Origins of the Outbreak Read online

  “I don't see anyone,” Matt said as he looked over towards the large lawnmower.

  “I'm going to walk over and see anyways,” Doc said and stepped nimbly from the cart for someone who was pushing 70.

  “Aww hell. What else are we going to do?” Ian finally said as he lifted his bulk from the cart. He was roughly the same age as Doc Johnson, but where Abraham had stayed fit and healthy, Ian had allowed the mental model that people's waists spread as they got older to fuel his habit for desserts and sweets.

  The brothers quickly got out of the carts and followed. The tractor was about fifty feet away from the path and they covered the distance in less than a minute. The vinyl seat held a small puddle of liquid that dripped slowly towards the frame.

  “What the hell?” Bob asked. “Is that –”

  “Yeah, that's blood,” Doc Johnson answered and pointed to the ground all around the tractor. It was covered in the viscous fluid as well.

  “Where's the driver?” Ian asked.

  Abraham studied the ground for a moment and pointed towards the woods along the edge of the course. “I'd bet my life that he got injured somehow and stumbled that way. Come on, we have to go help him.”

  Robert reached over and turned the key, switching off the tractor. The whole thing stunk of something strange so he pulled out his cell phone and tried to call the police, but the number was busy. How the hell is 9–1–1 busy? He tried the number several more times with the same result.

  Over the years he'd needed to call the cops directly instead of going through the emergency number. He scrolled through his phone until he found the direct line to the police desk and hit the dial button. The phone rang repeatedly until someone finally picked up on the tenth ring.

  “Belton PD. This better be an emergency.”

  “This is Robert Harper. We're at the Leon Valley Golf Course and there's blood everywhere. The –”

  “Listen to me Mr. Harper. Get away from there now! Go home and lock your doors.”

  “What the hell? Who is this?”

  “It's Jessica Greeley. I'm serious Mr. Harper, get away from there now! I'll send a patrol car if we can spare one.”

  “Jessica, somebody's hurt over here. We need help.”

  “I'm sorry; we don't have anyone available right now. People are going crazy and attacking others. We think… We think they're zombies.”

  “Zombies? Is this some sort of stupid joke?”

  “It's no joke, sir. You need to get away from the area where you saw the blood and get to safety. NOW!”

  “I… Uh… What do you –”

  “I don't have time for this Mr. Harper. Good luck,” she snapped and hung up the phone.

  He stared at his phone like it was a soiled dildo and then slipped it into his pocket. The other three had already nearly disappeared into the tree line so he hurried after them.

  Robert stopped short when he saw his brother fall. It didn't look natural, almost like he'd been pulled down. “What the fuck?” he mumbled, all sense of Christian decorum lost.

  Matt yelled from somewhere out of sight and then Ian disappeared as well. “Oh geez!” Bob shouted and ran forward to where his friends were.

  By the time he made it to where he'd seen his brother disappear, Doc Johnson came stumbling back towards him. “Run!” the old man shouted and was tackled from behind by a man wearing green coveralls that the golf course's lawn keepers wore.

  Bob's momentum carriedhim forward to within a few feet of the doctor. The lawn keeper pulled away from his friend's back and growled at him. The man had blood dripping from his chin where he'd just taken a bite from Abraham. He slammed his face down into the doctor's back and took another bite.

  Robert sobbed and sidestepped the atrocity. Matt was somewhere up ahead. He found him in seconds. Several more people were huddled down pulling pieces of his body to their mouths.

  “Hey, what the hell? Leave him alone!” he shouted foolishly.

  Two teenage girls stopped, intestines hanging loosely from their mouths, and stood up in unison to come after him.

  Bob had led the cushy life of a salesman, but he realized that right now, his only chance to survive was to run. He cried silently for his brother and turned heel to run back to the carts. He sprinted like he hadn't done since high school and quickly came abreast of the lawn tractor that had piqued the foursome's curiosity in the first place.

