Grim Reaper: End of Days

by Steve Alten

  Applause and catcalls greeted Leigh Nelson as she led DeBorn’s group into Ward 27. Embarrassed, she casually kicked aside the dented bedpan from earlier, hoping the men have calmed since her last visit. “Thank you, fellas, you do a West Virginia girl proud. Just remember, my granddaddy taught me how to castrate hogs when I was a little girl, so don’t cross the line. I brought a very special visitor with me. How ’bout a warm welcome for our new secretary of defense, Bertrand DeBorn.”

  Ignoring the lack of response, the spry white-haired man moved quickly down the center aisle, nodding politely, pressing on as he mentally inventoried each wounded combat veteran. Hispanic… Hispanic… Black… he’s white, but the wrong look. Quadriplegic, no good. This one looks white, but he’s way too skinny, probably on drugs… DeBorn kept his entourage moving, his frustration mounting like an obsessed breeder seeking a hunting dog in a kennel filled with poodles and dachshunds, until Sheridan Ernstmeyer grabbed his arm, the former CIA assassin motioning toward the last bed on their left. The curtain was partially pulled around, but not enough to cloak the disabled soldier — an African-American in his late thirties, probably an officer, paralyzed from the waist down.

  “Wrong… look, Sherry.”

  “Not him, Bert. The orderly.”

  The man dressed in a white tee shirt and scrubs was Caucasian and in his early thirties, his long, dark hair pulled into a ponytail. The jaw was dimpled, his six-foot-four, two-hundred-pound frame chiseled like an athlete. The orderly was changing out his patient’s bedding, rolling him on his side with his right hand, using his opposite shoulder as leverage, maneuvering him easily… despite the fact that he had no left arm.

  “Dr. Nelson, that orderly… is he a veteran?”

  “You mean Shep?”

  “Shep?”

  “Patrick Shepherd. Yes, sir, he served four tours in Iraq. But I don’t think—”

  “He’s perfect. Exactly what we’re looking for. Colonel Argenti?”

  “Strapping young man, obviously an athlete. And working so diligently to aid his fellow soldiers. He’s outstanding, Mr. Secretary. Well done.”

  Sheridan shot the minister a look.

  Leigh attempted to pull DeBorn aside. “Sir, there are a few things you need to know about the sergeant—”

  “Mission accomplished, Doctor. Have the sergeant meet us in your office in ten minutes. Ms. Ernstmeyer, see to it that Dr. Nelson e-mails us his personnel file.” He checked his watch. Still a few hours before the meeting. “Colonel, join me outside, I’m in need of a cigarette.”

  9:26 A.M.

  “…yet it is not an Iranian armada positioned in the Persian Gulf, nor is it Hezbollah who has established military bases in Iraq and in Afghanistan. It is the Great Satan who is responsible for this conflict… I can smell his sulfurous presence in this building even now. To him I offer this warning: The Muslim world will not allow you to invade the National Islamic Republic of Iran and steal our oil as you did to our brothers in Iraq. We shall fight—”

  The security officer lowered the volume of the Iranian leader’s speech on his video screen as he inspected Mary Klipot’s identification. Satisfied, he pressed a button beneath his desk, buzzing into Conference Room 415. “You’ve got a visitor. Russian embassy.”

  Mary gritted her teeth, struggling to control the lung spasms urging her to cough.

  A metallic click as the door to Room 415 unlocked and opened, revealing an Iranian security guard. “Speak.”

  “I am to deliver a message from Prime Minister Putin’s office to the Supreme Leader’s attaché.”

  “Your identification.”

  She held it up for him to read. The Iranian shut the door.

  Mary Klipot’s skin was hot and clammy, her fever rising past 101.5 degrees. She coughed bile into her scarf. Tasting the blood, she wiped it with her right palm, allowing the mucus to remain on her skin.

  The security officer seated outside the door cringed. “That’s a nasty cough. Keep it away from me.”

  The door reopened. “You have two minutes.”

