Containment procedures had begun.
The aggressive containment procedure, or ACP, included surgical strikes in three stages. The first was a modified CBU-72 bomb dropped from an A6E Intruder. The gas bomb would carpet the strike point with fire, burning the building and any exiting occupants. The second strike consisted of the deployment of a Mark 84 that would replace the building with a fifty-foot-wide, forty-foot-deep crater. The third strike included additional CBU-72 bombings around the infected area. Loss of human life aside, the military was very excited to play with their modified weapons.
On the day the infection decimated Fort Myers, there were twenty-three air strikes carried out across the country.
Aggressive containment procedures failed.
Have virus, will travel
Three hours before Dr. Benson’s patient ripped out Antonio’s throat, four commercial airliners departed Fort Myers’ RSW International airport.
On board Delta flight 1272 to Atlanta was Rich Demmins, an IRS agent returning home from vacation. The flu had ruined Rich’s vacation. He looked forward to his return home and to a visit to his own doctor. The one at the walk-in clinic in Fort Myers, in his opinion, had been as useless as the antibiotics that he had prescribed. Rich actually felt worse and wondered if he was having an allergic reaction to the Cipro. When he complained to the flight attendant about the cabin’s freezing temperature, she gave him an odd look and told him it was seventy-five degrees. She did give him, however, a second blanket.
Rich passed out before takeoff. What awoke as the flight reached ten thousand feet was not Rich. The Rich thing tore open the throat of its first-class companion and then did the same to the flight attendant. Concerned passengers feared a terrorist attack and tried to subdue the maniac.
A flight attendant in coach notified the pilot, who notified air traffic control. ATC instructed them to reroute to Orlando International Airport for an emergency landing. The pilot, unaware of his copilot’s affair with the first-class attendant, was shocked when his crew member broke protocol and opened the flight deck door. The Rich thing eviscerated the copilot and then the pilot. The 757 with its 192 passengers had just reached fifteen thousand feet when the plane began its uncontrolled descent.
On the University of Central Florida campus, the Reflecting Pond shimmered in the late summer sun. Strictly off-limits to students, except during the annual “rush the pond” event at homecoming, the pond had enjoyed a hundred-thirty-thousand-dollar resurfacing the previous year. The work was a total loss when a hundred tons of 757 crashed into it at just over five hundred miles an hour.
The Lufthansa flight to Germany was less eventful. There were several flu sufferers on board, but they remained in fitful sleep during most of the nine-hour flight. During the last two hours, four of the passengers began to cough and expel a dark, pungent liquid, which fell on their very unhappy companions and flight attendants. At debarkation, over thirty of the passengers carried the virus into the streets of Munich. In the next forty-eight hours, the flu spread to most of Europe.
Similar scenarios occurred on the flights to New York and Minneapolis, with the noted exception that in Minneapolis, a flight attendant had to wake a sleeping passenger for debarkation. The passenger bit through the flight attendant’s carotid artery and then galloped into the terminal, where she killed ten travelers and infected several more before airport police gunned her down.
Overall, it was not a good day to be a Delta flight attendant.
Plan B
Virus X continued to spread. Within two days, the government abandoned the aggressive containment strategy, and they allocated all resources to land-based containment. National Guard and military personnel arrived in the major cities with orders to suppress or destroy the infected. When faced with a mob of running, screaming people, it was difficult to determine who was or wasn’t infected. The guns blazed with extreme prejudice.
While some suffered a longer incubation, the majority turned within ten minutes of contact with the black bile. Bite victims who managed to survive the physical attack held off complete infection for as long as a day. By week two of the full-scale outbreak, the government was incapable of a central coordination of the efforts. Most officials had either become infected, had died in an attack, or no longer felt Washington was their kind of town.
The original Virus X analysis suggested that it was at least in part zoonotic. A zoonotic virus has the ability to jump species. In the second week, domestic cats began to contract the infection. By week four, most had turned. There were an estimated one hundred million cats in the United States. The survivors now faced a smaller, more-difficult-to-spot predator.
As expected, all manner of craziness
In New York, a famous filmmaker named Michael gave a presentation to a radical liberal group called the People’s Liberty Movement. Several of his entourage was sick, and they urged him to cancel the event. The speech would be the featured opening of his next film, so Michael insisted the show must go on. In his opening remarks, he stated with absolute certainty that the epidemic was a hoax created by the corporations and banks responsible for the economic meltdown. The flu hysteria was just a clever distraction. The crowd resoundingly agreed until one of Michael’s production assistants bit him. Two more assistants turned a few seconds later and joined the first in devouring Michael. He was a large meal, and there was plenty for all. Half the crowd of ten thousand died or turned in the next thirty minutes.
