The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 1, The Outbreak

by S. Ganley

  Keying the microphone back on after receiving the report from the field center about the fatal injuries suffered by the two men, Dr. Woods issued an order that he knew was going to make him sound absolutely crazy but it was a situation where he felt they were better off safe than sorry.

  "Secure both of those bodies, bind their hands and feet and tightly gag their mouths. Ensure they are unable to break free if they reanimate as well."

  The stunned and confused looks from the team at the field hospital were enough to convince him that some type of explanation was going to be needed. Each of these men where highly educated and considered experts in their respective fields. What he was telling them to do made little rational sense and may have even come across as insensitive considering the bodies he was talking about had been respected colleagues and friends of each of them. Even Dr. Martin made an exaggerated clearing of his throat sound to attract his attention while expressing a bewildered look at this unusual set of orders.

  "Look, I don't know how to explain it any simpler than this. The man that attacked all you was dead, clinically dead, no possible way of recovering. Yet, he did come back to life, there is no arguing what all of us just witnessed. In fact, if you will note the lividity pattern of his lower body you will see that he had been dead by all known medical standards for several hours. There are factors in the RNA sequencing of the virus that killed those people that we have not been able to identify. I can’t explain how it is possible, but I believe that somehow that strain of virus is having an effect on the brain after death has occurred. The RNA may be able to reignite electrical impulses and rejuvenate some basic brain functions enough for the body to once again operate but in a much more primal capacity. If you think about that individuals ability to withstand wounds and pain that should have in any other circumstance been fatal, if not at least crippling, but a sudden and violent blow directly to the brain itself was the only way of stopping it, then this actually makes some sense."

  The collected group of highly educated professionals cast bewildered glances back and forth between themselves and Dr. Woods knew that they were probably thinking he was losing it. One of them finally gathered the courage to ask the question each of them had silently been sharing.

  "Doctor, you do of course understand that what you are proposing only comes close to describing one thing that I can think of, and that is only because my kids are science fiction nuts."

  He knew this hypothesis would be regarded with a high level of skepticism, but until someone else was willing to offer a more reasonable explanation he was planning on running with it.

  "Yes, that is exactly what I am proposing, the virus that killed everyone in that region of New Jersey did more than just kill them, it is turning them into actual zombies and they are capable of reanimating after death."

  A murmur erupted from the gathered group of men in the autopsy suite, with the cable for the outgoing audio replaced Dr. Woods was now more than capable of hearing everything from inside that room and he did not miss a handful of comments alluding to a lack of sanity after his unexpected proclamation that they were now on the verge of some type of real life Zombie epidemic.

  "Look, if any of you can offer me a better explanation of how in the hell that guy rose from that table after clearly being dead, and each of you will confirm that he was in fact dead long before he reached that table. If you can do that, I want to hear it. If not, then let’s just take these small precautions, secure those two corpses and ensure that they are monitored for the time being. In the meantime, proceed with this autopsy, I want samples burning through the computers on your end as well as in Atlanta within the next hour. It is imperative that we determine exactly what we are dealing with here."

  Muting the conversation but leaving the video feed rolling Dr. Woods next picked up a phone and punched in the direct number for his military liaison in charge of coordinating all National Guard efforts involved in this situation. Within ten minutes he had received a reassurance that a camera equipped unmanned drone could be launched to take up station over downtown Browns Mills. If his guess was right about what they may be dealing with, he had a very bad feeling of just what that drone mission would uncover. According to his military contact it would not be until at least the following morning that they could get a suitable drone prepped and airborne over the target. They could have put the drone up during the early morning hours of Saturday but Dr. Woods insisted on a daytime flyover, if his suspicions were correct then the night time infrared cameras would not be sufficient for observation, they needed eyes directly on the target.

  #

  Carl awoke to sounds and smells all around him that he was unable to identify but they stirred a hunger inside him that he had never known before. Opening his eyes he viewed the world around him through a yellow filtered haze as if in a dream. His rebirth brought with it nothing of his former self, all that he had known was gone, everything that made him the man he was had been burned from his brain and in its place was left only the overwhelming desire to feed. The hunger emanated from a small nodule deep inside his brain and spread throughout his body like the urge a junkie has to get their next fix, it consumed and dominated him.