  That's where his stellar cross country athlete performance came crashing to an end. Literally. He slipped on the gore beside the tractor and twisted his ankle so bad it popped audibly. His body continued along its trajectory and slammed into the tractor. He pinwheeled off, landing in a heap of juxtaposed arms and legs on the blood-covered turf.

  For a moment he stared at the cloudless blue sky in a daze, but quickly sat up. His head felt thick and he brought a hand up to feel the huge lump forming on his temple. “Shit,” he managed to say before remembering why he'd been running. The two girls were walking quickly towards him.

  He stood up and tried to run, but the pain in his ankle was excruciating. He hobbled along towards the carts. It wasn't much further and then he could ride back to the cars and get home to Jenny and the kids. He couldn't resist the urge to look behind him; the girls – zombies – were closer than they'd been before.

  “Oh dear Lord, please save me,” he muttered as he tried to walk as fast as he could. He was almost there, the carts were right ahead. He looked behind him again and blanched. The girls were right on top of him.

  He stumbled across the edge of the cart path and grasped the rod holding the cart's sun shade in order to keep from falling. A hiss behind him told him that he was out of time. In desperation he grabbed the 9–iron from his bag and swung blindly behind him.

  It connected with something and he turned to see that he'd hit the brunette in the arm. The two of them continued towards him, so he pulled the golf club back and swung it like a baseball bat into the head of the girl that he'd just hit. His face went pale as the club sank several inches into her skull and she collapsed, pulling both the club away from his hands and the blonde girl backwards with her.

  He scrambled back from the pair and fell hard onto his ass. The blonde continued to try and get to him, but she was held firmly in place by a handcuff around her wrist that was connected to the brunette that he'd just killed. She jerked ineffectively against the restraint like she didn't even realize that she was trapped.

  “Ha, you stupid bitch! Not gonna get Bob Harper. Not today—” he stopped short when he saw Matt stumble from the woods.

  “Holy shit!” he shouted in elation. “Matt! Matt, over here!”

  His brother adjusted his course and started coming towards him. Robert slowly lowered his hands and the smile left his face as both Abraham and Ian stumbled out, followed by five or six others. “Oh God….”

  A sickening pop of bones breaking refocused his attention from across the fairway to the creature right beside him. She staggered forward with both arms outstretched. He had a moment to process the brunette's severed hand falling from the handcuff before the blonde's shadow blocked out the sun and his own screams echoed in his ears.

  The Happy Wife, 11:41 a.m.

  Fuck it, he's not coming back, she told herself and took another swallow from her wine glass. Sarah glared at her wedding picture on the mantle above the gas fireplace. Where had it all gone wrong?

  Ten years ago, she and Darren had been so happy. They'd met on a business trip in Toledo and discovered that they only lived a few miles apart in Columbus. They'd dated, gotten married after a short engagement and been a power couple in pharmaceutical sales in Ohio, neither having time for children.

  Then, two years ago Darren was transferred to Temple fucking Texas and she decided to quit her job and move down to this hell-hole with him. They decided that she wouldn't work and that it was time to start a family. Well, that certainly didn't fucking work with that asshole shooting blanks.

  After months of trying
to get pregnant with no results, she tried to go back into the workforce, but she was repeatedly denied at interviews because, “Texas pharmaceutical sales are no place for a pretty little lady like you.” Fucking misogynistic backwards dickheads.

  That's when their perfect marriage had started to fall apart. Sarah took to drinking a Bloody Mary every morning to take the edge off and then she would switch to chilled white wine throughout the day. Darren had thought it was funny the first few times when he came home to a drunk housewife, but it quickly became apparent that she had a problem and they fought about her drinking. Then the fighting would turn to her husband's inability to knock her up and the fact that he was the one who forced them to move to Texas.

