by Welker, Wick
Rambert cleared his throat, “Doctors, thank you for joining us. Before we receive an update on your work, I would like to impress on your minds the urgency of our situation. There are doctors just like you all over the country who have been debriefed on the situation and have been given government sanction for research to aid in our efforts to combat the sickness that is in New York City. To put it frankly, the city is rotting from the inside. No riot police or National Guard forces have been able to stave off the actual physical advances of the infected people permanently. They are violent, non-responsive to pain, and they are amassing into the thousands. Many of our armed forces have indeed become infected themselves. The hospitals are beyond just being non-functional; they are a war zone. From our reports, the vast majority, and I'm talking ninety-five percent of the medical staff in the city, have been killed or infected. This epidemic has turned into a war unlike anything our country has ever seen. We can tell you that the main impact of infection is in Manhattan and radiating outward into the boroughs with less severity at the moment.” Rambert stopped and exhaled, “Now, Doctors, please, your reports. I ask that you be as brief and concise as possible.”
Beckfield shuffled some papers and took off his glasses, “We think it’s a virus. It’s not bacterial. However, it is not... acting like a normal virus. A normal virus like HIV or HPV gets inserted into cells and uses those cells of the body to remake itself. They essentially highjack the cell to reproduce their viral bodies again. In the end, this kills the cells, but this new virus isn't doing quite exactly what we would expect.” Beckfield paused and looked at Rambert, expecting questions, but he stared back at him in silent perplexity that to Beckfield seemed to be stalling. “It causes a massive breakdown of some cell systems, but other organ systems actually get beefed up. In the specimen we have now, Kyle, only half his brain has any activity whatsoever and his heart... it’s rotted… gone. We are stepping into the realm of science fiction here, and it’s beyond anything that I even thought was possible.”
Rambert interjected, “Excuse me, Dr. Beckfield, but we don't want to hear about your incredulity of the situation, and we don't want to hear about how flabbergasted you are that there is a man walking around with half a brain and no heart. We don't want to hear it, dammit!”
Beckfield picked up his glasses off the desk and put them on, nervously adjusting them. “We just want to hear the reality. It doesn't matter if you haven't seen it before. All that matters is that it is happening and the same thing is happening to thousands of people in New York and the same thing can be happening to millions of people in a week in this country! Do you understand this? Our epidemiologists are estimating that the infection is spreading to three people every minute. Do you understand that? Do you know what kind of discussion I just had with the Vice President? We started talking about post apocalyptic scenarios for this country. So please, if you don't have anything to report other than your disbelief of reality, then this meeting is adjourned.”
“The answer is with the little boy from Medora.” All the heads turned to Stark who was leaning with his arms extended over the desktop. “Isn't it obvious to everyone? He's immune. He’s fine and he was just eating a sandwich, which by the way didn't contain any human meat. This new virus isn't exactly hijacking the body's cells, as Dr. Beckfield was explaining; it empowers the cells. They're able to thrive without any support from the organ systems. I believe the virus is changing the cells on a genetic level making them secrete variations of their normal proteins, which metabolize in ways that has never been observed. Now we know that the boy has been exposed to the virus for a very long duration of time, which is about two weeks. That alone tells me that he is immune, which merits investigation into his genetic make-up to see if there are any single nucleotide polymorphisms that are delineating him from the normal population that was at Medora.”
“Doctor, you need to dumb this down for us a bit.”
“There is something in his genes, which could be something small like how a single protein is made or some sort of difference in a white blood cell. All I know is that something different is making him immune. Was he the only one from the town? The only survivor not infected?”
“Um... no he wasn't. There are exactly thirty eight survivors.”
Stark widened his eyes at Rambert, “Well, where are they?”
“Very similar places to this facility, all classified.”
“What, they're just being locked up in your spooky government facilities all around the country?”
“They're perfectly safe, Dr. Stark.”
“So does a national emergency justify human rights violations? You can't just lock people up. We have you government goons throwing people in prison for no reason and Dr. Jekyll over here feeding sick people human meat. What the hell is going on?”
“This is not the forum for such a discussion. I need details about your research or this meeting is over.” Rambert lowered his eyebrows at Stark as a father chastising his son.
“Look, I've run blood serum tests on the boy, and there is nothing out of the ordinary. What we need is a complete encoding of his genome and then to compare it to Kyle's genome to look for differences in their DNA.”
Beckfield spoke up, waiting for an opportunity not to appear as helpless as everyone else in the room. “Do you know how much that costs? We can't be doing genetic studies right now. It’s going to take too long. The country will be crumbling underneath you by the time you find out little Timmy has an adenine instead of a guanine, come on.” Beckfield looked at Rambert to detect a sign of agreement but only received what he thought might have been a slight scowl.
“His name is Daniel.” Stark turned to Rambert, “What you need to do is order a full wide genetic analysis of every healthy survivor you have. We can run it against the DNA of the infected, hoping that their cells still have intact DNA. We can look at the differences and hone in on what is making them immune. You never know, it could be something as simple as a single protein on a red blood cell. We could take that protein and expose a weakness in the virus. Do you get it? We need to start this now, right now. Dip into the government piggy bank and start running these tests as soon as possible, right this minute. We’re wasting time with this meeting.”
