Hunting Season (18 page)

Once infected, you have to kill them before they switch over.  If not, you'll have a beserker like Tonya on your hands.  So Claire had to die.  No other option.  We already had a live one and didn't want another.  Phil was easier since he was already dead.  When they're dead, they're dead.

They're harder to deal with when they're still alive.  Instinct drives you to help them at first.  To staunch the bleeding.  To bandage the wound.  But you can't.  Because there's no helping them anymore.  Because there is no cure.

Once Security finished Claire, they strapped her and Phil's corpses down to backer boards and shuffled them out, accompanied by armed guards, to the crematorium.  Time to ditch them in the fire.  Only way to ensure it doesn't spread.  Only way to purify the remains.

Tonya, though, I kept.  By all rights she should have been destroyed with the rest.  But an outbreak had never happened in one of the labs and finding out why it had now needed to be answered.

Besides, she's my wife.  I couldn't just send her off to be burned.

*  *  *  *  *

I slice the scalpel across my forearm and shiver.  The pain crawls up my arm and tickles my shoulder.  My eyes closed, I moan and swallow a mouthful of saliva.  It's the closest thing to an orgasm I have these days.

Then the joy of pain passes.  I dab alcohol on a cotton ball and swab the cut.  The sting feels almost as good.  After a few seconds, I cover the thin incise with gauze and wrap my arm and roll my sleeve down and hum the first two minutes of Beethoven's 9th.

There.  The stress is gone.  Well, not gone.  Pushed aside is a better way of putting it.  Blocked for now.

It becomes overwhelming sometimes.  When it does, my vision blurs.  My brain literally pulses and at times I think my cranium may explode.

A punch to a wall works as an outlet now and then.  Or a good whack of a shin against a desk or filing cabinet.  But not all the time.  And when it doesn't, I cut.  Have to.  If not, I'll pass out or have a heart attack or stop breathing all together.  The anxiety gets that bad.  That elevated.

It's been worse lately, working with Tonya.  Seeing her, strapped to her chair in the quarantine unit with the sedative pumped into her veins, stabs at my guts.  The stress and anxiety fires up like a jet engine after about twenty minutes of work.  When I have trouble breathing, I leave.

I drink from the water fountain outside the quarantine for exactly two minutes.  The cold of the fluid calms me enough to halt the shakes.  I hum Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as I walk to the lab away from quarantine.

Back in the lab, I cut.  Usually it's one slice.  On rougher days, it's two.  The first week after Tonya turned it was three and four slices.

Now I breathe deep and exhale slow.  Better.  Much better.

Three weeks tomorrow will have passed since Tonya was infected.  My right arm is a mound of scar tissue.  Not much room remains for slicing on my left.  Will probably start on my right shin and calf next.  Maybe we'll have a vaccine by then.  Maybe even a cure.

*  *  *  *  *

"The protein injections are keeping her alive but they're doing nothing to slow her metabolism," Danny says.

Looking through the window at Tonya, I shrug.  "No one ever said they would."

"Keeping her sedated and nourished is not doing anyone any good."

"Screw you, Danny."  I move away from the glass and stare at the old bastard.  "It's not like we aren't trying to find a successful treatment."

Danny holds up his hand in a calming gesture.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean for it to come out that way."

"Then how did you mean it?"

Danny sighs.  "We're nowhere close to finding a solution on how to slow the metabolic rate in the animal specimens, let alone a human.  We need a successful test on a rat or monkey before we attempt it on a person."

"So she's not worth keeping around, that's what you're saying?"

"Kyle, I understand what you're going thr-"

My fists clench.  "Is that what you're saying?"

A few seconds of silence pass.  Danny's wrinkled face slacks and his jowls sag.  He looks ancient.

"It's been three weeks," he says.  "It isn't right."

"Isn't right?"

"I wish to God we could cure her of this virus, Kyle.  But we can't.  Not yet.  It could be months.  Maybe even years."

"I don't care how long it takes."

"Keeping her strapped to that chair with all those tubes hooked to her, pumping food and sedatives into her just to keep her alive and calm isn't right.  Not when we can give her a decent end."

