by TJ Forester
She gave him an incredulous look. “You say that you’ve actually seen this?” Sherena was having a difficult time believing him.
“Yes!” he said vehemently.
“You do realize how ridiculous you sound, don’t you?”
He nodded. “But then how many people do you think would believe you if you told them you were just murdered?”
She thought about that for a moment before conceding. “All right, let’s say that I believe you about patient zero. I know for a fact that the others are being intentionally infected in the ER. What is your explanation for that?”
He looked out the window and let out a deep breath. “I can only guess at that one, and I find it hard to believe that the director of the CDC is involved.”
“If it’s passed by bite, why don’t they just let patient zero out of his tube so that he can have at it, if they want to spread it.”
“Too uncontrolled, I assume.”
“You sound as if you’re okay with this—” she accused “—this is inhumane in its vilest form.”
“No way am I ‘okay’ with this”— he argued —“I haven’t seen you’re evidence that they’re coming from the ER.”
She scowled at him and was about to say something but he held up his hand to stop her.
“I suppose being murdered for what you know is proof enough—” he touched her arm gently “—I’m sorry for doubting you. How do you know that anyway?”
She explained what she had found out in medical records and then said, “I’m starving. I think this fast healing is having an impact on my metabolism. Have you got any food around here? I don’t think I should run down to the diner just now.”
“That’s for sure. I’ll see what I have.”
She followed him into the kitchen. “Logan, what you’re describing sounds like…I don’t even want to say it. It’s too bizarre to believe but what you describe sounds like zombies. I don’t believe in that. Surely, there is something more…I don’t know, logical.”
He pulled his head out of the fridge and said, “If you had seen patient zero in action—” he nodded his head “—then you would believe in zombies. I can’t say that’s what they are but I don’t have a better description.”
She just shook her head, “This is all so surreal.”
“Yeah—” he handed her a Coke “—but at least we know it’s a disease and it doesn’t spread as fast as those movies where they get bit and two seconds later they are totally transformed. It’s fast but it takes longer than that.”
“How fast do they change?” she asked, wishing that she didn’t know about any of it.
“Well, when they are bit they begin to change within minutes but they still seem to be able to think and control their behavior a little for about a half an hour—” he thought about it “—then they die and the virus takes over completely within an hour.”
“That’s incredibly fast for a virus, but…the patients in the ER just died. They didn’t display any change at all.”
He furrowed his brow. “I did think it was odd that the victims they were bringing the last couple of months showed no sign of change initially—” he took a bite of his sandwich “—I just assumed they were catching the disease sooner and isolating them to prevent the spread. Even in the tubes, the slow metabolic rate doesn’t stop the progression entirely.”
“So they decompose more as the disease progresses, why? Most diseases depend upon the host being alive. How is it that it kills them and then still spreads?”
“That is one of the things that I’ve been researching. It seems that the virus actually feeds on the victim—that’s why they decompose—when their body is completely gone—” he shrugged“—well, I think if they got to that stage they would die completely. The reanimation should stop anyway but we haven’t had a patient get to that point.”
He thought about that for a moment. “At least not one that they have told me about,” he added. “Sherena, I need to get a copy of all your notes. We need to work together on this—” he took her hand in his “—clearly there are some very bad people involved but that is all the more reason to find a cure and stop the disease. Believe me, if this ever got out as a pandemic, it would be a worse nightmare than any horror film.”
“You’re right. I will help you but where can I work? —” she questioned him “—I can’t go back to my lab.”
“This place has a basement. We can set up a makeshift lab in there for you—” he motioned to some stairs she hadn’t noticed before “—I can run any tests you can’t for you and we can collaborate in the evenings when I get home.”
“So you just expect me to live here?” she asked.
He cocked his head. “Do you have a better idea?”
She thought about it. “Not really—” she met his eyes “—but keep in mind we are just working together and…only friends.
He nodded. “You said there was a patient that looked at you?”
“Yes, if they are in order of when they were infected—” she thought about it “—it would be your patient zero.”
His eyes widened. “Listen, I’ve got to get to the lab now. Where are your notes on your research?”
She hesitated only a moment, still not a hundred percent sure she could trust him, but she was realizing that she had no other choice.
“My notes are in my apartment—” she looked down at the scrubs she was wearing “—my key should be with my personal belongings in the morgue. When you go to my apartment, get me some clothing please.”
***
Logan was gone for several hours. When he returned, he had her notes and a selection of clothes for her. His face was ashen.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He met her eyes gravely. “Patient zero—” he shook his head “—he’s gone!”
Chapter 12
“The main dangers in this life are the people who want to
change everything - or nothing." Lady Astor
~
“What do you mean he’s gone?”
Sherena ran up the few stairs between them. She had been working on setting up the lab area in the basement.
