The Wilsons' Saga (Book 1): The Journey Home

by Gibb, Lew

  “I’m not denying it. I believe people got bitten. I just don’t think it’s the start of the apocalypse.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Bob said. “I guarantee you that by tomorrow, we’re going to start hearing about incidents in other cities in Brazil. Maybe in the rest of South America, too. It won’t be long—a week, maybe ten days—before this starts spreading to other countries. All it takes is for one person to get on a plane after they’ve been bitten, and they’re either going to turn on the plane and bite a bunch of people in flight, or they’ll change when they get to their destination.”

  “What can we do to stop it?” Jerry asked, his eyes still fixed on the TV even though playing now was a commercial for incontinence pills that featured a bunch of unsubtle scenes of people made of copper pipes driving around.

  “Absolutely nothing. You think we can call on down to Brasília and say, ‘Hey, ya’ll got yourselves the start of a zombie apocalypse and you best just start killing them folks, or it’s the end of life as we know it’?” He met Jerry’s eyes and frowned. “They ain’t gonna listen to us. Just like if we call up the CDC and tell them to shut down the airports, or at least don’t let anyone in from South America. Not gonna happen.”

  “Are you serious?” Jerry’s forehead scrunched up. “You think it’s that far gone?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised to see a report pretty soon about some mysterious mental illness here in the U.S., some person that went crazy and attacked someone.”

  “So what do you think we should do?” Jerry was no longer interested in the TV.

  Bob sat back and smiled. “As it turns out, we are in a somewhat unique position to help ourselves and find out when we’ve reached the point of no return.”

  “Oh no!” Alicia groaned. “You aren’t going to tell them about your plan for surviving the apocalypse again, are you?”

  Bob turned to Alicia and looked at her as if she was a particularly slow student in the EMS classes he taught on his days off. “Actually, I was going to tell Jerry here about my plan. And I’m telling you, if you don’t quit making fun and get on board. I ain’t going to save your butt when the time comes. Only reason I’m considering letting you in on it is we been partners so long, I’d be bored without you there questioning me every step of the way.”

  Jerry looked at Alicia and then at Bob. “What’s your plan?”

  “Seriously?” Alicia stared wide-eyed at Jerry. “You’re buying into this?”

  Jerry shrugged. “It might not be a bad idea to be ready if it is happening, you know?” Yet even as he spoke, Jerry was thinking about how the conversation would not go over well with Rachel.

  Bob nodded at the TV. “Check it out.”

  The banner at the bottom of the screen read, Breaking News. The screen showed an excited looking reporter standing in front of a sign that said, Hospital Israelita de Brazília. Jerry and his colleagues watched in stunned silence, reading the closed captions as the American reporter related the story of an attack by a woman who’d bitten a stranger and a police officer before being shot and killed by the same officer.

  “There you go,” Bob said when the scene cut to a commercial for a pickup truck.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Alicia said.

  The rest of the conversation was cut short by the squawk of their radios: Ambulance number forty-four, respond to an injured party at the rec center.

  Alicia and Bob stood. As they were heading for the door, Bob caught Amy’s eye. “Jerry’ll take care of the check.” He turned back and pointed at Jerry. “Let’s talk later.”

  And then Bob and Alicia were out the door.

  Chapter Nine

  Sergio slammed down the phone for the second time that day. The stupidity and intransigence of bureaucrats was maddening. He spun his chair so he could look out the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, leaned his chair back and tried to get control of his rapid breathing. The three asymmetrical steel arches of the JK Bridge zig-zagged across Lake Paranoá. Their reflections in the lake’s mirror-smooth surface looked like triplets born of the St. Louis Arch.

  Dr. Indrani Patel once again occupied the chair opposite Sergio’s large rosewood desk. The two doctors had been working all night with little to show for it. The woman’s once-pristine lab coat was rumpled, and dark crescents had taken up residence beneath her eyes. The desk’s entire work surface was littered with folders containing test results and papers scribbled with notes concerning the enigmatic virus. The virus’s properties were proving difficult to nail down—and now there was this latest news. Sergio’s eyes felt like sandpaper as he turned and looked at his new friend.

