“That doesn’t explain the people turning rabid,” Kala interjected again, and then shot Abigail an awkward glance.
“You’re right. These spiders are carriers of some kind of disease, probably a virus, that is entering the bloodstream through a bite. It could be holed up in the spider’s venom sac, then shoot up through a person’s central nervous system into the brain.” Jack took several long breaths, again wiping his forehead off. “It’s too soon for them to tell what happens at that point, but if it’s like rabies, it starts eating and shutting down things in the brain, turning whoever gets it into a kind of mindless maniacal monster.”
“So, the spiders probably have this disease and are infected, too?” Abigail asked in confusion.
“Exactly,” Kala answered.
“The spiders are far most aggressive than any normal species, so I think they’re sick. Plus, if you look at one, they are web building spiders. Their legs are made for stealthy stalking and carefully crafting intricate traps, not attacking things and chasing down prey. I don’t think they are acting as they would in their natural environment.” Jack paused to think about what he was saying before he continued.
“I think, just from my reading over the years, that this disease must attack the hypothalamus. As far as I know, there’s no coming back from something like that.”
Kala looked shocked. “That would affect change on everything: pain, hunger, aggression, even blood pressure and breathing.”
“God, Kala, why do you know so much stuff. I’m still trying to figure out how to do blood typing,” Abigail said.
Kala snorted, “Well, I do read.”
Abigail raised her eyebrows and flipped Kala off.
Three loud raps on the front door startled them.
“Pizza!” Luke shouted, holding up a very brightly colored drawing of the entire family eating pizza. “You guys are being boring.”
“I’ll get it,” Kala offered, rising from her seat and snagging the twenty-dollar bill she had on the table in front of her.
“Go with her Jack, in case one of the crazies is out there.”
“Right, yeah,” he muttered. Jack was clearly exhausted but he obediently got up to go with his daughter. When they reached the end of the hall and entered the living room, Jack stopped Kala.
“What’s up, Dad?”
Jack whispered to Kala. “I want you and Abigail to get out our hogging supplies, tonight.”
Kala’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? Those are supposed to stay locked up. You know how Mom feels-”
Jack put one hand on each of Kala’s arms, holding her in front of him. He continued to speak in a low, serious tone. “Kala, this thing is spreading, do you understand? Those doctors from the FBI and CDC are scared, Kala, I saw it with my own eyes.”
Kala slowly nodded. “Is this going to be like… doomsday?”
Jack let out a long breath. He started to say something several times, but couldn’t get the thought out. It was all the answer Kala needed. The knocking came at the door again.
“We just need to be ready, Kal.”
Now it was Kala’s turn to exhale a long breath. Jack released her and opened the front door. Their regular deliveryman was there, looking nervous. He made eye contact with the Wolfgangs, but his head was on a swivel, taking in the neighborhood around them.
“Have you seen any of them?” Jack asked the young man.
He nodded with a jerky motion. “I drove past one over on River.”
“River? Jesus, that’s only a few blocks from here.”
He nodded, “I called it in to 911.”
“That’s good, son, that’s good. Hey, maybe you should think about hanging up the pizza business until this blows over. I’d hate to see something happen to you out there.”
The pizza man was young. He had a light Cuban accent, tan skin, and jet-black hair. He was a nice looking young man. “I’m thinking about it, sir.” He held out the pizza to Kala, who gave him the twenty.
“Keep the change,” she said quietly. He nodded in thanks.
“Think harder about it,” Jack urged. “I’m serious.”
“Yes sir,” the young man answered. He had delivered to the Wolfgangs for three years as he worked his way through the last year of high school, then trade school. Another few months of classes and he would be a certified automotive technician. He smiled weakly at Kala before he left. He had always had a little crush on her, even though she was pretty young. Pizza delivered, he turned and walked back to his car.
“Be careful,” Kala called after him.
When Jack closed the door, he turned to Kala. “He’s too old for you.”
Kala blushed deeply, “God, Dad, shut up!”
Jack grinned and put his arm around her. “I love you, honey.” He kissed the side of her head.
“Ugh, Dad, seriously, you just wiped your nasty sweat all over me.”
He laughed at that and took the pizzas from her. “Let’s go, I’m hungry.”
“What’s taking so long?” they heard Abbie call from the kitchen.
Perhaps it was because she was so distracted, but Kala never mentioned the large spider she had captured just that morning.
“Did you know that I am married, doctor?” Marlon, the stone-faced FBI agent asked Ormiston.
“I had presumed, Marlon. You are the right age.”
“My wife is eight months pregnant with our first child.”
The doctor finally looked up at him, surprised by this personal exchange. Ormiston raised his eyebrow at the agent, waiting expectantly.
“She’s in Virginia, on bed rest. I’d really like to get back to her soon.” He fixed the doctor with a stare that was if possible, more intense than usual. “Am I going to make it back to her, doctor?”
