The Orphans Series Vol. 1: The Orphans (15 page)

             
Shaun sat up straight when he heard the keys rattle and the lock click in the door. He rolled over on his side to see what time it was. "Twelve-thirty! Wow! I can't believe he even came home at all!" He just had a side lamp on so, from the door, his dad wouldn't know he was still awake if he didn't say anything. "You're home kind of late!" he shouted.

             
His dad poked his head in the door. "Oh, hey bud. I didn't know if you'd still be up or not. How was your day today? Did you stay out of trouble?"

             
"I went out with Ellie. She wasn't having such a great day, you know? She needed someone to talk to."

             
Frank wasn't sure if Shaun knew or not. "What was the problem?"

             
"She told me that her mom has cancer. It kind of knocked her on her ass, to tell you the truth. She was really freaking out until she got a chance to talk to her mom."

             
"It wasn't easy for Karen to tell me, either. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you about it. That probably wasn't easy for her mom to talk to her about. The next few months are going to be rough ones."

             
"I'm confused. If you knew she was getting sick, then why did you accept a new project at work? You did get engaged, right? I don't understand how you're going to pull double duty for her and be at work? You
are
going to be there, right? Or are you going to be too busy at work again?"

             
"Watch it, son. I'm sure you don't have all the details. You're not a doctor yet, are you? Maybe Ellie didn't describe everything she knew?"

             
"You don't have to be a doctor to use the internet, dad. I'm confused as to why she thinks she doesn't need chemo?"

             
"Well, the cancer isn't that serious."

             
Shaun looked at him hard. "What do you mean it's not serious!? It's cancer!"

             
"Like I said, it's not that serious. She's going to take some new drugs they've cleared for human trials. I talked to a cancer clinic, and these test drugs are supposed to make the use of chemo almost obsolete in the future. I was able to pull some strings for Karen's case."

             
Shaun nodded. "So, they're distributing it to a selection of cancer patients who seem to have a non-serious strand of cancer?" He knew something was wrong with what his dad was saying, but he was biding his time, letting his dad presume how little he knew.

             
"Yeah, like I said."

             
"Then how did she qualify as not serious when she has stage five cancer? Ellie gave me all the details, but with the hope that she had in her eyes today I didn't have the heart to tell her that stage five meant it was terminal! I'm lost as to why she couldn't tell her own daughter what was happening. If she's that sick, she's going to lose eventually! There's no recovery from terminal cancer! If there was, there wouldn't be a reason to have stages. Do you think I'm an imbecile!?"

             
Frank didn't really have anything intelligent to say. He wasn't sure if he could tell a thirteen-year-old that he might very well have the cure to cancer, and at this very time he was working on the details to ensure the woman he planned to marry would be around for many years to come. "No, Shaun, I don't think you're an imbecile. I just don't know how many details I can discuss with you. We didn't think that Ellie needed to know the final details. We are hopeful that some alternative medicine might help make things better for Karen. We just don't know enough to be able to tell. We didn't want her to be worried more than necessary."

             
"So the fact that you took a truckload-worth of dusty papers to your office has absolutely nothing to do with Karen or her cancer, right? It's probably just a coincidence that you took them the day after you found out. You probably don't have any false hopes that modern day medicine can't do exactly what it's supposed to. I mean, hell, dad! It worked wonders for mom, right?"

             
Frank slammed his hand on the door in disgust at Shaun He shook his head, amazed his son would have the balls to accuse him, although he wasn't really sure what he was trying to accuse him of. "That's enough! I don't know what answer your looking for, Shaun, but if you're just looking for a fight, you picked the wrong guy! It's been a long God damn day, and I'm going to bed! I suggest that you do the same!"

             
Shaun didn't say anything. He reached up, turned the knob for his lamp, and sat in silence watching his dad fade away down the dark hallway. For Karen's sake he hoped whatever drugs she was going to be taking worked.

Chapter 11

Day -3156: October 8th, 2008. World Population 6,698,341,485

              Dr. Michaels and Dr. Christophers stared in disbelief across the operating table at each other. Horror and complete confusion painted their faces. Both doctors had over a decade of medical experience under their belts, but neither man had ever seen anything like this. Lying between the two scientists was the deceased Patient A, formerly known as Sergeant Daniels.

             
Running down the middle of his chest was an open y-incision which started just below his navel and ended at the top of his chest. They were staring down in shock, everything was there that should be including a very bloody heart--the central component to a body. Michaels used a surgical tool to prod at it and move it around to further examine it. It still had the faintest of beats six hours after the .45 caliber that killed him went through the rear of his brain cavity and exited through his front left lobe, immediately dropping the young solider.

             
"Holy mother of God, how can it still be beating?"

             
"It probably has something to do with the drug.... I mean, we've seen a patient once in a while gets twitches after they are dead, right?"

             
Christophers looked Michaels in the eye, pointing directly to the heart. "Are you being serious right now? There is no explanation for this at all! Absolutely none! Can you show me one--not two--just one documented case where a patient whose heart exploded was still on his feet? The only things that put him down was the bullet through his skull. If the Ranger hadn't put one in his skull he would have gone after them like he did Dr. Moffenberg!"

             
"So what do we tell Major Stevenson about the autopsy?"

