War of the Undead (Day One): The Apocalypse Crusade (A Zombie Tale) (10 page)

This was why he had taken up residency in a little beach motel in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Though Steph lived ten minutes away they'd only seen each other three times in those fourteen days and two of those times were under the unpleasant glare of Winnie Glowitz who was always hovering around her daughter, setting a new standard in over-protectiveness.

It was also why he had hung about in the lobby of the hospital all day long. He'd been the first patient to check in at a minute after nine that morning and since then he'd kept a long vigil, watching as hundreds of people came in and out of the little hospital. Of all those people, thirty-seven truly caught his eye. He could spot others of his kind easily. It wasn't just that they were frail and sickly, it was also because they were the only ones who wore their fear so openly.

Most people who came in through the gleaming lobby doors marveled at the newness and the opulence of everything like they were stepping into one of them fancy New York hotels.

Not so the patients. Most of them cowered as if the building was about to fall on them. They didn't pause to gaze up at the marble walls adorned with renaissance prints; they didn't look at the gilded sconces and fixtures or the intricate tile that matched the soft squares of carpet. Instead, in a hunched posture, they scurried through security, holding their x-rays and body scans close to their chests as if afraid someone would possibly want to steal them. They eventually went in to see Mrs. Evans, whose make-up, hair, and overall appearance slowly degraded throughout that long day.

From all outward appearances, Chuck had not changed a lick. He had come in wearing the fanciest boots in his arsenal, comfy, faded denim jeans and a white shirt that he'd rolled to his elbows. He had foregone the cowboy hat that he generally wore because Mrs. Glowitz always looked at it with her lip curled and a tint of disgust in her eyes.

He waited and watched all for the chance to be smiled at by the girl in the pink acorn cap. He had a long wait. She came in just after one in the afternoon and she was different than all the rest. Her eyes swept the lobby not in awe or barely concealed fear, but in hope. She hoped to see him, he knew it.

And she had smiled.

"Worth it," Chuck had said, under his breath.

When Winnie Glowitz wasn't looking, Steph pointed at the floor, meaning:
Wait here!
And he had for the next four hours, and again it was worth it.

During the middle of John Burke's confrontation with Dr. Lee, when the sun was threatening to clock out for the day, the elevator dinged pleasantly and from it strode Winnie Glowitz, alone. She looked neither left nor right, though somehow she was able to instinctively shun the unsightly Mr. Burke as she headed out the doors.

Chuck's heart began to pick up in speed as the minutes ticked slowly. Every time the elevators let out its merry "ding" Chuck stood up straighter and ran a hand through his brown hair. Four times the elevator chimed and four times he was disappointed, slumping back against the wall. After the fifth, Stephanie came rushing out into the lobby.

She had no idea what color the squares of carpet were or how many cherubs had been painted into the artwork, or anything else about the lobby, she only saw Charles Ryland Singleton. Unlike the other patients she had met that day, he wasn't pale and spindly. Yes, he was thin, thinner even than when she had first met him, but he didn't look brittle like the others...like how she felt. He looked tough like a strip of jerky or a knot of gristle. He was also tanned from living on the beach and he was so tall and handsome she caught herself staring.

"Sorry, I thought my mom would never...leave..." Her words seized up in her throat as he reached out and took her hand. With calm assurance he started heading for the lobby doors. "Where are we going?"

"I was hopin' to buy you dinner," he said in his rough accent. "I've been hopin' for going on three weeks now."

She'd been around her mother for so long that instant arguments popped in her head:
But that isn't allowed. But we'll get in trouble. But we're in the middle of farm town, New York
. She bit the questions back and allowed him to lead her outside.

The sun was setting, turning the tips of the western trees gold. Again it was the little things that seemed so important and they both stopped and stared.
How many more of these will I see?
Chuck asked himself. Next to him, Stephanie shivered in spite of the warm evening. "You want me to fetch a jacket for you?"

She was thin and her flesh had tented up around a thousand goose bumps, but she shook her head. The shiver hadn't been from the temperature. Her thoughts had run down the same line his had; if this new drug didn't work she'd be counting her remaining sunsets on her fingers and toes very soon.

"No, I'm..."

"What are you two doing out here?" Dr. Lee demanded, interrupting Stephanie. She was fast-marching from crisis to crisis as she had all day and naturally assumed the worst upon seeing two of her patients outside the walls of her hospital. "You aren't thinking about leaving, are you?"

