Origins of the Outbreak (15 page)

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 zero. 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 lik
e
Outbrea
k
an
d
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 tha
t
instanc
e
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'r
e
advising the public about at that time, call us immediately.
”

“
Final question, just for our viewers, we hear about these different levels of breakouts all the time, what's the difference?
”

“
Do you mean, between an outbreak, epidemic and pandemic?
” Victoria asked for clarification.

“
Yes
!
What's the differenc
e
between those illnesses?
”

The director chuckled and said, “
Those are just the way we label the severity of the spread of an illness, they're not an actual illness themselves. An outbreak is usually relatively localized to a small town or even a few counties, whereas an epidemic is a widespread outbreak over large areas of land, even multiple states. A pandemic is a worldwide outbreak of a disease, such as HIV and AIDS. During an epidemic, expect to see the government doing whatever it can to prevent the spread of the disease, including killing livestock and pets if they're suspected of carrying the virus or bacteria in question.
”

“
So things like cordoning off a town, like in the movie is standard practice?
”

“
Well, I wouldn't say that it was standard, but folks shouldn't get overly upset if something like that were to happen. The government is here to help solve the problem and find a cure before too many people become ill.
”

The screen cut back to Connor, who looked taken aback
by the words that Sandy had inserted into the teleprompter during the video. “Well, there you have it,” Connor stated
.
“
Straight from the mouth of the director of the local Infectious Disease Control Unit in Austin
.
The outbreak that seems to have originated in Belton is quickly turning into an epidemic as more and more towns begin to report instances of the appearance of these illness-ridden individuals.

“This is real.
The Austin Police Department has issued a statement that they will be enforcing a curfew starting tonight at seven p.m.
Anyon
e
outside will be arrested immediately. They have also issued a warning to stay away from anyone who looks or acts strangely, especially anyone with –” he stopped reading for a second and focused on Sandy. She rolled her hand, telling him to keep going.

“You're advised to stay away from anyone with suspicious bite marks or blood on their clothing.
If you see someone who looks like this, you are directed to call the police immediately. Do not attempt to confront or apprehend the suspect under any circumstances. This includes friends and family members. They… They're no longer your loved one, they will attack you and harm you and those with you.”

The producer checked her watch and held up an open flat hand.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” Connor concluded. “We're going to take a short commercial break. When we return, Chelsea has your weather forecast and it looks like some rain may be coming in to help out our local farmers. Following the weather, we'll hear several stories of heroism, sacrifice and heartbreak in Central Texas as we try to deal with the zombie epidemic.”

The red light above the camera turned off and Connor glared at Sandy.
“What was that last part about the police warning? That wasn't in the script rehearsal.”

“
We had toadjus
t
on the fly, Mr. Crenshaw. The police issued the statement while you were on the phone with that Army reporter so we inserted it at the end, before commercial break. Good job keeping your composure and adjusting to the script.”

“Is this really happening?” the anchor asked while the make-up artist applied a powder brush to his forehead where he'
d sweated through the base a little bit.

“Yeah, it is.
You'd better pray that the Army can actually get out of that base and begin killing these things or else the way that this thing is spreading, we may all be in trouble soon.”

DAY THREE

The Guild
, 12:25 a.m.

Dillon saw a flash of movement out the window near the back fence. “What the hell?” he muttered.

He'd been stuck upstairs in his room
, almost all evening, working on a history paper, poring through dusty old books and cross-referencing from articles on the internet. It was amazing how little credible info there was online about Native American tribes from Texas. He was writing his paper on the Tonkowa and Comanche tribes who used to roam the region before they were whittled away by the Spanish, Mexican, Texan and finally the United States' occupation of their native lands.

He'd tried to sit at the kitchen table so he could watch
TV while he did his research, but that French asshole Claude –his mother'
s
fourt
h
husband – was watching the news and all they talked about were zombies attacking people and that the federal government needed to step up and blah, blah, blah. If he ran into one, he'd show a mother-fucking zombie what's up.

He and his zombie hunting organization, The Guild, had practiced endlessly with their Airsoft guns and melee weapons.
They knew that one day the shit would hit the fan and now that it had happened, they were ready for it. The Guild held weekly battle assemblies where they rehearsed full-on infantry techniques and survival tactics that they learned from zombie survival guides ordered off the internet. The Guild's leader, Jason, even had a real-life sword that some dude sold him on eBay
.
Are you eighteen? Of course
!
Let one of those exploding-headed douche-nozzle zombies come around here. He'd whack that bitch good!

