The Beginning of the End (9 page)

Chevy lifted his arm
looking for help up, I extended an apologetic hand to pull him up. We
locked hands, as I started to give him a pull, someone grabbed my
shoulder from behind me. I instinctively released Chevy’s hand and
watched as he tumbled over backwards landing on his ass. I spun
around to find Mrs. McCarthy standing there.

She was the old lady
who doubled as our landlord and insisted on us having the big chest
freezer. Mrs. McCarthy, the lady I had known to be sweet, kind, but
maybe talked too much, now stood there growling at me with every
breath. Her skin was a blackened gray, resembling the color of
rotten, bloodless road kill. The old lady’s face and arms were
covered with huge black cuts and tears in her skin. There was an even
blacker puss oozing from them. I was fixated on her eyes. I’m not
sure what color they use to be, but now they swirled a glowing blue
and had a gray center that seemed to cast me under their spell. Her
mouth opening and closing, like a dog snapping at an annoying fly.
Her false teeth had fallen out. Every smack of her impacting jaw gave
off the sound of a gummy thump. It disgusted me. I overcame the urge
to look away, “Mrs. McCarthy, are you okay?”

She stepped closer and
grabbed onto my shoulders pulling me against her. I tried to step
back and lost my balance. The old lady refused to release me and fell
on top of my chest. I tried to squirm out from under her, but she had
already wrapped her legs around me. She hurled her head back and
forth beating it against my chest! Her gums bit at me, tearing my
shirt away. I felt the cold black ooze dripping from her mouth onto
my skin. With every thrust of the old lady’s head, I felt my bare
skin being pinched by her toothless gums. I screamed for help, pinned
down by the weight and strength of the biting maniac.

I felt the breeze from
Chevy’s sneaker as his foot connected with Mrs. McCarthy’s head.
The force of Chevy’s kick instantly broke her neck, hurling her off
from me, and stopping the attack. She landed on the pavement a couple
of feet away. I jumped to my feet, wiping ooze from my chest and
watching her. She was on her back, but her nose and mouth were facing
the road. Her head was facing 180 degrees in the wrong direction,
“Holy shit, Chevy! You killed her!”

Chevy’s face went
flush with panic, “She was trying to kill you man! Look at her,
she’s all gray, and it's like she’s starting to rot, and she
smells so bad! I think she was already dead?”

We stared at Mrs.
McCarthy’s lifeless body, “What the hell are we going to do
Chevy?” We were trying to come up with a plan while we watched Mrs.
McCarthy. She was beginning to moan and working her way back to her
feet. We watched in awe when she finally made it up. Her head was
hanging on backwards like it was attached with a rubber band. She was
looking up at the sky, as though trying to catch a glimpse of an
airplane, but her head kept swinging backwards, held on only by the
stretched skin of her neck. She lifted her arms straight out, and she
started walking towards us again. Chevy and I gave each other a quick
look and took off, sprinting for our house.

October 4th 4:55am

The three of them stood
there staring at the autopsy table. Miranda lay there dead. Bob
walked over and placed his hand on her forehead, “I’m so sorry
Miranda.”

“You killed her!”
Sophie hollered, visually shaken by the incident, “We could have
saved her!”

Bob spun around and
snapped back, “I killed her? Are you fucking kidding me? You mean,
you killed her with your wonder drug!” Bob tried to control himself
realizing he was losing his composure. Dr. Marcil stepped between the
two, “At this point, I believe we need to stop blaming each other,
and start trying to figure out how we’re going to fix this.” The
autopsy room door swung open, as a squad of soldiers burst into the
room, “Colonel Aiken, the hospital’s been breached! I have orders
to get you out of here A.S.A.P.”

“What do you mean the
hospital’s been breached?” Bob asked.

“The dead, Sir. They
made it off the floor and out of the hospital, infecting people as
they escape.”

“Infecting people
with Ebola?” Dr. Marcil asked.

“No, Sir, they’re
biting people. After they bite someone, that person turns, and then
they attack us too!”

“Turn into what?”
Sophie asked.

“Zombies ma’am.
With all due respect, I need to get you all out of here, and to the
off sight lab we’ve set up for you.”

