Plague World (Ashley Parker Novel)

by Dana Fredsti

  Well, crap.

  “It’s not that simple,” I said uncomfortably.

  JT nodded sagely. “It never is.”

  My gratitude at being rescued morphed into irritation. Funny how that works.

  “So,” he said. “You gonna tell me about it?”

  My first instinct was to give him an unequivocal “no.” Then I thought of what he’d risked to help us get here, without once asking what we were doing or why, or expecting anything in return, other than an audience for his mad parkour skills.

  Well, and a safe place to ride out the zombie hurricane, I mused. Then I made a decision.

  “‘They’ are the Dolofonoitou Zontanous Nekrous,” I said to the best of my ability. Greek wasn’t my language. “Just don’t ask me to say it again.”

  JT cocked his head to one side, reminding me of the RCA dog or the annoying female robot in Terminator 3.

  “Dolofonoitou Zontanous Nekrous,” he said, the words rolling off his tongue in what could have been an imitation of Simone’s flawless pronunciation. “Loosely translated, ‘killers of the dead.’ Not strictly correct, as far as the Greek goes, but close enough for government work.”

  I hate it when someone is smarter than I am.

  “Uh, yeah. You can just say DZN from now on.”

  “So what do they do?” JT tapped his foot as if he didn’t know how to stand still.

  I decided to go for it.

  “They’re a super-secret centuries-old organization dedicated to the detection and eradication of the living dead.”

  Wow. A lot of multi-syllable words in one sentence. My college education was finally paying off.

  “Sort of like SHIELD meets The Walking Dead.” JT nodded again as if all this made perfect sense. And maybe in this weird world it kind of did. He was quiet for a moment, other than the tapping of his foot. Then he shook his head.

  “Wow,” he said. “Zombies.”

  “Yup.” My turn to nod.

  “Real undead George Romero-type zombies.”

  “Uh-huh. Right down to the crappy diet,” I confirmed.

  “Right. And if they bite you?”

  “You get infected, die a nasty, painful death and come back as one of them.”

  “Unless you’re a wild card,” he finished.

  “That’s right.”

  I suddenly noticed the elevator wasn’t moving and none of the buttons were lit. I reached out and hit the button labeled S-1, the top floor of the facility and—more importantly—the floor with the cafeteria. I needed food in a big way, and then I’d go check on Lil.

  “And how many wild cards are there?” JT asked.

  I shook my head. “Not enough. Not nearly enough.”

  DELHI, INDIA

  “Hello, my name is Marcy,” Noopar said. “How may I be of assistance to you today?”

  Noopar gave an inward sigh as she started yet another customer service call for Philatelic Inc. The stamp collecting firm was one of the smaller companies to outsource their IT to India, but they had as many IT issues as the huge global monsters, and just as many irate customers.

  She used to have sympathy for her many callers. On an intellectual level, she understood that hearing a foreign accent could be off-putting when calling from New York about a problem in a New York office. But she did her best to help, no matter how abusive some of the callers could be.

  After a year at the job, working ten- to twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, in cramped conditions, her well of sympathy was drained dry. She was hungry, her head hurt, and she very much needed a bathroom break. On top of that, her co-workers in the surrounding cubicles were ill with the latest flu that was going around.

  It had just hit India in the last day or so, and according to the news, it was a bad one. Already there had been fatalities, and at least a dozen people in her section had caught it, bringing it to work. The noises were disgusting enough, but now Noopar worried about catching it herself.

  She didn’t blame her co-workers. Calling in sick wasn’t an option—employees were expected to come in first, and be sent home if they were deemed sick enough. As a result, the call center was a Petri dish of germs.

  An angry voice brought her back to the present.

  “I am sorry to hear about your inconvenience, sir,” Noopar said, trying to remember the angry caller’s complaint. “May I have your name and contact information, so I may assist you more thoroughly?”

