by Alex Myers
"He looks like a kid," Ethan said to Bill.
As the Apoc got nearer, he was glaring at them with burning, reproachful cadmium eyes. Bill snatched the list out of his hand. The Apoc had long, sharp, dirty fingernails, the better to rip your heart out with my dear, Ethan thought and returned the hostile glare. The creature stood in front of them, his face a glowering mask of rage and body rippling with fury, then quickly returned to the car.
"The list, gentlemen," Abaddon said scornfully, focusing their attention. "Just let me go over it with you so there are no mistakes. We demand two 20,000 watt diesel generators, a high tension industrial-strength crane, two hundred yards of twenty-four gage coaxial cable and an uplink satellite dish."
"Oh is that all?" Bill asked sarcastically.
"As a matter of fact, no," the creature said. "From this point forward think of Oceanview, and Virginia Beach as the domain of the Chosen, and I as their King."
Ethan brought his pistol up from behind the seat and fired. Abaddon's right cheek disintegrated. The beast was thrown only slightly back by the impact of the bullet. He wiped off the bits of tissue from the loudspeaker and began to speak.
"It's very unfortunate that we have to display these hostilities toward each other. But I thank you for fulfilling another prophecy for me: 'And I saw as if his head had been slain, and his fatal wound had been healed. Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him’. Revelation, chapter thirteen. May I remind you, that also in chapter thirteen it says, this is from the Book of Mark, by the way," Abaddon said smugly. "And he stood on the sand of the seashore a beast coming up out of the sea. The beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth, that of a lion. And the black dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. And the whole earth eventually followed after the beast, and they worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast, and the whole world worshiped the beast’."
"I've about had enough of this bullshit," Ethan said.
"No wait," Bill said, then turned toward Abaddon.
"And what if I can't or decide not to follow your demands?"
"As for the can't, I know that's a lie, Lieutenant. I know you have great influence over the powers in charge and the public. As for the not, I think you want to save the lives of these men too much for that kind of foolishness."
"So you'll use the men as a bargaining chip?" Bill asked.
"If you don't provide me with the equipment I ask for by this time tomorrow night, I will kill the people and procure the things I need myself."
"What kind of guarantee do I have that the men will be safe if I deliver the goods?"
"I was prepared to, that is before your friend blew half my head away, give you half of the men tonight. I'm not sure now if you two are serious about being my friend. In other words, you don't have a choice. There are no guarantees. Except that I am Abaddon, son of the Black Prince and have no need to lie. I have powers beyond the scope of your thinking . . . beyond your wildest dreams."
"If he has so many goddamn powers, why does he need coaxial cable?" Ethan whispered to Bill.
"My powers are far-reaching Mr. Bell, but I'm afraid they don't include coaxial cable."
A look of surprise shot across Bill and Ethan's faces.
"How did he hear that?" Bill asked. "He's at least fifty yards away!"
"Like I said, my powers are immense. Now do we have a deal?"
"I'll do it," Bill said.
"Fine. Possibly we can be friends after all."
The creature got back into his squad car. His car led the procession back over the curb and into the darkened streets.
"Are you going to get the stuff for him?" Ethan asked.
"I don't know what choice I have. I wonder what he's going to do with all that stuff?"
"Sounds to me like our friend Abaddon, the Antichrist, is going into the TV business."
"Anything is better than the Reverend Swanson."
"The pompous ass."
"The Reverend Swanson? Or Abaddon?"
"Both."
"You know what really bothers me Ethan? It's that shot he took to the head. We've killed enough of these things in the last few days. That shot should have wiped his ass . . . . You don't think there's any truth to what he said do you?"
"At this point Bill, I don't know what to believe." He put the Jeep in gear and drove over the top of the dune to the seashore.
Ethan had no idea that their confrontation had been witnessed by a woman watching through the reflective glass of the high‑rise next to them.
But he would soon enough.
CHAPTER 11
MDR-V6
"A rough estimate, Dr. Puck, would be one hundred, that’s a doubling of new cases each night," Ava said.
"That's a pretty wide range, by what means did you derive those figures from?" he said over the secured phone line.
"The reason for such a wide range is in the way we have to gather the information. We have contacts in all the major hospitals. In addition to that I have been able to compromise the police data bank. I also buffered in those cases that may have gone unreported or untreated. This is a scary place to be, and most of the people are not reacting rationally."
"What kind of cooperation are you getting from the authorities up there?"
"It's worse than we thought. The military has the police department in its back pocket. The only cooperation I'm getting is vague and standoffish at best. Let me put it this way, they treat me like a reporter and not a representative of a government agency—the agency that might be able to put an end to this madness. The doctors and staff at the hospitals act completely differently. I think they realize what the military's up to and they just want to see an end to this thing as much as we do. They have given me their full cooperation. It's kind of refreshing to see people acting sensibly. With their help I believe I have come up with a few things you might find interesting and perhaps useful. Not everyone who is attacked ends up getting the disease. About half the people brought in eventually die. I have been working with patients with a direct link to an Apoc attack, either through eyewitness reports, or telltale signs of an assault.”
