The Cannibal Virus

by Anthony DeCosmo

  Gant spotted patrols spreading out in a well-orchestrated search pattern, with the clinic serving as the central point. The searchers did not confine themselves to the marked paths but actually walked among the trees and brush, their flashlights crisscrossing through the dark like laser scalpels.

  He worried they might have night vision or infrared gear, a fair assumption given the well-organized nature of the white-clad new arrivals. Yet as he watched a pair of them push between paths he noticed that their flashlights — their attention — seemed focused on the ground, as if searching for something discarded or dropped.

  Major Gant stopped alongside a thick-trunked agathis tree and mumbled, "The bodies."

  "What?" Stacy whispered in a tone that suggested she was surprised he would say anything aloud, given the four men twenty yards behind and two more thirty yards ahead.

  "I think they are trying to find the, well, the islanders. The corpses. The …" he hesitated, took a deep breath that showed his reluctance to actually say the word, and finished, "the zombies."

  Gant surveyed the forest and saw a gaping hole in the search line. He tapped her shoulder and led them further away from the clinic.

  As they moved, he circled around to the west with the hope of catching a better glimpse of the opposition's equipment. The forest, however, remained too thick to allow a good view. Still, he did spy several big, bright lights mounted on some kind of vehicle, probably a front-end loader or a bulldozer. The squeal of treads all but confirmed his guess.

  Unfortunately he dared not approach; four armed, hazmat-suited soldiers formed a skirmish line and proceeded in their direction. Although they appeared intent on sweeping the ground with their flashlights, the men would certainly discover Gant and Stacy if the pair did not retreat.

  He moved them away from the approaching threat at a ninety-degree angle, helped Dr. Stacy navigate a short but steep embankment, and crossed a dirt road. Behind them two search teams converged, spun about, and backtracked toward the clinic in a wide arc.

  "They seem determined to find all of the islanders," Gant said, "but I do not believe they are a rescue party."

  "Are you always a pessimist about everything?"

  As if in answer to her question, a flash of golden yellow burst from the forest as flames consumed the clinic. A sharp crackle and pop gave sound to the inferno and a moment later the stench of burning plastic reached his nose. The flames caused a flickering through the trees that created a sort of strobe-light effect. Thom found it rather hypnotizing.

  "Why are they burning it down? I don't understand."

  "It seems to me they are eliminating evidence. But then again, I am a pessimist. You tell me — what type of glass-half-full scenario do you see here?"

  Thanks to the new source of light he clearly saw her scowl. That same source of light also illuminated a roadside sign pointing toward the "Health Club."

  "Meeting up with Wells is going to be difficult; our friends in the fancy suits are between us and him. That leaves us no choice but to keep moving."

  "I'm dog tired. Why am I so tired?" She asked herself more than him. "I ran cross country in school. I was pretty good. I could run all day. But I'm about to fall over. Must be the heat sapping my energy. Any chance for a rest?"

  "It is more than the heat," he told her. "It's the adrenaline. On the one hand, it can provide a boost of energy when you need it. But in a situation such as this, it will wear you out fast."

  Even in the dark he could see her eyes sag. Maybe she doubted herself. Maybe she really was exhausted — certainly he felt a pang of fatigue.

  "I'll tell you what," he said. "Let's see if the health club is free and clear. We can take a break in there for a few minutes."

  She joked, "And maybe a game of racquetball?"

  "Racquetball? Handball is the way to go. Who needs a sissy-stick racquet?"

  Then he did something he rarely did: Major Gant flashed a smile. A real one. Not sardonic, not sarcastic, but sincere. And it worked; she relaxed. Of course, that had been his intent.

  All from his officer's training. Just another part of the programming.

  Of course, given the growing ache in his left knee, he doubted he would be playing handball or any other sport anytime soon. The doctors had said the gunshot wound he had suffered at Red Rock did not cause permanent damage, but it would take months before he fully healed.

  Truth was, his damaged joint could use the rest perhaps even more than his civilian comrade could.

  They worked their way along the road until they reached a clearing. A pair of Jeeps sat in a gravel parking lot, and swarms of bugs mobbed lights beaming down on empty tennis courts. Aside the courts sat a rectangular building made of stucco and wood trim styled to resemble a fancy log home.

  As he scanned the area Major Gant also took note of the open doors on one car, a dropped purse, and a solitary, discarded sandal near the main entrance. It all added up to a feeling of dread in his gut.

  Nonetheless, he led her toward the building after cautioning, "Keep an eye out. There was a problem here, too."

  Seconds later they entered the health club through an unlocked door. Neither pointed out the bloody handprint on the glass, but it was hard to miss.

  A big reception counter made out of oak dominated the lobby. Gant could nearly see the ghosts of the island's upper-end clientele crisscrossing the long hall on their way to tennis matches, aerobics classes, and massage therapy appointments.

  "Well, there are a few courts open today if you want to get in a game," Dr. Stacy joked, using a small flashlight to read from a reservation book on the countertop. "But there are three places they just list here as 'playrooms,' and they were all booked for last night. Wait, though, looks like the harness — whatever that is — in room 2 is broken and a certain Mrs. Van Patton left her padded handcuffs in room 4. Wait, what?"

