It turned out that those eight-legged fiends had survived rifle fire by virtue of being phantasms, illusions projected into his mind by a creature comprised of psychic energy.
Wells shook his head to chase away the memories of the Red Rock mission. He had already faced a legion of undead here on Tioga Island — they were no illusion. No, the walking corpses could be felled by bullets, if the weak spot could be found.
Once again he fired, this time aiming for the head. Everything above the man's pasty white eyes disintegrated; a dome of flesh and blood spun in the air and then landed on the dirt road like a Comanche warrior's trophy. What remained of the head rocked back, then forward, then back again as if held in place by a spring.
But the creature did not stop.
As the zombie thing closed to about ten yards in front and the lava closed to within a quarter mile behind, Wells decided to dispense with the surgical approach. He worked the trigger on his rifle repeatedly, still firing in single-shot mode but doing so as fast as his finger allowed.
Bullets smashed into the creature one after another, a few going wide but most finding their mark on its abdomen, neck, arms, and legs. Body parts fell off and Wells had the distinct feeling of being a gardener trimming a bush.
The creature dropped to the ground as a series of bullets severed the muscles working its legs. After a pause, the thing crawled at Jupiter, leaving a track of black, red, and yellow behind.
"What the fuck? Why don't you just die? Where do I have to hit you?"
The battle last night had taught him that these things could be put down, but their off switch was not always in the same place. Here he had nearly torn everything off the damned thing, leaving a badly disfigured torso, yet it still tried to wriggle across the dirt to attack.
He switched to fully-automatic fire and pulled the trigger.
Click.
In his frustration he had lost track of his ammunition count.
The creature crawled a little closer.
Wells felt his utility belt for another magazine and found nothing.
The creature came within three feet, dragging itself across the dirt like a worm with arms. Behind him the lava approached at a similar speed.
Jupiter Wells actually felt a pang of panic … then his fingers found his last magazine, stuck in a thigh rig.
"Jesus Christ, God damn it," he muttered to himself and pushed the magazine into place just as one of the zombie's hands — missing most fingers — thumped against his boot.
Wells took a step back and said, "All right, let's try this shit again."
His battle rifle opened up at close range with a furious volley of fully automatic fire. A waste of ammunition, yes, but Wells did not care. In fact, he could have easily walked around the torn-apart, squirming torso and left it for the lava, but he very much wanted to finish off the thing, maybe because his predicament had made his choices irrelevant. Except for this one. He could finish off this monster on his terms. In contrast, he could not shoot the lava.
One of the many bullets blasted into the corpse finally did the trick. The creature stopped moving, as if all power had been cut. Of course, it was little more than bags of jelly hanging from broken and smashed bones at that point. Yet Wells did see a whole lot of strands, like strings or thin vines, weaving through the mushy pile. They did not look human, but then again the entire mess no longer resembled a human being, either.
He stood for a second with his gun barrel smoking, nearly mesmerized by what had just happened.
I found it, Wells thought. I found your fucking off switch.
But he had no time to celebrate. A fresh blast of heat — like a wave of burning air — blew in from behind and kicked-started him into action. The pause to confront the walking corpses had allowed the magma flow time to catch up. Now it came along the road like a thick rolling blob of orange and yellow with crusty patches of black.
Jupiter Wells slung his weapon and moved again, this time in a fast jog, racing through the thickening fog of ash and smoke while following the road east. He passed two more structures that had faced the invaders' torch, one burned to a smoldering pile of charcoaled beams, another fully engulfed.
As he moved he realized he no longer heard the rumble of jet fighters, possibly due to the sound of burning jungle but more likely because they had moved off. Yet the very fact that they had come in the first place meant naval assets neared the island.
Finally the canopy of cover gave way and the land opened up into a long upwards-sloping stretch of rocky grassland. The road diverted to the right and downward en route to a beach house. He eschewed that path and took the rocks, sensing an opportunity in the elevation.
As Wells rounded the crest of a rocky mound he saw a sight that stopped him dead in his tracks. If he had had any saliva left he would have swallowed, but it seemed as if the heat and exertion had robbed his body of all moisture.
The Pacific dominated the horizon; gentle waves rolled in to a beach on the far side of another slope. Between Wells and the Pacific was a stretch of land that stood like a stage overlooking the ocean. No doubt islanders had come here often to watch the sun rise.
Islanders gathered there now, in fact, but they would be witnessing no sunrise. Wells had come upon the makings of a mass grave, although no attempt had been made to hide the bodies; the soil here was far too rocky for digging.
The corpses lay about haphazardly, some on their sides, others on their backs, some on their bellies. Wells spied a teenaged girl with bright red hair and glassy eyes staring blankly at the sky. He saw a tall man with glasses lying crooked on a sharp nose, his cargo shorts and golf shirt tainted with black singe marks, suggesting a close encounter with fire. Next to that man lay a younger woman face down, part of her tennis skirt showing similar signs of fire damage.
All told he counted fifteen dead souls gathered on that outcropping above the beach.
