August Burning (Book 1): Outbreak (6 page)

“So what’s the plan everyone? Graduate
tomorrow. What’s the plan?”
 
Liam
belched and leaned forward, and Jaxton thought he saw Harley move closer too.

There was a silence as the room
decided whether to spurn the question in mockery or to entertain it solemnly.
It all depended on how much Admiral Nelson’s had been guzzled.

Harley held up her palm, slouching on
the table. “I’ll be an explorer. And never get married. And have a shitload of
kids with names like Pemberly and Vanelopee.” She sighed and placed her
throbbing head of auburn hair on the table.

Bennett looked to Adira, seated at his
side. “Eloquence at its finest.” Adira giggled, already feeling much closer to
him than a few hours ago. Liam looked at him sharply, through a haze of
shifting shapes. “What did you mumble over there?”

Bennett leaned back, stretching his
long arms and scratching the poor-man’s goatee he had nourished over a few
weeks. Jaxton was already amused; trying to figure out which way his friend
Bennett would choose to answer the question. He suspected he could give an
in-depth, realistic answer born from the heart, but Liam would most certainly
reject that in his current state.

Bennett opened his mouth. “If we were
all little kings with little kingdoms, I’d conquer you all one by one. You
first Liam.”

Liam frowned. “You’re a weird kid, do
you know that?”

Liam was startled slightly by Troy’s
firm hand clapping him on the back, “I know what he means Liam, allow me to
translate. He’s a prick. He would betray all of us to be the one true OG.”

“He’d be met with steel at every
turn,” Jaxton grinned, knowing they all sounded foolish.

“No, you guys are all a bunch of
weirdos,” Adira muttered.

Troy slapped the table, startling
Harley out of her whiskey-induced coma. “Alright, I can feel my balls
retracting into my body. Change this music.”

“Amen. What are we feeling? How about
that Shania Twain song? The one from the sad dog commercial. That commercial is
my favorite.” Jaxton said.

“It’s Sarah Mclaughlin. And no, we’re
not putting that god awful shit on,” Bennett shook his head.

Liam suddenly rose, touching Harley on
the shoulder. Before anyone could speak, he took her hand lightly and they
stalked into the family room. The remaining four chuckled softly, sharing a
moment of realization.

“Wait, turn it down!” Troy leapt
excitedly to his feet like a school-boy and not the bearded menace he was. He
pressed his face to the glass window, craning his neck to look up into the dark
clouds. The muffled thumping of helicopter blades droned faintly in the musty dorm
room.

“The local news chopper. A thrilling
development for the resident ape,” Jaxton said sarcastically. He grinned to
himself, pleased people knew him for refusing to abide by political
correctness.

Troy frowned, backing away slightly.
“No, actually there were a few of them. Little Birds, with operators on the
sides too.”

Adira laughed gaily. “One minute he’s
lost in Taylor Swift’s words of wisdom, next he’s a serious warrior.”

Troy’s face held a mixture of
amusement and concern. He felt something, a certain itch, but it wasn’t
anything he could quite place his finger on. “Yeah let me know if you ever need
to be rescued out of a tower, damsel. No it’s just a bit strange, to be flying
night exercises over this part of town.”

Jaxton felt his own face twitch
slightly, and his pulse quickened. There was a scattering of footsteps in the
living room, and Liam returned with Harley in tow, looking decidedly more sober.
“Something’s going on in New York.” Jaxton saw she was leaning on Liam for
support.

“What do you mean?” Adira stood, hands
white from gripping the table.

“The news just started reporting New
York is in some sort of blackout, like electronically and physically. There’s
no cell service or lights or anything.”

“The fuck?” Jaxton stood, suddenly
feeling excited. Jaxton’s heart was suddenly thumping, though he hadn’t noticed
it before. He scratched his own beard distractedly and leaned in. “When’s the
last time anyone heard from their parents?” He did his best to affect a casual
demeanor, knowing they would respect him less if he seemed too invested or
panicked.

Liam snapped forward, suddenly losing
all of his casual drunkenness.

“Same story as this afternoon. Maybe
two hours ago, my parents and brothers were still stuck on the highway coming
south.”

Jaxton rose to his feet, his eyes
darting around the room, trying to shake the effects of the whiskey. “I tried
calling my mother coming down a bit ago, and it went straight to voicemail.”

