Wild Meat

by Newton, Nero

  “Did all those people come to hear Sanderson’s line of bullshit?” Amy said.

  The line of vehicles rounded one more bend and passed out of sight.

  “We should leave the guns here,” Stephen said, “in case there’s a checkpoint or something.”

  “The ammo, too.” Amy said.

  They took all the spare ammo from the car, wiped down the boxes, and buried them under mounds of rocks. They took apart the guns, wiped down all the surfaces they could reach, including each individual round in each magazine, before covering the weapons with more rocks. Then they slid down the embankment and ran to the Camry. Driving down the road, they heard a helicopter coming closer, louder, but it never moved into their line of sight.

  Stephen said, “So, what do you think about some kind of disease breaking out here?”

  “I think it’s no more an outbreak than what’s happening to the pets around my neighborhood,” Amy said. “I think Sanderson’s v-chimps got out of their pens almost as soon as they were moved here, and now people in the little hamlets just outside the national forest are suddenly acting crazy and getting skin rashes and everything else. Just like they did in the logging camp. People getting scratched and bitten by wild animals.”

  “Sounds about right,” Stephen said. “And depending on how much the animals have been able to feed lately, some of them might have gone into starvation mode. They may have drained and killed a few people.”

  They heard a loudspeaker barking away somewhere, too distant and muffled for them to make out the words.

  “Do you think they’re still telling people to get out?” Stephen asked, “or are they already telling people they can’t leave?”

  “Damn. I hadn’t thought of that.” She sped up. “We probably blew too much time stashing the guns.”

  Fifteen minutes later, she stopped the car, got out and crouched down.

  She said, “I think we can see the turnoff to the state highway from the drop-off at the side of the road. But keep low. Get down and crawl. I mean literally crawl – on your elbows and toes.”

  Lying on their stomachs at the cliff’s edge, looking across a small valley, they could see that their road ended about a mile further on. The entrance to the country highway was now guarded by police in white protective clothing. There were sheriffs, state police, and some big, ungainly vehicle with a logo they could not make out.

  The sheriff’s SUV was pulled across the end of the road, so that no one would try and rush through the barrier.

  “I think we are in for the duration,” Stephen said. “I don’t suppose we want to go down there and have to answer a bunch of questions, do we?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Sanderson did look in my direction when you were climbing up toward me,” Stephen said. “I’m thinking there’s a slight but real chance that he saw the gun in my hand, in which case he’s probably telling someone about it right now.”

  “And he stared at me as if he knew who I was. If we were to get detained down there, and if they believed Sanderson’s story, they might send someone in to scour that hillside for our guns.”

  “So let’s go all the way in. To the sanctuary.”

  “What about helicopters?” Amy said. “They’ll see us.”

  “We should head back to that stand of scrub oaks we passed a little way back. Stay under cover until dark. I’ll pull the fuses for all the car lights and we’ll go high into the hills. No headlights, brake lights, nothing. If they have some kind of night-vision gear in the choppers, we’re out of luck, but we can’t just stay here. We’re way too close to the entrance, and this road’ll be busy.”

  They managed to get off the road and well into the stand of gnarled little trees. There were tall bushes there, too, and from these they furiously broke off branches to pile on top of the car. Soon the Camry was fully hidden from the air.

  From an all-news radio station, they learned that the national forest and surrounding areas were under a quarantine that had entered a lockdown phase. The nature of the disease being contained had not been made public, but authorities confirmed that two people had died and at least ten others had shown signs of sudden illness and were under treatment. A mobile lab and clinic was standing by at the perimeter of the quarantine area in case anyone else inside the restricted zone reported symptoms.

  Campers in the public parks had been evacuated and were being kept under observation at an unnamed medical facility, as were the personnel from the wildlife sanctuary. The animals at the chimp sanctuary had been airlifted out and were also being observed and blood-tested in isolation.

  “They probably think the disease came from the chimps,” Amy said, “since Sanderson brought some new ones from overloaded sanctuaries in Africa.”

  Hikers who had been on the trails, or otherwise unreachable during the evacuation, were instructed to report to checkpoints at the perimeter of the quarantine area so they could be escorted to medical facilities for treatment and observation. Residents of small villages would be permitted to continue living at home, but were required to report to the checkpoints to register, get blood tests, and provide proof of their residency inside the quarantine area.

  The Federal Emergency Management Agency, hence Homeland Security, was providing support to state and local law enforcement. Failure to comply with instructions, as well as unauthorized entry into the quarantine area, would be treated as federal crimes. Violators would be subject to criminal penalties and could be detained for as long as the matter was being investigated.

  “There will probably be a few people in those villages who think what’s happening is some kind of evil government takeover,” Amy said. “There always are. Ruby-Ridge types who think every government program is a plot to put a mind-control chip into their brains. I bet there will be people who refuse to register at the checkpoint down there.”

  “How big are the villages?” Stephen asked.

  “Tiny. Just little clusters of houses that were built before the state parks were established, but there are at least a dozen of them. There might be over a hundred people living up here. There used to be a lot of Commie-fearing survivalist types out here back in the fifties. The kind of people that built elaborate bomb shelters and things like that.”

