Death and The Divide

by Lara Nance

  She stepped onto the tarmac, still in the same black leggings and blue silk tunic from yesterday. Had only one day passed since they’d met at the wall? Then he realized he also hadn’t changed and chuckled. She probably needed sleep as badly as he did.

  He left the building and met her. “Ria, you made record time.”

  She shook his hand. Circles under her eyes darkened her face. “Seems the governments can work together when they have to. Tell me what you know so far.”

  “I have a truck over here. I’ll give you the details as we travel.”

  Her gaze widened. “You still use these gas-powered modes of transportation?”

  “Yeah, the South has a lot of petroleum resources that make it cheap.” He didn’t want to get into that. He had his own opinion of off-shore drilling, given its obvious effect on marine life over the years. But the government didn’t want to hear anything about that. Cheap gas allowed them to spend money on their military instead of researching new energy sources.

  Once inside the truck, she let out a sigh. “Are you as tired as I am?”

  He pulled from the lot and headed for downtown Cameron. “Exhausted. I got the call about this mess right when I walked in the door to my home from the trip. I caught a few hours on the transport here, but that’s it.”

  “More human victims?”

  “So far what we’ve tracked is a local fisherman brought back a load of shrimp and lobsters. He sold them to a seafood market who then sold them to a sushi restaurant. Everyone infected came from that restaurant, either having eaten or handled the shrimp, or worked on the boat.”

  “Dear Lord, that means it doesn’t have to be ingested?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but the suspicion is there. It could spread like the common cold through contact with something like mucous membranes that allows transmission inside the body. I personally think it still has to be ingested. The people who handled it could have licked their fingers after handling the shrimp. We don’t know for sure.”

  “Did you see Dr. Manson’s report on the virus in the parasite?”

  “Yes, I received it through the SatNet group a couple hours ago. I’m frankly stunned this transition is possible in a natural sense.”

  “Where are we on containment?”

  He took a deep breath. “That news isn’t as good. Local emergency response forces did react quickly, but they know of at least two people who escaped who showed signs of the infection before they left.”

  She turned in her seat to face him, her face pale. “Are you serious? There are infected people at large and this thing might spread by mere contact?”

  He gritted his teeth at her tone of accusation. As if the North would have done better at containment. “One of the men took a small boat to Monkey Island. There’s a large LNP facility there.”

  “LNP?”

  “Liquefied natural gas. We transport it from here to different areas of the South, and also internationally.”

  “Have you found him?”

  “A search of the facility is underway.”

  “And the other escapee?”

  “At least one person that the authorities know was infected escaped the town before the military had the containment perimeter secured. They have local and federal forces hunting him.”

  She slumped in her seat, staring through the windshield. She murmured, “Oh, no.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Something’s different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The other cases.” She gestured with both hands in a frantic manner. “The infected victims killed each other in a murderous cannibalistic frenzy. No one survived. These individuals escaping shows thought process based on survival. It required conscious deduction and sentience.”

  He slammed on the brakes as the horror of this implication exploded in full force. He searched her face, hoping not to hear the words but knowing they would come.

  She nodded, her eyes hollow holes of despair. “It’s mutating.”

  Chapter Ten

  Annaria waited for her Mom to answer. She needed to talk to people she loved. She needed grounding as this crazy scenario spun out of control. Beside her, Linc continued driving to the town, his expression set in grim lines. A muscle twitched occasionally in his jaw.

  “Hello?” Her mother’s voice made her sigh.

  “Hey, Mom. I wanted to give you an update. We had the meeting with scientists at the border yesterday, and then I was asked to join them in an investigation. I arrived in a transport a little while ago in Louisiana. Everything’s fine. Are you, Dad and Conner okay?” It was difficult to keep her tone controlled so her mother wouldn’t suspect the degree of her fear.

  “You’re in Louisiana?” Her mother’s voice rose an octave. “In the South?”

  “Yes, I had a special transport from the government. I’ll need to collect more tissue samples for Dr. Manson.”

  “Why didn’t he go instead of sending you? Doesn’t he know about Lola? That thing could be contagious, Ria. You need to get out of there. I just lost one daughter, I don’t want to lose another.”

  “I know you’re worried, Mom.” She bit her bottom lip. All this wasn’t fair to her Mom after losing Lola. But this situation couldn’t wait. If the parasite spreads, it’ll travel to the North. She could only downplay the danger to keep her mother from freaking out. “I’m not taking chances. This is routine, just part of my job taking samples from dead specimens. Okay? Please don’t worry. I’ll be home soon.”

  Her mother didn’t speak for several moments. Then she said in clipped tones, “Here, talk to Conner. He wants to say hello. Just…be careful. Okay?”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “Hey, Aunt Ria.” Conner’s small voice made her melt.

  “Hey, buddy. Are you taking good care of your Grampa and Gramma?”

  “Yes. I miss you.” His voice held a plaintive note she didn’t recognize.

  She fought a sob. “I miss you, too. I’ll try to come home soon and then you can come and stay with me, okay?”

