The Zombie Virus (Book 1) (3 page)

Several new spacecraft were being launched
into Earth’s orbit to capture as much comet debris as possible,
along with instruments designed to take a variety of other readings
and measurements, because the evidence was indicating that Earth
was going to pass through the solar wind induced comet tail that
was streaming for 50 million kilometers away from this dirty ball
of ice.

We would be in for a spectacular show, for
the Earth would pass through the ion tail with the comet a mere one
million kilometers away from the planet. Less than three times the
distance to the moon. There would be phenomenal meteor storms,
probably the likes of which have never been seen before by human
eyes. Most of the meteors would burn up far in the upper atmosphere
in brilliant displays of colors as water and organic molecules
trapped within the small porous bits of rock and metal boiled
off.

Last night’s meteor storm was spectacular, a
show to remember, but I guess the doomers weren’t too far off, for
it seems it was the precursor to our troubles in some way. As we
all know though, correlation does not always equal causation.

CHAPTER 2

I passed through security on the ground floor, Level
1 of the Facility, and found that only one of the two required
Marines was on duty. After being cleared by the guard, I made my
way down the hall toward the main conference room across from the
bank of elevators that led deep into the lab complex.

The conference room was brightly lit and
empty of people. A flat screen television was mounted to the wall
in one corner and someone had turned it on to one of the major news
networks. The volume was low but still audible over the buzzing of
the florescent lights.

I took a seat in one of the leather high back
chairs that surrounded the large oval conference table and sat my
briefcase before me. I stared up at the images displayed by the
news channel. The anchor, a young, neatly dressed man, stated that
the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization were
collaborating on identifying the cause of the illness and were
recommending everyone stay at home until the epidemic was brought
under control. Very little word was coming from our own government.
Hospitals and clinics were being overwhelmed with the influx of
sick and with the loss of their own personnel.

“Crazy, isn’t it?”

I turned and stared up into the face of Dr.
Rafik, who had entered quietly behind me. His Indian accent lent a
heavy inflection to his words.

“I never would have believed it possible that
something like this could happen,” he said.

Dr. Anwar Rafik was a colleague of mine who
ran a Level 2 lab. He was the only other civilian doctor at the
Facility and had been doing some breakthrough work on Lyme disease.
We were friends, although not close.

I stood to shake his hand but he backed away
a few feet and shook his head. “I’m sick, Dr. McQuinn.” He forced a
smile. “Whatever is out there has got me also.”

I involuntarily backed away from him in a
rush of anger…and fear again. “What are you doing in here? You
could be infectious!”

Before he could respond Lieutenant Colonel
Hanson strode into the room, pushing past Dr. Rafik, careful not to
touch him.

“He was already here,” she stated bluntly,
taking a seat at the head of the table, crossing her long legs
demurely even though they were clothed in the digital gray, tan and
greens of her Army combat uniform trousers. She looked much more
soldier than scientist/doctor in the camouflaged uniform. I didn’t
miss those days of uniform wearing… much.

“By the time both of us realized he was
showing signs of this illness it was too late. Two other personnel
that I could contact have agreed to come in and be our lab rats,
they are both also symptomatic.”

I looked up again at Anwar’s flushed face.
“You should have quarantined him immediately!” I hissed.

“Dr. Rafik is on his way down to Level 6 now
to get suited up.” She looked directly at Rafik as she said that.
He nodded to her and gave a sad smile to me before turning and
leaving.

Worry played freely across her stern, sharply
contoured face, something I didn’t think was possible for her. As
always her dark hair was pulled tightly back into a bun adding to
the severity of her overall appearance. She had a brilliant
analytical mind and not only ran the Facility, but was often
involved in the research. She was the driving force that had
recruited me from Dietrich when I was leaving the Army.

“Look, Steve, if I had known I was walking
into this facility with a hot patient walking around possibly
infecting every surface that he touched, I would have met him
suited up. This took us both by surprise when he started displaying
symptoms not more than ten minutes ago. He has agreed to stay as
one of our guinea pigs. He has no family locally anyway.” She
swiveled her seat and looked up at the TV screen. “Staff Sergeant
Yeop will be in shortly, along with two of our Army techs that are
supposedly symptomatic. They are living here on the base so I
ordered them in as additional case studies.” She took a deep breath
and glanced back up at the television screen.

“Right now, Steve, our roster of staff that’s
not showing suspected symptoms of the illness is you, me and Yeop.
I believe our one Marine who showed up for duty may be exhibiting
signs of infection, although I couldn’t get him to admit to it.”
She paused again before continuing. “If this illness progresses we
are in for a world of hurt.”

“Three!” I exclaimed loudly, that acidic fear
in my gut now twisting into pangs of terror. “Out of ninety-some
people who work here, only three aren’t symptomatic?”

She looked at me hard and nodded. “I couldn’t
get hold of many of our personnel, so it’s supposition,
nevertheless, I think it’s that bad.”

“What do we know?” I asked, still dazed by
the news.

She steepled her fingers on the table in
front of her. “I was just on with Ken Patterson at the CDC a few
minutes ago. Most, if not all of their research staff has come down
with the illness and he expects that they will be severely short
staffed. We tossed some ideas about. Bioterrorism is low on the
probability list due to the reports of the illness coming in from
every country, no matter how small. I haven’t been able to confirm
any of this with anyone at Dietrich.” She looked at me ominously.
“I’m having trouble reaching anyone up the chain.” She looked back
up at the screen again, maybe to hide the fear radiating like
furnace heat in her eyes.

“One hypothesis,” she continued dryly, “is
that some pathogen was released from the comet. It would explain
the worldwide infection rate that’s being reported.”