Bob and the two doctors
made their way to the lab with the soldiers. Once there, they worked
through the morning trying to re-map the serum. Bob was receiving
hourly reports on the Ebola outbreak and the zombie situation. Sophie
walked in with the latest update, “Oh my god, Bob! You need to see
this.” Sophie handed Bob the updated report, as she turned to Dr.
Marcil, “We’ve lost it, Doctor. The CDC is reporting hospitals in
every state are being overrun with Ebola patients. They all have the
same airborne strain.” Dr. Marcil took the paper from Bob’s
hands, “That means they’ve all been infected from our patient
zero, which means that he infected everyone on his flights from South
Africa, through Europe, to here. “Dr. Marcil put down the paper,
walked over to the counter, and dropped his head. Bob thought for a
brief second he heard the doctor crying, “What is it Doc?” Dr.
Marcil slowly spun around in his lab chair and stopped when he was
facing Bob. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, “I’ve just
finished re-mapping the ZMapp serum. Anyone who’s been exposed to
the ZMapp, that is carrying this Ebola strain, will suffer the same
reanimated effects as Miranda. Blood work has concluded that Miranda
took a dose of ZMapp. She must have taken it before her nap, thinking
it would help protect her against any exposure.” Bob looked up at
the doctor, “There’s only one problem with that theory Doctor.
Miranda wasn’t exposed to the Ebola virus.” The doctor motioned
to Sophie, and she brought over Miranda’s protective hood that had
been brought back to the lab with Miranda’s body. The doctor took
the hood from Sophie, examined it for a moment and showed it to Bob,
“Take a look at this.” Dr. Marcil pulled back the hood lining
revealing a small rip in the seam. She must have known about it, but
didn’t say anything. After we arrived with the serum, she took it
thinking it was her only hope.” Bob’s gut twisted, “Why
wouldn’t she say anything about the tear?”

“That’s the least
of our worries now.” Dr. Marcil said. “We need to make sure no
one infected with Ebola gets this exact ZMapp serum.” Before the
doctor finished speaking Bob thought he was going to collapse. Sophie
grabbed Bob’s arm to steady him, “What is it, Bob?” Bob closed
his eyes and took a deep breath, “Operation Thunder Storm!” The
two doctors gave each other a confused look and then turned back at
Bob again, “What’s Operation Thunder Storm?” Sophie asked. Bob
had a defeated look on his face, “General Strong is going to add
ZMapp to every water supply in the world.”

“You need to stop
him!” Sophie shouted.

Bob had found a chair
and was collapsing on it, “It’s already done. We may have just
lost this thing.” The room was silent and time seemed to slow until
Sophie spoke, “Well not necessarily.” Sophie had the men’s full
attention now. “We genetically engineered our ZMapp. Why can’t we
break it down, back to the basic proteins, and rebuild it from the
platform up? I mean we already have the map. Let’s just change the
ingredients?” Dr. Marcil responded, “In theory. It's possible,
but it would take months, and we’re already out of time.”

“I disagree Doctor.
We have the CDC at our disposal, and we can have MARIA start breaking
it down while we’re on our way back to Montréal. Bob how long will
it take you to get us back to our lab?”

Without hesitation Bob
answered, “Six hours!”

Fifteen minutes later,
Bob and the two doctors were finished the decontamination procedure
and boarded the C-141 Starlifter. Dr. Marcil sat down next to Bob,
“How long will it take us to get to Montréal, Bob?” Bob fastened
his seatbelt, “Well let’s just say you shouldn’t get too
comfortable. This baby cruises at 566 miles per hour.”

Once they were in the
air, Bob went to the cockpit and grabbed a Sat-phone. He pushed on
the keypad and waited for an answer, “Hello!” An official
female’s voice answered on the other end. “This is Colonel Aiken.
I need to speak with General Strong.” The female spoke again,
“Please hold on Colonel. I am locating him now.” There was a
short pause and then a series of clicks and beeps. The phone snapped
to life with background noise, “Bob did you get out of there, are
you okay? I’ve just been informed the PA site has been
compromised!”

“Yes General!” Bob
answered. “We got out of there in the nick time. I’m en route to
Montréal with Dr. Marcil and Simone.” The General interrupted
“Bob, why the hell are you going back to Montréal?”