  “Okay.” His voice cracked. “Mom’s funeral is tomorrow. We found a really nice container that looks like a phoenix. Gramma let me pick it out. Remember the story you told me about them, how they rise out of ashes? That’s what I hope happens to Mom.”

  She swiped at a tear escaping the corner of her eye. “I know. I remember. I hate that I have to miss the service. Will you make some images and send them to me?”

  “Yeah. I will. Just come home soon.”

  She ended the call as emotions threatened to overcome her already strained composure. She muttered, “My nephew…”

  “I understand. It’s hard to lose someone so close to you.” He gave her a sideways glance. “My brother died last year. It was especially hard because he was living in the North and I hadn’t seen him since we were sixteen. I miss him.”

  This had to be the twin Louis told her about. Her heart softened. “I’m sorry to hear that. Seems we have something in common with the untimely loss of a sibling.”

  “I guess so.” He remained silent until they reached a barrier in the road with red lights flashing off of military vehicles. Guards paced the area with serious looking blasters at the ready. He slowed, and one of the soldiers approached his window.

  The guard checked their I.D. chits along with the special permit allowing her on this side of The Divide and motioned them through the checkpoint.

  “The command post is in a school ahead.” He pointed to a block-shaped building painted beige.

  Past the school, a small town made her think she’d gone back in time at least fifty years. Shops and restaurants shaded by trees lined a picturesque main street devoid of technological trappings prevalent in any city in the North. No bathroom cubicles on the street, no mass transportation, only individual gas-powered cars and trucks. No tall apartment buildings crowded together. People here appeared to still live in small, single-family houses scattered around the periphery
of the town center. Idyllic, except for lumps in the street covered with red-stained white sheets under clear containment wraps.

  “How many?” she asked as he pulled to the curb at the school.

  “At last count, seventy-seven. Soldiers are going house to house. The remaining people are instructed to quarantine themselves in their homes.”

  They entered the hectic building and were directed to the gymnasium where a young man in his late twenties hurried to Linc. “They have the island locked down. No departing or arriving ships allowed.”

  “Thanks. That’s good news. Jeff, this is Annaria Moralez.” He motioned to her.

  “Good to meet you.” He shook her hand. “You work with Dr. Manson, right?”

  “That’s correct. Have you started taking tissue samples yet?”

  “No. Linc said to wait until you arrived.”

  “Good. I’d like to get started as soon as possible.” She glanced around the room where both military and civilian personnel scurried, unfolding tables for computer equipment and assembling clear containment units for infected survivors if they found any. Army medical staff in white uniforms directed the placement of their equipment. They had a portable MRI and a full body scanner. She relaxed a fraction.

  Jeff shot an anxious look at Linc. “We could start with the bodies on the street now that the containment units have arrived. It will take some time to transport them using the proper protocol.”

  She placed her bags on a side table and took her containment suit from her backpack. “I’d rather obtain the samples before they’ve been encapsulated for transport. I need some live parasites.”

  Linc nodded. “I agree. I’ll help you. Jeff where is my suit?”

  A glaze of relief covered the young man’s eyes. “I’ll get one for you.”

  “Good, then stay on top of what they find on the island.”

  “I will.”

  Finally enclosed in their protective gear, Annaria accompanied Linc out of the school and down the street to the first body. Two guards in their own form of protective suits stood with each of the victims. Their eyes held a spark of contained fear. She suspected no one had seen anything like this before. Even more terrifying than war, humans turned cannibal entered the realm of monsters and boogeymen—something in which these soldiers had no training. Fear of real life monsters had to be the worst kind.

  She lowered her sample kit to the pavement and knelt beside the body. Carefully, she unfastened the clear flexible material. With trembling fingers, she lifted the bloody sheet from the head. The entire left side of his face was chewed away, leaving a gaping white jawbone, as if the man still screamed in agony. One eye budged from its socket, a witness to unspeakable acts. Oddly, areas of flesh that remained of the face muscles appeared black and gelatinous. A gush of putrid smell, bad enough for a vestige to penetrate the filtered air of her suit, hit her like a vomit tsunami. Her stomach revolted, and she dropped the sheet in place. Was the parasite’s virus causing some strange rapid degeneration and rotting of the tissue. She hoped some samples would still be alive in the brain.

  Linc rested a hand on her shoulder. His muffled voice came through her headpiece. “That’s disgusting. Are you okay?”

  She swallowed sour liquid that had risen in her throat. Rule number one from her undergraduate years - never throw up in your containment suit. She managed a nod and pulled the white and red sheet aside. Using a small techno-probe, she placed a clear protective patch over a site on the head and held the probe against it. A push of a button had the probe ejecting its hollow center into the brain then retracting inside the tube with its tissue sample. She stowed it in a sealed container and continued to use probes to obtain samples of the other areas she needed.

  “Do you want samples from all the bodies?” he asked as he shot preservative encapsulation goo on the body.

  “No. A random sample is fine for my purposes.” Not to mention she couldn’t take much more of that horrible rot. “Will I be able to use one of the containment units to work when we’re finished?”

