The Berne Apocalypse (Book 1): Jacob's Odyssey

by Russ Melrose

  I followed my usual routine and scouted out all three floors. As had always been the case, the house was empty. The fridge had bottled water and plenty of food and the pantry was well stocked as well. There was even a half-empty bottle of Absolut Vodka in the freezer. The couch downstairs was comfy and I found two possible exit windows in the basement. The house had everything I needed. There was a Camry in the garage and I found the keys to it in a drawer in the master bedroom upstairs. I set the keys on top of the car in case of emergency, though I doubted I'd ever need to use a car. I believed I'd always be safer in a backyard than I would be out on a street driving a car. Car sounds would be like a magnet drawing packs of infected to you. But despite the danger, I'd begun hearing the sounds of screeching tires off in the distance, gunfire too. They must have run out of food and been desperate. Why else would anyone be out there in a car? Just the same, every day when I planned out my next day's itinerary, I made sure my target neighborhood didn't include dead-end streets or cul-de-sacs. A car wouldn't do me any good if I got boxed in.

  One thing I'd learned in the past week is that every home tells a story. When you scout out homes thoroughly, you learn things about the family that lived there. And this house was no different. It told me a story I didn't like. A middle-class couple, the Petersons, lived here with their daughter, Audrey. The parents looked to be thirtyish, a few years older than me, and they doted on their daughter. Audrey looked to be around six years old. And it was easy to tell from the pictures on the living room mantle, that this was a happy family. In one picture, Audrey smiled brightly and proudly held up a new Bratz doll for the camera. She had that nurtured sheen about her that comes from being loved and well tended. Her bedroom was stocked with dolls and toys and children's books. She also had a vanity with jewelry trees sitting atop it along with a closet filled with colorful dresses. And I couldn't help but notice in some of the pictures on the mantle, how much alike mother and daughter were. They both had chestnut-brown hair and wore flowery summer dresses. And they smiled unabashedly with wide smiles.

  A few small details told me what had happened. The most telling was Audrey's unmade bed and the three items laid out on the nightstand next to her bed. This was a well kept up household. It wasn't the kind of home where beds went unmade. The little girl's unmade bed was strikingly out of place. And then there were the three items on the nightstand. A wash cloth folded into what had likely been a cold compress for Audrey's fever along with a bottle of Children's Tylenol and a glass of water. At first, they likely thought their daughter had simply caught a cold. But once the fever and headaches started, they would have been worried. And by the time her face had thinned and turned gray, they would have been frantic. They probably took her to the nearest hospital or instant care facility. And without them being aware of it, she'd probably infected them too. Maybe from something as simple as a sneeze or maybe from one of them giving her a gentle kiss on her feverish forehead. It was pretty clear they hadn't tried to leave the valley. If they had, the fridge and pantry would've been cleaned out, but both were well stocked. And since the home wasn't shuttered up, it had likely happened that first week before anyone knew much of anything.

  The thought of what had happened to the Petersons haunted me. I wasn't sure why. I didn't exactly know them. But I did feel a kind of connection with them. And I felt that same connection with many of the people whose homes I'd stayed in. I felt a great deal of gratitude toward them. But I also felt some guilt for breaking into their homes and eating their food and using their stuff. And even though I told myself that they really wouldn't mind, there was no way I could know that. How could I? And I couldn't help but wonder if this connection I felt was simply my way of pacifying the pent-up guilt I was feeling. Maybe it was. What I did know was that most of the people whose homes I stayed in had died a horrific death. Or something worse.

  I retrieved my backpack from the back porch and closed and locked the back door. There was some multigrain bread in the fridge that was still good, so I fixed myself a sandwich. Black Forest Ham with a slice of cheddar cheese and mayo. I had to cut off a moldy corner of the cheese, but the sandwich hit the spot.

  After I finished the sandwich, I took my toiletries from the backpack and set them up in the main floor bathroom. I examined the cut on my cheek in the mirror and was thrilled with how well it had healed. The adhesive strips had done a nice job of keeping the skin together while it was healing. I'd changed the adhesive strips three times a day and had continued to use the Neosporin. The skin was knitting back together nicely and I didn't believe there'd be much of a scar, but I didn't really know for sure. And then it struck me how ludicrous it was to be concerned about a little scar in the midst of the world falling apart. I laughed silently at my misplaced vanity.

  I turned the thermostat off and waited a few minutes before turning it back on again. I always synchronized turning the air conditioner on with turning the tap water on because the air conditioners would mask the sound of running water. I knew I was being overly cautious, but I'd rather be too cautious than take unnecessary chances. Internet reports indicated that while the infected had severely limited cognitive abilities, they more than made up for it in enhanced sensory abilities. Their auditory sense would pick up even the slightest variation outside the scope of normal ambient sounds. And I'd had first hand experience with just how good their auditory senses could be.

