"And now I'm going to check our friend on the autopsy table," Hal said. "Devin, Jen. With me."
They returned to the archaeologist's office. Devin rummaged through the boxes, pulling supplies. He handed Jen and Hal long rubber aprons, masks, and gloves. He donned his own set and laid a selection of scalpels and syringes on the table next to the body bag.
Hal unzipped the bag and turned on the overhead surgical light. "Let's take a look at our mystery man."
Jen stood on the other side of the table as Hal pulled the bag back to reveal the corpse's face. Other than the slightly grayish tinge of the skin, he looked as if he were sleeping.
Hal tried to pry the eyelids open. "They're still frozen."
He looked at Devin. "What do you make of the clothes? Seen anything like this before?"
Devin looked closely at the corpse's coat. "Coarse wool. Almost like a pea coat." He unfastened a button. "Black glass buttons. Most likely this gentleman is from the late 1800s, as I thought." He unbuttoned the rest of the coat and opened it.
Piles of brown dust were stacked up on the man's shirt, his underarms, and in the inside folds of the coat. Jen reached out and pinched some between her gloved fingers.
"What is it?" Devin asked.
Jen rubbed the dust. She'd seen something similar a year before. It turned out to be tiny, almost microscopic, spores. But where did they come from? "It's very fine. Could be a lot of things, but I'd need to see it under a microscope to tell for sure."
Devin rummaged through a box on the shelf. He removed a small capped plastic vial, opened it, and held it out to Jen. She picked up more dust and dropped it into the vial. He closed it and handed it to her.
Hal felt the dead man's temples. "Not much we can do on this frozen end. Let's check the extremities."
He spread the bag more, exposing an arm. He lifted the wrist and flexed it. "Better." He moved the fingers. "Fingers thawed, pliable." He glanced over his shoulder. "Can you hand me the heavy scissors?"
Jen stepped next to him, selected the scissors from the array of tools, and handed them over.
Hal cut the heavy wool of the coat arm and then the cotton shirt sleeve, exposing a hairy arm with a crude tattoo of a woman in a grass skirt. "Definitely a sailor."
Devin nodded. "As far as I could see, all the other bodies were dressed the same."
Hal pressed on the underside of the forearm. "Hand me the syringe. I've found a spot thawed enough to penetrate."
Jen handed him a syringe, and he inserted its long needle into the arm and pulled the plunger back. Deep dark red blood filled the barrel. He placed it to the side and zipped up the body bag. Pulling down his mask, he let out a long breath. "Let's go to the lab and see what we can make of this."
He strode into the hallway, with Devin following.
Jen stepped out of the room and removed her mask. Chris leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. "So what do we have?"
She wiped a hand across her forehead. "Besides a hundred-and-twenty-year-old popsicle that smells like fish? We've got a bit of a mystery. Who were these guys and how did they get there?" She nodded at him. "How long has this village been here?"
Chris shrugged. "Thousands of years."
"And there's no mention of these sailors in your stories?"
"No. So they are sailors?"
"Yeah, from the late 1800s, most likely."
"We can ask my uncle. He might know, but I'd be surprised. Our stories are passed on from generation to generation. They aren't meant to be secret. On the contrary, it's important to us that they be shared."
"It could be important," Jen said. "I've got to get to the lab, but maybe you should find your uncle and join us there."
Chris nodded. "See you there." He ran off.
When Jen got to the lab, Hal was bent over the microscope. He sat up, removed his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Same thing as Leo."
Devin took a look. "Sure is. Guess that solves the puzzle of how Leo became infected."
Jen took a clean slide and spread some of the dust on it. "Let's see what we have here."
She sat at the microscope and swapped slides. Closing one eye, she squinted into the eyepiece and adjusted the focus. It zoomed in to show clusters of spiny shaped spores. "Scleroderma areolatum."
"What was that?" Devin asked.
Jen straightened. "Spiny spores."
"Is that significant?" Hal asked.
Jen dropped the capped vial of spores into her shirt pocket. "Not sure. Would love to study them on an electron microscope."
