Chapter One

Julianne Bentley swung wide into the driveway after a long day of work. Getting out of her Lexus, she looked toward the house with dread, her husband Stan had been sick for days. She knew there would be puke to clean-up, soiled bedding to wash, and other vile remains to spend her precious down time taking care of.

Worst of all, she thought, was the whining. “Oh, my stomach hurts… oh it hurts” Julianne muttered mockingly, as she wheeled her rolling laptop bag up the curved walkway.

The house was quiet “Let me guess…” she whispered to herself.

Continuing the thought in her head, in case hubby was listening …probably asleep on the couch, kitchen a mess and miraculously over his sickness…  The last part she emphasized with an eye roll.

“Unlocked, damn it!” she grumbled angrily, stepping into the house.

“How many times Stan… you have to keep the doors locked, especially if you’re sleeping!” She emphasized the last part by yelling it really loud, hoping to wake his lazy ass up.

With no answer, Julianne flipped on the light switch left of the front door. She stood staring, mouth open in hesitant confusion.

The kitchen was a mess, but not the kind of mess she expected. It was really a mess, like a pack of wild dogs got into the cupboards & trash, type of mess. Only the Bentley’s didn’t have a bunch of dogs, or even one. They had a cat, but the cat didn’t do this, Julianne was sure of that.

She slowly walked further into the house, now able to see the entire kitchen. There were empty packages torn & strewn around the floor, chips, crackers, dry pasta and rice, almost everywhere.

Two of the cabinet doors were on the floor. “Why would you take the damn doors off the cabinet?...” she thought aloud.

“...I mean… they just open… they didn’t have locks, what the fu…” Then she noticed the oddest part, as if there was some part more odd than another.

There were brown smears on the walls & the partly open fridge doors. At first she thought “Feces… good god, he’s so sick he shit himself.”

Looking closer, she realized it wasn’t crap, it was too reddish in color. She thought it looked like dried blood, not really better.

Julianne slowly stepped back, her mind raced to find an explanation that wouldn’t require her to run down the street, screaming. Her high heeled work shoes crunched on the various dried food stuffs festooning the floor. Then it clicked in her head, the wrapper on the counter, the blood.

“Its blood from the beef… not my murdered husband…” She said it quietly, hopefully.

The shredded vacuum pack plastic for a five pound roast lay half hanging off the countertop near the fridge. The meat was nowhere to be seen and a quick look in the fridge confirmed it was not sitting in a glass bowl, sucking in delicious marinate, where he was supposed to have put it.

She crunched the rest of the way through the kitchen, slowly taking it all in. “He… better have… a damn good explanation…” she quietly growled.

Closing the fridge doors as she passed, she tried to think of some reason, any reason, not to kick his sorry ass out, sick or not.

“Stan!” she yelled, entering the narrow hall to the master bedroom.

“Stan! Are you here?” she demanded, rounding the corner into the room.

Stan was there, he was sitting on the bed, eating… the cat. A minute later Julianne Bentley was running down the street, screaming.

Chapter Two

The creaking of the stairs broke the silence as a figure slowly, stiffly descended. Driven forward through the darkness by hunger, every tentative cumbersome step is nearly a toppling, cart-wheeling fall.

Finally he reached the ground floor, where his eyes were immediately stung by the few shafts of light that snaked through the drawn blinds.

Dust particles appeared and as quickly vanished, dancing through the beams, his squinted eyes took no notice of them.

Shambling forward, mostly blind and hunting by scent, he closed on the unsuspecting target. Arms outstretched, fingers straining to reach his warm gurgling prey, Alden Wilkins grasped the coffee machine with a satisfied groan “Ooooh yeaaah.”

Without looking up he nudged open the nearby cabinet. Reaching in, he groped around, clanking the cups, till the handle of his trusty morning mug was in his grasp.

“Mmmm… so good” Alden mumbled between sips. He wiped the sleep from his eyes, then looked at his watch to see if more haste was needed.

