Gary Brandner - The Brain Eaters

Corey watched with open admiration as Dena scooped up her clothes and walked into the bathroom. She was a woman who knew how to move. He heard the cough and hiss of the shower starting up, and he smiled. The comfortable domesticity of the scene made him feel good but at the same time a little bit nervous. He had the crazy feeling that if they got out of this brain-eaters business, he was going to marry this woman. If they got out.

He pulled on a pair of jeans and made a halfhearted pass at straightening the bed. He touched the pillow that still bore the indentation of Dena’s head, and he smiled again.

The shower stopped, and in a few minutes Dena came out. She was dressed in the white pants and short-sleeved blouse she wore under her laboratory smock.

“It is cold in here,” she said. “Do you have the heat on?”

“There isn’t any heat,” he said. “And it’s probably eighty degrees outside.” He stepped closer and took hold of her arm. “What’s this?”

Dena looked down at the raw patch on her elbow. It was surrounded by reddened, slightly puffy flesh.

“I scraped my elbow the other day. It looks like there may be a low-grade infection. I’ll put something on it in the lab.”

The tone of her voice did not quite match the casual words. Corey kept hold of her arm and looked at her.

“Where did you get this, Dena?”

She let a beat go by before she answered. “When I went over to Carol Denker’s house.”

“On the day the brain eaters got to her?” Corey asked. He felt a clutch deep in his gut.

“Yes,” Dena said levelly. “But that doesn’t mean — ”

“And you’ve got chills,” Corey interrupted.

She nodded without speaking.

“Oh, Jesus.” Corey blinked and turned away for a moment.

“Let’s not be hasty,” Dena said. “The odds are all in favor of its being just a simple chill or a touch of the flu….”

Their eyes met, and she could not finish the sentence.

“Yeah, that’s the odds,” he said tonelessly.

“And if the worst is true, then I’ve got them, and it won’t change anything to stand here worrying about it. At least I’m close to the people who’re looking for a cure, so maybe I’d better get to work.”

“Yeah, right,” Corey said. He turned away quickly so she would not see what was in his eyes.

The black limousine slid up to the gate at Biotron, and the uniformed security men converged on it cautiously. The guards were no longer Biotron employees. Too many of them had been lost to make up an effective force. In their place were agents from the Department of Justice and the intelligence arm of the Defense Department. In spite of the oppressive weather, they were dressed in full uniforms with jackets and ties.

Two of them took up positions on either side of the car, their hands inconspicuously near their guns. A third approached the driver’s window.

Since the arrival of Dr. Kitzmiller and the brain-eater task force, the guards had brusquely turned away all would-be visitors to the plant. This car, however, looked important. It was a hired limousine with a chauffeur in full livery. Considering the difficulty of getting any kind of transportation during the emergency, this would have to be a VIP. Behind the tinted glass, three men could be seen in the wide back seat. They wore dark, heavy suits and expressions to match.

The senior security man leaned down and touched his cap as the chauffeur made the side window whisper out of sight. The smallest of the three men in the back seat leaned forward.

“I am Viktor Raslov of the Soviet agricultural delegation. I wish to speak with whoever is in command here.”

“I’m Lieutenant Purdue. How may I help you?”

“I don’t mean in command of the guards,” Raslov said testily. “I want the man who is in charge of the operation.”

“That would be Dr. Frederich Kitzmiller,” said the lieutenant. “Is he expecting you?”

“He is not. Open the gate, please.”

“I’ll have to check with Dr. Kitzmiller first.”

Raslov worked his facial muscles. “Then do so,” he said.

Lieutenant Purdue walked to the guard shack and dialed the extension of Lou Zachry’s phone. Standing orders stated that no calls except class A emergencies were to be routed directly to the laboratories.

“Raslov, you say?” Zachry repeated into the phone. With an effort, he shifted his thoughts away from another urgent problem to concentrate on what the lieutenant out at the gate was saying.

“Yes, sir. There are two men with him besides the chauffeur. KGB, from the look of them.”

That would be Raslov, all right, Zachry decided. Of all the things he did not need right now, the Russian was high on the list.

He said, “Stall him. I’ll talk to Dr. K about letting him in, but it’s doubtful.”

“Yes, sir.”

Zachry hung up the telephone and pushed himself wearily up from the desk. He buttoned his collar and pulled the knot of his necktie up, then headed for the laboratories.

“Absolutely not!” Kitzmiller stormed. “I have no time for some sneaking, spying, double-talking pig of a Russian now. For every minute that goes by, people are dying. Now a member of my staff is infected.”

“If you would just talk to him — ”

“No! I have no time for Raslov and no time for you! Now please leave me to my work.”

Zachry started to make a last protest. “Doctor — ”

“Out!”

Zachry glanced quickly around at the other doctors in the laboratory. Their attitude was one of intense, urgent effort, as well it might be. He wondered which of the team was infected by the brain eaters and how big a threat that presented to the rest of them. A look at Kitzmiller’s face persuaded him against asking. He nodded and went out.

At the door to the laboratory he met Corey Macklin coming in. The reporter’s face was set in grim lines. There was none of the usual mocking humor in his eyes.

“Corey,” he began, “we’ve got a situation out in front that — ”

Corey cut him off. “Not now, Lou.”

Zachry turned and stared at the younger man. “Something wrong?”

“Plenty.” Corey pushed past him and made for the still-glowering Dr. Kitzmiller.

Zachry watched him for a moment, then suddenly knew which of Kitzmiller’s staff had been stricken. He shook his head and walked away.

Dr. Kitzmiller looked at Corey with the air of a weary lion on the point of attacking his keepers.

“Can I not have five uninterrupted minutes in which to do the work I am here for? What is it, Mr. Macklin?”

“Dena — Dr. Falkner — was going to take the blood test.”

“Yes. The test was administered by Dr. Pena this morning.”

“Do you have the results?”

“I do.”

Corey waited for several seconds, then burst out, “Well?”

Kitzmiller sighed. “The results are positive. The parasites are in Dr. Falkner’s bloodstream.”

“Ooohh, shit.”

“We are trying a new approach to the problem today,” Kitzmiller said in a more gentle tone.

“What’s the prognosis?”

“We may as well be optimistic, since the alternative is despair.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Now, if you will excuse me, the sooner I can get back to my work, the better chance we will have of finding the cure in time.”

“Yeah,” Corey said again. “Thanks.”

He caught Dena’s eye from a counter where she was working and gave her a grin. She toasted him with an Erlenmeyer flask of murky liquid and returned to her notebook. Corey walked out silently.

The three Russians were standing outside their car, sweating in their woolen suits, when Lou Zachry approached. Viktor Raslov, slight and balding, with steel-rimmed spectacles, stood in the middle. The two KGB men flanked him like twin turrets. Raslov’s face was reddened with anger. Zachry put on a conciliatory smile.