Decimation Series (Book 1): Contagion Read online

  She had one of the guards escort me back to our barracks area. I got some sideways stinkeyes from some of my fellow passengers around the room, but mostly they ignored my return. I found my way back to the corner where Stephanie and the twins were bunking. I noticed Mr. Williams’ cot was empty and his luggage was absent. I felt a pang of guilt.

  When she saw me, Stephanie jumped up from her cot where she had been talking with the brothers and ran up to give me a hug, but then pulled back at the last minute, and settled for an intimate arm-rub with a smile. I think both of us realized that the events of the last week weren’t gone, certainly hadn’t been forgotten; the wounds were still very raw, and everything was still looming in the background. This crisis may have created a common need, that of ensuring the safety of our children and us getting home to them, but that hadn’t changed the reality of what looked like our crumbling marriage. I didn’t know if we could move on or not, and honestly, I didn’t know if I even wanted to with her infidelity brought to light. But for the moment, at least, I think we were on the same page.

  I nodded to her; I took her hand and looked to where the twins were sitting. Just beside them and chatting with the brothers were my neighbours from the flight, the accountant and his wife. I went to my cot and sat down heavily. I gave everyone an update on what had happened to me and learned that Dr. Lam had made her rounds and check-ups of everyone from our flight while I had been sequestered. Several people from our flight had been showing some minor cold or flu symptoms, so they had been removed and taken to some other area as a precaution.

  Alex learned that there were several other quarantine areas like ours, all consisting of people from overseas flights who had been abroad at the time of the initial release. Dr. Lam had claimed to not know exactly how many people in total were being “collected” (the word Stephanie said she had used, which I found interesting), but a quick calculation on my part put it at well over a thousand. My initial silent reaction was that’s a lot of mouths to feed. But then I considered that Pearson International Airport was a major hub and that, according to billboards I had seen posted around when we had connected here through to Paris a week ago, had over one hundred thousand people a day feed through here one way or another. I decided that a thousand or so mouths parked here when nothing else was happening in the airport really wasn’t that big of a deal.

  Together we all made our way to the food court area to get something to eat, as it had been hours since we had eaten. I saw several younger soldiers stationed behind the grills, their camo fatigues contrasting with the white aprons and hairnets they were wearing.

  It was around four o’clock in the afternoon local time, but that meant it was almost midnight according to my internal clock. We found that TGI Friday’s was serving a lovely menu of either Chicken Caesar Salad (with or without the chicken, for our vegan friends) or a decidedly non-vegan bacon-cheeseburger for the carnivores in the crowd. I was strangely tickled by the fact that everyone present ordered the burger.

  The six of us managed to find a table that would fit us all, and we hunkered down for some grub. I like to consider myself to be somewhat cosmopolitan, but after a week in Paris, that burger with its companion of fries was like a big greasy crunchy slice of home-grilled heaven.

  As we ate, we learned a bit more about each other. My accountant friend and his gruff wife were Seth and Michelle Durant. Partners in business as well as in life, they ran their accounting office out of the basement of their Scarborough home. No kids (unintentionally, it just worked out that way despite tab A fitting into slot B just fine, according to Seth).

  Seth told us they had a summer place in the Muskokas and they were going to try to get to once we were out of here. They would make a quick stop at their house to grab their SUV, some supplies and a shotgun Seth had left over from his younger goose-hunting days, and would hopefully get to their cabin to ride out whatever craziness was happening outside. I asked how far it was to get to their house from here. Earning a glare from his wife, he replied normally it was only thirty minutes or so along the 401. Right now, he said with a shrug, my guess was as good as his.

  They had what sounded like a very good plan, and I told them so.

  They didn’t invite us along, which I understood completely.

  Like me and Steph, Jamie and Alex hadn’t put too much thought beyond just getting home to their families, so it sounded like the Durants were a couple steps ahead of the rest of us.