             
Christophers looked around the empty room shaking his head. No one was in there. They had seen to it a complete lockdown had taken place on this before they checked over the body. Shooting test subjects who had not volunteered and then went insane was not a popular practice. The Major had made sure they understood--this was going to be as clean as possible with no knowledge about it leaving here. Christophers mumbled, "What exactly do you want to tell him first? The fact this drug we helped design blows up patients hearts? The fact they, for some reason, have no problem eating their flesh and anyone else's that stands in their way? Or that we disobeyed direct orders to do the autopsy and report the findings before moving on with testing?"

             
Michaels wiped the drops of sweat from his forehead onto his white lab coat and started shaking his head. "Do you think he's going to court martial us?"

             
"Well, we sure as hell aren't going to get a medal for disobeying him and giving out the wonder drug that puts people in a zombie-like state, are we? Jesus, Michaels! We gave it to twenty-five men! It would seem the only intelligent thing to do would be to take an AR-15 in the ward and pump rounds into them until we have every last one of them on a slab!"

             
"Well, couldn't we put a spin on this?"

             
"What the hell do you mean?"

             
Michaels smiled, "We didn't expect this to happen, but if you put this ... formula ... in the enemy's system, we could go in like fish in a barrel popping them off with no worries."

             
Christophers held up his hands, palms out. "Wait just a minute! Can you imagine what urban warfare would be with these things jumping out of windows and off the sides of buildings without feeling anything or having any fear? Tearing the flesh off of our soldiers' faces? Look at Moffenberg for God sakes! He's going to take months to recover and the skin grafts he'll have to endure to get back to looking somewhat like he did before will take even longer!"

             
The intercom buzzed, scaring the hell out of both of them. A nurse's voice enquired, "Doctors Michaels and Christophers, are you available?"

             
Michaels hit the button and responded, "What is it? Do you need something? We are in the middle of something."

             
"Sir, you asked to be notified if Dr. Moffenberg showed any signs of change. Well, he has been stirring in his bed for the last ten minutes. I don't know if it's bad dreams or that he's coming out of it, sir, but he had quite a heavy sedative so we would be able to stabilize him. We didn't expect him to come around for days."

             
Christophers barked, "Well, find out what's going on! What video feed is his room on? We'd like to observe as much as possible. He shouldn't be coming out of it. He could be in terrible pain if he makes any effort to move!"

             
The nurse responded, "I'll send one of the senior nurses we have to care for him. I think Nurse Pearson is available--if I can tear her away from the internet slots for a minute.... Check feed seven-three-seven-nine. That should be it."

             
"We all have to make sacrifices," Michaels argued. "Just tell her he's high priority. Christophers, switch on that computer so we can see what is going on with him. I don't understand the damn thing!"

             
Christophers flicked on the computer and tapped a couple of keys--doing his magic bringing the machine to life. Michaels took a seat as Christophers finished typing in final commands. They peered at the screen taking a moment to realize what they were seeing. Christophers pointed a trembling finger. "Would you look at this!? I can't believe the man is standing! What the hell's he doing?"

             
They watched Moffenberg standing up unassisted, walking lethargically around the empty room. He looked at his arm and started tearing at the bandages, and he didn't stop until he reached skin, ripping the flesh from his arm with his teeth.

             
"What in the hell is wrong with him?" Michaels asked. "Call the nurse and warn them to hold off going in there! He's showing the same signs as what Daniels was doing."

             
Christophers picked up the phone to dial as they watched a nurse entered the room with a tray of instruments. "He didn't even get the dosage. Do you think it's viral? Oh, God, help us! She's going in there!"

             
Like a bell had gone off waking up Moffenberg, he looked over at the intrusion of silence in his room and met eyes with the nurse. "Hello, doctor," she enquired, "are you okay? We didn't think you would be up this quickly, sir."

             
He looked her in the eyes with bloody saliva running from his mouth. She was blurry through the blood seeping from his eyes. She took stock of him, and saw the bleeding eyes and the fresh wound on his arm. "Oh my God! What happened to your arm! Did someone hurt you!?" Next she noticed the blood from his eyes and ran up to him, trying to guide him to his bed. "Please sit down before you injure yourself further."

             
That was the last sentence nurse Pearson would ever speak. The injured doctor lunged for her outstretched helping arms, grabbed her by the scrub shirt and pulled her in while making some sort of a groan or growl. She screamed at the top of her lungs. He buried his teeth deep into her jugular ripping through her skin and viciously tearing away at it and everything that was beneath it. He threw her to the ground, looked around and ran to the door that she had just come from and started hammering on it, unable to figure out the knob. The nurse had a spasm on the floor. She was losing dangerous amounts of blood while the two doctors watched as Moffenberg was doing something with his jaw.

             
Christophers bent over from his seat puking everywhere on the floor, coughing and gagging. Everything he'd eaten that day was spread everywhere. Michaels felt sick to his stomach seeing this happening.

             
"Oh, shit!" Michaels continued, "Would you look at his jaw? Do you see that? Do you god damn see that!?"

             
Christophers wiped his face on his lab coat, pulling himself up to the table, and stared at the image. "What is he doing?"

             
Michaels was already trying to pick up a phone to dial a new number.

             
"Are you calling the nurses station?"