Will was standing in the middle of the stream, looking back at them. He’d whipped the bears into a fury. They were guarding the shore carefully, bellowing in challenge, aching for him to come on land again. Will flashed the group a relaxed smile.
“Man, he’s fearless,” Dunbar marveled.
Heath signaled Will with a halfhearted wave. He understood what the group didn’t—they were looking at three very dangerous creatures.
Miles laid Cricket down on the bench closest to the metal door, positioning his limbs so he wouldn’t fall off. He stretched tall, then did some bends and twists until his back cracked in three places. Considering that he’d had Cricket’s weight on him since they entered the beaver pond, he’d definitely earned the break.
“Help me flip this guy,” Heath recruited Dunbar.
“I wish we had a giant spatula,” Dunbar whined. “We’re kids, not coroners. We shouldn’t have to do this stuff.”
“Just help me, dude.” He was nearly spent and doubted he could do it alone.
The boys rolled the dead man over onto his back. He looked to be about forty or so with bad teeth, but otherwise unremarkable. His skin was still warm, but his face was frozen in a look of deep surprise. There was no bullet hole in his front; the man in the Jeep had callously shot him in the back, then stepped over his corpse to leave the building.
“I think we just entered a whole new world of weird,” Miles said.
The dead man was wearing an ID badge. Heath unclipped it from his lab coat and read it out loud. “‘Carl Schroeder. Microbiologist. U.S. Army.’ Will was right—I think this is a military complex. Probably some kind of laboratory.”
“I bet there’s a phone at the check-in desk,” Emily said. “I’ll see if I can’t find an address to this place and let the Granite Falls police know where we are.”
“Great,” Heath said. “Tell them we need an ambulance, too.”
Emily tugged on the metal door, but it wouldn’t budge. “I think the lock is computerized.”
“Try this.” Heath handed her a plastic card he’d pilfered from the lab coat’s pocket.
Emily slid it through a magnetic reader and a little green light blinked on. They heard a beep and a clack. She lifted the handle and the door opened. Emily peered inside. “It’s dark,” she said nervously. “Anyone want to come with me? Em?”
“Sure.” Emma reluctantly peeled her eyes off the scientist. “I’m tired of dead bodies, anyway. I didn’t wake up this morning thinking I’d be looking at dead bodies all day.”
“It’s getting to all of us,” Emily empathized. “Hopefully his is the last one we’ll see for a long time.”
“When I die—of old age, of course—I’ll understand if you guys want to skip my wake.” Leave it to Dunbar to make a joke out of it.
“Nope, I’ll be there with bells on, dancing a jig,” said Emma wryly.
“You’re evil.” Dunbar grinned. “I admire that.”
To an outside observer who hadn’t been through their ordeal, it may have seemed odd that they could make light at that moment, but Heath understood perfectly. Their playfulness was a sign of relief. It was probable that they were out of the woods now, literally and figuratively. Being inside a building, especially one solidly built, felt instantly soothing, like aloe on a nagging burn. They’d seen enough bodies that day to fill a small-town cemetery. One more wouldn’t break them and it certainly wouldn’t taint their freshened spirits.
“C’mon.” Emily tugged at her sister’s arm. “Let’s go find a phone.”
“Dunbar and I will come, too,” Heath said. “Miles can wait here with Cricket.”
“Hurry,” Miles pleaded.
The door had a stopper at the bottom that Heath used to prop it open for light. The group filed into a long, shadowy corridor. The entrance to the check-in room was the first room off to the right, but it was vacant except for a desk, a chair, and an empty corkboard hanging on the wall. It was the same in all the rooms. None of them had doors. The place had been designed for collaboration, not privacy.
They came to another metal door at the end of the hallway, but unlike the one in the foyer, it had no handle or card reader and it swung open easily when Heath pushed on it. A nasty smell like boiling soap wafted over them. The group cringed and took a step back to let the brunt of it pass on by into the hallway.
“That’s bad,” said Emma, gagging against the back of her wrist.
“The worst. Let’s find a light.” Heath led them into the room beyond.
