The Liger Plague (Book 1)

by Joseph Souza

  Something seemed different about this painted, two-headed cat; the liger in this one held the two stick figures in its claws, and the claws were inching closer to the cat’s mouth—the sand running out of the proverbial hourglass.

  They made their way up the street. Halfway to the top, they found another liger on the street. They continued walking until they came to yet another one. This image faced toward one of the houses, and he was stunned to see that it was Versa’s. What kind of game was Lenny playing?

  He bolted up the stairs and stopped at the top, wondering if the door had been rigged. It didn’t much matter at this point; time was running out, and he had limited options. He called down for Fez to wait at the foot of the steps and keep an eye on Stain. He was about to open the door when he noticed another icon painted on the cement stoop. He turned the handle, but the door was locked. Stepping back, he fired two rounds into it until it shattered. He pushed the door in and looked around the house. It appeared neat and tidy, unaffected by the events of the last few days.

  He checked the bedrooms upstairs but found nothing. He ran down into the dark basement and pulled out his flashlight. Pointing the beam over the foundation, he saw cobwebs and dirt amongst the assortment of tools, junk and piles of books. The junk was piled high everywhere, and all the windows had been boarded up. He flashed the light into the first room he came across. He saw a washer and dryer and a collection of fishing rods and ancient golf clubs. He continued down the dark corridor until he came to a room with a door. He quietly turned the handle, but as soon as he did he heard several dogs barking savagely. Why would anybody lock their dogs in the basement? He turned the handle and cracked open the door. The stench hit him like a punch in the face. The dogs threw themselves against the wood door. He grabbed hold of the twisted knob and quickly closed it before they rushed out and attacked him.

  “Anyone inside?” he shouted above the growls and bloodthirsty barking.

  He heard the sound of someone trying to speak. Could it be Monica? He kicked open the door and pointed the beam of light into the middle of the room. Three sets of eyes glowed in the dark. The first dog ran at him, and he shot it before it reached the door. The dog whimpered and fell back dead. The two others charged. He shot the second dog between the eyes, and it collapsed against the threshold. His third shot missed, and the last dog jumped up and tackled him to the dirt floor.

  Tag lifted his arm to keep the dog from ripping out his throat. The mutt’s sharp teeth tore into his forearm and hand. He could see now that it was a Rottweiler, and it was large and smelly. Lifting the gun with his right hand, he tried to get off a decent shot, but the dog’s disgusting breath filled his nostrils. He lifted his feet and managed to kick the dog off him, and it crashed against the far wall, disappearing from sight. Raising the flashlight, Tag saw it charging again. It leaped up, jaws snapping, and went for his throat. He lifted the gun and fired a round into the mutt as it dove toward him, yet it continued to bite down on his torso and draw blood. He smacked it in the head with the flashlight and fired another round into its ribcage. The dog fell back on the dirt floor and growled, staring up at him. He could see now that he’d paralyzed it. The dog could not move the bottom half of its torso. It lay there, scraping the dirt with its grimy front paws. Standing, he fired the gun once more and put it out of its misery.

  The entire front of his body was covered in blood, both his and the dog’s. Reaching up to his face, he could feel the bite marks and torn, ripped flesh across his cheek and scalp. He only prayed that the dog was not rabid, not that it mattered at this point. He lifted the flashlight and aimed the beam into the dark room and saw two hideously deformed figures sitting next to each other on the floor. Their eyes glowed as soon as the beam of light hit their pupils. Their naked bodies were covered from head to toe in blistering sores. What struck him most was the cloyingly sick odor that emanated from the room. At least they’d had the smarts to roll up two sleeping bags along the floor in order to lessen the chance of infection.

  “Monica? Taylor?”

  He couldn’t tell if the two diseased were Monica and Taylor, the scarring along their bodies appeared so drastic, but when they nodded their heads, he knew he’d found them. He ran over to where they sat, tears falling from his eyes, and gently hugged them, not quite believing that they were still alive. Then he pushed back in horror. Had they come down with the second component of the virus? The one that affected their brain and made them violent and unpredictable?

