The Holocaust Engine, page 30
“Recruiting?” Dave White glared at Thorpe. “Let’s call it what it is, Captain, or Lieutenant, or whoever you really are? All men, all fighting age... he seems to be adding at the rate of roughly one a week. The gestation period is normally around two weeks or just a little longer, so it would appear that he is infecting, and doing whatever indoctrination process that bonds all of them to him, in manageable increments, maybe two at a time.”
“Indoctrination process?” Thorpe set down the picture he’d been holding and focused on breathing normally. “They didn’t tell us, those sons of bitches.”
“They told you they were dealing with something new. True, they left out how quickly our situation is deteriorating. I don’t suppose they were ready to be blown to smithereens—certainly you can understand—but we’ve decided that the time for cloak and dagger has passed. If someone doesn’t stop this... quickly... you may not have enough soldiers in your cordon to stop them.”
McCaffrey shook his head. “They don’t group up. I’m telling you this isn’t zombies. They attack each other as easily as they attack healthy subjects. We can use drones to locate them and take them out one at a time.”
“You’re still talking about type Ones. Type Twos think, organize, plan, execute, and learn from their mistakes. They modify and use equipment. We think they’re the ones that took out the last of the city’s power grid. They can go into the excited delirium state and come right back out again. At will.” White paused to let that sink in. “The Republic’s people say that they saw The Dragon three months ago, longer than any of our type Ones have survived.”
McCaffrey grinned like a mad man. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. You’re a damn liar. It doesn’t work like that. Bontrager’s doesn’t work like that. You hit the wall and you die. That’s what happens. Every time. Sixty-eight days... the longest anyone has ever gone. Sixty-eight days and his brain had turned to mush. The profile you’re describing is impossible. Even if it somehow has evolved to slow the rate of tissue loss, it wouldn’t make any sense.” He shook his head furiously. “You’d be dead. You’d all be dead.”
“If they ever attack the hospital, we don’t hold out much hope, but we’ve drilled for the possibility. You two may have noticed the rope ladder coiled next to the pigeon cages. About thirty of us have volunteered to stay and try and hold them on the lower floors, while we evacuate the others to the roof and get them down and to a rally point. So far they have not chosen to directly attack ours, or any of the other, confines. We have no idea why.”
“Weaknesses?”
Dave White shrugged at Thorpe. “The delirium seems to take something out of them. If they do it once, you won’t see that one again for a couple of days. They plan for this. A normal team for them is three, so even if we could find their hideout, we would still have to deal with the other six. There is clearly still some loss of mental faculties for a Type Two. Their behaviors are coordinated, but erratic, and of course, at the end of the day, we are still talking about flesh. Destroy the soft tissues and you destroy the creature. It can be done, we’re sure. The young man standing behind you fought The Dragon in single combat and forced him to retreat.”
Thorpe tilted his neck, but did not turn all the way around.
Mary’s hand went up to her mouth, and tears filled her eyes.
“If we had the numbers, the firepower, we might have a chance, but we don’t have any of those things. So the way I see it, the United States has two choices: they can either send a division of troops in, expecting serious casualties, or they can bomb the island back into the stone age.”
McCaffrey looked over each and every face in the room, and shook his head. He began to speak, but stopped and chuckled to himself.
“God damn it!” Buehl snorted. “Can we revote?”
They made the call from the rooftop. The islanders left them alone, but Miller had rigged an intercom speaker by the signal tower, and Dr. White and the others listened in.
McCaffrey was hysterical. He wanted off of the island and he wanted off now.
Thorpe stayed calm—yes sir, no sir—as he relayed the pertinent information.
Much worse than we thought.
They call them type Twos.
Clearly a different strain.
Yes, the target is still alive and he seems to be gathering others.
The survivors don’t believe they can hold out much longer.
You’ll need time to debrief the secretary.
Of course. We will await further instructions.
The locals are extremely hostile.
If we don’t answer your call assume we are dead.
That night, the two visitors ate with the others, and then went to the room they’d been given and closed the door. At intervals, they could hear McCaffrey’s shouts down the hall.
By the next morning, they still had not received their “further instructions.”
Reagan and Ricky went with the morning crew up to the fishing inlet, and stood guard with two others while a group of workers set the nets in waist-high water. The two of them stood under the waxy leaves of a sea grape tree while watching a trail through the grassy area, which gave way to rocks, which gave way to water.
“What?” Reagan said.
Ricky pointed.
Reagan turned to greet Thorpe, who was walking down the trail. “What the fuck do you want?”
Thorpe stopped a few feet away. Dressed in jeans, khaki shirt, and a light pullover jacket that obscured whatever weapons he now carried, he looked all around. Narrow, predatory eyes took in the terrain. “I’d like you to put down that gun. I don’t usually talk to armed men.”
Reagan slid the .45 back into its holster. “Neither do I,” he said, looking at the Thorpe’s waist. “So piss off. Doctor.”
“If I give you my name and tell you what I’m really doing here, will you at least tell me what you saw when you fought The Dragon?”
“Would you believe me?” Reagan scoffed and turned back to the men and the nets.
