Z Strain Read online

  Z-Strain

  By SJ Morris

  Dedication

  I would like to dedicate this book to my loving husband, Rich. Without his love and encouragement, this book would never have been more than the hundreds of other stories I start in a notebook and never finish.

  © Copyright 2016 by Tozer Publishing- All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. The name, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, or organization is entirely coincidental.

  Editing by Colette Tozer

  Cover art by Rodney Tozer

  First Published by Tozer Publishing 2016

  www.TozerPublishing.com

  Table of Contents

  Z-Strain

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  The truck was packed and we were almost ready to go. My kids and I were going on a weeklong camping trip to our cabin in Pine Lake, New Jersey, just south of the New York border.

  The boys, Lance and Tyler, had been looking forward to this trip since the day I said we were going. My daughter, Allycia, on the other hand, was upset she had to spend time with her family rather than going to the spring formal with her new boyfriend, Jake Carter. She had a crush on him for the last month or so and he finally asked her out. Now, I was ruining her life, or so she said.

  Being thirteen is not what I remembered it to be. For me, it was school, friends, and sports. For my Allycia, it seemed to be boys, clothes, and more boys.

  Taking care of three teenagers by myself had proven to be difficult and that was one of the main reasons I wanted to take everyone on this trip. It would get us all out of the house. I hoped that by getting us away from our normal day-to-day lives, that were quickly becoming very separate, would let the four of us get back to basics.

  I wanted to immerse my family in something we loved to do before my husband passed. We needed something to bring back memories of happier times, of when we were a solid, normal family.

  We used to do this trip every spring when Jack was still alive. The five of us would pack the truck with enough camping gear to live off the land for six months, at least. We brought the Johnboat for fishing, while the rifles, as well as the bow and arrow, were packed for target practice and hunting.

  The guns and Jack were going to be the only things missing from this year’s trip. Hunting with the boys was more of Jack’s thing. Don’t get me wrong I can handle myself with a gun but I never really enjoyed it and the boys have never seen me kill anything bigger than a spider.

  If Jack were still alive, I was certain we wouldn’t have missed the last two years of camping. Of course, I was also certain that a lot of other things would be different too.

  Jack was an amazing father and husband; the best anyone could ask for. I miss him desperately and it makes it worse when I see how much the kids miss him. Unfortunately, I’d seen that a lot in the last few days as we got the camping gear together.

  As Lance picked up the bag with the bow and arrow he had a solemn look. I knew he was remembering his father teaching him to use it or their first hunting trip together.

  Tyler looked deep in thought as he packed the fishing gear and he helped Lance get the boat trailer ready to hook up to the truck. They always had so much fun on fishing trips with Jack. They would come back with some amazing story like how they caught a fish so big it almost tipped over the boat.

  Allycia just moped around no matter what she was doing recently. I think it was partly because she wouldn’t get to go to the dance with her new boyfriend but I also thought a lot of it had to do with the obvious fact that she just missed her father.

  Watching her do everyday things made me almost regret setting this trip in motion.

  Even the dog seemed sad as we sat on the front steps waiting for the kids to finally confirm they were all packed and ready to go.

  Lilly, our dog, used to run away all a lot. Well, not so much run away as she felt the need to take herself for a stroll down the block if you left the door open.

  She’s only fifteen pounds but she’s a Shiba Inu, a Japanese hunting dog. She’s all legs and lean muscle.

  Every time she took off, Jack used to get so mad and bolt full throttle out the front door screaming for her to come back.

  I would tell him to calm down as he ran past me and I headed to the kitchen for the treat jar. He would be chasing her further down the street and I would just stand on the sidewalk outside the front of our house and yell her name, so she would look up at me.

  I would hold up the treat jar, gave it a little shake and whistle.

  Lilly would shoot right in my direction and run past Jack so fast, he couldn’t grab her. She would run right up to me for her treat and I would pick her up and take her in the house. All while Jack was making his way back down the block with his crooked smile since he knew I would have her in the house all cuddled up with me on the couch before he could even get in the door.

  These are the things I remember and miss most about him. Don't get me wrong I still think of the tender moments in bed together, and our wedding day, but it’s the everyday stuff I wish I could have back.

  He was a tough man when he needed to be but he was gentle and loving all of the other times; just don’t tell his friends I said that.

  He was a firefighter when he died and before that, he was in the Marines.

  That was actually how we met each other.

  I was a lab rat; or more specifically, a virologist with a company called N-Tech.

