Origins of the Outbreak

by Brian Parker

  Taylor’s face contorted into a mask of evil as his mouth opened wide to bite her. Beth screamed again and kicked him as hard as she could in the chest. His torso slammed backwards into the ground and she went flying in the opposite direction.

  The first two assholes stumbled out of the darkness and she scrambled along on her hands and knees. The thick, rough grass slit her tender nipples open as her breasts dangled underneath her while she crawled. “Ow fuck!” she cried as she finally gained enough momentum to stand upright and run once more.

  She sprinted towards the far tree line again and turned to wait. Blood trickled down from the cuts and scrapes on her chest while sweat from the humidity, physical exertion and fear dripped into the tiny abrasions and made them feel like they were worse than they really were. Beth sobbed softly, trying to suppress her emotions and pressed against her chest to ease the pain while she waited for her three attackers to make their way around the car towards her.

  Taylor stumbled along at a much slower pace than the other two. His head rested almost on his shoulder. Beth guessed that the girl in the bakery coat must have broken his neck when she tackled him. That thought made her feel a little better since he likely died without too much pain. “Oh my God,” she muttered. “I can't believe that this is happening.”

  A soft moan from behind her made her whirl around as another zombie emerged from the wood line. Stupid idiot! she chastised herself. She'd forgotten to keep an eye out behind her. She edged quickly away towards the center of the field to wait.

  The four creatures made their way towards her and when they were fifteen feet away, she darted straight towards the river and then circled back towards the car. She jumped in and started it. The illumination from the headlights temporarily blinded her, but she recovered and shifted the Neon into drive. She sped around the outside of the clearing, well away from the creatures and made her way onto the dirt road.

  When she reached the gravel, she gunned the engine and the car fish-tailed. “Oh shit!” she screamed as it continued to rotate. She took her foot off of the gas pedal and turned into the skid like her mother had taught her, gaining control of the car. Earlier, Taylor had panicked and turned the wheel in the opposite direction, and that's why they almost wrecked.

  The car came to a complete stop on the road and she gently eased the gas pedal down. It took off without any problems and the girl drove back towards town at a safe speed. She checked her phone for a signal, but they'd been too far out to get anything. As she drove, she tried to process what had just happened, but it was too much for her right now.

  Zombies were real and they'd obviously gotten beyond the National Guard's perimeter. Was her mother alright? What about her father, in town? Was he okay? Then the thought of Taylor's battered, broken body lurching after her, clutched her heart and she almost lost control of the car again. “Oh, Taylor,” she muttered once again.

  He'd been the perfect man for her. Their family wouldn't ever happen now. Hell, maybe the entire future wouldn't happen because of the zombies. She put the thoughts of her boyfriend aside. She had to go warn the police that the creatures were all the way out here in Holland. She'd mourn for Taylor – and possibly her mother – later. Part of being an adult was putting the needs of others before your own. In this case, it was the needs of the entire country.

  She had to let them know that they had to defend themselves before it was too late.

  The Desk Anchor, 11:02 p.m.

  “Alright, Mr. Crenshaw, you go live in seven minutes.”

  “Thank you, Sandy,” the anchorman told the older producer. He'd spent the last ten minutes with her and the make-up artist. The first woman went over the stories for tonight and the latter fretted over his appearance.

  He held up the small booklet of papers that he'd taken some personal notes on and asked, “Hey, are we sure that is real? I know that you've told me five times already that it was, but I just… I can't believe it.”

  “Believe it. We've verified and cross-referenced the facts. It's real and this is actually happening.”

  “Belton is what, seventy miles from here?”

  “About sixty-five, but who's counting?”

  He chuckled uncomfortably. “Yeah… So what is the studio going to do?”

  “We've already lost two mobile news crews, we're not going to lose a third. The network has decided that all news will come from the Army reporters on scene.”

  “What Army reporters?”

  “The entire military base at Fort Hood is on lockdown. They have reporters who are in the Army and go on all the deployments with the rest of the soldiers. They're also the ones who get us access to the base for stories,” Sandy replied.

  “Hmpf, I never knew that,” he anchor stated. “Then why do they let all the outside news reporters go in with them if they have their own?”

  “Glasnost.”

  “Huh?” he asked in confusion.

  “It means 'openness'. It was a term that the Soviets used in the early nineties before the Berlin Wall came down. They wanted to be transparent, show the world that things weren't so bad under the State and that they had made huge strides in the way of human rights. It was one of Gorbachev's initiatives immediately before things crumbled for them.”

  “And then we won the war, right?”

  “How old are you again, Mr. Crenshaw? Yes, technically, we won the Cold War, but only because we spent their asses into the ground. For every technological advancement that we made they were forced to keep up while their people went hungry.”

  He flashed the woman his award-winning smile that had landed him the job. “I'm old enough to know when my lovely and much smarter producer is trying to teach me a history lesson at the wrong time.”

