Riposte (The Redivivus Trilogy Book 2) (5 page)

As though a switch had been thrown, the thing’s malicious movements ceased abruptly. Propelled only by its previous momentum and the force of gravity, it continued forward, slumping against Ava before falling to the floor in a lifeless heap. She felt its cold skin against her own as it slid to the ground.

Ava stared wide-eyed, transfixed by the sight, and completely unsure of what to do next. The barrage of conflicting emotions surging through her mind did little to alleviate the paralysis she felt. When she finally came to her senses, she leaned forward and vomited.

Part of Ava’s flummoxed mind wanted to go to her mother, to check on her. The other, more rational part reminded her that the thing on the floor—no longer her mother—had just tried to kill her. Eyeing the backdoor beyond her mother’s desecrated body, Ava saw her chance to escape from all she had seen and all she had been forced to do.

* * *

After running from her house for what seemed like days, Ava found herself in a stranger’s backyard with the infected all around. She saw several bad ones tearing into something, or more likely someone, but thankfully the surrounding shrubs largely obscured the gory details. As she crouched between two bushes, she was paralyzed by the gripping fear that she would be the next one lying there on the ground. Rooted to the spot, Ava could not avert her eyes from the horror before her. A gentle breeze wafted through the air like the wake turbulence from the wings of an angel, causing a branch of an elm tree to shift slightly above her head. The subtle movement caught her eye and drew her attention to the spot where a well-camouflaged tree house was inconspicuously nestled within the stalwart boughs of the enormous tree. Several weathered wooden slats nailed to the tree’s trunk slowly came into focus. Quickly and quietly, she scurried up the ladder, and into the relative safety of the child’s sanctuary.

Not knowing what else to do, she remained hidden in the tree house for days, during which time she heard unspeakable things occurring in the world below. Snarling and screaming, growling and gunfire, fleeing and fighting—then…silence. For the most part, Ava spent her time in the tree house in a near catatonic state, so motionless one could have easily mistaken her for a statue were it not for the subtle rise and fall of her chest. She did not dare leave the safety of the tree house with all the bad things happening outside. When necessary, she relieved herself in the plastic sink of the long-forgotten play kitchen in the corner.

It rained one night, and Ava awoke to find the pail sitting on the tree house deck full of runoff. Despite being sandy and tasting like rust and dirt, she drank the water greedily. Such was her thirst that she did not even stop drinking when her gaze settled on the dead fly floating in the brackish water.

Faded drawings and crooked writings of former occupants decorated the inside of the drafty tree house. One evening, as she studied the walls that harkened back to brighter times long since past, Ava wondered what had become of the artist responsible for the myriad stick figures residing in the playhouse with her.
Had she grown up and moved on? Or was she still a little girl, seeing the same horrors that I am, or worse?
Ava was certain a girl made the drawings, and while she truly hoped she was older and far away from this place, Ava knew that did not necessarily mean she would be safe. When her searching gaze fell upon the name scrawled beneath the last figure, Ava broke down, the tears flowing down her cheeks like a busted water main.

It read
Mommy
.

Curled in a fetal position on the cold wooden floor, Ava cried, all the while fighting to keep from letting a single sound escape. She cried for her mother and for the child that had drawn the stick figures. She cried for the deliveryman and for all the horrors she had seen and heard in the world since fleeing her house several days ago. She cried for her father whom she had not seen in weeks.
Oh, what I would give to see him now! He would take care of me! He would know what to do!
Unfortunately, she had no idea where he was or if he was even alive. Lastly, she cried for herself, realizing with unfathomable despair that she would not likely live to see another sunset.

As she lay coiled and sobbing, Ava recalled the last time she and her parents had been together as a family. They had gone out for dinner the night before her father left on his mission trip, and she ate until she thought she would explode. Even so, she still ordered her favorite for dessert—a chocolate milkshake. Sandwiched between her parents and holding each of their hands, they walked slowly to their car, in no hurry for their time together to end. As they neared their car, a destitute man asking for money with which to buy food approached them. Ava recalled that her mother’s initial reaction was to help the man, but her father seemed far more interested in getting his family into their vehicle and back home safely. John Wild was not a cruel man and was certainly not against charity; he merely sensed something was
off
in the vagrant’s eyes.

