The Hollow Men (Book 1): Crave (3 page)

Religious groups said the apocalypse was imminent, claiming the four horsemen caused the planet’s wobble as they galloped across the earth. Churches filled to overflowing, whole congregations of people queuing in the street waiting for a chance to confess their sins and be counted as a believer for the Rapture.

Infrastructure failed in the areas with the most extreme shifts in weather. Fluctuations in power led to food spoiling. Sewer and waste treatment became erratic. Hosts of previously unknown diseases appeared—whether the result of the unsanitary conditions in those broken cities, or millennia-old bugs awakened from hibernation by climate shifts, or some other reason, it was impossible to tell. The number and spread of illnesses appeared so quickly that the immediate priority was containment. Identification and treatment would follow.

To slow the spread of newly emerging diseases, governments put populations on hyper surveillance, quarantining areas of infection and distributing antiviral medications. In those neighborhoods where infection appeared, people fled to the homes of any relative or friend who lived in areas far removed from illnesses.

Many sought escape through alcohol, filling the sidewalks with lurching, glassy-eyed drunks becoming so intoxicated they passed out on the street. Some people consumed damaging amounts of anti-depressants and antipsychotics, resulting in an epidemic of serotonin syndrome, a form of medication poisoning that caused involuntary twitches, abnormal postures, over-responsive reflexes, and sweating. Victims struggled to walk despite muscle spasms, suffering from delirium and collapsing in the street.

Those less affected by the freakish weather stifled their own anxieties so thoroughly that it became difficult to empathize with the parts of the world suffering the most. They convinced themselves the media exaggerated the problems and sent money to provide relief and to quiet their consciences. Having done that, they put the troubles of others behind them and pushed themselves to live their lives.

They dealt with the changes they could not control by throwing themselves into the most absorbing activities they could find. Recreational drug use increased, as did prostitution and gambling. Others became obsessed with video gaming, binge-watching TV—anything to distract themselves.

To slow the spread of multiple pandemics, the Center for Disease Control pressed hard for prevention measures, hosting frequent press conferences, encouraging every day precautions, pushing for school closures and the elimination of large public gatherings.

People reacted strongly against the CDC’s warnings. Children and the elderly received flu vaccinations, but parents decided that would protect their children enough. Schools refused to close. Big events like musical concerts and sporting competitions grew more popular than ever as people gambled with their lives, playing what they considered to be extreme odds against catching a fatal illness among the many diseases bouncing their way around the globe.

CHAPTER 5

H
UMAN
I
LLS

W
arriors vs. Eagles. Neither team was the home team. New York state high school championships were hosted at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. Neither team had played there before.

Taking the advice of the CDC, the New York state government required that the high school semi-final games be played behind closed doors, shutting down attendance to protect the public from itself. The confrontation with government officials almost turned ugly. Just in time, local television sports anchors intervened, soothing angry parents and fans by promising not just NFL-worthy broadcasts of the games but special feature pieces highlighting each one of the High School Senior players to help them woo the scouts of college football teams.

In quarantining the semi-final games, the government won a short term victory but lost the bigger fight. People were even hungrier to see the final game in person. This time pressure was too high and a violent reaction seemed probable. Officials let the championship game go forward.

As a result, a crowd of approximately 49,000 people were descending on the stadium—just short of the attendance record.

Tom raced down I-81. The game would be starting in an hour, and he wasn’t going to be late. His fifteen-year-old son Chase played first-string varsity football for the Warriors. Chase was a husky kid, already six feet tall. His bourgeoning power and agility made the young running back a high school all-star with 1,989 yards rushing and 37 touchdowns in one season. He was a key reason the Warriors had made it to the state championship. Chase’s parents had been excited to watch their son play in what they anticipated would be the first of many such championships.

A knot formed in Tom’s stomach when he glanced at the empty passenger seat, missing the company of his wife Ridley and eight-year-old daughter Katie.

