“Had?”
“Well, we lost her. The CDC field agent bringing her in went missing along with the little girl. They may have gone down in a helicopter crash somewhere near Philadelphia.”
“That’s terrible.” Paul offered Kim a pained smile. “So, what do we do now?”
“I’m hoping you can help me find a cure.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Paul said. “For anyone who’s left. For Nancy.”
Chapter 12
Kim Shields, Yellow Springs, Ohio
Paul led Kim down a set of spiraling stairs to a comfortable-looking living area with 70s and 80s era decorations, posters, and memorabilia. She let her hands slide along the rail as the staircase corkscrewed down.
On the south wall was a geometrically shaped bookcase that held rat-eared, paperback science fiction novels and a single lava lamp that bubbled and rolled in blue and green colors. A small kitchenette and refrigerator covered in rock band magnets took up most of the north wall. The west wall held shelves of what appeared to be gaming books and boxes of board games whose names Kim had never heard.
A thick, oaken table dominated the center of the room covered with several candles and half-burned incense sticks. The cushioned, bar-style chairs looked comfortable.
“This is my commons area,” Paul said as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Then he made a pained face. “But it’s just me here, alone. Sometimes I have one of my scientists stay with me if we’re working on a special project. And I used to run a gaming group down here.” Paul frowned and winced as if realizing that part of his life no longer existed. “But I guess they’re all gone now.”
Kim turned to the northwest corner of the room and gaped at a huge stereo cabinet. A sleek-looking turntable rested on top, and the shelves below held an equalizer and a power booster. Two tall, boxy-looking speakers with cloth fronts flanked the cabinet, and several boxes of LPs lay on the floor.
“That’s my baby,” Paul said, leading her over. “A JBL stereo with twin 1200-watt speakers. These speakers will shake the floor.”
Kim touched the LP jacket of Van Halen’s 1984 resting on one speaker.
“I’ll bet they would,” she chuckled.
Paul’s expression lifted. “When I’m not in my garden, I’m in here thinking. It’s a great place for that.”
“I know what you mean,” Kim nodded, thinking of her art studio back home in Ft. Collins. “My husband built me a room at my house to paint in. I’m not good, but it relaxes me.”
“Painting is good for your soul,” Paul said, pointing at her. He turned away from the stereo and gestured for her to follow him down the hallway leading out of the commons room. “Come on. The lab is this way.”
Kim allowed her eyes to linger on the stereo before she fell in behind the mycologist. She wasn’t a gamer, nor did she read a lot of books. Still, she couldn’t help but sense the room’s powerful nostalgia. It made her miss Bishop and the kids more than ever.
The hallway opened into a sizeable chamber that seemed to plunge straight into the hill, and the tiles changed back to hard-packed dirt. The path curved and wove through an indoor garden illuminated in a spectacular velvet light from above. Moss-covered trees reached the ceiling and fallen logs rotted on the ground as a mist swirled around in the circulated air. A moist, rich scent filled Kim’s nose, and the air fluttered cool against her cheeks.
“Paul, this place is beautiful,” Kim said with an awe-inspired tone. Her head turned back and forth to take it all in. “I’m no mycologist, but I can see at least ten varieties of mushrooms and fungi all around the base of the trees.”
“There’s a hundred or more various molds inhabiting the garden,” he said as he ambled ahead. “At least the last time I checked. I suspect dozens more have found a home here.”
“It all looks so balanced.”
“That’s the key,” Paul agreed. “Balance. Not like this monster Burke created. Your Asphyxia.”
At the end of the path, they came to a steel wall with a magnetically locked door. Paul placed his hand against a hand-reader and waited for a light to turn green before he grabbed the door handle, opened the door, and led Kim into a proper lab space.
The first room was a server room filled with racks of computer servers. They were older model machines with bundles of cables drawn up to the ceiling and running through ducts above their heads.
