AM13 Outbreak Series (Book 1): Lockdown Read online

  I re-read this a number of times, really considering the idea. It may be based upon a joke, but if this whole thing did, by some bizarre miracle, turn out to be true…wouldn’t that be a great idea? It would certainly save a lot of lives. Not only would I be praised for suggesting this story for the news, I’d also be the hero that came up with all the answers. Imagine how quickly my career would progress after that! I could probably choose my own job…

  Locked in my internal fantasy of becoming a high-flyer, I forward the email on to Jamie. I know he’ll just love it.

  As soon as I see the ‘sent’ notification, reality sets back in, jolting me out of my imagination. A cold shame sinks into the pit of my stomach. What the hell made me do that? Now Jamie’s going to think I really do believe it all! The prospect of becoming a loved public figure, rather than a hated joke, won me over, but is that really preferable to the possibility of a virus that turns people into zombies?

  A positive reply pings back almost instantly, sending me all the way from casual guilt to downright nausea. If he really does carry on with this, it’s going to be unbearable when it turns out to be false.

  I shut down the computer quickly, wanting to escape it all for a few minutes, and as soon as the screen blinks black, it feels like a fog has been lifted and I’ve been dragged out of the insanity. Damn you, Internet. Allowing anyone to post whatever the hell they want, and so convincingly too.

  I glance over to my phone and realise Michelle has been ringing and texting me. God, I must have totally switched off the real world, I didn’t even hear it going off. I click the button to call her back, and she picks up after barely one ring.

  “I thought you were really ill just running out of work like that, then not talking to me.” Her tone is panicked and breathless.

  “I’m sorry, I—” I start, but she jumps right back in.

  “You missed out on loads…” I lean back in my seat. Surely I can’t hear anything worse than what’s already been directed at me today.

  ***

  An hour later, we’re still on the phone and my head is swimming with everything she’s said. Apparently Jamie gave everyone a pep talk about the virus today after I left, and now they’re all on board with focusing almost all of our attention on this story. Michelle was stifling a giggle when she told me this part, which just confirms they all think it’s as dumb as I do. But it seems Jamie’s promises of better ratings and pay raises was all they needed to hear.

  No wonder they’re all so keen to run the story.

  At least I’m not a joke in the office, I guess. I couldn’t bring myself to ask if Jake said anything, and Michelle definitely didn’t divulge the information, so that’s not a good sign.

  Anyway, I’m not bothered about what he thinks.

  Or the rest of them.

  I can just picture all of the emails and texts that must have been sent about me. Probably saying I’m mental. And now they all have to pretend to go along with it, humouring an idiot.

  Oh God, what am I going to do?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I wake up on the sofa at about three a.m. with my head pounding and my face sticky with tears. Even though I know I should move from this terribly uncomfortable position, I continue to lie there just tossing and turning. I figure there’s not much point in getting up and lugging myself up to bed—I’ll never get back to sleep now, my mind is far too busy.

  Instead I sigh and flick on the TV, just for a distraction. Of course, the first thing I see is a random, middle-of-the-night crazy chat show, talking about this story again. There’s just no escaping it. I’m going to have to move far, far away. I’ll have to go to Outer Mongolia, or wherever it is people go to escape the Internet, TV, and general society.

  I quickly shut the screen down and watch it fade to black. I don’t need any more outside opinions right now—good or bad. My own brain is doing enough wild thinking as it is.

  I remain on the sofa in a stupor for hours, just allowing my mind to reel, but it keeps falling back to the same place. My workmates. I’m so embarrassed about all of this. I know they’re supposedly on board with the story, but my insecurities are screaming at me I’m a massive talking point. How can I go back there, fully knowing I’m being gossiped about? And to make it even more unbearable, it’s not just that I’ve humiliated myself at the office and in front of Jake. I’ve made a big blunder for literally everyone to see. An error that people seem to believe. There are actually people out there in the world thinking we’re in danger of zombies and a hideous apocalypse because of me.

  Well, maybe not totally because of me. I do think a lot of them already thought it was happening, but still.

  Zombies are some bloody science fiction made-up thing. There’s no way they can be real. I know the science experts from the Zombie Research Centre—yep, not kidding…there are people whose real life job it is to research the ever present zombie threat—say it’s not a typical zombification virus, but I’ve seen enough B-movie horror films to know the description fits. Apart from the green skin and the lust for ‘braaaaaaaaaaiiiiinnnnssss.’

  I looked through all of the ‘evidence’—the dissertations, the photographs, and drawings, the interviews from ‘victims’—in my online search, desperate to find something to make me feel better, to have some form of belief, but it was all just too ludicrous for words. It was all so clearly fake. Think about it: ghost films, totally terrifying. Totally believable and also definitely possible. Zombie films, laughable. They don’t even use the Hollywood budget to make them look realistic, because they aren’t. No one would ever be fooled.