  She glanced over at Thom with a sincerely innocent expression.

  Before he answered, his mind revisited those ghosts crisscrossing the lobby. Instead of rich old couples he now saw men and women of power escorted by playmates half their age, no doubt a fair number of whom were paid by the hour.

  He told her, "It sounds like the Tioga Island version of a health club included a swingers' wing with S&M rooms."

  "You have to be kidding me."

  His expression did not change.

  "You're not kidding, are you?"

  "Let's just say, Dr. Stacy, that we will not do a whole lot of exploring here. Besides, I would guess that the arsonists are going to make their way to this building in the near future. So take a quick rest but be ready to move in a minute."

  Stacy shrugged and pulled a bottle of water from a small refrigerated display case and enjoyed a long drink. It tasted much better than the water from the emergency packets in their kits.

  Thom approached the counter and looked it over for any information that might be of use. He did not regard the reservation book for racquetball courts or sex rooms as an important clue.

  Truth was, he did not care what the wealthy or famous did with their money or time, but the more he saw of this island, the sicker he felt. Tioga existed as a secret getaway catering to impropriety. Yes, it had all the fancy trimmings of an island resort, but that was not its appeal. It provided a place for the powerful to lead a dual life; to indulge in behavior they dared not allow the public, the stockholders, or the voters to see.

  Indeed, the creators of this place had taken the extra step to build their hideaway outside the jurisdiction of any power, a decision that had apparently come back to haunt them. If not for Senator Kendall, the incident here might have gone undetected and certainly unchallenged. No doubt the hazmat-wearing intruders had selected this place for that very reason; it was a place so secret and embarrassing that its destruction might never have come to light.

  While not a religious man, Thom Gant had heard enough biblical tales that he saw a certain amount of the Sodom and Gomorra story right here on Tioga, al
though it might have been the hand of irony more than the hand of God that bore responsibility for this destruction.

  A few lights glowed from side rooms, but otherwise the place was fairly dark. Thom did not want to flip any switches, for fear that additional lighting would draw the invaders' attention. Therefore he switched on the tactical light mounted to the picatinny rail of his M4. The beam illuminated leather furniture in a waiting area and doors — one after another — running along both walls of the main hall. He saw signs for locker rooms, the dance studio, an exercise area, and a placard outside a stairwell leading up to an area that was "Private — Reservations Only."

  Something else caught his eye: a trail of debris leading back through the building along one wall.

  Again, his instincts painted a broader picture based on the snippets he saw. That broader picture showed a person pursued through the health club by one or more of the changed islanders. Gant first saw a discarded gym bag followed by an overturned chair that no doubt had been tossed down to slow that pursuit. He saw a smashed pot that had held a plant, most likely thrown in defense.

  "Dr. Stacy, stay here. I want to check something out."

  She finished another gulp from the bottle of water, fell in line behind him, and said, "Not a chance. I'm going with you."

  Major Gant followed the signs of struggle and came to a short hall breaking off to the right and leading to a closed door labeled MANAGER. His light fell on a mess piled just outside that door. It took a moment for him to realize that that mess had once been a person, but its head had been badly beaten in, apparently by a bent and now-broken tennis racquet that lay on the carpeted floor next to the body.

  But there was more to the mess than a busted skull, dried blood, and a nasty smell.

  "I believe this is more your line of work than mine," he said to Stacy, but before he let her get close, he poked the corpse with the barrel of his gun, just to be sure.

  Stacy pulled out her flashlight and knelt next to the beaten body.

  The carcass belonged to what had once been a Polynesian woman, maybe in her late fifties or perhaps early sixties. While her clothes had been badly torn, it seemed she wore an outfit that belonged to either a housekeeper or perhaps an attendant here at the health club.

  "Look, here, she was attacked at some point," Dr. Stacy said as she shined her light close to what was clearly a bite mark on the woman's neck, just below what remained of her left ear. The racquet that had obviously been used to pummel her had inflicted damage all along that side of her skull.

  Stacy turned and grabbed Gant's KA-BAR knife from his utility belt. She then used the tip to pry at the woman's dead skin, particularly around the bite area.

  At first Gant thought the flashlight had caused some sort of optical illusion, but the more Dr. Stacy peeled away at the skin, the more he realized it was no illusion.

  There was some kind of white bulb lodged along her neck, bulging from beneath the skin near the wound. That bulb had also suffered damage from the racquet. It made him think of a popped zit.

  "This is messed up," Stacy said. "There are strands or something, like vines, sprouting out from here. Sort of like, I don't know, a spider web or some kind of netting. I've never seen anything like this."

  "I noticed some of them had bulges, almost like growths. Maybe that could be a weak spot? But you are the medical doctor, right? You tell me."

  "I think I've told you about a hundred times, no. I trained as a physician's assistant and in advanced first-aid training, so don't worry, I can patch up bullet wounds if it comes to that. Well … sort of. But what I'm seeing here, Major, doesn't have anything to do with typical medicine."

