Washington Deceased

by Stephen Jones

  “I want to know where he goes and what he does when he gets there, twenty-four hours a day. If you need assistance in tracking him, you have my authorization to pull help from other agencies and positions. Take Steele and Ty, if necessary; but make tracking Delancy a priority.”

  Steele asked, “Why? What is it that you think he might do?”

  The President exhaled a long, heavy breath. “I’m not even worried about him stirring up the other hawks in Congress. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past him to try to take command of what’s left of our military.”

  “A coup?” Ty asked.

  “Maybe. Anyway, let’s not give him the chance.”

  Steele muttered, “Agreed.”

  The President turned her attention back to Gillespie. “What about this Kevin Moon? Any idea yet where he disappeared to?”

  Gillespie shook his head. “We’ve been unable to ascertain where NWP might be holding him, or even if they’ve really got him. At this point their security is better than ours. They’ve got hired mercenaries and a network we can’t get a toe into.”

  “Keep working on it.”

  “Right.”

  The meeting ended shortly thereafter. In the hallway outside, the President pulled Steele aside and spoke to her in hushed tones. “Steele, stay on Gillespie about Delancy. My gut tells me Bob’s going to try something stupid, and I want one of us to be there when he does.”

  “Will do.”

  The President walked away, her shoulders sagging in fatigue, and Steele found herself thinking, And my gut tells me we are seriously fucked no matter what Delancy does.

  [Confidential NWP memo from Dr Brewster Gilray to W. Leonard Paryder, Senior Controller (East), Thursday, September 26]

  MEMO

  Dear Ward,

  My God, I think I may have an answer. Start polishing up my Nobel Prize. After today, there may even be enough of us left to still form Nobel Prize committees.

  We’ve been thinking about HRV all wrong, Ward. In fact, the name itself – Human Reanimation Virus – is a misnomer. It’s not a virus any more than 3D printing is really printing; it’s a convenient media term that made television news reports easier for the masses to digest.

  We should not be thinking of this situation as a viral epidemic, but as a mass envenomation.

  After all, the sickness occurs when a zombie bites a healthy human being (and yes, I know it can be spread in other ways, but let’s not split hairs for the moment). In that respect, it’s not much different from a rattlesnake bite. And how do we treat rattlesnake bites? Not with a vaccine, but with an antiserum.

  And how do we create an antiserum? By finding an individual who has survived the bite, and using their blood in a passive antibody transfusion.

  We have such an individual in our possession. Ward, I propose we skip the usual protocols – while there are still enough human beings left to save – and test this immediately on a real human.

  I can’t believe I hadn’t seen this before. Zombies as rattlesnakes. Cure as antiserum, not vaccine. I know this will present certain difficulties – quickly inoculating someone in a combat zone who has been bitten, for instance – but it’s our best hope at the moment.

  Brewster

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  KEVIN LOOKED UP from his morning coffee when a knock sounded on the door. He rose to answer it and was delighted to find his friend Garud – Dr Singh – at the door.

  “Good morning,” Garud said, offering up that smile that always melted an edge off Kevin.

  “Hey, Garud. Come on in.”

  Kevin stepped back, and Garud entered the former office that now served as Kevin’s studio apartment. It was a large room and had obviously once housed an important figure at NWP . . . a figure probably now long dead or living dead. Given free rein to do as he pleased with the space, Kevin had moved out a bank of filing cabinets and a huge heavy bookcase, had moved in a hospital bed and had kept the desk. Digging through an old storage garage, he’d found some warmer paints and had painted the sterile white walls, and he’d rescued some Dorothea Lange photos from another abandoned office. On the desk, he’d framed printouts of a few favourite photos from his Facebook account: him with Scotty at a Hollywood premiere. A friend’s wedding. Walking on the beach with Bobby.

  “Wow. Nice job.” Singh took it all in, nodding slowly.

  “Thanks. It’s finally starting to feel slightly less like some dead guy’s office.”

  Singh smiled wryly. “I know. I wish we had something better, but at least we’re safe in here. And yours looks like a real living space. Mine still looks like my office.”

