The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2018 by Raymond A. Villareal
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ISBN 978-0-316-56165-5
E3-20180503-NF-DA
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword
New York Post
Chapter 1
Boston Herald
Chapter 2
People magazine
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Rolling Stone
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
TMZ
Chapter 8
Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm)
Chapter 9
Harvard Theological Review
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
MommyBlogsGalore.com
Chapter 12
New York Times
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
FBI
Huffington Post
Chapter 21
Psychiatric assessment
Chapter 22
The Sun
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Appendix One
Appendix Two
Appendix Three
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Newsletters
For Mom and Dad
“The only hope for the doomed,
is no hope at all…”
―Virgil, The Aeneid
Foreword
When I was approached to compile a recent history of the Gloamings and their entrance into society, I initially thought, Too soon. Events continue to change at a rapid pace. But it’s exactly these changing conditions—we are still trying to figure out how we got here—that caused me to realize: now is the perfect time to compile the beginning, middle, and…if not the end, then that place that occupied the in medias res of our current conflicts.
Some historians may consider other, more eminent or notorious individuals than the ones I’ve documented here—but I believe the individuals in this text affected the course of events most profoundly. In fact, I view those other accounts of this period with suspicion. Their research is negligent at best, their prose too concerned with the salacious details of irrelevant events.
This book is also for the martyrs who sacrificed their lives to the cause—no matter what side. Other historians have attempted to subvert these deaths to their own cause. It is ironic that the Gloamings’ emergence occurred during what was generally considered our empire’s finest days—“Un grand destin commence, un grand destin s’acheve,” as Corneille stated of the Roman Empire. Those other historians labor under this misconception.
Not I. I decline.
In spite of the great personal sacrifice, I have labored to be impartial. I have been threatened and attacked during my research for this book. As a result, and after frequent hospitalization, my quality of life has been severely, negatively affected. Yet I pass no judgments on those responsible. These pages are compiled for everyone: those who lived through this time, and those who did not survive.
I hope, reader, that they give you meaningful perspective.
[REDACTED SIGNATURE]
April 22
New York Post—March 131: Last night, the home of wealthy trial attorney John Hatcher in the Flatiron District was robbed by three unknown persons. The house was empty while Mr. Hatcher attended a performance of “Nixon in China.” The thieves stole an undetermined amount of gold rumored to comprise a worth of more than $10 million. Sources with the New York City regional office of the FBI indicate Mr. Hatcher’s extensive and professional surveillance system was not sabotaged, yet the video was not usable to authorities. A spokesman for the FBI stated that the Agency has no current suspects but the investigation continues.
1 Page 3, Metro section.
Chapter 1
May 15, Origin
Day One of the NOBI Discovery
Dr. Lauren Scott
Research Physician, Centers for Disease Control
“Let the dead bury their own dead.” That’s what my dad used to say, when faced with a losing proposition. Of course the blood, which dominated so much discussion during the time of this investigation, was heavily on my mind as well. Strange to admit as a doctor, but since birth I’ve been terrified at the sight of blood. Have you ever seen a bird fly straight into a window and drop to the ground? Kind of like that. As a kid, my heart rate and blood pressure would drop suddenly, and bam! The darkness descended, lights out. I would wake up on my back.
Then, when I was fifteen, a new doctor kindly told me about applied tension, where you tense the muscles in the legs, torso, and arms, raising the blood pressure to the head, thereby counteracting the response to pass out. It was ingenious. I spent years working on the response—tensing all these muscles until it was second nature—since I needed to be able to handle the sight of blood. Even as a child, I already wanted to be a doctor.
I know every doctor says that. But it’s true. My dad fixed refrigerators for a living and I often tagged along during the summer. I was fascinated by the spectacle of him carefully taking apart the back cover to expose the innards of the refrigerator’s engine. He pulled the wires from the adapter and condenser, stripping them with the care of a surgeon. He burned the soldering metal to clean and replace the shattered cords. Even in a bird’s nest of wires, my dad knew exactly which ones to pull out and fix. I considered him a refrigerator doctor, and I daydreamed he was performing surgery on old robots. I wanted to be a doctor like my dad—but to fix humans, not refrigerators.
