Pestilence: A Medical Thriller

by Victor Methos

  But humans were social animals, and Sam was even aware of studies in which psychosis ensued after prolonged periods of isolation. She had once spent three weeks by herself in the Sahara after her guide had caught malaria and died. She remembered the madness encroaching like a dark cloud that she could see but couldn’t walk away from. It drifted toward her slowly at first, and within two weeks, she was mumbling aloud to herself. The first time she became aware of it, she stopped. But by the second time, she didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore. In fact, in some odd way, speaking to herself was comforting.

  By the time another guided party happened by and found her, she was having conversations with herself, and learning to stop took several weeks.

  Taking up the syringe, she examined the semi-golden fluid within. She tapped it twice to push the bubbles to the top and then placed some pressure on the bottom of the syringe to pop them. Unlike the vast majority of the world’s population, she had once been vaccinated for smallpox—before going out into the field. Thinking back, she wondered if that was why she hadn’t become infected with Agent X and her old boss, Dr. Ralph Wilson, had. He was a lab worker, not a field worker, and there wouldn’t have been a need to vaccinate him.

  The chimpanzee she had immunized with smallpox a week ago had grown ill, but he’d survived and was strong. She then injected it with Agent X, and it had survived. The poxvirus wasn’t genetically dissimilar enough to prevent a powerful immune response to Agent X. The vaccine had worked once… and it needed a human subject.

  She blotted alcohol on her left bicep and then lifted the syringe. It touched the tip of her skin, but before she could push it in, a hand violently jerked it away. Chon stood there, gawking at her. He took the syringe and capped it.

  “Come with me.”

  Samantha followed him up to the BS4 labs, where they suited up. Mongo, the chimp she had injected with smallpox, lay on his side, twitching. Blood pooled around him and was leaking from every orifice in his body. As was also displayed in the human victims, his organs had liquefied and were coming out in thick strands with his feces. Unable to control his bowel movements, he was coated in bloody flesh.

  “He didn’t display any symptoms,” she said.

  “Not at first. I took a sample of his blood.”

  “And?”

  “The poxvirus mutated again. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. But it sensed the vaccine, and it mutated.”

  Samantha knew of only one other virus that could have had such an ability: influenza. The common flu virus was the most adaptable life form on the planet and could almost sense its own destruction. That was why vaccines had to be given every year instead of once in a lifetime: it simply mutated too quickly. But even the flu couldn’t mutate within a host after injection of a vaccine.

  “Damn,” she muttered. She began pacing. “This is the key, Ngo. There has to be some way to slow the mutation.”

  “How?”

  She thought of graduate school. She remembered an experiment in which they slowed ants with liquid nitrogen. When they thawed, they would pick up exactly where they had left off. If they were heading for a piece of food, they would continue there. If they were retreating, that’s what they would continue doing.

  “What if we could slow the mutation with liquid nitrogen? After immunization with poxvirus, we could slow Agent X before injection. Maybe that would give the body enough time to come up with antibodies before the next mutation?”

  Ngo thought it over. “I love it. I’ll get the LN. We have some in Lab Two.”

  Samantha bent down in front of Mongo. She placed her thickly gloved hand over his head, and he didn’t have the strength to respond. Instead, he whimpered and closed his eyes.

  67

  Tommy Metheny stood in line outside for his portion of the rations. The San Antonio heat pounded down on his head so fiercely that he kept having to mop his face with the back of his arm. The grocery stores had been wiped clean. He’d gone that morning, and nothing was left, not even batteries. The employees had abandoned the store, and the big chains had given up, too. The only ones still left were the mom-and-pop stores, and the owners guarded their inventory with shotguns and pistols.

  One of his neighbors had been robbed overnight. He called the police, but no one came. The police, he’d heard, couldn’t go out on calls anymore. Tommy didn’t understand why some fucking terrorist attack in Manhattan and LA had to affect him. Those places were in different worlds. Let them worry about it. Wasn’t that what he paid his taxes for? Instead, he was out there in hundred-degree heat just to get a few military rations so he could feed his wife and kids.

  The soldiers had taken over an old rec center, and he stood by the entrance. Four hours, he’d waited, and as he approached, a woman in a uniform stepped out of the building. She had a cold, determined look on her face. The kind that was meant to deliver bad news and give the impression that she didn’t give a shit that she was the one delivering it.

  “We’re sorry,” she bellowed, “but that’s all the rations we will be handing out today.”

  She continued to speak, but no one heard her. The crowd was in an uproar. Tommy was yelling, too.

  “This what I pay my fucking taxes for, huh? This what I paid ’em for twenty years for?”

  The shouting grew more intense and someone Tommy couldn’t see tried to push the woman out of the way of the entrance and go inside. The woman was young, probably inexperienced, and not well trained. She should have locked the doors and gone for help. But she went for the pistol holstered at her side. One of the men in line swung at her, a wide haymaker that connected to her jaw. The blow was so hard, Tommy heard the pop of her jaw as she fell back and hit her head on the cement.

  The crowd rushed in through the doors, ripping the remaining rations from the arms of the young soldiers. Only three of them had been stationed there. Tommy was unclear which one did it first, but at some point, they removed their semi-automatic rifles, and opened fire on the crowd.

  Tommy ran out of the rec center, holding four ration containers. The pop of gunfire followed him, and off in the distance, a military truck was speeding toward them. He had no plans on sticking around for that.

  As he turned to go to his car, a rumbling tore through the air. The sound was so deep and forceful that he felt the vibration in his bones, as if he’d been holding a powerful jackhammer that hit something unbreakable.

  The crowds were quieted and stood still. Even the military vehicle had stopped. Tommy saw that everyone’s faces were turned to the sky. An eerie feeling gave him shivers. People had been ready to tear each other’s throats out one second, and the next, they stopped and gazed up. He almost didn’t want to know what would make them do that.

  A shadow moved over him, and he turned, looked up to the blue sky… and screamed.

  Scourge, Book III in the Plague Trilogy, coming Spring 2014

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  BY VICTOR METHOS

  Plague Trilogy

  Plague (A Medical Thriller)

  Pestilence

  Scourge (Coming February 2014)

  Thrillers

  Diary of an Assassin

  Black Sky (A Mystery-Thriller)

  Murder Corporation (A Crime Thriller)

  Superhero Thrillers

  Superhero (An Action Thriller)

  Black Onyx

  Blac
k Onyx Reloaded

  Jon Stanton Thrillers

  The White Angel Murder

  Walk in Darkness

  Sin City Homicide

  Arsonist

  The Porn Star Murders

  Sociopath

  Creature-Feature Novels

  The Extinct

  Sea Creature

  Paranormal Thrillers

  Dracula (A Modern Telling)

  Savage: A Novel

  Science Fiction & Fantasy

  Clone Hunter

  Star Dreamer: The Early Science Fiction of Victor Methos

  Empire of War

  Humor

  Earl Lindquist: Accountant and Zombie Killer

  Philosophical Fiction

  Existentialism and Death on a Paris Afternoon

  To contact the author, learn about his latest adventures, get tips on starting your own adventures, or learn about upcoming releases, please visit the author’s blog at http://methosreview.blogspot.com/

  Copyright 2013 Victor Methos

  Kindle Edition

  License Statement

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy.

  Please note that this is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All events in this work are purely from the imagination of the author and are not intended to signify, represent, or reenact any event in actual fact.