“Such as?” Jenkins interrupted sharply. Boxall could see quite clearly how she had been promoted so quickly.
“Well, we were initially limited to the number of animals or rats we were permitted to use, which meant that the trials that we did have were of a greater duration than normal. So it could just be a function of that, literally they have gone a bit stir-crazy. There have been previous studies into just that condition which suggested that this kind of behavioural change does sometimes occur. We’re examining their diet to see if something might have affected them. Lastly, the strain of rat we have been using is not the typical kind used here in the UK. We imported them from Germany. So we’re considering that possibility and contacting our counterparts there to find more info.”
“Yes, please do,” said Rhind, “and get back to us as soon as you have anything more on that.”
“Absolutely. Next were the results from the human trials. The trials officially ended a little over three months ago and the drugs have been commercially available for the last month and a half. As we were short of time we concentrated on those in the UK. We were able to get hold of the doctor involved in the case in Manchester. I’ll come to that in a moment. Basically all of the families and doctors we spoke to said that Mnemoloss had enhanced the patient’s quality of life through improved memory, linguistic functioning and social skills. We estimate the improvement at the moment to be equivalent to roughly two years of steady dementia degeneration and that should increase.”
Jenkins stopped writing for a moment and looked up. “Were there any other side-effects reported by the volunteers? Character changes, increases in hostility or such like?” she asked.
“There have been character changes, but to some extent at least, we predicted that would happen. Dementia by its very nature involves changes in personality. As parts of the brain degenerate people lose social norms, forget whom they are and how to act. Our patients are regaining functions that they lost possibly years ago and with that they are re-experiencing some of the feelings of confusion that they will initially have had.
“But, no one else has experienced an increased level of hostility like that in the Penn incident. There have been isolated episodes of minor aggression but not the same as in that case. We spoke to the doctor in Manchester. It seems that the patient, a man called Abra, was fairly hot-tempered in general so it’s possible that the incident had nothing to do with Mnemoloss but just that he was reverting to type, perhaps exasperated by his condition. However I am still not one hundred percent on that and I need to look into it a lot more.”
Boxall’s last few words had been largely lost on the three of them, due to the collective sigh of relief. In drug development ‘mutation’ may well be one of the most feared words; in the manufacturing industry in general another is ‘recall’. There are various reasons why a product may be recalled and most of them are health-related. Invariably whatever the reason, the cost will be high and if people have been harmed by faulty products then the following law suits can be disastrous. Clearly they did not want to hear that their drug was causing episodic violence. As they sat back and each started to express relief, Boxall’s mind returned to his wife’s words: ‘This was different. This time it was as though there was real hatred.’
Dr Cannon put down his clipboard, clasped his hands on his knees and smiled for the first time. “That’s great news Jason, just what we wanted to hear. You will obviously examine all this further, yes?”
Boxall nodded vigourously. Cannon’s smile lessened but he seemed genuinely keen to be of assistance. “Is there anything we can do to help you?”
“All I would like is to have my original team of eight lab-techs back working exclusively for me for the foreseeable future. Also given that the animal tests were cut down to the bare minimum originally, I would like to go back and extend those trials and complete them thoroughly. As I said, my findings are not yet conclusive and we really must look into it all a lot more.” He stared at Cannon expecting the worst.
The other two also looked at Cannon who sat thinking for a second, then nodded. “Of course. Yes to all your requests. Put it in a brief memo to me and I will action it immediately. I know that Van Firstenburg did ideally want to limit animal tests but I think this has been enough of a scare for us all and will do our PR some good. I am sure I can sanction at least a limited number of further tests.”
Leaving the meeting Boxall felt an enormous sense of relief, although he was bothered by the word ‘limited’ that Cannon had slipped in at the end of his sentence. As the data had been collected for him throughout the day it had gone some way to allaying his fears, but only now could he relax a little. After a brief phone conversation with Bennett he packed his laptop into his suitcase and left for home. The material he had presented to them had been correct, at least at that moment in time.
Next morning Jason sat in his kitchen having a leisurely cup of tea whilst contemplating his plan of action. Unbeknownst to him, this was to be one of the last happy moments he would have together with his family.
Arianna Beugg had started using the Dem-buster several weeks previously. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years before and whilst she could still recognize her husband Viktor and their children, she was rapidly becoming more forgetful and confused. On the final night of Viktor’s life they had gone to sleep as normal. Despite her worsening condition they still shared the same bed, as they had done for the last forty-two years since immigrating to Brooklyn, New York from Holland. She had been experiencing more frequent and severe headaches over the past couple of weeks but they were not serious enough to link them to any changes in medication, and the fact that she had suffered from migraines throughout most of her life unfortunately masked their significance.
Viktor would never again see daylight. That night Arianna found herself in excruciating pain with the impression of blinding light thumping through the front of her head. Confused already, she tried to scream but no words would form, just a wild, rasping noise that made her husband stir in his sleep but not enough to rouse him to full consciousness and save his life. The pain continued but as the radiance subsided, so did any last remnants of cognitive awareness. The agony gave rise to a ferocious rage that needed assuaging. Like an injured animal she turned in the darkness and blindly attacked the person nearest to her, biting part of him that was exposed above the duvet, Viktor’s neck.