She waited for him to answer, but Puck said nothing. She wondered if the connection was severed. She decided to continue.
“As I was saying, about half the patients eventually die. Their injuries are the most bestial in nature, it’s no wonder they have such a high mortality rate. Some of these people’s deaths can be directly coupled to exposure to the virus. Their bodies reject it in a most brutal fashion. Profound bleeding from their orifices, followed by brain embolisms, massive coronary thrombosis, or both. It is quite easy to diagnose these cases—their eyes protrude from their heads almost to the point where you'd think they'd explode. For whatever reason their bodies violently reject the MDR‑V6 virus. Another forty-seven percent will eventually recover. Their blood scans show no signs of being exposed to the contaminant. They're released and show no long term effects."
"And the other three percent? They become Apocs?" Dr. Puck asked.
"Yes, and they have caused quite a bit of calamity in the hospitals. It is usually quite sudden and unexpected. They do, however, seem to have an abnormal healing rate. Other than that, they look, act, and test normal up to the point of turning."
Dr. Puck interrupted, "From the information I have gathered here at the research center I would deduce that they have a partial immunity to the virus. In all the studies we have conducted the 'turn', has happened in just a matter of minutes," he said sternly.
"Oh that's not all, Dr. Puck, there is another group, less than one percent actually, that have suffered exposure to the virus and have successfully fought it."
"A group of people with a natural immunity?"
"It appears so. There have just been a few cases. I have a meeting with one of them later today. I would like to bring him here to the temporary research facility and run a battery of tests on him.
His name is—let me see here‑‑” She shuffled through the reports, until she came up with the right report. "Ah yes, his name is Pigott, Henry Pigott, and he's over at Humana Bayside. They're very cooperative over there. They've lost four doctors and seventeen orderlies, interns and nurses so far to surprise Apoc attacks. I’m planning to approach him tomorrow morning."
"Why is there a natural immunity?"
"I don't know, Doctor."
"‘I don't know Doctor’, isn't a scientific response," he said. His tone was sharp and ugly.
"I don't know. I can't say it any more academically than that. Any hypothesis or conjecture at this point would be purely that, a speculation."
"Speculate, then dammit! The president's riding my ass. He wants to put this problem to bed as quickly and as quietly as possible"
Bells and whistles went off in her head. Ava wondered if this was the only reason her normally cool and collected boss was reacting so strongly. The president had issued strong words before to the Center. It was especially bad when the swine flu looked like it was going to be a world-wide epidemic. It was always election time. There had to be something else behind this outburst. She remembered Puck literally laughing on the phone to the President saying if he wanted a cure by the primaries he would have to increase funding by tenfold. That, of course, was the end of that conversation. So why now would Dr. Puck be so shaken up over this? An idea sparked in her head. I'll have to check this out, she said to herself.
"It seems Dr. Puck, that of the fifty percent that die, forty percent of those would have died due to their injuries anyway. The other ten percent die of exposure. Evidently their physical makeup is not compatible with the MDR‑V6 virus."
"Miss Porter, you've already said all of this. These are just reiterations. Tell me something I don't already know! Are the injuries of those that die, the ten percent that show a negative reaction to the virus, are they different from those that survive?"
"Well, a tell-tale sign of an Apoc attack is when flesh of the victim has been consumed. But in the ten percent of those that die of exposure, and the three percent that survive‑only later to make the turn, they have experienced a excessive blood loss."
"Just as I suspected," he said. "And what about this Pigott you're going to see?"
"Yes, he has experienced the same trauma. Just what did you mean by that's what you suspected?" Ava wondered how he could have known.
"There has been an update on the Yellow Team. It seems indeed, that diet is a very strong factor in the development of the MDR‑V6 virus. Daniels and Myles had been separated and given radically different diets. They were driven almost to the point of madness by what they complained of as the 'thirst'."
"Then they remain cognitive?"
"Especially so after feeding, they remember; who they are, who we are, even their condition."
"You said feeding? Just what are you feeding them?"
"At first it didn't seem to matter‑as long as it was alive. Both Myles and Daniels had a severe reaction when we tried to feed them what we know as regular food. We have since found the reason why. The liver is the first organ to change over; then the supple walls of the intestines and stomach."
"You mean to say, they have no means of digesting it?"
"Exactly. They can consume only those things that the enzymes of the virus can disseminate."
"And they don't do dead?" It was out of her mouth before she could stop. She didn't feel quite as much under Puck's thumb the way she had at the Center.
"That was very unprofessional," he said sternly.
"I'm sorry, please continue, Dr. Puck." Or is that Angus like you wanted me to call you the day you tried to put the moves on me in the laboratory, she thought.
"As I was saying, we got the idea for the change in diet from observing their eating habits. They would consume a live mouse, and later spit out the useless fur, bones, and anything else the MDR‑V6 couldn't break down. We continued feeding Daniels the live laboratory animals, but with Miles, we started feeding him pure blood. Since the virus basically consumes nothing but the red and white corpuscles in the experiments we have performed, excreting the fluids, we thought we would make the process easier."
