ZE Outbreak Novel, Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Saturday, May 5, 2012

I sat at my kitchen table that Saturday morning, shoveling oatmeal into my mouth like some starved animal. The TV droned on in the background, which was my only company in my cluttered apartment. Usually, I tuned it out while rushing through breakfast before heading to Jefferson University, but something caught my ear.

"Highly aggressive behavior in infected individuals...officials considering quarantine and border shutdown..."

A talking head rambled on about an outbreak in Japan, but the footage playing behind her told the real story. Tokyo looked like something out of a disaster movie with streets blocked off, people in masks scurrying around like scared rabbits, and guys in hazmat suits straight out of ET.

My spoon clattered against the bowl. Suddenly, I wasn't hungry anymore. This wasn't just another crisis piece designed to keep viewers glued to their screens. This was exactly what Dr. Cohen had warned me about.

The conversation from earlier that week played back in my head. Cohen, my boss at the epidemiology department, had pulled me aside. "Sam, keep an eye on this virus coming out of Asia—the Zeta virus. It's not like anything we've seen."

Dr. Cohen never rattled before. Hell, when he told me about his skin cancer last year, he'd mentioned it like he was talking about a mild cold. But his hands had been shaking when he told me to prepare for quarantine. Like an idiot, I'd brushed it off. Now, watching chaos unfold halfway across the world, his warning didn't seem so paranoid.

I clicked off the TV. Part of me wanted to run out and start prepping like one of those doomsday nuts, but the rational side of my brain kicked in. Maybe Dr. Cohen was wrong. Maybe the suits in Washington had everything under control and were cooking up a vaccine in some lab.

In the end, I decided to split the difference and keep living my life while getting ready, just in case. Classic Sam Caruso move, really. Not jumping straight into panic mode, but not sitting on my ass either. The Zeta virus wasn't going to wreck my life.

Besides, I had to kill Daniel Thorne tonight.

# #

I walked down Chestnut Street, letting the morning air hit my face. Normally, I'd be holed up in my apartment with my guitar, but today that felt too much like hiding. Besides, I needed to talk to Gabriel. It wasn’t that I was terrified by the images on my TV earlier, but I still wanted him to be prepared. Or maybe it was an excuse to hear his voice. I sure as hell didn’t spend enough time with him.

I pulled out my phone and dialed his number. My brother was probably already at school—yeah, on a Saturday. Some advanced placement thing. The smart genes definitely skipped me.

"Sam?" His voice had that typical teenage 'what now' tone. "I've literally got like two minutes before class."

"Sorry, I know it's early. What class is it?"

"AP Environmental Science Field Study," he said, his voice lifting at the end. This was my brother not trying to brag. "We're doing actual field research at a lake later in the semester."

"Jesus, that's great." I rounded the corner toward my office building. "How are you doing? Everything okay?"

The silence told me he was figuring me out. Gabriel knew my check-in calls usually meant something was up.

"I'm fine. What's wrong? And hurry up because I'm almost at class."

"Nothing's wrong. Just...have you heard anything about this virus on the news or whatever?"

“Oh my God, I don't watch the news. That's what TikTok’s for. What virus?"

I winced. "It's called the Zeta virus. You know I work for an epidemiologist, which is kind of like—"

"I know what epidemiology is. I'm not stupid."

"Right, sorry. It's just...my boss, he's really worried about this one. He's predicted other outbreaks before —"

"Wait," he cut me off. "Are you literally calling me before school to tell me about some weird virus? Seriously? Now I'm going to be freaking out all day. Thanks for that."

I stopped walking. "Look, I'm not trying to freak you out. I just want you to be aware if things get—"

"If things get what?" His voice dropped lower. "You're being weird. I'll Google it later, okay? But couldn't this wait until it was actually something? You know how I get about stuff like this."

"Yeah, you're right. Forget I said anything. It'll probably blow over."

He groaned, badly muffling it with his hand. "Whatever. I'll ask Mom and Dad about it."

