"Air sickness. I suffer terribly from it."

"You should have taken something."

"I just did," Hans said. "Hopefully it'll knock me out for the flight."

"If you need anything," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you."

Another smile, and Marian turned, walking up the aisle, checking on passengers as she moved by them.

Almost half way through the flight, Hans counted down the hours. Sleep would make them pass by faster, and with that thought, feeling pretty lousy, Hans tried to sleep.

Two soldiers were injured. One pretty severely in the camp cleansing. Saul directed those two soldiers, along with the boy and the two already transported to Washington, to be moved to Atlanta where a special quarantine and research center was being set up.

Number one priority was to stop the virus. If infected, they had to figure out how to stop it. The bacterium wasted away the person, then regenerated the cells without regenerating brain cells. Making them into moving monsters.

At least in Atlanta they could contain them, detain them, and hopefully try to cure them if not learn from them.

Col. Manning added one more specific to Saul's directive.

Not wanting to chance something happening during transport, any soldier fatally injured, would be spared the torment of a regenerated death.

Regenerated death. Saul couldn't believe that was what they were dealing with. Never in all of his imagination did he think he would be dealing with the walking dead.

But they weren't really dead. They couldn't be. Not if they were moving and acting.

He finished the phone call, and leaned back in his chair.

Before he released the grip on his phone, he placed one more call.

"Saul? Saul I didn't think I'd hear from you," Irma said concerned.

"I'm on a plane so we may not have great reception."

"A plane."

"On my way back to Atlanta."

She breathed heavily and the 'hiss' of it carried over the line. "Thank God. Thank God. Everything must be fine then. You're coming home."

"Actually, Irma," Saul paused. He wasn't going to say much, not at all. He couldn't. Not on a government phone, but he knew if he said the right words, the right way, that would tell Irma enough. "Actually they are about as strange as strange could be."

He ended the call, bringing the phone to his lips in thought.

A clearing of the throat drew him from that moment and Saul turned around.

Steven stood before him. He had been in the back of the plane with the infected that they were bringing back to the states. He looked drawn, something wasn't right.

"Captain? Are you okay?"

"I heard you mention the word 'strange'"

Saul nodded. "I was speaking to my wife."

"It's about to get stranger."

"I don't understand," Saul said.

"Neither do I. But that boy, Juan?"

"Did he get violent?"

"No, Sir." Steven shook his head. "He's crying."

Medication that rendered a person semi comatose was shipped immediately to the site in Peru before scouting teams were sent out. Platoon leaders were each given ample injections of it.

The orders were simple. If a soldier became injured through bite or scratch of an infected, they were to immediately turn themselves into whoever was in charge, and receive the injection.

Slowing the cardio functions slowed the virus, enabling more time to be cured.

Jack scoffed at that, so did Specialist. Carlson. Relying solely on movie information, both conveyed to each other that they didn't think anything could stop a zombie transformation. However that was fiction. It was never dealt with in 'real life'.

Or was it?

"How do we know?" Specialist Carlson asked Jack as they moved through a wooded area.

"True."

"I mean, it could have happened before. And it was contained. You just never know. Plus, we do have cool technology with medicine."

"True."

"What are you doing?"

Jack was busted. He gave a smile to Carlson. "Trying to get a signal." He held up his phone.

"Yeah, well, you just spoke to your wife."

"I know, sorry."

"Please keep focused. We're up front, we don't need something jumping out at us."

Jack nodded. He was searching for a signal because he had to abruptly end his talk with Lil. He wanted to tell her so much. He was certain she knew he was worried. Telling her, "If I don't come back" ... said a lot. But he had to end his call and he did so without letting her know what was happening. He wanted to.

Jack figured out a coded way to do so, he prepared a simple text. One that couldn't come back negatively to him as if he let secret information out, and one his wife would understand with a little thought and know exactly what was happening. .

But he couldn't get a signal to send it out. The text sat in his phone in the 'outbox' folder.

Specialist Carlson said something else. Jack didn't understand. "What was that?" Jack asked.

"I said," Carlson looked back. "I think there's a village about two more miles from ..."

He stopped. Jack was only two feet behind him. Carlson stopped and didn't move.

"Hold up," Jack called out, lifting hand. "Carlson?"

