Xinga Chen tried to speak but she was too tongue-tied. It was always this way with boys. She was generally awkward in most settings, and it wasn’t any different in college. It wasn’t helpful that she had a thick Chinese accent either.
She settled for, “Hello.” Klutz that she was, she’d dropped her books in the hallway on her way to class, and the boy was kind enough to stop and help her pick them up. But then he just stopped and stared at her for a moment too long, as if he was admiring her, which of course was laughable.
“Hi,” he said back shyly.
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded, finished handing her her books, and kept walking.
Two socially inept people becoming a thing? Practically a match made in heaven. Right, she laughed.
Xinga was a pale skin Asian with large anime eyes and a sweet smile that spoke to her gentle nature. Her dark hair was cut in a long bob that fell to her shoulders. Like the Russian girl Marina, who was in her study group, she was also an exchange student. She still didn’t know what to think. America had strange customs, but most people were nice to her. This was her first year at the college. She was only eighteen. The only one who seemed more lost than she was the boy Jomo, from Kenya, and he’d been in the United States for years. She’d been hearing some strange news about Kenya concerning sick cows and some form of mad cow disease. Xinga wondered if he had heard anything about it.
She walked into her English as a Second Language class. Her teacher Mr. Bernstein said, “Good morning Xinga.” He always greeted his students as they walked into the room, and they were expected to greet him in return, in English.
“Good morning Mr. Bernstein.” She always had trouble with his name but tried to get as close to its proper pronunciation as possible.
Xinga couldn’t wait for English to get easier.
***
Ian Foster moved from England five years ago as a teen. He’d done three years of college and was twenty-four years old. His father had gotten a job with a big company in the states and moved the whole family over. Ian moved out of the house and got his own apartment within a year, and worked for a year before deciding to go to college in Atlanta. This was his first year, however, joining the International Studies Group. He thought it would be an interesting thing to put on a resume. In his five years in the states he hadn’t lost his accent, but apparently Americans liked it, especially women, so why try to mess with a good thing? Along with his wavy blonde hair and his long lean physique it went a long way to wooing the ladies. Though currently seeing someone, he certainly had his share of choices. Thankfully Ashley wasn’t the jealous type, and understood that other women liked him. She wasn’t blind, but she wasn’t stupid either. If she ever thought he might cheat she’d leave him. It was a relationship based on trust and respect. Ian was a bit of a flirt (but he’d only let her see that side of him when he was trying to court her), but that was as far as he took it. He didn’t think it was love yet. They’d only been dating a few months, but it was something.
***
“Where did everyone else go?” Stuart asked.
“They abandoned us!” Jillian shouted back, “Can’t you see that?! We should leave too!”
“What if they get out?” Stuart said, “Could you have that on your conscience; these two going out infecting everyone?”
“So you’re going to cattle prod both of them into the incinerator? How do you see that plan working?”
“I saw it potentially working when there was one of them,” Stuart admitted. “But now that there’s two... Okay, Plan B.”
“Which is...?”
“I don’t know. I’m still thinking.”
“Well, think faster because both of them are banging on the door now.”
“You could come up with something too.”
“I could,” Jillian admitted, “If I weren’t busy almost pissing my pants.”
“You and me both.” Stuart’s face lit up. “Blowtorch!”
“Get the blowtorch?”
“Yes. We can open the door real quick, set them on fire, and then lock it again.”
“Great!” she said. “Where’s the blowtorch?”
“In the...” he paused, “autopsy room.” Where the infected were.
“Of course,” she threw her hands up, “Where else? Is there a Plan C?”
“Nope, that’s all I had.”
“I suggest we lock up the place and find some-one higher up. Someone equipped to deal with this
shit.”
“Like...”
“Like the military.”
“So we’re admitting defeat here?”
“This is a serious problem Stuart! There could be more of them out there! More infected cows! More infected people! We’re not equipped to deal with this Mad Cow Flu, or whatever the hell it is!”
“I know,” Stuart bowed his head, “All right.”
***
Kamara Davis placed the new wig on her head. It was a long silky black one. She was trying to grow her natural hair out. It was short now and it was dry and kinky, but when she grew it out her natural curls framed her face well. She had a pretty face with wide inquisitive dark hazel eyes and full lips, though it bore marks called Keloids, which were nodules that had formed from previous acne outbreaks, which also showed up sporadically on her back and the top of her chest. Her case, though noticeable, wasn’t amongst the worst and it didn’t detract from the rest of her. She was a tall twenty six year-old woman with long legs and arms and piano player’s fingers. Men, especially one ex in particular found her derriere delectable. It was large and perky, but not wide. He once told her that her buttocks crested like two great hills at the highway of her legs. Her skin, where it didn’t bear the mark of Keloids, which was most of her lower body, was smooth and the color of cream and cocoa. She was a light skinned black, of African descent, though her grandmother had been Native American- Choctaw Indian. It was stupid, but all through elementary and half of high school she got along better with the white kids and the Hispanics because dark skinned blacks didn’t consider her black, or not black enough. She couldn’t understand how people, who didn’t want to be judged on their looks, but their character, could so openly judge her.
She called her mom before heading to class, signing off with the typical farewell. Just one word- “Love.” Instead of, “I love you,” they said “Love.” Her mother and sister had developed this shorthand way of saying the phrase, while conveying the same meaning. “Okay mom, I’ve gotta get going. Love.” The name Kamara was Swahili for moonlight, and on certain nights under the wash of stars her skin glowed like her namesake.
