by Mark Morris
Briefly Sam told Logan what had happened up at the burial site. When he had finished Logan asked, ‘So who is this Yerema chick?’
‘She was the witch doctor’s daughter, if you can believe it,’ said Sam. ‘Her daddy was the one who sealed her in there.’
‘Sounds like a hell of a family argument. She tell you why?’
‘Some. Seems she decided she wanted to see the world and get an education, even though her daddy wanted her to stay home, become a wife and mother, follow the traditions, all that shit. They argued about it – a lot, I guess – till finally she just upped and left.’
‘Ran away?’
‘I guess so. Anyway, she told us that at first she thought she’d never be able to go back home, that if she did her daddy’s vengeance would be terrible. But then once she’d been among “civilized” people for a while, and had seen how reasonable they could be – how they listened to you, and how sometimes, if you put over your argument well enough, you could get them to change their mind – she started to think that maybe her own people weren’t as rigid and primitive as she’d thought, that maybe she could get her daddy to see her point of view, after all.’
‘I’m guessing that was a big mistake,’ said Logan.
Sam nodded. ‘Not only did her daddy not listen to her, but he tried to drive the evil out of her by getting some of the guys in the village to torture and ritually rape her.’
‘Jesus,’ Logan said. ‘That’s fucking sick.’
Still nodding, Sam said, ‘And the thing was, it looks like that’s how all this shit started in the first place.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The guys who raped Yerema? They got ill and died. But not only that – they came back. They were resurrected as the walking dead. Yerema said at first that her daddy saw this as a sign of forgiveness from the gods. He thought the gods were telling him the guys had been made immortal, and that they’d sent back their bodies so the rest of the village could eat their brains and become immortal too. So a whole lot of brain-eating went on, and a whole lot of people died and came back. Thing was, the Ope family and their close relatives didn’t get sick. They contracted the virus, but it didn’t change them; they just lived with it. Yerema’s daddy thought this was because the gods had cursed them due to Yerema’s running away an’ all. So to appease them he offered her up as a sacrifice. He locked her in the tomb and left her there to die.’
‘And then the plague began to spread all over the island,’ said Logan.
‘Pretty much. The Kuruni kept themselves to themselves most of the time, but they had occasional contact with the outside world. It must have started with a trader or something; maybe even one of the security guards here picked it up when the Kuruni came to call and took it back into the city with him.’
‘Shit,’ Logan said. ‘Guess the girl must be feeling pretty bad knowing she’s the cause of all this.’
Sam’s brow wrinkled in a frown. ‘It ain’t her fault.’
‘I know that,’ Logan said. ‘I just meant, if she hadn’t come back to the village …’ His voice tailed off and he smirked. ‘Hey, you got the hots for her or something?’
‘Give me a break,’ Sam muttered. ‘She’s just a sweet kid is all. She don’t deserve all the shit she’s had to put up with.’
‘Guess none of us do,’ said Logan.
‘Yeah, well, some of us create our own problems.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Sam’s frown faded and he waved a hand, as if to dismiss his own comment. ‘Nothing, man. I’m just tired. I was thinkin’ of me more’n you. All this shit, it’s made me realize how much we blame other people for our own fuck-ups. If I ever get out of this I’m really gonna straighten my life out, y’know?’
Logan nodded. ‘You and me both, man.’
There was silence between them for a moment, then Sam said, ‘So what’s been going down here?’
Logan shrugged. ‘Nothin’ much. West’s been analysing blood samples.’
‘What about the people we rescued? They OK?’
‘Not really.’ Logan grimaced. ‘West had to lock them up.’
Sam sat upright with a jolt. ‘Why’d he do that?’
Logan hesitated, then said, ‘Come see for yourself.’
Although Sam really didn’t want to get vertical again, he followed Logan through the base until they came to the laboratory. West was there, talking to Purna.
‘Where’s Yerema?’ asked Sam.
Purna turned to look at him. She looked drawn, but she was holding it together pretty well. ‘She’s resting.’