The words 'Mom and Dad' hit me like a punch to the gut. They might have adopted him, but they weren't our parents.

“Talk to you soon."

“Okay," he said, huffing. "Text me later or whatever."

After he hung up, I stared at my phone like an idiot. Way to go, Sam. Freak out your teenage brother over what might be nothing. But Dr. Cohen wasn't usually wrong about this stuff. The guy was basically the rock star of epidemiology. And he was a good man, a good father, a good husband. He helped our department and mentored younger employees, despite being a full professor and highly regarded in his field. This world needed more people like him and a lot less like Daniel.

# #

I figured work would help clear my head. Data and research were my comfort zone. That, and killing people. I’ll get to that later.

At my desk, I dug through PubMed, searching for anything recent on the Zeta virus. The pickings were slim, but one name caught my eye: Dr. Giovanni D'Angelo, an Italian researcher working with the U.S. military. His paper from two days ago jumped out at me: "Emerging Patterns of Zeta Virus Transmission and Symptomatology: Urgent Need for Research."

My hands felt cold as I opened the file. Finally, something concrete about this thing.

The article didn't waste time with maybes. Zeta only spread through blood or saliva, not air, water, or food. That should have been reassuring, except for the kicker: when it paired up with common illnesses like the flu, it turned deadly. And once it got in your blood, the clock started ticking. A bite or blood contact gave you one to two hours before what D'Angelo called "transformation."

I had to read that part twice. He'd actually used the word "zombie." Not as some pop culture reference or metaphor. He had written it as a clinical term. The virus went straight for the brain, attacking motor control and cognition like it knew exactly what it was doing.

Reading the symptoms made my stomach turn. It started normal enough: fever, muscle pain, bad flu symptoms. Then things went sideways: muscle contractions, jaundice, these sickly green lesions on the skin and eyes. But phase two was something else. Your limbs stiffened up, fine motor skills went to hell, and your nails and teeth actually grew longer. Even your voice changed. The fever spiked so high it never broke.

I closed the article, but D'Angelo's clinical description of how a person basically stopped being human kept playing in my head. I'd seen some nasty stuff in my time at Jefferson, but this was different.

The virus didn't exactly kill its victims—their organs kept working, barely. Instead, Zeta transformed people into something almost alive, something that needed to feed on the uninfected. At times, D'Angelo called them "Zeds," and they didn't just want human flesh. They needed it. The infected zeroed in on the living like heat-seeking missiles, driven by pure aggression and the need to spread the virus.

At least they weren't masterminds. No opening doors, no climbing, no swimming. But if they sensed you nearby, they wouldn't stop until they got to you.

The words on my computer screen started to blur together. This wasn't just another outbreak we could contain. This was civilization-ending stuff.

I'd always avoided zombie movies. The whole undead thing seemed stupid. Slow moving corpses wouldn’t last long against the US military. We had millions of soldiers around the world, and combined with all of the other militaries, we could stop this from spreading.

My phone buzzed, and my heart did that stupid little jump it always did when Amber's name popped up in iMessages. "Hey Sam, I'm heading home earlier than expected. The contract ended suddenly. Something about travel restrictions and a new virus. How are things over there? I've been out of the loop in Bermuda."

I started typing about five different responses before deleting them all. How could I tell her what was coming? "Some news about a virus, but it's calm here. No problems. Don't worry."

The guilt hit me as soon as I sent it. I was lying to her, sugar-coating something that could kill her. My fingers hovered over the phone as I started typing again: "Maybe you should distance yourself from others, stay in your cabin until..."

I stopped. What right did I have to freak her out? But there she was, stuck on a floating petri dish with people from everywhere on the planet. God, I hated cruise ships.

Before I could finish my warning, she texted back: "Thanks, Sam! Can't wait to catch up. Maybe we can grab a drink when I'm back?"

