The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 1, The Outbreak (12 page)

"Doctor?" asked the flight director.

"Yes, yes Captain I am reviewing the video at this time, I am not really sure what to make of it."

"There is one more thing, the UAV's thermal imager runs in conjunction with the video feed. The readings we measured are not exactly what you would expect when passed over human targets in the open like this."

A picture in picture window opened on top of the video screen with the same view of the video but in a black and white setting with shades of yellow and reds coming and going following the motion of the camera. Dr. Woods knew that a thermal image of a human being against a neutral background, not overly hot or cold, should result in readings that showed shades of yellow and orange depicting the body heat normally cast off from a person. What he was seeing now was the outline of people but with only a sliver of color almost in the light yellow range emanating from the head. The bodies he was seeing now were registering cold, without any body heat. The only other time he had seen something like that was in cases when thermal imaging was used to locate dead bodies hidden from view.

"Doctor, could we be looking at survivors trying to make a run for it out of the contaminated areas?" Asked Cpt. Cochran.

Dr. Woods considered the question as he stared intently at the images on his computer screen. The thermal imaging of the people under the UAV made perfect sense if he was to introduce his original zombie theory into the equation. The most defining factor of a zombie is that the body is dead with only the most primitive of brain activity directing motor functions and their overriding impulse to feed. The absence of any measurable body temperature with the exception of a tiny region in the head fit that theory like a glove. If what he was seeing on the screen was in fact a migration of zombies, it was likely they were being drawn by some impulse towards the road blocks just a few miles ahead of them. He didn't think it was sound and line of sight was also out of the question, which left smell.

"Captain, I need to know the wind direction in your area for the last two to three hours. I need to know immediately." He exclaimed into the microphone.

There was a pause over the open microphone while he searched for the information, "Ok, here it is, local weather readings for the last six hours show an easterly wind with gusts up to eighteen miles per hour, currently gusting at six."

The wind was blowing from the direction of the road
block into the quarantine zone. With gusts that high there was a good chance it was carrying the scent of all those men at the roadblock as well as the multitudes of people who had driven up to the checkpoint and turned around, directly into the infected zone. They were looking at a horde of zombies rushing headlong to what they viewed as a self-service buffet waiting just up the road from them.

"Captain Cochran, the people approac
hing the roadblock are hostiles. They cannot under any circumstances be allowed to get within arm’s length of your men or be permitted to make it pass your positions."

"Doctor, you understand that any such orders for me to take that kind of action is going to need to come from a military authority. I suggest you contact my
superiors and explain yourself. I will continue the UAV mission as planned and will alert our checkpoints that refuges are approaching their positions. At this time our orders for level of force are not clear enough for us to take any action beyond verbal warnings to dissuade those people from exiting the zone."

There was little sense in arguing with the man, he knew as well as anyone how rigid men like Cpt. Cochran could be when faced with standing orders that did not allow him the discretion to take action like he was asking. His career could be made or broken by what he did in the next few minutes, ordering his men to open fire on hundreds of civilians was not a decision he would ever make on his own.

"I am going to contact the White House for those orders Captain. You need to understand that those people approaching your positions are extremely dangerous, no matter what happens you cannot allow your men to come in contact with them. They will make every effort possible to bite anyone they can get their hands on. Anyone bitten will contract the virus, at this point we don't have a cure for it. I hope you understand what I am telling you Captain." Dr. Woods hoped this man was paying attention and would pay heed to the seriousness of what he was saying.

