“That’s right.”
“We need to ask you some questions,” Warnick said. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“Not allowed …”
“Bob, talk to them,” Larry said. “This thing has already gone too far.”
“Shut up, Larry.”
“Do it, Bob,” Judith said. Then to us, “We want to cooperate.”
The two researchers led us into a break room, where we found a few tables and chairs. A coffee machine and a microwave oven sat on the counter next to a refrigerator. Warnick sent Springer off to look around. Creasy stood in the doorway for a second and then made his way to the sink for a glass of water.
“There’s coffee and tea, if you want,” Judith said.
Creasy eyed us. “What is it you want here?”
“We’re investigating a homicide,” Warnick said. “A news reporter named Evie Champagne.”
“She’s dead?” Larry said. He and his wife exchanged a startled glance. Creasy was unfazed.
“You knew her?”
Creasy shot them a look. “Only from the news.”
“Strange,” I said. “Evie told us she met with you, Larry, and that you told her about this facility.”
“She was lying,” Creasy said.
Judith slammed her palm on the table. “No, she wasn’t.”
“Judith, be quiet.”
“No, I won’t.” Then to us, “She and Larry had a near miss on one of the roads leading to the forest.”
Larry nodded. “She asked me a lot of questions—of course, she was a reporter.” He cackled like a mental patient, then became serious. Holly shot me a nervous glance.
“What did you tell her?” Warnick said.
“Not much. The work we’re doing here is classified.”
“Did she ever make it inside?”
“No,” Creasy said. “That would be trespassing—like what you’re doing. Look, I’m sorry a woman was shot, but that doesn’t—”
“Who said anything about her being shot?” Holly said.
A violent look passed over Creasy’s face, like a poison rain cloud, and his features hardened into anger. “I’m not going to be part of this,” he said. “You people have no idea what you’re doing. You need to leave now!” He staggered out of the room.
“Is he okay?” Holly said.
Judith lowered her voice. “He’s been under a terrible strain since this started. We all have.”
“What’s his role here?” Warnick said.
“He’s the project lead.”
“And what exactly is the project?” I said.
Larry took his wife’s hand. “Look. Judith and I are scientists. The whole reason we joined the company … We’re trying to help people.”
“Tell us what happened in Tres Marias,” Warnick said.
“That’s classified. We could be arrested. And I’m guessing none of you has a security clearance.”
“I warned you,” a voice said.
I turned. Creasy stood in the doorway weaving and pointing a handgun at us. Instinctively, I stepped in front of Holly and pointed my weapon at him.
“Bob, what are you doing?” Judith said.
He blinked at the bright lights and licked his lips. I thought he might have the jimmies and could lose control of his trigger finger any second.
Without hesitation, Warnick raised his weapon and pointed it at Creasy’s head. “Drop your weapon,” he said, his voice steady. “Now.”
“We have to finish the project,” Creasy said, his voice desperate. “We’re so close. Don’t you see? It’s the Holy Grail.”
Springer appeared behind him, his arms raised. His AR-15 came down hard, making a dull thwack as he butt-stroked Creasy at the base of the skull. Groaning, Creasy collapsed, unconscious. Springer casually retrieved the other weapon and came over to join us as Larry and Judith tended to their sick colleague.
Creasy lay immobile on a bed in the building’s sleeping quarters, his head bandaged and his breath like a broken toy train whistle. Judith raised his sleeve to sterilize his arm with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, revealing a highway of needle tracks. Reaching for a syringe, she ignored the other puncture marks, found a vein and gave him an injection.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Librium. This should be enough to keep him under until tomorrow.”
Larry entered the room. “I locked up the weapons. We should be safe. Come on.” He led us out of the room.
“Shouldn’t somebody stay here with this guy?” Springer said.
“He’s out,” Judith said.
Larry led us to a large executive conference room on the other side of the building. We took seats and avoided eye contact—all except me. No one seemed eager to speak first, so I went for it.
“Creasy’s a heroin addict, isn’t he?”
Larry cleared his throat and looked at his hands. “Morphine. He gets it from the dispensary.”
“We really don’t know how long it’s been going on,” Judith said.
Larry sighed. “So, we seem to be at an impasse.”
“We’re the ruling authority in Tres Marias,” Warnick said. “We have the power to launch an official investigation. That means more Black Dragon personnel, interrogations—the works. Right now, we simply want to ask some questions.”
I loved the way Warnick handled the situation. He never stopped being pleasant. Larry and Judith mulled this over.
“Could you excuse us for a minute?” Larry said as he and Judith got to their feet.
They left the room and spoke outside. I could hear their voices, but not what they were saying. After a minute, they returned.
“We’d like to cooperate,” Larry said. “But I need to know we’ll be protected.”
Judith seemed to agree. “Please understand. We’re taking a huge risk. If it gets out that we shared classified information with you, we could be fired.”
“Or worse,” her husband said. “We could be brought up on charges.”
