The Scourge (Book 1): Unprepared

by Abrahams, Tom

  “It’s fine,” said Sharp. Her eyes still hadn’t drifted to the body at the center of their foursome. The odor was barely noticeable to her, and she didn’t like the idea of anyone thinking she was weak. In any way. Ever.

  “There’s nothing you can put under your nose that’ll help,” he said with a smile. “When you see that on television or movies, it’s fake.”

  Sharp felt her face flush again. She wasn’t sure why she was embarrassed. It was tough being the new person. Add to it she was a woman and it wasn’t any easier.

  She’d navigated a man’s world for all of her life. As a young girl interested in STEM, she was an outlier. While her peers were cheerleading or playing volleyball, she’d spent high school doing research and learning computer code. Summer camps were academic rather than recreational. College was four to one men to women. So was graduate school. Yet she excelled. She learned to fake confidence even when her considerable store of it waned. But new situations were always difficult. First impressions were lasting impressions.

  Gwendolyn Sharp was confident she would be the boss of these men soon enough, though today wasn’t that day. She’d have to chisel that pedestal one day, one moment, at a time.

  “I didn’t know,” she admitted. “The only bodies I’ve seen were—”

  “In class?” interrupted Morel.

  She nodded. Beneath her mask she bit her lip, the taste of the rubber and plastic coating her tongue. A thin wave of nausea rolled through her body. Gwendolyn Sharp didn’t like not being in control.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Nothing about which to be embarrassed. I didn’t see my first real body for three years. I was knee-deep in mosquito larvae and petri dishes.”

  The other men chuckled.

  Pierce glanced at her and shrugged. “It was five years for me. I was on a case in Fort Myers. Bad measles outbreak in 2019.”

  All of their eyes fell on Kovatliev. It was his turn to share.

  “I was six years old,” he said in a thick Slavic accent but didn’t add any context. He cleared his throat.

  “Call me Charlie,” said Dr. Morel. “Can I call you—”

  “Gwendolyn,” she said. “Not Gwen, not Wendy. Gwendolyn.”

  “Okay,” said Morel. “Gwendolyn it is.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sharp was rail thin and as tall as the men. She liked being on their level. It imbued her with a sense of confidence. Finally, she looked down at the body. Her stomach tightened and bile crept up her throat. She swallowed it and lifted her chin.

  The man was nude. His skin was gray except where it was purplish from the settling of blood. There was mild bloating in his gut, at his calves, and in his forearms.

  His eyes were closed. His white hair was disheveled and matched the wiry unkemptness of his thick beard, which hid his jawline, chin, and much of his neck.

  His limbs were rigid, his fingers curled into claws at his sides, and the toes on one foot arched backward.

  “You’re just in time,” said Morel. “We haven’t gotten down to business yet. There are blood and tissue samples we’re taking from Yuri here.”

  Morel motioned to the other half dozen bodies in the room. All of them appeared to be in a similar state of decomposition.

  “We’ll do it with all of them,” he said. “We’re just waiting on the man with the scalpel. He’ll do the cutting. We’ll merely watch and benefit from his handiwork.”

  Sharp took another shallow breath. “All died from the same disease?”

  The men exchanged knowing glances.

  “Yes and no,” Kovatliev said. “All of them died from a form of the disease. It’s changing, getting more powerful. The incubation is getting longer, the mortality higher, its resistance greater.”

  “It’s bacterial, right?” asked Sharp. “I studied the file on the flight from Ramstein. It indicated this was bacterial. Which is in part why I’m surprised you asked me here, Dr. Morel.”

  “Charlie,” he said.

  “Charlie,” she repeated. “I’m a virologist.”

  Morel’s brow furrowed behind the mask. “I know what you are. I didn’t ask you here. You were assigned to me. And it’s not just a bacterium.”

  “What?”

  “It is a bacterium,” Pierce said, “but some of our research in Geneva indicates there’s a viral component.”

  Sharp understood now. This was why they wanted her burgeoning expertise.

