Origins of the Outbreak (2 page)

Steven was such an asshole, the little prick.  God, she hated him!

The
Security Guard, 7:05 p.m.

Kyle Christensen sat in the campus security vehicle and stared through the windshield. 
What is a six-letter word for “little squirt” that starts with a “P”
?
h
e
asked himself.  The crossword puzzle in today’s newspaper was a particularly brutal one.  He’d been working on it for almost an hour and had only figured out about a quarter of it.  He resisted the urge to turn to page 14 and get the answer because he’d already cheated three times and really wanted to finish it on his own.

He was always a cheater though.  He’d cheated his way through high school and tried to cheat his way through college, but the essays that so many of the teachers preferred forced him to actually do the work.  He finally graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Geography and went on the
hunt for a job.  As it turns out, it really was a BS degree since he couldn’t find a job in his field and went with his hat in hand to his uncle who worked in the university’s human resources department.

That’s how he ended up here, on a Thursday night.  He hated Thursdays the most.  Thursdays were the first night of the college weekend and was usually the night where the dumbest shit happened.  He tried to remember back to his days in college, but he just couldn’t figure out why the kids got so sideways on a weeknight.  Maybe it was all the pent-up frustration of the week’s studying, maybe they were making up for missing out on drinking during the school’s quasi-mandatory Wednesday night bible study, hell maybe they just knew that he hated Thursdays and tried to make them as miserable for him as possible.

Oh, he’d heard all the nicknames that the kids called the campus security guards.  Keystone Cops, Barney Fife, Rent-a-Badge, Dick, Pig, Bacon, Po-Po Poseur, the list went on and on.  For some reason, Kyle thought that the students hated him worse than the other campus security officers.  Maybe it was because he was only a couple of years older than the students themselves or maybe it was the fact that he tried to fit in and be liked by the students.  Whatever the reason for them not liking him, he was the butt of a constant stream of jokes from the student body.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye just at the last second as a guy wearing a hoodie slammed both hands down on the hood of the cart.  Kyle jumped and dropped his pen to the floor of the security vehicle with a curse.  The term security vehicle was another source of embarrassment for the young officer since it was actually a normal run-of-the-mill golf cart that could go a whopping twelve miles per hour.

“Hey asshole, I heard someone stole the volleyball net,” the hooded coed yelled.  “You better go investigate and bring them to justice.”

Kyle stepped out of the vehicle and pointed at the youth.  “Is that true?  ‘Cause if it isn’t, I’m
gonna write you up for making a false statement.”

“You’re a fucking douche man.  What a joke.”

“Oh yeah
?
You’re a joke you… You…,” he stammered as he tried to think of something he could call the little asshole without getting himself in trouble with his superior officer.

In the end he just abandoned it altogether since these spoiled rich kids would report him for anything and everything.  “You can’t call me that, Jake!  I know who you are and cursing at a security officer is a violation of the university code of conduct for students – hey!  Hey, come back here!” he shouted after the offender who trotted off with both middle fingers extended in the air behind him.

“Little asshole,” he muttered to himself.  Goddammit, he hated this job.  He dug around in the dark for the pen and considered pulling out his Maglite to search for it until his fingers finally curled around the plastic barrel.  He loved that flashlight and used it every chance he could get.  The damned thing could shine out to thirty feet.  Coeds froze in fear every time he illuminated them with the light.

He held the pen in front of his face. 
Ah well
,
it’
s
better that I didn’t ruin my night vision anyways
, he thought.  He was always coming up with ways to congratulate himself for the small victories in life.  Now, if he could just finish this crossword, then he would reward himself with a venti latte from the Student Union’s coffee shop.  Hell, he might even get a little bit of flavor in there tonight, maybe hazelnut or macadamia nut.  But first he had to finish the puzzle.

Six-letter word for “little squirt”, six-letter word fo
r
… His internal musing was cut short by the buzz of his radio.  Hell, now he’d never finish the puzzle.  “Kyle here,” he replied.  The damned walkie-talkie tickled his mustache when he held it close to talk into the internal microphone.  Since facial hair was back in vogue these days, his ‘stache was another way that he tried to connect with the kids on campus.