The doctor held his gaze for a moment before looking over at the glass box on his desk. Inside was the only live specimen of the orange and black spider that was causing so many problems. The spider was still, but wary. It had been poked with needles, swabbed for cultures, weighed and measured. Each step along the way it fought them, fiercely. Now it just watched, and waited. When the doctor turned to look at the FBI agent, his eyes were watering. In his heart, he could feel the weight of this situation.
“I don’t know Marlon, I really don’t.”
Marlon’s head dropped down, and he cupped it in his hands. Neither man spoke for a full minute.
“Tell me,” Marlon said. “Please.”
The doctor shifted uncomfortably before he began to lay it out for the young agent.
“I lived and worked in Africa for twenty-five years, Marlon. It was an awful place. I’d like to say that after so many years I began to love the country, that I developed a connection with its vast and barren beauty. But I didn’t. Africa is like hell, a literal hell on Earth, Marlon, I shit you not.”
Marlon gave a half-hearted chuckle and a shrug.
“I worked with cholera and malaria for most of my career.”
“There’s still cholera? I thought that was eradicated?”
“Not in hell, it isn’t. Cholera is a bacterium, and it thrives in places with poor sanitation. It still kills people but since it is a bacterial infection, there are antibiotics and other medicines we can use to treat it. It’s fairly obvious when it strikes, so if the affected people have access to care, they can normally be saved.”
“Malaria is different. It’s caused by one of the oldest creatures on the planet, a parasite, and it kills more than half a million people every year. Although the parasite’s goals are simple, it is a remarkably complicated in how it achieves them. Even our most advanced treatments don’t work one hundred percent of the time.”
“Kind of like Lyme disease here in the U.S.”
“Tha
t’s right. I spent years studying that goddamn malaria parasite. I hated it for its lethality, and loved it for its elegance. It’s a formidable enemy, spread across that godforsaken continent by bloodsucking insects.”
The doctor paused. Marlon continued listening quietly. Then the doctor sighed.
“We’re running parallel tests, both on the victims and on the samples taken from this spider. I already know that it isn’t bacterial.”
Now Marlon spoke, “So it’s either a virus, or a parasite? Couldn’t it be the venom itself?”
“No, not at all. Venoms, including this one, are designed to destroy tissue or paralyze their prey.” When Marlon started to speak, the doctor continued over him, “We tested it already.”
Marlon nodded.
“We’re attempting to culture a virus in some kidney cells from a monkey, which usually provides good results. A virus would be really bad, Marlon, especially an RNA virus.”
“What’s an RNA virus?”
“Well, there’s a whole college course on that, agent, but to put it simply, an RNA virus is dangerous, unstable, and mutates quickly. They’re also prone to jump species, whereas DNA viruses are slow and stable and tend to stay within their hosts. If it’s an RNA virus, we definitely won’t be able to cure it. It will be traveling from infected person to infected person, and it looks like there’s about four hours from infection time until the symptoms really explode. All we can do is start isolating anyone that shows any symptoms.”
“And kill the spiders,” Marlon suggested.
“Of course, and kill the spiders.”
“What about a parasite?”
“See the lab coats over there?” the doctor asked, referring to those few on the other side of the room. “That’s what they’re looking for. They’re staining and examining blood, and they’re scraping the brain of the John Doe that the police brought us earlier.”
“What do you think it’s going to be?”
Ormiston scratched his bearded face. His eyes were unfocused, as they sometimes were when he was deep in thought. “It goes straight for the brain, Marlon. It gets in the blood and goes straight up, probably to the hypothalamus. That controls emotions like anger, sexual arousal, and sadness. It also regulates the body’s temperature, like a thermostat. Once the hypothalamus is destroyed, humanity might just…disappear. People who are bitten turn rabid, or insane perhaps. There’s no way to tell for certain what they’re feeling. I suspect that very soon one of those lab coats is going to turn around and tell me they found a bug eating the brain.”
“So if it is a parasite, there are drugs that can be used, I know that, so why does it feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”
“Because, Marlon, parasites are just as intricate as and even more complex than viruses. They can hide in many forms, and when they are introduced into a new ecosystem, their population can explode. I’m worried that what we are seeing right now is just the literal tip of the iceberg, and that beneath, there is a monster lurking.”
Marlon had no response to this.
“Think about this, Marlon, we know of over fifty people who have been infected, right?”
“Sixty-five.”
“So if this entity is highly transmissible, meaning that it travels easily from one host to another, then everyone who has had any type of contact with those sixty-five people has the potential to be infected as well.”
“And then each of those people could be transmitting to everyone they interact with.”
The doctor nodded resignedly. “And that’s not taking into account possible vectors.”
“What’s a vector?”
“You don’t want to know.” The aged doctor was thinking of Africa again.
Ormiston got up and walked across the room. Marlon followed. Ormiston pulled two sterile syringes out of their plastic and paper wrappings. “Sit down, Marlon.”
