He broke one of the slats in half over his knee and nailed the pieces to the door. The poster columns didn’t quite fit between the slats and the floorboard, so he cut them to the proper length with a handsaw and jammed them in place.

  The custom barricade felt solid as he pulled at the door. It would take a silverback to break into the apartment.

  Unfortunately for him, there were things prowling the streets that might have the strength to pull it off.

  Even still, he felt better knowing that he wouldn’t have to deal with any human intruders.

  After frying some eggs and buttering two slices of toast, Lance fell into his favorite recliner with a huff. He pulled on the handle and eased back with his feet in the air. Nothing short of a crane could get him out of the chair for the rest of the night.

  He pawed at the remote, too tired and lethargic to pick it up. Surprisingly, the cable still worked.

  “Bastards really did cut off the signal in the hospital. Morons.”

  All the news stations flashed alert messages, the talking heads tired and near hysterical in their reporting. Lance settled on CNN, if only because they had a pretty anchor on at the time.

  “...full evacuation. Again, if anyone in your family or home has exhibited any signs of contagion, we urge you to leave the area immediately. You must understand that help will not come if you call 911. The police and EMTs are overloaded with calls. Most major cities are being evacuated, but each one has different protocols to follow. We’ll run any information that is given to us throughout the night.”

  Lance shoveled some eggs into his mouth as he watched, wishing they would tell him something he didn’t know.

  The camera angle changed, showing a guest sitting beside the newscaster. The man wore a suit that needed dry-cleaning in the worst way. Two-day beard growth and bagged eyes completed the exhausted look.

  “We’re joined again by Dr. Newsome. Do you have anything to update us with in regards to the Xavier virus?”

  Lance’s forehead wrinkled. “Xavier virus? Weird name.”

  “If you’ll recall, I theorized that the smoke bomb pranks happening around the city might not have been pranks at all. The CDC has just come back with the results of extensive testing on the canisters found in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and several other afflicted cities. They weren’t smoke bombs.” He paused, clearing his throat. “The United States is under attack. Someone has engaged in biological warfare with us. This epidemic is not a random occurrence.”

  “Dr. Newsome, you’re saying that the Xavier virus was unleashed upon us intentionally? The implications of that are incredible. You’re talking about the start of another World War.”

  “That’s correct. Someone is trying to commit genocide.” He stared at his hands, his voice lowering. “And it’s working.”

  “Do you know if anyone has claimed responsibility for the attack yet?”

  “No.”

  Lance stared blankly at the television, a mouthful of half-chewed toast in his slack jaw. Someone unleashed biological weapons against the United States? Someone hated a country’s government so much that they would cause the illness, mutation, and death occurring outside?

  While smoking copious amounts of marijuana in college, Lance and his friends often debated about the course mankind was on. His buddies thought the planet would crash and burn eventually, imploding because some moron fell asleep at the controls, or two arrogant world leaders would launch nukes at one another because they suffered from penis envy. Lance maintained that alarmism usually proved wrong, and that people would continue on as they always had.

  Turns out, he was wrong.

  “When we spoke this afternoon, you said that only North America appeared to be infected at this point. Is that still the case?”

  The doctor perked up a bit, his shoulders squaring. “Yes, that’s correct. The canisters only went off in the United States, but Canada and Mexico have both reported cases of the illness in their countries now as well. We believe that the shutdown of international travel happened early enough that this horror has been quarantined to our continent.”

  Lance finished his food. His hunger died during the news report, but he knew that he needed the calories, so he forced it down. He fully reclined in the chair, staring at the pictures hanging on the wall beside the television.

  Photographs of him and Liz in Los Angeles, touring Universal. The two of them petting Shamu at Sea World. A collage from their wedding day hung above the others, their young, fresh faces unprepared for the disaster their marriage would become.

  Tears flowed as he looked them over. He didn’t despair because of his lost relationship, but over the entire trajectory of his life. Years upon years, he wasted energy and time stressing over his career. His wife. His lack of children.

  And for what?

  The city burned around him. People ate each other in the streets, their minds washed away like sand on a beach.

  So much of his life had been dedicated to the pursuit of happiness, when he didn’t even know what that truly was. He lusted after the kind of life that everyone said he should desire, rather than looking inward and following his heart.

  Now he sat alone in an apartment, waiting for death to knock on his door. His wife would spend the night with another man, fleeing the very city she’d spent her life in with Lance.

  He would die soon and he was just realizing that he’d never really lived.

  The shrieks from the mutated and the mad grew in frequency as he sat there. They came from all sides, surrounding his building. More filled the apartments above him, bouncing down the stairwells to his third floor place, making him wonder how long he had until they came for him.

  But even if they did, what did it matter? What did he have worth fighting for?

  “...still haven’t identified any kind of treatment. Things are simply progressing at too fast a rate for us to make any headway. All I can say is that you should get far away from anyone showing any signs of infection. That’s the best thing you can do at this time.”

