“We’ve never seen a case of transmissible autism,” the nurse whispered, as she escorted me to the “containment area”.

State Schools for the Disabled had long been abolished. Yet there were still children born slow, or with odd twitches, or personalities that didn’t fit the norm. And as medical science came closer to making us all perfect, society’s definition of perfection grew ever higher. And those who couldn’t be clipped or trimmed or smashed into the mold, fell to the wayside. And fell through the cracks to this place.

I wondered if it was another malnutrition case, since the cognitive therapists tended not to notice picky eating causing nutritional deficiencies. “When did it first happen?”

“The first case? Oh, we’ve had autistics for years. We took them in before they were no longer in mainstreamed programs.”

We briskly crossed through a double set of double doors. It was like an air lock, but worse. Air locks were to keep you safely inside. These were to keep everything inside from getting out. Once in, it took too much effort to get out quickly. That’s what kept the “students” in.

“I meant the first time you realized that it was transmissible.”

“Several of our slower students began to withdraw. They stopped responding to everyone. When they finally came out of their non-responsive state, they were anti-social. They attacked anyone who came in. Though, thank goodness, not each other. Otherwise, we’d have a real disaster on our hands.”

The nurse glanced at the double doors ahead of us. The airlock into their containment area. With two double doors on either side of us, this was as private as our conversation could be.

“Non-responsive state. Were they unconscious?”

“Everyone here sleeps a lot. They slept more than usual.”

“Fever?” I asked.

“Not much of one.”

“Any behavioral changes afterward? Anything of a definite pattern?”

“Loss of coherent speech, even in those students who had limited speech capability before. They moan incessantly. Mostly listless movement.”

“Any sores or lesions?”

“Some have sores or rashes. Then again, despite our significant efforts to maintain the utmost hygienic standards, some of the students do contract skin infections.”

It was a canned defense, and we both knew it. I wondered how often these students were bathed. “How about appetite?”

They don’t drink. There’s a loss of appetite for real food. They’ll bite anyone they can, though, so be very careful.”

Rabies suddenly reared its ugly head in my mind’s eye. Loss of rationality, inability to drink, biting … and “students” who might not know that the rabid animal approaching them is a dangerous thing, not a new friend to have and hold. A few other rarer diseases crossed my mind, but were put off to the side. “Why do you say it is transmissible autism?”

“The first student we knew had it was diagnosed as autistic upon arrival. And the symptoms as it spread were like autism. Lack of social skills. Lack of coordinated speech. Inability to interact with others. Limited situational awareness. Lack of concern for sensation, but retreating from it, too.”

“Retreating from it?”

“Oh, they’re avoiding light.”

“That wasn’t in your report.”

“There wasn’t much to put in the report.”

“You think you have an outbreak of a disease that causes one of the most severe mental disorders still untreatable, and you don’t put significant details in the report!” My voice echoed off the walls like a gunshot. Rabies, rabies, oh, god, its rabies. “What triggered the red alert that brought me here?”

“One of the staff was bitten by a child. He’s got the same symptoms now.”

Students contracting autism for an unknown time didn’t matter. But, heaven forbid, a normal adult is affected – then it matters! “Has the biting been a problem?”

“They’ll bite anyone that goes in.”

“How did the staff member – an orderly, I presume – get bit?”

“We had one of the annual audits. We had to produce the child to prove it was here, to continue with the funding per head. He tried to muzzle it, but he was surrounded by several other children before he could get out of the room. Then another child bit him. Possibly two. We’re not sure. They were swarming around him. He had protective gear on, we always do when we go in, but a few teeth got past.” The nurse grimaced.

“You’ve let them deteriorate to the point that you go in wearing body armor, and it’s all business as usual.”

“We don’t want it to be like this. We’ve tried to adapt. We need more funding. More support. There is only so much we can do.”

“You’re right.” The nurse wasn’t my enemy, it was the pathogen. “Are there doctor’s reports I haven’t seen? Ones that didn’t make it to the report I received?”

“None of our doctors will deal with the situation.”

“The situation is a suspected pandemic.”

“The infected are actually easier to handle than some of our more violent patients.”

“They pass on a debilitating illness that robs someone of their senses by BITING!”

“They hardly eat. They don’t drink. They don’t scream for Mommy. They’ll stare at the TV once in a while. They mostly sit and stare at anything that moves. Dump 50 in a room, and they don’t fight each other. Most of the time.”

“Most of the time?” I asked. My voice was a professional ice, the equivalent of a vocal poker face.