Ridley grew up in San Diego, near Camp Pendleton where Tom was stationed with the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force. She was a “surfer girl” all the way: blond hair, blue eyes, athletically thin, and tall enough in heels to reach six feet. In perfect counterbalance to Tom’s intensity, she had the relaxed nature of someone who had grown up near a sunny beach on the Pacific Ocean, warmly embracing each new day.

Tom first saw her sitting on a park bench alone. He saw a radiance that shone from within her. She was engrossed in a Dean Koontz novel and barely acknowledged Tom when he walked over. He sat next to her and waited patiently, not speaking a word. When she looked up at him, he asked about her book and what else she enjoyed reading. Their conversation flowed as naturally as if they had known each other a lifetime. They fit together perfectly, as if fate had conspired to bring them together.

Ridley made Tom work for it. Even though she confessed to him right away that she was interested, she told him she wasn’t a lock. He had to demonstrate patience, persistence, and commitment to making their relationship strong. On the second anniversary of meeting her in the park, Ridley finally accepted his proposal. They were married five months later.

When Tom learned that Ridley was pregnant with a baby boy, he felt simultaneously excited and worried. He wanted Chase to be strong in body and mind without needing to undergo the kind of pain he had growing up in Australia. From the minute his son was born, he whispered to him every night the kind of man he expected Chase to become: strong, courageous, kind, confident. Tom poured all of his hopes and dreams into his son.

Six years later, his sweet daughter Katie was born. He believed he was just hitting his stride in being the father of a boy. Now he needed to figure it out all over again. Like he did his son, he raised his daughter to be tough both physically and mentally.

He and Ridley got her into lacrosse as soon as she was strong enough to hold her stick. Off the field, she had the sunny personality of her mother. On the field, she was the strongest on her team in both body and will, which often got her into trouble skirmishing with other players. Tom encouraged her competitiveness and was blind to her edginess. To him, she was his little angel.

Tom’s military background made him perfectly suited to work as a security and risk-management consultant for the private security company Constellis Group. He continued to travel the world despite the multiple illnesses springing up in different countries. Since he was one of the few in his company willing to do it, Constellis was willing to pay him a premium to take on extra work.

He never wore masks when interacting with the public, including in airports. Lately his nose and mouth were the only visible ones in a sea of faces covered in the white masks his dental hygienist wore when cleaning his teeth. He understood the psychology of people wearing them when facing a pandemic but he knew the level of filtration of these masks would never prevent a virus from passing through them.

Personally, he never worried about succumbing to infectious diseases. He passed unscathed through epicenters of avian flu and the H1N1 virus. His immune system seemed to be super-charged. Upon returning to the U.S. and again just before returning to his house, he was fastidious in keeping his hands clean, scrubbing his arms up to his elbows in scalding water with a fervor that would impress even someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

His most recent trip to Southeast Asia carried him through Cambodia, close to where a particularly virulent sickness had suddenly appeared and was rapidly bouncing across the planet. The virus was named Thappraya after one of the main access roads to Pattaya, Thailand.

Epidemiologists had traced the origin of the disease to a half-mile area close to the famous Walking Street, where a modest amount of money could buy sex in any imaginable form. That frequent intimate contact across multiple partners meant that the Thapp virus spread widely, and since many who visited Pattaya kept their exploits secret even before the outbreak, it was now nearly impossible to anticipate its spread to different parts of the world.

The media reported it to be 100% lethal. Stage one began with seizures. In stage two, patients became violent.

The city of Pattaya was quickly put under a quarantine enforced by the Royal Thai Army (RTA). The World Health Organization dispatched two agents to gather a sample of the Thappraya virus to study and develop an inoculation. While they were en route, the infection jumped to Bangkok. They landed in the Suvarnabhumi Airport, checked in with their coordinator, and hadn’t been in contact since.

Thailand fell into chaos. The 200,000 strong RTA weren’t enough to guard Thailand’s borders. Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Myanmar deployed their militaries, and China and Vietnam were mobilizing to join them.

