The Romero Strain (16 page)

“That is what I am trying to explain,” he replied nervously.

I released the doctor and threw him toward the wall.

He said, “There were no protean pathogens in the labs. Even when the contamination protocols were overridden, the virus could not have been released through the external ventilation system.”

“And who was the genius that overrode the command protocols? Was it you?”

“No. No. Not I.”

“Well, then… who did?”

“How should I know?”

“Because you said, ‘
overridden
.’”

“Did I?” he asked, playing it off.

“It’s a different story with you every time, Doc. The world has gone to shit from a virus that couldn’t have gotten out. You did this! You fucked with the protocols to save your sorry ass!”

I was livid.
My anger sparked a recollection from the
Bhagavad Gita
, from the chapter
Bhishma Parva
in the
Mahabharata
, one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It was a line often associated with “
the father of the atomic bomb,
” Robert Oppenheimer, an American physicist and the scientific director of the Manhattan Project. He was reported to have said, after witnessing the successful detonation of the first atomic bomb, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” However, he mistranslated the text.

“‘Time I am, the great destroyer of the worlds, and I have come here to destroy all people,’” I declared loudly, directing my angry, bitter words at him.

“No. No!” he contested, a resolute anger rising in protest to my accusation. “I assure you that I was not the one who breached the security lockdown.”

“There ya go again, Dick, incriminating yourself. You know, don’t you!?” I grabbed him again, shaking him hard.

“Yes, yes. All right!” He winced. “It was Captain Robbins in his arrogance to save his own men. But what does it matter? The lab is lost, too. There will not be any undead if it survived. It would have killed everyone on the base by now. It is suicide to go back.”

“The only option for a pure realist is to commit
suicide. I’ll make sure you’re in the front of the line. Get your ass moving or I’ll let Marisol have another go at you.”

“I need assistance,” Doctor France demanded. “Your dog, you assist.”

I scoffed, “Unless the sun rises in the west.”

“Is that some quaint
idiotism
you are trying to convey?” France smugly retorted.

“How about I put my idiom up your ass? Would that help motivate you?”

“Your intimidation is not going to change that fact that the wound your carnivorous canine inflicted upon my leg prevents me from walking. And since I seem to be an integral part of your elaborate plan to commit suicide, I highly recommend you assist me and dispense with the hollow threats. In a quaint idiom, without me your plan is up shit’s creek with a turd for a paddle.”

I really hated it, but the doctor was correct; he couldn’t walk without help. But I was not about to give him the satisfaction of my assistance. I made Joe do it, and I only had to threaten him once. We departed, Doctor France still protesting but leading the way.

XII. Cries and Shadows

The power had begun to fail and the tunnels had begun to flood. Even with my newly acquired night vision, it would have been impossible to see without the aid of our flashlights. It was definitely not like the movies, where there always seemed to be a light source no matter how far underground the characters traveled. It was pitch black.

As we cautiously made our way through the soggy tunnel, I was acutely aware of the sounds around me. I could hear the creatures of darkness scampering about, Max’s panting, the splashing of our feet in the murky water, and everyone’s anxious breathing. I almost could hear my heart beating.

My aching neck, pounding head, and burning ears had begun to subside. I looked at my hands; they hadn’t turned into claws. I inconspicuously reached up to see if my ears were still attached; they were. I put my hand to the supraorbital ridge of my left eyebrow. It was still protruding. It didn’t appear that my neck had grown. I wasn’t sure exactly how many bones made up an owl’s cervical vertebrae, but it had to be more than the seven in a human. I wondered how many new ones I had formed from the doctor’s large-scale, spontaneous, mutation phenomenon. I hoped my transformation was complete and would remain slight.

That would prove to be wishful thinking.

We hadn’t gone far when our journey came to an abrupt end. Before us stood a wall without an exit.

“Shit,” Julie cursed, seeing the dead end. “Aren’t we ever going to catch a break!?”

“You already have. You’re still alive,” David told her, placing a hand to her shoulder.

“You playing games with us again, Doctor?” I had no patience for further antics.

“You have to go down.”

“Down? Down where? It’s a dead end.” I was becoming angry with him once again, and felt the onset of another headache.

“No, no. It is not. I came this way. Through the wall.”

“How about I put
you
through the wall, if you don’t stop jerking us around.” I grabbed him and shook him hard. He knew my wrath was about to be upon him.

“I swear! I came through this wall. There is a security card reader on the other side.”

I was becoming lightheaded and my body temperature was rising rapidly. I could feel perspiration beading on my forehead. I found myself bent over with my hands on my knees.

“DD. Do me a favor and check the wall. See if you find anything.” I warned the doctor, “If you’re fuckin’ with us, I’m going to cut your nuts off and shove them down your throat!”

David scanned the wall with his flashlight, carefully examining it for any indication the doctor was telling the truth. “It looks like there is a seam,” he said after a few moments, “running down the center of the wall. It goes almost up to the ceiling joist. But I don’t see any way to get in.”

I pulled on France’s shirt.

He knew his time was running out. He pleaded, “Please. There must be something there.”

David scanned the adjacent walls along the joints where the walls met one another. He started with the right, and studied the left. Suddenly, something caught his eye. He ran his hand along one of the concrete bricks. He pushed on it and a false door popped open revealing a display unit.

“I guess you weren’t lying. You get to keep your balls a while longer.” I pushed him aside. Max stood watch over him as I examined the panel.

Recessed within the wall was some sort of biometric terminal. It had a keypad for a security code and a hand reader.

I grabbed the doctor and pulled him in front of it. “Doc, what’s the code?”

