End Days Super Boxset (73 page)

“Rob!” Mila shouted from afar.

Rob turned around and stood up, shocked to hear her voice.

She ran up the stairs in a fury and jumped into his arms. He lifted her up, and they embraced for what felt like an eternity. They both laughed and cried in ecstatic delirium.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I’ve never been happier…”

“Me either,” Rob said, stroking her hair. “Me either.”

He lowered her down as their lips pressed hard against each other. “I had faith,” she whispered. “Faith that we would get you back.”

Rob looked up and surveyed the scene as the sheriff walked up the stairs in slow, confident strides. Bodies of Arthur’s men lay everywhere. It was a bloodbath. He backed away and looked at Mila, surprised. “You did this?”

She touched her hair and gave him an innocent expression. “I may have had something to do with organizing it.”

Phelps ran from the building, carrying a bag, and handed it to Layish. “Here you go, Doc.”

Mila looked down and gasped. “Carlos!”

“It’s okay,” Rob said, holding her. “Dr. Layish here is going to take care of him.”

Carlos continued mumbling about Antonio and revenge, but he had remained conscious, and that’s what mattered, as Layish went to work on his wound. The sheriff came up and touched Mila on the shoulder.

“Looks like you gave us a Buick,” he said with a smile.

She turned, smiled, and looked back at Rob. “Rob, this is Sheriff Dawson.”

“You must be the man she did all this work for,” the sheriff said. “Nice to meet you.”

Rob gave him a handshake, threw an arm over his shoulder, and thanked him, and thanked him again.

“Not a problem. Couple of my men got hit, but we’re dealing with it. Looks like ol’ Carlos took a bullet too.”

“He’ll be okay,” Rob said. “He’s a fighter.” He wanted more than anything to believe it.

The sheriff cocked his head back and noticed Arthur slowly crawling away and trying to get to his pistol.

“Hey, I know him,” he said, pointing.

Rob and Mila turned to look. Rob took a step forward, only to have Mila grab his arm. “No,” she said as he turned to look at her. “I want to have a word with him.”

She stepped past Carlos and approached the mayor while pulling out her revolver.

“Hey!” Rob said, running over to them.

Mila kicked Arthur with her boot. He grunted and fell on his back, spitting blood. Mila stood directly over him, her legs straddling both sides of him. She raised her gun and aimed at his face.

“All the pain you’ve caused. All the lives you’ve destroyed. I can only think of one thing to do with you.”

Rob slowed his pace and approached her cautiously with his hands up. “That’s enough, Mila. He needs to answer for his crimes.”

She looked over at him. “In what world will that happen?”

Rob delicately touched Mila’s arm, pulling the gun down. “Don’t give him an easy way out. He doesn’t deserve it.”

Clearly conflicted, Mila’s shoulders shook as tears streamed down her cheeks. “He deserves to die, just like his horrible gang.”

“No, Mila,” Rob said. “We can’t decide that anymore.”

She lowered the gun completely as Rob wrapped her arms around her and squeezed. “Those days are over.”

These are the facts: There have been several reported Ebola outbreaks throughout Africa, from the late 1970s to the present. The disease was first identified in 1976 in tropical regions of Nzara and Yambuku, where two simultaneous outbreaks occurred. Yambuku, a small village in the northern Congo, is known primarily as the center of the 1976 outbreak and the place near the Ebola River, from which the virus draws its name.

The first reported Ebola outbreak killed an estimated 600 people, many of whom were medical personnel trying to treat the disease. From 1976 to 2013, twenty-four outbreaks occurred involving more than one thousand cases, with mortality rates as high as 90 percent.

From 2013 to 2015, the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded spread and ravaged West Africa at unprecedented levels. As of March 2015, there were twenty-four thousand reported cases, resulting in over ten thousand deaths. Researchers believe that the outbreak had originated in a young boy who died in December 2013 in a village in Guinea. From there, the disease spread to his family and to others, already gaining ground throughout the region before experts recognized the illness as Ebola.

Since its initial outbreak, medical teams, intensive care units, and World Health Organization officials have established prevention, treatment, and control measures that have successfully contained the spread of the disease in the past. These measures largely involve quarantine facilities, monitored treatment, and enforcement of proper sanitation procedures. Medical personnel often take an inherent risk providing care to patients infected with Ebola, and their selfless dedication to combat the disease often leads to their contracting the disease and joining the body count.

Research today explains the ways in which Ebola can spread. There are also specific times when a patient is believed to be contagious. Researchers say that the virus spreads only when the person is exhibiting signs and symptoms of the disease, which usually occurs eight to ten days after contracting the disease. In the past, quarantine facilities have always been places where people go in order to protect themselves from a deadly virus hell-bent on their destruction. Protecting against Ebola has been no different.

To date, there has been no documentation of airborne transmission, which is to say that the disease cannot be transmitted through air. In fact, the spread of the disease through the air has not been documented in either laboratory or natural conditions. Experts say that this has a lot to do with Ebola thriving in mucus, bodily fluids, and blood, while having no real presence in the air or lungs. The immunity of the human respiratory system against Ebola is believed to be due to low levels of virus in the lungs, insufficient to cause new infections. For over thirty years, that has been the conventional wisdom about Ebola and how it spreads.

