Grim Reaper: End of Days

by Steve Alten

  Dr. Kremer’s skin crawled inside his protective suit.

  Captain Zwawa attached a hook to his reach pole and handed it to Szeifert. “Retrieve the case, just be gentle.”

  Gabor approached the steel bin as more rats appeared, the rodents racing in and out of the trash receptacle at a frenetic pace. The Hungarian scientist leaned in closer to see over the edge of the open container. Looked inside—

  “Nem értem…”

  It was an orgy of dark bodies and flesh-tone tails, tearing and gnashing and scrambling atop one another in an effort to get at something buried beneath the moving pile. A kaleidoscope of the living and the dead, the wounded and the inflicted — all part of a churning rodent mass that moved like a synchronized black tide.

  “Mr. Szeifert!”

  “Sorry, sir. I said I don’t understand. There are so many of them. We need to—”

  A lone rat leapt onto Gabor’s shoulder. The veterinarian attempted to swat the creature away as it furiously gnawed at his protective suit. Joined by two more, then another, then in threes and fours and far too many to count as the dumpster’s open ledge became a launching point to the next buffet.

  The animal specialist stumbled toward Dr. Kremer. Black rats swarmed across both men’s shoulders, clinging to their backs and thighs, their clawed feet and sharp teeth tearing into the fleeing soldiers’ Racal suits—

  — instantaneously falling to the ground like bags of hair, their tiny legs writhing in spasms as Ryan Glinka gassed them into submission with a cylinder of compressed carbon dioxide.

  Jesse Zwawa stepped over the gasping rodents, holding a CO2 grenade in his gloved hand. “Anyone hungry for ratatouille?” He pulled the pin, tossing the canister into the trash bin.

  Boom!

  Rat shrapnel blasted out of the container in all directions, the hollow metallic gong echoing in their ears as a swirling cloud of CO2 escaped above the damaged trash bin.

  Dr. Kremer fought a gag reflex, forcing himself to wipe matted black hairs and bloody excrement from his faceplate. “That was a bit radical, don’t you think?!”

  “We need the attaché case. I’m guessing it’s buried somewhere beneath the pile.”

  “If that’s true, the rats could be vectors. I’ll need live specimens to run toxicology exams.”

  “You want live rats, pull ’em off Gabor. You want fillet of rat, here’s a whole dumpster filled with the sons of bitches.” Walking around the back side of the steel bin, Jesse Zwawa leveraged his two-hundred-pound frame against the smoldering container—

  — sending the Dumpster crashing forward, spilling its contents across the garbage-strewn tarmac.

  Ryan Glinka extended his reach pole, sifting through the moist pile of rodent remains until he hooked the open attaché case.

  The rats had chewed it beyond recognition. All that remained was a piece of its handle and a seventeen-inch section of bare metal dangling a bloodied hinge.

  Glinka held the scrap metal in the air for his commanding officer. “I think we’ve got problems, sir. Captain?”

  “Over here.” Jesse Zwawa was on one knee, aiming his flashlight at the opening of a cracked drainage pipe situated along the brick facing of the adjacent building. His beam illuminated pairs of tiny, unblinking red eyes, the hovel of infected rodents staring back at him—

  — waiting.

  Lost Diary: Guy de Chauliac

  The following entry has been excerpted from a recently discovered unpublished memoir, written by surgeon Guy de Chauliac during the Great Plague: 1346–1348.(translated from its original French)

  Diary Entries: January 4, 1348

  (recorded in Avignon, France)

  Death has arrived in Avignon.

  We had heard reports for months… the horrors coming out of Sicily and Genoa, the warnings from the isles of Sardinia and Mallorca. There were rumors about Venice and Rome being infected, followed weeks later by panic coming from our fleeing neighbors to the east in Marseilles and Aix. Still we remained vigilant, terror-stricken yet convinced that God in His infinite mercy would spare the papal city and all its people.

  Perhaps we were still not convinced. Perhaps we were simply waiting for a sign from the heavens — an earth tremor, a poisonous rain.

