by John Russo
“That makes perfect sense to me,” said Major Thurston. “The obvious question is, why didn’t they become infected prior to birth? It could be because they were born too soon for the disease to take hold. Or perhaps they were protected by the amniotic fluid. It’s certainly our responsibility to find out.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Colonel Spence. “Who knows? We might even discover something that could lead to a cure.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Dr. Traeger.
“I presume you’ll need even more money to study the children,” said Colonel Thurston. “Any idea how much?”
“I’ll work up some new budget projections,” Dr. Traeger replied. “I’m going to propose that we set up a program called the Foster Project, to be funded for seven years at the outset. It will place the children with adoptive parents of our choosing, who must agree to reside in Chapel Grove and utilize supervised facilities and professional services that we recommend. At the end of the initial funding phase, the project ought to have the option of applying for additional funds, depending upon what we may discover as the adoptees grow up.”
“Yes, of course,” Major Spence said. “I look forward to your formal proposal.”
When the Skype conference ended, Dr. Traeger wiped her moist brow and un-muted her TV, jolted by the sight of Reverend James Carnes, on-screen waving around a wooden mallet and a sharpened cross. She turned down the volume as he shouted, “The dead must be spiked! The dead must be spiked!” She despised him. Last year some of his followers had accused an old woman of invoking satanic spells to cause the plague, and she had to lock herself in her house, fearing for her life. Carnes had shown up in the nick of time to make his followers disperse, but in Dr. Traeger’s eyes he was the root cause of the fanaticism that had put the woman in danger in the first place. She hated the fact that science had to battle against the abysmal ignorance of nuts like Carnes who rejected the reality of global warming and evolution and the efficacy of stem cell research, yet whose unmitigated belief in supernatural forces obscured the undiscovered but undoubtedly natural causes of the Plague of the Living Dead.
One inadvertent blessing of the Chapel Grove outbreak was that it had furnished her new subjects for her experiments, in addition to Carl Landry, who was still undergoing test batteries. Some of the undead from the Rock ’n’ Shock nightclub had exhibited the black spiderweb patterns, and some had not. Therefore it was easy to differentiate between those who had been punctured by infected needles and those who had been bitten. Three persons had exhibited neither type of wound, and so the police must have shot them in the head by mistake. That sort of thing must not be revealed to the general public. It must not leak out. Dr. Traeger well knew by now that in any justifiable endeavor, there was always collateral damage.
CHAPTER 10
Three days after the disaster at the Rock ’n’ Shock, Detective Bill Curtis had a few drinks with Pete Danko at the American Legion post that they both belonged to. They had to sneak in, using side streets and back alleys to avoid the media hounds who were always pursuing them. The streets and buildings in Chapel Grove were full of newspaper and magazine reporters, television cameras, and talking heads. Ordinary citizens stayed in their houses for the most part, but the vultures circled and circled. Politicians and media outlets were in an uproar. It was like that anytime there was a plague outbreak anywhere. There would be an all-out furor that lasted for weeks or months, then gradually died down to the customary despair and dread that everyone was living under.
Because Bill Curtis and Pete Danko were central figures in the Chapel Grove situation, newshounds were all over them. Danko had briefed Bill the morning after the outbreak and told him in no uncertain terms not to divulge anything but just keep saying “No Comment” till the media leeches got tired of hearing it and went away. Bill stuck to that protocol. But it was early days yet, too soon for anything he said or did or didn’t say or do to discourage them.
After they snuck into the Legion, wearing civilian clothes, Bill and Pete huddled in a corner of the long oval bar. On the wall behind them there were two four-by-six glass display cases of mementos such as uniforms, helmets, medals, and so forth, donated by the families of members who had been killed in America’s wars. Blue-and-gold banners were hung all around the ceiling of the club, bearing the names of living members and the branches of the military that they had served in.