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Army Captain Noel Cochran was on his last year of a two year tour as the active duty commander for this National Guard unit based out of Trenton, New Jersey. As a combat arms officer he had been offered the option of company commander for this unit for a two year hitch or a three year ride as the training officer of a regular army basic training unit in Delaware. On the fast track to reach major, he elected the short tour, from here he knew he would be reassigned to a deployable unit in a larger division level command, after getting his first combat tour under his belt his promotion was all but in the bag. It was now just a matter of surviving this last year with these weekend warriors. It didn't take him long after taking over command to understand why this was not a preferred assignment by other officers and also why it had been given only a two year obligation. Working with National Guard troops was much different than the professional soldiers he was used to in regular army units. The biggest part of his day was spent with disciplinary actions, late for duty, failure to show up for duty, out of uniform, missing required equipment during inspections, drunk on duty, sleeping on duty, disorderly conduct, and those were just the instances from the prior week. Out of a three hundred and forty man unit, he could count on one hand the number of soldiers who he had any confidence in actually doing their job to standards. His biggest ally in the unit was a former active duty Staff Sergeant who had two combat tours in the Middle East to his credit. He had let his term of enlistment expire in exchange for a reenlistment option with a National Guard unit close to his family in New York. His father was in the late stages of cancer and his mother was finding it more and more difficult to run their family craft shop by herself so he had elected to put his own career on hold to return home and help out. The National Guard offered him an instant promotion to Sergeant First Class and Cpt. Cochran had posted him as the units interim First Sergeant after finding the actual First Sergeant taking unusual liberties with one of their lower enlisted female clerks in his office.

When the orders had come down for the unit to mobilize in response to a natural disaster
, Cpt. Cochran had begun to worry about how any screw ups on this mission would possibly effect his own personal career. He had been pleasantly surprised that from the first muster to moving out and deploying to the specified checkpoints that not one thing was yet to go wrong, in fact the men were actually moving and acting like real soldiers for the first time since he had taken command. He thought that perhaps the knowledge that they were carrying live ammunition and were being put into a situation where their neighbors and friends could potentially see them in action may have inspired them to dig down deep and put forth a professionalism that he was unaware any of them possessed. Once he had his orders in hand and his company deployed in the most effective arrangement possible to put a tight noose around the area of concern, he had taken it upon himself to personally inspect each roadblock and post. His confidence that this deployment could end up being a shining star on his record was taking shape as he found all of his men standing to their duties confidently and professionally.

All of the confidence he had built around this mission was now starting to circle the drain with the outcome of this drone flight. The crisis center's assessment of the meaning of the crowds of people even now approaching their positions had him concerned. He could see from the video that something was just not right about these people, they moved awkwardly and why were they all on foot? It had to be at least several miles from the closest town where they must have started from. Then there was the thermal imaging results. He had never seen a live human being show up on those sensors in such fashion before, it was literally like he was looking at a large collection of dead bodies instead of
live people. When Dr. Woods tried to convince him that all of these people should be treated as hostile and not be allowed to get close to his men or pass through their positions he had said so with such conviction and an ominous note to this voice that Cpt. Cochran had almost been convinced to just follow those instructions without further authority. This doctor knew much more about what they were possibly dealing with than his own commanders did. If he felt there was an imminent threat from these people then the chances were good that they should be treated as hostile. On the other hand if he acted decisively in a manner that left civilians dead or injured by action from troops under his command, that could be a career ending move that possibly could also see him ending up facing serious charges on top of it. The prescribed levels of force with his orders for this containment mission were actually vague, they alluded for the mission to prevent access into or out of the designated zone. Beyond that there was nothing in those orders that either allowed or prevented him from using force to accomplish that goal and if he was to use force what level would be considered appropriate in these circumstances. From the video he had reviewed the civilians approaching his positions were unarmed, but they also outnumbered his own forces by at least twenty to one. There was also the possibility that these civilians had been exposed to a contagion of unknown origin and that alone constituted a threat not only to his own men but to the civilian populations beyond this roadblock that he was arguably supposed to be protecting. The whole thing was giving him a headache, he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. He just hoped to hell that Dr. Woods could convince an authority well above his head to amend his orders and tell him exactly how they wanted this situation dealt with. In the meantime he decided it was best to visit his men and make sure all of them were alert and ready, they would soon have visual contact with the approaching crowds and would be looking to him for instructions. Right now he intended to tell them to hold their fire, hold their ground and continue to use verbal commands to order the civilians back.

