He let loose with another chest-crushing bout of hacking and looked in tearful dismay at the blood flecks that dotted the floor.
In his entire career, he had never gone off the air without finishing a story. He held the paper in front of his eyes, forced himself to focus, and tried to read the lines that were beginning to blur.
“Officials are saying that at least ten thousand Reno residents have died in this epidemic in what they are now calling a Category Five pandemic.”
It was more than ten thousand, he knew. Much more. George Mack had privately conceded as much when Tyrone had last talked with him twenty-four hours earlier, but Mack had pressured him to downplay the numbers. He’d said that to admit to more would only encourage hysteria. But as far as Hayden could see, hysteria was hardly evident on the streets of Reno anymore. What was evident were the piles of bodies that the National Guard troops couldn’t clear fast enough to keep them from stacking up like rotten leaves in autumn. They clogged the gutters, decomposing before the white-suited Guardsmen could haul them away.
He’d felt well then. And now, twenty-four hours later, he was dying, his every effort at self-protection having failed, making him one more body to add to the thousands and thousands outside.
He had no one to label his corpse. A final, ironic laugh shook his body as he contemplated filling out his own form. Perhaps he could tie it around his neck before he collapsed in the sound booth, and then when someone finally came in to check on why Tyrone Hayden wasn’t broadcasting at his appointed time, they could just drag him out to the gutter and dump him with a minimum of fuss.
The smile faded from his face. He let his copy flutter to the floor and sat motionlessly, breathing shallowly. He realized that this marker of life wouldn’t exist much longer, that the simple act of respiration would soon become agonizing. Dark hours of suffering lay ahead.
He pressed the broadcast button. He had never had so much dead airtime in his life. “On a personal note, it has been my honor to report for you here in Reno, and I cannot think of a greater community to serve—”
His chin quivered, as though the muscles of his face had a life of their own. “But it has come time for me to stop broadcasting, and I leave you with the wish that God guide you in your future, that he carries you in his just hands.”
The sound booth disappeared in a blur, but he didn’t release the broadcast button as his cracking voice carried across the airwaves.
“This is Tyrone Hayden, going off the air.”
“Fucking A,” said Jeremy Nesbitt, his hands frozen above his laptop’s keyboard. He cranked his head to look at the radio, and when nothing further came out of it, he turned to Mack with astonished eyes. “Hayden’s got plague!”
The two men sat alone in the War Room, the table between them littered with handwritten reports. “Does that mean the whole radio station is shutting down?” Mack asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. EMS says they have enough diesel to broadcast for another twenty-four hours.”
“Yeah, but do they have anyone to do the broadcast?” The radio station was Mack’s last means of communication with people locked in their homes.
“I don’t know, but I’m not sure how many people we’re reaching now, anyway.” Nesbitt’s eyes looked haunted over his respirator. “People are listening on battery-powered radios, and batteries don’t last forever.”
Mack didn’t reply. He tried to assimilate this new development with the powerfully disturbing information he’d learned at the mayor’s meeting only a few hours earlier: Sierra Pacific had made no measurable progress toward reestablishing power. Without public power, battery-powered radios would soon be useless. The radio station would use up the last of its generator diesel and then go off the air, and no amount of batteries would make a damn bit of difference. EMS would lose its ability to communicate with people in their homes.
Mack dropped his forehead into his hands. It all boiled down to power. Power that Reno didn’t have. Power that the federal government could no longer provide.
“George!”
Mack turned to find Nesbitt standing next to him, the younger man’s eyes bloodshot and sunken above the N95 mask. “Can we print out instructions and distribute them on doorsteps? We can’t assume that the word is getting out to everyone by radio anymore.” He sank on a chair. The seat was too close, less than the six feet that they were supposed to sit from each other, but Mack didn’t comment. All the social distancing in the world wouldn’t stop the passage of DRYP between people in the same room, and Mack knew it. They’d lost Sparks and Pincher and several of the CDC officers over the preceding twenty-four hours. Mack wasn’t sure if they were all alive or dead.
He rubbed his eyes wearily. “It’d help if we could put some food and water on people’s porches along with the instructions. Something to give them a little hope to hang on to.”
“I don’t know where we’re going to get food, short of pillaging dead people’s houses.”
Mack nodded. “Maybe we’ve got to pillage dead people’s houses.”
“You mean send in the Guard to scavenge food?”
“It’s better than people doing it themselves. At least the Guard have the best personal protective equipment available.”
Nesbitt grunted and closed his eyes.
Mack looked at his younger colleague with concern. Nesbitt seemed to be particularly low ebb, bone-weary exhaustion evident on his gray skin.
“How many dead?” Mack asked.
Nesbitt didn’t open his eyes. “I don’t know. A hundred fifty? Two hundred thousand? We have no way of knowing when the Guard can’t collect all the bodies in the gutters.”
Mack’s mouth dropped open. “Two hundred thousand? Holy shit. That’s half the town.”
Nesbitt let his head fall back against the chair, as though the weight of carrying it on his neck had become too much. “But that means half the town is still alive.”
