The Complex: (The Reanimates) (2 page)

I started flipping through the channels looking for someone to just say something useful. I finally landed on a channel that gave a smattering of statements that seemed to cross over one another. A virus of unknown origin has struck with certain fatality. Transmission of the virus is unknown. Origin of this virus unknown. Hospitals are overrun. I leaned closer in to pay more attention. Again, it's the geek in me, anything weird and medical drew me in, just like the electronic things did. I wondered if H1N1 had done some sort of weird mutation. Finally, on some news channel, the reporter who was shuffling papers about said that the CDC has released the following press release:

"It is believed at this point that a virus is responsible for the deaths of at least 10% of the population. Symptoms are that of a sudden onset febrile condition that is not manageable by traditional cooling measures. The fever results in a seizure that appears at this time to precede death. The infected individual then ceases to exhibit signs of life. Cardiac and neurological monitoring show no activity. Following death the infected individual appears to reanimate. Monitoring continues to show no cardiac activity, despite the fact that this patient is once again moving. Minimal neurological activity resumes. Infected individuals are nonverbal and are extremely violent. Extreme caution around the infected is advised. It is advised that you remain in your home at this time."

My head swam with that short statement. I couldn't believe that they said reanimate. You can reanimate a frog with electricity once they died. Reanimating. Wow. It is just such a weird thing for them to say. Reanimating wasn't a real thing, it is not a thing a disease is capable of that a disease would do. That's the premise behind every zombie story. They reanimated.

Oh. My. God. That was exactly what they were saying, wasn't it? The patient died. It was after they died that they came back, without a heartbeat, moving and violent. They were talking about real life zombies.

I sat unmoving. While I faced the television I couldn't see it. All I could see was my son sprawled across the bed. All I could see was walking towards Trent on our wedding day. How would I tell them that there are zombies happening? How could I destroy the world as they know it?

I walked softly down the hall into the pitch dark of the master bedroom. It didn't occur to me often how dark it gets in there with the extra window coverings I have up to block out the sun in there. Night shifters like me tend to have a cave for a room. That morning it hit me how truly dark it got. I climbed into my side of the king sized bed and just lied there. What do I say? I put my hand on my husband's arm and he stirred. 

Trent pried open his eyes. He smiled at me when he realized it was me. We've been married for 13 years and every time I wake him up when I get home he gave a smile when I see him. Every morning it looked like he was happy to see me.

"Hey" he said, still groggy. "How was work?"

Work. Wasn't that a lifetime ago?

"It was fine." Gulp. "There's something going on with the news. I'm gonna turn it on"

He rubbed his crystal blue eyes and stared at me confused. He reached for his glasses and I fumbled for the remote. I hit the power button and as the older CRT television screen warmed up, playing the audio well before the video feed kicked in, we heard the reporter go on about the release issued by the CDC. The reporter kept on talking about the biggest part of the story, the reanimation. My husband gaped at me with wide eyes.

"Did I have a brain melt just now? Did she say death then reanimation? I seriously must not be all the way awake."

Just as my lips started to make words the CRT screen lit up and his head whipped to the screen. The anchor woman said now they were going live to the CDC in Washington DC.

Official Words

The CDC director wore a stressed expression and it seemed like he hadn't slept in days. He stepped onto the podium and stood behind the lectern like it was a shield protecting him from the inevitable.  As he waited for the reporters to settle down he drew a deep steadying breath. When he cleared his throat you could hear a pin drop.

"Good morning." He began. He paused to allow the cameras in the room to take a storm of photographs, flashes lit up the stage like a strobe light. "As you all know, we are here to talk about the new threat to the health and safety of all people. I'm not about to sugar coat this statement. It's too important.  As of 7AM EST we have identified a new virus. For sake of simplicity we will be referring to this virus as the Shelton virus after Dr. Shelton who identified this virus.

“
Shelton's appears to be a highly mutated strand of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, or LCMV. This virus, in the mutated and unmutated strain, is carried by rodents, including pet rodents like rats and mice. LCMV causes inflammation of the spinal cord and the lining of the brain but is rarely fatal. In the Shelton version of the virus, fatality is certain. We believe that the origin of this mutated form is from Japan. Recent earthquakes in Japan and the ongoing malfunctions in the nuclear power plant may be a factor in causing the mutations of the virus. We believe that the evacuations of the affected area in Japan is what broke the containment of the virus. Flight logs have been studied intensively to determine if any possible correlation of the transportation of rodents and the outbreaks existed and indeed, prior to the outbreak, a rat had been transported. Each known outbreak hot spot coincides with a route from Japan to New York on a trip that had a pet rat registered on the plane. We believe the virus to be accelerated by using the wild rodent population as carriers.

"We have been evaluating an antiviral cocktail to try to halt the disease process. We hope that if we can treat the infected individual prior to death and reanimation we can gain the upper hand. After the disease ravages the body and cardiac function fails it is too late. There is no chance of any recovery.

"Shelton's is a catastrophic virus. It is fatal. It is highly communicable through bodily fluids. Any breaks in skin by an infected person to a healthy person will result in transmission of the virus and certain infection. There is no known natural immunity. There is no vaccine.