‘OK if I show Sam the patients?’ asked Logan.
West waved a hand in a vaguely affirmative gesture. If anything, he looked more worn out than Purna did. ‘No problem. But be careful.’
There was a second door on the far side of the laboratory, which until now had always remained closed. Logan punched a code into a keypad on the wall beside the door and the door opened. He led Sam down a short flight of steps and then along a dingy corridor to another door. This one too he opened by punching a number into a keypad.
‘Heavy security,’ said Sam.
‘Yeah, except for the fact that the walls in this place are paper thin,’ said Logan, rapping on the wall next to the door and producing a hollow sound that gave the impression it was constructed of nothing more substantial than thick cardboard.
Beyond the second door was a wider corridor, the left wall occupied by four cages, the bars of which stretched from floor to ceiling. Inside the cages was the handful of Kuruni people who had survived the massacre in their village. Although some were worse than others, they all looked in a pretty bad way. Curled up on mattresses on the floor, or slumped listlessly against the far wall, they were sweaty and feverish and hollow-eyed, some tossing and turning and muttering deliriously in their sleep, one or two even tensing and shuddering as if their bodies were being wracked by a series of small seizures.
‘What’s wrong with them?’ asked Sam, though he was pretty sure he knew.
‘They’re displaying symptoms of the virus,’ said Logan. ‘It happened not long after they got here. Considering how contagious it is, and what eventually happens to the infected, it was thought it’d be safer to lock them up.’
Sam hated the thought of locking innocent people up like animals, but he nodded. ‘Can’t nothin’ be done for them?’
‘What can be done is being done. West’s given them drugs to try to slow the infection down. If he develops a vaccine before it takes too much of a hold –’ he gave a small, ironic whoop – ‘party time.’
‘What about West?’ asked Sam. ‘What’s to stop him getting infected?’
Logan shrugged. ‘Nothin’, I guess. But maybe that’s the best incentive he can have for developing a vaccine.’
Sam put his hands on the bars of the cage and leaned forward. He felt a wriggle of despair go through him. ‘Shit, I thought these guys were survivors. I thought they were immune.’
‘West says the virus is mutating all the time, constantly changing to find a way in under people’s defences.’
‘You make it sound like it’s alive. Like it thinks,’ said Sam.
‘Maybe it does.’
‘Bullshit!’ Sam’s response was unequivocal, but there was anxiety, even a hint of fear, in his eyes. ‘If this thing’s mutating all the time, what’s to stop it eventually finding a way in under our defences?’ he said.
Logan didn’t answer immediately. Eventually he admitted, ‘Beats me. But you gotta remember there’s one big difference between us and them.’ He nodded at the Kuruni.
‘Which is?’ asked Sam.
‘They been chowing down on zombie brains for the last fuck knows how long. Closest I’ve got to that was the burger I ate in the airport motel the night before we flew out here.’
Sam and Logan retraced their steps back to the laboratory. When they got there, Purna turned to them and said, ‘Dr West and I have been talki
ng, and he says it’s going to be at least twelve hours, but probably more like twenty-four, before he’ll know whether it’s possible to develop a vaccine. Therefore to save time I think we should head back to Mowen’s village, pick up Jin and Xian Mei, and come back here in the morning. Then if Dr West does have a vaccine for us by then, we can head straight over to the prison island to meet White.’
‘OK with me,’ shrugged Logan.
‘Me too,’ said Sam with a sigh. ‘So you spoken to White about this?’
Purna nodded, smiling a little as she said, ‘I am nothing if not efficient. It was a terrible line, but I got the impression that White’s wife was in a really bad way. By the time we get there it might already be too late.’
‘Nothing we can do about that,’ said Logan. ‘We’re all going as fast as we can. Can’t hurry genius, eh, doc?’
West smiled faintly.
‘So when you wanna go?’ asked Sam.
‘Well, Mowen says he’s ready any time, so I suggest we grab a bite to eat and then head off. No time like the present, eh?’ said Purna.