  After everyone had dug in, Jamie and Alex started giving me a good-natured ribbing over my fighting abilities. “So, Alex, it looks like the big guy here is all show and no go,” Jamie said to his brother between bites.

  Alex nodded as he chewed on his bite of burger. “Yep,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, nodding sagely. “I’ve seen it a million times. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. ‘Sound and fury, signifying nothing,’ I guess,” he quoted.

  I laughed, spitting out a mouthful of hamburger. My combat prowess and literary background aside, that quote had special meaning to me, since that was how my quiet dad had always heckled my verbose mom (at least, he had after a few drinks).

  “Macbeth references notwithstanding,” I said, taking a sip from my water, “I feel bad for jumping that guy. That’s not like me at all.”

  “That’s for sure,” chimed in Stephanie with a grin. “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you lose your cool since before we were married.”

  I gazed around the food court area we were in. I was guessing there were three or four dozen passengers scattered about eating an assortment of meals. I saw the Chinese food place seemed to be doing a good business and decided if we were still here tomorrow for lunch, that would be my first choice, and the pizza place across from us would be my second choice.

  There were several guards stationed about, and none were wearing the respirator masks present during our initial landing and quarantine. I guess they figured since these guys were still healthy and. from what we had been told, we likely weren’t a health risk. The guards were all armed, but they didn’t seem to be on a very high alert level, since their rifles were all slung forgotten at their sides as they sat and chatted.

  After we all had finished eating, I pulled my little red Swiss Army knife from my pocket. I had gotten this knife from my dad when I was a Boy Scout and had carried it ever since. During the flight, of course, I couldn’t have it with me (although what kind of damage anyone could do with a blade that small, I had no idea), but it had been in my checked luggage. I had dug it out once we got our luggage and put it where it belonged, in my front pocket. I pulled out the plastic toothpick that came tucked into the handle and started cleaning my teeth. I could see Steph’s jaw clench as she pretended to ignore my bad manners. I couldn’t help it, I knew picking my teeth at the table was a bad habit, but one I had never been able to kick.

  Speaking of bad habits, Seth and Michelle leaned back from the table and both simultaneously pulled out cigarettes and lit up. We all looked at them, somewhat aghast. I had seen people smoking at the end of the jetway overlooking the tarmac near our sleeping area, one of the soldiers had unlocked and propped open the boarding gate door for them, but this was the first I had seen anyone light up inside a building in, well, years I guessed.

  “Sorry,” said Seth. “Old habits die hard.” He took a drag, relishing the process, exhaling slowly. “I’m thinking in light of what’s going on, a couple of cigs worth of second-hand smoke is the least of everyone’s worries.”

  After a second, I started laughing, and the others joined in.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Day 3 - early AM

  The second night of our quarantine, I awoke in darkness, and it took a moment for me to recall where I was and the situation we were all in. I had always been a heavy sleeper, something Stephanie had always taken delight in teasing me about. When the kids were babies, and I would sleep through them waking up crying in the night needing a diaper change or a feeding, she used to sa
y that she was sure I was faking being asleep so she would have to get up and take care of them. I always figured she was only half-joking. At best.

  I lay still for a moment, listening to the big quiet room around me, and wondered what had awakened me.

  I could hear the sounds of the hundreds of other people in the room, all sleeping. Many people were snoring, some breathing heavily, some quietly.

  Falling asleep had not been easy. As everyone settled in to bed, the reality of where we were weighed heavily on me and I’m sure on the others around me. Outside of this room, outside of this airport, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people were dead and dying; dying ugly from what we had been told. Lying there on a comfortable cot, warm under my blanket, I felt the guilt of survival, the guilt felt by anyone who walked away from a situation that claimed the lives of others.

  Man’s ability to commit atrocity against his fellow man had never surprised me, but then I had never witnessed it personally and certainly not on this scale. In the quiet of the room, I had fallen asleep to the sad lullaby of others crying themselves to sleep, just as I was.

