Slow Burn Box Set: The Complete Post Apocalyptic Series (Books 1-9) Read online

  “Well, the first thing I try to do when I get there is try to quarantine the camp, but I’ve already missed that boat because it’s spread to neighboring villages. While I’m still figuring that out, it pops up in Sudan and Ethiopia.

  “People from the WHO and CDC come pouring in, but at this point, there’s nothing in the media about it, because it’s just Africa and nobody really gives a crap about dead Africans, but everybody in the community…”

  “The community?” I asked.

  “CDC, WHO, all of us guys who watch this stuff. Well, we know it’s bad because it’s literally exploding out of control and we aren’t even close to knowing anything about it.”

  “So that’s where we are?” I asked. “We don’t even know what it is?”

  “You’re jumping ahead of me, ah…ah…”

  “Zed. The name is Zed.”

  “Well, Zed, things get pretty out of hand pretty quickly. People in charge start freaking out. The Kenyan army comes in and things start getting ugly. All of the expats, the aid workers, the volunteers…they start bugging out. The Chinese, the Europeans, the Americans, they all go. Everybody sees what’s going down and nobody wants to stay around for it.”

  “What do you mean, ugly?” I asked.

  “Look around, Zed. This is only the beginning. I don’t just mean the beginning of the infection, I mean the beginning of what the infected will start doing once their biological urges get the best of them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hunger, sex, the basic urges, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

  “Okay, well, hurry up, because I’m waiting for the what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-me part.”

  “Okay, let me talk about the disease for a minute.”

  I nodded, dramatically, prompting him to move it along.

  “The virus—we’re pretty sure that’s what it is—is transferred through bodily fluids.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, in your case, I guess looking at your arm, you were bitten. Saliva gets in the wound, you get the virus.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Intercourse, of course.”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  “Kissing would do it. Heck, if somebody sneezed or coughed and the droplets got in your eyes or you inhaled them, that would do it. This thing is contagious as hell.”

  “Wow,” I said, not even with any sarcasm. “So I’m infected because I got bitten.”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you be sure?” I asked. “I’m not acting all whacked out like the rest of these…” I wanted to say zombies, but couldn’t bring myself to use the word.

  “You’re infected, Zed. Everybody who gets bitten gets infected.”

  “Everybody?”

  “Everybody.”

  “But you said you didn’t know that much about it,” I said.

  “Yeah, I did, but we’re almost certain that biting is a 100% effective transmission pathway.”

  “Crap,” I muttered. “Did you get bitten? Is that why you’re in here?”

  “Actually, I think mine was a sneeze or a cough when I was in a ward. I caught it that way.”

  “That sucks.”

  “More than you know…well actually, I guess you do know. But Zed, it doesn’t suck as much as it could have, and that’s why we’re having this conversation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, the infection doesn’t affect everyone the same way. Like the flu, some people get it bad, some don’t. Some die, most don’t.”

  “So…” I prompted.

  “When did you get bitten?” Jerome asked.

  “Sunday.”

  “And this is early Thursday morning.”

  I nodded.

  “And what symptoms did you have?”

  “I felt feverish within fifteen or twenty minutes, and then within a half hour or so, I passed out and stayed out for two days.”

  “What then?”

  “Well, I woke up, disoriented, dehydrated, hungry as hell,” I told him. “I felt like crap.”

  “And your eyes, they were dilated, like they are now?”

  “Yeah, I guess, I mean I didn’t know until I got to the hospital. I just knew the sun and bright lights were bothersome.”

  Jerome said, “Yeah, that’s because your eyes are permanently dilated now.”

  “That sucks.”

  “It could be worse.” Jerome looked around.

  “Are you saying that I’m not going to wind up like them?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but right now you and I are what they’re calling slow burners.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “When somebody catches this infection,” Jerome told me, “they develop a fever, usually pretty quickly, but sometimes it might take days to develop, depending on how they catch it. If the initial infection is small, it might take more time to develop enough of the virus in the body for symptoms to show.”

  “I’m guessing that happens in the case of sneezing and coughing transmission?” I asked.

  “We’re not certain yet, but maybe.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, the symptoms almost always include a fever, headache, nausea, and sometimes diarrhea.”

  “Like the flu?” I asked.

  Jerome answered, “Yes, but there’s more. The fever gets high, like in the 104 to 106 range, in a hurry.”

  “I know that’s not good,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” said Jerome. “In most cases, brain damage occurs. Nerve damage as well.”

  “What kind of brain damage?”

  “In most cases the frontal lobe is severely damaged. Pretty much everything that makes us human, complex thought, emotion, and empathy are debilitated or destroyed.”

  “Fuck,” slipped out of my mouth again before I could catch it.

  “The basic functions mostly survive, though in ten to fifteen percent of the cases, the host just dies. The ones that don’t die, end up like these guys.” Jerome pointed to the aimless, chaotic mass in the room.

  “We’ve figured out that the body temperature after the initial fever correlates very strongly with brain function loss.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Did anyone take your temperature, Zed?”