  And yet none occurred. Instead, the plague that had brought the Mongolian Empire to its knees and death to every trade city along the Mediterranean and Black Seas came to Avignon one early winter’s night as a whisper while we slept. By morning it was a stranger lying in an alleyway, by nightfall a fever blossoming in a dozen households.

  On my recommendation, Pope Clement IV has ordered the gates of Avignon closed—

  — only I fear it is far too late.

  — Guigo

  BIO-WARFARE PHASE III: HUMAN-TO-HUMAN SPREAD

  “The Criminal Investigation Division at Fort Meade has been investigating USAMRIID at Fort Detrick since early February. USAMRIID was shutting down most of its bio-research while it tried to match its inventory to its records, citing an ‘overage’ of biological select agents and toxins. Meade's CID, however, isn't concerned with overstock. Instead, agents are looking for what may have gone missing between 1987 and 2008.”

  — Katherine Heerbrandt, Frederick News-Post, April 22, 2009

  December 20

  VA Medical Center

  East Side, Manhattan

  10:44 A.M.

  (21 hours, 19 minutes before the prophesied End of Days)

  The redheaded woman sitting up on the gurney in the back of the ambulance moaned in protest. Fever drew her into moments of blessed unconsciousness. Nausea spit her back out again. She vomited phlegm-laced bile across her blanket, and the action expelled her back into the swirling sea of reality. She forced open her eyes and scanned the vomit for blood. Scythe was progressing. Fueled by her genius.

  Her head ached. Her hip throbbed where the cab had bounced her across 46th Street. Baby Jesus kicked in her belly. She suffered every bump and sharp turn and that incessant siren! The little voice screamed obscenities at her from the dark place in her mind that could no longer reason other than to recite the same alarmist mantra about ticking clocks and serums in the wheel hub in the trunk of her rental car and who’s the genius now?

  A lurching stop interrupted delirium. The siren silenced, yielding to a moment of quiet desperation. Instruct your keepers before they put you under. Before she could object, the gurney was launched backward into blinding gray skies and Arctic cold. Then she was mobile again. Up the ramp and moving through a corridor of fluorescent lights and controlled chaos. New faces wearing white lab coats and identification badges peered in on her world, refusing to listen.

  “What have you got?”

  “Taxi hit her. Late thirties, pregnant, appears to be well into her third trimester. Victim was conscious when we found her. Rapid pulse, high fever. Blood pressure’s eighty over sixty. Looks like most of the impact was absorbed by the buttocks and backs of the legs.”

  “She looks pale. No open wounds? Loss of blood?”

  “None that we could see, but she aspirated blood on the ride in. You’re probably looking at an emergency C-section if there’s any hope of saving the baby.”

  “Agreed. What’s that stench?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Russians don’t like to bathe.”

  “How do you know she’s Russian?”

  “She was wearing this ID tag: Bogdana Petrova, Russian embassy.”

  “Get her to X-ray, we’ll take it from here.”

  United Nations

  General Assembly Building

  10:46 A.M.

  “A bomb threat?” The Secret Service agent stared suspiciously at the big man wearing the orange Racal suit. “Where’s the bomb squad?”

  “We are the bomb squad.”

  “Bullshit. Those are environmental suits.”

  “The threat was a biological device. And if there really is a bomb, and it goes off, we’ll be protected. You, on the other hand, will basically
be screwed. Now you either cue the president, or I’ll do it myself and panic a thousand diplomats and their visiting heads of state.

  Cursing aloud, the president’s bodyguard and personal assassin walked briskly past the curtains and onto the raised stage to the podium, his head down.

  “…no one wants war, but we shall not shirk from it either if it means preventing the annihilation of one or more of our cities. Enriched uranium can be used in suitcase bombs as well as ballistic missiles. In the past, Iran has not hesitated to arm terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas — groups that, in turn, would not hesitate to use a suitcase nuke against Israel or another sovereign nation. As such, any treaty—”

  President Kogelo paused, the lanky leader of the free world listening intently as the Secret Service agent whispered into his ear.

