The Doomsday Infection (7 page)

He spotted a black woman laid face down in the yard. “What the hell?” He marched over to the elderly woman. “What in god’s name do you think you are doing in my Mama’s house?”

She grabbed the cuff of his uniform pants, repulsing him. “Get off me, nigger. What the fuck have you done with my mama?” He kicked her hand away, crouched on his haunches and rolled her over. “Tell me, where is she? I demand to know!”

“Stanley it’s me . . .” she croaked.

He shivered in fright and crabbed backward across the yard, he fixated on her pox-ridden face, as she struggled to open her eyes. And when Stanley saw her baby-blues that he’d known so well for the first time in his life he wet himself.

10:45 PM

Jenkins Forest or prisoner 850416 to give him his official title, fiddled with the faucet of
the metal sink, but once again no water came out.

“
Goddamnit!” he said. What was wrong with this picture? How in the name of all that’s holy had this happened? He gagged for a drink. His dried, parched throat ached. He been on the john most of the night with the runs and was severely dehydrated. He marched over to the front of the cell that took him all of four paces, and banged against the bars of his cell. “Hey, there’s a man dying of thirst in here!” His voice echoed up and down the sixth floor of cellblock E.

The E block was for category A offenders
, the habitual murderers and other life sentence prisoners with no hope of release. The sixth floor housed the worst of the worst, the uncontrollable, the scum of the earth. Proudly at the apex of this mound of human filth was Jenkins Forest, boasting that he was the king of the block, as if it afforded him some kudos amongst his fellow prisoners. Jenkins had been in and out of correctional facilities his entire life, first time as a mere boy in juvenile hall, where he killed another kid in an argument over a game of pool.

He
had
cheated though, Jenkins thought, justifying the slaying. He rarely thought of the game that had cost a boy his life and him his freedom. He’d never had much time for dwelling on his incarceration. He was like a shark, he had to keep moving forward, looking for something to eat and to survive another day.  

Jenkins had killed many a man, mostly for money, sometimes for fun. It had no meaning to him
, he’d snuff out a person for the most insignificant slight, as he’d done over the pool game all those years ago. Now incarcerated for life, having received four life sentences to run concurrently, totaling eight hundred years. You’ve got to love the Southern judges and their whacky sentencing. Eight hundred years, why he could be out in five hundred years with good behavior he thought with a smile. Not that good behavior was in his DNA. He’d killed at least three inmates since his last and final incarceration, and had the tattoos to prove it. Teardrop prison tatts dripping down from the corners of his eyes like tears, one for each verified death. The slaying needed witnessing by a reliable source though; you couldn’t go around having teardrop tattoos all willy-nilly trying to boost your standing in the jailhouse community. No, you had to have some sorta code.

Jenkins banged on the bars again. “Hey, where is everyone?” It was gone seven in the morning. That was when the lights came on with
a bang, to start another monotonous day of drudgery. He started to get hungry; he could normally smell the food, for what it was worth, drifting up from the kitchens. However, this morning, not a thing. No food cart with the wonky wheel, pushed by Albert with the wonky eye, who dispensed the rancid lukewarm breakfasts to the killers on the sixth floor.

“Come on, let me
outa here, I need water.” He slumped and rested his head against the cool metal of the bars. It was gonna be another broiling hot day. His dried throat hurt something rotten and he was already sweating like a pig. To top it all, the new prisoner they’d stuck in with him last night stunk to high heaven. “Hey, get me outa here. There’s something wrong with the new meat. I think he’s dying! You gotta get me away from him.”

He looked over at his new cellmate, Winston Kincaid, a serial killer sent down for five confirmed kills but rumored to be more, and up to twenty women if you could believe Winston himself, but then who’d exaggerate something like that? Killing women then molesting their corpses - why brag about that. Fucking pervert. He’d been dead against sharing
a cell with him, put up all sorts of protests. Jenkins was a killer for sure, but he weren’t no twisted pervert. The dude should be in the nuthouse not in with them - the elite of the murderers. If he weren’t insane then execute him instead of wasting the taxpayer’s money and fouling up Jenkins air.