She found it unbelievable they were talking about members of their own staff—former members? She also found it repulsive. "Dr. Puck, why haven't you tried the cleansing process with the Yellow Team?"
"They were the only two controls we had for experimentation. That is, that we could track the run of the disease from start to finish. Let me add this Miss Porter. Your figures and our figures here at the Center are in agreement. Of course, we don't quite have the mortality rate that you do there. It's easy to speculate that is because the Apocs that are doing the infecting, are just not as contagious—or as highly advanced as the Norfolk victims.”
"Since we last spoke, three more members of the yellow team have been infected. One has since succumbed to injuries sustained while contracting the disease, another because he was decapitated by Miles. The third, Howard Roland, will be undergoing the cleansing process in the next twelve hours. There is good news in the wake of this disaster, though. We now have a more accurate way of charting the progress of the disease."
Leave it to Puck to see the silver lining, she thought.
"Instead of taking and measuring the drop in fluid content of blood samples from the patients, we use a hypodermic needle to extract cells directly from their liver. I will fax you the graphs and information at the end of this call.”
"It's safe to say any Apoc that has consumed vast amounts of blood, whether it be human or otherwise, is more likely to spread the disease. And Miss Porter, I might add that mind control was used to compromise the other members of the Yellow Team.”
Ava held out her phone, stared at it, and shook her head. Puck was not only giving in to the possibility of mind control, but acted as if it was a forgone conclusion.
"Miles is highly clairvoyant. So much so, we were keeping him under security that required both members of the team to use their keys to unlock his cell. The advanced case of MDR‑V6 we sent you up there to retrieve is likely to be a very dangerous individual indeed. What have you and your team done to move you toward that objective?"
"Like you stated before the MDR‑V6 Virus rapidly deteriorates in a dead host, a live capture is our only alternative. How about sedate them? With say a tranquilizer gun?"
"There's something you should know. The regenerative process of the Apoc is astonishing. By the time we were able to enter the observation room, Roland's injuries were almost completely healed. That's why I think your original estimate of one-hundred cases was grossly underestimated. In most cases when a person is infected with the MDR‑V6 Virus, the 'turn' is essentially instantaneous. I believe that most of the cases simply get up and walk away as Apocs. But no, getting back to the point I don't think that sedation is a viable alternative to a live capture. We had to pump in massive amounts of sedative through the ventilation system in order to enter the observation room. If the second member of the Yellow team would have already been dead, the amount of sedative we pumped into those rooms would have surely killed him."
"Well that sort of complicates things, doesn't it." She finally started realizing completing the job she was sent to do was looking less and less likely—maybe impossible. "We know the Apocs possess extreme powers of deception as well as phenomenal physical strength. Basically you cannot kill them—at least for our purposes, and sedating them is highly risky. The MDR‑V6 is extremely contagious. It sounds like our—excuse me—my only alternative is to do the Turtleman on him," she said.
“What are you talking about Mrs. Porter?”
“It’s a show on Animal Planet where the host, Ernie Brown, Turtleman, captures wild animals without regard to his own safety in order not to endanger the animals.”
“I don’t even know how to respond. What are you going to use as bait to lure them in?"
"I've got an idea. I've seen the Apoc that ca
lls himself the leader. He's convinced that he is the antichrist."
"Be careful."
It actually sounded to her like he had genuine concern in his voice. Why the sudden change? In the entire time she was acquainted with him he had never displayed feelings for anyone or anything. He was like a coroner cutting up dear old dad, saying very unsympathetically, ‘yes, he did die from swallowing that chicken bone, that will be five hundred bucks and who's buying lunch?’” He had a wife and son. It was a running joke at the Center that they must have adopted because no one could imagine Angus Puck actually having sex. Why was he being so human now?
"What is your idea?"
"There are these two men. One is the director of public information for the city. He's a Lieutenant on the police department. The other is a writer. They are both ex-Special Forces and I’m pretty sure one or both of them still work for the Pentagon. It's through the Lieutenant's computer that I got hooked up with the city's data bank, they’ve been sharing with the military. He left a backdoor for this writer, Bell, to get through, and I just slipped in too. These men are highly competitive, real risk-takers. Everything I've seen in the last few days says that they are the ones for the job. They are either courageous as hell or completely foolish, and I'm willing to bet on the first."
"How did you gather this information about them?"
"They always drive Bell's jeep. So I cross checked his license plate number with the Department of Motor Vehicles. I took a chance and ran his name through the armed forces computer and bingo. And the Lieutenant is on every TV station and newspaper in town. So when I was checking Bell's service record I ran Lieutenant McCullough's also. They were both officers, both from Virginia, and both highly-decorated."
"So what do these two have to do with our objective of capturing this Apoc?"
"They know him. Or at least I mean they have spoken with him. I don't know what I really mean. They had a meeting with him—the one that calls himself Abaddon, earlier tonight."