Right on schedule, he thought. He had not been late to work in 3 years, not since the flat tire. It wouldn’t happen again, he now carried two cans of fix-a-flat in the trunk, and a Triple-A gold card.

Lots of people had fix-a-flat & Triple-A, that was not in and of itself a sign on OCD. Maybe thinking about it every morning and checking the cans every time he opened the trunk for any reason to make sure they hadn’t leaked out, was.

Alden didn’t care, being late sucked. He liked schedules and plans, and anything that ruined schedules or plans, like waiting on a tow truck, also sucked. It was not a mental disorder to want to be on time for things. He might have agreed to being a bit of a perfectionist, but really he thought of himself as someone who simply appreciated organization and planning.

He of course recognized that circumstances can be beyond one’s control but even then, a plan was still required to resolve the new dilemma… Quandary…

Alden’s thoughts swerved back to the subject that had occupied his mind, more or less singularly, for the past few months. Polynitrogen fuel, or more precisely the puzzle it was making the highly energy dense molecule behave like a fuel. It was barely metastable in any usable form, or too diluted to be effective in all previously attempted, fully stabilized compounds.

Most chemists considered octaazacubane to be akin to vaporware but Alden was determined to stabilize the molecule, and make it safe for at least ground transport fuel. He knew it could be done, he could feel it, like a word on the tip of your tongue or some dream you awoke from knowing it was good, but not exactly why.

The stability and the safety has to be achievable in one process, one compound that binds the nitrogen cubes, stabilizing them vibrationally, while restricting the oxidizing reaction… he thought for the millionth time.

Alden stared down at his coffee, as he took a bite of bagel. Thinking aloud “Caffeine?... or some other alkaloid as a binder?...”

He grabbed his keys off the counter, and spoke into the small digital recorder attached to the ring, “Check into the pseudalkaloids… or some alkaloid derivative…”

Looking at his watch again, he let go the record button, and muttered “Crap… Time to wake up, Sam”.

Chapter Three

“What on earth are you eating Phil?” Maresa asked playfully, one eyebrow up. She watched with mock disgust, as he dug another escargot from its shell.

He rolled his eyes and asked “Do they not teach you what food looks like in American schools?”

“You can probably differentiate between a Big Mac and a Whopper, no?” Philippe said dryly, dipping a snail in a small bowl of sauce.

Maresa Wilkins liked listening to Philippe talk, not in any salacious way but just because it reminded her of Hungary. He wasn’t even Hungarian, but the strong European accent was enough. Maresa loved the US, but losing touch with friends and even many family members was one of the few regrets she had.

She stuffed the last bite of roast beef sandwich in her mouth and spoke while chewing “It’s all cow, so no difference!”

After Maresa and Philippe finished lunch they returned to sorting and answering mail. Maresa’s official title was assistant to the Secretary of Cultural Affairs, Philippe’s title was Assistant to Maresa.

She had her own small office in a complex a few blocks away, but occasionally worked on projects and even routine tasks like mail, at the Governor’s main office when needed. She answered what inquiries she could, like one asking if the Governor could come and speak at Madden Elementary School, to celebrate Casimir Pulaski Day. Easy answer, it wasn’t going to happen.

The ones she couldn’t answer, like the request from a European Pharmaceutical for information about possible tax incentives to relocate, she would pass on to Deputy Chief Ross, and from his office it would go up the chain, if need be.

In the background, the pretty blond talking head from Fox news argued animatedly, with a smaller head, in a box to her left. The volume on the wall mounted flat screen was usually kept off to avoid distraction, but Maresa could not ignore Philippe’s incessant staring, as though mesmerized by the silent debate.

 “Come on Phil, watch the yammering bimbo on your own time…”  Her words trailed off, as she read the chyron running across the bottom of the picture.

The Army National Guard had been called in to help quell a disturbance at a Florida hospital, no terrorism suspected so far, at least 12 dead, no word on a cause or any time estimate for a resolution.

