Beginning of the End

The virus is nothing like in the movies. You know, the ones where the whole world withers and dies in a matter of days or weeks from the first sign of an infection. It probably would be better that way: painful, but quick.

Instead, it spreads slowly, starting out as just another strain of influenza. No one suspects that this seemingly mild-mannered infection is only the beginning of something far worse. The residual symptoms only last about a week, perhaps two for those with weaker immune systems.

For some the virus gets worse: a middle-aged man misses work to nurse the illness, only to end up in the hospital after fainting at the doctor's office. A young college student falls into a coma while studying for her midterms. A teenage girl spits up blood while she's babysitting for her father's boss.

News reports tell you what should be obvious: keep away from those who are sick, try to stay indoors, and wash your hands as often as possible.

Scientists are trying hard to find a cure, but nothing seems to work. In fact, some of their attempted remedies seem to aggravate the strain even more, increasing the deadly effects of the disease.

Then stranger things begin to occur, things you think can't be true because those things only happen in movies and Stephen King novels. Tabloid magazines are the first to report them. Military trucks spotted outside of a small town in Iowa, men in hazmat suits carrying guns running through the empty streets. Gunshots heard from inside churches and daycare centers. Women attacking their co-workers, their husbands, their children.

Then these reports are covered on national, credible news stations: on MSNBC, a woman in torn clothing, wandering aimlessly down the highway, muttering under her breath. On the cover of Times magazine, a little girl covered in blood and dirt holding hands with her younger brother, both their parents victims of increasingly violent symptoms.

Your friends, your family, the people who live across the hall in the messy apartment, any of them can be infected. Most of them probably are. It's best to stay indoors, for as long as possible.

After a while you can't reach the police, if there are even any police to speak of. Then the power shuts off, trapping you in the dark with your fear. Stores are boarded up and hospitals are abandoned.

When the government finally admits it has no idea of how to defeat this, that the virus is winning, towns, cities, entire states are evacuated, people desperate to try avoid the infection. It's useless; the virus is spreading everywhere, it's global.

The ones who survive the initial impact travel in small groups or alone. No one can be trusted. Anyone can be your enemy. Strangers rob you. Your friends kill you. There is no time for emotion.

It's not over, though. For the lucky surviors, there is the final symptom of the infected left to battle: cannibalism. The term zombie seems ridiculous, but there really is no other word that fits.

At times, it's easy to envy those that died when it all started, because at least for them it's over. For everyone else, it has only just begun; it's the beginning of the end.