Chapter 18
First Day of the Global
Pandemic
Pavel was leaning against the damp wall
of the subterranean room finishing a bland meal of rice and beans when he heard
the heavy iron door upstairs creak. He put his tin plate on the lopsided table
and stood up to look through the steel door’s peephole. As he wiped his hands
across his soiled trousers, he heard the familiar sound of boots on the cement
steps. He saw the dead CIA operative, Jack, staring at the door, his jaundiced
face resembling an accordion. He heard the man clawing on the other side and
snorting. This is how it had gone for the past twenty-four hours since the
outbreak had claimed most of the smugglers. Those who survived were either
holed up somewhere else in the jungle or had fled to the boats.
Pavel stared at the pallid face again
through the peephole and felt his stomach coil up. It was only ever Jack clawing
at the door and he wondered how the creature remembered that there was anyone
on the other side.
How much of the man’s brain and memory center could be
left intact? Or does he just smell us behind this thin barrier?
Pavel recoiled away from the peephole as
he heard the ghastly noise of animalistic rage and scratching.
“Is it the same creature?” said Viktor,
who was lying on a nearby cot with his body rigid and a thick layer of soiled gauze
secured to his right bicep.
“Yes. Once more he has come to check on
his
guests
,” said Pavel with a grimace as he looked at the bite mark on
Viktor’s arm that he had gotten during the night when they tried to make a run
for one of the trucks. “I wonder how the smugglers have fared? Are they still
holed up in their underground bunker or are we the last ones left here?”
“You can’t stay here forever,” said
Viktor. “Once you have observed the entire process of viral development in me,
you must take that data and the samples we’ve already collected and find a way
off this island.”
Pavel walked up to the cot and stared at
his old friend. Viktor’s skin was starting to show signs of discoloration and
sweat was beginning to roll off his forehead. “Who ever thought that we’d end
up trapped here by a microscopic villain from a far-off lab,” said Viktor, who
tilted his head and looked up at Pavel. “You’ll finish it, won’t you? You won’t
let me walk around like that,” he said, pointing a finger at the steel door.
“Viktor, there is no need for you to
suffer any further. I can give you an injection of sedatives and you won’t feel
anything.”
“No, this is to be my penance,” he said,
curling forward to cough, “albeit a poor one at that. Plus you need to keep
taking blood samples right up until the time I transition. It may provide some information
we’ve overlooked.”
“We’ve examined this from all angles and
still don’t know if the disease vector was through mosquitos which fed upon the
remains of the Soviet corpses or if it was the bird population transmitting it,
or both. We can’t extrapolate on our work without a proper lab.”
“It had to be the mosquitos initially.
Like West Nile virus they then transmitted to the bird population which became
the primary carrier. Regardless, this virus will keep mutating until it finds
the perfect host which now appears to be us.”
“We just don’t have enough to go on. We
should have come to this island with a full containment team and research lab.
This should never have been done this way,” he said, striking his palm on the
wall.
“My old friend, I lied to you. This
isn’t the first time I examined the KAD97 virus. I was in Namibia, Africa two
years ago at another site with several corpses…” He coughed and struggled to
keep his eyes open. “They were also Soviet soldiers…those old uniforms with the
bronze buttons and pleated shoulders…remember those? I had those bodies
reburied after I gathered tissue samples. They were the final experiments done
before the project folded in ’69. I knew we would need an antidote for this in
case it ever broke out. I couldn’t have my legacy be the horrors we created in
the old lab in Kiev.”
“But the antidote won’t work on this
strain since it seems to have combined with the yellow fever of this region.”
“Perhaps not but it is the closest you
will come to unraveling the helix as it contains the two original viruses. With
it you could trim off years of research trying to formulate an antidote.”
“Where?” he said, propping his friend
up. “Where is it?”
“The antidote is in a vault at the
Annoric cold-weather facility in Alaska. You know the one,” Viktor said,
reaching up his hand which kept opening and closing as his body spasmed.