Logan had panic written all over his face. “I’m the one who monitors them and I was busy first finding you and then trying to figure out who killed you—” he was breathing heavily “—I neglected to check on the patients upstairs. Somehow, he got out of his tube. I’m not sure how. They are electronically sealed, but he’s gone.”
Her face went paler than it had been.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s my fault,” she said mournfully.
“Why do you say that—” he furrowed his brow “—how is it your fault?”
“I shut the power off—” she groaned “—when I was hiding. I didn’t want them to find me. I’m so sorry Logan. What will happen?”
He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “We have to find him. He will start biting people, and…it will start spreading fast.”
***
In spite of the fact that Sherena was supposed to be dead, she left Logan’s apartment with him. They split up to search different areas. He gave her a tranquilizer gun and he took one as well. He told her to shoot patient zero on site, and anyone he had bitten.
They didn’t tell Dr. Soranto for the obvious reason that he would most likely kill both of them. Sherena had healed almost completely and so she was able to make good time searching. They had set up a schedule of meeting places and left their phones behind after Logan informed her that their phones were also being tracked as well as recorded.
Having covered the populated area they met up at the designated place, just outside his research building. He looked into the retinal scanner while she waited beside him. The inside rooms used key cards for security. She was shaking from fear and the intense cold.
Are you sure we should go in there—” she met his eyes imploringly “—the last time didn’t go so well for me.”
“We have to
, we’ve checked everywhere else—” he touched her arm for reassurance “—I hate to say it but he may be in here. We need to find him.”
“Okay—” she acquiesced “—I don’t suppose I have much choice since I’m the one who let him out.”
“Hey—” he soothed “—stop beating yourself up about that. You had no way of knowing.”
“That won’t give me much comfort if people start dying.”
He didn’t have anything to say to that.
They took off their coats in the warm building, and he assured her that security only did rounds once every four hours.
“Why do you think they found me so fast when they do so few security checks?”
He thought about it for a moment. “I think they suspected you already. I’m pretty sure they knew you were the one who was in medical records. They mentioned the security breach in our meeting. They didn’t tell me who because I think they knew we were close—” he reworded “—friends. They track everything; I think they were watching you after that.”
“Dr. Soranto talked to me about it—” she furrowed her brow “—he didn’t seem to suspect me.”
“He’s good at faking disinterest—” Logan said “—they surely wouldn’t want you to catch on. That way they could see what you did next; give you a false sense of security.”
“I thought it was odd that they didn’t know.”
She looked at the stairs they were about to climb, she was sick remembering her desperate slide down the rail—running for her life only a couple of days before.
Worse, she thought about the decomposing bodies upstairs that she now thought of as zombies, though she could hardly make herself think the word, let alone say it. She had never believed in anything like that, yet here it was. The proof literally lay before her.
Logan walked from one tube to the next, examining each for containment breaches. Only patient zero had gotten out.
“Why do you think he escaped and the rest didn’t?” she asked quietly.
He considered that. “Probably because he was the only one awake—you said he looked at you. The encasements are supposed to slow the metabolism with a mixture of gases but I suppose he had progressed too far in the disease for it to work on him anymore.”
“Will he be human at all? —” she asked hesitantly “—I mean will he understand if we talk to him?”
“No—” Logan shook his head “—he will be completely on autopilot. Like a rabid animal. Remember to shoot first; don’t think about it—they aren’t people anymore”
After thoroughly checking the top floor, they went down stairs again. Room by room they searched. One door was locked, even with Logan’s key card.
“What’s in there?” she asked.
“It’s Dr. Soranto’s office.”
“We need to get in there,” she stated emphatically.
“I’m sure that patient zero didn’t break into that room—” Logan eyed her strangely “—he wouldn’t be able to use a key card even if he had one.
“I don’t mean to find patient zero—” she scowled “—we need to find out more about this project. Logan, they are killing people. We need to know more.”
“All right—” he agreed hesitantly “—we’ll get in, but remember, he may have an alarm on his office. We might get caught.”
“We’ll hurry.”
“I’m not sure what you expect to find—” he waited for a second “—I’m sure his computer is secured.”
“I think I can hack it.”
He looked at her with a mixture of admiration and skepticism, and then holding his breath, he forced the door. No audible alarm sounded. He looked through loose papers and around the room while she went to work breaking into his secure files on the computer.
If they hadn’t tripped anything, they still had two hours before security would make its standard sweep. The forced door would be obvious in the morning. However, they were both far more worried about the rabid zombie on the loose and the reasons behind the intentional spread of the infection—it didn’t make sense. They both worked quickly.
Sherena broke through Dr. Soranto’s firewall within minutes. Logan was impressed but didn’t waste time admiring her skills. Instead, he continued to search the room. She was totally engrossed in whatever she was reading when he found patient zero. Apparently, he had been somewhere on the bottom floor.
