to do so. If the interview is picked by the national news that would be great but at least I will know that I tried to do what I could.

  During supper I watched both the local news and two of the national evening news shows. Again there was no mention of the facts that at least Lynn had transmitted to the CDC (and likely others who were studying the problem). There was no statements at all from the CDC and only the “remain calm and stay in your homes” from the federal government. Awhile after the news programs were done I again got a call from the still very excited Lynn.

  “The drug works on those that tested positive. It seems as though some of them that were more advanced have lost some of their thinking abilities but that was to be expected. Most of those we have cured seem back to normal. We will keep giving them the drug for a day or two yet to prevent a relapse but it is very obvious this does work. And yes I have notified the CDC of this also.”

  “That is certainly good news, Lynn and I am pr
oud to know the person who was instrumental in ending the zombie plague. Did the CDC give any indication as to when they will make the big announcement of the cure?”

  “They did not tell me but I would certainly think they will do the announcement in the morning. That would give them plenty of time to check my results to prove that it works. They would certainly want to announce the cure as quickly as possible to save as many lives as they could both here and all around the whole world.”

  “I agree. Every single minute is costing hundreds of lives world wide. It would be logical to do their own independent test of the ‘cure’ before any announcement but like you said it works so fast that overnight would supply them with plenty of time to run their own tests and get their own results.

  I’m sure it will be all over the news in the morning and people can start being cured right away. It will still take some time to dispatch all the zombies that are already wandering around but with the cure it should be just a matter of time before the zombies are all gone and everything can start getting back to normal. Again congratulations on your finding the cure.”

  “Thank you. We have been working with the police here and they are going to the all the pharmacies in the area and collecting the drug to be distributed to all the local hospitals. We have also called all the local hospitals with directions on how to test and how to treat those that test positive. I just hope I can wind down a little so I can get some sleep tonight. I want to be up and listen to the announcement in the morning. I’m going to try to sleep. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  After hanging up I too decided I would be very anxious to here the announcement in the morning. That is if there was an announcement which I was starting to seriously doubt. I certainly hoped the first thing I heard on the TV in the morning would be that announcement. It would obviously be repeated many, many times throughout the day as it would be the news of the century. I decided to go to sleep also so I could be up early and hear the ‘announcement’.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was indeed up early and tuned into the morning news shows. I knew it would not matter which one I listened to as all would get the news at the same time and would waste not a second getting it out on the airwaves. There was no announcement and I watched until all the morning news shows were over. I knew at that point there would be no announcement at all.

  The government for whatever reason was withholding vital life and death information from both Americans and the rest of the world. I called the local news station and talked to the one there that had called me yesterday for an interview. I told him I would come in to do the interview and I now had the news of the century and they could very easily verify that news.

  He actually got excited and asked me to come as soon as possible and they could maybe get it on the noon news. I told him I would be armed when I came in and he said that was fine and logical.

  I grabbed my loaded shotgun and a box shells for it and left right away for the station. When I got there they asked me a couple questions and then set up the cameras and were ready to roll. Before we started I told them the drug name and asked them to call a couple of the local hospitals to back up my story about the cure while we did the interview.

  The interview started with simple questions.

  “What is your name Doctor?”

  “I am Doctor Ray Miller and I study Behavioral Sciences.”

  “You have told us that you were in on this zombie thing from the beginning can you tell us how that came about?”

  “A colleague of mine was doing field work down in Guatemala. At the end of his three month study he returned here to Boston and brought the zombie plague with him. He was totally innocent in this and had no idea there was anything like a ‘zombie plague’ and he was the first zombie here and was shot by the police. Again he knew nothing about this and was totally innocent. It was only after his death that I started to investigate and soon I called on two friends to help.

  As we all know this plague moved very fast and we have worked trying to do what we could to stop the spread and end the whole thing. While I have been involved in this my part was quite small and others have done the real work. They first identified that it is not a virus but a parasite instead. The parasite is spread by distributing its eggs to infect other hosts. It mainly does this by the host sneezing.