  Mary entered the conference room, the guard motioning her to remain by the door. Two dozen men, some in business attire, others in traditional robes, were watching the Supreme Leader’s speech on closed-circuit flat-screen monitors located throughout the suite.

  Her heart raced as she spotted Iran’s president speaking with a mullah on the other side of the room.

  A man in a business suit approached, escorted by two large Arabs wearing security earpieces. “I am the Supreme Leader’s attaché. Deliver your message.”

  Mary’s eyes watered with fever. Her limbs quivered. Her dress and pantyhose were laced with sweat. Her chest constricted, sending her convulsing in a fit of coughs. “Prime Minister Putin wishes… (cough) the Supreme Leader to contact him… (cough) one hour after President Kogelo’s speech.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. He reached for Mary’s identification card to examine the photo—

  — Mary cupping his hand in her moist palms. “С Рождеством… и с Новым Годом!”

  The man pulled his hand free. He rattled off something in Arabic, causing the two guards to escort her roughly to the door.

  Mary exited to the corridor. Hurried to catch an elevator. She managed to slip inside the closing doors, held open for her by a Mexican delegate in his late forties. The man instinctively moved to the rear of the car as he inhaled a whiff of Mary’s burgeoning body odor.

  A wicked smile twitched across the pregnant woman’s face as her feverish mind translated the Russian phrase she had offered the Iranian: Merry Christmas… and a happy New Year!

  The migraine struck the moment she stepped out of the elevator. Squiggly purple lines impeded her vision. A sudden rush of nausea sent her scurrying into the women’s bathroom. She had barely made it to an empty stall when the bloody excrement burst from her insides, scorching her throat. For several moments she heaved the remaining contents of her stomach into the toilet, her entire body shaking as she hugged the cold porcelain to her contorting belly.

  The nausea passed, leaving her weak and trembling. Dragging herself to her feet, she staggered out of the stall to a row of sinks, her reflection in the mirror startling.

  She was ghostly pale, almost gray. Her eyes were sunken and red. Veins traced a faint blue latticework across her forehead. A red splotch the size of a walnut appeared above the lymph node along her neck. Scythe’s entered phase 2. Get back to the car. Use the vaccine—

  “Miss? Are you all right?”

  The short, slightly stocky Caucasian woman wearing a food-services badge was staring at her, aghast.

  “Morning sickness.” Mary rinsed out her mouth, pushing the damp strands of hair away from her forehead. She left the bathroom. Exited the building.

  The cool air kept her from fainting. She inhaled the December chill into her defiled lungs. Found her way past the police barricade and pushed through the crowd of protesters, every cough dousing the faceless multitude with specks of tainted blood.

  Clearing the horde, she waited at First Avenue for the do not walk sign to change, clutching the traffic light pole for support, her mind racing. Delirious yet victorious, a true warrior of Christ. Her feverish eyes gazed at the black tow truck turning north on First Avenue—

  — hauling her white Honda Civic!

  “No… no!” Bloody excrement gurgled in her throat. She half staggered, half ran across the four-lane intersection.

  Horns blared, brakes screeched, pedestrians screamed.

  A crowd gathered around Mary Klipot’s body, sprawled across First Avenue.

  BIO-WARFARE PHASE II: EPIZOOTIC INFESTATION

  “Officials are trying to get to the bottom of how vaccine manufacturer Baxter International Inc. made ‘experimental virus material’ based on a human flu strain but contaminated with the H5N1 avian flu virus and then distributed it to an Austrian company (Avir Green Hills Biotechnology). Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N
1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences. If someone exposed to the mixture had been co-infected with H5N1 and H3N2, the person could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people. That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.”

  — Canadian Press, February 27, 2009

  December 20

  East 46th Street

  Tudor City, Manhattan

  9:33 A.M.

  (22 hours, 30 minutes before the prophesied End of Days)

  Thirty-four minutes have passed since Mary Klipot had disposed of the steel attaché case in the trash bin. Twenty-four minutes since the first black rat had arrived.