Pete seemed friendlier toward Bill than he ever had before. Maybe, Bill thought, it was because they had fought together and backed each other up effectively at the Rock ’n’ Shock, and this made them brothers-in-arms in Pete’s eyes. Bill welcomed the change. It would be nice not to be treated like a total underling anymore.
On the other hand, he was not immune to the realization that Pete wanted him to stonewall the subject of the infected needles and not say anything that might seem to contradict the official version of events. But Bill was uneasy with that, and he voiced a possibility that was nagging him. “Pete, I know we have to deal tactfully with the media, but I can’t help wondering just how forthcoming Dr. Traeger was being when she told us that the infected needles came from a disease control facility in Kentucky. She contradicted herself when she announced publicly that it isn’t exactly known where they came from. Why would she shade the truth?”
“Get off it. It’s a minor discrepancy,” Pete said adamantly.
“But obviously she wants to deflect blame from herself. She never admitted in any of her press conferences that the needles were stolen right from the institute. She put it all on unknown drug addicts from an unknown place.”
“That doesn’t really bother me,” said Pete. “She’s doing valuable work that has to continue. Ignorant people could tear it down if they go off on a tangent.”
“Who knows what kinds of experiments she’s actually doing? What if the needles somehow picked up an infection in her own laboratories?”
“Don’t even think that way,” Pete said. “I guarantee you, heads will roll, including our own. Bear in mind that Homeland Security authorized Dr. Traeger’s press conference and what she would say. It would be madness to doubt HSD. Their prime responsibility is to keep our nation safe from any and all threats, including not only foreign and domestic terrorism, but also potential pandemic diseases.”
“Well,” Bill said, “I hear what you’re saying, but why shouldn’t we at least go back and ask Dr. Traeger the hard questions I mentioned? She should fully cooperate if she has nothing to hide.”
“We wouldn’t get far with that,” Pete said. “She’s a dedicated scientist, and I have no doubt she’s telling the truth. Like I told you, I know her personally, and her integrity is solid. I think she’d rather die at the stake, like Galileo, than stoop to violating her commitment to science, which to her is as holy as any religion.”
“Galileo wasn’t burned at the stake,” Bill corrected, “but he was threatened with it and made to renounce his belief that the sun, not the earth, is the center of the universe. He was put in prison for the rest of his life. Another free-thinking scientist, Giordano Bruno, was burned to death in 1600 for the same beliefs, because he wouldn’t renounce them.”
“How do you know all that?” Pete asked.
“I was a liberal arts major at Pitt. I didn’t know what kind of career I wanted, and went into the army because I had a bug up my ass about terrorism. The other bug up my ass was religion, starting with the medieval church and its persecutions, and I broke away from it. I’m a nonbeliever, even though I was raised Catholic. Too many of the folks who claim to know the mind of God have a penchant for torturing and killing other people for disagreeing with their theology.”
“Same with politics,” Pete said. “Bucking the system can still get you killed. You’d be a fool to go up against Homeland Security.”
Bill said, “I hate that name the neocons gave it. It sounds like nomenclature straight from the Third Reich.”
Pete chuckled and sipped his beer, then start
ed talking about the prospects of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the upcoming season, with practice starting in August, only two months from now. He didn’t stay much longer in the bar, because he said that he needed to be with his wife, Wanda. Bill didn’t blame him. He felt that he really shouldn’t stay long either. Both their wives had been severely traumatized at the Quik-Mart, and of course Lauren was pregnant. He knew that women often spontaneously aborted under extreme duress, and it was a wonder that her fear of losing another baby thus far hadn’t come true.
Unwilling to let go of his desire to learn more than what Dr. Traeger and the HSD had let out, Bill hit on the idea of speaking with Ron Haley. Ron and his girlfriend had been rescued from right inside the Rock ’n’ Shock where the whole outbreak must’ve started.