“Quickly, take one more blood sample. I haven’t much time. The virus is no
longer taking days to manifest itself.”
Pavel grabbed a syringe and inserted it
into the fold of skin by Viktor’s elbow. When he was through, he placed it on
the table behind him and then rested his right hand on the pistol that was tucked
in his belt. He hesitated to pull it out while listening to the raspy, labored
breathing coming from the cot. Pavel forced his hand away from the weapon and
took a deep breath as he returned to Viktor’s side.
“Come closer, Pavel. Just one more thing
to tell you,” Viktor said as his eyes rolled back in his head and he forced
himself to hang on.
As Pavel squatted down, Viktor leaned
forward, his lips pressing out a half-smile. “No one should have to take the
life of a friend,” Viktor whispered and then yanked the pistol out of Pavel’s
belt and pushed him back while the enclosed room rang out with a gunshot.
Chapter 19
Carlie stopped beside a tipped-over
bread truck, scanning the faintly illuminated street in both directions. “Which
way?” she said to Jared who had moved up alongside her.
“There’s a service tunnel used by the
city maintenance staff that goes underground near the park. We can head down
there and make our way for about a hundred yards before it surfaces.”
“Too risky being in a chokepoint like
that and I won’t be able to get SAT imagery on any creatures down there. What
else do you have?”
Jared peered around the white bumper of
the crumpled vehicle. “OK, then I’d say let’s bolt straight ahead to that
retaining wall before the river. There’s a narrow walkway on the other side of
that that we can use to cover our movement. I used to sneak along that when I
was a kid to steal fish traps off the pier.”
After relaying the plan to the others,
Carlie stepped out behind the truck and began running across the littered
street with the rest of her teams in tow. They maneuvered past mangled cars,
stepping over a headless corpse in a blue dress whose right hand was still
clutching a purse. As she neared the eight-foot-high cement wall, Carlie heard
the clatter of footsteps coming from her right as four creatures with ulcerated
faces began heading towards them.
“I’ve got movement behind us,” she heard
Shane say into her earpiece. Carlie turned and saw a dozen more mutants in the
moonlight closing in behind them.
“Shit,” she said, raising her rifle.
Jared grabbed her arm. “This way,
there’s a large aquarium building that we can take cover in,” he said as they
started to run towards a circular glass building with a sloped roof a hundred
yards away.
As they ran, the small crowd of ravenous
creatures chasing them from either direction merged into one group like a
school of piranhas. Carlie sprinted behind Jared as they all made their way to
the rear of the blue structure whose glass walls were aglow in the moonlight.
Carlie could hear the waves of the Mississippi lapping against the retaining
wall to her right. Looking at the glass panes ahead she could see the eerie reflections
of the menace behind them increasing.
She followed Jared as they ran past a
red trolley with turquoise trim around the windows. Jared swung to the right
over by a metal service door which he was attempting to open with some small
tool he removed from his pocket. As Carlie motioned for everyone to take up
defensive positions, she saw the creatures come to an abrupt halt before the
massive one-way mirror windows of the aquarium. The sixteen rotting figures
stood with their mouths agape at the sight of themselves, their heads weaving from
side to side as they approached the glass. The lead creature, who wore a
baseball jersey, white pants, and cleats, limped to the façade and began
clawing with its putrescent fingers at the shiny image of itself, moaning as it
left four parallel streaks of blood on the mirrored surface.
Carlie heard the door open behind her
and saw Jared nodding for them to enter. She motioned for everyone to retreat
inside as she moved up in front of Jared to sweep the entrance ahead.
Chapter 20
Once they entered and the door was
closed, Carlie led the way forward through the dark hallway which led past two
offices and a small employee lounge. There were faint nightlights lining the
walls along the floor at ankle level and she could hear the sound of a
generator humming inside a maintenance room to the left. As the hallway merged
with the main circular chamber ahead, she saw a massive figure flit by to her
right. She swung her rifle up as she entered the room and saw a nine-foot gray
shark thrashing in a massive aquarium tank that rose from the floor towards the
ceiling.