  The eggs are in the nasal passages of the host and when the host person sneezes it spreads the eggs and infects others. The hosts can spread the parasite eggs before they totally turn into zombies unfortunately. This allows them to walk among us and lead a normal life while infecting all those around them without even knowing.

  But there is a cure. And it is a fairly common and safe drug. The drug is nitazoxanide or a common brand name is Alinia. The local hospitals have collected as much of this drug as they could by this point. They also have a reliable, simple method to test if you have been infected and can then dispense the drug to you. It is a simple pill.

  The bad part is that once someone has completely changed over to a zombie they can not ever be changed back to a human again. The parasite makes so many changes to the human host that just can not be changed back. One of the changes is in the brain and the host person loses all higher brain functions. Those brain functions can not be brought back, ever. Once someone is a zombie they have to be destroyed. It is the only way.

  All the information I have as been transmitted to the US government as soon as we verified the information. I have no idea why this information has not been relayed to the people of the world. That is the reason I am here today. Again let me say that I did not find the cure, it was found by other dedicated people.”

  “I will cut in here and say we have indeed verified much of the information that Dr. Miller has just said. The local hospitals do indeed have this cure which does work and are ready to test anyone and dispense the drug. Dr. Miller why has the government not told us any of this?”

  “There is obviously no way I can answer that question. It could only be speculation on my part. I can only say that as soon as we learned anything about this zombie plague we reported it to the government immediately at every point. The cure was discovered yesterday and the local hospitals were notified yesterday in the evening.

  The government had plenty of time during the night to verify this cure but they did not announce this morning as I expected them to. That is why I came down here to make the announcement myself. You have to draw your own conclusions or do your own investigation into your government.”

  “Dr. Miller you don’t think our government was behind this whole event do you?”

  “Again that is something I do not know and could only speculate about. Anyone can speculate about anything whether you are a doctor or a garbage collector. I will only say that I am very disappointed in my government. My personal opinion would be that they are either very inept or there is a much darker answer.”

  “Is there anything else you want to tell our viewers?”

  “If your or a loved one is sneezing get them and you to a hospital as fast as possible. If you or a loved has been exposed to someone who has sneezed a lot, get down to the hospital. If you have Cousin Jack chained up behind the barn because he is a zombie and you are waiting for the cure for him, it is never going to happen.

  There is now nor will there ever be a cure for a full fledged zombie. While the parasite can be transmitted through a bite the primary transmission is through a sneeze.”

  “Thank you very much for coming in today Dr. Miller. You have likely saved many lives by doing so.”

  Many in the studio flocked around me asking a million questions the bulk of which I either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. The only questions I would not answer were who my friends were who helped find the antidote. I wanted to protect them as much as could.

  I made it very plain that I lacked the expertise to find the cure or antidote myself and really had nothing to do with that part of it at all. I was just thankful that others found the an
tidote and now many lives could be saved. When asked what my next step would be I said drive home and have lunch. I felt that my part in this whole thing was done.

  I really did very little to help throughout the whole episode but was more of a sounding board for others who actually did all the work. When asked if I was just being modest, I replied that I was just being factual and I hoped that at some point my friends would get all the credit for selflessly working on the problem even though they were faced with great risk to themselves. With that I left and drove home. I realized that the police must be doing a thorough job of dispatching the zombies because I had not seen any coming or going back home again.

  That evening I was on the evening news both local and national. The whole interview aired with no cuts that I could tell. So now finally the whole world was privy to basically all the important information that I had about the zombie outbreak. The local news also said some of the hospitals were already reporting some of their patients were either cured or well on their way to be cured.

  I was sure by tomorrow night’s news broadcast that there would be reports of cures everywhere in the USA. My only slight worry was if the government was negatively involved in the zombie business that I could face the government’s revenge but I thought it might be a small price to pay for saving so many lives. I decided to call Lynn and see if she was angry at me for my TV appearance.

  “Hi. Lynn. Ray Miller, will you still talk to me?”

  “Of course I’ll talk to you. In fact I am very happy that you went on TV. You saved many lives by doing so.”

  “When the government made no announcement this morning I decided that I would act and the best I could come up with was a TV interview. I think it worked and now everyone in the world has the information needed to combat this plague.