Minor Side Effects

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 04:52:30 GMT

Minor Side Effects ran daily from
January 31, 2006 through March 31, 2006.

Although it is now concluded, you can still read it in its entirety here. Unless something wacky happens.

The Beginning
The Ending
The Archives

If you liked the story, you can now buy it as a dead-tree version or an ebook!
Minor Side Effects, the book

Afterword

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 03:57:16 GMT

It seems like every time you turn on the television, some person has devised some new, sadistic way for people to make themselves look good. Any product that comes with even the vaguest promise that it will keep you young and beautiful forever is a guaranteed best seller, even if the science behind it is a little shady. Even more so if there's no science behind it at all. I am constantly amazed by the people who lay out hundreds of dollars a month or more for supplements, creams and foods that they claim will make them younger, or stronger, or extend their lives by a few years, especially when the only proof they have of its efficacy is that “my sister-in-law's cousin's friend said it works wonders.”

The format of the story was more of an experiment to see how long I could keep a promise to myself. Having lost a lot of my desire to write due to various circumstances (someone I know says that “life mugs you in an alley”), I found that I missed that part of myself and promised that I would write a little each day, even if it was just something silly. Even at their very best, nearly all zombie stories end up being a little silly, so it was a natural progression. Posting it on LiveJournal was a way to make it a little more real, if you will, because while it is unbelievably easy to let myself down, it is much harder to let down an audience, even if it's just an audience of three. I love you three very much.

Zombie movies and zombie novels, most recently Stephen King's Cell, have always been a favorite of mine. I am always struck by how many of them include the same kinds of characters, no matter who is doing the writing. There's Levelheaded Guy, who usually ends up being the leader of the group and calming things down, along with Tough Girl, who is always ready to beat the hell out of the zombies. Then there's Surly Guy, who acts like he's in charge and can usually be found trying to make the whole thing difficult for the others. No one is sure why Surly Guy hangs around, except to make life miserable for everyone else. He usually has a purpose though, you just don't know what it is until the end. Finally, there's the Mature Teenager. Generally speaking, Mature Teenagers usually hook up with other teenagers and enjoy some Extracurriculars, but I decided to make mine a little younger. You understand.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed Minor Side Effects. The last thing I intended it to be was some sort of deep philosophical work or social commentary, so don't go back looking for anything of that sort in it. Like most of the things I've written, I only do it to amuse myself and hopefully amuse a few other people in the process. I was hoping to amuse one special person in particular though, so there are quite a few in jokes. However, they seem to stand on their own, so it's all right.

Minor details? I haven't been to Wisconsin, but I've seen and heard enough about the small towns by the lake that I feel comfortable enough writing about them, even if I'm not ready to call them by their odd nicknames yet. The unnamed little town is unnamed for a reason. Detroit is just Detroit. I've only been there once, but I'm pretty sure there's a Radisson. Any other details that are a little fuzzy or miscalculated are entirely my fault and should be dealt with accordingly. But don't get too serious on me. After all, it's just a story, right?

Aftereffects - What Price Beauty?

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 03:13:10 GMT

The wind was starting to pick up again as Mara fumbled through her purse for the house key. Cursing herself for about the hundredth time since she had taken it off her key ring to leave it for the kid next door who fed the fish while they were on vacation, she slung her purse back over her shoulder and unclipped the keycard that gave her access to the clinic. Seth never locked the deadbolt before bedtime.

Though it had been a while since she last used her card trick, it worked as easily as ever and she made a mental note to be sure to use both the deadbolt and chain from now on. She tucked the card back into her scrub pocket and went inside. From the sound of the reality show that was playing on the television, Seth had already made himself comfortable. Another bone of contention, she thought with a smile as she dropped her bag and headed toward the sound.

Their new house was small, but comfortable enough for the two of them, Peanut, and the occasional little visitor when Jack and Catherine wanted to go out alone. There were still a couple of cardboard boxes lurking in corners, remnants of the move that still hadn’t found their place in the last couple of months. Seth wanted them unpacked before Christmas. Mara still thought there was no rush.

