The Gemini Virus (3 page)

Then she screamed again. And again. And again …

The blister-balloons were everywhere—stomach, arms, thighs, neck, and particularly her face. Her eyes had become sheltered slits. The nostrils were two large dots. And the mouth was reduced to a tiny orifice barely able to open and close within the tight confines of the swollen, bubbled surface. Each time she stretched the skin to let out another howl, more swellings exploded, the viscous fluid jumping out in grisly squirts.

Feeling her sanity slipping away, she filled the basin with cold water and soaked a washcloth. Then she pressed it against her cheeks. Her skin was boiling now and itching relentlessly. Since the washcloth did provide some relief, she turned and began filling the bathtub. She was concerned, however, that it wouldn’t stay cold, so she went back into the bedroom and called room service. When the first champagne bucket arrived, she dumped out all the ice, stripped naked, and stepped in.

There was no way she could have prepared for the shock—like thousands of needles being fired into her body in a matter of seconds. Her teeth began chattering, and her lips made the slow transition from pink to purple. Numbness settled into every muscle and tendon. She was unable to slow her breathing but did manage to move her limbs in slow, waving motions. At least the itching and burning began to quiet down.

The ice jingled along the sides with an almost musical cheerfulness. After it melted, she got out and called for the second bucket. She took no notice of the slurring in her voice, nor did she find it strange that she called the woman who answered the phone “Colleen”—an old elementary school friend.

The frigid water didn’t seem so bad this time, she thought. Cool and brisk. Maybe she could do this every once in a while at home. She’d tell the other girls at the supermarket about it, too. Maybe they’d like to join her; that’d be fun.

Three hours later the itching-burning returned with a vengeance. Shortly thereafter, the elderly man in the room next to hers was awakened by what he thought was the sound of shattering glass. A call was placed to the front desk, and a manager was sent up. He knocked on Whittenhauer’s door, first politely, then less so. He used his magnetic master key—a plastic plate that resembled a credit card—and stepped cautiously inside. A veteran of Operation Desert Storm who had killed at least a dozen enemy soldiers, he knew something was up as soon as the smell hit him.

He found her ravaged body curled in the bathroom in a puddle of blood that was still spreading. The jagged piece of mirror she’d used to take her own life was jutting out the side of her neck.

Eleven more Bally’s customers would discover they had become infected the next morning. The morning after that, thirty-six.

DAY 5

“She hasn’t come out of there in about a week, I’d guess” the super told the two officers. “Something like that.” He was a mousy little man with wild gray hair and sandpaper cheeks, well past his prime and thoroughly defeated by life. His corduroys were worn smooth at the knees, and there were flecks of dandruff along the shoulder straps of his vest. “That’s what Mr. Fent said,” he went on, motioning toward Fent’s door down the hallway.

He’d been the super in Katie Milligan’s building for over twenty years, and he found her to be a very strange woman—never smiling, never saying hello, scurrying in and out of her tiny corner apartment and quickly locking the door. In the six years since she arrived, he’d been inside just once: to replace a pressure valve on one of the radiators. Milligan kept the place neat to the subatomic level, which was nice enough. But she followed him around the whole time, watched his every move. No friendly chitchat, no offer for a glass of ice water—just those paranoid sapphire eyes pressing down upon him.

“When did Mr. Fent call you?” the older officer asked. The super already thought of him as
the Bully
. Big gut, thick mustache, broken blood vessels around his nose from years of drinking and God knew what else.

“This morning.”

Officer Jim Dugan, aka the Bully, looked at his watch. “It’s twelve twenty now. What took you so long to contact us?”

He stuttered for a moment; guys like Dugan always stifled him. “I tried calling
her
first, and when I didn’t get any answer, I called the landlord.”

“That would be Mr. Arnold?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s he?”

“In Florida.”

“Why?”

“He lives down there all year, he and Mrs. Arnold. They never come up, ever.”

Dugan nodded to his partner, the young man the super had classified as
the Kid,
and said, “You should be writing this down.”

