Influenza: Viral Virulence (10 page)

Chapter 11

Over the next
couple of weeks, Michael tried to convince his two roommates to pack their things and head home. But both Brian and Scott insisted that they wanted to stay put and try to wait it out. After all, they said, their families were safe, and this crisis might just pass them by. Then, things would get back to normal. The flu virus had spread rampantly through Ohio. Any travel outside the confines of their apartment could be dangerous. In the meantime, they would stay indoors and not risk going out and being infected.

Sandy made herself at home and seemed to fit in well. Confined to the house, both Brian and Scott spent lots of time petting her and giving her treats. She was starting to put some weight back on her bones. Confirming Michael’s belief that she had been previously well trained, Sandy proved to be housebroken and obediently did her business when Michael took her out the back door.

Michael would have left if he’d had access to his truck. He had tried both the garage and the emergency number that Gary had left on his homemade sign many times. Phones would ring, but no one would answer. It was very frustrating.

Lorie had tried to call her parents, but there was no answer at their house, and her attempts to contact them on their cell phones were unsuccessful. She told Michael over the landline that most of the girls in the sorority house had been picked up by their parents or left on their own. Some had already been showing signs of sickness before they left. Lorie was trying to stay in her room mostly and ventured out only for necessities. If she did leave her room, she always wore a mask and washed her hands before returning.

They all stayed isolated within the confines of their respective living spaces. They didn’t want to step outside and risk exposure. Not knowing if the virus was transmitted solely from other humans, they had to take into account that maybe animals could also be carriers. In the Middle Ages, the bubonic plague had been transmitted by the tiniest of insects, the common flea.

Immediately after the CDC newscast and subsequent breakdown of internet and cell phone communication, the three young men had sat down together at the kitchen table and laid some ground rules to optimize their chances of surviving the crisis.

First, no one was to go outside. If they had to go outside, they must wear a mask and gloves. Second, no one else was allowed to enter their apartment. It was harsh, but necessary if they didn’t want to risk being infected. Finally, the food was to be rationed to last as long as possible based on a 1,500- to 2,000-calorie-per-day diet.

All the meager information they received about the outside world came via the 24-7 newscast alerts on the television. Most of the news stations on the TV seemed generic and censored. However, a few stations showed the graphic reality of what was happening in the world around them. Often, they had to try to discern the truth from hysteria.

The influenza virus primarily killed through complications caused by acute respiratory problems. Antibiotics are ineffective against viruses. Antivirals were of limited use and only prolonged the misery of the dying. Some deaths could have been prevented by vigorous treatment with a multitude of IV drugs and medical equipment, but these were found primarily in hospitals.

Unfortunately, the hospitals were quickly overrun with flu victims. Not only had medical supplies quickly run out, but hospital employees were in short supply. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, and other essential people were the first to be exposed to the virus. Most of the health professionals who were supposed to help the sick quickly became the victims themselves. The few medical professionals who remained were then overwhelmed with the demand for medical services. Many hospital workers saw the handwriting on the wall and left their area of high-risk exposure to go home and take care of their own families.

Most of the sick could no longer go to the hospital emergency room for treatment. Doctors’ offices were closed, and hospitals became funeral homes. People were dying in their homes and on the streets. There was no one left to collect or claim the bodies. The stench of death hovered in the air.

At first, the influenza virus caused an outpouring of sympathy for those who were exposed. There was a lot of grief and sadness for the victims. Many wanted to help those who were infected. As the flu continued to spread and kill more and more people, public sympathy shifted from the infected to those who had not yet been infected. More people became concerned with how best to protect themselves from contracting the flu virus.

The last public report was issued by the Centers for Disease Control on a Wednesday night. The report showed that over 72 percent of the population had the virus, and the number was growing exponentially on a daily basis. The influenza virus was found in all areas of the country from coast to coast. Of the people infected who had not received the flu vaccine, the mortality rate was around 77 percent. Of the people who had received the flu vaccine, the mortality rate was above 93 percent. It was almost a death sentence for those people who had received the flu vaccine. Thinking they were protecting themselves, they had unwittingly signed their own death certificates.

The influenza virus had seeded itself in large population centers and spread quickly outward. The urban areas were hit hard and fast, while the flu spread through the rural areas at a slower rate. It was rare that a town was spared. Anyone who stepped outside their home or had contact with other humans ran a high risk of catching the virus.

