Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle (19 page)

“Not tonight. We can't take you with us.”

“How come?”

“It's for your own good,” Jerry said. “It's too dangerous.”

“I don't care 'bout that.”

“I know you don't,” Nick said, “but I do. I'm taking you to an evacuation center—I want you to spend the night there.”

“The Superdome?”

“No, not the Superdome—they've already got too many people there. It's the Convention Center—do you know where it is?”

J.T. nodded.

“Well, I talked to a FEMA guy this morning. He told me there are only a couple thousand people at the Convention Center. They should have food and water there, plus a place for you to sleep.”

“What about my father?” the boy grumbled. “You promised.”

“I haven't forgotten,” Nick said. “Who knows? There's a chance he's at the Convention Center—keep an eye out for him while you're there.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“I want you to wait for me at the Convention Center. Hey, you might know some people there. Ask around about your dad; find some friends—have fun.”

The words sounded stupid and empty, but Nick was trying to leave the boy on an upbeat note. It didn't work; the boy turned without a word and started up the road toward the river.

“Wait a minute,” Nick said. “I'll walk with you.”

“Don't need no babysitter.”

Nick and Jerry watched him until he reached the end of the street and disappeared around the corner.

“You think he'll be okay?” Jerry asked.

“He'll be fine—he's halfway there already.”

“I hope the place is decent.”

“It was either two thousand at the Convention Center or thirty thousand at the Superdome—it's the best we could do. He'll be okay, Jerry—he's a tough kid.”

“Do you plan to go back for him? Or are we just dumping him off ?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “What do you want, anyway? You didn't want to bring him along in the first place—you said we were using him. Tonight you said we have no right to keep involving him—and now you're complaining that we're dumping him off.”

“You made the kid a promise. You made me a promise too.”

“Why does everybody keep reminding me I made a promise?”

“What do you expect, Nick? You don't follow orders; do you keep promises?”

“I keep promises,” Nick said. “That's different. I want to help the kid, Jerry; I just don't want to put him in harm's way. And I'll help him—I just don't know when. Now, are we going to talk all night or are we going to do this?”

They shoved off in the boat again and followed Canal Street west; when they were a few blocks inland, Nick took out his GPS receiver and retrieved a set of coordinates stored in memory. Most of the street signs were underwater, and Nick knew almost nothing about the city; the only way to find a specific location was by satellite—especially at night.

A few minutes later, they emerged from an alley and into an open area of water that covered half a city block; in drier times it must have been a parking lot. At the far end of the parking lot stood an old, multistory building. Every window in it was dark.

“That's got to be it,” Nick said. “Charity Hospital—the largest public hospital in the city. That giant building across the street—that must be Tulane University Hospital. Charity's the one we want; we'll draw less attention there.”

“We're checking in to a hospital?”

“Sort of. Grab your oar—we'd better row from here.”

They brought the boat up to the back of the building. The water had completely inundated the first floor and covered part of the second. The glass windows were shattered in several places, either from the pressure of the water forcing its way in or from floating debris inside.

They heard gunshots and looked around.

“What do you suppose that is?” Jerry asked.

“Maybe more looters,” Nick said. “Maybe some cops shooting out display cases. Either way, it works to our advantage—nobody will be listening for us.”

Nick took out his flashlight and shone the beam through a shattered opening. It was an office; the water came almost to the top of the desk but stopped short, leaving the desktop still neatly arranged.

“Move down to the next one,” Nick said.

The next window opened into a small common area, followed by a records room with row after row of color-coded file drawers.

“This is all administrative,” Nick said. “Keep going.”

Several windows later, their flashlights illuminated a wide-open laboratory area with work-height counters lining the walls and one large table in the center. The window was almost completely missing, with only occasional shards of glass protruding from the top edges; the counters were almost bare.

“Looters,” Nick said. “Most of the expensive equipment is missing.”

“Maybe the hospital took it upstairs before the flood,” Jerry said.

“Look at the glass—it's completely broken out. Somebody didn't want to get cut climbing through the window; he was probably in and out of here several times. At least we should have some privacy; there's nothing much left to take. Grab the top of the window—watch the glass.”

They slid the boat through the window and into the room; there was just enough space before the center table. Nick swung his legs over the side of the boat and hopped out into the waist-deep water. He reached back into the boat and dragged the tarp off the two black body bags.

“C'mon,” he said to Jerry. “Help me unload.”

17

“Find me some containers,” Nick said. “Forget the drawers—they're all flooded. Check the cabinets above the counters.”

“What kind of containers?” Jerry asked.

“Any kind, the smaller the better—glass, plastic, forget the lids. See if you can find any coffee filters—you might have to go across the hall and see if there's some kind of break room or something. If there's a fridge, open it up—bring me any leftovers you find.”

“There's no electricity. It'll all be rotten.”

“I need some rubber bands too. And hurry back with that flashlight—we'll need both of them to do this. I'll meet you back here in ten minutes.”

While Jerry scrounged for the items in the flooded lab, Nick waded out into the hall. In the doorway he stopped and looked back. The scene was utterly surreal: a medical laboratory half filled with water and a fishing boat floating in the center. Beyond the boat was a window with no glass; outside the window was an endless black lake. Nick shook his head; it was like a still photograph from some bizarre dream.