  The virus that had burned the life out of Carl had not simply died out when his body ceased to function. Buried deep within his brain the virus' primary function began when all vital organs within the host carrying it finally ceased operating. It was only through the death of the host that the virus was able to come fully to life and begin working. Once it became nestled inside the hypothalamus gland of the brain the virus began sending out commands to the rest of the body that would speed it along in succumbing to death. The body’s organs start shutting down one after the other and begin an accelerated process of decomposition even before the last breath of life finally leaves the victim. During the last stages of life, the virus itself forms a protective coating around the entire hypothalamus which segregates that single piece of the brain from the damage racing through the rest of the host’s body. This coating eventually formed into a rigid nodule which retained the hypothalamus as its nucleus and begins to take over control of the body as the only remaining vital organ left functioning. The nodule itself is only the size of a golf ball and is limited in the functions it can allow the body to perform. Since the reanimation process can only occur following death, some parts of the body are subjected to the decomposition process, the eyes suffer a loss of function and clarity as a result of this. While vision is still possible after rebirth has occurred, only a few colors of the available spectrum are visible, for the most part the body can no longer see in color and its world is reduced to a grayscale with tinges of yellow and red. All remaining consciousness of the hosts former self is wiped completely clean leaving behind the most basic and primal instincts of a feral animal. After reanimation occurs, all extremities are capable of movement and controlled by this nodule. Pain receptors no longer function and the body is no longer limited by factors such as fatigue, illness, injury or pain. In the absence of those limiting influences, the body can now operate at its full potential which manifests itself in much greater strength, endurance and speed than was ever possible in its previous life. The end result of reaching this full potential is that energy is burned at a much accelerated rate. Hunger therefore becomes the sole motivational instinct left intact, although this hunger is also much different than anything experienced in the past. To try and satisfy this insatiable hunger the body’s only driving instinct is to feed and the exclusive means of satisfying that hunger comes in the form of human flesh and meat.

  Carl could smell delicious sustenance all around him, it was both intoxicating and exciting at the same time. For a moment he allowed himself to study his surroundings. He found that he was sitting on the ground with his knees pulled up close to his chest. Shifting his body to one side he was able to stretch his legs free of the row of chairs they had been pressed against. With his feet now free, he was able to pull himself up to a stand
ing position with his back still flat against the wall. He was in a large open room with chairs and tables spread out from one end to the other, each chair and every square foot of open floor was occupied by others like him. He though they were like him but he also knew they were different. The entire room was filled with sounds as these things opened and closed their mouths to release noises that sent a cold shiver up his spine. The chair on the end of the row that his feet had been wedged under when he awoke was taken by one of these beings who appeared to have taken notice of his movements and was carefully watching him as he stood up. He sniffed at the air near this creature and was instantly excited by the overwhelming aroma of food. His mouth started to water and he worked his jaw carefully up and down as the thought of a fresh meal nearby sent an electrical charge racing through his body. With a snarling growl Carl leapt towards the seated figure and before it could react he had grabbed hold of its fat and meaty arm with his mouth and torn free a long strip of flesh, meat and the warm sweet blood that had been trapped beneath these outer layers of flabby crust. The rich coppery smell released as the blood from his victim was exposed to the open air further fueled his lust to feed and before he finished swallowing that first mouthful of delicious and nourishing fat and flesh, he was already lunging forward with his open mouth to tear free a second hunk of meat from the side of the neck. With each of his bites that pierced the skin of his victim he was also injecting doses of the purest possible levels of the virus directly into the bloodstream of his subject. Though most people exposed to the virus would ultimately succumb to its effects, only a percentage of them would be regenerated. Many would simply burn out from fever before the glands in their brains were properly insulated to guide them through the regeneration process. The bite wounds that Carl was inflicting were similar to a snake injecting venom into their victim’s bloodstreams, in this case the virus was given a direct route to the brain. Those falling victim to wounds of this kind were not only guaranteed to complete the transition, but would also do so at an extremely accelerated rate. In this manner the virus ensured that it lived on by spreading rapidly from host to host. A victim not completely devoured for sustenance would thereby reanimate and carry on the line in a very short period of time. Carl felt a rhythmic beating and drumming along various parts of his body and he turned his blood soaked face to the side to see that he was surrounded by many more of these creatures. They were using their hands and feet to rain blows across his body in response to the howling wails of pain emanating from his current victim. His body was no longer capable of feeling pain so the only sensation he registered from the crowd of rescuers trying to aid his stricken victim, was the presence of more prey. In a flash Carl threw his body into the crowd of good Samaritans, tackling a stubby man who had the unfortunate bad luck to have been pushed to the front edge of the gathering crowd. Carl's impact with the man pushed both of them through the concentrated ranks of do-gooders and they landed together on top of a man and a women who had been knocked to the ground under them from the force of Carl's attack. With the taste of fresh meat still alive in his mouth he found himself mixed in amongst a pile of warm, writhing bodies all with tasty morsels of meat well within his reach. Twisting his head back and forth from side to side he lashed out with his snarling teeth over and over again, each time he was rewarded with another mouthful of warm sinewy deliciousness. With each bite his blood lust was further ignited for more, he was in the midst of a lavish feeding frenzy and each anguished scream of pain or cry for help merely encouraged him to fight back harder to taste even more of the life preserving flesh that he craved.

  #

  The crowded emergency room was now at maximum capacity and the last several people to arrive had been forced to stand just outside the doorway so they would not miss their names being called. The rush of hypochondriacs had been expected by the hospital staff, as soon as the news of a methane gas health hazard several counties over had started coming across the television they had anticipated a rush of people claiming to be experiencing whatever symptoms the different news outlets were reporting. Charge nurse Chandler Raven was now hitting eleven straight hours of what was going to end up being a sixteen hour shift. Many of her coworkers had wisely either called in sick or disconnected their home and cell phones seconds after the first news network broke the story about a quarantine nearby. It was a well-known fact in medical circles that any such outbreak quickly brought out the crazies who convinced themselves they were infected with a deadly strain of whatever bug was being reported. It was her unfortunate luck to have already been just starting her routine shift when the news first broke. Her supervisor had passed along the word that everyone on this current shift was expected to hunker down and ride it out for at least a double shift until they were finally able to reach those who were dodging their phones. She had been through this before and knew that it would more than likely end up being a solid week of double shifts until the dust finally settled and things got back to normal.