Both the police force and the military were crippled by the virus. By the time they had taken protective measures to prevent the spread of influenza within their own ranks, it was too late. They had all been required to have the flu vaccine administered earlier in the summer as a preventative measure.

In the early stages of the epidemic, curfews had been put in place to try to quell the growing violence and looting. The National Guard had been called up to assist, and later the military had to take over. Martial law was in full effect, but with too few healthy personnel to keep the peace, they could do little to stop the violence, let alone the spread of the influenza virus. Chaos and lawlessness soon gained the upper hand.

Government leadership was surprisingly absent. There was no sign of the president. The only person who appeared before the cameras was the White House spokesperson, who didn’t seem to have any answers. Rumors spread that most of the leadership in government had succumbed to the virus because they were among the first to receive the flu vaccine.

People stopped going to work. If they weren’t sick, they stayed at home in front of the television with their families, watching the accelerating decline of society around them. With people not showing up to work, stores remained closed, products were not delivered, and gas stations ran out of fuel. Without anyone to run the machine of commerce, the wheels of the economy soon ground to a halt.

Locally, the news showed scenes of mayhem at grocery stores. With no place to park, cars continually circled around the lots like vultures looking for prey. When a spot did open up, cars would collide into one another trying to force their way in. Other people would park far away and walk the distance to the store.

One television station showed a brawl erupting inside a local supermarket. Soon, people were just running into the stores and grabbing what they could. Fistfights often broke out as people fought over the limited supplies of groceries. Some resorted to stealing other people’s food at gunpoint. It was a chaotic madhouse.

Worse, stores and other locations where people gathered in numbers were breeding grounds for the influenza virus. All it took was one infected person showing up for the virus to spread through an inconspicuous cough or sneeze. The virus spread by direct and indirect contact—such as a sick person touching a shopping cart and then a new victim touching the same cart. The virus spread like wildfire.

Many grocery store shelves were emptied within a few hours, and with no hope for resupply, people started to get desperate. Beginning in major cities, rioting and looting became common. With no authority left to stop it, the violence, like the flu virus, spread to outlying areas. Those with guns started taking from those who had no protection. Ferocity and killing ran rampant in the streets, with no one to stand in the way. As Edmund Burke prophetically wrote almost three hundred years ago, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Electricity soon became an issue. With most utility workers dead and the few remaining ones unwilling to go to work, coal and natural gas facilities were soon unable to produce electrical energy. Without trained personnel to monitor nuclear power plants, supervisors had to give the order to initiate a cold shutdown to prevent a possible meltdown scenario. The only power plants that remained up and running for a few days longer were the hydroelectric facilities, like the Hoover Dam. But even these plants were quickly overwhelmed by the demand from other grid blackouts and started to fail themselves.

Initially, most of the students had jumped in their cars and headed for home. Some tried to tough it out by staying in their rooms. Eventually, they ran out of food and other supplies and were forced back out in the open, where they were exposed…or worse.

Occasionally, Michael and his friends heard sporadic gunfire outside. Thankfully, it seemed to occur in the distance for now. At first, they would hear police sirens running back and forth. But as the days progressed and the virus spread, they no longer heard the sound of sirens. They assumed that either the law had contracted the deadly virus, or the police had retreated to their homes to protect their own families. Brian and Michael had done their best to barricade the doors, while Scott had hung heavy blankets over the windows to block any light from escaping the apartment. While Scott was hanging a blanket on the front window, he spotted a man walking down the street carrying a hunting rifle. They quickly hid from sight until he passed by.

They took turns watching the street. The next day, another man passed by on the street, but he wasn’t carrying a gun, and he had a blank, distant stare. The man reminded Michael of catatonic patients he had seen in his hospital rotation who were locked away in the psych ward. He ambled from one side of the street to the other. His mouth was open, and spittle was dribbling from one of the corners. He passed by their apartment and continued to shuffle his way down the street until he was out of sight.

Michael pulled out a rolled-up blanket from underneath his bed. From inside the blanket, he retrieved his twelve-gauge pump shotgun. It had been a gift from his father, and he had kept it well hidden inside his truck. For obvious reasons, he had removed the shotgun from its hiding place when he had taken the vehicle to Gary’s garage. He had also stashed the shells in his desk drawer behind some folders. Then, he had wrapped the weapon in a blanket and stored it under the bed, because the college had strict rules against any student having weapons. Even off campus, Michael ran the risk of being expelled if they found out he had a firearm in his apartment.