  This morning had started like every morning. She had a drink and made the bastard some toast. They had a huge fight about the cleanliness of the house. His point was that since she was at home all day, the place should be spotless. Her counterpoint was that he was a dickless fucking piece of shit. She thought she'd won the argument, but as he slammed the front door he yelled that he wanted a divorce.

  I can't even begin to say how fucked up that shit is, she told herself. It was his fault that they were in Texas. His fault that she wasn't pregnant. His fault that she couldn't get a job. His fault that she started drinking too much. How in the hell am I supposed to survive?

  Sarah raised the glass to her mouth once more and misjudged the angle, clinking the edge against her top teeth. “Fuck.” The glass was empty. She staggered back to the kitchen to pull her bottle from the refrigerator.

  She unscrewed the cap and began pouring another glass. Movement in her front yard caught her attention and she saw that big sexy construction worker from next door walking across her lawn. What's his name? Matthew? No, something like that though.

  Suddenly a terrible idea came to her. If she could get pregnant, then all of their problems would be solved. She would stop drinking and that fucker Darren would feel like a man again if he thought that he'd finally impregnated her. Maybe that could save her happy little marriage.

  The neighbor's features were similar to her husband's – minus the bulging muscles and full head of hair. She finished pouring the wine and set the bottle down on the counter. Should I? she asked herself and took a large sip of wine.

  She thought about the last ten years. Only the last couple – since they came to Texas and decided to have a baby were bad. They were happy before that. Hell, if it didn't work, there was nothing lost; Darren had already said that he wanted a divorce.

  But if it did work… If letting that dude fuck her got her pregnant, maybe it could save her marriage. She was ovulating and they'd had sex just last night in another effort to have children, so maybe a good humping by the neighbor would do the job. She took another swig from her glass and sat it down drunkenly on the counter.

  “I'm gonna do this,” she told the reflection of herself in the microwave's glass door. “I'm gonna do this for my family. This will work and Darren will love me again.”

  She unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt and walked to the door. On the way there, she saw herself in the powder room mirror and couldn't help but turn and inspect her appearance. She mussed her hair and then thought better of it, combing her fingers back through the tangles that she’d just created. Sarah hesitated for a second and then stuck her hands behind her back to unhook her bra. She shrugged one shoulder out and then the other. Her perky breasts pressed against the thin material of her shirt.

  “If that Matt guy doesn't want this, then he's crazy,” she told herself. Damn, gotta quit talking to yourself, girl.

  She pinched her nipples lightly to make them strain against the material and stepped out of the bathroom towards the door.

  She rested her hand languidly against the doorjamb and unlocked it. The hulking beast of a man was standing at the end of her driveway looking down the street.

  “Hey, Matt,” she called in her best husky voice. Wait, that's not right. “Mateo! Hey neighbor.”

  First his head turned and then he slowly twisted all the way around. He was a little dirty from his job – just wait 'til I get done with him!

  “Hey, I've got a problem here and I need your help to fix it.” Honesty never hurt anyone.

  He lumbered slowly towards her. She couldn't help but look him over and wonder what he had in store for her as her eyes rested on his crotch. When he got closer, Sarah noticed a line of glistening wetness along his thigh.

  “Hey, you're bleeding. Are you okay?”

  Mateo groaned and lunged forward. Even in her drunken state, she realized that something was terribly wrong and tried to slam the door on her neighbor.

  He was too fast – and too heavy – for her to get the door closed completely and he shoved hard against it, sending her stumbling backwards into the coat rack. The antique piece of furniture that her grandfather had carved from a single piece of wood fell across the foyer and knocked her sideways.

  The construction worker rushed forward in his haste to get to her and tripped over the coat rack. Sarah screamed as his face slammed into the floor inches from hers. She kicked backwards to get away from him and he looked up at her. The poor bastard's front teeth fell out with tiny plinks against the tile.

  She had a momentary thought that he was drunker than she was and then she ran towards the bedroom. Behind her, she heard the air escape his lungs in a grunt as the giant stood up to chase after her.

