Chapter 11 Outbreak

Jim was wheeled straight into a surgery room. They were just barely able to put a mask on him. He almost bit the two of them before they could get it on. It did not take long for the nurse to start freaking out. She was not getting any vitals and no matter how much gas or drugs they couldn't knock him out. It was easy to tell that he was dead already but the fact that he was still moving was confusing them.

The next room over is where they put Dave. He was quickly brought in and made as comfortable as they could. They went to work numbing him up so they could set his arm. He was in a lot of pain and as they cut away his jacket it was evident just how much pressure had been put on his arm. It was like each finger had been pressed in with a vice. The skin had been crushed beyond repair and it made sense to everyone that had seen it by the size and color. His hand was quickly changing from purple to black swelling more and more by the second. The arm had been crushed but you could tell that it was a hand that had done it. It did not take long for them to get him into surgery and relieve the pressure and repair what they could of the damaged muscles and tissue as well as set the bone. They wound up putting in a plate and screws his arm would never have the same mobility or strength but at least it would work, and he didn't lose it.

Steve was a different story he was taken into surgery too, but they were limited on what they could do for him. They put him out then sealed the wound and started him on the most aggressive antibiotics that they had. They were worried bites are always bad, but they were not used to seeing chunks missing. The nasty teeth had shredded the hand around the bite. The surgeon was a friend of Steve and did what he could to keep as much ability to move as he could. So that he would still have as much use of it as he could save. No matter what, this was going to take time to repair, not only the surgery but the recovery time. The only real danger at this point was the infections they would just have to keep an eye on it.

Jim was a different story altogether. He was basically ripped in half but moving without any vitals that they could find. He was not bleeding although he was oozing goo from his core. It was a thick black slime that was clinging to everything it was like his organs were fast breaking down and liquefying. As the surgeon stepped up to him and looked, he asked, " Just what do you want me to do to help him? He is beyond anything I can do to repair him."

The nurse said, " But he is still alive."

"Look at it. It has no pulse no respiration and looks like it has no higher brain function it's dead just moving." The Surgeon said with a frown on his face. Although the study of this might be able to rake in some real cash.

At the same time all that was going on, General Tomson was just getting to his desk. He couldn't believe all the changes that had happened in the last month since the rat had been captured. The base had almost doubled in size, and now there was not a space on the base that was not being used by the different specialists that were still arriving daily.

He managed to get settled down and was in the middle of reading his daily reports when his secretary came in with his cup of coffee.

"Here you go, sir." As she sat it on the desk and quickly turned and left the room as quickly as she could. She was never sure what kind of mood he was going to be in until after his third cup of coffee. If he was ok after that the day was going to be a piece of cake.

With his nose pressed in his documents, he hardly noticed her come and go but the smell of the coffee was enough to get noticed. He had to admit she made the best coffee even if she started with just the regular stuff the Gi's got. Taking a relaxing sip of coffee, he was quite content that the base was bustling again there would be no way that they would be closing it now. The was growing fast with all the new traffic to the base the housing skyrocketed in price. As well as the price of everything else so that left most of the people happy.

The General got halfway through his second cup of coffee when the accident report came through and would have been completely ignored except for the report filed by the driver. All weird incidents in the area found their way to the general's desk in one form or the other. Having someone come back from the dead would definitely find its way to the top of the list. It set off a couple of red flags that made the system flag it and send it to the General. The first was the proximity to the base and then the fact that there was an accident of that caliber. Both those things could have been overlooked except that the person that was in the ambulance was attacked. The second red flag was that the victim was reported dead before the ambulance was even deployed.

The General was half expecting something like this to happen. Ever since that thing had escaped from the lab, but it had been so long. They were careful to kill everything that they had come in contact with. At least they thought that they had. The General grabbed his things and called for his driver he needed to talk and see for himself. He was wondering just what they could have missed. He had made sure everything was poisoned, and they had sent the robots around to verify that there were no signs of life. For good measure, the General had sent in a crew, and they torched every inch.

There was no doubt in the general's mind that the two instances were connected somehow, the only question was how they were related. Maybe after he talked to them things might start making sense. The General ordered that anything about the victims is gathered especially in the last 3 months. If there was anything they could gather they were not base personnel so there might be limited info that they can get. The General had the techs pull up all the cameras in the area at the time of the accident until the ambulance left the scene. They could see it from different angles and at least that would give them something to start with.

