by Bryn Roar
Tubby blinked at his father in disbelief. Never before had his parents let him do such a thing! Especially in a strange town. Tubby didn’t even own a bike, so he never wandered far from home. He glanced over at the car, where his mother sat thunderstruck. Any second and she would veto his father’s ridiculous suggestion. “You really mean it, Dad? I can just walk home by myself?”
“You’re nearly seventeen, Ralph. Not a little boy, anymore. Just not too long, okay?” he said, nodding his chin at Emma. “And here,” he said, handing Tubby a crisp new hundred dollar bill. “That’s for being such a good sport all these years, son.”
Before Tubby could ask the strange man: Who are you and what have you done with my father? his dad jumped back into the Country Squire and drove away in a cloud of red dust. Tubby could hear his mom’s shrill objections all the way up the street.
He had his hand on the doorknob when the runty black kid he’d seen earlier stepped out of the store. He was two-feet shorter than Tubby and skinny as Popeye’s favorite dame. Owlish eyes looked out at the world through Mr. Magoo lenses. Tubby almost laughed at the sight.
The large eyes blinked up at Tubby, and then crinkled merrily as he grinned. “How’s it hanging, Tiny?”
Without waiting for a reply, he continued up the street in the direction of the Drive-In. After the comic book store, the hardtop of Main Street turned into an unpaved dirt road called Huggins Way. Dense woods lined it on both sides, the trees on the right serving as a buffer, screening the road from the worst of the ocean’s salty breezes. Tubby could hear the shushing surf as it sizzled ashore. He was about to try his hand at a clever comeback, but by then Ham Huggins’s only child was halfway up the street, singing the snappy theme song from Tubby’s favorite cartoon show.
“Spiderman! Spiderman! Does whatever a spider can! Spins a web! Hey, any size! Catches them thieves, just like flies! Look out! Here comes the Spiderman!”
First Interlude:
Thursday, October 7th, 2,004
The large gray dog lifted her aching head from between her paws and stared bleary eyed at the Overseer entering the kennel. As always, the Overseer had his hairy man-thing with him. The dog hated the man-thing even more than she hated the Overseers. The man-thing teased her, threw things at her, had once even urinated on her, leaving its vile monkey scent in her cage for all time.
Oh, how she despised the man-thing!
While the white coated Overseer began to prepare the meals, the hairy man-thing padded down the center aisle of the kennel, using her knuckles and hand-like feet to lope along. The Gray got up and bristled.
The hated man-thing had once been an animal subject herself, but the Overseer who cared for her and the other assorted animals of kennel 13 had rescued her and made the chimp his own. The man-thing now thought she was better than the other animals, still locked in their cages, awaiting the needles and the horrible deaths they all had to look forward to at the end of their test runs. The arrogant man-thing liked to lord it over the test subjects, but reserved its worst for the large gray female dog at the end of the run. It was the man-thing’s habit to open the Gray’s cage, to openly taunt her, for she knew the gray bitch wouldn’t—couldn’t—leave her cage. That was the first lesson every animal learned at the kennel. Leave the cage without the proper command and suffer great agony as a result. The Gray was counting on that careless assumption—for she’d suffer any pain to exact her revenge.
For two years she’d awaited her turn in the kennel as Test Subject K-13—#139. Waiting for the day when the Overseers would take her through that mysterious Back Door. Where the others returned either changed…or didn’t return at all. The stench of illness and death was always strong in the kennel in which she’d been whelped.
They’d come for her the day before, stabbing her with their needles, taking her blood, checking her eyes, teeth, gums, and genitals. Fingers, rude and rough. Poking and prodding! Poking and prodding! Never in the Gray’s life had she been so happy to return to the familiar narrow confines of her cage! Unlike so many before her, she had survived her journey through the Back Door.
Unharmed and unchanged.
Or so she had thought.
She’d gone to sleep afterwards, feeling no ill affects, but something had changed in her overnight.
She was different now.
Across the aisle one of her brothers feverishly paced his cage. He had received his shots on the very same day as she. It was the way of the Overseers to take two at a time: One male, one female, always from the same litter. Her brother had changed as well. She could smell the wanting on him. The urgent call to rut. Though, oddly enough, not with her. She ignored him, even though she too felt the need to mate. Coupling wasn’t paramount on her mind this day. It was an altogether different kind of lust she had on her mind. A lust for bloodletting…
The man-thing stopped in front of the Gray’s cage and turned to look back at her master. He didn’t like it when she opened the cage doors. He was preoccupied with the morning feedings, however, and had his back to her.
The man-thing reached up with her hairy hands and unlatched the cage…
Grinning, the Gray licked her foaming jowls.