No sooner than the family was secure in the vehicle, the disheveled beggar transformed into a wild animal as if a switch had flipped inside his brain. He began screaming obscenities and making lewd threats as he charged the car and banged on the windows.

Taken aback, Rebecca stared at John with a frightened, dumbfounded expression; thankful he had resisted her plea to help the homeless and clearly unstable man. Staring at the deranged man in the rearview mirror, her father said, “A person with nothing left to lose is one of the most dangerous people in the world.”

Ava certainly felt as though she had nothing left to lose; without warning, the plague had taken everything from her. Unfortunately, she felt anything but dangerous. Instead she felt alone, afraid, and uncertain of where to go or what to do next. At the time, Ava had been confused and disturbed by the man’s inhuman behavior. Now as she thought of the disturbed vagrant, she did not think he looked all that different from the bad ones. She couldn’t help but wonder if his feral aggression was somehow related to the atrocities currently devouring her world.

As the dim light shone through the windows of the tree house, the branches cast foreboding shadows on the walls, making it feel as though a thousand dark arms reached in for her. Panicked, Ava tried desperately to melt into the floor of the wooden structure. Outside, low, moaning growls of the monsters lurking in the yard carried through the air. Other unsettling sounds admixed with their terrifying snarls—gluttonous, smacking noises, like when Billy, a ten-year old classmate with no table manners, chewed with his mouth open, as well as something akin to a serving spoon pulling free from sticky macaroni and cheese. In addition to scaring her immensely, the sounds made her realize just how hungry she was. A wave of nausea flooded her body as she envisioned the sanguinary deliveryman that marked the beginning of this nightmare for her. Ava remembered how badly she hoped it was the pizza man at the door that day. The pizza man never came, and she did not think she could ever eat pizza again anyway.

What am I going to do
? She was not even certain of where she was exactly. Relentless waves of despair rolled over her until sleep mercifully took her away. That night, Ava did not dream of the bad ones, the deliveryman, or her mother. Instead, her dreams drifted to the last time she had seen her father over two weeks ago. The night before he left they enjoyed a wonderful evening of talking, laughing, and playing together. Holding her arms, he spun her around and around until his face became blurry, as though an ever-thickening veil of fog settled over the once distinct features of his face. Similarly, his words grew increasingly faint with each revolution. Just when she was about to lose sight of him completely, she glanced down and noticed her arms stretching longer with each rotation. As she steadily slipped away, she heard him utter one final thing before vanishing into the mist completely.

“Ava, sweetie, never give up and always be ready,” he said.

Ava awoke with a start as his last word was spoken, as though it was an alarm clock from some other dimension. The bright morning sun scorching across her face seemed so incongruous with the dark events of the preceding night that she briefly wondered if everything, from the deliveryman on, had been a dream. The painful protests of her back as she sat up on the hard wooden floor made it abundantly clear that it was not a dream.

Ava peered through the window of the tree house and was thankful when she saw none of the bad ones in the yard. As she glanced around, her eyes once again fell on the family of stick figures on the wall. Above them, scrawled in red by the hand of a child, were the words: ‘Never give up.’ Ava stared at the words in confusion, certain they had not been there the night before. Simultaneously, she felt a weight in her hand and noticed she clutched a broken red crayon. In that instant, a remarkable clarity swept over her, and she knew it was time to leave. If she was to survive, she was going to have to move fast and move often. She needed to stay smart and always be ready. She would never to give up.

With the world outside the tree house still and quiet once again, Ava cautiously emerged from her hiding place. What she found made her shake her head and rub her eyes vigorously to ensure she was not dreaming. Everything in the world was different. More specifically, everything in the world was wrong. Cars were crashed or abandoned on every road. Dark smoke rose lazily from the earth before disappearing into the early morning sky as the last vestiges of countless conflagrations threatened to blink out. Worst of all, bodies of all shapes and sizes lay strewn about as if they merely stopped to take a nap right where they lay. Although Ava was only eleven, she was not naïve, and she knew all those people were not simply taking a nap. Tears welled in her emerald green eyes as she thought of her mother, Rebecca, lying motionless on the kitchen floor.
If only mommy was just taking a nap!

