Sealed In Part 21

Chapter Thirteen.

Atlanta, GA

December 23rd

"See ya next year," Dr. Chad Walker cheerfully told his wife as he placed the remaining items into his duffle bag and case.

His wife of eighteen years grumbled, lifted her bourbon gla.s.s, and said, "Whatever."

"I'll call when I can," Chad said, grabbing his things.

"If I don't answer, I may be having multiple affairs."

"I'm sure you will. Enjoy." Smugly, Chad walked out. Where others would hate the thought of where he was going, Chad looked forward to it. Any time away from Belinda was a vacation.

A car was waiting for him outside. Chad was tall and lanky with a small drinker's gut. He gave the driver his bags and got inside. While he wasn't pompous, he spoke as if he was. Educated and brilliant, he had almost an aristocratic dialect.

The driver got in the car. "Shouldn't take long to get there. Rush hour traffic is light today for some odd reason."

"It may get lighter."

"I'm sorry?"

Chad shook his head. "Bad humor. Can we swing by a liquor store, please?"

"Sure thing."

Not that there wouldn't be an ample supply of adult beverages, but Chad wanted to make sure he had his own. It was going to be a long stay.

If anyone could be labeled beyond super intelligent, it was Chad. The CDC knew it, which was why they paid him the big bucks and, more so, why they called him in.

Chad was always years beyond the others when he was growing up, but his parents refused to move him ahead; so Chad tromped the others in intelligence, and then made money off of it by selling answers to homework and doing essays.

When he was fourteen, his school bus pa.s.sed a dog hit by a car. The female dog was pregnant, and Chad pulled out his pocketknife and did an emergency caesarean on the dog right there on the side of the road, while his cla.s.smates watched. He saved two of the puppies, but unfortunately, authorities didn't see his heroics; he spent six months in a juvenile delinquent center for animal mutilation. It didn't hurt him; Chad was so likable he defeated the odds inside the center.

He wasn't a target, so he wasn't beat up. When threatened, he outsmarted and learned how to deal with all kinds of people.

Those skills helped him, and they would help him in his next endeavor.

It wasn't the first time Chad was going into what he like to call the 'Doomsday' lab, a biological protection facility that ran on an old fas.h.i.+on color-coded level system. Aside from security, maintenance, and food workers, the staff was four men and four women. A couple of doctors, nurses, scientists such as Chad, and, of course, the subjects who donated their blood and time for the cause.

In the event of a biological incident or pandemic threat, those in the facility would live there under lockdown, work on the virus, attempt to find a possible cure or solution until the threat was over and the level dropped to yellow, or the designated 'burnout' time frame of 160 days had pa.s.sed, and then the facility would be unlocked. Until then, there was no way out.

Only a couple of times in his career had it gotten to a level red, but the longest Chad was sealed in was thirty-three days. He didn't suspect that would be the case with the current bug.

It went from green to yellow to orange in eight hours.

Eight hours. From the arrival time at Hartworth to the lift off of the survivors, eight hours had pa.s.sed. In a matter of days, four states had been affected, and Chad expected more.

His job wasn't only to beat it, stop it, but find out how it got that far that fast. If it moved in a few days to that many areas, it was only a matter of weeks before it went global.

To say it hadn't left the West Coast, although nothing was confirmed on the East Coast or anywhere else for that matter, was insane. It hadn't been that long; Chad was certain it was out.

Level red or code red wasn't days away, but hours.

He just hoped that Edward Neil was moved to the facility before it automatically shut down.

Ed was fun to work with.

There were a few things arriving from Montana: two survivors, the journal, and 'live' samples. Chad wanted to be at 'Doomsday' before they arrived, be there and set up, but he only had a short period of time before that happened.

During the car ride to the liquor store and then the facility, Chad reviewed his notes and pictures again about the virus on his computer pad.

Ebolapox, as they called it, was baffling and sickening. Someone created it, yet he didn't think anyone would step forward. He hoped they would.

During any of the times in lockdown, never was it a question of what it meant if time ran out.

The burnout time didn't just mean the threat of the virus burned out, it meant humanity did, too. So many people lost their lives that there weren't enough hosts left to carry it. In that situation, society surely was done. Life outside the facility would have changed, and not for the better.

Chad never really gave much thought to that scenario, because he never really saw that as an option. A cure would be found, or the virus would lose power.

However, the current one worried Chad. Ebolapox very well could be unbeatable. It moved too fast and spread too widely for it to be trapped, caught, and cured before too much damage was done. It was like being in a Dodge in a race against a Ferrari. That's how Chad felt, and it was the first time ever that he honestly saw the burnout as a real possibility.

Hartworth, Montana

Edward was just about to rub his eyes, but he stopped. He resisted because he didn't want to take a chance that even something miniscule would make it through the mucus membrane of the eyes.

It was pus.h.i.+ng evening, and they sat in a makes.h.i.+ft meeting room two miles outside of Hartworth in a CDC mobile.

"Where are we?" Edward asked.