“Here’s where the magic happens,” Paul said, grinning. “The gear is old, but they’re all Linux servers. And the programs I run are clean and quick.”
A door on the left opened into a control center with several computer desks and walls lined with monitors. It was undecorated except for a small, circular conference table in the center of the room and an Einstein poster on one wall. The caption below the wild-haired scientist read, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
“You can pick any desk you want,” Paul said, scratching his arm. “That is, if you’re staying.”
“I’m staying until we find a cure for this thing,” Kim said. She selected one of the office chairs that didn’t wobble too much and pulled it in front of an empty desk.
“Let me show you the rest.”
Paul led Kim down a long hallway with several doors. There were restrooms, showers, and staff quarters complete with a mini-fridge and three bunks. At the end of the hall, Paul stopped in front of another secure door.
“This is where I keep the bad stuff,” he said. Paul leaned forward and rested his palm against the surface, twisting his face and making his voice gruff and sinister. “The evil of Mordor is locked behind this door.”
“I’ll take it to mean you’ve got some Asphyxia and Candida in there,” Kim said with a frown.
“And some other insidious beasts,” Paul gave her an evil grin. Then he straightened and laughed. “You wouldn’t have believed this place when I first started the business. I had five or ten people down here at any given time, working on new antifungals, researching healthy animal feeds, or just playing games.”
“Speaking of healthy animals,” Kim said. “I saw a deer on the trail on my way down to your house. A doe. She didn’t seem affected by the fungus at all. She had a healthy coat with no signs of Asphyxia.
“Ah, you met Winona,” Paul said, and he started moving back down the hallway to the control room.
“Winona? You named the deer?”
“I had a crush on Winona Ryder when I was a kid,” Paul said with a sheepish expression. “I had a possum named Ally Sheedy, but I wasn’t able to create an antifungal quick enough to save her. The poor girl passed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kim said with a baffled look. “You have animals here, too?”
“They’re just forest creatures I feed now and again.” Paul guided Kim back into the control room and sat down at his desk. His three flat-screen monitors had hooks where necklaces and chains hung down, giving the entire space a hippie-like feel. “That’s how I discovered the outbreak. Ally had patches of it on her fur when she came for breakfast one morning. I thought it was the most curious thing.”
“You didn’t notice it in the air?” Kim asked, sitting down. “On the trees or in the grass?”
“Not down here in the depression,” Paul replied. “Not right away. The thickest of the spore cloud must have passed over my facility. I contracted it later from Ally, or maybe it was when I went on my morning walk in the woods. In any case, I was able to tranquilize Winona and treat her. I don’t know how long it will last.”
“But you’ve been able to stem the Asphyxia growth. How close does that put us to a cure?”
Paul leaned back in his chair and interlocked his fingers behind his head. “You understand the two phases of the fungus?”
Kim nodded. “When the outbreak first hit, the fungus killed within seconds. It invaded the respiratory system and caused a violent immune system reaction. People choked right before my eyes. They…” Kim absently reached up and rubbed her throat.
“Sorry you had to see that,” Paul cringed. “I didn’t find out the global ramifications until I turned on the news.”
“I envy you,” Kim said, and her tone sounded more bitter than she’d intended.
“There are some advantages to being a hermit,” Paul bowed his head. “None of them are conducive to keeping up with current events. Tom, Nancy, and others had been trying to reach me for days. By the time I checked my messages, it was too late.”
“What did you do after that?”
“My priority was to stop the advance of the fungus in my blood. Fungi can be far more dangerous than viruses when they enter the bloodstream. It’s important to keep the infection from breaking through the blood-brain barrier. If a fungus has time to work on your head, it can make you lethargic, forgetful, and…” Paul pointed to his temple and made the crazy motion with his index finger. “A little irritable.”
“I haven’t seen anyone alive long enough to experience those symptoms.”