Miranda Stevenson pressed a handkerchief tight against her mouth as the couple in the row right behind her kept up a steady stream of mucus spewing coughs and sneezes. Her flight from Philadelphia to Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia was a short one hour hop, but was made much more uncomfortable with the small plane being crowded and these two behind her spreading germs throughout the cabin. Even at the airport terminal in Philly she had spotted these two sickies and had made a concerted effort to steer clear of them, it was only blind luck that once boarding began she realized they were sitting right behind her on the flight. She had quietly inquired with a stewardess if she could change seats and was informed that the flight was completely full leaving her stuck listening to them hacking and coughing while trying to dodge the occasional spray of spittle from a cough or splash of snot from a sudden sneeze. The last thing she needed was to catch a cold this weekend.

Graduating from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire with a
Bachelor’s Degree in Business, she had been approached about this job opportunity right outside of Washington, DC. The high end fashion chain, Nordstrom, was opening a new corporate office in McLean, Virginia and was looking for young, fresh talent to staff their offices. One of her professors had actually approached her during her last semester with an opportunity that she just couldn't pass up. If she was willing to attend their 5 week in house business training program and did well in it, they would not only offer her a management position on the spot, average salary in the mid to high eighties, but they would also send her through graduate school on their dime. At only twenty three years old she considered herself extremely fortunate to be presented with such a wonderful opportunity before she had even graduated.

She had come from a humble background, her mother was
an elementary school teacher and her father a drunk who floated from various construction jobs with most ending with him fired for either missing work or showing up too loaded to stand straight. Miranda had busted her ass in high school to get the best marks and be involved in all the right organizations in order to pave the way for a scholarship at a descent college. When she graduated in the top ten of her high school class she was offered a full academic scholarship to Dartmouth and from there all the cards just fell into place for her. Working a part time job as a personal trainer for the schools fitness center, she was able to afford a rent sharing plan with two other girls for a small three bedroom apartment just off campus allowing them to walk to classes and work. With the job and apartment she was able to put her shattered home life behind her and make a clean break to start her new life. When her lease was up after graduation, her mother excitedly welcomed her home for the two months she had to wait between graduation and the start of her training in Virginia. Her father had been less than enthusiastic about another mouth to feed in the house. But once he learned what her starting salary would be his entire attitude changed and he had spent the entire two months kissing her ass and dropping hints about new televisions and appliances her poor and loving parents were in desperate need of.

All through high school and college she had forgone the nicer things in life, she had denied herself any long term relationships or recreational activities all in the pursuit of ensuring her future was established. For as long as she could remember she had
sworn to herself that she would not end up like her parents, living from pay check to pay check, fighting constantly and growing old and bitter well before their time. Now that everything was on track in her life she decided it was time to let her hair down and start living a little. She was coming to Virginia two weeks early to get herself established with a place to live and learn her way around before jumping into her new job with both feet. The employment offer had included a very nice relocation stipend, since the sum of her belongings fit into the two battered suitcases in the luggage compartment beneath her feet, she was planning on using that money for the upfront costs of an apartment, a complete new wardrobe and she had even given some thought about looking around for a nice used car as well. She had spent several hours in the computer lab on campus researching the area around Northern Virginia where she would be working. She had narrowed her apartment hunting down to three locations, all within an easy commute by public transportation to work, shopping and entertainment. She was excited about the prospect of starting a new life in a new location. It would be a completely fresh start for her with no one knowing her background enough to prejudge her based on the failure of her own parents. She wanted to make new friends, find a boyfriend and actually start enjoying life for once.

