He had come to like them since they had left Kinshasa, but putting his own life in danger for them was in a different ballpark and definitely out of the question. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t even the same sport. Until someone in his team or the organization at large could prove otherwise, he would trust nothing but his training, experience, and the kind of gut feeling he had long learned to listen to.
Reluctantly, he pulled the damaged door back into place as best as he could and took the stairs to the rooftop, his ears all the while scanning for any noise indicating a presence other than himself. He noted that unlike other installations he had seen in the past, there were no maps or information boards displayed anywhere, not even evacuation routes or landmarks. The entire facility, as far as he could tell, was devoid of any official signage indicating its purpose, let alone its layout beyond the floor designations.
He reached the rooftop, leaned against the push-bar of the exit, and stepped out into the light. He wedged his flashlight between door and frame. ‘We don’t want to get stuck topside.’ The surface of the roof reflected the bright sun, momentarily robbing him of his vision and almost sending him staggering backward. He squinted and shielded his eyes until the stars in his vision disappeared, and his pupils adjusted. A large white “H” was painted on the roof. A chopper landing pad, perhaps to ferry staff in and out between rotations. On the far side at the edge of the flat roof, the silhouette of a person caught his eye.
There, a man in a white lab coat stood facing the village. Surprisingly he had neither heard the roof access open nor taken notice of the clanging noise of Tom’s mag light.Tom took a step forward but then hesitated. A number of dark red stains covered the man’s coat just beneath his left shoulder. Like a paint job-gone-wrong, the splatters extended all the way down the sleeve of his right arm. Blood dripped from the hem and pooled on the balustrade.
“Hello?” Tom shouted across the roof, moderating his tone to sound as friendly as possible.
The man’s head jerked slightly in response, but he didn’t move.
“Sir? Hello?” Tom repeated, this time at volume.
The man’s body stiffened. Then he finally turned around. The man was pale, and even at that distance, Tom could see sweat on his forehead glistening in the sunlight. The front of his lab coat was torn. A gaping laceration ran from shoulder to chest. Coagulated blood had formed a sickening pattern of clots and stains. Tom reeled back against the exit door. The man’s mouth quivered, his knees shook, and he fought to stay upright. Sunken eyes pleaded, wanting to tell his story, but he didn’t utter a sound. Spittle pooled in corners of his mouth and dripped onto his coat.
“Sir? I mean you no harm. I am with the Ebola Response. Do you need help?” Tom called across, figuring it best to keep his distance.
The man’s lips moved as he tried to form words, but then his jaws clenched. His body convulsed, and he grimaced with pain. Tom pulled himself together and finally took a step towards him. In response, the man took another step back. Arms stretched out sideways like an Olympic diver, he leaned back, and his foot slipped off the ledge. Then gravity took over.
Tom yelled, but there was nothing he could do. The man’s eyes widened as he fell off the roof in slow motion. A look of helplessness and desperation was the last thing Tom saw in his eyes, then the man disappeared. Tom sprinted across the concrete and slid to a halt within inches of the roof’s edge. Below, the man’s body lay still, arms and legs pointing in different directions at unnatural angles, an expanding pool of blood oozing from under his head. His eyes, blank and vacant, stared up into the blue sky.
Tom looked down at him, trying to comprehend what had just happened, but before he could speculate, a high-pitched scream from somewhere in the general direction of the village diverted his attention. From his vantage point, he was just able to see part of the main road and the buildings that made up the small settlement.
From what he could tell, a large group of people on one side was pursuing at least two others running towards the crossroads, roughly where the main thoroughfare intersected with the road from the river. Another individual seemed to wrestle with three or four others. As he shielded his eyes from the sun, things in the village slowly came into focus. Straining to fully grasp what was happening, he could hardly believe what he saw.
The driver was down, violently wrestled to the ground by an entire group. The doctor and Emile had halted mere feet away from him. Whatever was left of the villagers was rapidly closing in. Arms waving about, people staggering and stumbling in an avalanche of rage.
He wanted to call out to the two or run down to help but knew immediately that there was little he could do from his present position. They would fall victim to the mob before he would even reach the ground floor. Relieved, he watched as the doctor and Emile made the only logical choice. They turned back towards the service road and darted towards the facility. The driver’s body lay limply where he had been ambushed, now little more than a smudge of human tissue in the red dirt.
Tom agonized as he watched the doctor and Emile make their way towards the building. Their pursuers, instead of falling back, satisfied that they had run the strangers out of town, gave chase. It would be but minutes before they would make an unwelcome appearance at the facility’s gate and, if given the opportunity, probably attack him and the others just as they had the driver. He raced back across the roof and down the stairs, hurtled across the foyer and back outside, almost bowling over the doctor as she rounded the first corner near the broken gate.
Grabbing the two by their sleeves, he quickly ushered them towards the building. Eyes wide and confused, they gasped for air as they reached the former glass entrance. Cold sweat soaked through their clothes, and their hands shook, the incessant moans of the crowd, bringing them close to panic. Tom looked back over Emile’s shoulder.
