Pathosis (A Dark Evolution Book 1)

by Jason LaVelle

  Ormiston shut the TV off and leaned back in his chair. Marlon stood next to him. Both men wore grim expressions.

  “I should have had her detained when she pulled in,” said the stone-faced FBI agent.

  Ormiston nodded, shook his head, then waved a hand dismissively. His emotions were much like his responses: confused, inconsistent, distant. The cafeteria was quieter now, with only a few white lab coats drifting around their tables. Marlon was the only Federal agent left in the room.

  “It isn’t you, Marlon, or her. The age of secrets is fading away and perhaps it is for the best. This,” he waved his hand around the room, “would not have stayed secret for long anyway.”

  A young Korean man with wire-framed glasses and a long white coat came up to them and handed Ormiston a sheet of folded white paper.

  “Shit,” Ormiston said as he looked down at the paper he carried.

  Ormiston crumpled up the paper and let it fall to the floor. Marlon observed him, but said nothing. Instead, Ormiston pulled out his phone.

  “Director, we are saturated. That’s affirmative. No, I don’t recommend sending anyone else into the situation. Biohazard level three, I would think. We could use an airdrop of anti-parasitics. Yes sir, thank you. Good luck.”

  Ormiston hung up.

  “We aren’t going home, are we?”

  Ormiston rubbed his palms against his eyes, stretched his back, and turned away.

  “Come with me.”

  The doctor walked, Marlon followed.

  “We found out earlier that this is a parasite, you remember?”

  “Of course. It was eating through the brain, right?”

  “Yes. We created a specific assessment to test for the presence of the parasite in the bloodstream.” The doctor paused and fixed Marlon with his gaze. “You and I just tested positive for it.”

  A flash of fiery cold shot through Marlon. His knees felt weak and he thought they would no longer hold him. Infected? His head buzzed with confusion for a moment. How could I be infected? Marlon mastered the fear that was coursing through him.

  “How could this be, doctor?”

  The doctor cleared his throat. Ormiston noticed that everyone in the room had stopped talking and were now watching them and listening to them intently.

  “We know it isn’t airborne, few true parasites are. It enters the body and then swiftly moves up the brain stem and attacks, eating the brain from the inside, starting with the hypothalamus. We know it takes roughly four hours from the time of infection to the onset of noticeable symptoms. By that time, the brain, the salivary glands, and the tear ducts are saturated with live active parasites. This is to facilitate transmission to a new host, much like rabies. Meanwhile, the body is also flooded with parasites, only in a slightly different form. In the vascular system, these parasites are wrapped in a protective bubble called a cyst. The cysts protect them and keep them prepared for travel to a new host. These cysts are waiting to be carried off—by a disease vector. We don’t know how long it takes for the parasites to emerge from their cysts inside a new host.”

  Ormiston could see, even though no one spoke, that the hearts around him in the room were quickly sinking. The whole room was gathered around the two men. They were waiting for Ormiston’s prognosis. Even though they were all working on the problem, they had each worked on a specific area individually. Now the doctor brought it all together.

  “This is a worst case scenario, people. I liken this disease to malaria and rabies combined. Like rabies, it is deadly and unstoppable. Like malaria, I believe it is traveling in one of nature’s finest and most effective vectors.”

  “Gods,” a lab tech said behind him.

  Marlon looked at the ashen faces around the room before he spoke. “It’s mosquitos, isn’t it?” Marlon asked quietly. He was thinking of the itchy red bump on the back of his calf. It was one of many he had acquired in the last day here in Florida.

  “Yes Marlon, the mosquito. It’s the most prolific animal in Florida.” Ormiston looked around the room. “And every one of us is probably infected.”

  Chapter 21

  There was no easy way to carry the body of Dr. Patel, and Connel refused to leave him behind, despite the captain’s objections.

  “We have to move fast,” he said, “and Dr. Patel is literally dead weight.”

  That did not go over well. Therefore, they made a makeshift stretcher, tied him to it, and were now dragging him behind them with a length of nylon rope. They dumped everything but their water and sat phone. There was still so much up in the air, so many pieces missing, and the two pieces that Shuler was now concerned with were a cocky photographer and a macho biologist.

  The group of five (plus one corpse) trekked away from the smooth slope and onto the craggy section of the mountain that led to the caves. Since the biologist and photographer had not returned last night, they assumed they had made it to the caves and camped there overnight. The captain thought they were cocksure idiots, but he was too, when he was young.

  They covered the splintered ground as quickly as they could with the perilous terrain and their added cargo. Though it was only a quarter of a mile away, it took them an hour to make the hike to the caves. They walked out of a shallow ravine and there they were, four man-sized holes perfectly carved and neatly arranged in the mountainside. A large outcropping of rock jutted over them, sheltering them from most elements. A thin trail of grey smoke crept out of one of the openings. From another, the group saw intermittent flashes of light.

  The group paused only briefly before the captain ushered them on. When he reached the mouth of the caves, he called out.

  “We’re in here!” came a reply from the westernmost cave, the one with the flashes of light coming from it.