Dillon had finally gotten sick of listening to Claude's running commentary and
gone upstairs to work. He'd flipped back and forth through the books for hours trying to piece together the info that he needed for his report, but kept coming up short on supporting evidence for his argument. The paper centered on the premise that the Comanche got a bad rap for being assholes and it was the other tribes in the area who were actually the aggressors. It sounded good when he picked the topic at the beginning of the semester and now that he was two weeks from the deadline he had to stick with it.

The movement along the back of the fence caught his attention again.
He pulled out his binoculars and peered towards the darkness where their property intersected with a stand of cedar trees that marked the boundary of a local nature preserve. A figure stood along the fence staring at the house. Dillon's heart skipped a beat
.
It's a freakin' real-life zombie!

He looked over to his Airsoft rifle and thought about taking aim down the scope and seeing what kind of damage his could do to the creature at this distance, but something made him stop.
He picked up the binoculars again and rotated the focus wheel a few turns.

“Holy shit
,
it
s
Jason,” he muttered. The figure raised his arm and gestured for Dillon to come outside.

He glanced at his cell phone and sure enough, he'd missed the text telling The Guild to assemble for a mission, not training, but an actual real-life mission!
This was the moment that they'd trained years for, time to put up or shut up.

The teenager grabbed his gun, a camping hatchet and a folding knife.
Let one of those fuckers try to mess with me
!
He slid effortlessly through his window and over the roof of the back porch. It was a good thing that Claude was so cheap and didn't allow the air conditioning to be turned on until the temperature went above ninety outside, otherwise they might have heard him open the window to escape.

He dropped his legs over the side and then hung his body over the ledge, easing himself down slowly in a reverse pull-up.
From the elevated angle he had a view right into the living room and was horrified to see his mother sucking Claude's dick right there on the couch where he sat all the time. The old man's head lolled backwards against the headrest in ecstasy while his mother's tongue flicked around the end of his penis.

“Oh my fucking God!
” he hissed and dropped the remaining several feet to the ground. He almost stormed over to bang on the back door, but decided against it. The Guild needed his expertise with the sniper rifle. He wouldn't let this go, though. He'd tell his mother that he saw her going to town on Claude and demand that they get a new couch. Disgusting!

He jogged towards the back of the yard.
Jason and Hamid stood there in the darkness and he wormed his way over the short chain link fence. “Where's Luke?” he asked, trying to put the visual image of his mother and Claude out of his mind.  The freakin' French bastard was probably rutting into his mother right now… on the couch where he ate Cheerios every morning.

Dillon threw up in his mouth, but quickly swallowed it.
Now he understood where the phrase came from. “Dude chickened out,” Jason replied, bringing his attention back to the present.

“Yeah,” Hamid affirmed.
“Said that he thought The Guild was just a game that we played and wouldn't ever go out to actually fight zombies.”

“Then why the hell would we have trained so hard if it wasn't for real?” Dillon asked as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Don't know, man,” Jason said as he placed the katana sword over his shoulder like a baseball bat. “That means we're down th
e
b
o
staff that he carries
.
Looks like it's up to you and your sniper rifle to keep the enemy at bay.”

Dillon patted his Airsoft rifle and replied, “I'll do my part, Colonel.
Let's go find some zombies!”

“Last bit of intel that I heard said they were converging on the Army base, we can drive that way and kill anything we see.”

“Excellent plan,” Hamid said.
“Just like in Tales of the Zombie Detective
!
Move towards the sounds of the dead and then take care of business.”

“Exactly
.
Alright, let's go!”

The three of them piled into Jason's 1990 Jeep Cherokee that he'd illegally driven into the nature park and he shifted into gear.
Within a few minutes, they'd traversed the walking trail and made their way onto the road that led out of the neighborhood.

Dillon was nervous.
He knew that he could shoot, but a twinge of doubt crept into his mind. Would his rifle be powerful enough to kill a zombie? Of course it would. Their heads exploded on contact in every encounter that they'd read about during their research. He'd just have to make each shot count. He thought back to how the 0.48g ceramic pellets that he used had punched right into a watermelon that he'd set up for target practice. He liked the heavier, much more expensive pellet because it would do the job. Yeah, they'd be fine.