As Maresa and Philippe watched & read, their attention was drawn to the live footage box, above and to the right of the blond. It was a slowly panning helicopter view of the outside of the hospital, and what looked like two people, had just fallen or jumped through a third floor window, crashing to the ground. Large and small bits of glass glinted in the sun, scattered around & between the two bodies. The camera zoomed in, as a dark pool was already growing around one of the forms. The other body stirred, then jumped up and sprinted off, one arm grotesquely flailing in wrong directions, then the small screen turned black.

“Was that real?” Philippe asked, after a few seconds of slack jawed silence.

“I… don’t know, it kind of looked like stunt men, right?” Maresa said, grabbing the remote to turn up the volume.

The blond was quiet, looking down slightly and holding one hand to the side of her head, engrossed in whatever instructions were being fed to her earbud.

The squinty eyed man in the small box to her left was still saying “…and if this administration can’t find a way to…” as she cut him off.

“Sorry Bill… um, yes… we apologize to any viewers offended by the… uh, disturbing footage that appeared on our live screen…” She nervously shuffled some papers.

“…we will certainly have more on that story soon.” The live screen was still black, but a moment later the black was replaced by an aerial view of an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

Chapter Four

Tampa General Hospital sat on the north tip of Davis Island. A roughly square assemblage of buildings, it was surrounded on three and a half sides by the waters of Tampa Bay. It was also surrounded by officers of the Tampa PD, and the TPD Tactical Response Team.

A make shift command center was set up at the intersection of the eastbound Davis Bridge main entrance to the complex. The small group of tents and vehicles were more or less centered on the back side of a six story hospital annex building that was separate from the main complex.

Captain Murphy Allen stood behind a long folding table just under the edge of a pop up tent, answering reporter’s questions.

“Captain Allen!” a local channel 10 reporter yelled, cutting off another reporter. “…How do you know this is not terrorism?!”

Other reporters nodded in approval of the obviously titillating question.

Murphy cleared his throat “Well, at this time we are aware of only three assailants, all of which are known hospital employees… And as far as we know, no weapons have been used… only uh, direct physical… assaults.”

A female reporter jumped in “What type of assaults are these? We have reports of torn limbs & multiple bite wounds… is this true? And can you confirm 12 deaths?”

Murphy turned around and momentarily talked with a suited man behind him, then turned back to the bundle of microphones. “We can confirm there are fatalities, but we are not able to give a specific number at this time, and as to the method of assault, we have to complete a full investigation before we can say for sure. We are still…”

His radio chirped.

Captain Allen continued distractedly, trying to listen to chatter from his radio. “Our Tactical Team is ready to…”

Popping gunfire echoing it’s way to the gathering, cut off the captain’s response.

The tents & police vans circling the command post were obviously some distance removed from the shots being fired but most of the reporters either dove under nearby police vehicles. A few ran towards the USF building across the street.

As camera crews and onlookers scattered, Murphy Allen, followed by two other officers moved quickly toward the west corner of the annex building which blocked their view of the hospital complex proper.

Murphy keyed his two-way radio as he jogged “Wills... Wills damn it, report, now!... anyone?... Somebody better tell me what the hell is going on!”

No one replied as more shots reverberated between buildings & out over the water, followed by screams. By the time the captain rounded the corner enough to see the action, the other two officers, Bill Kennedy and Ryan Parker, had caught up and flanked him with weapons drawn. The three men halted, stunned momentarily by the surreal violence unfolding in front of them.

Fifty feet away, in the middle of the road, they saw two uniformed officers battling a large vicious animal. The animal looked like a person dressed in a hospital gown, but their minds knew it couldn’t be a human, because human beings don’t tear the faces off of other human beings with their teeth. The officer that wasn’t being torn to pieces, was hitting the creature in the head with his baton, but being thwarted by the beast turning, and keeping it’s prey between itself & the swinging club.