“No promises. Did you believe McCaffrey when he told you we didn’t have much trouble on the mainland?”
Reagan turned his head until he could see Thorpe out of the corner of his eye. “We get news on the radio. We know what’s happening.”
“Oh no you don’t. Everyone is under government control on this. The press is working off of official releases. So is McCaffrey. There are only a couple of people at the CDC who know the true body count.”
“How bad?”
“Uh uh. You first.”
Reagan smiled and turned. Then he frowned down at the little boy looking back and forth between the two. “What are you doing? Watch the tree line. How many times do I have to say it?”
“Douglas Haney, sergeant first class, United States Marine Corp,” said Thorpe.
Reagan met his eyes. “You’re a marine? That’s all? Not one of this guy’s old SEAL buddies, or maybe a special CIA agent trained from birth after the hospital told your parents you died? You’re a jarhead?”
He smiled. “Consider me a special kind of doctor—a surgeon.”
“And you’re here to kill The Dragon?”
“I’m going to cut out a tumor.”
When Reagan started to laugh, Thorpe said, “You just get me close to him. The gun I’m carrying is special.”
“Yeah, it’s going to feel special when he shoves it up your ass and pulls the trigger, let me tell you.”
“You survived.”
“He was kinda busy killing my friends when I jumped him. And don’t think for a second we’re going to line up for this guy so you can take your shot.”
“The story I heard was that it was just you and one other, and the other was already hit. So were you.”
“No, no, no... one for one. I told you I caught him off guard. So far, all I’ve gotten out of you is that you’re under-qualified for your job. It’s your turn.”
“Okay,” said Thorpe, with a series of curt little nods. “When Bontrager—the guy, not the disease—died, his girlfriend was infected. By the time they found her, she had infected 44 people that they know about so far. In turn, those people infected a total of around 2,000. So far. They called her The Succubus. So you guys aren’t the only one giving some of them names. I’ll let you figure out how she got hers for yourself with Little Man down there.”
“No shit. All right, all right. Yeah, I was hit.” Reagan lifted his shirt above the scar on his stomach. “Are we right about him? Was he one of the SEALs?”
“He was. Not just any of them, either. He wasn’t just here for training. He was the trainer, supposed to be some kind of a legend. And that was before he got the superman disease. That’s why I’m a little curious about the amazing Reagan Castaneda who can beat someone like that with his bare hands.” He gave a friendly shrug. “You know how stories get bigger every time someone tells them.”
“He did it,” Ricky spat. “Really. Reagan’s a badass.”
“Damn it, Ricky. Language.”
“You do it.”
“Yeah, I do. I’m a grown up. It’s normal. You’re nine. When little kids cuss, it’s creepy as hell.”
The marine kneeled down until he was face to face with the boy. He pointed out into the water. “Ricky, you must be one brave little boy to have made it through all this. Tell me how you get the fish.”
Ricky pointed to the trail and said in English, which had lost all but a hint of his native accent, “We drag the bodies down the trail. That’s why so much of the grass is gone. Then we put heavy stuff in their pockets and sink them in the water. The nets go on top of the bodies and the fish come because the bodies make the water stink.”
“He’s cute, isn’t he?” said Reagan.
“We get lobsters too. I like lobsters. This one time, we caught a shark. Really. Want to see my pistol?”
Thorpe frowned up at Reagan. “But you don’t want him to cuss, because that’s creepy.”
“Ricky, you’re scaring the nice pretend doctor.”
Ricky stopped... for a second. “Can I tell him about how Kris got scared of the shark when the nets came up, and shot it?”
“No.”
“But—”
“No. We never call Krissy ‘Kris’ because when we start talking about Kris, it makes me break out in hives, and when ‘Kris’ starts acting like she’s in charge of the commandos, we ignore her and wait outside.”
Thorpe stood up. “What?”
“Don’t get me started.”
“By my count, it’s your turn.”
“Tell him about Keebs,” Ricky said.
Reagan glared at the boy. “Every confine has its security people. The hospital has two groups—the orderlies who handled most of the stuff inside, and the Conch Commandos, who handle everything outside. Commando has been a tough gig. Kris.... God damn it, now you’ve got me saying it. Krissy is the... I don’t know... wait, you know what? I do know. Krissy is like the guy in every spy movie in the back of the room, with all of the spy techies sitting in front of their screens, who yells stuff that everybody else already knew. She’s the... the—”
“Keebs is a dog,” Ricky said.
“Keebs?”
“Killer,” said Reagan. “This little fluff ball named Cleo that I got for the kid, because your old Navy buddy almost killed him and I thought he could use some cheering up. I told him to call it Killer as a joke, but Mein Kampf down here couldn’t say ‘killer.’ He made it sound like ‘Kibler,’ which turned into ‘Keebler Elf,’ which turned into ‘Keebs’.”
“This has something to do with spy movies?”
“Krissy Stratton, daughter of Mary Stratton, heir to the Stratton estate if it still exists, and Bontrager’s girlfriend didn’t dry-hump it into a pile of overpriced bricks. A college freshman that used to sit around with her sorority sisters and make fun of everybody that wasn’t rich enough or pretty enough, until she caught a bullet in the face and then just laid around all day feeling sorry for herself.”