  She fished in a grocery bag, pulled out a couple of apples and handed one to Stephen.

  “If we’re stuck here for days and days,” she said, “we’ll have to find food eventually. And water. We’ve only got a few bottles in the trunk.”

  “That leads us to another problem,” Stephen said. “Whenever we do any moving around, it has to be at night, but assuming we’re right about this ‘outbreak,’ there’ll be some hungry v-chimps out and about after dark.”

  “The radio said the chimp sanctuary was evacuated,” Amy said. “If we can make it that far, there’s probably running water. We can fill up whatever containers we find. There might even be a store of food.”

  “We’ll need to get in and out of the sanctuary before a medical team comes along and decides to make it their base of operations,” Stephen said. “We might want to just stock up the trunk and then head high into the hills before the sun comes up. It’s tall pine forest up there. We should manage to stay under cover for a while.”

  “Stop and pick up the guns on the way?” she suggested.

  “Definitely.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  A waning moon would be rising later, after midnight, but until then Amy and Stephen had to make it up to the chimp sanctuary with only the help of faint starlight. They had disabled all of the car lights, inside and out. Stephen was at the wheel.

  A sign with the sanctuary’s old name, Imperial Rainforest, told them they were only three miles from their destination.

  “I wonder if the investigators will catch native animals and test them, too,” Stephen said. “To find out if the fever’s spread.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Amy said. “They’ll be looking for vectors like ticks an
d fleas and mites that might have come in on the chimps from Africa. They’ll be inspecting every gram of animal turd in these mountains, looking for worms and parasite eggs, nematodes and trematodes. It’ll be one more big research project that turns up a blank. They’ll find symptoms, though, as long as the loose v-chimps are feeding.”

  “What animals live up here?” Stephen asked. Even in the dark night, he could see that the vegetation was getting taller as they ascended. Against the faint lightness of the sky he could see the shapes of pines.

  “Tons of stuff. Coyotes, kangaroo rats, tree-frogs, all kinds of toads.”

  “Many bear?”

  “Plenty of bear. Other big stuff, too. Mountain lions, deer, big-horn sheep…. I wonder if the v-chimps will eventually just feed on them, and stay away from people.”

  “Only if they’re desperate,” Stephen said. “There are plenty of big animals in the Carpathians, but the blood rats still focused on humans. Their first impulse was probably to stick with higher primates. Highly social, big enough not to drain in one feeding, but not too big to intoxicate with one good spraying.”

  Forty minutes later, they saw lights far off to the left, moving with them as they rolled onward. An upcoming curve told him they would be facing the source of the light in a moment.

  “Looks like lit up windows,” Stephen said. “I think that’s the main sanctuary building.”

  The last two hundred yards of the road were covered with gravel, as was the parking lot they came to after rounding the next bend. The lot contained a small handful of cars and SUVs, plus one smallish RV. On the far side of the lot was a big Quonset hut. The side facing them had three large, square windows, all of them lit from within. They pulled up next to a van that was right behind the RV.

  “You suppose they let some of the vets stay here?” Amy said. “Or somebody who takes care of the chimps?”

  “The radio said they moved all the people and animals out. But the report could have been wrong. The authorities are probably being stingy with information, and the press has to wing it.”

  An awful thought hit Amy. “Or they’ve already got a research team up here. Maybe it’s too late for us to loot the place before we head up to the tall pines.”

  “I guess we just wait and watch that window. I doubt they’ll notice the extra car in the lot, even if they look outside.”

  They each promised to keep watch if the other fell asleep, but it didn’t happen. They were both out cold within an hour.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The sun was bright but still low when Amy awoke in the passenger seat and heard footfalls crunching on the gravel. She turned to see a young man in a black t-shirt stepping up to the driver’s side from behind, aiming a rifle at Stephen’s sleeping head. Reddish razor stubble covered the stranger’s face and his long blond hair was matted. He held the gun high, aiming carefully, like a cop approaching a dangerous suspect.

  Noticing that Amy was awake, he swung the barrel in her direction and called out for her to put her hands on the dashboard. Keeping the rifle trained on her, he came to her side and motioned for her to open the door. She complied.

  “Come on out, now. Slowly, with your arms out here towards me. Don’t be reaching behind you.”

  Amy realized that both handguns were easily visible in the open compartment between the front seats. She got out and stood on stiff legs.

  “Go around to the driver’s side, open the door and step back.”

  The guy stayed a couple of yards behind her while she carried out his instructions. She tried to keep Stephen from tumbling out of the car, but lost her grip on his arm. He woke up on the ground, yelping because he’d fallen right onto his broken hand.

  Stephen held the injured left hand close to his body, cradling it with his right. It must have looked like he was concealing something, because the gunman swung the rifle his way and shouted, “What’s in your hand?”

  “Nothing,” Amy said quickly. “It’s in a cast. Show him, Steve.”

