A World Reborn: The First Outbreak (9 page)

“Melissa? What’s happening?” Roy quizzed
urgently over the radio, but again, Melissa didn’t respond. She couldn’t. She
glanced and saw she’d made it to the forty-eighth floor. It wasn’t quite low
enough, and for all she knew they were also coming down the staircase she’d
abandoned.

“She’s on forty-eight!” She heard a rough,
male voice call out; presumably the man chasing her, probably speaking into a
radio.

“Damn it!” Melissa snapped; her voice
filled with confusion, frustration and anger at her current situation. Melissa
hugged the wall again as a second barrage of gunfire came her way. Once more,
her luck held. While still rounding each corner of the staircase as fast as she
could, she fumbled in her jeans pocket and eventually managed to retrieve one
of the spare ammunition clips she’d taken from the woman. Melissa pressed the
eject catch on the clip and let it fall skittering to the floor, slamming in
the replacement as soon as she could. She yanked back on the barrel and cocked
a fresh round, just as a third barrage impacted around her. Floors forty-seven
and forty-six had sped past all within the past few moments, and before she
knew it, Melissa was breathlessly looking at the forty-fourth floor.

Melissa didn’t have a clear plan, but she
knew she couldn’t keep running at this pace indefinitely. She tore through the
door and slammed it shut behind her, and then she pelted down the corridor and
hurried towards the west elevators. Melissa knew she had a scant lead, if it
was a lead at all, and was hesitant to give it up, but she needed to know where
the elevators currently were. She darted down the passage on her right, and
looked quickly at the LED displays to discover which floors the elevators had
stopped on. One said twenty-two; one said twelve, both equally useless to her.
She wheeled around to the other bank and saw that one was on the thirty-eighth
floor, ticking over to thirty-nine. If she was lucky, and hurried, she could
just make it in time. She only hoped it wasn’t full of the infected. Briefly,
Melissa considered taking the west stairs down, but quickly decided against it;
she didn’t want the soldiers following her down that staircase as it would give
her less time to board the elevator if they were in close pursuit. She darted
out of the corridor and ran flat out towards the other staircase, on the south
side of the hotel tower, figuring her pursuer would be very close to the door
in the stairwell she’d been using on the north side. This assumption was proved
correct. When she was about half way down the corridor, she heard a blast of
gunfire behind her and darted into the doorway of a room, flattening herself
against the door. Someone further down the corridor opened the door to their
suite and looking cautiously out, saw Melissa.

“Get inside! Lock the door!” Melissa barked
at the guest, who did as she instructed just as another salvo of gunfire was
unloaded towards Melissa, blasting into the wall very near where she was tucked
in. Melissa ducked down low and leaned out, raising her weapon and firing a
quick succession of shots at her pursuer at the far end of the corridor. A pair
of her shots missed, fracturing the window behind him, while three slammed into
her target. He was wounded and took a step backwards, losing his balance just
as Melissa hit him in the chest with another shot. He stumbled further and
Melissa fired another barrage of shots; whether her accuracy was off from being
forced to fight with such haste, or her adrenaline was upsetting the steadiness
of her hands, none of the shots killed him, and instead slammed into his body
armour, each shot forcing him back a little more. The final one caused him to
lose his footing and fall backwards into the broken window behind him; the
glass crumpled and he fell through, a throaty, frightened scream accompanying
his sudden disappearance.

With her current pursuer dead, or at least
falling to his death, Melissa broke into a run. She saw a few guests opening
their doors to look at her quizzically as she sped past. Breathlessly, she
curtly instructed them to stay in their rooms and hide as she moved past;
hoping the sight of a woman brandishing a gun would be sufficient warning. She
reached the turn of the corridor and took it, heading towards the entrance to
the south side stairwell once again. She opened the door and hurried inside,
but had no time to catch her breath as she heard the tell-tale sound of someone
above her. Melissa shut the door and started running down. She had to get to
the forty-second floor before the elevator. Gunfire erupted from above her, and
she barely managed to get to the wall before fragments of concrete exploded
where her foot had been. Melissa ran; she ran as hard and as fast as she could,
while paying careful attention to the floor numbers she passed. She was so
winded she could see stars at the edge of her vision, but she pushed through
it, using every last ounce of strength in her body.