  After I shaved and washed up, I settled in downstairs. I'd grabbed a dining room table chair from upstairs and placed it underneath the primary exit window. I made sure the window was unlocked and left the chair underneath it. If I had to, I could get out of the basement in a few seconds. After closing the basement door, I camped out on a buttery-soft leather couch in the family room. I grabbed my iPad and went to Google Maps and planned my itinerary for the following day. I had decided to stretch my three or four blocks a day maximum to five or six. I was more than anxious to get out of the valley. And I had developed an expertise at moving quickly and quietly through the neighborhood backyards. When I first began, it took as much as twenty-five minutes to travel just one block. Climbing fences carefully and quietly was time consuming. And it wasn't unusual for me to have to wait once or twice a day for a street to clear before I could cross. Now it only took me fifteen minutes, twenty at most, to go a block. I'd even developed hardened calluses on the palms of my hands from all the fence climbing. And a part of me took pride in the calluses.

  After my planning was out of the way, I browsed the internet for the latest info on the infected. It's funny how the world can be falling apart, yet the internet remains alive, buzzing right along. As many as a quarter of the websites on the internet were still up and running. And my 4G wireless still worked perfectly. I was scanning the comments section on the news page at Julia Courtney's blog. Before the virus turned the world upside down, Julia ran a popular self-help blog on do-it-yourself alternative healing techniques—self-hypnosis, meditation, Reiki, and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). I had originally gone to Julia's blog to learn about meditation. And while I never quite developed a meditative practice, I learned a lot about the importance and effectiveness of breathing deeply.

  Since the virus attack, Julia had transitioned her blog to an informational site on the virus and the grays. Not only did she provide a contrast to the mainstream news presentation of events (CNN was the lone survivor of mainstream news on the internet), but she had blog pages where people could self-report news in the comments section and another blog page where survivors could let their loved ones know that they were still alive. She also had a tips page for staying alive, a kind of survival guide, where visitors added their own tips and shared their survival experiences.

  I read both CNN and Julia's blog to get different perspectives on the ongoing crisis. They offered different versions of who was responsible for the spread of the virus. The official version had Al Qaeda, in conjunction with other terrorists groups, as responsible for the attack, and this version s
eemed to me to make the most sense. CNN often quoted Homeland Security which seemed to be the only part of the government still having a presence. Julia didn't speculate on exactly who was responsible as much as pointing out how the official version of events didn't pass muster from a common sense perspective, and she certainly made some valid points. She pointed out how it didn't make sense that terrorists would release the virus in international airports that had flights scheduled to their home countries. And she had a point since every country in the world had been affected.

  But I didn't care. At this point, it didn't matter. Mostly, I browsed the internet to get information about the infected. Learning as much as I could about the infected was my new hobby. And I was driven to find out as much as I could.

  Today when I visited CNN, they announced that several labs around the country were working in conjunction with the CDC in Atlanta to develop a vaccine. What was left of Homeland Security was providing support for the labs. They kept the labs secure and supplied them with food and other necessities. I only paid attention since one of the labs was located in the Salt Lake Valley. To me, it seemed like an exercise in futility. From my understanding, it took years and often decades to develop a vaccine. And by then, what good would it do? The article listed phone numbers and addresses for the labs and encouraged anyone who might have an immunity to the virus to contact them. They were looking for people with immune cells that might help block the virus.

  There was no question as to how the virus was spread. On July 4th, the virus was released in airports throughout the world in a highly coordinated attack. It was estimated that at least sixty airports throughout the world had been targeted, eight in the United States alone. Only major airports with international connections were targeted. And with all the connecting flights originating out of those sixty some airports, every major city in the world was affected. The virus was released in ticket lines, at baggage claim areas, at terminals, and on the airplanes themselves. Within two days, the virus was everywhere.

  The virus was reportedly released as an airborne contagion from suitcases and carry-on luggage by terrorists who were strategically located throughout each airport for maximum exposure. The virus was secreted away in the steel support rods and handles of suitcases and luggage and released by a simple trigger mechanism. It was undetectable by scans and x-ray machines.

  Three suspected terrorists were arrested in airports on July fourth—two of them in the United States, one at O'Hare Airport, another at Kennedy International. The third was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London. They were detained because they had been loitering around the airports and generally looked suspicious. No one had a clue the terrorists were there to release a deadly virus. They were questioned about what they were up to, but they kept mum and a day and a half later each of them began with the coughing and the sneezing. The authorities never managed to put anything together till it was too late. Later it was learned that two of the suspects had ties to terrorist organizations.

  The virus itself was an insidious creation. Not only was the virus highly contagious, but because of the thirty-six hour incubation period, the virus spread unchecked throughout every nation on the face of the earth. People would return home from trips and give the virus to their family members; children would go to daycare or summer camp and pass it on to the other children; employees would give it to one another at their workplace. It was passed around at malls and movie theaters and grocery stores and restaurants. During the incubation period, the virus was passed mainly through direct human contact. Children were especially vulnerable because of the way they interact with one another. Adults would pass the virus to one another through kissing or sex or a sweaty touch. But the virus really exploded during the initial part of the second stage. That's when the coughing and sneezing began, and the virus was once again airborne. It was so innocuous. Most people thought they were catching a simple cold or that their allergies were acting up. No one had any idea they were infected with a deadly virus. Anyone near those who were infected would likely get infected themselves.