My mom was similarly precise, although in a decidedly less productive style. She would maniacally rearrange all desk and home objects to get them in order! Between the two of them, I grew up with an e
xtremely disciplined personality, well suited for a medical occupation. My younger sister, Jennifer, was the exact opposite. By the time she was twelve, Jennifer had run away from home more than ten times. But it wasn’t running away to leave home; it was more leaving home to go to the lake or a concert or even the mall. After a while, my parents realized Jenny just wanted to experience life. “Tell us where you want to go next time,” my dad yelled at her the time she vanished for three days to go hiking. “I’ll drive you there myself.” To his credit, until she got her driver’s license—an epic battle in and of itself—he often did.
In medical school I soon realized anything too invasive led to an audience with blood. That led me to a concentration in virology. The first time I became aware of the…the disease, I had just started at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC].
The CDC is a government agency whose goal is to protect public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease, injury, and disability. I had recently graduated from medical school with the intention of becoming a research physician. After my residency, the CDC came to my university to speak about the procedures involved when doctors are confronted with new and unusual symptoms out in the field. I was fascinated by the deductive reasoning involved—like being a detective searching for microbes and living cells. My background in research, plus my experience working in a biosafety level three lab with pathogen and lethal agents, made my résumé a natural fit for the agency. By then, too, I had internships with the World Health Organization in various third world countries, mostly in West Africa. So it was an ideal first job.
Young and inexperienced in the ranks, I was usually sent to cover not-so-dangerous health alerts around the country. Which is why on April second, when we received a strange but vague report from Nogales, Arizona, my older colleagues didn’t even blink. It seemed even less than routine.
So the CDC sent me.
The request from Arizona was slightly more expedited than usual because Nogales is a border town, and, well, you never know what you’re getting so close to another country. Of course, that was also the week of the solar flare panic, which only added to the tension. Unusual solar flares had been causing disruptions with satellite transmissions, radio signals, and transformer blowouts in the power grid. I mean, it wasn’t as bad as the cable networks made it seem—watching Fox News or CNN, you’d think the entire world had gone dark, when really the country was just experiencing some blinks with some Internet service and GPS providers. My sister Jennifer and I, who texted often, resolved to stay in touch despite the Internet troubles. We took to sending each other the cheesiest postcards we could find—preferably one bought from a gas station or restaurant. But it was enough that, en route to Arizona, I didn’t have much to go on other than a few phone calls with officials in Nogales to discuss the incidents.
I arrived on a scorching Tuesday afternoon, hot air slapping my face as I left the airport to look for a taxi. My contact in Nogales was Dr. Hector Gomez, head of the city’s health department and also its coroner—and we agreed to meet at the coroner’s office complex so that I could view the bodies in question. I lugged three suitcases, two of them holding my equipment, including my hazmat suit and other protective gear. CDC rules stipulated that an investigator conducting an initial on-site review should procure a fully encapsulating chemical-resistant suit. I considered bringing a self-contained breathing apparatus with a level A suit, but I figured that might be overkill. It was also heavy as hell.
The coroner’s office was a small modular office with greenish drab colors, utilitarian furniture, and cheap leaded paint. In the small lobby, I saw a young man who I assumed to be Dr. Gomez, and another man in a police uniform, nervously awaiting my arrival.
I held out my hand, trying to sound older and more experienced than I felt. “Hi, I’m Lauren Scott.”
The man with the dark bushy mustache over pursed lips took my hand. “Dr. Gomez. Pleased to meet you, Dr. Scott. I’m glad you’re finally here. This is Sheriff Wilson.”
The tall figure in the uniform tipped his cowboy hat. The fixed gaze on his lined face told me he was ready to get down to business. “Pleasure.”
“Nice to meet both of you,” I replied. “And please, call me Lauren.”
“We should get started immediately,” Dr. Gomez said as he fidgeted with the small notebook in his right hand. Almost as if he were tempted to take notes on our conversation. “Let’s go to the morgue and we can review our notes and the body.”
I followed them through a long hallway, then down a flight of stairs to the basement. It smelled like formaldehyde and alcohol, and there were fluorescent lights that blinked in the freezing temperature. It was hard not to crack a joke or run away; this old building looked like a scene right out of a TV show. I saw a body already lying on the slab, covered with a green sheet. As Dr. Gomez lifted the sheet, I briefly wondered if I should be wearing a suit or at least protective headgear. I was still new and obsessed with not catching any disease I encountered, unlike the older grizzled veterans who showed up to hot zones with barely any gloves, much less a protective suit.
