Parasite; The True Story of the Zombie Apocalypse Read online

"I don't think the dead have come back to life," I said, fully confident of the statement.  It would be absurd to think that the dead could be walking around.  I remembered that old black and white movie and had to almost laugh.

  "Dead-looking human beings, biting and eating other humans.  Where have I gone wrong?" the computer specialist shot back sarcastically.

  "This isn't some B rated movie," I countered.  "This is a viral outbreak, maybe a plague that manifests homicidal tendencies."  I could see Ned edging his way closer to my antagonist.

  "What kind of plague causes people to want to eat other people?"

  "My husband had me read a paper on a parasite which makes mice try to have cats eat them.  The parasite takes control of the mouse and makes it lose all fear of cats, forcing it to literally crawl into the mouth of a cat."  I paused for effect.  "This doesn't seem so very different to me."

  Ned led John away from the gathering as I answered the few remaining questions.  I could see the two speaking somewhat animatedly but thankfully, in hushed tones.  John's pudgy face was scarlet as he stated his case, but Ned was getting through to him.

  One thing about being trapped in an office is that we may gossip and backstab, but we know how to organize and work as a team.  The group of about twenty people began to break off into teams.  Some gathered any type of foodstuff for rationing, while others began creating makeshift weapons.  We had TV watchers, 911 callers and a small division of people e-mailing from smartphones.

  The floor came alive once again.  People who could possibly be infected were closely monitored, while the known infected were confined to the floor manager's office, bound and watched to make sure they didn't spread the disease anymore.

  It was when we tried to open the big boss's office door that we found him.  He had barricaded himself inside.  It took three of our largest men to push their way into his office.  There, we found him crying, half drunk on a bottle of bourbon.  He was lying in the fetal position, his necktie pulled loose and his black suit crumpled like he had slept in it. The effects of the alcohol turned his usually overly tanned skin slightly gray.  As he rose unsteadily to his feet, I casually looked him over as well as possible for any sign of possible infection.  He looked free of bites, so I chalked it off as being ill from the strong drink.  The lousy rat had blocked himself in his office, resigning us to fend for ourselves.

  His name was Thaddeus Wentworth, Division Manager and head of Xanthco's northwest district.  We always thought he was a good leader until now.  It's funny.  Until you really need a leader, you never know just who would be best for the job.  I was just a cubical jockey, but it seemed most of the workers were reporting to me.  Even Ned seemed to defer to my decisions.

  I'm not so sure I was the greatest person to lead my coworkers, but it was my new job.  Everyone seemed to walk right around Thaddeus and asked for my approval of even the smallest of matters.

  Some of the administrative assistants wanted to make help signs for the windows out of pieces of printer paper.  Even though I knew you'd probably never be able to see it through the heavily tinted glass, I approved the idea, even encouraged it.  I wanted to keep everyone busy, keep their hopes alive and to give them purpose.  I approved many silly ideas to this end.  I remembered reading a book by Viktor Frankl a long time ago, a Jew who survived a Nazi death camp.

  He outlined how many of the survivors who were driven by having a purpose, lived.  Some of the people who died seemed to lack this motivation.  They gave up.  I didn't know if Frankl's theory was sound, but I sure wasn't going to discard any ideas without trying first. We did have people who gave into their despair.  Some women and a few men just sat and cried.  There were the ones who refused to help, sending texts and continuously dialing and redialing phone numbers of loved ones.  But I was successful at motivating most of our group to take part in small tasks to keep them busy.

  Watching one of these workers, fingers flying over her QWERTY keyboard, made me think of Henry.  I needed to find out if he was ok.  I rifled through my purse and pulled out my iPhone.  The signal was good so I tried to call him.  The line immediately went to voicemail, so I warned him about the viral outbreak, or whatever the news was calling it and told him to get in a safe place.  After telling him, I loved him I hung up and sent a text restating the same information.

  You have to understand.  My husband is a brilliant entomologist; but outside of his field, he's oblivious.  He can barely use his cell phone.  And as far as being observant, he walks around with his head in the clouds.  Don't get me wrong.  I love him beyond anything, but he probably was going to miss the message as well as the text I just sent.  He just wouldn't see them.

  While leaning back in a desk chair, I sent a couple more texts to his phone, as well as some friends'.  Neither one of us had any immediate family, so that limited my concerns.  No one returned any of my texts. It was about this time that I felt how totally exhausted I was.  I looked at the time on my cell phone and saw that it was after three in the morning.  We had been at this for over twelve hours with no stop.  The mood in the office had also changed.  There were no more small jobs to do.  Most people were sitting around slumped in their chairs.  Some were even lying on the floor.  A few looked like they were asleep.