  Rattus rattus. No one really knew how many of the rodents inhabited the Big Apple, estimates varied from 250,000 to upward of 7 million. Agile creatures, a rat could balance on its hind legs, climb ladders, leap three feet straight into the air, or scurry up a sheer wall. It could squeeze through a hole as narrow as a quarter, survive a sixty-foot plunge, or swim up a drainage pipe clear into a toilet. Though nocturnal, a rat could hunt both day and night. The name “rat” translated into “gnawing animal” and for good reason: So strong were its teeth and jaw that a rat could chew through brick and mortar, even reinforced concrete.

  A rat’s life spanned two to three years, consisting mostly of eating and breeding. Females averaged more than twenty sex acts a day from the time they reached three months old. Litters ranged from six to twelve pups, with a single female bearing four to six litters in its lifetime. Male rats had been known to mate with a female until it died of exhaustion… and then continued on well after her passing.

  Intelligent animals, rats thrived in the city’s endless banquets of refuse, their olfactory sense capable of detecting food anywhere within their territory. New York’s black rat population had long lost its fear of man, and the pungent scent coming from within the dumpster was alluring.

  Morningside Heights, Manhattan

  9:38 A.M.

  Francesca Minos exited Minos Pizzeria, balancing a stack of cardboard soup bowls on her bulging abdomen. A week overdue with her first child, the twenty-five-year-old would rather have been lying in bed with her swollen feet propped on pillows than greeting yet another chilly New York morning in her sweat suit and overcoat… but Paolo had not missed a breakfast line in two years and, pregnant or not, she needed to help her husband.

  Reaching into the steaming aluminum pot, she grabbed a wooden ladle and deposited a clump of oatmeal in a disposable bowl, leaving it on the table for the next person in line. Already the morning gathering extended down Amsterdam Avenue, with more homeless on the way… her devout soul mate determined to feed each and every one of them.

  A platoon of vacant eyes and expressionless faces filed past her in silence. Society’s forgotten souls. Had temptation led them astray, or had they simply given up? Many were drug addicts and alcoholics, no doubt, but others had fallen on hard times and simply had nowhere else to go. At least 30 percent were veterans of the Iraq War, half of those disabled.

  Francesca filled another bowl, her fear turning to anger. There were almost a hundred thousand homeless in New York City alone. As bad as she felt for them, Francesca was more worried for her own family. Like most businesses, the pizzeria was struggling, and soon they, too, would have another mouth to feed. Were the homeless even appreciative of the free meal they were receiving? Or had the generosity of strangers simply been absorbed as part of their daily ritual? With each passing day, the line separating the Minoses from their impoverished brethren grew slimmer… what would happen when they were finally forced to stop tithing altogether? Would the homeless understand? Would they thank their hosts for their past generosity and wish them well, or would they turn violent, smashing the pizzeria’s windows, demanding their entitlement.

  The thought made Francesca shudder.

  His container empty, Paolo wiped his palms on his oatmeal-splattered chef’s apron, then headed back inside for another refill.

  “Paolo… wait.”

  The dark, curly-haired Italian paused, smiling at his expectant wife. “Yes, my angel? What does your heart wish of me?”

  What do I wish? My back aches from hoisting this kicking bowling ball twenty-four/seven, my feet are killing me, and my hemorrhoids are falling out of my ass like nobody’s business. What I wish is that you’d quit bleeding our household savings on these losers, or at least hit the damn lottery so you could take me away from all this!

  She glanced again at the procession of street people, their worn shoes soaking wet from the pools of slush. Beaten into submission, they were living out their days in survival mode. And yet, at one time, each life had held hope and potential.

  Like her unborn child…

  “Francesca?”

  Parting a strand of dark hair from her eyes, she returned her husband’s loving smile. “Mind the stove, sweetheart, it’s very hot.”

  * * *

  Two blocks south of Minos Pizzeria and one block east of Riverside Park stood the Manhasset, an eleven-story century-old redbrick building. Condominiums were priced at over half a million dollars for a one-bedroom — washer and dryer not included.