The three friends stayed safe inside, but then they began to catch cabin fever. Being stuck inside their tiny apartment was starting to make them antsy to do something…anything. They tried to pass the time by playing cards in front of the television set, but after a while, even that began to get monotonous. The only bright light in Michael’s day was when he talked with Lorie on the phone. Like clockwork, they spoke every morning and again each evening before retiring to bed.

Two weeks after the CDC doctor had announced that the flu vaccine was a danger to the population, the electrical grid started to fail in their small university town.

Michael and his friends had to do something. They couldn’t stay in their apartment forever. Eventually, they would run out of supplies, no matter how much food Michael had brought home from the grocery store. They started dividing up the essentials and packing their things in preparation to leave for their respective homes.

Lorie was more than ready to leave. She was now alone in a vacant sorority house, and she was anxious about her parents. She was still unable to get in touch with them. It was also becoming increasingly dangerous for a single woman to be alone on campus. She had locked up the sorority house as best as she could, but anyone could easily break a window or kick in a door. Even if they didn’t know she was there, people were starting to get desperate for food and might break in to look for something to eat.

Michael tried to quell his anxiety about Lorie. After all, she wasn’t completely helpless. They kept in touch on the landline several times a day. She had plenty of food in the sorority kitchen. In addition to a few self-defense classes she had taken a few years ago, she had a small supply of kitchen knives stashed in her room. It wasn’t much, and Michael knew she couldn’t hold out against any kind of assault. Worried about her, he promised to stop by shortly and get her. But there was something else he had to do first.

Chapter 12

Michael headed out
alone the next evening just before dusk. Sandy whimpered as he closed the back door. She wanted to come along, but it was safer for both of them if she stayed home. He walked along the deserted streets and marveled at how quiet the world had become. A few houses showed signs of life along the way—a dim light showing through drawn curtains, an occasional slam of a door, a murmur of voices behind the walls. But other than that, it was dead quiet.

Brian and Scott had tried to come with him on his quest, but Michael had adamantly refused. Neither Brian nor Scott had a firearm, and they wouldn’t be able to help him. Besides, Michael could move more quickly and silently by himself than the three of them could. And he knew the way by heart, since he had traveled it many, many times before.

He walked cautiously along the sidewalks. Trying to keep hidden in the growing shadows of the large oak trees as the sun slowly descended on the horizon, Michael made his way to the pharmacy. When he approached areas that were open and unprotected, like a street intersection, he stopped, took a few moments to look around, and then hurried across, running low to the ground.

When he was about halfway to the pharmacy, out of the quiet evening nightfall, he heard sudden yelling and screaming in the distance. He could not tell how far away it was. He froze and backed up against a nearby wooden fence, hoping the shadows would conceal him.

Was it a man or a woman making the noise? He couldn’t tell. But it had definitely been a sound of desperation and fear. The yelling continued, and then he heard the abrupt crack of a pistol. His heart started pounding loudly in his chest. Then, all was quiet once again.

Which direction had the shot come from? He couldn’t tell. Was it behind him? Or was he walking into danger? He reached up over his shoulder with his right hand and touched the stock of his shotgun for comfort. He looked at his watch and forced himself to stay put. It seemed like forever as he frantically dialed up all of his senses to detect any approaching danger. Since the light was starting to fail, he had to rely on his sense of hearing. The seconds became minutes, and after hearing nothing for five minutes, he slowly and silently started to move again.

He didn’t know what had scared him more: the previous sounds of violence or the lack of sirens afterward. He seriously questioned whether there was anyone in law enforcement left in town to even respond. Had the world around them descended into utter chaos? How could this have happened so quickly?

Michael carefully continued on his journey. He was even more cautious now. He managed to travel along the dimly lit back roads most of the way. By the time he finally neared the pharmacy, the thick blackness of night covered the town. He approached Main Street from a dark side road. The streetlights lined the road like tall, thin aliens. Crouched in the cover of darkness behind a hedge, he watched the lights flicker on and off from the unpredictable electrical service. A few of the streetlights looked like they had been busted from either gunshots or rocks. There was a small, blue car to his left that had crashed into one of the light poles. It just remained there. No one would ever come and remove the wreck…

Peering over the hedge and planning his approach to the front pharmacy door, he saw that he would have to cross the open area beneath the flickering lights. When on, the lights illuminated the entire street and parking lot. He would be completely exposed. When they flickered off, it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light, but it seemed reasonably safe to cross. He looked as far to the left and right as he could, and no living soul was in sight. But someone could still be hiding in the dark alleyways between the stores or concealed in the thick ornamental bushes lined along the sidewalk. There was a single SUV parked in the pharmacy lot. It had probably been abandoned there, but someone could be hiding behind it, ready to ambush any unsuspecting person who passed by. He crouched in the darkness, looking everywhere for movement. There wasn’t any.

