Helix: Plague of Ghouls

by Pat Flewwelling

  “Yeah, you look no older than she does,” Holly said. “And eighteen-year-old girls don’t have twenty-year-old fathers. You have to relax.”

  “I don’t look twenty.”

  They still hadn’t told him about his other connection to Elmbury. Hours earlier, Ishmael had decided it would be better to come out and tell the Padre that he was wanted in the town for murder. He hoped the truth would convince the Padre to exercise more discretion. But a crowded Goodwill second-hand shop wasn’t the best place for full disclosure.

  Ishmael laid a size medium green hoodie on the top of the circular rack for the Padre to try on. While he was there, Ishmael went looking for a darker-coloured hoodie for himself, because under the right circumstances, Ishmael could “pass” too. His phone bleeped and he ignored it again. Bridget could wait a second. They had to make their purchases and get out, fast, because the store had the same acrid smell as at the Howard Johnson downtown, and Ishmael’s upper lip was itching.

  “Holly, think about it for a second here,” the Padre said, softly. “What if she’s related to me? What if . . .” He shrugged. “What if I did something?”

  “She’s not even been missing a week. I seriously doubt you did anything.”

  “There are kids that are dead and eaten. Like what a pack of Lost Ones would do. What if I did something to her, and now she’s Lost?”

  “And still alive after six years?” Ishmael asked.

  Holly quickly held up a wide shirt, screening the Padre from the suddenly curious girl at the cash register. “Do we have to do this right now? Can’t this wait until we’re back at the hotel?”

  “What if we are related?” the Padre finally asked, in a flurry of gestures and hushed words.

  Ishmael sighed. “What about it?”

  “Well . . . how?” the Padre asked. “There were two of us. Twins. She’s the right age—what if she was his daughter, or mine? How in the hell would I ever know if I was her father?”

  Holly dropped the oversized t-shirt. “DNA testing.” Then she closed her eyes. “No, you’re right, it wouldn’t work.”

  “My brother and I have—we would have had—identical DNA. And I don’t know which one I am, Holly. I don’t know who I am, and for all I know, my own daughter might be missing.”

  Holly desperately made a sign for the Padre to lower his voice. His eyes were wide and full of desperate wrath.

  “Except there’s one thing we do know about you,” Ishmael said. He found a black hoodie with some white stitching. With the right tools, the decal could come off easily enough. He put it on top of the hoodie he’d found for the Padre. “You’re not exactly the fathering type.”

  “You don’t know that,” the Padre said.

  “You told me you’re gay.”

  “He could be bi,” Holly said. “Besides, gay doesn’t imply infertile.”

  Thanks, Holly. Great help.

  “What if I was closeted for all my life, and didn’t admit I was gay until I lost my memory?” the Padre asked. “What if, post-change, I figured that staying in the closet wasn’t so damned important anymore?” He shrugged helplessly. Carefully, deliberately—and fortunately, quietly—he spoke again. “How do I know that I’m not that girl’s father?”

  “Maybe it’s a coincidence that she looks like you,” Holly said. “Maybe she is related—but only as a great-niece or something. I don’t know. Barring that, we’ve no way to prove that she’s infected. Ishmael’s right. The numbers don’t add up.”

  Ishmael handed the Padre the green hoodie to try on. It was an adequate fit. The Padre complained that it smelled like a second-hand store, which shouldn’t have been such a surprise to him.

  “Maybe she is Lost,” Holly said. “Maybe she’s just another runaway. But I think our first priority should be in figuring out who died, how they died, and then figure out how to stop the killer.”

  “Or killers,” Ishmael added, “and I agree with you wholeheartedly.” The black hoodie was a tight fit across the chest, even in his human form. The sleeves would be all right—his arms would lose length anyhow—but he needed something he could zip closed before he up-cycled. He checked the size again. It was an XL. “Bloody hell,” he complained. “I haven’t been eating that much, have I?”

  Holly lowered her eyes demurely and smiled.

  “You need anything else?” Ishmael asked. He pointed to the jeans the Padre had draped over his arm and completely forgotten about. “You tried them on already?”

  “Yeah, they’re fine.”