Bennett looked at them in bemusement,
“What are you guys even saying? There’s a ton of people coming into town for
all the universities that have graduation ceremonies. Everything is probably
just moving a little more slowly.” He looked to Adira for support, but found
none.

Troy frowned, caught between his
suspicions and not wanting to overreact. Adira laid her piano fingers on this hairy
skin. “Is there anyone you can call? Find out if something is going on?” Her
dark eyes pleaded shamelessly.

“I’m just in ROTC, I’m not really
sure-“ He started. Then he gathered himself, feeling moved to action by Adira’s
plead. “Let me call a friend.” Without another word he strolled into the
hallway, any prior sign of indecision gone.

Bennett leaned forward, looking
incredulous. “What are you guys so worked up about? What Liam is saying would
be, ya know, like an EMP.” He laughed, but it sounded forced.

“I’m telling you what I just saw on
the TV.”

“What stations were reporting it?”

“All of them.”

“Everyone try your parents again.”
Jaxton said sternly. He tried his mother and brother, both of whom were
supposedly shuttling through Northern Maryland in the family’s little SUV. His
brother picked up on the final ring.

“Jaxton. Jaxton. Can you hear me?” His
brother’s cracking voice cut through on speaker phone.

“Brian, what the hell is going on, you
guys were supposed to call me hours ago.” Everyone in the room stopped to
listen to the conversation.

“We’ve been trying to. For hours.
There’s something going on…in the city. Me and mom are in a motel off the
highway…still like an hour north of you. But we can’t get back on the road.
They’re all blocked.” His voice was laced with admirably contained panic. The
boy was only sixteen.

“Put mom on.” Jaxton demanded, meeting
the eyes of his friends around the table. He saw Harley step out, her eyes
glued to her phone.

“Jaxton?” A shrill female voice
interrupted them.

“Mom. What’s going on?”

“Jax, I don’t know. There was traffic
for miles. I’m sorry we couldn’t make it tonight sweetie. We’ll be there
tomorrow.”

“Mom you sound worried. The news is
reporting a blackout in New York.”

There was a noticeable pause, before
the voice lost all its shrillness. “Your brother had the news on. CNN said
there was some sort of event inside New York….no electronic devices of any kind
are still working? I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ll be there tomorrow, don’t
worry.” She finished with a pleading tone.

“Alright listen, let’s check back in
if we learn anything new. Both of us.” Jaxton was beginning to feel a knot of
concern building in his gut.

“Ok. Ok. Ok, love you. We’ll talk
later, ok? Love you.”

“Love you both. Bye.”

“There’s people walking around the
streets,” Bennett said faintly, his head pressed against the glass to look ten
stories below.

“Guys. Listen.” Harley burst back into
the room, her face flush from the vodka. “I couldn’t reach them by phone. My
dad texted me an hour ago, it looks like, and I just got it. He said he had
been talking to his police friend as they were stuck in traffic on 95. There was
apparently some sort of disturbance at a hospital, in downtown New York, before
their own call was disconnected.” She stopped talking, her face stricken in
fearful confusion.

“Well! Spit it out!” Jaxton’s neck
strained as he spoke.

“Some dispatchers were reporting the
patients were attacking the officers on scene. I don’t know. That’s all I
know.”

“What the hell does that mean?”
Bennett returned from the window, his earlier ambivalence gone.

Harley squinted at her phone, the soft
blue glow lighting her face. “Apparently all the electronics went out
simultaneously. In like, a wave.”

“That’s an EMP!” Jaxton wagged a
finger violently, caught up breathlessly in the conspiracy. “Terrorists?”

Liam was typically the voice of calmer
reason, but he too was caught up in the fever. No one could deny it. “Could be
the government. Connected with the situation at the hospital…I’m not sure. This
is big. Something’s up.”

Adira had joined Bennett at the
window. His hand was settled on her waist. “Guys, we need to go outside.”

As a group, they rose and scurried
downstairs and out into the chilly night. They emerged onto the street, now
crowded with people. Families clung together and students gathered excitedly,
speaking to other groups in search of information. The mood seemed more curious
than fearful, Jaxton thought, as if they were learning of some far-off natural
disaster.

Liam read from his phone as people
scuttled all around them. “The Associated Press is now officially reporting
that some sort of electronic event occurred in Lower Manhattan at approximately
8:13pm…no electronics of any kind are operational within a nine or ten mile
radius…the roads outbound of New York are totally blocked with traffic. Nothing
about a hospital disturbance.”