Melissa opened the door to the forty-second
floor and shut it behind her, pausing for a fleeting second to drag air into
her abused lungs. She staggered on heavy legs towards the west elevator banks.
However, before she rounded the corner she heard the tell-tale chime of either
the arrival or the departure of the elevator. Hoping on the former, Melissa
turned the corner, her heart banging thunderously in her chest, and gasped when
she saw a pair of the sick coming out of it. Acting purely on instinct, she
levelled her gun and fired a clean shot at the head of the first, a woman who
was undoubtedly beautiful before something tore a chunk out of her neck and
infected her with whatever ailment was rampant in the hotel. She dropped
silently, the blood from her wound spraying over the second infected, a tall,
dark featured man. Melissa executed him; there was no other word for it, and
she watched the look of surprise on his pale face turn swiftly to ugly anger
before the bullet passed through his brain.  As he crumpled to the floor,
Melissa, though still not recovered from her dash down the stairs, forced
herself to continue moving. As she came in line with the elevator, a third
infected growled and lunged out at her; his arms outstretched and his mouth
wide. Melissa reacted as fast as her weary body could, twisting and dodging out
of his way. He tumbled to the ground, landing heavily on top of the bodies of
his companions. Melissa hastily sidestepped him and entered the elevator,
nearly losing her footing on a large pool of blood, which she could only
imagine belonged to the woman she had just executed.

Melissa slammed the ‘door close’ button
hoping, even if she couldn’t dictate a floor for it to go to, she could at
least shut the doors. To Melissa’s great relief, the doors began to close but
then, without warning, suddenly rebounded. She looked down and saw the leg of
the third infected individual preventing them from sealing off the corridor.
She acted quickly, kicking his leg out of the way as the doors began to come
together again. It was then she caught sight of a shadow on the wall and could
only assume one of her pursuers was about to round the corner. Melissa raised
her weapon and fired several quick shots at the shadow, hoping to buy herself
enough time for the doors to shut. He or she retreated, and after a second the
doors finally closed. Melissa bent down, hands on knees, and breathing deeply,
tried to steady herself and slow her heartbeat to something resembling normal.
She had no idea if the weapon she was using was empty, and didn’t have a chance
to check. The elevator was going to go up one floor, back towards the people
she was trying to escape. Melissa needed to protect herself, and the best way
she could think of doing it was to hide. She slipped the possibly empty gun
into the back of her jeans, and, hearing Roy’s questions and demands for a
response, snatched the radio.

“Not now!” She snapped and turned the radio
off, replacing it on her belt. The elevator had started moving, so Melissa
needed to do something quickly. She looked up and around, looking for the
ceiling panel which acted as a maintenance access point for the elevator. She saw
that the ceiling tile above the control panel looked a shade different from the
others, and was seemingly a little looser.

She was a little short, but felt she would
be able to reach it if she stretched as far as she could; the only alternative
being almost certain death. Melissa crouched down on her burning, aching legs,
a momentary reprieve as her over-exerted body begged for rest, then she leapt
straight up, knocking the tile with an outstretched hand and making it loose.
She jumped again and tried to swat at it, this time managing to dislodge it.
Although the floor was slippery, Melissa managed to keep her footing as she
repeated the process until the tile was completely dislodged and access to the
elevator’s roof possible. Seeing that the elevator was about to arrive at the
next floor, Melissa took a few deep, steadying breaths and, hoping she had
enough strength, she crouched down again then leapt as high as she could, both
arms extended to gain a tentative grasp on the edge of the access point with
her fingertips. Her legs dangled freely and already, her fingers were starting
to slip as her weight pulled down against the poor grip. However, she managed
to hoist her legs up until she could place her feet on the waist-high railing
and steady herself, which allowed her to re-secure her hold. Moving awkwardly,
she was able to clamber up, having found something hard and metallic to grasp;
gritting her teeth as she pushed back the thought that putting her fingers
around it could be a mistake. With some difficulty, she was able to use it to
pull herself halfway up, and while her legs dangled freely, was then able to
reach out with her other hand to grab a handle to hoist herself further up.
Eventually, she brought her legs up level with the lip of the hatch and
ascended fully onto the top - just as the elevator jolted to a stop. Melissa
quickly replaced the panel and knelt on her hands and knees, immediately
looking around for a way to escape from her pursuers, or at least hide herself
more effectively.

