Hunt for the Holy Grail

by Preston W Child

  “So we can observe him. I have to observe him!”

  The major staggered over to the tub. He barked orders in Spanish. The ailing soldier's eyes were turning up, the whites streaked with tiny red capillaries as the soldiers bundled him and dragged him into the room.

  They threw him in and shut the door, just before he sprang towards the door, barging into it with superhuman strength. He was becoming rabid, teeth-baring, eyes like a wild animal.

  His comrades watched him jump at the hard glass.

  The crew and soldier watched in dismay as the lad hunkered down behind the glass.

  —

  “You ever watched a zombie film?”

  Dazed, Olivia crouched in a corner. Peter joined her, but she hardly was aware of the others. It was all like a dream, the events of the past few minutes. And the soldiers coming and going about, her crew members huddled in the middle of the room. It was like watching a movie. In slow motion.

  “Huh?”

  “I saw one last summer,” Peter went on. “Zombieland. I was visiting friends in Alberta. It was shitty, a burlesque parody of the other classic zombie films. Nothing like this—”

  “Is he gonna make it?” Olivia asked suddenly.

  “Don’t even know what he’s got yet.”

  Nicolai strolled over with his flask of vodka. He drank from it and gave it to Peter who pushed it away. Olivia took the flask and drank. The hotness traced fire down her throat.

  Frank Miller’s parka was torn in the arm. His hair was wet from the tub episode. He looked lost. He glanced briefly at the carcass of the rocket on the platform.

  He looked at Olivia.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I guess.”

  His tired eyes appeared to take stock of the mess. At the mad soldier behind the glass.

  “We should wrap this up,” Miller said. “We've had enough.”

  “You think the major would let us go now?” Olivia asked.

  “Not very likely,” Peter said. He looked at the glass. “Not when we have that guy trying to kill himself.”

  The sick soldier had begun another outburst against the glass. He looked paler and madder. He hit the glass with a bone-creaking bang. He was now bleeding from the places on his face where he’d banged his skull on the glass.

  Those watching shivered in terror.

  —

  Still in shock from how events had quickly switched from a lively exploration to a freak show, and yet trying to ignore the fact that this could be a major outbreak, Olivia took pictures of the sick soldier. She made notes, and got dragged out of the rocket room by Peter.

  They had to settle down and decide what to do.

  Miller once again appealed to the major about leaving but he insisted on getting such others from his superior.

  “Can you get on the phone then?” Frank Miller said. “We really have to wrap up and leave.”

  The major walked away scratching a red spot on his forearm. Miller had seen another soldier scratching his face. But he wouldn’t make the connection. Olivia Newton would.

  Olivia distracted herself again by taking photos. She followed the crew around, she followed the soldiers, questioned anyone who would give answers. Mostly, her camera was attached to her face.

  She was back in the rocket room, having questioned almost all the soldiers except the major himself, who had been grumpy lately.

  Grumpy was what they all did, yes.

  Yet. There was something. Olivia’s mouth opened in dawning realization. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, her skin crawled as she brought her camera down from her face. At first, what she saw through the lens was normal, until she looked at it with her own eyes.

  Five of the soldiers had a case of the itches.

  Five all at once. Her first urge was to flee immediately. But that would definitely draw attention. Then she took more photos. This time she made sure to capture all five in one shot.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  —

  “I think there is an outbreak here, Peter.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Shush, keep it down!” Olivia gripped his hand tighter. “I have seen it. A red patch on their bodies. They scratch it. I saw five soldiers with the same symptoms. It couldn’t be a coincidence now, could it?”

  Miller and Victor Borodin were making plans for a possible breakout in the event that things get out of hand with the sick soldier, or the crew gets detained for longer than necessary. The two men conferred with each other. Nicolai was already putting his boxes together and it seems the crew may have to make a run for it soon.

  “We have to let others know,” Peter hissed.

  “Yes, but what are we gonna tell them? Besides, the major may shoot us all, thinking we are all carrying whatever disease this thing is.”

  Peter shivered. Since they arrived at the facility, everyone had changed in some way. The billionaire had lost his perfect gentleman touch, his trimmed beard now bushy. Peter’s face was gaunt, his eyes haunted.

  Olivia had caught her own reflection in the glass as she left the rocket room. She hadn’t recognized the terrified face that looked back at her. She had quickly checked in a corner, felt around her body for any unusual lesions, bruises, or patches. She had even felt around her breasts for lumps. You never know with these things.

  “Come on, we have to warn the others.”

  Peter pulled her up.

  —

  A solemn quiet descended on the group.

  Olivia looked at Nicolai and thought ruefully that now was a good time to sing a dirge. The Russian, however, was preoccupied with the present predicament, as was everyone.

  Frank Miller brushed his hair with his hands. He looked tired and haggard. Olivia’s stomach rumbled. They hadn’t eaten for most of the day.

  “We have to go on now as though the soldiers are all infected—” Miller was saying.

  “If only I could get in the laboratory,” said Anabia Nassif, “maybe I could find an antidote or make one.”

  “Could you make one in the short time?” Olivia asked him.

  The man looked straight at her. “We will never know if I never even try.”

