A Dark Evolution (Book 2): Deranged (3 page)

He shuffled a couple of steps toward her, still dragging the IVs, but he looked confused now. Another step and he was right on top of her. But Kala knew. She knew because the loud wheezing from his chest had stopped, and because his eyes were starting to darken with blood.
They're hemorrhaging.
He suddenly stopped breathing. There was no dramatic death throe, no jerking, no spasms. The big man simply stopped moving, moments away from killing Kala. She’d run him so hard that his lungs and heart just gave in. His eyes never closed; he just stood there, dead. Kala scooted back away from him.

“Holy hell.”

She didn’t give herself long to recover. With bravery she didn’t feel like she really possessed, she walked past the big man. He had a face like a baby, chubby and kind, but fists like sledgehammers. Then she strode back into the hangar, where she recovered her new scrubs. She quickly stripped out of the gown she was in and donned the scrubs, wishing she had a bra to go with them.
Whatever,
she thought, then went and found the fire axe.

The dead woman was really dead now, so there was no further need to end her life. Kala walked down the aisle, cracking open the last water bottle and taking large gulps. She passed the big man, who was still standing, and a moment later, as she was leaving the hangar for good, he finally fell over behind her. It seemed strange that she felt an odd sympathy for him. Then she opened the door and stepped out into a world that had been forever altered.

*****

"So this is what the end looks like," Kala said as she made a slow pirouette on the asphalt, "or what it sounds like, rather. Silent."

Exiting the large steel hangar, she had been blinded by the harsh sunlight, it almost beat her into the ground as she stumbled forward on bare feet. She was far from oriented, but after a careful three hundred and sixty degree observation, she determined that she was in the very farthest of the long hangar buildings on the airport’s property. Directly behind the building was a tall row of chain link fence, and a wide access road led over to the terminal buildings.

She continued to take large drinks of her water and circled the building until she found the shady side. It was only a narrow strip of shade.

"That means it's close to the middle of the day."

Kala leaned back against the building. Her head was still swimming and felt as if someone had smacked her with a sledge hammer.
Well, being thrown across the room and into a steel cabinet while in the throes of a heat-induced migraine will do that to a person.

Then it started, the most wonderful thing. A breeze, cool and strong, blew across the wide-open airport property. It was heavenly. The fresh air blew across her heat-sick body, rustling the hairs and cooling her skin. The cooler blood was then rushed to her organs, and more overly heated blood was sent out into the capillaries to cool as well. It gave her a near euphoric sensation and she sank to her knees.
Oh thank you God, thank you, ...  whoever.

She sat quietly, drinking her water and letting her body temperature come down to less dangerous levels. It was during this quiet contemplation that she again noticed the utter silence around her. The wind made noise as it caused friction passing over her ears. But she heard nothing else. It was unnerving.

The sounds of planes and automobiles were gone. She had experienced this while hunting with her father before, far from the city and the highways. That wasn’t what this was, though. This was more profound.

In the woods, in a tree blind with her father, Kala enjoyed the beautiful silence that nature provided, only it was not actual silence. Silence from the things of man, yes, but nature provided a symphony of its own. Kala realized that was what was missing here now - aside from the people and planes. She heard no sounds of the birds and other avian creatures. There were no barking dogs - and not even the ubiquitous buzzing of mosquitoes and bees, which were prolific here in Florida. Nothing at all.

Kala trembled at the totality of it.
The DDT protocol they implemented
, she thought, remembering what she had overheard two nurses saying early on in her hospital stay. She shook her head at the thought. She knew they were desperate, but... Then she trembled again, and realized that her skin was actually erupting in little bumps. The breeze was cool enough to make her hot skin shiver. She smiled down at her arm, which was pale white and bony from months of neglect.

Kala sighed. Any longer here would just be stalling. Still, she felt an alien hesitation at leaving this place where she had been held captive for months. It had been a home of sorts for her. And while it was not comfortable, it had been a safe haven as well, and that in itself did provide her mind with comfort. Kala turned and looked at the door. Should she go back in and forage for supplies?