  “Last night,” Sergio began, “the officer sent to retrieve Rosa Santiago shot and killed her.”

  “Oh my god,” Dr. Patel said, leaning forward.

  “When the officer arrived at her condominium, Rosa was biting another woman’s arm. She attacked him and nearly tore his nose off before he managed to shoot and kill her. He’s recovering from surgery now.”

  “Oh my god!” Dr. Patel repeated, scrubbing her face with both hands before pushing them up and through her now-unruly mop of dark hair. “What about the woman?”

  “She was transported to a hospital across town. Apparently, she wanted to be close to her boyfriend’s place.”

  “How long was it between when this Rosa was bitten and the attack on the woman and the officer?”

  “About twelve hours or so.”

  Dr. Patel’s eyes widened, and she rocked back in her chair. “That means the virus completely infected her in half a day instead of several weeks as one would expect. We need to isolate them and find out exactly when they were bitten so we can pin down the timeline.”

  “This is what I just told the desk sergeant. The man was maddeningly unflappable in his insistence that he had more important crimes to investigate, but he finally agreed to have the woman and the officer brought here when he can get to it.” Sergio shook his head. “One other thing. The officer found a pool of blood outside Rosa’s condominium. The victim says it isn’t hers.”

  Dr. Patel sat forward. “We need to canvass the local hospitals and find this other person right away.”

  The exhausted pathologist shook his head. “I also explained this to the sergeant. He said he would look into it, but I am not optimistic.”

  Dr. Patel shook her head and clapped her hands on her knees as she stood. “Let us not waste our energies on ineffectual battles, but instead return to our research. The more we know about this virus, the more information we will have to bludgeon these functionaries with, and the better we’ll be able to contain it.”

  Chapter Ten

  Caio’s inflamed eyes snapped open and roamed the dual occupancy room in the recovery ward of Hospital Israelita de Brazília where he had driven himself the night before. His eyes locked on the unconscious man in the next bed. Slack-jawed and ignoring the IV lines and multicolored wires trailing behind him, Caio sat up and swung his legs to the floor. A clear tube secured by a light blue face mask compressing the gray bristles of a three-day beard exited the man’s mouth. The tube looped and snaked across his chest to a hissing and beeping machine at the far side of his bed. Dragging his cast-encased leg, Caio shuffled the few steps to the adjoining bed, bent over, and lifted the unconscious man’s arm to his mouth. His victim showed no reaction as Caio’s teeth tore a chunk of flesh from his arm.

  A stocky and bald-headed nurse, Roberto Ignacio, stopped in the doorway. He had come to investigate Mr. Suarez’s sudden tachycardia. Roberto’s eyes went wide and his mouth hung open as he watched his patient, Mr. Caio Rocha, take a savage bite out of Mr. Suarez’s arm—and not the first bite, judging from the blood soaking the sheets and dripping into the growing crimson-puddle under the bed.

  “Stop!” Roberto yelled, moving into the room. He was a champion power lifter with at least a fifty-pound weight advantage over the obviously irrational and dangerous Rocha. Plus he had ten years’ experien
ce working in the psych ward. He knew how to deal with unruly patients and felt confident he could handle the smaller man. Even so, when the attacker’s head snapped around at the sound of his voice, the amount of blood on his face and hospital gown made Roberto stop cold and take a step back. Rocha was chewing.

  Caio launched himself at the frozen nurse. The pair crashed to the floor with Caio on top. He leaned over and bit the struggling nurse’s shoulder.

  Roberto screamed. Pain like a blowtorch scorched up his neck and pierced his brain. It increased exponentially when Rocha’s teeth ripped a large flap of skin loose, then bit again.

  Roberto pounded at the patient’s head with one fist while he tried to push the deranged man off him with the other. A white-coated doctor appeared, stethoscope dangling from his neck, and grabbed Rocha with both hands.

