Zoo 2 (9 page)

Night falls on Mount Gangaharasuri.
In addition to our guns and gear, each member of our ten-man team is using a long-range, super-bright LED tactical flashlight to illuminate the way. But as the last rays of reddish-orange sunlight disappear behind the horizon, a cold and heavy darkness engulfs us for miles.

“We are nearly at the cave,” Tanaka says. With his eyes glued to the GPS program on his iPhone, he nearly trips on a hidden rock. “Just a few more kilometers.”

“Good. And remember,” Freitas says to the rest of us, “if those feral humans
are
there? You all know exactly what to do.”

He means that we're to carry out the plan of attack we carefully crafted. We might not have learned much about what's
causing
humans to turn rabid yet, but we're certainly more prepared to sedate and capture one than we were outside Johannesburg. I'm feeling confident but also tingly with nerves.

Suddenly, Tanaka stops in his tracks. He holds up his palm for us to halt.

We all stand still as statues for a moment—until we hear a frantic rustling coming from some distant trees.

Instinctively, many of us, including myself, aim our flashlights in that direction. We can't see anything yet through the branches, but whatever it is, it looks to be about five or six feet tall. It's moving fast. And there's more than one.

Looks like the feral humans are coming for us first.

As we start to spread out and get ready, I slowly reach behind me. Slung over my shoulder are two weapons I can choose from: one lethal, one not. Even though it goes against our plan, my assault rifle is sounding pretty tempting right about now.

The rustling gets louder and louder…until four upright creatures burst from the trees and stagger toward us—not feral humans but Asiatic black bears.

Our group flies into chaos. Tanaka, Yusuke, Freitas, and the scientists all drop their flashlights, scramble for cover, and grope for their
real
weapons.

Thankfully, I already have mine aimed and ready.

I pepper the approaching bears with bullets as best I can in the darkness. I think I've hit at least two, but they keep coming. They roar and prepare to charge, their first target apparently Tanaka…

When just as suddenly, they all stop, retreat, and scamper back into the jungle, whimpering, their tiny tails literally between their legs.

“What the hell was that?” Freitas asks, picking himself up from the ground.

“Same thing that happened with the mustangs on the highway,” I say. “Except this time, they didn't get a whiff of a feral human. Just a bunch of normal ones—who I guess should probably try to shower a little more regularly.”

With relieved chuckles, our group reassembles and continues on.

We know we're getting close when we start to smell smoke from a campfire. Crouching low, we follow a tributary of the creek Tanaka mentioned. Before long, it leads us directly to the cave.

And inside, there they are.

There are eight of
them, all squatting in a circle around the glowing embers, feasting on what looks like barbecued squirrel. Their skin and tattered clothes are filthy, their posture apelike. Once again, they seem to eerily straddle the line between human and animal, modern and primitive.

We all spread out in a semicircle, take our positions…and quietly slip on gas masks. Then we each ready the miniature pellet guns we've brought, loaded with rounds of a custom-designed nerve gas containing a mild paralysis agent. To put it simply, our plan is to defeat the feral humans by not fighting them at all.

Freitas gives the signal and we each shoot our little pellets toward our unaware fellow
Homo sapiens
. The odorless gas should take just under thirty seconds to dissipate enough throughout the air, undetected, to begin making them woozy.

Instead, the humans' nostrils flare before the pellets even hit the ground.

Oh, shit,
I think, as it suddenly dawns on me: the gas was designed to be odorless to
normal
people. These half-human/half-Neanderthals very likely have a superior olfactory sense. Or at least their brains do, subconsciously.

In which case, we're screwed.

Alerted to a disturbance, the feral humans look around, spot us, and let out a piercing battle cry. They leap to their feet, snatch up some of the prehistoric-looking weapons lying around the fire—spears, slingshots, tomahawks—and charge at us.

Freitas tries barking orders, but no one can hear him. And none of us cares. We're all scrambling to aim our weapons and stay alive.

One of them lunges at me with a “dagger” made of sharpened flint. She manages to slash my arm, but then I twist, parry, and shoot her in the chest point-blank.

More and more gunfire echoes across the mountain as our team fights back.

I can't see much of the “battlefield” through the fogged visor of my gas mask, but it seems like we've overwhelmed the feral humans with our modern firepower. Realizing they're outgunned, they actually start fleeing back into the jungle.

“You're not getting away that easy!” I shout, my voice muffled by my aspirator.

I pick the closest one to me—a middle-aged male—and charge after him. But he's fast and nimble as a cheetah and scrabbles up the rocky terrain with ease.

