Point Of Transmission: A Post-Apocalyptic Epidemic Survival (The Morgan Strain Series Book 1)

by Max Lockwood

  “She’s a heavy sleeper,” Alec whispered. “I had to nudge her at one point in the night to make sure she was still alive. So, what’s for breakfast?”

  Alec grabbed a few jars and squinted to see the labels. “Butternut squash or banana?” he asked Elaina. She didn’t respond.

  “We’ll give the squash a go,” he said, popping off the top and pouring the mixture into his mouth. He grimaced.

  “I can’t believe you ate that,” Elaina mocked.

  “We’re in the middle of a crisis, Lainey. We don’t have time to be picky. How do you think Natalia’s going to react to our new cuisine?”

  Elaina cracked a smile. The often dramatic teen would probably have a lot to say over the slim pickings.

  “I know this sounds weird,” Alec said after a long silence, “but you look really familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”

  Elaina froze. This was the moment she had been dreading. Maybe he was awake during the briefing about her after all. With her face plastered all over the news, it was only a matter of time before it clicked and he realized who she was.

  “I don’t think so. I have a pretty good memory, and I know I haven’t met you before.”

  “Okay, maybe we didn’t meet, but I think I’ve seen you around somewhere. Do you frequent the bars downtown? Or did you go to the University of Washington a few years ago?”

  “No,” she answered, hoping he would get tired of questioning her and just wake up. For a moment, she thought about nudging Natalia awake, but she was too far away to wake without Alec noticing something was up.

  “Okay,” he said skeptically, still trying to figure out how he knew her. She scrambled to change the subject, to fluster him somehow.

  “I’m flattered, really,” she said, batting her eyelashes like she’d seen women do in the movies, “but if you’re looking for someone to spend the end of the world with, I don’t think I’m your girl. Besides, getting too close to someone is a great way to catch a virus.”

  His eyes widened, then narrowed. “Wait, what?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t claim to be a hot item, but I’ve had men flirt with me before,” she said. “It’s actually rather sweet that you would want to spend more time with me, but you have work to do. You can’t get caught up in a relationship right now. It’s just terrible timing.”

  That did it. He was officially rattled. His ears turned pink and a thin line of sweat formed on his brow.

  “You think I’m flirting with you? I honestly thought I knew you from somewhere,” he said, a curious smile forming on his face.

  “Yes, it really seems that way. Are you not?”

  She hoped that this would be enough to throw him off of her scent. Elaina had clearly embarrassed him, and with any luck, they would go back to silence.

  What happened next was something Elaina hadn’t accounted for. Instead of taking his embarrassment and chalking it up to a misunderstanding, he ran with her taunting and threw it right back at her.

  “Well, then, if you’re so sure I’m not your type, then why are you flirting with me?” he asked.

  Elaina was speechless. Even though she told Alec that she had experienced men flirting with her before, she really hadn’t. She’d shut herself so far away from others that she hadn’t had enough social encounters for anyone to flirt with her. That, and she had always been so disinterested in dating that it didn’t seem worth it to let men talk to her that way.

  Now, in a situation that she was in no way prepared for, the wheels in her head spun without gaining traction. She knew a lot about a few things, and interacting in certain social situations was not one of them. Not only did her face turn red, but she imagined that her entire body glowed fuchsia.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to go into this. I was just kidding. Let’s just drop the whole conversation.”

  “No,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  “No?”

  “We’re stuck in this stupid little shipping container like rats. We have nowhere to go and nothing to do. If we’re going to be dead in a week, I’d like to go out having had a few interesting conversations. I’m not asking you to marry me. I just want to know why you think I’m not your type. It’s more of a scholarly inquiry, really.”

  “There’s nothing scholarly about this,” Elaina said, confused. Unless he was monitoring her vitals to glean the effect of humiliation on the human body, or this was a sociology experiment about how sheltered women react to men, this was nothing more than an uncomfortable conversation that she had unwittingly crawled into.

  “Just humor me.”

  “Fine,” she said, feeling the pureed fruits swimming around her stomach. “What was your question?”

  “Why am I not your type?”

  She wasn’t sure how to answer that question in any coy or even off-putting way, so she told him the only thing she could. She told him the truth.

  “I guess I don’t really have an answer for that. The truth is, I’m not really good at this.”

  “At flirting?”

  “At talking to people in general. I’ve always been really socially awkward. It counts double when I’m talking to men.”

  “You don’t say.” Alec grinned.

  “Don’t do this to me. I really hate this sort of thing. I’m not good at it and it makes me uncomfortable.”

  Alec frowned, seeing her big doe eyes full of discomfort.

  “I’m surprised. I would have never guessed that this sort of thing made you so uncomfortable.”

  “Why is that?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Usually, it’s the pretty girls who make guys like me feel nervous.”

  She blushed again. She had never really been told that she was attractive, save for friends and family members trying to make her feel good. When they said it, it didn’t really mean much to her. She would much rather receive compliments on her smarts or talents than her looks. But there was something about hearing it from Alec that felt different. She wasn’t sure how, exactly, but it just did.

