Scourge - A Medical Thriller (The Plague Trilogy Book 3)

by Victor Methos

  He sat on the bank of the stream a long time. The sound of rushing water calmed him, soothed his nerves. Less than a year ago, he’d been working the oil fields near Vernal, Utah, twelve-hour days, six days a week in the hot desert sun, so burnt and drained of water even his eyeballs felt hot. The sound of water, no matter how long he was here, would always be a relief.

  The trees welcomed him when he finally rose and stumbled back to the village. Jungle heat wasn’t like desert heat. It had moisture in it, and there was always water around you. Had to be careful of the water, though. Someone from the village had been killed by a water snake a month ago. Pissing right into the river and the snake nabbed his ankle. Shot so much venom through him that his heart stopped before he even had a chance to call for help.

  As Gerald stopped at a tree, his head pounding from a migraine, the noise behind him rent the air. As clear as a jet engine in his ears, a scream emanated from the darkness.

  “Shit,” he mumbled, as he pushed off the tree and dashed for the village. “Shit, shit, shit.” He was the lookout tonight for the village, the first warning signal in case of an ip.

  The screams closed in around him from every side, a pack of wolves closing in on the injured deer. Gerald pumped his legs. The darkness of the jungle hid the predators well, but it also hid him from them. It’d take some time for them to just happen upon him. As long as he stayed quiet, there was a good chance he could make it back.

  The screams circled him. One even went in front about ten feet, and he saw a shadow run right by. Gerald dropped to the jungle floor, flat on his belly, and heard the rustling brush around him as they ran past, searching and screaming. He put his face in the dirt a second, quietly saying a prayer, then got to his knees, his feet, then burst into a full sprint.

  Breath seemed to be squeezed from his body. He sucked air through his mouth in huge gulps, hoping for just enough so he didn’t pass out before reaching the village and the safety of their guns.

  Coming out of the jungle, he saw the lamps hanging on the huts. They were welcoming beacons, and he thought he could die right there, he was so happy. He slowed down, not because he wanted to, but because his heart felt like it might explode. He got all the way to the first hut before the screams came out of the jungle.

  There were dozens of them, maybe hundreds, a full swarm. They rained down upon the village, their screams drawing people out of the huts. Gunshots began to ring. Gerald saw one woman, the nurse of the village, make a run for her hut where her two children slept. An ip, a Congolese man in fatigues, leapt into the air and landed on her with his full weight. He ripped into her face, tearing away her nose and an eyeball. Another man got tackled hard into the ground by three of them, the ips reaching into his stomach and removing organs while the man screamed.

  Gerald turned just as an ip bit down into his neck. He yelped in pain, trying to push the man away, but he was too strong. He had a frantic strength, like some Viking berserker. Gerald reached for the only thing he could, an oil lamp. He broke it over the ip’s head. The flames instantly engulfed both of them and the nearby hut.

  43

  The fire was visible from the jungle. There were no fire departments out here, no one rushing to quell the flames. Only the village and the surrounding brush.

  Sam stood next to Jason on the outskirts of the village, watching the devastation. She could see bodies from there, in the middle of the dirt street where the fire couldn’t reach. They could’ve died from smoke inhalation, but she didn’t think so. They’d gotten out. They could’ve run out of the town and would’ve been fine. Something else had killed them. And given the amount of blood that had poured from the bodies, she thought she knew what that something else was.

  They walked closer. More bodies were visible now, dozens of them, torn apart, but no screaming. The ips had moved on.

  The intense heat made Sam squint. She backed away, and Jason followed her.

  “I lost the blood samples,” she said. “They took them from me. I need to get some more from one of those bodies. Two vials’ worth.”

  Before Jason could respond, they heard a groan. Sam looked in that direction and saw Tristan on the ground. She was on her stomach, mumbling to herself. Jason ran over. He knelt down over her. Sam thought he would have a violent reaction, considering she’d tried to kill him, but he was gentle as he turned her onto her back. They saw two open wounds where her eyes should have been.

  Tristan screamed and clawed at him. Jason tried to calm her down, but she had lost it. Sam turned away from her and ran into the village.

  The first hut had been largely consumed, but the last was still up and relatively untouched. Sam dashed for it, covering her face with her arm. She got there quickly and ran inside. Fire ate up one of the walls and reached the ceiling. She grabbed two tin cups.

  When she got back, Tristan was hoarse from screaming. Jason had backed away and was standing over her, watching, his brow furrowed in helplessness.

  “What’re you doing?” he said.

  “We need blood.”

  “Hers?”

  “No, we’re going to take her with us. I’m going to get it from the bodies.”

  Jason looked down to Tristan, who was wildly clawing at the air. “We’re not taking her with us. She’s infected now.”

  “I’m not leaving her,” Sam said.

  “We have to.”

  Sam looked at him. “Jason, I’m not leaving her to die.”

  Jason exhaled and looked down at Tristan. He knelt, grabbed her head on both sides, and twisted her neck so that her face was almost planted into the ground. Sam could hear the crunch of sinew and bone.

  “She’s infected, Sam. There’s nothing else we can do.”

