by Dan Glover
Night came on. Any thought of slipping away in the darkness faded as a hideously yellow gibbous moon rose bloated and bright over the nearby trees illuminating the fading village in a ghostly silvery white.
"If I don’t come home by tomorrow morning they might send someone searching for me."
The thought comforted him although he hadn’t told anyone where he was going, and besides, he would be dead by then. He already felt withdrawal symptoms manifesting. No one would notice he was gone anyway. He had no real friends. He confided in no one. Days went by, sometimes weeks, without him talking to a single solitary soul. There would be no search party sent... not for him.
A rustle in the nearby brush sent the dogs scattering silently into the night. Kirk couldn't believe his good fortune. They had come for him after all. Perhaps he had misjudged the People. He'd be sleeping in his own bed tonight instead of trying to keep from rolling off the roof of this wobbly shack.
Just as he set himself to shimmy down from his perch the tiger stepped into the moonlight followed by two half-grown cubs. She raised her head and with her mouth hanging open she huffed the air. And then with her green eyes shimmering in the moonlight she looked in his direction.
Chapter 61—Alone Again
She'd seen everything unfold from inside the restaurant where she was keeping out of sight, relying on Abercrombie to espy Lily and her cohorts. It seemed better that way. Hopefully with luck she'd be able to spring the trap, recapture Lily, and make it home by dinnertime. Now though, things had definitely gone awry.
"Who is that woman?"
"I didn’t get her name. She surprised me by asking about Orchardton Hall."
"I saw how she kissed you. Are you saying you don’t know her but she kissed you?"
"That came as a bit of a surprise too. Before I could say a thing she kissed me and then she disappeared."
"Christ, Alex... we better get you to a hospital right away."
"A hospital... why on earth should I go to a hospital, Karen... I feel fine."
"How can you be so stupid? You just called me saying you saw the woman I described and then a complete stranger comes up to you and kisses you like that? Don't you realize what's happened? They noticed you watching them."
"I still do not understand why I need to go to a hospital."
"You've been infected, Alex. You're going to die. You're dying even now."
"Oh come now, Karen. I feel quite fine... never better, I assure you."
Her insistence at going to a hospital disconcerted him. Alex hadn’t been in a hospital since the day he was born. He prided himself on his healthy lifestyle and careful manner. He did have to admit it was a bit odd how a woman appeared out of nowhere, kissed him like an old lover, and then vanished like a fart in the breeze.
"You're quite serious, aren’t you?"
"Yes, Alex... I am. Goddamn it all anyway. I warned you about this. Why didn’t you listen to me?"
"It all happened so fast I didn’t have time to think. You're a doctor. You have a treatment regimen for this infection... right?"
"I can't be too close to you. I'm not sure when or if you'll become contagious. Listen to me carefully, Alex. You have to go to the closest hospital. Inform them that you are carrying a potentially fatal infection... tell them you have to be quarantined. Let the admitting physician know that an intravenous saline solution will buy you some time. I'll contact my people to have someone meet you there."
"That’s it? You're abandoning me?"
"There is nothing more I can do for you. Now go! There's a taxi. Flag it down."
The woman was a raving lunatic. He realized how he didn’t even know if Karen was actually a real doctor. She'd probably been lying to him all this time. And this story about him having a fatal infection made no sense at all. If he did go to a hospital they would admit him all right... they would admit him to the psychiatric ward. He suddenly felt the need for a few drinks and then maybe a few more.
"Take me to the nearest pub, mate."
He found himself thinking of the girl who kissed him so passionately, who she was, where she lived. Though he got a much more than a glance at her face it was difficult now to recall just what she looked like.
"Beautiful, really gorgeous."
"What's that, buddy?"
"Sorry mate... talking to myself."
The taxi pulled to a halt in front of the Crown at High Newton. Alex flipped the cabbie a few quid before heading inside. It was half past noon and the pub was full of the usual lunch-time pensioners eating and drinking on the cheap. He shouldered his way up to the bar ordering a double shot of rye with a beer chaser.
The afternoon soon wore into evening. The older crowd was gradually replaced by a younger set wearing tee shirts and khakis, tourists no doubt. They all spoke different languages and laughed at jokes that Alex failed to find funny. The booze was going down good, perhaps too good. It soothed his tongue which had developed a bit of a tic causing him to continually lick his lips until they were chapped and raw.
The last double shot of rye tasted funny and the beer seemed flat. He took another drink before he waved the bartender over. He noted it was a man now instead of the young girl who worked the bar when he first entered.
"Hey, barkeep... are you watering down the booze?"
The man scowled at him, pulled a white rag off his shoulder, and wrapped it around his right fist. Though he didn’t actually threaten him with violence, Alex got the distinct impression that his query was unwanted and perhaps uncalled for.
"This is my place, mister. If you don't like the taste of my booze you can go do your drinking somewhere else."
Alex downed the rest of his rye, quaffed his beer, and did as the man suggested. Walking outside into the night air caused his head to spin. He felt ill. Bending over a trash barrel he puked up what he just drank before staggering over to sit on a bench. He wondered if Karen was telling the truth. A cold sweat broke out all over his body. He dialed her cell but it went straight to voice mail.