As the rest of her team entered behind
her, Boyd and his men cleared the nearby rooms in an adjoining hallway to the
right. Carlie stood gazing at the aquatic exhibits lining the entire span of
the circular viewing room. Each aquarium held squids, manta rays, jellyfish,
and alligators.
“This place must have its own internal
power station to keep things going during emergencies,” said Shane.
“Yeah, but for how long?” said Amy,
touching her hand to the glass of a tank full of frantic leatherback turtles.
“These poor things probably haven’t eaten in days.”
Carlie’s eyes floated past the exhibits
toward the windows ahead. The one-way glass enabled her to see the entire
layout of the quiet city to the north and east. The small crowd of mutants was still
marveling at themselves in the reflection and she moved closer to inspect her
adversary.
“Damn, look at that lemonade-face on the
right with the missing teeth and caveman forehead,” said Jared. “He must’ve
been Cajun.”
“Those eyes—there’s just nothing there
except fury,” said Shane.
“Like the hungry expression on that
shark back there,” Carlie whispered.
A sudden noise in a distant hallway to
their left caused everyone to swing abruptly. Carlie could see Matias with two
fingers raised and then pointing to a dark recess ahead.
As rifles were raised, Carlie whispered
into her mic, “No shooting or we may risk breaching an aquarium. Blades only.” She
slid her M4 behind her back and withdrew the black-handled machete on her left
hip.
She crept along the windows towards the
direction of the noise, trying to stay in the shadows cast by a wall-sized map
of the Pacific Ocean while Shane followed behind her. Two creatures dressed in
security guard attire rushed forward into the main room. Carlie bounded on an
angle between them, swiftly delivering an arcing cut across the neck which
caused the soiled head to flop sideways, barely attached by a stringy tendon.
It turned abruptly, causing the head to detach completely and plunk on the
tiled floor followed by its crumpled body. Shane had cleaved the larger
creature’s head in two with a single strike but had buried the machete so deep
that the handle was sticking out of the mouth of the figure.
As the others moved forward to help
Shane, four other zombies came screaming from the hallway and lunged for
Carlie. She sidestepped, clipping one behind the right knee, severing the limb,
then drove her blade into the back of the cervical region. Before the gangly creature
crashed to the floor, she pivoted to her left and delivered a comma cut across
the abdomen of the incoming mutant who had grabbed her vest. Its ropy blue innards
spilled out onto the floor as it let out a sickening groan. Carlie pushed the eviscerated
creature back long enough for her to slam a roundhouse kick into its calf,
dropping it on the blood-slickened tiles, then she stomped its forehead,
watching the cranium collapse like a rotten floorboard.
One creature with a greasy beard had
slid past them and was rushing for Amy and Jared, who were holding their
outstretched blade hands and moving in circles as if they were fencing. Carlie
closed the gap and slammed her machete into the center of the skull, removing
it quickly while driving her boot into the creature’s back, which sent it into a
wall.
Amy still had her dueling hand extended
and was white-faced as Carlie turned to check on her.
“You gotta teach me some of those moves
one day.”
“Any time,” Carlie said, flicking her
blade to remove the blood and then resheathing it after glancing at the
creature Matias had just dispatched.
Boyd and his men trotted into the room.
“Everybody OK?” he said.
“I think that’s all of ’em,” Shane said,
dragging his soiled machete across the blue sweatshirt of the beheaded figure
beneath him.
“The rest of the place is secure. These
things must have come up from the basement but I just sealed off that door,”
Boyd said.
“This one-way glass will provide us with
a vantage point for surveying the path ahead,” said Carlie. “The freighter is
only about a ten-minute walk from here so let’s observe our approach route and
when the coast is clear outside, we’ll move out.”