“Have you been back over there since you got here?” Malcolm asked and Nas shook his head.
“Elaine and I have been working on a plan to go over eventually. Mind you, we’d been planning to go after livestock. On our way here, we saw plenty of cows, sheep and goats out in the fields that appeared to be free of infection. We figured if we could get a couple goats, maybe some chickens, we wouldn’t need to worry about running out of the stores in the pantry.”
“Got to admit, fresh eggs sound nice,” Malcolm said, “And if we got goats, we’d have milk.”
Nas nodded. “Harold said he knows how to make cheese and culture yogurt too.”
Malcolm looked back out at the water. One night here and he was already thinking of going back over there.
“I think we might be getting a bit ahead of ourselves,” Malcolm said. “We should probably stick to defence for now and make sure that we can get Angela on board before we start making any other grand plans.”
Nas chuckled. “You’re probably right but it’s hard, isn’t it? To stop yourself from running through the full potential of this place. After seeing the destruction on the mainland, I didn’t know what to expect here. This isn’t just a place where we can survive; this is place where we can live.”
Nas was right. This place was everything Malcolm had promised the others. This was a place they could make their home.
“We’re going to make this place work. It will take time but we’re going to do it.”
Nas grinned at him. “It’s good to have you here. All of you. I know that this was supposed to be just the Omega members but I’m glad you brought civilians.”
The twins were currently engaged in a splash war that was closing in on the girls and before they knew it, the girls were squealing as they got soaked. They all started splashing each other, even little Ruthie giving as good as she got.
“They’re a good reminder about why we are here,” Malcolm said.
Seeing their smiling faces made it all worth it. He knew that the scars of the road would remain and a swim in the water wouldn’t cure them but it was a step in the right direction. They were cleansing themselves of what had happened to them out there.
It was a baptism of sorts, wasn’t it? And maybe he wanted that for himself too.
“I’m going in,” he told Nas, pulling his shirt over his head and bending down to untie his boots and kick them off. He unbuckled his belt and stripped off his weapons and dropped them next to his boots.
He walked into the shallows, the water chilly against his calves as he waded over the sandbar until the water reached his hips and he dove beneath it.
As he surfaced he shook the water off, wiping his eyes and the droplets of water that clung to his beard. He felt refreshed, not only physically but mentally as well. He was cleansed.
“Uncle Malcolm! Come play with us!” Ruthie called out.
He smiled and bounded across the water towards them, feeling lighter than he had felt in a long time.
Subject File # 756
Administrator: So I heard you’ve made yourself at home in the clinic. You also met Harold. He was quite impressed by you.
Subject: Really? I’m not sure what I did to impress him.
Administrator: You asked about his work and that goes a long way with Harold. He has some issues relating to people.
Subject: He is a bit...different, isn’t he?
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Quinton stood before the large Sub-Zero refrigerator in the clinic’s storage room. The shelves were stocked with an impressive array of bottles and vials of drugs. The stock rivalled the stores that he could have found in the hospital he had worked in.
After helping Claudia clean their cabin and getting a shower and change of clothes, he had found himself drawn to the clinic. He was eager to explore what would become his domain.
Turned out his domain was a hell of a lot more than he had expected.
Most of the main floor was taken up by what must have once been the staff bedrooms but almost all of them had been converted over to medical use. The largest room had been converted into an operating surgery and the attached bathroom had been converted into a scrub room, with a washer, dryer and autoclave. Next to it was the supply room with the fridge and large storage units lining the wall, filled with a wide assortment of drugs and medical supplies.
Across the hall there was a separate exam room that reminded him of the free clinic he’d logged volunteer hours in at the hospital. An exam table, a small desk with a rolling stool and a couple chairs for any family. It was simple, where he could deal with colds and small scrapes. If it was something more serious, they’d be moved to the patient room next door. It was set up with two hospital beds, heart monitor, respirator and even an old model ultrasound machine in the corner.
It was a relief to find all of this. What was here could make the difference between life and death for the others. He could care for people here. He could heal them here.
The only room he hadn’t been able to see was the laboratory in the basement. The thick steel door with an electronic keypad lock was across from the operating suite. It was the only door in the clinic that was locked and he was curious to see what lay beyond. If the medical supplies were impressive, he couldn’t imagine what equipment they had in the laboratory.
He heard the main door into the clinic open and close and he headed down the hallway to the front room. The room had probably served as the staff lounge once upon a time but now most of it was taken up by Elaine’s computer and radio equipment.
Harold was shutting the door and seemed surprised to see Quinton coming down the hallway. He hadn’t spoken to Harold the night before but Angela had informed them that Harold had been a scientist working for the CIA.
Harold reminded him of some of the guys he met in medical school. They were incredibly smart but also incredibly socially awkward. That meant while they excelled when it came to the nuts and bolts of human anatomy, they failed when it came to dealing with the actual people who inhabited the bodies. Though bedside manner wasn’t as important during the surgery, patients always felt more comfortable meeting a surgeon who could be pleasant and reassuring.