The CDC confirmed three isolated cases of the disease had been discovered in the U.S. in the last twenty-four hours. They escalated their warnings. Most people entirely tuned them out. Thapp was lost in the noise of multiple other infectious diseases.

He arrived home three days ago. Yesterday, Katie got sick. Very sick. The nasty illness that attacked Katie devoured the energy of the usually vibrant little eight-year-old, dampening her broad smile and snuffing out the sparkle in her brown eyes. She whimpered as her fever surged to 104 degrees and her skin turned sickly white.

It wasn’t that Tom regularly and purposely kept the details of his travels secret from Ridley; he simply traveled so much that neither of them had much interest in talking about the specifics of experiences in airlines and airports. Katie got sicker and the pandemic that originated in Thailand began to spread quickly. Tom suspected that he’d brought Thapp home to his little girl.

When he told Ridley about where he’d been and what was happening there, it felt as though he were confessing to an extramarital affair, like he’d severely broken trust with her and with his family.

Ridley was self-programmed to take charge when crisis hit her family. Part of feeling in control meant she needed to be the only one contemplating the worst. Despite her own fear, she reassured him with carefully deliberate exasperation in her voice, implying that Tom worried needlessly.

“Tom, there are a lot of sicknesses in the world. You flew through Cambodia, not Thailand, and since I haven’t heard of it, it can’t be a world-ending plague that’s already reached our doorstep. Plus, if it’s bad as you say, I doubt you’d still be standing no matter how invincible your immune system seems to be.”

And then she frantically researched everything known about the Thapp virus as she held vigil at Katie’s side. In spite of its rapid spread, it did seem too early for it to have found her daughter.

Tom spelled Ridley while she ate some food and took a shower. Katie’s breathing became so weak that Tom had a difficult time detecting it. After each exhalation, her body paused for a few heart-stopping seconds. At each of these moments Katie fought for her life. Virus winning: breath halted, her head lolled, and her eyes rolled into the back of her skull. Katie winning: a tiny shudder, and she took in shallow sips of air.

Ridley spent the night sitting on the floor beside Katie’s bed, her head resting close to Katie’s torso, monitoring each rise and fall of her chest. She picked at the cuticles on her fingers until they bled while she watched for telltale seizures that indicated the onset of the Thapp virus.

Her rational mind reasoned that the chances of her daughter having that specific virus were a hundred-million to one. Her lips moved in a prayer-like chant, trying to convince herself there was no way her daughter contracted Thapp. After three in the morning, she stopped, knowing those extreme improbabilities were no consolation to the unfortunate hundred-millionth person.

Tom checked on Katie throughout the night. An exhausted Ridley whispered reassurances to him in exchanges that had the tone of a heated argument rather than soothing confidence. She told him wearily to get over himself, that he couldn’t be the cause of every bad thing in the world.

By morning, Katie’s fever had eased and her skin was less pale. Cautiously optimistic, the family discussed what to do about the game. Chase was torn, concerned about his sister but excited about playing in the championship. He felt guilty for wanting to go.

Ridley had supported Chase’s love of football from his very first little league practice at the age of four—his thigh pads had been the same length as her hand. Now, she put her arms around her tall son and told him she would be with Katie every second, and everything would work out fine whether Chase stayed home or not.

As if choreographed to help him accept the decision, Katie chose that moment to get up. They heard her fumbling steps to her bedroom door. They waited to see if she’d come downstairs to see them off and instead heard her say something hoarsely which sounded something like, “Good luck, big brother”, before she returned to bed.

It made them all feel better to know she’d gotten up without help and had the strength to speak.

One of Chase’s friends pulled up to drive him to the bus that would carry the team to the Dome. Even from the driveway, the harsh sound of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” rang in Ridley’s ears. She hugged her son and said, “Good luck! Katie and I will be watching you on TV. You’ll be great!” and pushed him out the door.