Origins of the Outbreak (8 page)

So tired… Just need to rest
, he thought as he closed his eyes and waited for an operator to answer.

Finally, a recording picked up on the 9-1-1 line. 
“
All lines are currently busy.  If this is an emergency, please hang up and try again.  Otherwise, please call your local police department at –”

“Goddammit!” he groaned, knocking his cell phone onto the passenger floorboard when he tried to hang up. 
Maybe the house phone will get through if all the cell phone lines are busy.
  He practically fell out of the car trying to stand and go inside.  Craig managed to stagger to his porch steps before he collapsed and passed into oblivion.

The Construction Worker, 8:22 a.m.

“Fuck you
,
asswipe!” Mateo shouted at the car full of people who’d just sped by the stop sign he held.  It was a little past eight in the morning and it was already hot and humid and his temper was not going to take too many more of the dickheads that had been through today.

Into his handheld radio he said, “Hey, Ben.  We got another one speeding your way.  You don’t have anybody coming, do you?”

“
Hell, I just released about ten cars
,” Ben replied.

“I hope they’ve got good insurance then, ‘cause there’
s
gonn
a
be an accident.”

“
I’ll call Freddy’s Towing and let them know that we’ll probably need them
.”

“Good thinking,” Mateo agreed.  “Let me know if a gray four-door loaded down with
shitbirds makes it past you.”

“
Will do
.”

Mateo’s job, for the time being, was to hold the slow/stop sign along the access road to I-35, the major north-south interstate in Texas.  They were switching the two-way side roads to one-way in an effort to alleviate traffic problems and there was currently a ten mile stretch of road closed down to do the work.  The crew was using large acetylene torches to loosen the painted yellow stripes and then painstakingly coming behind with scrapers and scraping the paint from the roadway.  Once they were done with this section a paint sprayer would come along and paint the white lines, indicating that it was now a one-way road; it was very exciting work.

The crew had been having problems all morning long with people coming from the Belton area and blowing past them in a rush to get to the highway and the police were nowhere to be found.  Usually they were crawling over construction sites, but not today when the crew actually needed them.  Typical.

Somehow the cars avoided an accident.  There must have been some close calls, but no wreckers would be needed.  That helped Mateo immensely.  He didn't need that kind of hassle to shut down the job site.  He was just about to relax when the screech of metal on metal made him whip his head around.  Sure enough, the last car got into an accident
– although, as the construction worker looked down the way, there wasn't another car that they'd hit.

“Aww, what the hell?” he moaned to himself and brought the radio to his cheek. 
“Hey, Ben.
We just had a single-vehicle accident right here in the lane.  You'll need to stop traffic on your end until I can figure out if they can drive out or if we need a tow truck.”

“
Roger that, Mateo
,” Ben's voice drifted from the speaker.  “
What happened?
”

“I don't know,” he responded.  “It looks like they ran into the Jersey barrier and now they're stopped about three hundred feet from me.  I'
m
gonn
a
head down there and see what's up.”

“
Okay, sounds like a plan.  I'll let folks on this end know that the way is blocked and that they may want to swing down around Salado and then come up the back way
.”

“Yeah, that may be
what we need to have them do. Good thinking,” he added.

Mateo clicked the
walkie talkie onto his belt and sighed as he judged the distance to the crash site.  It was just on the edge of where he'd consider walking to, but he didn't want to risk fouling things up even further by getting his truck stuck in the narrow construction lane if the car was drivable.

He decided that walking would be the best way to keep things clear so he planted his stop sign in the Jersey barrier and jogged over to his truck.  He pulled a plastic orange- and white-striped saw horse from the truck bed and hastily assembled it in the middle of the road.  Then he placed
a
ROAD CLOSE
D
sign on the new obstacle and turned to begin the long walk down to the accident.

It was right about the distance from home plate to the right field wall on a baseball field.  For some reason he still measured short distances in relation to a ball field, even though it had been more than ten years since he played in high school
.
Go with what you know, I guess.

As he neared the car, he saw that they must have hit an animal.  Blood smeared along the wall, whatever they hit was probably crushed between the car and the barrier.  It wasn't until he got to within ten feet that he noticed the legs.

A boot was suspended off the ground, trapped by the front fender against the wall and an entire leg la
y
awkwardly on the ground.  The limb had been inside a pair of jeans at one point, now it lay in ruin.

