“You miss him?”
“Every day. He was my life for a long time. The person I’d call when I had a problem and didn’t know which direction to turn.” Pete exhaled. “I could sure use his advice right now.”
“We don’t know that we’re sick.”
“I don’t feel good. And the doctor said he’s seen the incubation period go down with every passing week. The virus is mutating quickly. It’s not natural, Deb. It’s engineered. Most people think it’s a punishment from God, like a hurricane or something. It’s not. It was made in a lab by men too insane to see what they were really doing.”
Debra stopped the jeep and reached over. She lay her hand on his lap and looked him in the eyes. “We don’t know if we have it, Peter.”
He nodded. “I’m so sorry I took you with me to that site. I should’ve gone alone. I could’ve at least worn some protective gear and—”
“You didn’t know what you had on your hands. Don’t beat yourself up.”
He looked out over the city and could see a baseball stadium down the road. Now it was used as a makeshift prison and, something not everyone knew, an execution chamber. Ips were brought in by the dozens, shot, and burned. So many of them were crammed in there that he could hear their screams even from half a mile away. “I used to watch games there, a minor league team, the Bees or Raptors or something. I don’t even remember now. Isn’t that funny? I went there a few years ago and I don’t remember anything about it.”
“Traumatic events can do that to us.”
He looked at her. “I don’t want to die alone.”
“You won’t. I’ll be here.”
“They said we shouldn’t be interacting.”
“They don’t know anything.” She rested her head on his shoulder.
Just then, an entire relationship flashed in Pete’s mind. Debra had always been the one, the one that he called when he was lonely, the one that went to movies with him when he couldn’t find anyone else. He had always figured she agreed to see him outside of work because he was her boss, but he could see now there was something else between them. His biggest regret was that he saw that now, when it was too late for him to do anything about it.
“I’m sorry I never… I should have made this happen sooner.”
She lifted her head and kissed him. Everything inside him said to stop, that if one of them was infected and the other wasn’t, they would now infect the other. He couldn’t stop. The kiss felt better than anything he’d ever done in his life, and he didn’t want it to stop.
She pulled close and they held each other, staring at the abandoned buildings in front of them. “The tests should be ready. We need to head back.”
She started the jeep and turned around.
28
By midafternoon, Samantha had sweated out the last of her moisture. Now dehydrated, her lips cracking, a pain had developed just underneath her ribcage. Her kidneys. But the immediate pain was the skin peeling off her lips. She licked them, even though she knew it would only make them worse.
The villagers wouldn’t let them inside their homes, so they had to sit out in the dirt road that passed through the town and wait for Tristan. Jason kept his eyes closed as though he were meditating.
Sam had been watching the people in the town. They seemed happy, oblivious to the chaos going on around them. None of them appeared sick, and she was surprised they let anyone from the outside world in at all. A single infected person could easily kill everyone in the village in a matter of days.
Eventually, she saw a woman step out of a building. The woman was strikingly beautiful, more so because Sam didn’t expect to see someone who looked like that here, of all places. Her hair was bright red, almost the color of red crayon. A large man with a rifle followed her out, and they strolled over. The woman grinned and said, “It’s been a long time, Jason.”
Jason rose. “You look the same.”
“No stress. Stress is the great killer of modern humans.” She looked at Sam. “And you must be Dr. Bower?”
Samantha forced herself up. “I am.”
“We welcome you to our village. I hope we can be of some assistance.”
The woman seemed ethereal. Maybe it was the way she spoke, maybe her beauty, or the elegance of her movements. But behind her eyes was something else, something mischievous or maybe even malicious.
“You have a lot of animals here,” Sam said, noticing the pens filled with wildlife.
“Yes, we’re entirely self-sufficient. I don’t want my people to rely on the outside world in any way. We don’t even have electricity. It’s difficult at first to grow accustomed to, but once you do, it’s difficult to imagine living any other way.”
Tristan began strolling around, and Sam got the impression she was expected to follow. She followed Tristan as she sauntered by a large pen holding some sheep.
“So you want to devise a vaccine based on our antibodies,” Tristan said, more a statement than a question.
“If it’s possible. I don’t know that it is.”
“Must be a noble career, finding vaccines and saving lives.”
“I also take them.”
She stopped, the interest in her face showing brightly. “How?”
“The smallpox vaccine is a live virus and causes at least one pustule. If the pustule oozes, it’s contagious. It’s also causing people with weak immune systems distress or death. I would anticipate about 1 percent of everyone that takes it will die. Most vaccines for hot viruses are similar, and I’ve helped develop a few.”
“Take a few lives to save a great many more… I don’t think there is another way to save people, is there? Everything has a consequence. Every action goes beyond where we think it does.”
“Jason told me the same thing.”