Mack couldn’t process it. He knew that many European towns had lost more than half their citizens during the Black Death, but the occurrence of such a death rate in modern times floored him.
He stared sightlessly into space. “DRYP is the perfect storm, isn’t it? An animal reservoir, a highly virulent pathogen, and no herd immunity. We’ll never escape it without a vaccine, even with the best isolation and quarantine.”
Nesbitt didn’t reply. He had fallen asleep.
Harry Kincade drove from Washington D.C. to Fort Detrick through very little traffic. The emptiness of the streets on such a warm, beautiful day disturbed him. He’d always assumed catastrophe would strike in wintertime, when the sky was gray and the trees leafless and bare. But now, the trees grew lush and green, and white and yellow wildflowers bloomed along the roadside. To Harry, it felt obscene somehow, like Mother Nature didn’t give a good goddam that humans were dying in droves.
He slowed to pass a checkpoint and felt sorry for the white-clad military men guarding it. He knew they had to be hot as hell in their PPE—and probably scared to death, too. There was no knowing who had DRYP and if the PPE would protect against it.
The soldiers, recognizing the CDC decal on the car’s door, waved him through.
He drove without seeing, his thoughts preoccupied. Ann had called the DRYP pandemic a species-ending Category Six event, but even now, with the catastrophe rolling across the nation, he couldn’t quite believe that. There had to be a way to stop it—a vaccine, an antidote, anything—which was why he driving to Fort Detrick, to personally check on USAMRIID’s progress. Although Harry had tried repeatedly to reach Heger via the secure communication lines set up between the CDC’s Washington office and USAMRIID, the military researcher hadn’t answered, and the messages left with the Institute’s operator had not elicited a return call.
Harry passed another military checkpoint, and then a third. It was only when he reached Fort Detrick itself that he was brought to a complete stop. Two soldiers blocked Harry’s progress at the main gate.<
br />
One of the soldiers twirled a gloved finger in the air. His partner drew his gun and pointed it Harry.
Harry rolled down the window.
“Sir, the base is closed to visitors,” the soldier said.
Harry flashed his ID at the soldier, which the soldier looked at dutifully from six feet off, squinting through his goggles at Harry’s picture, and then at Harry himself.
Harry shook his head at the inanity of it all. The soldier couldn’t see his picture clearly from six feet. He certainly couldn’t read the damn print. And now, he was scrutinizing Harry’s face as though he could actually see what he looked like behind his N95 and glasses.
The soldier stood back, keyed the radio on his chest, and spoke in a muffled voice that Harry couldn’t hear. The conversation seemed to go on forever.
Finally, the soldier returned. Above the mask, his eyes were expressionless. “Colonel Heger will meet you at the security desk.” And then he stepped aside to allow Harry to enter the base.
“What’s with the trigger-happy soldiers at the gate?” Harry demanded when he saw Heger.
The military researcher wore full PPE, as did every other person that Harry had seen so far, but even with so much of his face covered, the stress and fatigue was obvious in Heger’s eyes.
“We’re on generator power.” Heger gestured for Harry to follow him down a long hallway. “It’s enough to keep the safety systems going, but it makes people nervous.”
“You’re still working?” Harry asked. Normally, in a situation like this, the labs would cease their high-level work until the power was securely restored.
“Do we have a choice?”
Harry did a double take when Heger opened his office door. The room looked like a bomb had detonated inside. Papers and food wrappers littered every surface.
“Just push it on the floor,” Heger said. “We’ve been living in the lab, as you can see.”
Harry cleared a frozen pizza box off a chair and sat down. “So, you’re in lockdown status because of the power issue?”
“That and the security of the researchers. We can’t have our researchers getting sick.”
“You think outsiders will bring something in?”
“Yes. DRYP is at least controlled in the lab.” Heger lifted a stack of papers off his chair and plopped it on his desk. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier. There’ve been some developments.”
“What developments?”
“These.” He shoved a paper from the stack at Harry. “They’re the latest numbers from PULSE.”
Harry scanned the printout from the government pandemic modeling program and looked up. “There’s nothing new here.”
“Yes, there is,” said Heger. He leaned back, the chair squeaking under his weight, his pale eyes odd in the dim light. “Look at pages three and four.”
Harry flipped through the stapled sheets and read the numbers for New York, Washington, Boston, and several other East Coast cities. Each city had a date next to it. “What is this?”
“It’s the die-out pattern,” said Heger, his voice expressionless. “PULSE is predicting that we’ll drop below the minimum viable population size. It’s basing its predictions on the West Coast spread.”
Harry’s jaw dropped. He knew the minimum viable population represented the number of a given species deemed necessary to ensure the species didn’t go extinct. The concept was useful for Giant Pandas and endangered animals, but Harry had never heard it used for humans before.
“That’s crazy.” He flipped the pages back at Heger. “Not everyone is dead on the West Coast.”
Heger’s look was unreadable. He didn’t touch the print-out. “PULSE has been right in all its predictions.”
Harry couldn’t believe the researcher was serious. “It’s a modeling program, Jim. A fucking computer program! It doesn’t take into account things we haven’t discovered yet, like improvements in management or treatment. What about the vaccine, for god’s sake?”
