Aquarium Quarantine

Hello everyone on the outside, I don't know if this will ever reach any of you, but I wanted to keep a journal of the events that are happening. I hope that if we don’t make it out alive, someone will read this diary and tell everyone what happened here. My name is Melody Yates, I am 24 years old. I am probably going to die a painful and bloody death in the next few weeks…. and this is my story…. I guess I should start at the beginning. I live on a small, and little known about island on the lower southern coast of the US. I am a medical biologist and I work at an aquarium and rehabilitate sea life. I am responsible for the care of many marine animals, as well as a smaller collection of amphibians and reptiles. Now, not a lot of people know this, but every facility that works with animals has an on-site quarantine facility. It differs in size and protocols from place to place, but overall has the same functions. All new animals that come into the facility from anywhere stay in quarantine for over a month before getting sent over to live in the exhibits or released into the wild if possible. During this time, the animals are rehabilitated, medicated, and evaluated for various diseases. Sometimes animals come as a donation or surrender from people or other facilities, and those animals were born captive and can't be released, or they have special needs that made them unable to live safely in the wild. Those are the animals that live on the exhibit that the public can see. Since the goal of the entire facility is to rescue and conserve wildlife, our quarantine was much larger than most places. Any animal that gets sick on exhibit also is moved out to the facility immediately for high quality veterinary care. Just imagine how wild it gets when you have to catch a 10 foot shark in an exhibit and transport it to another building! The quarantine department is highly specialized and only specific trained professionals are allowed to enter to prevent any cross contamination of diseases between animals and to also prevent diseases that are considered zoonotic that can spread to humans. The job that I performed was highly specialized. I was a marine biologist who started working in an aquarium when I graduated college. I got interested in the medical side of things, and was given the opportunity to train as a medical aquarist. I realized it was my calling and that is what I have been doing ever since. It can be a grizzly and bloody job at times. I have normal aquarist work like diving and cleaning tanks, but I also perform injections, assist with difficult animal births, assist with surgeries, apply medications, perform animal autopsies on creatures who die, and work with an array of non-human safe medications. Animals who come in injured often have wounds that would make even a horror movie lover cringe, but you go numb to it after a while… The facility that I work in is a large steel and concrete building over 20,000 square feet large, fully equipped with a huge walk in freezer, solar powered generator, fresh water storage tank system, all the tools you could possibly imagine, a deluxe and fully equipped lab, hazmat equipment, a partially stocked animal medicine pharmacy, and full shower and locker room. We were decently far away from the rest of the buildings on property, and we communicated through telephone and the old walky-talky style radios. The building was also equipped with a bunk room with 4 bunk beds, because the quarantine team is the group who have to stay to ride out the smaller hurricanes to make sure the animals are okay and cared for. Yep, I know what your thinking, that sounds pretty crazy, but someone has to be there doing everything they can to keep the animals safe and fed when everything goes insane. Their lives are our top priority above everything else. The day started out innocently enough, just chilling in the office early in the morning, chatting over cups of coffee while waiting for one of our perpetually late coworkers to finally arrive. My team made up of a total of 6 people, 5 biologists specializing in different animals, comprised of me, Charles, Nicole, Sasha, and Madeline, and one veterinary technician named Scarlet. My co-worker Charles was cracking jokes about Nicole being too hung over to come to work while we all snickered. We decided that we would get started without her, and began collecting our dive gear and getting suited up to scrub a deep tank. While we got ready, we discussed the recent events going on in town. "Hey is everyone still feeling well enough to dive today?" Sasha asked. "Nobody feeling sick right?" I gave her a puzzled look, "Yeah I am fine, why do you ask?" "Well, you know about how they said on the news that so many people were getting sick in town? That some sort of virus was spreading around? I just wanted to make sure everyone was going to be safe. You can't be diving with a stuffy nose or a fever." She said shrugging. "I blame those damn antivaxxers." Madeline huffed, zipping up her suit. "Bringing their sick kids with some nasty virus to the island that's just going to spread to all of the tourists and get everyone f*****g sick." I have to admit, that made me chuckle a bit. Madeline was the epitome of a snarky middle aged cat lady, full of sass and a hint of bitterness. "I think we should be fine, I mean, its not like we even have to go over there and interact with people that