  Nearly two days passed before anyone realized what was going on and by then it was too late. The virus was everywhere, and you never really knew for sure who was infected till they began showing second stage symptoms. A few hours after the sneezing and coughing, the more serious symptoms of the virus would begin to manifest: a high fever, headaches, chills, disorientation, nausea, skin discoloration, progressively jaundiced eyes, and a thinning of the layers of the skin. The second stage lasted six to eight hours. Then they would appear to die, at least momentarily, and then they would come back.

  The incubation period for those who were bitten was remarkably shorter; something to do with the virus being introduced directly into the body's circulatory system. Those who were bitten would turn in one to three hours depending on the location of the bite. If you were bitten, you had precious little time.

  Today's hot topic on Julia's blog had to do with a conspiracy site calling itself The Berne Project. Everyone was urging everyone else to visit there and listen to some recording that exposed the conspiracy. I had never been a conspiracy buff and had no interest.

  I headed over to the survival guide section and read the more recent posts there. This was my favorite part of the website. I read it daily to see if there were any survival tips that might prove useful. There were a few items today. The most disturbing news involved a couple reports of grays breaking into homes in something resembling a methodical pattern, laying siege to one home after another down a street. Some speculated the grays had become desperate for food since there weren't any people left out on the streets for them to feed on. One of the posters said his family hid in their attic for three days when they became aware the grays were ransacking their neighborhood. I was glad I was getting out while I could.

  The other items were more mundane. Some posters were stressing the idea that head trauma was the best way to kill grays. I didn't know whether it was accurate information or just folklore. It wasn't the first time someone had suggested this. Then there was a poster from Atlanta who recounted an experience where he had disemboweled a dead gray and smeared the gray's blood all over himself to camouflage himself from a group of infected nearby. But I wasn't buying it. If he had smeared infected blood all over himself, he would have gotten infected. I think he was just trolling for attention. Even in the post-apocalyptic world, there were still plenty of trolls around.

  I yawned and stretched and thought about a nap. I wasn't sleeping well at night and often took catnaps in the afternoon. Last night I had had a disturbing dream in which Alex kept trying to get me to remove the bullets out of the holes in his forehead, but I was too afraid to touch him. I woke drenched in sweat and couldn't get back to sleep.

  I couldn't believe how tired I suddenly felt. I placed my iPad back in the backpack in its usual spot. I kept everything neatly packed in case I had to leave in a hurry. The only items I usually left outside the backpack besides my cap and sunglasses were the Glock and my bat. The bat served as my sleeping companion. I picked it up off the floor and nestled myself and the bat into a comfortable sleeping position and then I drifted off to sleep.

  *****

  Alex and I used to drink vodka martinis back in college, and I'd rarely had one since. On this night, I was pining for a deja vu experience. I found the vermouth in the pantry and added a splash to the vodka I'd already poured into the coffee mug. I didn't want to use their delicate martini glasses, so I opted for a coffee mug. I also added a couple of large, pimento-stuffed green olives from the fridge. I looked around for toothpicks but never found them, so I stirred the vodka martini with my finger. The vodka was ice cold, just the way I liked it. I sucked my finger dry and savored the dry, cold taste of the martini. Just a hint of vermouth made all the difference. I fixed a second martini and took them out to the back porch.

  There were two deck chairs and a small table. The chairs were plastic but had thick floral cushions that looked comfo
rtable. I sat down as quietly as I could. Before I came out, I'd made sure to set the thermostat to sixty degrees again to keep the air conditioning going for a few hours, help mask any sounds I might make. I sipped the martini and took in the evening twilight. I put my earbuds in and listened to the Cowboy Junkies on my iPod. The sun had just set behind the Oquirrh Mountains and the sky's palette was a powdery Robin's egg blue. High above, thin translucent wisps of white clouds stretched lazily across the sky as if someone had taken an oversized cotton ball and stretched it out till it was threadbare. They were the kind of clouds you only saw during the summer months. Above the Wasatch Range, a pale half-moon lingered quietly, and I couldn't help but smile as Margo Timmins began her beautiful, wistful version of "Blue Moon Revisited."

  The Cowboy Junkies were a Canadian group from the late '80s whose songs were a melodic blend of blues, country, and folk. They were actually a little before my time, but Raymond Jacques introduced me to them along with a mix of R&B from the '60s and '70s. Raymond was smitten with Margo Timmins, lead singer of the Cowboy Junkies. And for good reason. People Magazine tabbed her as one of the fifty most beautiful women in the world. But according to Raymond, Margo was easily top five, though he wisely never made mention of that to my mother. Raymond was a Jamaican native who drifted in and out of a relationship with my mother for almost a year. I never knew exactly what Raymond did for a living, but I suspected he supplied people, including my mother, with recreational marijuana. He was soft spoken and mellow, always smiling, and was the only one of my mother's lovers I made any kind of connection with. He used to play his R&B CDs on my mother's stereo in our living room. And he'd educate me about R&B artists like Minnie Riperton, The Delfonics, Sam and Dave and many others, laughing and smiling the whole time. Raymond loved his music and loved sharing it. Eventually, he faded from our lives like the rest of them. I truly hoped Raymond was okay.