"I need to get to a lab!"
"Have fun with that!" Ben said sarcastically while leaning back in his chair.
"I'm serious!" I said more sternly, hands on hips.
"So am I," Ben barked back while leaning forward in his blue plastic chair. "We're safe here. Heck, if we had some steaks, we could have a cook-out today."
"You're safe now, but when the food sources in the towns surrounding here get scarce, those walking dead will come to places like this.”
"When that happens, we'll move." he replied offhandedly.
"When that happens, it'll be too late!" Melissa answered rising to stand at my side. "Henry believes he can make a cure. It might not help those that have already turned, but it may help people when they get bitten. I think we have to try."
Frank entered the room, fresh from his duty of watching the front door. "So, you think YOU can make a cure. I think the CDC is probably doing all they can-"
"We don't even know if the CDC had time to assemble a team," I said, cutting Frank off in mid-sentence. "There may be no one working on this."
"How do you know so much?" Ben shot back.
"Because, in the past, I worked for the CDC!"
"I thought you were a bug doctor?" Drew asked skeptically.
"Entomologists are a part of the CDC. I'm a leading scientist in my field and have been called in before. No one contacted me. That's why I'm so worried."
The arguments stopped. They all looked at me with a new respect: all except Melissa, that is. She looked at me with pride.
We spent the rest of the morning eating and stashing our supplies in the fire truck. We ate like it was our last meal, not knowing when we might get the chance again.
Ben and Frank grumbled to anyone who would listen. They were trying to cause dissent. But the rest of the group understood our situation, and even Drew took my side, putting them both in their place.
When we finished, we climbed aboard the big, diesel rig. Melissa and I squished in the front with Drew in the driver's seat. I tried to get her to sit in the roomy, back crew area, but she wouldn't hear any of it. She just squeezed right in beside me.
The engine came to life on the first crank, the huge machine causing the vehicle to vibrate. That feeling of power came surging back. I felt invincible high up in this cab. Looking back, I saw the broken door we had blocked with boxes. Scrawled on a big box in marker were the words, Safe inside, no food or zombies.
We left the factory and backtracked the way we had come. We didn't drive quickly, because we wanted the ability to avoid any obstacles that might appear along the way. The road wasn't as serene as it had been on the way here. The landscape, which had been mostly normal before, was now increasingly populated by the undead.
"Now do you see what I mean?" I asked no one in particular. "We were only going to be safe for a short time."
"We could have blocked the glass doors," argued Frank from the back seat.
"I agree," I played along while watching a woman in what looked like a nightgown try desperately to intercept the fire truck. She was missing an arm, but she didn't seem to notice, "And when the food ran out?"
"Oh," was Drew's only response.
As we neared the outskirts of Slippery Rock, we started to notice something strange. The dead lying in the streets increased. What we had seen before was that the victims were typically hauled down and partly eaten. Later, they rose again, leaving some parts but mostly just a big red stain behind. This was different. There were many dead scattered all about.
"Stop the truck," I told Drew. When the big vehicle came to a halt, I opened the door and leaned out.
These undead were not moving. The closer ones that I could see from my present vantage point all had head wounds, as well as what looked like other gunshot injuries. I could hear distant popping noises. "It seems like somebody is fighting back," I called back.
"Was that gunfire?" Drew asked while leaning around my wife.
"Yes," I answered. "It sounds like it's coming from up ahead."
"What do you think?"
I looked around. There were a lot of dead, but they seemed like they were going to stay down. Stepping down into the street, I pulled my revolver and signaled Drew to follow me with the truck.
The diesel engine was loud, mostly drowning out the sounds of battle. After walking a few hundred feet, I could see movement up ahead. Soldiers, of the living and breathing variety, were walking towards me, breaking from hiding places among the buildings.
My heart swelled with joy. The military was taking control. As the five urban camouflage-clad people closed within speaking distance, I signaled my friend to stop the truck and cut the engines. The entire population of the truck spilled out as our group saw salvation in the well-armed soldiers.
One of the soldiers came right up to me. "Are you the leader?" she asked very seriously.
I guess you could call me one of them, yes," I replied, unsure.
"Has anyone had contact with the infected?" she quickly shot back. The questions sounded rehearsed.
"We've all had contact with the undead. Hasn't everyone?" I answered honestly.
"Has anyone been bitten or scratched?" she corrected, sounding a little disgusted at having to simplify the original question.
"No," I said, finally understanding her line of questioning.
"Continue on to the campus. The first dormitory is where we are processing survivors. You will find food and medicine there."
I was about to ask another question, but the soldiers abruptly turned on their heels and started back to their hiding places.
We all returned to our seats. Our mood had risen significantly. The government had stepped up and was taking care of the situation.
We parked out on the street in front of the dorm. Two sentries eyed us suspiciously as we approached the building. Each was holding some type of machine gun.
"Follow me," stated the bigger of the two, leading the way through the door.
As we passed between the full-panel glass double doors, I wondered about our former world. We had taken our safety so lightly that most buildings had full-panel glass doors. In this new world, where we are constantly under siege, it sounds completely ludicrous.
The building was well lit. The guard explained that generators were powering this and two other buildings. His statement was confirmed by the hum of the lights.
"Showers?" asked Amber excitedly.
"Fully functional, ma’am," our guide responded.
Amber clapped her hands together and hugged Drew's meaty arm. Excitement shone on her face. Drew was in pure bliss. He looked like he didn't want to move, for fear that she would never touch him again. In this world of despair, he was the one person I knew who had gained something.