“Hey Harold, I was just bringing in the medical supplies we gathered on the road,” Quinton said. “I’m not sure if anyone told you but I’m a surgeon.”
“I didn’t know that,” Harold said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I’m a doctor too. Well, I have a MD but I never practiced. I also got my PhD in microbiology and immunology.”
“Got to say, the supplies you’ve got here are impressive,” Quinton commented. “I’m not sure we’re bringing much to the table with the meds we got from the vet clinic.”
Harold frowned at him. “Vet clinic?”
“Craig got shot and we needed a surgical room and supplies so we went to a veterinary clinic. Cleaned out what meds we could use when we left.”
“Surgery in a veterinary clinic is pretty impressive,” Harold commented and Quinton smiled at the compliment.
“It worked out, probably against all odds,” Quinton said, “But this place? It’s amazing. What sort of setup do you have in your lab?”
Light filled Harold’s eyes and Quinton realized he’d tapped into Harold’s passion with that question.
“The best you could ask for with a facility this size,” he replied. “The Director had me design it myself. This location was selected as a fallback during a biological attack. The lab is meant for the development of vaccines treatments. I’ve got centrifuges, microscopes, spectrometers, anything you could ask for to run tests. When I got here I was basically able to pick up the work I had been doing at Langley without a misstep.”
“What were you working on?” Quinton asked, curious.
“Trying to engineer a vaccine against the virus.”
Quinton’s instinct was to laugh and ask if he was putting him on but Harold stared at him with no hint of embarrassment or amusement. He really be
lieved it.
And was it really that out of this world to think that the CIA would be able to cure the infection?
“So how’s that going for you?”
Harold hesitated, his eyes blinking rapidly as he chewed on the inside of his cheek and pushed his glasses up again. His behaviour was cagey but Quinton couldn’t blame him. The guy was CIA and used to keeping his mouth shut due to the whole need-to-know basis bullshit of the government.
“This particular virus has proven difficult to inactivate,” Harold said. “However I do know that it appears to be a mutated strain of the rabies virus. The current vaccine for rabies is ineffectual but it was a starting point. I’ve been working on altering it but so far the virus has proven too strong to inactivate completely.”
“Well, don’t be too hard on yourself,” Quinton said. “You’re just one guy working in a pop up lab. All the people at the CDC with all their resources were completely lost with this virus. You can’t expect to be able to easily figure out a virus that no one’s ever seen before.”
Harold frowned and took off his glasses and began to clean the lens. “I suppose so. It did take some time to map out what it was and how it worked. One could assume a vaccine would take longer.”
Quinton was reminded of the strange behaviour of the freaks at the dealership and Fairview.
“You said it was a mutated strain of rabies. Does it work the same way as the rabies virus?”
“After infection, it replicates in the muscle cells and then moves into the central nervous system. That’s when the host starts to develop a fever, there’s muscle pain and hallucinations. Once it infects the brain, the adrenal gland begins overproduction and dopamine levels go off the charts as well. It’s what brings on their aggressive nature and dampens their pain receptors. They don’t know reality from the fantasy their malfunctioning brain is creating.”
Quinton knew exactly what he was describing. The first freaks they had faced off with had been raving monsters that seemed to react to stimulation out of instinct rather than any actual thought.
But then there had been the freaks at the dealership, running in packs with clear leaders guiding them. The ones in Fairview who had used weapons, as rudimentary as they were, to attack. That went against what Harold had told him...unless the virus was changing.
“Have you noticed the virus changing in any way?”
“How so?” Harold asked, popping his clean glasses back on.
“When we were out there we noticed the freaks acting different. They attacked us at a construction site. We were up on the steel beams and they started throwing things at us to knock us down”
“Fascinating,” Harold said. “Using tools means they do have higher brain function than I had believed.”
“It’s more than that,” Quinton said. “We came across a different group of freaks running in packs with an established leader and it wasn’t just one pack. There were three separate groups, each with a leader and they worked together to attack us. They strategized.”
Harold’s eyes had grown wide behind his glasses. “Are you certain you weren’t anthromorphizing the infected?”
“Positive. They herded us up onto a roof and then the Alpha ordered the other freaks to spread out and surround us.”
“It spoke to them?”
“Not words but gestures and grunts. Like animals.”
“That is interesting.” Harold pushed his glasses up his nose. “It is possible that the chemical levels in the brain vary in each infected person. Maybe some of them are able to retain some higher brain function. You wouldn’t happen to have a sample from any of those infected?”
“No, unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to get one,” Quinton replied, doing his best to suppress a smile. Harold definitely was every bit the scientist and Quinton had the feeling that if Harold had found himself in the same situation as they had on that rooftop he would have been more concerned with getting a sample to study rather than getting himself off the roof.
