The World's Last Breaths: Final Winter, Animal Kingdom, and The Peeling

by Iain Rob Wright

  The image was grainy and spotted with noise. On a couple of occasions even the vert-hold went awry. What was clear, though, was that the images were coming from a handheld camera inside what appeared to be an infirmary.

  A voice narrated from behind the scenes – the voice of the camera operator.

  “It has now been approximately eighteen hours since exposure to the Welsh child. Flu-like symptoms have now progressed to something more resembling the flesh-eating nightmares of science fiction. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. Specialists are en route from Porton Down but I fear that it is already too late for us.”

  The camera panned around the room and then zoomed in on a bedridden soldier.

  As you can see, the flesh of this man’s face is almost completely gone. His jawbone is exposed and his trigeminal nerve is apparent beneath the liquefying flesh. This man is melting alive. I pray that his pain is soon to end. I see no other outcome but to assume that it is.

  Greg felt his stomach slosh as the cameraman continued showing scenes of biological devastation. He watched as at least a dozen servicemen lay in their beds, rotting from various parts of their body. One man even had his skeletal leg bones on display beneath his knees. The video ended with the camera man turning the focus on himself – displaying his own rotting face – and reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Greg, moving around and sitting behind his desk. The wooden barrier made him feel more secure. He realised, as he placed his hands out in front of him, that he was shaking.

  “The base was immediately quarantined,” said Button. “If it were not for the case the child was found by the military and taken immediately to a secure medical facility, the affects would have been far worse.”

  “Catastrophic,” Fenton added. “The infection rate of exposure to the Welsh Child was 100%. survival rate: zero.”

  “No disease has a total kill rate. Not a single plague know to man.”

  “This one does,” said Fenton. “But only with phase one exposure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In tests, only subjects exposed to WC-00 directly displayed a 100% death rate. Of the test subjects exposed to infected patients, only 50% were symptomatic. They still contracted the virus and carried it, but it was dormant in their bodies – yet still highly infectious. On the other hand, those with symptoms, which eventually led to their deaths, were not at all symptomatic.”

  Greg rubbed a finger down the length of his nose and thought about what that meant. “So…those who were dying were not contagious, yet those who appeared healthy were? That would make it nearly impossible to contain if it entered the general population. There would be no way of telling who was passing it on to whom.”

  “Exactly,” said Button. “Which is why WC-00 is probably the most dangerous human being on the planet. If he ever escaped…”

  Greg nodded. He understood what it would mean. “So…this man, this WC-00, is one of the asymptomatic carriers?”

  “No,” said Button. “He is something else entirely.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He carries the virus, yes, and is extremely contagious, but he is not like the other carriers. The disease is present in his body on a genetic level. Almost as though he were engineered to carry the virus in his DNA.”

  Greg huffed. “You’re talking about genetic engineering…in the 1970s? That’s preposterous.”

  “Perhaps, but every test we have done on WC-00’s tissue samples suggest that the virus is as much a part of his make-up as amino acids and mitochondria. He literally is the virus, in human form.”

  “I am plague,” said Greg, remembering what the man had said to him.

  “He says that a lot,” said Wilson. She scratched at her forehead and let out a long sigh. “Since his isolation began, ongoing efforts have been made to socialise and enrich his existence, but in recent years he has begun to take on characteristics of-”

  “Dementia,” Greg guessed. “I’m not surprised. He’s been locked in a glass cube his entire life. Has he ever even felt the touch of another human being?”

  “Only when he was retrieved from the Welsh foothills,” said Fenton. “The level 5 Bio Hazard protocols were created purely to house him. He’s never left that room. Anyone that goes in must exercise extreme caution. Full safety measures.”

  “What about when he gets sick? How has he been kept healthy this whole time?”

  “There has been no need,” Button said. “His immune system is like nothing we have ever seen. He’s never been sick a day in his life. Not even a cold.”

  Greg shook his head. “Well, I’m not surprised in an isolation chamber. He’s probably never been exposed to anything. I was thinking more about internal disorders.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Button, somewhat condescendingly. “We have intentionally exposed him to all kinds of pathogens, from the common cold to smallpox. His immune system dismantled every single attack.”

  Greg’s eyes went wide. The man was a miracle – if they could ever discover the reason for his total immunity…harness that knowledge in some way…

  “Wait,” said Greg. “What about his teeth. They were rotted and missing.”

  “Auto-immune response. The antibodies in his saliva are so aggressive that they attracted the bacteria growing on the surface of his teeth until there was nothing left but stumps. We serve him his nutrients in liquid-form now.”

  Greg sighed. “No human being should have to live like that.”

  “Many would agree with you,” said Fenton, finding his voice, “but those in charge are just taking the only option available. The real blame should be with whatever terrorist created WC-00.”

  “You think terrorists are responsible?”

  Fenton shrugged. “Some may have other opinions, but I see no other answers. Somebody was supposed to find WC-00 and contract the disease, before spreading it. It was only supremely good fortune that led to a safe quarantine.”

  “Three hundred and sixty-eight people were dead within thirty-six hours of the child being found. If the disease had gotten outside that base, you and I would not be standing here. We would all be dead, or not even born.”