  “I missed you guys so much. Are you okay?”

  Monica nodded, and Taylor looked up at him with a frightened, sad expression. A sense of euphoria filled him, and he hugged them again, tears streaming down his cheeks. Although they were weak, they embraced him in return, and he could smell the terrible odor given off by their pox.

  It didn’t appear that they’d come down with the brain virus. He assumed that being confined in this basement had kept them safe and away from the infection. Whoever had locked them down here had wanted to keep them isolated, hoping that they might be found. The dogs had obviously been trained to protect them, and he figured that the cloying scent of the pox played a role in their training as guard dogs. He was just grateful he’d found them, although there was still a long way to go before they were safe. He had to get them back to the old fisherman’s place, then figure out how to get off this island before the Seals arrived and leveled the whole place.

  He helped them to their feet. They moved slowly like elderly people. The extent of their scarring was such that their range of motion would be severely limited for quite some time, possibly months. Positioning himself between them both, Tag aimed the beam of light down the narrow corridor, pointing the way out. They moved slowly and steadily, and he figured that every inch of their bodies, including the soles of their feet, were covered in painful sores. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, he was exhausted and dripping with sweat. Neither Taylor nor Monica could move very well. He ran upstairs into one of the closets and pulled out two of the silkiest robes he could find and went back downstairs to drape the robes over their bodies to protect their skin. He sat them both down on the couches to rest. Clearly, they couldn’t continue on without a short break. He went to the front door, opened it, and whistled for Fez and Stain to come inside.

  “What the crap happened to you?” Fez asked upon seeing him.

  “I had a run-in with a few guard dogs, but at least I found my family.”

  “Congratulations, Tag. You did it.” Fez stared at him. “Boy, those dogs did a number on you.”

  “I just hope they didn’t have rabies.”

  “That would totally suck.”

  Tag introduced the boy to his family.

  “There’s one of them medical clinics up on Main Street. My mom used to take me there every once in a while. Maybe they got some medicine you can take just in case you got it.”

  “I’m going to go downstairs first and take a look at those dogs, see if they were frothing at the mouth.”

  Tag went back downstairs and pointed the light at the dead canines. All three dogs had saliva oozing from their mouths, but he couldn’t conclude definitively whether or not they had been infected with rabies. If he’d contracted the disease, he was a dead man, assuming he didn’t get shot first. He had to try to make his way up to that clinic and see if he could find some immunoglobulin and rabies vaccine. Oddly enough, in his profession, rabies was probably the last disease he ever worried about contracting.

  He returned upstairs.

  “We’ll rest for a minute, then we’ll head to that clinic. If I’ve come down with rabies, I need to get some of that immunoglobulin inside me real quick.”

  “That rabies shot hurts,” Fez said. “Got bit by a dog two years ago and had to get one. Friggin’ killed me for days.”

  “Got one when I was a kid too,” Stain added, gesturing as if to plunge a needle into his stomach. “Right in the gut.”

  “Take a quick breather, boys;
then we’re heading out. It’s going to be a long night.”

  “Better hurry, Tag. It’s starting to get late, and you know what that means.”

  Chapter 22

  Tag paced the room while Taylor and Monica rested, trying to get their bearings. He had so many questions that needed to be answered, the first one being the most obvious: how had it come to be that they had ended up at Versa’s house? Had Lenny targeted her from the beginning? And how come this person allowed Monica and Taylor to come down with smallpox but not the second part of the plague?

  They had to get off this island, which would be difficult to accomplish with all those Coast Guard ships circling the bay. He had to figure out a way to transport them back to the old fisherman’s home. At the moment it was the only safe haven on the island. First he’d need to make a quick pit stop in the middle of town and see if he could find some immunoglobulin inside that clinic.