“What was that?” A middle-aged father
dragged his family closer to Liam. His eyes peered out feverishly. As he spoke,
he clutched his two frightened young daughters tight to him.

“We heard this whole thing started
because of an incident at a hospital in Manhattan,” Liam said calmly.

The man drew even closer, his fatty
jowls quivering. “A hospital? What’s going on?”

Jaxton frowned, cutting the man off,
“We know as much as you do.” The man clenched his daughters till they were
squirming and dragged them off to another group of people, where he demanded
the same answers.

Troy frowned at his phone. “My parents
said their flight was originally delayed a few hours. Now all outbounds to New
York, Boston, and DC are cancelled. The National Guard showed up to clear the
airport.”

The sound of sirens wailing threw
their nerves on edge. A police cruiser halted in front of the mass of mingling
people. “Everyone clear the street!” “Clear the roads!” A young officer,
looking smart in his pressed Capitol Police uniform, set his jaw against the
complaints of the crowd. Two more cruisers came roaring down the street, and
the people scattered to the sidewalks. The cars took up position at each
intersection, stopping the flow of traffic.

Within a minute, a motorcade whipped
past them, tiny American flags snapping in the evening breeze. Four motorcycle
cops led the way for a series of black SUVs, flanked by another police cruiser.

Harley raised a quivering voice.
“People are gathering at the student center. Elvis’ is there with his parents.”
She spoke to the group but her hazel eyes looked to Liam’s imposing form for direction.

Jaxton didn’t let him answer. “Let’s
move.”

 
45 minutes after Outbreak. Washington,
D.C

The entire sprawling Student Center
building occupied half a block, its massive glass windows stretching two floors
from roof to ceiling. Almost every single seat in the dining hall was taken,
all eyes fixed on a series of huge TV screens posted on the wall.

“Guys!” Elvis emerged from the crowd,
waving them over aggressively. Admirably, he was still trying to look poised,
Jaxton noticed.

“You heard?”

“Yeah, come watch this. Come here
babe.” He reached out to Harley, who awkwardly moved a bit closer to him.

Elvis’s mother and father sat
attentively in the corner, their faces transfixed on the TV above. They gave
Elvis’s friends only the slightest of acknowledgements before the older man
began spewing out a fast rhythm of observations and speculation.

Elvis locked eyes with Harley, and tried
to smile calmly.

“-That’s right Ted, we are currently
heading into the Newark, New Jersey area, where the blackout extends.” A
booming female voice was echoing in the student hall. The monitors showed
aerial shots of a smartly dressed anchorwoman sitting in an open door
news-helicopter. She was shouting to be heard above the wind, even with her
microphone clutched tight. She gestured out of the helicopter door, “As you can
hopefully see in the station, the blackout zone starts right here.” The landscape
was sharply divided in the night, as if a line had been drawn in the earth.
Closer to New York City itself, there wasn’t a single light. To the west, they
could all see thousands of twinkling little lights as if nothing had ever
happened. The helicopter passed over the line, its blades thudding
relentlessly.

“From this point forward all
electronics were simultaneously rendered unusable at about 8:13 pm this
evening. Experts in electronic warfare are pointing to signs of an
electromagnetic pulse.” The lady leaned precariously close to the open door,
peering into the blackness now stretching all around her. “I can see several
cars moving west, towards the unaffected zone. Obviously these must be older
models.”

“Be careful Diane.” The shot cut back
to the newsroom, where three very stern looking anchormen sat with furrowed
brows and sharp suits. The lead anchor spoke with his left eyebrow slightly
cocked, his smooth jaw line jutting impressively. “Let’s bring our viewers up
to speed. We’d like to share all the information we have this point in time. In
the twenty-five minutes preceding the electronic blackout, this station
received several reports of strange violence at a local downtown hospital.
According to sources who were in Manhattan at the time, the NYPD began responding
to calls of patient violence against hospital staff at 7:45pm.” The cameras
switched and Ted turned grimly to face it.

“We would now like to bring you a man
in Connecticut, who says he received a call from his brother who works in that
very hospital.”

The camera remained on Ted, but a
voice compounded by static cut in, “Hello. Yes, Hello.” The male voice spoke
with a thick Spanish accent.

“Carlos, this is Ted Warren, CNN
International. You’re live on the air right now. Tell us exactly what your
brother told you on that phone call.”

