Scourge - A Medical Thriller (The Plague Trilogy Book 3) (18 page)

30

The apartment seemed more isolated than usual. Pete normally didn’t even notice the dilapidation or silence, but now that was all he could see when he looked around his home
: the rust on the faucet, the tear in the couch, the crack in the window over the sink. All of it told him one thing: he’d worked his entire life and had nothing to show for it. He drew a good salary, or had drawn one, anyway, but he had no luxury possessions to speak of, no wife or family, not even the memories of such things to comfort him. His entire life was crammed into a studio apartment.

The building was surrounded by razor wire and had a guard at the entrance at all times. He’d noticed a trend where apartment buildings that weren’t guarded were filled with squatters in a matter of days.
Then an ip would break in. The infection would spread, and the squatters would have to be killed by the military patrols. His building paid for security after a similar incident in another complex up the block.

He rose from the couch and stared out the window onto the street. Other than the military patrols, he never saw any cars. People
had occasionally walked by on the sidewalks, but even that had stopped months ago.

He paced his apartment
, but it was so small that only took a couple of minutes. Staying indoors wasn’t going to work. He would need to find something to hold his interest, to keep his mind off the organism inside of him, for as long as was possible. Otherwise, he would drive himself insane thinking about it.

He left the apartment. Two flights of stairs led down to the ground level and the jeep he’d taken from NORAD
—a vehicle they’d probably come for, eventually. He didn’t have a car of his own, since NORAD provided them to their officers. He decided to pass it up and walk.

The air cooled his skin. The moon was barely visible. The
sliver of it that did show doused the city in a pale white light. Without light pollution, it was breathtaking. Even the mailbox he walked past shimmered. The windows of buildings reflected a speck of moonlight in a shiny epicenter like a glowing diamond. Mirrors up on a business storefront reflected the light back up to the sky.

Pete did four rounds o
f his block. No one was out. No one drove by other than the patrols. Of the two he saw, both stopped and checked his identification. A curfew was in effect, and all nonmilitary personnel were arrested on the spot. He didn’t want to be that close to them, even with their biohazard suits, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell them to keep away because of infection. If he did, he would be joining the dying at the stadium, a bullet to his head before being burned in a pit with thousands of others.

He stopped at an intersection and tried to plan his best course for the remaining time he had left in life. It didn’t matter, not really. Whatever he did, his mind would be somewhere else
, on the virus multiplying within him.

As he
passed along the sidewalk, his thoughts took him back to that drone. A few things didn’t sit well with him, mostly how they actually stayed in the sky. They’d been up there a long time, and nothing had flown up to refuel them, which meant that someone, or something, had discovered a way to conserve massive amounts of fuel and refused to share it with the public. Or maybe they would share the technology with the public for a price.

As Pete passed a bank, he saw the clock
on the street sign, a digital clock with red lettering. Almost every building had the power cut, but the clock was still on. He turned his attention back to the sidewalk and froze. He looked up at the clock again. Something about it looked familiar. The small light bulbs, the displays to show the time… He’d seen several pieces at the drone crash site that…

He hurried back to the jeep
, started it, and sped away.

31

Samantha had been given the f
reedom to wander around the village. It reminded her of the villages she’d seen in Eastern Africa whenever she was there because of a fresh outbreak of Lassa virus or some other hot agent. The shacks were predominately homes, with only two communal buildings that she could see: a “hospital,” which was nothing more than the doctor’s shack, and a city hall, which, again, was just a hut converted for a different purpose.

One thing that impressed her was the joy in which people went about their work. It consisted almost exclusively of tending to l
ivestock, farming, or carpentry. The latter group seemed to be attempting to build a wooden house rather than a hut, but the people seemed content.

The animal life varied tremendously
, and she saw something she never thought she would see in the middle of the jungle: camels. The village had three camels, or rather, she was told, one of the village’s citizens owned the camels. Sam saw the owner come out and speak to the camels, running a brush through their hair. The camels had little black spots, almost like leopard spots, running the length of the body and the mouth.

“I didn’t think I’d find camels in the middle of the
jungle,” she said.

The man glanced to her and went back to his brush. “The moisture ain’t good for ’em. Messes with their skin. But none of us is comfortable, is we?”

“What made you choose camels?”

“I’m buildin’ an
ark.”

“An
ark?”

“That’s right. Gotta include all the animals I can.”

Sam watched as he finished brushing one of the camels and then took out a white, gooey substance from a black container and applied it over the animal.

“Why are you building an
ark?”

“World’s comin’ to an end. Figure it can’t hurt.”

Sam watched the man a long while before she left and found Jason sitting on a porch, sucking on a homemade cigar. He kicked off his boots and leaned back in the chair. “We’re staying here tonight. No one else lives in this hut. They’ll leave us alone.”

