Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City

Outbreak: Emerald City

Jay K. Anthony

Outbreak: Emerald City

A Story of Survival During the Zombie Apocalypse

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 Jay K. Anthony

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

www.jaykanthony.com

www.facebook.com/jaykanthonyauthor

v20151217b

for Tammy

CLARK

Running a hand through his thick brown hair, thirty-six year old Dr. Clark Mason
leaned back in his chair and
checked the time on his watch. He was so tired he could not focus on the numbers. He rubbed his eyes and looked again: 8:30 PM.
Damn, it feels like a lot later than that
, he thought and
looked around his office deep inside the aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Johnstone
. It was one of the few U.S. military outposts left, and he had been sequestered on the ship in order to have time to come up to speed on the virus. Clark had spent the last twelve hours reading medical journals. There was a mountain of research which had been collected over the last few months, all focused on the new disease turning humans into cannibalistic sociopaths. Looking at the stacks of papers on his desk, Clark sighed. When the internet had gone down for the last time, everything went back to paper. Reams of research and data had been printed and forwarded to him from around the world.
Thank God the military has been able to keep a closed network up and running
, Clark thought. Through the ship's satellite connection, he was still able to access the few remaining databases that were still online and in operation. There was no Google
anymore, but it was better than nothing. Then, there were the stacks of handwritten notes. Trying to decipher some of the handwriting had been a chore, but the good news was that h
is reading had at least been interesting and useful. Learning about how the disease had led to the outbreak was fascinating. It was so engaging, Clark had read through both lunch and dinner and was now famished.

The strength of his interest and his desire to learn in such detail surprised him. For most of his life, Clark had disliked school and had skated through the majority of his medical classes, doing just enough to get by. In truth, he had gone to medical school for one reason and one reason only ... the money. Money and everything that came with it. Cars, a lavish apartment, concerts, celebrity parties, red carpet events, box seats at the home games!
Damn, that had been the life,
he thought. B
efore the outbreak, Dr. Clark Mason had been the “Breast Man”, a renowned plastic surgeon for the stars. At his practice in Beverly Hills he had operated on the rich, famous, and exclusive. He still took pride in knowing he had helped quite a few starlets advance their careers.

Looking back over the stacks of papers in front of him, Clark pondered how, before he had started reading the documentation, he had not known about the evolution of the virus. This surprised him, and not because he had been completely uninterested in furthering his education, but because the deadly strain had been created by doctors and scientists from his own profession … plastic surgeons experimenting in the science of making people look younger. Clark shook his head and flipped open one of his binders. On the front page, he had summarized what he had found out. The disease had started as an experiment to extend life. It was created in the timeless quest for eternal youth and beauty. The scientists responsible for the virus had been trying to keep human skin cells from growing old and from the documentation in front of him, Clark now knew the developers had succeeded in a way to greatly slow down the aging process.
Unfortunately, the experiments had also yielded unexpected, and horrifying, results. The virus they had created slowed the ageing process down so well that it also slowed vital body functions, including heartbeat, breathing, metabolism, and core body temperature to the point that 99% of those infected died within twelve hours. For the remaining 1% however, the victim of the infection was still very much alive.

Of the 1%, the problems started with the slow pulse rate. One beat per minute did not provide enough oxygen to the brain for healthy function. This in turn reduced consciousness to the infecteds most primal level. Emotions were muted to the point of nonexistence. Rational thought no longer occurred. All that was left were the most basic instincts and the one that stood out above all the rest was hunger. Studies quickly determined the infecteds most vital function was to feed.
To make matters worse for what remained of the human race, the virus mutated somewhere along the way and become as infectious as the common cold. The problem was further exasperated by the germs themselves, because they had such a long life, sixty times longer than anything studied before. If the virus contaminated food or was left on even a door handle, it lived longer than any other germ studied in recorded history. Endurance was part of the most basic makeup of the disease. It was designed to live forever.

It had been a long two weeks of intensive reading and study, but Clark finally felt like he had a handle on what was going on and why. Scratching at the stubble on his chin, he realized he needed a shower. Then he looked at the papers on his desk again and had second thoughts. After reading about long-life viruses turning people into something that resembled the living dead, the last thing he wanted was to step into a communal shower. Instead, he thought about getting up and taking a look around the ship. Since he had arrived, he had been heads down in documentation. His meals had been delivered and about all he had seen was his apartment, which was
so far into the center of the ship that he did not even have a porthole to look out through.
The isolation was starting to get to him. He knew t
he ship was well over capacity, but the military had given him his own small quarters to use as his home and office.
One of the perks of being a specialist
, he thought.

Pushing himself back and away from his desk, Clark
got up and stepped outside his room. Standing in the hallway, he closed the door behind him and looked up and down the corridor. He could hear the sounds of people to his right and not knowing where else to go, he went in the direction of the noise. He stepped through two doorways and came to a crowded recreation room. Men and woman sat at tables or on couches all around the room and the volume of conversation was loud.
This ship is packed to the seams
, he thought and worked his way into the room. Trying to look like he knew where he was, Clark walked over to a large television on one side of the room where a movie was playing. There was a gorgeous blond in the movie talking with some guy who looked like he had just gotten out of a fight. The characters in the movie were in a doctor’s office. Clark checked out the blonde's body. She was fantastic and Clark wondered who had done the work on her.

“Hey, out of the way, buddy,” someone said and Clark stepped to the side.

“Sorry,” Clark replied and wandered back across the room where two young men and a woman, all sailors Clark guessed from the way they were dressed in matching blue and white uniforms, were shooting pool.