  “I’m the one who asked for you,” said Pierce. “I read your paper on multi-resistant bacteria. Your work with Myoviridae was outstanding for someone so young. I discussed it with my superiors. They believed you could be of use here. I agreed.”

  She blushed again. “Thank you,” she said, despite the compliment being somewhat backhanded.

  Gwendolyn Sharp’s doctoral thesis was focused on the interactions between bacteria and viruses. Her work detailed the expansion of indirect interactions that increased bacterial pathogenesis. It was especially true with respiratory viruses. Her work was published in a prestigious journal. She’d had her pick of offers before deciding to work for the Centers for Disease Control. Sharp, at a relatively young age, was a leader among the emerging voices in the field.

  Her expression flattened as she considered what her presence meant. It was not good. Perspiration bloomed under her arms and at the small of her back, the rivulets rolling along her skin. She should have gotten out of her clothes and taken the small suit. She wouldn’t have felt constricted.

  “So you think there’s an indirect interaction here?” she asked. “The bacterial infection is amplified by its viral partner. The virus weakens healthy host cells, making them susceptible to the bacteria.”

  “Yes,” said Morel.

  “Have you identified which of the four mechanisms is at play? Is it receptor concentrations? Epithelial? Displacement? Immune suppression?”

  “We have our suspicions,” said Kovatliev. “That’s where you come in, Dr. Sharp.”

  Sharp glanced at the body on the table. She focused on the clawlike hand, the dirt under the man’s long fingernails. “Suspicions?” She looked up at Kovatliev. “You don’t already know?”

  Now it was the men whose faces flushed. They averted their eyes, apparently ashamed of having to defer to someone with much less experience. She’d never even seen a freshly dead body until minutes ago.

  “We know,” said Pierce.

  “We think we know,” Kovatliev corrected.

  Sensing an upper hand in the conversation, and empowered with a new sense of confidence in light of her colleagues’ indecision, Sharp put her hands on the table. She took her time, using her laser stare to hold the reluctant gaze of each man before she spoke.

  She’d been around men like this. They appeared to think themselves superior to everyone else. They behaved as if they were never wrong. They spoke like they had all the answers.

  In reality, they were small. They only behaved the way they did because of their insecurities, because deep down they questioned their intelligence and their worth.

  “What is it you think you know?” she asked, a sly grin snaking across her face beneath the mask. Sharp doubted that Pierce’s superior had ordered her assistance. She was sure that Pierce wanted it, had likely asked for it.

  These men were the bacteria. She was the virus. It was her job to make theirs easier.

  Morel exhaled. The paper fabric of his mask puffed with his breath and relaxed. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “It’s all of the above,” he said. “We’ve found examples of the bacteria indirectly strengthening the virus via all four of the possibilities.”

  Sharp wasn’t sure she heard him correctly. “What?”

  Pierce rephrased the admission. “We think the partnership is evolving. The virus is interacting with the bacteria in whatever way is most beneficial in the given host.”

  She took a step back from the table, nearly tripping on her heels. Kovatliev steadied her with a hand on her elbow. She accept
ed the help before shrugging it off.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “That doesn’t make sense. Is there more than one virus?”

  “No,” said Morel. “It’s the same virus and the same bacteria.”

  She raised one eyebrow and narrowed her eyes. “You’re sure?”

  Morel stiffened. “Yes,” he said without equivocation. “Of that, we are certain.”

  The beginnings of a headache pulsed at her temples and beneath her eyes. She pinched the bridge of her nose, tightening the conforming stay of the mask. “What does that mean?” she asked. She needed to hear someone say it to make it real. Even though she didn’t want it to be real.

  “It means we have a crisis on our hands,” said Morel.

  Pierce folded his arms across his chest. “It’s like something mankind hasn’t seen since Los Angeles in 1924.”

  “The last urban plague,” Kovatliev said. “It’s been more than one hundred years.”

  “Only thirty people died in that outbreak,” said Morel. “It took two weeks.”

