A Glimpse Of Decay (Book 1): Red Storm) (10 page)

“God, if I did that with Eduardo, he’d beat my ass.”  She turned and looked at her friend.  Jennifer noticed that Dolores was looking tired and ragged, and even though she had a beautiful face with her deep eyes and vibrant smile, it looked like her attractiveness was waning from all the frowning and crying she had been doing.

“Is it that bad?”  Feeling concerned about her, she reached over and took Dolores’ hand into hers.

Dolores hesitated for a moment and took a deep breath.  “Yeah, it is.”

“God, Trent would never do that to me.  He never loses his temper with me.  I wouldn’t know what to do if he ever tried to hit me.”

“I want to leave San Antonio, but I don’t have enough money right now.  My mom said that me and Michael can move to Dallas and live with her, but I just don’t know.  Really, I don’t know what Eduardo would do if I told him that I wanted to leave.”

“Shit, he’s never at home anyway.”

“I know, but he said that he would never let me leave, and he said that if I ever tried to take Michael away, he would kill me.”

“He said that?” Jennifer asked, startled.  “No…you need to leave him right away.  You can’t live like that.  Plus, it’s not good for Michael to be around that.”  She tightened her grip on Dolores’s hand.

“I know.”  Dolores sighed and gazed out at the bright horizon.  “Michael is all I have.  I don’t want him to have to grow up with a bad home life.  That kind of stuff hurts kids.”

The two women sat in silence for a moment before Jennifer again attempted to change the topic.  A radical change.  “So, have you heard about what’s going on over in Europe?  Russia I think?”

Dolores snapped back into the present and shook her head.  “Not really.  I think I heard someone saying something about it, but I really didn’t pay attention.”

“It’s been on the national news lately.  I even saw something about it on the local news.  Magda Santos was doing a report on it.”

Dolores, not sounding too interested, asked, “What is it that’s happening?”

“Some kind of disease or something like that.”  Jennifer could tell that Dolores was still deep in thought about their previous topic of conversation.  “They say it’s something new or unknown.  Sounds kind of scary.”

“Scary?”  Dolores sounded a bit more interested.  “Scary?  How so?”

“Well, I know this sounds all political and all, and I know how much you hate politics, but the news said that something broke out in Russia, and the government over there isn’t allowing anyone to go into the area.  Plus, they’re being real sneaky-like and not saying much about it.”

“Hmm, yep, that does sound kind of strange.”  Taking her hand back, Dolores stood up and called to her son, “Michael, it’s time to go, honey.”  Looking down at Jennifer, she said, “It’s getting late.  I need to get Michael home and fed before Eduardo comes over.  He said he would spend the night with us tonight.”

“Are you sure that’s the right thing for you right now…letting him stay the night?”  Jennifer’s concern showed on her face.

“Yeah, it is.”  Dolores took a step away from the bench and then turned around to face Jennifer.  “I have to give us one more chance before I do anything else.  It wouldn’t be fair to Michael if I didn’t.”

“Well, if you need anything, someone to talk to, a place to stay—anything—call me…please.”  Jennifer stood up and hugged her troubled friend.  “It makes me so sad to see how down you are.  You deserve so much better.”

Michael and Diego came running up to their mothers.  Both boys were sweating profusely and Diego’s light complexion was now a bright red.  “I know I do,” Dolores said to Jennifer as she bent down to pick up Michael.  Lifting him up to her bosom, she ran her hand through his hair to brush away some grass and dirt.  “Thanks for listening.  That means a lot.”  She turned and headed for her car.

Jennifer took Diego by his hand and looked down at him.  “I hungie, Mommy,” he said to her.

“What does my big boy want to eat?” 

“Hot dogs.  And juice.”  He tugged at her hand, signaling to her that he was ready to leave.  She hoisted him up onto her hip and turned to look at Dolores, who was strapping Michael into his car seat.  Dolores then walked around and got into the driver’s seat and waved to Jennifer as she pulled out of the parking lot.