  Caio released the nurse’s shoulder and snapped a bite that grazed the doctor’s arm. A few drops of blood oozed from the wound.

  A security guard ran in and yelled, “Freeze!” while drawing his pistol and aiming it at the attacker.

  Caio’s head snapped up and his eyes locked on the guard. Then he lunged.

  The guard shot the blood-covered patient twice in the chest. Caio staggered two more steps. Two more shots boomed in the tiny room. Caio collapsed and lay still in a growing pool of blood—a mixture of his own and of his victims’.

  “You doing okay, doctor?” The ER nurse’s hands shook a little as she worked on the gorgeous doctor’s arm. His injuries were superficial, only a couple of reddened furrows, but she took her time, scrubbing thoroughly with the Betadine and watching it turn his skin a pale yellowish-brown.

  The doctor nodded. “I’m fine. I can’t believe Marco had to shoot that guy. I hope the police aren’t going to give him a hard time about it.”

  “From what you told me, he didn’t have any choice. I can’t believe he took Roberto down. That guy’s strong as a bull, and he likes wrestling with patients. I’ve never seen him get hurt or even have trouble with someone.”

  “It was incredible.” The doctor looked down at his bloodstained scrubs. “My hands are still shaking. That’s three peoples’ blood on there.” He winced as the nurse scrubbed a spot on his hand but forced himself to keep smiling. He didn’t want to look weak to the beautiful nurse. He would have to get down to the ER more often.

  “Sorry,” she said. “We have to make sure it doesn’t get infected. As far as I’m concerned, Marco is a hero and deserves a big thank you and a raise.”

  “I agree. The other patient who was attacked barely survived. They had to give him three units of blood, and he’s still going need reconstructive surgery to repair the damage to his arm and neck.”

  The nurse taped a piece of gauze over the worst wound. “I feel so bad for him. And for Roberto. He got over a hundred stitches.”

  The doctor nodded. “I’ve seen a lot of crazy people in my career, but that Caio character was about the craziest.”

  “He just started biting the other patient?”

  “The worst part was his eyes. They were so inflamed, they looked like they were glowing. I’ll never forget it.”

  “Gives me the shivers,” the nurse said as she finished applying a bandage to the doctor’s wound. “Anyway, it looks like you get to go home early.”

  “I’m actually flying to Los Angeles for a cardiology conference.” He smiled and winked at the nurse. “I think recovering on the beach in LA sounds better.”

  “That does sound good,” the nurse said, looking at his profile a little too long as she applied the last piece of tape. “Be careful in LA. I hear the crime there is terrible.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Sergio walked out of his office and hurried over to where Dr. Patel hunched over a microscope. She must have heard his shoes on the linoleum because she straightened and looked at him with raised eyebrows as he approached.

  He answered her unspoken question. “Our HR director received a call from Israelita Hospital. They were looking for Rosa. It seems her fiancé, a man named Caio Rocha, was treated there last night. Someone in the ER recognized him because he sometimes worked there as a physical therapist. Our HR person remembered my request for Rosa’s address and phone number and thought I might know where she is.”

  Dr. Patel pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand and turned on her chair. “What happened to this man Caio?”

  “He crashed his car into the hospital entrance last night. In addition to injuries from the crash, he was treated for several human bite wounds.”

  Dr. Patel’s eyes widened.

  Sergio continued, “When he woke up this morning, Rocha bit the patient in the next bed, then attacked a nurse and a doctor before he was shot and killed by a security guard.”

  “My god.” The biologist started to run a hand through her hair but seemed to stop herself. Instead, she jammed her hands in the pockets of her rumpled lab coat.

  Sergio’s phone began ringing in his office. He excused himself and hustled back to his office, picking up the phone and standing with his back to the lab while he talked.

  Dr. Patel followed and sat at one of the chairs facing the desk. She followed Sergio’s gaze out the window and contemplated the sparkling lake while listening to his end of the conversation. A small sailboat was rocking in place in the center of the water, apparently unable to make headway. She couldn’t tell much from Sergio’s conversation since it was a series of affirmatives and a couple of expletives, but his tone conveyed a growing sense of alarm.