  “You're right, I'm sorry. Yes, the stories are all verified by at least one source, not as thorough of a vetting process as we normally have, but the sheer number of incidents is enough to make us believe each and every one of the ones in the second segment after the weather.”

  “Okay. I'll go out and report the news then, Sandy.”

  She glanced at her watch, “Three minutes. Let's move over to the desk.”

  The two of them walked over to the news desk with the artist in tow. As soon as he sat down, she swooped in for one final application of make-up under the exact studio lighting that would appear on camera. She smiled at him and he winked back, sending her off to the dim, off-camera sideline where she could quickly come over and reapply during a commercial break if he needed it.

  Sandy looked at her watch again and held up her open hand. “Okay, Mr. Crenshaw. You're live in five, four,” she stopped counting out loud and dropped her fingers one at a time. Three, two, one.

  Music filled the studio and the cameraman zoomed in slowly, from a wide angle, on the desk anchor. When the angle was right and centered directly on him, Sandy held up a thumb to tell him to begin his script.

  “Good evening. This is Connor Crenshaw with your KXAN Austin News and Weather. We begin tonight by telling you that first, this is not a hoax. The images we are about to show you are one hundred percent real and the stories have been independently verified as accurate.

  “Horror and plague fill the Texas Hill Country. As reported by our very own, Carson Maldanado, earlier today, the plague that appears to have started in the small Texas town of Belton is spreading unchecked. Sadly, we believe that Carson lost his life reporting this story. We must warn you that the images and audio are disturbing and not appropriate for young children. Here are Carson's final moments on film.”

  The technicians faded from Connor sitting at the desk to Carson standing in the Belton square. The county courthouse loomed large behind him and the audio began. “This is Carson Maldanado with your KXAN News and I'm live from downtown Belton, Texas. This small town outside of one of America's largest military installations looks more like a war zone than a small college town.”

  The scene progressed through the two minutes of recorded footage until th
e news van crashed, then they cut away and came back to Connor at the news desk. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out. “I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen. Carson was a very good friend of mine and his final report is hard for me to watch.”

  Sandy watched the scene from the shadows and wondered if she was going to have to pull him from the desk. After a few seconds he was able to compose himself and carry on. She relaxed the tight grip that she had on her biceps with her arms folded across her chest.

  “The same type of story has been playing out all over central Texas. We've had reports of similar incidents from Killeen, Temple and even the small rural town of Holland. This plague is spreading rapidly and may already be at a tipping point. After the break, we'll talk to several residents in the area about their experiences today.

  “But first, we have two short segments scheduled tonight to help our viewers understand the problem. The first is a live broadcast from inside the Army installation at Fort Hood. Viewers will remember that name from the two massacres that have happened there in recent years. In November 2009, Army Major Nadal Hassan fatally shot thirteen and wounded more than thirty others. And more recently in May 2014, when Army Specialist Ivan Lopez killed four – including himself – and injured sixteen others.

  “The second segment we will air tonight is a portion of an interview that our own Eden Roberts conducted just three weeks ago with local Infectious Disease Control Unit director Victoria Hargus from the Texas Department of State Health Services. That interview primarily focused on the importance of washing your hands to eliminate illness-causing bacteria, but there are a few pertinent statements that are applicable to our current situation.

  “Let's go live to the reporter for the United States Army. She joins us by phone from inside the besieged Fort Hood. Major Braunsen, can you hear me?”

  “Yes, Connor. I can hear you,” a female voice sounded from the speakers overhead. Loud pops and dings could be heard in the background.

  “Major Braunsen, is that… gunfire?”

  “Yes, Connor. The Commanding General, acting on the authority of the President of the United States, has begun using soldiers to clear the area around the installation perimeter. While obviously, I don't want you to see the absolute carnage that is happening around the base, I do wish that we had an aerial camera crew so you could see generally what's happening. Right now, the base is surrounded by thousands of these creatures. They've been massing for hours, initially just a nuisance, but when enough of them started to show up, we began to have serious concerns for the safety of the residents on the installation.”

  “What is that concern, Major?”

  “All attempts to communicate with the creatures have failed. Every person who's come in contact with them has been killed and then shortly returns as one of them.”

  “Are you sure that the infection rate is one hundred percent?”

  “As sure as we can be, Connor. The sheer number of these things at our gates would indicate as much. There are so many of them now, that we're worried about the fences collapsing. That's what prompted the general to gain authorization to kill these things before they made it inside the wire and threatened the safety of the more than eighty thousand residents who live on the installation.”

  “What about those soldiers and families who don't live behind the fort's walls? Those who live in the local communities?”

  “All attempts were made to bring people inside when we first discovered that something was happening. We initiated a recall event for all soldiers and most were told to bring their families in with them, although we couldn’t force the family members to leave their homes.”

  “So the Army chose who would be left to their own devices against these creatures by saving your own people first?”

  The woman thought through her answer for a moment and replied, “No, Connor, that's not what I'm saying. We ordered our soldiers back to work as we assessed the situation and what our response would be. By the time that we realized just how bad things had gotten, it was too late for us to leave the installation.”