  “I know about it,” said Sharp. “Jesús Lujan. He picked up a decaying rat he found under his house. His daughter got sick, pneumonic plague. He had bubonic plague, which caused pneumonia. He died. His daughter died. A caregiver, a priest, and the people at her funeral all contracted the illness and died. Jesús was considered patient zero.”

  “I didn’t know that much about it,” admitted Morel, “but yes. That’s the one.”

  “Back then it was easier to contain,” Pierce said. “Commercial air travel was in its infancy, as was the automotive industry. People stayed close to home. The spread was easier to contain, as was the panic.”

  “That’s why we’re keeping this quiet as much as we can,” said Morel. “We’re not acknowledging it publicly yet. We don’t want to sound unnecessary alarms. There are private channels working this to contain it and mitigate the spread. If it gets to the point that we go public with this, and that’s a big if, we will not disclose that viral component.”

  “Why not?” asked Sharp.

  “There would be mass hysteria,” said Pierce. “That would only serve to compound an already untenable situation. If it gets so bad we have to publicly acknowledge it, telling people that two-thirds of the population will die serves no purpose. There’s nothing we can do at that point. That’s why we’re working to contain it. That’s why you’re here.”

  “How many deaths do we have so far?”

  “Since the first of the month,” said Pierce, “when we first identified it in one of the refugee camps, we’ve positively identified four hundred cases.”

  “In Qiryat Shemona we’ve found another two hundred and seventy-five,” added Morel. “But that was five days ago.”

  “Qiryat Shemona?” Sharp echoed.

  “A city in Israel, not far from the Lebanese and Syrian borders,” said Kovatliev. “It’s the site of the largest Syrian refugee camp.”

  “Six hundred and seventy-five cases at least in eighteen days,” said Sharp. “And that’s in two refugee camps. How many camps are there?”

  “Four in Ukraine, and six in Syria,” said Kovatliev. “We haven’t been able to get access to the others yet.”

  “What’s the problem?” she asked.

  “Military,” said Pierce. “They’ve shut down access to those camps. They did it as soon as we confirmed the outbreak in the other two camps.”

  “Whose military?”

  “Russian, Ukrainian, Israeli, Syrian, American, Lebanese, Belarusian…” said Morel. “They’re panicking.”

  “As they should,” Sharp said. “If this is what you think it is, it’s…it’s…”

  “Apocalyptic,” said Morel. “It could change the face of the civilized world as we know it.”

  Sharp nodded. “I guess it already has, and we just don’t know it yet.”

  CHAPTER 1

  OCTOBER 1, 2032

  SCOURGE -1 DAY

  LAKE MARY, FLORIDA

  Mike Crenshaw stared at his phone in disbelief. Ashley canceled again. He should have known. She was too good looking. He was a seven. She was a ten. No doubt a ten. And she wasn’t interested.

  Sorry. I don’t feel well. Rain check?

  This was a rain check for a rain check. Why couldn’t she just straight up tell him she was blowing him off? Why couldn’t she let him move on without giving him false hope? Why couldn’t she tell him she didn’t feel good. Good was grammatically correct. Well meant her sense of touch was failing.

  He tapped out a reply with his thumbs.

  No problem. Next week?

  He hit send and waited for the message bubble on the bottom left to appear. She had to reply, right? Even if she wasn’t interested, even if she was washing her hair, she’d reply. She didn’t. One minute turned into five. No bubble.

  A thumbs up popped at the corner of his message. A thumbs up. The kiss of death. He wanted to type some pithy response, something passive-aggressive, but that wasn’t his style. That would be confrontational. Mike wasn’t confrontational.

  He shouldered his way from his Jeep. It was a Friday. Now he had no plans. He stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and trudged across the parking lot toward the grocery store. He’d driven in circles for thirty minutes to find a spot. He might as well make use of it. Two cars motored past him. One driver, with his window down, asked if he was coming or going then squealed the tires in frustration when Mike motioned toward the store with his chin. Instead of flowers and a bottle of Ferrari-Carano Merlot, he’d head straight for the beer cooler and the sub counter.