The men stood transfixed for what seemed like minutes, but actually it was only a second before Kennedy took off at a sprint toward the melee, growling “Fuck this!”

At the same time, Murphy’s radio chirped and began speaking “Captain!... one of the… whatever they are, just jumped in the bay!” Captain Murphy looked around, the situation was out of control, and he was not even sure what situation that was. He was hearing more pops, and in his peripheral vision he was pretty sure he saw Kennedy shooting the thing in the hospital gown, while grabbing it by the hair.

Parker spoke, very softly “Captain, I think that’s… Kelly’s car…” he was staring west, toward the furthest squad car from them.

Murphy looked & saw movement in the space under the car, he was almost thankful he could not see the full extent of what was happening on the other side of the cruiser. Even at a distance of a hundred yards, the rapid savage motions, and flashes of red, told him too much. His eyes lost focus for a moment, he looked down at his radio trying to recover and shivered a bit.

Then something snapped in Murphy Allen’s brain, not a snap exactly, more like a pop. Like the sound of a light switch with a short circuit, that scary pop when you flip it on.

“Parker, go… kill everything. Get your rifle, run them over, whatever.” Murphy said in a calm voice, still staring down at his radio.

“Kill everything and everyone who’s not a cop and is acting like…that… Do it, now!” He shouted the last part, looking up and shoving Parker towards Officer Kelly Monahan’s squad car.

He then spoke into his radio “All units, engage hostiles with lethal force, repeat, lethal force authorized if any suspect refuses a stop order.”

He walked purposefully forward, crossing the road toward the hospital’s ER entrance, where a bloody faced figure had just emerged. He removed his Glock from it’s holster and pulled the slide back just a little to make sure a round was chambered.

Closing to within twenty yards of the bloody thing wearing blue nurse’s scrubs, he saw that it finally noticed him. The creature’s eyebrows went up in recognition and maybe anticipation. It’s mouth parted and turned up at the corners ever so slightly as one small line of saliva slowly ran down the chin.

Murphy Allen leveled his pistol, said "Stop" and began firing immediately while still walking briskly towards the monster. The thing had started toward him just before he emptied his magazine into it, at least he was pretty sure it had.

Chapter Five

Sitting at her desk finishing her homework Samantha Wilkins heard a vehicle pull into the drive. She thought it sounded like the truck, had to be dad. She was half way down the stairs when her father came through the door.

 

“Did you bring dinner?” she asked, smiling expectantly.

 

He held up a white paper bag with grease stains near the bottom, while continuing to talk into his phone, probably Chinese she thought.

 

“…Well, why not?” he was asking, obviously annoyed.

 

“Mom?” Samantha asked.

 

Her father gave her a quick nod, and pointed a finger at the bag he had plopped down on the counter. She sniffed it, fairly sure it was Kung Pao chicken & pork fried rice.

 

He was still talking to the phone as he walked through the kitchen toward his office, "...just doesn't seem like the time..."

 

Getting a bowl from the cupboard, she said “No problem dad, I’ll just keep myself company while I eat!”

 

Her father stuck his head back in the room “Sam, I’m sorry…”

 

His mouth sat open, as he tried to think of what to say “please just eat and get ready for bed… ok?”

 

She rolled her eyes at him, while chewing.

 

“Love you honey!” he said, closing his office door.

 

Claudia must have been asleep on the sofa, she shuffled into the kitchen rubbing her eyes. “¿Su padre está en casa?” she asked. Claudia had been their nanny & tutor since Samantha was two, and spoke to her only in Spanish.

 

“Sí Claudia, regresa a casa por favor y toma algún alimento chino” Samantha answered, spooning some of the food into a tupperwear.

An hour later Samantha lay in bed replaying bits of her day, as she always did before letting sleep take hold. She heard arguing below, mom must be home, she thought.

 

Her parents didn’t often have loud fights, and when they did she usually pull a pillow over her ears and try to sleep, but this sounded different somehow. Her mom was saying something like, “That’s why I have to go!” Her dad came back with, “Well if this is so damn bad, then you should not be away!!”

