Rachel Lee - Something Deadly

He’d learned from Markie at a very early age that cats were off-limits. He couldn’t begin to understand why—they clearly smelled like prey—but it seemed that many humans actually liked the creatures. So, to please Markie, he simply departed the vicinity of any feline.

Which was not to say he didn’t occasionally pretend that his tug toy was a cat. But dreams were only dreams.

Traveling down the sidewalk at a brisk pace, he noted that some human had recently passed, leaving a trail of illness in the air. He tested it, drawing quick bursts of air into his nose and expelling them through his mouth. No, it was not the smell of last night.

As they passed one house, a small dark dog yapped annoyingly from behind a window. Oh-look-oh-look-another-dog-another-dog-oh-look-oh-look! Kato gave the dog a dismissive turn of the head. Such a waste of energy. He preferred to remain silent and watchful. One’s voice was meant to sing, and singing was reserved for special occasions: play or need or union. Otherwise, silence aided the senses in being watchful.

The world was a plethora of smells: flowers, grass, trees, people, animals, insects…oh, the joy of filling his nostrils with the teeming life of the world.

But then the pungent scent of fear wafted to him. Faint, it seemed to come from elsewhere. He sucked it in, concentrating on it, following it along the sidewalk as best he could at the end of a leash. Markie was not cooperating. But then, he’d long since realized that Markie didn’t have a real nose. He sometimes pitied that little thing on her face, so useless. On the other hand, he could taste the wind for her. And her eyes and hands were far more adept than his. They worked well together.

The fear-smell went away, then returned as they rounded a corner onto his own street. He lifted his head, sucking it in, and felt his hackles stir.

Last night…last night he wasn’t sure what he had smelled. He had merely felt compelled to follow it, despite Markie’s objections. Sometimes she just didn’t know what was truly important.

But Kato found himself remembering last night, the smell he had followed, the way all the dogs around had grown frenzied, some with anger, some with fear. Not all barks were the same, though most had been protective.

Then there had been the scent. A different scent. One he had never before known. And it had led directly to death. Terror and death, two very powerful smells.

He would have left, but somehow it had seemed important to remain, to make sure his mistress knew there was danger. He hoped she had understood.

Now the lingering scent of fear led him to a palm trunk. He sniffed around it, getting glimmers of how local dogs had been doing lately. Most were happy and healthy. One or two were angry. A female was beginning to enter heat. And one… Kato sniffed the sad scent and made a whimper of sympathy.

“Kato?”

He ignored her. Moving upward, he finally zeroed in on the aroma that had called to him from so far away. Fear. Terror. Bad thing. Fresh. Recent. Large dog, healthy, but terrified.

The hair on Kato’s neck rose, and he backed away from the tree. Something was very wrong in his world. He would need Markie. And she would need him.

Declan watched the two CDC team members, fully suited, working on Carter Shippey’s remains. Remains seemed the only word for that travesty of a body on the table. But as far as Declan could see, there had been no further deterioration since this morning.

Behind him, another suited member of the team spoke. “The physical deterioration occurred overnight?”

Declan turned to face Marshall Wilcox, the team leader. “Most of it, yes. At least the part that was visible.”

“So let me see if I have this right. Last night you were called to a sudden death of a sixty-three-year-old male, retired fisherman.”

“That’s correct.”

“And you’d given him a physical only a month ago and found him to be fit?”

“As fit as a much younger man, yes.” It was unnerving talking to someone who was hiding behind a decon suit and hood, breathing his own air, a man whose voice was coming through a speaker.

“And upon examination of the body, the only unusual thing you noticed was a sponginess.”

“That’s correct. He felt doughy. But he wasn’t swollen as far as I could see. At that time his face appeared locked in a rictus of terror.”

“Not unusual with heart attack deaths.”

“No, I’ve seen it before.”

“Okay.” Wilcox came over to stand beside him. “And the way he looked when we got here was the same way he looked this morning when you pulled him for autopsy.”

“That’s correct.”

“And nobody else is sick?”

“Not yet. Not that I know of.”

“Not even his wife.”

Declan shook his head. “She called me a couple of hours ago, wanting my autopsy results.”

“And you told her?”

“That I needed to run some extensive blood work and tissue tests before I could say anything. That it might be a while before we pinpointed the exact cause of death.”

A slight movement of Wilcox’s hood seemed to indicate a nod. “Good. Well, from what I’ve seen so far, I’m going to support your quarantine of the island. In the meantime, I don’t see any need for you to hang around here.”

It was a clear dismissal. Declan felt pinpricks of anger in his face. “He’s my patient.”

“He’s our patient now,” Wilcox said flatly. “You don’t have the facilities or knowledge to handle this.”

Declan turned to face him, forcing Wilcox to do the same. “Just what is ‘this’?”

Wilcox hesitated. “I don’t know. We’ve never seen anything like it.”

The icy finger crept up Declan’s neck again. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“At this point, I’m not sure we even have a contagious disease,” Wilcox continued. “I can’t think of a single disease that dissolves everything in the body except the skin and nervous system.”

“Me, neither.”

“But…” Wilcox hesitated. “At this point, given the victim’s social involvement, I’d say that exposure has to have been extensive. So there’s no reason you can’t leave here and go on with life. If you really want to help…”

“I do.”

“Then you can help me with demographics. People know you and will talk to you more easily.”

Declan was only too willing to help however he could. “What do you need?”

“Start with his wife. Find out if she noticed anything at all unusual in his behavior in the past week or two. Then see if you can build us a list of everyone he routinely comes in contact with, so we can start interviewing them.”

“That’s going to be a big list.”

Wilcox nodded again. “As fast as this hit him, that gives me hope.”

“Hope?”

“You haven’t had a new case in nineteen hours. That you know of. Unless this has a long, silent incubation period, this may be the last of it. Or it might not be disease at all.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Declan said, for the first time admitting the nagging feeling that had troubled him all day. “The longer I sat here thinking about it, the more I began to think he had a toxic exposure of some kind.”

“That could well be. We’ll have a better idea after we complete the tests. In the meantime, Doctor, your help with demographics will be appreciated. We’re only five people.”

Declan left, stepping out into fresh air for the first time since six that morning. The tropical sunset was just beginning, a gorgeous display of reds, golds and pinks that filled the entire western sky. He filled his lungs with the soft sea air, washing away the taste of antiseptics and death that had permeated him…to his very soul, he thought unhappily.