The Reaper Virus (2 page)

A few years ago there was this big flu
pandemic that swept the globe. The viral outbreak was the result of
the H1N1 virus, or "Swine Flu" as the dumb shits in the media kept
calling it. It killed thousands of people, terrified many more, and
finally fizzled out. In the years since, there have been a few
different variations of it, a resurgence of paranoia by the media,
and basically no change in everyday life.

About a year ago they started talking about
something different. Some called it a mutation of the H1N1 virus;
others called it something entirely new. It started slowly, barely
making headlines. I had to know more.

I went to every news site imaginable; no two
said the same thing about where it started. Some said Africa, some
said China, and others said Area fucking 51. This was the first
thing that had me worried.

Normally the media tries to pick one side of
a story that at least gives the impression they know what is
going on. But this? Even through paranoia and sleep deprivation, I
knew something
actually
wasn't right. The
death toll hadn’t been announced at that point, but I had a feeling
it was high.

From the information I was able to gather,
symptoms were severe muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, seizure, and in
many cases, death. Every “expert” said something different about
how the virus spread so it was difficult to pin down specifics.
Each night at work brought more and more shit from the hospital.
Abnormal floods of sick people became more common. Reports of sick
patients becoming disorderly and biting or attacking the staff came
into the office several times a night. Officers were constantly
being dispatched to maintain control over the crowds of
hypochondriacs that flowed into the emergency room like water
seeping past a dam.

I told myself this was just another Swine Flu
and I had watched too many movies and played too many video games.
Naturally, I was wrong. It didn’t take long for the world to go to
hell, and fighting for our lives quickly became as normal as
brushing our teeth.

After all that’s happened, I’m left with
precious silence in this dark room, safe for the moment. Chance
relaxation is invaded by the flood of memories from the preceding
weeks. Any efforts to silence my thoughts have been in vain.

Whether this is a result of good fortune or a
karmic version of punishment, I have been given the chance to
recall the events leading to this moment. So I’ll take myself to
the beginning and try to think of it as therapy. Long ago a teacher
told me that getting thoughts on paper can help you cope with them.
Right now, I’d give anything for some peace of mind. Although from
what I’ve seen and done, I feel peace of mind is a luxury as
fleeting as the notion of safety itself.

If you’re reading this, then you’ve been put
in the unfortunate position of judging me. I ask that you judge me
for who I am and what I fought for, not what I’ve done.

Day One.

November 9th – 0130 hours:

The headlines were all about people getting sick.
Everywhere you looked you were given the distinct impression that
there was no way to avoid the illness.

The media was getting more details about the
virus itself. Evidently it did share origins with the H1N1 Swine
Flu, however, the main difference between the two was that the
illness, which had been named the R32PR virus, was incredibly
unstable and mutated at a rate exponentially higher than its swine
flu cousin. The name for it came from some chemical formula, I
think. I bet they just picked some letters and numbers to make it
sound like they knew what they were talking about.

According to one story I read, the first
known generation of the virus was named ‘R1PR’. Scientists still
couldn’t seem to narrow down where it came from, only that it was
probably from some third world cesspool and had accidentally been
unleashed on the world. Also, the virus was so unstable that it
mutated thirty-one times over a span of just a few months, with
each mutation becoming more severe and volatile than the last
strain. The most recent mutation caused it to be far more
contagious.

The hospitals cracked down on the number of
people allowed to visit their loved ones. I saw a lot of people
wearing facemasks, even though at that point they had not yet said
it was airborne. The president gave some song and dance speech
about being vigilant and using good hygiene. Easy for him to say;
he’d never been to our dirty fucking city. No one in my family had
gotten sick yet, but I told the kids to let me know if people at
school were getting sick more than usual. My kids were young, but
they were smart, and I was confident they’d be careful.

I had to juggle my information gathering with
answering the phones. Luckily most of the really paranoid people
called during the day… at least I had that going for me on the
midnight shift.

* * *

0513 hours:

The first news agencies to update in the
morning were always the ones overseas due to the time difference. I
found this on
The British BBC:

“
Speaking on a condition of
anonymity; a scientist working with a joint venture of the London
Health Sciences Centre and St Josephs Health Care London attempting
to map what is now know as the R32PR virus was quoted saying the
following:

‘
The virus is more unstable
than anything we have ever seen. Each mutation is the result of the
host strain being introduced to a foreign strain. The result is not
a combination of the two, but rather acceleration and strengthening
of the host. Recent growth of infected subjects is most likely the
result of the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth mutation. We cannot be
sure which virus it was introduced to, but it’s possibly something
to the effect of a member of the family Calicivirida – commonly
known as the Norovirus. Norovirus affects people of all ages. The
viruses are transmitted by contaminated food or water and by
person-to-person contact. I suspect this to be the case due to
recent growth in the pandemic centralized in urban areas. What
concerns me are recent reports of symptomatic severity growing
exponentially. We are now working to predict its mutation and
contain the host virus before it is exposed to something far
worse.’”

This scared the crap out of me. I knew for a
fact, from my years of service in this lovely city, that there were
some dirty people out there. What would happen if the virus got
into someone already festering with several other diseases? Would
it join forces with any virus it came across? That could be bad. I
thought it might be best to stock up on some supplies and be
prepared to stay at home for a while.

I was due to be off work at 0700 hours,
assuming no one called out and I didn’t have mandatory overtime. I
decided that instead of going straight home that a Wal-Mart trip
was in order. With any luck I’d get there before people woke up to
mob the stores. I hoped this was just paranoia, and the worst that
could happen was that I would save trips to the grocery store for a
month or so.