“Hey, you motherfucker.” He slapped Kincaid on the rump. How could he sleep so soundly? First night too, most new inmates spent the first night booing like a little baby. “Hey you,” he croaked, and swallowed hard, trying to make moisture for his aching throat. “Move to the back of the cell would
ya? You’re stinking up the place, Jesus.”

The cell was only six foot by twelve foot and designed for one man; the stacked bed took up half of the width of the tiny cell
and over half its length. The stainless steel sink and john took up the rest of the space.

Jenkins had spent most of the first decade of incarceration having the cell to himself and that’s the way he liked it. Since the government cutbacks, the authorities had installed the stacked beds and forced him to share the tiny floor space with a succession of murdering dross. However, this latest inmate was absolutely the pits. At least the previous tenants had the honor of being honest to goodness badass cutthroats not this twisted degenerate stinking up the place. He seemed to be suffering from some
sorta ailment. He huddled into the corner of his upper bunk, seniority stated Jenkins took the lower one, and had coughed and hacked all night. Already on Jenkins shit list for keeping him awake all damned night, his chances of survival on the sixth floor were slim to say the least. His life was gonna be hell amongst the guys on E block, they had no time for rumored pederasts, they had their code where suspected child molesters were at the bottom of the pile - lower than bottom if there was such a place. As soon as the cell-door opened the guys would be lining up to inflict their justly retribution.

He didn’t hold out
much hope of Kincaid lasting the next twenty-four hours. They could rely on the guards to look the other way. Especially the latest batch of new recruits, who to a man were only there for the paycheck, none claiming a vocational pull towards the prison service. Nope, they were on minimum wage and couldn’t care less what happened to the dregs, like Kincaid.

Jenkins throat felt constricted, he ran his tongue over his dried lips. Man, this was intolerable. He was dying of thirst, the blast furnace heat was something rotten and what was that stink?

The only source of the stench could be his new cellmate. “Hey, you, Kincaid, get outa ya bunk. Jesus, what is that smell? Have you shit yourself?”

He took a tentative step towards the recumbent figure. Kincaid stirred, rolled over to face him. Jenkins took a step back in shock when he saw Kincaid’s face covered in black rings
of weeping pus. His bloodshot eyes swiveled to face him, and black blood oozed from his nostrils. His body shook and convulsed. Jenkins backed away, but bashed into the bars in no time, when to his utter horror Kincaid projectile vomited, and thick, foul smelling vomit ejected from him, covering Jenkins in puke.

Jenkins hit the bars frantically making as much noise as he could to get attention. “Guard!” he croaked. “Help me!” He slid down the bars, hi
s eyes popped out on stalks, as he stared at the wretched, living corpse in front of him.

Jenkins Forest the meanest badass to have ever entered the Florida state correctional system started to blub.

10:55 AM

The dyed-blond Submariner Pete Williams sighed, thinking it would be months until he breathed fresh air again. He’d sailed from the port of Miami early that morning on the USS Amarillo, a nuclear powered submarine, which had a payload of forty-eight cruise missiles, the one vessel alone having enough power to wipe out half the population of the earth.

Ten of the submariners out of a complement of one hundred and twenty had failed to return and they were in all sorts of trouble. Ten no-shows was a record by nine. He could only remember one no-show before; you went AWOL on pain of death, which is what had happened as it turned out, as the no-show had died.

This was about the only reason for going AWOL, ‘Absent With-Out Leave’, and then only just, but ten? He’d seen Donny, one of the no shows, leave the Fairy Grotto with Big Mary, but no one ever doubted he wouldn’t be back for the subs departure. He and Donny both knew that the other was gay, along with many other crewmembers who were half-in or half-out of the closet on the vessel, yet even today in the 21
st
Century; it paid to keep their sexuality hidden. 