  Argh! This is driving me insane. I rub my eyes hard, trying to wipe my mind clean. I’d give anything for the pleasure of a black, blank mind right now, but the thoughts just keep on coming…

  ***

  I don’t even consciously decide to avoid work for the next week, I just don’t leave the house, or even get up. I’ve stopped answering the door and phone after the first few times. It was just journalists anyway. People I didn’t want to talk to. People asking me all of the questions I’d rather not be forced to answer. I’ve cocooned myself inside my house, blocking out the outside world. I’d like to say it’s wonderful, that I’ve sunk into my own little wonderful world, but it isn’t. Nothing is going away, no matter what I do.

  I keep getting random bursts of worry that I’m ruining my life in here, that I’m never going to leave again. But obviously deep down I know this is only until it all blows over—that’s when my life will start again. This definitely isn’t forever. I suddenly realise I’m nodding emphatically to myself as I think this, trying to convince the one person who doesn’t believe me.

  Me.

  I do notice in my self-induced madness that Michelle hasn’t tried to ring me. She’s supposed to be my best friend, so I don’t understand why she’d be avoiding me. I would have thought out of everyone, she would be the one person to care. If it was the other way around, I would’ve been texting and calling her constantly, checking on her and keeping her up-to-date on exactly what’s going on.

  Not that I really need her to do that; I can see for myself how much the story has gathered momentum. Every single damn time I switch on the TV or the computer, I’m faced with more and more about the bloody virus. #AM13 has been trending worldwide on Twitter for days—something that’s almost unheard of!

  The details released about the virus have become increasingly explicit. Now the information isn’t just coming from the newscasters, but from doctors, scientists, virologists…it’s madness! This just makes it seem much more believable, reliable, and as if everything being spoken is fact. It makes me sick to my stomach with anxiety—how has this gone so far?

  The main warning that’s being repeated constantly is to get yourself to the hospital as soon as you spot even one of the warning signs. The symptoms listed are pretty standard for this sort of thing: colds, fever, nausea—basically anything flu-like—joint stiffness, muscle aches. They do go a lit
tle further than normal and include unexplained bouts of rage, odd sensations in your fingers and hands, stomach pains, fuzzy head, dizziness, headaches, fatigue, bad indigestion sensations, numbness in your feet or legs—but these seem much less important.

  What worries me is the list is so vague and spread out that the hypochondriac in people will react badly to these vague instructions and everyone will end up getting themselves checked out. That just seems like an unnecessary stress on the hospitals, which is not something I particularly want on my conscience.

  The quarantine concept that was laid out in the email I forwarded to Jamie is also brought up quite regularly. The media seem to really lean on this idea, trying to get it to happen. I suppose the idea of locking everyone inside their own homes for a couple of weeks while they sort out all the infected people is very appealing. I wonder how keen they’d be if we all had to go into an official quarantine building somewhere for a fortnight.

  I can see the logic behind the idea, you know, if the virus is really spreading. It would prevent the infection from getting to everyone, it would definitely save lives. Also, if people refuse to take themselves to hospital, the only people they will put at risk during the quarantine is their own families and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do that.

  From what’s being suggested by the ‘experts’—never clearly stated, I notice—they’re intending to give medicine to the people in the early stages of infection, keep them in special hospital wards for monitoring, and hopefully clear it up quickly. The people who are further along—again, how this will be determined is unclear—will be taken to a proper specialised medical facility to look after them in the safest environment while they work out a cure, which I can only assume means they’ll be subjected to humiliating and painful tests and experiments.

  I can’t quite get my head around why they all seem so keen to plough money into this without any proof. Doesn’t that seem mental?

  As the days of reporting go on, the question seems to switch from ‘What are they going to do?’ to ‘When is the quarantine going to happen?’—as if it’s just been decided somewhere along the way. I don’t know if I missed something or if it’s just another media tactic, but it’s unbearable to watch all the same. I really don’t know why I continue to torture myself, other than the fact that I can’t bear to be completely out of the loop.

  A new statistic begins to be peddled across the TV. Apparently, the way things are going, at least 35% of the world’s population will die from the AM13 virus. This sounds quite worrying when you think about it in numbers. That’s over two billion people! Then again, I’m sure they said all this kind of crap about swine flu, and that turned out to be nothing, so I’m not exactly panicked.

  The more I roll this idea over and over in my mind, the more I start to think if this quarantine really does happen, then I should probably get out now while I still can. It’s okay staying inside by my own choice, but if it’s forced on me I’ll go insane. I’m even overcome with an intense desire to go home to see my family—a feeling I haven’t experienced in a very long time.

  No, I couldn’t possibly make that journey home. That would just be madness. I’d unnecessarily worry the hell out of my parents. The ironic thing is it really doesn’t seem that long ago all I could think about was avoiding losing my flat and being sent home. Now all I want is to be back there, with them.

  All of this just puts my life in a bit more perspective. I’ve been so concerned with trying to form a career and my life here that I haven’t seen my family for such a long time. I miss them! They’re saying 35%, two billion people, it’s such a high number. I’d regret it forever if I lost them and I hadn’t bothered to visit.

  Screw it, I’m going!