“Sorry I’m so late, love,” she said, her words trailing off as she came through the living room door. Seth was dozing on the couch, one hand under the pillow that he had brought from the bedroom and his glasses folded neatly on the floor. Lying protectively on his chest was Peanut, who opened one eye and gave her a reproachful look. “Sorry, Nut. But if you think you could deliver a baby any faster, you’re welcome to try.”

“Who had a baby?” Seth spoke without opening his eyes, and Mara leaned over to kiss him gently on the forehead.

“One of the other nurses. She miscalculated her due date or something and went into labor right there in the lobby. The doctor had already gone home, but by the time it gets to where she was at, it’s mainly just catch and smack anyway.” Very gently pushing the cat aside, Mara sat on the sliver of couch next to Seth and lay her head on his chest. “I tried to call, but no one answered.”

“I left my cell phone at work by accident,” he said, putting his arms around her. “But I thought if it was an emergency you would have tried the house phone.” Mara smiled. If it had been a year and a half ago, he would have called out the National Guard to try and find the ditch he was sure she was lying in.

“Only had time for one call before the darn thing’s head popped out. Kerri’s had about five of them before, so this one was out before I could hit redial.” The position she was sitting in was uncomfortable and she rearranged herself so that she was lying on top of him on the couch. Seth didn’t mind. She didn’t weigh much, really. Mara had lost quite a bit of weight during her depression after Eric’s funeral, and her subsequent refusal to do any more euthanasia for the clinic. Although Seth thought she had looked better with the extra few pounds, he never told her anything other than how beautiful she was. It was slowly coming back though, now that her dreams had stopped.

“I can’t imagine why you don’t want any,” he said, stroking the back of her head and letting her hair fall through his fingers.

“Watching Liliane is enough for me,” Mara said, snuggling closer. “And Casey is heading into that whole ‘troublesome teens’ thing. Giving her aunt and uncle hell, from what I hear.”

“Can’t really blame her though, can you? After everything that happened.” It was quiet, and as soon as he said it Seth wondered if he had made a mistake. Even though she seemed to be getting better about it lately, she still didn’t want to talk about anything that had happened. Eric’s death and what it represented to her had seen to that.

Sometimes when he was holding her, he could almost pretend that it had never happened. That she had just come up for a vacation and they had walked around the lake and fallen in love like he had hoped they would. In many ways everything they had been through together had made their relationship stronger, but there was also so much that had been taken away. There was one thing that both Seth and Mara knew would never change, though. Luckily for them, it was also the most important.

“No, I…I guess I can’t.” Her deep brown eyes fluttered open and fixed on his face. For a moment he thought she was going to cry. “I just wish…that things had been different, is all.”

“So do I.” There was nothing else he could say that hadn’t been said a hundred times over, so he held her as the last of the credits flashed across the screen. The news came on almost as soon as the music had ended and Seth kissed her on the forehead. “Come on, let’s go to bed.” There was nothing implied by his words, but she smirked anyway. Her old defense mechanism at work.

“Never satisfied, are you?”

“Not with you, no.” At times like this, it was best just to play along with her. It was more than likely that they wouldn’t make love, but it made her feel better to think that they would and he was happy to oblige, even if he just ended up holding her all night. Love was tricky sometimes.

A snippet of conversation from the anchorwoman caught her attention as he was helping her off the couch, however, and Mara stopped in her tracks. With a trembling hand, she picked up the remote control and turned up the volume. Seth, having heard the same thing, sat motionless on the cushions.

“…halting the unauthorized production of the drug. Early analysis by the Center for Infectious Disease Control show that its composition is an almost exact match to that of RG896, also known as ReGenera.” The anchorwoman, who looked to Mara like every other television newswoman she had ever seen, was wearing her typical ‘bad news’ face, but the fear that flashed in her eyes was much more disturbing. There was a good chance that she, like so many others, had lost someone to the virus. Possibly even been exposed to it herself. “Evidence found at the scene leads authorities to believe that the drug was being sold on the black market for prices exceeding ten to twenty thousand dollars.”