“We put an autistic child in once, one that we weren’t certain was infected. He was bit repeatedly. He slept for a day or two, then woke up, and acted like them. He lost all of his limited communication ability and previously mild social skills.”

“Why did you put an unaffected child in with afflicted ones?”

“He was autistic, and had shared a bedroom with ones that had previously been afflicted. We weren’t sure of the mode of transmission. We put all suspect children in to the same holding area to protect the rest.”

“Do you segregate students on basis of diagnosis?”

“No, ability level.”

“What levels?”

The nurse paused, not sure of my background in psychology. She decided to be mostly honest. “The ones that are mobile and reactive, but not much more, are where we’re going. The ones in a coma, the vegetables, are in a separate ward. The ones that are active and interactive, nearly normal, are in the wing closest to the entry.” Where they’re seen by visitors, I did not add. “These nearly android, zombie like ones need the most care but get the least. Then again, they have the least potential.”

“There are confirmed autistics working as veterinarians, lawyers -” no, bad analogy, given all the dumb lawyer jokes – “With a lot of work and support, they could be functioning members of society.”

“We don’t get the support to do that,” the nurse retorted. “So we do this.”

“Fine.” We both had a job to do, and I couldn’t do more of mine until I saw the patients. “Let’s go.”

The nurse opened the doors. I memorized her key code combination, in case she decided to leave me in with the infected. I had, after all, been told much that they might not want to leave here. I specialized in rare and dangerous diseases. We’d found more than one bioterrorism outbreak. Then there were the failed genetic engineering experiments and exotic murder cases. Oh, yes, it was best to be paranoid. Then again, one didn’t end up in my job without high attention to detail and a little paranoia were part of the job requirements.

The doors to hell opened. The clear lexan windows gave full view of the infected. The nurse was disgusted and dismayed. I was merely horrified and mortified. “Aren’t they changed or bathed?”

“If you want that done, you do it.”

Their clothes hung off them as if never changed at all. But the “students”, ranging in age from 5 to 15, didn’t seem to care. They weren’t all starvingly gaunt, but none had a healthy color. All were pall or grayish. As the nurse and I approached, the closest ones shuffled up to the window. One pointed and moaned. Moderate awareness of people. At the moan, several more students shuffled up and put their faces to the window.

I looked about for signs of terrible neglect. There were a few scattered food plates and stepped on meal bars. The water fountains were spotless. There were no piles of human waste. “Your staff are doing a good job of keeping it clean, in light of that. There’s no feces or other bodily fluids on the floor.” There were a few spots that might have been dried blood or sputum, but there was less here than had been in the front lobby.

The nurse seemed startled out of her inward reverie. “We aren’t sending anyone in to clean. We just shove in the afflicted students. We don’t even go in unless we have to.”

“At least they have enough capacity to use the bathrooms and clean up after themselves. Jesus, I’d hate to try to send in an orderly to clean up if they were puking or pooping on the floor. ”

The nurse was very quiet for a long time. She was staring at one corner of the large holding room. I followed her gaze. It was the row of toilets against the wall. They were spotlessly clean. Cleaner than the toilets in jails or other crowded holding areas. Even cleaner than the one at the hotel last night. I realized then that the nurse was lying to me. They’d scrubbed the facilities down before I’d arrived. Our conversation in the airlock may have been a delay so that the place was spotless. Well, except for the filthy clothes on the kids.

“They aren’t using the toilet,” she muttered, as if noticing it for the first time.

“Aren’t you feeding them?” I asked, gesturing at the nearest food slot. A few pellets and food bars of questionable age sat in it.

“We don’t add more food until that food is gone.”

“How old is that food?” I asked. I wouldn’t want to eat it, even if starving. Then again, how little appetite did these kids have? And how much was this disease slowing down their bodies?

The nurse trudged up to the signature sheet, as if it would have killed her to do so. “The food was last delivered three days ago.”

“How much food?”

The nurse looked up from the papers, looked directly at the floor, avoiding sight of the students. “All of the food now on the floor.”

“Fifty kids, three days, and none of them ate any of a dozen food bars? Then what are they eating?” Even if their food was that bad, they’d still have eaten it. What else could they be eating? Their waste? I nearly threw up at the thought, though it made as much sense, given the cleanliness of the room.

“Show me the orderly,” I commanded. Being more recently infected, he’d have more answers for me.

I wondered about anemia at the sight of his pall skin. He tried to bite me. I had the nurse secure the muzzle. I donned a protective biohazard suit as well. The nurse put on mere surgical gloves. “I’ve checked him before. His IV is fine. His fluid levels are fine.”

