The Brown Box

A voice came over the speaker system.

“General, we're tracking multiple reports from local law enforcement concerning a car crash on I-270 southbound, near Bethesda... uh, something about a white Buick Regal being pulled under the trailer of an 18-wheeler. Paramedics have been notified."

David Carlyle closed his eyes and wiped the sweat beading around his eyebrows. He sighed deeply, then grabbed the microphone off of the analyst’s desk.

“Captain, listen to me very carefully. If Colonel Bell survived the crash, the contents of the container he was transporting have most likely killed him anyway.”

Silence.

Carlyle leaned forward.

“I need every available CCATT rapid response team in a 50-mile radius on that highway in full, level 4 containment gear 15 minutes ago. Anyone within 50 yards of the wreckage for longer than one minute needs to be quarantined immediately.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead again. “If this situation is not handled properly in a timely manner, we may all be in very grave danger. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright, then. Get it done. Carlyle out.”

The room erupted into frantic purpose, with analysts and officers making calls to every landline connected to Fort Detrick. Carlyle returned to his office above the control center and watched melancholically through the windows as his soldiers darted in and out of doors like mice in a cheeseless maze set aflame.

Panic, Carlyle thought, was something that the quarantine practice drills could never accurately instill in the employees of USAMRIID. To them, they were always just drills. Today, there were more than just a few imaginary lives at stake.

Carlyle picked up the yellow phone handset on his desk and dialed. After a few seconds, he pressed the button in the middle of the handset.

“General Watkins, please.” He waited a few more moments. He bode his time briefly by tapping his fingers on his rosewood desk.

“This is General Watkins,” a gruff voice crackled over the encrypted line.

“Jack? It’s David.”

There was a long pause. “What do you want?”

“We’ve got a situation here. About 40 minutes ago, Colonel Adrian Bell was spotted leaving our research wing carrying a suspicious box wrapped in brown paper. I’m afraid we can’t reveal the exact contents of the package at this time, but after a quick inventory of our facilities it suffices to say that the contents are dangerous if handled improperly.”

Carlyle collected his thoughts for a moment before speaking again. “Bell’s vehicle—and presumably the package—was destroyed on an interstate outside of Bethesda about 15 minutes ago. We’ve contacted the appropriate authorities and necessary steps have already been taken.”

An exasperated sigh pierced the phone call. “Jesus… Why am I finding out about this now? I should’ve been notified 39 minutes ago.”

“I tried you on multiple lines, sir,” Carlyle lied. “I was unable to reach you.”

Watkins groaned angrily. “Oh, bullshit, David!” Carlyle could hear the rustling of papers on the other end of the line. Drawers flying open and being slammed shut shortly afterward. “There are a lot of people who will skewer us if news of this gets out.”

“That’s why I’m calling, Jack. I need someone with Gamma access to authorize a tech blackout. Local media only.”

To Carlyle’s surprise, Watkins laughed. “If you do your fucking job correctly, you won’t need one. And if I have to authorize one, David, you won’t see the inside of a lab for the rest of your natural life.”

The line clicked, and the call ended. Carlyle replaced the handset, sat back in his leather chair, reached for a hand towel, and wiped off his face which was now streaked with sweat. He opened the drawer next to his leg, pulled out a small crystal decanter and tumbler glass, and poured himself a double. My career, he thought as he sipped, would be ruined if this gets out of hand. Then again, if this situation really gets out of hand, it’ll ruin lots of careers. For everyone. Everywhere. Forever.

Zoey Stephenson had been having a normal day until she watched a white sedan get eaten by the back wheels of a tractor-trailer on her commute home. A few seconds before, she had veered out of the way of that same sedan because of its reckless driving and high speed. While sitting alongside the road after witnessing the crash, she remembered that the white sedan had attempted to squeeze between an SUV and the trailer truck prior to entering a road work section. The sedan bumped into the SUV and, being that the SUV weighed much more, the sedan ricocheted off of it into the back wheels of the trailer and was then rolled over.

The white sedan now sat in the breakdown lane of I-270, smoke billowing out from under its deformed hood. The passenger side roof had been completely crushed into the cabin. The 18-wheeler was parked about 200 yards away up the highway from Zoey. The truck driver, after a short walk, came up beside her window and knocked. Hesitantly, she rolled it down.

“Are ya alright, ma’am?” His mustache wavered as the air of his words left his mouth. “You look a little spooked.”

“Uh, I think so, yeah,” she said timidly. She had not noticed it before, but her hands were wrapped around the steering wheel, and her arms were trembling. “I’ve never seen anything like that before, is all.”