A tidal wave of sadness washed over Jennifer.  She had this unsettling feeling—a gut wrenching emotion that almost sickened her—causing her to feel like she was saying goodbye to her friend for the last time.  She couldn’t fight back the tears and she tried to blink them away.

Diego, looking directly into his mother’s eyes, asked “Why you cawying, Mommy?”

“Mommy isn’t crying, baby.  The sun’s bright and it got in Mommy’s eyes, that’s all.

Day 13

Kostanay, Kazakhstan

Patriotic Memorial Hospital

“Assistance, in God’s name I need assistance!” screamed an elderly man.  He was walking into the empty emergency room lobby carrying a woman who appeared to be slightly younger than him, but almost twice as heavy.  The cotton dress she was wearing was tattered and her exposed thighs and legs were dripping blood from several gapping and jagged wounds.

A red-headed receptionist who had just been filing her finger nails stood up in shock and surprise.  “What’s going on?  What happened to her?”

“My wife…we were attacked at our farm.  By children!”

“What are you talking about?” the startled receptionist asked.

“She was out watering the garden when I heard her screaming.  I go outside and I see two small children, and they are hanging onto her, biting her on her legs, tearing at her.  They were wild and crazed!  I yelled at them to stop and one of them charged at me.  He tried to bite me, but I pushed him away.  I finally had to get a shovel and I killed both of them!”  The man began to weep out loud.  “They were just children!”

“Orderly, orderly!” the receptionist yelled.  “Get a gurney in here and get her to the examination room!”

“I don’t know what’s going on!” the elderly man yelled.  His sunken cheeks and weathered face were contorted in a confused, bewildered look.  “As we drove over here, I saw crazy things going on.  I saw people attacking other people…I saw men dressed in Russian Army uniforms running around like they were insane.  They even tried chasing after our car.  I saw a woman…she was… she was eating a child!  Her eyes were white, like the devil had possessed her!”

The receptionist drew back in fear as the man continued to recount his story.  “Doctor!” she screamed.

***

“This one here, subject number one,” Irene said as she glanced down at the clipboard she was holding. This one has no sign of injury at all.”  The doctors were viewing a middle-aged woman who was strapped down to a hospital bed.  She was alert and she was lifting her head up.  When she noticed Irene standing behind the window, she flew into a rage and began to shriek and scream as she fought against her restraints.

The thick glass and concrete walls kept the doctors safe from her, as well as the other five subjects who were in their own separate observation rooms.  Small cameras affixed to the ceilings allowed for the staff to observe the infected subjects from a bank of monitors in an adjacent lab.  Unfortunately, they had no clue as to what was about to unfold in the Emergency Room several floors below.

The quarantined subjects had all been behaving exactly as Roberts had explained back on the plane.  They were hostile, unapproachable, and outright aggressive.  The equipment that the Americans had brought with them had proved very beneficial in securing and monitoring the infected people, and blood and tissue tests were now being conducted and analyzed by their fellow Kazakh doctors.  

“So what we’ve gathered so far is that the infection is transmitted through body fluid, primarily through exposure to blood and saliva.”  Irene flipped through the paperwork on the clipboard as she went on.  “Bites from the carriers seem to be the quickest form of transmission.  Just like rabies.  Once the subjects are in a full blown state of infection, they all show tendencies of violent aggression and neurotic behavior, becoming very dangerous to all around them.  Just like rabies.  For all intents and purposes, this could be rabies.  There’s only one small problem though…none of these subjects are positive for rabies.”

Irene walked back to a stainless steel table that her colleagues were sitting at.  She pulled out her chair and flopped down in it.  She was tired and the lack of sleep was really starting to wear on her.  She gazed down at the sterile white tile floor and yawned.  