Beckfield scoffed, “This is ridiculous. This is the dead wrong direction. We must study the virus in Kyle. We must find a way to vaccinate against the virus and to administer it.”
“This virus is incredibly aggressive. We’ve already seen it mutate in the lab in a matter of minutes.”
“Dr. Stark is right. We’ve gotten cases of people taking hours to completely have these symptoms, but now they can turn in a matter of minutes. It does seem to be changing from the reports that we’re receiving.”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all. It overcomes everything we throw at in the microscope. Once we figure out a vaccine, if we ever do, and inject it in people, the virus will have mutated a thousand times over. Then what do we do once you figure out the vaccine? Inject it into the people that are walking around with half a brain? They're already dead, so getting rid of the virus in them is just going to leave you with a mass of rotting organs. We need to forget about the infected, because they're dead and we can’t do anything for them. ”
“Suddenly, Mr. Humanitarian is forgetting about the thousands of people in New York who are infected.”
“Stark is right,” interjected Rambert, “these infected people, they're not people. Just now, I saw a video report of a woman whose legs had been completely severed who was gnawing on the ear of a dead National Guard soldier. The woman was dressed like a nun but the person who was once a nun is dead, only her possessed body remains.” Rambert paused and looked at the glossy tabletop, rubbing his fingers over it. “They are just walking corpses and we shouldn't focus on them or we're all going to become just like them. Dr. Stark, what we need to know right now is how infectious is the virus?”
“Incredibly infectious, but it’s not airborne.
I believe it can only be contracted by blood contact to an open wound or through the saliva. All the infected want to do is bite healthy people. In that regard, it seems to be very similar to rabies. Please tell me you aren't letting people stumble out of New York with this virus. This thing could spread so fast. The blink of an eye and you have this entire country walking around like a bunch of sick lunatics.”
“The quarantine is well underway, although not yet fully contained I'm afraid to say...” Rambert glanced over at the Security of Defense who only nodded. “Okay here's what’s happening. Dr. Stark was right about this virus twenty years ago and nobody listened to him, but now we are. Dr. Stark, I'm giving you full authority over the lab to perform your tests. You now have full discretion, and I will give you the contact information of all the doctors that are working with the remaining survivors and instruct them to take orders from you.” He turned to the President of the CDC and the Secretary of Defense who had remained silent during the entire meeting. “Gentleman we have a meeting with the President in fifteen minutes.” They got up, leaving Stark and Beckfield in their chairs.
Stark did not feel triumphant with a new sense of empowerment, but a subtle feeling of tremendous responsibility teetering on his shoulders. He looked at the faces of the men in that meeting and saw the panic of cluelessness festering behind their eyes. He knew they had no idea what to do, and that he had some idea of what to do made him the unspoken leader of the epidemic. He suddenly felt an instant jolt of vigor in his entire being; a feeling that he had not experienced since he first started studying medicine. It was a feeling that had been dulled down over the successive years with Jack and Coke lunch breaks. He realized at that moment that what he had thought was his greatest blunder, writing a paper that had since plagued his career, was now proving to be the U.S. Government's hope of saving the country with him at the focal point. Stark got up from his chair and left Beckfield alone in the room.
Chapter eleven
Warm, viscous air was swarming around people's thighs, creeping down their arms and suffocating their lungs. It was a pressure cooker of body heat and heavy breathing, sending unforgiving waves of heat to every person who had crammed into the subway train. It was when the electrical board on the passenger part of the train went out that a woman began to scream.
In the darkness and heat, Keith could only make out faint outlines of the people around him from the dim, fast moving lights that lined the tunnels of the subway. Someone's gigantic back was constantly weighing on his hip, causing him to lean into a pregnant woman's belly, which was seated below him. Every time his knee bumped into her, it started a cycle of the woman pushing his leg with her elbow and Keith nudging the man away from him with the side of his arm. It was a continuous cycle increasing in intervals with the ongoing fatigue and heat of the train ride. Keith considered making a deal with another man in front of him that would include both of them taking turns resting on each other like two soldiers leaning up against one another on a post to sleep.
The train soared down the line, making no stops. At some of the platforms, Keith could quickly make out scattered people waiting, but couldn't quite see the look of disappointment on their faces as the train sped by them. He thought of them, and he thought how he would have no way out of the city if it weren’t for the train. His relief that the train was gliding swiftly west, out of the city, towards Ellen, and Jayne, trumped whatever sympathy he had for them. The quick pace of the train made him think of the conductor’s hand constantly thrusting the throttle forward with no regard for routine train scheduling. He knew the conductor saw what was up above. Maybe during a shift change the infection dropped like a bomb on top of him making him scramble late to the train and more importantly making his fingers grip the throttle continually forward. The train bobbed gently up and down as it smoothly glided and Keith thought that he had never been on a subway train going at this speed.
