by Gibb, Lew
“Yes. I need to verify my results.”
“You mean, you got something you don’t understand. And you need to make sure we didn’t screw up the earlier sample collection.”
“Nothing like that. I just want to do everything again to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes.”
“Okay, Sergio.” A little of the tension left her shoulders, and she smiled. “You can call me Maria. I’m the charge nurse around here.” She dropped her arms to her sides and started walking toward the other end of the hall. “Let’s get this over with.”
As Sergio turned to follow, the woman in the bed kept her eyes locked on him. “I heard they try to bite anyone who gets near them.”
“Yep. Got one of my best nurses yesterday. Had to send her home after they stitched her up in the ER.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Maria stopped when she reached the room at end of the hall. A man with the same ragged appearance as the woman by the elevator was struggling against his restraints and staring at them with the same inflamed red eyes.
“What happened?” Sergio asked.
“There were so many people here when they were brought in. You know how it is. Medical people hear about an interesting case, and they all want to come out of the woodwork for a look. They try to help, but mostly they just get in the way.”
Sergio nodded. It was one of the downsides of working at a teaching hospital. He didn’t often have to deal with that kind of help in pathology. Every once in a while when there was a particularly gruesome death, a few people came to see the body, but that was about it.
“Anyway, Rosa, my nurse, was holding Ernesto here by the arm while the resident tried to examine him.” She pointed through the doorway at the patient strapped to the bed. “One of the extra nurses wasn’t paying attention, and Ernesto twisted free. Grabbed her arm.”
“Oh, no.” Sergio turned to face Maria and rubbed his forearm.
“Before anyone could stop him, he bit off a big chunk of Rosa’s hand.”
“Oh my god.”
“That’s not the worst part.”
Sergio waited, eyes wide.
“When she fainted from the pain and fell down, he took a chunk out of the doctor, too.” Maria crossed her arms and stared at Ernesto, shaking her head. “I can still see the look on his face while he chewed that piece of the guy’s shoulder. He honestly looked like he was eating prime rib.”
Sergio wrinkled his nose. After a career in pathology, he wasn’t squeamish about much, but the thought of someone chewing the flesh of a fellow human made him shudder.
“One of the weirdest things I’ve seen in twenty years of nursing.” Maria shook her head.
Sergio wasn’t thrilled about getting any closer to the patients than he had to. “I really need these samples.”
Maria frowned and looked thoughtful for a couple seconds, then nodded. “Let me get some people to help while you’re getting your things ready. I’m not comfortable doing this without overwhelming force.”
After she left, Sergio donned a gown and gloves from the cart and entered the room. While setting his instruments out on the adjustable bedside table, he assessed Ernesto. Dried white film surrounded his mouth, almost like the remnants of a powdered-sugar doughnut. It reminded Sergio of the schizophrenic patients he had seen during his psychiatric residency.
Ernesto tracked Sergio’s every move with bulging, bloodshot eyes that looked bright pink instead of white. His unblinking stare made Sergio shudder and look over his shoulder to see if Maria had returned. When he moved closer, the smell of body odor and excrement was enough—even for someone used to dealing with decaying bodies—to make him breathe through his mouth and take shallow breaths.
Maria returned with four large men in identical tan scrubs who looked more like night club bouncers than nurses. None of them looked happy to be there.
Without saying a word, each of them took hold of an appendage while Maria pinned Ernesto’s head to the bed with a length of towel stretched over his forehead, the ends held tight next to his ears.
They repeated the procedure three more times. While Sergio collected blood and tissue samples from each of the patients, they each stared at him intensely but never uttered a sound. Sergio could detect neither fear nor animosity in their eyes. He wondered if they still possessed their humanity. Once, when Sergio leaned a little too close to one woman, she lunged against her restraints, and her teeth snapped together a mere two inches from his ear.
On the way back to the lab, the snapping sound the woman’s teeth had made as they’d closed inches from his face made him shudder.
