Contagion

Contagion

     Robin Cook

     June 12, 1991, dawned a near-perfect, late-spring day as the sun’s rays touched the eastern shores of the North American continent. Most of the United States, Canada, and Mexico expected clear, sunny skies.

     The only meteorological blips were a band of potential thunderstorms that was expected to extend from the plains into the Tennessee Valley and some showers that were forecasted to move in from the Bering Strait over the Seward Peninsula in Alaska. In almost every way this June twelfth was like every other June twelfth, with one curious phenomenon.

     Three incidents occurred that were totally unrelated, yet were to cause a tragic intersection of the lives of three of the people involved.

     11:36 A.M.

     DEADHORSE, ALASKA

     “Hey! Dick! Over here,” shouted Ron Halverton. He waved frantically to get his former roommate’s attention. He didn’t dare leave his Jeep in the brief chaos at the tiny airport. The morning 737 from Anchorage had just landed and the security people were strict about unattended vehicles in the loading area. Buses and vans were waiting for the tourists and the returning oil company personnel.

     Hearing his name and recognizing Ron, Dick waved back and then began threading his way through the milling crowd.

     Ron watched Dick as he approached. Ron hadn’t seen him since they’d graduated from college the year before, but Dick appeared just as he always did: the picture of normality with his Ralph Lauren shirt and windbreaker jacket, Guess jeans, and a small knapsack slung over his shoulder.

     Yet Ron knew the real Dick: the ambitious, aspiring microbiologist who would think nothing of flying all the way from Atlanta to Alaska with the hope of finding a new microbe. Here was a guy who loved bacteria and viruses. He collected the stuff the way other people collected baseball cards. Ron smiled and shook his head as he recalled that Dick had even had petri dishes of microbes in their shared refrigerator at the University of Colorado.

     When Ron had met Dick during their freshman year, it had taken a bit of time to get used to him. Although he was an indubitably faithful friend, Dick had some peculiar and unpredictable quirks. On the one hand he was a fierce competitor in intramural sports and surely the guy you wanted with you if you mistakenly wandered into the wrong part of town, yet on the other hand he’d been unable to sacrifice a frog in first-year biology lab.

     Ron found himself chuckling as he remembered another surprising and embarrassing moment involving Dick. It was during their sophomore year when a whole group had piled into a car for a weekend ski trip. Dick was driving and accidentally ran over a rabbit. His response had been to break down in tears. No one had known what to say. As a result some people began to talk behind Dick’s back, especially when it became common knowledge that he would pick up cockroaches at the fraternity house and deposit them outside instead of squishing them and flushing them down the toilet as everybody else did.

     As Dick came alongside the Jeep, he tossed his bag into the backseat before grasping Ron’s outstretched hand. They greeted each other enthusiastically.

     “I can’t believe this,” Ron said. “I mean, you’re here! In the Arctic.”

     “Hey, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Dick said. “I’m really psyched. How far is the Eskimo site from here?”

     Ron looked nervously over his shoulder. He recognized several of the security people. Turning back to Dick, he lowered his voice. “Cool it,” he murmured. “I told you people are really sensitive about this.”

     “Oh, come on,” Dick scoffed. “You can’t be serious.”

     “I’m dead serious,” Ron said. “I could get fired for leaking this to you. No fooling around. I mean, we got to do this hush-hush or we don’t do it at all. You’re to tell no one, ever! You promised!”

     “All right, all right,” Dick said with a short, appeasing laugh. “You’re right. I promised. I just didn’t think it was such a big deal.”

     “It’s a very big deal,” Ron said firmly. He was beginning to think he’d made a mistake inviting Dick to visit, despite how much fun it was to see him.

     “You’re the boss,” Dick said. He gave his friend a jab on the shoulder. “My lips are sealed forever. Now chill out and relax.” He swung himself into the Jeep. “But let’s just buzz out there straight-away and check out this discovery.”

     “You don’t want to see where I live first?” Ron asked.

     “I have a feeling I’ll be seeing that more than I care to,” he said with a laugh.

     “I suppose it’s not a bad time while everybody is preoccupied with the Anchorage flight and screwing around with the tourists.” He reached forward and started the engine.