  “You should let me fix it up for you.” Kevin immediately regretted the statement; he’d thrown in a small coy look, and hoped he hadn’t offended Singh, who felt like his only real friend.

  Instead Singh smiled more broadly. “I’d like that. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Well, I’ll try to fit it into my busy schedule.”

  Kevin motioned at the armchair he’d stuffed with cushions and set up near the room’s sunniest window. “I was just having some coffee. I’ve got two mugs . . .”

  “No, I’ve already had too much caffeine today.”

  A silence fell then, as Kevin wondered what this was about. Was Singh here for NWP or himself? “So . . .?”

  “Oh. Well, first I just wanted to check on how you were feeling.”

  Kevin lifted up a pants leg and displayed his ankle, which had only a few small scabs and a faint ring-shaped bruise. “Almost back to normal. Thanks to you.”

  “Good. Well . . . I was wondering if you might like to join me for something I have to do today.”

  “Sure. What?”

  “I . . .” Singh broke off.

  Kevin realized he was anxious. “Garud, what is it?”

  “Just . . . come with me.”

  They left Kevin’s office/apartment, walking down a wide hallway in one of the NWP facility buildings. This one had a few other “tenants” who had also taken shelter here, but it was quiet and seemingly empty now.

  As soon as they stepped outside into the cool, clear morning, walking between big two-storey brick buildings that housed labs and offices, Singh seemed to relax slightly and said, “We’ve had some . . . let’s say, internal politics going on here this week.”

  “At a big pharmaceutical company? I’d think you’d be used to that by now.”

  Singh shrugged, bemused. “You’d think so, but . . . I’m still fairly new here. I had just started with NWP right before the zombie epidemic hit, so I didn’t know exactly how the game was played at that point.”

  Kevin squinted at his friend. “And just how is the game played?”

  “They hire really smart, young and very naive researchers like me, and then when we actually find something that works, somebody higher up takes the credit.”

  “Ahhh . . . well, I think a lot of companies work that way.”

  They now left the main part of the complex behind, and headed for an older concrete building – a big squat, ugly square.

  “Here’s the thing, Kevin: using your blood, I think I created a cure for HRV, or at least a dominant strain of it.”

  Kevin stopped dead in his tracks, frozen in astonishment. It took Singh a few seconds to realize Kevin was no longer at his side; he stopped and looked back.

  All Kevin could say was, “What?”

  Singh answered, “I’ve been saying for months that we were all mistaken in approaching this thing as a virus. Just because it spreads quickly doesn’t really mean it’s a viral infection – it’s actually more like what happens when you get bitten by a venomous animal. Have you ever seen what the bite of a brown recluse spider does? It causes severe necrosis – dead tissue.”

  “Like zombies.”

  “Yes,” Singh said, nodding. “And if we were looking at something more akin to venom than virus, then we needed an agent from which to produce antiserum. That agent is you.”

  “Bec
ause I’m immune.”

  “Essentially. And I have indeed now produced what I believe is an effective antiserum, thanks to you. But there are others here at NWP who want to take over the project. It may be petty on my part, but . . . I believe I deserve the credit.”

  The look on Singh’s face – pride, desperation, anger – made Kevin want to take his friend’s hands in his, to let him know he wasn’t alone . . . but he still didn’t know Singh well enough yet. He thought Singh might be gay, but he hadn’t simply asked. Instead, he said, “It’s not petty. Garud, if you’ve got – what, a cure for HRV? – you deserve everything.”

  Singh locked on to Kevin’s eyes for a moment, with gratitude, but after a few seconds he looked away. “There’s just one thing: it hasn’t been tested yet. We don’t have time to do this right, and I’m afraid if I wait any longer that they’ll just take the whole thing away from me. That’s why I asked you to come with me today: I want to test it. Now. On myself. And frankly . . . you’re the only one here I can trust.”

  Warmth exploded throughout Kevin, and he actually stammered. “I . . . I’m really . . . you know whatever you need, just tell me how I can help.”