"No ma'am," Chuck said. "Just thinking about gettin' us a bite to eat. Proper food that is. I'm just 'bout sick of hospital food."

Thuy arched an eyebrow at this. The cancer trial was her baby and she knew practically everything concerning it and that included her test subjects. She knew Chuck Singleton hadn't spent one night in a hospital since he'd been diagnosed. She also knew that he'd been instrumental in talking Stephanie Glowitz into coming on board. And it didn't take much of her natural genius to see that the pair wasn't just going for a "bite to eat."

"No alcohol," she said, with a stern glare. "And no drugs. And no eating after ten." She also wanted to add: And be back before midnight! But she already knew she sounded like a mother hen.

"Yes, ma'am," Chuck said, suppressing a grin. "I'll get her home safe and sound." He tugged Stephanie away, leaving Dr. Lee standing there looking exhausted. The pair headed for the Toyota Camry that Chuck had rented for the week. It wouldn’t get much use beyond this first date but he didn't care, his horizons had shrunk to the immediate future. "You like ribs?" he asked as he opened her door. It was a purely perfunctory question for two reasons: One-who on God's green earth didn't like ribs? Two-there really was only one restaurant within ten miles of the remote hospital and it happened to be called Rib-King.

Stephanie enjoyed the ribs and the slaw, but, even more, she enjoyed Chuck's company, laughing at his jokes and how he talked, especially when he played it up for the waitress so that she kept saying, "Come again?"

She was tired by the end of the meal, but very happy. "I'm not quite ready to go back," she said when they climbed into the Toyota.

"Me neither."

The hospital held a certain finality to it that she wanted to hold off as long as possible. Going back meant there was only the trial to look forward to. Yes, she would be able to see Chuck during the course of the week, but what sort of shape would she be in? The chemo had left her sicker than a dog, her hair falling out, her skin checkered with nasty sores and blotches. What would a fungus do to her? Would her teeth go? Would it rot her gums or her lady parts?

Despite saying he didn't want to go back, Chuck started the engine and began driving. They did not go far, only to the edge of the little town where he pulled into the parking lot of a roadside motel.

"Chuck, I don't know if I'm ready." She wasn't a virgin or a prude by any stretch of the imagination, however she wanted something more from him than a romp on a well-used bed.

"I don't know if I'm ready neither," he said. His face had a pink glow from the neon sign canted on the motel roof. The light made him look healthy, but he, too, was feeling close on run-down. "I don't know what I'm supposed to be ready for cuz I ain't exactly sure what's going to happen in there, but I figger it'll be whatever we both want. Nothing more."

Liar!
Her mother's voice echoed in her mind. Winnie Glowitz thought Chuck was a fake. She thought he was phony from top to bottom: the beat up cowboy hat, the down-home manners, the rugged good looks, all of it. She looked at him and all she saw was a slick operator who played up his country twang to charm her daughter when she was at her lowest.

Stephanie saw in him a man who had been ready to die, but had put it off for her sake. She trusted him.

"Ok," she whispered, worried about what he would expect, worried that she wouldn't be able to be what he wanted. She worried for nothing. He was sweet and gentle, and, though they both gradually came to want more that night, neither was physically able. They could barely kiss without breaking down and coughing.

They ended up entwined in each other's arms, sadly skinny like two lovers fresh out of a Nazi death camp.

"I'm scared about tomorrow," Stephanie admitted in a sleepy voice. Chuck thought about his own feelings for many minutes and by the time he said, "Me too," the girl in his arms was snoring lightly.

Three rooms down from where Chuck and Stephanie lay snoozing, Deck sat in a dimly-lit room waiting for his contact. Light blared from a parking car and there came a soft knock. Deck eased his hand into his coat pocket where a CAI Canik 55 TP-9 9mm semi-automatic handgun with a 4 inch chrome barrel, sat hidden. It was for just in case. Things were never fully predictable, even when it was only a computer geek who was making a clandestine drop in the middle of the night.

"Come in," Deck said.

Casey Steinbach was alone and properly nervous--Deck was only an intimidating shadow in the darkened room. "Hi. I got it," he said, holding out a small metal square four inches on the side and an inch in height.

"Plug it in."