“That is unfortunate. I would be interested in examining their blood to see if there is any difference between it and the other samples. It could be a weakened version of the virus which would make engineering a vaccine more likely.”
Quinton could tell that Harold was disappointed by the thought that the answer he was searching for could be out there somewhere, just beyond his reach.
“Well, I’m all for finding a vaccine so next time I’m back on the mainland and find a freak like the ones I saw, I’ll make sure to bring you back a sample. Same goes for the rest of the group.”
“I would be very grateful,” Harold said. “I’m not exactly well equipped to be going out there myself. I’m much more the lab type.”
Quinton nodded his understanding. “Speaking of the lab, I was wondering if you could spare some time in your lab to process some blood samples,” Quinton asked. “Nothing complicated, just standard blood panels. I want to do physicals on everybody to make sure they’re healthy.”
“Of course,” Harold replied. “I can run a 9 panel in ten minutes, no problem.”
“I appreciate that,” Quinton said. “All of you have been great about accepting us here. I know it must be strange to have a bunch of kids and regular people here when it was supposed to be a CIA operation but all of us are grateful for your welcome. This is something we need.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that,” Harold replied, his eyes pained. “If I could bring everyone out there here, I would. No one should be out there now. Not until I can fix this.”
Quinton was impressed by the determination he saw in the set of Harold’s shoulders. Though Harold seemed to know what he was doing, Quinton was doubtful that where the world’s top scientists had failed, Harold would succeed. Still, the man was determined to try as hard as he could to make it happen and Quinton admired that.
Harold might seem like a bit of an odd duck but he was a good man.
“Well, don’t let me keep you from your work,” Quinton said, nodding back towards the lab door. “I want to get a better look at the operating suite.”
Harold nodded and they both walked down the hallway. When they reached their respective doors, Harold turned to enter the code into the keypad and Quinton’s curiosity got the better of him. He couldn’t help but glance over as Harold punched it in.
6411 or was it a 2?
Quinton filed that bit of knowledge away for later. He wasn’t about to go somewhere he wasn’t invited so soon after coming here but it was a handy bit of information to have.
“Good luck,” Quinton said before he went into the operating suite.
He found that there was a bounce to his step as he circled the operating table and he realized that it was because of Harold. Back at their parent’s house, he had told Veronica that there was likely no hope to curing the virus but now he found himself thinking that he might have been wrong.
Sure, Harold didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would single-handedly save the human race but stranger things had happened...like people turning into rabid cannibals. They had talked about the island as this beacon of hope where they would be safe to live but none of them had dared to hope it could also be where they could fix this world.
Subject File # 749
Subject: I overheard Matthew and Mark talking. They called it home. They’ve always called it “the cabin” before and they still talked about Virginia and our old house there as home.
Administrator: Does that bother you?
Subject: No, not at all. To be honest, I was worrying that they still called the old house home. I thought it would crush them when they realized we weren’t going back. They’ve moved on and that’s a good thing.
“Ow.”
Ruthie squirmed in her chair as Janet twisted her curly hair so she could finish the last braid.
“Sorry, sweetpea,” Janet said. “We’re almost done.”
“Did you have fun swimming?” Kim asked the girl, trying to distract her so Janet could f
inish the braid.
“Uh huh,” Ruthie said, attempting to nod but Janet clicked her tongue and held her head still. “Can I go again tomorrow, Mama?”
“We’ll see,” Janet said. “I think we are going to be very busy tomorrow so there might not be time.”
“Doing what?” Ruthie asked.
“Well, I don’t know exactly. We’re going to have to unpack everything we brought with us.”
“What about the garden?”
“We can help with that.”
“Maybe we can bring some plants from this garden to the garden at home when we go back.”
Janet’s hands stilled on Ruthie’s hair and she looked over at Kim, who was looking at her with wide eyes. Clearly she was just as thrown by the question as her.
Janet finished the braid, taking her time before placing it gently over her shoulder. Janet rounded the chair and knelt in front of Ruthie so she could look into her big innocent eyes.
“Sweetpea, we aren’t going to go back home. This is our home now. We’re going to live here on the island.”
“Forever?” she asked and Janet nodded. Her tiny forehead wrinkled as she considered the news. “Can we paint butterflies in my bedroom like I had before?”
“Of course, we can,” Janet said, happy to know that she could give her little girl what she wanted. “We’ll paint all the butterflies you want.”
“Can I have two desserts tonight?”
“Absolutely.”
“Can I have a pony?”
Kim laughed and then clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”
Janet smiled as well, realizing exactly what had happened here. Her little girl was growing up and learning the fine art of emotional manipulation.
“Nice try, girly,” she said, tapping her on the nose, “But you’re not that good. Butterflies and double dessert but no pony.”
Ruthie let out a deep sigh, her bottom lip sticking out. “Fine.”
“Alright, let’s go see what your brothers are getting up to outside,” Janet said, helping her jump down from the chair. She ran out of the cabin and the women trailed behind her.
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