Lost roads, p.13
Lost Roads, page 13
“So… what did kill him?” asked Mr. Urrea. “Smoke inhalation from the burning base?”
“An autopsy will verify that,” explained Flores, “but I’m not so sure. With smoke inhalation there are typically burns in the nose, including singed nostril hairs and similar blisters around and inside the mouth. There isn’t much evidence of that here, though. The burns he has are more consistent with flash burns. I’ve taken a large number of samples and will process them when we’re done here.”
Karen asked, “Dr. Morton, do you recognize this man?”
Morton took a long time before he answered, and Gutsy thought he was probably weighing his options, deciding how much to admit. She saw him give a small shrug, and immediately wince at the pain from the bites on his neck and shoulder.
“I may have seen him around,” the doctor said evasively.
“Do you have any theory on what killed him?”
“None,” Morton said flatly.
“No theories at all?”
“I just said no, didn’t I?”
Sam swiveled his head toward the doctor and gave him three seconds of an ice-cold stare. “Answer the lady’s question.” There was no actual threat in the sniper’s words, and even his tone was soft and calm, but Morton flinched as if struck.
“Okay, okay,” said the doctor, “I may have some ideas, but I want to see the test results first.”
Before he could say more, the door opened and Captain Ledger came in. He was pale and haggard, and he leaned on a cane. Gutsy could see the bulge of thick bandages beneath his left pant leg.
“You kids started the party without me,” he said.
Karen stood quickly. “Joe, you shouldn’t be out of bed. Come over here; take my chair.” She took his arm and helped him sit.
Ledger stretched his injured leg out straight and leaned back, laying the shaft of the cane over one broad shoulder. “Just came from Doc Cantu’s office.”
Raoul Cantu was the town’s veterinarian.
“He ran tests on Grimm and Sombra,” said Ledger. “And me.”
The room became very still, and Gutsy thought her heart was going to burst. Spider and Alethea took her hands and held on tight.
“There’s good news, weird news, and bad news,” the captain said. Everyone was staring at him. He glanced at Gutsy. “The good news is that Sombra isn’t infected.”
Gutsy sighed with huge relief. Spider leaned over and kissed her.
“What about his saliva?” asked Benny. “Gutsy said he bit some of those things.”
“He did,” said Ledger, “but there’s no trace of active parasites in his saliva or blood. To be on the safe side, Doc managed to give the pooch a pretty healthy dose of antiseptic mouthwash. Not sure how he managed it, but neither he nor the dog was happy about the process. Oh, and, Gutsy, you’d better go make nice with him, because Cantu has three stitches.”
“Oh,” Gutsy said. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell him that. Anyway, he’s keeping Sombra overnight for observation. Grimm’s been cleared, too, though they’re both in quarantine for now. Just in case.”
“What about you?” asked Benny, nodding to Ledger’s leg. He looked scared.
“Yeah, well, that’s the weird-news part,” said Ledger. “Doc took samples from Grimm’s spikes and every possible kind of sample from me. You don’t even want to know what indignities I was put to.”
“I agree,” said Urrea, “we don’t.”
“The bottom line is that there’s no trace at all of live parasites in any of my samples. Dead ones, sure, but no live ones.”
Flores looked at Morton, who was stunned.
“I… I don’t understand…,” breathed Morton. “How can that be?”
“Beats the heck out of me,” said Ledger. He nodded toward the corpse on the table. “Which brings me to the bad news. I’m beginning to have doubts that this joker here—and the other freak-jobs we tussled with today—are zoms at all.”
“But… they attacked us,” protested Gutsy.
“Sure, but that doesn’t automatically make them zoms. Maybe it’s some new mutation, or at least new to us.” He sighed. “And, frankly, I don’t remember asking for something else to worry about. We already have shamblers, ravagers, R3’s, half a dozen oddball variations out there in the Rot and Ruin—or in the Broken Lands, for you locals—and a bunch of animals going zom, too. I’m not digging this. I am officially weirded out.”
“Join the club,” said Alethea.