  She ran the flashlight over the dead body and used the knife to poke and prod. The dead woman's fingernails were all but gone, seemingly ground into a bloody mess by clawing. Massive amounts of red stained her gaping jaw, and what remained of her uniform was splattered with blood, most likely someone else's.

  "Here, check this out," Stacy said, drawing his attention to the woman's left forearm, where a wound had been inflicted by something sharp. There was no way to tell if that wound had occurred before or after her transformation from victim into aggressor, but whatever had done the damage had been more potent than a tennis racquet. Most likely a big knife or other bladed object, judging by how the skin had been sliced open.

  Beneath that wound he saw what he expected: dried blood, damaged tissue, and a glimpse of what might have been bone. He also saw something very much unexpected: more of those white strands, apparently running the whole length of her arm.

  "Whatever that thing is that's on her neck, it's got these tendrils or whatever going down her arm." Stacy considered for a moment. "Hang on a sec."

  She switched her examination from the arm to the eyes, pushing an eyelid open.

  As he watched, Gant felt a pang of respect for the newest member of his team. He did not see fear or hesitation in her, despite the grotesque and unusual nature of this body. It seemed to Major Gant that Dr. Stacy was, in fact, putting aside the emotion and working the problem.

  If she can do this, here, right now, then maybe she is a lot more ready than I give her credit for.

  "Yep, that explains that," she said, and she held open an eyelid with her fingers while shining the light at the pasty white orbs therein.

  He said, "Just like the ones that attacked us. What caused them to turn white?"

  "I don't think they did. That's some kind of mesh coating the eyes. Probably more of those vines or stands or whatever that is on her arm. It looks like they poked their way through her skull and into her optic nerve and the whole eye."

  "Wait a second. What are you saying? This is some sort of parasitic infection?"

  "I'm not saying anything." She stood and handed him back his knife, which he accepted but was careful not to let touch anything other than the sheath. "I told you before, we'll need to do a real dissection of one of these, well, things."

  Major Gant did not like it when people avoided questions.

  "I will ask you again, Dr. Stacy, does this look like a parasite of some kind?"

  She huffed and guessed, "It could be, sure. You saw what I saw. Some kind of mass lodged on her body. Strands, vines, nerves, a bundle of somethings stretching out from that mass and seemingly winding their way through the corpse. Now, there could be more of those masses somewhere inside, or it could be something that formed post mortem. But yes, from what I can see, there is a foreign organism in the body that has — for lack of a better word — infected the entire person. It appears to me that that organism is itself no longer living. It was damaged by whatever crushed in this woman's skull."

  "You mean that tennis racquet?"

  "If this were a game of Clue, I would bet the marbles on Colonel Mustard in the health club with a tennis racquet, but that's just a best guess."

  "Sometimes, Dr. Stacy, we have to go with our best guesses. I do not foresee the opportunity for an autopsy on any of the bodies in the near future. Not with our friends sweeping the island."

  "This is the part where I suggest you call for help, but I won't bother since I know you'll just blow it off."

  He sighed.

  "Actually, I was thinking that the time has come. Problem is, I do not know how we can make contact if outgoing transmissions are electronically blocked, and I am not entirely sure that help is even close to being on the way. A lot will depend on whether Wells managed to send a message."

  "So you could say I was right the first time."

  "I, um, no, I would not say that," Gant replied. "The situation has changed."

  "Sure it has. We're in deeper than we were before and if we had called then …" she smiled to clearly demonstrate that she yanked his chain in good humor.

  "Then the cavalry would be flying in now with John Wayne and Rambo to help save the day," he said and returned her smile despite understanding that — since he knew General Friez so well — the cavalry might be a B-1 Bomber with a tac
tical nuke meant to sterilize the entire island with little concern for the team.

  Sometimes calling for help just causes more trouble.

  It seemed that Dr. Stacy's examination of the body — and hence her contribution — gave her new energy and confidence. She reached for and turned the knob on the office door while saying, "We should look around and see what else we can find."

  He put it together a moment too late.

  The line of debris indicating a struggle and pursuit that led to this body.

  The broken tennis racquet next to the immobilized zombie.

  The closed office door.

  Dr. Stacy opened the door to the manager's office and was attacked. As Gant expected, the body wore a tennis outfit, no doubt a brand name certain to impress a doubles partner.

  The wound where the Polynesian staff member had bit the player was visible on the arm: a three-inch chunk of flesh removed by a good chomp, probably the last thing the attacker had done before the middle-aged man had struck a fatal blow with his racquet. Of course he had not known the blow was fatal and so he had withdrawn into the office and closed the door, hoping it would hold while he tended to his wound.

  The door had held. His body had not.

  It grabbed for her shoulders, pushing her backwards out into the main hall.

  Gant saw pasty-white eyes again, this time locked on Dr. Stacy. He saw its mouth stretch wide open and its near-perfect teeth snap as they tried to clamp down on her arms and then her face in a series of frantic — almost panicked — lunges.

  Thom raised his weapon to fire but feared hitting her, so he turned it around and drove the stock into the man's cheek. The man's head whiplashed but his grip did not release.

  For her part, Stacy kicked at the creature's knees. She might have done damage to a normal man, but this was many steps removed from a normal man.