by Rounds, Mark
“He was nice about it; they gave us three weeks’ pay in cash. He wished it was more but even that stretched things. We also got whatever we wanted out of the open tasting room cases and the big freezers at work. Everyone from the tasting room staff left with a couple of mixed cases of wine. Heather and I made sure everyone, even the part timers, got all the food they wanted. Then I borrowed Dave’s truck and we hauled the rest home. I bought a freezer at an outrageous price at Costco. It was an upright, I wanted a chest but anyway, it’s in the garage and we have a bunch more food. I hope I did OK?”
“More than OK honey, that was a stroke of genius. I am proud of you too.”
“I guess I am a stay at home mom for a while.”
“I am relieved,” said Chad. “I’ve been in love with you for most of my adult life and would be devastated if anything happened to you. I also know how you mother all the folks that work for you. You would have stayed there and kept the place until the last dog was hung to make sure they had a paycheck and a place to work. This is better.”
Mary hugged Chad and was about to kiss him when …
“Ewwww, PDA!” said Fiona.
“Young lady, I don’t seem to recall telling you to stop putting the dishes away,” said Mary with her ‘mom’ face firmly in place.
May 9th, Monday, 11:25 pm PDT
Chad was out on the back deck playing the blues. Mary and Fiona were in bed and probably asleep. Connor was watching a bad movie in the rec room trying to put the day behind him. Dave was sitting on the other side of the deck listening. The two had talked out the day until there was nothing left to talk about. When Chad started to play, Dave cracked a beer and listened to the music. It seemed to sooth his soul.
“What are you going to do about Macklin?” asked Dave once the music has stopped.
“Not much I can do,” said Chad as he put the guitar away. “Clinton said he would ride him as hard as he could. He is one tough old codger so I suspect they will joust for a while. I can only hope he gets recalled to Washington or something.”
“You say the word and all that will be left of him is a bad smell,” said Dave quietly.
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. Times are changing. Bastards like him have lost sight of what is important and only want to pad their Teflon coated butt shield. He gets in the way of you protecting Mary and the kids and he is gone.”
“Dave, sometimes you scare me.”
“You have no idea what it’s like inside brother.”
May 11th, Tuesday, 9:42am PDT
Chris Vaughn was in Amber’s room, reading Roosevelt’s biography. Amber was a good listener and when he paused, she asked thoughtful and insightful questions. He had thought reading would have been a chore, not that he minded because it was something better to do than watch the paint peel in his apartment, but this was delightful; like a long conversation about an interesting subject.
Chris had brought Starbucks coffee and chocolate muffins because his mom had once said that the fastest way to a woman’s heart included liberal applications of chocolate. As much as he still clung to the idea that he was a confirmed bachelor, he still really wanted Amber to like him. They had just finished a chapter when there was a knock on the door.
“I hope we are not intruding,” said Dr. Jurgen, “but we have been contracted by the US government to monitor the spread of AH10N3 and we would like to ask Deputy Hoskins a few questions if she wouldn’t mind.”
“Not at all,” said Amber.
Three men in suits filed into the room. One of them was Chad Strickland. Normally, he sat in his office and built mathematical models of things but he couldn’t settle down after yesterday. That is why, when Dr. Jurgen suggested he come with him to chat with some of the folks with recent experience with AH10N3, he jumped at it.
“I’ll wait outside then,” said Chris not wanting to get sucked into yet another interrogation session. He started to leave.
“Excuse me,” said Chad, “aren’t you the highway patrol officer that came to Kamiakin High last month for career day?”
“That was me,” said Chris as recognition dawned. “And you were the computer guy from Bechtel.”
“Close, statistics geek,” said Chris as they shook hands.
“I also caught you on TV Sunday. Nice t-shirt.”
“Doesn’t anyone watch baseball anymore?”
“I was, they broke into the Mariner’s game with a news flash.”
“If you two are quite done with the reunion,” said Dr. Jurgen pointedly, “I have a few questions for Deputy Hoskins.”
“Sorry sir for going off topic but Sergeant ah …” said Chad as he fumbled for the name.
“Vaughn, Chris Vaughn.”
“Thanks, Sergeant Vaughn here was also with Deputy Hoskins as I remember from the report. He might also have some insight that we could use.”
“Very well,” said Dr. Jurgen. “Have a seat young man and we will begin. We are trying to characterize the physical and mental capabilities of the sufferers of the disease AH10N3. What stands out in your memory concerning the two sufferers you dealt with?”
“Pain didn’t seem to register with them much,” said Amber. “I tased the male suspect six times and he didn’t go down or even twitch. When he attacked us, it took three rounds of .40 and four shotgun blasts at close range before he went down.”
“Did he speak?” asked Dr. Jurgen. “Was he coherent?”
“He did speak and the sentences were coherent, but the subject was way out there,” said Chris. “He was saying he was evil and wanting to die and all.”
“He was pretty badly injured I remember,” said Amber. Her eyes had that thousand yard stare that said she was reliving it all over again. “This was creepy but it looked like he had been bit numerous times. He didn’t bleed much though, and he could run really fast. He came up a pretty steep hill like nobody’s business.”
