by Joseph Souza
The three men and two women looked dazed and in a state of confusion. They limped forward, their arms out as if begging for alms. The man closest to him uttered something unintelligible, almost as if he were speaking a foreign language. Tag wondered what he was trying to say. Nervous, he held up the Magnum and ordered the group of people to back off, but the five sickly people ignored his warning and continued to approach. The closer they got to him, the more evident it became that they were in the early stages of smallpox infection. Red splotches were showing on their faces and arms, and their stiff movements indicated to him that their bodies were racked with debilitating aches and pains. So what had caused their confusion? Had it really been the RF waves caused by their cell phones?
Did he dare shoot them? Killing these innocent people in cold blood was tantamount to murder. He ran back inside the garage and ordered Versa to hurry. When he returned outside, the group had reached the garage door and were starting to bang their fists against it.
“Help us,” one of the men groaned.
He pushed the diseased man away and called for Versa to hurry. The man fell to the ground, but the others kept coming forward, unafraid and aggressively in pursuit. They all showed the beginning symptoms of the plague as well. In a matter of seconds more of them filed onto the street and staggered in their direction. Versa came out of the garage with the chainsaw in one hand and the plastic gas container in the other. He took the red container from her and clutched her calloused hand, pulling her past all the sick people clamoring for help. They sprinted toward the golf cart, brushing easily past them. A mob surrounded the cart, looking for anything of value, tearing through the compartments in the back and under the seats. Once the mob laid eyes on the two of them, they turned and stumbled forward.
“Lordy, how are we going to get past all those sickos?” Versa said.
“Any way we can. Come on.”
The diseased approached, their arms out and pleading for help in low, guttural moans. It seemed as if they were trying to articulate certain words and sentences but did not have the ability to do so. Every single one of them had the telltale red splotches that signified the onset of smallpox. He brushed past their outstretched arms, gripping the Magnum in his free hand and pushing them away with the other. Their skin felt hot to the touch, and he suddenly realized why their speech was so stunted. Their tongues and the back of their throats had become raw and infected, and the red splotches were forming along the roofs of their mouths.
People poured out into the streets and started to head toward him. Tag grabbed the person closest to his golf cart and threw the man to the ground. The man felt almost weightless in his grip, as if he’d been wasting away. Another man came up and tried to punch him. Tag easily knocked him to the street with the butt of his gun. The man toppled to the ground, blood dripping from the bridge of his nose. The man tried to complain, but nothing came out of his mouth. All of the sickly were struggling to see through their narrow eyelids.
He and Versa quickly hopped into the golf cart, and he sped ahead. Versa placed the chainsaw and gas container between them, and removed the rifle strapped around her shoulder. More people flooded the streets and staggered in their direction. They appeared lifeless and without a soul. Tag knew that the progression of the disease would eventually cripple them and leave them utterly spent. Staring down the street, he saw that a crowd of people had blocked it off. He turned the cart around and instead drove up the hill.
He zigzagged along the road, trying to avoid hitting any of the wandering pedestrians. Their low, incomprehensible moans filled the crisp morning air. Some tried to jump up on the cart, but Versa managed to keep them at bay using the butt of her rifle. By the time they drove up toward the center of town, Tag could see people staggering in and out of the community center and along the main drag. He had no doubt that virus particles continued to float around inside that building, infecting more and more people, constantly recirculating in the air vents. The building should have been permanently closed and sealed off, but he could understand why people had taken shelter inside there once the worst of the storm hit. And yet by congregating in such large numbers, they no doubt helped spread the disease to all those not yet infected.
He wondered if he’d made a mistake by traveling through the center of town. The mob’s sheer numbers forced him to slow down. Versa yelled for him to speed up and forget about crashing into them, but he couldn’t just ram through innocent civilians, especially ones who were as sick as these people appeared to be. They had reverted back to a primitive state of survival. He slowed the vehicle and, by doing so, allowed the mob to crowd around the golf cart.
“Goddamn it, Colonel! Step on that gas pedal, or I’ll start blowing their brains out,” Versa said, fighting off the hands with the butt of her rifle. “It’s going to be us or them, and I guarantee you it’s not going to be me.”
“You want me to run over them?”
“Yeah, that’s what I want you to do,” she said, stepping over the seat divider with her left foot and stomping down on the gas pedal.
“What in the world are you doing, Versa?”
“What you shoulda done a lot sooner!” she yelled, fighting to keep her balance.
Tag held onto the wheel as the golf cart accelerated forward. People in front of the cart flew up and out into the street. Caught off guard by Versa’s move, he tried to keep the vehicle under control as best he could while trying to push the deranged woman off him with his right hand. The cart careened along the road, zigzagging back and forth, randomly crashing into people in their path. The gas-powered cart had a lot of zip in it, and it was all he could do to keep it from tipping. By the time they reached the opposite end of Main Street, Versa fell back into the passenger seat and took a deep breath. He swerved around the corner and sped down the hill.
“What the hell are you doing? You could have gotten us killed!”