“Well, it might do ya good to stretch ya legs. God knows I needed it.” He chuckled. She knew he was trying to make her feel better, and she appreciated it. But she couldn’t stop looking at the sedan. It was about 600 yards behind her, and from her rearview mirror, it looked like a tiny rolled-up wad of printer paper.

She looked at the truck driver. “What’s your name?”

He smirked. “My name’s William. You can call me Bill.”

“Do you think we should go check on that guy? To see if he’s alright?”

“Well I s’pose it wouldn’t hurt.” He rubbed his chin and looked up the highway in the direction of the sedan. “We just gotta stay outside the guard rails and walk on the grass.” He angled his head and got a look into her car. “Do you got anything to walk in besides heels?”

“I've got some shoes in the trunk. Thanks.” She turned off the car and got out. Once she had locked the door, she popped the trunk and changed into her gym shoes. Then she walked up next to Bill and began walking with him towards the grass.

“What’s your name, ma’am?” He asked with his hands in his pockets.

“Zoey,” she said.

“Nice to meet you, Zoey.”

They walked about 100 yards until they came upon an on-ramp and crossed when they found an opening in traffic. They continued walking through the grass until they got close enough to the sedan that Bill figured they could walk along the pavement safely. They were about 50 yards away from the white sedan, then Bill stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Zoey asked as she turned to face him.

He stood straight, staring at the white sedan. Slowly, he looked around the rest of the highway. Both sides of the interstate were empty.

“Weird,” he said. “Have you noticed that there ain't been any cars driving by us for the past few minutes?”

“Really? Huh.” Zoey shrugged and kept walking slowly.

Bill stood his ground on the pavement. “No, I mean, I haven’t even heard another car drive by since we crossed the on-ramp back there.”

Zoey looked around briefly. Bill could see in her eyes that she was also curious for an explanation. There weren’t any cars in sight, on either side of the highway. They began towards the white sedan again and before reaching it, about a mile up the road they could see three enormous black vans barreling towards them down the empty highway.

“What the hell is that about?” Bill removed his hat and scratched his head.

Zoey and Bill stood together in the middle of the interstate, watching as the vans made it closer and closer with alarming speed. Soon, they heard the roar of two more vans and a flatbed truck carrying a sort of shipping container. This group of vehicles came from behind them driving northbound on the southbound side.

The two groups of vans converged on the white sedan, and when they all skid to a stop, multiple teams of men in white plastic suits burst from the backs of the vans like black widows birthing their young.

“You two!” One of the suits said through a speaker. “Don’t move!”

Zoey stood motionless, frozen by fear. Bill put his hands up, perhaps as an innocent reaction to an unfamiliar situation.

The suits surrounded the white sedan. Zoey and Bill could hear two of the suits closest to them talking.

“Lieutenant, get three hoods out of truck 5. Two medical units, one trauma unit.”

The men retrieved what looked like sleeping bags, gurneys, and syringes from truck 5, and brought them to the white sedan. The lead suit pointed at Zoey and Bill.

“You two, get over here right now.”

Zoey and Bill slowly walked over to the man who had given the order. As she made her way closer to the man, she caught a glimpse of the driver of the white sedan, who was seated upright with his bleeding head smashed through the driver's side window. There was something peculiar about his face though. It was not smooth or wrinkled like most faces she had seen before. It was also not a typical hue.

The sight of the driver’s deformed head captivated and disgusted her, and she would have shrieked in terror had one of the white suits not sedated her and stuffed her into one of the sleeping bags lying on one of the gurneys. Bill was incapacitated shortly after Zoey, while the driver of the white sedan was carefully extracted and placed in a special contamination unit. The wrecked sedan was coerced into the back of the flatbed truck’s container, and the men from truck 4 took out their flamethrowers and scorched a 50-meter radius around the wreckage of the sedan. Upon returning to their vehicle, the six trucks filled with the plastic-suited men crossed over onto the northbound side of I-270. From there it was a short drive back to Fort Detrick.

After hearing the news of the operation’s success, General Carlyle sunk into his chair, closed his eyes, and sighed with relief. Aside from the blackened portion of the highway, there was not much of a trace left for anyone to inquire about. Officially, the news would report a temporarily closed highway due to a car randomly catching fire. A simple roadside incident was much easier for the common man to digest than, say, the premature initiation of an unstoppable biological apocalypse.

Yeah, General Carlyle thought, a car fire is definitely easier to stomach.