Free H10N1 by M. R. Cornelius, Marsha Cornelius Page A

Claimed he never saw the tanks of that shit.”
    Lycoming County, the source of one of Taeya’s most frequent nightmares.
    “Well, we were unfortunate enough to live in that town. My two-year-old son died in the first twenty-four hours.” Rick spoke between gritted teeth. “My wife survived three days.”
    Sounds bombarded Taeya. Wailing mothers, hysterical children writhing in pain, angry confrontations, accusations, death threats, makeshift tents, biohazard suits, doctors and nurses screaming at each other.
    Dear God, had she treated Rick’s wife or son? Had she taken the time to console the woman or had she rushed by, treating her like all the other faceless victims?
    It was months before Taeya stopped smelling the stench of rotting flesh, decaying corpses. How many disinfecting showers had it taken before she felt safe again?
    Rick eased up on the stranglehold he had on the steering wheel. “Well, screw it. It’s been so long, sometimes I can’t even remember his face.”
    “I’m not over it yet,” she said without looking at him.
    “You knew someone there?”
    The fleeting thought that she might need her Beretta ran through her mind. “I was on the first team called in to investigate.”
    Rick’s eyes widened. His lips pinched. Taeya’s hand edged toward the gun stuck in the pouch on the door. “It seems so obvious now,” she said. “But at the time, we just couldn’t figure out what was happening. We recognized the black skin lesions immediately. But then other symptoms occurred that weren’t consistent with anthrax. Some victims had blisters that looked like smallpox. Others got high fever and internal bleeding.” She sighed. Even the retelling of the story was exhausting. “Every time we thought we had a handle on what we were dealing with, another disease, with a longer incubation, popped up. We could hardly keep up, much less figure out why they were all occurring in Lycoming County.”
    His jaw flexed and she watched the muscles in his arms twitch. Was he thinking of pulling over and putting her out?
    She hurried on. “Then we discovered groups in other states—in other countries—with similar outbreaks. Someone finally found the tanks used to spray the toxic virus over the ball fields. The CDC discovered five different pathogens in the mix.”
    Slowly, Rick leaned his head back against the headrest. He was too caught up in memories to fight.
    “By that time,” she said, “it was too late.”
    Televised broadcasts from around the world condemned the terrorist attack. Everyone voiced the same incredulity. Who would target children? It was months before the assault was linked to Al Qaeda.
    There had been speculation in the past year that the North Koreans had used Williamsport as a model for their own pandemic. They’d learned that even a biologically enhanced virus could not be sufficiently spread from a single location. That’s why they’d gone global.
    She braced herself for more lambasting from Rick. Why didn’t our government act sooner? What good was the CDC if they couldn’t stop an outbreak like Williamsport?
    But Rick had nothing to say. He just drove with his dead eyes staring straight ahead.
    Once Williamsport returned to some semblance of order, a memorial service was held for all who had died. In an act of pure cowardice, Taeya decided not to attend. Had Rick been there? Would he have been one of an angry mob just waiting to tear into her?
    The only consolation to Williamsport was the assurance that after that disaster the CDC was ready for anything. What a joke. No one in the world had been prepared for this Korean flu.
    Rick’s face lost the rigid lines of anger. His eyes showed no pain or sadness, his lips were still. She didn’t kid herself that perhaps he understood how hard she had tried, that he might absolve her of the guilt. He had merely learned how to block his emotions, just like she had.
    But one thing she understood now—he hated her and he hated the