A subgroup of the People’s Liberty Movement who were staunch environmentalists believed that nuclear power plant waste had caused the infection. The chaos and impending government collapse provided them an opportunity to take action. Over the prior two years, they had planned a shutdown of nine nuclear plants in the Northeast. Now it seemed was the perfect time to set their plan in motion. None of the twenty-five PLM members were nuclear physicists or engineers, but they had made contact with a man who had intimate knowledge of power plant operations. The man had drawn up detailed instructions for reactor shutdown.
The group was unaware that their coconspirator was actually a member of a radical group called the Constitution Militia. The Militia hated liberals, progressives, environmentalists, and especially the PLM. At 1:00 a.m., the PLM infiltrated the nine power plants, killed five guards, and took everyone else hostage. The hostages, who were scientists and engineers, pleaded with the PLM not to attempt a forced shutdown. The PLM ignored them. They followed their shutdown instructions precisely. The exposed rods superheated, and at 3:47 a.m., all nine power plants exploded in nuclear mushrooms. It was an unfortunate surprise for the PLM, but a resounding victory for the Constitution Militia.
The blast radius caused extensive and widespread damage, but the nuclear fallout did worse. Radiation sickness weakened those who hadn’t been killed in the massive explosions. The virus took the upper hand. Scientists who had continued to monitor events made one special note; radiation had no effect on the virus or the infected. The area from Maine to New Jersey became uninhabitable.
As the infected raged in Washington and penetrated the Pentagon, one concerned general released the nuclear missile launch codes to the 341st Missile Wing. At Malmstram Missile Base in Montana, the commander saw this as a sign from God. He had long believed that the crazy, gay liberals in California were responsible for the decline of the American culture. Clearly, he was not alone, as the talk radio hosts hinted—if not outright agreed—with his opinion on the matter.
The men in his command were top-notch soldiers who would follow his orders without hesitation or question. At the pandemic’s onset, they had terminated all general outside communications both inbound and out. This was standard protocol, to prevent distraction or risk subjective decision-making by the missile team. The only information the commander’s team received was that which he provided.
The commander addressed his team on the morning that the Northeast went dark
and nuclear winter spread across New England. He told the men that the United States was under attack, that California had fallen to China, and that they had instructions to launch their ballistic missiles at Los Angeles in order to minimize the threat. If his men thought to question such an order, the presentation of the missile codes silenced any objections.
At 0630 hours, they launched their complete complement of missiles at the greater Los Angeles area.
Missile flight time was just under seven minutes.
At 0637 hours, Southern California disappeared.
Divided we stand, united we fall
Shortly after LA’s destruction, Texas seceded and formed the Great Republic of Texas. They took immediate command of all military equipment and personnel. They were not, however, without their own losses. The Beach flu had hit the shoreline hard, and as a matter of safety, they surrendered everything south of Interstate 10. Surrender came in the form of the bombing of San Antonio, Houston, and most of the coastline. Additionally, they moved the capital to Dallas, and they closed the borders with the help of air strikes and the newly formed Texas Freedom Militia. Texas granted citizenship to anyone who either was a member of the military or could produce a birth certificate that demonstrated they had been born in a Texas hospital. They offered everyone else the choice of deportation or execution.
Arizona followed suit. Their Southern California concerns resolved, the newly formed Arizona Royal Air Force turned its attention to the south. They systematically destroyed every Mexican town within two hundred miles of their border. When the mission was complete, they invaded New Mexico and did the same to the Mexican towns at its border. Arizona had no issue with Mexico; they just believed their efforts would prevent the infection’s migration from the south.
Texas viewed their neighbor’s actions as an aggressive advance toward their country. They reallocated most of their troops to the west. Arizona assumed this was evidence that Texas planned a preemptive strike. They moved their resources east. The border war left civilian populations unprotected. The infection spread, and the numbers grew. The infected hordes decimated both states.
Faith is belief in the absence of hope
One group of survivors fared better than the rest. This group, made up mainly of people under the age of twenty-five, understood the pandemic’s implications. They had no disbelief to overcome. Their generation knew a world where the Twin Towers were destroyed by the same airplanes that flew you to Disney World. A world where the enemy didn’t wave a flag but instead lived next door, waiting to bomb your mall. A world where friends grew up, went to the desert, and stepped on bombs. A world where their parents lost their homes paying for the college education that no longer ensured their children a job. Throughout those years, they had surrounded themselves with books, movies, and video games that centered on pandemic and apocalyptic events. Their virtual worlds had prepared them to be survivors. The real-life rules were not exactly the same, and in many cases, knowledge could not outweigh the odds, the infection, or an attack. However, when the populace turned, when the world looked more like a video game than reality, they were not shocked into paralysis and they didn’t hesitate. They did exactly what they had always joked they would do, they found guns, they formed teams, and they survived.
It did not turn out well for most. The sheer numbers they faced stacked the odds against them. In this game, there were no “unlimited” lives, no resets, and no forgiveness for even the smallest miscalculation. Still, as a subset of the survivors, they managed to stay alive the longest.
For Russell Thorn and Susan De’antonio, this saved their lives.