  She typed in the information given by one Chris Anderson—“That’s Anderson with an ‘o,’ not with an ‘e’!”—trying to keep up with the flow of angry words and ignore the wet hacking cough coming from Vijay’s station directly across from her.

  Noopar eyed the bottle of hand sanitizer next to her phone as she kept typing.

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I believe I can help you resolve this issue—” She paused as a new spate of words blasted through her headpiece. “Yes, sir, I understand and apologize for this inconvenience and—”

  A rattling cough and what sounded like liquid splatting onto a hard surface broke Noopar’s already shaky focus. A foul smell rose from Vijay’s workstation.

  “Excuse me, sir, but may I place you on hold so I may further research this issue?” She cut off the response in mid-stream, slamming her finger on the hold button and slowly standing up to peer over the top of the partition computers.

  “Vijay?”

  In his early twenties, cocky, and in love with American cinema, Vjiay was both a source of annoyance and amusement. His use of American slang made her wince, especially when he tried to sneak it into the sacred customer service scripts. He was as harmless, irritating, and endearing as a hyperactive puppy.

  “Vijay, what is wrong?” she gasped.

  He looked up at her with yellowed, bloodshot eyes, black fluid coating his lower lip and chin. Blood oozed out of his eye sockets, nose, and ears.

  “Noopar,” he said in a bewildered tone. “I am not feeling well.”

  He fell forward, splayed hands knocking a penholder and scattering its contents over his desk, miring the pens in the black vomit already there.

  “Vijay!” Noopar stared in horror as his body convulsed once, then again, before settling with ominous finality face down on the desk. She waited for him to move again.

  “Vijay?” Her voice sounded small against the background buzz of dozens of voices.

  The hum was suddenly broken by a scream coming from somewhere behind her. Noopar snapped around so quickly she pulled a muscle in her neck. A sharp, almost nauseating pain instantly radiated up into her head and down her left shoulder, but it barely registered as she took in what was happening.

  All across the vast floor of the call center, dozens of workers were going through convulsions similar to Vijay’s, while others doubled over in coughing fits, spewing up the vile-smelling black fluid. Yet more lay unmoving in the narrow corridors between rows of stations, or draped across their desks.

  Another scream, and then more echoed through the building as people tried frantically to help their friends and co-workers, or make their way over the fallen to one of the exits.

  Then—as Vijay liked to say—the shit really hit the fan.

  Some of the people who had collapsed on the floor or at their desks began to move again. Poonam, a woman who sat only a few stations away from Noopar, used unsteady hands to push herself to her knees where she swayed back and forth for a moment, staring blankly in front of her with the pale eyes of a corpse, blood and fluid smearing her face and darkening her green cotton top. In what seemed an almost random gesture, she reached out and grabbed the leg of another worker who was trying to squeeze by her.

  He gave a startled yelp as she yanked on his leg, pulling it toward her now gaping mouth. She sank her teeth into his thigh, ripping through fabric and flesh with ease.

  The man—Noopar thought his name was Amil, but she wasn’t sure—screamed in pain and fear, the high-pitched sound bouncing off the low ceiling. Blood gouted from the wound,
most of it drenching his attacker as she went for another bite.

  Noopar’s mind flashed briefly on the Aghori, an obscure Hindu sect whose followers practiced cannibalism. But those corpse-like eyes told her that Poonam was something even worse.

  All across the room similar scenes played out with equally deadly results. Few of the victims had the presence of mind to fight back against their former co-workers. The attacks happened quickly, and the corridors became clogged with frantic men and women climbing over one another to flee the madness. Those who managed to reach the exits crowded up against the inwardly opening doors, making it impossible to escape.

  The smell of blood mingled with the stench of the horrible black vomit, and screams mixed with the now constant ringing of dozens of phones. Noopar quietly slid down behind her chair and crammed herself into the space under her desk. Perhaps if she was very quiet, no one would notice her. Maybe she would get out of the call center alive.