 

Samantha quietly padded out to the top of the stair where she could hear more clearly. “Listen…” her mother was speaking slowly, in her argument-defusing tone.

 

“The CDC is down there… Ok, it seems like whatever it is, is contained.” She paused “It will only be a two day trip, including travel… I’ll be back Friday night… ok?”

 

She normally didn’t notice her mom’s accent, but when she was upset (as she was), it became more pronounced. Her dad said “I don’t really get why you have to go anyway, you’re a little low on the totem pole to be attending a Governor’s meeting.”

 

“Ouch” Samantha whispered to herself.

 

“Alden, you know I’m not in this job for status, Pat trusts my feedback and opinions on things… I was asked to go, and I think I can help.”

 

Her father’s response was so quiet she had to strain to hear, “Maresa… you know I just worry about you, I… we would be lost without you.”

Sam’s heart skipped a beat. “Without you”, what did that mean? She was scared, her dad sounded scared, so her being scared only made sense.

 

She kept listening for a while, but heard nothing else. Samantha tried to analyze what little info she had, as she tip-toed back to bed. Her mom “had” to go to some governor’s meeting somewhere, somewhere that might be dangerous, for some unknown reason.

 

Her dad thought whatever this danger was, it required the family to stay close together, here. The CDC, whatever that that might be, was “down there”, where ever that was, and something unknown, that sounded dangerous, was “contained” down there.

 

As she tried to sleep again, Samantha couldn’t get the phrase out of her head, “without you”. She was thinking she would find out what this was all about in the morning, one way or another, when she began to dream. She was looking for something she had lost & couldn’t find, looking everywhere frantically but it was gone, something or it might have been someone.

 

Chapter Six

It was nearly pitch black, Alden was confused and slightly panicked. He could hear a muffled voice and see a few tiny specks of light and it was hot, like oven hot.

 

He tried to stand up on the uneven surface but his head bumped into something hard made of wood. Looking around in a half crouch, he saw light coming from the floor, a thin line of bluish hazy light.

 

The attic, he realized he was somehow up in the attic. He slowly and carefully stepped across the beams, feeling his way. He knew one wrong move & a foot would be through the ceiling.

 

He made his way to the pull-down ladder hatch. He tried pushing it down but remembered it automatically locked in the up position. He could hear the voice more clearly now "Wake up!" Sam demanded.

 

Looking down through a crack he saw Maresa lying on the couch, their daughter by her side, saying “Wake up, I need you to wake up!”

 

His wife didn’t stir, Sam shook her but still she lay unmoving. Alden yelled down “Pull the rope, Sam! I’m stuck up here… its locked!”

 

No response.

 

Maybe he could unlock it from his side. In the darkness the lock mechanism was hard to see but on a small screen, red numbers counted down.

 

09, 08, 07… The wire-cutters in his hand were wet from the sweat dripping off his face. Red wire or green wire… which one?

 

His daughter was yelling now, “Wake up, dad!”

Samantha was looking down at him in the dim light when he opened his eyes. “Where’s mom?”

 

She looked past him to the empty spot in the bed, eyes demanding.

 

Head still half full of cotton, Alden realized the pillow and sheet under him was damp with sweat. He blinked away the sleep and looked at the clock, five twenty-three. The alarm would start blaring in a few minutes. 

 

“Dad!” she said impatiently, “where did mom go?!”

He answered in a voice more gravelly than he expected, “She had to go on a short trip but she’ll be back before the weekend.”

 

He thought Samantha looked almost stricken at the news. Trying to comfort her, he added “Honey, don’t worry… she”.

 

Samantha cut him off, “Where did she go?... when?”

 

He realized she was really upset. “Sam, what’s wrong, why are you freaking out?”

 

“I heard you guys fighting last night, you were worried about her going… to wherever it is.”