The last thing she needed right now was to catch whatever funk this couple directly behind her seat were carrying. From the sounds of their anguished moans and groans and the severity of their coughing, she was sure that they had actually gotten
sicker as the flight wore on. To make things even worse, at least three other people in the cabin nearby had recently also started sniffling and coughing. She wasn't sure a cold could catch on that quick, but if it was possible, she didn't want to be on the receiving end of it. When the wheels finally touched down and she felt the plane slow and turn as it approached the terminal, she had her seatbelt undone and was ready to jump out of her seat and make a dash down the aisle as fast as the slow moving crush of passengers would allow. He first stop when getting inside the airport would be a restroom where she would seek out one of those dispensers of disinfecting hand wash and scrub herself down with it. There was a small spot on her forearm where she had felt a slash of moisture following one of the woman's long drawn out coughing fits and even though she had rubbed the spot raw with a moist towelette from her purse, she wanted to hit it again with disinfectant just to make sure.

Miranda felt the plane stop as it came to rest in its designated
spot alongside the terminal and she watched from her window as the long accordion shaped walkway began to extend outward towards the door at the front of the passenger cabin. The stewardess was just finishing her welcome to Virginia speech and reminding everyone to use caution when checking the storage compartments above their heads as items may have shifted during flight. The two passengers between her and the aisle finally found a break in the crush of people already pushing their way forward towards the exit and slipped out into the crowd pausing for a moment to retrieve belongings from the overhead compartments. She was now able to stand and worm her own way towards the aisle only to find she was blocked with the continuation of movement forward, her seatmates had elected not to wait the extra two seconds before moving forward to allow her a chance to escape the row of seats. While waiting for a brief enough opening to slip into the flow of exiting passengers, she chanced a glance into the seats behind her with the annoyingly sick couple still in their seats. She found it ironic that only now that they were on the ground and in the process of leaving the plane that they had stopped their incessant hacking and spraying of germs and had lapsed into what appeared to be a deep and peaceful sleep with the husbands head pressed into the frame of the window and his wife leaning against the side of his chest. It would be a task for the stewardess to reach over and shake them awake, Miranda had no intention of reaching out to touch either of them and take more chances with their germs. The three additional passengers she that had started to hack a little before landing had now multiplied to over a dozen and so far she had not felt the slightest stirring of a coming cold and wasn't about to push her luck.

After several minutes of stop and go passenger movement
, she had just about reached the open door when she stole a look back into the cabin and saw all of the stewardesses from the rear of the plane now bending down over the sleeping forms still in their seats. They appeared to be having some difficulty in waking the slumbering couple and Miranda observed a frightened look come over one of them as she raised a portable radio to her mouth and started frantically speaking into it. Before she could see what happened next, the traffic out of the plane onto the boarding ramp started up again and she was pushed forward with the flow of passengers. She had thought that once clear of the door that the traffic into the terminal would quickly clear up and she could pick up a normal pace instead of this annoying stutter stepping she was currently stuck with. Once she rounded the corner of the passenger walkway she saw what was causing the log jam further up the way. A young man, not much older than herself, was hunched over against one side of the collapsible wall in the midst of a painful sounding round of vomiting. The smell hit her after she had taken another couple of steps towards the unsavory spectacle, she gagged and quickly reached up a hand to cover her nose and mouth as she worked hard to keep her own stomach contents under control. It took another two minutes for the crowd to thin out enough that she was able to break free and force her way out of the ramp and into the open terminal.

After the last couple of minutes on that flight and in that puke filled walkway the open expanse of the main terminal was a welcome relief. It appeared that several planes were loading and unloading at the same time so the end of the terminal she had left her own plane into was very crowded with streams of people swiftly moving to and fro in any number of directions. This was a situation
where she found it a real hindrance to be short, she had to join a crowd of people and flow along with them for a ways before she was in a position close enough to a directional sign to realize she was heading the wrong way. To reach the baggage claim area she had to turn around and join yet another swiftly moving flow of commuters. As she passed by the gate she had just left after leaving her plane, she spotted a team of emergency medical personnel rushing into the passenger walkway pushing a pair of elevated gurneys and carrying large red paramedic bags over their shoulders. She had a sudden feeling that the sick couple may have not just been sleeping, a cold shiver rippled through her body.