Ford raised a hand. “For the record, I’m way past being weirded and am into full freak-out.”
“Seconded,” said Urrea.
“Wait, wait,” said Gutsy, “does that mean these mutants—or whatever they are—aren’t contagious?”
“Not sure we can actually say that,” Flores said quickly. “All it means is that they can’t infect dogs, and that blood transferred from a secondary source like Grimm’s spikes isn’t directly infectious. We don’t know what an actual bite from these things may do.”
Ledger reached out with his cane and tapped the dead soldier’s foot. “Speaking of which, you run blood work on him yet?”
“I’ll start that when we finish here,” Flores responded.
“Maybe get in gear with that. I’d like to get my dog out of quarantine sooner than later. Pretty sure Ms. Gomez feels the same.”
43
TÉNÈBRES AND TRÓCAIRE MET WITH the other refugees who’d moved to New Alamo. There were twenty-six of them now.
Trócaire made food for everyone, and Ténèbres went around to make sure the shutters were closed and the drapes drawn.
The town was quieter now. No gunshots. Fewer screams.
They sat in silence for a long time, eating a simple meal, drinking glasses of rainwater. Looking at each other. Smiling and nodding as if they were engaged in a deep conversation.
It was Trócaire who broke the long silence.
“This town is going to fall apart,” he said.
The others nodded.
“We don’t want to die with it.”
More nods.
Outside they heard a man yelling, “He’s infected—he must have been bitten at the stable. Don’t let him near you! Mikey, get my ax!”
There were more yells, a scream, and then an awful sound like someone chopping wet, green wood. After that, the faintness of someone weeping.
“Let’s pray,” suggested Ténèbres, and they all held hands.
44
“YOUR TEMPERATURE’S UP AGAIN,” SAID Alice, feeling her mother’s forehead and the side of her throat.
Her mother was buried under layers of blankets, shivering but awake.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just a cold. World’s worst timing, but that’s all it is.”
Alice frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe one of your cuts is infected. Let me take a look.”
Apart from her injured hand, Mrs. Chung had several small cuts, mostly from splinters and flying glass during the fight.
“I just checked when I was in the bathroom, sweetie. I’m fine. Really, it’s just a cold. You go along. I’m sure Gutsy wants to see you.” Her smile, despite the fever, was radiant and encouraging.
“Sure, but—”
“Just go. I should try to sleep as much as I can. That’s the best way to beat a cold. Sleep it off, and let the body heal itself.”
Alice didn’t like it, but her mother insisted. “At least let me get you some tea and cut up a few oranges. Vitamin C.”
When that was done, Alice kissed her mom on the forehead and left.
* * *
Mrs. Chung waited until she heard the click of the front door lock, and then she pushed the blankets away. She sat up and used her splinted hand to pull up the sleeve on her other arm. There were five small bandages there, each taped in place over a cut. The flesh around four of the bandages was normal or slightly pink.
But higher up on her arm, near the elbow, the skin was very different. Although it was the smallest cut, that whole part of her arm was now a dark red. It scared her. She hadn’t been bitten—nothing like that—but during the fight she’d been nicked by a splinter of wood smeared with some dark substance. She thought it was oil or grease, because she’d taken the injury near the wagonwright’s barn; and she’d cleaned it thoroughly. Several times.
Why was that one cut getting infected while the others were not?
What was that black stuff?
Surely it was only oil. Or grease.
She tugged down her sleeve and pulled up the blankets. Shivering as she did so. From the fever. From the fear.
45
GUTSY SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON A desk at the school, watching as Captain Ledger stumped around on crutches.
“I’m going out first thing in the morning,” Sam said. “One of the scouts found a dead shambler a few miles northeast of here. Single pistol shot to the forehead. Very precise, so it could have been Collins.”
“Outstanding,” said Ledger. “I’ll go with you and—”
“You’re not going anywhere, Joe,” interrupted Sam. “Not with that leg.”
“I’m fine. Just a scratch.”
“Sixteen stitches isn’t a scratch.”