  “I’ll make sure of it. What do you make of that degeneration? That’s new. The other infected samples didn’t have it.”

  “Who knows. Maybe the damn thing is so smart it’s mutating to keep us from analyzing it by fouling the tissue.”

  He frowned and didn’t reply.

  They continued the grisly trail down the street, into a couple of houses, and into one coffee shop sophisticated enough for her city of Omaha. They found the sushi restaurant authorities alleged as ground zero. Surprisingly, this place had no victims. It stood empty and silent, she missed the typical sushi-joint smell of fish, soy sauce, and salty seaweed wraps in her protective suit. It would be a welcome change from the putrefied aroma of the bodies.

  “I want to take some of the seafood to analyze,” Linc said and began to wrap samples of shrimp, lobster, salmon and tuna.

  “I suppose the parasite doesn’t take hold of its host instantaneously since no one is dead in here. It will be important to know the timing between ingestion and symptomatic behavior.”

  “I’ll have the soldiers correlate the times on the purchases with the reports of outbreak,” Linc said. “It won’t be accurate but should give us a range.”

  She passed among the tables. Most were clean but a few contained hastily deserted meals. Pretty green paper cutouts decorated the rolls on one plate. Wasabi lumps soaked in brown pools of soy sauce. Politics aside, this quaint town appeared a great place to live. With no crowding, a person could have his own house and a yard for children to play in, and the air here was cleaner than that at The Divide. “This seems like such a nice little town.”

  “It is.” He gave her a quick glance then continued with his work. “A long time ago it wasn’t much of anything. Then Monkey Island was developed by the LNG company. A lot of their employees moved here. It made the economy boom, and they built places like the fancy coffee shop we just left and this sushi restaurant.”

  On the floor, a doll with curly blonde hair stared up at her with sightless china blue eyes. She guessed a little girl had lost it when rushed from the place as the military had come through, enforcing the quarantine. The poor child might be dead now—eaten by one of her parents. Ria shivered.

  She closed her eyes and wavered on her feet. Finding that house and those bodies would completely undo her. She couldn’t bear the idea of a child, maybe one close to Conner’s age, dismembered like the other bodies. “I think we have enough samples.”

  He came from behind the counter, and his gaze went to the doll and then to her. “Good idea. We’ll take these back to the command center.”

  They retraced their steps to the school, and she did her best not to look at the blood soaked bodies as they passed. When they arrived, they had to pause in a decontamination room before entering the gym. Jeff, his face strained and pale, waved to Linc across the room, motioning him over.

  “What news?” Linc asked, removing his hood as they joined Jeff at a bank of communication and computer equipment. A glass vid-panel showed a map of the town and surrounding area. Red and green lights blinked on its surface.

  She unfastened her hood, as well.

  “The LNG company has completed their search for the escaped man. He’s not there.”

  “Damn it!” Linc exploded. “Where is he?”

  “They don’t know, but the bad news is that a tanker left just before the lockdown was ordered.”

  “Where’s it headed?” she asked, clutching the strap of her sample bag like a lifeline in a storm.

  “India.”

  She and Linc shared horrified glances.

  “That boat has to be stopped,” she said. “This problem can’t go international.”

  Linc called to one of the military officers. “You heard about this tanker?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve already contacted the Coast Guard and other branches of the military,” the man said. “It can’t be too far, yet. We’ll catch it.”

&
nbsp; “You understand there is a man on board that has become a cannibal. There will need to be special instructions on capturing him.” Linc pointed to one of the newly erected containment units. “They’ll need something to keep him from infecting anyone until he’s brought back.”

  The soldier’s brows came together. “Sir, we have orders to shoot to kill. He’ll be brought back in a sealed body bag.”

  “What?” Ria exclaimed. “We need a live person to work on a cure. This is a priority.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I take orders from the President of the Republic of America, and he wants that man dead before he returns to land.”

  “Linc.” She grabbed his shoulder. “We need a live specimen.”

  The military man gave her a disdainful glance and left without waiting for further discussion.

  “I know.” He rubbed his chin. “People are scared. They aren’t thinking about anything but protecting further spread.”

  “Can’t you do anything?” If Manson had come… No, he could only throw his weight around in the North. He had as little influence here as she.

  “I doubt it,” he said. “I have no authority other than the committee, which was formed for research. The military is another matter.”

  “This is ridiculous.” She threw up her hands. “Our one chance to have a live specimen and they’re going to blow him away.”

  “I have a feeling we may have other chances at capturing someone. There’s still the one who escaped on land. I’ll start working on my contacts to make sure the president understands this isn’t just about the spread. We’ll also need a cure.”

  She pressed her palm to her forehead, still frustrated, but she couldn’t fight the system in this country. “Okay, okay. At least I can start working on what we collected today. May I use one of the containment units?”

  “Sure. I do have some control over that.” He led her to one with a table and some basic diagnostic equipment including a micro-viewer and some slide preparation units.