My fists relax and my bottom lip quivers.  I feel the warmth of tears running down my cheeks.  "You want me to kill her."

"That isn't Tonya anymore."

"She's my wife."

"No she isn't and you know it.  You can barely look at her for more than a few minutes before you walk out of here covered in sweat and hardly able to breathe."

It feels like a spike is being driven into each temple.  Breaths come harder.

"Look at her," he says. 

Sweat breaks out on my forehead and the back of my neck.  My hands shake.

"But you can't, can you?"  Danny moves away.  "I know it's hard and you know it's the right thing to do."

"You don't know shit."

"She died that day in the lab.  Her soul has moved on.  Look at her and tell me there's any of Tonya left in there.  Without a soul, the body is just meat."

I rush out of the quarantine unit and hit the water fountain.  I drink for two minutes.  Then I walk to the lab, humming Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

*  *  *  *  *

The first reported case of infection occurred in a small backwater town outside New Orleans.  It quickly spread to the city itself before the Centers for Disease Control could implement a sound quarantine.  By the time the outbreak was blunted to a manageable level, most of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama had been overrun.

It was nicknamed the Zombie Plague by the media.  Not because the dead had risen but because the infected were attacking and eating parts of people.  In all reality, the infected ate whatever they could get their hands on.  We didn't know why at first, not until the first few cases could be studied.

We quickly learned two things were occurring within the infected:  an enormous increase in the metabolic rate and a rapid decrease in consumable protein.  The virus caused the body to burn protein faster than it could be ingested.  At the same time, the infected regressed into a savage state where the prevention of starvation was its only motivation.

Research revealed a hyper pituitary gland lay behind the abnormal metabolic rate.  All attempts to reduce the hyperactivity have failed to this point.  No cause has been discovered to explain the rapid onset of protein deficiency.  Brain scans revealed increased activity in the hypothalamus but nothing that would suggest why the infected resorted to savagery.

The spread of the virus was originally believed to be by airborne transmission.  However, that theory was ruled out once a CDC team was exposed to an infected person without any protection and did not themselves fall victim.  Through testing on rats, we discovered it was transmitted fluidly.  The current theory is it started with an animal, probably through flea or mosquito bites, before it was passed to the first human.  The question which remains is what generated the virus?  The ability to answer that will go a long way to helping find a solution.

And how did Tonya become infected?  In the controlled environment of the lab, we were safe.

Were safe.

*  *  *  *  *

I wait to see if the new synthetic protein line has any effect on her.  Five minutes so far and no change.

Tonya's head is tilted back, eyes focused on the ceiling.  Her skin has turned waxy and pale.  Sores dot her arms and legs.  A constant thread of drool dangles from her chin.

My stomach rolls over and tears well in my eyes.  Danny was right.  No matter how much time has passed, I can't get use to her like this.

I look at my watch.  A few more minutes.  I can make it.

Sweat breaks out on my forehead.  I feel more run down the back of my neck.  I try to hum but for some reason can't remember a single tune.

Think about something else.  Anything.

Cairns, Australia.  Diving on the Great Barrier Reef.  God, was it beautiful.  Our honeymoon.

My chest tightens.  Hard to breathe.  Glance at my watch.  Almost ten minutes.

Look back at Tonya.  Her readings.  No change.

I bolt through the door into the hallway and suck in giant gulps of air.  Once I get my breathing under control, I drink from the water fountain for two minutes.

Why did you think of the honeymoon?

On the way back to the lab I hum chunks of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.  Inside, I sit on my stool and lift my right pant leg and slice three times in rapid succession.

It isn't enough.  My hands shake and I can't manage a note of Beethoven's 9th.

It takes two more cuts before I gain control.

*  *  *  *  *

Sitting in the cafeteria, I stare at my hot dog and French fries and replay the day Tonya changed, over and over, trying to remember every detail, hoping something will pop out and say, "This is why she was infected."

Nothing does, though.

I eat a fry.  It's cold.  My calf aches from fresh cuts.  My head hurts from my failed memory exercise.