  “Did you find any tearaway pants?” Ishmael asked. “Like athletic pants. In case of emergency.”

  “No,” the Padre spat. “I didn’t see any, because I didn’t look.”

  “Maybe there’s a sporting goods store in the mall,” Holly said. “We can try there.” She took the various pants, shirts, and jackets and headed toward the cash register, leaving the two men behind.

  “I want out of this town. The longer I stay here, the more I hate the place.” The Padre fidgeted and sucked his teeth. “There’s something about this place you’re not telling me, and it has something to do with that girl.”

  Ishmael made a hand sign, asking for a little more patience and quiet. “We can leave when the mission’s done. Believe me, I don’t want to be here either. I’ve got eight brand new kittens to track down and deal with, and the last thing I want to be doing is chasing down any more Lost Ones. God, how I miss the old days when a werewolf was a werewolf, and I was the only exception to the rule . . .”

  The Padre moved things around the rack as noisily as he could.

  “There’s one sure-fire way of picking up a trail on the murderer—or murderers—and unfortunately, because of those kittens, we can’t capitalize on it,” Ishmael said.

  “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned them, and you still haven’t explained.”

  “Wyrd believes that I infected a bunch of women,” Ishmael murmured. “That’s why I ended up in Wyndham Farms in the first place. Somebody found a video that was supposed to prove that I’d turned them. Quarantine was supposed to be my prison, and you people were supposed to be my executioners.”

  The Padre didn’t reply, but he seemed to be listening.

  “And the guy who found the video is the same guy that we need right now. You remember asking how we used to find one of our own kind in a crowd?”

  “Sure. You didn’t explain that either.”

  “The best way to find a target is by sniffing him out. You and me, we have the equipment when we’re in-cycle, but we lack subtlety.”

  “Unless you can pass for a dog,” the Padre said, wavering between distaste and understanding.

  “Normally, dogs and us don’t get along. Dogs don’t trust us. They’re just as likely to tear our throats out as to look at us.”

  They had to speak quickly now, because once again, people were staring. Ishmael wanted to turn his back on them, but that would only make him and the Padre look more like co-conspirators. So he made it look like they were assessing the impact of an upcoming NHL trade. “If you want to do a nice, controlled take-down, you need some way of identifying the target in a crowd, tag him somehow, and then follow him out to some unpopulated area. Harvey has raised a special breed of dog, acclimatized them to our scent, trained them to tag us by simply putting its paw on our leg and then walk away.”

  “Which is great, if you’re outdoors,” the Padre said. “Dogs aren’t usually allowed inside public buildings.”

  “Sure,” Ishmael agreed. “Unless you pass them off as seeing eye dogs, like Harvey does. Then you can take them anywhere. Indoors or out. Hell, you can even take them into the bathroom with you.”

  The Padre nodded. Then he stopped nodding and paled. “Ishmael, don’t ask me to pass for a seeing eye dog.”

  “Cadaver dog,” Ishmael said.

  “Ha—no.”

  “Fastest possible way to—”

  “No. Screw you. No. In public? Are you insane? No!”<
br />
  Ishmael raised his hands as a reminder that people were watching them.

  “No,” the Padre repeated.

  “I promised Bridget I wouldn’t tell you about Halo County, not until we’re back at Varco Lake. But if you do this for me, I’ll spit on that promise and tell you everything you want to know.”

  “I could find out on my own.”

  “And we’d still be stuck here, waiting around for the next body to drop.”

  “Damn it, Ishmael . . .”

  “Or, you could swallow your pride, and help me stop another plague before it begins.” Ishmael put his hands on his hips. “Or do you want someone else to suffer the way you did at Wyndham Farms? Because this next time, I can assure you, an outbreak won’t be handled by a privately funded group of philanthropists. Next time, it’ll be public, and it’ll be spearheaded by somebody’s government, who’ll want to cash in on a biological weapon. And I’m pretty sure they’re not going to wait for people to die before they start an autopsy. You care about that doppelganger of yours, whether she’s your daughter or not? You think about her being under the knife. You think about her up-cycling while they’ve got her pinned under scalpels and cameras and cold clammy fingers.”