Ebola first entered the United States when a Liberian man infected with the disease came to the US desperate for treatment. He lied about his condition in order to gain entry to the country, but didn't make it far before the disease consumed him. He later died in a Dallas hospital, while his extended family was kept in government quarantine within their own cramped apartment. But the man from Liberia wasn't the only one to carry the virus across borders. The CDC regularly flew American health care workers who had contracted the disease in West Africa back to the US for emergency treatment.

In all instances, the health workers survived after being administered experimental drugs and treatments. Bringing infected patients into the US proved to be very controversial, but the CDC insisted that the patients posed no threat. They were, after all, Americans who had dedicated themselves to providing humanitarian aid in countries overwhelmed with the disease.

The president then authorized over three thousand military service members to support the West African nations rampant with Ebola. Doctors, soldiers, and humanitarians went to ground zero in rotations in an attempt to halt the outbreak. It was business as usual, however, and the 2014 Ebola outbreak became old news. It soon lost the public's attention, and it appeared as though the government had everything under control. But something happened. An oversight that proved devastating in the end. For no one could predict the patterns of a highly contagious and unpredictable disease in a new environment.

This is the story: What experts failed to realize was the indigenous nature of the disease and how it singularly operated in its subtropical and often rural environment. Once the disease entered the United States, something changed: the disease grew more resistant and found ways to became more lethal than ever before. It spread first through medical personnel, then through their families, then through schools, taxis, subways, restaurants, airports, theme parks, movie theaters, and anywhere else.

But its spread was gradual, building and building, until one day it was too late. In attempts to control the outbreak, the government set up mass quarantine facilities all throughout the country. They were most predominant in the major cities, and they soon became the only hope for containing the disease.

Several places designated as quarantine facilities in infected areas had been set up in haste. They used hospitals, government buildings, and other times, public schools. Nothing was off limits, even homes and businesses. One such military base outside Reno, Nevada, had its hands full and was particularly crowded with many local and out-of-state residents, looking for sanctuary from the deadly outbreak that had consumed the entire state. Inside the base, the government had constructed several Ebola treatment centers; all of them highly secure with a large military presence. New arrivals stood outside a hangar in a line at least a quarter of a mile long for in-processing. Before being directed to one of several medical examination stations, every person had to first go through decontamination.

This was an official HAZMAT operation. Individuals were brought in, hosed down, and sanitized with cold pressure washers and disinfectant. Once inside, disoriented groups were herded into the various medical posts labeled in numerical order with big white signs and red numbers. Families were split apart and individually processed through. The environment of the hangar was cold and sterile.

Doctors and administrators questioned, prodded, and examined a convoy of confused residents, who stood nervously under the glare of low-hanging fluorescent lights set up at every section. It was going to be a long night for the one hundred medical personnel, 175 National Guard soldiers, and two thousand quarantined individuals.

In a relatively short time—by government standards—the southern and northern borders of the state were sealed off in an effort to keep the disease from spreading. The president, in conjunction with Homeland Security, the CDC, and US Customs and Border Patrol, implemented the highly controversial measures amidst an already-volatile political climate. For the first time, it seemed, the government was taking the Ebola crisis seriously after months of downplaying the outbreak. It seemed, however, too little too late. The CDC scrambled to update its advisory warnings and procedures, as no one seemed immune to the disease, no matter their age, gender, or health.

Ebola was all the more terrifying due to the manner in which it ravaged the body unlike anything seen before in America. Its contagion rate was on par with the infamous 1918 flu pandemic that infected five hundred million people across the world. Though Ebola casualties hadn't reached anywhere near the numbers of the influenza outbreak, widespread panic was no less pervasive, and with access to instant information, people were not so easily left in the dark.

The bureaucratic screening process was grueling for all involved, as they were subject to a series of medical tests in order to advance from one section to the next. A long line of cots awaited all those admitted into quarantine, and from there, their fate was largely unknown.

Soldiers were positioned everywhere throughout the base, dressed in protective gear. They remained quiet and indifferent as it was deemed best not to talk with the quarantines. Screenings moved at a monotonous place. Due to the size of the crowd and the uncertainty in the air, fear and tension dominated the environment as people were understandably eager to get within the facility and be cleared for infection.

A long line of people stood inside the entrance of the hangar, ready to get their checkups after undergoing the invasive decontamination section where they were stripped and sprayed down only moments ago. It was the middle of the night, and everyone was tired and hungry, including the military and health personnel. There seemed no end in sight to the influx of people.

In-processing had become an endless task ever, and the personnel had become accustomed to working in twelve-hour shifts. There were several HAZMAT and chemical teams on hand to deal with possible compromises to the highly controlled areas—overall, a massive team, working together in thankless roles each and every night.

Suddenly, a man slouching in line began to cough, causing the people near him to turn around in a panic. They immediately backed away and accused him of being sick. The man vehemently denied this, but all eyes had already turned on him in fear. The damage was already done, and panic leaped through the crowd like wildfire, with people pushing each other and trying to flee through the narrow exits, away from the coughing man. As several soldiers in protective gear approached him, the man also tried to flee but was tackled and delivered a series of shocks from a stun gun.

Chaos continued to escalate through the entrance area, and people trampled over each other to run back through the decontamination section and back outside. The only choice left to the soldiers for restoring order was brute force. They began hitting men in the back of their legs with the buttstocks of their rifles, just to send a clear message.

Women screamed and clutched their children. Children cried and desperately tried to find their parents. Shots were fired, people were subdued, and a full-fledged riot soon broke out, which traveled throughout the hangar, section by section. Somewhere in the madness, a lost child ran under his cot and hid, waiting for the uproar to subside.