Jenner Origins

Wrote this as a backstory for a game I was playing.  The character has moved on and it's definitely not my best piece ever because I ramble quite a bit, but it was a fun exercise in finding a voice for the character by following his internal monologue.  It also set up the trick I'd use for him later on of being full of medical TV references.  I'm still a little sad that I'd didn't pull off a MASH reference.

Dear crinkled up piece of paper I’m calling a diary…

Er…

Dear diary,

Don’t mind if I don’t erase, all I could find is a pen.  Besides, who wants to waste time sharpening a pencil?  Anyway, this is the first time I’ve been able to get down my thoughts in a while.  Or over a year, whatever…  At first, I heard about a new disease and I figured I’d just tell all my patients (or customers or whatever) to watch out and get their vaccinations.  Just in case.  You never know when the next SARS is gonna catch a plane.  Or at least, you never did, before.  Back when there were planes.  So I keep tabs on it, they called it rabies and then “African Rabies.”  I figured “Okay, rabies isn’t so bad, just be careful around strange animals.”  Then they started with the quarantine.  And you don’t usually do that with rabies.  Some crazy blogger said it was some far worse, but I still just didn’t believe.

So one night Sebastion, my brother who we call “Bass,” and I were watching House and they were trying to figure out some new disease and they were just to that point where they were going to rule out lupus when the news broke in with an announcement that the government was going to institute mandatory health screenings.  “That couldn’t be all bad, even if this African Rabies stuff is a bit of a problem,” I thought.  Well, they were right about it not being lupus.  I was wrong about the problem.

Turns out the Phalanx drug wasn’t working after all, and all those screenings were the government locking up the infected.  The first ones to scream “Zombie Invasion!” were a bunch of nerds on the net.  But they weren’t wrong, and they weren’t the last.  Now, Bass, Mom, Dad, and I, we lived out in the country a ways.  Better than living in the city.  I tried that for college, but much as I learned, I loved it back home were there weren’t so many people.  Besides, being the pharmacist for a small town let me really remember each person and what their needs were.  And our town had had to share one for so long, an old guy who always drove down from Detroit and hit two or three towns in three days, that I knew I was secure and set for a long time.  So I settled in and got used to telling people things like “This is the reason why your headache didn't go away: That's actually pronounced analgesic, not anal-gesic. Sir, the pills go in your mouth.”

Okay, so that was from Scrubs.  But I couldn’t think of anything witty I’d said at the moment.  Wait…  One sec.  Bass needs something.

Well, he just wanted to know if I was going out on an expedition tonight.  I reminded him that we have that town meeting thing.  We’ve got to decide what we’re gonna do now that the government can’t support us anymore.  Poor Bass, he hasn’t been the same since all this stuff went down.  He used to be the star linebacker on our high school football team, team captain, prom king, all that stuff.  Now he just sits around and does my chores.  But then, someone’s gotta do ‘em and I’m busy putting all the medical training I’ve got into use.  At first it was nerve wracking, but after a while I realized it was like Dr. McCoy once said, “I'm not a magician, Spock; just an old country doctor.”

Anyway, back to the old days.  So our pharmacist came down from Detroit one week, sweating heavy and a little nervous.  Said he just had a rough week.  We all believed him.  But that night, on the news we heard it.  A riot had broken out in Detroit.  A bunch of people with the Walking Plauge, the new name people were using for African Rabies, had overrun a police station.  Then we started getting reports of the same thing happening elsewhere.  And that night everything had to change.

I was asleep when I heard this banging and then a sudden crash of glass.  It sounded like it had come from my parents’ room, so I headed out into the hall.  Bass was ahead of me, the berretta he’d bought for “hunting purposes” in his hand.  We both crept down the hall, pausing every few moments to listen for signs of a scuffle.  Nothing.  Bass kicked open the bedroom door and, to our horror, there was the old traveling pharmacist, his eyes blank, his jaws covered in blood, stopped over out mother’s body.  She must have woken up when he bit dad and tried to run.  But something in that thing let it catch her and rip out her throat.  Bass froze, staring at the scene before us.  The zombie started moving toward us, just like in the Romero movies, and my brother was just standing there with his gun at his side and his lip quivering.  I shoved him out of the doorway and grabbed the gun while I did it, don’t ask me how.  I’m a doctor, not a martial artist, or anything.  But it worked that once.  I shot, missed the head the first time.  Tried it a different way.  In the old Terminator movie, he shot the doctors at the mental hospital in the knees.  Maybe that’d be easier.  Well, I managed it.  The zombie fell and a head shot was so much easier, then.  I…

I gave Mom and Dad their shots too.

Then I hauled Bass up and told him to go back to his room and round up some clothes and stuff.  We couldn’t very well stay here.  And we needed to inform the authorities.  I got dressed and stuffed my old camping bags, the ones I used for school books usually, with some clothes and textbooks.  And my flashlight, survival knife, and the berretta.  I called down the hall and told Bass to grab all his ammo and gear. It was about that time that I hear moans coming from outside.  I guess the doc made a few stops before he reached us.  Bass had frozen again, this time with all his gear over his shoulder, so I snagged his car keys from his dresser, grabbed his hand and dragged my older, stronger brother behind me like he was a little kid who’d just gotten his first shot and lollipop in the same visit.

We got in his land rover and locked the doors.  I hit the garage opener, and lucky for us we had one of those old ones that doesn’t stop for obstructions because it hit the zombie-body of old Mrs. Miller on it’s way up.  And I hit her again on my way out.  I didn’t stop for anything till we hit the police station.  We thought about going in, but the radio was saying that the police up in Detroit were losing their battle and calling in help from all the nearby counties.  I had a sick feeling they might not get any.  We didn’t see too many shamblers on the road.  So we headed out.  We wandered for a while, never following the crowds if I could help it, before a guy broke in on the radio, which had been mostly dead for a while, to announce that there was a community holding it’s own not too many miles down the highway.  He repeated it a few times, with a warning that everyone would be checked for any potential infection, then went off-air.  So I turned us in that direction and we headed off.  Lucky for us, our gas lasted thanks to a little wise-siphoning courtesy of Bass’ old football pranking days.

When we arrived, I quickly found myself pressed into service as both pharmacist and doctor, but Bass kind of dropped off to the side.  Its weird being the popular sibling, but no one from back home has seemed to show up, so there’s no one to tell these people different.  A few times, I had to pass on the information that someone was infected.  It was hard, but I’ve gotta make sure we all stay safe.  These people are my new patients and I’ve got an obligation.  Which is why I volunteered for scavenging expeditions.  Afterall, like House said, “I take risks, sometimes patients die, but not taking risks causes more patients to die - so I guess my biggest problem is I've been cursed with the ability to do the math.”

And the math says I’ve got to do this.  For me.  For my brother.  For every patient I have in this community.

But first, we’ve got a meeting tonight to decide what we do from here.  I’ve already got my supplies packed.  We’ll see if I’ll need them.