A metallic chunk chunk came from the doorway. Having spent a lot of time at the gun range, Jen knew exactly what that was.
She spun. A short elderly native man with salt-and-pepper hair hanging wildly down to his shoulders aimed a twelve gauge shotgun at them.
No one moved. The man pointed the gun at each one of them in turn. "Where is the Tuqunaragri?"
Jen and Devin looked at each other. What the hell was he talking about? Jen's pulse pounded her ears, but still her mouth opened before she knew it. "I'll bet we can find it for you on Google maps."
The wild man squinted at her.
Shit. When will I learn to shut up?
Hal's voice quivered. "We don't understand that word."
The man squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "The body you brought back from Fear Mountain. The Tuqunaragri. Either you take it back now, or you'll join it."
7
Jen stared at the shotgun, her mouth going dry. Am I going to die in this place?
Devin put his hands up and spoke in a calm, soothing voice. How he managed that, Jen would never know.
"Put the gun down and we can talk."
The man swung the shotgun to point at Devin. "The body must go back now, before it's too late."
Devin took a deep breath. "We can do that. Just put the gun down."
Raymond appeared in the doorway behind the man, towering over him. "What are you doing, Norman?"
Norman spun and spoke to Raymond in Inupiaq. Raymond answered him in kind and held his hands out. The man gave him the gun. Jen let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.
Raymond stepped into the room. "What's this all about?"
Norman answered, again in Inupiaq. Raymond shook his head and put a hand up. "In English."
Norman looked from Raymond to the others, and back again, his lips a thin line across his face. For a few moments there was silence, then his shoulders sagged and he nodded. "It's time to tell the story."
Raymond laid the shotgun on a table. "What story?"
"The story of Fear Mountain."
Jen's heart rate had slowed to near normal, but her legs were wobbly, so she pulled out a stool and sat.
Norman closed his eyes for a moment, then spoke. "The story passes down that in the latter part of the 1800s, they came. I've since looked up some of the known facts on the Internet and found that in 1871 a fleet of thirty-three whaling ships was trapped in the ice. The sea had frozen all the way to land as close as a few miles north of here. We knew nothing of it at the time, until men walked off the ice and into our village. They staggered and moved very slowly, as if they had frozen limbs from their journey. Our elders approached them, but as they got closer and the strange men saw the elders, the strangers let forth a terrible sound. These men, these ice walkers, had deep yellow eyes, and they growled and gnashed their teeth as they came. Had their limbs not been half frozen, they surely would've caught the elders."
Raymond frowned. "And you're saying these ice walkers are the same men whose bodies Leo found?"
Norman nodded. He pointed at Devin. "The same as the one he brought back to the village. A Tuqunaragri."
Jen stood, but kept a steadying hand on the table next to her. "What does that mean?"
Raymond scratched his head and squinted. "The literal translation is one who acts dead."
A chill ran down Jen's spine and her mind flashed back to the scratching she'd heard in the
pit. Maybe the old guy wasn't crazy.
Devin crossed his arms. "All legends have a grain of truth. Perhaps these men were just sick. If I recall, there was a large typhoid outbreak during that time."
Norman shrugged. "I don't know. I only tell you what has been passed down. In it was the warning that they would destroy the world if they were ever disturbed. This is why we have the stories of spirits at Fear Mountain—to keep everyone away."
Hal took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. "If those bodies at Fear Mountain are the same ones you describe, how did they get out there? How did they get buried?"
"Another ship docked, here at our village. Men from the government, Army men and men who were in charge that did not wear uniforms, came ashore. By then the bodies had frozen completely in the subzero temperatures and stood like statues all around the village and beyond. These men collected the bodies and moved them out to Fear Mountain. The tundra was hard to dig in, so they set up large tents and built fires underneath them to thaw the ground enough to dig. Many men worked in shifts for days and dug a trench, a pit. They tossed the bodies in and filled it. Because of the permafrost, these creatures would stay frozen forever."
Raymond shook his head. "Why have I not heard this before?"