“Yes, Ted. Ted I got a call, eh, from
my brother about ten minutes before the blackout. He is a nurse, at
uh…Manhattan Memorial. He sounded really scared. He, uh….he told me he was
leaving work early because something was happening on the Emergency Room floor.
He told me one of the patients became, ehh, like an animal, very violent, ehh,
and did not listen to anyone. The patient attacked and bit a few people before
they were able to tie him down. They-“

“Carlos. Carlos we lost you for a
second. Carlos can you hear me.”

“-bit two more people, just attacked
them with their own teeth. Ehh, the doctors called the police but the people
kept going crazy, more and more of them. They tried to tie them all down but a
police-man got bit… That’s when my brother ran away.” Carlos ended his ramble
ruefully, his voice twinged with subtle panic.

“Carlos, have you been able to reach
your brother since?”

“Eh, no Ted. No.”

Ted turned back to the main camera,
staring directly at the viewers. “Carlos, thank you for these stunning
revelations,” he said with practiced poise and empathy.

“Well folks, you are now in the same
boat as us…we plan on keeping you posted throughout the evening with our all
night-coverage. Diane, how is it from the sky over the blackout zone?”

The cameras cut back to the interior
of the helicopter, with Diane sitting calmly near the window, her usually
perfectly coiffed blond hair blowing haphazardly. “Ted, as you can see, we are
passing over the Hudson River. To my left is the George Washington Bridge,
and…” She pressed her earpiece,

“Jimmy, can you take us north, we need
a shot of the bridge.” Then she turned back to her cameraman. “Our pilot is
going to take us to the bridge, where we hope to get a look at any traffic that
might still be using it.”

“Diane, can you show us the city?”

The camera jostled as the chopper
continued to surge north. The view that filled the screen hushed even those who
had continued to speak during the earlier broadcast. The Manhattan skyline was
outlined faintly against a stormy night-sky. Dozens of silent and black towers
stood menacingly, bereft of lights and life. They stretched north and south,
and for the first time in its history the skyscrapers in Manhattan looked
utterly devoid of life.

“There are stars,” Harley murmured.
They all exhaled in wonder, realizing for the first time that without the
lights, hundreds of isolated pixels were visible in between the black
buildings. Then Jaxton felt a twinge of momentary horror, as he considered the
possibility that there was a furious panic raging in darkness on the streets
below.

The helicopter was nearing the bridge.
Diane was leaning dangerously far out of the open window, completely oblivious
to her peril. A burly producer’s arm reached out and pulled her a few inches
back. She flashed a quick flash of gratitude backwards, her eyes alive with
excitement.

“As you can see, the bridge is totally
blacked out as well.” The chopper began to descend as the bridge loomed larger
in the picture. Jaxton could make out the trusses and cables, even in the dark.
All the viewers peered into that mass of metal shadows, looking for any clues.
Without any warning, the camera focused and the picture exploded in movement.
There were hundreds of little figures streaming west across the bridge, leaping
and bounding over the blocked masses of stuck cars. “Jesus-“ Diane started. The
thunder of helicopter blades overran her voice.

A flash of blinding light filled the
camera, and a curt voice boomed over a loudspeaker. “LEAVE THE BLACKOUT AREA
IMMEDIATELY. LEAVE THIS AREA NOW. THIS IS THE UNITED STATES ARMY. LEAVE NOW-“
The voice continued as the news chopper swerved violently and dropped to the
water. The other helicopter pointed two massive searchlights directly at them.
The camera view shook violently, but the viewers could see Diane clutching the
handholds with none of her previous poise. The news-helicopter appeared to
level out and rise on the opposite bank of the Hudson before motoring west,
back the way it came. The picture abruptly cut back to the news-desk and a
hopelessly confused staff.

“It appears the government is on hand
to take care of this situation, and…uh…one can only pray for the safety of
those poor people in Manhattan.” Ted was beginning to look mightily flustered.
A glimmering sheen of sweat graced his upper brow. “Diane, hope you’re ok out
there.”

The camera lingered on the silent and
befuddled news-desk before abruptly cutting back to the chopper-cam. Diane was
staring back towards the east, till trying to regain her composure. “We have
been told to leave, uh, by the authorities. The helicopter will now head back
to the undisturbed part of New Jersey for-“ Ted cut her off.

“Folks, we have another reporter on
the ground at the edge of the blackout zone. Cheryl, what can you tell us about
the situation?”