None of them moved; these were not zombies. As he cautiously approached, Wells searched for bullet wounds. The sight looked similar to a massacre he had witnessed in an Afghanistan village after the Taliban had accused the elders of collaboration.
However, the only signs of physical trauma came in the form of burns. A few of the bodies displayed second-degree burns to their faces and hands, a few had suffered only minor marks to their arms and legs. None of the injuries appeared life-threatening.
He knelt and examined the body of a middle-aged black man whom he recognized to be a musician or comedian … he had seen the face on TV at some point in the past. Wells undertook a closer inspection of this man and, again, found only burns.
After several minutes of consideration he settled on the cause of death as most likely asphyxiation or poisoning. He had heard that volcanoes released all manner of gases that could kill; he just wondered if that was what had done in these people, or if that was merely how it was supposed to look.
Wells stood, glanced out at the beautiful blue ocean, and then back at the jungle. He heard the lava approaching, crashing through the trees and obliterating everything in its path.
He took a big, deep breath, and then said to no one, "I guess I'm about to find out, one way or another."
14
As far as Dr. Stacy could tell, the corporate jet on which she was an unwilling passenger flew to the west, southwest over a perfectly calm Pacific Ocean through brilliantly blue skies.
She kept to herself for the first two hours, her mind occupied by questions about their fate; wondering if a firing squad — or worse — waited at the other end of this flight.
Every so often she would glance across the center aisle at Major Gant, half expecting to see him executing a brave plan for escape. Why, at any second he would spring from his seat, overpower the guards, take control of the plane, and fly them to safety.
Of course he did no such thing. Like her, he sat there contemplating what lay ahead and trying to glean information from glances out the window and the occasional bits of chatter between the
soldiers and scientists on board the flight.
She wondered if he had managed to learn more than the plane's general heading, which was about as much information as she could wrap her head around.
But Major Gant was not the only person who kept drawing her eye. Dr. Waters sat facing her, although his attention was focused on all manner of reports, images, and other paperwork provided to him by his assistants, particularly the English woman with her hair in a bun who went by the name of Pearl.
In any case, he made copious notes, repeatedly consulted a computer tablet, and occasionally mumbled words of either approval or surprise under his breath.
After a tremor of turbulence nearly caused Waters to lose his grip on a clipboard, he noticed her stare.
"You'll have to excuse me," he said. "I don't have much time for conversation. Lots of data to review, but then again I'm sure you understand. However, if you would care to discuss your identity, I could spare a few moments for chitchat."
She replied, "It's actually your identity that has me curious. You look familiar, Dr. Waters. Is that your real name?"
He smiled, a little. Not a friendly smile. More amused, as if a lab animal performed entertaining tricks.
Waters put aside his notes and sipped from what remained in a glass of ice water he had nursed for the last half hour.
"Does it really matter? What is so important about a name? I suppose I am just as guilty. I am curious to find out your name, and that of your friend. And why is that? So that we can understand who you are. In this case, your name is the marker that will allow us to trace your reason for being on the island and how we should handle you. So it's not so much your name that I care to know, but who you are and what you want. Very interesting, isn't it?"
His smile faded away and his eyes drifted to the round portal to his right, although it seemed to Annabelle that those eyes saw something even farther away.
"I have been known by many names. I was given a name when I was born, but when I was a teenager a man told me I had to change that name. So I did. He was the type of man you listened to. All of a sudden I was someone new, and that's when I understood that anything that can be changed with a word or the stroke of a pen really means very little when you think about it. When I was older, I changed it again, and then again. I found it useful to not get attached to any one name for too long."
Stacy tilted her head and studied him. She saw again his watery eyes, the chapped skin, and the cane with which he walked.
She then repeated his words: "A man told you to change your name?"
Waters turned back to her and smiled a little more genuinely this time, perhaps sensing that she closed in on something; perhaps appreciating the game. It seemed he was willing to provide a few more clues to help her along, as if enjoying the diversion.
"Yes. And my country changed its name on more than one occasion. I'm not even sure what they are calling it these days. It has been a while since I've been home. Then again, I was never one for nationalism; it seemed so petty, and in my part of the world it tended to be enforced by the bayonet. No, my interests are far broader."
Stacy noticed Thom watching the conversation, listening for any tidbit of information she could pry from their host.
"You don't have much of an accent," she noted, although that was not quite true. There seemed to be a rough hint of French in some of his words. "I'll guess that English is your second language."
"And there you would be wrong." Again he appeared delighted with the exchange. "I now consider English my first language. But then again, so does most of the world. It's all about accommodating you Americans. You spend your money on so many things all around the world, and in return for your investment you expect to be spoken to in your native tongue. I hate to break this to you, miss, but the truth is that the rest of the world thinks that Americans are either too dumb or too lazy to bother learning the languages where they visit. Still, you have the money, so everyone else will take English classes so we can sell you hotel rooms and souvenirs."
This time she acted amused and hit back, "I sense a little resentment toward the United States."