He didn’t answer.

I repeated my question, “Doc, what’s the code?”

He remained silent.

“If I have to ask you one more time, I’ll beat it out of you. Now, what’s the code!?”

“All right,” he finally, and reluctantly, responded. He entered the code and put his hand onto the scanner. The wall parted to reveal a set of electromagnetic doors.

The urge to vomit overwhelmed me. I quickly stepped away from the others, and heaved up the remaining Jack Daniel’s near the door. This time I managed not to puke on myself. My temperature immediately dropped after expelling and my perspiration diminished drastically. I wobbled as I stood.

“Your fatigue will only get worse unless you eat,” Doctor France informed me.

“Never eat on an empty stomach, have a drink to start.”

“Yes. Sound advice from a man who just vomited his breakfast,” he snidely replied.

I tried to walk, and promptly collapsed. My legs felt like a gelatinous mass.

“Okay. Snack time,” I announced. I finished off the remaining beef jerky.

The effects of eating were almost immediate. My nausea quickly passed and my muscle strength returned. I even noticed that the soreness in my neck and my light sensitivity had dramatically lessened. I felt a renewed energy and was eager to continue our journey.

David and Julie sat on the tunnel floor without acknowledging me. I could see Julie was ill; she was perspiring. I squatted in front of them and put a hand to each of their faces.

“David, you appear okay,” I told him. “But we shouldn’t take chances.”

“Fatigued, that’s all,” he answered.

“But Julie, you have an elevated temperature,” I informed her.

“I’m infected, too?” she responded.

“Yeah, but we have the counteragent,” I told her. “If it worked for me, it will certainly work for everyone else.”

“But I don’t want to be an Orc.”

“That won’t happen. I prom—”

“I’m infected!?” Joe declared, interrupting my sentence, stating the obvious. “I don’t want to die and turn into some zombie freak.”

“Hey, necrophobe! We have the counteragent. So shut it.”

He did.

David retrieved the doctor’s metal case from his utility bag and handed it to me.

“But I’m not sick,” Marisol said, as I prepared syringes for everyone. “What about being immune? Can’t I be immune?”

“No, you have the wrong genetic makeup,” the doctor told her.

“But I’m not sick,” Marisol insisted. “I didn’t get bit!”

“This is not some low pathogenic like avian influenza. This is an aggressive, highly contagious pathogen that can potentially wipe out 96.8% of the world’s population. Only those with two copies of CCR5 delta-32 are immune… less than one-percent of Caucasians.”

“But I’m not sick,” she repeated again, a tone of panic in her voice.

“Marisol, Marisol. It’s okay. Come here,” I said, motioning to her.

She came to me and sat down as I prepared her injection. I put my hand to her face, gently cupping it. I could feel she was warm.

“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “We have the doctor’s antiretroviral. You’ll be fine.”

“But I wasn’t bitten.”

“I know. But it was in the air.”

“But I’m not sick.”

“You are. You’re running a slight fever. I can feel it.”

“But I don’t feel sick.”

“I understand. But—”

“What about Max?” Marisol interrupted, concern in her tone. “Is he sick, too?”

The doctor responded to Marisol’s concern. “Though animal to human adaptation is non-exclusive, such as Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, which is preferential toward an avian host but can directly infect humans, a human to animal transference, with the exception of human to apes and monkeys, will not occur.”

“Why don’t you ever say anything so people can understand you?” she asked.

“I did,” the doctor said.

“Max isn’t going to get sick?”

“You must go to public school,” he told her.

I glared at him. “Keep talking, Doc, someday you’ll say something intelligent.” I looked at Marisol. “He’ll be fine,” I reassured her, and then addressed everyone. “I owe you all an apology. I’m sorry. I should have administered the serum to you back in the other tunnel.” I addressed Joe. “You’re next.”

* * *

We stood bunched together on a small landing. Before us was what appeared to be an endless spiral staircase, wrapped around a circular steel pylon. It was narrow, dark and malodorous. I peered over the railing and gazed into the abyss. I could see platforms at equal distances along the descent. I tried to concentrate, in hopes of seeing the bottom, but my vision was blurred, going in and out of focus. There was no lighting where we stood and minimal light below us. The M42 level was one hundred and ten feet below the lowest level of Grand Central. As I looked down, I knew where we were headed didn’t exist on any blueprint, map or diagram. I was sure the staircase we were about to ascend couldn’t be found on any city plans, either.

“Damn!” I said. “What is with all the staircases?”

My head was throbbing like someone was hitting me in the temples with a ball peen hammer. My ears rang violently. As we neared the third landing on our journey down, I felt a sharp twinge in my larynx, followed by an inability to breathe. My trachea seared with hot pain. I doubled over and fell face-forward, rolled down a flight of steps, and crashed onto the next landing with an intensity that stung my knees. I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t breathe. Tears of unrelenting agony ran down my face. Max came to me and licked my cheek as he nudged me.

They all had gathered around and were asking me what was wrong. Marisol placed her hand on my shoulder for comfort and began speaking in Spanish.
“¿Estás bien? ¿Estás bien? ¿Puedes oírme? ¿Estás bien?”
she kept repeating, trying to elicit an answer. I could feel myself losing consciousness.

“What’s going on? What’s happening to him?” Joe asked, demanding an answer, pushing the doctor to where I had fallen.

I must have passed out momentarily, because the next thing I saw was the doctor kneeling next to me with the knife from my multi-tool in his hand. I gasped, and air filled my lungs once again. I grabbed the hand the doctor was using to hold the knife.