by Max Lockwood
“What did you say?” Alec snarled.
“A record board for survival times?”
“Why would you say that they’re probably dead?” he barked. “You don’t even know them.”
Alec tried to take a few deep breaths, something they were taught to do while working if they thought they were about to make a stupid decision out of anger. He breathed until he stopped shaking, until he could think clearly again.
“I’m sorry,” Will squeaked. “I didn’t know that they were this important to you.”
“I guess I didn’t either,” Alec replied, thinking about Elaina. He wanted to rescue her, if anything, to show her that he was a caring person. He wanted her to be in his life, not out on the streets in the middle of an epidemic.
He felt a connection to her that he could not explain. It was probably rooted in stress from the madness that was unfolding around them. Still, it was more than he felt for a lot of people, and he would be damned if he couldn’t take a shot at living in a post-virus world with her.
But the kid was right. If it weren’t for Alec’s experience working in dangerous situations, he would have been a goner ages ago. It wasn’t fair for him to snap at Will for logically connecting the dots.
“I’m sorry,” Alec said once he regained his composure. “You’re probably right.”
“No, I’m sorry. They’ve got as good of a chance as anybody. Let’s keep looking. I’ve got nowhere to be, now that we know there’s nowhere to go.”
“Thanks,” Alec said wearily, knowing that their energies were being wasted on such a futile mission. But, if there was even a one-in-a-million shot of finding them, he would take that chance.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Reading the billboards as they trekked, Elaina began to pick up the pace. She walked faster and faster until she was nearly jogging.
“Wait up,” Natalia called. “I have shorter legs.”
“I think this is it,” Elaina said, unable to hide the excitement in her voice. “This might be our answer.”
Natalia looked up at the signs, then back over to Elaina. “You’re not talking about that hospice, are you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not a hospital, but they might have the things I need.”
“Sure, if you need a bunch of infected elderly people,” she retorted. “Honestly, this worries me.”
“Come on. This is a place where people come to live out the few days they have left. They’re already going to be in a weakened state, and I wouldn’t be the least surprised if the nurses and caregivers have abandoned them. For all we know, everyone in there is already dead.”
“For all we know, everyone in there is very much alive and infected. We have no way of protecting ourselves.”
Elaina stopped to look at Natalia, who had come to a halt. She could see that the girl’s hands were shaking.
“How about this?” Elaina proposed. “You can stand back a little way, and I’ll poke my head inside. If people are just roaming around, out for blood, I’ll give you a signal and we’ll book it out of there. If the coast is clear, we set up shop. Look at this place,” Elaina said, gesturing to the empty expanse. “This place is kind of in the middle of nowhere, and I haven’t seen signs of life, healthy or otherwise, in over an hour.”
“Fine,” Natalia said, throwing up her hands. “See if anyone’s around.”
Elaina nearly skipped up to the front door, opening it with ease. It was mostly dark inside, but faint streaks of sunlight came in through gaps in the blinds. She didn’t see or hear anyone, so she walked into the entrance and pulled open the blinds. In the daylight, the building looked like a nursing home, slightly sterile in décor but with a homey twist. The floor was stark white and tiled, but a wreath of autumn foliage hung on the reception desk.
Pleased with what she had found so far, Elaina poked her head out the door and excitedly waved Natalia toward her. She had high hopes for the place.
“You think it’s empty?” Natalia asked, cautiously looking around corners.
“As far as I can tell. This place is huge. I wonder if they have a lab for doing in-house exams.”
“It smells strongly of alcohol,” Natalia said. “I guess that’s a good sign. At least it’s clean in here.”
“Let’s check it out,” Elaina said, like a child on Christmas morning, waiting to see what surprises could be discovered.
“No, wait,” Natalia said, clutching Elaina’s arm. “Do you hear that?”
“No,” Elaina said. “I think it’s in your head.”
Natalia took a few steps down the dark hall. “I really think I hear something.”
Together, they crept down the hall until Elaina heard the noise too. It sounded as if there were a wounded animal somewhere in the building. It seemed so strange because there was no sign of life in the building. It looked like it had been abandoned, just like everything else.
The sound grew louder and louder and Natalia was digging her nails into Elaina’s arm now. They realized that the sound was not coming from one living creature, but several. Natalia peered into one of the thin, rectangular windows in a patient’s room and let out a gasp.
Elaina leaned over to see what was so startling and nearly jumped from pure shock. Inside the patient’s room were about twelve people, mostly elderly, wandering around. They seemed completely unaware that they were no longer alone.
“I’m getting the hell out of here,” Natalia said, doubling back.
“They’re locked in,” Elaina noted, lightly touching the door handle.
“They’re infected,” Natalia spat. “What makes you think they won’t break down that door this instant?”
“Because they haven’t already. How long do you figure they’ve been in there? I’d be willing to guess around a week. They’re in bad enough shape that their rage isn’t enough to help them blast down that door. At the very most, they’re just going to claw at each other and throw the food the staff so graciously left for them,” she said sarcastically. “I’d say we’re pretty secure. I’m going to find a lab.”