The lead Kazakh doctor, a dark bearded man in his early fifties with acne scaring that gave him a much older appearance, leaned forward in his chair and sighed out loud.  He reached over and picked up the clipboard Irene had been holding.  “I hope that our translations of the reports were sufficient for you, Doctor Hopkins,” said the man.  “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to see an actual transmission, so there is no documentation on that.”  The man’s English was very good and he spoke it with just a subtle accent.  “All these specimens were collected by our military in the field near the Russian border, with much difficulty I might add, and prior to your arrival.  With that being said, we don’t have a precise time of exposure for several of the subjects.”  He looked over and gestured to Roberts.  “And just to simplify things, for the time being, we’ve decided to refer to this as the ‘Ozersk Syndrome’ until we can come up with a more plausible reference.”

“Well, Doctor Massimov, unless this syndrome spreads further south towards us, we may not get to see a transmission,” Roberts said.

“For everyone’s sake, let’s hope it doesn’t spread that far,” Massimov countered.

“Uh, if I might add something, I think it would be very helpful if we could at least get out in the field to observe a person in the early stages of infection,” Michael added.  “It might help us to get a better understanding of what’s going on out there.  Maybe you could arrange for us to go out to one of the hot zones?”  Michael was of the firm belief that if this indeed was a weaponized version of rabies, they needed to get a first-hand perspective on things, and sitting in the laboratory wasn’t going to allow that.

“One thing we have noted is that the subjects here have varying levels of trauma on them, but none of them are fatal injuries.”  Massimov intentionally avoided addressing Michael’s request.  He slid the clipboard out into the middle of the table.  “For example, subject five has three large bites on his right arm, while subject two has one small bite on the left hand. There are photographs of the injuries in the files on the clipboard if any of you are interested in looking at them up close.”

“And that would account for the transmission through the bites,” Irene said, “yet, one subject has no visible bites or injuries.”

“Yes, that is correct,” Massimov agreed.  “Subject One has no signs of trauma.  She was allegedly infected from exposure to contaminated blood—I think the report indicates that she was sprayed in the face with ‘projectile’ vomit.  We just haven’t been able to see how long it takes for someone to exhibit symptoms once they are exposed.  All we can go by are the reports from witnesses, and most of those are from uneducated farmers and peasants.  That makes our available data very unreliable.”

Michael looked over at Roberts, raising his eyebrows in concern.

“I see that all the subjects are running temperatures hovering around one-oh-two to one-oh-three, and they all have elevated pulse rates,” Roberts noted, almost in astonishment.  “That must put incredible stress on their brain functions.  Also, there is some radioactivity in all of the subjects…nothing that is fatal, but elevated none the less.  And they are exhibiting an abnormal increase in strength.”

Irene stood up and placed her hips on her hands.  She then ran one hand over her uncombed hair, which she had tied back with a small skrunchie.  She looked around at everyone sitting at the table and said, “The only thing we really haven’t talked about…and I know it’s the gorilla in the room that everyone seems to shy away from…but we haven’t really discussed the possibility that we are dealing with some sort of engineered bio-weapon here.”

“Believe me,” Massimov said, “we all have given consideration to that.  If it is a weapon, it isn’t showing up in any of the tests that we have run…save for the elevated radiation levels.”  He looked over at Roberts again, suspicion filling him, and he said, “We just don’t have the evidence to conclude that this is a man-made agent.”

As the group continued to discuss their findings, a yellow phone next to the bank of monitors began to ring.  Massimov excused himself and walked over to answer it.

“This is Doctor Massimov.”  He was speaking in Russian.  “A woman with bite wounds?  Is she conscious?  Who else is with her?  Okay, we’ll be right down.”  Looking over at the table of doctors, he hung up the phone and said, “A farmer and his wife from Ryazanovka just came into the emergency room.  They were attacked at their home and the woman is suffering from multiple bites.  She is unconscious right now.”  His excitement could be heard over his slight accent, although he was trying to hide his eagerness.  “She has numerous bites on her lower extremities.  This may be our first opportunity to observe someone transition into full blown infection.  We need to get down there immediately.”