Now they were off on a six-month tour. He sneezed and wondered if he should have seen the doctor and got himself signed off from the trip. The last thing you needed in the claustrophobic metal tube was a su
bmariner with a contagious bug; it would spread like wildfire throughout the vessel and overwhelm them in no time. He sneezed again so violently that it made his nose bleed. It must have been the guy on the Metrorail he’d bet. That guy hacked up and sneezed right in his face. He’d wanted to punch him out for that, but managed to control himself, not wanting to waste precious shore leave detained by the police.  

He wiped his nose noting that the blood seemed thicker than usual, and blacker.

His head pounded, he shivered with a chill and he ached under his arms, he undid his tunic and was appalled to see dark swellings. He rubbed and it burst covering his hand in thick oozing pus. He backed into the bulkhead and wondered if he had made a mistake by not reporting to the ships surgeon - a deadly mistake. Although, as it turned out, from a contingent of one hundred and twenty men, he would be the only person still alive in twenty-four hours.

CHAPTER 8

11:00 AM

At eleven a.m., Eastern Standard Time Sophie sat in front of her television and on the dot, as promised President Burgess addressed the Nation. Smooth as silk the President addressed the viewers. “Good morning, fellow Americans. It is with a heavy heart and after much soul searching that as of now I have placed southern Florida under quarantine . . . I’ll get to ‘why’ shortly, but it is not without reason that we would take such drastic action.” A map of Florida filled the screen with two dotted lines traversing across the state from left to right. “Everyone below the lower line, roughly from Fort Myers on the gulf coast to Palm Beach on the Atlantic coast are under quarantine, and, a curfew of 1900 hours, will be enforced. This next line approximately ten miles north, is no-man’s-land and will be policed vigorously, this is no time for pussy-footing around, anyone caught will we be detained indefinitely and any sort of resistance will be met by a deadly response.”

Kill civilians, he means, Sophie thought.

“Now,” continued the President. “You might think this is overkill, and I’d like to hope that it is, however, we don’t want another 9/11. They caught us with our pants down then and we’re still smarting. Let me tell you why we’re doing this and I think you’ll agree it’s the right action. We’re quarantining southern Florida as there has been a chemical leak.”

It’s not a leak, thought Sophie. It’s the Bubonic Plague. You must warn them. Tell them the truth.

“This is only a precaution, but we think the effects are contagious, so with immediate effect all airplanes are grounded, ships, boats, all water-based crafts the same. We’re patrolling the waters and no one is to leave. I cannot emphasize this enough, we must have a full quarantine or it does not work.”

“People of Florida, help is on its way. The military will be amongst you with medical staff, we will need to check you out and give you the all clear. We will have medical centers, the first one will be at the Marlins Park in Miami, and other sports arenas will follow. As this is a holiday weekend those of you that can, stay away from work-places.” His breathing suddenly labored and he paused briefly, and then corrected himself and smiled.

Sophie leaned towards her television; he’s not well, she thought, when something caught her eye. She pressed ‘pause’ on the remote control and the broadcast froze on the President’s image. She touched the screen. She had caught a glimpse of an IV tube by his wrist. She pondered this then pressed ‘play’ to hear the rest of the broadcast. “It’s best not to interact with your fellow citizens, cover your nose and mouth with cloth, and PLEASE make your way to the nearest refugee center where you will be given an antidote.”

There is no antidote. Sophie thought.

“Thank you for your co-operation and God bless us all.”

Sophie was thankful that
Quinn Martell had managed to impress upon the President the gravity of the situation, even if they were burying the truth, which she could sort of understand, the last thing they needed was wide-scale panic. She smiled thinking of how Luke as a broadcaster would have loved to know the truth and blurt the story to the world without any thought of the consequences, as long as he had his all-important scoop.

Sophie believed firmly in the truth. She could still remember growing up in her Latin-American homeland, where the ‘truth’ was the least of her worries, where the tin-pot government ruled with an iron fist, shooting the protectors of the truth, the dissenters like her father, God rest his soul. He’d been a vocal political opponent, who’d naively believed that the truth would be his savior. She still remembered the night, when the government’s bullyboys kicked down the front door, and dragged him from his bed. Her mother screamed and was pistol whipped into silence. Her father bravely struggled, but was over-powe
red and dragged from their home fighting for his life, and Sophie never saw him again.