 

Alden forced a smile and said, “Oh silly Sam, I wasn’t worried I just don’t want mom to be away from us, cause we miss her… Everything is fine honey, I promise she is in no danger.”

 

He hoped Sam had not overheard any of the Florida details. “She had to leave on the red-eye, but she kissed you goodbye, you were sleeping.”

 

She stared at him with suspicion indicated in her furrowed brow, “So… you meant we would be ‘lost without her’ for two days?”

 

He grabbed her in a big hug, “Yes, yes, I just know how tough it is for you… for us, when mom’s away.”

 

Samantha sniffled and nodded.

 

He kept up the illusion of lightheartedness, “Come on kid, let’s get you fed and ready for school.”

Alden turned on the radio after dropping off Samantha and waited anxiously for the bottom of the hour. He was hoping for new details from Florida. Finally the ABC news man came on, a tragic gas leak at the hospital… anesthetizing agent that’s what he was saying.

 

Maresa had told him there would be some cover story like that, and how important it was to keep the real story under wraps for the time being.

 

One hundred six dead. Alden repeated the number out loud in amazed horror. The announcer said it was the largest US death toll from an industrial disaster since 1972, some mining thing.

 

He said much of the surrounding area had been cordoned off because the lethal gas had ‘settled in low places’ and was still a danger. It took up most of the national news brake, and some of the local part. Even having been redacted, it was still a huge story.

 

There was no mention of the CDC, though Alden knew they were down there and in charge. No mention of people behaving like lobotomized cannibals who had their cheerios pissed in, raging on some combo of PCP, anabolic steroids and bath salts.

 

As he pulled into his reserved parking space, Alden wondered if the CDC could actually keep the real facts out of the press for any extended period. He decided the truth would eventually come out, hopefully not before authorities figured out what the real facts were.

Archer Daniels Midland was only six miles from Thomas Jefferson Middle School. Alden was in his lab twenty minutes after telling Samantha he loved her & to have a good day.

 

He spent the morning with his team, working on a new variation of refinement for switchgrass ethanol. On a normal day, he would spend at least a little time ‘borrowing’ a bit of ADM’s main fame CPU power to test polynitrogen stabilizers. Alden had figured out a way to run models that would be indecipherable to anyone else, though he didn’t think anyone would ever dig deep enough to find his personal research files.

 

This day, all his down time was spent calling Maresa, though she had not answered. Alden also checked the news on the hour, which was still running the story according to script.

 

Finally just before noon, she picked up. “Hello love…”

 

His wife sounded exhausted. “My god Mare, where have you been?”

 

“Right here… we were in meetings all morning, a lot going on.”

 

“So, any news?” Not sure if she would be able to say much,

 

She spoke with exaggerated casualness, “Same old, same old… yeah, I’ll be home late on Friday.”

 

Alden decoded the message to mean, she wasn’t alone & couldn’t talk about any of it right then.

 

“How is Sam doing?” she asked.

 

“She misses you, but she’s fine… you know how tough she is.” He didn’t see a reason to be specific about their daughter’s morning wig out.

 

“Any news from there?” she asked.

 

He thought that was an odd question. Then she said, “Yeah, you should watch that.”

 

“So I should watch the news?” he asked, trying to understand the cryptic words.

 

“Yeah, ok honey, I have to get back… Oh, don’t forget to go online and pay those bills, love you. See you Friday.”

 

“Alright, look for news online, I got it.” Alden said, knowing it had been more code, since all their bills were auto-debit.

 

“Be careful, ok?… we’ll see you Friday, we love you!”

 

He was about to hit END when her voice came back on, “Oh Alden!... remember to stop by Costco and get some extra groceries for the party… love you, bye.”

 

There was no party that Alden knew of, so it meant something else.

 

“Uh, do you mean…” *click* But she was gone.

 

Thinking about how she said it, he thought she may have emphasized Costco and Groceries more than the other words. So she wanted him to go out and get extra groceries? Like preparing for a storm or something, that thought was not comforting, not in the least.