I stepped closer to the body and noticed there did not appear to be any obvious signs of trauma.
“How long has the body been here?” I asked.
Dr. Gomez paused and glanced at the sheriff with his bottom lip sticking out in a scowl. “Twenty-four hours.”
I should have called for help right then, but I simply turned to Gomez, surprised. “You called three days ago about a body exhibiting unusual hemophilia bruising and intradermal contusions over ninety percent of the body. I thought this was that body. I need to see the other body.”
Sheriff Wilson and Dr. Gomez exchanged another agonized glance. “That body is not here anymore.”
I stared at them for a moment and I’m pretty sure my mouth was open. “What do you mean?”
“Apparently it was stolen from the morgue,” Sheriff Wilson answered, a pained look on his face. “We’re still investigating. Frankly, we have no idea how it got out, or who in their right mind would want to steal it. I hope it’s some damn college students looking for a prank.”
“Oh,” I said. I pointed at the body on the slab. “So who is this?”
“This is another body we found at the ravine, which exhibited the identical intradermal bruising over the torso as the previous one,” Dr. Gomez replied.
I leaned over the body. Incisions had been made already on the scalp. I glanced over at Dr. Gomez.
“We sort of felt that we needed to get a jump on everything,” he said. “But then we thought better of it and stopped. Sorry.”
“That’s really not what I anticipated when I emailed the protocol.” I was pissed, but what could I do? I moved on to the external examination. This would have to be a cursory exam for the moment. I placed my iPhone on a small table and clicked on the recording app.
“No obvious signs of trauma that would indicate the cause of death. Appears to be a woman in her thirties in moderate shape. One hundred and forty-five pounds. No distinguishing marks or tattoos. Turning the head of the body I see two circular wounds—openings—of equal-millimeter diameter—maybe a bite—close to the carotid artery and extending an undetermined length into the skin.”
I leaned closer and smelled something faint. A floral scent? Sweet yet strangely not pleasing. Cheap perfume, most likely. I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand. The scent lingered far longer than I was comfortable with. I continued.
“A dissection would need to be performed. However, a cursory glance doesn’t seem to indicate that this would be the cause of death unless a poison was injected. But the wounds do resemble teeth marks at first glance. However, they do not resemble any teeth wounds I am familiar with from either a human or other mammal. I am going to examine the body under magnification. No blood or tissue under the fingernails, although a swab will be performed for further testing. Teeth seem to be in good shape, but two top molars seem to be loose. Can�
��t speculate on that cause yet. An examination of the full body shows no signs of obvious trauma. A chemical analysis of hair and blood will need to be performed immediately. The eyes show no signs of hemangioma or petechial rash. The dissection and brain examination will proceed tomorrow morning.”
Dr. Gomez handed me the syringe. I took blood and saliva samples and placed them in the biohazard containers. I had some trouble extracting a usable amount of blood. A simple touch indicated that the body was unusually devoid. Premature coagulation, perhaps. “Where can I take these samples for a quick chemical analysis?”
“University of Arizona, Santa Cruz, has a small lab,” Dr. Gomez said. “I can get someone to drive it over tonight, and the lab techs there owe me. They can put in the rush. It won’t be as detailed but it’s a start.”
I stopped in the hallway and turned to the sheriff. “I’m wondering: did you rule out a human cause before calling me?” I asked. “I mean, like a murder or something.”
Sheriff Wilson nodded. “Sure, but the first body—the female—was dead. I mean, it had no vital signs. Then it gets up and leaves! Hector sent a sample of hair to the state crime lab and they told us there were some unidentifiable substances or some sort of thing and they wanted us to call our state board of health. We had to call someone. Someone federal. Hector here—I mean Dr. Gomez—thought we should call the CDC. Next on the list was the FBI.” He smiled. “We may still do that.”
“Thanks,” I said, still trying to gather all the ideas bouncing around in my mind. “I guess I’ll go back to my hotel room to settle in. Then let’s head out to the ravine where the bodies were found.”
Sheriff Wilson and Dr. Gomez just nodded as they each scratched the side of their faces.
I checked into a dingy La Quinta not too far from the Mexican border. There weren’t many choices in this town. I threw my bags on the bed and attempted to take a nap, even with the window-unit air conditioner growling like a busted muffler. I was going to have to be up for the results of the toxicology—hopefully sooner than later.
A People's History of the Vampire Uprising Page 1