Bill tossed down the warm dregs of his beer and headed for the Municipal Building to do some research. A check of Ron’s drug arrest records revealed that he had been living with his parents right in Chapel Grove, on School Street, one block behind the elementary school. Bill called the listed phone number, spoke to Mrs. Haley, and quickly ascertained that Ron was still living there.
“I hope you’re not a reporter,” she said. “Ron doesn’t want to talk about any of the bad things that happened.”
Bill reassured her that he was a police detective, not a media hound, and that he was the one who had helped rescue her son and his girlfriend. Mrs. Haley called Ron to the phone, and Bill asked if they could meet at the American Legion. He didn’t mind heading back up there, rather than asking Ron to come to the station, since he did not want any of his fellow officers to tumble to the fact that he was pursuing something that the chief had told him to stay out of. If he got spotted with Ron Haley at the Legion, no big deal, because it was common for folks to meet up there, even if they were going from there to someplace else, like a basketball or football game. To get in you had to be a member, which eliminated most of the out-of-town reporters.
Bill bought beers for him and Ron, and they went into the back room where they could be by themselves. He almost didn’t recognize the former Hateful Dead guitarist when he first came in. Ron no longer had the scrawny look of a rock-and-roll druggie. He was wearing clean khaki trousers, a Metallica T-shirt, a wide, studded belt, and black sneakers. The new, neater look appeared to signify a resolute transition point between his forsaken Hateful Dead persona and his more hopeful aspiration of settling down and marrying Daisy.
What Bill wanted from Ron was clarification of the events that had led up to the outbreak at the Rock ’n’ Shock. Some of the facts, if they could truly be called facts, had come out of the mouth—or the screwed-up mind—of Jackie Shaheen. Bill recapped Jackie’s drug-addled spiel, then asked Ron if he could fill in any missing details.
Ron said, “Screwed up as Jackie was, it seems like he got most of it right. What he didn’t know is that Sissy and Ferdy laid some shit on me before they went down into the basement. I blew them off, I thought they were sniffing glue or something.”
“They told you what happened at Fishhead’s place?”
“Yeah, I was like a big brother to Ferdy. He had a good brain when he wasn’t stoned. I was trying to help him get his life together, get off of drugs and enroll in the junior college or something, but he idolized the band, he wanted our kind of wacked-out lifestyle. I knew we were going strictly nowhere, partly because of our drug addictions and partly because we weren’t really that good—but Ferdy thought we were the next Metallica or Black Sabbath or something. Sissy was coming down off of her starfucker thing with Hal Rotini. She wanted to be a mommy and she really took her pregnancy seriously and he didn’t. Her real name was Sally Hensley but he started calling her Sissy Space-Out—a pun on Sissy Spacek, an actress who won an Academy Award way back when. Everybody knew Hal knocked her up, but he said she couldn’t prove paternity as long as he refused to give up his DNA.”
Bill asked, “Did either Sissy or Ferdy talk about the needles?”
“He was babbling about the needles somehow turning Fishhead into a zombie. It didn’t make much sense to me. Ferdy said Fishhead seemed to be dead, and then he got up and bit Ferdy before he could wrestle him for his gun and shoot him in the head.”
“What do you think about what the whole country’s been told? That the outbreak at the club was caused by old infected needles from some place in Kentucky?”
“It could be the truth, for all I know. The plague infection had to have some kind of cause, and maybe that’s it. I was pissed off at the band and I was gonna quit, but I didn’t want Ferdy to go off the deep end. I didn’t buy into his rap about zombies and infected needles, but I didn’t expect him to start shooting people either.”
“Did you see how the outbreak began?”
“No. Daisy and I only started to tumble to it when we heard the shots from the basement.”
Ron was fidgeting and perspiring, obviously shaken by remembering what he and Daisy had gone through. There were tears on his cheeks, so Bill stopped questioning him and they both fell silent. Ron said, “I gotta use the men’s room,” and got up and went around the corner.