“What did you notice about the female AH10N3 sufferer,” asked Jurgen.
“If anything, she was able to ignore the pain more,” said Chris. Amber was getting pale and he wanted to spare her this. “She jumped from an overpass which is like twenty feet high and hit the ground in front of us. She had a compound fracture of the left upper leg, the femur, I could see the bone, and she still attacked us. She was strong as hell too; Amber couldn’t dislodge her from biting her leg. It took a similar amount of gun fire to stop her.”
“Did she say anything?” asked Dr. Jurgen.
“Just at the end, right before she died,” said Amber quietly. “She said she was sorry.”
There were more questions about wounds, blood loss, what they were wearing. Amber started to sob at the end when it got to the part about describing the young couple’s history.
“I am sorry, Deputy, Sergeant,” said Dr. Jurgen as they got up to leave. “I can only imagine how hard it was to relive this but we need information. Your candor has been very helpful.”
Chris grabbed Chad’s arm as he got up to leave.
“Can we talk a bit outside?” asked Chris. His eyes were serious and his grip firm.
“Ah, sure,” said Chad.
After they had left the room, Dr. Jurgen said, “Terry and I will be waiting in the car, be mindful of your NDA.
“Look,” said Chris when they were alone, “I don’t want to get you in trouble, but I need to know. Is Amber going to get it?”
“Um, get what?”
“The disease, the CDC whatever you said, the ones the newsies are calling ‘The Zombie Plague’.”
“Look Sergeant I am not a medical doctor …”
“Look, call me Chris, and the medical folk won’t tell us anything. I need to know.”
Chad looked at Chris, he was very earnest.
“She someone special?” asked Chad.
“Maybe, at least on my side.”
“Ok, I’ll give you the straight stuff from the little I know. The most effective way to transmit this disease is thr
ough exchange of bodily fluids.”
“Like a bite.”
“Yeah, but even then, it’s not a hundred percent certain. Bites are less effective than sexual intercourse or a blood transfusion. Besides, they got her into the hospital right away and they disinfected the wound three ways from Sunday. The Docs are pumping her full of everything they can think of to nip this in the bud.”
“What do you think her chances are?”
“Look, I am just a stats guy, I don’t …”
“Ok, do stats then, what are the odds.”
Chad looked at Chris for a hard minute.
“No better than fifty-fifty. But this isn’t a ‘Zombie Plague’. Every one of those people infected is still alive right up to the time they really do die and they don’t come back. Where there is life, there is hope. Maybe the medical folks will find a cure.”
“OK, I can live with that. I’ve got something that might interest you.”
“What, you mean related to the … Plague.”
“Maybe,” said Chris looking both ways to make sure no one over heard him, “there is a new designer drug on the street called ‘White Heaven’. It just showed up in the last month and is dirt cheap. Apparently the high is similar to cocaine. I got a buddy over in Seattle in the WSP there. He said that a couple of the guys they ran that were infected were using this stuff. When they had them in the car, they spouted some wild stuff about people getting sick in the crack houses with this.”
“I owe you one,” said Chad. “I will try and track that down.”
“Buy me a beer and we are even,” said Chris with a devilish grin.
May 11th, Tuesday, 6:52 pm PDT
It had been a grueling day. Chad, Dr. Jurgen, and an infection analyst, Dr. Terry Grieb MD, had interviewed almost twenty people. They had included Chad’s family, a tearful Hispanic mother who had come to claim her daughter’s remains, the two police officers, Jerry Kirklands’ mom, a bunch of high school students, and other folks. They were sitting in a conference room trying to digest what they had learned today.
“Gentlemen, do these interviews change any of your base assumptions,” asked Dr. Jurgen. “I am asking you two because you are the ones most intimately involved with this.”
“Sir, this data is all anecdotal,” said Chad after a pause. “I really can’t mathematically change my assumptions.”
“Chad, spoken like a true scientist, but this time, I have to ask for more. If I give you time to get enough data to be statistically significant and let you test it properly, we could let two or three days pass. I have to make a recommendation tonight, before I go home. Use your intuition and give me your best estimate.”
“Sir, I originally thought that my initial estimates were conservative on spread rates. I am now convinced. Were it in my power, I would advocate that all schools be closed for the duration, travel reduced to only essential vehicles be allowed to travel more than twenty-five miles from home. All roads including secondary roads need to be sealed off. It may be too late even so.”
“Too late for what?”
“One hundred percent population penetration sir,” said Chad quietly. “This is theoretically impossible because there are several very isolated populations in the US, but the fact that at least some of these folks are delusional but can function around the edges of society makes me worried. I’ll admit to a little bias in dealing with the aggression aspect, but my son tried everything he could to disengage from Jerry Kirkland and was still in a fight suggesting to me that they will be aggressive and not just sit quietly and passively wait to die. That combination spells trouble to me.
“There is another added fact that causes me concern. Sergeant Vaughn, the highway patrolman, said that there was a new designer drug on the street and a surprising number of the users seemed to get infected. I tracked it down and according the Tacoma PD, the number is better than fifty percent of the regular users that were arrested in the last three days were infected. Apparently the stuff is taking the druggie world by storm, here and in Europe.”