  They were in their sleeping quarters. The only sound was the scream of the bedsprings. Olivia wished for even a drop of whiskey. A game of chess with her cat Smokey. And the feel of her sofa with the sound of the street coming up to her room. She missed her life as it was.

  Frank Miller paced the middle of the room. He bit his lower lip in deep thinking. Liam Murphy said maybe they could just wait for night, “then take their guns—the soldiers’, that is—and run. Their transport must be somewhere around.”

  “And risk running into another ambush?” Ted Cooper countered. “No thanks, genius.”

  “Then why don’t you come up with a smarter idea, Ted, since you seem to know everything.”

  Miller called for calm. “Let's not make it harder on ourselves than it already is. Whoever the major takes orders from is coming. We wait for them and see where we go from there.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not a very smart idea either,” Ted spoke up. “Whoever they are, what if they just wanna shoot us? What if they get here and decide we are all infected and try to clean the place?”

  “It is unlikely,” Miller said.

  “You know something we don’t?”

  “Do you?”

  The two eyed each other for many seconds.

  Now there is something there, thought Olivia.

  —

  For all they knew, this disease was highly contagious. It was in the air. Or it could be communicable by mere touch. Or it could have come from any of the rooms in the facility. But at any rate, Nassif argued, the only way to find out was to go back to the lab that the major had shut them out of.

  The major shook his head. “No, I have orders to not allow you in there.”

  He scratched his arm by rubbing it gently. Nassif held himself f
rom peeking at the man’s eyes. Detection was always in the eyes.

  Nassif joined his group five minutes later. He threw his hands up.

  “He is adamant.”

  The group sighed.

  —

  His real name was Juan Santiago. Major Juan was sick. He knew it. He could feel the monster that had taken over Luigi inside him already. Squirming. He felt feverish, and very thirsty.

  And that itch on his arm. It had suddenly shown up without cause. Four of his men had it too. He sat on a table in the laboratory. The one that the admiral ordered to not let the Americans stay in. The admiral said this lab was very important to him.

  Juan pulled his sleeve up. The red patch had gotten redder. And more irritable.

  In his other hand he held his talkie. He was going crazy with a personal dilemma.

  Should he disobey a direct order and let the scientists in here so they can figure out an antidote, or wait for the admiral to arrive?

  Besides, Admiral Huebner was taking longer than expected.

  He pressed a button on the talkie. “Hello.”

  “Everything going according to plan?” Huebner asked.

  “No, sir,” Juan said. “My men are sick—”

  “What’d you mean sick? What happened in there?!”

  Major Juan Santiago told him.

  —

  It has to be that or nothing the major said made sense. That facility could not come to life except by human design.

  Admiral Huebner had just told Major Juan Santiago that the American scientists were responsible for the disaster. They blew the disease in the air.

  “You can’t trust them to provide an antidote for a disease they created, they want what’s in the lab!” he had told him. “but I know where the antidote is in the lab. You wait for me, you hear me? Don’t let them out! You understand?”

  Major Juan Santiago said he understood.

  The admiral threw the talkie in a corner. The Americans were on the ice. The ice was enough of a prison. People didn’t just up and enter where they hadn’t been invited and then hoped to leave the same way. No. Here, he was king.

  His exec stared with anxious eyes at the ocean line. “Sir, two hundred miles and closing.”

  “Let them come.”

  “They are going to think we’ve been jacked, sir.”

  The admiral laughed. He turned the notion over on its side, it did look like it. The implication was that he would be boarded. Forcefully.

  And if that happened, he could lose his head, for he couldn’t explain away his dropping off the exit and refusing to communicate. Still smiling, he said, “I thought you had the stomach for this, Vasquez?”

  Vasquez looked from the admiral and back to the Spanish retribution coming. He adjusted his posture. “Er, I am ready sir.”

  The exec didn’t sound convincing.

  It wasn’t a problem though. Huebner had a plan. His plan was to divert what was supposed to be his punishment for disobeying the Americans and achieve his own purpose.

  “Relax, Vasquez. Relax.”

  —

  Ted Cooper was not relaxed.

  No one relaxes with the sort of thoughts in his mind. He sat by himself. He followed the debate by the crew with as much interest as he could muster. Which is little. He had been talking with Admiral Anton Huebner, secretly. His suspicions have always been that their little expedition would meet an obstacle like this.

  Frank Miller and his infantile notions. Here on the Antarctic, even all his money could not buy him passage. Not with Admiral Huebner.

  Huebner was vengeful. A filibuster. Olivia was going to get a rude awakening when the admiral gets here. Meanwhile, Ted Cooper schemed.

  Olivia’s eyes met his. He shrugged.

  “What do you think, Professor?” she asked.

  Ted hadn’t listened to the last couple of words spoken so he shrugged again. But the journalist was a persistent bitch. Her eyes wouldn’t leave his.

  “I think our objective now should be how to get them on our side,” Ted said.

  “Get who on our side?” She frowned.

  He gestured at the door. “The ones here, the soldiers, of course.”

  The crew all murmured their agreement. Yeah, it was a good suggestion. Miller and Liam Murphy and Peter Williams, they all agreed. Olivia was still frowning. There was something in his eyes.