This time the view changed to a
well-lit woman, beautiful and ethnically ambiguous, standing in front of a highway
sign. The hills beyond her rose eerily in the darkness. “Ted, I am currently
standing on the edge of 78 East, just outside of Orange, New Jersey. This
highway leads directly to the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, and surprisingly we
found it was not empty.” Her voice rang merrily in the dignified yet unnatural
tone all news-anchors train in. She paced a few steps to her right, and stood
in the road.

“As you can see, the Army is surging
into the blackout Zone, which begins five hundred feet down this road. My
experts tell me these are not National Guard units, but instead are Fast-Response
Army Units designated for combat situations. My team has counted numerous
biohazard teams as well…” As Cheryl droned on, an endless stream of trucks and
armored vehicles filled with soldiers in gas-masks roared down the road into
the waiting blackness. One of the trucks stopped aggressively, and a crisp
looking sergeant major with silver hair bore down on the reporter. He grabbed
her roughly by the arm as the camera was jostled by unseen hands. The feed
turned to black, then the view cut inexplicably to Diane, who began fumbling
with a new set of ambiguous lines.

Jaxton took a quick scan of the
student center. Every pair of eyes in the packed space was glued to the screen.
Dozens were furiously typing text messages or holding whispered phone conversations.
Elvis stood right next to Harley, his hand clutching her own where no one could
see. They all looked completely terrified, he thought. Only a fool wouldn’t be.
Only Bennett met his eyes, for a brief moment of mutual understanding. Jaxton
clenched his teeth together in anxious anticipation and hissed to his friend,
“the shit’s about to hit the fan.”

Adira’s eyes snapped to his own in a
momentary rage, before cooling immediately and softening, almost to a plea.

Diane’s cameraman was focusing on the
now distant city. The black skyscrapers were barely visible against the starry
horizon. Two muffled thumps halted Diane’s chatter immediately. Suddenly there
was a violent explosion of fire on the left side of the picture. The trusses of
the bridge were illuminated momentarily before the fire died to a barely
visible speck. The viewers were taken back to the studio, but no one was paying
attention anymore.

“We need to move.” Jax clapped Bennett
and Liam on their shoulders hard, indicating the doors with a stricken set of
eyes. The crowd in the center began shouting and jostling all at once, knocking
over chairs and bustling towards the exits. “Move!” Liam cried aloud, pushing
the two girls in front of him and grabbing Bennett. Jaxton saw a tall father
holding his crying young son high above the heads of the crowd. Women yelled
and swore in shrill voices. Bennett spotted a shaved head bobbing in the crowd
ahead.

“Troy!” He cried. The bearded man
turned with obvious fire in his blood. Bennett indicated the doors, “Meet us!
At the dorm!” Troy nodded fiercely, and turned his efforts to ensuring he
wasn’t trampled. The group shuffled outside amidst the growing panic, and
abruptly, for no reason at all they were running. Everyone in the street was
running.
 

…

Harley was shaking as she tried to
catch her breath. Elvis moved to comfort her and she accepted his touch
gratefully, burying her sweaty face in his t-shirt.

“What the hell were we even running
from?!” Bennett threw up his arms.

“Nothing at all. Mob-mentality. Its
guna be like this all up and down the east coast,” Troy’s eyes swept the
starless sky above, looking for helicopters. Two of his friends in the ROTC
program had joined him.

“They blew up those bridges,” a wiry
looking one with a symmetrical and soft face said. “They’re sealing off the
city, is what they’re doing.”

“Sealing it from
what
?!” Harley cried hysterically.

Adira turned her pitch black eyes on
the weeping girl. They were glassed over, and almost shone in the soft yellow
streetlight. “There has to be an infection of some kind in the city. The
government is responsible for that blackout. Who else could have pulled off
something like that?”

Harley looked incredulous, but she
couldn’t muster a response.

“Adira’s right,” Jaxton croaked. Within
a series of few moments Jaxton felt his shell of steely confidence crumble as
he considered the safety of his mother and younger brother, trapped in some
motel off the main artery of north-south traffic. “I need to call my family,”
he mumbled, stumbling down the block to a dark alley. He felt his heart
pounding as he considered them, helpless in the mayhem that was sure to come.
His own mother was sixty now, and his brother was only sixteen- and a young
sixteen at that. As the phone rang and rang, he imagined them flustered and
panicked, watching the news and unable to use the packed highways that were
sure to have traffic jams for miles and miles. His brother would be no help at
all. Yet for all his vigor and strength, Jaxton knew he was stuck in the capital
for now, at least fifty miles from them.