Melissa cautiously but swiftly stood,
stepped over the small light mounted on the top of the elevator and onto a red
girder that acted as a divider between this elevator, its mechanism and the
neighbouring elevator on the other side of the girder. She tried not to look
down and moved warily, holding onto something solid to ensure her safety at all
times. Melissa knew if she’d thought to climb out of the elevator then it was
likely that one of her pursuers might suspect she would think of doing it too.
She gritted her teeth, looking for some means to get further away. There was no
emergency ladder she could reach, no other elevator to move on to; if it was
absolutely necessary she could try to leap at the cables belonging to the next
elevator, but she didn’t trust herself enough to take a chance like that unless
she had absolutely no alternative. But then the most curious thing happened, at
least in Melissa’s opinion. The chime sounded again, and the elevator moved
upwards, leaving her behind as she lingered on the red girder. No pursuers had
checked to see if she was in there, and no gunfire had erupted to send her
tumbling to her death. Nothing had happened; they had simply given up pursuing
her. Why, she couldn’t help but ask herself. While glad of the reprieve, it
seemed strange that they should make such an effort to put her out of action
only to concede defeat so easily. Not that she was complaining, but it did lead
her to believe that whatever they were up to was more important than just one
person. Melissa, her arm wrapped around a vertical support beam, managed to
lower herself so that she could sit down on the red girder supporting her. She
looked up as the elevator casually made its way to the next floor, then she
looked down, and observed a second elevator which appeared to be slowly coming
up towards her, but it was a long way down. The shaft itself was dimly lit,
with roughly one light to every floor and an extra one on top of and below each
elevator. Melissa sighed, and went for the radio on her belt. She turned it on,
and brought it up to her mouth.

“Roy?” She summoned him. “Are you there?”

A minute of silence passed.

“Melissa? Thank God. What happened?”

“Quite a lot, actually.” Melissa declared
simply.

Chapter Four

Melissa relayed her story to Roy as
concisely and quietly as she could, just in case someone overheard her. Roy,
either shocked or surprised, listened in silence, with only intermittent, sharp
intakes of breath in response. When she finished, Roy didn’t answer straight
away. To him, what had happened to her just didn’t make sense.

“Well, Roy, say something.” She pushed
crossly – not necessarily annoyed with Roy, more with the situation in general.

“I’m sorry, Melissa, it’s just a lot to
process.” Roy answered slowly.

“Yeah, it was a lot for me too.” She
retorted.

“I bet. The radio on the roof is tuned
directly to the emergency channel. They shouldn’t have been able to take over
that, but if it was as you say it was, then there’s a whole hell of a lot more
going on than we realized. There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Melissa,
something I haven’t mentioned up until now, and I’m sorry about that but I
didn’t think it was worth worrying you with it until we knew more.”

“I don’t like the sound of this already,
Roy.”

“We think they had to have had help from someone
working on the inside to set this up, one of my security team most likely. The
way the computer system was compromised, it couldn’t have been done remotely; it
has to have been someone working under me.” Roy concluded with a flash of
anger.

Melissa grunted an acknowledgement of the
information and briefly wondered if she could trust Roy or the individual he
was with. They were, after all, the only two survivors of the security team.
Looking over the evidence she had available however, it didn’t make sense for
him to be involved. Sure, he’d sent her to the roof, but these people, whoever
they were, were already on their way. And if Roy had wanted her dead, he would
have told her to go somewhere where the infected were plentiful and she would
have been murdered by them. So Melissa chose to follow her instincts; she
believed he was honest, reliable and trustworthy, and dismissed the doubts she
had had as unfounded. And it wasn’t as though she had a whole lot of other
options.

“Well, that sounds about right for the way
things are going. Do you have any idea who it is, or was?”

“No. Donna and I are going through all the
records we can access trying to figure out when it could have happened, but it’s
slow going.”

“So, we’ve got armed killers on the top
floors, cannibals on the ground floor and everywhere in between. What’s the
plan, Roy?” Melissa questioned.

“I’m not sure there is much of a plan
anymore. Maybe it would be best for you to find somewhere to hide until the
police get inside. They’ve got to be aware that something’s happening by now.
Helicopters landing on hotels don’t go unnoticed.” Roy explained.

“Well, I’m not sure that’s going to work
out. If the people who landed on the roof are associated with the people who
started the outbreak, and I’m fairly confident we can make that connection,
then they’ve got big plans for what’s happening here. And if they’ve got plans
then we probably should try to figure out what they are before they carry them
out.”

“You’re serious?” Roy asked incredulously.
“You barely got away last time. You’re just one person, Melissa. They’ve got
numbers and firepower on their side, and Lord knows what else.”

