Chapter 3: Code Red

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John sighed as he looked out the window of his classroom. He was bored out of his mind listening to the current lecture so he was busily looking for something to occupy himself. It was raining, as if to mock the otherwise tense atmosphere permeating the nation. Six days ago, the first news report came in about riots in Pakistan that turned out to be caused by an unknown virus that causes extremely violent tendencies followed by death. The media did not show any pictures but rather opted to show reporters standing in front of broken windows of stores that had been raided the night prior or some random building that was set on fire by a rampaging patient.

The students are calling it mad fever, the scientists are labeling it as the P15 virus, but there really was no need to name it. It was all anyone was talking about these days. When you called in sick, people would get into a frenzy think you had the mad fever when in fact it might have just been the common cold.

Everyone was on edge.

Everyone except John.

He’d lived his entire life listening to the same media talking about terrorist threats to bombings but it never impacted his life in any way. To him, all the news about the virus was taken in a very detached manner. To John, such an epidemic would never in his wildest dreams reach where he lived. He lived in the suburbs in the shadow of D.C. only a stone’s throw away from the 1% millionaires. Living in one of the richest places, he and his family of moderate income enjoyed much of the benefits that were left for the best and richest of the U.S. The health services were good and the police were well trained and nice. They didn’t shoot people indiscriminately but they kept the order just fine.

He turned away from the window and looked at his fellow classmates. A good few of them were soundly asleep, doing a poor job of concealing it, while the rest were clearly struggling to not fall like the comrades around them. He noticed the girl from the other day sitting near the back and wondered how he’d never noticed a girl like her sooner.

Deciding it was a combination of her sitting in his blind spot or her being a transfer student, he decided to turn back and give his full attention back to where it belonged in a classroom, the window. As he looked out, he saw a hint of smoke rising from the distance and wondered if someone was having a cookout.

I guess we need one to light up the atmosphere around here he thought to himself as he looked at the wispy trail of smoke. As he looked closer, the smoke seemed to grow larger and darker and a small frown appeared on his face.

“A bonfire party, perhaps?” He murmured to himself.

“What was that, Mr. Rider? You have a question?” The teacher said as John’s murmuring was overheard by the teacher. He turned to see the teacher looking at him, as well as the attention of half the class, while the other half were waking up from the commotion, looking around only to rest their gazes on him. He saw this and just shrugged his shoulders while pointing his thumb towards the window.

“There seems to be a fire” He explained. The class collectively turned their attention to the window and looked out.

Seeing the billowing smoke, conversation erupted in class as to what could have caused such a large fire. Some students took out their phones to investigate.

“Alright, that’s enough. Everyone quiet down and get back to taking notes.” Ms. Potts said trying to control the suddenly unruly crowd of students.

“Oh my God…” A girl’s trembling voice sounded out from the back of the classroom as the rest of the class turned to look at what happened. She looked up from intensely staring at her phone and turned towards the class. “Someone with the virus was admitted to Saint George’s 40 minutes ago.”

This caused an uproar in class and general pandemonium as students started discussing with each other, and some also took out their own smartphones to verify the news. After finding out it was true, their faces turned pale and their hands started to tremble in fear. John was shocked as well as he had never expect the virus to advance so far into the United States.

It seems other classes had noticed the fire and ran through similar sequences of events as his own class as shouts and noises could be heard from the other classrooms. The teacher frantically tried to calm the students to no avail until the announcement system turned on with a buzz.

“Attention all students. As many of you have recently found out, there has been a case of the virus admitted to the Saint George’s Hospital earlier this afternoon.” The principal making the announcement paused to let the news sink in.

He continued, “However, we have been notified by the authorities that the situation had been contained and there seem to be no evidence as to any other cases. Thus, we will be continuing classes but will monitor the situation closely. I shall not repeat myself, so listen carefully: Do not get out of hand and don’t start a fuss. Sorry for the interruption, teachers, you may resume your lessons.” With that, the calm returned somewhat to the classroom but the students were even more high strung.

John decided that this was the best time to relieve some of his pent up stress and fatigue and asked the teacher if he could go to the bathroom. After getting an approving nod from the distracted teacher, he left the classroom and walked down the hallway.

As he passed by another window looking out over the street in front of the school, there were no cars but a lone figure that was walking towards the school. The security guards patrolling the perimeter of the school could be seen walking towards the man with their hands slowly reaching for their tasers. One of them talked into his walkie talkie and soon after, a buzz from the P.A system could be heard,

The announcement system turned back on and the principal, now with a tint of worry in his voice said, “Attention students, visitors, and faculty, due to a security emergency in the nearby vicinity of the school grounds, we are issuing a temporary code blue alert. You may continue with classes but you are not permitted to allow anyone entry or exit into classrooms. Please lock your doors and close the blinds and we will notify you of any changes. I repeat, this is not a drill, we are in a code blue.”

