Dead, But Not For Long (Book 2): Pestilence and Promise

by Kinney, Matthew

  He walked over to the door and listened for a moment before returning.

  “The parasite was intended to be used for mind control on living humans. The reanimation of the dead was a terrible side effect, and I considered the whole project a failure when we saw the results. Clarence, on the other hand, was elated. That was when I began to understand that he was a madman.”

  He looked at the camera again. “I owe you an apology. There were times when I wasn’t able to leave the lab because we were at a crucial point with the parasite. I feel as though I left you with far too much of the work, but I hope you understand.”

  Rayburn shook his head. “Such a nice guy. Here he was with his family being held hostage, and he was worried about me working too hard. That’s the kind of person he is.”

  Petrov continued on for a while, explaining what had happened at his lab while Rayburn interrupted several times to explain things to Dan.

  “This is where we left off last time, I think,” Dan said, hoping Rayburn would quit talking.

  “I think so, too,” Rayburn said, finally becoming quiet as he listened to what Petrov had to say.

  ~*~

  St. Mary’s Hospital, Lansing

  Snake returned to tell Doune that Jack had agreed to let Autumn stay in the lab.

  “We’ll be checking on her often,” he added.

  “All right,” Doune said, yawning.

  “And I’m going to send someone in so you can get some sleep. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be tired while you’re watching her.”

  “That’s fine. I’m ready for some sleep.”

  Wombat came in to relieve the doctor a few minutes later. Doune told him about Autumn, but asked him not to let anybody else know.

  The biker promised that he wouldn’t say a word.

  “We’re going to play Risk if you want to join us,” Autumn told the biker after Doune left.

  “Sounds like fun,” he said, pulling up a chair.

  After a while, Lindsey noticed Autumn watching them both carefully, and she finally asked about it.

  “I was just wondering if you guys are, you know, together,” she said.

  Lindsey glanced at Wombat and back at Autumn. “No. Why would you think that?”

  “I saw him hugging you,” Autumn said, grinning.

  “Oh,” Lindsey laughed. “Wombat was just helping me out with Helga. Snake told her that I was his girlfriend, so now she wants to kill me. Wombat thought that if it looked like we were together that maybe she’d back off, and so far it seems to have worked.”

  “Why did Snake tell her you were his girlfriend?” Autumn asked.

  “Apparently he and Helga were engaged a long time ago, and he’s afraid that she wants him back. He thought if he told her that he was involved with me, she’d leave him alone. Instead, she just wants me out of the picture.”

  “Oh, too bad,” Autumn shrugged.

  “Why is it too bad?” Lindsey asked.

  “You kind of look good together.”

  “Me and Snake?” Lindsey asked.

  “No, duh, you and Wombat,” Autumn said.

  “Well, thanks,” Lindsey said, glancing at Wombat again to find him watching her. He’d become a very good friend in a short time, and she wondered if it might have become more than a friendship had Lee not been in the picture. Of course, Reynolds had been reassigned, and it wasn’t likely she’d see him again.

  “I think you’re right,” Wombat told Autumn with a grin.

  “I think we should just play the game,” Lindsey said, wanting desperately to change the subject. They continued to play, but Lindsey found Wombat watching her often, and she wondered what he thought about Autumn’s comments.

  “You don’t sound very Australian,” Autumn told the biker.

  Lindsey had noticed the same thing. Wombat’s Australian accent and vocabulary seemed to come out more when he was under stress. She’d noticed it more than once when they had been in tense situations with the dead.

  “I’ve been here in the states since I was sixteen,” Wombat told her. “When you’re a teenager, you quickly learn what you have to do to fit in.”

  “Is your family in Australia?” Autumn asked.

  “My parents came over here when I did,” he said, “but they went back to Australia about five years ago. I wanted to fly back there and check on them when the first outbreak happened, but all of the flights out of the US had been grounded by then.”

  “Have you heard from them?” Lindsey asked.

  “Not lately,” he said. “I gave them as much information as possible the last time I talked to them. My dad’s pretty tough so they might be all right.”

  “My dad’s the same way,” Lindsey said. “He grew up on a farm not too far from here, and he knows how to take care of himself. He can hunt and fish and live off the land, but I’m not sure that’ll be enough.”

  “We’ll just have to hope for the best,” Wombat said, reaching over to give her knee a squeeze.

  Lindsey saw Autumn fighting back a grin, and she knew she was going to hear about it later.

  ~*~

  Yucca Compound, Southern California

  “Not a single sighting of Hixson or Rayburn,” Madec said, walking into the conference room. He’d just finished speaking with the helicopter pilots via radio. “They’re hiding out somewhere.”

  “Or they’re dead,” Bob said.

  “Maybe,” Madec replied. “Rayburn wouldn’t last two minutes out there on his own, but Hixson is good. He might be good enough to keep them both alive.”

  “I was sure Hixson was going to kill Rayburn for us. He was furious. I wonder what changed his mind.”

  “I would guess that he watched the DVD, and Petrov said something on it. Right now, all I’m concerned about is picking them up, alive or dead.”

