“Did you have other soldiers on the ground with you?”
Moranes nodded. “We landed with a Marine escort,” he said. “They shadowed us while we worked, and while the choppers kept top cover.”
“What were you looking for?” I asked. “What was the point of sending USAMRIID troops into areas like Fort Mill?”
“We were looking to measure the effectiveness of the artillery bombardment and the air bombing,” the Sergeant Major explained. “It was an intelligence gathering mission. We had biohazard bags and we went through the rubble collecting samples.”
“Samples?”
He nodded. “Pieces of zombie,” he said.
“That must have been…” my voice tailed off because I couldn’t think of any conceivable word that would be suitable.
“Gruesome,” Moranes said. “It was gruesome. We had multi-layer gloves. They were so thick we could barely grip anything, and we were foraging through the debris collecting limbs and heads – lots of heads. We bagged them all up and left them in a pile at an intersection for when the Black Hawks came back down to retrieve us.”
“And is that how you found the bodies – the civilians at Fort Mill?”
The Sergeant Major nodded. “Eventually,” he said. “We worked in teams, picking over the site. We didn’t comb through every building because we were sampling. One of the other men and myself found the dead in a basement.”
“Tell me about that moment,” I insisted in a gentle voice. “Describe to me what you saw.”
The Sergeant Major’s tone began gruff, like he was forcing the words from his throat. “The house had been blown apart by the bombing,” he said softly. “There wasn’t really anything left except piles of brick, covered in grey dust. The building must have taken a direct hit – there was rubble strewn across the lawn and pieces of the roof in a nearby tree. It was like the whole street had been torn to pieces by a twister.”
“And the people?”
He nodded. “The basement,” he said. “When we started picking through the debris we moved a pile of broken rubble. It was covering a small square door built into the floor, like a trap door. The door was broken and hanging off its hinges, so we were just staring down into a broken black hole. There were smears of blood on the wood.”
“And the people were down there?”
“There was a ladder. I climbed down.”
Moranes fell silent. I waited. He wrung his hands and then wiped them on his fatigues as though the sensation of what he had touched that day was still on his fingertips. “They were all dead, he said finally. Every one of them.”
“Were they killed by the bombing?” I prodded.
The soldier shook his head. “They had suffocated,” he said, as if it was the most remarkable and bitterly ironic moment he had ever witnessed. “There had been an air vent to the basement concealed in the back yard amongst the plants of a garden. It had been blocked off by falling debris from the shelling. The people had tried to claw their way out through the trap door, but they couldn’t shift the rubble. The basement had become their tomb.”
It was so cruel. The people in that dark hole had survived for months while the zombie plague had raged above them. Then they had been killed by the very same bombardment that would have liberated and saved them.
“How many?” I asked.
“A man, a woman and six children,” Moranes said. “They were all laying in bunks, as though they had been sleeping.”
“And you’re sure they died of suffocation?”
The man nodded. “The basement was an enormous underground kind of bunker. The people must have been preppers. They had canned foods, plenty of fresh water…”
“Just no luck,” I said.
Moranes nodded like I had uttered some deep and meaningful universal truth. “That’s right,” he said with an empty voice. “Just no luck.”
I left it at that. I closed my notebook and stuffed it back into my bag. Moranes seemed surprised that the interview had ended so abruptly. He looked up into my face, and there was a twist of puzzlement across his mouth. “Is that all you wanted to know about – that family in Fort Mill?”
I shrugged. “Is there anything else that happened on that day you wanted to talk about?”
Moranes looked blank. “I… I just thought you wanted to interview me about the heads – the zombie heads,” he said.
I frowned, and there was a sudden tingle of something up my spine. Maybe it was a journalistic instinct. Maybe it was just a sense of premonition. I sat back down again and lied.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m sorry. I was so drawn in by the tragic story of that poor family, I completely forgot. The zombie heads. That must have been a defining moment in the war against the undead, right?”
I hoped so.
I was going out on a limb, feigning knowledge. Sergeant Major Moranes knew something, and he clearly thought that I knew the same information.
I didn’t.
“Yeah, I guess it was,” he admitted. “When we were out there in the field, gathering the remains, we all thought it was purely for analysis of the skulls. You know – trying to determine the effect of our artillery by the impact wounds and evidence of fragmentation.”
“Of course.”
“It was only later that it occurred to us all that we were actually gathering the first samples of undead for scientific analysis,” he said. “The Battle of Rock Hill was the first time the Army went into the field and collected extensive specimens that could be analyzed by the USAMRIID scientists.”
I furrowed my brow. “Didn’t the Army have other undead corpses that they were studying – trying to trace the cause of the infection and work on antidotes before then?”
“No,” Moranes shook his head.
“But what about the Battle of Four Seasons? That was months before Rock Hill. There was a hundred thousand of the undead spread across the ground. Surely other USAMRIID teams went through the remains and gathered samples for analysis.”
“No,” Moranes said again.
“Why?”