  He walked out the back entrance of the house and made his way into the garage. The inside was neat and tidy, but what surprised him most was the sight of an old Ford Crown Victoria. It looked in decent condition for its age. He was surprised to see that the key was still in it, and wondered for a second if the vehicle had been rigged with some kind of explosive. And yet if the caller, Lenny, wanted him dead, it would have already happened by now. He climbed in behind the wheel and turned the key, bracing himself for the impact. The engine turned over and rumbled nicely. Checking the odometer, he saw it had thirty-seven thousand miles on it. The old car had barely been driven, which was no surprise seeing as it had probably never left the island.

  He revved the engine, and the motor purred. Turning on the radio, he fumbled with it until he’d tuned into the local talk radio station, a program known for its conservative bent. A caller came on the line talking about the situation unfolding on the island, blaming it on a vast governmental conspiracy underway designed to undermine its citizens. Another caller thought the island should be firebombed in order to prevent the virus from spreading. Tag heard his name mentioned as a primary suspect. Another caller listed off the mounds of evidence that was supposedly found against him and claimed that no one would be so stupid as to leave that much evidence in his wake. Another theorized that the island was being used as some sort of testing ground for the use of biological weapons, the trade-off being that the government could institute martial law whenever they wanted, denying citizens of their Constitutional rights. Although Tag found these theories farfetched and conspiratorial, the fact that he was now living through such a nightmare made them seem much more plausible.

  He found a Tracphone sitting on the passenger seat. A surge of panic filled him, and he knew instantly that the caller had drawn him here for a reason. Turning it on, he found that the battery had three-quarters of juice remaining. He thumbed the menu until he came to the contact icon. There was only one number on the list, and it was identified as Lenny. Should he call it? He realized he had to try in case there were any more instructions needed to help him, as crazy as that sounded.

  “Hi, Colonel,” the voice answered cheerfully. “I’ve been waiting for you to call all day. What the hell took you so long?”

  “I had a few situations to deal with before I could call.”

  “Congrats on finding your family. Well done.”

  “Not like I could miss your street art.”

  “Did you like that? I designed them myself and then painted them along the boulevard. It’s such an arty little island that no one even noticed me doing it. They all thought it was part of their fancy art festival.”

  “Why are you playing this game when you can just kill us all?”

  “Without you in the mix, it wouldn’t be as much fun. As far as the game goes, life itself is a game and not worth living if we can’t enjoy these earthly endeavors.” The caller snickered. “Think of your life like a board game.”

  “Okay then. Who rolls the dice next?”

  “How’d the old ball-and-chain and the little princess like my cute puppies?”

  “I think you know how they liked your dead dogs, asshole.”

  “You had to waste them? And they were such great guard dogs. No worries, Colonel, I can always get more. Probably had rabies anyway.”

  “Go to hell!”

  “No need to get testy. After all, I did make sure your precious little darlings didn’t come down with the liger’s full wrath.”

  “What’s the next move?”

  “Now the real fun begins. This little escapade on Cooke’s Island was just the beginning. Now you have so many other things to worry about, such as clearing your name, finding a way off that island and, more importantly, coming up with a way to keep my beautiful liger from swimming over to the mainland.”

  “A Navy Seal team is going to lay ruin to this place come nightfall. Even if we did make it off the island, there’s no way that virus will survive in any form. How will you yourself make it off?”

  “Aw, that’s quite kind of you to think about me, Colonel, but please don’t trouble yourself over my wellbeing. What you’ve seen on Cooke’s Island is just a microcosm of the wave of destruction that will sweep over the world if my beautiful Liger manages to swim ashore.”

  “Why did you keep my wife and daughter at Versa’s house?”

  “Why not? That miserable woman never leaves home. No one would ever think to look for them there. I thought it would be a nice irony.”