One of the sailors asked Clark if he wanted to join in their game. “We could play teams,” he added.

“No, thanks,” Clark replied. “I’m no good at shooting pool.”

“No worries, bud,” the sailor said. “We all suck.”

“Nah,” the woman said. “Only you suck.” They all laughed and Clark could not help but smile at their camaraderie, especially in the face of a world on the brink of extinction.

“I do appreciate it,” Clark said and turned back to the movie on the television. The characters were just leaving the doctor’s office and it reminded him of the research papers back in his quarters. He had worked his way through all of the documentation and wondered if anything new had recently come across the satellite network. “Hey,” he said, turning back to the three sailors at the pool table. “I don’t suppose any of you know where the research office is?”

The two men looked at the young lady and smirked like there was a joke there somewhere which Clark was not privy to. The woman put down her pool cue and stuck her hand out for Clark to shake. “Corpsman Nagashima,” she said. “I can show you where that is.”

Clark shook her hand. She was pretty and had one hell of a grip. Clark thought she would be even prettier with fuller lips and smaller ears, but he knew he needed to stop thinking that way. “Corpsman?” he asked. “Not Corpswoman?”

“I try not to split hairs,” she said and let go of his hand. She turned and started for the door. “Follow me.”

Clark did, and with her back to him, he took the opportunity to look her over. Her sailor’s uniform did nothing to enhance her figure, but Clark thought she had quite a body. If she looked good in uniform, she would probably look really good in clothes that were actually cut to fit.
It’s just like the military to purposely make the uniforms as ugly as possible
, he thought
.
Nagashima lead Clark past his room and then down an extremely steep flight of stairs. She slid down expertly, using the rails under her arms, and had to wait for Clark at the bottom as he gingerly climbed down, taking extra care to not hit his head in the tight space.

”First time on a ship?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” Clark replied. He had a ship of his own actually. A big one. A thirty five foot Bowman Yacht in fact. In the year before the apocalypse, Clark had netted just over two million dollars in income. He had enjoyed the lifestyle of working hard during the day and playing hard at night. He had been wealthy, not rich because not even two million dollars a year went that far in Hollywood, but he had been very comfortable and enjoyed his share of expensive toys. Lost in thought, he wondered if his yacht was still moored where he had left it at the marina.
As much as it cost me per month to keep it there, it damn well better be,
he thought. Clark wondered if he should tell Nagashima about his yacht. He had often used it as a way to impress women. But now that the world was in crisis, he was finding people were becoming less and less interested in his stories about monetary items.

“What do you do here?” Clark asked instead and looked around as they walked. He realized he was already lost and would have to ask for directions again when he wanted to get back to his cabin or if he ever wanted to return to the research lab.

“I specialize in blood work,” she said. “Originally they brought me on board just to do tests and to make sure no one with the disease made it on the ship, but now I do whatever the situation demands. Why are you here?”

“Research,” he said. “I’m working on a way to fight the virus.” He waited for her to say something, maybe how impressive that sounded, but she just kept walking. “I came from reconstructive surgery,” he added after a moment.

She stopped and looked at him. “Really? Like plastic surgery?”

Interesting,
Clark thought. He always got strange reactions when he told people about his previous profession. Some people thought it was cool, others thought he was a monster. Maybe he would just have to start telling everyone he was a brain surgeon or something to keep it simple. “Yes,” he admitted. “
Breast augmentation, primarily.”

“A lot of money in that?” she asked.

“Oh yeah,” Clark said. “I did pretty well.”

“Must have been nice,” she said and started walking again.

Clark watched her. She appeared to be strutting now with a little more swing in her hips.
Women
, he thought.
I will never understand them.
He followed Nagashima through a series of oval doorways and saw a closed door to one side marked “morgue”.

“Hold up,” he said and she stopped.

“What's up?” she asked.

He wanted to take a look at some of the bodies. From his reading, he learned that everyone had different reactions to the disease and he wanted to see the varying effects it had on these victims. “I want to go in and see something,” he said and opened the door. The inside of the room was crammed full of bodies on gurneys, each covered with a white sheet. He paused.
Damn, this is worse than I thought.
He lifted one of the sheets. The corpse looked like a perfectly healthy young man. “Were any of these infected?” he asked, waving his hand around at the room

“One more room over,” she said. “These are all people who died of things other than the disease.”

“What killed this guy?” he asked.

Nagashima picked up a notebook. “Gunshot,” she said with what Clark thought sounded like a hint of sadness.

Clark pulled back the sheet further and found a gunshot wound in the soldier’s abdomen. “Okay,” Clark said and replaced the sheet. “I’d like to go to the next room and view some of the infected.”

“Live or dead?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Clark asked.
We’re in a morgue. Isn’t everyone dead?

“We have a live one,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” he replied.

“We have a live one,” she repeated. “A zombie. Want to see it?”

Holy shit!
he thought.
Yeah I want to see it!
He had never seen a live infected up close.
Shit, who am I kidding, I have hardly seen any of them at all.
Clark’s experience was limited to what he had seen on the television when the outbreak had first hit the news. “That would be interesting,” he said, trying to sound casual.

“Come with me,” she replied and led him into a side room where the lights were off. On one wall was a large window which looked into an isolation chamber. The light was on inside and what had once been a man was strapped to a table with large leather belts over its wrists, ankles, waist, and chest. Clark looked through the glass. “Is this a one way mirror?” he asked.