The Liger Plague (Book 1) (18 page)

“What the hell are you doing? You could have gotten us killed!”

“We would have gotten killed if we hadn’t gotten out of there as soon as we did,” Versa said. “Now step on it before the rest of them sickos catch up to us.”

Tag looked over his shoulder and saw some of the people heading down the hill and stumbling toward them. They cried out and screamed in pain. The sight of these brain-impaired people scared the shit out of him. A small group of people staggered around at the bottom of the hill. Upon seeing his vehicle, they spread themselves over the road and completely blocked it off. Tag knew he couldn’t slow down or they’d never make it past. With his right hand on the wheel, he took out his Magnum and pointed it at the crowd. He fired off a round over their heads, but not one of them budged or even seemed scared. They appeared mentally unstable and in a state of delirium, incapable of feeling pain or even being frightened. It appeared that the secondary virus had wreaked havoc with their train of thought and reasoning. He didn’t care about that right now. All he knew was that he had to get back to his family. The result of this hybrid virus had been that it altered people’s personalities, turning a normally mild person into a desperate savage with violent tendencies.

He steeled himself to the oncoming collision. All around him people were lying on the street or sprawled out on the houses’ front lawns, too sick to get up. The first row of people stood shoulder to shoulder in an effort to try to stop him. He kept his foot squarely planted on the gas pedal, steering the cart toward the weakest link, hoping that they might move away at the last second. He closed his eyes as he approached and heard the thump of bodies hitting the front end. The cart jumped off the ground but kept on moving.

“Nice work, Colonel. Good to see you finally grew a pair,” Versa said as they continued on.

Tag didn’t look back to see the damage he’d caused, instead barreling down the street until he came to Sandy Lane. He took the turn without letting up. The cart tipped on two wheels before righting itself. He gunned it down the street until he came to his house. Skidding to a stop in the driveway, he limped to the front door and went inside. He ran into the living room and was surprised to see that neither Monica nor Taylor was there. Had they gone up to bed? He took the stairs two at a time until he arrived at the top floor and went from one bedroom to the next, looking for his family, but they were nowhere to be found, including the basement. Tag wondered if they had become confused and wandered off. He cursed himself under his breath; he never should have left them alone.

“Where’d they go?” Versa asked.

“Maybe their fever returned, and they went outside to look for us. We should go search for them.”

“Why in God’s name would they go outside?”

“You saw with your own eyes what kind of shape these people are in. The virus affects their brains and reasoning skills. It makes them do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.”

“Everyone’s responsible for their own behavior, Colonel, even them sickos.”

“Goddamn!” he said, gripping his forehead. “I should have never left them here by themselves.”

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going out there and searching this entire island until I find them.”

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“Best you stay back and keep an eye on the house,” he said, moving toward the front door.

He was about to open it when he heard a cell phone ringing down in the basement. He went downstairs and saw it sitting on the coffee table. His pulse raced as he reached down and picked it up. The numbers on the caller ID screen kept shuffling, concealing the caller’s identity. He put it on speakerphone.

“Nice to talk to you again, Colonel. And by the way, your wife and daughter are quite beautiful. Of course, they’re not in much of a mood for conversation, as you can well understand.”

“You bastard! What did you do to them?”

“Trust me, Colonel, they’re alive and well and very much in good hands. I suppose you don’t believe me, so I’ll let them tell you themselves.”

“Let me speak to them, asshole.”

“Tag, we’re okay,” Monica said, her voice altered. Was it really his wife? “Taylor is with me.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, we’re fine.”

“Where are you?” He heard a rustling in the background, and Lenny came back to the phone.

“They don’t know where they are, Colonel. Do you think I’m going to tell them everything?” The man’s computer-generated voice started to laugh.

“You better not lay one finger on them.”

“Or what? What are you going to do? Kill me? Ha! You can’t even begin to understand what’s going on or the size and scope of my complicity. I’ll certainly keep your family safe for the time being. Or at least safe enough to give you a fighting chance to save them before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what? Tell me what I have to do to get them back.”