  Stephen only now seemed to notice that they had company, and that it was not altogether friendly. Still sitting on the ground, he leaned back against the car, looked up at Amy and the newcomer, then held his cast in the air. He turned it to show all sides.

  “You two with Top Gun Security?” the gunman asked.

  “Not even close,” Amy said.

  “How come you’ve got guns?”

  “We took them off someone who tried to kill us,” Stephen said. “And we brought them here in case someone tries to kill us again.”

  The young man regarded them silently for a moment, his brow knitted.

  “You work here?” Stephen asked.

  “Part time,” the gunman said. He hesitated a long moment before saying more. “I’m kind of a paid intern. Lately I’ve been driving a truck more than anything else, bringing in equipment and materials. But I work with the animals, too. Night before last, I got here with a passenger, a new vet they hired. And he’s dead now.” He didn’t lower the rifle.

  “Did he die from the disease they’re trying to contain?” Amy said.

  “Oh, I think you know the answer to that.” His voice was bristling with anger now. “You came here armed, in violation of a federally imposed quarantine, and I can’t think of any reason why you’d do that unless you knew exactly what was going on here.”

  Amy was trying to decide whether to begin telling this man their long and improbable story when she saw something that froze her. Her vision faded as though all the blood had rushed out of her head, and terror went through her like a powerful and painful electric shock.

  A chimp at least as big as the one that had attacked and beaten her on the logging road was charging out of the brush at the edge of the parking lot.

  She heard Stephen shout, “Look out,” saw the gunman turn at the sound of the chimp scraping the gravel, and a second later the man was on his back, with the ape on top of him.

  Stephen lunged forward, easily pried the rifle from the man’s hand, then got to his feet and stepped back.

  Then the chimp was up again, standing on two legs directly in front of Stephen and looking him in the face.

  Amy managed to say, “Stephen, get in the car. You don’t realize how—”

  “I don’t think this one’s dangerous,” Stephen said.

  “He’s not,” the ex-gunman said. “Don’t hurt him. That’s just my buddy Olaf. He’s been missing for a day and a half.”

  “He just slammed you onto the ground,” Amy said. “Steve, shoot it if you have to.”

  “No!” the man on the ground shouted. “This was just his way of saying hello. He didn’t injure me. Please don’t hurt him.”

  Olaf galloped in a big circle, did a wobbly somersault, then trotted over to stand in front of Amy, his face within a couple inches of hers.

  The former gunman still lay on his back, looking at the sky as he spoke, apparently seeing no reason to get up. His voice was calm and he sounded tired. “One of the keepers went out of her head, completely insane, with no warning. She let three chimps out of their enclosure. I found the other two dead, and I still think you know what killed them.”

  Olaf brushed Amy’s shoulder with the back of his hand, then dropped down and began playing with her bootlaces.

  “What killed them,” the former gunman said, “was the other kind of chimp.” Now he rolled his head to look at his visitors, watching their reactions. “The ones that look like chimps for a minute or two but aren’t really.” He pointed to Amy’s neck. “Looks like you might have had a run-in with one of them yourself not long ago.”

  Stephen moved in front of the car and stood holding the rifle by the end of the barrel, slung over his shoulder. From this distance, he introduced himself. The young man sat up and said his name was Brandon.

  Amy stepped away from Olaf, retrieved the handguns from the car, and gave Stephen the one from the big basement.

  “How come your first question was whether we were with Top Gun?” Steph
en asked. “Wouldn’t you be more likely to get a visit from the health department, or someone like that?”

  “I knew they weren’t coming yet,” Brandon said. “I’ve been on the phone with them on and off for the past day and a half. Tony, the vet who caught the ride with me, he was the one who reported the outbreak, or what he thought was an outbreak. I was in La-La Land myself when he made the call. The reason I’m still here now is because when they came to clear everyone out of the park, Tony and I were out of sight, holed up in a couple of closets.”

  “Holed up?” Amy said, although she thought she understood.

  “We slept right through the evacuation yesterday,” Brandon said, “and when we woke up, it was too late to leave the quarantine area. I’ve been talking to the authorities by phone. They’ll be coming up here by and by. They’ve already got both live and dead staff members to examine in their labs.”

  He offered to explain more over breakfast, and motioned for them to come inside with him. Olaf trailed along behind as they followed a paved walkway leading to the door of the Quonset hut.

  “Little detour,” Brandon said. He turned off the walkway and headed across an expanse of hard, dry dirt where clumps of wild grass grew.

  “This is one thing I haven’t mentioned during my phone conversations with the health department,” he said.

  Ten yards further along, under a towering evergreen, they saw a dark mass on the ground up ahead. Amy knew what it was even from a distance.

  “I shot this one,” Brandon said. “But it was too late to help Tony. That’s him over there.” He pointed to another, larger mound, covered with several layers of plastic sheet that were pinned to the ground with what looked like the broken handles of garden tools. “When I reported him dead, they told me to stay away from the body. But I couldn’t just leave him there all exposed. I only knew him for about twenty-four hours, but it still would’ve driven me crazy to have to see him lying there.”