  The west-facing apartment on the Manhasset’s tenth floor was dark now, the heavy drapes closed, their bottoms pressed to the bay windows by textbooks to prevent even a sliver of gray morning light from penetrating the room. Only a solitary flame illuminated the proceedings, the candle situated on the floor to the Hindu woman’s back.

  The necromancer closed her eyes. Dressed in her traditional white tunic, she wore no jewelry — save for the crystal dangling from a gold chain around her neck. Attuned to the vibrations of the supernal, the crystal was her canary in the coal mine, a device that alerted her to the desire of her spiritual companion to communicate.

  Studying the art of necromancy in Nepal was no different than learning how to play a musical instrument — for some it was merely a hobby, for others a passion that might lead to mastery, assuming one possessed the talent. When it came to seeking communication with the spirits of the dead, Manisha Pande possessed the bloodlines of the gifted. Born in a Himalayan village, she shared a maternal lineage with necromancers that dated back to ancient Persia. By the Middle Ages the practice had reached Europe, where it was corrupted by self-proclaimed magicians and sorcerers — condemned by the Catholic Church as an agency for evil spirits. In Nepal, however, a talented practitioner could still earn a good living from the trade.

  Despite her innate skills, Manisha grew up believing she had another calling. Her father, Bikash, and her paternal uncles were all physicians, and the teenage girl’s desire to help others was strong. When she turned sixteen, Manisha pleaded with her father to allow her to move to India to live with one of her uncles so that she could study psychiatry, hoping to treat women who were victims of human trafficking. The trade was alarmingly robust in Nepal and throughout Asia, with thousands of women abducted and sold as sex slaves.

  Manisha was surprised when her father agreed to support her plans. What she never knew was that Dr. Bikash Pande had been approached years earlier by a member of a secret society who had arranged for the physician’s talented daughter to one day meet the prodigy of another family — the Patels, whose eldest son, Pankaj, was also immersed in the science of psychology, only as it applied to the genesis of evil.

  * * *

  Manisha Patel breathed in and out, waiting for her spiritual guide to appear.

  Necromancy was an art form dependent upon developing relationships with the deceased. One could neither conjure nor command a spirit, they had to be a willing participant in the act. Having moved to New York with her family following the birth of her daughter (a year after the September 11 attacks), Manisha had been overwhelmed by the sudden deluge of supernal contacts willing to communicate. Over time, a special relationship had been forged between the necromancer and one of these restless spirits — a woman who had been ab
oard one of the hijacked planes that had struck the Twin Towers. Up until this morning, all communications between Manisha and her spiritual companion had been reserved for the twilight hours.

  Not today. For the last two hours, Manisha Patel’s crystal had been radiating like a tuning fork.

  She had waited until Pankaj had left the apartment with Dawn. A close bond existed between her daughter and the dead woman’s spirit, and the reverberations coming from the crystal this morning felt wrong. Normally, the presence of a spirit resembled the sensation of a well-played guitar string, its sweet strum reverberating in Manisha’s heart, the Creator’s infinite Light lifting her soul higher with every passing beat. But this morning’s vibrations were distinctly out of tune. Manisha felt afraid, and the more she feared, the more horrifying the vibrations became. Suddenly she felt isolated and alone, unable to connect with anyone… as if trapped on her own island of self-doubt.

  Manisha…

  “Yes, I am here. Speak through me… tell me what is wrong.”

  You and your family must leave. Leave Manhattan… now!

  Fort Detrick — Frederick, Maryland

  9:43 A.M.

  Like his two younger brothers, Colonel John Zwawa was a physically imposing man. A veteran of two wars, the colonel had seen combat and been stationed in places as diverse as Egypt and Alaska. Approaching retirement, he was sixteen months into a four-year assignment as commanding officer at Fort Detrick. In charge… yet purposely kept out of the loop by the Pentagon in regard to ongoing operations. Until this morning, the colonel’s biggest worry had been making sure the base soda machines remained stocked.

  As of today, the colonel would no longer play the role of caretaker. Lydia Gagnon’s briefing had changed everything.