  Sarah slammed the bedroom door shut and locked it. Mateo pushed through the flimsy double doors with ease. The little handle lock didn't hold them together and she cursed the current trend of having double doors instead of one solid bedroom door.

  She jerked the lampshade off the nightstand and threw it at the madman. It bounced off of him ineffectively. She screamed as he started towards her side of the bed and tried to scramble over the top to the opposite side.

  He caught her foot and yanked her back towards him. The creature took her on the bed like she'd wanted him to – but the intensity of his desire was nothing like she could have ever imagined.

  The Field Reporter, 12:05 p.m.

  “Okay, Carson. We're being broadcast nationally! You're live in 3… 2… 1,” the producer pointed to him and gave the reporter a thumbs up.

  He affected his grimmest look and glared into the camera lens. “This is Carson Maldanado with your KXAN news and I'm live from downtown Belton, Texas. This small town outside of one of the United States' largest military installations looks more like a war zone than a small college town.

  “The devastation that you can see behind me is just one of many places here that resemble a disaster area. We haven’t been able to speak with the local law enforcement yet, but we do know that the National Guard has been mobilized and is on their way as we speak. What we do know is that something is causing citizens of this iconic Texas town to attack one another. We’ve been told that people get sick and then bite others, spreading whatever this mysterious illness is.

  “So far all efforts to treat the victims have proven ineffective and several medical professionals have been injured trying to aid the sick.”

  “Have you personally seen any of these infected people, Carson?” the anchor asked from the national broadcasting center in New York.

  “No, Ed; we haven't seen anyone, but there's plenty of evidence in the town that something has happened. As I'm sure you can see behind me, park benches are overturned, windows are smashed, fires burn unchecked. The one police officer that we were able to speak to ordered us to leave town immediately.”

  “Did you leave, Carson?”

  “No we didn't, Ed. Something about this situation screams government cover-up and we're going to get to the bottom of it for our viewers.”

  “You mentioned that the National Guard has been mobilized; where did that information come from.”

  “Our producer Ray has contacts in the governor's office that passed along that information. Whatever is happening here certainly has those
in the state capitol scared.”

  “Is there any indication that this may have originated at Fort Hood – some government experiment gone wrong?”

  “The few residents that we've seen have surmised as much, Ed. We were able to talk to one woman who –”

  “Carson, look behind you. Several people just came around the corner,” producer Ray said as he pointed behind the reporter.

  He turned and saw the group of about ten people walking slowly towards him. “Ed, it looks like a group of residents have finally decided to come out and talk to us. Hold on a second while our producer goes over and finds out if anyone will agree to be interviewed.”

  Carson nodded to Ray, who jogged towards the crowd. “Looks like fortune may be smiling on us, Ed. We hadn't been able to find very many people to talk to about this incident and now we have several people coming forward to discuss the events here in Belton.”

  “That's certainly good news, Carson. Can you describe to us what you're seeing? Are the residents scared?”

  “Yes they are. We think –” A piercing shriek cut him off.

  The reporter turned in time to see Ray fall and several of the townsfolk collapse down on top of him.

  “Oh my God!” Carson yelled. “They're infected! Billy, let's get out of here!”

  Billy, the cameraman, looked around his camera and zoomed in to capture the producer's body being torn apart. “What about Ray?”

  “Fuck him, he's dead! Let's go!”

  “Carson? Carson, what's happening? Can you hear me?”

  In New York, the live feed showed the camera jostling and then the audio of the van door could be heard as it opened and then slammed shut again. The cameraman set the camera down in the back and it pointed towards the rear of the news van.

  Heads appeared in the small windows in the back doors and thuds echoed through the studio as the camera captured the sounds of hands beating against the side of the van. Carson could be heard screaming for Billy to drive. The camera bumped hard a couple of times as the van ran over objects in their path.