‘Nope,’ sighed Sam heavily. ‘No time like the present.’
Chapter 18
NIGHT THOUGHTS
‘HEY, YOU OK?’
Even though Sam’s voice was soft, Jin still jumped, her head twisting round sharply. In the moonlight he could see the silvery gleam of tears on her cheeks, but he had already been aware of how upset she was; it was her crying that had woken him.
He was surprised the sound had penetrated his unconscious mind. He had been so tired when he had finally crashed out on a reed sleeping mat that he had thought it would take an earthquake at the very least to drag him out of his slumber. He guessed he had been more subconsciously alert than he had realized – must be a survival thing, he thought, something he had developed without knowing it over the past couple of days. He raised his hands slowly to show his intentions were harmless. When Jin didn’t reply, he murmured, ‘It’s just … I heard you crying. Thought I’d come see if I could do anything.’
Jin sniffed, hitched in a breath. In a small cracked voice, she said, ‘Sorry I woke you.’
‘Hey, no problem,’ said Sam. ‘My back was kind of aching anyway. That mat’s not exactly big on the spinal support.’
This wasn’t true, but Sam didn’t want to make her feel any worse than she already did. When she remained silent, he glanced beyond her at the night sky. Unlike in the cities he was used to, the stars out here were incredibly bright, and the sky too was a deep, rich velvety blue, undiluted by the sodium glare from street lamps and neon signs.
‘Beautiful night,’ he said.
Jin made no comment.
‘Hey, you want a soda or somethin’? I’m kinda thirsty. And Mowen said we could help ourselves.’
For a moment he was sure Jin would refuse, and then she gave a small tight nod. Sam re-entered the house and made his way through to the kitchen, the polished wooden floor pleasantly cool on the soles of his bare feet. Mowen’s house was spacious and surprisingly homely. There were brightly coloured rugs on the floor and tribal art framed on the walls. The trader – Sam was convinced that some of that trade involved drugs and guns, as well as various other ill-gotten gains – obviously made a good living out of what he did. His house was one of the biggest in the village, and one of a minority that even had electricity.
Although Sam wouldn’t exactly have trusted Mowen, the guy had proved a congenial enough host. No doubt motivated by the hefty financial recompense Ryder White had promised him, he had given all five of them a place to sleep, and had even cooked them a meal – a rice and sausage concoction that reminded Sam of the jambalaya his mom made for him whenever he went home.
Entering the kitchen, he didn’t bother turning on the light. Although everyone else was upstairs, he didn’t want to risk waking them. He grabbed a couple of Cokes from the fridge and padded back through the house to the room where he had been sleeping. He crossed the room and slipped through the screen door on to the front porch. Jin was still sitting out on the wooden steps, a frail hunched shape in the darkness.
‘Here you go,’ Sam said, holding the can out to her.
She took it. ‘Thanks.’
Sam indicated a space next to her on the steps. ‘Mind if I sit down?’
She shrugged and he sat, popping open his can with a hiss. He gulped at the fizzy soda for a moment, relishing the sweetness, the way it made him feel instantly more alive.
‘That’s good,’ he said, glancing at Jin, who was drinking from her own can in tiny sips.
Behind them moths the size of humming birds batted their plump dusty bodies against the softly buzzing porch light.
After a few moments of silence, Sam said, ‘Weird to think how much things have changed in the past couple of days, huh? Pretty tough thing to come to terms with.’
Again, Jin gave a tiny jerk of a nod.
‘It’s bad enough for me, but I guess it’s a hundred times worse for you, this being your home and all.’
Jin said nothing, but when Sam glanced at her he saw fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You didn’t,’ she snivelled.
‘It’s just –’ he shrugged. ‘I dunno … I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone. That I’m here for you – we all are. And that if you ever want to talk, you just have to say the word. OK?’
She sniffed and nodded.
‘OK,’ said Sam, and put a hand on the step beside him to push himself to his feet. ‘Well, I guess I’ll head back to bed and give you some space.’