  The hold button continued to flash for another five minutes before finally going dark.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JT and I hit the cafeteria. Whatever the shortcomings of the interior design of the DZN facilities, they served decent food. Nothing fancy, but give me a good cheeseburger and crispy French fries and I’m a happy camper.

  None of the other wild cards were there, so JT kept me company “in case,” as he put it, “Mister Boundary Issues decides to show up.” I seriously didn’t expect any trouble in a roomful of people, but decided not to argue. I was too busy eating.

  There were a few other people present, most of them in lab coats and a few in the inevitable black and/or camo BDUs. I’d just finished the last of my fries when Josh, Dr. Arkin’s officious assistant, walked in wearing a lab coat and jeans.

  A Hispanic man in his twenties, Josh had also been part of the lame-ass welcoming committee when our battered and bleeding team had tumbled out of the elevator. So I wasn’t predisposed to like him. He evidently didn’t think much of me either. After he filled his tray with food, he headed in our general direction, saw me sitting with JT, frowned, and turned sharply away to sit at a table on the other side of the room.

  “That man does not want to talk to us,” JT said, staring after Josh with a raised eyebrow.

  “You noticed?

  “Hard not to.” He took a prodigious bite of burger and chewed happily.

  “Yeah, well tough shit for him,” I said grimly. “I need some answers.” Shoveling the last of the fries into my mouth, I stood up and said, “I’ll be right back.” JT made a little “go” motion with his fingers and continued chowing down on his second burger.

  I marched over to the table where Josh sat.

  “Got a minute?” I plunked myself down across from him. “Good. I need to talk to you about Lil.”

  “I told you,” he said, sounding pissy, “that Dr. Arkin does not have time right now.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Fine. Which is why I’m talking to you.”

  Josh looked up from his bowl of vegetable beef soup.

  “I’m kind of busy.”

  “Yeah, it takes a lot of focus to eat without dribbling,”

  I said just as a piece of barley fell off his spoon on the way to his mouth. He glared at me.

  Oops. Guess it really does.

  “Look,” I said, trying to be patient, “Lil needs medication. I think she’s bipolar, and she’s been off her meds for at least four days. We need her as a functioning member of our team. Do you see the problem here?”

  Josh heaved an aggrieved sigh.

  “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  I restrained an impulse to reach across, grab him by his thick brown hair, and shove him face-first into his soup.

  “I need to know what to give her.”

  “It’s not that simple.” He sighed again, with slightly less impatience. “First of all, it depends on whether she’s bipolar or schizophrenic.”

  “She hasn’t mentioned hearing voices,” I said doubtfully, “but she’s definitely got a manic streak going on.”

  “Hmmm.” Josh looked thoughtful. “That being the case, Clozaril is a possibility, but without lab monitoring it could cause a fatal drop in her white blood cells, and very quickly. Other alternatives would be Haldol and Thorazine, but those would severely impede her ability to think clearly, which could be fatal, given the situation.” He paused briefly, as if rifling through a mental file cabinet. “Newer medications like Zyprexa and Seroquel are better. There’s a version of Risperdal given as a shot every two weeks… or perhaps Geodon, given every month. Risperdal is stronger…”

  I felt my brain glazing over.

  “Lithium would work for her mood swings,” he continued, “but once again she’d need monitoring, which could be difficult when she’s out in the field. Straight mood stabilizers like Tegretol, Depakote, or oxcarbazepine are helpful, but wouldn’t help the paranoia.” He stopped and took a spoonful of soup.

  I stared at him blankly.

  “Right,” I said. “So what do we give her?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Didn’t you listen to anything I just told you?”

  “Uh-huh. Narrowing it down would be helpful.”

  “Do you have any idea what she was on before?”

  “Something like chloradine or companzie.”

  “Clozapine.”

  I nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “That makes it easier.” Josh tore a piece off his roll and dunked it in his soup. “If she was on clozapine before, the odds are good that she’s only bipolar and she was most likely monitored by her doctor regularly up until the incident in Redwood Grove.”