"Symptoms of Shelton's are as follows. The infected individual complains of an extreme migraine and generalized body aches, similar to the aches of an influenza infection. Following the onset of the migraine, the individual that is infected will develop a high fever that does not lower with medication or cooling measures. There is a period of delirium during the fever with apparent hallucinations. As the infected person's core body temperature increases the individual will have a febrile seizure. During this seizure the individual ceases to exhibit signs of life. Our monitoring indicates the individual is completely deceased. Following death, the infected individual reanimates. This process of reanimation occurs 30 minutes to eight hours after the initial time of death is determined with the more rapid conversions happening with a more significant initial transmission. For example, someone who is scratched will take longer for the reanimation to occur than someone who has been bitten. Bites that breech major blood vessels, like the carotid, jugular or femoral may cause a more rapid time line on the first death. These individuals will succumb to their injuries and will not present with a fever. They too will reanimate with violent behaviors It is important to note that in the original cases of Shelton’s the period of time from a bite to reanimation was a week. Now the time line seems to be 30 minutes from bite to fever and a febrile seizure. Given the change of the time line, it is safe to say that this virus has mutated even further, and it is likely to mutate again.”

He pulled in another deep breath and continued. "Folks, I've seen the effect of Shelton's disease first hand. I was called to the hospital when the conversions began. I watched a teenage girl reanimate. Her restraints pulled right off of her. Well to be more frank, the skin in her hand ripped off of her in the process. She did not appear to be affected by this. The reanimates do not appear to feel pain. She had lost all speech. Verbal attempts came out as a series of low moan sounds. One of our nurses went to sedate the girl and restart the restraints. Lawrence was a big man and her 98 pound self could not be restrained. The medication did nothing and that girl decimated him. She tore into him and it was over, until Lawrence reanimated as well. I will never unsee this. "

The conference room erupted at this point. The reporters buzzed in a cacophony of questions. One question rang out the loudest, and was asked in near perfect unity, "Where is the virus at now?"

The CDC director hesitated for a moment before he responded, weighing the potential impact of what he was about to say and the certain panic that was about to erupt when specific locations were revealed. “The majority of cases are in New York at this time. After the discovery was found the state had issued a travel ban in and out of New York. Unfortunately the impending lock down information was leaked and it appears that those in the early stage of the virus have left the state in either fear or ignorance of the severity of the situation. Smaller clustering of this disease has been noted in Los Angeles and San Francisco extending out to the surrounding areas. Allow me to make it abundantly clear that the likely majority of people that have these symptoms did not come in for medical care believing that they had the flu with a migraine. These unaccounted for people are the most dangerous of all because it may be your neighbor or friend. Containment of Shelton's via activation of quarantines in the various hot zones is not a feasible solution. That possibility was over a long time ago."

I had reached that moment where no more words could sink in. The director was still speaking but I was deaf to the questions and answers, all my senses overloaded. The reanimates are coming. I curled up to my husband and I cried.

Pseudo Prep

In our house we were fans of the zombie horror genre. Well, I was and I had drug the rest of my family along with me. My husband came on board early. My son, due to his age, was lagging a bit in his zombie aficionado status because of a miserable availability of age appropriate reading materials. We would fill the time waiting for prescriptions by discussing basic survival set up. We would talk about how group living would increase odds of survival as everyone would have their own points of strength.

It had occurred to me early on that we would have to know what our point of strength was ourselves. My husband was easy as he has tools out the wazoo and quite handy with building things. Working in cabinetry was a great training exercise. He could easily help put together structures and do fixes on things. I was a nurse. I could help with non-zombie related injuries. If people were using tools or if there was a lack of medical help available the average person will find themselves injured. It's like a law or something.

Over the years of being a nurse things from work ended up coming home with me. In the course of a work day I often had to start a new IV.  I would grab a couple IV start kits and an extra IV cannula from the supply room thinking I would need it if I missed the vein on the first shot and nearly always I would end up lucky and get it placed right the first time. Suture kits were the same, when assisting doctors with chest tubes they had their back up kits that they would sometimes leave sitting on the bedside table that I pocketed as you can't leave it sitting in the patient's room. I usually discarded the memory of the back up supplies sitting in my pocket until the moment I got home and rediscovered them as I emptied my pockets. I had a kitchen drawer filled with this sort of thing. I started to call the collection my zombie first aid kit. After that, adding to it was easy. If while at the pharmacy I saw that gauze pads or other first aide items were on a killer deal I bought them. I commandeered a large shelf in the bathroom to put my supplies in. Any time we came across blankets that had become matted, but were still usable, it went into the zombie kit to ward off hypothermia or shock.

Zombies. Preparing for the zombie apocalypse was a joke, the catch all term for any disaster. If you were ready for zombies you were ready for an earthquake or any other natural disaster where services were cut off. Mostly though, preparing for zombies was a joke or just a hobby. It was always supposed to be just a joke. Our discussions were supposed to be a joke. My brain looped on the word joke. I could tell Trent was in the same mind loop.

Family Awareness

Shortly after the CDC report had gone off the air, Trent's cell phone rang. I was wound so tightly that I jumped at the ring tone. Trent grabbed it checked the caller ID which displayed that the caller was mom. Trent's mom and dad had gone out of town to visit his sister's family. Kristen had moved to Burley ID with her husband Mike and their five year old son, Nathan. The move hadn't been easy on his mom so every year when the school year ended and it was certain she wouldn't be called in to substitute teach she and dad would head north for a few weeks.

Trent answered the phone with the usual hey. Hey. Like today was just another day in our lives. I could hear her through the ear piece. She was frantic and panicky. Not a huge surprise, that was mom for you. She kept saying that she didn't understand all this reanimation stuff. When you die you go to heaven and that's it. You're dead or you aren't. Trent kept saying he didn't know either. She was as lost as all of us, maybe more lost as she hadn't had the benefit of being a fan of the zombie genre. This flew in the face of her 66 years of life and religious belief. I heard her ask how she was supposed to get home.