“Oh fuck.  Oh fuck…
,” Mateo's hands shook almost uncontrollably as he brought the radio back to his mouth.  “Ben! Ben, can you hear me?” he screamed.

“
Yeah, what's wrong, buddy?
”

“They hit a person.  Oh god, there's blood everywhere.  Ben, call the EMS.”

“
Shit.  Okay Mateo, is anyone hurt?
”

“I'm not there yet, but there are two goddamned legs without a fucking body!”

“
Holy hell
,” Ben cursed.  “
I'm calling them now.
”

“I'm here,
gonna see what I can do.”

“
Okay
.”

Mateo tried to put the radio back on his belt, but he dropped it when he saw the woman through the open driver's door. 
“Holy shit
!
The ambulance is on the way!” he screamed at the legless man gesturing wildly from the ground towards him.

The driver of the car was covered in blood and wasn't moving. 
She must have gotten injured in the accident when she swerved to avoid this guy
, he decided.  Mateo tried to get around the car door, but it was lodged, so he rushed around the back of the car and when he rounded the corner, he saw the carnage in its totality.

The guy
–
Holy shit, it's Sean from the pub
!
– was missing one foot and his other leg was completely ripped off. Blood ran in rivulets down his face from his head and mouth.  Mateo rushed forward and took off his belt to tie a tourniquet around Sean's leg.

“Sean, I'm going to
help you out,” he said more calmly than he felt.  Sean was so fucked up that he just moaned incoherently at him and kept opening and closing the one hand that he could still use.

Mateo slid his hands under Sean's armpits and lowered him as gently to the ground as he could.  A random though
tflashed through his mind, wondering why the bar manager was trying to get in the car.  He risked a quick glance inside
.
Oh yeah, she's probably dead
,
he thought.

The driver of the vehicle had several bloody streaks that covered her clothing
.
It looked like her skirt had been slid up and she had large oval-shaped lacerations. 
Are those
…
bit
e
marks
?
Her leg closest to the door had several large chunks missing from it.  He looked up at her and realized that she had a huge bruise forming above her eye
.
Maybe she isn't dead; she's just unconscious!

He momentarily forgot that he was still supporting Sean under his armpits and reached up with one hand to feel her pulse along her jugular.  It was there, but it was very weak.  Mateo wondered if he should try and focus on her instead.  Before he had the opportunity to make his decision, Sean turned his head and bit Mateo’s thumb off.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelled and dropped the injured man roughly to the ground.  The nub where his thumb used to be spurted blood, adding to the fluids already on the ground.

“What the fuck, Sean?” he asked as he stared at his hand in horror.

The man, whom he'd always been friendly with, just continued to moan and gesticulate wildly.

Mateo looked around frantically for his thumb, but he couldn't find it.  Eventually his eyes settled on the bar manager and all the blood around his mouth, then they worked their way up to the woman with the bite marks on her legs.

Sean had a seizure or something
,
he rationalized with himself. 
There's no way he did that on purpose.

A sudden, intense pain exploded in his head and he grasped it with both hands.  “
Ow, motherfucker!” he shouted.

The pain didn't seem natural to him.  It was like a mixture of being punched in the head and having a wicked hangover at the same time.  The pain inexplicably moved down to his stomach and he doubled over, grabbing his midsection.

Before he had time to wonder what was happening, his heart began hammering rapidly in his chest and he became hyperaware of every little noise around him.  Sounds amplified, while his vision grew dark.  He tried to understand what was happening to him, but his mind refused to accept the fact that he was dying.

His heart rate bottomed out as suddenly as it had elevated and within seconds he didn't have enough energy to move.  He collapsed heavily against the side of the car.  From somewhere far away he was dimly aware that Sean had latched onto his leg with his teeth.  Mateo watched in a daze as the man pulled backwards and a fold of his work jeans was ripped away.

Mateo passed out before Sean went back in for his second, real bite.  He died within minutes.

Shortly after Sean lost interest in consuming his dead flesh
, Mateo's corpse stood upright and glanced around the car for food. He didn't see anything, so he started walking down the road towards town.

Sean pulled his torso along in the opposite direction from where the construction worker had gone and the trapped driver jerked wildly against the side of the car.  The seatbelt kept her restrained inside until the emergency workers arrived and she bit two of them before they realized that they needed to stay clear of her.

