The Rabid (27 page)

January 7

After
a bit of trial and error, we'd finally settled into a routine. Lisa would get
up in the morning, get the kids fed and ready for school, then I'd get up and
take them to school and go to the garage. It was refreshing to work again
because it took my mind off the evils in the outside world. The town felt
incredibly safe.

There was always plenty to eat and do once the city had upgraded our living
arrangements from apartment to four bedroom house. Lisa kept busy most of the
days and I'd usually be home before her. So I'd pick up the kids after school,
bring them home and made sure they ate. I never would have thought playing
house would feel so satisfying.

Unfortunately, the lab assistants had taken the leg and cut it into a thousand
tiny pieces, destroying what Lisa had reviewed. The purpose was to make slides
and see how the virus reacted to certain things, but they'd cut the wrong
pieces and destroyed the rest. Now they had started at square one.

But at least we were happy. Stressed, but happy. Lisa and I didn't even argue
about how to raise the kids. It was as if we fell into an instant rhythm.

One particular night, Lisa came home explaining Dr. Holmes's wife had had some
sort of breakdown and was hospitalized. Therefore, the lab was shut down until
further notice. I could tell it bothered her as she'd flit around the house
trying to find things to clean. And she could not cook to save her life.

The second week she'd been home by herself, she'd surprised me by picking up
the kids and making dinner. I still have no idea what the hell she made. She
said it was meatloaf, but it tasted like a yak that had been hit by a bus
carrying twenty-five sweaty weight-lifters.

"Thanks..."

Alex giggled. "That sucks, Aunt Lisa."

"Well, my son seems to enjoy it." She eyed me while Rex shoveled food into his
mouth with glee.

"Uh oh. I'm in trouble."

"Oooh." Alex's gaze darted between us.

"What should I do to make it up to her?"

Alex looked skyward and thought for a moment. "Dance with her."

"All right." I stood up and put out a hand. But Lisa just stared at it. I
wiggled my fingers, but she just sat there.

"I don't know how you can have the energy to dance after not eating."

"Oh, my gosh!" I bent down and picked her up in my arms. She yelped. "I am so
insensitive! Will you ever forgive me?" I twirled her in a circle as she
gripped my arms.

"Put me down and I'll think about it."

Alex laughed. Rex joined in.

"I'll put you down when you promise to forgive me."

"I'm starting to feel queasy."

I laughed as I stopped dancing in circles. Her grip on me lightened. I took a
good look at her face in the waning light of the day streaming through the
windows.

"You're stunning." I kissed her. "But you can't cook."

Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. "All right. I won't cook anymore."

"Rejoice!" I said as I set her down. The kids were still amused.

"In that case..." Lisa sat back down. "What on Earth am I going to do tomorrow?
There are absolutely no new cases at the hospital."

"Maybe we should have a party." Alex suggested.

"For whom?"

"It's my birthday tomorrow, remember, Aunt Lisa?"

Lisa's hands flew to her cheeks. "Oh, no. I forgot, I'm sorry, honey."

"It's not your birthday tomorrow." I teased Alex. "It's mine."

A smile lit up her face. "We share a birthday?"

"I guess. How old are you going to be, twenty-five?"

She giggled. "Thirteen. Are you turning fifty?"

"Oh..." I clutched a hand to my heart. "That hurt."

***

"Hey, Reynolds!"

I looked up from the brake pads of a twenty-ten Toyota to see Kelli motioning
me over to the front. "Yeah?"

"That little hot cookie is back for her Subaru. You better come deal with this
one."

As I wiped my hands on a dirty rag, I chuckled to myself. Kelli sounded almost
exactly like Silas. Sure, there was a faint sadness about the thought, but I
pushed it away.

In the front of the shop was the young blond woman from the day before. She was
fiddling with something in her hands. If it weren't for the outbreak, I would
have assumed it was a phone.

"The Subaru's ready to go." I grabbed the keys from the front counter as she
turned to face me.

"Oh, hey. Thanks." She flashed me a bright smile. "How much do I owe you?"

"We don't take money here. Got anything to trade?"

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Sure." Her hand reached out to touch my
arm. "I can do anything you'd like."

I couldn't help but laugh. "We don't trade sexual favors."

"Speak for yourself, MacGyver!" Kelli called from the back.