  “The first of the attacks occurred four days ago. How is it possible that this could have spread so quickly in such a short amount of time, Doctor? And how can it do such damage to the human body in just a few days?”

  “Well, anyone that came in contact with the chemical agent from the smoke canisters was immediately infected, we know that much. How it has spread from there is something we’re still debating. Touch alone doesn’t seem to transmit the virus, but saliva, blood, and other bodily fluids do appear to have an effect. If I had to guess, I’d say that people went home and kissed their loved ones. Those people went to the gym, the doctor’s office, or a restaurant. As for how this is doing such extensive damage to the human body... well, we just can’t answer that yet. The CDC is finally releasing pieces of information. They believe it’s a prion disease that is destroying higher brain function, but we’re hotly contesting that hypothesis because of the short incubation period. We do know that the hypothalamus, which regulates body temperature and hunger, is directly affected. It’s a truly tremendous piece of engineering and...”

  Lance tuned the man out before he started giving verbal high-fives to the terrorists that designed the Xavier virus, whatever it was.

  Gunfire went off in the street below. Lance fought the urge to open the curtains and look.

  He wanted to ensure that no one knew that he occupied his apartment.

  The small-arms battle continued for close to half an hour before cries of pain and pleas for mercy fell into silence.

  “...thank you for joining us once again, Dr. Newsome. God be with you.”

  “God be with us all. We’re going to need all the help we can get it.”

  Lance left the television on as he fell into a restless sleep in the chair.

  Chapter 10

  The screech of metal on metal kicked Lance out of a dream that faded from memory within seconds.

  He awoke in semi-darkness, the television providing the only light in the apartment. The taped curtains turned his place into a tomb. People chattered outside, audible because of the dearth of traffic.

  Lance stretched in the chair, wincing when the skin on the bottom of his foot shifted. He got out of the recliner and hobbled to the window, peeling back a section of tape.

  A group of people stood around a car on the other side of the street. Most of them were armed with bats and kitchen knives, casting wary glances up and down the road. Several men stood around a large SUV, the hood propped open, pointing at the engine. Others pushed a car away from the back of the big vehicle, its door screeching along the side of a truck as they moved it into the street.

  The sun crested over the corner of the U.S. Steel Tower. Lance held a hand up to cut down on the glare as he watched the people fill the SUV with bottles of water and bags of potato chips. Two children walked down the front steps of the building across the street, holding their mother’s hands.

  They climbed into the backseat of the vehicle, followed by the women. The men closed the hood several minutes later and a few hopped inside, closing the doors. The rest of the people went to another SUV in front of it and got in. The two-vehicle caravan eased into the street and disappeared around the next corner.

  Lance wished them luck, but he knew the trouble waiting for them as they tried to escape the city. He didn’t know if the military had started destroying some of the bridges leading out of the burgh, though he figured it would only be a matter of time.

  A freshly infected child stumbled from an alley beside the apartment building, her skin already ashy and thinning.

  Lance resealed the window, fighting against the emotions surging through him at the sight of the young girl. How many children died yesterday? How many more would suffer horrible deaths in the coming days?

  He changed the television channel to KDKA, the local CBS affiliate. A map of the city filled the screen with arrows pointing to a few spots around the I-76 and I-79 beltway. Another marker hovered above Heinz Field. Large X’s covered major highways and bridges. How they planned to funnel several hundred thousand people through three sites, Lance didn’t know.

  He could only hope that they’d been able to get more organized at the evacuation points than they were at the hospital. Granted, no one could have anticipated this level of craziness.

  Someone walked by the door of his apartment, their voice booming.

  “Way to bring attention to yourself,” Lance muttered as he limped to his kitchen.

  Quite a few people remained in his building, but Lance didn’t know if that was good or bad. Having the place to himself might be safer. Then again, hearing other people, rational people, frightened as they were, gave him a small level of comfort. That didn’t mean he planned on dealing with them, however.

  People are dangerous when they’re frightened.

  A quick inspection of his cabinets and refrigerator confirmed what he already expected—his food rations were dangerously low. A few more eggs, some questionable lunchmeat, and a small amount rice and bread remained. He didn’t think he could live on spices, but he might have to give it a try if he didn’t find more food soon.

  The thought of checking out the Giant Eagle down the street made his stomach do flips. Even if the left side of his body wasn’t sore and his foot didn’t have a puncture wound, he wouldn’t want to go down there. The amount of people looting the place, fighting over who had the right to steal the food, was enough to keep him away.

  If he had a gun, he might consider it. Going in there with a knife and a severe limp was a recipe for disaster.

  He considered breaking in to his neighbors’ apartments to scrounge for food, but he feared some of them might be hiding inside, armed with shotguns. Getting shot was low on Lance’s list of priorities.

  The internet still worked, shockingly, so he settled back into the recliner with his laptop. The blogosphere buzzed with reports and pictures and conspiracy theories. Some people thought the plague was a false flag event that went awry. A disease designed by the United States’ government to instill fear in the populace, but which ultimately turned on its master like Frankenstein’s monster.