  The lights, which had flickered a few times throughout the evening, had gone out for good around eight o’clock, and hadn’t come back on. No-one seemed too concerned, since during his speech Captain Harrison had warned us that the power supply would be intermittent at best. The guards had set up some temporary lighting around the room to help us get settled in to sleep, but those were off now.

  I threw off my army-supplied wool blanket and sat up, rubbing my eyes. I stood and, with the light provided from the lantern where the sole guard watching over us was stationed, I padded silently through the gloom towards bathroom down the hall. I nodded to the guard as I walked by, and he nodded back, distracted; I could just barely hear the music from the headphones he had jammed into his ears. I grinned in the darkness as I made my way past him, recognizing the song from one my daughter had worn out over the summer. I would never have guessed that a big tough soldier would be a Belieber.

  The bathroom was pitch black, except for a couple chemical glow-sticks that had been placed on the countertop. Their light was enough for me to do my business, and at least there was still enough water pressure to flush, wash my hands and take a small drink.

  As I walked out of the bathroom back to the sleeping area, I passed the guard on his way in, and nodded at him again. Before I had taken more than a dozen steps, I heard him blow his nose.

  I stopped in my tracks, cold. I now knew what had awakened me.

  In the quiet darkness of the bathroom, I heard him sneeze.

  I froze. I didn’t know what to do. Normally a sneeze from a stranger would warrant a “bless you” and a nod and off you go. Today, however, things had changed substantially. Everything they had told us today was ringing through my head as the echo of the guard’s sneeze disappeared.

  Another muffled sneeze followed by a string of coughs in the darkness of the bathroom prompted me to start moving again. I walked quickly back to where the others were sleeping, looking around to see if there were another guard I could notify. There was no-one.

  I walked back towards the bathrooms, thinking there must be another guard past the bathrooms to keep us from wandering off. They would know what to do.

  As I came abreast of the entrance to the bathrooms, the guard walked out, wiping his nose with a tissue. Looking at me, despite the darkness he could easily see the alarm on my face. I could see the wheels turning behind his eyes, and I wasn’t happy about the decision he settled on.

  He lunged forward and pushed me hard up against the wall, whispering to me through gritted teeth to be quiet, to not raise an alarm. As I opened my mouth to shout for help, his one hand came up to grasp me around my throat, cutting off my air. His red panicked eyes stared into mine, desperate and helpless.

  Suddenly he twisted and all I saw was ceiling and then floor as his hip drove into mine and his spin threw me ass over teakettle. He landed on top of me, his hands twisted in my t-shirt. With his hand no longer squeezing my throat my vision cleared, and I took a deep breath; I was about to yell when I felt his fists smashing into my face. My already-bruised nose and lips did not appreciate the repeat attention.

  Without thinking, I took a cue from my paranoid friend from this afternoon and twisted my shoulders while throwing my arm across my body and smashed my elbow into his face. Twice.

  Apparently when someone with some mass and a bit of muscle behind them does that, it’s more effective than when a paranoid nutcase that walks around at a buck-fifty does it. The guard’s nose exploded like an overripe tomato, and he pulled both hands up to his face, crying out in pain.

  I took advantage and instinctively threw my hips up, throwing him off me. I twisted and climbed up to my feet, charging towards him. He was just starting to get to his feet, both hands held to his face, and I grasped out with both hands, seizing him by his short hair, and drove my knee into his face. His head snapped back, and his body followed, collapsing onto the ground.

  I scrambled forward and grabbed at his pistol at his belt. Yanking it free from its holder I stepped back, panting. Adrenaline flooded my system, and my hands were shaking uncontrollably. This was the first time I had ever held a pistol, and I was pointing it at another human being.

  I was seriously freaking out.

  “Help!” I cried, my voice cracking. “Help me!” After a moment’s hesitation, I pointed the gun in the air and squeezed the trigger twice, the blasts echoing down the hallway. Well that should do it, I thought to myself frantically.