It didn't take them long to find their first zombie walking aimlessly down the street.
Jason slammed on his brakes and threw the Cherokee in reverse to add some distance between them. “Shit, that's closer to us than I thought they were,” Dillon admitted.

“It's okay
, soldier. Now do your job.”

“Yes
, sir!” he replied and opened the car door. The sniper stepped out on shaky legs and pushed the button to roll down the window. He rested the barrel of the rifle along the window sill just like he'd rehearsed hundreds of times and took aim through the scope at the creature's head.
Ugh, it was
a
woman
,
he thought and squeezed the rifle's trigger.

Pfft
!
The round sped away from the end of the rifle and impacted uselessly against the side of the creature's head. The ricochet of the neon yellow round was easily seen by the others in the car.

“Heh, her head didn't explode.
Did you miss?” Jason asked.

“No!
I hit her right above the eye.”

“Well shoot her again, dammit!”

Dillon sighted through the scope, firing again. The result was the same as the first time; the round bounced away and the zombie continued to advance unimpeded.

“Fuck, you're useless Dillon!
Get in the car.”

He pulled his rifle through the window and sat down heavily.
“I don't get it,” he muttered and rolled up the window.

“What's that?” Hamid asked.

“I don't understand. Their heads should explode. Every show that we've watched and every book that we've studied says that they'll be so rotted that a hard hit should make their heads splatter all over the pavement.”

“Maybe in a few days, Dillon
.
This could be a fresh one,” Jason stated. “Hold on, I know one thing she can't withstand is two-thousand pounds of steel barreling down on her!”

“Shit, man.
Are you gonna ram her?”

“Hell yeah I am!”

The 'colonel' gunned the engine and the Cherokee shot forward. They'd already reached forty miles per hour when the small SUV's grille hit the zombie. She folded in half and her upper body smacked hard against the hood. They drove for half a mile while she clawed at the hood trying to reach them. Finally, Jason slammed on the brakes and she fell forward. He put it in reverse and backed up.

The boys were in shock.
“Dude, she should have gotten crushed under the tires when you hit her,” Hamid said. “Why didn't she just go under the tires?”

“Because we've been stupid,” Dillon said.
The realization had hit him that they were dealing with actual supernatural creatures, not some fairy tale movie extra. “Look at us. We're not zombie hunters. We're a bunch of kids who took lessons from people who had no idea what one of those things really are and all the tactics that we've practiced have been written by people just like us
.
People who have no clue about real zombies
.
There are thousands of those things ou
t
here
;
we need to run away and go back home like the police said to do.”

“Fuck that you pussy,” Jason said.
“I'm in charge of this outfit and we're not running anywhere. Let's go, Hamid.
Ground combat.”

Hamid looked back at Dillon, who shook his head no, and then opened the door.
From the back seat, Dillon watched Jason saunter up to the creature that they'd hit with the car. It struggled to sit up as it reached pathetically for them, clearly something had been broken when the car hit it.

Jason pulled the katana back and swung it like a bat into the woman's neck.
The blade lodged itself into muscle and tendons while a dark black fluid oozed from the wound. The Guild's leader struggled to pull the sword out of the woman as she continued to try and reach the two boys. It was really stuck in there good.

He finally managed to dislodge the katana and then swung down again and again until her head detached from her body.
The arms stopped reaching for them and fell peacefully to her side while the head rolled towards the ditch. Even from inside the car with the windows up, Dillon could hear his teammates' whoops of excitement for their first kill. The two fools clasped hands and circled around the body like schoolchildren.

Despite his fear, Dillon caught himself grinning.
They'd done it! They faced their first zombie and sent the creature back to hell. The Guild's first mission was a success, even if they did have to adjust their tactics on the fly and do things a little differently than they'd planned. It looked like things were gonna be okay.

Then the Cherokee shook hard on its axles as something impacted against the side.
Dillon glanced over and saw three zombies stumbling their way along the length of the car towards his friends. The vehicle rocked again as one of the creature slammed against the side view mirror and broke it off. He sunk deeply into the seat and the car moved again, but from the opposite side this time as more zombies stumbled past the car on the way towards his celebrating friends.

He pressed himself to the floorboard and tried to shut out the sounds of Jason and Hamid as they were torn to shreds by the roving horde.