  With three quarters of her blood now more coffee than plasma, she was awake, jittery and just in an overall pissed off mood. Not one of the patients who had approached her desk in the last several hours had exhibited anything more than signs of a common cold. She almost wished for a stabbing victim to wander in so she would have something worthwhile to do. To pass the time and also to help drown on the sniffling, whining and complaining of a waiting room full of the dredges of society, she had turned the television intended for the visitor room to face her desk and moved one of the external speakers from its mount on the wall to a shelf just under her desk. Now she could at least keep up with her shows and successfully overlook the dozens of pitiful souls that had already turned the waiting area into standing room only. If her supervisor cast a glance at his security monitor to check up on her it would look as if her attention was being completely devoted to the waiting area, he would have no way to tell from his quiet and segregated office that she was actually focused completely on the TV.

  Every now and then she would be interrupted by a brave newcomer willing to fight their way through the unyielding crowd between the desk and doorway. Nurse Raven had dispensed with the normal clipboard full of information that was required for each new patient to complete, instead she would jot their name down on the bottom of a three page list. If they had remained near the emergency room by the time their name was finally called, then she would have them complete the required paperwork. It had been her experience that in cases like this at least half of the people who had only imagined symptoms would give up after their first couple of hours crowded into the waiting room and elect to ride out their imagined illness in the comforts of their own homes. The ones that really got on her nerves were the patients who would brazenly approach her desk just about every hour and demand to know why they had not yet been called, didn't she realize just how desperate their situation was? Those were the ones that tested her patience to their limits. Each one that made the mistake of doing just that received a little tic mark next to their name on her list. All those with tic marks were deliberately skipped over to be seen until she felt they had paid enough penance for pissing her off to allow them their place back in line. She was scanning the room now for the man who had argued with her earlier about others being seen before him. She had given him his deserved tic mark and he had behaved ever since, she had decreed that he had paid his dues and was now willing to call him forth as the next fortunate soul to pass her station. Scanning the packed waiting room she thought she spotted the young man sitting on the floor at the far end of the room wedged between a section of seats and the wall. She called out his name loudly enough to be heard over the ever present din of dozens of separate conversations, the television, several crying babies and the occasional unintelligible hospital paging system. Keeping her eyes on where the man was sleeping when she called out for him, she didn't detect the slightest hint of movement from the still form. She waited ten seconds and tried again, this time louder. Again there was no response f
rom the young man. She was now positive that this was in fact the same man, a break in the crowd had allowed her a brief glance at an identification badge hanging around his neck. She remembered that the guy had been wearing some type of laminated name tag declaring him to be part of some low level government agency that she really cared little about. Her personal policy in cases like this were that she would clearly call out a name twice, even if they were sleeping on the floor directly in front of her desk she would make no further effort to get their attention. This was not a motel and if a patient contributed to the mess she was faced with today and did not have the decency to stay awake to hear their name, well, that was just too damn bad. She scratched his name off her list all together and moved on to the next winner.

  It was almost an hour after she had removed the young man's name from the list when the first signs of complete disorder gripped the waiting room. Looking up from a dramatic scene at the climax of her current soap opera, Nurse Raven found that the entire room had suddenly erupted into a full on panic with men, women and children rushing towards the exits, tortuous screams of pain and desperate cries for help all emanating from a cluster of bodies that seemed to be tussling around on the floor. Whatever was happening she was sure that the young man with the ID badge around his neck was in the center of it. She could see only the back of the man as he gyrated and wiggled around towards the bottom of a pile of several people along the foot of the row of chairs he had been sleeping against. The scene took on a new sense of urgency for her when she spied a rapidly growing puddle of fresh blood oozing its way in a widening circle around this cluster of people wrestling with one another on the floor. It was then that her attention was drawn to a flabby middle aged man complete with wife beater t-shirt showing off a multitude of crude and tasteless tattoos and blue jean pants that probably had not seen the inside of a washing machine since they went out of style two years earlier. This man was hunched over the back of the chairs and cradling his arm like he was holding a baby, his head was turned upward toward the ceiling and he was letting out a chilling scream of utter agony that she heard many times before from mangled car crash victims racked with absolute tortuous waves of pain from mangled limbs and crushed torsos. The fountaining spray of blood shooting skyward from his cradled arm was enough to clue her in that there was a real situation here. The first thing that came to her mind was that the young man with the ID badged had possibly stabbed this man and the other patients now mixing it up on the floor with him had witnessed the assault and come to his aid. In any event, a stabbing or otherwise, she had two calls to make, the first was a general call of alarm for security to respond in force and immediately to the emergency room waiting area. The second call was to the ICU ward just through the entry controlled double doors behind her. She reported an ongoing assault situation in the waiting room and that there were possible multiple victims with lacerations and stab wounds, a crash cart and medical team was needed immediately.