Merrick- RENO OUTBREAK

There comes a time in everyone's lives, devote or agnostic that everyone questions God. How, why, what kind of a god would do this. There are days even now, when I can hear Jace pacing back and forth in front of the churches cross. Questioning God, asking why he did what he did. What did we do? Jace didn’t die thankfully but his questions resound in my head. For they are the same ones that are in mine.
I personally think if God did make us all of us, then as a parent he would protect us from harm, not throw it in our faces in the form of our dead peers. I can say honestly I don’t know what it feel like to be human anymore. I mean in less than a year I have had to see things only in movies and nightmares. Watched human beings, my friends, real people be eaten alive, eating each other.
I had to watch in mortified horror as the love of my life was shot between the eyes, because she almost attacked me, but I was too human, too scared to do it. Where as now, the only ones that were real in my life, actual living beings, were threats to me. and I almost killed them all for self preservation.

Selfishness is what made man strong, what spread our religions, that built our towers. Selfishness was what made man weak, made his god mad, and brought the towers to our feet.

Sept 21 2007
Pre-Reno Outbreak.

This is the day I made an almost fatal mistake in my life. I broke up with Taylor, things weren’t working so I did as anyone would and I ended it. The day flew by in blurs of hate, bitterness, arguments, tears and pats on the back. I went home and wrote.
My hand blurred as it wrote the thoughts that spilled from my head. I couldn’t stop, I remember hearing my parent’s hushed voices trying to coax me into eating but I just wasn’t in the mood. The only thing that got my mind away from the paper was the stories on the radio.
Man gets bit by wife in bizarre murder case.
Children in London bite and eat flesh of other students
Cannibals run rampant in French Plaza.


The news was getting worse and worse each day; it was as if the very fabric of society and humanity was being pulled by these strains of viruses running around the world. The CDC even tried covering up cases in the U.S.A but some crafty reporter got some video footage from a quarantined hotel in the lower Bronx, of people attacking several SWAT members.
The CDC, our government, the world’s governments had no way of dealing with nor treating these viruses and had even less info on what the virus actually was. By the time they went to do an autopsy of a dead person the body was so decayed that the c.o.d. was hardly discoverable and the blood was so coagulated and thick that it was impossible to get any D.N.A., antigens, cell counts, anything.

The news from The company in Cali was chilling and many parents had begun to pull their children out of class, out of the few remaining. I was one of thirty left in a class of 120 students.

Pre-Reno Outbreak Oct 31 2007

HALLOWEEN.
This was a night of drunk faces and cold winds. A friend of mine was throwing a senior party, costumes required of course. So I thought I could get my mind off the world and off of Tay by going and washing it all away in cheap liquor and beer. A whirlwind of shouts, blasting music, and scantly clad women ripped open my body and filled it with a sense of inner peace, and that coupled with a few drinks, I was happier than could be.
But of course, as if Eris herself walked in on every party, there was the teen sinful karma-turn around in full swing. A group of Junior boys decided to crash the party and got drunk as fast as possible before anyone told them to take a hike. Well within the half hour they were there they were drunk off their asses, and they decided to get angry with everyone that night and tried to pick a fight with anyone who wanted to. Unfortunately for them they picked it with several large college aged guys.
The throw down was done and over with within minutes. Everyone scattered when one person shouted wolf and said the cops were coming.

Sad how I can remember who all was there, these images are burned forever in my head; my memory is like the wall paintings in such detail that the stories are real. From flight attendees, to hockey masks, I remember them all…I miss them all. Why couldn’t more of them survived? Why me out of all of them? Why Jace and not more of them? Or Hawth? I don’t see why we survived.