After a moment’s thought, Dr. Jurgen looked over at Terry Grieb.
“Terry, you have been uncharacteristically quiet. What do you think from your perspective?”
Terry swallowed hard twice and began.
“Sir, you gonna think I am nuts if I tell you what I am thinking.”
“As long as you don’t go on national TV with a ‘Grateful Dead’ t-shirt, I doubt you will ruin our reputation any further.”
Chad winced at that one.
“OK,” said Terry, “you asked for it. If I were going to develop a weaponized disease to break the morale of a country, I might do it this way.”
“What?” said Chad and Dr. Jurgen at the same time.
“I said this was nuts. Look, none of our anti-virals have any traction on this disease which means it doesn’t tie onto our cells at the normal attachment sites. The disease has a long period where patients are infected and contagious without being symptomatic and they remain contagious after becoming symptomatic.
“While they are infected, rather than getting weak and becoming passive, they become, well let’s face it, schizophrenic and paranoid and become more active, violent and far more likely to spread the disease. Not to mention the fact that while they don’t bleed easily, they do apparently like to cut and bite each other spraying bodily fluids around that have a high likelihood of infecting others.
“Next was this new factoid of Chad’s here. If I were going to get at a population, I can’t think of a faster way to do it than to use a cheap, designer drug as an infection vector.
“Final point, it’s about a hundred percent fatal so far. I suspect we will find a few folks who are resistant and survive but the prospects right now are pretty bleak. Finally, it’s scary.”
“That hardly matters …” began Dr. Jurgen.
“Hear me out. This disease plays into all the zombie hype in the media for the last twenty-five years. People are spooked now and when they internalize how bad the symptoms really are, it will be a nightmare.”
“You are emotionally persuasive Dr. Grieb,” said Dr. Jurgen. “But that data doesn’t support … wait, listen to me. I asked for opinion and supposition and I am shutting it down. I must be tired and I suspect you are as well. Go home, get some rest. I will write my recommendation. It will be for a full up quarantine which will probably take our country many years to recover from economically. There will likely be the meeting from hell tomorrow and I will try and protect your jobs if I am still employed here.
“Good night, Gentlemen.”
Chapter 6
May 11th, Tuesday, 11:23 pm PDT
Special Agent Paul Macklin wasn’t sleeping. He had just sent a written report to his supervisor about the debacle in the police station but that wasn’t what was worrying him. His “other” boss was on the disposable cell phone in is hand and he didn’t want to answer it.
“This is childish,” he thought and flipped open the phone.
“Macklin.”
“I heard your message,” said the voice from the phone without preamble. It was devoid of tonal change or emotion. “It looks like things are developing faster than we would like. You need to slow this down.”
“I have been trying,” said Macklin desperately.
“Not too effectively apparently.”
“These guys are pretty damned competent. I really can’t control it once the internet gets a hold of it. That lawyer Clinton and that stat guy Strickland ….”
“We pay you to overcome these difficulties. Perhaps our confidence in you is unjustified? Perhaps we should look elsewhere for support?”
“I can deal with them. It isn’t just the money you know, you promised …”
“I am well aware of what we promised, but only for those who prove superior. Our plans have been rushed by the accident but if we can hold off serious countermeasures for another week or perhaps two, our projections are that our position will be unassailable. Give us tha
t time and your position with us will be assured, fail and ...”
“I know what happens if I fail. I won’t, I promise.”
“We will be watching.”
Without any warning, the phone went dead.
Macklin closed the phone with shaky hands. He knew that this employer did not tolerate failures and their sanctions were most severe. He would have to use more direct action.
May 12th, Wednesday, 12:38 pm PDT
Chad left the meeting with a sour taste in his mouth. He and Dr. Jurgen had both recommended that roads be shut down except for deliveries of vital supplies, that schools be closed, and that a central clearing house be set up to disseminate data about spread rates and possible countermeasures. Macklin fought it all the way cautioning that they needed to ‘go slow’ and ‘not panic’ the population.
Department of Health officials said they had little power to do any more than recommend until a state of emergency was declared. There were vague assurances that this was a ‘top priority’ and that a state of emergency declaration was right around the corner.
National Guard officers were furious because they wanted to mobilize and start gathering troops and resources, but state government was baulking saying that without a declaration of a state of emergency, it would be on the state’s dime, not the federal government. Macklin made hay of that, reminding them of the deficit and the government’s obligation to spend the taxpayer’s dollars wisely.
The one bright spot in the discussion was the local school district. They cancelled all classes for the next two weeks. They said they would revisit the issue at that time. The reality of the situation was that parents were already keeping the majority of kids home for fear of disease and teachers were calling in sick at an alarming rate.
As he got up to leave, Macklin glared at Chad and mentioned in passing that some people were overreacting to the situation.
All in all Chad counted it a great waste of the morning. He decided to go to the lunch room and scare up something to eat for lunch before getting back to work. While deciding which stale bagel to purchase, Terry Grieb waved and came over to chat.