Reaching the lower level baggage claim she was starting to feel like the end of this long and troubling trip was finally in sight. Crowded around the claim carousel were many of the same faces she recognized from her flight, she could see a lot of pale and sickly looking faces where she had remembered bright smiles and healthy colors when she last saw each of them. It was alarming at how fast all of these people had started showing signs of being sick, she was surprised that she had yet to feel the first tingles in her throat
alerting her to the onset of a cold. She made it a point to keep to the rear of the pack gathered around the carousel marked for her flight. It might take her a little longer to spot her own bags but at least she was out of range of any more flying mucus as more and more of her fellow passengers broke out into fits of coughing and hacking. She had been watching a middle age woman standing just a few feet away from her. Miranda saw her body convulse slightly for the third time and when her hand reached up to cover her mouth she realized the woman was struggling to keep herself from vomiting right there on the carpeted floor in front of the luggage racks. With her hand pressed hard against her mouth she started whipping her head from side to side searching desperately for something. Miranda deduced she must be trying to find the closest bathroom and that she was probably losing the fight to keep her stomach contents down, their eyes met for an instant and Miranda pointed to the woman’s room on the far side of the baggage claims area next to the office for lost luggage. Her eyes expressed her gratitude as she quickly shouldered her way through the crowded area and picked up a hurried shuffle towards the restroom.

Turning back to the luggage area she was grateful to see the crowd thinning as more and more people grabbed their bags and
hurried off towards the exits. Through a break in the crowd she spotted her bags with their recognizable Dartmouth stickers making them stand out from the others around them. She slid through the remaining crowd, thrust her carry on back over her shoulder and extended the handles of each bag so she could take advantage of the wheels and more easily navigate back through the milling remains of passengers still waiting for their own bags to make their appearance.

Miranda had just reached the exit when she flinched at the distinct sounds of gunfire echoing down from the terminal area above her on the second floor. Excited shouts and yells of panic reached her as she saw the orderly flow of coming and going travelers breaking into a panicked run in all directions and star
ting to push each other out of the way as they headed towards the escalators and stairs leading down to her level. She ducked behind a rack of rental luggage carts as she frantically searched in all directions expecting at any second to spot a crowd of machine gun wielding Arab men running along picking off Americans infidels while crying out 'Allah Akbar' to the heavens. The one thing her few friends back at school had joked about with her over her decision to take a job so close to the nation’s capital was the threat of terrorism. That off the cuff joke from her friend was now coming back to haunt her as she imagined herself about to be gunned down in a terrorist attack before she had even left the airport during her first hour in town. More gunfire rang out from further down the upper levels of the terminal and she now saw a group of rifle wielding airport security pushing their way through the crowds rushing towards the distant sounds of screaming and shooting. Even though the crowds near her were worked into a panicked frenzy as they sought cover, she was reasonably sure that whatever was going down was still contained much further into the massive airport and not in her immediate vicinity. She rationalized that the odds of being struck by an errant round were slim enough for her to take the chance of making a rush for the exit only a few feet away. Just outside the glass doors she saw a row of waiting taxi cabs still lined up ready for their next fair, so desperate for the next few dollars to help feed their families that even the panic of gunfire inside the airport had not caused the drivers to flee with their passenger compartments empty. Taking another look around to ensure the coast was clear, Miranda grabbed the handles of both her bags and darted out the sliding glass doors and straight to the first taxi cab she saw. She had just finished dumping her suitcases into the open trunk when the driver came from the front of the car and started blabbering in heavily accented English that she needed to use the taxi in the front of the row first. She was about to argue with him when another louder and more extended blast of gunfire resounded from the open door behind her. The driver decided the first in line rule could be waived in this situation and he slammed the trunk door shut, muttered something in his native language while gesturing wildly towards the rear of the cab and then raced back toward the driver’s door. Miranda had barely got through the door when the cab started wheeling away from the curb, she reached back and grabbed to door handle to pull it shut an instant before it would have otherwise clipped the open door of the cab in line in front of them as they rocketed past.