Day 1
Nov 1 2007

The day was the normal hit the snooze nine times before rolling out of bed and hitting the floor. It took me a half hour just to leave the bathroom. (I’m one of those guys done and ready in 5 minutes, shower and all.) The drive was droll and boring, the same reports on all of the channels about the Lost "zombies" from Teresa so I flipped it on over to my generic MP3 player and blasted the heavy based techno.
School was the simple in out, in out, in out, kinda day, everyone was so wired and ready to go that it was funny, you normally don’t get that kind of reaction in a school setting. But it was running wild and in every class there were discussions on what should be done about the virus, what measures should be taken into account when dealing with it.
The conversation that caught my ear was another party out in Washoe Valley out off of 395 and out in the back wash county. But that’s always where the best parties and people were for the fact that no one cared and got away with anything. But they were considering putting a hault to it due to the recent outbreak in Vegas and that they had heard rumors of "zombies" walking up the county lines.

In my media class (editing, filming and the works) there was a friend of mine by the name of Hawth, kinda of a scrawny kid with a bark and little bite. But a nice guy nonetheless. Well he was going on and on about some rave downtown and how he wanted to take me. When he got to the part with the girls high on ecstasy throwing up in the corner he lost me. But I told him about the party I was going to and if he wanted to go he could call me.
He kinda blew it off as if the party was a last resort if his plans fell threw.
After school I bolted home and got my homework and chores done for the sake of saving the argument with my dad about it. By 7 I was out the door and heading to Jace’s house. We played some intense shooting game before having to drive out to Gabbi’s house and get her.
Jace is my best friend of 4 years now; he and I have been thru literal hell, high water, and high school. I see him more as a brother than as a friend. Where Gabbi is my surrogate sister, she was always there listening and giving me advice on the opposite sex and dealing with all that drama.
So I and Jace figured it would only take minutes to get to Gabbi’s house, so we took our time, calling everyone we could to try and get more people to go with us to the party. Only taker was Mike and he lived 20 minutes from where we were so Jace and I jumped in my old 1991 ford something one another and were on our way.
My headlights glimmered out across the empty dark as we drove talking about this or that girl, about the huge projects we were given in our Government class and even about good times we had months ago.
Mikes house was smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood so I didn’t dare honk my horn, instead Jace jumped out to go knock on the door. The door clicked painfully as he slammed it behind him. I watched thru the dark as he picked his way up to the front step, thru my cracked window I thought I heard something moving around in the darkness, so I took my eyes off of him to try and scan the dark.
My eyes peered focusing on everything that the shadows did and didn’t cover. My breathing became heavy and short as my eyes darted back and forth, trained on the dark trying to find the source of the noise.
-SLAM-
Mike and Jace had jumped on the car causing me to jump right out of my seat, the restraint pulling me back down. They clambered in haughty and loud. We all joked and laughed and before we knew it we were pulling into Gabbi’s driveway. She was waiting in the shadows for us to pull up.
“Don’t think waiting outside is a good idea nowadays.” Mike joked as Gabbi climbed in the center back seat.
“The boogey men are more interested in little boys like you, with squeaky voices and round faces.” Gabbi winked with a grin that shut Mike up instantly.
My phone rang at that moment coming up with Hawth on the LCD screen.
“Hey bud, this rave blows can you come get me? Some dude had a seizure and they are closing the place for the night, they think he overdosed on something.”

“Yea I am 76.”

“76?”

“yea means on my way, en route. Ill be there shortly.”

“ooook. See you when you get here.”

-click-

As we rounded the corner to the rave Hawth was already sitting out on the curb waiting patiently for us texting away on his phone. I honked the horn once and his recognition was to stand not once looking from his cell phone screen. I slowly came to a stop by him. He pocketed his cell phone and reached for the door handle, he froze turning his head back to the Rave. I followed his eyes to the front door. Hawth sneezed, his head jerking back. But my eyes we on the man stumbling out of the building, his head whipping back and forth, then locking in on Hawth. His eyes were flickering around in his head, his tongue lolling from his mouth.
“Alright dude lets go.” Hawth said as his seat belt clicked into place.
I grunted or something and put my foot to the gas pedal. Turning onto the freeway and heading out to Washoe Valley.
As I made one of the final turns off the free way, pointing the car out to the Valley area, Hawth pointed out that the world was falling apart because of this virus bullshit.
The cold wind from Mike’s open window, Hawth’s bitter mumbling, Jace’s thumbs clicking away at his cell phone, the speedometer climbing.
-AHhhhhhhhhhhhhh-
The car pulled to the right as if some extra weight was added. I pulled back left, my reaction intensified by the scream.
-AHHHHHHHHH GET IT OFF-
-OHHH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT-