  This cave was different from the others. The openings were identical, clearly man-made, but next to the mouth of this cave, or tunnel rather, was a large, flat sandstone boulder set on its edge. Judging by the tracks, the two had to roll this out of the way to get into the cave. It reminded the captain of the stories of Jesus’ tomb and he gave a little shiver.

  “Get out here!” he barked into the cave.

  It took fifteen minutes to rehash the events of the night before, starting when the two left the group for the cave and ending with Dr. Patel’s death and the captain’s plan to evacuate from the island. It was a lot to take in. The photographer was disturbed, and the captain had a feeling it was more from the fact that they would have to leave early and abandon his projects.

  The big biologist, Calvin, was very upset. It was surprising, since the big guy had been antagonistic since they had gotten to the island. He didn’t weep, but knelt by the wrapped up body of Dr. Patel and placed his hand on the smaller man’s chest.

  “Jesus Raj, Jesus,” he said quietly. After a moment, he looked up.

  “We captured bats together in Bangladesh,” Calvin said, to everyone and no one.

  The others just stared at him, clearly not having any idea of the relevance of this.

  “Spent a lot of nights on the roofs of piece-of-shit mud homes. Spent a lot of mornings in the bars.” Calvin looked away from Patel, and caught the captain’s eye. “That little shit could drink me under the table.”

  “You have to see this before we leave the island,” the photographer said to them.

  “We don’t have time; we need to get Magda to the mainland, to a hospital.”

  The photographer looked at Magda, who was peering into the cave curiously. “Magda, you need to see. You all need to see in this cave.”

  Magda nodded. The captain sighed, but relented. The photographer smiled and the group left their dead companion on the welcome mat of the cave and went inside.

  The cave had been occupied by an ancient world. The group entered in awe. There was a wide varie
ty of clay artifacts and some primitive porcelain pots, bowls, and plates. Most of them were broken. There was glittering metal strewn about the floor. Captain gasped when he realized that it was gold and silver, and something that had the color of gold but glittered like diamonds. Stone shelves had been carved into the walls of the cave’s large chamber and they could see a smaller antechamber. There were poles and pillars of wood and stone. There were large, primitive weapons made of stone and flattened metals and minerals they had never seen before.

  There were also bones, a great many bones. The bones were not ‘put together,’ they were scattered in an unnatural way around the inside of the cave. Captain Shuler saw the bones of men and women, and smaller bones, too. The place looked like a hyena had been through it, scattering the remains all over. This looked like the site of a mass grave, but it wasn’t a grave. It was set up to be living quarters, that much was clear, but they had all died in the end. It was a macabre fascinating scene. It did not have a ‘gross’ factor because all the bones were dry, but it was chilly even in the heat, eerie, and frightening. What the hell had happened here?

  “Holy shit,” the captain remarked.

  “Right?” the photographer said.

  The group fanned out over the room, distracted from their mission. Even Magda looked entranced by the scene. “Looks like it was a damn massacre, but why, and who were these people?”

  “It was,” the photographer said. “It was a huge massacre. There’s only one intact body here, one skeleton that was not torn apart. He’s over there.”

  In the small antechamber there was sizable, albeit collapsed, skeleton. The bones of the hands had nicks and slices in them, seemingly defensive wounds, but other than that, they looked undamaged.

  “You think that is the murderer?”

  “I think he was the last of the murderers,” the photographer said.

  “I’m not following you,” Charles said.

  “There are bite marks on these bones,” Dr. Connel said, as she bent over some of the remains.

  “Right. A lot of them have bite marks, and a lot of them have cuts or breaks in their bones. This was a battle here, a terrible fight, and that guy over there,” he pointed to the whole skeleton, “he was the last man standing.”

  All of them stared at the skeleton.

  “So what killed him?”

  “No idea. Blood loss, starvation, infection. He wouldn’t have been able to move that bloody big stone out front, not from the inside.”

  “It apparently was pretty ugly in here at the end,” Charles said.

  “It’s always ugly at the end,” the captain replied.

  “Where’s Marion?” Magda asked.

  “I’m over here,” came his soft reply. He was kneeling down amidst some rubble and bones. Connel made her way over to him. From where the captain stood, he could hear them talking but not what they were saying.

  “We have to leave now,” he told the photographer. “I’m assuming you’ve taken plenty of pictures?”

  He nodded, “I’d like to stay longer, but I think I have a good starting point.”

  “Good, because we’re leaving anyway. Grab your camera and let’s go.”

  “Hey guys,” Connel called out from over by Marion, “and Magda, come look at this.” Her voice was – strange.

  They made their way over to find Marion sketching in his notepad. Then they saw the wall.

  “Oh no,” the biologist groaned.

  Using some type of crude instrument, pictographs had been painted on the wall depicting people in pain, presumably dying, in large numbers. Around them were tiny multi-legged creatures. Spiders, the captain thought.