In truth, Dugan, as senior officer present, should be doing it. But Bill Teague had learned not to argue with the full-tilt bastard they’d assigned to be his lord and master during his rookie year. He took out his notepad and miniature-golf pencil and began scribbling.

“And what did Mr. Arnold say to do?” Dugan asked, continuing the interrogation.

“Call you.”

“Is it unusual for Ms. Milligan to stay in her apartment for long periods?” Dugan knew who she was since, technically, they were both town employees. He’d seen her around, thought she was a whackjob.

“Not really.”

“Then why the call from her neighbor?”

The super looked to Teague first, then back to Dugan. “The smell,” he said, lowering his voice.

“The smell?”

“Mr. Fent said it was coming through the baseboard vents. I went in and checked, and he was right—it was terrible. Like rotting food.”

Dugan turned to the door. It would’ve been customary—not to mention polite—to start with a gentle, ordinary knock. But he’d apparently missed this lesson in law-enforcement etiquette and went straight to hammering with his fist.

“Ms. Milligan? This is the Ramsey police. Could you please come out here for a moment?”

No answer.

“Ms. Milligan?”

More banging. Then he rang the bell.

Still no answer.

“You’ve got the key, right?”

“I do, but—”

“No ‘but,’ just open the door.”

The little man paused only briefly—Mr. Arnold had told him not to let the police in without calling him first—but it was enough to cause Dugan’s thermometer to rise. The redness first appeared high on his chest, then spread rapidly up his neck and kept going until his face took on the color of a boiled ham. Teague had seen the progression many times and braced himself.

“Open this damn thing or I’ll cite you for obstruction.”

The jangling key chain was out in a flash. “Okay.”

As the door drifted back, Dugan’s first thought was that the weather stripping around it was superb because the difference in air quality inside and outside the apartment was unbelievable.
It reeks in there.

And Dugan had a feeling he knew why. “Stay back,” he told his new friend.

“But Mr. Arnold said I should—”

“Absolutely not. You stay out here. Bill, let’s go.”

He ordered Teague to close the door behind them—the super stood in the hallway with a helpless look as he disappeared from view. Dugan was sure he’d call the landlord on his cell phone within seconds, the little worm.

They were in a short hallway and surrounded by darkness even though it was early afternoon.

“Look for a switch,” Dugan said. Teague found one by the door and flicked it. Then he gasped.

Dugan didn’t doubt for a minute that the numerous smears on the cream-colored walls and the hardwood flooring were blood—mostly. Between his early days in Paterson and what he hoped would be his final years here in Ramsey, he’d been to enough homicide scenes to identify a bloodstain a mile away.

But there was something else—a crusty, golden yellow substance that was reminiscent of earwax. It was mixed with the blood as if blended in some kind of macabre cocktail.
Shaken, not stirred,
he thought crazily.

“What’s this yellowy stuff?” Teague asked, leaning down to get a closer look.

“I have no idea,” Dugan replied. “But don’t touch it. We’ll have Frawley’s guys come and collect samples.”

Teague did as he was told. On a mildly rebellious impulse, however, he moved in close enough to sniff a particularly crusty area. In that instant, he realized the mystery substance was the source of the ungodly smell (and that there must be plenty more of it around). In that same instant—although there was no way he could’ve known it—he had issued his own death warrant.

They went from the hallway to a small dining room. Dim rectangles of light glowed around a pair of blackout shades. Teague drew them up, revealing more of the blood-crust smears. They looked as though they’d been randomly applied with a paintbrush.

Then another peculiarity—in the china cabinet, everything from the Audubon plates Milligan had painstakingly collected over the last twenty years to the priceless Hummel figurines her beloved grandmother left to her had been shattered. Equally strange was that the glass on the cabinet doors was intact. It was as if each item had been removed and smashed, and then the pieces put back inside. There wasn’t even any debris on the walnut table or the Persian rug.

“What the hell … they were replaced in their original spots?!” Teague said, almost whispering.

Dugan only nodded in response, then started into the adjoining living room. After the first step, however, he stopped—the carpeting under his foot made a wet, squishy sound.