  I shook my head. “Not until I got here.”

  “You seem pretty normal, like you’ve got your wits about you. I’m guessing you’re between ninety-nine and a hundred.”

  “Where are you?” I asked Jerome.

  “I got lucky, Zed. I come in at ninety-nine point three. Just over a half-degree above normal.”

  “You seem normal.”

  “I am,” said Jerome. “I’m a little klutzy. I’m a little hyperactive, like I’m on a perpetual caffeine buzz, but I’m lucky.”

  “And you think that’s where I’ll be?”

  “I think so, Zed.”

  “And you CDC guys call it a slow burn because the final temperature is above normal, but lower than these other guys?”

  “Mostly right.” Jerome nodded. “For slow burners, the initial fever doesn’t go up to 106, and doesn’t stabilize too far above normal. The crazy guy that you were wrestling with when I walked up, he was probably running at about 102 to 103. The really whacked out ones in here, they’re above 104. With the high temperature, the metabolic rate shoots through the roof. They need calories like you wouldn’t believe. They probably need twice the calories that a normal person requires.”

  “Wow.” I said.

  “Like I said, their metabolisms are running amok. They need to feed.”

  “So, are you sure I’m a slow burner?” I asked.

  “Once the fever starts, the temperature can spike very fast, and they turn from normal to brain-damaged whack jobs pretty quickly, but for slow burners the whole thing usually runs its course in about two days. When you come out of it, based on what we know so far, you pretty much are what you are…mostly.”

  “Mostly?”r />
  “Some continue to deteriorate.”

  “You mean their temperature goes back up?”

  “Yes, slowly.”

  “And how many end up like us?” I asked. “How many are immune altogether?”

  “Good questions, Zed. Our best data puts total immunity way below one percent, maybe a half, maybe a tenth.”

  “And?”

  “Of the infected, it looks like maybe one in a few thousand end up like you and me.”

  “Is that genetic? Some kind of immunity?”

  “We don’t know why,” Jerome answered. “This thing is moving so fast, it’s outpaced our ability to learn what we need to know.”

  “So the others, the fast burners, what about them?” I asked.

  “Over ninety percent of them end up with a total loss of higher brain function. They’re all over 104. The remaining ten percent or so mostly come in between 101 and 104, with the temperature determining how much human is left in them.”

  “How much human?”

  “Mostly, they’re just like a bunch of very violent, cannibalistic, chimpanzees. Most don’t think. They just want to eat and tend to their natural bodily functions. The ones that can think tend to lose any sense of empathy or morality. They’re dangerous. They’re vicious.”

  “Like the crazy guy from earlier?” I asked

  Jerome nodded. “Yes, like him.”

  “Great. So, what’s the deal, then? All of these people are hungry and crazy? Are we in physical danger?”

  Jerome shrugged. “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “One of the things about people that is usually underrated is the importance of the sense of smell.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well this is my opinion, my theory, not the CDC’s position…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said.

  “I think that in the absence of the higher brain functions, the lower brain functions are no longer overlooked, even with all the confusion in a damaged brain.”

  “So far this means nothing to me,” I said.

  “When these guys start eating people, they prefer not to eat each other. I don’t think they like the way they smell. Maybe they smell the disease on each other.”

  “Oh,” I interjected, “like those dogs that sometimes smell when their owners get sick. Yeah, I saw something about that on TV once.”

  “Yes, I guess so,” Jerome agreed. “But, that doesn’t mean they won’t eat each other. They just aren’t their first choice.”

  “So, are you telling me that they only eat people, and that they prefer healthy people?”

  “No, they’re still human, just diseased humans. They’re still omnivorous. But, back in the refugee camp, where—and I hate to say it this way—the most plentiful food source was other people, that’s what they ate.”

  I reluctantly pointed to the bloody spots on the floor. “Is that what happened here?”

  Jerome got a distant look in his eyes and nodded. “Doctors and nurses.”

  “But they ignored you,” I said.

  “Yes and no.”

  “Okay, what does that mean?” I asked.

  Jerome said, “They’re ignoring me for now, because I have the infection. I smell like them. But you and me, Zed, we’re slow burners, we’re mild cases. We smell more like healthy humans than they do.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Zed, this gym they have us locked up in. This isn’t an original idea. This is pretty much the same thing we did in Kenya. We couldn’t keep them all in hospital tents, so someone had the great idea to start corralling them all, just to get them under control. Because, I mean, what do you do with them?”

  I shrugged.

  “Well, when they got hungry, they didn’t go after each other first. I mean, not really. They went after the slow burners, because they smelled the most normal. Then they went after the crazy ones. The weak and injured ones, the ones that were easy prey and couldn’t defend themselves.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “They broke out of the corral and the refugee camp fell apart. It was a nightmare, and somewhere in that mess, the army just started shooting the infected down. That became government policy…maybe it already was, I don’t know. Maybe they thought it was the only way to contain the virus.”

  “But it didn’t work,” I said.

  “It was already too late when they started.”

