Aquarium Quarantine

Chapter 6

It took me forever to finally fall asleep that night, and it was more like I passed out from exhaustion rather than slipping into a gentle slumber. I woke constantly to the screaming outside despite having the music playing in my ears. It wasn't loud enough to drowned out the noises of despair. Once when I awoke during Charles lookout shift, I noticed that he was crying. Silent tears slipped down his face, and I had a strong urge to try to comfort him. I knew he was trying to be level headed and strong in front of everyone, so I kept pretending to be asleep and didn't say anything to him.

By the morning, the scratching and screeching outside had stopped. We didn't know if that meant that Harrold had died from the disease, or if he had just finally wandered off. Everyone was eerily calm and quiet, unsure what to do. The first thing we did was start looking online again to see if any new information had come out. To our dismay, the video of the news report from the coffee shop was gone. It was completely erased from the news websites as if it never happened.

"What the hell?" Madeline said, "There is no way this video was erased so quickly! It was shown live on the news! Even if they deleted the video, there had to be someone out there that would've copied it or took a video of the clip on their phone and reposted it. That happens every single time any controversial video comes out. It's not easy to get rid of something once it is out there on the internet. There had to be many people who saw it! I don't understand how there is absolutely nothing online."

"This is wrong." Sasha said, "And a very bad sign….. Why would they want people to not know what is happening? It is so suspicious. If people knew what was happening here, they would be able to prepare themselves and get somewhere safe. Even if the island is locked down, not everyone here could be infected yet. What about everyone on the mainland? They need to know what is going on! Peoples relatives must be calling the news and the police if they saw that video and couldn't get ahold of them."

"Unless the government is trying to block any information about what is happening here." Charles said, "That is the only thing that makes sense. Something horrible is happening here and the government is involved somehow. They do not want anyone knowing what is going on, and if people are calling for help for their loved ones, it could be putting themselves in danger as well. We don't know exactly what we are dealing with in terms of the disease, but we also don't know how it was released in the first place. I think it would be safer for everyone and their families to avoid trying to contact any authorities. Nobody can know that we are in here. It could expose our location if they are planning on killing the whole island."

"Woah Charles, hold on, that is a super far stretch!" Scarlet said. "We can't know for sure that the government is involved at all. It is a wild idea that they planned this, and even more wild that they are going to murder everyone here to cover it up. They could've just pulled the video to stop a mass panic from happening. If people are trying to flee, it is more likely that they could come in contact and be infected. Maybe by pulling the video, they were trying to help contain situation."

I shook my head, "I understand not wanting to cause mass panic, but it seems super suspicious that there is nothing online at all about it. They should have issued a statement at least about staying in your homes and avoiding the sick or at least SOMETHING."

The situation definitely seemed way too fishy, but it was a bit hard to accept any conspiracy ideas. It felt almost disrespectful to those who died to go off believing in some conspiracy reason…. That was definitely the opposite of how Charles felt though….

Charles slammed his hand down on the table suddenly, causing everyone to jump, "But we DON'T KNOW anything for sure! It’s all speculation at this point, but it would be safer to take all precautions possible to ensure our safety. It might seem crazy to you guys, but it could be possible right? Do we really want to take any unnecessary risks when the odds are already so high against us?"

We all sat in silence for a moment, contemplating what he just said. He was right, we truly had no idea what we are dealing with at all. We didn't have any cell phone service anymore, but we were still able to web chat our families and let them know what was going on. At Charles' request, we told our families not to contact any law enforcement or tell anyone our location for the time being. They were fully informed on the situation and everyone was getting prepared in case the disease got off of the island. Our families were all terrified for our safety, so it was hard to get them to agree not to talk to anyone about it. However, I would never be able to forgive myself if Charles was right and the government killed our families for knowing information that they wanted to keep secret, so I begged them to keep quiet.

The more I thought about it, the more paranoid I felt, and I made my mom and sister promise that if anyone asked, they would tell them that I was on a dive trip in the Caribbean. That way, they would seem like they didn’t know anything and it would be normal for them to be unable to call my cell phone due to lack of phone service.

"I hope they can contain the illness soon....." I said, "Unfortunately, the best case scenario is if the illness causes the infected to die quickly. If it burns through them and shuts down their brain or body functions, all of this could end quickly. If the infected all die, there would be no reason to kill off anyone who avoids infection because it would be obvious if they had contracted it. Then the plague wouldn't be able to spread far, and they should be sending out rescue parties to collect survivors soon."

Everyone nodded, but no one felt really hopeful about it. We were trapped, playing a high stakes waiting game with our lives on the line. Would anyone come to rescue us? We honestly had no idea.

"What do we even do now?" I asked myself out loud. Scarlet started scratching her head, "Well, the animals still need to eat, and that poor snapper still needs his shots. We don't know how long we are going to be here, and we might loose power so we also need to prepare for that too."

"We have the backup solar generator though." Sasha said, and Madeline and Charles shook their heads in unison.

"Yeah we do, but the backup power isn't enough to keep the whole building running. It is meant for emergency situation to keep enough power to the building during hurricanes, but it is only partial power. The generator has a battery source that is solar powered, but the battery only lasts a few days if it's not sunny enough outside to keep it constantly charging. That makes us unable to fully rely on it, because at some point its going to go down for a day or two at least if it starts raining. It can also be powered with gasoline, but we don't have a supply of it and even if we did, we can't go outside to replenish it." Charles said.

Sasha was the only new employee that had never been here during a hurricane. The rest of us had been through many, and we all knew that the backup power was enough to keep a few large tanks running, the air compressor to keep oxygen bubbling in the tanks, the office and the freezer powered, but that was it. Everything else would have to be shut off, including a lot of the building lights outside of the office area, in order to keep the power running as long as possible. "If the power is completely out for more than a few days, the temperatures in the freezer is not going to hold its temperature." Madeline said, "We have to make sure we are prepared for that somehow, because we don't want to loose our only food supply or else we will starve……."