The UPS Virus

I was in a rush to get to work one night. It was 11:45pm and I had to be there by midnight. I lived on the other side of town so it was generally a pretty far drive to UPS which was about eight and a half miles away in a remote location. There was a power plant nearby and a gas station up the street but other than that it was all one giant wasteland 1/3 taken up by UPS property which is equivalent to about 130 football fields. Pretty damn big, but the area itself was kinda creepy. Just driving through there at night gave me chills sometimes; so I'm guessing it'd be pretty scary for a pedestrian.(not that I would ever walk around there in the middle of the night) It's like you could look off into the darkness and expect to see a pair of glowing red eyes staring back at you.

For some reason I felt like something really cool or really destructive was going down tonight. Finally, I arrived at work. I came in through the security checkpoint, caught the tram to my work area and clocked in one minute late. "Sorry Chase. I was in Indiana today with a buddy checking out some firework tents and I had a rough time getting back here with all the traffic on the interstate." I told my supervisor. "Ah it's no big deal man. We're alright right now anyway. But can you go head over to the Pink Blue for me. They're gettin slammed and they need all the help they can get right now." "Yeah sure. Not a problem, that's what I'm here for right?" I said. I was glad to hear that. I worked primarily in the secondary and I loved it when supervisors sent me away to a load belt. The secondary was absolute hell, especially where I was. The workers had attitudes like a bull with a toothache, the supervisors were like drill sargeants who managed with fear and intimidation, and worst of all...we got slammed! It reminded me of bootcamp. We stood in front of a huge slide with conveyer belts all around it, and I'd say anywhere between 40,000-120,000(ball park range) boxes that weighed anywhere from 1-170 lbs all came down at us at one time. When I got hired here I felt like I signed up for torture, because that's exactly what it was. The heat was also a factor. The building was not air conditioned.
I actually learned an interesting proverb from one of my co-workers who stated: "Life is like a box on a slide. Once we get picked off we're placed on a belt to go wherever it takes us, and just when we fall off and think we've avoided getting screwed by it, it dosen't matter because we get kicked right back on." I said, "What made you think of that anonymous?" His reply was: "Heat Stroke."

Anyway, the Pink Blue was the load belt that typically got overrun with volume(packages) at some point during the night. I hated 3rd shift. It was the shift where we got hit with the most volume and had the least amount of time to get all processed. Incoming packages are sent from the Unload facility to the secondary where they are sorted to the proper load belt based on their destination. And then they are loaded into 270 gallon containers that get "ran-out" to the planes for delivery. On my way to the Pink Blue I politely stopped to allow a tug driver to do his run-out job. He nodded as a sign of thanks and proceeded on with his driving.

As he passed by I noticed an odd looking package. It was huge, shaped like an egg and had metal straps around it. I assumed it was a hazmat due to the fact that it had several hazardous material labels on it. Good observation on my part.(smile) I didn't really think anything of it at first other than "Wow. That must be our new weapon of mass destruction or something. No wonder UPS has a 'top secret' attitude." Ryan was one of the workers on the Pink Blue and he walked up behind me and said, "We've been gettin killed with those heavy ass boxes all freakin night. I'd like to know what the hell's in em but I'm so damn tired of seeing em. Man..." "Wow that's exactly what I wanted to hear. It sounds like I'm gonna have fun on your alls belt tonight" I told him. "Well Jimmy that's what we're all here for isn't it? Nothing like a typical friday night working our ass off at UPS while everybody else is out partying and havin sex with their girlfriends." We walked over to the belt and when I saw it I thought somebody had played Dominos with the boxes or something. There was so many boxes all over the floor, stacked up to the ceiling...now that's what you call a cluster fuck. Plus one of those mysterious packages that I saw earlier when I was talking to Ryan came tumbling down the belt. It was leaking. Ryan reached for it and I said "Don't touch it Ryan!" But it was too late, as he already grabbed it and the unknown chemical substance leaking out of it spilled onto his arm.

He went to the restroom to wash it off, but it already absorbed into his skin and he became dizzy and passed out. Ten minutes later a supervisor from another work area walked into the restroom and noticed him lying on the floor. "Hey, are you OK!?" Just then Ryan sprang to life, but something wasn't right. His eyes were dialated and he was foaming at the mouth. He didn't speak and seemed aggressive and hostile. He lunged at the guy very quickly and bit his neck puncturing a major artery. He lay there helplessly and it was just a matter of time before he bled to death. Ryan was definitely transformed; he was like a 'living zombie' I guess. He wasn't dead, but appeared to be stronger and quicker than normal and have a craving for human blood. He walked out of the restroom into the break area where he spotted a woman standing at the vending machine. She was his next target. Before she even had a chance to turn around he pounced on her from behind, bit the back of her neck off and ate her alive like those creatures in 'The Descent.' However, instead of being dead, this lady arose after a few minutes and began attacking her co-workers.