During the small hours of the following night, her mother had woken her, dressed her quickly and they’d fled in the clothes they were wearing. Two fishermen who were part of the underground network of sympathizers who
wanted to overthrow the two-bit government met them. The fishermen hated the junta who dished out jobs for family and friends living the high-life, while the poor paid more taxes as the government provided less. Even the fishermen, were forced into minor smuggling to avoid starvation.

The trip was largely uneventful, although Sophie constantly thought the boat might capsize. They eventually made it to the Florida coastline where the coast guard intercepted them and instantly interned them into
an enormous refugee camp. The encampment ran like their old county, gangs of roaming bullyboys demanding money with menaces from their weaker compatriots. Criminals normally put to death in the homeland had escaped and were now claiming political asylum, starting their criminal activities all over again in the adopted country.

Sophie and her mother processed through the system. Her mother a highly skilled surgeon, had trained in the US, and had been welcomed with open arms. Naturalized, Sophie
was absorbed into the local state school. Her sultry latin good looks made her popular with the guys and therefore extremely unpopular with the girls. The in-crowd mimicked her accent, shunned her and called her a wetback. She tried to blend in, pinning her long hair up and wearing unfashionable glasses in the hope of gaining less attention from the boys. She would try and make friends with new kids, but before long she’d tell them her origins and the name calling started and she knew that she’d never be accepted as a ’proper’ American.

Her attention drew back to the TV where the animated news anchors analyzed the quarantine-zone to death, never having a story like it and never would again. It made her think of Luke again and she smiled. How he’d have loved to be in the thick of it, then she remembered he said he was flying to London. She wondered if he was on one of the recalled airplanes.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell.

She answered the door and was astonished to see two soldiers dressed in full biological warfare suits.

11:10 AM

At President Burgess’s Florida summer compound, doctors fussed over him the moment the broadcast ended. The message to the nation had physically drained him. He slumped back in his chair the second the red-light indicator blinked off the camera he had addressed. He sat at a desk in a mock-up of his office, and the doctor helped him back into bed.

The doctor checked his pulse and shook his head, “Sir, your blood pressure
is off the chart. You must relax.”

“How the hell can I relax?”

“At least let me give you a sedative.”

“I cannot be subdued; I need my wits about me. There is too much to be done.”

“You must give control to the VP, otherwise I seriously doubt you’ll last the day.”

“As bad as that?”

The doctor nodded gravely.

11:15 PM

In the Pentagon war room after receiving the
most important telephone call of his life, Vice President Hamilton Parker, a proper blue blood from the Boston upper crust slapped his hands together in glee. “President Burgess is incapacitated. Which means as of now, I’m in control. So let’s get things moving with alacrity.” He noticed the dumb-look from General Malloy. “Speed, Jack. Let’s get moving with speed. None of this ‘wait and see’ nonsense. If there’s a problem in Florida I will solve it with a force so strong it’ll make their heads spin.”

The general thumped the desk making people jump. “That’s more like it! Let’s nuke those wet-back, liberal faggots to kingdom come.”

Quinn Martell leaped up. “Now, hang on, one goddamned minute.”

The V
ice President smiled and held up his hands to placate him. “We’re not going to nuke anyone – yet. However, we are going to step this up a few notches. My intel reports are telling me it’s more likely a terrorist attack. And if we’re attacked we’re going to damn well retaliate, fast and furiously.”

Quinn Martell said. “Mister Vice President, if you would indulge me for one moment,” Hamilton nodded and Quinn continu
ed. “My sources tell me this has all the signs of a viral disease, and it’s vital we properly prepare for this. We need to quarantine the sick, evacuate the -”

“I’m not about to try and evacuate south Florida. Where would we house tens of millions of evacuees for Christ’s sake?”