Suddenly laughter echoed through the darkness. Not a normal laugh either. It was a maniacal, whooping giggle. The kind that blares over speakers in a fun house or from the mouth of an insane villain on a cartoon.
Heath had heard that laugh before. He recognized it from when he was in the hospital as a kid. He never expected to hear it again, especially not here, of all places. It made no sense. No sense at all. He knew exactly what it was and why they had to flee.
Heath lifted his arms warningly and whispered, “Back away toward the door.”
“Heath?” said Emily.
“If we don’t leave right now,” he told them, “we are all going to die.”
We’re off to the comedy show.
We love a good laugh, hee ha ho!
Each bug got a ticket, except for the cricket.
For the cricket was late, don’t you know.
For the cricket was late, don’t you know.
SUDDENLY HEATH WAS eight years old again, back in room 309 of the pediatric wing of the Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. His father had somehow managed to fall asleep in the torturously shaped plastic chair next to Heath’s bed. His mother was standing outside in the hallway crying. Again. If she kept it up, the hospital janitor would have to set one of those CAUTION: WET FLOOR signs at her feet.
Although the room was dimly lit, the glow from the television mounted on the wall still made him squint; sensitivity to light was one of the side effects of the chemotherapy. The National Geographic Channel was broadcasting a show about the wildlife of the Serengeti, and he’d decided an escape to the African grasslands was worth a little discomfort.
Nurse Kevin came in and fussed about, checked Heath’s IV, scribbled on his chart, and pretended to be interested in the elephants gorging on tree bark on TV. “They could use a little less roughage in their diet,” joked the young man, nodding at the screen. “And you, my friend, could stand to eat a little more.”
“Okay,” Heath said. “I’ll try.” He’d discovered over the past few weeks that being agreeable meant less hassle from the hospital staff, especially Nurse Kevin, who was constantly on his case about keeping his strength up.
“Good. And it wouldn’t kill you to watch a cartoon once in awhile. It’s hard to feel sorry for tree bark, but usually when I drop in it’s nothing but animals eating one another on TV. Try to watch something less grim occasionally. It’s a corny expression, but it’s true: laughter is the best medicine.”
“Okay.”
Nurse Kevin smiled warmly and jiggled Heath’s big toe through the fleece blanket. “See you tomorrow, buddy.” He headed for the door, paused, and pointed with his pen up at the screen. “See? Now there’s a guy who enjoys a good laugh.”
As the door to his room eased shut, Heath watched the television with fascination. A creature that looked to be part dog and part cat, but bigger than both, trotted across sun-scorched grass. It had a coarse brownish coat, a black muzzle, and black spots on its legs. Its lower jaw hung slack, as if dangling from a broken hinge, giving the animal a sickly, dull-witted appearance, even though the narrator of the show declared it to be healthy and cunning. Heath had never seen one of these creatures before, but he disliked it instantly and intensely. Not just because it looked mangy and evil, or because it was an opportunistic scavenger, but because it had a creepy, high-pit
ched laugh, like the annoying clown that stopped by on Saturdays to make lame balloon animals and squirt sick kids in the face with his boutonniere. The animal on TV had a 3-D guffaw that blasted out of the screen, mocking Heath for being sick. It was a horrid, vile thing.
Even the creature’s name was weird.
Hy-e-na.
Hyena.
He shuddered.
Heath took Nurse Kevin’s advice and flipped through the channels, setting the remote down on the nightstand when a lovesick skunk in a beret came bouncing across the screen. He tucked the blanket up under his chin.
Better.
The laughter stopped as lights flickered on.
“They must run on motion sensors,” Dunbar determined.
Heath scanned the room for danger and found none at all. “I don’t get it,” he said, deeply confused. “I know what I heard….”
Seeing no cause for alarm, Emma brushed Heath’s arm aside and moved deeper into the room. “What is this place? It looks like a laboratory.”