“
Kyle, there’s some kind of disturbance over at the Student Union.  I need you to get over there right away
,” the dispatcher’s voice echoed out of the hand-held radio.

“Roger that, Doris
.
I’m on my way; any details?” he asked while he hopped out to remove the chock blocks from around the security vehicle’s front tire.

“
Not yet.  You’ll be the first responder from the force on site.  Ed is way over by the baseball field and it will be a few minutes until he can get there
.”

“Roger,” he stated into the radio. 
Alright, first responder!  I’m moving up
!
h
e
congratulated himself.  Whatever the disturbance was, he was thankful that it was in the Student Union.  After he assessed the situation and handed out the appropriate citations, he could get that latte.  He rationalized with himself that he would have finished the puzzle, but duty called him away before it could be completed.

*****

The security vehicle screeched to a halt – in Kyle’s mind.  In reality it slowed gradually from its sluggish forward progression to a stop in the spot reserved for the University President.  This was an emergency, he was authorized.

He jumped out of the golf cart and jogged towards the Student Union.  He made it twenty feet before he realized that he’d forgotten his security officer’s belt. 
Dammit
!
h
e
chided himself and turned back to retrieve his belt which held his handcuffs, a nightstick and the all-important campus violation notebook.  Without that notebook, he couldn’t actually give a ticket to a student.  Anything he said would just be empty threats, but the book gave him the power to hit the offender in the pocketbook, which in turn got Mommy and Daddy’s attention, which ended up creating well-behaved students.  It was a pretty flawless system.

Kyle buckled his security officer’s belt around his waist and felt like he grew three inches. 
Oh yeah, first responder gets to write all the good tickets
, he thought to himself as he jogged back towards the Student Union.  He wondered what kind of disturbance would cause dispatch to call him over as soon as possible instead of waiting for that old codger Ed to respond like they normally did.  He laughed to himself as he thought of the food fight scene in Animal House.

He slowed up right outside the doors.  All the glass was tinted dark because of the Texas summer heat and he could see movement inside, but he couldn’t really tell what was going on.  He thought about pulling the club out, but decided against it when he thought about all of the kids laughing at him like he was a real Keystone Cop.  He’d never gotten to be a first responder to any real emergencies before, this was exciting!

He steeled his resolve to be the hard-nosed campus security officer and pulled the door open.  He was utterly unprepared for what happened.  They must have sensed him and piled up at the door because the moment he jerked it open they were on him.  Two women rushed him and knocked him down onto his back.  He instinctively threw his arms and knees up and both of them landed on top of him.  He recognized them from the Sigma Kappa Tau sorority, but they had some crazy-ass makeup on.  It was like he was reliving the hell of Halloween on campus and he wondered what douche kid was filming him this time.

Kyle pushed
against the two sorority girls, who were growling and snapping their teeth at him, with everything he had.  “Ok, funny joke
.
Let me up,” he grunted.  They continued to pull at him to get past his defenses and a big glob of the blonde’s makeup dropped down into his mouth.

“For fuck’s sake!” he shouted, forgetting all about the university’s code of conduct for employees.  “Get off of me.  That shit got in my mouth!”

He pushed with all his might and the brunette with the pixie haircut fell to the side.  He looked over at her to make sure she didn’t get hurt when he pushed her. 
That’s all I need, some type of lawsuit for “battering” a student
, he groaned inwardly.  The moment he looked away from the blonde she got past his defenses and sank her teeth into his forearm.

“
Ow, holy shit, mother fucker!” he yelled and kicked upward with all of his might and the skinny bitch went flying backwards.  It had gone beyond a simple prank on the campus security guard to a legitimate assault and he was going to press charges.  He rolled over onto his stomach and started to push himself up to his feet when he was knocked sideways by the brunette who’d launched herself at him from where he’d pushed her a moment before.