  I jump up, full of passion, and start randomly throwing things in a bag while I formulate a plan—one to finally get my life back on track. I decide to firstly go over to the office, to apologise for my absence and hopefully make things up with everyone. Then when—fingers crossed—Jamie says my job is safe and the air is cleared, I’ll hop on the first train back to my parents’ home. That way I can be there within the next hour or so.

  I can’t wait to see them. I smile to myself at the thought of my mum and dad and the surprise I’m about to give them. I know they’ll be shocked, but hopefully pleased too. Hopefully my younger brother, Felix, is there too. He’s 17 years old, at the age where he’s much too cool for me, but I know deep down he’ll be happy. Despite the six year age gap between us—or maybe because of it—we’ve always gotten on really well.

  And if I get into work just to find out the quarantine is never going to happen…well, I don’t think I can face coming back here now. Having made the decision to go, it suddenly feels much too quiet for me. I’ve been inside these four walls on my own for too long.

  I’ll just figure something out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The first person I see is Michelle, and she immediately races up to me and grabs me into a hug, almost knocking me backwards. I have to catch my breath afterwards; she’s practically winded me. She begins chattering away really excitedly at me to the point where I can’t seem to follow a single word she’s saying. Soon she drags me to her desk, still babbling merrily away.

  Then she absolutely blows me away by showing me everything she’s done. No wonder she hasn’t called me, it doesn’t look like she’s had any free time. Looking at everything piled high on her desk, it seems as if she’s been working herself silly to prove ‘my’ theory right. I try to ignore the fact that even my best friend is referring to this nonsense as my idea, but it grates on me all the same.

  I can’t deny it does feel nice that she cares so much about me that she’d work so hard to show the world I’m not a ditzy fool. She’s the one doing practically all the research to find out everything I’ve seen on the news. She tells me that she’s been working really closely with Jamie to locate the experts, the breaking news sources, the information; she’s compiled everything to make the story seem as credible as possible.

  I’m emotionally torn—I want to be believed so I don’t look completely foolish, but I know the deeper it gets, the worse the comeuppance will be when the truth does come out. With everything I can see in front of me, it’s easy to see just why it’s being taken so seriously. What I can’t understand is why Michelle sounds as convinced as Jamie by everything AM13. I thought she saw it the same way I do.

  Finally I can take it no more. I absolutely have to speak out. “So, this is real then? The virus, the quarantine?” I try to smile, to show I know it isn’t, but somehow the motion doesn’t quite reach my lips.

  “Yes. I told you we’re all on board.” She looks confused. “That day when Jamie spoke to us, he showed us all of the evidence—it’s undeniable. I mean those videos! Those brave people who have risked their lives to film the horrors for others to see.” There isn’t a hint of sarcasm in her tone as she speaks, which I find extremely surprising. Has she been watching the same things I’ve seen? She can’t have—those videos were ridiculous.

  I can’t believe how badly I misinterpreted her on the phone. If she really does believe in this, does that mean the rest of them do too? I glance around to spot everyone totally engrossed in their work, which is a sight I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. There’s no gossiping, no chatting, no messing around. Everyone is completely focused and serious. Not one person is looking at me…

  Until my eyes suddenly lock with Jake’s. My heart leaps up into my throat as he smiles at me. All the butterflies I’ve felt around him before come flooding back. I try to smooth down my hair, all of a suddenly acutely aware of how bad I must look. I didn’t even glance in the mirror before I left. But he doesn’t look bothered by that, he actually looks pleased to see me. Relief floods through my body. It doesn’t look like I’ve ruined everything after all by all of this craziness. Maybe when it all blows over, we can go out on a real date. Oh my God, how amazing would that be?

  As I look at him mor
e, drinking him in, I notice he doesn’t quite look right. He’s very pale, nauseous looking. He has massive bags under his eyes, and sort of looks like he’s shaking all over. Flu symptoms. I wonder if he’s been to the doctors.

  I walk towards him, worry plastered across my expression. “Are you okay, Jake?”

  He sighs deeply before answering. “I’ve not felt great since all this kicked off. I actually think I’m just nervous about it all. Wow, that’s not very manly, is it? It’s just a bit mad.” He lets out a bit of a weird noise—I think it’s supposed to be a laugh.

  I think that’s the moment I truly realise what an impact this scare is having on people. To be this frightened seems totally bizarre to me. I can’t understand why everyone has the opposite view to me, why is no one being rational? The only explanation I can think of is everyone has got the equivalent of the online crazies I gave myself the other night. Clearly being in this office where it’s the only thing discussed is doing no one any favours.

  After a few moments of silence, I give Jake a hug and wander over to my desk.

  Before I even sit down and switch on the computer, I notice there’s a note from Jamie sitting on my keyboard. It could have been sitting there for days for all I know. All it tells me to do is see him as soon as possible. After a few seconds’ internal debate, I decide to face the music early, get my bollocking over and done with. I can’t even begin to imagine how mad he is over me missing such important days of work. I just hope I don’t get sacked—I’m sure I’ve committed a sack-able offence.

  Then, I’m going to anger him further by telling him I want more time off. Oh God, that’s not going to go down well. But surely this counts as extenuating circumstances? I have been through a lot. Plus he did say that the company would help me in any way possible.