That’s exactly what it was. The room was large and clean. The tile floor had been freshly waxed. There were two rows of workstations, with a dozen stations in each row. A third and middle row consisted of five stands, each with a large printer on it. Almost every piece of furniture was white, metal, and on wheels, giving Heath the impression the room was designed to be easily cleared and cleaned quickly, if anyone had stuck around to do it, which they hadn’t. The place was a ghost town. Heath listened intently for the weird laughter, but all he heard was the electrical hum of computers still processing data that would go unread.
“Check it out.” Emily motioned them over to one of the desks. The computer screen set on it was glowing, displaying video feed from four different cameras positioned at different areas of the facility. The screen was quartered to monitor the following: a room with high-tech equipment, like centrifuges and microscopes. A room with several impressive freezers that looked nothing like the ones he’d seen in the appliance sections of Lowe’s or Home Depot. An even larger laboratory, with animal cages lining the walls—every cage was occupied. And finally, a view of the area surrounding the facility, which seemed to be the only one constantly changing. In this quarter, the video feed passed around a network of cameras fixed somewhere on the roof, and Heath determined that one full orbit around the building took maybe ninety seconds.
“Look!” Emily pointed. “There’s the river!”
The monitor displayed the last spot they’d seen Will. He was gone.
“What’s that idiot up to now?” Emma asked. “And where are the bears?”
“I don’t know.” Heath studied the image for clues. “Let’s keep watching. Maybe he’ll pop up.”
They waited anxiously as the feed jumped from camera to camera, returning once more to the river, revealing no sign of Will.
“Do you think the bears ate him?” Dunbar asked.
Emma smacked him on the back of the head. “Don’t say that!”
“Hey!” Dunbar protested. “Sorry! I thought you said you were over him!”
She smacked him again.
“What was that one for?”
“For not knowing a thing about girls,” Emma said crossly.
“I’m sure Will’s okay. Maybe he walked the bears farther downstream for some reason,” Heath speculated. “If he did, we wouldn’t be able to see him through the trees, right? Or maybe he’s already inside the building and the bears wandered off. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
They heard the laughter again. It was louder and more pronounced.
“What the heck is that?” Dunbar asked.
“That”—Heath pointed to one of the cages on the bottom left corner of the split screen—“is a hyena.”
“Are you serious?” Emily asked, leaning in for a closer look.
“A real, live hyena?” said Dunbar. “In this building? Right now?”
“We’re not watching reruns.” Heath straightened and headed toward a set of heavy glass airlocked doors at the back of the room, which had been wide open. “Guess we should say hello.”
“Hideous thing, isn’t he?” Emma commented, studying the hyena through the thick bars of its cage.
“Yeah,” Dunbar agreed. “His nose is pretty straight.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Emma demanded to know.
“Nothing,” Dunbar said. “Forget it.”
The hyena paced nervously with a low, tight gait, watching the kids. It seemed agitated, but that struck Heath as normal behavior. It didn’t appear sick at all. Its eyes were clear and alert, and its mouth was free of foam. It was a male, much bigger than Heath thought he’d be judging by the one he’d seen on the nature show. The beast was almost as big as Quilt Face, but he was built differently, with hind legs that were shorter than the front, a back that sloped noticeably toward his stubby neck and broad, flat skull. His tail resembled a lion’s, sporting a pom-pom at the end. And his legs were spotted, which is why, unlike the three other types of hyenas in the world, he was called a spotted hyena. There was a clipboard on top of the cage with a thick stack of pages clamped to it. Heath started reading.
“At least now we know where that smell’s coming from,” Dunbar said, pinching his nose shut. The foul stink emitted from the hyena’s rump gland had a pungent burning, soapy quality. Even with dozens of other animals in the room, it was the dominant odor.
“Look at them all,” Emily said, wandering from cage to cage. “It’s a zoo in here.”
“They’re indigenous,” Heath pointed out, remembering the placard Dunbar had found in the livery. “Except for the hyena, every animal in here can be found in the Cascade Mountains.”
“You’re right,” Emily said. She pointed some out. “There’s a woodchuck. And a chipmunk. I think that’s a bobcat.”