“I hate everything about this,” Natalia said. “What do you think happened?”
Elaina looked around. “My guess is that the virus hit, and these guys were infected. The staff didn’t know what to do with them besides quarantine them. I don’t blame them—it would be too easy to infect everyone in the place. Then, once it got bad, the workers split, but these guys were left behind.”
“That’s extremely inhumane,” Natalia protested. “How could they just lock them up like that? There’s not enough room for everyone in there.”
“They’re infected,” Elaina said softly. “There’s not much they could do for them. They’re already in bad shape anyway. I guess they figured that they would go one way or another.”
“I guess,” Natalia said sullenly. “It just really gives me the creeps.”
“Me too, but I think this is a fairly safe place to be right now. Would you like to come with me, or would you rather stay outside?”
Natalia let go of her arm. “I’ll stay with you, but if I hear that door break down, I will not hesitate to leave you behind.”
“Fine with me.”
They walked down the long corridor until the terrible howls sounded like faint mewls.
Elaina peeked into every room they passed, hoping to find something useful. Most of the rooms were for patients. Some of them even had bodies, stiff with rigor mortis, in the beds.
“I feel like I’m in a haunted house.” Natalia shuddered after finding yet another dead body.
Finally, they entered the heart of the hospice, where the employees spent most of their time. Beside a fully-stocked breakroom, there was an infirmary, complete with a small room used for processing samples and minor medical procedures.
“This is exactly what I needed,” Elaina gushed, looking around. She found a lamp and adjusted it so it shone on the work bench. “Yes, this should be enough to make some serious
progress.”
“How is there electricity?”
“They clearly have the generator going. I guess they just turned off all the lights before they abandoned the infected.”
“Want to check out the lounge with me?” Natalia asked.
“No, go ahead,” Elaina said, already adjusting the lens of a microscope and wiping the dust off a slide.
“You need food and water,” Natalia reasoned, nervous to go into the room for the first time alone. “How do you expect your brain to work at full capacity if you don’t have any carbs in your system? We might even be able to find a little caffeine,” she persuaded.
“You’re right,” Elaina said, carefully setting a slide on the bench. “Just a quick look, and then I’m going back to work.”
The lounge had couches, vending machines, and even a little cot for sleeping during long night shifts. Without thinking twice, Natalia picked up a paperweight and hurled it at the glass of the vending machine, shattering the front.
“I’m sure there’s a key for that around here somewhere,” Elaina said, frowning at the mess of broken glass on the carpet.
“No time,” she said, pulling snack cakes from the wreckage. “You’ve got to get to work.”
Natalia filled up a plastic cup from the water cooler and handed it to Elaina, along with a variety of snacks.
“Have fun,” she said cheerily as she flopped down on the couch, waving at Elaina with her hands full of junk food.
“Believe me, I will.”
Elaina spent a few moments rearranging her new sanctuary until everything was just right. She laid out her test tubes to admire the little samples they contained. She pulled the chicken eggs from their hiding spaces until she found a heating pad warmer to tuck them in. She hoped that they were still in good condition and that she could hide out in the hospice and work until they were ready.
Curiosity had been nagging at her for so long. Taking the blood sample she collected from the scene of Alec’s cop car theft, she added a few solvents from the shelf and placed it in the old centrifuge. As it hummed, she prepared a slide of her original virus. Of course, she could probably sketch it from memory, but it was always nice to have for comparison purposes.
When the blood had separated, she decanted the plasma and white blood cells into one tube, leaving the thick, red liquid behind. Then, she added more solvents and separated it down even further. Once that was ready, she prepared another slide of her mystery sample.
She searched around on the slide, increasing the magnification as far as it would go until she found it—her little virus swimming around.
Then, she saw something that nearly took her legs out from underneath her. What she thought was her virus wasn’t her virus at all—she even compared her original sample again to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.
The thing in the mystery sample looked so similar, but it had a few tiny changes. To the untrained eye, it didn’t look like much, but to Elaina, it blew the top right off her suspicions.
Elaina’s virus, even with the minor side effects, had never created that mutation when it spread. Even if it did, it would have to undergo a lot of change, perhaps years and decades of change to get to that point. Someone had clearly created that virus in a lab and had used her original strain as a template.
There was only one scientist who could have created that abomination, and his daughter was in the adjacent room to Elaina. Dr. Bretton Vincent, for whatever reason, had made changes to her virus and released it into the world.
When Elaina thought hard about it, he had been increasingly moody toward her ever since she’d started trials with it. While others were encouraging her progress, he appeared especially sullen. Then, she started seeing less and less of him. He started spending longer hours in his lab, working on something in secret. Elaina assumed he was working as an independent contractor in his spare time, but would it be so outrageous to believe that he was ripping her off?