* * *

Having been alone since fleeing her house nearly a month ago, Ava had begun talking to herself incessantly—sometimes in her head, but more often aloud. She found the lack of human interaction quite disconcerting, and her
conversations
proved to be profoundly comforting. During the previous month, the only other healthy person she encountered was a young man named Jim. It pained her deeply to think about him and his dreadful demise at the hands of the infected.

Although Ava knew she should not talk to strangers, she made an exception when she met Jim. He was in his mid-thirties, and a good person. He, too, had been alone since the bad ones killed his girlfriend. Even though she spent only three days with him, he was always kind and did everything he could to ensure that she had everything she needed during their time together. If Ava were honest about it, in that short time Jim had been like the older brother she never had. Even in the end, the man she hardly knew gave his life for her so that she might escape and go on living. Wistfully, she recalled the last thing he said to her: “Stay safe and keep moving, Ava. Your dad is out there somewhere, and he
will
find you.”

5

October 3, 2015

I-75

Cobb County, GA

After the brief respite during which they studied the map and planned their route, General Montes and his small group piled back into the truck. It seemed impossible that he and Corporal Rocha were the only two Brazilian soldiers left out of over fifty that had been aboard the KC-390. More unsettling was the fact that Sergeant Garza was the only American soldier they had seen alive out of hundreds stationed at the base. While it was possible that others survived, none of them held out much hope that was the case.

Sergeant Garza informed General Montes that they were approximately twenty miles away from the CDC facility in Atlanta, travelling by interstate. Based on the reports and footage received by the base before communications went offline, he also informed the General that those twenty miles were likely to be a bumper-to-bumper, gridlocked snarl of traffic.

“I heard one of the helicopter pilots from the base say most of the roads looked like rivers of parked cars,” Garza said. The comment made General Montes toy with the idea of commandeering a helicopter to allow them to bypass the parking lots the roads had become, but the thought of returning to the chaos of the airbase quickly put an end to that prospect.

As they pulled back onto the road, the cool air rustled through Lin’s hair while the warm sun beat down upon her face. Closing her eyes, she felt herself being drawn ever so slowly toward sleep, and for a split second, the world around her seemed normal and familiar again. That sentiment was quickly snuffed out by the acrid smell of a nearby automobile fire left to burn itself out, reminding her the world was not the same place she had known only days ago.

LNV carved a path straight through the heart and soul of humanity with such speed, and with such fury, that there had been precious little time to consider what it was or where it had come from. Before most government and health agencies ever acknowledged the severity of the situation, it was far too late. Such was the state of the world at the time of the outbreak. Too afraid of the political, social, and economic repercussions of any drastic action, no one was willing to step up and call the situation for what it was. In the short time between the emergence of the infection and its catastrophic sweep across the globe, all that could be heard from the government and scientific community was the same waffling gibberish spouted on the nightly news as it played on a loop. Given that the infection was all anyone spoke about at the time, it was truly remarkable to think about how little was actually said about it.

“We live in an era of rampant mysophobia. Look at all the scare-mongering about the swine flu recently,” a scientist said on the day the media first reported the strange disease discovered in Brazil.

1% of the world affected:

“It’s certainly true that we’ve seen the emergence of more and more infectious diseases in recent years due to human expansion, climate change, antibiotic resistance, etc. But the reality is that most of these things garner a great deal of media hype then blow over just as quickly as they begin,” one politician said.

7% of the world affected:

“We need to approach this thing rationally and in a logical manner that is rooted in hard, scientifically-proven facts. We have established a task force to assess the true threat and will determine the best course of action to curtail its spread. Allowing panic and hype to take the wheel in regards to policy will have dire consequences,” a spokesman said.

23% of the world affected:

“We simply can’t justify shutting down all the ports and airports across the world. Think of the economy,” another official said.

34% of the world affected:

“I would like to address to the allegations that the response of this administration to the ongoing outbreak has been sluggish and inadequate. From the beginning of this horrific epidemic, we have continually warned of the impending disaster should a substantial worldwide effort not be implemented immediately. We have acknowledged the dire threat of this pathogen from the moment we learned of its existence and will continue to exploit all the resources of our great nation to protect the people from this diabolical disease,” the president of the United States of America said.