The agent looked nervous. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find out if any of us are going home.”
Chapter 14
Lt. Emily Brisbane felt broken. This, this ship, these murders, this infection, the spiders, it was too much for her. Brisbane was a tough woman and a hard-line Coast Guard officer, but there were certain things she just couldn’t quite deal with. One of her petty officers had died tonight, after she had sent him home to get some rest. I should have ordered him to go to the hospital, she thought.
The black SUV pulled up outside Emily’s apartment and she disembarked from the back seat. She mumbled her thanks to the driver, a crisp clean-cut FBI agent who could care less about her thanks. The SUV sped off, back to the bustling command post. Emily stared up at her building, momentarily lost in thought. I need a glass of wine. She just needed to compose herself. She was in shock now, but she would get her wits about her and tomorrow she would be back to kicking ass. Tomorrow she would have things under control. Just thinking about tomorrow made Emily feel a little better. She took a couple deep breaths of the humid air. It wasn’t refreshing, per se, but it reminded her that she was alive, and that was some kind of miracle in itself.
She had read an inspirational poster once that said, “Remember, you have a 100% success rate of dealing with bad days so far.” Emily liked that; it was cute and clever but honest. This is all just another thing, one more day, another of the many trials that are part of being human.
“I will be fine,” she said to herself. “I will take back control.” Emily grinned, but it actually looked like more of a grimace. “I will rise above all this.” She walked back up to her apartment, entered and closed the door behind her, thankful the FBI hadn’t kicked it down earlier.
Brisbane walked into her bedroom and stripped off the baggy sweatpants she had worn all day. She’d never gotten a chance to put on underwear or a bra, and now she was sweaty in all the wrong places. “Gross,” she muttered, heading for the bathroom. She snatched up a washcloth, got it wet, and passed it beneath her breasts to wipe off the sweat. She rinsed the cloth out then gently passed it between her legs. Almost as good as a shower, she thought.
Turning back to her room from the bathroom, she spied the yellow notebook on her nightstand. She hadn’t told the FBI about the Captain’s journal. That was probably not wise, but they had already determined where the ship had gone based on satellite imagery. It was a small island called Isla Perdida, they had said. Brisbane, of course, already knew that.
“I’m going to finish you tonight,” she said to the notebook. The notebook did not answer. Emily went into her kitchen and fished a half-empty bottle of California Blush out of the crisper, where it had been lying corked for a month. She took the bottle to her bedroom and set it on the nightstand. Then she pulled on a fresh white camisole and some cotton panties. She slid into her bed and pulled the notebook onto her lap. She drank and she read, and the story of the Darwin came to life for her.
We have finally made it to the island. Now, as my young wards say, the real adventure begins.
It was dark when the Darwin made landfall on Isla Perdida. The captain had carefully selected their landing site based on detailed satellite imagery that was provided to him. There weren’t any perfect ports for ships to make use of, but there was a small inlet that had enough of a beach for them to land. The island was ringed on two sides by steep cliffs, and large volcanic rock formations surrounded the rest of it. Those volcanic formations would tear apart the underbelly of a ship faster than an iceberg on an ocean liner.
The captain was nervous piloting the big craft in close to the island. Judging undocumented terrain based only on satellite images and a depth finder was nerve-racking, though he knew the sailors of long ago had none of that to rely on. Those salty dogs had only their instincts and their eyesight to guide them. That’s probably why so many of them ended up on the bottom of the ocean, he tho
ught darkly.
The captain guided the craft to within one hundred fifty yards of the thin stretch of black beach-head which would be their landing spot. From here they would shuttle in aboard a twenty-six foot Zodiac Hurricane, an enormous, rigid hulled inflatable with three giant outboard engines and an open bow. The craft looked like the jet-black rigid hulled inflatable boats, or RHIBs the Special Forces used, only larger. The landing craft could accommodate twenty people, but they had a lot of equipment, so they were going in groups of six, filling the rest of the open bow with equipment that had been vacuum sealed for waterproofing. Also there were eleven gear bags, one for each of the exploration party and one for the captain, who would be accompanying them on the island.
The kids, as he thought of the exploration group, had a lot of fancy gear. Some of it was smart, and dead useful. The gear bags were crammed with MREs and water, the most essential tools of survival. That, the captain approved of. After the food and water, there was a GPS beacon in each, just in case the person wearing the pack was injured. These beacons were not active unless the person actually turned them on, however. The captain pointed out that this was pretty useless, since if you were grievously injured, you may not be able to get to your beacon or turn it on. Each pack contained sampling gear: a small shovel (garden trowel), sampling gloves (cleaning rubbers), and a PDA tablet for taking notes (worthless hunk of plastic).
“What these bags need,” Captain Shuler said as they were unloading the last of the supplies from the RHIB, “is food, water, a knife and a compass. Maybe some matches, in case you weren’t a Boy Scout like me.”
Pathosis (A Dark Evolution Book 1) Page 10