“Oh, I know you’ll cooperate, Colonel. This strain of variola has been engineered to progress very fast, which means that the proliferation of blisters on the body will be like no other strain you’ve ever seen. It’s the second phase of the liger that will be the most devastating, as you’ve already started to see. The worst is yet to come.”

“What’s going to happen in that phase?”

“You’ll see with your own eyes when the time arrives. In the meantime, you’ll have a window of opportunity to save your wife and daughter. You’re to start at noon tomorrow. Not a minute too soon or you’ll live to regret it.”

“You expect me to just sit around and wait to look for my own family?”

“That’s exactly what I expect you to do if you want to see them again. And knowing how resourceful you are, Colonel, I have no doubt that you’ll locate them without any problem in the twenty-four-hour period given to you. That’s when your real challenge will begin.”

“Real challenge?”

“You may have thought you eliminated every method to get off this island, but I can assure you that you did no such thing. Already as we speak, there are people on this island who’ve managed to evade this infectious illness and who are planning to do whatever it takes to survive. All it takes is one person to carry the liger to the mainland, and that cat will spread far and wide. Game over. I win.”

“Is this a game to you, you sick bastard?”

“Was it a game to you when you murdered all those poor laboratory animals for the sake of mankind? Was it a game when we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or when Captain Cooke delivered smallpox to all those natives living peacefully on that island?”

“So all this has to do with the fact that we experimented on animals in an attempt to save human lives?”

“Oh, it’s much more than that, Colonel. That’s just one small aspect of it. It’s about a new society from the ground up, where man and animal are treated alike, and where we pay more homage to the humble organisms, the building blocks to life. A grand society built on a new code of ethics that responds to the demands of the future rather than restraining it.”

“I’m not following you. So infecting humans with a lethal virus is your solution to the problems in this world?”

“Please, Colonel, you know as well as I do that population control is the virus’s singular purpose on earth. This planet was not intended to support seven billion people. Whenever we move too close to the animal kingdom a new and exciting virus jumps species, warning us that we’re encroaching on their territory. I’m helping nature to do what it does best by facilitating the process.”

“I’m certain we must have worked together in some capacity. The world you and I inhabit is a very small one. As scientists we surely must have crossed paths at some point in our careers.”

“Shut up!” the voice snapped. “How about we stick to the subject at hand, which is keeping your wife and daughter alive?”

“I’m all ears.”

“Things are going to change on this island. Just remember one thing, Colonel. Everything you do is going to be caught on those webcams, not that it will matter much if this virus jumps ship. I wish you luck. It’s going to be fun watching you try to stop the inevitable. In the process you may very well become the world’s biggest reality star.”

“And what is the inevitable?”

“Okay, I might as well give you a clue. As I’ve previously mentioned, this second virus is activated by the RF waves of a cell phone. Took me a long time in the lab to develop this synergy. This in turn activates specific oncogenic signals located in the basal ganglia of the brain. As you also know, this region is primarily responsible for a person’s emotional response. Are you familiar with purines and Lesch-Nyhan syndrome?”

“Yes.” A chill jettisoned through Tag’s spine.

“Then you have a good idea what I’m talking about.” The phone clicked and went dead.

Tag tossed the phone down and paced nervously around the room. He should have never left his family to retrieve a stupid chainsaw. Staring down at the phone’s screen, he could see the numbers continuing to shuffle and change digits, and he knew that it was useless for the FBI to try to even trace such a call. It wasn’t even showing up on their tracer. Whoever was responsible for this terroristic act was highly intelligent and would certainly not leave any digital fingerprints behind.

Tag went upstairs.

“The terrorist has my wife and daughter. Says we can start looking for them tomorrow at noon.”

“Tomorrow at noon? Why wait until then when we can get a head start now?”

