Plague (35 page)

“I killed her, Sam. And I deserve to go to hell for it. Please let them know. Her family will have a suit against the CDC and the US
government;
they deserve some sort of compensation. I don’t
…
I don’t even know if she had children. If you talk
…
just tell them that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Goodbye, Dr. Bower.”

He hung up the phone and threw it on the table, getting back to his feet and hobbling down the steps to the basement.
He fumbled in the dark until his hand hit a thin metal cord and he pulled it and the lightbulb flicked on. The light revealed several canisters of gasoline and lighter fluid along with stacks of matches. He tossed his crutches.

The jarring movement of pouring gasoline over the basement and the wooden beams that supported the main floor caused him to begin coughing and this time he couldn’t stop. The blood kept spewing and he noticed that his vision blurred. When he reached up and wiped his eyes his fingers came away stained a dark red.

He kept pouring
as
he kept coughing and bleeding. Eventually
,
he couldn’t see
.
T
he blood was pouring so quickly
,
he couldn’t wipe it away fast enough. His heart was pounding
from the exercise and it was
causing the blood
to
shoot out like a fountain. He was eventually left looking at the ceiling but he didn’t remember collapsing.

He tried to stand but found his legs weren’t responding. His head was throbbing so badly he thought that he had gone blind but realized it was just the pain, searing his vision with white hot flashes.
He glanced to the matches on a metal
worktable
.
He could no longer stand or didn’t have the will to so he just rolled over and rolled over again until he felt the metal leg of the table against his ribs. He took a moment to rest and then reached up, gripping the side of the table, and pulled himself up enough to grab a set of matches before falling back down again.

He was blind now, the blood filling his eyes and not draining. He felt the matches with his fingertips, the grainy surface of the strike pad, the smooth wood of the match. He held them a long time, inhaling the fumes of gasoline that made him feel like he could faint and fall into a deep sleep at any moment.

He struck the match, and threw it on the floor, the crackle of flames immediately filling his basement.

CHAPTER 48

Samantha walked into the first hut through the open doorway. It smelled
…
like nothing. Dirt perhaps. It was bare except for the everyday items found in any household: dishes, quilts, sandals by the entrance, decorations up on the walls. There was a bed with a quilt over it laid flat. It was just a slab of stone with a few furs and she went and removed the quilt.

“You see something?” Duncan asked, coming up behind her.

“No.”

“I don’t see anything either
. Let’s go.”

They exited the hut and made
their
way to the next one. There was nothing there. The
y
searched two more and then two more, each one
barer
than the last. In the center of the village was a large pit that looked like it had been used for fires. It was the
village’s
meeting place, Sam guessed. Serving the same function as the forums in Rome and the
capitol
buildings, or maybe the shopping malls, in modern cities.

“I think there must’ve been a mass exodus,” she said. “Everyone took off in a real hurry.”

“If Agent X infected this village
,
there should be bones.”

“They pro
bably buried them in the jungle
and the animals got them after that. I don’t think there’s much wasted here.”

Duncan glanced around. “We haven’t checked out those huts over there. Let’s hit them and then head back.”

They went to the first hut and found it
just as
bare, but the second hut had bowls with food in them
lying
out on the floor
. The food was rotted, maggots finishing off the remnants.
There was a quill of arrows in one corner. Sam ran her hand over them; they wer
e sharp and made of smooth iron
with jagged edges
that made
them
more difficult to pull out of flesh once
they’d
entered.

In another
corner was a pile of
clay
dishes. The dishes were old and cracked and heaped on top of each other. Sam was about to turn away and head out of the hut when she noticed something silver in the pile of clay. She reached down to the dishes and carefully removed a few of them. Underneath was a metal canister. It was about a foot in length with a secure black top that ha
d been opened. The
thick
,
black
,
plastic
bottom had
grooves cut into it.

“Duncan, get over here.”

He came up behind her and peeked over her shoulder. “Holy shit.”

“It’s a viral container.”

“Holy shit.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Hold on.” He reached down and though he had on two layers of gloves, he used one of the dishes to flip the canister over. “That’s not just a viral container. That’s a military viral container. We use the same
ones at USAMRIID.”

“The Russians use the same too. I’m sure the North Koreans and Iranians would as well.”

“Only one way to tell. On the very bottom we print a series of alphanumeric code. The Russians don’t do that. Neither does anyone else I’ve seen.”

He hesitated. Holding the dish in his hand, he didn’t make a move toward the canister and neither did Sam. Time seemed to slow
and Sam thought she was holding her breath but couldn’t be sure. Finally, he
flipped the canister the other way, turning the bottom toward them.

There were three lines of code.

“I was really hoping you wouldn’t see that,” a voice said behind them.

They turned. Standing at the entrance of the hut was Donner. His arms were on either side of the entrance and in his right hand Sam could see a gun.

“What is this?” Sam said. “This is American. What the hell’s going on?”

“Balance, Dr. Bower. I told yo
u once. It’s all about balance
.”