“Hear me out before you decide - this is my area of expertise. Let me tell you about the Spanish influenza pandemic that swept the world in 1918 in places as remote as the Pacific Islands and the Arctic.” Quinn saw he was losing their attention. “During WW1 it was estimated that sixteen million men lost their lives due to the fighting; this flu epidemic in one year alone killed between fifty and one hundred million people worldwide, within months it had killed more people than any other illness in history.” The men sat upright and started to take notice. “More US soldiers died in one transit camp still on American soil than died in battle during WW1. In fact that one influenza outbreak was responsible for more casualties than all the wars of the 20th century put together.” Now he had them, thought Quinn.

“In that one year the average life expectancy in the USA dropped by twelve years.” He let that fact sink in. “To maintain public morale during those difficult war years the government of the day thought it prudent to censor the dire medical
bulletins, which had a disastrous effect, as doctors and health officials could not identify the disease, each assuming they were dealing with a local epidemic not a global pandemic. As attentions were on the war effort no one knew the scale of the outbreak and when the government finally admitted to the havoc and sheer number of deaths the flu had caused, they were unprepared to deal with it – they had left it too late . . . let’s not make the same mistake.”

The military personnel stared at him in stunned disbelief. Hamilton smiled his reptilian grin, and as smooth as silk said; “I’m sure we’re all indebted to the Surgeon General for
the interesting history lesson, but this is not the flu, we won’t be evacuating multi-millions of the population on a hundred year old possibility.”

“But -” Quinn said.

“No buts, Quinn. This is a terrorist attack, pure and simple. We’ll deal with it using the might of our military, with retribution on a scale not seen -”

“Should we not discuss this with NATO,” said Vice Admiral Reed. He smoothed an imaginary crease from his startling white uniform.

“We’re not attacking a foreign county, this is an American problem on American soil, and for once we can act without -” he made quote marks with his fingers, “‘Let’s open dialog and let’s have a vote’, crap. You know the usual delaying tactics of hostile nations.”

“Hear hear!” agree
d the military leaders sat around the huge mahogany conference table.

“What are you suggesting, Mister Vice President?” Quinn Martell asked.

“That we stop pussy-footing around. We’ll go down there and wipe out the threat instantly with whatever it takes, no matter how unpalatable.”

“Are you suggesting killing Americans?” asked Quinn, fear etched onto his face.

“You know as well as I do, you shoot a rabid dog.”

“Yes, but -”

“It’s the humane thing to do.”

“Of course, but that’s talking about a dog -”

“And the virus dies with the host, does it not?”

The others around the tab
le warmed to this, worrying Quinn Martell deeply, “Well, yes but -”

“Quinn, may I remind you, that you are here purely as a medical advisor. Kindly l
eave policy making to me,” the Vice President said nastily, putting Quinn Martell firmly in his place.

General Malloy backed the VP and jumped in. “The American public would thank us for saving them from this deadly threat.”

“What about the folk in Florida?” Quinn asked unable to stop voicing his opinion.

“Well, it’s just too bad.” Hamilton Parker replied. “Do you think the Floridian’s would give a rats-ass if it was happening in Alaska?” the assembled men murmured their agreement. “If you had a gangrenous limb you’d cut it off, simple as that, and, I’m afraid that’s what lower Florida has become. And the outcome won’t change, no ma
tter how long we discuss it, the answer is the same, we need to amputate southern Florida.”

11:20 PM

Sophie blinked at the soldiers clad in their camouflaged hazardous material uniforms, confused by their sudden appearance at her door.

The Sergeant spoke with a metallic sound, the breathing apparatus distorting his voice. “Doctor Garcia? You must come with us.”

“I think there
maybe some mistake.” She said hesitantly.

“You are, Doctor Sophia Garcia, correct?”

“Well, yes, but . . .”

“No mistake, ma’am.  “We’v
e been sent to escort you to President Burgess’s summer residence.”

“The President?” she repeated, thinking th
at she must be in a dream. “Why does he want me?”