“Jason and I have a lot in common in our thinking. We’re both children of reality. Anything mystic doesn’t appeal to us.” She paused, watching several sheep as they ran over to see if any food was about to be thrown. “We don’t want any contact with the outside world. I hope you understand that. None of my people will be leaving the village. You’re free to study a few of us, take blood samples, but nothing more.”
“I understand. Is it true you haven’t had a single case of the virus here?”
“Not a one.”
“Is it simply a matter of exposure?”
“Oh, no, we’ve had exposure. Several people have come through here, attempting to get away from the cities. One was infected and we couldn’t tell. He coughed on the woman tending to him and several of her children. None of them were infected. Of course, we’ve had the insane. For them, there’s nothing that can be done. They simply have to be killed. But we are immune to their virus.”
“And how do you explain that?”
“I don’t. Some things in nature are just unknown. Maybe we’re lucky, or perhaps purity in our genetics has built a resistance.”
Sam noticed that most of the people in the village had dirty boots. But Tristan’s boots were clean, even sparkling in the sunlight as though freshly shined.
“I’ve seen people that have naturally fought off the smallpox, but I wouldn’t call what they have now life. I’ve never met someone who might actually be immune,” Sam said. “And this new mutation, the one causing insanity, I don’t even know what it is. I just don’t know if your blood will help me at all.”
She smiled. “Then we should hurry and get you a test subject. I’m curious myself.”
As Tristan left, the man with the rifle following her, she said a few words to Jason. He approached Sam and said, “Just so you know, there are no laboratories here. You get what you need from these people and I’ll take you to another lab.”
“Not the CDC?”
“Atlanta’s still off limits. But we might be able to set something up with the army.” He hesitated. “Hank isn’t here.”
“It’s fine,” Sam said, absently looking out over the town.
He hesitated again, averting
his eyes. “Tristan told me he’s not done. He doesn’t want anyone unaffected.”
Variola major could be turned into a mist. She had known that as a graduate student. But to get it into the clouds, it seemed so unnatural, so monstrous, that the thought hadn’t even entered her mind that other men would be willing to do it. Now not only had it been done, she had just been told it would happen again.
“They tried to terminate it,” Sam said, staring off at some children.
“What?”
“Smallpox, in the nineties. We abolished it from nature in the seventies, but the US and Russia had stockpiles. The World Health Organization tried to exterminate it as a species entirely. They wanted to destroy the stockpiles. But the militaries of the US, UK, and Russia were against it. A lot of scientists were, too. They thought exterminating an entire natural species, even smallpox, was immoral. If they had done it, this wouldn’t have even begun.”
“Don’t kid yourself. Every nation with a laboratory has smallpox. It’s a weapon too powerful to give up.”
“It’s not a weapon. It destroys its user in the process. No man-made weapon does that. It’s a force of nature, like lightning. We can’t control it. That type of control doesn’t exist. We’re the only species that doesn’t live with nature but tries to conquer it.”
He gently placed his hand on her shoulder, drawing her attention back to him. “You can save a lot of lives with this.”
She nodded. “I don’t know if I can, but I’ll try.”
29
Pete couldn’t look at the pustule, not for a long time. He didn’t really know what he was looking at, but he figured the larger and more colorful it was, the more likely he had smallpox. He sat in the trailer as the physician cleaned his arm. When he was done, he sat down across from Pete. Without having to say it, Pete knew.
“How long do I have?” Pete muttered.
“I don’t know for certain yet. The pustule seems to indicate an infection, but I’ll need to get your blood results back to make certain. That takes days.”
“If I do have it, how long?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen an antigen like this one. It adapts and evolves, mutates… probably no more than a couple of days before you get the headaches and intense fever. You’ll be bedridden by day five or six and the pustules will appear, or you’ll go insane. Those are the two roads. We can give you the smallpox vaccine now since it’s so close to the time of infection, but the vaccine hasn’t been working. This strain is resistant. We just do it because we don’t know what else to do.”
Pete nodded and rose, unable even to blink. He stumbled out of the trailer and stood in the dwindling sunlight. The day was coming to a close, and with it, he realized, so was he. This was the worst day of his life, and all he could think of was that he wished he could have a few more hours of sunlight.
And then a sudden, powerful thought pushed itself into his consciousness. The drones were filled with Variola mist. Being shot down, the drones would expose the mist.
Pete jumped into the jeep. Debra ran out of one of the trailers.
“Are you…”
“No,” she said, relieved. “Negative.”
“Then you can’t be near me. Goodbye, Debra.”
“Goodbye? Wait. What do you mean goodbye? Pete! Pete!”
He peeled out of the parking lot and got back on the road, shooting through the streets and heading back to NORAD.
The simple pleasure of driving wasn’t something Pete had felt in a long time. It was odd to be behind the wheel of a car and not have anybody else on the roads. The streets were dirty and the buildings more so with no one around to clean them up anymore. He’d never appreciated how much that meant to him, to have cleanliness, until that moment. He figured everything was like that: you had to lose it first, and then you’d value it. You could never appreciate something while you had it. What a sad little joke, he thought.
