The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 1, The Outbreak (6 page)

"Mr. President, our recommendation at this time is complete mobilization of all local law enforcement in the region followed by mobilization of National Guard elements. The quarantine area is
too large for police alone. We are talking about putting a noose around an entire fifteen square miles, every highway, road, trail and path needs to be covered. We cannot afford to let this virus spread any further than it already has."

Dr. Woods had been on this video call with the White House for the last twenty five minutes. Along with Dr. Martin they had the unpleasant task of convincing President Randolph Maxwell and the four star General standing at his side, Army Chief of Staff, General Winston Page, of the seriousness of the situation developing in New Jersey.

"Doctor, I am having some trouble understanding the connection between the material ejected from the mine shaft and an outbreak of flu. What have you and your team done to establish a definitive connection?" General Page asked.

"General at this point we are trying to secure samples for testing under
laboratory conditions. The actual connection between the two events are pretty irrelevant at this point. That is something we can work to establish at a later time. What is important is that an outbreak of an as yet unspecified viral infection has taken place. The importance of immediate containment is the sole reason for this briefing. Normally we would have waited until we were better prepared to brief both of you on the actual source and severity of the illness. In this case that information will have to come after we have secured the area. As of thirty minutes ago we lost all contact with the last of the hospitals in the effected zone. The last update we had was that fatality counts had reached two hundred. The speed that this virus is capable of spreading is something we have no precedent in dealing with."

Dr. Woods waited patiently as he watched General Page and President Maxwell have a discussion with their volume muted. He knew that with this being an election year and President Maxwell already falling behind in popularity due to some unpopular tax initiatives and health care reforms that this was going to be a hard sell. What he was basically asking was for the military to roll into central New Jersey and form a tight net around a large
swath of land leaving close to two hundred thousand people trapped. The political implications were staggering, if it turned out to be a false alarm he would be murdered in the polls. But, on the other hand if he took only limited or no action and this outbreak cost more lives because of it, that was political suicide as well.

"Dr. Woods, I am reluctant to impose a massive quarantine over such a wide area until we have more solid evidence that this is an actual epidemic we are dealing with an
d not just isolated incidents," The President said and held up his hand as he saw that Dr. Woods was about to say something in reply, "but, I will order National Guard units deployed to the staging areas in preparation for a quarantine if one is so ordered. My suggestion to you is to obtain your samples and get confirmation to this administration of your findings as soon as possible."

Dr. Martin leaned in to whisper in his ear before he replied, "take what we can get at this point, as long as we have the ball rolling we are ahead of the game. It is unlikely that any victims who have come in contact with the virus would be in any condition to travel beyond the
affected area anyways and we might get lucky that this limitation will work to help contain it for us."

"Thank you Mr. President, we will continue working on this end to obtain samples and update you with our findings."

The President signed off and the screen went black at that point.

"He's not much on chit chat, is he?" asked Dr. Woods.

"No, and I am not surprised. Coming this close to an election, he is on the fence with either distancing himself from this or jumping in front of it. This is coming at the worst possible time from a political stand point, something neither of us really have to worry about but unfortunately something that we need to consider when looking for support," replied Dr. Martin.

Dr. Woods checked his watch, they should be hearing something from their response team pretty soon. The helicopter flight from Philadelphia to the Deborah Hospital Foundation medical center in Browns Mills, New Jersey was due to arrive in the next few minutes.
The mixture of FEMA flight crew along with CDC response personal were tasked with entering the medical center in complete contamination gear, they would assess the condition of the center and obtain samples for testing at a secure mobile testing facility already waiting for their arrival in Philadelphia.

#

The orange and white marked chemical warfare modified Blackhawk helicopter circled wide of the medical center searching for a suitable landing spot. The facility was a regional center for a rural community and did not have a dedicated helicopter landing pad. The parking lots surrounding the buildings were chocked full of cars, trucks and ambulances, from the air the scene below looked confused and disorderly, the collection of vehicles were parked along curbs, in grassy areas and even on sidewalks. From several hundred feet in the air the helicopter slowly circled the area while the occupants carefully scanned the ground below with high powered binoculars, all efforts at reestablishing any form of communication with the staff inside the buildings had failed, because of this they wanted to get a good idea of the situation on the ground before touching down. What they were seeing now sent cold shivers down their spines. Bodies littered the ground all around every entrance to the medical center, so many prone forms were visible that it was impossible to get an accurate count. There was no doubt that anyone still alive on the ground would have heard them hovering close by just above the facility and made at least some effort at visual communication, but they could see no movement at all to indicate any survivors were on the ground nearby. Everyone on board this flight from the pilot to the crew chief and the CDC ground crews were fully covered in self-contained environmental suits with independent air supplies and internal radio systems. The suits would keep the men safe from even the tiniest of microbes that they may encounter. Using these suits gave them the disadvantage of a compressed time frame in the field. With two hours of oxygen supply and taking into account flight time both ways as well as decontamination upon their return, they were left with only thirty minutes on target. The pilot identified a clear strip of grass just over five hundred feet from the main building that was large enough to accommodate the helicopter and he signaled the ground team in the back to prepare for landing.