“Yeah? Well, screw that.”
“You barely healed up from the injuries you got when your chopper crashed, and now you’re in worse shape.” Sam shook his head. “Maybe for once try not to be a macho idiot.”
“You say the sweetest things, Sam. Always captain of my fan club,” said Ledger sourly. “But here’s a news flash: I’m going. There’s no debate on this.”
They glared at each other, but it was obvious to Gutsy and everyone else who was going to win the argument.
* * *
As dawn began painting the distant horizon in strips of red, Joe Ledger and Sam Imura prepared to ride out of town on a pair of horses, a day later than they had hoped to. Ledger did a pretty good job of keeping a confident smile on his face, but no one was really fooled. He was sweating with pain as he climbed into the saddle, and sat gritting his teeth as the horse jostled and jangled him. Grimm, still in quarantine, howled so loudly they could all hear him blocks way.
“If we find Collins,” said Joe, his face running with sweat, “one of us will come back on her quad. With any luck, Site B will be big enough to evacuate the townsfolk to.”
Gutsy looked around at the town, then back at him. “This place already feels dead. Maybe it belongs to them. They can have it.”
Her words seemed to leech all the heat out of the day. Even Ledger shivered—though maybe it was a fever from his wound. Gutsy wasn’t sure.
She stood with Benny and Chong, watching the two soldiers ride away.
46
A FEW HOURS LATER, KAREN Peak called the group together in an examination room at the hospital. The large crowd that had met in Mr. Ford’s classroom a few days ago had dwindled, Nix and Lilah gone to California and Ledger and Sam off looking for Site B.
The body of the dead soldier was now covered by a bloodstained blanket. Dissection tools lay in a bucket of hot, soapy water, which told Gutsy that the postmortem had been performed. Part of her wanted to see what was under the blanket, and to understand the technical process of post-mortem; the other part of her was disgusted by the thought. She saw her friends glancing at the shrouded figure and figured they were having similar thoughts. Well, maybe only the disgust.
Dr. Morton sat on a folding chair next to the table, and Manny Flores leaned on the edge of the table, looking worn out and scared. “First off,” he said, “we confirmed that this soldier did not die as a result of a bite or from smoke inhalation.”
“Then what killed him?” asked Gutsy.
“A gunshot wound to the chest,” said Flores. “He bled to death.”
The room plunged into shocked silence.
It was Urrea who finally spoke. “Wait… he was alive? I don’t understand. This man wasn’t a zombie?”
“He was not,” said Flores. “We also did some spot-testing on the other bodies from the car wash, and none of them are standard reanimates.”
“What about the ones at the school?” asked Ford. “The ones dressed in civilian clothes?”
“They’re the same as this man,” said Flores.
“You lost me,” said Urrea. “So, if the car wash attackers weren’t ravagers or shamblers… what were they?”
Flores glanced at Morton. “Doctor, this is your mess. You should explain it.”
Morton fidgeted with the bandages on his left arm. When he began speaking, his eyes seemed to stare through rather than at anyone gathered there.
“First,” Morton said slowly, “I suppose I need to admit that I haven’t been entirely frank with you people about the full scope of the research being undertaken at the base.”
“Before you say one more word, let me say this,” said Gutsy. “If you don’t tell us everything now, you’re going to have a lot more to worry about than a few zom bites.”
Morton almost smiled. “I’m probably going to die and reanimate as one of those things, girl. Am I supposed to be scared by your threats?”
“You should be,” said Alethea, and her words hung in the air for a moment. Morton was sweating, but he tried to paste on an expression of professional calm. He wasn’t able to sell it, though.
“I intend to be frank with you,” he said frostily. “The autopsy confirms what can best be described as a worst-case scenario, which means I’m in as much danger as you. So, in case you think I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart, think again. I’m a coward; I’ll admit it. I don’t want to die. I also know that you people need me because I’m useful, and I intend to leverage that. So… no more games.”
“Then get to it,” said Benny.