“I helped study mold-infected patients as part of an internship when I was fresh out of college,” Paul said with a grin. “That was the first time I realized the power of molds, and that’s when I dedicated my life to them.” Paul sniffed and itched his nose. “So, I whipped up a booster to help my immune system fight the infection. To be more specific, I cut off the fungal cells’ ability to reproduce. At least, for now.”
“That sounds like a start,” Kim said, leaning forward with interest. “I’d like to look over your data. I think Tom got far with our B-18 solution. Maybe we can combine our data and come up with something more permanent.”
Paul shook his head. “This is the most lethal fungus I’ve ever seen. I mean, Burke and his company of scientists, and I use that term loosely, created the ultimate fungus. It’s hungry. And it’s patient, too. It knows how to wait. It knows how to mutate given the right conditions.
“What conditions?”
“A rain storm. High winds. Any whim of the weather.”
“That doesn’t sound scary,” Kim scoffed with cynical humor.
“Right?” Paul agreed. He leaned forward and took his computer mouse in hand, kicking his screens to life. “But every grand adventure starts out with conflict, doubt, and fear. Just like in the Fellowship of the Ring when the hobbits, Frodo and Samwise, volunteered to carry the ring to Mordor and toss it into Mount Doom.”
“It’s funny you mention those movies,” she said. “I’m not into fantasy stuff or gaming, but I remember when Bishop and the kids sat down to watch those movies. They were in front of the television for a day and a half. I was on snack duty,” she laughed.
Paul bucked up with a warm smile. “I watched those movies many times. They’re my favorites.”
“I guess I’d feel more comfortable if Bishop and the kids were here with me,” Kim said. "He’s my rock.”
“Your husband is a warrior, eh?”
“He’s my big warrior,” she said with an affectionate smile. “He played defensive end for the University of Kentucky, but now he’s a writer.”
“Sounds like the hero we need.” Paul lowered his voice and settled back into his chair. “But it’s just us, for now. Do you want to be Samwise, or Frodo?”
Chapter 13
Randy and Jenny Tucker, Indianapolis, Indiana
Randy walked up the escalator to the terminal’s second floor, searching for Jenny. After the talk by Colonel Jergensen out on the tarmac, soldiers had separated the group into men and woman and sent them to two processing lines. There they passed through decontamination, showered, and turned in their clothes. Workers had given them disposable white coveralls and slippers in return.
A soldier told Randy to wait upstairs for his sister and Corporal Ames. At the top of the escalator, he marveled at the amount of bustle. At least a thousand people wore the same white disposables. Some stood talking in groups while soldiers led others to complete tasks.
Stores and shops had become storage areas filled with food and other necessities, and soldiers allowed people to freely enter and exit the public bathrooms. Other retail space was set up as living quarters, and many of the terminal’s citizens lingered around them, talking or watching the others with as much interest as Randy.
A few heads turned in his direction as he stepped away from the escalator. One of them had long, red hair streaked with blonde, and her eyebrows looked bleached, too.
“Randy!” Jenny called in an exasperated tone, and she shuffled over in her cheap, flimsy slippers.
“Hey, Jenny!” he replied, pushing through a small group of people to meet her.
They exchanged a brief hug and separated.
“That was a brutal decontamination process, right?” Jenny pulled him over to a kiosk. “I mean, we have to give blood every time we want to come inside?” She rubbed the cotton ball taped to her arm.
“It wasn’t so bad,” he said with a grin. “At least we know I’m not infected from having my mask knocked sideways by Krumer.”
“That’s true,” Jenny agreed. Then she looked around. “What do you make of this place?”
“It’s about as organized as you could imagine,” he said. “It looks like people enter downstairs through decontamination and get checked out. They eat and rest on the second floor of the terminal. And then, down there,” Randy pointed to the far end of the terminal where a group of people in street clothes were moving through one of the airplane gates. “They give us back our street clothes when we go to work, I guess.” He held up a numbered tag for his confiscated clothing.