“They’re saying the world’s ending,” Sam said, walking over and sitting down next to him. “If they actually believe that
, I don’t think they’d care much about whether or not we were harmed.”

“These are good people.”

Sam looked back at the camels. The man was quietly speaking to them now. “How do you know Tristan?”

“She
…”

“Oh. Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, it’s not that. It just feels weird saying it. It was so long ago it feels like it happened to a different person.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another cigar, offering it to her. She took it, and he cut off the tip before she could put it in her mouth. “Now you can actually taste it.”

“Thanks.” The first puff tasted almost toxic
, like paint thinner. Samantha coughed, causing Jason to grin. “Not for everybody.”

The substance burned
, and Sam knew it wasn’t just tobacco. It had been cut with another ingredient. She took one more puff and then put it down on the porch. One of the children of the village ran across the street and hid from them, his head sticking out of his hiding spot as he stared at them.

“Why are they scared of us?” she said.

“They don’t want any confrontations. They try to avoid those as much as possible. The ones that do want to get into a confrontation, you can see it on their faces when they look at you. Most of them just want to be left alone.”

“It feels odd here
, as though we’ve stepped back in time or something.”

“We have.”

Samantha looked back at the hut. The structure appeared sturdy and large, built of good material.

“You sure no one lives here?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s ours. I’m going to get some weapons from Tristan, a couple pistols and rifles. I want you to start carrying a pistol with you at all times. Just tuck it into your waistband.”

“I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”

“Comfort has nothing to do with it.” Jason rose and said, “Mind helping?”

They strolled past t
he hut and back into the road. A few people watched them from the huts, but as soon as they were noticed, they hid themselves back inside again.

“Any guesses
about why the virus hasn’t touched this town?” Jason asked.

“I would guess they jus
t haven’t been properly exposed. I’ll run some tests as soon as she allows me to see people. Separate the blood cells from the plasma cells and test for
Variola
RNA. It’ll tell us if they carry the virus and it just isn’t active or if they’ve never been infected.”

Jason stopped and looked at her. “
Jessica told me back in Wyoming that you lost your mother. I’m sorry.”

She nodded and started walking again, Jason
following a step or two behind. “In the final months, my mom didn’t recognize me. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

They walked in silence a moment. Finally, Sam stopped and turned to him. “Please be honest with me, Jason. Why me? Why did you guys choose me?”

“Hank thought you had the best chance at a vaccine… and most of the other top virologists in the world are dead. Hank had dozens of them killed right before he came after you. He shot one guy in his kitchen while he was eating breakfast with his family. Did it himself because the guy had insulted him somehow, refused to work for him or something. Hank doesn’t care about people. He doesn’t see them the same way we do. They’re materials to him, curiosities.”

“He’s a psychopath?”

“Terms like that don’t really apply.”

Across the street, the man
who had come out with Tristan stepped outside. A rifle hung from his shoulder, and he tucked his thumb under the strap and spit on the ground. He strolled over to them and said, “Tristan’s ready for you. She got some people that volunteered.”

Jason looked at her. “Firearms can wait. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

She nodded and followed the man back to Tristan’s home.

32

Pete’s biggest fear was that someone had already gotten to the crash site. The military, after he’d told Clover, had no doubt sent a biohazard team, but the team wouldn’t be there to clean up the mess. They would cordon it off and then probably burn it. If they had already done so, he wouldn’t be able to test his hypothesis, though something in his gut told him he was right anyway.

As Pete approached the field where the drone had crashed, he stopped the jeep and scanned the area. Not a single vehicle was there, no cleanup crews, no military vehicles, nothing. He drove to where he remembered the debris
was, at least some of it, and it took a moment for him to find it in the dark. When he did, he got out of the jeep and guessed that it was all there. Clover hadn’t sent anyone. He was either grossly incompetent or something else was going on.

Pete, despite the fact that he’d already tested positive for the virus, got some latex gloves out of the jeep
along with his gas mask and snapped them on before rummaging through the debris.

He held up pieces of the drone in the
headlight beams of his jeep and found the one he was looking for. Four slots made up of little burnt bulbs—a clock. No, not a clock, a timer.

In addition to the timer, he saw a piece of a solar panel. That explained how the drones could stay up without being refueled, but it didn’t explain their purpose. Also, solar power on something this size couldn’t keep it in the air very long. Probably not even through the night
, unless of course they weren’t meant to get through the night.

Pete took out his cell phone, dialed into the secure line at NORAD, and asked to speak to Clover.

“He’s retired for the night,” a female voice said. “May I take a message?”

“Where is he?”

“I’m not sure, sir. Would you like me to find him?”

“Yes, please
, as soon as possible, and call me back.”