As he focused singly on his goal of getting to his house, a crunch of shattered glass burst from the rear window of the train. A woman screamed from the back, “What are you doing? I have glass all over me! It’s down my shirt and in my hair.” Her shrill voice cut the muggy air and created a stir of movement around the back of the train. Another voice interjected from the dark crowd, “Hey, what the hell is going on back there?”
“There are crazy people back here. This man just shattered the window right into my face.” Keith clutched onto an overhead railing when he heard the woman use the word “crazy” since that word had taken on new meaning within the last couple of hours.
“Who is it? Who is causing trouble? Are they sick like the others?”
A man's voice from the rear shouted, “No, no, I just broke the window to get some air in here. Jeez, would you people settle down?” The man's voice had the elderly tone of a grandpa but also the scratchy quality of a heavy smoker. “Can we not cut each other’s throats down here? We already have plenty of people trying to do that already.”
“Don't break windows in my face!” The darkness of the train made Keith feel like he was listening to an argument in a movie theater.
“Well, I'm sorry, but I think a little broken glass is probably the least of our worries right now.” The old man let out a muffled cough. “I mean, does anyone one know what's going on? Any news reports? The last I saw was two hours ago in my deli shop, except I wasn't in the shop, I was in a back room because those crazy people flooded into my shop, crowding me out like a riot. They just came right in on me. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw them. I saw a lady with both eyeballs just dangling right out of the sockets. I don't even know how that can happen. Get hit hard in the back of the head I guess. We're all crazy now. This city has lost it, finally lost it. We all talk about it and now it's here. So long, so long, everybody.” He cleared his throat and momentary silence filled the train until the old man spoke up again, “I don't get it. Those people are sick, real sick. We need doctors and nurses, not the army up there blocking off all the streets.”
“Hey, I got news for you. Ain't no doctor gonna help those people. They’re dead man, they’re dead. They’re walking around up there but they are dead.” The train lurched forward and picked up speed. “Damn, what's that guy doing?”
Keith clenched the handrail tighter as his body pushed backwards into the people behind him with the forward thrust of the train. The lights outside the windows flashed by like strobe lights into the cabin. Everyone silenced as the train glided down the tracks. This is fast, Keith thought. He wondered why there weren't any slowdowns with other trains in the way. There was something eerily easy about how the train could just glide through the tunnels out of the city. Maybe because all the conductors are doing the exact same thing right now, he thought. They all communicate and could have received instructions to just get the hell out of the city with no stops: a mass exodus of all the city's transportation leaving the sick behind. He realized even more his luck of getting on the train, on the silver canister crammed with bodies from front to end, bobbing up and down the line as it accelerated more sharply.
Another voice bubbled up from within the mass of heads, “Does anyone know what direction we're heading? I live in Queens. Is this the way?”
Keith spoke up, “No, no, I think we're going the opposite direction. I think we've already crossed the Hudson.” He was trying to pay attention to the minute turns and slight twisting of the route of the train, trying to trace out in his mind where the train would emerge and how far on foot he would be from Ellen. Then he realized that Ellen might not be home. The first thing she would do after hearing about the outbreak would be to get over to the school to get Jayne. His mind was beginning to be cluttered with paranoia. Where would she be? Was she okay? What if the infected are out there too and they got to her? He clenched his eyes thinking about Jayne and the plethora of scenarios that could be happening to her right now. Then Dave popped into his head. He was dead. He knew it. They climbed up that building and got to him and the other emp
loyees who went and huddled in an office room. His buddy of ten years was dead, swallowed up in the masses of the diseased.
Every normal aspect of his life was sinking away from him, solidifying into distant memories in the recesses of his brain. A strange beast had now taken the helm of the tiny cockpit in his forehead and was changing his thought processes. The monotonous and autonomous thoughts of planning for dinner and picking out a story for his daughter to read were turning into the beast planning escape routes and keeping the nerves in his body ratcheted up to spring on someone or to flee for cover. He could feel deep tension flowing down his leg muscles and into his feet, preparing and pacing for any moment of conflict to burst into electrical impulses.
The tiny beast flipped a throttle in his brain when a thunderous clap of crushing metal exploded at the front of the train cabin. He leaped up at the ceiling as a tortuous scream of twisting metal filled the cabin and a hidden entity in the darkness seized his chest and thrust him down onto limbs and the trash of the subway floor. Then there was nothing.
There was only darkness all around him. He could feel no pressure crushing in on him or hear the muttering of people. He tried to stare forward but couldn't tell if his eyes were open, closed or if he was looking with his eyes in real life or in a dream. A translucent fog of amnesia and numbness was filling his mind in a dream-like trance. There was nothing around, but he felt like he was somewhere trying to do something. He felt like someone startled awake, staring in a stupor and momentarily forgetting what day it was and not knowing what he was supposed to do: swimming in unconsciousness, struggling to get a foothold on reality.
I am here, he thought. I'm here, but where is here? What was I doing? He remembered that he had two cigarettes in his suit pocket from earlier in the morning. Two cigarettes after he and Dave both smoked some in the car on the way to work. His eyes bulged, trying to see anything. He wiggled his toes trying to feel something but nothing was there. Then his mind completely detached from any thought and passively subsisted, floating away from coherency.