Norman licked his lips. "When they had buried the bodies, the men from the government, the ones not in uniform, spoke to the elders. They said that no one must know of this, and if word ever got out, then our village would be destroyed. So the elders called a meeting and everyone pledged to silence. As the new generation was born, none knew about this, and the older generations died off. But they didn't want it completely forgotten in case the information was useful to our people someday, so there were always three elders who knew the story. When an elder that knew died off, the other two would pick a replacement and burden them with the secret."
"Who are the other two elders?" Raymond asked.
"Jacob Adams and your mother."
"My mother?"
Norman nodded. "We were all sworn to secrecy. When your mother passes, we plan on you taking her place."
"I see," Raymond said. "Norman, will you go to my house and help my mother take care of Leo?"
"What about the Tuqunaragri?"
"Let me talk it over with Hal and his friends. We'll figure out the best way to get the body back."
Norman stared at Raymond for a few moments, then turned and trudged out the door.
Raymond nodded at Hal. "So what have you been able to find out about Leo's illness?"
Hal cleared his throat. "Leo's blood has some anomalies."
"Anomalies? What does that mean?"
Jen crossed her arms. Enough talking around it. "There's something wrong with their blood cells, and Leo has the same problem. He was infected when he was impaled on the bone."
Raymond frowned. "Is that true? What is the cure?"
"I don't know." Hal's shoulders lowered. "It's something I've never seen before."
Jen sighed. "I know what to do. We need to get Leo to Wainwright. The weather is lightening up. Maybe the radio's working now?"
Chris walked into the room. "There you all are. I've been looking for you." He looked at Jen, then his gaze went to the shotgun on the table. "What's going on?"
Raymond put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll fill you in later, but we've got to get Leo to Wainwright."
"Wainwright's a long way," Chris said.
Hal cleared his throat. "This is way beyond me. He may not survive the trip, but it's his only hope."
Jen walked to the doorway. "I'll see if Pete's making progress."
"That's why I came over here," Chris said. "Pete made contact with Wainwright for less than a minute. He told them about the contagion, but isn't sure if they got it or not."
Hal pulled the truck keys out of his pocket. "I'd better get back and take a look at Leo. Anyone coming?"
Devin stood. "Let me check on our guest on the autopsy table, and I'll be right out. I just want to make sure Norman didn't do anything to him."
Jen followed him out.
The corpse appeared undisturbed. Devin and Jen put on gloves, and Jen unzipped the body bag. Devin lifted the sailor's arm and bent it, while Jen did the same with a leg.
"His arm has a lot more flexibility," Devin said.
Jen nodded. "So do his legs. In fact, he's pretty damn limber for a man who's been dead over a hundred years."
"He's thawing fast." Devin felt the sailor's head. "But the head's still frozen. It'll probably be the last part to thaw."
He zipped the bag closed and took off his gloves. Jen snapped hers off, tossed them in the biohazard box, and headed out to the truck. It was running and everyone else was in it when they arrived. Jen squeezed in next to Chris and Raymond in the back, while Devin hopped in the front. Jen caught Chris up with what he'd missed as they rode to Raymond's.
When they arrived, Hal jumped out, grabbed his bag, and jogged up the steps. He opened the door and froze. Jen stopped behind him. "What's wrong?"
When Hal didn't answer, she peered around him. Raymond's mother lay on the kitchen floor. Her chest looked like it had exploded, painting the walls and the floor around her in blood. Her entrails hung out of her abdominal cavity and were spread across the tiles. The place smelled like a freezer full of meat that'd gone bad.
"What the hell?" Devin's voice came from behind her.
Norman, the elder with the shotgun fetish, lay on the couch, a slack expression on his face. Leo leaned over him with his back to the front door. Ripping and chewing sounds came from him. Norman's hand rose weakly. "Help me," he moaned.
Jen's mind slipped gears as she tried to make sense of the scene in front of her, but Raymond broke her trance. "Mother."
Raymond pushed past the others and rushed to his mother. Slipping on the gore, he landed on his back beside her. He scrambled to his knees, sobbing.