Chapter 4
The Living and the Dead
Part 1
Sweet Caroline … ba … ba … ba
Devin and Brandon needed to run for their lives.
The only small problem was that Caroline was still in her off-campus house, and Devin would not abandon his girl. Brandon’s car was history. It sat half on top of the police car that had slammed into them. The deputy was dead. although they were pretty sure he had been dead before he rammed them. Now, halfway down the street, the Creepers were coming out of the proverbial woodwork.
Brandon had the cop’s nine millimeter, and two clips remained. The third was empty and discarded on the street behind them. At this rate, they would still have twenty feet to go when he fired the last bullet, and then they needed to work their way back out of the neighborhood.
Devin was being judicious with the cop’s twelve-gauge riot gun. He had almost twenty rounds, but even that paired with the Berretta was not going to get it done.
A Creeper broke in a slow gallop from inside an open garage. Its blood-smeared face screamed at them as it came.
“I got it,” Devin called. He didn’t waste a round on the scrawny old man; instead, he waited until it got in close and used the butt of the shotgun to open up its head.
“Brandon?”
“Yeah, bro?”
“This shit is breaking bad.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think we’re gonna make it.”
Brandon shrugged, targeted a large Creeper coming from another house, and squeezed off a single round into the thing’s head. It fell dead, and the young men moved up another five feet.
“Not suggesting we find a safer ZIP code?”
Devin looked down the last eighty feet to the rented house. Caroline’s car sat in the hot July sun. He knew she would do exactly as he had asked. She would wait for him. And he knew his friend would take every one of those steps with him until they were at her doorstep or dead.
“I’m going down this street, but you could jet, man. It’s my girl.”
Brandon laughed and took a few steps ahead of Devin to make his intentions clear. He called back over his shoulder.
“On your right, Dev.”
A large woman soaked in blood galloped at him. Devin waited for her to get in range and then pulled the trigger.
The god of lightning
The air smelled bad. Sometimes he smelled bad things like the death birds that ate prey in the field or the rotting animals killed by the giant metal machine that rode the black river or garbage from the other packs or the bitter yellow chemicals on the grass. This was different. This was death, but it was also danger. He worried about his pack. He did not want to be out on the soft green grass; he wanted “in.” The woman smelled wrong. She was starting to have the bad smell too. The man, his pack leader, smelled like such a crazy mixture that he could not decide how to respond. The man smelled like aggression, fear, and hurt. This made him nervous. If his pack leader feared, then he needed to fear. But the bad smell was everywhere and nowhere, so he didn’t know what to attack or how to protect his pack. The man had him tied outside on the soft green grass, and usually he liked that but not today; today he wanted to be inside with his pack. He pulled at his chain. He could slip the collar easily. He relaxed his neck and stretched his body long. The black collar slid off. Ordinarily he would run, so the pack had to chase him. Today he did not. He stood outside the screen, barked, and growled. The man came outside. The man looked ready to fight; he was tense and aggressive. But underneath, the smell of fear was growing stronger. He felt his fur rise and issued a low growl. The man patted his head and called him by his sound, Zeus, then brought him in. When the bad-smelling things entered his den, he attacked, he protected, and then he went away into the dark.
DK’s big finish
When the plane came down, all hell broke loose. DK wished he had run like everyone else. Locked in the second-floor infirmary exam room with five very lovely coeds would seem like a good deal to any warm-blooded college boy, except now there were only two coeds left. The other three he had already helped through the window, and they were hightailing it to safety. The two left with him were a real problem. The pounding on the door had intensified, and the cheap handle and loc
k were about to give, and still Melanie, or Mallory or whatever her name was, wouldn’t go out the damn window.
“Hey. Hey, listen. Listen, it’s perfectly safe. See, your other friends went, and they were fine. Now come on, I’ll help you.”
“No, no, I can’t. I can’t; I’m afraid.”
DK looked at her friend. The second remaining student was glazed over and checked out. The door cracked in the center, and the growling and howling behind the door became a victorious scream.
He took the girl by her arms and led her back to the window.
“Look, if you don’t go, I can’t go, and that means I’m gonna die and I don’t want to die.”
“W-what are those things?”
“Zombies or crazies or something worse. But it doesn’t matter. What does matter is you have a chance to live if you go right now.”
“O-okay, but I’m afraid.”
“I’ll help you out. Just keep your eyes closed and go hand over hand until your feet touch the ground. What’s your friend’s name?”
“Brianna.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of Brianna. You get going.”
The girl went. She opened her eyes while she was still eight feet from the ground, screamed, let go, and fell. DK yelled to her to run.
She did.
Brianna was not going anywhere. The scene in the hallway had broken her. The zombie nurse had chewed off Brianna’s roommate’s face the roommate that had been hit by the shrapnel from, of all things, a freaking jet crash on campus. DK had helped Brianna get her friend to the infirmary for first aid.
You and Me against the World: The Creepers Saga Book 1 Page 4
