Jakarta Pandemic, The
Read Jakarta Pandemic, The Online
Authors: Steven Konkoly
The Jakarta
Pandemic
A novel by
Steven Konkoly
Copyright Information
© 2012. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Features Index
Map of Durham Road Neighborhood
Excerpt from
The Perseid Collapse
(unedited)
Background Material Cut from first draft of The Jakarta Pandemic
Media Excerpts cut from the first draft of The Jakarta Pandemic
Acknowledgments
I have a host of people to thank for the version of
The Jakarta Pandemic
that you will read. To my wife, Kosia. Her first reading was for pure enjoyment, and then she took out the pen...several of them by this point; to my informal editors: Trent, Jon, and Diane. Thank you for keeping track of the early errors; you'll receive advanced copies of my next novel; to Mom and Dad. Mom read through the book in record time, poetically blind to her son's typos and grammar errors; Dad took three weeks, and sent me a long list; Noah Mullette-Gillman, fellow author, for taking the first fully objective swipe through the manuscript. And to all of the readers who have reached out with e-mails or reviews. Without a doubt, your comments have improved the quality of this book.
Finally, I'd like to thank my editor, Felicia A. Sullivan, who has been a pleasure to work with, on what I hope to be the final revision of
The Jakarta Pandemic
. Her professional and artistic eye toward editing has taken the book to a new level, and I look forward to bringing her onboard my next project from the very start.
Cover art design by Jeroen ten Berge.
About The Jakarta Pandemic
The Jakarta Pandemic
was released in the fall of 2010 containing roughly 150,000 words, cut down from the 200,000 words present in the first draft. Much of the cut material consisted of media clips and radio broadcasts, which I had originally felt would be compelling within the story. Eventually, I realized these clips were more a reflection of my desire to pass scientific information to the reader. My original reason for writing the book had far less to do with education than telling a chillingly realistic tale, though I feel both were accomplished given the cautionary nature of the subject matter. My initial instincts proved partially correct. Readers enjoyed the story, but still felt bogged down in the remaining "informational" scenes. Cutting 50,000 words hadn't been enough. At the suggestion of my newly found editor, I cut another 25,000 words and streamlined the remaining media scenes to better compliment the story, re-releasing the novel in the spring of 2011.
For readers interested in learning more about pandemic topics through research based, fictional narrative, I have included over 30,000 words (roughly 100 pages) of "cut" material, accessible through the Table of Contents or the links in the paragraph below.
This material is broken down into two sections.
Background
and
Media
. The
Background
material is my fictional account of the 2008 Avian Flu pandemic, which set the framework for society's response to the much deadlier Jakarta Pandemic featured in my novel.
Media
contains scenes resurrected from the first draft.
Update 11/04/2013:
The Perseid Collapse
, sequel to
The Jakarta Pandemic
will be released on Dec 1
st
, 2013. You can Pre-order a copy here: Pre-order
The Perseid Collapse
.
An excerpt from The Perseid Collapse can be found through the
Features Index
or this link:
The Perseid Collapse
excerpt
.
Dedication
To my wife…for her constant encouragement and support.
I would still be about “halfway” done without her.
To my children…for ensuring a balance between work, writing and family.
Mostly in their favor.
To all of the men and women who have served in our Armed Forces.
Your sacrifices will never be forgotten.
Map of Durham Road Neighborhood
Prologue
Alex checked his watch for the tenth time in less than twenty minutes. 5:50 p.m.
Where are they?
He had started to lose his patience early, which came as no surprise. He had been lying under the McCarthy’s play set for nearly an hour, as a vicious Nor’easter dumped thick waves of snow on him. This would be enough to test anyone’s patience…and physical limits.
He lowered his night vision scope for a moment and rubbed his eyes. Now, even the green image in the scope added to his discomfort. He just hoped that Charlie was keeping a better watch
over the stretch of ground that defined the ambush site.
He’d better be, or they could stumble right through here undetected.
Alex had doubts about spotting them with his night vision scope. The near absence of ambient light combined with a blinding snowstorm continued to degrade the already grainy image formed by the inexpensive first generation night scope.