*******
Yawning hugely, Oscar Wilson set the metal bowls on the pushcart. Having worked around the clock, he was in serious sleep debt. The Center had suffered some major cutbacks in their funding, and more than half of the staff had recently been let go. Despite this, the work continued unabated. Oscar, like so many at the Center these days, was doing the work of two, leaving him constantly tired and muddle-headed. He glanced over Dr. Bidwell’s instructions pasted to the kitchen wall, regarding meal preparations for the two large mix breeds at the end of the kennel:
Half a lb. ea. hamburger, mixed with dry kibble, cooked rice and vitamin supplements. Keep water dish full and clean. Record eating and drinking habits. Especially any aversion to liquids! Take stool samples. Note any changes in the coloration of the pupils and any aggressive tendencies. Excessive drool is of course a red flag! As always, maintain security precautions! Alert staff to any personal injuries or illness at once! Remember: No scratch is insignificant! No headache irrelevant!
Wilson’s upper lip curled in disgust. Now he had to watch them eat and drink, as well as collect their fucking crap! That was a new low. Despite that, he knew how important these last two test subjects were to the future of the Research Center—not to mention his job as kennel manager. The dogs had both received injections with a combination of the RS-6 and the RS-7 strains, giving the new mutation the code name RS-13. Dr. Bidwell’s last hope at redemption. Of the thirteen kennels on the base, only one remained in action now. Unlucky 13.
The tests run there strictly Hush-Hush.
As in: “The Public wouldn’t understand!” As in: “Keep your mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you!”
Kennels one-through-ten had run rather mundane research on human ailments, from the common cold to mumps—animal testing their main source of information. That kind of research, however, had run its course. The data already compiled sufficient enough for any future research. Kennels 11 and 12 had run tests on viruses that may or may not have had military applications—depending on who was asking and what their security clearance was.
Ebola, Anthrax, Small Pox, and such.
All very hot and lethal.
Those viruses, however, had proved too unstable, too virulent to work around without extreme cost measures, and thus, over time, the Center had eliminated that research as well. They had long ago put all their eggs into one nasty little basket. A virus that wasn’t quite as hot as the others, yet even deadlier in terms of its mortality. A virus with which Dr. Clint Bidwell was well acquainted.
RABIES.
And Kennel Thirteen was where he performed his voodoo on the virus. Creating a bio-weapon he hoped would someday destroy al-Qaeda and its subsets forever. And in the process, make him an obscenely wealthy man.
The assorted d
ogs, raccoons, and varied primates lined up on either side of kennel 13 had all received one of the previous strains of his mutant virus. Strains that in years of research and testing had yet to produce the desired results. Not unless you counted the accidental outbreak of eight years ago, which they’d been trying ever since to replicate. And Dr. Bidwell most assuredly marked that incident down in his Win column.
One Win amongst a legion of Losses.
In reality, Bidwell was down to his last two outs—the gray mutts at the end of the run. The rest of the animals, and the testing thereof, were really superfluous. They’d done it all countless times before. At this point, it was merely to eliminate those strains, once and for all.
In any case, Oscar wasn’t holding his breath. RS13 was likely just another dead end. He had already begun applying for work on the mainland. Something, perhaps, in the public sector. Maybe not so militaristic in nature. He’d had his fill of secrecy and subterfuge.
A couple of the raccoons, he noted, had died in the night, their bodies frozen in wretched poses of rictus. Too soon, he thought. That strain had worked much too fast on its host. “Two down, eleven to go.”
Wilson took two of the bowls off the cart. He filled in the rest from memory, saving 138’s and 139’s for last. He wanted to get finished with his morning chores as soon as possible. He was the only man on the base at the moment, and thus had the run of the place.
Wilson checked his watch; he had at least four hours to catch up on some Z’s before the rest of the staff came back from their meeting and lunch in Beaufort. He’d fudge on the reports just this once.
They’d never know the difference.
The bowls now ready, Wilson began sliding each one in turn through the small slots at the end of each Plexiglas covered cage. The surgical gloves he wore whenever he handled the food bowls squeaked as he made a notation on the chart hanging from a hook on cage #3. The Rhesus monkey was sluggish and paid the bowl of sliced fruit scant attention. He’d be putting that one in a body bag by nightfall. The monkey’s littermate in #4 was in even worse condition, her breathing shallow and labored. Wilson didn’t bother feeding it. The spider monkeys in numbers 5 and 6 growled at Wilson, as he slid their dinners into their cages. He wasn’t concerned; their deadly saliva couldn’t get past the Plexiglas shield.
Sliding a food bowl into the German shepherd’s cage, Wilson heard the unmistakable sound of a latch lifting. He looked down the run to see his pet chimp had opened the gray bitch’s cage again. “Weezy, what have I told you about that? Now you lock that cage right…”
Wilson watched in disbelief as the Gray threw itself at his ape, ignoring the painful lessons Wilson had himself taught her and her littermates. The chimp screamed as the big dog savaged her arm, nearly ripping it from her shoulder. Blood spattered the kennel floor and surrounding cages in pulsating jets. The screams from Wilson’s pet were shockingly similar to those of a child in abject terror.