  “Mr. Secretary General, distinguished guests… I’ve just been told that the General Assembly has received a terrorist threat. Homeland Security has the situation under control, but as an extra precaution, we’re being asked to postpone the rest of this morning’s agenda while our munitions experts verify this chamber is secure. All diplomats and heads of state, including myself, are being asked to report to their nation’s respective suites in the Secretariat Building and await further instructions.”

  The Secret Service agent took the president by the crook of his arm and led him off the stage as two dozen heavily armed Emergency Service Unit personnel, all wearing white Racal suits, entered the chamber from the rear doors and herded the shocked diplomats into the corridor.

  East 22nd Street & FIRST Avenue

  Lower East Side, Manhattan

  10:47 A.M.

  Still another block to go, and Wendi Metz was exhausted.

  The single mother of an eight-year-old boy, Wendi had been trying to lose fifteen pounds since she began computer dating back in October. Her exercise routine — walking from the UN Plaza, where she worked the breakfast shift, to the bus stop at East 23rd Street — had helped reduce her waistline two dress sizes in three months while saving on subway tokens. But this morning she felt drained, on the verge of passing out.

  The inviting bus stop bench was within view, enticing her to continue walking. Every step was painful, the tightness shooting down her neck and spine into her lower back and legs and feet. The brisk winter breeze coming off the East River had been cooling her perspiration, but now that she has slowed her pace to a stagger, she could register the fever raging internally.

  A gust of wind set her body to shivering.

  She recalled for the umpteenth time the image of the pale woman throwing up in the bathroom and wondered if she might have caught something.

  Her vision blurred, her eyes strained to gain contrast in the sudden brightness. She contemplated purchasing a yogurt from a nearby street vendor—blood sugar’s probably low—until she spotted the X25 Bus weaving its way up First Avenue.

  Get home. Take some cold and flu medicine, have a bowl of soup, then hustle to the diner before the lunch shift begins.

  Flagging down the bus, Wendi Metz climbed aboard, joining the other seventeen passengers en route to Midtown East and Sutton Place.

  United Nations Plaza

  10:48 A.M.

  The isolation tent was filling quickly. Those classified “infected” now numbered twenty-two, with a new patient added every six minutes. Most were either police officers or protesters who had been caught on the plaza grounds. Others had been working security inside the General Assembly Building when “Bubonic Mary” had taken her tour through the facility.

  The first verifiable contact lay prone in a self-contained isolator, a lightweight stretcher surrounded by a demountable framework and transparent plastic. The bubble envelope was maintained by its own self-contained air-supply system, which created a negative pressure differential, preventing the escape of contaminated air. Eight plastic arm sleeves, four on each side, allowed medical personnel to reach inside the patient’s containment area without breaching the isolator.

  Officer Gary Beck was terrified. He knew he had been exposed to a hazardous biological substance. He knew because he could feel the toxin rippling through his body. The fever, coupled with anxiety, had caused his heart to race, his blood pressure to drop, his skin to crawl. The physicians in the white environmental suits had assured him that he would be okay, that the antidote being administered by an IV drip had reached him with ample time to spare. Beck had believed them, his panic losing its edge as the Valium, mixed with a clear elixir labeled scy-anti, dripped into his veins.

  Lying within the isolated bubble, Gary Beck thought about his wife, Kimberly, and his two children and gave thanks that they were in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, visiting his in-laws. He felt alone and definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time and willed himself to remain calm. You’re alive, you’re okay. The experts are here to take care of you. Keep it together and cooperate, and you’ll be home in your own bed before the wife gets back from her parents’.

  A woman in a white Racal suit approached, communicating by way of an internal intercom. “How are you feeling, Officer Beck?”

  “Not good. I puked again, and everything still hurts. And my neck feels swollen, right here. It feels like something’s growing.”

  “It’s just a lymph node, try not to rub it. I’m going to take some more blood, okay?”

  “Okay.” Officer Beck closed his watering eyes, his limbs trembling as the nurse withdrew another syringe of his blood into an external collection tube.