He rose to his feet. She glanced up at him.
‘I’d like to,’ she said in a small voice.
‘Huh?’
‘I’d like to talk.’
‘You sure?’
She hesitated, then nodded.
‘Well, OK,’ he said, lowering himself back down beside her. ‘So what do you want to talk about?’
Jin took a long shuddering breath, and said, ‘I’ve been thinking about Papa, and what he must be going through, and how … how unfair it all is.’
Sam nodded but stayed silent, not wanting to interrupt her.
‘He’s a good man,’ Jin said. ‘He’s always been a good man. He looked after me when Mama died, and he always protected me, and yet because of this … this sickness, he’s going to become like the rest of them out there. A monster, feasting on the flesh of the living …’
She tailed off, slumping forward, her head drooping into her hand, as if vocalizing the thought had proved too much for her. After a moment, however, she continued, ‘I know good people get sick and die, or have accidents, but this is just … just wrong. It makes people into something disgusting, something to be feared. It uses people, and it … it …’ She tailed off, unable to find the words to fully express the horror and revulsion she felt.
Sam had never had kids, had never even thought about having kids, but right now he wanted to put a fatherly arm round Jin, to give her the comfort and reassurance she so obviously needed. He thought about doing it and then decided that maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea. After what had happened to her with those three guys, she had (not surprisingly) become both jumpy and withdrawn, and was now no doubt wary and suspicious of people’s motives towards her, especially motives that involved any kind of physical proximity. He didn’t want to make things worse by doing something she might take the wrong way. So he just sat, a foot or so between them, and tried, stumblingly, to put his reassurance into words.
‘I guess what you gotta remember is that those things … the infected, I mean … are not the people they once were. Those people are gone, dead … and whatever makes us us –’ he tapped his chest to emphasize his point – ‘by which I mean our soul, or our essence, or whatever … has shipped out, passed on, gone to wherever we go to when we die. And the things that are left … the bodies … they’re just puppets for the virus. They ain�
��t people. They’re just things. They don’t feel love or pain. They don’t find things funny or beautiful or ugly. They’re just … hunger. That’s all they are. Just hunger and primitive instinct. And if your papa becomes one of them … well, that ain’t your papa any more. That’s just something that’s using your papa’s skin like … like a set of clothes. Your papa’s somewhere else. Somewhere good.’
Sam got the feeling that he hadn’t expressed himself too well. He wanted to ask Jin if she understood what he was trying to say. But before he could, she said, ‘I used to believe in goodness. I used to believe that although there was bad in the world, there was a God up in heaven who would eventually make things right, would eventually reward us. But now I feel stupid for being so … so naïve. I mean, what kind of God would allow such suffering? I know I’m being selfish. I know it’s easy to keep believing in God when the bad stuff is happening to someone else. But … but it’s still how I feel, and I can’t help that. I used to have faith, and now it’s gone …’
She began to sob again, long and hard this time. Helplessly Sam watched her, wanting to tell her not to cry, that everything would be all right, but knowing how false that would sound. Eventually he mumbled, ‘Hey, you want a hug?’ And then he added hastily, ‘No pressure. It’s just … well, it’s hard to stand by and watch someone cry and not do anything about it, y’know.’
For a moment she didn’t respond, then she nodded and leaned towards him. Sam put his arm round her shoulders, aware of how sparrow-like and delicate she was. He felt furious and sickened at the thought of the three guys in the police station taking advantage of her physical frailty, and at the thought of how terrified and helpless she must have been.
For a while they just sat there, Jin weeping, Sam wishing he could protect her from stuff that had already happened.
Eventually her sobs subsided and she became quieter, calmer. Sam was beginning to wonder whether she’d cried herself to sleep when she said, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get over what those men did to me.’
Not wishing to offer hollow platitudes, Sam said, ‘Maybe you won’t ever forget it, but one day you’ll learn to live with it. These things just take time.’