Slow Burn: Zero Day, Book 1 Read online

  “Whatever.”

  “Call it a pandemic.”

  “Double whatever. I’m no doctor. I’m the kind on the user end of the disease thing, Jerome. From here, plagues and pandemics are pretty much the same thing. Everybody catches cold. Everybody dies. Everybody turns into a mindless monster. From here, Jerome, it pretty much comes down to a bad something happening to everybody.”

  “You don’t have to be a dick, Zed.”

  I thought I did have to be a dick. I was still a little pissed about Jerome ordering me to take care of the crazy guy back in the gym. He had PhD and worked for the CDC, but that didn’t make him my boss. I gave it a minute before I said, “Getting out of the gym was my only plan, at first. Like you said, we were in danger of getting attacked by the infected when we were in there. You were right about that. They seemed pretty anxious to get their hands on us when we were getting into the tunnel.”

  Jerome nodded.

  “Once we got into the tunnel, the dorm was just the first place that came to mind as a place to hide out for a bit and figure things out. It seems to me that we’re in a pretty crappy situation. The infected see us as a meal. To the uninfected, we’re just more infected. To them, we’re a danger, and apparently the currently accepted cure for infection is a bullet.”

  “The soldiers had to shoot them,” Jerome said. “You saw what happened. They didn’t have a choice.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  We stood there in the sweltering dorm room in silence for a good long while, listening to the sounds of the world falling apart outside.

  Jerome broke the silence. “Whatever we do next, we need to keep an eye on Murphy.”

  Jerome was probably right about that, so I said nothing.

  He continued, “We don’t know for certain what he’s going to be when his fever breaks…or doesn’t break. If he comes out as a ninety-nine like us, then great. If he’s 104 or up, we need to be prepared to do something about him.”

  “Do something?” I asked.

  “Don’t be coy, Zed. You can see where this is going. You did what you thought was right in trying to get him to the hospital in the first place, but things are different now, and they’re going to hell in a hurry. We need to start thinking about survival.”

  “Survival?” I asked.

  “The police. The fire department. Hospitals. Doctors. They aren’t going to be here for us pretty soon. Maybe they’re gone already.”

  I shook my head. “Will it really get that bad?”

  “Zed, it’s that bad or worse everywhere this thing has spread.”

  “But…”

  “Zed, there aren’t any buts. Look out the window. The infected are taking over.”

  What Jerome was telling me was a truth I didn’t want to accept.

  “We’re going to have to look out for ourselves, Zed. At the very least, as you astutely pointed out, even if everything miraculously returns to normal, you and I are pariahs. We’re infected. We’ll have no one to take care of us but us. We’ll be lucky if we’re not gunned down. I don’t see any happy endings for you or me, Zed.”

  I dropped into one of the desk chairs. Jerome was right, but I wasn’t quite ready to deal with that level of bleakness.

  “All I’m saying, Zed, is that we need to talk about what to do with Murphy. If he goes full 104 or up, we’ll probably be able to escape if we decide quickly and execute our plan. But he’s a big guy. If he wakes up with a reduced brain capacity and a big appetite, he might kill both of us before we can do anything about it. Hell, he might kill both us if we’re fully prepared. He’s a big, really strong guy.

  “Zed, he’s a time bomb.”

  Jerome was right about that. I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t even want to acknowledge it, but he was right.

  “Zed, I know you don’t want to talk about this but we need to. We need to be ready to put him down if it comes to that.”

  “Kill him,” I said. “That’s what you mean.”

  “Of course that’s what I mean. You know that. If he’s 104, then it’ll be him or us. We need to run or we need to kill him.”

  “How do you propose we put him down?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t have an answer to that. That’s part of why we’re talking now. If we wait until he comes back around, and he’s a 104 and we’re sitting here, or worse, sleeping here, then we’re dead.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I think one of us should sneak outside once it settles down a bit and try to grab a gun or two from those dead soldiers or police down there.”