"It broke the perimeter." Carlson whispered. "I was hoping they contained it. But it broke."

"What do you mean?" Jack asked, then received his answer. Joining Carlson he saw the reason for his concern. A goat with a stick protruded through his mouth lay there. The goat's fur was half off, its ribcage exposed, the flesh appeared to have been torn, and the body had already entered into a putrefaction stage.

Jack gagged and covered his mouth.

"See what I mean?" Carlson said. "Something ate it alive. Then it came back. Someone had to kill it."

Jack swallowed the lump and turned around. "Keep your eyes open. We may have infected in these woods."

For a while, Jack thought his worry and his wanted to forewarn his wife was premature. Until he saw that goat. Carlson was right it either broke the perimeter or was beyond the perimeter long before the virus was discovered to be deadly.

Mid stare at the goat, and whispering questions of the men, a 'bleep' caught Jack's attention. He didn't need to look. He knew what it meant. He had caught the scope of a signal and his message had been sent. Now he hoped she would figure it out.

Despite the fact that Jack told her to get it all together, Lil couldn't bring herself to dig up his military papers that he had in the event of his death.

That told her something was wrong, but not as much as Jack calling her three times in the middle of the night to say he loved her and she had to know that in case he didn't come back.

She asked him three times what was going on, he said he couldn't tell her. He would figure out a way to tell her more.

That she understood.

The last conversation was twenty-nine seconds long and Jack said to her, 'You of all people are more prepared than anyone I know.'

Prepared. What was Lil prepared for? Jack's death? No, it couldn't be that.

She went on the internet and looked up Peru. The place Jack had gone. The news talked about a meteor causing mass hysteria illness. Maybe Jack went down to help restore peace. But a conspiracy site said it was more, it was illness out of control. Lil thrived on reading, watching and learning about end of the world scenarios. To her, that was what she was most prepared for.

Was Jack trying to tell her a virus was about to wipe man into extinction.

Just as she had that thought, in the midst of trying to find more internet information on the Peru illness, she heard the beep of her phone.

She lifted it.

Jack sent a text? Was that his way of saying what was going on?

She clicked on read and drew more into confusion.

It wasn't much. It was three letters. Three letters that added more to her mystery. What was Jack trying to tell her with the text, 'WWZ'

Immediately, still in front of the computer, she typed the three letters into the search engine.

Lil wanted to kick herself when the results returned. She of all people should have recognized the three letters without a second thought, without confusion.

Jack had to be mistaken. But of all people, Jack wouldn't joke and would be the last to admit to what he was witnessing.

If Jack was meaning in his text to refer to zombies, then that was what jack believed he was dealing with.

On that, Lil got up, locked all the doors and sought out her shotgun.

Saul wasn't expecting the midflight phone call. He was just leaning back, reviewing documentation when the call came. He feared the worst. It had to be bad news. "This is Dr. Klein, what can I do for you, Col. Manning." Saul asked.

"We've located Dr. Riesman."

Saul exhaled. "Great. Where is he?"

"Are you ready? About three hours outside of Berlin, thirty-thousand feet above the ground."

Saul sprang forward. "You're joking, right?"

"I wish I wasn't."

It took Saul aback. He had to grasp a moment and reason. Hans on a plane. There was no way he was infected. He knew better. He needed to be sure. Saul ended his call with Col. Manning, both men agreeing to use their resources to get in touch with that plane.

Marian hoped she'd get fifteen minutes of sleep without interruption. No such luck. She was summoned to the Captain's cabin moments after she closed her eyes. She was in charge of their needs, but wished for once they'd call upon someone younger it was quite a hall there. Especially if they wanted something.

He didn't want coffee, he wanted something else. "Have some sort of VIP in hiding on the plane," the Captain said.

"How do we know?" Marian asked.

"US Government contacted us. Passenger in 65B. Familiar?"

"Yes," Marian nodded.

"Well, they want us to check on him. Report back, then move him up to first class."

"He's probably sleeping. He was airsick. We have only another half hour of the flight."

"I know. But, this is important. Could you go check on him and move him? His name is Dr. Riesman."

"Yes, Captain." Marian smiled, but it was forced. She didn't feel like walking all the way down the steps then to the back of the plane. Row 65 was the last row.