Chapter Four
Rosa’s fiancé, Caio, was pleasantly surprised to find her purse on the kitchen table when he arrived home just after nine p.m. Even though he worked as a physical therapist in the same hospital as her, their opposite schedules made it difficult to stay in touch during the day. Her idea of working nights for the extra pay had sounded good a year ago, but it was beginning to put a real strain on their relationship.
Caio made his way through the apartment and opened the bedroom door. Daylight from the living room fanned across the outdated seventies carpet and crawled up the bed. Rosa was curled in a ball under their old geometric-patterned duvet. Her long black hair haloed her head, and his heart beat faster as he moved across the bedroom and sat next to her. He was so lucky to have such a beautiful fiancé. He rested a hand on her shoulder and shook it softly.
Rosa’s eyes snapped open and focused on Caio.
“How are you, sweetie?” he asked with a big smile.
Her eyes remained locked on Caio’s face as she reached up and placed her hand behind his neck. He smiled, anticipating a good morning kiss—maybe something more. As Rosa pulled him down, Caio closed his eyes and puckered his lips.
Instead of receiving the anticipated kiss, he felt his face ignite in pain. Caio’s ragged scream filled his own ears as he struggled against her grip. Rosa’s hand remained clamped around his neck as pain flared hotter with each methodical pulse of her teeth. Her eyes were bright red and emotionless as she shook her head from side to side. A bloody chunk of skin tore loose. Caio twisted free and staggered away from the bed.
“Rosa, what the hell?” Caio yelled, pressing his palm to the hole in his cheek and turning to look at her. The pain was making him lightheaded and nauseous.
Blood coated Rosa’s lips and chin. Her jaw worked up and down as she chewed, blank-faced and dead-eyed. She scrambled across the bed and leapt at him. The move was so out-of-character for her that he was barely able to get his hands up and turn away before Rosa landed on his back.
Her arms snaked around his neck. Her chest was warm against his back.
“Rosa, what the fuck? Stop!” Caio gurgled.
She wrapped her legs around his waist. Her breath rasped in his ear as Caio spun and clawed at the arms crushing his windpipe. She had never even raised her voice to him in an argument, never even yelled at the TV news or cursed people who cut her off on the highway.
Rosa’s teeth tore into his left shoulder, sending a river of fire up his neck and down his arm. The sound of his scream was smothered by the arm crushing his throat even harder. He stumbled from side to side. Rosa clung to his back like a demented cowboy trying to eat her horse as she rode it. They bounced off the wall. A framed engagement photo smashed on the hardwood floor. He barely heard the tinkle of shattering glass over the sound of their rasping breaths.
Rosa weighed nearly as much as Caio and practiced Capoeira—Brazilian martial arts—three times a week. In her right mind, she would have been more than a match for the thin and wiry Caio. But the pain was making him desperate. He yanked and dug his fingers into her skin, opening a little space between her arms and his neck. He drew a ragged breath as he spun into the armoire facing the bed. Animal figurines Rosa had collected since childhood crashed together and tumbled to the floor. Horses, goats, and woodland animals scattered beneath Caio’s feet as he tore
at Rosa’s legs with both hands. Caio slammed her into the armoire again, and her grip around his waist loosened. Caio threw himself forward, bending at the waist while pulling on her arms.
Rosa’s weight came off his back, and another searing pain burned through his shoulder as her departing teeth tore a chunk of skin from the base of his neck. She hit the wall upside-down and slid to the floor, head tilted at an awkward angle.
Caio froze for a moment, breathing hard, horrified she might have been injured in the fall. Rosa kicked away from the wall and rolled before staggering to her feet, eyes once again locked on his face. The sight of a sliver of flesh hanging from the corner of her mouth broke his trance.