  “So,” I said, “by extrapolation, the longer we stay here, the more likely it is that we’re either going to be eaten, or the soldiers outside are going to come inside and just shoot us.”

  “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

  “Great.” I looked down at Murphy and tried to assimilate all that I’d just been told.

  Jerome asked, “When did your friend get bitten?”

  “Twelve, eighteen hours ago, I guess. So, he’s got a chance, right?”

  Jerome pointed at the crazies walking around the gym. “Zed, they’re going to start getting hungry soon. If we go find some place out of the way, maybe up at the top of the bleachers by the windows, maybe they’ll ignore us for a while, especially if we leave your friend lying here helpless.”

  “That’s fucked up,” I told Jerome.

  “It is what it is,” Jerome said. “Once they start feeding again, they’re going to eat your friend. You won’t be able to do anything about it except get eaten too.”

  I shook my head. “I have an idea for a way to get out of here. If you want, you can help me with Murphy and come along. If not, you can fuck off and we’ll give it a go without you.”

  “If you have an idea of a way to get out, Zed, you and I should just do that now. Murphy might come out of this, like us, or he might not.”

  I nodded. “I don’t care. Murphy is coming with me. Are you?”

  Jerome looked around. He wasn’t pleased. “What’s your idea?”

  “Do you have a quarter?”

  Chapter 13

  Murphy was half-delirious, but Jerome and I managed to stand him up between us with one of his arms over each of our shoulders. Together, we shambled around behind the bleachers. Working Murphy through the monkey-bar framework of bleacher supports was not easy. He bumped his head and grumbled, but he kept his feet under himself.

  I kept hitting my shins on horizontal supports that ran along at twelve inches above the floor. Jerome ran into everything.

  “I’m not getting a warm fuzzy about this,” Jerome told me. “Hiding under the bleachers isn’t going to solve our problem.”

  “Be cool, man,” I told him. “I know what I’m doing.”

  A shriek ripped the air, followed quickly by others. Scuffles broke out on the basketball courts.

  I looked questioningly at Jerome.

  “The same thing happened earlier. They’re feeding.”

  “It sounds like…”

  “I know. We need to get out of here,” Jerome urged.

  We came to a stop at a square metal panel nearly half the size of a door on the wall.

  “What’s this?” Jerome asked.

  “Give me the quarter. I need to get these screws out.”

  “Okay,” Jerome said, tentatively. He pulled some change out of his pocket, passed me a quarter, and knelt down beside the panel.

  “Help me with the screws,” I told him. “I went to college here. When I was a freshman, we were out goofing around one night and we came across these utility tunnels. This access panel leads down to the tunnel system. This is how we used to sneak in to see the volleyball games and stuff. One guy with a sports pass could come in and open up the panel and let the rest of us in.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow,” I confirmed. “If we get into the tunnel system, we can go nearly anywhere on campus. All of the buildings have access panels or doors into the basements.”

  Jerome went to work on one of the eight screws. It would have gone faster with a screwdriver but you work with what you have.

  With a few screws out
, I heard the noise of somebody clumsily coming through the tangle of metal supports under the bleachers.

  Jerome and I both looked. It was the crazy guy with the hippie sandals.

  “Shit,” said Jerome.

  My fingers were getting sweaty and it was hard to hold on to the little quarter.

  Another screw dropped to the ground followed quickly by the one Jerome was working on.

  The crazy guy hollered, “They’re gonna eat me. They’re gonna eat me.”

  Jerome stood and fished around in his pocket. He pulled out a folding knife with a four-inch blade, opened it and handed it to me. “Zed, I’ve got this. You need to take care of him before he draws the rest of them back here.”

  There was no time to argue. I grudgingly took the knife. “Get that panel off.”

  I made my way through the supports toward the crazy guy.

  “They’re gonna eat me.” he yelled again.

  “Be quiet,” I told him, trying to keep my voice down.

  He jumped up on a lower support, grabbed two vertical supports and used the weight of his body to shake them. The bleachers above rumbled with the vibration. He probably got the attention of every infected freak in the gym with that.

  I hurried toward him to push him off, but when I got close, he leapt at me with his hands grasping and his mouth screaming.

  It reminded me of my encounter with Dan. I stepped back to avoid his grasp and tripped over a support. The crazy guy came down on top of me.

  In the struggle, I pummeled him in the head with the handle of the knife but it had no effect. He just kept yelling, and kept trying to pull my face closer to his mouth.

  I lost my temper. I turned the pointed end of the knife at the crazy guy’s skull and drove the blade deep through the bone. He went limp on top of me but his blood poured out onto me from the wound.

  I pulled myself free and looked to the ends of the bleachers as I stood up. At least a dozen infected were trying to make their way underneath.

  “Damn it.” I turned to Jerome. “They’re coming.”

  By the time I got back down beside Jerome, there were two screws left. He was working on one. I went to work on the other.

  Both ends of the bleachers were packed with the infected and they were coming our way. Whether to feed on the crazy guy or make a meal of us all, I had no intention of finding out.