  Without another word, Singh turned and walked to the concrete block building.

  As he stepped through the glass doors into the sterile interior, Kevin realized what this place reminded him of – a veterinary clinic. The air was cool and he heard the hum of air-conditioning units, but there was a slight sour smell barely masked by cleaning agents: the smell of death. There were living dead here.

  They paused before a locked metal door, and Singh turned to address Kevin. “I promise you, you’ll be in no danger today. We will be in the proximity of infected subjects, but they have been restrained.”

  “I don’t understand, Garud, what . . .?”

  Singh swiped a card key through an electronic lock. There was a buzz, and he pulled the door open.

  The stench that hit Kevin was stronger here. He was facing a hallway lined with heavy doors. Each door had a small window inset.

  He heard zombies moaning behind several of the doors.

  Garud reached into a pocket of his white lab coat and removed a capped hypodermic needle, which he extended to Kevin, who took it gingerly. “This is the antiserum. I’d like you to hang on to it.”

  “Why? You’re the doctor.”

  “Today,” Singh said, removing the lab coat to reveal that he wore a short-sleeved polo shirt beneath, “I’m also the test subject.”

  Kevin abruptly put it all together. He put the syringe down carefully on the desk where Garud had folded his lab coat. “Oh no. No, no, no. Don’t do this. Surely there’s somebody else—”

  “Even if there was, I couldn’t ask them to do it.” Singh moved to the closest door and looked in through the small window.

  Kevin moved up next to him and saw a zombie on the other side. The cell was small, plain, not even a built-in bunk or toilet. The zombie was missing both arms (Kevin realized, with a disgust that brought an actual physical wave of nausea with it, that the thing’s arms hadn’t been chewed off, but looked to have been neatly sawn away), and a metal collar around its neck was attached to a chain that connected it to a wall. It had once been a middle-aged man who still wore the traces of a dark suit, and Kevin wondered what position he’d once held at NWP.

  As it saw them, the zombie snarled and lunged, but it could only jerk forward a few inches as the chain pulled taut. Pink froth flew from its lips, and its red-rimmed eyes burned with the most primitive and overwhelming hunger imaginable.

  Singh slid his security card through a slot next to the door. The door popped open.

  “Garud, I’m not a doctor, I don’t even know how to administer a shot.”

  “You don’t have to – I’ll do that. I need you here to restrain me after the shot.”

  Kevin’s jaw dropped. “What? Why?”

  “In case . . . it doesn’t work.”

  There was no more room for argument. Kevin watched in mute horror as Garud stepped into the room with the zombie, whose moans ramped up to near-screams now, its armless body twisting in vain. He stepped closer – one step, two, three – until he was within two feet of the thing’s gnashing jaws. Then, taking a deep breath, Singh raised his left arm and extended it to the zombie.

  Its teeth snapped. Singh flinched and jumped back, clenching his fists in frustration. “Fuck!”

  “Garud, there’s got to be another way to do this . . .”

  Kevin’s words seemed to galvanize Garud, who lifted his head, tightened his fist, and offered his bare forearm.

  The zombie’s mouth clamped shut around the meaty part of the arm. Singh gasped as teeth penetrated his skin. He tried to pull away, but the zombie hung on.

  Before Kevin could stop himself, he leapt into the room and drove a fist straight into the zombie’s temple. The monster was stunned, and its jaws involuntarily popped open in shock. Kevin jerked his dazed friend back and propelled him from the room.

  The toothmarks in Singh’s arm were deep and gushing blood, but at least no flesh or tissue had been torn away.

  Panting in pain, Singh managed, “Under the desk . . . medical kit.”

  Kevin sat Singh down in an ancient rolling desk chair, and found a large first-aid case under the desk. Sweat was popping out on Singh’s face and he was pale, but he was able to work with Kevin on cleaning and dressing his arm. Once they had bandages in place and the bleeding seemed to be slowing, Singh nodded at the syringe. “Now,” was all he said.