“Yeah, I got one, too.” Jenny held up her own tag. “Did you notice there aren’t any older people up here? I don’t see anyone above thirty.”
“I noticed that.” Randy nodded. “Everyone here must be part of the scavenging teams. They need strong people who can wear protective gear and scavenge for lengthy periods of time.”
Jenny bit her lip, nervously. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Hey, you two!”
Randy turned to see Corporal Ames approaching from the top of the escalator, wearing the same throwaways as the twins. She had light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and hazel eyes set into a long, pale face.
Cleaned up with her hair washed and her cheeks scrubbed rosy red, she had a plain beauty about her that made Randy take notice. She was as tall as Jenny but thicker. His father might have called her a tomboy if he were still alive.
“Hello, Corporal Ames.” Randy held out his hand while Jenny stared at the young soldier skeptically. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your gear.”
The corporal took his hand and shook it. “Call me Tricia when I’m not on duty. Not Trish or T-dawg or anything like that. Just Tricia.” She gave the two a good-natured smile, though she didn’t offer her hand to Jenny. “And since I was part of the group that brought you in, I get a full day off duty.”
“Is that the norm?” Randy asked, confused.
“The colonel pushes a reward-based system,” Tricia explained. “If you bring in scavengers who might be productive to the Colony, you get rewarded. I got a full day for bringing you in.”
Jenny scoffed. “It’s a colony now?”
“The Colony,” Tricia explained. “Jergensen started calling it that, and the name sort of stuck.”
“What about the kids and older people?” Jenny shifted her weight to her other leg as she continued to interrogate Tricia.
“There’s plenty of easier jobs,” Tricia said, her smile dropping as she put her hands on her hips and turned to face Jenny. “They can wipe down and sterilize incoming product or do basic chores. Is there something wrong, Jenny?”
“The colonel shot that man out on the tarmac.” Jenny’s angry eyes glinted with fear and a little defiance.
Tricia nodded. “Let me point out that person shot one of our own earlier today. The colonel explained—”
“Isn’t there a justice system here?” Jenny asked. “I mean, it’s a government facility. Aren’t they placed in a stock
ade or something?”
“My sister has a point,” Randy added. “To shoot someone like that was brutal.”
Tricia glanced around as if checking to see if anyone was listening. She nodded as if she understood what they meant and felt a little guilty herself. “I can’t disagree with you on that. Understand, we’re on our own out here. We’re an autonomous unit until the president or whoever’s left in charge figures out what to do with us. Colonel Jergensen is just doing her job and making sure we stay on point. We can’t afford to have a tribunal for every crime, no matter how minor. We can’t show any weakness at all. Not now, not ever.”
Jenny bit her lip and looked in the other direction. “So, Jergensen is the judge, jury, and executioner?”
“That’s the way it is,” Tricia nodded and crossed her arms. “At least for now.”
“But she’s sick!” Jenny hissed the words at a low volume, and a few heads turned in their direction. “You can’t expect her to—”
Tricia snatched Jenny by the top of her arm and pulled her closer. “Keep up with that talk and you’ll end up with a bullet in your head like that poor SOB out on the airfield. The colonel does not like her authority questioned.”
Jenny jerked out of the soldier’s grasp and rubbed her arm. Her expression slackened, and she nodded that she understood.
Tricia also settled down. “Look, we all know she’s sick. And she does, too. We’ve got the Colony doctors following her around and keeping her even.”
“You know that won’t work for long,” Jenny said, though she kept her voice down.
“We ran into an infected guy up in Kentland,” Randy added, hoping to tone down the intensity between his sister and the soldier. “We saw him a couple times, and he was sicker each time. He was acting crazy by the—”
“By the time my brother shot him.” Jenny tightened her arms across her chest.
“That’s tough.” Tricia shook her head, her eyes filled with sympathy. “I’m sorry you had to do that, Randy. It’s never easy.”
Spore Series | Book 2 | Choke Page 8