Rational Kala was still a little behind, so emotional Kala made the call.
No, we’ll set out now, get away from that stink hole. Well, a lot of the stink was from me. That wasn’t my fault though. Besides, there's dead people in there.
The dead. Another shiver rocked through Kala and she knew this one was not from any cool breeze. How many are there? How bad is it out here. Kala looked down the sunlit tarmacs, searching for any movement. She didn’t see anything, but if there was a small pod that had already found her in the hangar, the airport must not be secure. They could be anywhere.

The airport was a good half mile walk, and it would be hot.
I’ll need more water when I get there, and food. That’s fine, there’s a ton of vending machines in there, I’ll find food.
Kala picked up the heavy fire axe where she had leaned it against the side of the building. She was damn fortunate to find this gem, they weren’t used as often now, fearing civvies or kids would take them and hurt themselves. She hefted the axe up and over her good shoulder and started walking. She walked just next to the tarmac, keeping her feet on the cooler grass and off the scorching asphalt. The airport loomed out of the heated mirage around her. Off in the distance, she didn’t know how far, she thought she saw moving bodies. In fact, the little moving shapes were popping up in the distance in all directions.
Is it the heat or are those the dead?
She had no idea, the heat mirage caused everything to be blurry and unreliable, and while she was recovering, her mind was still very ill. She couldn't trust her own senses.

“If they come, I will deal with them,” she said, squeezing the handle of her axe for comfort. The mid-day sun burned down on her as she walked, and the airport grew nearer. “It’s going to be okay, Kala, you’re going to be okay.”

Cumberland Lake area, Kentucky. The female Apis mellifera was born only two weeks ago. She didn't have a name; she didn't have a personal identity. Her identity, her life, was her home and her family. Today, however, something was different. Yes, something was very wrong. Wrong had never registered in her before. The only things that did register were instinctual, part of her core, knowledge that was passed into her tiny body through her mother, through their mother. Today however, there was confusion. She was staring at the many hexagonal cells in front of her, each of them containing a small, white creature.

All around, to the left and right, above and below, her sisters were working diligently, systematically, responsibly, feeding their young. They cleaned their living spaces, keeping their abode pristine. Several times, one of her sisters stopped next to her, observing her sickness. If she was ill, they would remove her from their home. Disease in these close quarters was not only deadly, it was an extinction level event for their community.

Not knowing why, in fact, not knowing anything, she turned away from the great wall of cells and crawled away, down through the long corridor, where the tiny light of day beckoned her to the opening. She continued to march forward toward the exit, ignoring the scores of others moving in and out, over and around her. They all had a purpose. Not her. She was guided only by the light. It was not her goal, it simply attracted her. When she finally reached the bright spot of light, she looked out into the wild, away from her home. She had never been out there. That didn't cause her any hesitation. With no destination and no fear, she had therefore no trepidation about leaving.

She dove from the entryway, free-falling hundreds of times her body length before finally catching herself on the light morning breeze. She rode the currents, coursing drunkenly through a bright landscape of hyper realistic colors. Her five eyes, compounded for maximum coverage, took in every facet of her surroundings, from the most obscure of ultraviolets on the petals of flowers, guiding insects to their sweet nectar, to the deep greens of the grasses below, lush, full of water, and life. She saw all of this wonder, but did not see any of it. It was like white noise, or a background that moved too fast to focus on. She coursed aimlessly for miles, much farther than even her strongest sisters would fly.

At last, when fatigue threatened to cause her to collapse, she hovered low to the ground. She landed on a long, rectangular-shaped piece of wood, a board, in a playground. Her six legs moved her forward, then turned, then forward again. Finally, they propelled her over the edge of the board. This time there was no flutter of tiny translucent wings. Her small body crashed silently into the dark pine wood chips below. With no thoughts of why or how, the tiny western honey bee died. She was far from her home and her many sisters. She would not be mourned but she would be missed, for the structure of the colony changed with each death, and now the young mouths she was supposed to be feeding would not be fed. Now her body could not be used to help warm the brood on cold nights. She was just detritus on the ground. Throughout the state of Kentucky, some twenty million honey bees, lost for purpose, confused, and listless, wandered away from their homes. A few seconds later, one of their sisters. A few seconds later, another.