“I know. But I’m a journalist, Roy. I go
where the story is, no matter how crazy the situation and I do what needs to be
done.” Melissa answered him.

Roy was silent, and Melissa wondered
whether they’d lost contact. The truth was something Melissa said had triggered
a memory for him, a recent enough memory to make him think he might know a
little more about who this woman was.

“Melissa, are you the journalist who was in
Africa? In Galgambwe when the civil war broke out?”

“That’s a bit out of left field, Roy.”
Melissa snapped back at him.

“I’d feel a lot better if I knew the
truth.” Roy countered.

Melissa was silent for a few moments before
she answered curtly. “Yes.”

“Well, at least I know you can take care of
yourself.” He answered softly.

“Roy, I’m going to have to go. There’s an
elevator on its way up and I’m going to ride it up a few floors. Don’t contact
me first, I’m going to try and sneak around and the last thing I need is for
them to hear your voice.”

“Understood. Be careful, Melissa.” Roy
concluded with an unnecessary note of caution.

Melissa clipped the radio back on her belt
and looked down the elevator shaft. She knew Roy might be able to find out she
was lying about how close the elevator was if he could check where the
elevators were, but right now, she didn’t care. Melissa looked at her hands and
saw they were trembling. His reminder of Galgambwe and recognition of her
actions there had brought the past and present together in a series of
shocking, vivid images that touched her very soul. She’d been coming to terms
with the past; neither forgiving herself nor forgetting what she’d done, but
slowly finding a way to accept it had happened. She flexed her fingers, making
fists and then relaxing them, but the trembling stayed constant. Melissa was
frightened, and more than a little sickened at how easily she’d been able to
kill again. She thought about the armed man coming through the doorway, about
how his head had bled so much when she put the bullet through it. She thought
about the three infected people, and how she’d pulled the trigger on the first
two without hesitating. Were they a couple, Melissa wondered, before they had
been infected with the sickness? The blood in the elevator could have belonged
to anyone, but startlingly clear images, like the things people saw in their
worst nightmares, of what could have happened came unbidden to her mind. She
pictured the husband trying to shield his wife from the sick person in the
elevator with them, who lurched forwards with his mouth open and a hunger to
consume their flesh overwhelming him. Melissa imagined something had happened
and the wife, if she was his wife, had moved away from her husband’s shielding
arm; the sick person had seized the advantage and ripped her throat out before
her husband could do anything. The blood would have been everywhere, spraying
over the two other occupants as she collapsed to the floor and saturated the bottom
of the elevator. Perhaps paralyzed with fear, the husband hadn’t reacted when
the infected man had turned on him, taking a chunk out of his arm or neck or
chest, although Melissa couldn’t remember seeing a wound on him. As he was
attacked, Melissa thought, he would have been stunned to see his wife getting
up from what should have been a mortal injury.

And then it occurred to Melissa. There was
no way someone could have survived a neck injury like that. If the jugular was
severed, as it most certainly had been, she would have been dead. The amount of
blood on the floor was also too much for one person to have lost and lived
through it. So, following this irrational line of thought, did that mean they
were already dead when she came across them? Melissa wondered. But if they were
dead, how were they able to move around? And then a possible answer hit her,
and though she could scarcely believe she was about to suggest it, even to
herself, she forced herself to tentatively pose the question: was this some
kind of zombie outbreak? Instantly, she was torn between ridiculing the thought
and being chilled by it. Ridiculing it because zombies weren’t real; they were
a plot device in movies and books that were meant to strike terror into the
hearts of viewers and readers alike. And chilled by it because it made them an
even bigger threat than she first contemplated if that was what they were. She
mentally derided her wild supposition. Zombies! She scoffed. The whole idea was
preposterous. But, she argued a moment later, it did make a bizarre kind of
sense. The fact that they could only be put down by a headshot or some other
method of destroying the brain, thus preventing the relaying of basic impulses,
such as movement, did fit the image everyone had when the term zombie was
applied to a character in a novel or a film. Melissa swallowed hard. She
considered sharing the supposition with Roy to find out what he thought, but
decided against it. She had no evidence, no proof in the slightest that this
was what was happening. All she had was a theory, and some would say, as it was
not based on any solid facts, not a very good one at that. And there was almost
certainly a more rational explanation.