  Greg leant back in his chair and held his breath. He concentrated on the pressure building within his chest and then finally let the air out. If WC-00 ever got out, then humanity would die out to the tune of 50%. More than three billion people. And he was now the man in charge of that never happening. Several hours ago, he had no idea that the destruction of mankind was being housed in a glass cage below the British countryside. Now that he knew, he envied the ignorance he would never again have the luxury of having.

  I wonder what other secrets this chamber of horrors contains.

  Guess I’ll find out.

  After only three days, Greg had discovered all sorts of uncategorised biological nasties. The underground ‘Level 5’ lab housed methods of killing the world a hundred times over. It was a good thing that the facility was one of the most secure in the world. It would probably even put the American labs to shame.

  Still, despite all that he had seen, Greg’s mind kept wandering back to WC-00 – or Welshchild as his team referred to him sometimes. He couldn’t believe that some unknown man of science had once engineered and condemned a new born child to a life of isolation – with the original intention being the semi-extinction of mankind. Welshchild’s very existence was a tragedy. And it was something the world would never know

  about. The man would spend every minute of the rest of his life inside a glass cage.

  Greg lay back in the king-sized bed of his underground apartment and stared at the whizzing ceiling fan. It reminded him of the wheels on a speeding car; something he would not see again for the next three years.

  After the breakup of his marriage, the chance to get away had seemed ideal, but now Greg felt like he was in a tomb and surrounded by agents of death. The only thing keeping him sane was the work – the thrill
of being at the cutting edge of epidemiology. His efforts at the facility could directly influence the future of the world and its ongoing battle against infection. If he ever found a way to replicate WC-00’s superior immune system, he would win a noble prize at the very least.

  He’s the priority here. He’s a unique human being. The things he could teach us…

  But in forty years no one has been able to do anything but contain him.

  That’s exactly why this could my chance to make a difference. Maybe I could even find a cure for the disease. I could allow that poor man to finally step outside and smell the fresh air.

  Or am I just dreaming?

  Greg hopped up off the bed and walked across the bedroom. He had no idea what time it was, but he wasn’t feeling sleepy. He would go back to work until he was.

  Being underground meant that time lost its importance. People worked when they were awake and rested when they needed to. It was a system that worked well. People were more productive when they could work to their natural rhythms. There were no early mornings and late nights, just work and rest entwined.

  Greg threw on some clothes from the built in wardrobes and headed out of his apartment. The outside corridor led back to the labs and the air-locked areas. He could also get to WC-00’s containment cell, which was his destination. He wanted to talk to the man, find out as much as he could.

  Discover his secrets.

  Inside the main lab, Button was working busily away. Out of the members of Greg’s team, Button seemed the most resistant to downtime. The man ate at his desk and slept via short naps of only twenty or thirty minutes at a time. Greg both admired and pitied his dedication.

  “Dr Penn, sir? Can I help you with anything?”

  “No, I’m just off to see WC-00.”

  Button swivelled slightly on his chair and frowned at Greg. “There’s nothing we can do for him, or with him.”

  “But to not try would be inhuman. The man deserves to have someone fighting to give him a normal life.”

  “He’ll never have a normal life…and he’s not human. No one raised in such an environment could be considered as such.”

  Greg nodded. “But that is our doing, not his.”

  Dr Button swivelled back around and faced his computer. With a weary voice, he said, “Just be careful. WC-00 has a way of getting inside your head. He’s best left alone.”

  Greg didn’t exactly understand what that meant, but he nodded and said, “I’ll take it under advisement, Dr Button.”

  Greg headed through the lab and typed in the key code needed to enter the containment cell. The door hissed open and he stepped through into the airlock, before passing through into the next room.

  WC-00 sat in the centre of his glass cage as he always did whenever he did not have company. When he saw Greg appear, he waved a hand dismissively and turned back to whatever he was watching.

  Greg stepped up close to the glass and sat down on the chair he had placed there a day earlier. “Hello,” he said as he got comfortable.

  WC-00 kept his eyes on the television. “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to see how you were doing?”

  “I woke up. Exercised for one hour. Ate breakfast. Switched the television on. Later I will have dinner and then go to sleep. Tomorrow I will do the exact same thing again. That will be my life until the moment I pass my final breath. I pray that it is sooner rather than later.”

  Greg raised an eyebrow. “You pray? You believe in God?”

  “Yes, I believe in God. It is the only thing that keeps me going in here.”

  “That is good,” said Greg.

  WC-00 turned and grinned at him. “Yes, I have to believe in God, because the thought of standing before him one day and demanding answers for my pointless existence is the only thing with which I have to look forward.”

  Greg sighed. Religion could be a comfort to those who accepted it. It could also be fuel. Fuel for rage and hatred. His own belief was that a lack of religion in any way was the only way for society to occupy a rational middle-ground – but that was a conversation for another time and place.

  “You’re a well-spoken man, WC-00.”

  “Call me Welsh. I have never possessed a name, but that serves me better than an ID code.”

  Greg nodded. “Okay…Welsh. How did they educate you here?”