*****

“This is a complete disaster.” Rosa Kaopyn leaned back at his desk, wishing he was comfortable. It wasn't just the pains in his back, it was his head and his heart and his stomach as well. The last ninety days had done their best to kill him.

“I think disaster is an accurate assessment.” His colleague, an entomology and ecology PhD from Stanford University, sat across the desk from him. Rosa didn't have the luxury of many of these one-on-one meetings, so while Jason Carpenter was an old friend, he had to talk shop.

“You know, of course, why you are here, right?”

Jason nodded, “I may spend most of my time with bugs, but I’ve managed to retain some of my human forethought,” he said it with a sad smile.

“Rosa, I’ve been kept out of the official loop. I’m only a civilian. Can you break down the numbers for me? How many human cases are we talking about right now?”

Rosa sighed, his big chest heaving. Then he let his large black hands rest atop his substantial belly. “I only have U.S. data, and dammit, it changes so rapidly that anything I tell you now will be worthless in a few minutes.”

“Do try, please. I’d like to know so that we can get to the bigger problem.”

“The bigger problem?” Rosa asked, his eyebrows rising up.

“Rosa, you didn’t advance to the head of the American CDC because you were foolish. You took the same entomology courses I did; you just chose a different path after the first two years of school.”

Rosa let out a sigh. “The United States’ current population is three hundred fifty million souls. The data I have suggests that there are between five and seven million active infections. Now, that's not taking into account the people these things have killed, and that's not taking into account the number of people who have died on their own.”

“Survival time is still one to four days?”

“Most of them keel over after about thirty hours. The heart works harder and there's nothing regulating body temperature, so the person just burns up like an engine without coolant.”

“Lovely way to go.”

“All told, between active infections and all other related casualties, we’re looking at twelve million. That's on the conservative side.”

“Jesus.”

“I wish He was on our side. At the moment, it doesn’t appear so.”

Jason shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “So a little less than five percent of the American populace have thus far been affected?”

“More or less, yes.”

“And it is still spreading fast?”

“Unfortunately yes, they don’t last long, but...”

“But in that time, there is ample opportunity for their vectors to carry the parasite on.”

“Exactly. We’ve identified mosquitoes, body lice, one obscure tick, and several mites that appear to be able to harbor the parasite.”

“Didn’t it originally invade through spiders?”

“It did, but those spiders that it hitched a ride on are long gone, eradicated, as well as almost everything else in Florida.”

Jason nodded slowly. This was just review, really; he knew most of these things, and had hypothesized about the spread of the infection on his own. “Tell me about the immunization protocol. Has it failed completely?” Jason asked, remembering the beastly antiparasitic pills he had gagged down almost a month prior. He had not waited for the government to disperse them; he had access, through his lab and his ex-wife’s veterinary clinic, to a wide range of powerful antiparasitics.

Rosa gave him a stern look. “It has not failed; it just isn’t as effective as we would like. It's not possible, not really. And they aren't immunizations, as you know, they are just a course of treatment, in the hopes that if the person does come into contact with the parasite, it will be rendered inert before it can take root.”

“Yes, I understand the concept. So what is the problem then?”

“Are you poking me with a stick on purpose, or is it just in your nature to belabor the obvious and be rude?”

Jason grimaced and held up his hands, “Rosa, I’m sorry. I know this whole shit heap is in your jurisdiction. I can't imagine the pressure you're under.” He sighed. “The media is reporting that you are already running low on antiparasitic meds.”

“It's true. They are not made to be used in this fashion, blanketing a population with a long course.”

“Manufacturers are being put under the gun I presume?”

“They are, and in fact, their response has been fast and furious. We should have millions more doses in another week, two at the most. They’ll just keep making it until we don’t need it anymore.”

“But that's not the only problem with the treatment protocol, is it?”

Again, Rosa gave him a stern look, and Jason continued on his own.

“I know that there is a huge portion of our population that doesn’t trust the government, doesn’t trust doctors, and won't be getting in line to receive high doses of very intense medications usually used on farm animals.”