  The Padre sounded like he was crushing marbles between his teeth. “No leash.”

  “No guarantees of that.”

  “No . . . leash.”

  Ishmael held up his hands, shoving the idea back at the Padre. “We’ll negotiate. Let’s just get out of here. The smell of this place is giving me the creeps, and I’m getting tired of people asking if you’re some kind of celebrity trying to hide his identity,” Ishmael said.

  “You can hear that?”

  Ishmael’s cheek twitched, and the inside of his upper lip stung, as if he’d gotten a paper cut in his mouth. That was never, ever a good sign. “I can’t turn it off,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I just can’t turn it off.”

  The Padre nodded. “Then maybe you should be the one on the leash.”

  FEROX LISTENED THROUGH the door before knocking. The hallway was deserted, but she still felt like she was being watched. Judging by the various smells, the whole floor had been unoccupied for days. LED lights blinked on the hallway surveillance cameras. She wondered who might be monitoring them. Angie, maybe? Jay? She knocked again.

  “Come,” Gil said.

  She peered through the crack. “Dr. Burton?”

  “Who is it?”

  She opened the door a little wider, but hid behind it. “It’s me. Angie said you were looking for me. Can I come in?”

  Gil grunted. “Ferox.”

  She padded softly onto the carpet of his dormitory room. “Are you all right? I’ve been looking for you everywhere, and there was no one around for me to ask where you were.”

  Gil was trying to sit up in bed. His neck looked fragile. He gave up and waved her over. She shut the door behind her and pulled up a chair. “Having one of my bad days.”

  “Do you want me to find Shuffle for you? Maybe he can help . . .”

  “I do want you to find him . . .” His voice was paper thin. “Tell him to look . . . in the lab fridge.” He grunted and pointed to his dormitory desk, where he kept a laptop and his landline phone. She went over to where he indicated and opened a drawer. Inside there were papers, pens, a pack of gum, a cell phone, and a set of keys. He nodded when she picked up the keys. “Inside is a . . . specimen case. Syringes. One of them is for Mary Anne. It will take . . . a few days . . . for full effect . . . But only one shot required.” He was heaving for breath. She put her hand on his forehead. He closed his eyes. “At least, that’s the theory . . .”

  She pulled up the chair close to his bedside.

  “Take the rest of what’s in the box. Take it with you. Take Shuffle with you. Find Ishmael. Tell him to go to the bunker. Everything he needs is there.”

  “The bunker?” Ferox asked.

  “Oh right. You came later. You weren’t there. Is Bridget with him? Is she with Ish?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. She knows where the bunker is.”

  He raised his hand to pause the conversation. He was having a hell of a time catching his breath. He rolled onto his side as if to ease the crush of gravity on his rib cage. She asked if he needed something, if there was anything she could do to help him, but he impatiently waved her off. He had more important things he wanted off his chest.

  “When you see Shuffle . . . tell him I get it.”

  “You get what?” she asked.

  “I understand why . . . he did what he did.” He closed his eyes, as if that would help him to conserve his energy. “I don’t agree with it. But I get it.”

  She slid her hand from his forehead, down his shoulder, down his bare arm. In the crook of his elbow, she saw a tiny divot. An injection site. “Uh . . . what—”

  “Everything else he needs . . . is at a lab in Halifax. Lacuna Laboratories.” He said it again until she repeated the name of the lab. “Samples. My notes. My research. Foster’s research. Get there fast. Get him to work. You’ll need it.”

  “For?”

  “For Jay’s bonewalkers.”

  “Bonewalkers? What the hell are bonewalkers?”

  “Fourth generation,” Gil said.

  “Ah shit, Doctor . . .”

  He grunted. “My fault.”

  “Wait—what?”

  “My fault,” he said again. “I was trying . . . to find a cure. For you. Get you out of quarantine. Before Wyrd starved you to death.”

  “You were working with Foster the whole time?”

  “Working on my own. In secret. Trying to,” he added grumpily. “A cure for you . . . is a weapon against Wyrd. But it wasn’t right. I wasn’t finished. I’d created . . . something. But not a cure. Jay stole my research. Copied it . . . right off the server . . . the prick. Then he tested it. Found victims of his own.”