  “If they’re alive, then why haven’t we seen any sign of them? Every time we think we have a lead, it’s a dead end.”

  Madec looked up to see if Bob had intentionally made the pun, but the expression on the other man’s face told him that he hadn’t.

  “Hixson’s not stupid,” he said. “He’s got to know we’ll be looking for them, so he’s going to be careful.”

  “Okay, so if they are alive, they’ve got to be nearby. We just have to flush them out.”

  “Unless they left town on foot,” Madec pointed out.

  “Not with an old man,” Bob said, shaking his head stubbornly. “I’m telling you, they’ll be within a mile or two of where we dropped them off, and if they do move, they’ll attract attention, and we’ll find them.”

  “If not, we should consider offering a reward to the one that brings them in,” Madec said. “We can spread the word to every one of our communities in North America.”

  ~*~

  Malibu, California

  Rayburn turned off the TV and sat back on the sofa to stare blankly across the room.

  “I can’t believe he did that,” Rayburn said, shaking his head.

  Dan was silent for a few moments longer before asking, “Can you promise me that this didn’t kill my daughter?”

  Rayburn glanced at Dan’s leg, where he carried his knife. “I’m sure it didn’t. I don’t think Igor would lie about that part since he’s admitted everything else. I remember the last weeks of Brittany’s life well. Never once did I feel that there was anything out of the ordinary happening. I swear to you, I’d tell you if I even suspected that was the case.”

  Dan let out a long breath and got up to pace. “I guess it doesn’t make much difference anyway, does it? If she hadn’t died when she did, odds are that she’d have been killed by those things out there. I’d like to think I could have kept her safe, but I may not have been able to do that.”

  Rayburn remained quiet, letting Dan talk.

  “As hard as it was, at least she died peacefully, with me and her mom there. It wouldn’t have been that way if the dead had gotten her.”

  “If it’s any cons
olation, she wasn’t in any pain at the end,” Rayburn said quietly. “I made sure of that.”

  ~*^*~

  ~29~

  St. Mary’s Hospital, Lansing

  The vigil continued the next day, and Autumn was watched constantly. Lindsey and Wombat stayed with her again for a few hours while Dr. Doune got some sleep, and then Lindsey had a chance to take a break when the doctor returned.

  Shortly after Lindsey came back, Claire stuck her head into the room. “Dr. Doune? I got through to the medical center where Dr. Rayburn works. They’re paging him now.”

  Doune took the call, returning to the room a short time later. “I spoke to Rayburn,” he said.

  “Did you ask about Autumn’s treatments?” Lindsey asked.

  “No,” Doune said. “I didn’t even say who the patient was. I wanted to see if I could get any information from him before saying too much over the phone. I don’t want to sound paranoid, but I think this situation needs to be handled carefully.”

  “What did he say?” Lindsey asked.

  “He thought we should try to get the patient to the medical center there. Apparently there is a massive wall around the whole area.”

  “Do you think it would be better than Montana?” Lindsey asked. “I don’t see how the LA area could be very safe with so many people there.”

  “It’s outside of the city, in the foothills,” Doune said. “He thought they might be able to provide an escort to their facility.”

  “If they can arrange air transportation, it might be safer than traveling to Montana,” Lindsey said.

  “Possibly,” Doune replied. “I gave Rayburn my cell number, so if he gets any ideas on why she might be immune, he can contact me.”

  “Did he talk your ear off?” Autumn asked. “I’ve never seen anybody talk as much as he does.”

  “No, he was fairly short and to the point,” Doune said.

  “You lucked out. Did you tell him about the zombie ants?” Autumn asked.

  “He said he already knew about the parasite,” Doune said. “They have a lab, so I’m not surprised.”

  “Zombie ants?” Lindsey asked.

  “The parasitic fungus that our parasite resembles normally lives in tropical forests,” Doune said. “It finds a host, usually a specific type of ant, and it sends spores into the ant’s body. The fungus will start to eat away at the soft tissue and will actually change the ant’s behavior. It’s not entirely clear how this is accomplished, but the ant will move to a certain position on a tree and bite into the vein of a leaf. At this time, the ant is still alive, but it has given over control of its body to the host, which will reinforce the body and use it to grow more of its kind.”

  “But the ants are still alive while they’re being controlled,” Lindsey pointed out, “and our parasite doesn’t leave the host in one place. I’m also guessing zombie ants don’t go around attacking and eating other ants, so what caused these changes? Did it mutate somehow?”

  “Definitely not,” Doune said. “O. unilateralis has probably been around for millions of years, and I seriously doubt that it suddenly changed this drastically. There are also similar parasites that affect caterpillars, snails and grasshoppers, but something that has been on earth for so long doesn’t just mutate overnight, especially this significantly. It had help. I know that a lot of studies were being done on this fungus, and I doubt that this research was just to learn more about the parasite. There was talk about medicinal use.”

  “Do you think that something went wrong while it was being researched?” Lindsey asked. “They made a mistake, and this was the result?”

  “Maybe,” Doune said, sounding skeptical. “I think it’s more likely that someone saw potential in a parasite that could take over a body and control it.”