Moving as quickly as caution would allow in the bulky suits, four men jumped to the ground from the back of the helicopter and proceeded directly to the marked emergency entrance of the medical center. The team leader stopped for a moment just outside of the downdraft of the helicopters' rotor wash and deployed a small device with a battery operated motor that powered a small fan, this would move outside air through five separate filters of varying density and ultimately into five hermetically sealed test tubes which would trap air samples for later study. Two men carried digital camcorders and were tasked with recording significant details of the scene for later study. Both men were now panning their cameras back and forth as they passed through a small parking area clogged with ambulances as well as a number of civilian vehicles. The back of one ambulance was hanging wide open and the team could see a medic slumped over a prone body still strapped tight to a gurney. The medic appeared to have suffered from a violent round of vomiting tinged with blood before finally
losing his fight against the virus. This scene in the back of the ambulance gave them a visual representation of just how fast some victims must have succumbed to the effects of this illness. One cameraman paused for a few seconds making sure he fully documented this single scene inside the back of the ambulance. Even though these men had all seen death in many forms throughout their careers, when the cameraman finally realized that the covered form on the gurney underneath the body of the medic was that of a small child no more than seven or eight, he had to turn away and try to concentrate on something else while he continued panning the camera back and forth.

Moving into the building they were confronted with a scene right out of a horror movie, bodies were every
where, lining floors, on gurneys, slumped in chairs and they even saw one man who died standing up. The body was held in place between a pair of vending machines the fronts of which were still coated in a glistening glaze of vomit, his pants visibly soaked from the crotch down where he had evacuated his bladder and bowels when the cold hand of death finally reached out to embrace him.

"We've got some live ones here." The call came over their built in radio systems. Taking a closer look through the victims scattered throughout the facility they now started to find more and more people who were still clinging to the last vestige of life. A cursory examination of a few of these survivors revealed that their vital signs were rapidly declining, there was little the team could do to help them, their job was to secure samples and document the scene, giving aid was not possible or even feasible.

"Hey, I've got one without any symptoms here." The team leader called out. All four men gathered around a girl no more than thirteen years old who was still sitting in the waiting room. She was a cute little brunette thing with her hair pulled into a tight pony tail and wearing a concert t-shirt adorned with what may have been her favorite singer, but it was hard to see through the blood and sludge that covered her from her chest down to her lap. She was sitting in the chair with her knees pulled up to her chest rocking back and forth with a catatonic look on her face, her eyes wide open but not appearing to see anything clearly. She was mumbling something but the hoods of their suits prevented them from clearly hearing what she may have been saying. A quick check of her person revealed no visible wounds that would account for the blood and her mouth was clean and free from any signs of vomit, the slick coating of slime over her body must have come from the bodies collapsed on the chairs and ground all around her. This entire portion of the waiting room seemed to be covered in all possible forms of human waste and excretions which gave testament to what the people surrounding her had suffered in their final moments of life.

Two of the men tried talking to her through the external speakers on their helmets, but she merely continued rocking back and forth and staring straight ahead as if looking right through them.

The team leader helped the girl to her feet and guided her to the exit. He had to handle her rougher than he would have liked but she was clearly in a catatonic state and barely responsive to his efforts at guiding her along. There was a good chance that some of the bodies around the area they had found her were from her own family. While she physically appeared ok, her mental state was something else altogether, if she survived this experience there was a good chance that she would never fully recover from watching her own family die along with dozens of others right before her eyes. His primary concern at this moment though was that she did not seem to have been affected by the virus, finding someone with a natural immunity to any new disease or virus could be a major step in the right direction to developing a cure. Once he reached the door he pointed out a middle aged man sitting in a chair in the lobby and instructed the rest of his team to load that body into a body bag and bring him along with them. He selected that particular man because his age and overall physical condition led the team leader to believe he was more than likely in physically good shape before falling victim to the virus. This would hopefully allow them to get tissue samples that were not otherwise contaminated with any preexisting condition.

With the body stuffed into a carefully sealed body bag and their survivor in tow
, the team moved back towards the helicopter where the team leader stopped for a minute to collect the air sample analyzer he had left in place before they reached the building. The body and air samples were secured in air tight storage containers stored underneath the passenger compartment of the helicopter. Before boarding they helped their new passenger suit up into a similar containment suit as worn by the rest of the team. This step had little to do with protecting the young girl but was instead designed to ensure that she was unable to spread any germs she may be carrying.

The team was once again airborne and with their remaining time the team leader instructed the pilot to make a lazy circular pass over the central part of town where they would continue recording video of the conditions inside the city. While that was occurring he plugged into their long
distance radio system and relayed the status of their mission to the crisis center headquarters in Washington, DC. Even before subsequent testing was conducted on the samples they had collected it was imperative that word be passed along that based on the teams observations in Browns Mills they were clearly facing a deadly and virulent pandemic. The recommendations of the team leader would be to immediately implement quarantine procedures for this entire area.

#

With all the stops he had been forced to take along the way
, his drive towards Camden was taking much longer than he had planned. Despite not being able to hold down any food or liquids his unsettled stomach had forced him to drive from toilet to toilet where each time he would suffer violent and painful bouts of diarrhea. His last two stops had really caused him to worry about how severe his condition was, during those episodes he had noticed that the toilet had been full more with dark blood than anything else. His trip was further delayed when his fever had reached a point that he was unable to concentrate on the road. He had pulled into a roadside rest stop and stretched out across the bench seat of the truck where he had fallen asleep for close to two hours. He had awoken covered in sweat but relieved to note that his fever seemed to have died down enough that he felt it was once again safe to continue on.