Realizing he's getting away, I make a risky decision. I stop running and kneel. I raise my rifle scope to my visor and try to line up the perfect, one-in-a-thousand shot, hoping to hit him in his leg and cripple him.

I squeeze the trigger—and yelp with joy as the man topples over into the brush.

I race over. Bleeding badly from his right thigh, he's now trying to
crawl
away.

But as soon as he sees me, the man stops and starts screeching and thrashing wildly, desperately struggling to punch and claw at me.

Even though he's wounded, watching his frenetic energy is still unnerving.

Which gives me an idea.

I take a few steps back, pull out my pellet gun again, and fire a little canister right at him. It bounces off him harmlessly and then begins releasing its paralyzing nerve gas. The man coughs and wheezes, kicks and writhes, but can't get away fast enough. Within seconds, he starts slowing down, finally collapsing on the jungle floor.

Satisfied that he's no longer a threat, I reapproach—this time readying the pair of handcuffs and leg shackles I've also brought.

I flip the unconscious man over, tug his arms behind his back, and slap on the cuffs, just like they do in the movies.

“You're under arrest,” I can't help but say. “You have the right to remain human.”

“What the hell do
you mean, her brain is
shrinking?
”

Freitas says it, but all of us are thinking it.

We're on our transport plane heading home to Idaho, in the midst of a heated video conference with Sarah, Dr. Carvalho, and the rest of our team back at the lab. Displayed on the other half of the monitor is the latest batch of MRI scans recently conducted on Helen's brain. And from the looks of it, her outer cerebral cortex isn't just inactive. Some of the tissue has actually started dying.

In feral
animals,
nothing like this has ever been seen before. Unless it's some kind of anomaly, it's a troubling development for all kinds of reasons—one giant one in particular.

It might mean whatever's happening to feral humans
can't be reversed
.

We know what's causing
animals
to go wild. And at least in theory, we know how to stop it. But Helen's been in electromagnetic isolation for a week and a half now, and her behavior has only gotten worse. And now her actual
brain
is wasting away? With more reports of rabid human attacks trickling in by the hour, from every corner of the globe, the number of possible permanent cases out there is staggering.

“That's why I think we need to change course,” says Sarah, “and start working to find some kind of antidote. Or vaccine. Right away.”

“Agreed,” says Freitas. “This thing is spreading faster than any of us could have imagined. Before long, we could be talking about hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of infected humans—all lacking anatomically correct human brains.”

“Don't be absurd,” says Dr. Tanaka, who's flying with us to the United States to help handle the rabid Japanese man I captured in the jungle. “There is still so much about this affliction we do not know. To attempt to formulate a cure so prematurely is a reckless waste of time!”

Clearly Tanaka feels very passionately about this. I notice his brow is glistening, his cheeks are ruddy, and he's digging his nails deep into the faux-leather armrest.

But as the discussion continues, I can't help but zone out. For one thing, I'm exhausted. Trekking miles up the foothills of Mount Fuji and fighting off a pack of prehistoric humans can really take it out of you.

But I'm also a little light-headed with anticipation, a welcome change from dread. Because in less than twelve hours, I'll be seeing Eli and Chloe.

I got the call on my sat phone just as we were boarding in Tokyo. It came from a 202 number—a Washington, DC, area code—that I didn't recognize: the personal cellphone of President Hardinson's chief of staff.

“Mr. Oz, I wanted to tell you myself as soon as I heard. We found your family.”

I nearly broke down and wept right there on the tarmac.

Diplomatic security agents, working with local French police, had tracked Chloe and Eli to an abandoned warehouse about forty miles outside of Paris, where they were hostages of the bizarre animal cult. My wife and son were rescued amid a shootout and put on the next plane out of there. Knowing that they're finally safe—it's indescribable. They'll be arriving at the Idaho National Laboratory just a few hours after we do.

Our video conference with the lab ends, but the debate over next steps rages on. Freitas and Tanaka are really starting to get into it. As for myself, I stifle a yawn. It's pitch-black over the Pacific and my eyelids are getting heavy.

“You'll all have to carry on without me,” I tell them. “I'm gonna head down below for a little shut-eye.”

I walk to the rear of our plane, toward the hatch that leads to the lower level, stuffed with our gear and equipment. I pass our captured Japanese feral human, Reiji. Tanaka had picked that name for him, explaining with a chuckle that it means “a well-mannered baby.” The man is strapped to a gurney under a hard plastic shell like a newborn in an incubator, thrashing against his restraints like crazy. Watching him, I can appreciate the irony.