Even though there were no lights, the room was not completely dark. There was a faint reflection of moonlight that shimmered on the ceiling and walls. But in the windowless hallway there was no light at all except for the narrow beam from Nick's flashlight; it was like wading through a cave—or a sewer.

He found the offices they had passed by in the boat. He pulled out one of the desk drawers and held it up to allow the water to drain out, then dumped its contents onto the desk and found an ink pad. He took a tablet of white paper and two pens, then headed back for the lab again.

While Jerry stood over him with both flashlights, Nick pulled the long zippers on each of the body bags and folded back the flaps.

“What are you going to do?” Jerry asked.

“The same thing DMORT does—find out who they are. Let's see if we can get prints. We'll do him first—he should be the easiest.”

The two bodies appeared very different; one was in a much less advanced stage of decay and was largely intact, except for the emaciating effects of a large maggot mass in the abdomen. Nick started with this one; he carefully turned the left hand palm-down and placed the ink pad under the fingertips. He pressed each of them against the spongy black pad, then transferred the prints one at a time to the white paper. When he finished, he took one of the flashlights from Jerry and examined the prints closely.

“No good,” he said. “The skin is too wrinkled. Find me a syringe.”

Jerry rummaged through the cabinets again. “I don't see any.”

“The looters probably took them,” Nick said. “There's a Sharpsafe container on the wall—get me a used one. Watch the needles—they're contaminated.”

Jerry broke open the red-and-white container and gingerly picked out an intact syringe.

“I don't suppose you noticed any saline,” Nick said.

Jerry shook his head.

Nick stuck the syringe into the water at his waist and drew back the plunger; the barrel slowly filled with the dark liquid.

Jerry grimaced. “You're using
that
?”

“Won't matter to him; he's been floating in the stuff.”

Nick held up the cadaver's index finger and slid the needle under the skin. He gently pushed the plunger and the wrinkled skin began to plump out again.

“That should do it,” he said. “Let's try those prints again.”

A few minutes later, they had a complete set of prints. Nick added a physical description of the victim: male, Caucasian, about six-foot-one, short brown hair. He checked for obvious identifying marks: He found a gold crown on one upper incisor and a faded tattoo that circumscribed the left arm just above the bicep.

“Okay, let's get prints from the other guy—if we still can.”

The second body was in far worse condition. When Nick lifted the right forearm and tried to twist the hand palm-down, the skin sloughed off like a glove.

“Oops,” Jerry said.

“Not a problem. Hold the ink pad, will you?”

Nick took the rubbery tissue and carefully pulled it over his own gloved hand, then rolled each fingertip over the ink pad and pressed it against the paper, just as he would with his own fingers.

“That's nifty,” Jerry said.

“I always thought so.”

The physical description of this body was limited to height and gender; the skin was too decayed to even show its original color, let alone tattoos or identifying marks.

“That'll have to do,” Nick said. “Now for the bugs—grab some containers.”

He returned to the first body with his larval forceps and searched through the maggot mass inhabiting the abdominal cavity.

“Same kind as before?” Jerry asked.

“Some are, some aren't. This guy hasn't been dead as long as the one we found the other day.”

“How do you know?”

Nick held up a maggot with his forceps. “This is a hairy maggot blowfly—the same kind we found before. The species is both predacious and cannibalistic—that means they'll eat anything they can find, including each other. Given enough time, they'll eliminate all the other species on the body. They're present here, but not in very large numbers; they haven't had time to take over yet.”

Nick dropped the maggot into a plastic container and added several more. “We have to keep these separate,” he said. “They'll eat the other guys.”

He held up another maggot and studied it. It had a pale, cream color.

“That one looks different,” Jerry said. “Not as dark.”

“It's a
sarcophagid
—a flesh fly. You can tell by the spiracles on the posterior end. Unfortunately, there are 327 species of flesh flies in the U.S., and they're impossible to tell apart while they're still larvae. We won't know for sure until we rear them.”

“Rear them?”

“Raise them to adults. What did you think we were collecting them for?”

Jerry shrugged. “I've learned not to ask you a lot of questions.”

Nick dropped the maggot into a second container.

“There are
calliphorids
too,” he said. “Those are the blowflies. We've probably got green bottles, oriental latrine flies, and secondary screw-worms—we'll have to rear a cross section and see what we find.”

By the time he finished he had eight containers, each containing a small collection of wriggling larvae about half an inch in length.

He looked at Jerry. “Now—did you find a fridge?”

“Yeah. Man, did that thing stink.”

“Worse than yours?”

“Not even close.”

“Show me what you found,” Nick said.

Jerry slid a pile of plastic bags and crumpled brown sacks across the counter. Nick began to open the sacks and dump the contents onto the counter; he nodded for Jerry to do the same.

“Find me some meat,” he said. “Take it off the sandwiches if you have to.”

He peeled back the translucent blue lid from a square plastic storage container; inside was a slab of meat loaf dotted with bristling tufts of green and white mold.