  “Come now, Lenny, you can trust me. Do we know each other? You and I must have worked together in some capacity. Not many scientists in the world have the kind of skill level and expertise to create such a highly sophisticated organism.”

  “Thanks for the high praise, Colonel. You’re too kind. How about you worry about yourself rather than try to figure out who I am and what I’ve done with my life? I’d hate to have to continue on this journey without you. It would be no fun watching you die or seeing you off to prison for the rest of your life. I’m doing my damnedest to help you.”

  “You’re so kind, Lenny. I can’t thank you enough,” he said. “I’ll clear my name once I make it back to the mainland, and then I’ll set my sights on hunting you down.”

  The man laughed. “Best of luck with that. I’ll be rooting for you all the way, Colonel, because I certainly hope that we can continue the fun we’ve had. With any luck we’ll talk again when this little island fiasco is all said and done, maybe even have a cocktail together. Then we can start the next chapter of our hopefully long and fruitful relationship.”

  “There better not be a next chapter.”

  “Oh, there will be a next chapter, with or without you. And the final one will be a real cliffhanger. Good luck getting off this island, my friend. I wish you only the best. And I sincerely mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

  “Wish I could say the same about you.”

  “I’ll be fine one way or another. Take care now.”

  Tag shut the engine off and returned to the house. Fez and Stain sat at the kitchen table, their masks still attached to their faces. The strong stench of the pox made him wince. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to fully erase that sickly sweet smell from his memory banks. Staring at Monica, he wondered if somehow she and Taylor managed to survive this ordeal, they’d ever look normal again. Such horrible scars might take months, maybe years to heal. Or maybe never. At least they were alive and hadn’t suffered from the debilitating brain impairment that turned all the others into monsters. Nor had they witnessed the homicidal behavior firsthand. For that he counted his blessings.

  The cuts on his face and scalp throbbed, as did the gunshot wound to his ear. The medicine was starting to wear off. He reached inside his bag, pulled out the bottle of aspirin, and swallowed four more. Fez walked over to the main window and stared down at the street far below.

  “Holy crap!” the kid said, eyes widening.

  “What now?”

  “Tag, you’re not going to believe this, but poxers are starting to crowd the stree
t.”

  “How can that be?” Tag said, walking over to the window. “The sun hasn’t even set yet.”

  “Maybe their eyes are getting used to the sun.”

  “Damn! Their vision must be acclimating to the light. Either that or they’re so desperate for food that they’re being forced out of their holes.”

  “Doesn’t look like the light’s bothering them at all. They got their eyes open and are looking all around.”

  “Bet Roberts wished he’d changed his mind.”

  “I’m glad he’s out there,” Stain said. “I hope them sick bastards get a hold of that religious freak and tear him to pieces.”

  “What are we going to do, Tag?”

  “There’s a car out in the garage we can all fit into. We’re going to head out in a few minutes and drive back to Cooper’s house, but first I need to get some medicine out of that clinic.”

  “Better not wait too long or else every single last one of them poxers will be out on the street looking for us.”

  Tag walked over to where Monica sat on the couch. Both she and Taylor had blankets wrapped around their robe-covered bodies. Monica gazed up at him and tried to say something but couldn’t speak on account of the cracked blisters inside and around her mouth and tongue. Tag put his finger up to his lips and combed the wispy hair back over her scalp. Tears started to fall from her eyes and sluice through the maze of wounds and scars. He went over to Taylor and tried to comfort her, but Taylor wouldn’t look up, either too embarrassed or too proud to be seen in such a hideous condition.

  Glancing out the window one last time, he knew they had to leave. He took whatever medicines he could find in the bathroom and stuffed them in his pack. The cuts and bites over his face, ear and scalp hurt like crazy, but he did his best to ignore the pain. He went over to the bathroom sink and washed all his cuts out with soapy water and a towel. Then he ripped opened a few more of the antibacterial packages and wiped them over the cuts until they lit up his body like bee stings.