“We would have gotten killed if we hadn’t gotten out of there as soon as we did,” Versa said. “Now step on it before the rest of them sickos catch up to us.”
Tag looked over his shoulder and saw some of the people heading down the hill and stumbling toward them. They cried out and screamed in pain. The sight of these brain-impaired people scared the shit out of him. A small group of people staggered around at the bottom of the hill. Upon seeing his vehicle, they spread themselves over the road and completely blocked it off. Tag knew he couldn’t slow down or they’d never make it past. With his right hand on the wheel, he took out his Magnum and pointed it at the crowd. He fired off a round over their heads, but not one of them budged or even seemed scared. They appeared mentally unstable and in a state of delirium, incapable of feeling pain or even being frightened. It appeared that the secondary virus had wreaked havoc with their train of thought and reasoning. He didn’t care about that right now. All he knew was that he had to get back to his family. The result of this hybrid virus had been that it altered people’s personalities, turning a normally mild person into a desperate savage with violent tendencies.
He steeled himself to the oncoming collision. All around him people were lying on the street or sprawled out on the houses’ front lawns, too sick to get up. The first row of people stood shoulder to shoulder in an effort to try to stop him. He kept his foot squarely planted on the gas pedal, steering the cart toward the weakest link, hoping that they might move away at the last second. He closed his eyes as he approached and heard the thump of bodies hitting the front end. The cart jumped off the ground but kept on moving.
“Nice work, Colonel. Good to see you finally grew a pair,” Versa said as they continued on.
Tag didn’t look back to see the damage he’d caused, instead barreling down the street until he came to Sandy Lane. He took the turn without letting up. The cart tipped on two wheels before righting itself. He gunned it down the street until he came to his house. Skidding to a stop in the driveway, he limped to the front door and went inside. He ran into the living room and was
surprised to see that neither Monica nor Taylor was there. Had they gone up to bed? He took the stairs two at a time until he arrived at the top floor and went from one bedroom to the next, looking for his family, but they were nowhere to be found, including the basement. Tag wondered if they had become confused and wandered off. He cursed himself under his breath; he never should have left them alone.
“Where’d they go?” Versa asked.
“Maybe their fever returned, and they went outside to look for us. We should go search for them.”
“Why in God’s name would they go outside?”
“You saw with your own eyes what kind of shape these people are in. The virus affects their brains and reasoning skills. It makes them do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.”
“Everyone’s responsible for their own behavior, Colonel, even them sickos.”
“Goddamn!” he said, gripping his forehead. “I should have never left them here by themselves.”
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going out there and searching this entire island until I find them.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“Best you stay back and keep an eye on the house,” he said, moving toward the front door.
He was about to open it when he heard a cell phone ringing down in the basement. He went downstairs and saw it sitting on the coffee table. His pulse raced as he reached down and picked it up. The numbers on the caller ID screen kept shuffling, concealing the caller’s identity. He put it on speakerphone.
“Nice to talk to you again, Colonel. And by the way, your wife and daughter are quite beautiful. Of course, they’re not in much of a mood for conversation, as you can well understand.”
“You bastard! What did you do to them?”
“Trust me, Colonel, they’re alive and well and very much in good hands. I suppose you don’t believe me, so I’ll let them tell you themselves.”
“Let me speak to them, asshole.”
“Tag, we’re okay,” Monica said, her voice altered. Was it really his wife? “Taylor is with me.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, we’re fine.”
“Where are you?” He heard a rustling in the background, and Lenny came back to the phone.
“They don’t know where they are, Colonel. Do you think I’m going to tell them everything?” The man’s computer-generated voice started to laugh.
“You better not lay one finger on them.”
“Or what? What are you going to do? Kill me? Ha! You can’t even begin to understand what’s going on or the size and scope of my complicity. I’ll certainly keep your family safe for the time being. Or at least safe enough to give you a fighting chance to save them before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what? Tell me what I have to do to get them back.”
“Oh, I know you’ll cooperate, Colonel. This strain of variola has been engineered to progress very fast, which means that the proliferation of blisters on the body will be like no other strain you’ve ever seen. It’s the second phase of the liger that will be the most devastating, as you’ve already started to see. The worst is yet to come.”
“What’s going to happen in that phase?”
“You’ll see with your own eyes when the time arrives. In the meantime, you’ll have a window of opportunity to save your wife and daughter. You’re to start at noon tomorrow. Not a minute too soon or you’ll live to regret it.”
“You expect me to just sit around and wait to look for my own family?”
“That’s exactly what I expect you to do if you want to see them again. And knowing how resourceful you are, Colonel, I have no doubt that you’ll locate them without any problem in the twenty-four-hour period given to you. That’s when your real challenge will begin.”
“Real challenge?”
“You may have thought you eliminated every method to get off this island, but I can assure you that you did no such thing. Already as we speak, there are people on this island who’ve managed to evade this infectious illness and who are planning to do whatever it takes to survive. All it takes is one person to carry the liger to the mainland, and that cat will spread far and wide. Game over. I win.”