42% of the world affected: 

“The WHO is urging those in affected areas to remain calm, and to take the necessary precautions to protect themselves and their loved ones. Remain in your homes. Do not attempt to take those who fall ill to the hospital. Should a person in your family exhibit signs of infection, it is imperative that they are quarantined immediately. Any attempts to interact with or to assist an infected individual will only result in harm to yourself and further the spread of the pathogen,” a chief WHO spokesman said.

56% of the world affected:

Soon, all of the balderdash died off, replaced by the ceaseless static of unused airwaves and the useless loops of emergency broadcast messages. Whether this was due to the eventual acceptance that this plague was unlike any other previously faced by humankind, or simply because those tasked with damage control lost their soapbox when the television studios went dark, Lin did not know. One thing she felt certain about, however, was that the arrogance, cowardice, and solipsism of those in positions of power facilitated the demise of great numbers of the population at large. She was not so naïve as to assume they could have said or done anything that would have been able to put the ruthless virus back in its box. Still, Lin could not help but think that some attempt to warn the public about the danger they faced early on might have helped some people survive.

As they drove, Lin muddled through what she had come to understand about the disease and its origin. She knew from experience that the best way to find a cure for any malady was to truly understand it on every possible level. Knowing what something needs to survive is the first step toward knowing what you need to do to kill it. Make yourself
think
like your enemy and you begin to see the holes in its armor. Only after she identified the virus’ Achilles’ heel could she find the kryptonite that would castrate it forever. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she wanted LNV to die even more than the thing that had killed her brother, Kang, so many years ago.

Although she had no way to access the files on the USB drive tucked safely in her pocket, she had spent enough time studying them on the flight from Brazil to the United States to know the basics of what the scientists had done. In the construction of LNV, the researchers began with a replication-deficient retroviral vector—a virus similar in structure to the dreaded human immunodeficiency virus. A vector, much like the body of an automobile, is essentially a shell that can be fitted with various modifications and customizations in order to suit the needs of its creator. Their need, of course, was the ability to efficiently and discretely kill another human being. Within that human, their targets were the cardiovascular and central nervous systems.

The first step in the construction of such a pathogen was to gut the original virus, removing those qualities they did not wish it to possess, and making room for those they wished to add. The latter was accomplished through the insertion of novel plasmids of their own design. A plasmid is nothing more than a segment of DNA or RNA—the blueprint of life—and in the case of LNV, it was engineered with genes stolen from the rabies virus, among others, in order to facilitate its infectivity and lethality.

By incorporating rabies’ unique ability to invade the brain by travelling hidden inside nerves accessed near the site of infection, the researchers managed to circumvent one of the human body’s most formidable defenses: the blood-brain barrier. Essentially, the virus was engineered to slip in through the back door without ever being detected. Once there, it had unrestricted access to the sensitive mainframe that is the human brain. It was also protected from the host’s defenses as they are excluded from the central nervous system by this barrier; as though the crime taking place right under their noses is simply beyond their jurisdiction.

Lin shuddered at the thought of all the harm the diabolical pathogen could cause from such a vantage point.
How can the body begin to fight an enemy it doesn’t even know is there? Once it does make itself known, it is already entrenched so far behind enemy lines there is precious little that can be done about it. Rabies has been around for thousands of years, and we’ve come up with almost nothing to treat infection once it makes it that far. How can I expect to accomplish more in a just few short months? If it takes any longer than that, it won’t likely matter anyway…

Once inside the host’s brain, LNV produces a novel protein called tetrodotoxin-related protein, or TTXrP. Like the potent neurotoxin synthesized by bacteria living within various sea creatures such as the pufferfish, TTXrP interferes with the function of sodium channels embedded in the outer walls of nerve cells located in both the heart and nervous system. With these channels blocked, the nerves are unable to send their vital transmissions. The end result of this communication blackout should be muscle paralysis, impaired sensation, abnormal heart rhythms, respiratory failure, and ultimately death. As Lin thought about her experience at the air reserve base, she knew with absolute certainty that the true end result of LNV was not death; at least not as she had come to understand it.