“You are not wrong. It isn't just those that are phobic, though. It's dangerous out there, Jason, it really is. Outbreaks here in Atlanta have been handled swiftly, not a lot of deaths. It hasn’t been the same elsewhere; people are terrified to leave their homes. We have set up treatment centers in civic centers and school gymnasiums. We police them with the National Guard and tell people to come. We don’t have the manpower to go door-to-door, and doing so would be wildly impractical anyway, since it would put us in more contact with the infected.”

“Has anyone tried treating the infected yet?”

“Of course. Fifty percent success rate. The problem is getting them treated; they want to kill everyone in their path. There’s a company working on a hypodermic dart that would deliver a first dose.”

“But then what?”

“Exactly. In our lab successes, it took three days to reclaim the patients.”

“But they can be saved.”

“In a matter of speaking, yes. Treatment of the infected is secondary right now though. Our primary goal has to be to stop the spread. Once we contain the outbreak, we’ll do what we can for the infected.”

“And you think you will eventually contain it?”

“Definitely. It may take months to manufacture and distribute enough of the meds.”

Jason cleared his throat. “In the meantime then, now that I have successfully prised all the information out of you that I could, we had better deal with the big problem. One might be inclined to wonder, where even to start?”

“You’ve been paying close attention to this aspect of the crisis, I presume?”

“Of course, as a professor of entomology, biochemistry, and biodiversity, it has become the most important thing in my field, the most tremendous of all tragedies.”

“So, tell me, and without any bullshit - we’ll save that for the politicians, how bad is it, Jason?”

“No bullshit, Rosa?”

“No bullshit, friend.”

“It’s the end of the world.”

*****

8 a.m. California

Robert Copenhaver, who owned California Mobile Apiary, walked out of his house into the driveway to the tall stacks of bee colonies being prepared for transport. The many colonies had been loaded onto several pallets the day before.
What the hell?
He stood dumbstruck, in awe, in shock. He did not know what reaction he was about to have, whether he would explode in a fit of rage, or fall to his knees in tears.

Copenhaver had eight thousand colonies of bees, each containing an average of forty-five thousand New World Carniolan honey bees. His bees were used to pollinate hundreds of thousands of fruit trees as far away as Florida. In California, his hardworking insects were a big part of the massive pollination effort to sustain the state’s huge almond tree industry, which exported hundreds of millions of dollars in almonds every season and was a vital part of California's economy. He was also the main producer of the NWC queens, and had been trying to increase diversity amongst beekeepers in the southwest.

Currently, the bees were at the end of a two week rest period before making a run to another orchard. They were supposed to be resting, that is. What he saw this morning was like running into a brick wall. His stacks of colonies, all four thousand that were staged here waiting for tomorrow's truck run, were silent. Silence in the apiary meant death, but he didn't need his ears to see that. Surrounding the many stacks of bright white bee colonies, was swath of brown ten feet wide; Copenhaver’s ninth circle of hell. On wobbling legs, he stumbled up to the brown swath and knelt down.

“My bees,” he whispered. He brushed a hand over the bodies. Some were still moving, barely, most were not. “My god. Oh my god.” He walked over the wide path of honey bee carcasses and reached his hives. Silence. He removed the top of a low stack and pulled up a single file of comb. It was perfect. Perfectly formed crisp, symmetrical, wax combs, dripping with golden yellow honey. But empty. Empty of bees. The honey was delicious but useless for his industry. He turned and leaned back against the stack, then sank down to the ground.

Robert stared at the band of dead bees circling the palletized hives like a withered ring of Saturn. His eyes were cloudy and blue from long years of life and work, now those eyes brimmed with moisture. If this was every bee from his colonies, and he prayed, oh he prayed to God it wasn't, then there were over 150 million honey bees lying dead on the ground around him. That was half of everything he owned.
What happened, what could have happened here?
He was always so careful.

His fingers, gnarled and wrinkled from so much manual labor, and now, the pain of arthritis, trembled as he fished his phone out of his pocket. Protocol was to report any substantial losses to the California Apiary Association so that they could inform, alert, and educate other beekeepers on potential outbreaks of bee parasites. His fingers found their number in the contact list. As the phone rang, tears began to fall down his face, tracing imperfect lines down his weathered skin.