“The disease is outrunning our immune system’s ability to build up immunity.”
Everything in the room froze. Harry suddenly understood what Heger was trying to tell him. DRYP was killing people faster than a vaccine could take effect.
“So that’s why Congress is at Mount Weather? Because they’re trying to protect themselves long enough for the vaccine to take effect?”
Heger nodded. “Assuming the vaccine even works. Vaccines normally takes six months to a year to determine efficacy.” He gestured to the sheets on his desk. “By the way, those dates are the predicted time frame for the die-off.”
A numb sort of shock descended on Kincade. He peered at the numbers. They listed a date range from nine to twelve days in the future.
It all makes sense now, thought Harry. The guards, the labs working with unsecure power and safety systems, Heger’s delay in calling me back. The lab was racing the clock.
Heger regarded Harry gravely. “But that’s not to say we’re without hope, Harry. We’re currently analyzing the serum from a potential survivor.”
“What type of survivor?”
“Documented needle stick from an infected patient. Some doctor in Los Angeles. She survived the incubation period and is still alive, as far as I know.”
Harry felt a tiny flicker of hope. “If she’s still alive, then that’s an argument against your modeling program right there. People will survive DRYP without a vaccine.”
Heger looked unconvinced. “Depends on the nature of the immunity and how prevalent it is,” he said grimly. “If it’s one in a million, we don’t stand a chance.”
Fifty-Two
The dizziness started as soon as he hit the 405, but Alan Wheeler didn’t stop. He drove the Harley along the shoulder. When cars blocked the way, he slipped between them with a minimum of deceleration, taking out rear view mirrors with jolting frequency.
He glanced at his watch and felt fresh panic surge through him. Four o’clock! Only an hour to cross through the city, race up the freeway to Castaic, and somehow miraculously rendezvous with the helicopter.
Anxiety clawed at him. He felt dizzy, as though his body were spinning helplessly in space. Shivers wracked his torso and limbs.
But he didn’t stop. He swerved around stalled minivans and sedans, appalled by the number of dead people inside.
Alan wanted to scream. He’d never make it an hour. He needed more time!
He scanned for a safe place to stop and quickly reached inside his backpack for the satellite phone, but only found his neighbor’s gun wrapped in a sweatshirt.
Alan’s fought the urge to collapse against the handlebars. He’d lost the sat phone!
Grif’s words echoed in his ears. The helicopter won’t wait on the ground, Alan.
He allowed himself to sit there only a second. Clenching his teeth to stop them chattering, he put the bike in gear and drove as fast as he could, maneuvering wildly, determined to make the rendezvous and put the hell of Los Angeles long behind him.
Garbage blew down Geary Boulevard like tumbleweeds. Jim Carson shivered as he dodged a flying takeout container.
He tried to remember the Mark Twain saying about San Francisco summers. He turned phrases over in his mind leisurely, new permutations of the same words.
I never spent a colder winter than summer in San Francisco… was that it?
Carson hummed softly while carefully scooting around the dead homeless people, their odor only slightly penetrating his pleasant reverie.
The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco…
That was it! Fucking brilliant! Carson’s mood soared. He had crossed the worst of town and was only two miles from the marina, and aside from all the dead people, things had gone swimmingly.
He stopped humming and chewed on his lip thoughtfully, his pleasant haze beginning to dissipate.
A dull ache thudded behind his eyes. He glanced up and down Geary Boulevard, ducked into the doorway of an electronics store, a
nd pulled off his backpack. A minute later, he winced as the needle punctured his skin.
Dilaudid. Longer acting than fentanyl.
He sat there for a few minutes, listening to the wind blowing down the boulevard, the gusts of ocean breezes that carried away the stench and the smog. And then the wave hit him, carrying him upward, all the sharp edges dulled.
He pulled on his backpack and dropped his dirty needle on the sidewalk.
Susan and Etta abandoned the freeway a good ten miles south of Castaic. Susan knew the area fairly well. Santa Clarita’s fast food restaurants and gas stations were easily accessible from the freeway, and she’d stopped many times on the way to visit her parents.
The driver’s side door rattled but held as she picked up speed on the town’s main frontage road. “I think we may be able to avoid the freeway all the way to Castaic,” she said. “Then we can get on the Ridge Route and get around the roadblocks.”
“If the roadblocks even exist anymore. I haven’t seen a lot of alive people out here.”
Irritation coursed through Susan’s veins. Now that Etta was feeling better, her cantankerous personality had come out. “Not everybody is trying to flee, Etta. Most people are probably staying in their homes.”
“Most people are probably dead, Susan.”
Susan ignored her. She brought the car around a wide turn, slowing reflexively when she spotted a man waving frantically in the road up ahead. He stood next to a car with an open hood, from which rose a billowing cloud of white smoke. Several feet back, a woman clutched a swaddled bundle to her chest.
“Don’t stop,” said Etta sharply.
Susan squinted through the windshield. “She’s got a baby, Etta. We can’t leave them out here.”
DRYP Trilogy | Book 1 | DRYP [The Final Pandemic] Page 37