This patient, at least, received care. And by her precise methods, it was clear she was capable of giving quality care. She then pulled the damp pad out from under him and replaced it. He was generating output, then. Kidneys running, if little else. Well cared for. “How long has he been like this?”

“Four days.”

The orderly began to moan softly. She reached up to stroke his cheek. I wondered about her relationship with the orderly. What it was. What it had been. What it would likely never be again. “There’s someone here to cure you,” she said. The moan got louder. “Do you keep him sedated? He was quiet when we entered.”

“He only reacts when someone comes in.”

“Situational awareness.”

“Yes.”

“Does he react more strongly to you?”

“Yes,” she said with more than a little pride.

“Are you the primary caregiver?”

“Yes.”

“Does anyone else come into physical contact with him?”

“I am NOT sleeping with him!” the nurse screamed.

“I meant, is anyone else touching him! I’m trying to assess contagion risk!” I screamed back.

“No! NO one else! All right! Fine!” she then stormed out to the hallway, slamming the door to this private room. It was like a hospital room except for the glaring lack of equipment. Then again, it was right near the afflicted “holding area”.

I decided to take a blood sample and run it in my suitcase lab. When I tried to get a good vein, I couldn’t find one. When I jabbed him and suctioned out blood, I expected a yelp in pain. The moaning never changed in pitch. I pulled the plunger back. The blood was a diluted brown. Clearly, there was something working here. I put it in the lab’s sampler pit.

It spat back the weirdest set of results I’d ever seen. The fluid was mostly saline, with some deteriorated blood in the mix. No viable cells at all. Oxygen deprivation would explain the mental deterioration, but did not explain the blood sample. I took different tissue samples. It all registered as cadaver. I took a saliva sample. There was a little residue there. Mostly saline, a little liquefied protein, and some sort of pathogen.

I e-mailed the results in a broad message to everyone on my mailing list. If I got accidentally infected, I wanted everyone possible working on a cure as quickly as possible. I’d lost more than one colleague because they’d waited until ill to send off data in hope of a cure.

The patient got quiet again. I decided to take a neural tissue sample. I rolled the orderly onto his side so I could get a spinal tap. It was then that I saw the open bite wound on the butt. Torn off open tissue. As if someone had come up from behind and literally taken off a chunk. How much effort had it taken to do that? How had a child done that? A sick and deranged teenager? It oozed what might have been puss or lymph. I took another sample out of habit.

I stared at the wound as the lab unit crunched. There was a little dried blood. No fresh blood. No sign of healing. No sigh of anything except early stage necrosis. I started back at the patient. Except for lung movement to bring in air to exhale the moan, there was no bodily movement. I pinched off the IV and checked its blood pressure. There was no blood pressure. There was no pulse. Then I restarted the IV. I pulled the patient onto the side. The wound had dried while the IV was off. Now it was freshly oozing again. I lowered the body back down. The pad beneath the orderly was a little wet. I checked the lab. The residue from the wound was saline, with a few proteins. From degraded human tissue.

I held complete still. The moaning stopped. And, with it, all breathing motion.

No blood pressure. No real breathing. No heart rate. Dead. It was a corpse. A moaning, biting, mobile corpse. Living dead.

I e-mailed the latest test results to colleagues. I had two thoughts. One was to run like hell from this hell on Earth. The other was to burn it to the ground, to create an inferno, to keep it from spreading. Then I wondered how the contagion had gotten here in the first place. It had started with a new autistic student, mixed in with other autistic students. I wondered how that first student had been infected. If it had infected others. If my other colleagues had found other institutional outbreaks. This outbreak of whatever it was had been unnoticed for weeks. How long could it go unnoticed?

There was a disease at work. Spread by mostly biting, and maybe other physical contact. It’s 100% fatal, but then you’re not dead. I nearly began laughing hysterically at the thought. How do I explain a fatality rate with a room full of moaning, shuffling, stupid zombies?

I took the lab unit and e-mailed my will to a few friends. Then I downloaded a few personal forms to work on. If anyone was concerned about my e-mail traffic on their network, they’d see a gigabyte of forms to be filled out on the incident. Justification for my network traffic. An excuse for all the time at my computers, if they had cameras watching me.

As I scrolled down a few pages, the nurse returned. “Do you need any help?” she asked.

“I’ll like your help in filling out these forms,” I offered.

“You’re supposed to be independent,” she retorted.