Morton nodded. “You need to understand that the main base—the Laredo Chemical and Biological Weapon Defense Research Facility—was not created to study Lucifer 113. It existed long before that; it was built even before the Cold War. The base was part of a bioweapons program launched in 1942 as a backup plan if the Manhattan Project failed.”
Gutsy heard gasps from Urrea, Ford, and Karen.
“What’s the Manhattan Project?” asked Spider.
“It was a top-secret military program,” explained Urrea, “launched in 1939 by the United States—”
“—with help from Canada and Great Britain—” added Ford.
“—to develop the first atomic bomb.”
“Yikes,” said Chong quietly.
“What do you mean by ‘backup plan’?” asked Gutsy.
“If the atomic bomb project was a failure, then plan B to defeat the Empire of Japan was to release bioweapons in Tokyo and other major population centers. Because Japan is a series of islands, the hope was that the distance from the mainland would contain the resulting epidemic. That plan, luckily, was scrapped because it was deemed unmanageable. There was no way to guarantee isolation and, therefore, containment. And, bear in mind, this was similar in many ways to what the Soviet Union was planning when they developed the Lucifer bioweapon. It was intended for use in isolated areas—a base, ships at sea, and so on. In both cases the plan was to let the bioweapon sweep through the population and then the infection itself would die out when there were no more living hosts.”
“That’s… that’s…,” began Spider, but couldn’t finish.
“It’s madness,” said Morton. “The fact that all of the research and samples of Lucifer weren’t completely destroyed when the original plan was deemed too dangerous is proof.”
“This is what you do, though,” said Alethea, “isn’t it?”
Morton looked genuinely surprised. “Me? No! My field of research—and everything we did at our lab—was focused on stopping these kinds of bioweapons. We were the shield to the biological sword.”
“That sounds very noble,” said Ford, “but you also killed a lot of innocent people, so let’s wait a bit before we nominate you for sainthood.”
Morton gave him a vile sneer, then turned to the others.
“The program begun at our lab during the Second World War was scrapped when the bomb tests proved successful,” said Morton. “Unfortunately, that research was, like Lucifer, never completely disposed of. When Lucifer 113 began spreading, we were ordered to investigate whether any of the dormant bioweapons projects might be viable as counterplagues to stop the infected—including the one designed to exterminate the majority of the Japanese population.”
“That’s horrible,” Spider said.
“It’s practical,” said Morton, then he flicked a glance at Gutsy. “Wouldn’t you agree? You’ve always been the practical one.”
“Agree about it being practical?” she said. “Sure. But it’s evil.”
“I’ll leave the concepts of good and evil to the philosophers,” sneered Morton. “The point is, we soon discovered that a number of these older bioweapons were very useful to us in developing potential treatment protocols.”
“None of which actually worked,” said Ford. “Like what you did to create the ravagers?”
“That was an accident,” Morton said grudgingly. “And yet it wasn’t a total failure, because the ravagers are smarter and more humanlike than the shamblers. It was proof that the mental functions of the reanimates could be partially restored.”
“Oh, you must be so happy,” said Alethea. Morton started to reply, but Gutsy cut in.
“Hold on,” she said. “What does all this have to do with this man?” She pointed to the silent body under the sheet.
Morton sniffed. “By the time we learned about the Lucifer 113 variation, we were already dangerously behind the curve, because the designer of that form, Dr. Volker, committed suicide. Various research teams proposed possible response protocols, but when it comes right down to it, all of that was guesswork. Combating disease is, at the best of times, a slow and laborious process. And because we’re talking about a genetically modified bioweapon, it requires reverse engineering decades of research. What became clear, though, was that Volker never intended for his Lucifer form to get out into the general public. There were no safeguards built into 113. It was intended for one specific use: he wanted to it to revive the consciousness of the death row inmate Homer Gibbon, leaving that consciousness connected to all five senses, but to completely sever connections with all motor functions. In essence, the intended victim was meant to wake up inside his own inert body following execution via lethal injection. He would be aware of his condition, and remain aware as his body rotted inside its coffin.”