“The little blonde girl with the scar? I saw her. She’s out of bed now. No doubt about that.”
Reagan shook his head at the distant clouds. “Yes. Yes she is. You see this dog? I have this theory. I got the dog from a young girl, and I’m thinking maybe Keebs got used to having a young girl for an owner, and so the dog used to ignore the rest of us and just mess with her. It would sit on the floor next to her and bark. Then it jumped up onto her bed and....” Reagan took the palm of his hand and made a downward striking motion. “It would just smack her in the face with bottom of its paw, like it was saying, ‘get out of bed and play with me, Bitch.’”
“So the dog turned her into spy boss.”
“Nobody was more surprised than me. Trust me. One day, she’s out of bed because Keebs needs to go outside. Next day, she’s messing with the commandos because Keebs needs a decent doggie bed. Next, she’s telling us how to make our runs. Now, she thinks she’s like our manager or something. Buehl lets her write stuff down and make suggestions because his girlfriend dumped him, and because he’s an idiot.” Reagan scoffed. “Still, he better stay alive. I guarantee she’s Doc White’s next choice if he goes down.”
“Well, at least you can still see the humor in things, even with everything going on.”
“I don’t know about humor, but yeah, this place... this freaking place! You’re gonna see things. Trust me.”
“Things?”
“I don’t know what kind of intel they gave you, but I promise, if you live long enough, you’re going to see shit on this island that will give you chills. Weird shit.”
“I’m getting the idea.”
“No, you’re not. You think I’m talking about a rabies-type infection and kids with guns and a sorority chic that starts giving orders. That’s not it.” Any joy and humor that had been there now left Reagan’s smile. “I can’t even tell you the half of it. You’ll think I’m going crazy, but something is happening here. Something... I don’t even know what to call it. That night with The Dragon, he was killing us, killing all of us. Nothing we could do slowed him down. I told the last of the others to make a run for it. I was already shot. I didn’t think I could make it back anyway. I set this trap for him. Didn’t work much better than anything else we tried. Next thing you know, he’s cutting me up with a knife. I got lucky.” He held out his left hand, showing both sides of the livid scar. “When he impaled me, it got stuck, and before he could get it back out I got in one good shot.”
Reagan shook his head. “But he didn’t retreat. The look on his face... I couldn’t make sense of it that night, but I think I get it now. He wanted to stay. He wanted to just stand there and exchange until he beat me down and could lean over my corpse and take a long, slow piss on my dead body. But something else had a hold of him. Something else didn’t think it was worth it. Kill him later. It made him leave.”
“The heck are you talking about? Made him leave? Like mind control? What could have made him leave?”
After a short exhale, he let loose a fragment of laughter. “If it wasn’t the devil... well, I don’t know what the difference would be between that and the devil.”
“The devil. Okay, I hear you. Anything else you can tell me about him?”
“I can tell you how we knew that his old handle was ‘The Dragon’.”
Thorpe’s expression fell.
“What, you didn’t think we just got lucky, did you? We call him that because that’s what he had engraved on the pistol I took off of him that night.”
Reagan pulled the .45 Sig Sauer out of his belt holster and turned it around so that Thorpe could see the words etched into the handle.
The marine stared at the words with his mouth open. “Okay,” he said, finally. “You really did it. I think that makes it my turn again. And there is something you guys should probably know, something I’m pretty sure you would have mentioned if you’d seen it.”
“Yeah?”
“They have a fifty-caliber machine gun.”
They got the official word that afternoon, and for the rest of the day the hospital council went back and forth with McCaffrey. The government wanted him to examine the patient on Trumbo Point for what the islanders were calling Type Two infection status.
Government: No, a sample of blood or tissue is not enough. We needed a full examination—including behavioral—before starting the vaccination process.
McCaffrey: Will you airlift me to the Republic compound?
Government: No.
McCaffrey: Would you consider an apparatus for airlifting the patient to the hospital?
Government: Absolutely not.
The islanders would have to make the transfer happen. McCaffrey took word back.
McCaffrey: They say it is not possible.
Government: What about with air support?
McCaffrey: The angry one with the shotgun threatened to stuff my balls in my mouth.
Government: What if we offer food and supplies?
McCaffrey: What kind of supplies?
Government: Weapons and medicine and fuel for the generator, along with air support for their vehicles.
McCaffrey: They’re going to talk to the Republic.
The message was salted down to three sentences. Comm personnel translated it into Morse and took the message up to the tower.
Sandra Wainscott brought the reply back to the conference room and read it out.
“Have you – stop – lost your – stop – fucking minds – stop.”
The Miracle
Trumbo Point, Fleming Key, Key West
September 14
I don’t know anymore if we rescued her. The more I see Eve’s body, the more I think they gave it to us. Her lips have turned full purple. We’ve added cuffs and leg irons to the bed restraints. She’s never tried to escape, but she scares the hell out of us all the same.
Morenz’s instructions were clear: keep the room dark, two men on the door at all times, never an officer and never anyone that knew her before. Ignore everything she says. If she tries to get out of that bed, shoot and keep shooting, and hold on until help arrives.