“The infection was still spreading – it hadn’t reached saturation point,” the Sergeant Major explained. “The zombies were still killing survivors, infecting them during those first weeks and months of the outbreak. Our scientists had to wait until there were no more people left; to be sure the virus wasn’t a mutation. We needed a pure strain of the infection before we could determine its origins. That’s why we were on the ground that day along the I77.”
It had indeed been a pivotal moment – a turning point in the history of America. Without the gruesome work done by men like Julio Moranes, the western world would never have ultimately traced the virus back to Iran’s insidious act of terror.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS:
It was one of those little streets that looked like it had been photographed for a travel brochure. Golden leaves fell from the trees and drifted into the gutters, and as I climbed the steps and tapped lightly on the door I could hear the strains of classical music from within.
A young man answered the door. He had a narrow serious face and a pallid complexion, as if he hadn’t been out in the sunshine for months.
“Culver?”
“Yes.”
The room he led me into was a jumble of books and files – an organized chaos that had taken an adult lifetime to accumulate. Somewhere under the mess, I was sure there was furniture. Two of the walls were lost to full-length bookcases, and a ladder on rollers that allowed access to the shelves near the ceiling. The room smelled of dust, and yesterday’s cat food. There was a window set into the wall opposite, and beneath the misted panes of glass sat Professor Igor Vavilov.
Vavilov was a stick figure – a thin fragile looking man with stooped shoulders in a dark grey suit that was rumpled and too large for his slight frame. He had a face full of wrinkles and more hair sprouting from his ears and nostrils than on his head. He looked as though he was a hundred years old, his skin like the musty p
archment of the ancient books that surrounded him.
In the wedge of light that spilled in through the window was a stainless steel flask of steaming coffee, several slices of buttered toast, and a plate of eggs and sausage all balanced on a silver tray.
Vavilov looked up at me as I was led into the room. He had a mouth full of food. He pointed to a chair I hadn’t noticed with a fork.
“You want coffee?” Vavilov asked me around a chunk of sausage. He had a thick eastern European accent.
“Sure,” I said.
He poured from the flask and handed me a chipped enamel mug with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it. Then he sat back in his chair and clasped his hands across his emaciated stomach contentedly.
I sipped at the coffee. It was thick and sweet, not a flavor I had tasted before. Maybe he imported the stuff.
“So,” he said as I set the cup down and pushed it a couple of inches away from me, “Russian coffee is not to your liking, eh?”
I made an apologetic face. “I think it’s an acquired taste,” I replied politely.
Vavilov chuckled – a wheezing sound that rasped from bad lungs. “But you won’t drink any more to acquire the appreciation necessary, right?”
I nodded. “I think it would take more than one cup.”
He made that same asthmatic sound again, then pursed his lips. His eyes were bright and cunning within the deep folds of his withered skin. I could imagine him leaning over a chessboard, his skeletal claws moving pieces with the deftness of a master. Not a man to be underestimated.
Vavilov flicked a glance at the young man who had escorted me into the room, and then gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “That will be all for now, Dimitri,” the old professor said. “I think Mr. Culver wants to talk to me in private, yes?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said.
The young man disappeared like he was part of a conjurer’s magic act. I didn’t even see him go.
The room was silent. I could hear the tired old bookshelves creak and groan under the weight of all they carried. Tiny motes of dust drifted in the air. Vavilov dropped his chin onto his chest in a contemplative gesture and then raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. He had an egg stain on his tie. He brushed at it with the tip of a finger and then sighed.
“What do you want?” he asked at last. He spoke very slowly. Perhaps it was because his accent was so thick. Every word was carefully measured on his lips before uttered.
“I wanted to talk to you about your work on the zombie virus,” I said. “I’m fascinated to learn more about your involvement in the analysis of the outbreak, and the information you passed on to the CIA.”
Vavilov nodded his head sagely. He had known exactly why I was here. I had explained it all several times to his assistants before being granted the interview.
“Da,” he said. Somewhere in the house the classical music ended abruptly. He seemed reluctant, or perhaps he was in no hurry. “Do you know who Napoleon Bonaparte was?” Vavilov asked me suddenly.
“Of course,” I said.
He nodded again, and heaved himself upright in the chair with the kind of grunts and groans that suggested this required a major effort. “Bonaparte blazed a trail of death and destruction through Europe for almost twenty years,” Vavilov said. His eyes went to a bookshelf for no apparent reason, then darted back to mine. “Countless people died on battlefields and in the streets. No country seemed untouched by the little Corsican’s deathly touch.”
I didn’t say anything. I just sat and listened to what I assumed was an old man’s ramble. Vavilov paused dramatically. “They called him the first Antichrist,” the professor said. “And they called Adolf Hitler the second Antichrist.”
“Yes,” I said patiently at last. “I know.”
Vavilov nodded his head. “When I learned of this virus, the horrible infection that had come to America, I was suspicious,” he admitted. He closed his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched and one of his eyebrows seemed to take on a life of its own. Then the old man fixed me with an intense gaze. “I thought that the man behind this act of terror must surely go down in history as the third Antichrist,” he said.