A booming grunt brought their attention to a huge cage at the back of the room. Inside was a male moose. Heath estimated the beast was seven feet tall at the shoulders and weighed close to a ton. He could take a nap between the far tips of its antlers. Heath had read somewhere that the moose didn’t have many natural enemies besides man, with the exception of Siberian tigers, bears, and on the rare occasion, killer whales hunting around islands near North America’s northwest coast. Only a super-predator could mess with a moose and come out on top. The one in the room with them stood in his paddock with his back to them, completely uninterested, which was fine by Heath.
“Why are they so quiet?” Emily peered into a long cage. Whatever was at the back, bunched against the bars, wasn’t moving.
“They’re probably drugged,” said Dunbar.
Emily tapped the cage.
“Em, don’t—!” Heath’s warning came too late. The wolverine inside came to life, lunging at her, snarling and gnashing the wire. Foam bubbled from its mouth. Emily screamed and trotted backward toward the center of the room.
Heath caught her. “Did it bite you?”
Emily inspected her shaking hands for teeth marks. “No—no, I’m okay. It just scared me.”
The wolverine emitted a long hiss, then backed up as far as the cage allowed and lay down on its belly.
“It has the Flash,” Heath said. “I bet they all do. Even this guy.” He tapped on the hyena’s cage, but the animal didn’t react aggressively as the wolverine had. In fact, the creature shrunk back a bit. It was fearful. Heath suspected it might have been abused.
“Are you sure it has the virus?” Dunbar asked. “It seems okay to me.”
“Look.” Heath pointed to a handwritten note card clipped to the side of the hyena’s cage.
Dunbar read it aloud. “‘Spotted Hyena—Crocuta crocuta.’”
Below the animal’s two names, common and scientific, were the words Patient Zero.
Dunbar was confused. “What’s that supposed to mean? Patien
t Zero?”
Since beating cancer the first time, Heath had developed an interest in diseases and read a lot of books on the subject, specifically about their cures and origins. He’d even thought about becoming a medical researcher one day. “Patient Zero is what scientists call the first known carrier of new diseases,” he explained. “Usually the term refers to a human, but I guess it can apply to an animal, too. This hyena is Patient Zero for the mutated rabies virus.”
Dunbar took a healthy step away from the hyena’s cage. “So you’re saying he’s the cause of everything? The reason why everyone back at camp is probably dead? Sylvester and Soup Can, too?”
“I don’t think the hyena is directly to blame.” A dour expression settled on Heath’s face. “I don’t want to believe it, but I think the people here, the scientists, gave him the disease. On purpose.”
Emily knelt down to get a better look at the hyena. It was rubbing its side against the bars, struggling to scratch an itch. “Why would anyone do something so horrible?”
“I don’t understand most of this report.” Heath bit his lip and flipped through the papers. “I’m not a microbiologist. It’s over my head. But I bet I know why they chose the hyena as Patient Zero. It’s because hyenas are special. They’re the only known mammal that can carry the regular rabies virus without showing any of the symptoms or dying from it. In fact, thirty percent of hyenas in the wild probably have rabies.”
Dunbar said, “So?”
“So, I can’t be sure, but it looks like the military was deliberately trying to create a new strain of rabies and chose a hyena to host it because it wouldn’t die or go psycho on them. They could run it through trials for years, if they needed to.”
“That poor thing,” said Emily.
“I feel sorry for it, too,” Heath said. “Just don’t get too close to him. Rabies or not, hyenas can be vicious.”
As if on cue the hyena belted out a long, loony laugh.
“That’s not funny,” Emma scolded him. “Bad dog. Bad.”
Heath continued reading. “It looks like the scientists started with some kind of airborne super flu that only affects water buffalo in Southeast Asia—I remember seeing that on the news. It killed off thousands of the animals in less than a month. They combined the water buffalo flu with regular rabies and then kept tinkering with it. I think the scientists also engineered the new rabies to be harmless to humans in the airborne form.” Heath wrinkled his brow, squinted at the congested writing and confusing equations on the pages. “I don’t know…this document…it’s so technical, it’s almost like reading a foreign language.”
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