We entered a temporary medical area, each of us ordered to go behind a curtain with a nurse and strip. They inspected us for bites, scratches, and any other manner of possible infection. Afterward, we went to another room for interrogations in curtained enclosures.
The questions ranged from who we were and what our employment was before the outbreak to if we had military training and where we had been and what we had seen.
After he asked the last question, the guard who had posed it excused himself. About twenty minutes later, an officer entered the curtained area where my interrogation had occurred.
The man introduced himself as Colonel O'Neill. He was a middle-aged gentleman in similar urban camouflage. He was medium height and build with short, unkempt, gray hair. Although I could see his rank, he spoke and acted like a regular soldier.
"I understand you are an entomologist?" he asked, sitting on the edge of the table, which separated the two chairs in the small enclosure. "What is it you study, exactly?" he inquired setting his military ball cap beside himself on the table.
"Currently, I was studying the evolution of Leucoch
loridium Paradoxum and its effects on the common garden snail," I offered.
"Let's act like I don't know what that Leucochloridium thing is," he suggested, obviously wanting the term clarified.
"It is a parasite. A flatworm."
"What does it do?" he continued.
"It takes control of its host," I went further. "It makes the snail do what it wants to do."
"Private Harris says that you have been studying the creatures we have been fighting recently," he went on prodding. "He said you have samples and notes."
I didn't feel as though I had anything to hide, but I limited my response, "Yes, to both of your statements.’
The colonel's eyes narrowed, "Why would you do that? These aren't bugs."
I decided my best option was to continue telling him just what he needed to know. "After observing the undead creature's behaviors, I thought it would be prudent to compile my findings."
"Why?" he said, urging me for more.
"In order to give credence to my hypotheses."
"And that is?" he probed deeper.
I felt cornered. "Listen, Colonel, if I did something wrong?"
O'Neill leaned forward, trying to intimidate me. "You listen, son. We are in the middle of a crisis here, one that is worse than anything we have ever seen before. I need to know exactly what I have as resources so I can use my people to their best potential. What were you doing?"
"Trying to gain an understanding of the cause; how and why people are dying and then coming back to a semblance of life," I said, coming clean.
"You think you're the freaking World Health Organization or something?" he barked back.
"No. But I have worked for the CDC. So, in a way, yes!"
He sat back looking at me in unmasked disbelief. "Are you serious?"
"Yes," I assured him. "We were trying to get to my lab. It's a few buildings away."
I spent the next hour explaining what I believed was happening and what I would need. When Colonel O'Neill realized the full implications of what I was trying to do, he immediately pledged his full support. He dispatched a private to retrieve my samples and place them in a refrigerator.
We made plans for me to gain access to my lab. Luckily, they had already cleared the science building where I worked and I was given a few soldiers to act as guards. He even offered to move my lab here, but I told him that I would work better in the surroundings I was already familiar with.
O'Neill told me that they had begun removing the hostile creatures from this small town so it could serve as a staging area from which to secure other areas. Places like Pittsburgh were too large to attempt recovery at this time, but if they could contain the undead within that area, we could effectively stop the spread of whatever was causing the outbreak.
After eating in the generator-powered dining hall, they led me to my lab. Melissa and Dean refused to let me go without them, so they were my impromptu lab assistants. Three armed guards surrounded us as we traveled to the science hall.
It felt great to be in my lab once again. A portable generator powered some of my lab equipment and a few lights. At first, I gave my lab assistants small, simple jobs; but as time wore on, I ran out of chores for them to do.
I examined the samples from Bill, starting with the first and working toward the ones I had extracted after he had turned. I scribbled my findings on paper, Melissa transferring them on to my Macintosh and then to a flash drive. Dean entered my older notes onto another computer he'd found in an adjoining office. These were also put on flash drives.
I sat back and rubbed my temples, trying to regain some focus. Feeling two hands begin to rub my shoulders, I hoped they weren't Deans. Looking up, I saw my former neighbor standing directly in front of me and sighed in relief.
"Anything wrong?" she asked, pushing her thumbs deeper into my tense muscles.
"The cells have degraded. They should have been refrigerated or, better yet, frozen," I lamented.
"You could only do what you had the means of doing," she soothed. "Are they still useable?"
"Somewhat," I answered, leaning back into her massage. "I believe I have seen the culprit. Bill’s blood is swimming with some strange parasite larvae. I've never seen its likes before. His saliva is teeming with the same little guys. Here, let me show you."
I switched on the monitor for my dark-field microscope. I placed a prepared slide into the microscope. The cells became visible on the monitor, lifeless and nearly colorless.
"Observe the thin, string-like creatures between the cells. This, I believe, is the cause of the outbreak." Removing the slide, I put another in its place. "This is the last sample of saliva I took from him. Note the same little guy is present in abundance."
"They're moving. Are they alive?" Melissa asked, Dean and one of the guards looking over her shoulder.
"I believe they still are," I confirmed as I removed the slide. "Do you want to see something interesting?"
All three of them nodded, eager to hear more. I switched the slide to the last blood sample.
"Is this from Bill?" Dean asked, clearly puzzled.
"Yes," I confirmed.
"Where is the parasite?" he continued.
"It seems to have abandoned the blood stream. In three samples, I have only found a few dead parasite larvae and none living."
"What does it mean?" the guard asked.
"I don't know," I acknowledged. "It could be that the blood was only a vehicle of transport. It wasn't practical as a means of sustaining them.”
Chapter 27
Melissa