by S. Ganley
As he was contemplating his fate, something about the tangled mass of bodies at his feet didn't seem right to him. The struggle should have ended a moment after he felt the stock of the rifle colliding with the skin and bone alongside the head of the teenager, instead what he was seeing seemed to be a renewed vigor in the tempo of the ongoing wrestling match. He couldn't hear much of anything else above the agonizing howls of the man who had lost half of his calf to that unbelievable bite wound so it didn't register with him for a few seconds that the other two adults mixed up in the melee were still blabbering away desperately shouting for help in controlling the youth. Kyle looked on in utter disbelief at the teenager still fighting against the bodies pressing down to control him. The blow from his rifle butt had pushed his head down into the pile and he had thought for sure it would not be coming back into view again unless lifted by someone else. Almost as soon as he had that thought, the kids head popped back up, teeth still snarling and the remnants of a thick slice of partially chewed up calf meat visible in his mouth as he chewed, swallowed, snarled and repeated. The side of his head where he had absorbed the blow had a visible crescent shaped wound in a pattern reminiscent of the edge of his rifles butt stock, there was even a long jagged piece of loose skin flapping against the side of his face where the blow had broken through the skin, it was a pretty deep cut and Kyle was shocked that he didn't see a single drop of blood coming from it. What was even more shocking was that instead of knocking this kid straight into the emergency room for the next two weeks, all he had managed to do was piss him off even more. Kyle took a tentative step backwards as he took another look at the situation in front of him. The kid had not been even slowed by his blow and now had the upper hand against the adults piled on top of him. With a crippling wound to the leg, one of the men in the pile was now more or less out of the fight and only remained tangled up in the pile due to the weight of the woman lying across the top of his torso, any effort at controlling the teen had been forgotten as his attention was totally distracted by the searing pain from his wounded leg. He had managed to free his uninjured leg from the bottom of the pile and get his foot firmly planted on the ground in an effort to push the rest of his body away from the others, but without being able to see what he was doing he had put that leg well within striking range of the teens snarling mouth. Kyle knew it was coming but had no way to stop it as he watched the open mouth still half full of the bounty of soft meat from the man’s other calf start to move towards it like the striking mouth of a snake.
Kyle hadn't seen the other figure that entered the apartment behind his back while he was recovering from his failed attempt at subduing the out of control teen. He saw a blur of movement as someone rushed past him right up to the side of the pile of people. There was a flash of light, a thunderous blast of a gunshot and then the pile of people surged downward as the teen collapsed underneath them, dead from a gunshot wound into the deep gash left by Kyle's strike to his temple. Wheeling to the side and raising his rifle at the same time he came face to face with the expressionless face of his patrol supervisor, his M4 rifle still smoking as he slowly lowered it to his side.
There had been several moments where the two police officers just stared at each other before leaping into action and pulling apart the pile of intertwined bodies. Kyle yelled back down the hallway for the paramedic to get his ass in there and Kyle directed him to the more gravely injured child by the couch first while he pulled a medical kit from his own utility belt and applied a compress to the gapping leg of the wounded man to try and suppress the bleeding until the paramedic could get to him. Before he could finish applying the compress the paramedic was kneeling down beside him and pushing him out of the way ready to take over, the boy had bled out before he could get to him.
With the threat dealt with and the wounded being cared for, Kyle pulled his patrol supervisor aside to find out what the hell he was thinking with killing that kid. Before he could even ask the question the Sergeant explained to him that this was the seventh officer involved shooting in the last hour under similar circumstances. One of their own junior patrolman had been killed in an encounter just a half hour earlier when he hesitated to fire. He told Kyle that the information about the dead coming back to life was not just some bullshit story being blown out of proportion. It was happening, and he had already witnessed it several times. The only method known to stop one of them was a catastrophic injury to the brain, a bullet was their best and more effective tool. When Kyle expressed some level of doubt at what he was telling him, the Sergeant had flipped the body of the teenager over and pointed to the exit would from the bullet on the back of his head. The damage was severe, a 5.56mm bullet tends to tumble and spin inside the body resulting in a wound track several times the size of the round itself causing massive internal injuries. The exit wound such a round makes can be the size of a fist as this particular one happened to be. The skull cavity was plainly visible with the majority of its contents spread out across the far side of the dining room and into the kitchen where the larger chunks of the brain were found inside the sink mixed in amongst the dirty dishes. What the supervisor was showing Kyle was not the damage his shot had produced, but instead the lack of blood loss that resulted from the wound. His explanation was simple and convincing, "The dead don't bleed."
That demonstration was all it took to sell Kyle completely on the idea of what they were facing, he assured his patrol supervisor that he would not hesitate again to solve any future problems like that with a double tap to the head. When he asked about securing the scene for the follow up investigation he received his second surprise of the night. There would be no follow up on scenes like this, the paramedics would secure the wounded and dead and remove them from the apartment. The incident would be noted in Kyle's patrol log and he would return to duty as instructed, all investigative aspects involving shootings like the one he had just witnessed were suspended and already considered just and lawful even in advance of them occurring. In short, it was open season on the undead.
