The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 1, The Outbreak (3 page)

Samantha spent the last few moments of her life shaking violently from the all-consuming pain that encompassed her entire body but unable to cry out either in agony or for help as her throat was now totally clogged with bile, blood and the sludgy remains of the last of her stomach contents. She died thrashing and convulsing in a lake of her own bodily fluids and excrement.

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The GPS readout showed Carl that he still had another twelve miles until he turned off onto the road leading back to the sand mine. With the circuitous route he was forced to take along different back roads he was sure it would take at least thirty to forty more minutes before he finally made it there. That rank odor from his last stop continued to plague him and for a while he thought that maybe it had somehow attached itself to his clothing, but when he rolled down the window to try and air out the truck, he was assaulted by the stench from outside several times stronger than what he had been barely able to endure back in Browns Mills. He gagged hard against the rising bile in his stomach and knew that he was going to lose it this time. Clamping him jaw shut tight, he slammed on the breaks and skidded off the road onto the shoulder where he flung the door open wide and spewed his guts as if it was the morning after his heaviest night of bar hopping. After a solid minute of retching he gasped for breath only to draw in another lungful of the overpowering musk, once again his stomach announced its displeasure and started him into a second round of attempting to disgorge its contents only to find his tank was empty and he could only dry heave over and over. He had learned his lesson though and before his straining lungs forced him to gulp for another breath he threw his body across the trucks bench seat slamming the driver’s door shut behind him. He groped for a dirty towel left on top of the small pile of rubbish on the passenger side floor board and used it to cover his face as he gulped in a filtered breath of stagnant air. The towel reeked of something stale mixed with a fragrant scent of what he thought might actually be urine. But no matter what had been on that towel it was several times better to breathe through than trying to choke down the noxious fumes outside the truck. He was lucky that he had been driving with the outside vents closed or the AC would already be sucking in the outside air and suffocating him. As it was he had turned on the blower only and that was just enough to circulate the air inside the cab to a barely tolerable level.

Carl remained sprawled out across the seat while he waited for his stomach to settle down. As he stared up through the windshield he started to realize that something appeared
wrong with the sky outside, it was like he was seeing it through a hazy filter. For a moment he thought that maybe the windshield itself was just in need of a cleaning until he saw tiny particles of what he thought might be ash gently floating down just outside the window. He thought that his stomach was now under control enough that he could risk sitting back up in the seat, but he kept the dirty rag firmly clamped across his mouth and nose just in case enough of that foul stench remained inside the truck cab to knock him down again. Looking skyward he could see that there was a low layer of fog or haze settling in all around him, looking to the east and west he could just make out the edges of the cloud where the sun pierced threw as if penetrating a cloud layer. As he scanned the horizon he thought he could make out what looked like a plume of light colored smog rising into the sky in the distance. He studied the plume for a while thinking that it was possible he was seeing the result of smoke from an industrial complex of some type, but a glance at his GPS told him what he already knew and that was that there was nothing but a handful of scattered houses between where he was parked at that moment and the sand mine. Even looking beyond the mine there was nothing of any significance until he saw a small regional airport about ten miles to the south of the mine.

"SHIT!" he suddenly exclaimed to himself as he realized that whatever that cloud was
it was originating from the mine itself. That had to be it, not only was that discharge coming from the mine but he was willing to bet that it also was tied to this morning’s earthquake. He racked his brain thinking of what it could be that was now spewing out into the sky above the mine. During his studies of earthquakes and geological anomalies the only thing even close to something like this related to volcanic activity and sometimes short lived bursts of underground water pockets that could shoot geysers high into the sky following earthquake activity. But neither of those scenarios applied here, number one, there was nothing even close to a volcano above or below ground in this region and secondly any displacement of underground water would have been a short lived event, maybe up to ten minutes at most following the quake. Something else clicked in his head, that damn smell, he now thought he understood why it had been growing in intensity, it had to be related to this event. He knew that in a volcanic incident he should be smelling heavy traces of sulfur in the air, which was not the case here. The only recognizable sensation he could attribute to this particular rancid odor was of decay, it was along the exact same lines as something that had died and was in the mid to late stages of decomposition when gases built up in the body as the internal organs decomposed. Nothing in any of his studies ever discussed a smell like this or the expulsion of this fine mist like sediment he was seeing.

Without warning his body convulsed in a sudden violent fit of coughing. Carl flung himself back down onto the seat as he felt his stomach heave and he thought that he may once again be overcome with spa
sms of dry heaving. The wave of coughing finally passed and Carl settled back into the seat and waited to ensure his body was done. That was when he noticed that he was running a fever, the inside of his mouth was bone dry from his heaving, but by pressing his tongue against the inside of his cheek he could feel that his body temperature was definitely running high. He had thought the coating of sweat he had started to feel had been a result of his puking, but now he was sure it had been the onset of a fever instead. He cursed his damn luck, that clerk back at the gas station must have passed along whatever bug she was carrying, but he was shocked at how quickly it had grabbed hold of him. It had been no longer than thirty minutes since he had pulled out of that town and already he was sick to his stomach and running a fever. He had never heard of an illness that spread so fast.