Maybe the cold kept him from leaving the building, Logan thought in passing but he was more concerned about the immediate threat.
“Sherena—” he yelled as he took a shot “—watch out!”
He hit patient zero straight in the heart but the tranquilizer didn’t seem to have any effect.
The zombie’s flesh was sluffing off onto the floor, as he moved. In several places, the bone was exposed. His eyes bulged out of the lidless sockets. Blood oozed from his ears and nose. It was almost as if he was melting as he moved. The room filled with the acrid smell of rotting flesh.
Logan shot again, still no effect. The zombie shuffled toward Sherena—she stayed at the computer, engrossed in what she was reading—she ignored the warning.
“I found something, it’s important,” she said, apparently assuming his tranquilizer would down the creature.
He screamed at her. She looked up at the approaching monster and fired her gun but it did no more than Logan’s had.
The once man, now animal, grabbed Sherena and began biting her. Logan jumped on it and fought it off. It was no stronger than an ordinary man was, but didn’t seem to have any sense of pain so Logan’s punches had little effect. It turned away from Sherena and tried to bite at Logan but he pushed it away just enough to avoid its teeth.
She slipped past the fight and quickly retrieved the regular gun from autopsy. It was right where she had left it. She aimed at the animal’s head and shot. She hit it, and part of its skull blew off and fell to the floor. The zombie turned toward her and at first, she thought it was going to attack her again but it fled past and didn’t stop.
They both fired their weapons, everything they had but it kept on going right through the double doors and out into the cold night.
So much for the fear of cold theory, Logan thought.
He turned to Sherena. Her eyes were glossing over and her skin began turning a grayish hew, as her life began to slip away. He ran to her, lifted her up, and carried her quickly to his lab. There he injected her with his latest vaccine, praying it would work in combination with the serum she already had in her system.
Gradually, her eyes began to clear and her skin turned back to its normal color. Her breathing had been extremely shallow. Now she took a deep breath.
“Logan—” she reached for him and used him for leverage to get up “—we’ve got to stop it!”
“Wait—” he pulled her to him “—you nearly died. You should rest.”
Her brain felt foggy and she couldn’t think straight. “I’m not so sure that was nearly—” she closed her eyes tightly and then opened them, trying to clear her thoughts “—I think it may have been the second time I died this week.”
“We won’t find him tonight—” he shook his head “—we need to devise a plan because nothing we have used has even slowed him down.”
“What did you give me?” she asked as soon as she could think clearly enough to wonder about it.
“It was the vaccine—” he hesitated “—the one I’ve been working on. I think mixed with yours, so quickly after the bite, it reversed the process.”
“Maybe that’s the solution,” she said.
“What do you mean? —” He pondered on that “—he’s long past a cure, and you said it had to be given before death.”
“I’m not saying we can cure him—” she pursed her lips “—I was just thinking that if we loaded a combination of our drugs into the tranquilizer gun that maybe we could stop him somehow. If it reversed the process even a little, we might be able to slow him down. Maybe get him back into the tube.”
“
It might work—” a worried expression covered his face “—but first we have to find him.”
Chapter 13
“Horror is a feeling that cannot last long; human nature is
incapable of supporting it." James de Mille
~
They were back in his apartment. It was the next morning. They had only slept a few hours and now they were working on her idea of mixing the two serums with a cocktail of tranquilizers. They had produced enough to load several darts with it.
“Logan—” she suggested “—I think we should inject you with my serum.”
“You think I will get bitten?”
“Anything could happen. Besides Mr. Z”— they had started calling him that sometime during the night —“Dr. Soranto will try to kill both of us.”
“So how long do you think your wonder drug is good for?”
“Well, life of course—” she joked “—I’m quite sure it will work until you are dead.” Humor was helping her stress level.
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right about that.”
They gave him an injection of it. “Maybe I should take a booster, I’ve already been dead twice,” she said lightly.
“You really aren’t taking this seriously this morning,” he accused.
“It’s either laugh—” she smiled “—or cry. I’m just choosing the first because the second would do no good.”
“Stop joking about this. It may be helping reduce your stress, but it’s making mine worse.”
“All right—” she acquiesced “—I will try, but I’m just holding it together the only way I know how. When I was doing my residency, I had two patients die the same night and one of the nurses suggested turning everything into a joke. Morbid, I know, but it was the only way I survived.”
“Do you think you should take a booster or was that a joke?”
“I honestly don’t know—” she met his eyes “—it could just as easily kill me. I think I should quit while I’m ahead. My research was very unscientific. I threw out all the protocols when I saw that hamster alive. I would never have tested it on myself if I hadn’t been certain they were going to kill me.”