Kyle's first experience with zombies would be his last for the rest of his shift, but it set the tone for the way he responded to every other incident from that point on. He would reflect on that single incident later and give his supervisor credit for helping to keep him alive when things really started turning to shit.
#
News arrived a short time before lunch that the President had died of complications related to the illness contracted from one of his own secret service agents. The Vice President had taken to the skies aboard Air Force One where he would remain with a staff of top advisor's and a handful of agents. Only personnel who had been completely medically cleared of any signs or symptoms of illness had been permitted on the aircraft and the plan was to continue a fuel conserving orbit along the east coast until a ground based facility could be completely cleared and guaranteed to be free of exposure. General Page and several other key members of the staff manning the White House situation room had reported suffering symptoms of the virus, but choose to remain at their posts while receiving treatment from a medical crew assigned to support their operations.
Dr. Woods expressed his condolences to the General for the loss of the President as well as the news that he had fallen ill. There was no need to go into the fact that the General had just been handed a likely death sentence, he knew the facts as well as any of them but he was also a soldier and would continue to do his job as long as he remained physically able. For their own staff, Dr. Woods and Dr. Martin had reduced the operations at the crisis center to six technicians and analysts in addition to themselves, the eight of them had sequestered themselves in the crisis center offices and no one was permitted to enter or leave. Dr. Woods hoped that would be enough to keep them safe from the illness but he also recognized that the center had not been designed to resist any type of biological agent. Since the virus was known to be a virulent airborne threat it was really only a matter of time before their ventilation system brought it to th
eir own front door.
General Page had been unable to convince the Vice President to initiate his recommendation of limited martial law to restrict all nonemergency travel. The Vice President still refused to accept that this virus was reached the point where it was beyond the ability of the CDC and other medical centers inside the United States to find a cure. The last thing he wanted to do was have his first order as Commander in Chief be one that would be viewed as alarmist. His personal staff had convinced him that it was only a matter of time before a vaccine was developed and throwing a wrench in the economy by causing a nationwide shut down of industries would hurt them much worse in the long run. Given the facts presented to him on the current casualty rates and the rate at which the virus was already spreading, he did agree to institute the emergency broadcast system to begin giving instructions to the population. Those instructions included recommendations for avoiding contact with persons exhibiting flu like symptoms, the closure of public schools and government offices for the first two days of the coming work week and for those who felt they had contracted the illness to remain home and isolated while continuing to administer over the counter medications to help with symptoms. While Dr. Woods felt that even this was not enough to really allow them to get ahead of the outbreak, it was at least a start.
Chapter 15
Miranda was finding her shopping trip to be much more of a chore than she had anticipated. The stores were absolutely packed with people and she sensed a growing unease within the crowds of shoppers. Many people she encountered were visibly sick, runny noses, deep throaty coughs and red eyes were the most common symptoms that she was seeing. Others that she saw were wearing surgical masks and making an obvious effort to avoid contact with anyone who showed even the slightest indication that they may be ill. She had joined a crowd of curious onlookers gathered in front of an appliance store and watching the display televisions as news outlets reported on a nationwide epidemic of a strain of flu that was being widely reported as responsible for a number of deaths and was especially resistant to available flu vaccines. Public schools and government offices were being kept closed for the first of the coming week and the FAA had ordered that all overseas air traffic as well as red eye flights would also be suspended during the same time period. The bulletin continued to explain common sense methods of avoiding contact with surfaces that may have come in contact with the virus, the use of disinfectants, hand washing and use of face masks when out in public were encouraged.
As she watched the repeating news segment she listened as the conversation in the crowd around her discussed the possibility of a terrorist attack with biological weapons, a failed government medical experiments and one man that was convinced a UFO had landed in the western part of Nevada and brought with it an infectious agent from outer space.
She decided to cut her shopping trip short by sticking to the most pressing items and making sure that included her food shopping. Entering the grocery side of the Super Walmart across the street from where she had started her shopping trip she found this store even more crowded than any of the others. While people were orderly and calm for the most part, she saw that their carts were stacked high with cases of water, dry goods and cans of soup and that the beginning of the checkout lines stretched back to the beyond the first aisle of goods. As she pushed her cart down the crowded aisles she found large sections of shelves completely bare of goods, the store was on the verge of being picked clean and she was lucky to find less than half of what she had come for. She was grateful to find that most of the meats had been ignored in the rush for survival goods, probably in anticipation of a long term power outage where refrigeration would not be a possibility. Miranda was not one to buy into such scares, while she agreed that the news of a growing epidemic was alarming, she had faith in the government and their ability to get in front of something like this. A vaccine would shortly become available and the scare would subside, in the meantime, store owners across the country would reap the benefits of revenues four to five times that what they would have normally had as a result of panicky shoppers. She often wondered if big industry wasn't somehow behind the spread of such panic in order to drive up sales during economic downturns.