“Because he said that he’d kill them if we left early. This person is not bluffing, Versa. Look at the havoc he’s already created.”

“So this jackass is a he?”

“Refers to himself as Lenny, so I’m assuming it’s a man.”

“Men!” she said, shaking her head. “What are we going to do now, Colonel, just sit here and twiddle our thumbs?”

“We’re going to prepare ourselves for when the time comes to head out. Then tomorrow at noon, I’m going out there to search for them.”

“I’m going with you.”

“I’d prefer you to stay back.”

“I’ve been on this island my entire life, and I’m not about to sit around and let some scumbag destroy it. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Okay, Versa, I appreciate your help.”

“Stop thanking me. You want to show your gratitude, then return this godforsaken island back to the way it used to be.”

Chapter 14

Tag spent the rest of the afternoon preparing. Keeping busy kept his mind off the cruel fact that Monica and Taylor were now being held captive by Lenny, or whoever planted this liger virus. That it had begun to spread so rapidly both surprised and worried him. Versa spent most of the afternoon cleaning house and cooking the remainder of the food that had begun to spoil since he’d turned off the generator. Once finished, Versa retired upstairs for a couple of hours’ rest. The plan was to wake her at midnight so that she could watch the house while he got some sleep.

He sat at the window, watching the street for any activity. Wearing the night-vision goggles he’d kept in a storage kit, he could see well into the front yard and a good ways down the road. For the moment everything appeared calm, and he attributed this to powering off the generator, which had been a lot noisier than he’d expected.

The absence of activity indicated to him that the disease had worsened. The fever and debilitating aches and pains would severely limit people’s mobility and keep them from traveling very far. And assuming the second component was starting to kick in, people’s reasoning skills would be diminished. Without the ability to think clearly or walk without intense pain, most of the infected would likely circle aimlessly in search of help.

When it was his turn to rest, he found he was too wired to sleep. Versa insisted that he take a break, so he gave in and lay down. It didn’t do much good. He stared at the ceiling for two straight hours, unable to drift off, his mind spinning in every direction, thinking about viruses and their strange behaviors. At three in the morning he pushed himself off the bed and made his way over to Versa, who sat staring out the window, the night-vision glasses attached to her head. She didn’t chastise him for waking so early because, in truth, neither one of them could get any sleep.

The sun began to rise, and everything remained quiet, almost peaceful before the viral storm. He stared up at the clock and sighed. It felt like the hands had been glued to the face, yet the closer it got to the allotted time, the more anxious he became. With about thirty minutes to go before he could start looking for Monica and Taylor, Tag paced back and forth in anticipation of the hunt.

“You’re working yourself into a frenzy, Colonel. Sit down and relax.”

“How can I relax knowing that my family is out there and being held captive by this lunatic?”

“I heard you talking about a second virus. What in God’s name is that all about?”

“It’s a hybrid virus. It means that it’s two viruses combined into one organism and working synergistically. We know for sure that the first virus is a strain of smallpox harvested from outbreaks in two different countries. The second one is some sort of brain virus that allegedly becomes activated by the radio frequency given off by a cell phone,” he said, wondering whether he should continue on. “Are you familiar with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome?”

Versa took a bite of the sandwich she’d made. “Lesh what?”

“Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. It’s an inherited genetic disease that affects the way people think. It’s an enzyme deficiency that causes a build-up of uric acid in one’s body fluids. More importantly, it alters the victim’s personality and makes them unpredictable and occasionally violent. The enzyme deficiency causes low dopamine levels to be produced in the brain, and the shortage interferes with the brain’s neurotransmitters.”

“Okay, Colonel, don’t waste anymore of your breath with that medical mumbo jumbo. It makes them crazy, I get it,” Versa said.

“Not crazy, Versa, and that’s the amazing thing about this syndrome,” Tag said, sitting down across from her. He watched her eat, the way she took small pecking bites out of the crust. “People with this syndrome not only want to hurt themselves, but they want to hurt others as well.”