  “Alright, Major. It sounds like the same thing to me –” he stopped short as Sandy waved him off the line of questioning; this wasn’t some investigative journalism piece. He nodded his head almost imperceptibly and said, “Major, how are you holding up? Will the fences around the installation withstand the creatures' attacks?”

  “For now, it appears that way. The general has ordered a large force to travel north out the back gate of Fort Hood where there isn't a problem yet. That force will come around behind the creatures at the fence and attempt to lead them away so they can be engaged at a safe location.”

  Connor thought for a second and said, “Sounds like a good plan. What is the Army planning to do for the over three hundred thousand residents in the surrounding communities?”

  “I'm glad that you asked. Once we can secure our own perimeter, we plan to go out in our armored vehicles and wipe out the threat.” Loud thump-thump-thump sounds erupted over the television station's speakers,

  “Good God, what is that?” Connor asked in alarm.

  “That's the big 25 millimeter gun on the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. We've started using them to cut a path through the zombies, to really try and clear out the area.”

  “Isn't the Army concerned about collateral damage or injuring civilians attempting to get to the safety of the installation?”

  “We are very concerned about the local population, but we need to be able to defend ourselves against this threat. We're not using the main tank gun that shoots out for almost a mile; we're using relatively small caliber weapons to eliminate the immediate threat. Believe me, if you could see what I can see, you'd know that no civilian is crazy enough to try and make it through the throng – this horde of zombies.”

  “We're going to have to go in a moment, Major. What would your parting advice to our viewers be?”

  “First off, if you can make it to the highway and get beyond the National Guard quarantine perimeter, do so! If you can't leave, then hole up in your home and stay away from the windows. Movement and sound attracts these things, we think that's why there's so many of them. We prepositioned the armored vehicles along the fence and the noise from the tracks probably drew them in. Now the shooting is just bringing more of them.”

  “Have you heard that the National Guard’s perimeter may have failed?” he asked.

  “No, I hadn’t heard that. We’ll have to check. The last thing that we want everyone to know is that we're on our way. We will make it out of this and begin a sweeping operation to wipe these things out and rescue trapped civilians. Stay safe and we'll be there soon.”

  “Thank you, Major. That was great advice and I hope that our viewers heed it. Good luck and I wish you Godspeed on your mission.”

  “Thank you, Connor. We'll do our part.”

  The subtle static that indicated the studio had a phone on speaker ended and Sandy held up two fingers to indicate that the anchor should set up the second story.

  He looked down at his notes for a second and then focused on the teleprompter. “All the people of central Texas – possibly even the entire planet – wish the soldiers at Fort Hood well and a successful completion of their mission to destroy this new, nearly unstoppable threat. Now let’s turn to the interview between Eden and Mrs. Hargus conducted in early May.”

  Sandy checked the monitor and saw the visual effects team enlarge the square video still above Connor's left shoulder to fill the screen and begin playing with no sound. “It's important to note that we have edited the full-length interview down to these few minutes,” the anchor said.

  “So, you've talked about how easy it is for one person to get sick, can you discuss how these mass breakouts of Ebola and bird flu spread?” the reporter asked as the video started.

  “Of course,” Victoria Hargus answered. “All of these epidemics, or 'breakouts' as you call them, start with the proverbial patient zer
o. Now, it may not always be a singular person, it could be several people exposed to a bacteria or virus at the same time, but the important thing to note is that it starts with a very small initial exposure. If we can get to it before it spreads, then we've done our job and the world can breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Unfortunately, a lot of times we can't get to the source and we don't even know about the event until several people – or even hundreds of people – have been exposed. It's our mission to follow that chain of infection along every link and test every person that a carrier has come in contact with. We aggressively pursue every lead in an attempt to eradicate the disease as early as possible before it mutates and spreads.”

  “It's interesting that you mention mutation. That was my next question. What happens when a virus mutates?”

  “That's when we really have to worry, Miss Roberts. Now you have multiple strains of the virus working in conjunction with each other and that may require different types of treatment to cure. Some mutations are relatively harmless while others develop into a deadly form. Our biggest fear, in the Department of State Health Services, is an airborne mutation. Once something becomes airborne, it's incredibly difficult to stop the spread of the disease.”

  “I see. So,how accurate are movies like Outbreak and Contagion?”

  “To be honest, I haven't seen the second one, dear. But the first movie that you mentioned was extremely accurate. The key thing to do is to isolate the area –in that instance they used the military – and then begin working on a cure, while others try to find the source. For once, Hollywood got something right!”

  “What do you recommend viewers do if they begin to feel ill, or even worse, come down with something that your agency has already put out a warning about?”

  “If you feel under the weather, stay home! People who try to power through an illness and go to work or school are the number one cause for small- and medium-scale outbreaks. Next, seek medical attention if you don't get better after a couple of days. And finally, most important, if you think you may have developed symptoms of whatever disease that we're advising the public about at that time, call us immediately.”