A short distance behind them, the mob had already entered the compound. He couldn’t understand what they were saying. Whatever it was, their blind rage made their sounds indiscernible.
The doctor, out of breath and energy, struggled against his grip, but Tom wasn’t about to let go. He pushed hard, and the three fell forward into the building.
With little in the way of barriers available in the foyer, Tom had already decided that the hangar would be their best bet.
The narrow stairwell and emergency exit door were easily blocked from the inside. He heaved them to their feet and onto the landing. Quickly grabbing the small settee the doctor had slept on the previous night, he pushed it through the door behind them. They all landed in a heap, and he managed to pull the door shut just as the first of the villagers burst through the entrance.
Teeth gnashed, and grey eyes darted as the ghoulish figures pushed and shoved, tearing clothes and skin on the edges of the metal frame, eager to be the first to lay hands on their prey.
Having wedged the edge of the settee under the door handle and on the other side against the concrete wall of the elevator shaft, Tom pushed and pulled to make sure it would hold. Satisfied the barricade would buy them enough time, he then turned his attention back to the doctor and Emile. Pale and dishevelled they sat, kicking, pushing their backs into the wall as hard as they could.
Within seconds, loud thuds and bangs on the other side of the door announced the arrival of their pursuers, the muffled sound of their angry snarls more like wild animals than people.
‘Or were they actually still people?’ Tom wondered.
Again pulling the two others to their feet, he ushered them around the rear of the landing and through the entrance to the hangar-cum-storage area. A heavy chain lay on the ground, discarded in the nearby vehicle maintenance niche. He fed it, first through the door’s handlebar and then around the steel stairway next to it.
‘This should make it hard, if not impossible, to pull the door open from the outside.’ Pleased with having secured their temporary refuge, Tom wiped the sweat off his forehead and sat down on a large tire.
; The other two lay flat on the floor, their heavy breathing echoing metallically in the large space. They remained still, listening to the distant sound of banging on the emergency exit door.
“What the hell happened down there?” It was Tom who first caught his breath.
“They are dead…” the doctor replied, staring blankly at the ceiling, her chest still heaving from the strain.
“Well, yeah. If they have Ebola, I’d say they are as good as dead, but obviously not yet.” Tom tried to explain her answer more to himself than anyone else.
“No, they are dead dead.” The doctor sounded irritated. “As in, not living anymore. Deceased. Expired. Gone. Passed on!”
Tom wasn’t about to argue with her. From what he had seen, her statement almost made sense, but at the same time, it seemed outlandish, at least in a rational-thinking world. She sensed his apprehension and pushed herself up onto her elbows.
“Yes, you heard that right. They are dead. Dead people walking, or should I say stumbling around out there and for some reason super angry at us. Actually, make that super hungry for us.”
“They ate the driver…” Emile said, staring blankly into space.
“They ate the driver?” Tom wanted to make sure he had heard right.
”Yep,” the doctor shrugged dejectedly, “they ate the driver. And now they are out there wanting to eat us.”
She smiled a wry smile.
“And we are in here with nowhere to go!” Emile buried his face in the palms of his hands and sobbed.
Tom watched him, trying to reconcile what he thought he knew with the day’s events so far.
The man on the roof, the attack on the driver, the state of the villagers, their moans, their anger, their movements. He felt light-headed. Deep down inside, he knew the doctor was right, but years of seeing death in the field told him otherwise. Dead was dead. No two ways about it. He needed to find out more.
The effects of the adrenaline slowly wore off, and exhaustion took over. They sat without further conversation for a while, each one drifting off into their own thoughts. Tom reached into the pack he had managed to drag with him last minute and tossed a couple of packets of crackers over to Emile and the doctor, along with a few cans of soft drinks he had managed to salvage from the vending machine in the foyer that morning.
“As long as they are out there,” Tom began, “we can’t do much but make the best of our situation. I have had a bit of a look around in here and up top, but I haven’t had time to check out the basement levels.”
He was careful to avoid any reference to the dead for now, or at least until he could verify that which still seemed utterly preposterous, for himself.
“There is roof access, so we will likely be able to use the sat phone. That is the good news.” Tom chewed on the salty crackers. “There also seem to be boxes with all manner of goodies stacked down there. I think I even saw some bottled water. That is the other good news.”
“I haven’t had a look in the walk-in fridge over there, but am assuming there will be some chilled foods, too.”
He pointed at the floor below. ‘Focus on the positive,’ he tried to convince himself.
“We might be stuck in here for a bit, but at least we won’t be without the basics. Might as well be comfortable, aye?”
Tom’s feigned optimism seemed to have the desired effect. His two companions had looked dejected and beat but now perked up a little and began inspecting their surrounds.
“There is one thing, though…” he added, preparing them for what he had planned next. The doctor, sensing another mission, stopped what she was doing and fixed him with a stern look.
“I want to look at what is in B1 to B3,” Tom continued unfazed. “Obviously, this is some kind of research facility, and whatever has happened or is happening here, there is definitely a connection between this and the village, maybe even the Ebola outbreak itself.”