“We understand,” Warnick said. “I can’t speak for Black Dragon, but you have my word that everyone in the chain of command will know that you and your wife cooperated with the investigation. It’s the best I can offer you.”
Larry removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I don’t even know where to begin. When Judith and I hired on, the project was already in full swing.”
“Are there any others working here?”
“Originally, there were twelve of us, plus Bob. Most of the staff left when the outbreak happened. All we know is, they were transferred to another facility.”
“Where’s that?” I said.
“No idea. To be honest, they’ve kept Judith and me in the dark about a lot of things. We don’t have all that much information, but we’ll tell you what we can.”
Larry explained that Robbin-Sear was a privately held bioscience technology company founded in 1990 by two former government scientists, Doctors John Robbin and William Sear. They were headquartered in Virginia. Upon incorporation, they were awarded a Department of Defense contract to provide vaccines to soldiers during the Gulf War.
“What kinds of vaccines?” I said.
“Hepatitis A and B, typhoid and malaria, mostly,” Judith said. “Soon we began manufacturing vaccines to protect against chemical and biological agents.”
Over the years, the firm had continued to provide these vaccine-manufacturing services for the DOD. As far as Larry knew, they had no other customers. At the time Larry and Judith were brought on, the company had been looking for a way to inoculate soldiers serving in war-torn countries to prevent the effects of PTSD from occurring.
“They’d been experimenting for years,” Larry said. “Most of the research was centered around various combinations of drugs to suppress the fear response in the amygdala. They thought that if soldiers were unafraid, they would act more rationally when confronted with danger.”
“The problem was, of course,” Judith s
aid, “they would essentially be creating an army of drug addicts.”
Judith went on to tell us that she and Larry had published a research paper on controlling the brain through a virus. Though theoretical, they’d built a computer model demonstrating that the virus could act in the same way as security software on top of an operating system. It would reduce the fear reaction without the side effects of drugs. Soldiers would, in essence, remain unaffected by the violence they experienced during prolonged periods of combat.
Someone at Robbin-Sear read the paper and asked Larry and Judith to join the team in Tres Marias. The drug-related research had been halted, and the entire team focused on developing a new super-virus.
“That was six years ago,” Judith said. “We spent years searching for the right virus to modify. But no matter what we tried, it would always kill the host.”
“What kind of host?” Holly said.
“We experimented exclusively on mice.”
“What about humans?”
Judith averted her eyes. “Human trials were years away.”
“And what about the outbreak in Guatemala?” I said.
Larry reddened. “Our team didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“So why was Bob Creasy down there?” Warnick said.
“We had no idea he was. It’s like I explained. We were kept in the dark about a lot of this. They might have been running a parallel track down there, for all we know.”
Judith told us that during their research she made an accidental discovery. She found that if they combined the virus with a modified form of rabies, the host’s body would stabilize.
“It was an amazing breakthrough,” Larry said. “Once we were able to control the virus, we could move on to the next phase of the project, which was to induce fear in the test subject and measure the response.”
“How did you do that?” I said.
“We have a machine.”
“Why rabies?”
Judith smiled, which was creepy given the circumstances. “All viruses travel through the bloodstream. But not rabies. It travels through the nervous system, where it eventually settles in the brain. And that’s precisely where we wanted to be.”
“Because of the rabies factor,” Larry said, “we began experimenting on dogs—mostly strays. We continued to refine the virus to achieve the results we were looking for.”
“But one of the dogs escaped,” I said.
“H-how did you know?”
“Because it was my friend’s dog.”
I dug out my cell phone and flipped through photos till I found one of Jim, the dog and me. I handed the phone to Larry.
“This is the dog,” he said, showing the photo to Judith. “We’d seen him running through the woods—no tag and no collar. We thought he was a stray, so we picked him up.”
“And you infected him,” I said.
“Wait,” Holly said. “Aren’t all dogs vaccinated against rabies?”
“Not Perro. Jim never took him to the vet, as far as I know.” Then to the researchers, “What went wrong?”
“The dog reacted to the treatment in a way we hadn’t anticipated,” Judith said. “He became incredibly strong. After a few hours, he overpowered us and got away. We searched for a week. We were afraid he might infect someone.”
“I went out every day,” Larry said. “I found your friend wandering out on one of the fire roads, drunk as a skunk. He was looking for his dog, too. He kept saying the name over and over. ‘Perro.’ When he described the dog, I knew it was the one we were searching for. So I offered to give him a ride home. On the way there we saw the dog. He looked pretty bad, and I was scared. Your friend got out and went up to him. The dog bit him on the hand. I tried trapping the animal, but he got away again.”
“What about Jim?”
“I couldn’t leave him there—he was infected. So I lied. I told him I would help him find the dog. Instead, I brought him here.”
“How long was he here?”
“About a week. I can check the record.”
“Did you experiment on him?” I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. The researchers looked at the floor, creating a thick, uncomfortable silence. I already knew the answer, but I wanted them to say it—to admit what they’d done to Jim.
