The soft glow coming from the laptop screen held steady as a momentary flickering of the overhead bulb spread darkness elsewhere in the room like an eyeblink. Lucas broke his focus, leaning away from the desk in his chair. Peering out the nearby window beside the desk at the low, adjacent building he exhaled a slow breath of air. Adjusting the chair so he could idly look out, Lucas stared out into the dark, empty world.
Scant light from the lamps in the park blocks made the bare branches of nearby trees visible as they shifted within the icy breeze. A very faint, sustained whistling noise was barely audible as an occasional heavier gust brushed over the window. From the buildings of the city that could be seen, there were lights on. Things elsewhere in Portland were chaotic and strange, but in the immediate environment, the scenery was mostly eerily serene.
Thinking about the ongoing situation, Lucas speculated over what it could mean. Past that initial moment where the zombies had first appeared, there was no evidence that whatever had taken place to create them had happened again. There wasn't any evidence to indicate it couldn't happen again either. While both assertions had little support, it seemed more reasonable to consider at the moment that the instigating event- whatever it might be- had been confined to a particular moment in time.
There was simply no reason to assume otherwise yet. If the creation of these zombies were caused by something ongoing, then that would eventually lead to evidence that should become clear over time. Specifically more single, uncaused cases in areas without any nearby cases. In addition, if he assumed they were being consistently created by an ongoing phenomenon, there wouldn't be any evidence possible to show that assumption was incorrect.
Why it only seemed to have happened once so far was still a mystery, and an important one. Despite his efforts, there was nothing immediately obvious about the first zombies in either their identities or their locations in the world. As far as locations went, the places impacted or unimpacted so far appeared to be completely random. And if the first people infected had anything in common, it wasn't something Lucas could tell from what he had read so far.
But it wasn't worth worrying about what he had no reasonable way of knowing. Without an explanation for the overall cause, there were still plenty of things so far to know about the evident plague.
It wasn't like not knowing everything about the situation made what they did know worthless. What was important, head injuries being the only effective means of killing the undead, staying safe inside and keeping those with bites isolated were repeatedly propogated by every news source. Guessing and speculation about deeper causes was mostly secondary to those primary concerns. For now, at least.
Once the immediate matter of the zombie outbreak had been managed, there would be time to answer those questions. Until then, they only had to deal with the immediate facts. And despite not making a whole lot of sense, the facts didn't have to make total sense in order to be useful.
Regardless, Lucas just couldn't drop the thoughts completely from his mind. It was as if in a peculiar instant, the usual laws of reality had been suspended and something uniquely strange had intruded itself upon the normal universe. Something that broke the usual expectations for the natural order. An infectious disease that could take hold upon its victim in seconds. Infected that did not need blood to operate. The potential that these things were able to sense the moment someone had died and move on. These traits had a surreal quality to them he couldn't quite ignore.
And lastly, more than any other mystery so far, the source of that instigating event, either intelligent or an unguided accident. As much as he didn't like leaving such a thing unanswered, there was little choice but to do so.