Building up his courage, he waited for the electric lights to eventually fail again.

After a few moments, the humming lights flickered and then went out. The adrenaline rushed through his body as Michael stood up and ran out into the open and across the street. He tried to stifle the slap of his shoes against the pavement and the sound of his breath rushing in and out of his lungs. He tried to run as silently as possible.

The streetlights were still out as he made his way across the parking lot. He raced past the SUV and looked behind it, ready to pull out his shotgun at any sign of movement. Nobody was there. As he reached the front door to the store, the lights flickered back on. He quickly spun around to face the way he had just come, with his right hand on the stock of his weapon. He pulled the shotgun out and quickly loaded a shell into the breach. No one was there.
Better safe than sorry
, he thought, holding the gun tightly in trembling hands.

Again, he quickly scanned the parking lot. Nothing moved. That was when he noticed the figure in the driver’s seat of the SUV. With fear rising inside him, Michael swung his shotgun around and pointed it at the figure. Looking down the iron sights of the barrel, he aimed at the shadowy driver. As the failing light from the streetlight filtered through the windshield of the vehicle, the interior was more in shadow than not. The driver still didn’t move, nor did he take any notice of Michael leveling a pump shotgun at him. What was the man doing out in the middle of the parking lot? And why was he just sitting there in the SUV?

Michael could see that it was a man leaning back in the driver’s seat. The man’s mouth seemed to be wide open. As Michael looked closer, he saw that the figure had dried vomit on his chin. Unseeing eyes stared straight out the window. The man was dead.

As Michael stared in disbelief and disgust, he wondered how long the body had been there. Had he died today, yesterday, or the day before? What was even more disturbing was that no one had picked up the body. No medical personnel, no police, not even family members. Did anyone miss this man? Was there a family waiting at home for him to return? Or was everyone who knew him already dead? He swallowed the lump that had begun to form in his throat.

How could this have happened? His mind was reeling, and some still-sane part of him wondered if he himself was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Only a few months ago, he’d had an ideal life. His biggest worry was moving out into the workforce and becoming independent. Now, his world—actually, everyone’s world—was collapsing. There were crashed vehicles in the streets, dead bodies lying exposed, and signs of violence everywhere. He wished that this was all just a bad dream and that he would wake up from the horror and be back in a comfortable, normal world. If he could just wake up…

A metallic scratching noise to his left brought his mind crashing back into focus. Michael swung the shotgun toward the noise. It was just a crow landing on the store gutter. When his heart slowed down a little, he scanned the parking lot one last time, and then he turned his attention to the crooked sign hanging on the broken store door:

Flu Shots Available

Ask your friendly Pharmacist for Details

No Appointment Needed

Covered by most participating insurances

As Michael stood there looking at the sign, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he decided to do neither.

He looked inside and remembered that just a few days ago, Janice had been standing right there with a mask held out for him to take.

Not bothering to open the door, Michael crouched down and simply stepped through the broken glass opening. The tiny shards of glass crunched under his shoes as he quickly cleared the doorway and moved off to the right. At least if someone was waiting inside the store to ambush him, he wouldn’t be an easy target in the exposed doorway.

The fluorescent lights flickered off, once more plunging the store into darkness. The only illumination came from the battery-operated emergency-exit signs. As Michael stood frozen in place, he neither heard nor noticed any movement in the aisles. Maybe no one was in the store at the moment, but that didn’t mean that someone couldn’t come in through the front door at any time.

The overhead lights cycled back on, and Michael moved slowly, from aisle to aisle, toward the back of the store. At each aisle, he stopped and looked down the length of shelves for any intruders. The store had definitely been looted. Merchandise was everywhere, scattered on the shelves haphazardly and strewn on the floor. The snack aisle had been cleaned out, and the coolers along the wall had been emptied of beer, drinks, and frozen food. Some of the glass cooler doors had been left open, and Michael could hear the motorized cooling units struggling. He was almost to the pharmacy department when the lights flickered out once again.