  “Excuse me for saying so, but that sounds a lot like suicide,” I said.

  “Yes, it’s a risk, but I think we need to get ‘em while the gettin’ is good. I don’t know how bad things will get but they’re likely to get worse before they get better. We’re going to need to be armed if we’re going to survive this, and I don’t just mean Murphy.”

  “What do you think the odds of your going down and getting one of those guns and getting back up here alive will be?” I asked.

  “Probably a lot better than the odds of our still being alive an hour after Murphy wakes up as a 104, if we’re not armed.” Jerome suggested.

  “Better?” I asked, “Why would they be better?”

  “Right now, all of the infected are feeding. You have to remember, Zed, we’re a food source of last resort for them. I don’t think they like to eat each other.”

  I peered out the window. There were a hundred or more infected feeding on the bodies of the fallen soldiers.

  “Or we could leave him here, Zed. Go find another place to hole up. I mean, what’s your attachment to this guy, anyway? Is he your brother-in-law or something?”

  “No. Well, he helped me out at the jail this morning.”

  “The jail? You were in jail?”

  He said it in a condescending way that made me want to punch him. I decided that I didn’t like him very much.

  “It was bullshit, Jerome. My stepdad who I guess was infected, killed my mom and some guy from their church. The police arrested me because they thought I murdered them all.”

  “That’s messed up.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you just met Murphy this morning?” Jerome asked.

  I nodded.

  “And you helped him get to the hospital after he got bitten. And you saved him when we were in the gym. What’d he do for you at the jail?”

  I said, “It’s not important. But there’s more.”

  “What?” Jerome asked.

  “Murphy knows of a place in east Austin.”

  Jerome said, “You seem to cringe when you say that.”

  “It’s not the best part of town.”

  “Pretty soon I don’t think any part of town will be good. What kind of place is this?” Jerome asked.

  “It’s a bunker under some guy’s house.”

  “And he’s going to let Murphy in.”

  “He died a few years ago or something. He built this bunker under his house.”

  “And Murphy knows where it is?”

  I nodded. I hoped.

  “And he knows how to get in?”

  “I don’t know. His cousin Earl did.”

  “He did?”

  “He got shot at the jail.”

  “Oh. If ever there was a time to need a survivalist’s bunker, now would be it. Clearly, Murphy has some value. I think it’s worth the risk to take a chance on him. I think you should go down and get a gun.”

  “Me? It was your idea.”

  “I know, but hear me out on this, Zed. I work for the CDC, I know about the outbreak. I’m an expert, the kind the world might need if we’re going to get out of this with an intact society and you work for… Where do you work, Zed?”

  “I have the most fulfilling job in the world,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I put a legal, yet addictive, drug in the hands of jonesing addicts and make them happy.”
r />   “What are you talking about?”

  “For a CDC employee you sure can’t figure things out. I hope you’re good at memorization.”

  “Stop playing games, Zed. C’mon, what it is it, like Starbuck’s, or something?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought you went to college here. Did you party too much and drop out?”

  “No, I got a philosophy degree.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll get the guns.”

  Chapter 15

  I stood at the first floor doorway, looking out across the lawn and parking lot. To the east, bordering the plaza, stood the ROTC building and a maintenance building. To the west lay a street lined with enormous old oaks full of squawking grackles. Across the street was a six-story building consisting of classrooms and professors’ offices.

  Scattered across the lawn and parking lot lay the bodies and remnants of soldiers and policemen, all being eaten by the infected clustered around them.

  Gunshots echoed regularly in the distance. Distant sirens wailed without end. The smell of smoke tainted the air. Ugly, low clouds hung in the sky, dirty orange in the light coming off of the city below.

  I stood at the glass door on the first floor, one foot in the building, one foot out, weighing the risk of death on the bloody plaza against the risk of death tomorrow or the next day if I had no weapon to defend myself. I pondered the value of stealing weapons from men who’d died trying to defend themselves with those very weapons. Mostly, I tried to find a way around my fear.

