Victor Methos - Pestilence

He climbed a winding staircase to the second floor and located the master bedroom. Going to the closet, he found several suits on one side and women’s clothing on the other. The suits were too big for him, but he went through the casual clothes at the end and found some jeans and a silk tight-fitting shirt. He put them on and then checked the shoes. They were close enough, perhaps a size bigger than he needed.

His feet were bleeding and black. He went to the tub and washed them.

He slipped on dress socks and then the shoes. As he went back downstairs, he paused on the stairs, wondering if the house’s owners had guns. He ransacked the bedrooms and didn’t find anything. Weaponry wasn’t hidden downstairs, either. He was about to walk to the fridge before leaving, when he heard something behind him.

He froze, his fingers searching for the knife he’d tucked away. Slowly, he turned around.

A black Rottweiler with inch-long teeth was growling at him. The dog had an expensive collar, but other than that, it appeared to be a wild jungle beast.

“Easy,” Howie said. “Easy.”

The dog was sizing him up but had determined he was not a threat. Howie saw it in his eyes. He grabbed the knife and pulled it out, holding it tightly.

He turned and sprinted as barking filled the air, along with a cacophony of snarls, growls, and paws running on hardwood floors. Howie dashed into the kitchen, where gleaming pots and pans hung from the ceiling over an island cabinet. He jumped onto the island as the dog lunged for him and bit into his shoe, ripping it off.

Howie climbed up while the dog was trying to take a piece of him, leaping into the air and snapping in front of his face. He stood up as the dog got both front legs up onto the island, but it was too large to pull himself up.

Howie swiped down with the blade, and the dog yelped as the knife cut across its nose. But it only served to enrage him. It jumped again, and Howie screamed as it got over the island and fell into him with all its weight. He flew backward, hitting his head on a cupboard as he landed on the floor with a crash and several pots and pans fell over the island.

The dog bit into his arm, and he screamed. With his other arm, he thrust the knife as hard as he could into the dog’s neck. But it didn’t let go. He thrust again, and again, and again. The blood sprayed over the kitchen as if it were being shot from a hose, and Howie kept thinking to himself that he couldn’t believe how much blood was coming out of this animal.

Finally, after coating the kitchen in blood, the dog stopped moving. But its teeth were embedded into his arm, and he couldn’t pull away. He was out of breath and had to lie there, with the weight of the animal on top of him. When he had caught his breath, he reached into the dog’s mouth and lifted its upper jaw, which crinkled like paper. Pulling his arm out, he rolled the dog over and lay there another moment, staring at the ceiling and panting.

I could leave right now. Nevada wasn’t too far. The trip might take him a few days, depending on what kind of transportation he had, but he could do it. Jessica didn’t want him near her anyway. She’d chosen to live with her mother and only came around when she was forced.

He took a deep breath, and stood. She’s my daughter, he thought. She’s my daughter.

As he was leaving the house, he noticed a small rack in the kitchen, containing several sets of keys. He took them all and ran around, checking doors until he came to the garage. Five cars filled the space. He opened the garage’s exterior door and walked to the car at the end: a yellow Ferrari that would stand out far too much. Next to that was a black Mercedes. He stood and admired it a moment before climbing in, then quietly pulled out of the garage, keeping the lights off, and drove down the street at a snail’s pace.

The medical station was a few long metal trailers set up in rows in the middle of a Walmart parking lot. A few jeeps and Humvees were nearby, as were several groups of men in military uniforms.

Sam watched them closely. They were laughing and joking, and one of them had a cigarette dangling from his mouth. She watched the dim red glow as it rose and lowered. This was a conquering army celebrating its victory.

The guardsman got out with them and led them to the trailer at the center, the largest one. She didn’t see a door anywhere, but another guard opened one from the inside to let them in.

Inside were several scientific workstations, complete with computers, microscopes, and MRI and CAT scan machines. Just behind the six employees at their stations was a clear glass wall that overlooked what appeared to be a surgical room with one hospital bed. The room was clean tile and shining chrome, and it looked untouched.

“Samantha?”

She turned to see Lt. General Clyde Olsen walk over to them. He was in full uniform and had grown a mustache that was speckled with gray. He smiled and put out his hand.

She shook it.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

He smirked. “I think you know. I read your CDC reports on the incident in Oahu.”

“How did you get access to the CDC reports?”

“Come on, what do you think all this technology is for? Playing video games? Now what are you doing out here? I didn’t authorize the CDC to come out.”

“She’s with me,” Duncan said. “Dr. Duncan Adams, General. I’m with USAMRIID.”

“Well, what exactly are you doing here?”

“Research, General.”

“On what?”

“On the effects of Agent X on a civilian population. And the development of a possible vaccine.”

“We have Agent X contained.”

Duncan glanced at the surgical room. “It doesn’t work that way. You can’t contain something like this. It’ll get out, and you’ll need me to try and come up with a vaccine.”

“Really?” He folded his arms. “You think you can come up with a vaccine?”

“I can try.”

The lieutenant held Duncan’s gaze a moment and then said, “Well, I guess we can use all the help we can get. Let me show you what we have.”

He turned to one of the stations, and Sam and Duncan followed him. Numbers and a map of the state were up on the screen. Various swaths of the map were colored yellow, and red pinpoints marked other areas.

“Those red markers are known cases of viral infection,” the general said. “We’ve got eighty-nine of them right now. All contained in quarantine. I sent several men to each location, and they’re ensuring that the pathogen doesn’t spread. The yellow is possible areas of infection, should one of the infected get out. Those are the areas where we’ve conducted our operation, containing the citizens so the infection can’t spread. You can see that eighty of those eighty-nine are in southern California, so that’s where we’ve focused.”

“What about the rest of the state?” Sam asked.

“They’re contained in their own way. All highways leading out of the state have been closed off, no planes or buses. Nothing. The only way someone can make it out of here is by sneaking through the desert, and we’ve got roving patrols and choppers for that.”

Duncan shook his head. “Because that works so well on the Mexican border?”

The general didn’t respond and instead pressed a button, bringing up an image of a young boy in a bed. The bedsheets and his hospital gown were stained black, and he appeared to have been burnt. But Sam had seen that condition enough to know that it wasn’t a burn. The boy was hemorrhaging underneath his skin.

“Eighty-nine cameras feed into these trailers right here,” he said. “We have someone watching all the infected, twenty-four, seven. As well as the men I have stationed there. No one in or out.”