Jonathan Maberry - Patient Zero

“Does this have anything to do with fatal familial insomnia?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Bonus points for even knowing that name. The answer to that is… yes and no. That’s the prion disease they used as a starter kit, but they’ve tricked it out with the other stuff. Even now it has some of the characteristics of a typical TSE.”

“‘TSE’?”

“Prions are neurodegenerative diseases called ‘transmissible spongiform encephalopathies,’ or TSEs,” he explained. “We still know very little about prion transmission and their pathogenesis. We do know that prions are proteins that have become folded and in that form act differently from normal proteins. These are strange little bastards… they have no DNA and yet they’re capable of self-replication. Usually sporadic cases strike about one person per million, and at the moment these account for, say, about eighty-five percent of all TSE cases. Then you have familial cases, which account for ten percent of TSEs, and which are passed down through bloodlines in ways not yet understood, since inherited traits are genetic and, like I said, prions have no DNA. The remaining five percent are iatrogenic cases, which result from the accidental transmission of the causative agent via contaminated surgical equipment, or sometimes you see it occurring as a result of cornea or dura mater transplants, or in the administration of human-derived pituitary growth hormones. Still with me?”

“Clinging on by my fingernails. How come these prions are making monsters instead of just killing people?”

“It’s a design requirement of this new disease cluster. Prions produce a lethal decline of cognitive and motor function, and that allows the parasite-driven aggression to cruise past conscious control. Somebody took the prion and attached it to these parasites. Don’t even ask how because we don’t know yet. It’ll be a new process, something they invented. They essentially turned a TSE into a fast-acting serum transfer pathogen, but with all sorts of extras, most notably aggression. The victim’s aggression is amped up in such a way as to closely imitate the rage response some PCP and meth addicts have on the downside of a strong high. Ever see the movie 28 Days Later ? No? You should. The sequel rocks, too. Anyway, that movie dealt with a virus that stimulated the rage centers in the brain to the point that it was so dominant that all other brain functions were blocked out. The victims existed in total, unending, and ultimately unthinking rage. Very close to what we have here.”

“What, you think a terrorist with a Ph.D. in chemistry watched a sci-fi flick and thought ‘Hey, that’s a good way to kill Americans’?”

Hu shrugged. “After all the stuff I’ve seen in the last week, I wouldn’t be surprised. Now, there may be some higher brain functions but if so it would be far lower than the most advanced Alzheimer’s patient.”

“An Alzheimer’s patient is still going to feel pain, and I beat the shit out of Javad and he didn’t so much as blink.”

“Yeah, well, we’re getting into one of our many gray areas. Remember that we’re not dealing with a natural mutation, so a lot of what we know will be based on field observation and clinical testing.”

“So… if we’re talking disease why are we also talking living dead ? How does that work?”

“That’s something we’re working on with the walkers we harvested from St. Michael’s,” Hu said, and for the moment there was no fanboy smirk on his face. “This disease cluster reduces so much of the body’s functions that it goes into a kind of hibernative state. That’s what we’ve been calling ‘death’ for these cases, but we’re wrong. When you shot Javad his body was already ravaged by the disease and the injuries hastened the process. He slipped into a hibernative coma that was so deep that the EMTs who checked his vitals got nothing. Consider this,” he said, shifting in his chair, “animals can hibernate and to a very, very limited degree so can humans. Not easily, but it sometimes happens. You see it once in a while in hypothermia cases. But when a ground squirrel hibernates its metabolism drops down to like one percent of normal. Unless you had sophisticated equipment you’d think it was dead. Even its heart beats so infrequently that a cut wouldn’t bleed much because the blood pressure is too low.”

“Can’t some yogis do the same thing?”

“Not even close. Even in the deepest yogic trance their metabolism is maybe ninety-nine or at most ninety-eight percent of normal. These walkers, on the other hand, are going into hibernative states as deep as a ground squirrel’s. Much deeper than a hibernating bear. Almost anyone who checked their vitals would declare them dead. We had to use machines to establish this and even then we almost missed it. What we have here is someone who has managed to either splice ground squirrel DNA to that of humans—and before you ask, no, they are not compatible according to what we know of modern transgenics—or they’ve found a way to alter the chemistry of the body to cause artificial hibernation. Either way, we can see the effect but we’re nowhere close to understanding it.” He set down the Slinky and leaned forward. “Once the victim is in hibernation this disease cluster reorganizes the functioning matrix of the body. It somehow uses the fatal familial insomnia protein to wake the victim up again and keep them awake; but during the hibernation the parasite has closed off those areas of the body that have been severely injured—as with the gunshot wounds. Our walker gets up because the parasite has kept the motor cortex going as well as some of the cranial nerves—the ones governing balance, chewing, swallowing, and so on. However, most of the organs are in shutdown and the reduced blood and oxygen flow has caused irreparable brain damage to the higher functions such as cognition. The heart pumps only a little blood, and the lungs operate at an almost negligible level. Circulation is so significantly reduced that necrosis begins to occur in disused parts of the body. So, we have nearly a classic brain-dead, flesh-hungry, rotting zombie. It’s beautiful, man, absolutely freaking beautiful.”

The urge to hit him was getting tougher to control.

“Can they think at all? Are they problem-solving?”

He shrugged. “If the walker is capable of conscious thought, we haven’t seen evidence of it. But really, we don’t know what they can’t do, or what variations might emerge in a larger cross section of the population. Maybe that’s why they had the kids today—trying the pathogen on a new test group. Body chemistry is different in kids. But overall, these are brain-dead meat machines. They walk, growl, bite, and that’s it.”

I blew out my cheeks. “Can they feel pain?”

“Unknown. Certainly they don’t react to it. There’s not even a flinch mechanism that we’ve seen. Though at St. Michael’s we learned that they’ll recoil from fire. They appear to be oblivious to, or are capable of disregarding, other forms of pain and the threat of pain.”

“They die, though,” I said. “Brain and brain stem injuries seem to do the trick.”

“Right, and if I were you I’d stick with that. But whether they can be otherwise injured in the classic sense… that’s complicated. Our walkers have a hyperactive wound-healing capacity. Not on the scale of Wolverine from X-Men who regenerates back to complete health, but more on the lines of car tires when they’re filled with a can of that sealant stuff. Wounds do seal, as we know, otherwise we’d bleed out from a paper cut. Proteins called fibrins and high-molecular-weight glycoprotein-containing fibronectins bond together to form a plug that traps proteins and particles and prevents further blood loss; and this plug establishes a structural support to seal the wound until collagen is deposited. Then some ‘migratory cells’ use this plug to stretch across the wound, during which platelets stick to this seal until it’s replaced with granulation tissue and then later with collagen. In the walkers this whole process is running at superspeed. Shoot one and the wound closes right away. If this were a natural mutation we’d consider it an evolutionary response to a highly dangerous environment; fast healing in the presence of the potential for frequent cuts. But this is designer stuff; and again, our Dr. Evil has a gold mine of a patent in his hands because that process alone might be a potential cure or treatment for hemophilia and other bleeding disorders. And the battlefield uses would be worth billions.” He leaned close. “And if you and your Rambo squad can take out the geniuses behind this then I’m going to swipe this shit and file the patents, and then I’ll buy Tahiti and retire.”