Within 5 minutes the General's car had been brought around, and the driver was waiting at the door for him. Bob has been the general's driver for 3 years. He found it was an extremely easy assignment. Bob was not the smartest and was most of the time very lazy. So, getting a job, where all he had to do was drive someone around and wait to drive them somewhere else. That is if they went somewhere else. The only other duties he really had was to do what it takes to make sure the car was in running shape for when the general wanted to go. That gave Bob plenty of time to hit on every lady that crossed his path. To him it didn't really matter what they looked like. That got him in trouble a few times. He was not the brightest and had hit on a few while the husbands were close enough to hear. It didn't really matter to him he was not planning on keeping any of them. If he could talk them into letting him into their bed was enough and if not, there was always another one out there that would. It was more of a game to him than anything just trying to see how many would give in to him.

There were a few times that he had to grab his clothes and go out the window, but to him, that was part of the excitement. At least for him leaving the girl to fend for herself and explain what was going on. Today was no different except it meant that he got to go to town and hit on some different than the ones on the base.

Bob saw the General come out walking with a purpose. He knew this look there would be no talking or kidding around today. The General was very seriously thinking about things he could tell by the scowl on his face.

"Get me to Fillmore Community Hospital." The General said without looking up at him. He was deep in thought and busy looking at the laptop that he brought out of the office.

Bob quickly got in and by the time the engine was running the General was in and ready for them to be on their way. The drive was a quiet one Bob knew better than to bother the general when he was busy or in one of his moods.

As they pulled up to the hospital the General ordered, "Just stay here and wait." As he hopped out of the car.

Bob knew better than to stray too far from his post when he was told to wait there it could be a few minutes to a few hours. Bob was disappointed he was looking forward to a day of screwing around in town and hitting on every girl that crossed his path. Now all he had to look forward to was waiting in the car, but at least he could listen to his jams. Then he thought at least he could look at the girls even if he could not chase after them.

The general walked into the hospital to the front desk as if he owned the place and asked, "Where are the driver and the medic that was hurt? I have questions that have to be answered." He was waiting for her to point the way.

The nurse just stood there in a daze with her mouth open. She was a temp, and this was her first time at this hospital. When she didn't move the general just started walking toward the emergency room. She yelled, "HEY YOU CAN'T GO BACK THERE!"

The General paid no attention to her and just kept walking toward the back of the emergency room where the patient rooms were. The General knew just what he was looking for, not exactly who, but he knew that they would direct him to them once they figured out what he was there for. Everyone at the hospital knew him and knew how the base was keeping the town alive apparently except this temp nurse. He didn't have time for her to run around.

When he ignored her June quickly got on the phone to security and summoned them to the front desk. When they got there and saw that it was the General, they let her know that he pretty much had run off the town. No one stood in his way at least for long. At this point, she just gave up and went back to the paperwork that she was overloaded with at the front desk.

The general made his way back to the treatment area which for the most part had calmed down. The broken bone had been set and the cast was being applied. The bite on the other hand was a completely different case. They had no choice but to sow it closed and stop the bleeding. They were glad that he was a medic, and they were close, or it would have been worse. Now their biggest fear was the risk of infection setting in. So, they had him hooked up to the strongest antibiotics that they had.

As soon as the General saw the zombie strapped down glazed over eyes and pale gray skin. It was like all the blood had been drained from it and he couldn't get over the washed-out eyes that were just like the rat. He immediately quarantined the room and got on the phone to the base to have it collected and it didn't matter who was going to protest the action he wanted answers.

Within 5 minutes the trucks were rolling another 15 minutes the town was surrounded and they were jamming every frequency that was not military in nature. The General had ordered a complete shutdown of the town he didn't want any information leaking out.

The troops surrounded the hospital then came in and wheeled out the zombie. Anyone with any objections had to try and face and explain it to the guys with the assault rifles. There was no doubt that they were in charge and whatever they wanted they would get. The General had everything in order, and they were leaving in just 10 minutes. He left a small squad there just in case there was more trouble, and at this point, he left them strict orders that any of the media wasn't allowed into the hospital at all.

The General led the convoy back to the base and on their way, they saw that some of the reporters were stuck at the roadblocks. They were filming everything that they could see from there. He noticed that they took plenty of pictures. In a way, he wanted to stop and collect their cameras, but he knew that would not stop them, so they just rolled on by.

The only thing that General Tomson wanted was to get this thing back to the base to find out what is making it move.

The General had been less than thrilled with what they had learned from the rat, but with having no way to handle it or restrain it he guessed they did what they could. At least they would be able to examine and get samples this time. That gave the General a thought, he wondered if they had collected all the samples and the test results that the hospital had run. He wanted no hard evidence that the zombie was ever there. He quickly called back to the leader of the squad and today it was Staff Sargent Fisher. He was a short dumpy little man that was hard and mean. It was a good thing that the military took him because, with his mean disposition, it would have been the only one that he could not get fired from for having it.