"She's just gone and got me bonkers is all."
He wanted to go home to sleep it off. That's all he needed. When he attempted to stand, however, the world spun so suddenly that he had to sit back down lest he fall. His tongue felt swollen and itchy. He thought it must be the taste of the vomit still in his mouth.
A series of bowel-shaking tremors reduced him to a quivering mass of wish I never would have kissed that bitch. It must have been closing time. People from the tavern were walking quickly past him now, staring and shaking their heads as if he was a thing disgusting and gross. He too smelled how he had soiled himself.
Help me. When he opened his mouth to speak the words, a vile stream of vomit issued forth instead cascading down his chest and stomach to pool between his legs. There was a crowd gathered round him now in a circle and he heard the sound of a siren coming closer.
He had to cough but he couldn't seem to draw a deep breath. It felt as if someone was standing on his chest. Gloom was gathering around the edges of his vision. Two burly-looking police officers approached him, picked him up by his arm pits, and deposited him into the back of a paddy wagon. The metal grate of a floor was sticky and smelled of urine but he couldn't seem to move his face from it.
I'm not drunk.
He tried to speak the words but his mouth would not work. He felt that if he could only draw one more breath that he might be able to explain himself to these fine gentlemen and he would not end up in the drunk tank. He felt the rumble of the road beneath him as the paddy wagon moved out yet that one extra breath that he needed so badly would not come.
Chapter 62—Beginnings
She grew up way too fast.
Karen desired a life alone with her daughter more than anything, but she knew she must share the girl who had become a woman with the rest of the world.
Even though the ritual of marriage was but a remnant of a bygone era Karen was delighted when Maon came to her asking for the hand of Sileas. He was a
fine young man, everything she hoped for in a son in law.
"We're going on a cruise for our honeymoon, mom. Father Nate finished the yacht and there's room for eight of us. Mother Lily and Grandmother Natalia are going. Come with us too."
"That's so sweet of you to invite me, darling Sileas, but I get terribly seasick. You and Maon go... enjoy yourselves. I'll stay here with Lady Lauren."
Lauren agreed to preside over the ceremony although she expressed befuddlement over the whole marriage thing.
"Do you mean to say they promise to stay with one another forever?"
Karen laughed at the face Lauren made... curling her lip with a mixture of disgust and amazement that anyone would agree to such circumstances.
"Before the Great Dying life was so short for human beings, Lady Lauren. My people made believe in a god in whose arms they would live forever after they died. They pledged themselves before that god to remain faithful until death did they part. It was an extremely old custom. Did your kind have such ceremonies too?"
"No we did not."
"That isn’t very romantic, Lady Lauren. Didn’t you ever fall head over heals in love with a man of your dreams and want to spend the rest of your life with him?"
"I married when I went among your people, sweet Karen. It was required. But did I fall in love? No... not really... I fail to understand this need to possess one another like a man who owns a wife. I married for convenience, for property. I mouthed the words but I didn't mean them. Was that wrong of me?"
"You did what you needed to do to survive, Lady Lauren. It wasn’t wrong."
"Are you happy your lovely Sileas is marrying Maon?"
"I am happy for her, yes. I wish both of them much happiness."
"Have you ever been married, darling Karen?"
"No... I was engaged to be married once but my fiancé died before it could take place."
"Did this cause you much heartache?"
"I hated the man, Lady Lauren. I was glad when I heard of his death. I only promised to marry him so he would stop hounding me about it."
"Yes that sounds very romantic, sweet Karen."
They both laughed as Karen watched Sileas and Maon walking down a path leading through a green field of winter wheat just knee high. A spring breeze ruffled the surface as if sprites were chasing one another.
"What kind of life will they have, Lady Lauren?"
"I am not sure what you mean."
"If they have children, who will those children marry? They cannot marry each other."
"You are the doctor, sweet Karen. Do you have any ideas?"
"We need another male and female who are unrelated to Maon and Sileas but who are compatible with them. When I was last at old Centers for Disease Control headquarters I noticed two more corpses frozen in nitrogen that I didn’t know were there. The containers were still viable but of course it has been over twenty years ago. Still, if they are male I might be able to retrieve enough genetic material to use as a nucleus during the in vitro process. Perhaps we can ask one of the girls to donate their eggs. I can engineer the cells and implant them."
"So far you've worked miracles, darling Karen. If you believe this is possible then we shall assist you in any way we can. Just ask."
"I would love to have another child, Lady Lauren. With Sileas grown and ready to make a life of her own I feel so alone. I suppose I became used to having a child to care for, someone who depended on me. I might like to carry this child myself. But I cannot use my own eggs. It will defeat the purpose."
"Teach me how this will work, darling Karen. If I am the partner mother to Nate and Lily is the mother of Maon, who will you use as a partner mother for this new child?"
"You told me once how the bones of your ancestors are piled deep beneath Lake Baikal in ossuaries like the ones beneath Orchardton Hall. Is it possible to retrieve some of these bones?"
"Why would I desire to do such a thing, lovely Karen? While we did not marry or believe in a god to disturb the dead was a great taboo among my species."