Caio bolted for the bedroom door. A warm river of blood ran down his arm and dripped from his fingers. Russet fingerprints marred the white paint where his hands touched the door, creating a macabre finger painting. The last glimpse he had of his beloved fiancé was her methodically chewing jaws as he heaved the door closed behind him. She slammed into the other side a second later and began pounding on it.
Caio’s eyes darted around the living room, looking for a weapon. Then he leaned against the door and vomited. The contents of his stomach splattered the door and ran down his face, mingling with his blood. His stomach clenched again, and the remainder of his dinner splattered his shoes. With white knuckles, he held the door handle while he tried to think of what to do.
Muffled splintering noises accompanied Rosa’s pounding. The hollow-core door wouldn’t hold her for long. Caio darted for the front door, snatching his keys from the dining table as he ran. When he reached the front door, he yanked it open and threw himself through the opening, forgetting about the screen door until he crashed into it. The flimsy screen parted, and the frame slapped against the apartment’s exterior wall as Caio yanked the front door closed behind him.
He stabbed his key at the lock.
Once.
Twice.
The third time it slid home, and he snapped the deadbolt closed. Caio sagged to his knees and leaned against the door, sucking in long, ragged breaths.
“Mierda.” He put a tentative hand to his shoulder, then rocked back on his heels. “What the fuck?” He probed the wound carefully with his fingertips. It seemed to be the size of his entire hand with jagged edges like a bloody piece of steak someone had chewed up and spit out.
How had his beautiful Rosa done this to him? Why had she done this?
Blood splattered the concrete beneath him. His face and neck throbbed, and tears came to his eyes at the thought of Rosa’s perfect mouth and white teeth mangling his flesh. She hadn’t uttered a sound throughout the entire attack. People in their thirties could develop schizophrenia, and many of them started acting bizarrely, but they were mostly passive and paranoid. They didn’t just start attacking people.
A crash from inside the apartment was followed seconds later by pounding on the door’s other side. Caio flinched and held his empty hands in front of him. The pounding continued. He staggered to his feet. His cell phone was still inside the apartment. He could try to find a neighbor who would let him use their phone, but most people weren’t home yet, and he didn’t want to waste time. He needed to get himself to a hospital. Rosa couldn’t hurt anyone else if she was locked in the apartment, and he would be no good to her if he bled out on the sidewalk. He would have to drive himself to the hospital and call the police from there.
It seemed to take all his strength to push away from the door and stagger across the narrow strip of grass and out to the parking area and his car. He was feeling dizzier and weaker by the second, but he managed to climb behind the wheel and twist the key. The engine roared to life while blood soaked his pants and pooled on the seat beneath him. Caio nearly blacked out but forced his eyes open and stomped on the accelerator. The tires squealed as the car roared across the parking lot and onto the street.
Chapter Five
“Very interesting,” Dr. Indrani Patel said, looking up from a printout detailing one of the sample’s blood chemistry. The scattering of lab employees working at the other tables looked away. They had been darting glances at the unusual sight of their boss actually working in the lab since he started the project the previous day. Now with the director of Brasília University’s cellular biology department also here, they were beside themselves with curiosity.
Sergio was sure their interest had as much to do with her looks as with her status as one of the most distinguished scientists in the country, if not the world. And she dressed better than he did. Even after collecting his own samples and running every test himself, the blood of the jungle survivors continued to exhibit the previous anomalies. In light of the patients’ bizarre behavior, Sergio had decided to consult an expert in cellular biology and the medical school had put him in contact with Dr. Patel. The two doctors had met early for coffee and pastries, then spent the morning running tests and examining Sergio’s samples.
The biologist set the folder on the table with one hand and ran the other through her luxurious black hair. She reminded Sergio of a Bollywood celebrity. “When taken together with the mutation of these cells, I am reminded very much of the rabies virus.” Her Portuguese was excellent, if somewhat formal, for someone who had immigrated only five years previously.