I shifted my weight to look in the back seat and there was a hand, a human hand reaching in thru Mike’s open window, it had him tightly by the shirt, its nails digging into his skin causing blood to pour out over his shirt.
The car started to bounce as Jace turned around in his seat and began pulling at the arm.
-IT WONT LET GO-
-GET IT OFF PLEASE GET IT OFF-
-HAWTH HELP ME!!!!-

I looked in the mirror and saw Hawth lean over and start beating at the arm. I turned grabbing Mike’s shirt and by his arm and held tight, flicking my head back and forth from him and the road.
-SCCCCCCCCRRRRRREEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHH-
The door was ripped open by the weight of the puller and of Mike’s weight on the door. My hand was holding onto open air and a ripped sleeve, I jerked back to the steering wheel. My mind locked, I can’t remember what anyone was saying or what was going on. I just pushed the pedal down further, the adrenaline making me blind.
The world blurred by, tree, tree, tree, blur, blur, blur.
“Todd”
Tree, blur, tree, blur.
“TODD”
Tree…blur….tree….
“TOOOODDDD”
My head snapped over to Jace.
“WHAT!?” I screamed at him, the blood rushing to my face.
“We have to go back!” He pointed back down the way we had come.
“NO” I pulled my head, forcing my eyes to stay focused on the road, the vivid pull of the memories seconds ago flooding my nerves and mind.
I pulled the car over stumbled out of the driver’s seat. My stomach retched before I even had time to bend over. The taste of bile still lingers in my mouth when I think of that night. The bile, the cold wind at my legs, hands at my knees, Jace at my side.
“Todd we have to go back, he might still be alive.”
I nodded and pointed him to the car. We both got in slowly my hands shaking as I put the car in reverse. I swung the car around creeping it back at a speed less than half of what it took me to get down the road.
We didn’t need to know that we were at the right spot, for there on the side of the road was a pool of blood and ribbons of Mike’s clothing. I crepted the car past the spot, slowly pushing the needle up.
“Home.” Hawth whispered. “I need to go home.”

Then over the radio, which I don’t remember turning on came the high pitched alarm.
-All residence of Washoe, Clark, Storey, Douglas, Eureka, White Pine, Lincoln, Esmeralda counties, this is a state of emergency. Uncontrollable events are ensuing state wide and it is recommended that all personnel stay inside, lock all doors and stay away from all windows. If an emergency is to occur please call 9-1-1 immediately.-

Again the high pitched alarm.

-All residence of Washoe, Clark, Storey, Douglas, Eureka, White Pine, Lincoln, Esmeralda counties.- Jace turned the volume down to inaudibility but so the static remained.

“Take us home Todd,” Hawth had leaned forward between the seats. Gabbi pinned herself as far from Mike’s seat as possible. Hawth sat back, looked to the open door, leaned over Gabbi and pulled it shut. “Quickly…”


I sped, not caring about speed limits or cops, I raced Gabbi home first, her being the girl and all. She got out Hawth’s door white as a ghost and not saying a thing. None of us said neither goodnight nor goodbye, just watched to make sure that she got inside. The lights turned on and we saw her silhouette joined by her parents.
Then as lightning I raced to Hawth’s car, back at the rave building, it was quarantined, a large tent over the building. Luckily for Hawth he parked away from the building in a parking garage.


This is where my memory blurs a little, I remember going home and there is nothing, nothing but blood. I remember going upstairs and taking my dads guns, a shotgun and 2 pistols and all the ammo I could find. As I left I remember hearing a growling unlike anything my dogs had ever made, so I ran. As I left guns and clothing in hand I turned to see my father’s motorcycle tipped over in the open garage, a trail of blood leading back into the house. I remember messaging Hawth in a video message on accident telling him what Jace had told me.

“To find food, and shelter.”

Jace knew a place we could go, a place we might be safe. We had to go. There was no plan B.