It wasn't long before half the unsuspecting victims on the property were infected. Some employees who survived attacks and managed to get to the Human Resources Department reported the incident to the security office. Two security officiers from the South Core terminal were sent to building 1 to retrieve one of the packages that was responsible for the infection. One guard sneaks over to the belt and grabs the package and hands it to the other guard. The other guard says "Let's get out of here! There's a whole bunch of em running at us!" They both took off running but the one not holding the box tripped and fell and got dragged away by the herd of infected UPS employees.

The one who was in possession of the box made it back to the South Core terminal. A hazmat specialist examined the contents of the package discovering that it was an illegal chemical substance that increases adrenaline and destroys the part of the brain that conducts logic and thought processes. It basically contains a virus that causes rabies. The shipper's name was unknown. UPS security sounded the tornado alarm to evacuate everyone else on the premises who had not been infected, to their designated safety areas.(labeled by names of fruit lol) This was done as an attempt to keep the virus from spreading more than it already had while they conjured up a solution to the problem. This only made things worse. People that were stupid enough to leave their hiding spots to run to a gathering area became sitting prey for the ones already infected. And the number of infected gradually increased until 3/4 of the UPS 3rd shift population had the virus.

I decided this situation was getting out of hand and impossible to cure, so I decided to make a run for it. I managed to sneak past a group of infected wandering around in the workplace and make it to the tram stop. The tram was coming. "Good timing" I thought. But I as it got closer I saw blood on the windshield and then noticed someone devouring the drivers dead body. The tram of course did not slow down. It sped by me at a very high speed and crashed into a 4-story building setting off an explosion that caught it on fire. Pretty cool. It reminded me of 9/11 except with a train instead of a plane. I also observed several employees trying to flee for their lives. They stuck together in small groups and used blunt objects and fire extinguishers to defend themselves. I noticed one of them was holding a pair of bolt cutters apparently stolen from the cleaning crews office. He headed toward the 9-foot electric barbed wire fence that surrounded the entire property and attempted to cut his way to freedom. Then all of a sudden when he stepped up to the fence, he got shot. Information about this chaos at UPS somehow got released to the U.S. Government who planted several snipers around the outskirts of the premises. This was the first phase of 'Operation Shutdown' to make sure the virus did not escape into the outside world. Next they sealed off all exits so nobody could go in or out, and a chopper was hovering over us with a spotlight beaming downward. Two soldiers lowered a rope ladder and came down and shot everyone in sight as I watched from a distance. They shot everyone regardless of whether they were infected or not. Then another soldier came down and he was armed with a flamethrower.

I hid for dear life between two parked bobtails and watched all the action. An infected individual attempted to attack these men and was brutally incinerated by the guy with the flamethrower. I had a pretty good hiding spot, but I was not careless at all because I knew if I got spotted it was a wrap. I watched these three soldiers closely and noticed they were placing timed bombs in various places on the property. Then hundreds of infected came swarming out of nowhere. The soldiers open fire and killed alot of them, but the number was overwhelming. The chopper lowered, and they grabbed on to it and flew away. As soon as they flew off the bombs were activated. I had T minus 5 minutes to get the hell off the property or I was gonna die. First, I broke into a bobtail and hotwired it. I drove it through the yard and rammed it through a locked gate between me and the feeder exit. I had 3:20 left. I swerved to dodge a light pole which caused me to lose control and wreck into the guard shack. "Damn!" I said to myself as I stumbled out of the vehicle with cuts and bruises. I had 2:01 remaining. I knew had to sprint as fast as I could to the exit that was now unguarded since the feds pulled out after the bombs were planted. I got grabbed from behind by an infected individual. I gave him a swift elbow to the face, sending him to the ground unconscious. 59 seconds remaing. I took off running. I could hear growling way behind. I was being chased by more infecteds. 23 seconds left. The exit was about 150 feet away; I ran harder and faster. If I live I'll remember this as the night all hell broke lose at UPS.(I knew this place was gonna make people crazy anyway lol) 12 seconds left til detonation. I'm still sprinting like I did when I ran track in high school. The growling noises are getting farther and farther behind me and that's a good sign. The exit is just up ahead. It's right in front of me now, but it's locked so I'm climbing over it...Can I make it to freedom???...3-2-1 Uh Oh :(