He rolled with the blow and his momentum carried him on top of the coed.  He frantically pulled the handcuffs out and slapped one side onto the chick’s wrist.  She kept moving the other arm and he couldn’t quite get her under control.  She was a lot stronger than she looked.  Finally
, he secured her other hand and was slowly forcing it backwards when the blonde grabbed him from behind and bit into his shoulder blade.

Kyle Christensen squealed like an animal
in a trap.  He let go of the brunette’s hand and punched backwards into the face of the girl biting into his neck.  It was enough force to jar her teeth from his flesh and he twisted around and clamped the other side of the handcuff onto her wrist.

He was bleeding from multiple places and needed to call an ambulance but his radio had disappeared during the fight.  He also knew that he needed to call in a real police officer.  Whatever drugs these two were on was clearly dangerous and the campus needed to be locked down tight.  Fresh blood flowed from the wound on his back and he staggered back towards the Student Union entrance with his hand pressed tightly over the injury.

Too late, he remembered that the girls were simply handcuffed to each other and nothing else.  He whirled around with his nightstick in his hand in time to see them both leap and clothesline him with the handcuffs.  He tried desperately to pull the chain away from his neck so that he could breath, but the world started to go dark as his body rebelled against the lack of oxygen.

Kyle was in
shock from being suffocated and he didn’t even realize it when the two sorority girls began to tear chunks of muscle away from both of his shoulders.  His mind dimly screamed at him that he was the first responder and he should warn the others about the danger, but his body refused to obey him any longer and he passed into oblivion.

The Tattoo Artist, 9:12 p.m.

Trent was tired, man.  He’d been at The Inked Apple since they opened at three and would be there until they closed down at midnight.  Normally he liked working on Thursdays because the kids from the campus would get a little liquid courage in them and allow him to really explore his art, but today just sucked ass and he was dog-tired.

He’d woken up early to the sound of the front door slamming.  Not odd around his place, but the fact that it happened at 8 a.m. was crazy early.  He also didn’t feel Trisha’s rock-hard body next to him and that set bells off in his head. 
What had happened last night
?
He’d smoked a little weed to relax after a long day at the shop and taken a few shots of tequila, but nothing out of the ordinary that would have caused the bitch to leave the apartment so early.

Sure, he’d placed the obligatory call, but she didn’t answer him.  He pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen a few times until Trisha’s last text message to him was displayed on the screen. 
“
Fuck u asshole
!
” was all that the fucking bitch had written, although she had taken the time to type out the angry-faced emoticon.

Since he’d received that text message, the day
had gone downhill.  He should have known better than to shack up with a fucking stripper, especially when she basically forced the nicer, more expensive apartment on him when they were looking for a place.  The rent was due and he didn’t have enough to cover the full thing without Trisha’s half.  She never replied to his message asking if she had the rent money and the god dammed landlord banged on his door for thirty minutes until he finally dragged himself out of bed to answer it. 
Dick.

He’d bought himself a few days with some sweet talking and promises, but man, he needed some money quick.  He briefly considered calling his dealer and asking if he had any work, but he just wanted to consume the shit, not be a part of the machine that brought the bud to the end user.  There was that, and he was scared to death of going to jail.  He knew that the little bit that he purchased for his personal use wasn’t enough to get him locked up in the pen if he got caught, but get caught with the amount that a dealer carried around, in the state of Texas?  Man, he’d be headed to Huntsville and would become somebody’s bitch in a minute.  Hell, for kicks, they’d probably tattoo tits on his back so it would look like they were fucking a chick while they were raping him.

Trent wasn’t some pussy that was afraid to live life, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was going to Huntsville.  Cross drug dealer off the list.  While he thought about what he could do, he went down to the blood clinic and sold some plasma.  He only got about fifty bucks a pop for donation, but that was fifty dollars closer to this month’s goal than he was before he walked into the place.

His next trick was to go home and change into a collared shirt and remove his earrings.  The last time he’d gone to the sperm bank to sell his personal product the nurse kicked him out because he didn’t look the part of a “wholesome” donor.  The change of clothes worked this morning though, he was a pretty goo
d
lookin’ guy, and after watching a few scenes from the clinic’s porn selection – his tastes leaned towards two guys and one girl, or MMF, which the clinic had plenty of – he’d filled his quota and had two mor
e
Benjamin
s
in his pocket to apply towards the rent.

