Day Zero

Day 25:

Abigail stared into the microscope as she attempted to count the blood cells in the blood sample that she had collected from the zombie.

“Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen” she said out loud as she counted the amount of cells within each 1x1 micrometer square on the grid that was subdivided in three directions. She was using the counting chamber method or hemocytometer method because it was the fastest way to count. The raised edges of the hemocytometer were holding the coverslip 0.1 mm off the marked grid, giving each square a defined volume. The area bounded by the lines as well as the depth of the chambers allowed her to count the number of cells and thereby calculate the concentration of cells in the fluid overall.

“Hey Abigail” a voice asked from behind her.

She jumped, causing her to look away from her sample.

“Damn it, Riley!” she cried out as she turned towards him.

“What?” he asked.

“I was counting cells in the sample. Now I have to start over!” she seethed.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” he all but cried out as he walked towards her and looked at her calculations so far.

Abigail sighed and looked at the young man. “What do you want?” she demanded as she brushed a strand of hair out of her face.

“I was wondering how that scan of the brain tissue was going?”

“I have no idea, ask James he’s the one who is working on that with Hunter” Abigail replied. She noticed Riley looking at her calculations and the copy of the grid that she had drawn on the sheet of paper, each number written in a square.

“I have never seen someone do it this way before” Riley explained as he took a step closer to her to get a better view of her drawing on the gridded line paper she was using.

“I do it that way because when jerks like you come in and interrupt me I can at least figure out which square in the grid I was working on” Abigail teased.

Riley blushed “I said I was sorry” he replied.

“I know” she said. “I’ll get over it, I just have to pick on your for a couple of minutes” she explained.

“Why is it taking James and Hunter so long to figure this out?”

“Because we are trying to figure out what part of the brain that sample is from” she explained, she was getting exhasperated. The blood sample could only tell them so much. So far the only thing that she could tell was that the red blood cells were infected by a spider shaped virus she thought.

“Oh” Riley muttered.

“So what part of it is it from?” he asked.

“I don’t know! We haven’t figured that part out yet. The most effective way to do that would be to bring in the head of a zombie so that we could do a complete brain scan” she said.

“That sounds like suicide” Riley said.

“It is… sounds like it is spreading faster and faster. Camp Legume in North Carolina is wiped out… So is the NSA in Charleston. And it sounds like Naval Air station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans is about to do a self-quarantine and obviously NBK in Bremerton” Abigail explained to him.

“What about overseas?”

“I have no idea…I have been here the past few hours trying to get this blood sample figured out. I would guess wherever the military has been.

“The military?” Riley asked.

“Well some of the places that have been hit the hardest have been the military bases. The team in Europe said the same thing; the U.S. air force base in Germany, the Asian team said the base in Okinawa had also been hit. It sounds like its being spread by American soldiers.”

“Bloody hell” Riley said more to himself than to Abigail.

“Go watch the news or something…if you want to figure this thing out I need to be able to count these stupid cells” she explained.

Riley nodded. “Sorry” he said again squeezing her shoulder lightly before walking out of the lab.

She returned to her counting with a frustrated sigh. “One…Two…Three…”

About an hour later Abigail stood up and stretched. She had finally finished counting the cells under the microscope.

Four million seven hundred thousand. She grabbed the sample and took it to Henry.

“Here it is” she said to him.

“How many?”

“Looks like 4.7 million” she replied.

“The cell count is the average count for a male…on the lower side but healthy” Henry mused.

“What method did you use” he asked.

“Cell counting.” She said.

“Are you a pre-med student? When I finish examining this do the Plating and CFU counting method” he said.

“That takes twelve hours. We don’t have that kind of time” Abigail countered.

“We are going to. After that ask Yumi this place has flow cytometer and give it to Hunter to work with.

Abigail sighed and walked out the door.

She wandered down the hallway until she found Yumi’s office. She knocked on the door and waited for Yumi to say that she could enter the room.

She heard a muffled voice say “Come in”

“Excuse me” she said as she cracked the door open to find Dr. Kennedy sitting on the other side of the desk talking to the woman, while Marian was sitting in the corner.

The two turned towards her.

“Yumi is there a flow cytometer here?”

“Yes, what for?” Yumi replied.

“Benjamin wants me to double check my calculations from the cell counting method” Abigail explained.

“He does know that takes twelve hours right?” Dr. Kennedy asked.

“Of course he does”

“This thing is spreading fast. The base in New Orleans has killed half of the population that lived on the base because they had the virus or were killed by people with the virus. Now it is on a self-quarantine, we just got the report from Captain William J. Snyder the Commander of the base. That’s hundreds of people” Dr. Kennedy explained.

“No one goes in and no one goes out. That has given us less military aid” Marian explained.

Yumi sighed and leaned her head back against the chair closing her eyes. She quickly looked up and leaned forward. “It’s located in the west wing.” She replied.

Abigail nodded. “Thank you” before exiting the room.

Abigail sighed and got to work on the Planting and Colony Forming Unit counting. After prepping the sample she put it in the machine then walked to her room. She set the alarm on her watch to go off twelve hours from now and groaned when she realized that would be at two in the morning.

“I have to do something physical. This is killing me.” She muttered to herself. She changed into workout clothes and headed to the physical therapy unit to see if there was a treadmill that she could run on. Abigail hated physical activity, but she needed to do something.

She found the treadmill and climbed aboard before setting the speed to the slowest possible pace that still involved running and placing her headphone in her ears began running.

After about twenty minutes she was surprised to look up and see Riley enter the room.

She took her headphones out of ears and looked at him “Hey” she breathed.

He smiled at her and waved slightly before he too climbed on a treadmill. Abigail smiled to herself before she put her headphone back in her ears and proceeded to run on the treadmill. It was nice to have someone to ‘run with’ Abigail thought to herself.

After another twenty minutes she slowed the treadmill down to a walk and did a slight cool down before leaving the rehab room and waving to Riley who waved back.