Pete stood over the debris a minute, kicking away a piece with his foot. Whatever had been inside it, a mist or cloud or spray of the virus, was gone. Absorbed into the air. The virus couldn’t live long exposed to the elements
, no more than eight hours. It needed a host. Luckily, no homes or buildings were anywhere near, but if it drifted on a breeze, about ten miles away was a concentration of family houses. Rather than sitting around waiting for a call, he got into the jeep and headed to the road leading out to the homes.

When Pete arrived
at the cluster of suburban family houses, he was shocked by how normal it all looked. Fences and yards, toys strewn on driveways, a kite stuck in some power lines, almost like nothing was wrong at all. He stopped the jeep near the curb and just sat for a while. The neighborhood was dark other than the light of the moon.

A burning sensation rose up in his throat
, intensely hot, then mild. It felt a little like the beginnings of strep throat. It shattered the moment of tranquility he’d been having and reminded him why he was there.

He got out of the jeep and marched up the porch of the first home, then stopped. If these people weren’t infected, he could potentially infect them. Unsure what else to do, he knocked several times as hard as he could, and then stood off the porch
, away from whoever answered.

He couldn’t hear anything, so he knocked again. After a couple
of minutes of knocking and waiting, he went to the next home.

Within the first few seconds after knocking, someone answered
: a woman in a bathrobe, holding it closed with one hand. She didn’t open the screen door.

“Yes?” she said meekly.

“My name is Master-Sergeant Peter Brass. I’m with the United State Air Force. I’m sorry to bother you so late. I just had a couple of quick questions.”

She didn’t move or speak, but he could see that she clutched her robe
tighter.

“Ma’am, have you or anyone that resides with you experienced any flu-like symptoms recently? Fever, headaches, sore throat, uncontrollable sweating… anything like that?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Did you notice anything out of place early today
, a smell in the air maybe, something like that?”

“I don’t think so. What’s this about?”

“Just looking into something. I appreciate your time.”

Pete
had turned to walk away when she said, “Is this about the virus? Is there something happening here with it again? We just got rid of those damn ips. I couldn’t handle the virus coming this way again.”

“We were concerned… I was concerned, that the pox may have spread in this location, yes. Just stay indoors and you’ll be fine. Thank you for your time.”

Once she shut the door, Pete sat down on the steps. This was a waste of time. Maybe the mist hadn’t even arrived yet? Maybe they were infected and just not showing symptoms? Without running tests, there was no way to know, no way to protect them.

He pulled out his cell phone. Clover hadn’t called. He tried NORAD again and got the same operator.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Brass, the assistant secretary has informed me that you are no longer with USAF or NORAD and your privileges have been revoked.”

“Revoked? They haven’t been revoked, I’m on leave.”

“I’m sorry, sir. That’s what he told me.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m afraid that’s all I can say. Have a pleasant night, sir.”

The line went dead. He slipped the phone back into his pocket. Why would Clover revoke his status so quickly? Pete needed to get in touch with him. Clover might be in the barracks, but
there was a decent hotel nearby as well. He would have to check the hotel without potentially infecting anyone else with the pox.

There was only one place he could think to go.

The night closed in like a veil. Debra sat on her porch. She used to sit out here and watch the children playing in the streets or the cars that would speed by, some of the local teenage boys smiling and waving at her. Now the streets were empty. The sound of crickets, so loud it sometimes kept her up at night, was the only thing she could hear.

Before she could get up to go inside, she heard
a car engine up the street. Headlights appeared, and a military jeep sped down the block. It stopped in front of her house, and Peter Brass jumped out and jogged up her front lawn.

“Pete, what are you doing?”

“My clearance has been revoked. I need you to listen to me, Debra. No! Don’t come any closer. Stay on the porch… please.”

She stopped,
remembering that inside of him, a germ was slowly spreading. One that would shut off his immune system and then devastate his body in a way she hadn’t thought possible even a couple of years ago. “Okay,” she said.

“It’s Danny. Whatever’s going on, I think he’s a part of it. No response team was sent to the crash site, even though he knew I’d been infected. The
debris is still there. And he revoked my clearance and won’t take my calls.”

“That’s not entirely unusual, Pete.”

“He left potentially infectious material out in public.” He paused. “And it gets worse. Those drones have timers.”

“Timers for what?”

Pete didn’t say anything.

“For what, Pete?”

“They’re going to release whatever infected me, a type of mist probably, when that timer runs down. I’d bet everything on it. They’re bombs. And I think Danny knows that.”

“He wanted to shoot them out of the sky. You’re the one who stopped him.”

“I think he knew I would. He doesn’t want to shoot them down. He only shot the one to calm everyone, to let everyone at the DOD know that these things were easily destroyed and not a threat. I think he’s playing us, Deb.”

She shook her head. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t have a lot of time. In a few days… I need to see him now. I don’t have anyone else to help me.”

Pete, normally confident to the point of being pushy, appeared defeated.
He was soft-spoken and unable to maintain eye contact for long.

Debra said, “Let me get my
jacket.”