  Kevin handed him the hypo. Singh removed the cap and cleared the needle of bubbles, squirting a small amount of liquid into the air. His hand was shaking, and Kevin put both of his around Singh’s, guiding the needlepoint to Singh’s left bicep. Together, they managed to complete the injection, and then Singh dropped the empty hypo and fell back into the chair. “Thank you, Kevin. I’m not sure I could have done that without you.”

  Kneeling down before his friend, looking up into his stricken face, Kevin asked, “Now what?”

  “Now I want you to lock me in one of these cells and wait.”

  Kevin was about to respond when the sound of the security door buzzing open interrupted him. He looked up to see three men enter: a security guard, a doctor in a white lab coat and a perfectly groomed man in a business suit. “Thank you for your service, Mr Moon,” the latter said, “we’ll take it from here.”

  Singh groaned, and Kevin wasn’t sure if it was from the pain of the bite or the arrival of the three men. As he watched, the doctor checked the dressings on the wound and examined Singh while the guard, a tattooed bull of a man, stood over them.

  “Who are you?” Kevin directed the question to the suited man, who looked vaguely familiar.

  “I work with New World Pharmaceuticals. My name is Landen Jones. Now, perhaps you’d care to join me for coffee and we can chat about a few things . . .?”

  Jones slid his card key through the slot beside the security door and then gestured Kevin out. Kevin was reluctant to leave Singh, but the beefy security guard eyed him in a way that left him no possibility of staying.

  Kevin left his friend, wondering which one of them was moving into greater danger.

  CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

  CONFIDENTIAL REPORT ON V.P. BOB DELANCY

  Prepared by Aaron Gillespie, Director, C.I.A.

  The activities of Bob Delancy continue to present a growing concern. Delancy has been using a satellite phone to make a number of calls recently. Although we are unable to trace these calls, we do know from other sources that at least one of the calls was to Colonel Douglas Schrader, commander of the Tobyhanna Army Depot. We can find no previous history of Delancy and Schrader, so it seems unlikely that this was a casual personal call. We believe it is possible that Delancy is acquainting himself with commanders of a number of military bases, camps, and depots, and we are of the opinion that surveillance of Delancy should not only continue, but be made a top priority.


  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  STEELE, TY AND the President all looked up from Ty’s stock inventory report when the office door burst open and Delancy stood there, his already florid features redder than usual. “We need to talk,” he said looking pointedly at the President.

  Steele rose, slowly; Delancy radiated aggression, and she wanted to make herself as imposing as possible in return. The President, however, sighed and gestured at a chair. “Have a seat, Bob.”

  Glancing at Steele and Ty before returning his gaze to the President, Delancy said, “Alone.”

  “Whatever you have to say can be said in front of everyone here.”

  Delancy huffed briefly, then said, “You vetoed S. 110.”

  The President peered at Delancy with barely disguised contempt. “You mean the immigration bill? Of course I vetoed it. It was a joke.”

  “My party didn’t think it was a joke.”

  “Bob, in case you and your party haven’t noticed, we don’t have a problem right now with immigration. Or with borders that need to be protected. In fact, I’m not even sure we still have borders. That bill wanted to allocate resources we don’t have to something that may not exist and which is certainly not a problem. If your party wants to pass legislation, might I suggest they look at the shit we’re in up to our necks right now?”

  Delancy blinked once, in surprise, before saying, “Maybe we’re planning for the future. Maybe we don’t believe we won’t recover from this. Maybe we believe in the United States of America.”

  Steele couldn’t restrain a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Delancy shot her a quick, hooded look, but the President intervened, gesturing to the tablet computer screen on her desk. “See this? This is what we were working on when you came in. It’s an inventory of our food stocks. Down here in the bunker system, we’re in pretty good shape – with rationing, we can hold out for two years. But we’ve got fighters topside who are starving, so we’re trying to figure out how much of our supplies we can spare. Are you willing to risk giving up a few meals so our Armed Forces can keep eating? Because we are. That’s the reality, not these nonsense bills about immigration and tax reform and drug enforcement.”