“Sure.” Much to his surprise, the doctor just shrugged in agreement. “It’s not like there is anything else to do until we can summon help.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Emile interjected. “I think we should stay here for now. We have food, water, and even communication. Let’s not be too adventurous, please, Ok?” It was more of a statement than a question.
Outnumbered, he knew he would have to go along with whatever the others decided.
“Well, are you going to open that, or what?” The doctor dusted off her pants and blouse and pointed at the door.
Tom looked over to the chain. Still firmly affixed, it was strong enough to keep out anything or anyone trying to break in. Removing it would create a risk he was not willing to take unless he absolutely had to.
“Hmm, I think I have a better idea.”
He nodded towards the service elevator that so far had gone unnoticed by the others.
“It has its own generator, presumably because the loads it transports are too heavy for it to cope with on mains. Either that or because they just thought it was a good idea to keep it separate. Who knows. In any case, let’s not aggravate our friends out there through unnecessary noise in the stairwell. If we use the elevator, it will keep us well away and the chain in place.”
Neither the doctor nor Emile needed a reminder of what was waiting for them outside.
“If you say so,” the doctor replied unconvinced.
She shuddered at the thought of traveling down into the unknown and in a confined space to boot. At the same time, Tom’s reasoning was hard to argue.
“I suggest you, Emile, stay topside in case the generator needs restarting for whatever reason,” Tom instructed, inspecting the housing of the diesel-powered engine.
Visibly relieved, Emile eagerly began familiarizing himself with the machine and the adjacent switchboard. Emile nodded confidently. Its design, as it turned out, was rather simple.
“This looks very familiar. It’s very similar to the setup we have at our compound back in Kinshasa. No problem at all.”
“That's settled then.” Tom checked his flashlight, making sure it had survived the events so far.
The doctor followed suit and pulled a headlamp from her cargo pants. Emile threw a few switches and turned the ignition. The generator shook and rattled to life, the smell of diesel fumes instantly filling the air.
Tom gave a thumbs-up. He pressed the green button mounted next to the elevator, and its doors opened with a hiss. The stainless steel interior was almost spotless. It was smaller than he had expected, offering just enough room for the two of them. Tom and the doctor stepped in and pressed ‘B1’. Wires sang and creaked as the contraption jolted briefly, but then began its descent in virtual silence.
“Tall and tan and young and lovely…The girl from Ipanema goes walkin'…” Tom started humming the popular tune.
The doctor raised an eyebrow and shook her head.
“Elevator music,” Tom winked. “They don’t have that in Thailand?”
The cabin bounced slightly as it came to an abrupt halt. It just sat there for a moment, and then the doors rumbled open. Standing in the light of the elevator cabin, they instantly felt exposed. The level in front of them was almost completely dark. They stepped out and waited until the doors closed again, before switching on their lights and scanning the immediate area.
They were in another foyer of sorts, this one much smaller than the one at ground level. A heavy access door, constructed more like that of a vault, provided the only entry to the rest of the first basement level. The flashlight between his teeth, Tom checked over the thick metal. A round bulletproof window was set into the door’s centre, allowing a glimpse into the interior. Cutting through the darkness beyond it, the beam of his light revealed a plaque labelled ‘B1’ on the opposite side. There was no other signage.
Much like in other locations around the facility, here, too, a red pushbutton was mounted on the wall alongside an activation lock panel. There was no handle, knob, or any kind of opening mechanism on their side. Tom pushed against the c
old metal and, to his surprise, nearly fell forward into the dark as it swung open with unexpected ease. The electronic locks were offline.
Cool air rushed past them and up the elevator shaft as the door’s rubber seals detached from the frame. A strong smell of antiseptics and floor cleaner instantly reminded Tom of an emergency room. It lingered for a moment, and then the draft carried it away. Cautiously he listened and scanned the dark for anything inside.
“Looks clear to me,” the doctor whispered, impatiently leaning over his shoulder to get a better view.
‘All right, all right. A moment ago, you were still near tears, and now we can’t go running into the dark fast enough?’ Tom thought to himself but decided to keep his cool.
“Ladies first.” He stepped aside.
The doctor took a step into the room, and the two nearly jumped as an array of sensor-activated neon lights sprang to life. One by one, all the way down the hallway, a domino-effect of photosensitive flickers rippled through the level.
“Too late to take’em by surprise,” Tom grinned.
The immediate interior looked like something out of a Sci-Fi movie. For the doctor, this was familiar territory. For Tom, it bore all the hallmarks of bad memories in the making. He had spent enough time ferrying the wounded in and the dead out of hospital. To him, they stood for little else but suffering and death.
“Let’s stay here and listen for another second or two.”
He stood back, but the doctor was already checking around further inside. ‘If it makes you happy.’ He smiled to himself.
This was clearly her turf. Nothing moved, and the silence was almost complete, sans the fluorescent lights’ dull buzz. Almost too complete.
CHAPTER 10
He was about to remove the chain wrapped around the stairwell door when the facility erupted with the sound of gunfire and explosions. The loud report of multiple assault rifles, bullets impacting the concrete walls outside, and shockwaves of explosives sent the three running for cover.
The Virophage Chronicles (Book 1): Dead Hemisphere Page 7