All of the men that served with him hated him and it was a surprise that he had ever made sergeant in the first place. Except he wound up getting something on his senior officer and forced him to push the promotion through. Sergeant Fisher enjoyed torturing his men making them run and do extra duty, especially the big buff guys. He thought that their lives were too easy, they always seemed to get all the girls. He never got over the way he was treated in school by the children, but his home life was not much better. He was a stepson and having his half-brother be a superstar, and have all the looks, and the dates just made the only male role model look down on him and treat him like dirt. That attitude is what made him turn out the way he did. He made sure he and his men followed all their orders to a tee. There was no way that he would risk disciplinary action by the General. He had heard if it happened that was the end of their career.

The General gave the order to collect all the records and evidence that was contained at the hospital with special instructions to destroy any other copies that were around. The General knew that this was right up the sergeant's alley knowing that the Sargent loved throwing his weight around and he was extremely thorough.

The General went with the zombie all the way to the lab and paced the whole time that they were cutting away samples. Each sample was carefully labeled and stored. To the naked eye there was nothing special about them at all once they were removed they were just chunks of dead flesh. But the microscope told the whole story. The cells had not changed at all. The only difference is that there are still electrical impulses still traveling down the nerves. Everything showed up in the cat scan there was almost no brain activity except a little in the core where a cluster of microorganisms had gathered. As they drew out the cluster the body once again became lifeless and unmoving.

Now the question became where did they come from? How did they gather there? and lastly, is there a way to kill them? The general thought to himself. Now he just needed the answers.

Just then Brittney came running in and tripped over her own feet. Britney was a thin mousy-looking lab tech. The General had seen her buzzing around a few times and had never thought much about her, she was always in the back with her nose in some book or lab experiment. It seemed that she was scared of her own shadow, and she liked to hide in the background to stay out of sight. To the General, there was nothing of interest enough to waste his time to get to know.

After her face plant, Britney got up and half-ass dusted herself off. Looking more closely at her the General could tell that that happens to her all the time. The fall had knocked the glasses off and sent them sliding across the room and as she was dusting herself off and picking up her lab notes the General picked up her glasses and handed them to her. Brittney was just barely 105 pounds of light brown hair that was short and perfectly straight. She had never taken time to do anything with it and the most she would do was pull it back to keep it out of the way while she was doing her experiments. She was too thin and far too careless, but there was one thing that stood out her eyes seemed to shine brightly. The bright green color stood out until she put her glasses back on, hiding them.

The General cleared his throat and drew her attention. She blushed slightly and took them and quickly looked down. She knew that she was clumsy, but it was more than that it was her focus was not on where she was or where she was going. It was the problems that she was working on in her head. Sometimes she just needed to get out of her own head and get back to the real world.

"Well, what is it that you feel so important that you came bursting in on me?" The General asked.

She quickly said, "Sorry" nonchalantly and continued to say, "But there is something you need to see." As she started rummaging through her papers that was a mess now.

The general stood there and tried to be patient with her but as he stood there anyone could tell that his patients were wearing thin till he finally asked, "Just what are you trying to tell me?"

Brittany looked up at him, even more, rattled than she was before. Then said, "Maybe it would be easier for you just to come to see."

Annoyed with her, the General knew it would just be easier to go see what she had, as opposed to trying to have her fumble around like she is. Seeing her getting more nervous by the second.

He nodded his head in agreement to go with her so that she would lead the way and get this over with. She tightly clutched her papers and tried not to trip over her feet in front of the General. She was very grateful that she made it all the way to the lab without looking clumsy. When they entered the lab, she pointed to the screen which was the image that the microscope was seeing.

General Tomson Asked, "Just what am I looking at?" All he saw was a bunch of objects moving around some were squiggly and others looked like pointy balls and others looked like blood cells.

She took a step closer to the screen and pointed to the one on the left as a sample of the blood that came from oh let me see there was a pause while she looked up the name. She suddenly came up with the name "Jim Fisher" she said triumphantly.

The General just looked at her and shook his head and said, "What about it." His temper was starting to show.

She looked up and said, "The other one is a sample of the drainage water that the rat was found in. "

Then she went to the computer and circled matching cells and pointed them out to the General and said, "This has to be the thing that is causing the trouble."

The general yelled, "FUCK!" forgetting where he was.