“Yes,” Judith said. “But it wasn’t our idea. In fact, we fought it.”
“Bob saw this as an opportunity to fast-track the project,” Larry said. “He supervised the initial experiments here. The plan was to eventually move your friend to the other facility.”
I wanted to strangle these two. I got up and walked to the other side of the table.
“We noticed that your friend’s strength increased. We became concerned and decided to medicate him to ensure he wouldn’t become violent. It was Bob who made the decision to move him. We put him in the van and Bob drove him off the premises. That was the last time Judith or I saw him.”
“He escaped, right?” I said.
Larry nodded. “Bob lost track of him in the forest. Eventually, he gave up and returned here.”
“Do you remember what day that was?” I said.
“July 5th.” Judith turned to Larry, who nodded.
“All of this makes sense,” I said. “Jim must’ve wandered home, still foggy from the drugs, and gotten drunk. Then he made his way to our house.”
“And we know the rest,” Warnick said. “Between the dog and Jim, others became infected and the thing spiraled out of control.”
“We tried to stop it,” Judith said.
I leaned over the table and looked directly at Larry and Judith. “Tell me, why does the virus make them undead?”
The word made Larry uncomfortable. “That was … it was never the intention. We wanted these soldiers to look and behave normally.”
“Technically, they shouldn’t have died,” Judith said. “But …”
“What?” Warnick said.
“The virus is mutating faster than anything we’ve ever encountered. What you’re seeing now—this ‘undead’ effect—that’s not what we designed. It’s …”
Judith choked back a sob. Larry laid his hand on her arm and squeezed it gently.
“We don’t know how to stop it,” he said.
Dead silence.
“Jim was patient zero, wasn’t he,” I said to Larry and Judith.
Judith shook her head. “Not exactly.”
Larry and Judith took us outside into another building. Inside was a huge lab filled with microscopes, computers and other electronic equipment. An entire wall was stacked with large cages containing barking and whimpering dogs. Next to those were smaller cages containing hundreds of laboratory mice. Plexiglas walled off the far third of the lab. The entrance was a mantrap. Larry explained that it required two codes to get inside—one for each door.
Inside the secure area stood a researcher in a filthy, bloodstained lab coat. It was hard to tell his age, with his ravaged face and one eye swollen shut. He sat on a stool, peering into a microscope with his good eye.
“That’s Doctor Royce,” Larry said. “He was accidentally exposed to the virus.”
“Did he turn?” I said.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Is he undead?”
There was a long silence. “He’s infected,” Judith said. “Which is why we keep him in isolation.” Her voice was tart. Clearly these two were in denial over what they had unleashed.
“What’s he doing in there?” Holly said.
“Technically, he’s working.”
“You mean, he’s rational?” I said.
Larry and Judith approached the Plexiglas. Larry pressed an intercom button and spoke into a microphone.
“Doctor Royce?” Then to us, “He won’t respond to anything else—not even his first name.” He faced the mike again. “Doctor Royce, there are some people I want you to meet. Can you stop what you’re doing and come over here?”
Royce didn’t seem to hear
or didn’t care. He flicked his hand at his head, swatting at something.
“One of the side effects of that particular mutation. We think it causes a kind of buzzing in the brain, which tricks the ears into thinking you’re hearing flies.”
“Can he talk?” Springer said.
“Yes,” Judith said. “But his mind wanders.”
“So who’s gonna grade his homework?”
I pressed up against the Plexiglas, which broke Royce’s concentration. He stared at me, his jaws working menacingly. Larry laid a hand on my shoulder and guided me away from there.
“You said there was no way to stop this,” I said. “What’s being done?”
“We’re still studying how the virus mutates. That’s why we’ve been going out into the forest capturing individuals who are already infected.”
“We call them draggers.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” Larry said. He wasn’t smiling.
Outside, the other two soldiers who’d accompanied us bayoneted the few remaining draggers through the head so we could leave. Larry and Judith ran out, concerned.
“Bob’s not here,” Larry said. “And one of the vans is missing.”
I grabbed Larry’s arm. “But wasn’t he sedated?”
“If he’s a morphine addict,” Warnick said, “the drug might not have the same effect.”
Judith moved closer to her husband. “Larry, I’m worried.”
The sky was darkening and the automatic lights clicked on. Warnick approached our vehicle. “We need to get back to the command center.”
“Are you going to report this?” Judith said.
“I have to let my supervisor know. But we’re treating this as highly confidential.”
We’d climbed into the Humvee and Larry was unlocking the gate when two police cruisers appeared at a crest in the road, approaching the facility fast, dust billowing behind them. Larry rolled the gate open and the vehicles passed through. They stopped in the middle of the driveway.
Two officers got out of the first cruiser and stood on either side of the Humvee, their hands on their weapons. The driver of the second vehicle got out and approached our driver’s side. Through the open window I saw that he was young, with steel-grey eyes and black wavy hair. His nameplate read HANNITY.
The Dead Series (Book 2): Dead Is All You Get Page 8