Page 1

If you're reading this then I'm already dead and you may not be long for this world either. I doubt anyone will ever read this letter and if they do, then will they really care?  Will it be of any use to them in the world that I've left behind me?  Can I hope to atone for my sins with one short confession, with the stroke of a pen on paper?  Hell, maybe I should have been a writer instead of a technician. Maybe it would have been better for the world. That damn door isn't going to keep them much longer so I should probably explain what is going on and leave the questions to time and God. My name is John Dorris and two months ago I made the single greatest mistake in human history.

I was working in a germ warfare laboratory hidden amid the underground bunkers and bomb shelters underneath Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee. Arnold was one of the Air Force's top aeronautic testing centers and had been key in developing the first nuke, all of which made it the perfect smoke screen for what we were doing. No one would ever suspect that beneath the wind tunnels and test hangars that a weapon capable of wiping out all life as we know it was being cultured.

We were developing, among other things a new strain of the streptococcus bacillus or "strep throat" virus. This was a particularly nasty little bug closely related to the "flesh eating" virus that had been in and out of the news for years. This strain was mutated so that it not only ate away the flesh and soft tissues of a human being but also attacked the nervous system and brain. Paranoia, delusions and homicidal psychosis were all attached to this "wonder bug" as we fondly called it. Loss of motor controls and eventually brain death would kill you if you didn't bleed out from the slowly opening wounds inside and out on your body. We were going to field test it in the mountains of Afghanistan sometime next year, killing a few terrorists in their caves and bunkers if we could find them. It was a great idea on paper but in practice I doubt it would have worked as we hoped.

I was playing second banana to the head researcher at the facility, Doctor Richard Griswold. As far as doctors and researchers went he was a decent guy. He didn't look down on you as long as you came in and did your job. He wasn't that bad outside of work either. We went drinking together some weekends and he'd tell me stories from the war and how he had been drafted near the end of Vietnam.   You could see this look when he talked about "'Nam" that made your blood run cold. I'm pretty sure I have that look now, maybe one even worse than that. We were working on a few projects other than "wonder bug" including a new flu vaccine for the CDC. That was where we made mistake number one.

We let a few of the boys from the security forces detail pack up the boxes and load them onto the truck without really double checking. They left out of the base around lunch time and by five o'clock were storing the boxes in a facility deep within the CDC itself. Within a week the news was flooded with stories of the "Atlanta Race Riots" that were tearing through the southern metropolis. Police and units of the National Guard were mobilized within the second day and began setting up a perimeter around the city. No one was going in and not a lot of folks were coming out. Aerial images showed the rioters crowding the streets, flipping over cars, and at one point even ripping a man to pieces. Some residents were fighting back against the rioting masses, using shotguns, knives and a few home made flame throwers. Fire was ripping through Atlanta once more and plunging the South, as well as the world into an endless night. A state of emergency declared and rescue stations for those fleeing the riots were set up in neighboring communities and towns. Survivors told horror stories of people running around with patches of flesh and limbs dangling from their bodies. One report even said that these "lunatics" were eating people.

There were neither demands nor any cries against injustice. Only the steady moaning of a million lost souls came from the heart of the South.

I was outside smoking a cigarette the morning Richard came for me. Richard Griswold had been a handsome man in his youth and was still not bad looking for a man in his fifties. Stern face, salt-and-pepper hair cut close and a pair of wire rimmed glasses made him look immensely wise and even more rational than you might think. But that morning any prestige and cool was gone, replaced by that hundred yard stare and flushed face. The persona of an invincible man of science was gone, replaced by the little boy without his mother face that has now become all too familiar.

[ Continue to page 2 ]