  I wondered if my fear was pointless. I wondered, with the infection coursing through my veins, if I was effectively dead already, whether I was just pretending to be alive until the virus finished destroying my brain.

  I got angry for being afraid, for giving into it. I swore to myself when I was twelve, on one of a thousand occasions when I cowered in my room, while the wrathful ogre stormed up the hall to scar my skin with his fists, his boots, and his belt, that I would not let fear rule me. I got up off my knees on that day and stood in the face of Dan’s wrath. Through the years of living with the ogre and the harpy, I paid heavily for that choice, but what I got in return was a defiant strength that was impossible to measure.

  So fuck Dan. Fuck the police. Fuck the doctors. Fuck Jerome. And fuck the infected!

  I kicked the door open, reached over to a nearby garden, grabbed up a heavy rock, and placed it between the door and jamb.

  Daring the infected to come at me, I stormed out onto the lawn.

  I don’t know what wild animals feel when they see strength in other animals—strength that they can’t stand against—but I think they feel fear.

  I walked up to the body of a policeman. The infected that were feeding there scampered out of my way. I picked up the officer’s pistol. I was ready to put a bullet in the head of any infected that challenged me. They didn’t. They kept their distance and went back to feeding.

  I fished around in the remains of the officer’s bloody garments and came up with his belt. The leather was torn through, but it held his spare ammunition clips. They seemed full. The poor guy didn’t have a chance to reload before they overwhelmed him.

  One of the infected got bold and snarled at me. I ignored him while I looked for anything else of value in the officer’s remains.

  With the officer’s belt hanging over my shoulder and a pair of handcuffs in my pocket, I headed for the body of a nearby soldier. Whether my safety among the infected was a result of their fear of my anger or the satisfaction of their full bellies, it didn’t matter to me at that moment. They showed little interest in me.

  There wasn’t much left of the soldier. His gory bones, uniform, helmet and equipment were scattered widely across a red stain on the edge of the parking lot. The infected were done with him and had moved on.

  I fell to my knees among the soldier’s remains trying to figure out what to take. The rifle was a no-brainer. I reached over and scooted that over in front of my knees. The soldier’s harness was covered in blood but looked to be intact. He’d have his extra ammunition and equipment stowed in pouches on the harness. I wanted it.

  On hands and knees, I crawled over to the harness. Coming down off of the rage I felt after thinking about Dan, I started to think clearly. I glanced around quickly to assess my situation. I saw nothing out of the ordinary, out of the new ordinary, and naturally assumed that if I couldn’t see a danger, then it didn’t exist.

  I stuffed the pistol into the front of my pants, picked up the soldier’s rifle and harness and stood.

  “Hey,” someone yelled out of the darkness. It startled me. I froze, but the head of every infected in the parking lot turned toward a doorway at the end of the building across the street.

  Suddenly, running seemed like a good idea. I turned and bolted away from the sound of the voice. A waist-high hedge cut across the lawn and would offer cover in case I needed it.

  My intuition to run proved correct, because in the next moment, I heard the sound of gunfire. One, two, and then three shots shattered the relative calm in the quadrangle.

  The infected were on their feet and staring at the source of the gunfire.

  I jumped, rolling in the air as I cleared the hedge and landed hard on my back. Out of breath, I rolled immediately, then crawled away as fast as I could from where I landed.

  Three more shots echoed and I saw the ground erupt in divots where I’d landed behind the bushes.

  In a singular wave, the infected broke into a run toward the shooter. Howls from more of the infected carried up and down the street. Hundreds of running feet pounded closer on the asphalt.

  I ventured a peek over the bushes and saw at least a dozen infected frozen in their poses, standing and staring straight at me.

  It was time to go. I hoped the shooter came to that same decision and was bugging out in the other direction. I grabbed my equipment and sprinted for the dormitory’s door.