That hit me hard. All those nights we'd spent talking on the stairs between our apartments, listening to her stories about dancing around the world. She had no idea what she was sailing home to. For a moment, I wanted to say yes, to pretend we'd just meet up at McGillin's like any other Friday night.

A drink with Amber. Any other time, that invitation would've had me grinning like an idiot at my phone. But all I could think about was the clock ticking down on everything we knew. I set my phone down and rubbed my eyes. No manual existed for how to handle my interest in this girl when the world was about to implode, how to protect your teenage brother, how to be the person everyone needed me to be.

I deleted my half-written warning and typed back: "Looking forward to it. Be safe."

# #

Indecision. It had been my constant companion since I was a kid. Every choice felt like standing at a crossroads in the dark, trying to guess which path led where.

Back when Dad was alive, he tried to channel my scattered energy into martial arts. He took me to try Tang Soo Do at this little school around the corner from our house. I stuck with it until he died when I was ten. After that, Mom wanted me to stay busy and told me to pick something I loved. But how do you know what you love when you're ten and your world's just fallen apart?

I bounced around like a pinball. Wrestling. Jiu-jitsu. Back to wrestling. Then jiu-jitsu again, thanks to my mom’s new boyfriend helping with the bills. I was good at both, but I could never commit to just one. Always chasing something I couldn't quite catch.

Did you catch that? Mom’s new boyfriend. It didn’t dawn on me until much later in life that she had been cheating on my father for a few years before he died. All I knew was that Doug was always around and paid for things.

When Mom died, everything went sideways. Foster care until I turned eighteen, then straight into the military. Foster care was no joke. Abuse, though rarely. Neglect, often. I was passed around more times than a joint at a Grateful Dead concert.

The military was the first clear choice I'd ever made, really. Just needed to get out, to run from everything that reminded me of what I'd lost.

The Army saw potential in me. They pushed me toward advanced combat roles, had me working on marksmanship, survival skills, tactical operations. They taught me how to kill and breakdown people before they even knew they were a target. I was Special Forces material, they said. But the more they shaped me into a weapon, the more I started asking myself: a weapon for who?

I got restless, not because I couldn’t handle, but because I wanted to see the cracks. We trained for missions, told to neutralize people, but who decided they were the enemy? What made them different than the ones giving the orders? The further I got into the system, the more I realized that we were disposable assets being used by people in power. I didn’t like that idea.

So I switched to military intelligence. Turned out I had a knack for data analysis. Give me statistical models and databases over combat drills any day. Don't ask me why. Maybe numbers don't lie, don't change, don't leave you. Data didn’t lie, didn’t manipulate.

Even there, I saw the truth beneath it all. Funding decisions were based on politics. Research was manipulated for optics. It wasn’t justice. It was protection. It was control. I wasn’t just restless anymore—I was waiting for the right moment when I stop letting them tell me who deserved to live and start deciding for myself.

I remember my last day in the military like it happened yesterday. Sitting in Colonel Mitchell's office, my stomach was in knots. It wasn’t because I doubted my decision, because I hadn’t doubted myself in a long time, but because I knew men like Mitchell would never let me walk away clean.

He stared down from behind his desk, with his little ribbon catching the light. They were not symbols of honor but symbols of obedience pinned to his chest. "Sam, you're making a mistake. You're one of our best. You are easily on track for lieutenant colonel, maybe higher. Why throw that away?"

I'd rehearsed my answer for weeks, but it still took me thirty seconds to get it out. "I understand, sir. But there's a world beyond the military I want to experience. What I've gained here has prepared me to make a difference in my own way."

Mitchell leaned back, looking older than usual. "Sam, walking away's a mistake. Military life brings security, respect. Out there" He gestured at his window like civilian life was just on the other side. "It's uncertain. You might regret it."

Regret. I hadn’t felt that emotion in years. When I made a decision, I never looked back. I never understood how people can feel guilty about anything.

We went rounds about it. Him listing reasons to stay, me explaining why I had to go. In the end, he didn't agree but respected my decision. "Well, Sam, if this is what you're set on, I won't stand in your way. Just know, the door's open if you decide to come back."