The jeep roared up the interstate, and by the time he got off, he realized there wasn’t much fuel left. Seeing the needle so close to empty filled him with unease. Several times, he’d been in military transports that had run out of fuel. Those angst-filled hours while they waited on the side of the road for another military vehicle to bring fuel, the screaming of the insane echoing around them, were some of the most terrifying of his life. And now they didn’t compare with the thought that he would be one of them.
He parked next to the entrance and jumped out. Just as he was about to run into the building, he caught a glimpse of himself in the jeep’s side mirror. The sweat had soaked his collar and his eyes were rimmed red, as though he hadn’t slept in a great while. And he remembered what was coursing through him right now. He couldn’t go into the building. He could potentially infect everyone there.
In the back of the jeep, as in all military jeeps now, was an infection protection kit, a red container that held everything someone would need if they were going to deal with a potentially infected person. Pete opened it and searched the contents. He found what looked like a rubber fishing suit and a transparent gas mask. He put them on over his clothing and then snapped latex gloves over his hands. Even though he knew it was impossible to transmit smallpox through hair, he took out the surgical cap and put it on before hurrying inside.
Everyone stopped what they were doing when he walked in. People turned at their desks, phones still in their hands with voices coming through on the other end. A few stood up, as though he were a wild animal that was about to attack. Pete guessed they didn’t know whether he was infected or whether someone else was and he was protecting himself. Either way, their fight-or-flight responses had been triggered. The reptilian brain had taken over, and they were just waiting for the moment to either run or subdue him. He had no doubt that his long-time friends would hurt him if they thought their lives were at risk.
Pete quickly jogged past the main floor and to his office. He found Clover on the phone, one of his assistants standing behind him like a slave waiting for commands. They both looked up at the same time and Clover said, “I’ll call you back” into the phone.
No one said anything for a moment. Pete felt his throat in a way he never had, dry and sticky at once. He swallowed, feeling his breath heat his face in the confines of the gas mask.
“I’m infected,” he said.
Clover sat silently for a moment. “From the drone?”
“Yes. You can’t shoot them down. They contain the poxvirus, Danny. Whoever put them up there wants you to take them down.”
Clover considered this before leaning forward and rubbing his brow. “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“I should’ve killed that bastard when I had the chance.” He looked at Pete, as though noticing him for the first time. “You’re relieved of command, Master-Sergeant. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. What about the drones?”
“I’ll figure something else out.”
Pete nodded, looking around his office. He thought briefly he should pack up his things, then remembered that he wouldn’t be needing them. He turned and shut the door behind him, glancing at the giant monitors on the wall before walking out and sitting in the jeep. After stripping off the gas mask, he removed the gloves and suit.
There was a small canyon nearby. Pete started the jeep and headed there.
The farther up into the mountains he went, the cooler the air became. The green in the foliage was dappled gold from the setting sun. He figured he had maybe twenty or so minutes of sunlight left.
He came to a clearing. The last time he had been there, the clearing was filled with cars. People parked there and hiked up the small hill off to the right, sightseeing. A panoramic view of the valley below waited for them at the top of the hill, along with white boulders that seemed otherworldly. Pete had sat on one of the boulders with a girl he’d been dating, Papaya. He remembered her name because it was so unusual, and he finally got the nerve to ask her if she was actually named after the fruit, which, it
turned out, she was.
As he got out of the jeep and trekked up to the top of the hill, he wondered what had happened to Papaya.
At the top of the hill, he saw the white boulders and approached them. They weren’t dull white or cream or anything diluted; they were a pure, bright white, like snow, an aberration of nature. He sat on one and watched the valley below him. How different it looked now. More trees, no cars, no glimmering stoplights or street lamps. A perfect oasis of nature with remnants of civilization left.
Pete curled his legs up to his chest, and before he could stop them, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he wept.
30
The apartment seemed more isolated than usual. Pete normally didn’t even notice the dilapidation or silence, but now that was all he could see when he looked around his home: the rust on the faucet, the tear in the couch, the crack in the window over the sink. All of it told him one thing: he’d worked his entire life and had nothing to show for it. He drew a good salary, or had drawn one, anyway, but he had no luxury possessions to speak of, no wife or family, not even the memories of such things to comfort him. His entire life was crammed into a studio apartment.
The building was surrounded by razor wire and had a guard at the entrance at all times. He’d noticed a trend where apartment buildings that weren’t guarded were filled with squatters in a matter of days. Then an ip would break in. The infection would spread, and the squatters would have to be killed by the military patrols. His building paid for security after a similar incident in another complex up the block.
He rose from the couch and stared out the window onto the street. Other than the military patrols, he never saw any cars. People had occasionally walked by on the sidewalks, but even that had stopped months ago.
Scourge - A Medical Thriller (The Plague Trilogy Book 3) Page 17