  I worked studying the of viruses when my company was contracted to work with the USAMRIID, The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

  I was 24 when they sent me to Atlanta Georgia to work a contract with the military that had come across a very nasty strain of a rabies-like virus that no one had ever seen before. My team was supposed to try to categorize and neutralize the virus if possible.

  A group of Special Operation Marines were sent somewhere in Africa and had come back with most of the team very sick after some sort of attack or ambush. Jack was one of those soldiers.

  The whole thing was very hush-hush. I had to sign a confidentiality statement that clearly stated I couldn’t tell anyone where I was going and I couldn't have any outside contact while I was there. Since everything was kept so quiet, they wanted as small of a team working on it as possible. This just meant that guess who got to do hands-on work with patients instead of just being behind a microscope and computer screen?

  Yep, me.

  Jack was the healthiest of the men that came in and I saw him first at the request of the Marines.

  Until this time, the men had only received very basic medical attention, provided on the flight into Georgia, since they had no idea what they were dealing with.

  Jack was massively dehydrated and needed a good meal but for the most part, his strength was the only thing that suffered. Jack Norrington was the first person I had done a full physical workup o
n since my early days in college and he certainly did not make it easy on me. Me, in my full biohazard suit, and Jack in his barely-there hospital gown; it was love at first sight.

  We always laughed about me being more than overly covered and him being almost naked the first time we met but Jack said he didn't need to see all of me. He only needed to look into my eyes to see that I was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  My first words to him were simple and professional.

  “Hello Captain Norrington, I am Abigail and I will be doing your physical.”

  His response to me was brazen, romantic, debonair and timeless in a way that I would never forget.

  “Nice to meet you, Abigail. I promise that as soon as they let us leave here I am taking you to dinner so I can tell you all of the reasons we are perfect for each other.”

  It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me.

  The other patients were a different story, though. I was given a total of three of the ten marines that were brought in. I had Sergeant Leroy Junth who had some sort of bite wound to the right forearm and my third patient was Lieutenant Gary Jacobson who was badly scratched across the face. At first, they had extremely high blood pressures and high heart rates with fevers at, or just above 105-degrees. They seemed to be in constant, agonizing pain. I gave them morphine but their fevers were so high they would burn it up before it could do much good.

  When they were lucid enough to speak, which was not very often, they both complained of the feeling like their muscles were on fire, a horrible headache, and that they were incredibly thirsty.

  Again, because of the high temperatures they were sweating the fluids out I gave them faster than I could pump them in. They were semi-alert and talking but that was only for the first two days and not much of it made any sense except about how they felt like they were on fire.

  After the first two days, they both lapsed into a coma. The next five days they didn't wake up and their bodies would only spasm periodically, like mini seizures. I chalked it up to the incredibly high fevers they were running. I was amazed they lasted the first few days with their fever so high. The intensity of what their bodies were going through was heartbreaking, but I found some solace in the fact they were in a coma for most of it.

  I was expecting them to pass after the first night but slowly after the fifth day that the men were enduring their comas, their breathing became slower, there blood pressures dropped, and they actually seemed like they might beat whatever this was.

  The seizure activity had also stopped.

  The fever, though, never dipped below 105 degrees, which was extremely unusual since the men seemed to be getting better. However, since the fever was so high for such a long time, I was sure that these brave men would have some sort of brain damage if they ever woke up at all.

  On day seven, I was given the order to restrain the soldiers. I did as I was told, even though it didn’t seem right to be securing patients who appeared to be coming out of a weeklong coma.

  That’s certainly not how I would want to wake up.

  On day eight, I was told to get final blood and flesh samples, especially from the wounds my two patients had. The wounds were another oddity since they didn’t appear to be healing.

  I was also told to release Mr. Jack Norrington to general quarantine since he was not showing the same symptoms as the others. I was then told to take my samples back to the lab for additional research.

  I was no longer permitted to see the two other men and to this day, I have no idea what happened to them.

  After we were no longer able to come in contact with the infected patients, everyone from my team continued our work on trying to categorize the virus. They all had the same type of experience with the other soldiers in their care as I had with mine. Troy, the biggest brain on the team, seemed to think whatever it was, was mostly attacking the brain due to the constant high fever but the USAMRIID would not allow him to do any scans on any of the patients. They told him the patients were no longer available for testing. Whatever that meant.

  So, we did what work we could with the samples we had. We cross-checked the genetic makeup of the virus against every strain that had ever been categorized but we found absolutely nothing. Nothing even came close, which was the oddest thing I had and have ever seen in my entire career.