I'm about to head downstairs when I notice something about Reiji from this close up.

His brow is dripping with sweat. His cheeks are splotchy red. And he's shredding the thin mattress with his sharp-tipped fingers.

The sweat, the complexion, the nails—it's a more extreme version of everything I just saw Tanaka doing.

No…my God…does that mean…?

“Aaaaargh!”

A vicious roar comes
not from Reiji but from behind me. I spin around to the front of the cabin just in time to see Tanaka leap up from his seat and lunge at Freitas. Before Freitas can react, Tanaka's got his hands around his neck, nails digging deep into the flesh.

The other scientists, caught completely by surprise, scramble to yank the madman off, but he easily knocks them away with one hand, the other clutching Freitas's windpipe, blood gushing like a sprinkler. His sudden strength is incredible.

“Dr. Freitas!” I yell, dashing back up the aisle to help.

Tanaka turns around and sees me charging. He drops Freitas's limp body and rushes into the open cockpit—where our two pilots are just as stunned and even more helpless.

Tanaka grabs one of them from behind. In an instant he places her in a brutal chokehold and violently snaps her neck.

I'm just stepping over Freitas's writhing body, racing toward Tanaka, as he attacks the second pilot. While they tussle, Tanaka intentionally presses down the yoke with his knee—and the plane tilts into a steep nosedive.

I'm hurled forward and tumble around wildly. Everyone does—along with an avalanche of loose papers and cellphones and laptops, each of the latter two now a deadly projectile.

Somehow I manage to get onto my hands and knees. Hanging on with all my might, I painstakingly crawl the rest of the way toward the cockpit, where Tanaka and the pilot are still fighting—and of course the feral human is winning.

Dizzy from the rapid altitude drop and throbbing with pain, I spot a fire extinguisher hanging by the cockpit door.
A weapon
.

I stagger to my feet, grab the heavy metal canister, and with every ounce of strength I can muster, swing it directly at Tanaka's skull.

Thunk.
I can feel his cranium splinter. Tanaka cries out in pain, stumbles, but remains standing. “You bastard!” he shouts—as he turns to attack
me
.

I swing again. This time…I miss.

Tanaka springs toward me, but I crouch low and slip out of his grasp. Just as he spins back around, I take one more shot and nail him right in the middle of his face. His nose shatters, and three of his front teeth fall out of his mouth to the ground. Then he drops.

But my relief is brief. We're still plummeting toward the Pacific.

I yank on the yoke with trembling hands and desperately try to pull up. The plane levels off a bit, but I can feel we're still dropping fast. The instrument panel is blinking like a Christmas tree. Warning alarms are beeping wildly.

And both pilots are dead.

I have absolutely no idea what to do, except buckle in and pray.

I unbelt one of the pilots, shove him aside, take his bloody seat, and strap in.

I use all the strength I have left to keep tugging up on the yoke—especially when I see the dark, choppy water getting closer and closer. In my mind, I get glimpses of Chloe and Eli.

I can't die,
I tell myself.
Not like this.
Not without saying good-bye.

And then, impact.

The noise is thunderous as the airplane smashes into the water. The cabin shudders and groans.

The plane finally comes to a stop. Almost immediately, I feel it start sinking.

Shaking off the stunned euphoria I'm feeling at having survived, I unbuckle my seat belt and stagger back into the cabin, which has been severed nearly in half and is quickly filling up with both water and smoke.

“Can anyone hear me?” I shout, coughing, wading through a flood of human carnage. “Is anyone okay?”

Silence. I can see that most of our team is dead, their bodies mangled and bloody.

But then, incredibly, I hear quiet mumbling.
Someone's still alive.

Freitas!

“Hang in there, doc!” I say, splashing over to him. I sling the barely conscious man onto my shoulder. “We gotta get off this plane!”

I unlatch an emergency exit and a giant yellow slide-raft automatically inflates and extends into the water.
Thank God
. I put Freitas onto it, then give the sinking cabin a final look.

I see Tanaka floating facedown. Reiji, too, is long gone. His gurney is on its side, the plastic covering is shattered, and a giant shard has decapitated him.

Damnit—after all that. So much for bringing either of
them
back to the lab.

But there's no time for wallowing. I climb into the raft myself, disconnect it from the plane, and we immediately start to drift away in the choppy current.

I've barely gotten Freitas rolled onto his back so I can examine his wounds when, with a final, awful groan, our burning aircraft splits in two and disappears underwater.