  There were also pictures of strange creatures flying above the carnage. Captain Shuler shivered when he saw them. Though they were drawn with primitive instruments, the pictures were eerily realistic. He recognized the winged insects immediately.

  Oh my God.

  They were large brown-striped flies with two sets of translucent wings. The same type of fly Calvin had captured yesterday, after it had bitten him.

  “Calvin, come here,” Connel said.

  The big biologist complied. When he got closer, the captain saw that he was greasy with sweat all over and his skin had an unnatural pallor. Magda reached out, took one of his hairy forearms in her hand, and turned it a little.

  Connel sighed as the large red lesion became visible to everyone. It was raw and leaking yellow plasmatic fluid right where the fly had bitten him. Magda pulled down the collar of her shirt a little and Connel confirmed that the spider bite she had sustained was festering in a similar fashion.

  “What’s going on here?” Marion asked. Real concern was etched on his round face.

  “What the hell are we infected with, doctor?” Calvin asked, though they all knew the answer.

  Magda looked at Dr. Connel, too. “I’m starting to feel a little disoriented, a little too hot.” Magda looked down. “Are we going to end up just like Patel?”

  “Dr. Patel had a weak heart. There’s no telling how someone more physically robust will react, but yes, I think you are infected, both of you.”

  The captain felt his heart sink.

  “I think the animals here are sick. This whole place is diseased. The island is in an ecological pathosis, and we unwittingly walked right into the middle of it. It is infected, it is dying, and it is poisoning us.”

  Connel looked at the skeletons scattered around the cave before she continued.

  “Perhaps these people knew it, too. Maybe they were trying to escape the sickness by coming here.” She brushed a hand over the hundred-year-old drawing of the fly. “But they couldn’t escape. Death came for them on wings, through the very ventilation shafts that were meant to keep them alive.” The group looked up at the long shaft cut through the ceiling. Connel looked hard at Magda.

  “Just like death is coming for us too, right?” Magda asked.

  “I thought I heard someone mention a plan to get us to a hospital?” the biologist chimed in with a half-hearted chuckle. No one else was amused.

  The group filed solemnly out of the cave. Outside the cave’s entrance, Marion stooped down and dug something out of the earth.

  “Cool,” he exclaimed as he pulled a broken spear from the earth. It was tipped with a chipped stone spearhead. Even broken it was almost four feet tall. There were bits of broken bone buried with the spear. “The last defender,” he murmured.

  “Come on, Marion,” Magda called to him. He hurried after the group as they descended the mountain.

  It pained them to leave the cache of artifacts behind, but they had to. Just in case they were unable to return, they did take a moment to stuff as much of the gold and silver as they could into pockets or bags. Descending was slow because of the terrain, but they weren’t very high up on the mountain and before long they had made it back to the jungle floor.

  Magda was starting to get quite ill, and Calvin was deteriorating even more rapidly. He kept complaining about being too hot, and once he attempted to wander off on his own. The photographer had to reel him back in. Even with setbacks, it only took about two hours to get off the mountain and out through the short swath of jungle to the sea.

  The captain pulled Magda in close to him as they looked out over the cliff toward the sea. The winds were coming in over the water and cooling their sweating bodies. He was thankful for that, yet he wasn’t looking forward to what came next. They had to get down to the water and he could already see the RHIB in the distance, motoring toward them as quickly as possible. The cliffs ran for miles and they needed to get down quickly, so a cliff dive into the water was their only real option. They were seventy or eighty feet up. As tall as an eight-story building, the captain thought. He was pleased to see, looking down, that the cliff wall ran righ
t down into the water.

  “So we just hope to God it’s deep enough down there?” the photographer asked. For the first time, he looked nervous about doing something.

  The captain nodded. “Scared?”

  “A little.”

  “The way I figure it, we can either stay here and die of some mystery disease, or we jump and get our asses back to safety.”

  “Or break our asses and our necks when we hit the rocky bottom of the ocean,” Marion intoned glumly. The RHIB was almost below them now; it was time.

  Magda shrugged then kissed the captain on his weathered lips. They were rough against her smooth mouth. She touched a sweaty palm to his cheek. “I’ll see you on the other side, Bart.”

  With that, Magda hunched down and set off at a run, then flew over the edge of the cliff. She wind-milled her arms and legs for several seconds, finding a balance for herself with gravity; then she straightened her legs beneath her and crossed her arms over her chest. The captain held his breath when she hit the water, sending up a light puff of white froth. It seemed like minutes later and she was still underwater. The RHIB roared up within twenty feet of her splashdown spot. Then she popped up. Captain let out a whoop of relief when Magda gave them a one handed wave and then swam to the RHIB.

  Captain Shuler turned to the rest of the group and said, “Who’s next?”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth when a giant meaty hand clamped down on his neck. Calvin had come out of nowhere and bum-rushed him; now he picked the captain up by his neck. Shuler was choking and black spots took over his vision. He couldn’t even call out for help because his voice box was being crushed. The man who held him had nothing but blind rage in his bloodshot eyes. Calvin was staring directly at the captain, but his eyes appeared unfocused.