Hurriedly, the group headed for the exit.  Massimov pulled an electronic card key from out of his lab coat pocket.  With the wave of the card over a wall mounted reader, the door automatically recessed into the wall and the group began to exit the lab.  Stationed just outside of the lab was a very tall and muscular guard.  He was wearing a black uniform with black tactical gear.  Slung across his chest was a Kalashnikov rifle.  Irene, Michael and Roberts were surprised to see the man standing there.  When they had initially gone into the lab earlier in the day, no guard had been present.  The armed man eyed each doctor warily as they walked past him.  His face was set in a stoic expression, but he made sure that his eyes made contact with each person as they passed him by.  Irene felt that the guard was attempting to intimidate them.

“When did he show up?” she whispered to Michael.  Michael simply raised his eyebrows and avoided replying.

After leaving the room, the group walked down a long, narrow hallway.  The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were done in a sterile white and there were no other doors or windows save for the single elevator at the end of the hallway.  Massimov used his card again to gain access to the elevator and as the group shuffled through the door, he said, “We need to ensure we make the most out of this opportunity.  I’m not sure when we will have another chance to work with someone like this.”  He was speaking faster now.

Michael shook his head in frustration.  He knew that the only way to get a working understanding on the incident was to get out into the field.  “Doctor Massimov, it would really help matters if we could get out in the field and observe this thing first hand.”

“I’m sorry, but that wouldn’t be feasible right now,” Massimov said in a slightly dismissive tone.  “Things are chaotic out there and I don’t think our President Sorokin would be very pleased if anything were to happen to his guests.”

“I would have to agree with my American colleague,” said the small-framed woman who had had been sitting quietly next to Massimov in the lab.  Her accent was much heavier than Massimov’s.  She had been the last one to board the elevator and she was standing closest to the door.  “We need to get out there and see what is going on.  We can’t gather anything concrete from observing those people whom we have locked up in those prison cells.”

“My dear Doctor Mamani, those aren’t cells, those are medical quarantine rooms.”  It was obvious that Massimov was resentful towards Mamani’s reference to Kazakhstan’s darker times.

“Those are cells,” she flatly stated.  “You forget…this places wasn’t always a hospital.  All you have to do is ask my uncle about this building.  He spent a good deal of time here for holding ‘anti-state’ beliefs.  And you can believe me when I say that he wasn’t here receiving medical treatment.  We all know the Communists didn’t care for Muslims back then.”  Massimov shot an angry, incredulous glare at the doctor.   Seeing this, she decided to quickly change the subject back to the present situation.

“So long as we sit up in that laboratory, nothing is going to get accomplished,” Mamani continued.  “If we are indeed looking at some sort of man-made strain of rabies, like some have speculated, we need to act right now or we run the risk of letting this get out of control.  God knows the Russians aren’t being very helpful.”

Rattled by Mamani’s statement, the group rode in silence the remaining three floors down to the ground level.  When they exited the elevator, they entered into another sterile hallway.  Just like the hallway above, it was empty of doors and windows and it dead-ended at a stainless steel exit.  Massimov used the card to open the door and just on the other side sat another guard at a small desk.  He too was armed with a rifle.

“Okay, what’s up with the guards?” Michael asked aloud.  “These guys weren’t here when we went up earlier.”

“Um, I am sure it is for our protection and safety,” Massimov said.  His tone suggested that he was simply trying to brush aside any worries the Americans might have been developing.

The elevator door opened up into the rear of a storage room full of linens, push carts and cleaning supplies.  With the elevator being in an inconspicuous, almost secretive location, unless you were aware of its location, one would never know of its presence.  As they made their way through the storage area, Irene thought back to Mamani’s reference to prison cells.  Maybe the woman was telling the truth about the hospital’s other functions.

After exiting the storage room, they made their way past the x-ray room and as they neared the E.R., they could hear a man yelling and screaming further down the corridor.  The Americans couldn’t understand what was being said because the man was speaking in Kazakh.

An orderly, his face twisted with fear, sprinted up to Massimov.  “Doctor, we have the patient in Examination Room One.  We are trying to stabilize her, but we can’t get a line into her.  We do have a monitor on her and her vitals are very erratic.”