I used the downtime at work to prepare my
list of items. The sooner I was in and out of that place the
better.

* * *

Day Two.

November 10th – 0013 hours:

A lot of people started freaking out.
The Today Show
did this big segment about
the R32PR virus. I think it’s funny that a virologist in the U.K.
can spill the beans about this being a source of concern and no one
mentions it, but as soon as those jackasses on the morning news
show say something…

I’m lucky I went to the store early. Usually
when I was there that early on a Monday morning the only people I
had to contend with were the red-eyed stock clerks. On that
particular trip though, there were a few other people, but most
seemed pretty with it. I noticed a majority of them were
congregated around perishables. My tactic was a bit different.

My shopping cart was packed. I ended up
grabbing a second one and pulled it behind me. However, before I
made my way to the food side I had a random eureka moment and
started looking for basic survival stuff. If I ended up not needing
it, then great – I’d rather give random Christmas presents or take
my son Maddox camping than be caught with my pants down. We already
owned sleeping bags and basic camping gear thanks to my childhood
spent as a Boy Scout, but I picked up two extra sleeping bags and
some cooking gear suitable for the woods. I grabbed two cases of
water purification tablets. The goal was to get four to six of the
little things like emergency blankets, travel toiletries and more
of the personal use stuff as opposed to group use items.

I also grabbed a few boxes of ammunition.
Years back I bought a twenty-two caliber hunting rifle from a buddy
of mine. When you spend as much of your time around cops as I did,
eventually you’re going to get a gun. I also took Maddox shooting
every now and then, more than anything just to give him a respect
for firearms at an early age. He was only eight years old, but I’d
be damned if he ever touched a gun without knowing what they can
do.

My favorite items came from the electronics
department. I picked up a six-pack of two-way radios, the ones with
a two to three mile range. I thought it might come in handy at some
point or another, but I would hide those from my wife Sarah just to
avoid the inevitable argument. She’d just tell me it was a waste of
money. The next items I didn’t think she would mind because she was
always a closet hippie – a few solar battery chargers along with an
array of compatible batteries.

A stop by the pharmaceutical aisle seemed
like a good idea as well. I was buying shit from everywhere else in
the store, so why not? I grabbed a couple of two-packs of the
basics; things like: Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen, Benadryl,
multi-vitamins, Naproxen, cold medicine, etc. Our house was pretty
well stocked on first aid, due to the two young kids and a clumsy
dad. Injuries over the years had supplied us with a free clinic’s
worth of supplies, so I only grabbed a few extra packages of
first-aid needs.

The food I picked up wasn’t anything
memorable. Most of it you could eat without preparation or water if
needed - just to get some food in you. All of it was pretty compact
and had a disturbingly long shelf life. Including regular
perishable food and the less savory items I picked up, we would be
good for two months or so. If we somehow got completely cut off and
had to ration, it could be stretched longer. I didn’t see that ever
happening, but it’s good to be prepared for the worst. In the back
of my head I rationalized it all by saying I’d have plenty to
donate to the food bank in a couple of months.

Blame all the apocalyptic books I’ve read,
but I tried to focus on supplies for the long haul. I bought a lot
– much more than I probably should have. In retrospect, I wish I
had bought more.

Sarah was pissed I spent so much money and
got some “unnecessary items”. That was alright; I could pay the
minimum balance on the credit cards for a month or two (or
four).

Day Three.

November 12th – 0253 hours:

The news was saying some more weird shit about the
R32PR virus. They now believe it was based in the blood, in a
similar way to HIV. Official reports were claiming that over the
life of the virus and its various mutations something like
ninety-thousand had died around the world as a result of infection.
What was weird was what they were saying about the people who had
become infected more recently. They said the R32PR virus did
something in the circulatory system that caused a darkening and
thickening of the blood. Advanced cases showed signs of where
arteries and veins were very visible on the outside of the skin.
Picture seeing someone’s veins outlined over their body. None of
the pictures online were very good quality, but it still looked
like some sick, miserable people.

I assumed people suffering from this advanced
stage of R32PR were at a point of no return, but the media seemed
to be going out of their way to
not
say
it. I’m guessing that’s so they didn’t fuel any underlying panic in
the masses. Panic had already ensued though. The last time I
remembered such a generalized feeling of paranoia and panic was
right after the 9/11 attacks.

If there was any bright side to the new
headlines, it was that fewer cases were turning up. Could we be
past the worst already? The new symptoms sounded like something out
of a nightmare, but apparently only like three to four out of ten
infected were showing the black vein phenomenon. That, combined
with the fact that fewer and fewer new cases were showing up, could
mean that the virus had run its course. Sure, it also implied that
those showing the new symptoms were probably going to join the
death count, but it could stop there if we were lucky.

The CDC announced that they didn’t believe
the virus had mutated again, but rather that it had reached the end
of a “maturation cycle”. Maybe it was over after all? I was just
thankful no one in my family had gotten sick since this madness
began.

* * *

0600 hours:

About an hour before, one of our officers had
to use deadly force for the first time in over five years. We
weren’t always privy to the whole picture of an incident from our
isolated dispatchers’ cave, so here’s what information I could
collect: a student was walking home and cut through an alley when
some homeless guy jumped out and attacked him. A bike officer was
nearby and heard the kid screaming. The officer was yelling at the
guy to back down when he charged at him or something. I don’t know
how many shots were fired but the homeless guy eventually stopped.
The kid was pretty messed up but alive. Richmond Ambulance rushed
him off to the ER before onlookers arrived.