Then it was time for him to come to work at the shop.  He’d been pretty busy all day, but ended up losing about an hour’s worth of work because his inattentive mind slipped and he screwed up this college girl’s butterfly.  She’d thrown a fit and he had to reimburse her payment and finish the tattoo for free.  Talk about adding another stone to a drowning man’s pocket.

He took a long drag from his cigarette and held the smoke in for a couple of seconds before exhaling it through his nose.  The damned environmentalist fucks had passed a law last month that prohibited anyone from smoking inside any business within the city limits, regardless of the type of establishment.  The change in the city code forced him to take a ten-minute break every hour when he needed a cigarette, and in his line of work, time was literally money.  So, not only was he losing money by not working, he was spending money as well because the price of cigarettes had increased so dramatically in the last twelve months.

Fuck it all
, man
, he thought t
o
himsel
f
as he took another drag through the filter.  He had a kid on the table inside that was in the middle of a two-hour tribal tat on his shoulder, but Trent’s body had forced him to stop working and come outside to feed the addiction. 
I
gott
a
quit smoking
, he told himself for the hundredth time.  The problem was that the damned smoking cessation patches cost so much money.  “Fuck th
e
gov’ment,” he muttered aloud and flicked his butt out into the night.

A glass bottle pinged against the dumpster in the recesses of the alley.  Trent whirled around and peered into the darkness.  He’d heard the sound before.  Most of the time it meant that some jackass college kid was stumbling drunk and got lost in the alley, but there’d been a couple of times when someone tried to sneak up on the shop to rob it.  The parlor wasn’t in the worst part of town since it was in close proximity to the university, but the area still left a lot to be desired.

“Who’s there?” he called into the night.  An eerie moan echoed from the shadows in reply.

“Very funny
.
Halloween’s over
,
fucktards.  Go home to your mama’s house before you run into some trouble that you didn’t com
e
lookin’ for.”

There was definitely some movement in the alley, but it was too dark to see what was going on.  Trent tapped a few buttons on his phone
, the camera’s flash turned on and he aimed it down the alley.  There was some guy dressed in a lab coat half in and half out of a hole in the back fence.

“Hey, Doctor Fuckin
g
Who, get the fuck out of here.  This is private property,” he shouted at the man.  This was not the night to fuck around with him.

The lab coat ripped audibly and the man fell forward into the alley.  He rested on his hands and knees for a moment, which bolstered Trent’s confidence.  “He
y
dickweed, get the fuc
k
outt
a
here before I call the cops.”  God he hated dealing with drunks an
d
crackheads.

Before he could even comprehend what was happening, the man closed the distance between them and pinned his body against the wall of the shop.  The phone went flying and landed with the light shining skyward like a beacon to call the damned Batman to rescue him.  Trent let out a squeal of terror as the man’s face twisted in a mask of hatred and he opened his mouth incredibly wide
, sinkinghis teeth into Trent’s neck and arterial blood sprayed across the alley.  Trent’s feet kicked uselessly at his attacker and finall
y
spasme
d
several times on their own as the last of his body’s nerves fired.

The graduate assistant pulled backwards and a strip of flesh slowly
tore away from the tattoo artist’s neck.  It was still connected to his shoulder and Trent looked in horror at the piece of his body hanging from the creature’s mouth until Steven's teeth snapped down hard to separate it.  The zombie chewed noisily on the skin and gristle while he held Trent against the wall, then it dove back in for another bite as the blood poured from his victim and pooled around his feet.  Once Trent died, the creature dropped him, no longer interested in consuming dead flesh.

The cell phone chim
ed and the creature turned to determine what the new threat was.  He didn’t see anything to attack, but on the opposite side, facing the ground a new message had just come in from Trisha. 
“
Sorry bout 2day.  Needed to think.  Kelly is down to do it with us!  Come by the Dillo after u get off work.  Luv u, smooche
s
.”