much. I doubt we will catch anything." I said, being glad that one of the perks of working the most dangerous animal jobs was not having to deal with talking to other humans much. The building had no connection to the rest of the aquarium, and was located at the farthest corner of the property with key code access, which made contact with other people very minimal during work hours. I'm sure that would be pretty awful for a more social person, but I am definitely not the most social butterfly. Sasha shook her head sadly, "I don’t know guys, I heard on local news this morning that they were hard core advising young and elderly people to stay away from the public places today. A lot of people were having to go to the hospital. I think a few people died already. We are already currently dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, and I really don’t want to deal with some other new illness to worry about also." “I think it could just be some kind of food contamination like listeria or something.” I said, “I saw it on the local news for the island but there was nothing about it on the global news so I think it might just be something going on locally, and anything viral would probably be reported on a bigger scale. Plus, they were saying people were going to the hospital for vomiting as the main symptom so that seems like it would be a food related thing.” "That is already happening with the coronavirus and people are sick of it. I bet they are just trying to hype it up that the virus is getting worse or something to get people to stay home." Madeline said. "I wouldn't be too worried about it. They like to fear monger a lot on TV to get views." We all nodded a bit, not wishing to argue with her even though everyone had strong feelings and anxiety about getting the coronavirus, but we just shrugged it off. We quietly finished getting dressed and went back to our office to meet up with Charles. Scarlet was sitting on the desk carefully measuring out a dose of medication into a syringe. "Hey will you guys catch that Snapper for me before you start the scrub dive in the tank? I set some nets out there for you. I have to give him a Baytril shot for the next few days for his swollen eye." I nodded with a small smile and she hopped down off of the desk. Charles went to go begin preparing food for the animals in the kitchen, and we headed out to the back of the building to begin working. About 20 minutes later, me, Madeline and Sasha were all in the tank clumsily swimming around with nets cornering this snapper as gently as possible, when we heard a muffled yell coming from the hallway to the kitchen. Charles came running down the hallway and up to the tank with one of the radios in hand. "GET OUT OF THE WATER! SOMETHING IS GOING ON!" We all scrambled up the ladder and out of the tank in worried confusion and stood around the radio listening silently. If a rare dive emergency were to happen somewhere onsite, like a diver passed out underwater, we would need to immediately respond and assist in the rescue until paramedics arrived. "Someone over at the aquarium was calling for an ambulance and the police." Charles said, a little out of breath. At first, there was no radio response for a few minutes. We all started to breathe a little calmer, assuming it was just some random drunken fight by some idiots that decided to get f****d up and come to the aquarium. It happened at least once a month and it was usually a quick call to the police, but it wasn’t said over the radio because the public might panic if they overheard the radio call. I was thinking that some new security guy got nervous and just made a little mistake. Then, all of a sudden, a panicked voice came over the radio. "EMERGENY, EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY. Execute full lockdown procedure in all attractions on property. This is not a drill. Lock all doors and shelter in place." "What the f**k?" Scarlet said, her face scrunching up in concern. The radio interrupted her exclamation with someone else asking, "What is going on?" No answer followed and the person angrily repeated, "WHAT IS GOING ON!?" The next radio call chilled us to the very core. A weak voice came on saying, "Please.... help. Call the police...….." The call ended in what sounded like rapid gunfire and screaming. "Oh shit..." Charles said quietly. The fear of an active shooter situation was always a threat, but no one expected it to happen here. At the time, that seemed like that was what was occurring. Fear struck our hearts for our poor coworkers that were working in the other buildings. I hoped that no one would be injured but the icy feeling creeping up my spine told me that was false hope. We stood there quietly; everyone’s minds conflicted. Had it been a diver emergency, we would have mobilized instantly and would have already been on the way to help. But there was nothing we could do against some sort of active shooter situation or even a terrorist attack of some kind. We were trained for things like drowning and animal attacks, not fighting people with guns. If we went over there we would likely become victims too, but we needed to do something!! We couldn’t just leave everyone to get shot, but what could we actually do to help? Nobody said anything for a few moments. Finally, Charles spoke. "Board up the doors." Charles said coldly. We all looked at him strangely, none of us thinking clearly in