  “Books, videos, interactions with men behind the glass. There is little else to do in here other than educate oneself. I like to know about the world that has been denied to me.”

  “Perhaps one day you will get to see it.”

  Welsh let out a long, bitter sigh. “That is a very cruel thing to suggest. Do not attempt to dangle impossibilities in front of me, Doctor. I have no time for hope.”

  “Everyone must have hope.”

  “Is that why you opted to spend your life three hundred feet below the ground? Despair lives beneath us and hope is in the clouds. It appears that you have gone the wrong way, Doctor.”

  Greg shifted in his seat. The man in the cage had a way of voicing things in an unsettling tone. His speech patterns were unusual – the product of having no native upbringing.

  “I am here to do good,” he said. “To give hope to others. That is my hope.”

  Welsh cackled. “There is no hope here. This is a factory of suffering. The only reason I live is so that men like you can try to understand me, to harness the invisible death that writhes across my skin. I am a weapon, Doctor Penn. Many things in this basement of monstrosities are weapons, but I am the most destructive. Yet, your thousands of blood tests, your endless experiments on me, have all been fruitless. My being is beyond your understanding. I am above anything you can achieve merely by existing. I am plague.”

  Greg considered Welsh’s words and was disconcerted to recognise traits of self-aggrandisement. When there was no normal outlets to gain self-esteem, a person would turn their world-views inwards – convince themselves that they are above those around them. It was an unhealthy belief-system.

  “You keep referring to yourself as plague? Why do you do that?”

  Welsh shook his head and snickered, as if the answer was obvious. “Dr Penn, if you were to step inside this cell with me, your eyeballs would melt in your head. Your fingernails would shrivel and decay. Your blood would thicken in your veins and your skin would slide from your muscles like heated marzipan. To face me, man to man, would mean certain death. I make all other diseases quake in their boots. If I am not plague personified, then what am I? Should I ride a horse and carry a quiver on my back. Would that convince you of what I am?”

  Greg rubbed at his eyes. The man before him should have been a wilting neurotic after so many years of isolation, but instead he viewed himself almost as a god. “You believe you are one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse?”

  Welsh stood from his chair and headed over to the glass. “It was just a metaphor, Doctor, but my destiny was indeed great. If not for the actions of a squad of doomed servicemen on that grassy hilltop where they found me, I would not have been one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse…I would have been the apocalypse itself.”

  “And yet, here you are, impotent and alone. Your destiny is no longer yours to decide.” The comment was mean spirited, but Greg could not help it. Hearing the arrogant and fatalistic words of the man in front of him made him angry. It almost sounded like Welsh wished he had spread his dreaded plague.

  Come on, Greg. It’s hardly surprising that he has a grudge against humankind. He’s spent his entire life as a lab rat. What capacity of love would he ever have been given?

  “Destiny takes a lifetime, Doctor. It is determined by a journey’s ending, not by its beginning. Would you not agree?”

  Greg thought about his own life. His beginnings had been bleak, yet bearable. His recent past had been even grimmer. He liked to think that his life’s journey could get better. Maybe it really was only the end of one’s life that counted.

  “You are looking a
t me with great interest, Doctor,” said Welsh. “But I assure you there are no secrets here…at least none that you could comprehend.”

  “I’d like to try,” said Greg, more determined than ever. He had a desire to hear this man thank him. He wanted to show Welsh what gratitude was. The only way to do that would be by…

  “I’m going to cure you,” he said.

  Welsh laughed, loud and hard. “Cure me from what? I am what I am. I need no cure. It is you who needs to evolve. I cannot be made sick by any organism or germ, and yet you seek to cure me? That is rich indeed, Doctor.”

  “I want to help you,” said Greg, exasperated by the bitterness in Welsh’s manner.

  “Help yourself, Doctor. You need it more than I.”

  Greg stood up. “Suit yourself, but I assure you that one day you will get out of here and you’ll thank me.”

  Welsh examined him carefully through the glass. “Well, if that ever does happen, Doctor, perhaps I will thank you…but you, on the other hand, will be begging me.”

  “Has he ever tried to escape?” Greg asked his team as they sat in his office together.

  “No, never,” said Wilson. “Which I suppose is strange. It would be impossible for him to get out, though.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Aren’t you, sir?” asked Button with a hint of accusation.

  Greg shrugged. “I know that this is a very secure facility, but you think he would have at least tried to escape once during his forty years here. The way he talks about destiny and his superiority, I would think it drives him crazy being locked up.”

  Fenton folded his hands in his lap. “How do you drive a crazy person crazy? I’m sure a sane person would be beside themselves, but he is not a normal human being. Nothing about him is suspect to the normal rules of the human condition, from his personality right down to his very cells.”

  Greg cleared his throat and leant forward in his leather chair. “So what treatment have we tried?”

  Dr Button answered. “We’ve tried mapping his genome, to try and identify where the virus is located and target it directly. That failed. We have tried every antibiotic in existence. They failed. We have tried full blood transfusions and organ transplants. Failure. We have tried radiation therapy and various chemical treatments. Fail-”