“Let go of her!” Wilson bellowed, at once forgetting the security directive to immediately isolate and dispatch any escaped animals. To that optimistic conclusion, loaded dartguns were clipped to the walls at either ends of the kennel. Despite having enough sedative in each hypodermic to put down a rampaging Grizzly Bear, Wilson didn’t even consider them. The cries of his chimp drove him to the heights of foolishness. Grabbing the cattle prod from his belt, he charged the slavering hound.
The Gray released the man-thing as soon as the shock stick struck her side, sending her sprawling on the polished concrete floor. Weezy escaped, climbing on top of the cages, crying out her outrage and pain. The others immediately took up her frenzied chorus.
Kennel 13 was now bedlam.
The lab tech was creeping up on the Gray with his shock stick, ready to deliver the coup de grace, when the rabid dog regained her feet. The first thing Wilson noticed was how bloodshot her eyes had become. So red they appeared to be shining. The next was the foaming jaws…
Fuck me, was Wilson’s singular thought.
The Gray flew at the Overseer, her jaws wrapping around his throat before he could bring his hands even halfway up to defend himself. Blood spurted into her mouth. For a brief moment the madness in her mind receded like the tides. His subsequent screams brought the red waves crashing back to shore, though, flooding her senses with renewed fury. She released her grip on his throat and tore into his face. Her long canines sliced through his contorted visage, tearing off half the flesh in one long bloody peel. His bottom lip tore free and hit the floor like a raw piece of liver. The gray bitch shook the remnants of his face in her foaming jaws. She was about to finish the kill when a moment of clarity washed over her:
Escape before it’s too late! Run while you still can!!!
Maybe if she fled this place she might be able to purge the sickness coursing through her veins. Besides, now that she’d taken his blood, she felt an even stronger urge to spare his life.IT was in him now.
Wilson waited for death to take him away—yet despite the severity of his wounds, he kept right on breathing. He sat up slowly and looked up at his pet chimp.
Weezy was crying from her perch atop the cages. She stared down at him mournfully. The kennel was so noisy that Wilson could barely think.
“eezy, ‘om on down, girl. That ‘itch is gone,” he said, his voice different with the loss of his lower lip—articulation now an impossibility. He forced himself to his feet and looked back to where he’d entered the kennel. Sure enough, the door stood wide open, revealing the manicured grounds of the base beyond. The gray bitch had flown the coop. But beyond the five hundred acres of the fenced-in base she had nowhere to go. No way to get out.
He’d deal with that four-legged cunt later. He turned back to his chimp and reached up to her.
“ ‘om ‘ere, eezy. ‘om on down—’”
The chimp stared back at her mutilated master in terror. His shredded face unrecognizable. She recoiled from his outstretched hands, and raced along the tops of the cages, leaping for the opened door and freedom.
“ ‘—O, eezy!” Wilson shouted. “ ‘ome ack ‘ere!”
He stumbled out of the kennel and into the compound. Helpless, he watched Weezy run for the security fence in the distance. Despite her injured arm, she quickly scaled it, jumping to the swampland beyond, where she soon disappeared from view.
Sobbing, Oscar Wilson staggered after her.
Chapter Two:
Rusty “Gnat” Huggins
Friday, October 8th, 2,004
Rusty Huggins squinted sleepily at the sunlight filtering through his bedroom window. Dust motes danced in the beams of light falling upon his bed. “Fuck a duck,” he said, slapping off the alarm clock, buzzing rudely beside his ear. He’d hit the snooze bar one too many times and now he was running late again. He collected his glasses from atop a tottering pile of books on his nightstand and slipped them on, pulling the thick rubber strap behind his head. The glasses had a tendency to slip down his small nose; the rubber strap kept them firmly in place otherwise. The lenses were Coke bottle thick, the frames heavy and black.
Butt ugly was what they were.
Rusty couldn’t have cared less. Over the years his Buddy Holly glasses had become a mask from which he could hide behind. A disguise to hide away his shame.
Not that Rusty had given it that much thought, mind you. He was a teenager, for God’s sake! Nevertheless, it was true. Aside from his parents and friends and old Doc Bidwell, no one had ever seen him without the glasses covering his peepers. He even wore them when taking a shower after gym class. Shiiitt. Especially, then!
He rubbed his eyes under the frames and stumbled his way to the bathroom. He was, as Tubby Tolson had noted his first day on the island, painfully thin and small. The shortest person in his eleventh grade class, by a full foot-and-a-half (though, he’d skipped a grade, so Rusty didn’t think that comparison at all fair).
Except for his mom and dad, everyone called him Gnat—a nickname Rusty secretly despised.
Gnats, or as some people called them, noseeums, were tiny parasitic insects, even smaller than mosquitoes! Being compared to an insignificant insect was bad enough, but what really cooked Rusty’s ass was his body’s refusal to turn the corner into puberty. It shamed him to take showers after gym class. Probably even more so than it did that new fat kid in school.