  The doors slid open as he approached the threshold. The cool, dry air in his neighborhood Publix supermarket greeted him. He considered grabbing a grocery cart. There weren’t any. He scanned the vestibule for green plastic handbaskets. None.

  Mike turned in a complete circle on the indoor/outdoor carpet that muted the parade of shoppers into and out of the store. There were no carts or baskets. Even the germ-laden ones made to look like children’s train engines or cartoonish sports cars were taken.

  Undaunted, he worked his way past the crowded registers. The beeps and clicks of cashiers scanning merchandise was louder than the dim instrumental jazz echoing from the overhead speakers. Men and women complained about not finding what they needed. Kids whined and asked for candy. Baggers asked about paper or plastic.

  Mike wound his way toward the sub counter. There was nothing like a Publix sub. It was the bread that made it. That, and the combination of oil and vinegar, oregano, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, pickles, black olives, provolone, and turkey. He got the same sub every time. No point in fixing what wasn’t broken. He got to the counter and saw an exasperated deli worker with plastic gloves that didn’t fit her fingers, and took his spot at the end of the queue. Somebody tapped his shoulder.

  “Hey,” said a stubby man with a wiry beard and a topknot. “The end’s back there.”

  The man thumbed over his tank-top-clad shoulder to a line that stretched another twenty people. Mike looked at the end of the line and back at the man. His tank top was stained with ketchup. Or blood. This was Florida. Mike couldn’t be sure. His basketball shorts were tan or dingy white. His flip-flops were the cheap kind Mike had seen for sale in large baskets in front of dollar stores.

  The man raised his eyebrows. He frowned.

  “Sorry,” said Mike. “Didn’t realize that.”

  He stepped out of the line, the man muttered something under his breath, and Mike eyed him as he walked past the people pushing carts, thumbing the screens on their phones, swinging baskets on their hips.

  The music overhead faded from jazz to something that sounded like reggae but different. A woman was crooning Bob Marley. She shot the sheriff. It wasn’t good.

  He reached the end of the line and considered going to get the six-pack first. But then he’d have to hold it while he stood in a theoretically longer line. So he flashed a quick smile at the woman with an oversized Louis Vuitton pu
rse and took his place behind her.

  He was about to pull out his phone again when a friendly voice called his name. Mike looked up to see Brice Booker holding two bags of flavored kettle chips in his arms. A carton of ranch dip was nestled between them at his chest. He referenced Mike with his holdings as he spoke.

  “Hey, dude,” he said. “S’up?”

  Brice was a nice guy. A little douche, but harmless. He worked with Mike at a hit music radio station. They were both in sales. Brice’s list was better than Mike’s. He repped two car dealerships. That was a gold mine. Mike’s best client was a pizza delivery chain.

  Mike liked Brice. Despite his affinity for hard cider in a bottle, Brice was fun and had a good sense of humor. They’d hung out a few times when neither of them had plans with other people. TopGolf, karaoke, Universal Citywalk, a couple of Magic games. Despite their different, almost polar opposite personalities, they clicked.

  “Not much,” said Mike. “Picking up a sub and some beer.”

  Brice’s face narrowed with confusion. “Dude,” said Brice, “I don’t think Ashley Pomerantz is the subs and beer type. Aren’t you going out with her tonight?”

  Mike frowned. “She canceled.”

  “Again?”

  The woman with the big purse on her shoulder half-turned. She was snooping.

  “What’s it this time?” asked Brice.

  “She’s sick.”

  Brice snorted. “That’s better than when she said she forgot she was going to Prague a couple of weeks back. Or the last one. I forget, what was her excuse?”

  Mike looked at his feet, then at the uneven stitching on the purse in front of him. He sighed. “She was helping a friend in crisis.”

  The woman with the purse chuckled.

  “Your purse is fake,” said Brice.

  The woman spun, her face sour. “Excuse me?”