On the motel writing desk, next to the near useless stationery, was a computer setup, missing only a hard drive. Casey fumbled the stolen hard drive into position and clicked on the machine. "His user name is EDRousseau; caps on the first three letters. The password is Genius1!" Casey turned back to Deck and grinned. "Those scientist nerds are so full of themselves. Am I right?"

"Yeah," Deck said. "What about email?"

"The guy's got no sense of security. The username is erousseau at cornell.edu.org and the password is just like his computer password. I'd bet Genius1! is his password for everything. Not much of a genius if you ask me."

"I didn't ask," Deck said. In his left pocket was a stack of fifty dollar bills; there were two hundred of them, neatly banded together. He tossed the stack to Casey who fumbled the catch.

He came up from the floor grinning. "Hey, anytime you need a hand with computer related..."

"Get out," Deck said.

Still grinning Casey showed himself out. When the sounds of his car retreated back up the road, Deck went to the computer and started running down the files and personal documents--there were many thousands of them.

"Son of a bitch," he said, seeing the magnitude of the work involved. With one hand he started breaking down the computer. With the other he started dialing numbers into his phone. "I'm going to be in late tomorrow," he said to his second-in-command, Ray Henderson. "I'll need you to make sure nothing goes wrong with the trial. I want you in with those prisoners when they get their treatment, you understand?"

"Yeah, it’ll be a piece of cake," Ray said and then yawned into the phone. "I’ll take Matt and Gottlieb with me. Those boys are bruisers; we won’t have any trouble. What about you? You almost got the leak?”

“Hope so. A few hours will tell. If we do we’re going to have to jump on it with both feet.”

“Overtime?” Ray asked.

Deck paused as he was unjacking the modem. He and Ray went way back; they’d developed their own code. What some had once referred to as “wet work”, they called Overtime because of the extra pay involved. “I hope not.” He had never been a party to assassination as a corporate security consultant and he didn’t want to start now, no matter how many billions were involved.

Nineteen-hour days had been the norm for so long that Thuy barely felt the difference between wake and sleep until she’d had downed at least two cups of coffee. It was just after six and she was already on her third as she headed into
her
hospital.

Mechanically, running on ingrained habits, she greeted the two lobby guards without even looking into their faces and in no way did she expect bad news to come from them.

“Uh, Dr. Lee?” one said, the discomfort clear in his voice.

Thuy rounded on him. “What’s wrong?” There was always something wrong it seemed. In her opinion it had been a mistake to switch facilities so close to the trial deadline, especially when the new place was only half-built.
Dr. Lee, one of the elevators isn't running and we don't know why
—
Dr. Lee, the toilets are backed up on the second floor—Dr. Lee, all the centrifuges were calibrated inaccurately and have to be redone—Dr. Lee, the paint in the patient’s rooms don’t match. We asked for eggshell white and we received vanilla!

She understood she had brought this on herself by the way she micro-managed everything. There was a deep need inside her to be a part of each detail. The cure was her baby after all.

The lobby guard could feel the weight of Thuy’s responsibility in her cold stare. He blurted out, “We’re missing two patients.”

“Glowitz and Singleton?”

“Yes,” he said in amazement.

Thuy was on the verge of using some of Deckard's colorful language but she bit back the string of expletives. “Call every hotel and motel in Kingston,” she ordered. In her mind she pictured the map around the new hospital as she had seen it that first day when Kip had broken the news to everyone. He had wanted something secluded and picturesque and thus they were an hour away from anything remotely resembling a city. They were surrounded by farms and forests, with the first hint of the Catskills visible in the west across the Hudson.

Kingston, New York was the closest of the rinky-dink towns, but there were others. “If that doesn’t work try Havilland and Millbrook. I don’t care what you have to do, just get them here!”

This wasn’t exactly in their job description, and yet both men started dialing without hesitation. They were well aware of the importance of the trial. Thuy didn't realize it, but, had the trial been as mundane as curing athlete’s foot, her stress would’ve been ten times as bad. Apart from Eng, who had a very good idea how the trial would end up, everyone, from the guards to the janitors to the nurses to the lunch ladies, were working at a level that was almost unheard of. They felt they were part of something big, a part of something historical, and they were proud of it.

“Thanks,” Thuy said to them, and then turned and began marching for the elevators, her heels clicking like a snare. She hoped that the two AWOL patients were going to be the only problems of the morning, however in keeping with her stress she asked the head nurse on the second floor: “What’s going on?” By that she meant: what’s wrong?