He stood still and allowed his eyes to adjust to the sole light source coming from the exit sign. Being red, it gave everything a sickly hue. Once his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he made his way to the pharmacy counter. The pharmacy itself was locked. The metal gate had been lowered over the counter where customers normally paid for and received their prescriptions. As Michael looked closer, he could see where someone had tried to pry the gate open from the bottom and the side. At least, in this case, the gate had won that battle.

The lights buzzed back on, and he moved around to the side where the entry door for the pharmacy employees was located. This door hadn’t held up as well as the gate. Looking severely damaged, it was ajar. Judging by the splintering of wood around the lock, someone had taken a crowbar or sledgehammer to it.

Michael carefully swung the door open and peered inside. It looked as if the shelves had been ransacked just like the main store. Bottles of pills lay everywhere. Some had spilled their contents over the pharmacy floor, which was now covered with a rainbow assortment of capsules and tablets in varying shapes and sizes.

As Michael slowly stepped into the pharmacy, his shoes knocked some loose bottles, and they went rolling across the floor. With his shotgun in one hand, he removed the empty backpack from his shoulders with his free hand. The overhead lights were still temporarily on—for how long, he didn’t know. He quickly scanned the shelves for the items he was looking for. Not surprisingly, all of the hydrocodone and benzodiazepines were missing. He grabbed a few bottles with the drug name ending in “cillin,” like amoxicillin and penicillin. He was able to scrounge up a few more antibiotics, but in this mess, he was sure there were more that he couldn’t find.

He looked at the small refrigerator against the back wall that held some of the temperature-sensitive medications. At that moment, he was reminded of a book he had read a few years back where an EMP had taken out the electrical grid, and the main character’s daughter had needed insulin from the pharmacy to survive. He wondered now if the author realized that he had somewhat predicted future events…

Moving closer to the back of the pharmacy, Michael saw that the locked “controlled substances” cabinet had been broken into. He guessed that the contents of this cabinet were the perpetrator’s primary goal. Everything inside had been taken. This was where the heavy-duty pain medications were stored. Since Michael had no interest in any of the controlled substances, he took no further notice. If they didn’t overdose on the plethora of drugs located within, Michael knew they’d eventually run out and would then suffer painful, if not deadly, acute withdrawal.

Still moving as quickly as stealth would allow, Michael grabbed the last bottle of sulfamethoxazole and stuffed it into his backpack. He had himself on a strict time limit, since he knew that this store, actually any store, was a target for looters, drug-crazed addicts, and desperately hungry people. And anyone daring to loot would most probably be armed.

Before leaving the pharmacy for what would be the last time, Michael went to the cash register. The register itself had been broken into and the cash drawer opened. Obviously, whoever broke the cash register didn’t know that the cash was removed every day and locked in a thick, fortified-steel store safe. Not that money was going to be of much use any longer. It may be worth something for kindling a fire…

From his pocket, Michael pulled out his checkbook and wrote out a check to the store for an amount that he figured would cover the cost of the things he had gathered. He really didn’t know if his check would ever be deposited, but at least it eased his conscience somewhat. As he slid the check underneath the broken cash register, he wondered how futile his actions were. Was he trying to differentiate himself from a looter? Wasn’t he, by his current actions, a criminal? Or was he simply trying to survive? There wasn’t time enough right now for him to debate the finer lines of morality, so he slid the signed check under the register and left through the broken pharmacy door.

Once out in the main part of the store again, he quickly moved to the over-the-counter medications. It was a mess, and there wasn’t much left. He grabbed a few boxes of bandages, a couple tubes of topical antibiotics, and some other miscellaneous packages of anti-inflammatories and aspirin. He eyed the bottles of hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol, but realized that the weight of those bottles would be too much for him to carry, especially if he had to run. Leaving the antiseptics behind, Michael made his way quickly to the aisle that had some basic hardware tools. Not seeing what he was looking for, he returned to the front of the store and ducked back out through the broken glass of the main door.

It was at that time that the lights went out for the very last time. The grid was down for good.

Emerging from the store into the cool, fresh night air once again, he stood dead still and looked for any movement. Securing his full backpack on his shoulders and sliding the shotgun in its holster between his back and the pack, he prepared for the mad dash across the parking lot and street. It would be a shame to get discovered when he was almost done. Not noticing any immediate threat, Michael ran past the SUV. He purposely didn’t look at the van’s contents. His shoes pounded on the pavement, and he made it across the street and back into the shadows of the side street without incident.