***
Klaus Hertzog grew tired of the idle chatter at the bar. He sat at one of the tables, watching the men sitting on the bar stools yapping loudly. He abhorred fast food restaurants and had wanted a bite to eat, and made the mistake of entering a sports bar rather than a civilized restaurant, so every now and again the loud talking was bolstered by shouts and screams when some team did something the patrons liked.
He sat at his table trying to read while enjoying his meal, in his spectacles and his sweater vest, running his fingers through his dirty blonde hair in frustration. A first generation American, born of German parents, Klaus was not a heavy drinker, but occasionally required a stiff drink to numb the senses. This was one of those occasions. He stopped the server and asked her for a whiskey on the rocks, to accompany his Herb Butter Salmon and Rice Pilaf. What he really could have used were earplugs. Tolstoy might have to wait for home, but he had a class to attend as well in forty five minutes, so he couldn’t inebriate himself either. At twenty-nine he was the oldest in his International Studies group and because of his proper wardrobe and manners was frequently mistaken for a teacher outside the group.
His wife Elsa was at work. She was a naturo-pathic physician, Naturopathy being the belief that the body could cure itself without medicine, by conditioning through diet, exercise, brain training, and natural remedies such as herbs and supplements. It was a holistic approach to medicine that could include acupuncture, massage, and other treatments, but steered away from prescribing any medications, so it was largely viewed by many academics and doctors as unsafe and unreliable. It wasn’t the ideal in all cases, but Klaus had seen the change for the better the power of positive thinking and healthy living could affect in many of her patients. Besides that she was brilliant, and not boring or mundane like the crowd of inebriates at the bar. Thank Heavens for people like her in the world.
***
A half dozen Marines entered the complex, fully dressed in camo with machine guns at the ready, wearing only face shields and arm guards as additional protection.
“Why aren’t your men in Hazmat gear?” Stuart grumbled.
“We know the nature of the contagion,” the commander said. “We are aware of the methods of transmission.”
“You mean there are others?” Jillian exclaimed.
“Others,” he said. “Yes, but this is the first here.”
“You mean in the States?” Stuart asked.
The commander didn’t answer. His entire demeanor was standoffish, as if he had no need to explain himself to these lowly scientists.
“Unlock the door,” he ordered.
“Do you know how to kill them?” Stuart asked.
“They’re already dead. We have to blast them to pieces.”
“Is this something you’ve actually tried?” Jillian said.
“No. It’s what we intend to do.”
“That man, the doctor has already lost most of his internal organs and he’s still walking around. The only thing we know for sure that works is fire. Did you bring a flamethrower?”
“No. Enough talk! We’re going in. Now open the damn door!”
Stuart did so reluctantly, holding up his cattle prod. Robert Walker came at them first. The Marines began blasting the corpse. It danced under the assault from the hail of bullets but kept shambling forward. Within seconds it was upon the commander and he held it off with his shielded arm, but the infected man was stronger than he imagined and snapped his arm at the elbow. He screamed. The other Marines didn’t have a clear shot at him and it was too late when Robert Walker, still gripping the commander’s twisted flopping arm tore out his throat with his teeth. He was still firing his gun as he fell, bullets going astray, hitting machinery, causing sparks and then a fire to ignite.
The doctor, only several steps behind was moving in on the fallen commander along with Robert. Stuart cattle prodded him away, and the Marines fired on him. He kept coming.
“They won’t stop!” one of them shouted. Robert
Walker was on the floor feasting on the fallen soldier, until the commander rose, and turned on his own troupe. His eyes were a milky blue, no life left in them.
“What in the fuck?!” another squealed. The fire was growing and beginning to surround the group, so that they had to back up toward the door they’d come in from, the three lumbering corpses continuing toward them.
“Push them toward the fire!” Jillian yelled at Stuart. But Stuart was off to the side shivering with fear. The corpses were in the center of the circle of flame, and the Marines were still firing upon them. They couldn’t hear anything being said, and he risked getting shot if he attempted that move. It was safer to back away with the Marines out of the room. The smoke was beginning to suffocate and the heat was getting too intense.
“Retreat!” one of the soldiers said. “It’s getting too dangerous!” They all left the room, including the two CDC members.
One of the Marines attempted to lock the door to that room.
“That one doesn’t lock from the outside,” Stuart said.
“Great!” the Marine said.
They continued firing into the corpses until they’d wasted their ammunition, and the bodies were so riddled with bullets that there was no possible way they could be standing, but were.
“Let’s get out of here!” a soldier shouted. “Lock the entrance and hope they don’t get out!”
With any luck the whole place would be on fire, and the bodies with them, was the implication. That saddened Stuart greatly. This was where he’d spent most of his life. Hell, it was his life. Where could he go
after this?
***
There were six CDC members in a closet that hadn’t been in the room when Robert Walker and the doctor rose from the dead, and weren’t among those that had fled the building when this happened. They didn’t, in fact, know what the commotion was about, only that the sound of gunfire meant something was wrong. Even after the gunfire had ceased they were afraid to leave the safety of the dark room. They didn’t think there could be any worse sound than the rattle of the machine guns or the screams they had heard from one man, but then they heard the moans.
***
“What do we do now?” Stuart asked, taking off his headgear, as they stood in the grass outside the building.
“We wait,” one of the soldiers said, apparently the second in command since their leader was dead, “and we call for reinforcements” he said, picking up a combination cell phone and walkie.
“How on earth could you run out of ammo?” Jillian said. She’d taken off her headgear as well.
“Hey, we came with what we were supplied with,” the soldier said angrily, “How the fuck were we supposed to know it wouldn’t be enough to take down two dead guys?!” He shook his head. “Jesus, I can’t even believe I’m saying that sentence!”
“I know,” Jillian responded sympathetically, “I’m sorry.”
***