Neighbours were alerted to a problem by a banging at around three in the morning. The police were phoned and Sergeant Gerrard of the NYPD arrived at the Beugg house at approximately four o’clock. He could hear noises coming from within and was sufficiently worried to force open the door, only to find Arianna lying in the hall on her stomach. Her face was covered in blood and her legs skewed at an odd angle as though she had broken them in a fall down the stairs. She was moaning something although he could not make out any recognizable words as she tried to crawl towards him. As he knelt by her side she grasped him by the wrist with surprising strength and pulled him down towards her. Because he thought she was going to whisper something to him he did not struggle until he felt her teeth clamp on his ear.
When reinforcements arrived a search of the house was made and the body of Mr Beugg was discovered in bed with his throat ripped apart. The blood on Mrs Beugg’s face was found to be his, not, as Gerrard had suspected, her own. Gerrard was taken to hospital and his half-severed ear was reattached. Two days later he went into the police station to fill out a report and have a debrief with his commanding officer, although by the time the meeting was over he already had the first of the migraines so he excused himself and returned home to bed.
Gerrard did not return to active police duty and the headaches continued to get worse. He started to become irritable, withdrawn and acting quite out of character. Although during this period he was bed-ridden a lot of the time, when he was able to go out of the house he started to frequent a local lap-dancing club called Valentines. He regularly withdrew large
sums of money from his bank account but by the end of the day had no recollection of what he had done with it. All the while he was plagued by nausea, headaches and a distinct feeling of paranoia.
A clerk at his police station phoned after three days to check on him but got no reply. He rang several more times without success, so his police lieutenant became concerned and a squad car was sent to his house. There was no answer but the two officers, Shirvell and Sparrowhawk, could see through the half drawn curtains that the place was in disarray. Later that evening they returned but there was still nobody home so they decided to wait, which did not displease them as there was a café opposite that served excellent coffee and pastries.
Shirvell had not even had time to take the first bite of his chocolate praline doughnut before his radio crackled into life.
“Disturbance reported in Valentines Bar on Union and Third. Officers needed to respond.”
“Shirvell and Sparrowhawk currently on Fifth and Garfield,” Shirvell answered. “We’re going to Valentines now.”
By the time they arrived a small crowd had gathered. A few of the women who worked in the bar were standing in a huddle on the street corner sobbing. One, who they recognised by name - an exotic dancer by the name of Charity - wearing nothing more than a leopard print thong and a feather boa, was hysterical. Officer Sparrowhawk noted she had blood on her hands and neck from an open wound. There were also a few of the bar’s clientele nearby. Two were sat on the ground looking stunned with temporary bandages applied to various body parts. It transpired that a man had gone berserk inside and attacked one of the other customers before turning on the staff. The officers calmed the scene and called for backup before striding purposefully towards the bar’s entrance. As they walked they released their side-arms from their holsters; both carried the Glock, one of three types of semi-automatic 9mm pistols issued to NYPD officers.
Shirvell pulled open the large, outer door and they entered a small hallway. The door swung slowly closed behind them and they stood by a cash register in a foyer where they let their eyes adjust to the dim lighting. Both of them had been here before whilst off duty and knew the layout inside as much as they recognised its stale, musty odour. The smell had never previously bothered either of them but today it seemed unusually unpleasant.
Music was playing from within. The current song was ‘Boys, Boys, Boys,’ a track from the 1980’s by a sultry Italian popstar called Sabrina.
“Seems like they’re playing your song, hey?” Shirvell whispered to his partner with a smirk.
They moved further into the club, through a ribbon curtain and into the main dance area, their shoes sticking slightly to the floor. There was a stage to their left with benches around low, plastic tables. To the right was the bar area, illuminated with tacky neon lights and bar stools with red, heart-shaped seats. Some of the stools had been overturned and it was to this area that their attention was drawn. Lying face down by the bar was an enormous black man. His legs were twitching and underneath his torso there was a small pool of blood that looked unnatural in the artificial light. He was wearing a string vest and his arms were thick and muscled; he was clearly the doorman. Just beyond him lying on the floor was another man who could easily have passed for a homeless person. He was dressed in ill-fitting jeans, grey plimsolls that had worn through at the sole and a dirty white t-shirt with the name of a rock band, “Battleborne,” emblazoned on it. Another dark puddle was slowly growing around his upper body
The bar was curved and from where they stood they could just see the legs of a third person slumped at the far side. Cautiously they manoeuvred around the tables whilst checking for anyone else. The man looked up and stared at them.
“Strewth!” Shirvell exclaimed. “Gerrard, what on earth have you done?”
Sergeant Gerrard did not move; he just glared balefully at them with bloodshot eyes and moaned. He had clearly not shaved for a couple of days, his hair was dishevelled and his clothes were a mess. The bandages that the hospital had applied were hanging loosely by the side of his head and his ear was covered in blood. He wore stained jeans that were torn at the knee and a scruffy jacket.