With this sudden onset of illness and the apparent conditions at the mine
, he decided it might not be a good idea to push forward until he had some more information about what he was dealing with. He remembered the satellite phone, it was part of the field kit always stored inside the truck. He had planned to turn it on and check in once he was in place, however now seemed like as good a time as any to call in and at least report this ash cloud that seemed to be spewing out of the mine. Opening the center console he found two satellite phones plugged into a mounted charging station, he picked one up and switched it on. It took almost a full minute before the phone completely turned on and went through the process of connecting with the correct satellite and checking messages, and as soon as that happened it started buzzing and beeping in his hand. Carl scanned the digital readout on the handset and saw that in the last hour there had been eight missed calls and four messages, he was looking for the correct key combination to access the messages when the phone started ringing in his hand.

"Hello," he said as he answered the phone in speaker mode.

A flustered male voice replied, "Hello, yes, who am I speaking with?"

"Ummm, my name is Carl, I'm with the Geological Survey office out of West Trenton, who is this?" Carl wasn't sure of what protocols if any should be used over this phone while in the field so he tried to keep as conversational as possible.

"Carl, this is Dr. Trevor Woods with FEMA here in Washington, I have some questions for you as well as some instructions. First and foremost, my aid has just provided me with a map reference of your position based on the GPS transponder in the phone you are using. From what I am seeing it looks like you are just a little over thirteen miles from the epicenter of the event, is that correct?"

"Yes sir, just about that far right now," Carl replied.

"Carl, I want you listen to me very carefully. I need you to stop your vehicle right now and pull off the road." Carl detected the sense of urgency in the man's voice.

"Actually sir, I have already stopped. I was just about to call in for instructions, there is something strange happening around the area of the earthquake that I was not sure how to deal with."

Carl heard a muffled conversation going on as if Dr. Woods was covering the phone partially with his hand while talking to someone nearby.

"I am going to set this phone down and put you on speaker Carl, there are several department administrators here with me, I want you to describe in detail what it is you are seeing right now." He heard the click as the phone was switched over to speaker mode and then several muted voices talking silently in the background.

"I am not really sure how to describe it, but as I look towards the area where the mine is located, I can see a plume of light colored ash rising into the sky. I am not really sure it is actually ash, but that’s the closest thing I can compare it with. Some of it has already rained down on the windshield of my truck, it must have moisture in it because as soon as it hits the surface it kind of splashes and then evaporates. This entire area already has a low hanging cloud cover that must have come from tons of this stuff being ejected into the sky. Since I stopped and started observing the plume a few minutes ago it now looks like it is losing its intensity some, the impression I have is that whatever it being ejected is running low." Carl was proud of this report, he thought it was comprehensive and accurate. He wasn't exactly sure what they were looking for but at least he didn't come across like some babbling idiot, these were the type of people who could end his career before it ever started.

With his own phone still on speaker he waited patiently for a reply, there was a great deal of discussion occurring following his brief report. Another wave of uncontrolled coughing hit him out of the blue and he tried to hit the mute button on the phone but missed and instead just pressed two or three random number keys sending a series of beeps through the speakers on the other end. When the coughing fit finally subsided Carl put the phone back to his ear.

"Sorry about that sir, I have picked up a little touch of a bug all of a sudden and that nasty cough came along with it."

"Carl I need to know a little bit more about your symptoms right now. When you are coughing, are you expelling any matter along with the cough?" Carl was starting to get a little scared
now, it dawned on him that the people he was talking to might actually know something they weren't telling him. Why in the world would a doctor from FEMA sitting in an office in Washington, DC be at all concerned about his cough?

"No sir, nothing like that but I did throw up not long ago. There is an unbelievable odor here, I first noticed it when I stopped for gas back in Browns Mills. The only thing I can compare it to is decomposition. It has really intensified as I have gotten closer to the mine and it hit me to the point of forcing me to vomit. But other than that I have not spit up anything from my cough. For my other symptoms, I am pretty sure I'm running a fever all of a sudden, I have a pretty bad headache, my stomach hurts and I guess I feel generally weak all over at the moment."

There was another period of muted discussion before the doctor resumed his questioning, "Carl, you said you made a stop in Browns Mills. Looking at our maps here that would be about eighteen miles from your current location and just around thirty one miles from the sand mine, is that correct?"

Carl thought for a moment and did some quick calculations, "Yes, that sounds about right, but I didn't pay attention to the distance I traveled from town."

"That's ok Carl, not a problem. We are just trying to map out the route you traveled. Now, you said you stopped for gas. Did you have any contact with anyone in that town, other customers, store clerks, anyone at all?"

Carl didn't like where this was going, he remembered Samantha, the poor girl manning the gas station and how she had clearly been suffering from the same illness that appeared to have hit him all of a sudden. Just before this phone call he had thought that was w
here he had picked up this bug.

"Yes sir, just one person is all, there was a girl working the register at the gas station. Ummm, you see, she was also kind of sick and I did think that it was possible she passed me some germs and
that’s what got me sick."

The doctor quizzed him for another few minutes about the symptoms he had witnessed with Samantha, he wanted to hear everything that Carl had seen, smelled and even heard related to that poor girl. When he asked again if there had been anyone else that Carl came in contact with he remembered how Samantha had mentioned two other customers before him that were also sick, but he had not seen them himself. He wasn't sure where all this was going, but the more he thought about it the more unsettling this situation was becoming. For FEMA to be involved in this, it had to be much bigger than he knew. Since they seemed very interested in what he thought was just a severe case of the flu, he was really worried that maybe it was something worse.

"Carl, I am going to put you on hold for a few minutes while I look over some data on this end. Don’t hang up, just stand by for a little while and I will give you instructions on what I want you to do from here. For now, you are to just sit tight and not approach any closer to that mine."