  Sam ran over and attempted to check her pulse. Jason had snapped her neck so harshly it had stopped her heart. Sam stood up. “That was unnecessary.”

  “No, it wasn’t. And the sooner you see that, the longer you’ll survive.” He took one of the cups from her. “I’ll get a cup from someone in the street. You get one from her. And then we need to get outta here.”

  After securing the cup of blood, Jason found an old pickup truck in one of the barns. It ran and had nearly a full tank of gas. The keys were hanging up on the wall next to it. He started the car. Before getting in, Sam wrapped the tops of the cups with large leaves and then tied cloth over the leaves so they wouldn’t spill.

  “You should know something,” Jason said as they sped down the road back to the city. “I didn’t want you to know. You had enough to worry about. But I think you need to know now. In Hank’s last phase, the final part of his plan, was drones. He’s put a drone over every major city in the world, filled with liquefied Variola. They’re gonna detonate at the same time, releasing the mists over the cities. Whatever people we have left right now, the drones will finish off. That’s why it’s so important for you to find a vaccine, why I was willing to come out here. If what he set up works, he’ll kill every person on the planet.” He glanced at her. “Every person who isn’t loyal to him, anyway.”

  44

  The drive seemed less rushed than everywhere else they had been. Sam watched the passing landscape. She looked at the moon and the stars. She stared at the jagged mountains against the sky in the distance, like black scales thrusting up from the ground. The two cups were secured at her feet, and she used her ankles to hold them in place. The entire notion of carrying cups of blood from the dead back to a lab revolted her, but she had no choice. This was the last thing she could think to do. After this, if she failed, she was powerless.

  “I need to get to the CDC labs,” she said.

  Jason shook his head. “No way. Atlanta’s nowhere near as secure as here.”

  “I need a BS4 lab and equipment that only two laboratories in the US have. One’s in Maryland, the other is the CDC in Atlanta.”

  He glanced at her. “What if I told you there was another lab?”

  “Where?”

  “Here. Braz
zaville.”

  “That’s impossible. Unless we’re talking about a rogue state like Iran or North Korea, the WHO has to sanction a BS4 lab. It requires years of observation and licensing, review by the UN and intelligence services… there’s no way a lab could just pop up under the radar.”

  “Well, it’s here. I’ll take you to it. The drones will detonate soon. We don’t have time to go to Atlanta.” He glanced at her again. “Your head’s bleeding.”

  She reached up and touched the side of her head and came away with a smear of blood.

  “How’d you get away?” she asked.

  “Those men weren’t desperate. I was. In a fight, the most desperate usually wins. Shame, though. Tristan and I spent time together. Hard to see someone you did that with die like that.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Just an old, old friend.”

  Sam wished she knew the time of day it was. It was still nearly black outside, so she guessed it wasn’t that long after midnight. She wished the sun would come up, but she also wished for sleep. Neither would be happening right now.

  She lay her head back and watched the trees on the sides of the road. “I used to be scared of forests and jungles. We had a forest near our house, and my brother would tell me monsters lived there. They were just waiting for me to pass by so they could grab me and eat me. They especially liked little girls, he said. They liked to hurt children.”

  “Most of the world hurts children.”

  “I didn’t know that at the time. I thought the only dangerous place was that forest. I didn’t realize the forest wasn’t trying to kill me. It was just doing what it did. Only humans tried to kill each other. Nature was indifferent.”

  “This virus doesn’t seem indifferent.”

  Sam stared off into space. “It’s easy to anthropomorphize, but ultimately it’s just like a tree or a star. It just exists the best way it knows how. And it didn’t try to extinguish our species, but we tried to extinguish it.”

  Jason reached over and gently placed his hand over hers. Neither of them moved, just sat quietly as the rhythm of the road lulled them to calmness.

  Once in Brazzaville, Samantha initially felt at ease. She was back in a city, surrounded by buildings and businesses and a sense of normality. But it only took a few minutes before the gnawing anxiety roared back. The businesses were closed and the buildings empty. Population centers didn’t really exist anymore.

  Brazzaville, even empty, maybe especially empty, had the feel of a big city but with a small-town soul. The businesses looked as though they dated back decades, if not centuries, small shops selling herbs and spells, a few bars with the lights still on but no one inside. They didn’t pass the red-light district, where allegedly tourists could purchase anything and anyone they desired, but Sam could see it as they crossed a bridge over a river.

  Once on the other side, Jason said, “It’s not far now.”

  Now that the adrenaline had waned, every muscle ached. Her head pounded with a coming migraine, and her fingers felt bloated and tight, as if she’d taken in too much salt. Her mouth was dry, and her tongue stuck to her teeth and the roof of her mouth as she moved it around.

  The building didn’t look like anything, just a three-story office building. The door had a large padlock, but no more security than that. Jason rolled to a stop in front of it. He stared at the building.

  “This is it.”

  “There’s a BS4 lab in there?”

  He nodded. “Fully equipped. Maybe more than the CDC.”

  “How?”

  “’Cause one hand in government doesn’t know what the other one is doing. Come on.”