Dr. Lin San’s scientific mind processed the few hard facts she had regarding the pathogen with the cold, objective detachment of a computer analyzing data, trying to cull the plague down to its fundamentals. Even the facts, she acknowledged, were a far cry from facts as she was accustomed to them. Being unable to verify much of what she knew left her feeling as though she were accepting a great deal of information on faith alone. As a lifelong scientist, that was not something she was overly comfortable doing. She found this prospect even more disconcerting when she considered that those she had placed her faith in were the very monsters responsible for the creation of the vile pathogen in the first place.
What else can I do? I really don’t have any other choice. Even if I had the facilities and equipment to verify their experiments, there is no time for such things.
In the end, she felt as though she repeatedly came up against a brick wall, her analytical mind flashing an ominous error message at the conclusion of every stream of thought.

DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Frustrated, she gazed out the window at the carnage besetting the world around her. No longer could she find even a trace of the fleeting sense of normalcy she felt moments ago. She tried to clear her mind of the
science
of the situation, instead looking at things from the perspective of an active observer who had lived through the nightmare enveloping the world. While that approach left no unproven facts to torment her, she found more than enough other things to cover that job.

The rate of infection following inoculation with blood or saliva appeared to be nearly 100%, but the mortality rate—if that metric even applied—was another matter all together. That is, it was unclear if those who were infected actually died in the traditional sense or if they were severely weakened after being hijacked by the invading pathogen. Dr. Johnson’s notes indicated they detected persistent, extremely low-level vital signs in Lazarus after the animal had been pronounced dead.
I suppose there is precious little difference. Alive or dead—they certainly aren’t living as we’ve come to accept it.
This was at the heart of her biggest question:
What exactly did LNV do to its victims if not kill them, and by what means did it accomplish this?

Anatomically, the infected looked grossly human, but the similarities vanished soon after that. Nothing else about the monsters now inhabiting the world resembled anything she had come to know and accept about humans and life. From a physiological standpoint, she had no idea what systems remained functional, and which were no longer necessary for their survival.

Lin knew she would have little chance of finding any useful treatment until she gained a better understanding of LNV’s pathophysiology. If indeed the bodies of the infected were somehow shanghaied and kept alive by the virus, how long could that last? Surely the vile process behind such an egregious hijacking was not so sophisticated that it could sustain a complex system like the human body for an extended period of time. At this point, the virus simply had not been around long enough to adequately answer that question. Every question that entered Lin’s mind led to more questions instead of answers.

How were the infected able to survive the degree of injury and mutilation she had witnessed, and still remain an ambulatory threat?
A great number of them endured multiple traumatic insults that should have quickly led to human death, yet they appeared largely unfazed in most cases. It seemed that only severe damage to the central nervous system could cause their true demise. Short of that, any other injury merely maimed the infernal things—slowing them down at best, or doing precious little at worst. Lin thought that she might be able to learn more about which body systems, if any, were necessary for their survival by more careful observation of the effects of various injuries.

What allowed them to move tirelessly for seemingly indefinite periods of time without the need for rest?
Lin postulated that infection with LNV might lead to a dramatic alteration in the host’s basal metabolic rate. By shutting down parts of the human body deemed non-essential or even deleterious to the virus’ purpose, particularly those with high energy consumption like the cerebral cortex, the overall energy requirements could be dramatically reduced. While not seen in humans, such occurrences were not unique in the animal world. Dormancy is seen in various forms including hibernation, a primarily mammalian phenomenon. The metabolic depression that occurs during this state is often associated with a significant reduction in body temperature as well as a reduction in respiratory and heart rate, the latter to as low as 5% of its normal value.
Like Lazarus…
When a bear hibernates, its basal metabolic rate drops to less than 75% of normal, while other animals exhibit an even greater decrease. By what mechanism this could occur, Lin was not sure. Perhaps the increased activity in the hypothalamus reported by Dr. Johnson was responsible. She knew that compounds such as dynorphin A and enkephalin are found in high concentrations in that area of the brain, and are thought to be potential triggers for hibernation in some mammals.
That would explain why the infected often appear completely inactive in the absence of stimuli. Could such a phenomenon be switched on and off just by specific sensory input?