  YouTube and Facebook were rampant with videos and pictures of the infected attacking family members and breaking down doors. Lance’s eyes darted to his homemade barricade, praying it would hold if something came knocking.

  Normally, YouTube would have censored such violence, yet the videos remained, making Lance wonder if anyone remained at the controls. Fox News’ site never loaded, a 500 Internal Server Error message filling the screen.

  As far as Lance could tell as he browsed around, most of the major U.S. cities had massive amounts of infection. The sparsely populated center of the country had far less of a problem than the coastal cities. Evacuations had started in over thirty areas so far, with New York City leading the pack. It would be easier to cut off access to and from an island, than a sprawling city like Pittsburgh.

  The death toll estimates ran the full gamut. The range started at fifty thousand and topped off as high as one million. Lance guessed that number would explode over the next few weeks, particularly in the cities where the police were no longer around.

  The Europeans and Australians had completely locked their borders down. Australia in particular, felt they could contain the situation because of their geography. To some commentators’ surprise, no occurrences of the Xavier virus had popped up outside of North America—yet.

  An emergency meeting of the United Nations happened yesterday, but the results had not been released to the public. They promised swift action, but Lance wondered what they could do without risking contamination in their own countries.

  The U.S. president flew somewhere over the Midwest in Air Force One. He would be safe up there, unless things got so bad on the ground that in-air refueling became impossible.

  Did the government have some kind of underground bunker for emergencies such as this? Lance did several Google searches, but couldn’t find anything concrete. He assumed they did. Is that where the senators and governors headed now? Abandoning their constituents to save their own asses would be fitting.

  The Russians were losing their shit. Crazy recommendations came out of the Kremlin, such as shooting anyone showing signs of infection or even bombing the worst of the cities. Conflicting reports said that these suggestions weren’t from the actual Russian government, but from a rogue sect in their military.

  The idea gave Lance chills. He’d been considering staying in the city for a while, knowing how hard it would be to get through any of the checkpoints. Would the president consider incinerating certain parts of the population to keep others alive? If so, then Lance needed to come up with a new plan to get the hell out of Dodge.

  Lance knew that governments did crazy things all the time, but he just couldn’t imagine Americans bombing their own cities. Even still, being prepared to leave at a moment’s notice might not be a bad idea.

  Wanting to take advantage of the power and internet still working, Lance printed out a map of Pennsylvania. If he had to leave the city, he wasn’t certain if he would head east or west. Going inland meant a smaller population and a lower chance of infection. If he went to the coast, he might be able to steal a boat and anchor off the shore.

  Maybe he could swing by the Greensburg area and check on Ashlee and Teddy.

  He found his old college backpack in the hallway closet and stuffed socks and underwear into it. They didn’t have any bottled water, so he made a mental note to grab some from a Sheetz or a restaurant.

  Even then, as he prepared for a quick escape if necessary, he wondered why he even bothered. He didn’t have much to live for. No one cared, or would even notice, if he disappeared. He rented a shitty apartment so he didn’t even have a nice home to die in.

  Yet he continued scrounging up whatever supplies he could and packing them away. Being eaten alive, it turned out, was even less appealing to him than living his mundane life. He grabbed extra bandages and tweezers from Liz’s medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Two rolls of toilet paper went in the bag. Running out of that might be worse than having the glass shard cut his foot.

  More eggs and bread. He found a small jar of honey in the back of the refrigerator that he spread on the toast.

  The news continued reporting. They often stopped to talk about a few of their fellow anchors and cameramen who hadn’t come back to work. The programming looked rough, unpolished. The talking head wasn’t centered in the frame occasionally, or they looked at the wrong camera.

  Shots of the evacuation points in NYC proved Lance’s theory about the difficulty of getting out of any cities. Mass chaos enveloped the areas. People shoved and prodded against the ever-growing crowd, fighting to move up just one spot in lines that stretched for miles. Concert-like waves shuddered through the army of would-be refugees.

  The Golden Gate Bridge overflowed with San Franciscans. A few people tumbled over the side, dropping end over end to the waters below. The swelling crowd pushed more people to the brink of falling. CNN switched away from the site as a dozen civilians fell to their deaths.

  Gunfire crisscrossed the skies of Philadelphia as a helicopter strafed a wide street, peppering a small group of translucent-skinned people.

  Lance checked the windows often, surprised by how many people he saw milling about. Only a few of the sick came by. Small groups of scared citizens often struck them down. Their blood flowed into gutters and grates, their bodies left where they fell.

  The lack of infected took Lance off guard. Maybe things weren’t as bad as he thought.

  A Pentagon official appeared on the TV two hours later, concurring with what Lance noticed.

  “...a noticeable decrease in the amount of sick today. We think they’re crawling away and dying somewhere. The disease appears to have a lifespan of four or five days before the subjects pass away.”

  The pretty blonde that Lance grew accustomed to had been replaced by a middle-aged bald man. He lacked the grace and fluidity in his reporting style that his female counterpart possessed.