“What have you done?” Shirvell repeated as he edged forwards carefully, his gun trained on his sergeant but his other hand held out in a placating gesture.
Gerrard did not react or speak; he just stared down at his fingers that Shirvell now noticed were dripping with blood. There was more blood around his mouth and down the front of his jacket. As Shirvell moved slowly towards him from the front, Sparrowhawk slipped closer from the side along the edge of the bar. In one hand he too held his weapon but with the other he had unhooked handcuffs from his belt. He would not get a chance to use them however. Suddenly Gerrard’s head jerked up. The wild unfocused stare had been replaced with a brief glimmer of recognition. His expression became apologetic for a moment and then his features rippled. He snarled and anger flooded his face, as though a mask had been dropped seamlessly into place. His hand moved under his jacket to a bulge that neither had previously noticed.
“Keep your hands where I can seem them,” shouted Sparrowhawk as Gerrard pulled a gun from his trouser belt. He held it at an unusual angle as though it was unfamiliar to him but swung it menacingly in their direction. Without hesitation two shots blew Gerrard’s head apart, one fired by each policeman.
The ensuing investigation exonerated both officers of any guilt. Forced into a situation which left them no other option they had fired upon their colleague only as a last resort. The erratic actions of Gerrard, both in Valentines and over the previous days, were put down to the acrimonious divorce he had been enduring. Other colleagues had found he had become somewhat bad-tempered and withdrawn, and had clearly been bottling up his emotions. The divorce distracted attention from the attack he had suffered at the Beugg house which was subsequently overlooked and no association was ever made.
Gradually across the planet a pattern of uncharacteristic aggression was emerging and spreading faster than anybody could ever have envisaged. Still the appropriate connections between Mnemoloss and the attacks were not being drawn. Time was running out and unfortunately the opportunity for effective intervention was dwindling and all but gone.
CHAPTER 3
Dr Boxall decided to dedicate himself to retesting laboratory animals and rats. He was still assessing information and trying to satisfy himself of what he badly wanted to believe, but all the while his doubts chattered away to him, hinting of a mounting problem. He kept a radio on in the background, tuned to a news channel. A small but growing number of violent outbursts involving people who had been using Mnemoloss had come to light. After much deliberation he decided to go back to his boss, present his findings and make some strong recommendations. They were sure to be unpopular but he could just not ignore them anymore.
The catalyst for this decision was made for him by an abrupt rise in media attention. From several countries around the world there had been reports of an increasing number of vicious and unprovoked attacks perpetrated by elderly people, either on loved ones or on random strangers. In each case the aggressor had fairly recently started using Mnemoloss. It was just too much of a coincidence. At this time, unfortunately, nobody had yet recognized the preponderance of secondary attacks.
Boxall rang Dr Rhind’s office and found it engaged. He tried five more times over the next thirty minutes but as it was still unavailable he went to see him in person. Before he left he rang through to Bennett, who answered on the first ring.
“Bennett here.”
“Ah Stephen, it’s Jason.”
“Thank goodness, I was just about to call you. I’m worried.”
“Really? Maybe we’re thinking the same thing. The tests we’ve been re-running on the rats, I’m not sure we did enough of them before the drugs went to human trials and I’m not sure we now have enough time left to continue them. I’ve been listening to the radio. There have been reports of a few more incidents worldwide, which probably
means there have actually been many more incidents. A trend seems to be developing. I think we need to stop looking at the animals; it’s too late for that. We need to move onto humans now. I’m going to recommend to Rhind that we recall Mnemoloss immediately and I think we have got to start considering the possibility of mutation.”
Most people would like to think that at critical moments in their life their brains will be racing and they will be leaping to all kinds of brilliant solutions. In truth, as adrenaline kicks in, it is extremely difficult to focus on even simple tasks. Bennett found himself twiddling his moustache, completely numb, almost unable to hear his colleague as those two disastrous words hijacked his thoughts and demanded his total attention; ‘recall’ and ‘mutation’. He found himself staring uselessly at the hairs that had risen all along his arms.
“Yes, right, I see.”
“I also think we are now at the stage where we have got to try to find a cure. We have to try to reverse the effects of Mnemoloss and we have to do it as fast as possible, in case this is as bad as I think it might possibly be. But God help us I’m wrong.” There was no answer from the other end of the phone, so Boxall raised his voice. “ Bennett? Bennett!”
“Yes, yes sorry. My word, I was thinking along the same lines, I guess just not as far along as you. Okay, yes. Can you pop into my lab and we can talk this through a little further? I will assemble all my technicians for say, about half an hour?”
“Fine. I’m going to Rhind’s office now. I’ll come straight to you after.” He hung up and sat for a short while, feeling hollow and sick. All the work of the previous months and years, his reputation, his job, everything was about to come tumbling down but at the moment all he could think about was his mother. His mother, who had taken the Dem-buster. His mother, who had recently started to exhibit worrying outbursts of aggression. His mother, who was sat in the same house as his unsuspecting wife and children at that very moment! He made one more vitally important phone call, more important to him than anything else, and then he quickly went to find Dr Rhind.
The Blood of the Infected (Book 1): Once Bitten, Twice Die Page 5