He twisted open the green ceramic thermos and poured the last of the hot tea prepared for him by Kate. He sipped the steaming tea from the thermos cap, placed the cap down next to the rifle in front of him, and took another look through the night vision scope. He could still see the Hayes’ house, but the image was even grainier. He knew the batteries were not the issue; he’d just changed them. Soon enough, he’d have to rely solely on Charlie to spot them in time to spring a coordinated ambush. If not, he’d have to take the three men down himself, which wasn't optimal, but was still well within his range of capabilities. He didn’t want to think about what could happen if they slipped by him. Nothing would stand between these psychopaths and his family.
As long as I see them before they’re right on top of me, I’ll be fine.
Alex swigged the rest of the warm tea and replaced the lid. He tucked the thermos into his backpack and checked his rifle again. Looking through the Aimpoint scope, he saw that the red dot still glowed brightly in the center of the sight. He pulled back on the AR-15’s charging handle and ejected the bullet loaded in the chamber, leaving the brass cartridge in the snow where two other bullets lay. He’d ejected one bullet every half-hour to ensure that the freezing temperatures had not affected the weapon’s mechanical action. A malfunction tonight would spell disaster.
He suffered a sudden, violent, and insuppressible full body shiver, which rendered him useless for a few seconds. He couldn’t last out here all night, and he knew it. He looked through the night vision scope again, and the green image confirmed that he was still alone. Staring through the scope, he wondered how it was possible for things to have spiraled so far out of control.
So far gone, in fact, that he now found himself lying under a neighbor’s play set in a blizzard, eagerly waiting to kill. He never thought twice about doing this in Iraq. It was his mission. He didn’t really have any problem with it here either, and he could rationalize this act on several levels. He had to do it: for the good of the neighborhood, and probably society in general, but most importantly…for the immediate safety of his family.
And in the end, that was all that really counted for Alex.
Arrival
Chapter One
Friday, November 1, 2013
Alex was jarred awake by a loud pulsing vibration
.
He squinted in the darkness and labored to turn his head toward the source of the persistent buzzing sound.
Shit, my phone.
The phone’s display illuminated a half empty glass of water on the nightstand. He watched, still helpless, as the phone moved closer to the edge with each vibration. Breaking through the murk of a broken sleep cycle, he reached for the phone to check the caller ID.
Maine Medical Center.
A jolt of adrenaline shot through his body, and Alex headed out of the bedroom to the hallway.
“Alex Fletcher,” he answered in a whisper.
“Oh…Alex. It’s Dr. Wright. I thought I’d get your voicemail.”
“No problem, Dr. Wright. I usually don’t keep my phone on the nightstand. Just happened to end up there tonight,” he said, closing the door to the master bedroom.
“I’m glad you’re awake, Alex. I’m fairly confident we’ve seen our first cases of the new pandemic flu tonight. Cases started rolling into the ERs early this evening.”
“You said ‘ERs’. More than one?”
“Yes. Three cases at Maine Med. Two came from Westbrook and one from Falmouth. And one case at Mercy, patient walked over from somewhere in the west end. I also have a confirmed case at Maine General in Augusta and possible cases at Eastern Maine Med up in Bangor.”
“Confirmed as what?”
“Confirmed as nothing I’ve ever seen before. That’s why I think we’re dealing with the new virus out of Hong Kong,” Dr. Wright said.
“That’s more than six cases. How did this pop up here first and not Boston? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Boston has been hit with several dozen cases, possibly more.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t see anything on the news, or on any of the websites. We’ve been keeping an eye on this,” Alex said.
“I don’t know what to tell you, but I know for a fact that Boston has been slammed. A friend of mine at Mass General called to tell me to get ready. He said that area hospitals in Boston saw dozens of cases trickle in overnight Wednesday, with more showing up as the day progressed. Several dozen more by the time I talked to him.”
“Why didn’t the media catch this yet?” he asked.
“Well, between you and me, and I don’t have to remind you that this entire conversation never happened—”
“Of course. Absolutely, Dr. Wright,” Alex said instantly.
“We have been instructed by the state health department to report all cases directly to them so they can coordinate resources and notify federal health agencies. I assume that direction filtered down from DHS. They also asked us not to notify the media, in order to avoid a panic. I can understand part of that logic, but if you ask me, I think they’re trying to keep this under wraps because they’re not prepared. Unfortunately, this is the only direction we’ve received so far from the state or feds. Or maybe that’s a good thing for now. Aside from rushing us more useless avian flu detection kits, nothing else has been done. Alex, I have to let you go. I have a long night ahead of me.”