John hearing the announcement got somewhat worried but decided to see how the events at the school entrance would unfold. The man walking over seemed to be unresponsive to the warnings of the security guards probably telling him that the school was private property.

The man ignored the warnings and started picking up speed and eventually started stumbling towards the guards. One of the guards quickly took out his taser and after several more warnings, let loose. However, the electricity seemed to have no effect on the man as he continued stumbling forward.

The second security guard called in another time to the walkie talkie and walked briskly next to the other security guard, raising a taser of his own and firing. John remained transfixed at the spot both out of fascination at a scene that he could have only imagined seeing in movies or T.V shows and out of fear. He was so immersed in the scene before him that he did not hear the sound of the P.A system announce a code red, initiating a total school lock-down.

The man remained undeterred and arrived at the first security guard. The guard pushed the man away with his arm but with fast reactions, the man grabbed the arm and suddenly bit down hard, tearing through the thin fabric, skin and muscle, tearing away at a large chunk of meat on the arm. Screams of pain could be heard from the guard as he tried to extricate himself from the man while the other security guard took out his gun and fired.

BANG.

The first bullet hit the knee cap of the man, causing his legs to buckle unable to support the weight, and the first guard went down with him. The man crawled up the struggling body of the guard while the other guard pelted the man with bullets in the rib cage with no effect.

The man reached the neck of the guard and with a open mouth lined with bloody teeth and bits of human flesh, bit down on the nape of the guards neck, silencing his screams. The guard finally shot the man in the head, and the force knocked the man off the dead guard and the man lay still, dead.

“SHIT, SHIT, CALL AN AMBULANCE.” The guard could be heard screaming into the walkie talkie so loudly that his voice could be heard from the window where John was standing. John quickly snapped out of his shock and hid underneath the window, sitting down to control his shaking body and legs.

This was the first time he had seen someone die in front of him, let alone in such a savage manner.

“What’s going on? What was wrong with that man? Could it be the virus?” Questions raced through John’s head as he struggled to understand the situation that had unraveled before him.

His vision started becoming dark around the edges and he started seeing spots, at which point he realized he wasn’t breathing. He took a deep, gasping breath and hyperventilated, calming his senses. Afterwards, he peeked up over the window to see that the guard was leaning over the downed guard, trying to stop the blood flow and checking the pulse of the guard.

He leaned down to put his ear up against the guards nose to hear for breathing but at that moment, the injured guards eyes snapped open, bloodshot and his mouth opened wide and, leaning up, ripped off the ear of the guard. The injured guard grabbed the guards head and started tearing with his teeth at the flesh on the side of his cheek, exposing the row of teeth underneath as the guard screamed in agony.

The injured guard sat up and brought the other guard down and started eating away at his face stopping after the guard stopped moving. The injured guard looked up towards the school, stood up and walked towards the entrance. Soon after, the other guard, who John had thought dead, also slowly stood up and shuffled towards the entrance.

John’s voice, body, and mind were frozen in shock and fear at the scene that was before him. He simply could not comprehend what had happened as he watched the two men walk towards the double metal doors. They slammed into the door and started banging it with their fists.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The noise resounded throughout the still and noiseless school. The banging seemed to reverberate off the walls and echo down the halls, crashing into the thick silence that screamed in the air after each bang.

John looked towards the man that had started it all, lying motionless on the field. What is he, that he could remain standing despite the injuries? Why did he not get up again like the others? What was different? John’s eyes narrowed in realization.

The man had been unaffected by tasers and several gunshot wounds but the last bullet, the bullet to the head, had stopped him.

Confused by this realization as it defied all of his known biological science, he decided that questioning why it happened was not important. What was important was that the virus had caused this change in the man and the guards. Seeing as how the second guard was not affected until he stood back up after being attacked, it didn’t seem the virus was triggered by proximity.

So, naturally John’s conclusion was that the virus was not airborne, but was in fact transferred by the fluid transfer he had heard about. He breathed a small sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge that as long as he wasn’t bitten by the infected, he would be safe.

What was most scary, was that the people infected seemed to not fear pain or death and indeed could kill others without any remorse. This truly terrified John.

If those infected guards get in this building, there is no stopping them with the way I am now, and the others don’t know how to deal with the situation. I have to warn someone. I have to warn the principal and the guards!

With that thought, John quickly ran towards the principal’s office, his sneakers hitting the linoleum floors the only sounds resounding through the empty halls.