The Clubbers, 10:28 a.m.

The four men looked around, irritated.  “What the hell are we supposed to do with this?” Robert asked.

They sat in two golf carts on the seve
nth tee of the Leon Valley Golf Course and one of the maintenance tractors sat right in the middle of the green.  It was still running, but the workers were nowhere to be seen.

“They've got to be around here somewhere
.” Doctor Johnson stated.  “They wouldn't just leave the tractors there.  Maybe the workers had to take a quick restroom break in the wood line.”

“Then why the hell wouldn't they just drive over to the building where the
bathrooms are?  I pay too much for this shit,” Robert fumed.

“Take it easy, son.  I'm sure there's a simple explanation for the equipment sitting in the fairway.”

“Don't tell me to take it easy, Doc.  You said yourself that you only had three hours today and that we'd be cutting it close if you were going to make your afternoon appointments.  This is going to cut into your game.”

“If that's what the Good Lord has decided to send my way, then so be it, Robert.  Maybe the driver is picking up something on the other side and we just can't see.  I'
m
gonn
a
go down there and try to figure this out.”

“I'm with Doctor Johnson,” Matt Harper said.  “Come on
, Bob.  Let's try to correct the problem and move past it.”

“Jesus –
sorry,Doc
.
I –”

“Don't apologize to me.  Say you're sorry to Jesus
, Bob.”

Robert looked at the older man and grimaced.  “You're right. Sorry.  I just wanted to have a nice round of golf with my partners before I had to go back to the dealership.”

Robert and Matthew Harper owned the largest automotive group in the Belton/Killeen/Harker Heights triplex.  They played golf every Friday morning with their business partners Abraham Johnson and Ian Barton, both cardiologists at Temple's Scott and White Hospital.  The doctors had provided financial backing to the salesmen to open their first dealership over thirty years ago and they'd maintained a small interest in the business throughout the years.

Matt pressed the gas pedal on the cart and it began moving forward.  Robert followed quickly behind his younger brother in the second cart.  They sped down the pavement along the green until they
were even with the tractor and stopped.

“I don't see anyone,” Matt said as he looked over towards the large lawnmower.

“I'm going to walk over and see anyways,” Doc said and stepped nimbly from the cart for someone who was pushing 70.

“Aww
hell.
What else are we going to do?” Ian finally said as he lifted his bulk from the cart.  He was roughly the same age as Doc Johnson, but where Abraham had stayed fit and
healthy,
Ian had allowed the mental model that people's waists spread as they got older to fuel his habit for desserts and sweets.

The brothers quickly got out of the carts and followed.  The tractor was about fifty feet away from the path and they covered the distance in less than a minute.  The vinyl seat held a small puddle of liquid that dripped slowly towards the frame.

“What the hell?” Bob asked.  “Is that –”

“Yeah, that's blood,” Doc Johnson answered and pointed to the ground all around the tractor.  It was covered in the viscous fluid as well.

“Where's the driver?” Ian asked.

Abraham studied the ground for a moment and pointed towards the woods along the edge of the course.  “I'd bet my life that he got injured somehow and stumbled that way.  Come on, we
have to go help him.”

Robert reached over and turned the key, switching off the tractor.  The whole thing st
unk of something strange so he pulled out his cell phone and tried to call the police, but the number wa
s
busy
.  How the hell is 9–1–1 busy
?
He tried the number several more times with the same result.

Over the years he'd needed to call the cops directly instead of going through the emergency number.  He scrolled through his phone until he found the direct line to the police desk and hit the dial button.  The phone rang repeatedly until someone finally picked up on the tenth ring.

“
Belton PD.  This better be an emergency.
”

“This is Robert Harper.  We're at the Leon Valley Golf Course and
there's blood everywhere. The –”

“
Listen to me Mr. Harper.  Get away from there now!  Go home and lock your doors.
”

“What the hell?  Who is this?”

“
It's Jessica Greeley.  I'm serious Mr. Harper, get away from there now!  I'll send a patrol car if we can spare one.
”

“Jessica, somebody's hurt over here.  We need help.”

“
I'm sorry; we don't have anyone available right now.  People are going crazy and attacking others.  We think… We think they're zombies.
”

“Zombies
?
Is this some sort of stupid joke?”