“Oh man,” he said, reaching for his flashlight.

It wasn’t blood, it was water—water and what appeared to be thousands of little white flecks. Getting to his knees, Dugan saw that the flecks were actually tiny stones. They were about the same size as the copper BBs he used to shoot squirrels and birds outside his bedroom window as a kid.

“Jim, c’mere.…”

Teague also fired up his flashlight, and the beam found a fish tank in the darkness, lying on its side. The spilled-out contents included a heavier shoal of tiny stones, plus a bubble filter, a can of flake food, and a ceramic model of Cinderella’s Disney castle. The latter had obviously served as a home to Milligan’s finned friends.

But where are they?
Teague wondered.
Why aren’t there any dead fish on the floor?

His curiosity was satiated a moment later when Dugan found the light switch. They were standing at one end of a long room that looked as though it’d been attacked by a gang of drunken apes. Every piece of the sofa set had been overturned, the three framed paintings (all real, by the look of them) were slashed with large
X
’s, and the small-but-functional fireplace was stuffed to the top with antique books; the kind that most people like to smell rather than read. But it was the fish—and what happened to them—that made Teague’s stomach roll. He was an animal lover at heart.

There was a large corkboard attached to the wall by the kitchen doorway, and they had been pinned to it with plastic toothpicks. They were arranged in neat rows, four columns of five for a total of twenty. Each one had a yellow Post-it Note underneath, with identifications in Milligan’s enraged scribble—

Cardinal Tetra

Paracheirodon axelrodi

Tiger Barb

Puntius tetrazona

Common Angelfish

Pterophyllum scalare

Dugan moved in close and inspected the collection. “What the hell is this all about?”

Teague hung back and diverted his eyes to other parts of the room. There were more smears everywhere, plus the oddly unsettling sight of a pizza—whole, not even one slice missing—facedown on the carpet in front of the coffee table. It looked as though it had been stamped down, as if Milligan (or whoever) tried to drive it through the floor. The empty box was still on the table, and Teague recognized the name on the lid—Kinchley’s, right here in town. Best pizza he ever had, although he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to take another bite without thinking of Katie Milligan.

“The smell is getting worse,” Teague said. What he meant was
We’re getting closer to … whatever
. Two other sentiments in his voice included
I think I’m about to see my first dead body
and
I’m not sure if I’m ready for this
.

“I know,” Dugan replied without the slightest note of empathy. “Something’s not quite—Oh
God
!”

He had ventured into the kitchen, and now, only seconds after he fired the overhead light, he stumbled backwards and almost fell through the open doorway.

“Oh my God! OH MY GOD!”

Teague never heard him scared before. Now the fear in his voice was as clear as the peal of a church bell.

He rushed over to help steady him. Then, over Dugan’s shoulder, he saw it.…

“Is that—?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh Lord…”

Through the clear glass of the blender, which was sitting on the counter and still plugged in, was the unmistakable form of a human foot. It had been hacked off just above the ankle, and the two jagged bones of the narrow tibia and wider fibula were preventing the lid from sitting flush. A huge puddle of dried blood—with very little of the yellow mystery sauce this time—was spread out on the floor, and a serrated bread knife lay nearby. Bloody tracks—one a normal footprint, the other a dark dribble-trail occasionally broken by roughly circular punctuation—led away from site, past the two of them, then curled left in a hairpin turn down a second hallway they had yet to explore.

They moved in no particular hurry toward the blender. The dismembered foot was unquestionably that of a woman, and neither had any doubt it was once the property of Katie Milligan. It was beginning to turn black from the bloodless rot, making it look as though it’d been hanging in a smokehouse. The most remarkable feature, however, was the blistering—it was so widespread that there were no clear areas. Most of the bubbles had been broken open, as evidenced by the deep scratch-lines. But a few remained. It made Teague think of a wicked case of sumac poisoning he’d had as a child. Ten times worse than ivy, with an itch that drove him insane for three solid weeks.
This looks like it was ten times worse than
that
,
he thought. At the base of the blender jar, about an inch of the golden mystery sauce had accumulated and congealed.