  Normally, something looks like it and they end up being different mutations of each other, but this was something brand new and highly aggressive.

  Without having any success finding out what the virus was, our team ran tests to try and create an anti-virus but it was highly resilient and didn’t respond to anything we tried. It would only consume and infect everything we threw at it. It was a mystery, a very dangerous mystery. The cells that were infected appeared to be dead or dormant but they continued to function, attacking any new live cells immediately after contact.

  The virus itself was fascinating but when I thought about what it was doing to the soldiers that were previously in our care, men that had families and loved ones, I was reminded of just how ruthless this new virus was.

  Nothing stopped it as far as myself and my team could find so I was sure this awful thing would just keep destroying the bodies of the soldiers until there was nothing left. I asked about them; said I needed to know in order to draw better conclusions to the tests we were running. I was told they had brought in another team to take care of the soldiers and their current states would not assist us in locating or finding an anti-virus. I was told my job was to identify and stop the virus but I never got to do that.

  After a few weeks of testing for cures with no success, we were all told to pack up our personal belongings so we could be sent home. We were not to take any equipment, notes, samples, or anything at all from the lab. All of it was the property of the USAMRIID.

  I was instructed that I would have to sign another confidentiality agreement which ensured I would never share any information on anything I had witnessed or researched. Even though the team I was working with had never met before this and we were all from different parts of the country we were not allowed to associate with one another ever again, personally or professionally. If we breached any of these confidentiality agreements, we would be facing charges of treason.

  Treason. That was a reality check.

  After we signed our‘agreements’we began gathering our belongings, but they ended up confiscated everything anyway.

  All of our research, samples and equipment were promptly taken and locked away, who knows where.

  I remembered being escorted out and walking past where our lab had been. It was nothing but white tiled floors now. There was absolutely nothing left. I walked out with the clothes that I walked in wearing.

  They took all of my other clothes and personal hygiene items and I never got them back. I was told they were itemized and the ones that were not returned to me, I was going to be reimbursed for.

  I assumed they were destroyed because I never got anything back.

  At the time, this worried me to a higher level than I was expecting. I’ve had some weird assignments before, but never like that one.

  If the government was this scared of the virus, that really said something about how dangerous it truly was.

  Jack kept his promise to me, though. When the entire project was scrapped, he was allowed to go home too and he was waiting for me outside the CDC building.

  As soon as I walked through the doors and my armed escort left me to myself Jack came right up to me.

  “So what kind of food are you in the mood for?”

  His smile was so perfect, but I was still a little shaken with my discharge from the military.

  I ignored him and started walking to my car.

  He, of course, chased after me, knowing why I was apprehensive about talking to him. Before I even had to put my fear into words, he assured me that everything was okay. He said that he had already checked with his superiors and we were allowed to associat
e with one another.

  He explained it had something to do with him,“Not really being in the shit, and he was just a jarhead that wouldn’t understand anything I had been doing anyway.”

  So, according to Jack and his“superior”, it was okay for us to associate with one another.

  However, who was I kidding? His amazing smile had sealed the deal with me the second I saw him, even with a possible pending court martial.

  So, just like that, he was walking me to my car, talking about restaurants, and opening my door for me.

  We went to a little Italian restaurant and the food was amazing, considering it was Italian and we were in Georgia and not New York or New Jersey.

  We talked all the way through dinner, dessert, and until the restaurant was closing. We told each other about our families, growing up, favorite movies, music, books, and our dreams for the future. He told me the military had discharged him for medical reasons, even though he was healthier than a lot of other twenty-six-year-old men I knew. I assumed it had to do with the virus his team came in contact with, but I didn’t say anything to Jack at the time.

  I lived in Hamilton, New Jersey and we hit it off so well he decided to travel back home with me. He didn’t have a place anywhere that wasn’t on a military base and since he was discharged he needed a new place to call home. He was staying in a no-tell motel as close to my house as he could get and ended up moving in with me after our third date.

  Jack quickly found a job as a firefighter and I settled easily into a life with a man that I still barely knew.

  Now looking back, it was stupid and impulsive but back then we rationalized that we had both just been through something crazy, he had no place to go, and we got along well.

  Thus, it was a great idea!

  Yeah, it still sounds stupid, I know and even having done it, I would still advise our kids against taking such a foolish chance, but it didn't matter.

  Ten months later, we were engaged and less than a year after that, we were married.