“We’re missing two…”

“Glowitz and Singleton, I know,” Thuy said, cutting her off. “I meant, what else?”

The nurse, a twenty-year veteran named Lacy Freeman, only shrugged. “Nothing really. We had a few inventory issues, but my team busted their ass to set things right. We’ve cleared the floor of non-essentials and we’re ready to go. We can start the prelim blood work any time.”

“Begin with the prisoners,” Thuy said. “They’ll be getting the first treatment.”

“Those three,” Lacy said with a roll of her eyes. “I’d just as soon skip them entirely, especially that Nazi one. He gives everyone the creeps.”

Thuy put a finger to her lips. She'd been warned by Kip that prisoners were exceptionally litigious and any loose talk could set off a lawsuit. “Just prep them and make sure you keep one of the security men with you at all times.”

The prep work mostly consisted of a quick physical. Each patient was examined head to toe for any rashes or skin ailments that might be exacerbated when exposed to the
Fusarium
mycotoxin. They were then stuck with a large bore IV as a precaution against anaphylaxis or some other unforeseen medical emergency.

Although Fusarium was on the very lowest end of a class 2 biohazard rating, Dr. Lee wasn’t taking any chances. The second floor was being limited to only essential personnel and the only people allowed in the rooms after the trial began were a handful of nurses who had been specifically trained to deal with the possibility of airborne disease. The treatment team would consist of three people: two would administer the Com-cells via an inhaler much like an asthmatic would use and a third who would operate the UV disinfectant light. Fungi are easily destroyed by ultraviolet light. All-in-all Thuy was sure that the procedure would be quick, effective and safe.

She was supremely confident in her preparations. She wasn’t even worried about the leak. It wasn’t on her mind as she went back to the elevators. The leak had come too late for R & K’s competition. Deckard had discovered that although a similar study by the French company was in the works, it was a month away from happening. It meant that Stephen Kipling’s near reckless speed had paid off. The Com-cell was going to be a blinding success and everyone else was going to be spending all their time and energy playing catch-up.

The thought had her smiling as she went back up to her labs.

Dr. Riggs spotted her through the glass and hurried across the corridor that separated the two labs. Rubbing his hands together excitedly, he greeted her with: “It’s go time.”

She was surprised that he beat her into work, something that had never happened before. “You’re in early… alarm clock malfunction?” she asked. “Or are you finally onboard?” Thuy couldn’t say Riggs hadn’t done his job over the last few weeks, however she had never classified him as enthusiastic.

“Yeah, of course,” he said, as if he could sweep his past under the rug with a wave of his hand and a wide smile. “This is the cure for cancer we’re talking about. And really I’m glad that it was you who got it right and not that jackass Milner. Don’t get me wrong, my alkaloids would’ve worked in time…but, hey, you beat me to the punch.”

“Is this your way of saying congratulations?”

“Yeah…I never…” he was suddenly too preoccupied to speak. Anna Holloway had come gliding out of the single operating elevator, all hair and bosom. Riggs watched her through the glass and if Thuy hadn’t already been in her own lab she would’ve left him there drooling like an idiot.

When Anna was out of sight, he blinked, remembering he’d been in the middle of a conversation. “Yes, congratulations, Dr. Lee. That’s what I meant.”

She didn’t bother to thank him. “Are you too preoccupied to oversee the blood panels? I’m especially interested in the lipids. If I have a fear over my Com-cells, it’s that excess cells may become stored in body fat. It’s something we’ll want to be on top of right off the bat.”

Riggs looked a little hurt at the suggestion. “I was hoping to be on the front end of things.”

Lines wrinkled her forehead. “You want to be a part of delivery? That’s what nurses are for….wait, are you expecting there to be some sort of immediate, dramatic response?”

He smirked, embarrassed. “So sue me if I like the idea of finally being able to help actually cure someone first hand.”

Thuy understood the feeling. She’d been a doctor for fifteen years and today was the first time she felt like she had earned the title in the traditional sense. Even her friends, when introducing her would say of Thuy,
She has a PH.D, but she’s not a real doctor
.

“Sorry, Riggs, the administering team has been training together for two weeks. You’d just get in the way. Besides, I need your skills here.