Hal staggered backward onto the porch, his face bloodless.
Leo spun, his yellow eyes glowing with hate. Blood stained his face and dripped onto his chest, and he chewed what looked like a piece of intestine. He dropped it and screeched, "Scree!"
Jen cringed. It was the sound of nails running across a chalkboard, and it went right through her. Bile rose in her throat and she was frozen to the spot, clamping her hands over her ears.
With a primal growl, Leo leapt on her.
8
Leo slammed into Jen and drove her to the floor, knocking the air from her lungs. She managed to jam her elbow against his throat and kept his gnashing teeth inches away from her face. His breath had the rotten stink of the pit. She tried to catch her breath and gagged.
Devin kicked Leo's side. "Get off my daughter!"
Leo ignored him and pressed farther, his snapping jaw closer and closer to Jen. She had to do something or he would tear her face apart. She tried to raise her knees, get them underneath him so she could shove him off, but his weight was too much. He was going to eat her face.
The pressure on her elbow disappeared, and Leo was pulled off, Raymond and Chris each grasping one of his arms. Leo struggled like a feral cat, trying to bite them as they dragged him back to the couch.
Jen rolled up onto all fours, shuddering and coughing. Devin took her arm and helped her stand. Her knees buckled, and he kept her from falling by wrapping an arm around her. Raymond had Leo's arms pinned behind him, and while Leo kicked and growled, his yellow eyes drilled into Jen's.
"Everyone out," Raymond yelled. "Get ready to close the door once I've cleared it."
Devin led Jen out. Fresh air slapped her in the face, giving her strength. Hal leaned over the porch rail, puking onto the muddy road.
Chris stationed himself beside the open door. "Ready when you are, Uncle Raymond."
Raymond's voice came from the house. "I'm coming on the count of three. Close the door after I get through."
Devin leaned Jen against the rail. "Are you okay by yourself?"
Jen nodded, and Devin stationed h
imself next to Chris.
"One, two, three!" A crash came from inside the house, and Raymond streaked through the doorway. Devin and Chris rammed their shoulders into the door and slammed it shut. The door shuddered as a heavy weight hit it from the other side.
Raymond ran back to the door, his keys in hand, and locked the deadbolt. He leaned with his back against the house, breathing heavily, his arms and shirt stained with blood. "What the hell's wrong with him?"
Hal straightened, still clutching the railing. "Leo needs help."
Jen's legs felt less rubbery, and she stumbled toward the others. "Help? Leo needs a straitjacket."
Raymond shot her a dirty look. Chris put his hand on his uncle's shoulder. "You OK?"
Raymond nodded.
"We need to get out of here," Devin said.
Raymond's brow furrowed. "I'm not leaving my nephew or my village."
Hal frowned. "I don't want to bring the infection elsewhere."
"But Wainwright's radio equipment can get through when ours can't," Jen said. "Isn't that what Pete told us?"
"True." Hal tapped a finger on his chin and stared off into space. "And even if we have the virus, we'd get the CDC involved quicker from Wainwright, and prevent it from spreading any further."
Jen straightened, much steadier than before. "Then Devin and I can go to Wainwright and send the message."
"You'll never make it there alive," Raymond said. "Not by yourselves."
Chris raised his hand. "I can take them, then bring their medic back for Leo."
"It's probably our best chance," Hal said.
The banging stopped. Raymond pressed his ear against the door. "He's still there, but he's breathing awfully heavy. I hope he doesn't hurt himself."
Jen raised an eyebrow. "Not exactly on the top of my worry list."
Raymond looked at Hal and sighed. "You're probably right. It's the best chance we have."
Hal headed for the truck. "I'm going with you, since there's nothing I can do for Leo at this point. Let's get moving."
Thirty minutes later, Jen and Devin stood next to four ATVs in front of the science trailers. Devin put a hand on Jen's shoulder, concern written on his face. She remembered how he'd attacked Leo to save her. "I'll get you out of here," he said. "I may not have been there for you when you were growing up, but I'm here now."
The Zombie Uprising Series: Books One Through Five Page 4