  She wrote something in her notebook.

  Ted got up and said he needed to get some air. Olivia wrote again. This time she wrote, Get some air? Where?

  Beside that question was the previous one: Ted said we should get the ones here on our side.

  She showed it to Peter Williams. At first he frowned too, not quite comprehending. Then his eyes brightened.

  “Shit.”

  Olivia nodded. “Exactly what I thought. Ted knows something. I bet he ruined the satellite back at the campsite during the storm—”

  “I thought Miller did that to himself.”

  “Me too.”

  Olivia said more urgently, “Something big is about to happen here, Peter. And Ted is the instrument. We can’t trust him. He leaves at odd hours and comes back anytime he wants to. He moves freely, but the rest of us can’t—”

  “I have seen too,” Nicolai said in her face. He looked ragged. Half his former self.

  Olivia and Peter shared a look.

  “What have you seen?” Olivia asked.

  “All the soldiers are sick, they turn to zombie.” Nicolai grabbed Peter’s hand. “But we can leave before it spreads to us. We can leave, now!”

  Spittle hung in the corners of the Russian's cracked lips. His eyes looked like they would fall out any minute. Olivia shivered.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Nicolai swallowed some from his flask. That flask never dries, thought Olivia. He glanced back at the rest of the crew, walking about the room. Frank Miller was lying down on his bunk. Anabia Nassif had found a pen and paper and was scribbling furiously.

  Nicolai looked at Olivia and Peter. “The U-boat,” he whispered. “That is how we get out.”

  “Nicolai, that boat is unfinished.” Peter shook his head. “We don’t even know if it even works.”

  The Russian gritted his teeth. “I know it can work, I have seen the mechanics. I can make it work!”

  “Even if you could, Nicolai, we could never get to it.” Olivia touched the Russian. “The soldiers are going to make sure we don’t get near that boat. And now that they are sick, they could just shoot us all.”

  Nicolai was not giving up. He grabbed Peter’s hand. “I know you can make Mr. Miller agree. If you tell him I can do it. Tell him, Peter.”

  Peter looked at the prone Miller on the bed. He sighed.

  Ted Cooper strolled in then.

  —

  Ten minutes before:

  “Even you are coming down with it, Major. If I have any sense at all I should be out of here, kayaking in the Andes or something. I mean, I could get infected just talking with you.”

  “What do you want?”

  Ted Cooper moved back a step. “Cooperation.”

  “Why should I trust you? You are worse than a house rat, Professor.”

  “I'm not a rat, Major,” Ted said, rubbing his palms together. “I am what you call an industrialist. You see, Miller, he is a rat, he and his little crew of scientists. Rats move with rats. And rats only want the food for the day. They don’t store, or save for the rainy day.”

  He licked his lips. The rabid guy in the locked room behind the glass was at it again. He banged his head on the glass. The major winced. It made a sickening sound. Blood spattered the glass and ran down it.

  “I want the big meat, Major Santiago. That’s why I’m here. I want to help you get well and you help me get to the motherload.”

  Juan Santiago watched Ted from under red eyes. The itch in his hand was getting worse. But he was in a place now where he could not afford to be vulnerable. This American was negotiating.


  Americans always fucked you in negotiations.

  “There is no motherload.”

  “Oh yes there is, and Admiral Anton Huebner is on his way to claim it. But what about you, huh, don’t you want something? Everybody wants something!”

  Santiago gave up then. He pulled the sleeve of his fatigues and his nails went to work. When he was done, the sight wasn’t pretty.

  “Aw, now that is not how a man should live,” Ted whispered.

  The major moaned in pain. He cracked his neck. He felt a little better. That had been working, relieving the pain in the spine and head. The other infected soldiers were doing it too.

  “Now here’s a proposal, Major. You let me in there, in that lab with all the documents and important formulas and stuff, you know. I get the doctor in my crew to create an antidote—”

  “You are a cheap liar too.” Santiago shook his head. He spat on the floor.

  It was sputum, a yellow glob.

  “Okay, I was saying, I get the doctor to make you an antidote and I return. You let me in there before the admiral gets here. He’ll never know I took anything. Simple.”

  “Your billionaire could make a better deal—”

  “Miller?” Ted scoffed. “You don’t understand, Major. Miller isn’t going to make it. I don’t think so.”

  Santiago’s yellowing eyes wavered. He rose slowly from the table he had been sitting on. Two of his men sat against the wall like a torpedoed ship.

  He sighed.

  “I will fuck you up, if you don’t deliver.”

  “I will,” Ted said, walking away.

  —

  Frank Miller reasoned that if they stayed longer they also would come down with the disease that’s in the facility. Therefore, two things were needed.

  “One, we need weapons,” he said, counting off on his fingers. “Two, we need to understand this disease—”

  “An antidote,” Anabia Nassif put in.

  “Yes.”

  “And how about why we are here?” Ted asked. “The research in that lab?”

  “This disease is the research, Professor Cooper,” Nassif pointed out. “If we find an antidote while here, we have achieved something. Hell, who knows if one of us or several is already infected?”