Melissa looked down at the elevator. It was
probably on the thirty eighth floor so it wouldn’t be too much longer now until
she could step aboard. She decided to check her arm, realizing for the first
time just how much it hurt. She slid the jacket shoulder down and looked; the
bullet had sliced through the skin, but nothing more than that. No muscular
damage and she still had a full range of motion. It had bled, but the bleeding
had practically stopped now and the wound just stung. Still, she figured, if
she could clean it up and put some gauze on it, it would stop it from getting
infected. She also wanted to protect it in case whatever ailment possessed the
sick people could be transmitted by blood-to-blood contact. It seemed likely
that was the case.

Melissa pulled her jacket back up and took
a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. Her hands had stopped trembling
during her self-debate. She was well aware that in the present circumstances
she needed to keep her dark, concerning thoughts from the past locked in the
cage she usually kept them in. It was important to stay focused, and not allow
that painful period of her life to govern her actions now. She needed to do
what she needed to do to survive; it was as simple as that.

Roy waited a few moments, wondering if
Melissa might come back on. When she didn’t, he set the radio down on top of
the filing cabinet and began leafing through work orders and maintenance
reports again. He felt relieved that she hadn’t been angry with him for keeping
the fact that a traitor, a member of his team, had been partly responsible for
the outbreak. Behind him, he heard Donna clear her throat.

“What is it, Donna?” He asked.

“What did you mean, you know she can take
care of herself?” Donna questioned.

“You never followed the civil war in
Galgambwe?”

“No.”

“I guess you don’t watch a lot of news.”
Roy said, not intentionally reprimanding her but realizing that’s how it
sounded after he spoke. He turned to look at Donna. “Some of this was reported after
the fact, but basically, Melissa Jones was a reporter for an online magazine or
news outlet or something. She was doing a humanitarian piece on a little known
African country called Galgambwe. They had discovered a massive vein of gold
there, enough to make the country very wealthy. She was billeted near what they
were calling a boomtown, which was being hastily set up so they could commence
mining the gold to export and bring about the promised prosperity for the
people. There had been some trouble a few years earlier, the prime minister of
Galgambwe’s brother had run against him in the elections and hadn’t been
pleased when he lost. He had disappeared, along with more than half of the
generals of the country’s fledgling military. As money was expected to start
rolling in, the prime minister hired some Private Military Contractors to
protect the mine and the mining town.”

“What happened?”

“Well, at first the Contractors were able
to keep the peace; they even started training some of the locals how to fight
so they could protect themselves, and not be reliant on Contractors to keep
themselves safe. Then one night, completely out of the blue, the brother came
back in a big way. Turns out he’d been meeting rebels in nearby regions and
gathered a much larger force. He attacked the mine, hoping to seize it as the
first victory in his civil war. The battle lasted all night. The Contractors
did what they could, protecting as many people as possible, and they held out
until government reinforcements arrived. But whatever happened that night broke
Melissa.”

“She reported it all? That must’ve been
intense.”

“There’s more to it than that. She’d been
there a while, gotten to know people, and as I understand it, a lot of them
died. Her camera operator was killed too. At some point, Melissa was forced to
pick up a weapon and protect herself. She managed to survive long enough for
help to arrive, saved some people too, but it was brutal battle.”

“So she’s a hero?” Donna asked.

“Sort of. She did what she had to do, that’s
what I remember her saying when she was interviewed about it. I think it
damaged her. She was a reporter, not a soldier, and taking a life, or multiple
lives, isn’t something most people can walk away from unscarred.”

“So that’s what you mean when you say she
can take care of herself?”

“Yes. She’s used to dangerous places and
situations and if it comes to it, she knows how to fight. While I wish we could
help her, if there has to be one person alone out there, then at least she has
a decent chance of making it through.”

Melissa waited impatiently until the
elevator was on the floor below her. It sounded its chime and then, after a
little while, began to move up again. Melissa was already standing on the red
girder, keeping a firm grip on the support beam, and when the elevator drew
level with her, she lightly stepped off. She hunkered down and tried to listen
to determine if anyone was inside the car, but once it started to move upwards
again, it was difficult to hear over the sound of the elevator’s mechanism.
Eventually, she crawled carefully to the maintenance hatch and lifted it a
fraction, peering inside. About a half dozen of the infected stood in the
elevator, initially impassive and blank looking. Then some of them began to
growl and look around, while others Melissa could distinctly hear sniffing, as
though they could smell her, or at least, the blood from her wound. With
mounting frustration they continued to peer and sniff, as though expecting to
see the intruder behind them or somewhere nearby in the elevator car, but when
they saw no one their growls grew more menacing and their exasperation and
desire to feed increased.