I leaned forward. “So you knew, right from the outset of this zombie infection, that it was a man-made strain? You knew this was not the same kind of epidemic as Ebola, or any of the other contagious infections that have swept the world?”
Vavilov started to shake his head in denial, and then stopped. “I had my suspicions,” he said softly.
“Why?”
Vavilov tapped at his temple with the tip of his finger, then lapsed into secretive silence.
“You worked at the Institute of Ultra Pure Biochemical Preparations in Leningrad with Professor Vladimir Pasechnik back in the 1980’s didn’t you?”
Vavilov nodded. He said nothing, but his eyes narrowed shrewdly. I heard a little catch of his breath.
“And you were Pasechnik’s right-hand man.”
Professor Vavilov shook his head. “No,” he said. “There you are wrong, Mr. journalist. “I was the KGB’s man in the facility.” He laughed then, a loud, high-pitched guffaw. The humor was lost on me. “Pasechnik was a fool,” Vavilov said contemptuously. “A brilliant man – but a fool.”
“Why?”
“He thought the research at the Institute was to benefit mankind. He thought we were working on antidotes to biological substances that would be used to fight their outbreak.”
“What kind of substances?”
“The plague.”
“But you weren’t?”
“No,” Vavilov said, like the answer should have been obvious. “The facility was used to develop biological weapons. Our research was being used to create a means to modify cruise missiles so that they could deliver payloads of plague-like infections to our enemies.”
“You mean the USA?”
He laughed again, but this time with less conviction. “My friend, in those days Mother Russia had many enemies.”
I sat back thoughtfully. This man had worked closely with the CIA in hunting down the origins of the zombie infection, and tracing it back to Iran. There was something I was missing.
“What aroused your suspicions,” I tried. “There must have been something that first raised a warning.”
Vavilov nodded his head. “The CIA and some of your USAMRIID scientists came to visit me,” he said. “But by then I had already begun to wonder. Once I saw the data they had gathered from the infected bodies… it was apparent to me that the original strain of infection was a created of evil.”
“A creation?”
“Creation,” he corrected himself. “It was not of this world. It was created in a laboratory.”
I got my notebook out. “Can you tell me more?” I asked. Outside the sky was darkening. I could see storm clouds building on the horizon through the window behind Vavilov’s back. The room suddenly became gloomy, like a light had been turned off. The hushed sound of the big rambling house turned eerie.
“When I was at the Institute – long, long before the Berlin Wall came down and I defected to the West – several of the scientists were tasked by the government to create a new strain of infection – something that mankind could in no way prepare for. We gave the project a special name and the work produced several promising pathogens that we called the F1 smyert.”
“Smyertch?” I tried the word. It sounded awkward on my tongue.
“Death,” Vavilov said. “We called them the F1 deaths.”
“What did F1 stand for?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Formula,” he said – but I got the sense that he was lying, or embellishing the real meaning. I didn’t pursue the matter.
“Did Vladimir Pasechnik know of this work? Did he head up the research?”
“No,” Vavilov spat with sudden contempt. “The man was a romantic!” He waved his hands in the air like a conductor before an orchestra. “He had no idea for many months what we were working on, and by then, the plague mutations
we were creating were already in the advanced stages of development.”
Despite myself I reached out and took another sip of the coffee. It tasted just as bad as the first mouthful. I stared into the mug for a moment, wondering if I could see grains of dirt.
“What happened to the F1 pathogens?” I asked quietly.
For a very long time, professor Vavilov said nothing. He seemed distracted by the storm that was gathering outside. He kept his eyes fixed on mine, but his senses were attuned to the rising sound of the wind and the changing temperature.
“They were abandoned,” he said guardedly.
“Abandoned? Just like that?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t believe him, and he knew it.
“You had several promising strains of plague-like pathogens under development… and the government ordered you to stop the research, right at the height of the Cold War?”
I might as well have said, “Are you kidding me?”
Vavilov shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He crossed his legs, and then reached a long arm for a crumpled packet of cigarettes. He lit one and became fascinated by the feather of smoke that crawled towards the ceiling.
“They were stolen,” he said at last.
“Stolen? By who?”
“You mean by whom.”
“Whatever,” I snapped brusquely. The man was stalling. I had the feeling he had told me more than intended, and now he was looking for a way to wriggle out of the mess he had begun to unravel.
“Who stole the pathogens?”
“His name was Glavinoski,” Vavilov said. “He was a drunk and a notorious womanizer. He was one of the scientists at the facility who was working on the F1 project.”
“Did you know this man?”
“Da.”
“Why was he employed if he was a drunk?”
Vavilov shrugged. “The facility employed over four hundred scientists and support staff, Mr. American journalist,” the old professor’s tone became belligerent and grating. “Glavinoski might have been a drunkard, but in Russia that is not such a big thing. He was also a genius.”
I could guess the rest. “You told the CIA about this man and your suspicions after you analyzed the data they brought to you a few months ago, and they since traced him to Iran, didn’t they?”
Zombie War: An account of the zombie apocalypse that swept across America Page 22
