The Apocalypse

Chapter 7

Eric

Washington D.C.



As Sarah Rivers waited in another, even longer line at the Country Market in Waynestown, Indiana, Eric Reidy stood in the White House situation room, feeling sweat spreading from his armpits in an ever widening circle. When he breathed it came out as a shaky sigh. He was normally good at public speaking, however he had never spoken before the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Secretary of State, or the Secretary of Defense, or the Secretary of This or That. All these important people stared at him, which was bad enough, yet when the President came storming into the room in a fury, Eric feared he would have a new stain to deal with.

“You've got ten minutes,” the President said brusquely. “And let me be clear, I don't want your briefing done with any scientific mumbo-jumbo. The guy who was in here yesterday couldn't spit out a word unless it was twenty syllables long and all he did was confuse the issue.”

The “Guy” had been the Director of the Center for Disease Control, Thomas Villar and his double PhD status hadn't impressed the President a lick. Eric, despite only possessing a master's degree in microbiology, had been chosen to do the follow up with the President because he was more in tune with public relations than actual laboratory work. The truth was, viruses gave him the heebie-jeebies, but the pay at the CDC was phenomenal and the expectations low. His kind of work, until now.

“Yes sir,” Eric answered. How on earth was he supposed to cover everything in ten minutes? Quickly he turned on the projector showing the continental United States. “Uh…first, the red shaded areas are where the known outbreaks of the uh…” Eric paused. He had been about to spit out the scientific name of the virus, which was a good thirty-two letters long, instead he swallowed audibly and said, “The virus. As you can see southern Florida and Louisiana are hardest hit, but we now can confirm that Mobile, Houston, Norfolk, New York and Providence…really all of Rhode Island has seen some activity.”

“What about the orange circles?” the president asked, pointing, as behind him his Yes-Men all nodded sagely in agreement.

Their bobbing heads were a distraction and Eric had to force his eyes back to the projection. “The orange represents areas where we can't confirm the virus has traveled to, but we strongly suspect that it has. This is mainly due to reports of…yes sir? Did you want to say something?”

The President sat glaring at Eric as if the map was his fault. “That's the entire eastern sea board and the gulf coast. And Denver? And Seattle? Are you sure?”


Eric shook his head. “I'm not in a position to confirm that any area in the orange zones has viral activity. However the Director has asked me to reiterate that if martial law is not called today it will be for certain that the virus will spread into these areas. Mathematical probabilities render it an absolute fact. I have a brief concerning the statistics behind the rendered…”

“Ahem,” a general said clearing his throat and standing. The man's chest was so covered in commendations, medals and ribbons that it seemed almost to be a joke. He didn't wait for the President to acknowledge him. “This was suggested three days ago by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I want it on record that if you hesitate any longer, Mr. President, then containment will be flat out impossible.”

“Will it?” the President asked, and it was a moment before Eric realized that he was being addressed.

Eric had to shrug. “I…uh, I don't know. I'm not sure what your containment strategies are or how effective they'll be.”

“Just give me your best guess, damn it!” the President thundered slamming his fist down onto the table. Behind him a dozen faces glared at Eric.

“A guess isn't really scientifically…” Eric bit his words off as the President's brown eyes bored into him. “Okay…if I had to guess, I would say that I'd agree with the general here. This virus has the potential of spreading exponentially. How it began, and how it spreads we don't know, but it has a firm hold on the rat population in the major cities in the red zones. What we've found is that the rats have for the most part, been attacking the homeless and the indigent: prostitutes, runaways, or maybe just kids getting high and unable to protect themselves. From there the virus is spreading to the first responders. Police departments are reporting large numbers of their officers are complaining of flu like symptoms…”

“Rats aren't the damned problem,” a man in a blue suit said. “It's the zombies that are the damned problem.” The word zombie had an odd affect on the men and women gathered, none so much as snickered, instead they glanced to the President who set his mouth but said nothing.

Eric bobbed his head and stammered, “Yes, well, in a sense you're right, however as it pertains to containment it is the rats that will be more of an issue than the altered persons. A wounded rat will crawl off to die, maybe in the back of a truck, or in the hold of a boat, or in a bag of potatoes destined for a grocery store five states away. And then when you think you have the zombies contained, that rodent will, uh re-animate for want of a better word and start the cycle up again hundreds of miles away.”

“So if we can stop the rats, we can stop the spread of this virus?” the President asked making it clear with how he said virus that he wasn't going to put up with the term zombie any longer. He tried glaring some more but then sagged, looking haggard; his dark black hair seemed to have gone grey overnight.

“And the red zones will have to be contained,” Eric said flipping back to the previous slide. “Completely contained. If that's even possible. Though it would help the CDC immensely if we knew the origin of the virus. There's been talk of terrorist attacks. If this is true we need to know the country of origin and…”

“We're looking into it,” an advisor of the president mentioned.

Once again the general stood and his face was livid. “Save the political correctness for the media. We all know the muslims were behind this. Every piece of intel that's come across my desk says so in the very clearest terms. Hell, we even have the Iranians confirming this.”

The President motioned for his general to sit before he said, “There may have been terrorist ties to this, but we can't know for certain and until we do I won't have Americans turning on one another. For now we will stick to the story that it's Legionnaires disease being spread by rats.”

“And the country of origin?” Eric asked.

“Like he said, we're looking into it,” the President answered vaguely. “In the mean time Mr. Reidy, I need an estimate on when we can expect a cure.”

Eric cleared his throat. “There won't be one. Viruses don't have cures. What we are working on is a vaccine, which is denatured version of the virus, meaning the pathogencity is removed and thus the body's...”

“We know what a vaccine is,” the President said coldly. “How long until one is available?”

“Months to years,” Eric replied. “Maybe never. I can't tell you for certain at this early stage, though it would help if we knew where this came from, what family it's in. Right now we have scientists working blindly and any information could trim weeks off the initial work.”

“When we have the information, you'll be the first to know,” the President allowed. He then covered his face with his long brown hands and rubbed his eyes. “Alright...alright, as of now I am declaring martial law. General Chaky, I am putting you in charge of enforcing the quarantine for all the red zones. It has to be air tight, until we can set up safe zones in the rear to move people into.”

“That won't be enough,” Eric said. “Those orange areas can't be ignored. They have to be policed as well and the people in them can't be allowed to leave either until it is known for an absolute certainty that they are clean. That means the airports and the harbours and the roads, all have to be shut down completely.”

“See that it happens,” the President said. The general did not wait for further orders and led his group of uniformed personnel out of the room.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services stood and said, “We have to create and distribute vaccines to three-hundred and thirty million people, before it's too late. I'm going to need every scientist from every university in America brought down to the CDC in Atlanta.”

Eric sat down as the various cabinet members asked questions and made points, mostly concerning aspects under their purview. What escaped his notice, not until much later was that the Secretaries of Agriculture and Transportation were for the most part silent.

Unfortunately theirs were political positions, and each were usually concerned with renewable energies or climate solutions, or minority rights or the like.

All of which was fine under normal circumstances but the real issue facing America just then—besides a growing horde of zombies—was how they were going to feed three-hundred and thirty million people, none of who were allowed to travel legally, and those two men were utterly clueless.