"Not at all! I love America. I have worked many times with Americans. Like I said, you have money to throw around, or invest as you often call it, with an emphasis on results. I appreciate such an approach. I have a track record of producing results, to which you can attest after the events of today."
"I know you," she said again, although she still could not pin it down. "I've seen your face."
"But you can't quite place it, can you? Very good. Keep trying. Tell me, what can you deduce about me so far?"
Stacy stiffened in her chair and gave him a good look over.
"Okay, let's see. I'd say you're in your midfifties."
"Very good, but that was fairly easy."
"You said you were a teenager when a man told you to change your name. So let's assume you were between fifteen and nineteen when that happened. If you were younger, you'd probably refer to yourself as a child. So, we start at fifty-five years old and take you back to fifteen, so that's forty years ago. That means your name was changed sometime in the seventies; early to midseventies. And you said someone made you change your name. I'm guessing that person was not your father. The way you said it, it sounds as if it was someone of authority."
Waters nodded but remained silent.
Stacy said, "Your country changed its name, too. Okay then, Zaire. You're from Zaire."
"What makes you say that?"
"First off, the name has changed. It's the Democratic Republic of Congo these days, just like it was before Mobutu, who took over in the late sixties or so, changed the country's name, and made anyone with a Western name change it to something more traditional African. Is that what happened to you?"
"My parents were Catholic and heavily influenced by French missionaries."
"So Mobutu takes over, pretty much nationalizes everything, including religion, and embezzles all the wealth. You get a new name. And then of course—" she stopped fast as a revelation hit home. "Wait a second. Zaire … the 1970s," she stared at his watery eyes.
"Go ahead, miss. What is it you think you know?"
The conversation had drawn in Major Gant so much that he could no longer hold his tongue. He blurted out the question, "What is it? What do you know about him?"
Stacy glanced over at Thom and then back to Waters.
"I can tell you what village he came from. I can even tell you what year he lived there."
"Go ahead then," Waters encouraged.
She said, "Yambuku, Zaire, 1976. You walk with a limp, your eyes, your skin … chronic conditions?"
"Yes, miss. The pain in most of my joints went away over the years, but my knee never quite recovered. While my vision is acceptable, my eyes have not been the same, either. Still, you could say that I was very fortunate."
Gant asked, "What is it you are talking about?"
She explained, "The first outbreak of Ebola virus. It occurred in Yambuku, Zaire. Hundreds of people got sick, and only a handful survived. A few of those who survived were left with chronic problems."
Waters picked up, "Epiphora, in my case, as well as arthralgia and occasional bouts of desquamation."
Stacy translated, "That explains your eyes, and I'm guessing the arthralgia causes enough joint pain to require the cane, and the scaly skin comes from desquamation."
"You are a physician?"
"No, I—" she stopped as she noticed the major's eyes narrow to daggers.
Waters's disposition grew deadly serious. The cabin seemed to go quiet, to the point that the hum of the plane's engines dominated her ears.
"Yambuku was my home until I was nineteen years old. That's when the monster came from the river. That's what my mother called it. The monster. It devoured our community as surely as a dragon from a King Arthur tale might consume a village."
Stacy saw his eyes drift off again and glaze over. It seemed as if a flicker of fire burned i
n his pupils, a reflection of a memory. Yet it was more than thoughts of his past. As he told the story of his encounter with that monster from the Ebola river, it seemed to Stacy that that monster was still with the doctor. Not only in joint pain and damaged tear ducts, but in his head.
"It started with one man — a teacher — who thought he had malaria. They gave him an injection of chloroquine at the Mission Hospital. Ten days later he was dead. You know, in a Western hospital that would have been the end of it. The needle would have been discarded."
A tear ran along the man's cheek, spawned more from his condition than emotion.
"Well, within thirty days most of the staff had died and the hospital closed. By then the disease had spread to several villages. When the World Health Organization finally mobilized, it was too late. They were in country for only about a week by the time the last of the infected died."
"I'm sorry."
"Three hundred and eighteen souls contracted the disease. Two hundred and eighty died. The monster, it seems, was quite efficient. To put that in perspective, you would have a higher chance of survival standing two thousand feet from ground zero at Hiroshima than being infected at Yambuku."
Waters paused, his mind lost in reflection. Stacy sat equally quiet as she absorbed the entirety of his story. She had spent a great deal of time studying and working in Africa, from Libya during the civil war to an archeological dig in Ethiopia, with several stops in between. For all its beauty, the dark continent offered its share of horrors. The jungle was an incubator of both miracle cures and nightmarish curses.
Apparently Major Gant did not respect the moment of silence. It seemed he had listened to Waters's story, but not detached himself from where they were and why.
"Tell me, Doctor Waters, what was the chance of survival on Tioga Island today?"
That shook them both back to the here and now.
"That is a sad story you tell," Gant went on, with each word stilted and deliberate. "Today you killed more than one hundred innocent people. Today you were the monster, Dr. Waters."
The Cannibal Virus Page 13