Danny was right about not being able to face her.  Maybe he was right about needing to let her go.  If a body with no soul is just meat, what does that make the person who insists on keeping the meat alive?

The thought of putting her down almost sickens me as much as seeing her in her current state, though.  A quick squeeze of my left testicle checks the stress before it grows out of control.  Two deep breaths and I'm okay.  I wipe the sweat from my upper lip and sip my soda.

Tonya was fine that last morning.  No physical or mental changes of note prior to infection.  She had just started working, examining a mosquito sample from Mississippi.  Then boom, she went crazy.

"How do you deal with it?" she had asked.

Her words pop into my head.  She hadn't said them that morning.  She'd said them the night before, lying in bed, right after making love.

"How do you deal with it?"

I can still feel the warmth of her breath on my bare chest, can still smell the apple shampoo on her hair as it tickled my chin.

The image of her right before she changed flashes in my mind.  Tonya points her right index finger at me and flexes her thumb like she shot a gun.  She didn't have a glove on.

"Jesus."  I stand and run for the bathroom before I puke on the table.

*  *  *  *  *

"How do you deal with it?"

"What do you mean?"  I ran my fingers through her auburn hair.

"The work.  The hours.  The stress.  All of it."

"It's part of the job."

Tonya sat up.  I tried to nibble at her left nipple but she pushed me back down.

"I'm serious," she said.  "Because I'm having a hard time keeping it together."

I sighed and rubbed my forehead.  "How bad is it?"

She shrugged.  "Some days, I just get the shakes, like I'm really nervous or panicked.  Other days, I'm literally crawling out of my skin."

I had no idea the work was affecting her so much.  She hadn't shown any signs, well at least none that I noticed.  I'd been working longer hours than her and it wouldn't be the first time I failed to notice something.

"Maybe you need some time off.  God knows we could all use some."

Tonya shook her head.  Tears ran down her cheeks and dripped off her chin.  "It's not the work.  Well, part of it is obviously but it's not the main thing."

I sat up and hugged her tight.  "What is it?"

"This virus.  The more I work with it, the more I think there's no hope.  Like it's the end of the world or something.  But instead of happening fast, it's creeping, hitting one person at a time.  The quarantine only slowed it down."

Her tears, warm on my shoulder.  Her breath, soft.

"Pain," I said.

"What?"

"You asked how I deal with it.  That's how.  Pain."

Tonya lifted her head off my shoulder and stared at me with damp red eyes.  "Pain?  Self-inflicted?"

I nodded.  "It's the pressure that messes me up.  The fact a cure, or at least a vaccine, doesn't exist gnaws at me every waking hour.  Then I get anxious.  When it becomes too much, when the stress and anxiety pushes me to that boundary where I think there's no hope, I hurt myself."

Tonya looked my body over.  "I don't see any wounds."

"I usually bite the inside of my cheek and hum Beethoven's 9th for a couple of minutes.  If it's worse, I push a needle into my palm.  I haven't gotten more exotic than that yet."

"Does it work?"

"Yeah, it does.  One moment I think I'm going to be overwhelmed, like I'm drowning or suffocating.  The next, the stress is gone.  The air smells fresher.  My head is clear.  I realize even with all the death I'm alive."

Tonya wiped her eyes.  "How do you feel, though, when you're done?"

I thought about it a moment.  "Redeemed."

Tonya sat there, silent, not moving.  After a few seconds, she stood and walked out of the bedroom.  I started to say something, figuring she detested me but let her go.  When she came back, she held a small kitchen knife in one hand and a bottle of alcohol and cotton balls in the other.

She sat on the bed and handed me the knife.  "I don't have the guts to do it myself."

I looked at the knife and then her.  "Do what?"

"Cut me."

"Come on, Tonya.  I don't even cut."

"I don't think a pin prick will work."  She stuck her right thumb toward me and closed her eyes.  "Just a quick slice."

"Tonya-"

"I need it.  Please."

Reluctantly, I swabbed and pressed the edge of the blade to the pad of her thumb.  I didn't want to do it but how could I not?  How could I deny her the redemptive feeling of pain?