  Chapter 16

  Back on the fifth floor, I knocked lightly on the dorm room door. “Jerome?”

  Feet shuffled softly. The locked clicked. The door eased open. Jerome’s face showed neither relief, nor surprise. He was a cold prick.

  I stepped into the room, angry, but not sure at exactly who or what.

  Jerome picked up on my mood as he closed and locked the door. “We both knew it was dangerous, your going out to get the guns.”

  Because you were too big of a pussy to do it, I didn’t say.

  He stepped toward me, expecting me to hand him one of the weapons.

  I didn’t.

  I was planning to. I was going to. Just not at that moment. Jerome and I were going to have to figure out who the alpha was and I’d lost the first few rounds in that stupid game already. I didn’t want to play, but I absolutely wasn’t going to be subjugated by Jerome, either. I sensed that with him, there were only two choices: lead or follow. Cooperation wasn’t on the table.

  But at that moment, I had all the guns. I had all the power. I wanted that to be clear.

  “Did anything change with Murphy while I was downstairs?” I asked.

  Jerome shrugged and looked toward Murphy, leading my eyes along. Murphy hadn’t moved.

  I dropped the soldier’s harness to the floor and fished a pair of handcuffs out of my heavy left pocket. “I got these for Murphy.” I held them out to Jerome who just looked at them.

  “That’s a good idea, but he’s your friend. You put them on,” Jerome said.

  “Whatever,” I muttered, petulant.

  I knelt by Murphy’s bunk, careful to lay the rifle on the floor beside me. I cuffed Murphy’s wrist to the bed frame by the wall.

  “He’s still burning up,” I said.

  Jerome hadn’t moved an inch from his spot near the door. “It’s the fever.”

  “He’s starting to lose his color,” I observed. “Why does that happen?”

  “It’s a complicated process.”

  “When you guys were studying this in Keny
a, did you learn anything that might give us a clear indication of what Murphy will be like when he wakes up? Should we take his temperature?”

  Jerome shook his head. “No. Temperature is one of the first things we looked at as a predictor. The ones that max on body temperature but regain their mobility quickly tend to be the ones with the greatest loss of intellectual capacity. The ones that linger, like Murphy, tend to have a better chance of coming out as a slow burn, like us. They also have the highest mortality rate. But what you have to understand, Zed, is that nothing is clear-cut on this. Anything could happen.”

  I took a seat on a bunk across the room from Murphy.

  Jerome grabbed one of the desk chairs and sat down near me. “That was a good idea, getting the cuffs.”

  I took the compliment at face value and thawed a bit, “Thanks.” I reached into my waistband, withdrew the policeman’s handgun, and held it out toward Jerome. “Are you cool with the pistol?”

  “I think I’d prefer a pistol.”

  “Cool,” I said. I hefted the rifle. “I think I’d rather have this thing for now. Oh, I think I’ve got three more clips for that pistol. I don’t know how many bullets come in a clip, though.”

  “Depends on the gun, I guess,” said Jerome.

  “Oh.”

  “Zed, I don’t really know that much about guns.”

  “Great,” I laughed. “I don’t know anything about them.”

  Jerome looked down and started to explore the gun in his lap.

  “Be careful,” I said.

  Jerome’s expression made it clear that he didn’t want my trite advice.

  I shrugged and started fumbling around with my gun, realizing quickly that I was out of my depth. I certainly knew what the trigger did and from which end the bullets came out of but I didn’t know anything about how to eject or load a clip. I didn’t know how or when to clean the thing. I knew that it was necessary. Gun people always talked about cleaning their guns. I didn’t know what kind of gun I had. It was some kind of military rifle, I knew that. Perhaps most importantly, I didn’t know whether or not it was empty, or even how to check, aside from pulling the trigger.

  After some time spent experimenting with his weapon, Jerome said, “Thanks for going out and getting the guns. I didn’t really think you’d get shot at. I figured the only danger was from the infected, and most of them were feeding.”