  * * *

  Jay Zwawa felt like he was sinking in quicksand. He reread Dr. Kremer’s medical report, then spotted his younger brother, Jesse emerging from an Army tent, and motioned him over.

  “Two rodent extermination teams are on the way.”

  “You’d better read this. It’s a toxicology report on the first wave of victims.”

  Jesse Zwawa scanned the report, his expression darkening behind the face-plate of his hooded suit. “That explains why—”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then we’re officially screwed.”

  “Pretty much. Jess, this stays between us and Dr. Kremer. If this gets out—”

  “Have you told Zee?”

  “I was about to make the call.”

  * * *

  “Colonel, Alpha Team has an urgent transmission.”

  “Stand by.” John Zwawa muted the cross conversations coming from the wall of video monitors. “Mr. Vice President, gentlemen and ladies, we have an update coming in from our ground team. Go ahead, Captain.”

  “Colonel, we’ve got a major situation. An analysis of the infected victims’ blood reveals the bacilli don’t match Scythe’s DNA.”

  Dr. Lydia Gagnon grabbed the nearest microphone, her voice blaring over Jay Zwawa’s headset. “What do you mean it’s not a match? The stolen attaché case contained pure Scythe.”

  “Understood. But our antibiotics aren’t working. None of the infected patients are improving. Somehow, the Klipot woman altered Scythe’s DNA.”

  Suddenly light-headed, Colonel Zwawa found his way to a desk chair. “Captain, have Kremer upload all ground zero blood-work results directly to our Bio-4 labs. Dr. Gagnon, how soon can your labs produce an effective antibiotic? Dr. Gagnon!”

  “How soon? I don’t know, Colonel… a day? A year? Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter. Scythe kills within fifteen hours… it’s spreading way too fast for my people to possibly break down its new genetic code, let alone find a cure. Anyone who contracted the plague is a walking corpse. That game is over, we lost. From this moment on, it’s all about damage control. We have one shot at containing this thing before it becomes a worldwide pandemic… one small break. Manhattan’s an island, technically it can be isolated. We have to shut down all access in and out of the city, and I mean right away!”

  “She’s right, Colonel,” Jay Zwawa chimed in. “The UN’s Head of Security just handed me a report on the potential list of people who made contact with the Klipot woman.
At least a dozen have already left the UN complex. We lost perimeter containment thirty-three minutes ago.”

  Dr. Gagnon stood before the vice president’s monitor, her voice trembling with fear. “Sir, we either isolate Manhattan right now and sacrifice two million people, or by tomorrow night the entire human race, save a few isolated third-world tribes, will become extinct.”

  10:51 A.M.

  The island of Manhattan was separated from the boroughs of the Bronx and Queens by the Harlem River, from Brooklyn by the swiftly flowing East River, Staten Island and New Jersey to the south and west by the mighty Hudson. Linking this metropolis to its surrounding communities was more than six hundred miles of subway, two thousand miles of bus routes, eight bridges, four tunnel crossings, two major train systems, and dozens of ferries and helicopters. Now, the federal government wanted every entry point and exit route into and out of Manhattan shut down, and they were demanding it be done in less than fifteen minutes.

  New York governor Daniel Cirilo II was en route to a skiing excursion in Vermont when he received the phone call from Vice President Krawitz. After being told to “stop asking questions and start issuing orders,” the governor contacted the CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a network that encompassed New York City’s subways, buses, and railroads. Within minutes, all lines were shut down, the entire system placed under a Code-Red Terrorist Alert.

  All incoming trains with scheduled stops at Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station were rerouted, all outgoing cars canceled until further notice. The FAA grounded all aerial vehicles leaving LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark International Airports. The Port Authority restricted all ferries and boats along both rivers. Homeland Security took over the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, dispatching orders to more than nine hundred officers posted at Manhattan’s bridges and tunnel tollgates to shut down all vehicular and pedestrian traffic and turn away anyone attempting to enter or leave the island.