Day 36

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

"Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen" she says out loud as she clicks the hand tally counter. The amount of cells within each 1x1 micrometer square on the grid that was subdivided in three directions. She is using the counting chamber method or hemocytometer method because it is the fastest way to count. The raised edges of the hemocytometer are 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 allow her to count the number of cells and thereby calculate the concentration of cells in the fluid overall.

"Hey Abigail" a voice asks from behind her.

She jumps, causing her to look away from her sample and drop the hand counter.

"Damn it, Riley!" she cries out as she turns towards him.

"What?"

"I was counting cells in the sample. Now I have to start over!" she seeths.

"Aren't you using a hand counter?" he asks.

"I don't remember which square I was in."

"Well shit." Riley replies as he walks over.

Abigail sighs and looks at the young man. "What do you want?" she flips her hair out of her face.

"How's that scan of the brain tissue was going?"

"I have no idea, ask James, that's his project." Abigail replies. She notices 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 explains as he takes a step closer to her to get a better view of her drawing on the gridded line paper.

"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 teases.

Riley blushes "I said I was sorry"

"I know. I'll get over it, I just have to pick on your for a couple of minutes"

"Why is it taking James so long to figure this out?"

"Because we are trying to figure out what part of the brain that sample is from" she is getting exasperated. 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..

"Oh" Riley mutters dumbly. Abigail knows that he knows the answer to that question.

"So what part of it is it from?" he asks.

"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"

"That sounds like suicide".

"It is… but it sounds like this 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 in New Orleans is about to do a self-quarantine."

"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 says 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."

"Female soldiers?" Riley asks.

"I don't know. You'd think that the HIPPA rules would be overruled through marshal law."

"Bloody hell" Riley whispers 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"

Riley nods. "Sorry" he says again squeezing her shoulder lightly before walking out of the lab.

She returns to her counting with a frustrated sigh. "One…Two…Three…"

An hour later Abigail stands up and stretches. She had finally finished counting the cells under the microscope.

Four million seven hundred thousand. She grabs her notepad and takes it to Benjamin.

"Here it is" she says to him.

"How many?"

"Looks like 4.7 million"

"The cell count is the average count for a male…on the lower side but healthy" Benjamin muses.

"What method did you use"

"Cell counting."

"Are you a pre-med student? When I finish examining this, do the Plating and CFU counting method."

"That takes at least twelve hours. We don't have that kind of time" Abigail counters.

"We are going to. After that ask Kaitlyn if this place has flow cytometer and give it to Hunter to work with.

Abigail nods and walks out the door.

She paces up and down random hallways until she finds Kaitlyn's office. She knocks on the door.

She heard a muffled voice "Come in"

"Excuse me" she says as she cracks the door open to find Beau sitting on the other side of the desk talking to the woman, while Marian is leaning against the wall in the corner.

"Kaitlyn is there a flow cytometer here?" Abigail asks before there can be any interruptions.

"Yes, what for?" Kaitlyn replied.

"Benjamin wants me to double check my calculations from the cell counting method" Abigail can't help the exasperation in her voice.

"He does know that takes twelve hours right?" Beau inquires.

"Of course he does"

"This thing is spreading fast. The base in New Orleans has killed half of the residential population due to the infection. 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" Beau relays.

"No one goes in and no one goes out. That has given us less military aid" Marian says slowly..

Kaitlyn sighs and leans her head back against the chair closing her eyes. She quickly looks up and leans forward. "It's located in the west wing."

Abigail nods. "Thank you"

Abigail ties her hair out of her face and prepares to to work on the Planting and Colony Forming Unit counting. After prepping the sample she puts it in the machine then walks to her room. She set the alarm on her watch to go off twelve hours from now and groans when she realizes that would be at two in the morning.

"I have to do something physical. This is killing me." She mutters to herself. She changes into workout clothes and heads to the physical therapy unit to see if there was a treadmill that she run on. Abigail hates running, in fact she believes that running is for deer, but she needs to do something.

She finds the treadmill and climbs aboard before setting the speed to the slowest possible pace that still involves running, and placing her headphones in her ears, begins the grueling activity.

After about twenty minutes she looks up and seesHunter enter the room.

She takes her headphones out of ears and waves at him weakly "Hey" she breathes.

He smiles at her and climbs on his own treadmill. It is nice to have someone to 'run with' Abigail thinks to herself.

After another twenty minutes she slows the treadmill down. Looking at her watch again she releases another groan, another 11 hours to go.