  Incident. A nice sanitized way to describe a horrific slaughter.

  “So look for clozapine or Clozaril,” he said.

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Clozapine is the generic, Clozaril is the more expensive name brand.” He took another spoonful of soup. “Either one will do.”

  “Do you have any of it here?”

  “In the lab?” He shook his head. “Doubtful. We have access to the pharmacies on and around campus.”

  Okay, that’s good news. “Where’s the nearest one?”

  “The nearest pharmacy? It’s off of Parnassus.”

  I did a quick mental calculation, trying to picture the layout of the nearby streets in my head.

  “That’s not too far away, right?”

  “Not as the crow flies, but you’d have to either go back up Medical Center Way, or through the adjacent complex, none of which have been cleared.”

  “So you’re saying it won’t be easy.”

  “I’m telling you it’s a no go,” he said, looking at me as if I were riding the short bus. “And if you try it, you seriously deserve a posthumous Darwin Award.”

  I stood, pushing my chair back with a satisfying screech. Then I walked over, standing next to his chair, leaning forward until I was way into his personal space. I stared down at him. He gulped visibly at what he saw in my eyes.

  “I’m not asking these questions for my health, or to annoy you,” I said softly. “I’m asking because this is one of those life-or-death-type situations, and I need to find a solution. If this isn’t a solution, fine. But if you treat me like an idiot for asking, you’ll find yourself short-listed for one of those Darwin awards.” I poked him in the middle of his lab-coat clad chest. “Do you get it?”

  “Um. Yes. I get it.”

  “Good.” I handed him a napkin. “Please write down those names for me.”

  He took a pen out of the breast pocket of his coat and scribbled stuff on the napkin.

  “I’ll, uh, I’ll check the lab and see if we have anything in stock,” he said as he wrote. “I don’t think we do, but it’s worth checking.”

  “Thanks,” I said, meaning it. “I’d really appreciate that.”

  His relief was palpable as I moved away.

  “No problem.”

  * * *
>
  I rejoined JT at our table where he was finishing his meal.

  “Done intimidating the natives?” He grinned up at me.

  I shrugged, only slightly embarrassed.

  “I wouldn’t do it if they’d cooperate.” I picked up my dishes and stacked them on my tray. “Time to go check on Lil. I’ll see you later.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” JT asked.

  “Yup,” I said. “I don’t know if Lil is ready for company she doesn’t really know.” I wasn’t even sure Lil would want to see me, let alone a relative stranger, but kept that particular fear to myself. “Thanks, though.”

  “Let me know if you need any help, okay?”

  “With what?”

  “With anything.” He shrugged. “But especially any kicking of douche-nozzle asses.”

  I laughed. “It’s a deal.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The dorm part of the facility was laid out in a rectangle like your basic motel. Luckily the rooms were numbered, or I’d never remember which one was which. Lil’s was number twenty-four, same floor as mine but on the opposite side.

  So when I got off the elevator, I headed away from my room, which meant less of a chance of running into Griff. I really hated the fact that he had the power to make me uneasy like that.

  Lil’s door was shut when I reached it so I rapped sharply right below the 24.

  No answer.

  No big surprise. She hadn’t said more than two words since we’d gotten off the elevator. To my knowledge, she hadn’t left her room other than to use the bathroom. And given the unholy glee she normally took in zombie slaying, the fact she’d missed today’s outing worried me more than anything else.

  The doors didn’t have locks, so I pushed it open and found Lil lying on her bed, covers pulled up so high that only the top of her head was exposed—an unkempt and unwashed mass of light brown hair tumbling over the navy blue polyester coverlet. A tray of food—chicken soup, some sort of sandwich, and an apple—sat on the bedside chest of drawers, untouched, along with a couple of white pills and a glass of apple juice.

  This wasn’t good.