  “Can I ask you something kind of personal?” he asked.

  “I feel like you already have, but sure, go ahead,” she said.

  “How many people have you dated?”

  She bit her lip. “Actually, I’ve never dated anyone.”

  “Oh,” he said, the tone of surprise evident. She knew that once you got into your twenties and had never had a boyfriend, people wondered things.

  “How many people have you dated?” she fired back, trying to relieve a little embarrassment.

  “Only a couple,” he answered honestly. “Neither lasted very long. I guess I’m not great at this thing either.”

  She smiled awkwardly, hoping he would be out of invasive questions. Still, she didn’t completely hate talking to him. He was nice enough, from what she knew about him.

  “I guess I just don’t really go out much,” she said. “I’m committed to my job and I don’t have much of a social life. When I’m home, I just like to relax. I’ve always felt like complicating my life with a relationship would be more than I could handle.”

  “I often feel the same way too. Like, I don’t know if I can give a girl the attention she needs. I always hear about my friends whose girls are mad at them because they don’t want to go out on romantic dates and stuff like that.”

  “It sounds like your friends are dating the wrong girls.”

  “I don’t know. I can see where they’re coming from. Some people just have different needs.”

  “If that’s the case, I think I’d be the lowest-maintenance girlfriend,” Elaina scoffed before going quiet.

  “You know what?” he asked, breaking the silence.

  “What?”

  “I think that makes you exactly my type.”

  Elaina looked up at Alec. In the last twenty-four hours, she had never gotten a good look at him. His eyes were so kind and his face was rugged, yet youthful. He swept a hand through his thick hair, pushing it to one
side and then the other.

  It took her a few seconds to realize that he was looking right back at her.

  She quickly looked away and coughed as a way to break the tension. Luckily, this sound was enough to wake Natalia from her deep sleep.

  “What time is it?” she croaked, rising from her makeshift bed like a vampire from a coffin.

  “A little after ten in the morning,” Elaina said, checking her watch. “You slept for almost an entire day.”

  Natalia flopped back down on her pile, exhausted from sleeping for so long.

  “How did I sleep so long? What did I miss?”

  “Nothing,” Elaina and Alec said in unison.

  “Drink some water,” Alec said. “It’s all we have right now, but it should rain again soon.”

  “Have some food,” Elaina said. “We saved the banana for you,” she joked, tossing a little jar at Natalia.

  “Great,” she said flatly. “I’m so glad I woke up for this. I’ve been asleep for a whole day. You can’t tell me that I haven’t missed anything.”

  “I promise,” Elaina said. “We haven’t done anything but drink acrid water and eat mushy fruits and vegetables since you fell asleep.”

  “Good,” she said, sitting up again. “I really hate missing out on things.”

  “Then maybe we should just stay here forever,” Alec said. “We could hibernate through this whole virus.”

  Elaina smiled, but she was eager to get out of there. She entertained the idea of hiding away with Alec and Natalia for longer. The shipping container wasn’t an ideal home, but it was comfortable. Alec and Natalia weren’t exactly friends, but they were okay. Maybe they could wait it out.

  She shook that idea out of her head as quickly as it entered. She had too much work to do to sleep through the days. She needed to go.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” Alec said after a morning of rummaging around abandoned shipping containers, finding nothing of use, “and I think it’s time to move on from here. We came here for the resources, and there’s not much here. If we don’t find a better source of food and water, we’re not going to make it much longer.”

  Elaina nodded enthusiastically. She had been waiting for someone to plant the idea. If she brought it up herself, she thought she might seem suspicious. She thought back to other conversations where she might have made her motives known. She still wasn’t sure how sharp Alec was, and she didn’t want to risk getting busted just because she’d underestimated him.

  “Where are we going?” Alec asked, filling an empty jar with the little water they had left.

  “We?” Elaina asked. “I thought you could drop us off on your way back to work.”

  Alec scoffed. “Work? If the station even remembers that I’m still technically out on patrol, then they don’t care what I’m doing. I realized after the fifth person I killed that I need to look after myself first. I’ll try to help wherever I can, but this is chaos. Who knows if the station is even still standing?”

  “So what now?” Elaina asked. “You’re just doing your own thing? You’ve gone rogue?”

  He suppressed a smile. Apparently, he enjoyed that idea. “I’d probably do more good if I didn’t have to answer to my superiors. Besides, I don’t think I could sleep at night if I didn’t know if you two were okay. I don’t like to just abandon people like that.”

  “Why do you care about us? You helped us out of a tough situation and we can handle it from here.”

  Alec frowned. He didn’t know how to articulate the way he felt about the girls. Perhaps it had something to do with taking that teen girl’s life. He didn’t want to see any more young people get to that point. Besides, he knew that they’d probably run into other infected people the second he left them alone. That was just how things worked. Nothing good could ever last.

  “Lainey,” Natalie scolded, “why don’t you want him to stay with us? He’s generously offered us his professional protection. Can’t we just stay with him for as long as we can?”