“Sir, Palo Alto was a
catastrophe. The ZMapp didn’t work. You need to stop operation
Thunder Storm!” The General started talking over Bob again, “Whoa,
Whoa, Whoa Bob. I think you’re over reacting. Let’s just give it
some time and see what happens.” Now Bob was interrupting the
General, “We saw what happened, Sir! Anyone who’s infected with
the virus and comes into contact with Zmapp, will turn in just a few
hours!” After a short pause the General asked, “What do you mean,
turn?"

“I mean they turn
dead, Sir. They die and become reanimated. They come back to life
as……zombies....... and they’re hungry. You need to abort the
operation!”

There was a long pause
by the General, “I’m sorry, Bob. I can’t do that.”

“Listen Ray!” Bob
shouted. “You’re going to kill every person on the planet if you
don’t stop right now!”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Bob
screamed

“Because the
operation’s already been completed, Bob, it’s done.”

October 11th 10:30pm

I slammed the door
behind me and peered through the peep hole confirming we hadn’t
been followed. I took a second to catch my breath. Chevy took up
position, watching out the window next to me.

“I can’t believe
what just happened!” I said, as I headed to the kitchen to grab a
couple of sodas. When I came out, Chevy was sitting on the edge of
the couch with tears in his eyes, “I didn’t mean to kill her.”
he mumbled as he gazed up at me. I handed Chevy a soda and tried to
console him, “You didn’t kill her Chevy, she got back up after
you kicked her,” I said as he popped the top of the soda and nearly
downed the whole thing.

“Did you see her
head?” he said to me while staring back at the floor. I didn’t
say anything at first, I took up position on the couch trying to
figure things out for myself. How could she be alive? Her head looked
like it was about to fall off and why was she rotting? Chevy stood
up, headed for the TV, “What are you doing?” I asked.

Chevy skipped the
search for the remote control and was heading straight for the
television’s buttons, “I need to find some news. There’s
something going on out there, and we’re in the dark right now.”
He cycled through the channels twice and couldn’t find anything but
static. He dropped back down on the couch next to me and finished the
last gulp of his soda. He reached for the antique end table and made
a quick search for the remote. Now armed with the television’s
clicker, he started cycling through the channels again. Static,
static, color bars, and static. “Hey!” I barked, trying to steal
Chevy’s attention from the TV, “We need to get our shit together
and make a plan.”

“Wait! Go back! Did
you hear that?” I caught a voice trying to weave its way through
the pixilated screen on the TV. Chevy turned it up, and we both
leaned in close, listening for the voice again. Our eyes widened as
the voice materialized.

“Hello, Is there
anyone out there? Can you hear me?” The voice tapered off and
stopped. We picked up a faint second voice talking to the first one,
“Don’t give up! Get the message out! There are still people in
the world.” The first voice started again, “Okay I’ll try.
Hello! Is there anyone out there? If you can receive this, we are in
Albany. Ten of us survived the apocalypse and grouped together. We
are building a sanctuary here at Albany Medical Center. We have
plenty of food and medical supplies. Please be careful. Watch out for
the dead! They eat the living. They are slow, but their numbers are
overwhelming. The only way to kill them, is to destroy the brain. I
repeat the only way to kill them, is to destroy the brain. If they
bite you and break the skin, you will turn into a dead in a few
hours. The coordinates to our location are 42.655500, -73803881. We
will try to rebroadcast every two hours.”

The voice ended. Chevy
and I sat there staring at the static screen, “Did you hear what
they said?” Chevy bellowed. “The dead are alive, and they want to
eat us? Apocalypse?” Chevy stopped talking.

I looked down at my
chest pulling my tattered shirt away, “Mrs. McCarthy bit my chest!”
I whimpered. A sudden wave of nausea came over me. Chevy reached over
and pulled the remaining pieces of shirt back, “Ty, there’s
nothing there.” I could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks.
Chevy gave me a light slap on the side of my face, “Hey! Snap out
of it, Ty, there aren’t any bites on your chest. She didn’t break
the skin. She gummed you.” Chevy teased. “You’re fine.” The
tears were still flowing down my cheeks, “Yes, I’m sure, she
didn’t bite you, and you’re not going to turn into one of those
dead things!” Chevy said as he got up from the couch. I looked at
the clock on the wall and made a mental note of the time, thinking to
myself that if I was still fine in three hours, then Chevy was right.

We walked into the
kitchen and each grabbed a cold piece of pizza. We took a seat at the
table with our mouths full.