Duncan scoffed. “Our enemies have this weapon so our allies should too, is that it?”

He shrugged. “Or maybe our allies have this weapon and our enemies should too. Balance runs both ways. Do you know what happens when one civilization dominates the world for too long? Decadence, corruption
…
evil. Sodom and
Gomorrah
, Babylon, Egypt, Persia, Rome, the French, British,
Germans, Russians, and now us. We’ve learned our lesson. We need balance
. It
is the only thing in history that matters.”

Duncan turned and picked up the canister. “Just take it and leave.”

“I think we’re past that, Dr. Adams.”

Duncan looked down to the canister and then threw it at Donner. After the throw he rushed him but Donner was too fast. He punched at the canister sending it to the ground and lifted his firearm, getting off two rounds that slammed into Duncan and sent him flying off his feet.

“No!” Sam screamed.

She ran at Donner as Duncan got back to his feet. Donner fired off a round and missed as Sam threw her entire weight into him. He easily twisted to the side and sent her flying off her feet and onto her back. He smirked as he raised his weapon to fire.

Duncan slammed the canister into the back of Donner’s head. He toppled over and Duncan jumped for the g
un in his hand. The two men started
wrestling on the ground, each dazed and bleeding.

“Run!” Duncan screamed. “Run
, go!”

Samantha got to her feet and sprinted out of the hut. She stopped at the entrance, unsure
whether
she should leave Duncan. She decided she couldn’t do
it
and started to run back as Donner elbowed Duncan in the jaw, knocking him unconscious with one blow. Sam froze as Donner pulled up the gun and fired two rounds, the slugs embedding first in the dirt and then in the hut behind her. She screamed and ran, heading to where she had left Benjamin and Cami.

She ripped off her suit and faceguard, tearing off her gloves
and throwing them
. She sprinted so fast she hit something that was sticking out of the ground and fell flat on her face. She sat up, glancing back at what had caught her foot. It was long and off white with a bulbous end and
a
thin middle. She thought pe
rhaps it was a root and then recognition
rang in her mind: i
t was a human femur bone.

Sam was up on her feet again and running before she had time to process what she had seen.
She ran until her legs burned
and
realized she had already passed where they had left Benjamin and Cami. She stopped and looked behind her. There was nothing but jungle.

She jogged back a few paces and saw something in the road about ten feet up. It looked like some garbage drifting out from the bushes. As she got closer she saw the brown leather boots and the white socks that went up past the ankle
s
.

Reaching the spot,
Sam bent over the body. It was Benjamin. He had a black wound in his eye; a large hole where his eyeball had been. The round hadn’t exited and she checked his pulse, but it was too late. He had bled to death just moments ago. She quickly
scoured
the bushes and vine and weeds
for Cami’s body. But she didn’t see anything.

There was a buzzing sound by her ear and she thought it was an insect. She glanced up to see Donner down the road firing at her. Another round whizzed by her head, closer this time, and
she screamed.
She turned and started running again.

CHAPTER 49

Samantha ran for over an hour. By the time she stopped her lungs burned and acid rose in her throat. She fell to her knees, her hands buried in the soft dirt, gasping for air. She knew it wasn’t a good position for deep, heavily oxygenated breaths so she slowly rose and held her arms above her head, stretching out her lungs as far as she could.

It took almost ten
minutes for her heart rate to slow to the point where she felt comfortable walking and she held her hands to her hips and looked around.
There wasn’t a single thing she recognized and she didn’t know
whether
it was because she hadn’t paid attention as they came up this road or because she was somewhere new. Either way, from the position of the sun
,
far west on the horizon, she could tell it was late afternoon. Night would fall soon and unless she could make it to a town she would be camping out here.
Aside from the local tribes who might view her as an invader, she would be exposed to jaguars, snakes, venomous insects
,
and poisonous fire ants. Without something to keep her off the ground and a fire, she might not make it through the night. She checked her cell phone; no reception.

There was only
one thing to do
: s
he had to go back to the
infected
village. She had to check on Duncan and find their other cell phones. If she could find Cami they would have a much better chance of survival. Donner would be on the road. She glanced
to
both sides and chose east, going off the road about twenty feet. Enough that she could see her tracks but could
duck under the jungle
’s
vegetation if she had to.

She took a deep breath and started walking.

Every few minutes she
look
ed
back over her shoulder and look
ed
down the road. She would stop and listen to the jungle but it was such an alien environment she didn’t know what she was listening for. Someone could be walking right behind her but the noise of the insects and animals and river drown
ed
everything else out.

Though the shrubbery wasn’t thick it varied from razor sharp to blunt and sticky. It tore at her clothes and the exposed skin on her ankles and arms. She tried to distract her mind
from the itchy, burning pain by
thinking about home and what she would do first thing when she got back. She thought about her
relationship with Duncan and whether
…

The thought of Duncan pounded in her head. She shouldn’t have left him. But what could she have done?