Bill didn’t think Ron would skip out, and he didn’t. When he sat back down, his face was wet and he blotted it with a paper towel. “I wish we were back in high school. We didn’t know how good we had it.”
Bill clinked his glass against Ron’s, then asked him if he had spoken with any of the investigators from Homeland Security.
“Nobody other than you. I figure I owe it to you ’cause you got me off the hook with my drug bust. Plus, Daisy and I would’ve been done for if you hadn’t show up at the Rock ’n’ Shock.”
Bill thought it was strange that no one from Homeland Security had questioned Ron. A thorough inquiry into the Chapel Grove outbreak should have entailed an interrogation of anyone who had been on the scene. HSD might’ve reasoned that Ron’s being there when all hell broke loose did not mean that he would know how it originated. It was also possible that they really didn’t want to stumble upon a witness who might contradict Dr. Traeger. For that matter, if any kind of intrigue was afoot, how could a small-town detective poke a hole in it? His prodding of Ron Haley seemed to have taken him about as far as he could go.
Or had it?
In spite of Pete’s warning that he should back off, he knew it would eat at him if he didn’t at least try to speak with Dr. Traeger. After Ron left, he got her on his cell phone, and without any stonewalling or hesitation she agreed to see him at the institute.
With a wan smile, she greeted him in her office and offered him coffee, which he declined. He jumped right in and said, “I’m hoping you might tell me if you’ve discovered anything more about the Chapel Grove outbreak. Is there anything you held back from the media?”
“No, I gave full disclosure. To do anything less would have been unethical. The needles were contaminated when they were sent to us, and they got stolen. The matter is cut-and-dried. We tried our best to avert a catastrophe, but we failed. I’m doing my utmost to see that such a thing never happens again.”
“I have great respect for scientists such as yourself,” Bill told her, in an effort to make her open up more.
She said, “It’s refreshing that you believe in science. There are too many people, even some in high places, who think the plague is going to be cured with prayers, either to God or to the devil.”
“I’m not religious, nor superstitious,” he said. “Police work solves crimes by evidence, not speculative beliefs.”
“That’s for certain. Superstition and religion are two sides of the same coin. Superstition is belief in things unsupported by facts, and religion is a superstitious belief in a god or gods who meddle in human affairs.”
“That’s a good way of putting it,” Bill said. “But you must realize that most people in this town would call you a heretic.”
“Or worse,” she said. “But they’re not going to stop me unless they burn me at the stake. And I don’t think you and Pete Danko will let
them do that. The causes of the plague have proven to be more enigmatic and more elusive than the pathogens that cause cancer. But I’ve dedicated my entire career to finding a cure, and I believe that in the end science will triumph.”
“I saw you at the American Legion memorial service. Are you a member of the Ladies’ Auxiliary?”
“No, but my husband belongs. He served in the first Gulf War, as a battalion psychiatrist. In his civilian practice, he specializes in cases of mental and emotional trauma. We attended the service at the Legion out of respect for all the suffering people have been through.”
Bill admired her passion for her calling and her empathy for others. But he could see that he wasn’t going to get any more out of her, if indeed there was anything more for her to give.
“Does Captain Danko know you’re here?” she asked, shooting him a piercing look.
“I’m not trying to agitate, just trying to soothe my conscience,” he told her. “I’d feel guilty if something I did or didn’t do contributed to the outbreak.”
Seeming to buy that, she said, “If you and Captain Danko hadn’t tracked the needles down so quickly, the epidemic would have gone totally out of control. I can’t say it publicly, but in my estimation you were both heroes.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I wish you great success in your endeavors.”
They parted cordially, he thought. But early the next morning, when he was heading to the police gym, he was summoned to Pete Danko’s office.
“You went behind my back,” Danko said angrily. “You had no business grilling Dr. Traeger after I told you not to.”
“I didn’t exactly grill her, and you didn’t explicitly say not to. You just said that it might not be a good idea.”