Filling her cart with as much of the items on her list that she could find, she managed to pick up enough food to last her for several days, as well as the ingredients she had been looking for to prepare a dinner that evening that she had planned on inviting her new landlady her husband to. After standing in line for close to an hour, she finally left the store with her bundles of bags and waited patiently at a nearby bus stand for a taxi she had called as she was leaving the store.
Finally arriving home two hours later than she had planned, she flew through the house putting away her newly purchased wares and then called Mrs. Carpenter to extend an invitation for dinner. Mr. Carpenter had taken the call and told her that his wife was already in bed for the evening, he explained that she had started feeling ill early in the afternoon and as the day had progressed she had become worse. A short time before Miranda had called she had taken her second dose of Nyquil and it had pretty much knocked her out. He went on to explain that he had also started feeling a little run down in the past hour and was probably going to turn in early with hopes of sleeping it off. When Miranda explained the purpose for her call he had offered his apologies and told her that he was sure his wife would have been glad to take her up on her offer but they would just have to try for another night when she was back to feeling better. She offered to run any errands for them they might need, but Mr. Carpenter had politely declined the request telling her that they had everything they needed in the house and that he didn't want Miranda to risk catching their germs by coming around the house. Miranda wished them both well and then hung up the phone a little disappointed that she would not have the chance to have visitors for dinner that evening but feeling sorry for her landlord and her husband. She thought back to the news segment she had watched with other shoppers a short time ago about the outbreak of a flu that was hitting hard in the area. This was most likely the source of Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter's sudden illness and she really hoped that they would both pull through ok, the report had discussed how several deaths already had resulted from this outbreak and both of the Carpenters were a little up there in age.
Since there was nothing she was able to do for the Carpenters and her dinner plans had been just flushed down the toilet, she fixed herself a microwave pizza and was just about to sit down and enjoy it in front of the TV when she remembered that she still had yet to set up her television and Internet service. The rest of the evening was just going to be lonely and boring, she reminded herself that she at least had a couple paperback books that had been part of her original belongings. She thought she would treat herself to a hot bath, light a couple candles and relax with a nice romance novel that she had started months early and never found the time to finish.
#
After returning home from his morning jog, Garrett had spent some time ironing several outfits for work while channel surfing from one news network to the next following the reports on widespread flu outbreaks across the nation. Several reports alluded that the infection had even spread overseas and that there were unconfirmed reports of smaller outbreaks in a handful of European and Central American countries. The latest update he had heard right before dinner was that all public schools and government offices were being closed through Tuesday of the coming week. Authorities were also advising private industry to consider limiting their working staff to critical personnel only until the outbreak was brought under control. The news continued with interviews from doctors who were supposed experts in the field of viral infections, their advice ranged from disinfecting commonly used surfaces, avoiding contact with people exhibiting symptoms of illness and ensuring that inoculations were current and up to date. For those that were already feeling the effects of illness they continued with their advice from another panel of experts who said to drink plenty of
water, get lots of rest and there was also an included check list of over the counter medications that could be easily obtained to help with symptoms. Overall Garrett found the information pretty mundane, there was no sense of urgency or no measure of impending doom in the way any of the announcers or quoted experts discussed the flu outbreak. That was also what they kept calling it, the flu, they had not pegged it with a special name like Asian Flu, Bird Flu or something else with a catchy and ominous sounding name.
Garrett tried on and off to call Calvin and check in with him on how his date had gone. Using both his home land line and cell phone he kept getting recordings that all circuits were currently busy. Even trying to send a text message he found that it simply bounced back as undeliverable. These types of outages were not uncommon in the area, too damned many people packed into a small area and all trying to use their phones at once would overload circuits from time to time and cause an outage. He gave up trying and set about cooking up a small plate of pasta for dinner. His culinary stills were not the best but since he only ever cooked for himself they served him just fine.
By a little after nine in the evening he found the phones working once again and tried getting in touch with Calvin. He missed him at home and when he called his cell it went right to voice mail, but a few seconds later he received a text from his friend telling him that he was out with Kimberly visiting a sick friend of hers. Garrett made a note to try and remember the girls name again this time. Since Calvin seldom saw any girl more than two times in between marriages, Garrett never made much effort to befriend them or learn much about them. He had tried that in the past and it resulted in him calling his second wife by the wrong name and bringing up an embarrassing event involving a skinny dipping incident that turned out to have actually involved a completely different woman. Since then his policy was a three date rule with Calvin's women, if she made it to a third date with the man he would start getting to know her a little better. Kimberly had now just passed that milestone and to the best of Garrett's recollection was the first to do so since his last divorce. He did feel kind of bad that he couldn't even remember what the hell she had looked like, when they met a couple nights earlier he had been drinking hard and at the time he didn't know which of the women at the table Calvin was zeroing in on so he wasn't really sure which one Kimberly actually was.