“Is this a game to you, you sick bastard?”
“Was it a game to you when you murdered all those poor laboratory animals for the sake of mankind? Was it a game when we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or when Captain Cooke delivered smallpox to all those natives living peacefully on that island?”
“So all this has to do with the fact that we experimented on animals in an attempt to save human lives?”
“Oh, it’s much more than that, Colonel. That’s just one small aspect of it. It’s about a new society from the ground up, where man and animal are treated alike, and where we pay more homage to the humble organisms, the building blocks to life. A grand society built on a new code of ethics that responds to the demands of the future rather than restraining it.”
“I’m not following you. So infecting humans with a lethal virus is your solution to the problems in this world?”
“Please, Colonel, you know as well as I do that population control is the virus’s singular purpose on earth. This planet was not intended to support seven billion people. Whenever we move too close to the animal kingdom a new and exciting virus jumps species, warning us that we’re encroaching on their territory. I’m helping nature to do what it does best by facilitating the process.”
“I’m certain we must have worked together in some capacity. The world you and I inhabit is a very small one. As scientists we surely must have crossed paths at some point in our careers.”
“Shut up!” the voice snapped. “How about we stick to the subject at hand, which is keeping your wife and daughter alive?”
“I’m all ears.”
“Things are going to change on this island. Just remember one thing, Colonel. Everything you do is going to be caught on those webcams, not that it will matter much if this virus jumps ship. I wish you luck. It’s going to be fun watching you try to stop the inevitable. In the process you may very well become the world’s biggest reality star.”
“And what is the inevitable?”
“Okay, I might as well give you a clue. As I’ve previously mentioned, this second virus is activated by the RF waves of a cell phone. Took me a long time in the lab to develop this synergy. This in turn activates specific oncogenic signals located in the basal ganglia of the brain. As you also know, this region is primarily responsible for a person’s emotional response. Are you familiar with purines and Lesch-Nyhan syndrome?”
“Yes.” A chill jettisoned through Tag’s spine.
“Then you have a good idea what I’m talking about.” The phone clicked and went dead.
Tag tossed the phone down and paced nervously around the room. He should have never left his family to retrieve a stupid chainsaw. Staring down at the phone’s screen, he could see the numbers continuing to shuffle and change digits, and he knew that it was useless for the FBI to try to even trace such a call. It wasn’t even showing up on their tracer. Whoever was responsible for this terroristic act was highly intelligent and would certainly not leave any digital fingerprints behind.
Tag went upstairs.
“The terrorist has my wife and daughter. Says we can start looking for them tomorrow at noon.”
“Tomorrow at noon? Why wait until then when we can get a head start now?”
“Because he said that he’d kill them if we left early. This person is not bluffing, Versa. Look at the havoc he’s already created.”
“So this jackass is a he?”
“Refers to himself as Lenny, so I’m assuming it’s a man.”
“Men!” she said, shaking her head. “What are we going to do now, Colonel, just sit here and twiddle our thumbs?”
“We’re going to prepare ourselves for when the time comes to head out. Then tomorrow at noon, I’m going out there to search for them.”<
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“I’m going with you.”
“I’d prefer you to stay back.”
“I’ve been on this island my entire life, and I’m not about to sit around and let some scumbag destroy it. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“Okay, Versa, I appreciate your help.”
“Stop thanking me. You want to show your gratitude, then return this godforsaken island back to the way it used to be.”
Chapter 14
Tag spent the rest of the afternoon preparing. Keeping busy kept his mind off the cruel fact that Monica and Taylor were now being held captive by Lenny, or whoever planted this liger virus. That it had begun to spread so rapidly both surprised and worried him. Versa spent most of the afternoon cleaning house and cooking the remainder of the food that had begun to spoil since he’d turned off the generator. Once finished, Versa retired upstairs for a couple of hours’ rest. The plan was to wake her at midnight so that she could watch the house while he got some sleep.
He sat at the window, watching the street for any activity. Wearing the night-vision goggles he’d kept in a storage kit, he could see well into the front yard and a good ways down the road. For the moment everything appeared calm, and he attributed this to powering off the generator, which had been a lot noisier than he’d expected.
The absence of activity indicated to him that the disease had worsened. The fever and debilitating aches and pains would severely limit people’s mobility and keep them from traveling very far. And assuming the second component was starting to kick in, people’s reasoning skills would be diminished. Without the ability to think clearly or walk without intense pain, most of the infected would likely circle aimlessly in search of help.
When it was his turn to rest, he found he was too wired to sleep. Versa insisted that he take a break, so he gave in and lay down. It didn’t do much good. He stared at the ceiling for two straight hours, unable to drift off, his mind spinning in every direction, thinking about viruses and their strange behaviors. At three in the morning he pushed himself off the bed and made his way over to Versa, who sat staring out the window, the night-vision glasses attached to her head. She didn’t chastise him for waking so early because, in truth, neither one of them could get any sleep.