A dozen different thoughts ran through my mind. I needed more data, and I needed to be out of here. “I probably cannot help the infected children. They’ve been infected too long.” Her eyes became veiled, as hard and cold as those dead ones in the other room. “I can’t determine exactly what is afflicting the orderly, but I did get usable results. However, if I can’t get a clear and concise analysis, I can’t get a diagnosis, much less a cure.”

“Can you cure him?” she asked, hopeful.

“I don’t know what can kill the pathogen,” I politely tried not to lie.

“Do you know what might help him?” she asked.

“If I don’t know the disease family, I don’t know what the cure would be!” I let the emotion come out. I needed her to get me – and hopefully herself – out. “All I know is that I need more data, more samples, more studying – and I need your help.” I pulled back on the neediness. Too much, and it might be fatal for the two living souls here. “He’s infected with a serious disease. I need your help to fill out the forms so that I can explain what I see without contradicting your reports.” All said to get on her side.

“Can’t you get a team in here to try and help?”

“Do you really want a full team in here?” The nurse looked ambivalent. “Bring a team in here, and he’ll rot -” I tried not to laugh at the literalness of it “- in here. Give me some input on the forms. Help me to get him classified as ill, but not such as being stuck here,” and me, as examiner, with him. “We’ll get him to a hospital, with all the medical equipment and labs -”

“To save him?”

I nearly shouted in praise to the higher powers that she’d jumped to the answer I didn’t want to say. “To save everyone,” I corrected.

I packed up my lab kit and followed her out the door to the main hallway. The students were lined up against the glass, their dead eyes staring at us. The dull moan reverberated the glass. As the airlock doors closed, I thought I heard other moans around us. Echoes of the dead walking, I reassured myself. I had a transmission vector. I had a pathogen. I had shared my data far and wide. Perhaps someone might find a cure for that orderly. If there was a cure for life after death.

The nurse took off her surgical mask while we stood in the airlock. I let her chat about life in the outside world. I didn’t take off my biohazard suit off in the airlock. I didn’t want to do that until I was in my truck, sealed off in my own safe world. As the outer doors opened to the rest of complex opened, she took off her surgical gloves. I saw a mild skin abrasion, a little blood visible, a fingernail bit stuck in it “What happened to you?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could.

“I thought about what you said, so I put fresh food pellets in for the students. One of the students scratched me.”

She looked at me funny as she realized the potential risk. “Do I need to do something?” she asked, suddenly afraid as it dawned on her.

“Go get a shot of gamma globulin. Maybe two.” She took a step toward me, wanting the expert’s help. “Go! Fast! Anything to boost your immunity! You don’t want to get infected, too!”

She was racing to the infirmary to get the gamma globulin. As soon as she was through that door, I ran for my life in the opposite direction, to the outside doors. To the outside world. Where it might be safe. If the disease hadn’t spread, if it stayed contained here.

Here it had been kept from spreading, and all others were safe within these walls and security systems. Here was safe and contained against the walking death until the expert to bring an answer and cure had come. And now it was among the living, soon to kill that nurse, infected. And she’d die because of the compassion for the living I’d reminded her of.

I got out the doors, my laptop and portable lab bouncing against my hip. I got in the truck and started driving. I couldn’t, wouldn’t take the biohazard suit off. I was on the highway when I finally stopped the vehicle.

My mind never stopped racing, but my heart did. I had decided not to go to my usual lab when I heard the booms overhead. Sonic booms. I looked up through the windshield. A soft whistle, almost like a moan, rushed from the sky to the buildings I’d just fled. If the results had gotten to someone who could help …

The ground shook from the explosions. The fire was so intense that my car grew warm. I pulled onto the interstate and started melting miles away. It would be a while before they thought to look for me. I found an old road off the interstate under a tangle of old bridges. I pulled off the highway and pulled the truck under the bridges. As the vehicle pulled under the trusses, I heard my mobile phone chirp. A locating signal. And here, it would scatter and give false readings.

I’d get out and burn the suit. Burn the whole vehicle. Then I’d get out and start walking. There was a wide dangerous world out there, but it couldn’t get worse.

As the vehicle burned brightly against the night sky, I felt at peace I’d evaded death so many times today. I was going to live.

Then I heard the dull moan again. It came from several places beneath the bridges and underpasses, both around me and above me. They avoided the light of the fire, but they didn’t seem to be avoiding me. As they approached, all I could think of was the lost potential. Of the kids, of the orderly and the nurse who might have had kids of their own together. And being a disease expert, I refused to become a vector. I remembered the bombing of the facility, that fire must then cleanse, as it so often does. I jumped into the flaming vehicle, and could only think of my own lost potential.