I laughed nervously. “That was one of my
first thoughts. But I just can’t wrap my head around anything as
fragile as a bacteria or even a virus surviving the kind of
temperatures involved with the friction of hitting our atmosphere.
Anyway, I thought the alien virus theory through this type of
vector was put to rest a long time ago.”

“I tend to agree with you, however, you have
to admit it fits the facts. Ken said he’s heard several news
stations already blaming the illness on the comet. The CDC’s hands
are going to be tied if their entire research staff is sick with
this thing, so we need to take the lead until I hear
differently”

I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger
trying to absorb this news. I had to call and check on my wife and
son before I did anything else. If either one of them became ill I
didn’t know if I would be able to stay. Thank God I was a civilian
now and couldn’t be ordered to stay. Still, there was a chance I
was exposed to the pathogen after coming into contact with Dr.
Rafik. Hell, I didn’t even have a basic N95 mask on.

“We should have been suited up before
interacting with any of the infected,” I reiterated, trying to let
my anger quell my fear.

“I know, Steven, but its chaos everywhere. As
I said, there wasn’t time to suit up. Usually we go to the
diseases, they don’t come to us.” She shook her head knowingly.
“I’m praying that whatever caused this we’ve already been exposed
to and came out on the winning end. Nonetheless we will follow all
protocols and precautions from this point forward. We’ll treat this
as if we are entering a code black zone until we can determine
differently.”

Code Black was our term for a viral hot spot
that is highly infectious and lethal.

“And what if we are infected?” I asked.

“Then everyone is infected,” she stated
bluntly.

I took a deep breath, letting my anger
dissipate. She was correct. Events were moving too fast and what
was done was done. We had to move forward and get a handle on the
situation. I took solace in knowing that I never had direct contact
with Dr. Rafik and he wasn’t sneezing or coughing, which could
spread a potential pathogen in the droplets of fluid.

“So there are only two scientists and a tech
to tackle this thing?”

She nodded, a pained look on her face. “We
have to assume the staff that I couldn’t contact are ill. Doctor
Rafik will be treated as a quarantined patient and hopefully will
be able to contribute some of his own expertise to this
puzzle.”

“What stages of the disease have presented
themselves so far?”

“The prodromal seems to be indicative of a
general feeling of malaise and a strong to severe headache in the
temporal region. I guess we would classify the acute stage as
starting with a fever that builds shortly after the headaches
begin.”

She rubbed her face nervously then continued.
“So far I haven’t heard any reports of any symptoms past the onset
of fever. That seems to be where most of the patients are at this
point. It’s not an incapacitating illness yet, however, there are
some pretty sick people out there.”

I was absorbing every word like a sponge,
feeling the dread continue to build like an icy ball in the pit of
my stomach. The disease was demonstrating a classic systemic
infection like so many other pathogenic viruses that I have dealt
with.

“Do you have reason to expect that the
symptoms will get worse?”

“No. I just have a feeling we haven’t seen
the worst of this yet.”

“It’s strange. You say that the disease is at
nearly the same stage everywhere that the reports are coming in
from?”

“Yes, that’s why the hypothesis of the comet
as a vector is logical.”

I then asked one of the questions I had been
dreading to ask. “How about airborne transmissibility?”

“God I hope not,” she answered, shifting
uneasily, “nevertheless, we have to consider that a distinct
possibility from the way this has erupted overnight.” She stood up.
“That is one of the big questions we need to answer: How is it
possible to spread a disease nearly instantaneously across the
planet?” She took one last look at the images being displayed on
the TV screen and then turned it off with a remote.

She looked me hard in the eyes, the resolve
back in her face. “We should get moving. I need you to do your
damndest and fastest to isolate the pathogen that’s behind this. If
people start dying we’re going to be in for a world of hurt.”

“A code black Level 4 infection?” I
questioned, looking her hard in the eyes.

“Until we are certain that it’s not airborne
and that the symptoms do not progress any further, I think that is
our safest path.”

I got to my feet. “I need to drop a few
things off in my office, then call and check on my family. Why
don’t you get suited up and get our patients ready? I’ll get my lab
set up to receive bio-samples.” I started to leave, then a thought
occurred to me and I turned back to her. “Who’s getting the
tech”

“We’ll have to share him. I’ve got a few more
calls to make and I’ll be down.”

I hurried out of the room and across the hall
to the elevators. I scanned my hand at the elevator entrance to the
sublevels and typed in my passcode. The elevator door opened
immediately, as if it had been waiting so it could take me to the
labs buried deep below my feet.

My office and lab are in Level 6 of the
complex. This is the deepest section of the Facility because of the
nasty bugs we work with. Entry into Level 6 is restricted to those
who work there and the administrators of the Facility. All of the
labs are kept at a negative pressure compared to the ambient
atmosphere. That way if there was ever an accident, things we don’t
want leaving the labs would hopefully stay in the labs. The
Facility was also designed so that nothing unwanted would get in
unless intentionally brought in.

Once on Level 6 I walked through the small
lounge outside the elevator foyer and then into the hallway that is
lined with offices and storage rooms. At the end of the hallway is
another passcoded door that leads to the beginning of the journey
into the world of highly infectious diseases.

The lounge itself is a small, brightly lit,
rectangular room that contains several easy chairs spread around a
small table. It includes a couch, a couple of vending machines, a
coffee pot, and a refrigerator with a big warning sign on it
stating that it is to be used for food only (like any of us would
ever think of storing Level 4 pathogens in there with our turkey
sandwiches and yogurts). There is also a flat screen television
mounted on the wall near the back corner. The next door down from
the lounge is my office.

When I reached my office, I threw my
briefcase on the desk and raced to the phone. My fingers had
trouble hitting the correct keys to dial the numbers, due to my
hand shaking with the fear of what I would hear when I connected. I
kept telling myself that if they had been infected they would have
been symptomatic before I left the house.