The girl smiled again. "What do you know. How about it?"

"Sorry. I'm married. Happily."

The girl scoffed. "It's the end of the world. How much can vows mean?"

"A lot."

"Whatever." She picked up her keys and walked out of the shop. "I'll bring some
clothes back."

"Nice doing business with you!" I still held a smile on my face. As the girl
exited, Lisa walked by her. They stared each other down for a moment, but it
was quickly over. "Hey, you."

"Hello. I felt bad that I didn't know it was your birthday so I thought I'd
drop by."

I leaned on the front counter. "Oh, you made it up to me plenty this morning."
could've sworn I saw her cheeks redden just a little when I winked.

"What did that young woman want?"

"Which?" I stood straight.

"The one who just left."

I smirked. "To trade sex for car repairs. Can you believe that? Kids these
days..."

"Yes. I can believe it. The party is all set up."

The change in conversation made me chuckle. "Already? We haven't been here long
enough to make friends."

Lisa looked around the shop briefly. "Our lovely neighbor Barbara saw me tying
a balloon to the fence and just insisted she take over the party. I swear the
woman insinuated that I couldn't do it on my own."

"Now, honey..." I walked toward her with my arms outstretched. "Don't take this
the wrong way, but..."

"But what?" She put both hands on her hips, effectively stopping me in my
tracks.

"Well, I imagine you trying to find gray and white birthday invitations that
just say 'it is your birthday'."

She shrugged, her features softening. "I suppose that would be the most
efficient way to propose a party. But that doesn't sound very exciting."

"Well, there you go."

"Hey! MacGyver, where'd you go? We got this POS to finish!" Kelli's voice
boomed from the back.

"MacGyver?" One of Lisa's eyebrows rose.

"I fixed a bumper with duct tape and gum this morning."

"I don't understand the reference."

From the
Desk of Dr. Lisa
James
Reynolds

January 8

A
series of loud bangs on the door stirred me out of a deep sleep around three in
the morning.

Jack shot up in bed. "Yes, I want fries, you motherfucker!" After a few seconds
of silence, he looked at the clock and groaned. "God...I miss fast food..."

The bangs came again. "Someone's at the door." I threw the covers off and
stepped onto the soft carpet. Still bleary, Jack followed me out the door to
the stairs. He continued mumbling something about French fries.

The door was practically rattling on its hinges as the banging continued. And
then a voice came through. "Dr. Reynolds! Please, open the door."

I sighed. "It's Dr. Holmes."

"Christ..." Even though Jack was in nothing but a shirt and boxers, he sat down
at the kitchen table while I opened the door for our dear doctor friend.

Dr. Holmes seemed flustered. His white hair was a mess with wisps of it matted
to the sides of his head with sweat. He'd forgotten his spectacles somewhere
and his blue eyes were wild. He pushed his way past me into the kitchen.

"I've decided to let you into the room."

I could feel the furrow in my brow. "I'm sorry?"

The doctor spun in a small circle, acknowledging Jack on the way with a nod.
"You need to see what's in the restricted room."

"Dr. Holmes, it's three in the morning."

"It's important. Very very important."

I looked to Jack who simply nodded and waved me to go. Then he stood up to return
to bed. "Nice to see ya, doc."

***

"As usual, my wife was right."

I looked back at Dr. Holmes as we drove through the small town toward the lab.
"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Do you know why she collapsed?" He made a sharp turn into the parking lot of
the hospital. I held onto the armrest.

"No, I don't."

"Because of the leg." When we pulled to a stop, he looked me in the eyes. "She
was very sure we'd found a breakthrough and I pissed it away."

"With all due respect, Dr. Holmes—"

"Oh, I wish you'd stop saying that. You don't respect me at all."

I was a bit taken aback, but that faded quickly. "While that may be true, I
believe in second chances." We got out of the car and headed into the hospital.
"But all of this would have been avoided if you'd given me the opportunity to
study the specimen myself."

He waved a hand as we boarded the elevator. "Yes, yes, I know. It's all my
fault and I should bugger off. I take responsibility for it. But understand,
Dr. Reynolds..." He pushed closer to me as if someone else would overhear our
conversation. "That leg may not be our only chance for a breakthrough."