  Sam stepped out of the car, the pain in her legs severe now that she’d rested. She stretched them and felt tightness in her back, something that pulled the rest of the muscles. She had possibly slipped a disc.

  They went up to the door. Jason lifted the lock. There was no keyhole. Instead, on the back was a series of buttons. He pressed them in a certain order, and the lock clicked open. Jason pushed open the door and they went inside.

  Sam stood in the front room as Jason locked the door. The place was decorated like a home, complete with photographs on the walls. Jason crossed to the kitchen, Sam following. He switched a light on. Another door, this one thicker than the front door, sat next to the pantry. It looked out of place, like it’d been put in there after the house had been built. Only when Jason entered another code on this lock and pulled the door open did Sam realize the door was made of steel and only coated with a layer of thin wood.

  Stone stairs led down into the dark. Jason flipped another switch, and the stairs lit up. Carefully, Sam followed him down.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she took in the large space. First there was a chain-link fence with another lock on it, which Jason opened. Past that were rows of computers, laboratory equipment, chemical-processing equipment, refrigerated storage units, and a separate room with spacesuits and biohazard gear, a complete BS4 laboratory.

  Just past the fence were another series of spacesuits and air hoses to create negative air pressure inside the lab. Jason opened the fence, and Sam stepped inside.

  The laboratory equipment was unused, fresh and polished, the spacesuits still smelling of new rubber. Everything she would need was here.

  “This place has never been used,” she said.

  “No.”

  She turned to him. “How can a fully functional BS4 lab be here?”

  “Beyond my pay grade,” Jason said dismissively. “Bedrooms are upstairs. Get some rest. We can start tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but I’m taking a shower.”

  “No,” she said, walking to the spacesuits. “I’m going to start now.”

  45

  An antibody titer test was the most accurate way to determine the level of antibodies in blood from a host that had been infected with a virus. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, or ELISA, used the antibodies and a simple color-change technique to determine the presence of a particular antigen.

  As Samantha performed the tests, she could only hear the soft hum of the sterile air pumping into her blue spacesuit. The equipment in the laboratory was identical to what was present at the CDC, just newer and more updated. If she’d had one assistant, she would not have been at a disadvantage here.

  She placed antigens from an Agent X sample on the surface of a growth dish. Then she applied an antibody derived from the blood they’d gathered from Tristan, allowing the antibodies to attach to the antigens. Finally, she bound a protein enzyme and a substrate of the enzyme, causing it to activate.

  Then she waited, unable to leave or even take her eyes away. The minutes ticked off as she stared down, and the color began to change.

  To her shock, she found that Tristan’s blood contained Agent X.

  She had been infected, but the virus had been fought to dormancy by her antibodies as though she had been vaccinated.

  She ran the blood of the other person and found the same thing. Both samples were infected with Agent X.

  A high-powered digital microscope sat on the counter near where she worked. She took the dish and placed it inside the microscope. A monitor above the microscope lit up with the antigen and antibodies. She had seen Agent X under the microscope dozens of times. It was nearly identical to the original strain of smallpox, an oval with an hourglass shape in the middle made up of genetic material. This wasn’t identical to smallpox, not really. The genetic material was too wide and the oval shape more circular. It was certainly a strain of Variola, but not Variola major. This was something new, and a part of it looked familiar, as if it had been crossed with another virus she couldn’t identify.

  She sat down in a chair and stared at the image on the microscope. She had seen that strain before, in her research somewhere.

  Camels.

  She rose and looked at the image more closely. Camel pox was the closest strain of pox to Variola major in nature. The strain that infected camels was even mor
e closely linked to the human strain of pox than the one in monkeys. It had never even crossed her mind that a possible vaccine could be derived from it.

  Jason had fallen asleep on a cot outside the laboratory. Sam quickly stripped off her spacesuit and went through the decontamination showers. She rushed over and woke him up.

  “What?” he said, immediately sitting up. “What is it?”

  “I have it,” she said, breathless. “I have a vaccine.”

  Samantha paced the corridor outside the lab and explained the process to him. Infection with camel pox acted as a vaccine that triggered the body’s own antibodies. Tristan had injected herself with camel pox, and it hadn’t killed her. It wasn’t similar enough genetically to create the cytokinetic storm of Variola major that would shut down a person’s immune system. But it was powerful enough to create antibodies that fought Agent X.

  “That’s why they had camels in the middle of the jungle,” she said. “I didn’t recognize the pustules on the camels because I wasn’t looking for them.” She folded her arms, staring at the floor as she paced. “We’ll have to do human trials with camel pox. I won’t ask anyone else to do it; I’ll do it myself. But we need some of the camel pox first. There’s a species of camel pox in the fridge at the CDC. I just need to get back there.”

  Jason chuckled and shook his head. “I can’t believe that’s all it was. I was so mesmerized by how Tristan did it. She wouldn’t tell me. Even though we’d been married once, she wouldn’t tell me.”

  Sam stopped pacing and looked at him. “You were the husband?”

  He nodded. “Before she left the program, yeah, we were married.” He chuckled again and pulled out his phone. “He’s not going to believe how simple this was.”