  Natalia was scowling at Elaina now. Elaina could see the fear in her eyes. Alec offered a service that they needed. The only problem was, the longer they stayed with Alec, the longer she would be away from a place to do her work. She didn’t know how to choose which was more important—safety or progress.

  “If we stay with you to find supplies,” Elaina said cautiously, “where do you think we should go?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. We don’t have to stay for long, but we can stop at my house. I have some food and drinks there. My house is pretty small, so I don’t think it would be a target for looters.”

  “Why is that?” Elaina asked, not pleased with his idea.

  “If you could rob any house you wanted to, without the risk of being caught, where would you go? Would you rob a mansion with champagne and caviar in the fridge, or a little house that might not have any food at all?”

  “Fine,” Elaina said. “We can go to your house, only because you seem so confident that there will be the supplies we need there.”

  Elaina pouted, but Natalia was clearly relieved. “This is the best option for us, Lainey,” she said, grabbing onto her arm. “It will be fine.”

  “Okay,” Elaina said calmly, though she wanted to scream out in objection. “Let’s go.”

  They gathered the little drinking water they had left and walked to the spot where they’d left the patrol car. If she couldn’t get her way, Elaina was glad that they could continue forward, knowing that eventually, they would stumble upon a useful place.

  “Where’s the car?” Elaina asked, panic rising through her voice.

  Alec froze on the spot and looked around wildly. “It was here, right?”

  Natalia walked forward. “Are we sure this is where we left it?”

  Elaina nodded. “I’m absolutely positive. We were right in the intersection of these two roads. Someone stole the cop car.”

  Elaina closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the sky. Tiny water particles speckled her face. She was so frustrated that she couldn’t speak. Once again, she was being held back from the place where she needed to be.

  “What do we do?” Natalia asked.

  “We walk,” Alec answered simply. “My house isn’t far from here.”

  Without looking back, Alec began walking toward his home. Natalia followed a few paces behind, her feet already dragging. However, this time, it wasn’t out of exhaustion—she just needed to add some dramatic effect so no one could mistake the fact that she was unhappy with their situation.

  Elaina paused for a moment and noticed a small puddle of blood at the site of the missing car and had a sudden moment of inspiration. While she couldn’t be sure that the fluid belonged to an infected person or just a careless car thief, she decided that she needed fluids from the infected for further testing.

  Squatting down, she quickly collected the sample in hopes that it would provide answers once she got to a laboratory. Then, once it was safely tucked in her pocket, she followed the others, hardly focusing on where she was going because she was so inspired to work.

  The three walked in silence. Alec was determined to provide food and shelter, Natalia was focused on staying safe, and Elaina was lost in her own discovery. No one felt like talking, so they carried on, placing one foot in front of the other.

  Elaina held a hand to her pocket so the growing collection of glass and plastic vials wouldn’t give away her secret by jingling a telling tale. Now that she had gotten back on track with her work, her spirits had been lifted and she hardly even noticed the chill in the air.

  Seeing the puddle of blood made her realize that she had been looking at the wrong fluid samples. Her virus had yet to show signs of mutation in the limited trials she’d managed to start. But, the news reported that symptoms changed quickly, leading her to think that mutations did as well. It boggled her mind that she was unable to replicate something that was clearly happening around her, right in f
ront of her eyes.

  In her frenzy to figure out what was wrong with her original sample, she neglected to look at any other samples. The city was full of human incubators, packed full of the virus she needed to study. All she had to do was collect body fluids from a few infected people, and she was sure that she would be able to figure out what was going on with her virus.

  There was also the issue of testing her potential cure weighing heavily on her mind. The logistics of testing cures in her normal fashion just weren’t practical, given the circumstances.

  When it came to animal testing, rodents were safe choices. They were small and easy to work with and showed symptoms not unlike humans. Plus, the general public didn’t feel a lot of outrage when a rat was injected with all sorts of things. Plus, they were cheap and easy to get.

  Elaina’s issue was that she didn’t foresee herself getting to a place with test subjects and lab equipment. Even if she managed to find a pet store that still had live rodents, she would have to wait for the virus to progress in them before testing her serum. That would take days. What Elaina needed was something that would take hours, or even minutes.

  She knew that what she needed was crazy and probably impossible to manage. But if she happened to inject a virus victim with her serum and hold them for long enough to see results, then she would be so much closer to having her cure ready.

  How she would do that was beyond her current level of scientific inspiration. In any normal circumstance, she would immediately dismiss the crazy idea and try to think of a better solution. But, accelerating trials by jumping directly to already infected humans in different stages of the virus would make up for all of the lost time she’d spent being chased and hiding out in abandoned warehouses.

  As she walked, she constantly scanned her surroundings, but for other reasons than her companions did. Instead of watching out for potential threats, she saw it more as looking out for incredible opportunities. She hoped that she would stumble across someone in the early stages of the virus and she could quietly get them to consent to being injected without anyone noticing.