The wheels in my mind began turning. "Something in that room is going to help us."

"It certainly may." We hopped off the lift on the fifth floor. After rounding
the corner and coming to a stop outside the restricted door, Dr. Holmes gave me
one last look. "Don't say I never warned you."

Skepticism rose inside me as the door to a dark room squeaked open. I couldn't
see anything. And my hunch was that either Dr. Holmes was keeping something he
shouldn't have been in there — like infected blood — or he actually had
nothing.

But then the light flickered on. And in the steel cage at the center of the
room, a very ill woman rose up and began to scream.

"Oh, my God..." I approached the cage with caution. The girl was young — she
couldn't have been more than twenty. Her limbs jerked with uncontrollable
spasms as she moved, jumping at the cage. She was trying to bite me. Dried foam
dusted her chin.

"I just couldn't do it myself."

I spun around to look at Dr. Holmes. "What is this?"

"
She
is my daughter."

"My God..." I circled the cage while she watched me. She had an IV in one arm
that was fastened to her with duct tape. "What are you giving her?"

Dr. Holmes approached the IV machine. "Some steroids and anti-inflammatories.
It seems to have slowed the disease some."

"Some?" I cocked my head. "When was she bitten?"

"Six months ago."

My synapses fired at an alarming rate. "But that would mean..."

"Yes. My daughter is patient zero."

I was stunned into silence. None of the victims I'd treated at my hospital lasted
longer than fourteen days. A few of them died before the incubation period had
even transformed into symptoms.

"Does she have a chart I can see?" I held out my hand while still staring at
the girl before me.

"Yes." Dr. Holmes shuffled around a bit and handed it to me.

I stopped reading after her symptoms. "Lord... She's pregnant?"

Dr. Holmes sighed. "Not anymore. We hoped the stem cells would repair damage,
but instead the fetus aborted itself."

Scanning the chart for a second time, I looked for the pertinent information I
already had, but it wasn't listed anywhere.

"Dr. Holmes, did your daughter suffer from insomnia?"

He paused. "Yes. How did you know?"

"Did you ever take her to a doctor to get diagnosed?"

"Well, no. She was seeing a therapist for nightmares due to a traumatic
incident earlier the prior year, so we assumed it was that causing the
sleeplessness. Why do you ask?"

I snatched a syringe from the desk nearby. "How do you subdue her?"

***

Seeing a victim up close so far into the disease was upsetting to say the
least. It broke my heart to think Dr. Holmes had to watch his daughter delve
into insanity with no cure. I reached for one of the fuzzy heads of the
tranquilizer darts he'd punctured her with.

"Leave those." He put a hand on mine while looking me in the eye. "We learn
things the hard way here sometimes."

I nodded. Searching her body, there were few signs of the disease present while
she was unconscious. Her skin was slightly gray, but even the bite wound on her
thigh wasn't necrotic. It was an open wound that hand't healed, but it seemed
that the doctor took good care of her. My heart skipped a beat in my chest.

I checked her eyes. Her pupils were heavily dilated. I felt as though I was an
archeologist finding a rare artifact. No one had been able to study a living
rabies victim so late in the stages.

"Her teeth are quite clean."

"I brush them when I can."

I looked up at him. "What's her name?"

His eyes became misted. "Victoria," he said quietly.

Taking a deep breath, I picked up a syringe and slid it into the vein inside
her arm. There was a slight twitch which caused me to jump, but then her body
settled.

"Tell me, Dr. Reynolds... What is the point of this?" There was a mild amount of
hurt in Dr. Holmes's voice.

"I have a hunch that your daughter has Fatal Familial Insomnia. Are you
familiar with that?"

"No."

I explained the disease and the theory I had while I collected the blood sample
and helped the doctor put Victoria back in the steel cage.

"So I'll do some genetic tests and see if any of the prion proteins are folded.
If they are, then we at least have our breakthrough and can go from there."

"How would we treat something like that?" His eyes pleaded with me.

I inhaled. "I don't know. But you've been doing
something
right if
you've kept her alive this long."

He nodded. "We nearly lost her early on, but found that steroids combined with
anti-inflammatory drugs slows the progress."

It took until eight in the morning and three phone calls to Jack to get the
results of the tests. And my theory was correct. We had our breakthrough.