     They drove out of the airport and headed northeast on the only road. It was gravel. To talk they had to shout over the sound of the engine.

     “It’s about eight miles to Prudhoe Bay,” Ron said, “but we’ll be turning off to the west in another mile or so. Remember, if anybody stops us, I’m just taking you to the new oilfield.”

     Dick nodded. He couldn’t believe his friend was so uptight about this thing. Looking around at the flat, marshy monotonous tundra and the overcast gunmetal gray sky, he wondered if the place was getting to Ron. He guessed life was not easy on the alluvial plain of Alaska’s north slope. To lighten the mood he said: “Weather’s not bad. What’s the temperature?”

     “You’re lucky,” Ron said. “There was some sun earlier, so it’s in the low fifties. This is as warm as it gets up here. Enjoy it while it lasts. It’ll probably flurry later today. It usually does. The perpetual joke is whether it’s the last snow of last winter or the first snow of next winter.”

     Dick smiled and nodded but couldn’t help but think that if the people up there considered that funny, they were in sad shape.

     A few minutes later Ron turned left onto a smaller, newer road, heading northwest.

     “How did you happen to find this abandoned igloo?” Dick asked.

     “It wasn’t an igloo,” Ron said. “It was a house made out of peat blocks reinforced with whalebone. Igloos were only made as temporary shelters, like when people went out hunting on the ice. The Inupiat Eskimos lived in peat huts.”

     “I stand corrected,” Dick said. “So how’d you come across it?”

     “Totally by accident,” Ron said. “We found it when we were bulldozing for this road. We broke through the entrance tunnel.”

     “Is everything still in it?” Dick asked. “I worried about that flying up here. I mean, I don’t want this to be a wasted trip.”

     “Have no fear,” Ron said. “Nothing’s been touched. That I can assure you.”

     “Maybe there are more dwellings in the general area,” Dick suggested. “Who knows? It could be a village.”

     Ron shrugged. “Maybe so. But no one wants to find out. If anybody from the state got wind of this they’d stop construction on our feeder pipeline to the new field. That would be one huge disaster, because we have to have the feeder line functional before winter, and winter starts in August around here.”

     Ron began to slow down as he scanned the side of the road. Eventually he pulled to a stop abreast of a small cairn. Putting a hand on Dick’s arm to keep him in his scat, he turned to look back down the road. When he was convinced that no one was coming, he climbed from the Jeep and motioned for Dick to do the same.

     Reaching back into the Jeep, he pulled out two old and soiled and work gloves. He handed a set to Dick. “You’ll need these,” he explained. “We’ll be down below the permafrost.” Then he reached back into the Jeep for a heavy-duty flashlight.

     “All right,” Ron added nervously. “We can’t be here long. I don’t want anybody coming along the road and wondering what the hell is going on.”

     Dick followed Ron as he headed north away from the road. A cloud of mosquitoes mystically materialized and attacked them mercilessly. Looking ahead, Dick could see a fog bank about a half mile away and guessed it marked the coast of the Arctic Ocean. In all other directions there was no relief from the monotony of the fiat, windswept, featureless tundra that extended to the horizon. Overhead seabirds circled and cried raucously.

     A dozen steps from the road, Ron stopped. After one last glance for approaching vehicles, he bent down and grabbed the edge of a sheet of plywood that had been painted to match the variegated colors of the surrounding tundra. He pulled the wood aside to reveal a hole four feet deep.

     In the north wall of the hole was the entrance to a small tunnel.

     “It looks as if the hut was buried by ice,” Dick said.

     Ron nodded. “We think that pack ice was blown up from the beach during one of the ferocious winter storms.”

     “A natural tomb,” Dick said.

     “Are you sure you want to do this?” Ron asked.

     “Don’t be silly,” Dick said while he donned the parka and pulled on the gloves. “I’ve come thousands of miles. Let’s go.”

     Ron climbed into the hole and then bent down on all fours. Lowering himself, he entered the tunnel. Dick followed at his heels.

     As Dick crawled, he could see very little save for the eerie silhouette of Ron ahead of him. As he moved away from the entrance, the darkness closed in around him like a heavy, frigid blanket. In the failing light he noticed his breath crystallizing. He thanked God that he wasn’t claustrophobic.