our shock. He shook his head sadly and said, "We can't do anything to help them without us getting killed too, but if this is some crazy terrorist or robber or something we need to make sure they can't get in here. Someone could take a key card off of another worker and come in here shooting too. Put the hurricane barricades up. We can pull them down quickly once this clears up, but I am not taking any chances. I want to help them, but I have kids at home. I can’t risk my life when I know I can’t help anyone and then end up leaving my children without a father." It hurt, but we knew he was right, so we solemnly followed his lead while listening to muffled static and occasional shrieks on the radio. Sasha broke into hysterical tears and pulled out her phone, trying to call another coworker she had been dating to make sure he was alive. Madeline quickly snatched the phone out of her hand and hung it up. "Are you an i***t?? If he is hiding and the phone goes off, they could find him!" Sasha's crying turned into an all-out panic attack and Scarlet had to stop helping put up the boards to try to console her. It only took about 20 minutes to screw the thick wooden barricades in place at the entrance and emergency exit, and the small window in the break room. There was no way anyone was making it inside easily. However, we all grabbed various items to defend ourselves in the instance where someone did managed to get in. When we were finished, we solemnly went to sit in the office around the radio. We were too worried about what was going on to change out of our wetsuits in case anything new occurred, so we sat in our office chairs dripping wet and not caring. All of us were hoping that Nicole was still sleeping in and hadn't shown up late, hung over, and ended up in the middle of whatever mess was going on. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and we honestly did not know what to do. It was a huge shock and I felt utterly helpless as I worried about my co-worker’s safety. Thirty minutes of ice cold tension and silence later, a quiet whisper was heard over the radio. "This is James from the aquarium staff, is anyone else out there?" We all jumped with excitement! One of our coworkers were still alive!! And him responding on the radio must have meant that he was safe! Scarlet grabbed the radio and replied, "Yes this is Scarlet, what is going on? Are you safe?" "Yes I am okay, but Michael isn't. His leg is broken really badly. I think I can see the bone and there is a lot of blood. We barricaded ourselves in the storage closet downstairs." James said, his voice cutting in and out with the static of a weak connection. "Don't talk about your location on the radio, I am going to call you so answer immediately." Scarlet said. When there was no reply, she pulled out her phone and dialed James' number. He answered and she set the phone down on speaker. "Something terrible happened guys." James sobbing made it difficult to understand him. "There was this guy and his daughter, and he looked really sick and passed out. Sophie was feeding the jellyfish tank and she saw him through the window and ran to try to help him. A bunch of people were around and someone started calling an ambulance...….." We all were looking at each other with our hearts pounding. Sasha started crying again and Madeline harshly shushed her so we could hear what James was saying. "I didn't see what happened because of all the people but the next thing I knew, everyone was attacking each other and people were screaming...…….. The guy was running after a little kid and he had blood all over him...…… and when he caught the kid...…….. guys I can't...…" James sobbed harshly, unable to continue. "Shhhhhhh its okay James. I'm so sorry about what you had to see but we have to know what we are dealing with." I said soothingly. More anguished sobs followed for a few minutes, leading us to all be waiting on the edge of our seats for the horrible tale. "He ripped...……. his stomach out and started...….. eating him...…… he tore through the kid like he was ripping a piece of paper….." I gasped out loud, surely that wasn't possible? Madeline chimed in, her expression looked doubtful, "Who was shooting James? We heard shots over the radio." We heard Michael groan in pain in the background before James continued. "People started going crazy, dropping to the floor and having seizures, throwing up everywhere. And then they got back up and started attacking people. There was so much blood...….. peoples organs were all over the floor... Someone had a gun and started shooting at them but I don't know what happened next. I started running and I found Michael. He was running down the stairs and he fell." Scarlet was visibly shaking now, a silent tear trickling down her face. Charles had a strong grip on a large filet knife, his knuckles turning white. Sasha panicking and intervening frequently to ask if her boyfriend Harold was still okay. James never answered her frantic questions. Madeline shook her head. "This can't be possible. We don't live in some stupid f*****g zombie movie." She snapped. "James, are you sure this wasn't an active shooter attack? Are you positive that this is what you saw?” James wailed louder. "YES! I AM NOT AN i***t, I KNOW WHAT I SAW!" A loud crash was heard over the phone and James let out a panicked noise. "Someone is outside. I can't let them find us." and then the line went silent.