  “Mother of God,” Ferox said, dropping her face into her hands.

  “It spread like wildfire.”

  She shut her burning eyes. Tears of outrage mingled with tears of profound sadness. She tried to pull away, but he caught her by the hand.

  “Tell him I’m sorry,” Gil whispered.

  “Tell him yourself,” she replied.

  Gil pulled her closer. “A long time ago, Ishmael tried to save my life. Maybe he did. We were driving. It was late. After a gig.” He smiled ruefully. “We had a punk rock band. Ish, Jay, me, Moe Barr on drums. It was dark. Road was icy. Another car hit us head on. Moe died. Jay and Ish cycled through and walked it off. I was trapped. Broken neck. Car caught fire.”

  “Oh God!”

  “Ish got me out, but I was . . .” He tried to cough. “I was in a bad way. Jay wanted to leave me for dead. Ish said it was my choice.”

  “You knew already? About Ish and Jay being what they are?”

  Gil nodded. “I wasn’t in Wyrd then. But I knew. Helped them keep their cover.”

  “And Ish wanted to turn you.”

  “He gave me the choice. I said yes.”

  “But . . . the infection would take months before it’d kick in—”

  “That was the risk,” Gil agreed. “I could recover from the crash . . . but never get better. Not unless I could . . . self-repair.”

  “Like Ishmael.”

  “But you know why . . . so many of Dr. Grey’s victims . . . died before they got to . . . quarantine?”

  “Dr. Foster used to say that the retrovirus could trigger recessive diseases in someone’s DNA,” Ferox said, hesitantly. “Like sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis.”

  “Or MS,” Gil said. He raised his skeletal hand and pointed his thumb at his chest. “He saved me from one wheelchair. Put me in another. When I saw that video . . .” He sighed and covered his eyes with his long, bony fingers. “I got jealous. Why them? Why not me? And he betrayed my trust. He betrayed Wyrd. He was a hypocrite! Killing people who infected innocents . . . and infecting his
own victims. Killing so many in Moldova . . . then starting his own outbreak. Kidnapping women. Turning them. I saw that video. I had it analyzed. I was furious.”

  “That’s why you told Angie to put him in quarantine,” Ferox murmured. “To make him see the consequences of an outbreak, like the one he started.”

  “No.” Gil shook his head. “That’s why I experimented on him first.”

  ISHMAEL HAD JUST walked into the electronics store when his cell phone rang. He’d completely forgotten to check his messages.

  It wasn’t from Bridget.

  “Shit,” he mouthed. He read it again. “Shit!” The word wasn’t nearly cathartic enough to get out the full awfulness of the news, and anything louder would have gotten him turfed from the store. He put his phone in his pocket.

  They had to leave. They had to get out, they had to plan, they had to do something.

  He checked the time. He’d promised Bridget they’d be back at the Marigold in two hours; another fifteen minutes, and they’d be overdue.

  We need to call Burley and cancel the mission. Cancel everything and just . . . just go back to Wyndham Farms!

  Holly chatted with the sales rep, earning a 10% Flirt Discount with every twist of her blonde hair. The Padre was out in the truck behind tinted windows. Ishmael envied the Padre, because that smell he first detected at the HoJo, that stink of burning dust, was here in the electronics store, too. The Padre was right: there was something in the town’s air.

  Ishmael dialled out, but there was no reception. He made a hand sign to Holly, indicating that he needed to go outside to place the call. She nodded. The love-struck sales rep didn’t even seem to notice. Ishmael went outside into the chilly air, where the breeze swept sound away with the last of the autumn leaves. He went around a corner, out of the wind, but he still had to plug his ear against the sound of the highway traffic on the other side of the ditch.

  Gil picked up on the third ring.

  “What,” Ishmael said, “the . . . hell.”

  “I know, eh?” Gil replied. Ishmael could hear Gil drop into a chair.

  “Tell me you’re joking.”

  “They left about two hours ago.” There was a long pause while Gil caught his breath. “One truck. Practically no luggage.” It sounded like Gil was opening a desk drawer.