  “As a weapon,” Lindsey said, a cold chill moving through her at the thought. “But who would do it?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.

  “I can think of a number of people or organizations that would kill for something like this,” Doune said, shrugging. “It could be any one of them.”

  “That’s sickening,” Lindsey said. “It’s bad enough to think that this could be some sort of pandemic that happened on its own, but the idea that it may have been engineered intentionally is unthinkable.”

  Doune said, “I wonder just how long it took to accomplish it. This parasite is much smaller than O. unilateralis. They look very similar, but this new organism is able to move freely in the bloodstream, multiplying at an alarming rate. It’s quite incredible.”

  “I’m surprised that Dr. Rayburn didn’t want to talk about it,” Autumn said. “He loves that kind of stuff.”

  “When I mentioned what I’ve learned about the parasite, he cut me off and began to ask more questions about the immune patient,” Doune said. “But this is the first hope we’ve had of a cure, so it’s understandable. The cure has to be the priority.”

  ~*~

  The hospital was in a state of semi-chaos as the rest of the moving and remodeling was finished. The second quarantine room was finally completed, and beds with restraints were moved in along with the equipment that Doune had requested. Blinds were put in the windows of what was now being called the high-risk quarantine room. Anybody who was forced to spend their final hours in the room would be able to do so in privacy.

  Because of the need for dorm rooms, it was decided to let some people take rooms on the west wing of the fifth floor since the patients were on the south wing. With rooms freed up on the 3rd and 4th floor, walls were knocked out, and three large dorm rooms were built, each meant to hold a dozen beds.

  In Doune’s lab, Autumn was still being watched. All of her blood tests had come back negative for the parasite, and Doune was certain that she was immune, but Jack wanted the girl watched for one more day. Autumn and Doune were happy to comply since they normally spent their days in the lab, anyway. Lindsey, on the other hand, was getting stir-crazy after being confined to the room for so long. She finally called down to Snake and asked for a break. Minutes later, Jack came up to take over for a while.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?” Lindsey asked him. “I know you’re busy.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” he said. “It’ll give me an excuse to sit for a while.”

  She thanked him and hurried outside where almost every available able-bodied person was working on the gabion wall that was being built around the park. The physical labor was difficult, but it felt good to her to be working muscles that had been idle for the previous couple of days. It was also a beautiful day, and she was enjoying the light breeze and the sound of the birds, though there was also the ever-present moaning of the dead.

  Inside the wall of cars, large wire cages were being built and filled with rubble from the demolished buildings. Once filled, the tops were wired shut. The wall would be eight feet high when it was done and would give the hospital’s residents a safe place where they could spend time outside.

  Lindsey was working with Wombat, and they were deep in conversation when the sound of a helicopter filled the air. She saw the smile drop off Wombat’s face as he looked up toward the roof of the hospital.

  “That might be Lee,” she said, wiping dirt off her hands.

  “Back to try to steal you away from us?” he asked, resting on his shovel as he regarded her.

  There was something in his eyes that made Lindsey pause.

  “You don’t like him, do you?” she asked.

  Wombat shrugged. “I don’t even know the guy, so I guess I can’t say that I don’t like him. I just don’t want him taking you away.”

  She smiled at him and said, “And give up all this fun? Not a chance. I guess I’d better get up there.”

  She leaned her shovel against a tree and turned to go.

  “Lindsey, wait . . .” he started, but when she glanced at the helicopter again, he said, “Never mind.”

  “I’ll be back in a while,” she promised.

  Wombat watched her
for a few moments then went back to work, throwing himself into his shoveling.

  ~*~

  Malibu, California

  “You gave them my Sound of Music DVD?” Rayburn asked, looking stunned. “Why that one? That’s one of my favorites. I had a whole pile of movies on the desk, and you gave them my favorite?”

  “How could I have known it was your favorite?” Hixson asked, holding Petrov’s DVD in his hand. He’d just copied it to a couple of thumb drives they’d found in a desk. He gave one to Rayburn and told him not to lose it.

  “Well, you should have asked me,” Rayburn said, stuffing the thumb drive into his pocket.

  “No, you’ll lose it there,” Hixson said. He found two zip-lock bags and put the thumb drives inside them then put them into the backpacks.

  “It’s in that little zipper compartment toward the back, but I’m sure you’ll forget that,” Hixson said.

  “Not now that you told me, I won’t,” Rayburn replied. “I’m an auditory learner. I remember things that I hear.”

  “Not me,” Hixson said. “I tend to zone out when I’m listening to something, unless I find it interesting.”

  “That explains that vacant look you get when I talk.”

  “Some of what you have to say is actually interesting. You just talk a lot. Did you ever get in trouble for it when you were in school?”

  “Once in a while, but mostly I . . . hey, did you just change the subject on me? We were talking about The Sound of Music.”

  “Can we just drop it?” Hixson asked, his frustration starting to show.

  “Fine,” George said, crossing his arms. “But you owe me a copy of . . .”

  “Yeah, I get it! If we find a movie store, I’ll get you a damn copy of The Sound of Music, okay?”