  I conferred with Ned and we came up with a sleeping order and set some of our coworkers who weren't asleep to the first watch.  I grabbed an old sweater that I kept in my cubicle and used it as a makeshift pillow, covering my upper half with my suit jacket.  My feet were a little cold, but all in all, I was decently comfortable.

  I didn't sleep as much as rest.  Half awake, I found it impossible to actually slumber.  Sure, my eyes closed, but I never totally dozed off.

  After about two hours, I opened my eyes and gave up.  I pulled on my suit jacket and relieved one of the people on the Internet. While I was trying to sleep, the network had come back online, so I scanned pages at the CDC and WHO.  Both confirmed that they were working to contain this outbreak and gave safety information.  There was nothing we didn't already know, but they did confirm that a bite spread the sickness. People should avoid or restrain anyone bitten.

  There was also a disturbing paragraph outlining that a severe blow to the head was the only way to kill one of the people stricken with the disease.  The federal government imposed martial law.  It went on to exonerate anyone who killed one of the infected for the sole purpose of defending oneself or other innocents.  This strange legalization of killing through head trauma repeated on every site I visited.  Many times in large, bold print and repeated over and over.

  After about an hour, I gave up.  I called Hank again with the same results.  I sent a few more texts describing what I had read with the strange belief that the more messages I sent him, the better the likelihood he would take notice.  My poor, self-absorbed, mate.  I needed to get to him and maybe even to protect him from himself.

  He lives in a bubble, although he does have a certain rugged quality. Being a professor of bugs, as I like to call him, he isn't at all squeamish.  He also spends a lot of time outdoors, many times outside of the United States searching for specimens.  But he is alone so much and depends on me too much.  In many ways, he's like a super smart child.  A leader, he is not. The door to the stairs was holding and still being watched by two of the staff.  Two others were hastily assigned to the elevator.  Although it had gone between floors a few times, still hadn't stopped on ours.  The main threat was that we had people who had full-blown cases of the disease and some who were just in the infected stage.  The latter, we placed in a conference room, which was the only other room available.  The other room was Thaddeus's office, which was where we had the fully infected people bound.  We couldn't admit someone who was just potentially sick to that room.  It wouldn't be right, so we used the mostly-glass conference room and just had to make that do.

  One of the workers bitten by the first-floor girl was being bo
und now.  There wasn't a struggle.  She seemed unaware of her situation as two burly fellows tied her up.  In moments, she would be transferred to the office as a more secure holding area.  It made me shiver, thinking that she, in a short while, would become a violent, flesh-eating, predator.  Thankfully, many of my coworkers would sleep through her removal from the glass room.  At least her friends would since they were all sleeping at the moment.

  Sleep finally took me, leaning back in my chair.  One moment I was resting my eyes and the next I was sound asleep.

  The noise of the elevator doors opening brought me out of my dream, the signal tone sounded, as if to beckon new passengers, soon after.  I don't know how long I was out but my neck ached as I leaned forward.  I put a hand on the offending area and tried to rub the knots out of the strained muscles as my mind slowly began to focus.

  My moment of disorientation shifted to panic when I figured out what had awakened me.  Unseen hands pawed and pushed at the barricade we had built to block the elevator's entrance.  Desks and file cabinets shifted as the infected on the other side struggled to gain entrance.  The people watching from this side rushed to secure the defense as a file cabinet crashed to the carpet.  The racket, as well as possibly seeing glimpses of healthy human flesh, made the occupants of the elevator work harder at clearing a way in.  Moans erupted from the tiny enclosure, which were immediately joined by ones at the stairs.  Both entryways literally rattled with renewed effort from our foes.

  I ran to the pile holding them back and searched for a way to reinforce the slowly moving blockade.  It was giving in.  Our efforts were merely going to slow them down.

  The rest of my coworkers joined us in a semicircle around the barricade.  Weapons in hand, we had no choice other than to fight.  Metal bars, originally to support cubicle walls, were held like baseball bats and other crude cudgels were brandished as well.

  As we waited, I heard one woman speaking to someone, possibly her husband or child, telling them that she loved them.  This gave me an idea.  My phone was still in my hand.  I woke the device and hit the call button.  Henry’s phone began to ring.

  Chapter 6

  Henry