She had no idea what would motivate him to do such a thing, but everything was starting to fall into place. He was just the type to steal another scientist’s work, the type to leave his daughter behind as she was being kidnapped. Dr. Vincent was just no good.
Elaina tried not to get too hung up on how it happened and just focus on the problem at hand. Even though it wasn’t her fault, she was still capable of making things right in the world again. Feeling confident, she relabeled her samples Evidence #1 and Evidence #2. If the time ever came to vindicate herself, the justice would be sweet.
Now, she had a whole new problem. She didn’t need vaccines and antidotes for her virus. She needed them for Bretton’s take on her virus. Out of eggs, she injected some of the new strain into the tiny holes in the shell, hoping that it would incubate that strain as well.
Then it was time to work on a form of LILY that could stand up to the new imposter virus. She put a drop of each onto a slide and watched them battle it out. LILY put up a good fight, but it didn’t make a perfect fit with the virus in order to take it down.
She didn’t know much about pharmacology, but Elaina took out the pills she gathered from the pharmacy and lined them up on the desk. If she could separate some of the compounds they contained, she reasoned she could keep the virus at bay long enough for LILY to start working.
Elaina would have to look more closely at what Bretton had done, but he wasn’t that inventive—if anything, he had just made an amalgam of viruses, a Frankenstein’s Monster of viruses. If the antivirals could affect the altered part of her virus, Elaina could fix the rest.
Excited with what she was finally able to discover, she wanted to share it with someone. Elaina ran over to the lounge to share her findings with Natalia but found her asleep on the couch. She shook her head and chuckled quietly to herself. That girl could sleep through the apocalypse.
Turning off the main light and flicking on a small lamp instead, Elaina went back to the lab and just marveled in what she knew now, as opposed to the things she’d wondered for days.
The makeshift lab in the hospice was a good starting place, but she needed more if she was going to come up with anything substantial. Elaina longed for the university laboratory with her old familiar equipment. She would do her best with the utensils and chemicals these temporary labs contained, but at some point, she wanted to do things right and make medical-grade vaccines and medications.
But the sun was setting, and it would be dark soon. It made no sense for her to venture out and find a proper laboratory. Besides, she figured that there was a live-stream camera in every advanced lab in the state. The cops would be looking for her in the one place she wanted to be. She couldn’t give herself up yet—not without the evidence she needed to prove her case.
Until she found a better place to be, she would meddle around with the resources she had. But, when the time was right, she would need a few moments in the right lab to put the finishing touches on her work.
The rest of the evening, Elaina worked tirelessly, testing new combinations of chemicals against the virus. She wished she had a lab assistant, and she almost woke Natalia to help her, but ultimately, she decided to let her rest.
Knowing she needed her sleep too, Elaina pulled a throw pillow and blanket from the lounge into the lab and rested underneath her work bench. She closed her eyes, already excited for her next waking moments. She was so close to figuring out how to end a national catastrophe. She just needed a little more time.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Elaina heard footsteps trotting down the corridor, the one that was supposed to be empty. She pulled her head up from under the blanket and listened as they multiplied and came nearer. Moonlight altered the appearance of the room as sinister shadows danced on the walls of the lab.
Slowly standing to her feet, Elaina looked for her most valuable test tubes to hide from the intruder, but she realized that the table was bare. Even the syringes and bottles of pills were missing.
The realization sent a jolt
of electricity through her body. She felt cold and sweaty, yet her brain was on fire. She let out an involuntary wail and the footsteps stopped in front of the lab door.
Holding her breath, she waited as the doorknob creaked open and the door revealed the source of the footsteps. The inhabitants of the quarantine ward stood staring at her, scowls on their faces.
Elaina couldn’t move. Her legs felt impossibly heavy, and every time she tried to walk, her legs shook so badly that she fell down. She tried to call for Natalia, but her throat was so dry and scratchy that the name came out in soft, hoarse stage whispers.
“Help us,” the gaunt old man in the front pleaded. The virus had whittled him into a skeleton. His eyelids were drooping, making him look even more pitiful.
“I can’t,” Elaina cried, holding her hands out, ready to defend herself. “All of my medicines are gone.”
She quickly looked back at the workbench just to make sure she hadn’t overlooked them. The table was still bare, with no indication where her things may be.
“You can’t just lock us in a room and wait for us to die. We didn’t ask for this. We didn’t mess with nature and release this on the world. Why do we have to get sick?”
“I didn’t do this,” Elaina argued, tears of frustration in her eyes.
“You’re Doctor Elaina Morgan.”
“How . . . how did you know?”
“Everybody knows who you are. Your name will be in every history book from here on out. That is, if there’s anyone left to tell our history.”
“This isn’t my fault,” she cried as the infected entered the lab. She scrambled backward, but there was nowhere left to go. “I just wanted to help people.”
“You didn’t help anyone. You can’t save us, just like you couldn’t save Lily.”
“LILY! Do you have it?”
“No, and you don’t either. You’ll never have her.”
