Oliver Twist Thompson, known as Olly to all, owns and operates a veterinarian clinic in Winnemucca Nevada. This city of almost eight thousand is intersected by interstate 80, and his clinic gets a lot of walk-in customers from travelers on their way to Tahoe or Vegas. The giant sign that advertises his location was a great investment, and people that travel with their animals are also prepared to pay premium for veterinary services.

Olly is puzzled by his latest walk-in, or more accurately, carry-in. It is a female Shih Tzu, obviously well loved and cared for. Her name is Puddles, and she is travelling with Ezra and Elias. Her owners became concerned when she stopped eating the previous day, and panicked when she started sneezing constantly and dragging her left leg. Puddles was alert and curious, and licked Olly’s hands when they met.

‘She appears to feel fine’, Olly observes while he does a cursory check on her condition. ‘Dogs that feel sick are not this happy in my experience.’ Puddles grins at him, obviously loving the attention. ‘Stand at the end of the table over there, and call her to you please, I want to see that limp.’ Ezra moves into position and Olly gently turns Puddles around to face him. Elias does not move, and nervously rubs his left leg while looking lost. Puddles sneezes once, then walks towards Ezra, dragging her left hind leg behind her, but still puts weight on it when she needs to move her other legs.

‘Lemme take a look at the joints on that leg’, Olly pulls Puddles closer to his side of the table, and when he takes hold of the leg in question Puddles makes a big puddle on the table. Her tail tucks, and her ears flattens, and she turns and nips at his hands. ‘Good dog’, Olly rubs Puddles’ ears, ‘I am sorry girl, but we must manipulate this leg so we can learn what is wrong.’

The joints in the leg would not move, and manipulation caused lots of pain. Puddles’ demeanor was changing from friendly but uncomfortable to defensive and aggressive. ‘This must hurt a lot’, Olly mutters to himself, releasing the leg and turning to his assistant, Jeanine. He asks her to bring a syringe and a specific ampule of medicine. ‘I will give her a shot for pain, and then I highly recommend we do an X-ray of the leg.’

As expected, Ezra agrees, ‘Anything doctor! We just need our Puddles to be well again’. Olly nodded and smiled, ‘Olly, call me Olly please.’

The X-ray shows nothing out of the ordinary. It appears that the muscles and ligaments around the joints are hard and inflamed. Olly gives her more medication that should help to relax the muscles and fight off the inflammation. It was decided that Puddles will spend the night in the clinic.

***

Olly loves early mornings. He enjoys watching mother nature wake up while most people are still asleep. He gets up at four-thirty am every day, walks briskly for about a mile, and is ready to leave for the office at five-thirty am. Olly arrives at the clinic just after six am and when he enters through the back where the kennels are, he immediately knows something was not right.

He is usually greeted noisily by the kenneled dogs, but this morning there is nothing, just silence. He rushes into the kennel room, expecting the worst, but finds all the dogs sitting or lying facing the kennel doors, obviously knowing he is there, but being quiet. He does not see Puddles at the kennel door. He finds her cowering in the back of her kennel. Her lips are pulled back, showing her teeth.

This was not the expected outcome, and the strange behavior of the other dogs just adds to Olly’s concern. Olly’s assistant calls at seven am, requesting a sick day. This was the first time ever Jeanine used a sick day in the years she has worked here. He walks back to Puddles’ kennel, considering the strangeness of the morning.

Olly was still deep in thought when Puddles hits the kennel door with all her might, giving him a terrible fright. Soundlessly she chews at the wire of the kennel with such force that some of her teeth break, and blood starts to flow down the kennel door. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, just showing whites, making Olly think of sharks. The great white shark rolls its eyes back like that when attacking prey.

All the other dogs are eerily quiet, and Puddles continues to hurt herself trying to chew through the kennel door. Olly knows he cannot open the door; this attack was aimed at him. He rushes to the dispensary to fetch a tranquilizer. He must make her sleep so he can do something about the damage she has already done to herself.

Olly soon learns that injecting Puddles with the tranquilizer is impossible. Anything that he brings near her gets attacked. He lost two syringes before he gave up. He has never needed a tranquilizer gun, and now wished he had one. The only thing he could think of was to fasten the backend of a prepared syringe to the end of a broomstick, then distract Poodles with one hand while using the other to administer the dose using the broomstick. Before he could try this technique, the office phone rang.

‘Olly’s vet clinic.’ It was Ezra. ‘Olly, listen carefully please! Something happened to Elias last night. He was not feeling well, and I went out to get Aspirin.’, Ezra sobs loudly, catches his breath and continues, ‘When I came back there were police cars at the hotel! Five of them! They shot Elias! They shot him many times. He left the hotel room after I left and attacked people! He bit a little kid, on the neck, and when this kid’s father tried to stop him, he killed him too. Like an animal!’ Ezra noisily blows his nose, then returns to the phone, ‘Olly he started limping like Puddles! This is why I am calling, to warn you. Please don’t go near Puddles. If what she’s got is infectious, you might become sick. You and all the other dogs you have there! I have to go, the police need me for something. Please be careful.’ Ezra ends the call.

Olly hangs up the phone and looks towards the room where the kennels are. He can still hear Puddles fighting the kennel door. He absentmindedly rubs his left thigh, it is tingling, and decides to call the Center for Disease Control. If this is an infectious disease, he has patient zero in a kennel.

***

The virus spreads quickly. It is airborne and able to survive outside a host for hours, floating on the wind.

Jeanine felt a little better that evening and went to church. She only sneezed twice during the service. The air conditioning did the rest of the work. Sixty people went home with the virus already growing in their lungs and brains.

The policemen who responded when Elias went berserk gave the virus to all their colleagues at work, and every other person they interacted with since then.

The ambulance drivers and EMTs that collected the bodies of Elias, and his victims, took the virus back to the fire station where they worked, and the virus left from there with many new hosts.

By the time the CDC arrived Olly was limping towards a nearby shopping center, driven by the virus’s need for more hosts. Some of the larger dogs got out of their kennels and attacked the two CDC agents when they entered the clinic. It would be late in the afternoon before they were missed by their supervisor, and by then the virus has already left town.

***

By nightfall Winnemucca Nevada looked like a scene from a zombie movie. The infected roamed around, fighting each other and looking for more hosts.

The governor deployed the national guard and the infected were shot on sight. Headshots were required since the infected were able to function for hours when shot anywhere else. Many healthy residents were also killed by scared soldiers, and when a few of the soldiers became infected, it was learned that the afflicted can and will use tools. These soldiers used their rifles on each other and everyone else.

The situation escalated and the federal government became involved. They immediately recommended firebombing the town. Roadblocks were established to contain the virus in the county. It was not successful, and the virus left the country one day later, headed to Europe.

***

Across the globe many scientists collaborated and worked tirelessly to isolate the virus. As soon as they were successful, they recognized that it was engineered. It was a man-made thing, a combination of Furious Rabies and an unknown covid strain. It appears that humankind finally created the very thing that might end their existence.

Dogs have always been known as man’s best friend. The Winnemucca virus did serious harm to that concept, and many speculated that it was engineered to seek out dogs, knowing that this would be the best initial host.

The virus had a one hundred percent fatality rate. The only way to avoid getting sick was to avoid the virus. This led to many walled of communities where strangers were met with violence. This did not keep the virus out; it travelled on the wind. More and more societies formed that lived completely closed off from the outside world.

Eventually people turned their gaze downward, and started plans to go underground.

Humanity started down a new evolutionary path.