     After about six feet the walls of the tunnel fell away. The floor also slanted downward, giving them an additional foot of headroom. There were about three and a half feet of clearance. Ron moved to the side and Dick crawled up next to him.

     “It’s colder than a witch’s tit down here,” Dick said.

     Ron’s flashlight beam played into the corners to illuminate short vertical struts of beluga rib bones.

     “The ice snapped those whalebones like they were toothpicks,” Ron said.

     “Where are the inhabitants?” Dick asked.

     Ron directed his flashlight beam ahead to a large, triangular piece of ice that had punched through the ceiling of the hut. “On the other side of that,” he said. He handed the flashlight to Dick.

     Dick took the flashlight and started crawling forward. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was beginning to feel uncomfortable. “You’re sure this place is safe?” he questioned.

     “I’m not sure of anything,” Ron said. “Just that it’s been like this for seventy-five years or so.”

     It was a tight squeeze around the block of dirty ice in the center. When Dick was halfway around he shone the light into the space beyond.

     Dick caught his breath while a little gasp issued from his mouth. Although he thought he’d been prepared, the image within the flashlight beam was more ghoulish than he’d expected. Staring back at him was the pale visage of a frozen, bearded Caucasian male dressed in furs. He was sitting upright. His eyes were open and ice blue, and they stared back at Dick defiantly. Around his mouth and nose was frozen pink froth. “You see all three?” Ron called from the darkness.

     Dick allowed the light to play around the room. The second body was supine, with its lower half completely encased in ice. The third body was positioned in a manner similar to the first, propped up against a wall in a half-sitting position. Both were Eskimos with characteristic features, dark hair, and dark eyes. Both also had frozen pink froth around their mouths and noses.

     Dick shuddered through a sudden wave of nausea. He hadn’t expected such a reaction, but it passed quickly.

     “You see the newspaper?” Ron called.

     “Not yet,” Dick said as he trained his light on the floor. He saw all sorts of debris frozen together, including bird feathers and animal bones. “It’s near the bearded guy,” Ron called.

     Dick shone the light at the frozen Caucasian’s feet. He saw the Anchorage paper immediately.

     The headlines were about the war in Europe. Even from where he was he could see the date: April 17, 1918.

     Dick wriggled back into the antechamber. His initial horror had passed. Now he was excited. “I think you were right,” he said. “It looks like all three died of pneumonia, and the date is right on.”

     “I knew you’d find it interesting,” Ron said.

     “It’s more than interesting,” Dick said. “It could be the chance of a lifetime. I’m going to need a saw.”

     The blood drained from Ron’s face. “A saw,” he repeated with dismay. “You’ve got to be joking.”

     “You think I’d pass up this chance?” Dick questioned. “Not on your life. I need some lung tissue.”

     “Jesus H. Christ!” Ron murmured. “You’d better promise again not to say anything about this ever!”

     “I promised already,” Dick said with exasperation. “If I find what I think I’m going to find, it will be for my own collection. Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to know.”

     Ron shook his head. “Sometimes I think you’re one weird dude.”

     “Let’s get the saw,” Dick said. He handed the flashlight to Ron and started for the entrance.

     6:40 P.M.

     O'HARE AIRPORT, CHICAGO

     Marilyn Stapleton looked at her husband of twelve years and felt torn. She knew that the convulsive changes that had racked their family had impacted most on John, yet she still had to think about the children. She glanced at the two girls who were sitting in the departure lounge and nervously looking in her direction, sensing that their life as they knew it was in the balance. John wanted them to move to Chicago where he was starting a new residency in pathology.

     Marilyn redirected her gaze to her husband’s pleading face. He’d changed over the last several years. The confident, reserved man she had married was now bitter and insecure. He had shed twenty-five pounds, and his once ruddy, full cheeks had hollowed, giving him a lean, haggard look consistent with his new personality.

     Marilyn shook her head. It was hard to recall that just two years previously they had been the picture of the successful suburban family with his flourishing ophthalmology practice and her tenured position in English literature at the University of Illinois.