Goldman spoke first. "Bodies are being gathered. Be done tomorrow. Town is scheduled for demolition day after Christmas. Preliminary autopsy and testing are done on the doctor and sheriff. Both had the same immunities to the virus. Interestingly enough, not only did both of them have the standard smallpox vaccine scar, they both had an inoculation site which looked similar to the smallpox scar, only dark."

Edward lifted his head. "So it's pretty much confirmed there was an inoculation. But why the sheriff? Were they able to determine how long ago he was inoculated?"

Goldman shook his head. "Not exactly, but it wasn't recent. It was before the release."

"Martha," Edward said. "Numbers."

"Not good. Billings alone has over two hundred confirmed cases; death total has also increased. Reported cases in Was.h.i.+ngton, Iowa, North Dakota, California, and Nevada. Interestingly enough, we haven't found a single person that went to that concert."

"That's because the ones exposed at the concert are dead," Edward said. "Air samples."

"You'll like this," Martha replied with a hint of sarcasm. "There is a small concentration of the virus in 80% of the bio air samples taken in town. In Lincoln, the virus shows up in five out of every ten. Billings, even outside of the concert area, we are getting four out of ten. The good news is that in Lincoln, the virus in the samples is dead. So it died out shortly after the people."

"Billings?"

"Alive," Martha replied. "Because people are still sick there. It is not a safe area."

"Christ." Edward exhaled. "Hartworth."

"Alive."

"How can that be?" Edward asked. "Everyone is dead."

"Because it's still leaking from somewhere. It is the highest concentration out of all locations. In addition, the doctor's house is a hot zone. Alive and thriving."

"So it's there," Edward pointed. "We have to find it before we bulldoze this town. We don't need the weapon buried for a future generation to find and open this Pandora's Box all over again."

"We're on it."

Edward looked over to Harold. "You're being quiet. What's up?"

"Studying our patient zero. I think I theoretically know how this thing got out of control."

Edward gave a sarcastic scoff. "The concert."

"Most part," Harold stated. "But let's just say they were in contact with a few hundred. That would spread it, but not as rapidly to other states like it has been going. Roman was here at the clinic. The last note he made was around 2:30. A patient came in; he marked them off. His debit card was used at a fast food restaurant ten miles from here."

Edward closed his eyes and groaned. "They stopped for take out."

"And then he checked into the Brightside Motel. His debit card was swiped at 5:00 p.m. Brightside is a fleabag motel off the highway. Mainly truckers, which could account for odd locations of the virus popping up. But I tried to contact the motel and ... it burned down."

Edward's attention was caught. "It burned down? When?"

"December 16th. Arson. Someone deliberately set it on fire. Killed everyone. Interestingly enough, Roman is in the computer records and is listed as deceased because his car was still in the lot."

Martha spoke up. "So he and his friend were probably sick, and whoever picked them up lit the place. Had to be the dad or the sheriff. They locked down Hartworth. They knew Roman had the virus and tried to stop it there."

"Exactly," Harold said. "It's my theory that since this thing is a weapon and it is distributed by missiles, it isn't heat resistant."

"Wouldn't the doctor know this?" Edward asked.

Harold nodded. "Yes. But I'm betting he thought only the actual weapon was resistant to heat. Come on, the germ levels in this town tell how strong this thing is."

Edward sighed. "So instead of destroying it, he created a pseudo bomb with the fire."

Harold again nodded. "And the smoke carried it. Yep."

"Oh my G.o.d." Edward spun and picked up the phone. "This thing is now in the red level." He dialed. "And unfortunately it's been there longer than we even knew."

Atlanta, GA

Andy was in a whirlwind emotionally and physically. One minute he was walking through the desolate town of Lincoln filled with despair, the next he was whisked off. Stuffed in a plastic bag, stripped of his clothing, scrubbed and scrubbed again then put into a room.

The room wasn't that bad. It had a bed, dresser, small couch, and table. There was a private bathroom, a computer, and a television with cable. It would have been perfect had it not been for the fact that Andy couldn't get out.

He had been there for hours. They brought him food, clothes, took his blood. They talked to him only briefly. He was clueless as to what was going on. They said very little.

Andy wasn't in a good state of mind. He was still drowning in pain over all that happened.

He didn't regret the decision to help Stew because he knew Stew would have done the same for him. When Stew fell, Andy rushed to help him stand, and then he carried Heather's body inside and returned for Stew.

Stew was ravaged with the illness, and Andy couldn't leave his side. He wiped him down, gave him water, and then watched him die. Stew vomited so much there was nothing left but blood. His body was black and had expanded so much that his skin peeled and ripped. The final moments of his life were a few short labored breaths, a stare, and Stew was gone.

Stew died early in the morning on the 20th. The ground was too cold to bury him and Heather, and Andy didn't want to take a chance of throwing the virus into the air by burning them. So he planned to return. He turned off the heat. The winter would serve as a freezer.

Andy stayed in the house until the next morning, but he knew. He could see Emma's house from Stew's and there hadn't been a light on in over a day.

He didn't want to take a chance that the germ was on him, and Andy had no plans to touch Emma, but he wanted to talk to her.

He walked to the house, knocked, peeked in the window, and then went inside.