  Within moments, alerted by the gunfire, three guards armed with rifles and flashlights and seemingly ready for anything came down the hallway at a brisk walk, one with his rifle facing ahead and the other two swiveling and checking doorways as they passed them. As they neared me, the one in front shouted at me to drop the weapon and to get down on the ground. I tossed the pistol on the ground, stepped back and raised my hands, stammering a confused explanation as to what had happened.

  Before I could react, I was face down on the ground, a knee in my back, and my lips being smashed against the cold tile floor. “Son of a bitch,” I managed to groan as my hands were pulled behind me and secured by plastic cuffs.

  With me secured, one of the other army guys had turned his attention to the injured guard.

  Despite my shouted warnings, he approached the man on the ground. The injured guard was holding his hands to his face, blood running between his fingers and down his arm. Offering his help, the new guy set his rifle down on the ground beside him and leaned in trying to see the extent of the guard’s injuries.

  The downed guard threw his head back and sneezed through his hands. Blood and snot sprayed out in a frothy red mess, covering the guy trying to help.

  The reaction of the other two army guys was galvanic. The guy on top of me spun and jumped back several feet, his weapon now pointed at the two guards on the floor covered in blood and mucus. He and the other guard with the rifle both stepped well back and shouted instructions to their two comrades to stay down. The guard who had been trying to help stared at them in shock, his face spattered with bloody foam.

  By this point, the hallway had started to fill with passengers awakened by the noise and coming to see what was happening.

  One of the guards turned and instructed everyone to stand back and keep their distance. The other armed guard grabbed his radio with his free hand and called for assistance while keeping his weapon trained on the two guards on the floor.

  “Command, checkpoint Delta is condition Red, repeat, Delta is Red. Immediate clean-up required at checkpoint Delta, we have two exposures, repeat two confirmed exposures at Delta. Confirm, over?” I could hear near panic in his voice.

  His radio immediately crackled, a calm, authoritarian voice replied. “Confirmed two exposures at Delta. Clean-up team is en route to you now. Confirm status of exposures?”

  “Two of ours, Command, but we have a heavy civi
lian presence, over, including one possible civilian exposure.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, seeing that I was the possible civilian exposure.

  “Copy, Delta. Control the situation, clean-up ETA is five minutes. Command out.”

  “Copy, Command, five minutes. Delta out.”

  ♦♦♦

  The clean-up crew turned out to be eight people in full biohazard gear including full-face respirators driving three of those large-sized golf carts you would often see driving around in airports ferrying passengers between flights. They came zipping down the hallway with high-intensity lights shining in all directions. Both carts were pulling trailers that I’m guessing originally had been used to carry luggage but looked to have been quickly re-purposed to serve as mobile quarantine cells, complete with clear plastic walls and floors and a zippered door. All the crew were armed with automatic pistols at their hips, and two of them were carrying rifles.

  By this point the far end of the hallway was packed with all my fellow passengers. I doubted anyone remained asleep after the commotion. I didn’t see Stephanie in the crowd, but I was sure she would be in there, concerned with my absence. The clean-up crew had brought a free-standing barricade that they had stretched across the hallway to keep everyone at a safe distance.

  The crew all moved with intimidating speed and efficiency. Both exposed guards were quickly disarmed and placed into one of the quarantine cells while the floor and walls around them were mopped with some cleanser that stank heavily of chlorine bleach. The two unexposed guards who had responded to my gunshots were also disarmed and assisted into the second cell, despite their protests. I groaned as I realized the third cell was for me.

  Today was not turning out to be my day.

  ♦♦♦

  Alone in my sad little plastic room, I looked at Captain Harrison where he sat at a portable desk just a handful of feet away from me; he was reading the report in front of him. Dr. Lam stood beside and slightly behind him, occasionally glancing up at me while her commanding officer read the papers in front of him. He did not have a smile on his face, and he did not look happy. Neither did Dr. Lam. Neither, I’m sure, did I.