“
It's no joke, sir.  You need to get away from the area where you saw the blood and get to safety.  NOW!
”

“I…
Uh…
What do you –”

“
I don't have time for this Mr. Harper.  Good luck,
” she snapped and hung up the phone.

He stared at his phone like it was a soiled dildo and then slipped it into his pocket.  The other three had already nearly disappeared into the
tree line so he hurried after them.

Robert stopped short when he saw his brother fall.  It didn't look natural, almost like he'd bee
n
pulle
d
down.  “What the fuck?” he mumbled, all sense of Christian decorum lost.

Matt yelled from somewhere out of sight and then Ian disappeared as well. 
“Oh geez!
”
Bob shouted and ran forward to where his friends were.

By the time he made it to where he'd seen his brother disappear, Doc Johnson came stumbling back towards him.  “Run!” the old man shouted and was tackled from behind by a man wearing green coveralls
that the golf course's lawn keepers wore.

Bob's momentum
carriedhim forward to within a few feet of the doctor.  The lawn keeper pulled away from his friend's back an
d
growle
d
at him.  The man had blood dripping from his chin where he'd just taken a bite from Abraham.  He slammed his face down into the doctor's back and took another bite.

Robert sobbed and sidestepped the atrocity.  Matt was somewhere up ahead.  He found him in seconds.  Several more people were huddled down pulling pieces of his body to their mouths.

“Hey, what the hell
?
Leave him alone!” he shouted foolishly.

Two teenage girls stopped, intestines hanging loosely from their mouths
, and stood up in unison to come after him.

Bob had led the cushy life of a salesman, but he realized that right now, his only chance to survive was to run.  He cried silently for his brother and turned heel to run back to the carts.  He sprinted like he hadn't done since high school and quickly came abreast of the lawn tractor that had piqued the foursome's curiosity in the first place.

That's where his stellar cross country athlete performance came crashing to an end.  Literally
.
He slipped on the gore beside the tractor and twisted his ankle so bad it popped audibly.  His body continued along its trajectory and slammed into the tractor.  H
e
pinwheele
d
off, landing in a heap of juxtaposed arms and legs on the blood-covered turf.

For a moment he stared at the cloudless blue sky in a daze, but quickly sat up.  His head felt thick and he brought a hand up to feel the huge lump forming on his temple.  “Shit,” he managed to say before remembering why he'd been running.  The two girls were walking quickly towards him.

He stood up and tried to run, but the pain in his ankle was excruciating.  He hobbled along towards the carts.  It wasn't much further and then he could ride back to the cars and get home to Jenny and the kids.  He couldn't resist the urge to look behind him; the girls
–
zombie
s
– were closer than they'd been before.

“Oh dear Lord, please save me,” he muttered as he tried to walk as fast as he could.  He was almost there, the carts were right ahead.  He looked behind him again and blanched.  The girls were right on top of him.

He stumbled across the edge of the cart path and grasped the rod holding the cart's sun shade in order to keep from falling.  A hiss behind him told him that he was out of time.  In desperation he grabbed the 9–iron from his bag and swung blindly behind him.

It connected with something and he turned to see that he'd hit the brunette in the arm.  The two of them continued towards him, so he pulled the golf club back and swung it like a baseball bat into the head of the girl that he'd just hit.  His face went pale as the club sank several inches into her skull and she collapsed, pulling both the club away from his hands and the blonde girl backwards with her.

He scrambled back from the pair and fell hard onto his ass.  The blonde continued to try and get to him, but she was held firmly in place by a handcuff around her wrist that was connected to the brunette that he'd just killed.  She jerked ineffectively against the restraint like she didn't even realize that she was trapped.

“Ha, you stupid bitch
!
Not gonna get Bob Harper.  Not today—” h
e
stopped short when he saw Matt stumble from the woods.

“Holy shit!” he shouted in elation.  “Matt! 
Matt, over here!”

His brother adjusted his course and started coming towards him.  Robert slowly lowered his hands and the smile left his face as both Abraham and Ian stumbled out, followed by
five or six others.  “Oh God….”

A sickening pop of bones breaking refocused his attention from across the fairway to the creature right beside him.  She staggered forward wit
h
bot
h
arms outstretched.  He had a moment to process the brunette's severed hand falling from the handcuff before the blonde's shadow blocked out the sun and his own screams echoed in his ears.