“Are you sure?” Sergio leaned in to look through the eyepiece. The teal-colored ovals darted from place to place within the suspension medium. As he watched, one of the blue-tinted cells approached a normal cell. “Yes. I see it now. It’s actions barely resemble those of a normal rabies-infected cell, but it does have the distinctive ‘bullet’ shape of the rhabdovirus.”
“Also, the ratio of length and width are consistent with rabies. Those spiny projections around the outside are usually much more prevalent in actual rabies, but we don’t find them anywhere else.”
“What I can’t get over is how it’s wrapping itself around the other cell and devouring it instead of penetrating the cell’s membrane and hijacking the mitochondria to convert it into a little virus factory.”
Dr. Patel stood and stretched, placing her fists against her lower back. When she spoke, just a hint of her native Indian accent came through. “I agree, it is unusual. In fact, I’ve never seen anything like it. The cells attack and destroy any normal cells they come into contact with while rapidly reproducing on their own. How did you come up with this? Did you use CRISPR?”
“Before we get into that, let’s talk about what you think of these mutations. I’m also interested to hear your opinion of what this would look like in the wild, so to speak, if an animal—or a human—were to become infected with this virus.”
Dr. Patel looked at the opposite wall, but it was obvious she wasn’t seeing it. Her eyes had an unfocused look and remained distant for a full minute before she began to speak. “Well, I should think that the rabies component would be fairly straightforward. You would have central nervous system compromise from the inflammation of the brain, and a heightened attack or self-protective response. The animal would not be at all amenable to capture or confinement. Rabid animals usually will attack anything that threatens them. And the threat response is heightened to an extreme degree. The animal eventually becomes incapacitated by the declining functioning of the CNS and is unable to survive. However, this virus has hijacked the mitochondria in a most peculiar way. The cells are reproducing at an accelerated rate from what you would see with ordinary rabies.”
“How long does it usually take for someone bitten by a rabid animal to exhibit symptoms and fully develop rabies?” Sergio tapped a pen on the tabletop. The rabies component explained a lot of the behavior he had seen from Ernesto and the other isolation ward patients.
“Well, it depends on the victim.” Dr. Patel began to stroll back and forth in the aisle between the lab tables, her low heels clacking on the linoleum tiles. As she became more excited, she sped up, and her unbuttoned lab coat flapped behind her. “But generally, you can expect some symptoms to appear within a week
or two.”
“Do they ever appear sooner?” Sergio asked. He had no idea how long the expedition had been in the jungle or when the patients had been bitten, but it was doubtful they’d been wandering in the jungle for two weeks.
“Maybe a day or two difference one way or the other.”
“And what type of symptoms are we talking about? Besides the ones everyone knows about, like foaming at the mouth.”
“Things like fever and tingling at the site of the bite. It takes about a month for rabies to become fully developed. The person would then experience difficulty controlling their limbs as well as local paralysis and confusion. After that, he or she would most likely die two to three weeks later. It would be an extremely drawn out and painful death. This is highly unlikely to happen, however, since the Brazilian government took steps long ago to prevent the spread of the disease through vaccination of domestic animals and the rapid inoculation of people who happen to get bitten. Very few people have died from rabies, or even contracted it, in the last thirty years.”
“So that explains the rabies component. What about the mitochondria and DNA mutations?”
Dr. Patel took a long breath. “Well, that is most difficult to say with any certainty. This accelerated cellular activity would most probably shorten the infection timeline. Possibly to as little as several days rather than two to three weeks. Also, the cells are reproducing so rapidly that the animal would possibly be able to repair some nerve damage as things are progressing and potentially delay the final deterioration of the nerve fibers and death.”
“What do you mean?” Sergio stepped in front of Dr. Patel and stopped her mid-stride.
The abrupt stop made her lose her balance and she placed a hand on Sergio’s forearm to steady herself. “I’m saying it’s possible that you could end up with an animal that might not die in two or three weeks. It could conceivably live for months. Possibly even years. It would certainly still have the problem of the attack impulse. And it would not make a good pet at all.”