  When Sergio finished his conversation and hung up, he turned and faced the concerned biologist. His face was pale.

  “I think it may be moving even faster than the timeline for Rosa and her fiancé indicates, my friend. Apparently, the officer that Rosa bit last night went crazy at the police station.”

  “When?”

  “The dispatcher said it was about five hours after the incident with Rosa and the other woman at her apartment.”

  Dr. Patel grabbed the sides of her head and ran her hands through her hair. She gathered the loose strands and wrapped them around themselves, making the whole thing hold together in a neat bun at the back of her head. “I’ve never heard of a virus acting this fast. We need to examine one of these people.”

  “I agree,” Sergio said. “The officer also bit several of his colleagues and two civilians—a total of five people—before he could be subdued.” Sergio collapsed in his chair.

  Dr. Patel exhaled so strongly the papers on the desk fluttered. “The information we have on the officer doesn’t correlate with what we know about this man Caio or Rosa.” Dr. Patel scrubbed her face with both hands and looked at her new friend across the desk. “The officer said there was fresh blood outside their apartment. Yes?” When Sergio nodded, she continued, “If we assume it belonged to either Rosa or her fiancé, we know the fiancé was bitten sometime before he crashed into the hospital at about nine fifteen, but he didn’t go crazy until this morning.”

  “But,” Sergio held up an extended finger, “he had surgery for a fractured femur.”

  Dr. Patel snapped her fingers. “He was sedated for the surgery.”

  Sergio leaned forward. “And he was probably given painkillers.”

  “That would have kept him unconscious beyond the moment the virus attacked his central nervous system.”

  Sergio frowned. “What about Rosa? She only had a small bite. No surgery at all.”

  Dr. Patel sat back, the wind suddenly taken out of her sails. Then she leaned forward. “She would very likely have taken some painkillers as well.” She waved her hands, wiping away the indecision. “Whatever the cause, we need to proceed under the assumption that this virus acts much faster than we thought.”

  “Yes.” Sergio leaned back in his chair and stared hard at the biologist. “I’ve been doing some calculations.”

  Dr. Patel furrowed her brow but waited for the other scientist to continue.

  “Initially, we assumed the po
pulation of infected people doubled every eleven or twelve hours.” He paused to take a deep breath before continuing, but Dr. Patel interrupted.

  “That would mean, depending on travel patterns, that the virus could spread to everyone on the planet in around two weeks. But every infected person doesn’t necessarily infect someone else. We don’t know the transmission rate.”

  Sergio nodded. “Indeed, we don’t. But from what we have seen, it’s pretty high. Rosa infected Caio,” he ticked off the count on the fingers of his left hand, “the police officer, and the woman at her apartment complex. Caio potentially infected three people,” he switched to the other hand, “and the officer may have passed the virus on to at least five people.” When his count finished on the original hand, he grimaced. “If we add that all up, we have—”

  Dr. Patel took over, “An average transmission rate of nearly four people infected per carrier.”

  Sergio nodded with a grimace. “And at that rate, the whole world will be infected in less than six days.”

  Dr. Patel’s face was pale. “And today is already day three,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twelve

  George Rodrigues, chief of staff to Brazil’s president, noticed a red folder sitting in the center of his desk. Brazil Poised to Initiate Global Pandemic, the title announced. He grabbed the folder, opened the cover, and read for two minutes before he yelled, “Gabriella, get in here!” at the open door to his office.

  “What’s up, boss?” His personal assistant, Gabriella Moreno, appeared in the doorway. She always dressed in the most provocative manner. Today she wore a skin-tight knit blouse and clinging skirt that flattered her curvaceous figure.

  “Have you read this report?” He waved the red folder over his head.

  “I’ve read many reports,” Gabriella said, entering the room and lowering herself into one of the chairs facing his massive desk. “To which report are you referring?”