Sometimes I wondered how things might've played out if I'd stayed. Special Operations? Medical intelligence? Taking orders from men I didn’t trust? Marriage to some career officer? Or maybe just another flag-draped coffin coming home from somewhere hot and dangerous.

And now here I am, stuck in that same mental quicksand with this Zeta virus. Part of me knew it was serious. Dr. Cohen's warning, the news footage, everything screamed danger ahead. But that other voice, the one that was always second-guessing, kept whispering that maybe it was nothing. Maybe a vaccine was coming. Maybe life would go on like normal.

But there was always that other voice. The one that saw fear being weaponized by the government. Sure, they could contain the threat or maybe they wanted us scared.

Gabriel and Amber needed me to make a call, to be decisive for once in my life. Instead, I was frozen between choices again, watching the world start to crumble while I tried to make up my damn mind.

# #

Daniel Thorne was the business manager for the epidemiology department. A numbers guy. A gatekeeper. He handled the grants, made sure everything was paid on time, and shifted money from one account to another. He would have never gotten on my radar if Dr. Cohen hadn’t told me to check on a purchase order for new statistical software. BioStatX told us they never received payment. A small thing, but small things unravel big lies.

I brought it up to Daniel who assured me it would be paid, trying to end the conversation with his perfect smile that likely worked on everyone else. Something in the way he spoke to me twisted my guts. His jaw was stiff, and his left hand couldn’t stop playing with a pen cap. When I asked for confirmation by email, he got defensive. He sent me out of his office like I was some kind of underling.

That night, I followed him home. Not because I planned to do anything. Not yet. Just to see. But instead of going home, he met Tammy for dinner at the café around the corner from work. She was only twenty-one years old, doing work study in our department. I sat at the bar and watched his hand on her knee, how he brushed her cheek, and whispered something that made her blush. I’m sure Jennifer, his wife of fifteen years, who I met at the holiday party, wouldn’t appreciate those touches.

From there, I checked in with other units in our department and found that a number of purchase orders for equipment or software were late, missing or manipulated. Eventually, I had no choice but to wait for him to leave work, slip into his office, and get on his computer before it went to the lock screen. It was against policy to leave your workstation unlocked when you left. Most people trusted rules to protect them, but I never did.

This guy had performed financial gymnastics for the last three years. Daniel had been shifting money between accounts, funneling them through shell corporations. I wasn’t sure why he was embezzling, until I logged into his Gmail account (I loved password managers on browsers that store everyone’s passwords.) There was evidence of affairs with multiple women, each one paid out of research money. Some of the women were as young as eighteen. I saw dozens of first-class flights, luxury hotels, and expensive dinners. In one night, he spent $18,000 at Delilah’s Den. He even covered abortions with NIH funds awarded to Dr. Cohen.

A man like this didn’t just steal money but stole futures. He didn’t care that this research could save lives. And he never lost sleep over it.

I was not a serial killer. I took no pleasure in killing. I didn’t get off on the act itself. I was not some kind of psychopath who took teeth as trophies or had to set up elaborate kill rooms and go through a special routine to get rid of the jitters. I was neither obsessed nor compulsive. The people I killed deserved what they got, and I killed them cleanly.

That night, I was hoping Daniel was going home for the night as he walked out of the building towards the parking lot. But he kept walking, most likely meeting one of his affairs. I followed him down Market Street, and he took a turn down a much smaller street. My eyes shot around for door cameras or those mounted on the front of homes. I spotted a few and only when we passed did I hurry behind Daniel.

My combat knife slipped right through the back of his throat and upwards into his skull. A short huff of air escaped his throat, and his arms flailed as he reached for the wound. I yanked the blade away and when he fell to the pavement, I took his wallet. Cops would find a simple robbery gone wrong. Philadelphia was a dangerous place. I’m sure his obituary would read devoted husband and father killed on the streets while walking home from work.

continue to chapter 2