The administering team, in their blue biohazard suits, proceeded solemnly through the labs and everyone stopped what they were doing to watch. Thuy had been pretending to read reports, too anxious to do anything of real value. Eng had been writing a letter to the INS describing how a certain Chinese scientist, himself, might have falsified data on his work visa. This would trigger an investigation which he would purposely fail and in six weeks he’d be back home in Beiping, where he would “magically” create a working Fusarium Com-cell and become a hero.

In Beiping he would have his pick of women and all the money he could ever need. He’d be respected in a way he could never be respected in America. Lieutenant Eng: military officer, scientist, spy, savior! The Chinese understood the value of each.

Riggs turned his head from the admin team and sighed, knowing he had missed his chance. He watched the team with their sturdy glass cart board the elevators and disappear behind the stainless steel doors. “So much for that,” he whispered and then glanced at his spreadsheet again. Too late, he was seeing the problem with the alkaloids. The receptor cells in the Com-cells had been degraded by the alkaloids so that they no longer strictly went after tumors.

He cursed, seeing the obvious in the pathology reports that he’d only skimmed through after the first run of live animal tests. At the time he’d only been focused on tweaking the Com-cells and not on the effect they were having on the opossums, thinking that when they were perfected the secondary issue would taper off.

“What son of bitch?” Eng asked.

“I just figured out why our opossums all went mad,” Riggs said. With a snarl he balled up the report and threw it across the room.

“What is what happen?” Eng went to pick up the wad of paper but Riggs stopped him.

“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that in about one hour we’re going to have a fresh batch of panels to analyze. I want them churned out like clockwork so, if you want to get something to eat, or you have to use the bathroom, now’s the time to do it.”

John Burke watched the three-person team enter the prisoner’s room with a feeling that was indescribable. Dread and hope seemed to battle within his guts, neither gaining the upper hand and both making him so anxious that he broke the cardinal rule the nurses had laid down. No matter what, he was to stay in bed. Only in an emergency was he supposed to get up. But what constituted an emergency? In John’s mind having a heart attack while waiting for his turn was good enough.

Wearing only his hospital gown and a pair of white socks, he tiptoed across the hall and watched as the first prisoner, a very large, thickset blonde man started puffing on the short end of an inhaler. After a few minutes, the man pulled it away from his lips and said, “I don’t feel any different. I’m starting to think this is just mist. Do you think you can fuck us over since we’re prisoners?”

One of the admin team reached out a gloved hand to put the inhaler back in the man’s mouth. “It’s not magic,” he said, the words coming out muffled because of the man’s heavy face mask. “This is only the first of three treatments.”

“If I find out that you’re fucking me over…” Von Braun started to say, but was interrupted by one of the security men.

“If they’re fucking you over, then you’ll be dead, so you won’t be doing shit. Now stick that tube in your mouth and shut the fuck up.”

The guards were also suited in head-to-toe plastic, making John doubly glad that Jaimee was safe in the mansion that sat across a small park from the hospital. She and Maddy had become fast friends, amazingly fast. They had bonded like sisters separated at birth. Their one connection: cancer.

The night before, John had stood in the foyer of the great big, fuck-all mansion and yet he hadn’t paid it any mind. His focus was on his daughter retelling the death of Amy Lynn. He was so caught up in it that he didn’t notice that he was crying or that there was a gentle-looking old man standing at his elbow.

“We’re going to stop it this time,” he said, his words soft but gruff. “Sorry we weren’t in time for your sweetheart.”

John had stood there amazed at the man’s sincerity and he couldn’t think of one plum thing to say in reply. The old man, who turned out to be Edmund Rothchild and who had a net worth of nearly a billion dollars, insisted John stay for dinner. They talked of fishing and football, but not about cancer. The girls talked about school and whispered about boys.

It was the finest meal John had ever eaten and hell if he couldn’t put a name on anything that had gone down his gullet. It was all very rich and wonderful, but near the end of the last course he started to tire and cough, and the dinner took on the feel of a condemned man’s last meal. He excused himself, content that not only would Jaimee be well cared for but also extremely well fed.

Now, ten hours later, John watched the next prisoner get his treatment before slinking back to his room. There he waited a very long hour until the three-person team finally got to his room—they had been housed simply in order of their arrival, John had been last.

“Just breathe as deeply as you can, Mr. Burke,” the attendant said, holding the tube between John’s lips as he struggled against the overwhelming desire to cough. The Com-cell cure was completely without taste or smell. It was just like trying to breathe in a heavy fog. Midway through the treatment a fourth person entered his room.