"I may be able to extract stem cells from the marrow of those bones and create a new lineage for the children of Maon and Sileas to mate with. I've read how such techniques were being developed in the decade leading up to the Great Dying. I think I can reproduce the results. I've made great progress in my work."
"These bones will be exceptionally old."
"I understand that, Lady Lauren, but I am guessing the great depths and the cold of Lake Baikal may help preserve them much longer than if they are dried out or buried in the earth. I have heard of viable genetic material being extracted from bones over ten thousand years old under special circumstances."
"If such a thing is possible then we must attempt it. We will be traveling to the Lake next year. I am sure I can bring bones to the surface. Which ones are best?"
"The femur is best... the thigh bone is thickest and strongest bone in the body and so more likely to still contain material I can use. The larger bones will possibly belong to males. This is what we require most although we also need female genetic material."
"You will have what you need, sweet Karen. Now, is there anything else you require of me?"
Chapter 63—Old Friends
Things were out of control.
"We're running out of chances, Marilyn. Have you heard? The epidemic in southern Scotland is spreading more quickly than I ever dreamed was possible. Christ, there are dead people lying in the streets and no one seems to be doing a thing about it."
"How can I help, Karen?"
Prior to Karen's call Marilyn had read increasingly disconcerting memos coming out of Scotland about a rare and potentially deadly form of avian flu which emerged in the last couple days. Hospitals were said to be overflowing with victims. There were talks of quarantines but she knew for a fact none had been established. Now there were reports of the same disease surfacing in England too, and in Europe, Asia, and Africa and even as far away as the Americas and Australia.
With the speed the symptoms of Lake Syndrome exhibited, Marilyn believed the disease would die out before it could become too widely spread. She ran computer models which indicated the spread would be limited to the immediate locale. However, the computer model obviously didn’t take into account the real world and its interconnectedness.
"We need to assemble emergency medical teams as quickly as possible, Marilyn. We have to institute a travel ban immediately. Too many people are getting out of the country. A lot of them are bound to be infected."
"I don’t have the authority to issue that kind of alert. You know that, Karen. You're the only one who can do that. You're the acting head of the CDC now."
"I may be infected myself. It's possible that Lake Syndrome has become airborne. Everyone is sick with it."
"You don’t know that. Come home, Karen."
"My only hope now is to find Lily."
"Listen to me, Karen... if you don’t get back here and take charge of things, a lot of people are going to die. I've done everything you've asked of me... now you need to do what I'm asking of you."
"I'm sorry, Marilyn but I'm too close now. I've got to go. Bye."
"Don't disconnect!"
But it was too late... Karen was gone. She tried calling her back but Karen didn’t pick up. Marilyn sat at her desk staring at the map on the monitor in front of her. She couldn't believe that her boss was deserting the sinking ship of the CDC.
The day before, sensing the gravity of the situation, Marilyn attempted getting through to the Prime Minister's office but she had no success. She was put on hold, transferred about several times, and finally informed that the Prime Minister would get back to her if her request was deemed important enough.
Bypassing protocol, she mounted an initiative to send medical units from Army headquarters to the Scottish border but she was rebuffed. No one recognized her authority. One doctor from the British Army was so incensed by Marilyn's actions that he threatened to send military police to the compound and a
rrest her for treason.
"The hell with it all."
She grabbed her jacket and her purse, walked out of headquarters, and got into her car. The drive was only a few hours to where Karen was staying. The highway seemed unusually crowded for that time of day and the cars were all going in the opposite direction that she was traveling using both lanes. Quite a number of vehicles were in ditches and more than a few were stalled in the middle of the road. She had to drive on the shoulder to get past them.
Punching in the coordinates of Karen's last call into her sat-nav Marilyn plotted the quickest route to Aberdeen, the nearest city where she could last ascertain Karen was at. She missed her lover dreadfully and she didn’t understand Karen's insistence at staying away from her. She wondered momentarily if her boss had met someone else but dismissed the idea as out of hand.
As she crossed the Border she witnessed a number of conflagrations seemingly burning out of control. One entire village was engulfed in flames yet nary a firefighter was in sight. The roadway was littered with abandoned vehicles making her progress much slower and more difficult than she envisioned. She had to drive into fields and ditches to bypass the traffic jams.
Marilyn realized that Karen was right... the situation was out of control. She worried that she should not have come. She wondered what her boss would say when she saw her, or if Karen was still there at all. When Marilyn called Karen's cell phone it went straight to voice mail. She suddenly realized she had no way of finding her.
The last coordinates of Karen's call came from the town she was now entering. The streets were ominously deserted. Was that a body laying there on the sidewalk? She slowed down to look, confirming her suspicions. A shiver ran up her spine tingling the hairs on the back of her head.
Marilyn was afraid to stop the car to get out and search for Karen. If dead bodies were being left to lie in the streets then the law had broken down. Rounding a corner she saw a crowd of young people breaking out store windows and carrying off the merchandise inside. There was a sudden pounding on the passenger side. A man bleeding from his head was trotting alongside the car motioning for her to roll down the window. Instead she sped up.