“Oh my God.” The remote control dropped from Mara’s hand as her knees began to buckle, and Seth pulled her back onto the couch before she could fall. “It’s not possible. There can’t be any more out there. There can’t be.”

“Let’s listen to the end of it.” Seth took her hands to steady them, realizing that her fingers were suddenly very cold as they turned their attention back to the television.

“More than five hundred units were confiscated,” the anchorwoman was saying, gripping her sheaf of papers tightly. She suddenly looked very, very old. “However, meticulously kept records discovered with the drugs make it seem as though at least a quarter of that many had already been sold to undisclosed buyers.

“Following the tragic events that struck the nation following the widespread use of RG896, it is now illegal to buy or sell any quantity of the bioengineered virus for purposes other than medical research. Authorities are working around the clock to recover the missing doses, but so far there are no leads.” The report continued, but Seth got up and turned off the television, having heard all he needed to hear. Mara followed him, clutching his arm tightly.

“How could they do it? How could they do it after everything that happened?”

“Human nature,” Seth answered, staring at the dark screen. “When we want something, we’ll find a way to get it, by God. No matter how many people we have to kill. Maybe they think that because they’ve been vaccinated, it will protect them against a full blown infection.”

“Why would anyone take that risk?” Mara began to shake again and Seth wrapped his arms around her, wishing he could protect her from everything outside their door. “Is it really so much better to be dead than to grow old?” With no way to answer her question that would assuage either of their fears, Seth remained silent as he held her close.

Outside the window, snow began to fall.

Aftereffects - September

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:30:58 GMT

Sighing deeply, Catherine rearranged the cans in the cabinet for the fifth time since she had come home. There was nothing in her inventory that seemed even remotely appropriate for dinner. Of course, if Jack was here he would have already whipped something up with the pasta, the can of navy beans and the leftover asparagus, but since he was still at school it was up to her to put a meal together.

Even if she hadn’t had about a thousand things on her mind, she still wouldn’t have been able to come up with much. Catherine had never been any great shakes at cooking, but at least when she was single she could just eat spaghetti. At least Jack was creative. Thankfully, he was also teaching her to be creative. Tonight, the juices just weren’t flowing though. Like she didn’t already have enough on her mind.

“Explain to me how natural selection works again?” The front door slammed somewhere in the house and Catherine smiled. Ah yes. The new students were already having their usual effect on him.

“All the other really smart people get eaten by zombies and leave us to deal with the Great Entitled of America,” she said, kissing him on the cheek as he came into the kitchen and automatically opened the cupboard.

“Well, after seeing what the university has to offer me this semester, I’m beginning to wonder if the sweep didn’t miss a couple of ReGenerants.” Jack made a quick survey of the cabinet’s contents, then shut the door again with a grimace. “Maybe I should have Mara come by with her Big Bottle o’ Death and a couple of short needles.”

“I couldn’t think of anything for dinner either.”

“We should go out.” Leaning his head on her shoulder, Jack kissed the side of his new wife’s neck. “I think the end of the first week of school merits at least one or two shots of some expensive brown liquor.”

“None for me,” Catherine said, pulling away suddenly and turning to face him. Her cheeks were slightly pink, a sure sign that something was going on with her. Catherine didn’t blush easily. “I suppose it’s as good a time as any to tell you. We, my good man, happen to be pregnant.”

“Is this…” All of a sudden, Jack really wanted those drinks. “Is this the royal we?” Still blushing, Catherine nodded. “Oh, my God. Sweetheart!” With a grin wide enough to split his face, Jack threw his arms around her and hugged her as tight as he dared. “How long?”

“A month. I just missed my period the other day and went to the clinic. So Mara knows already.” She rolled her eyes. “Which means Seth knows and is almost certainly having a case of his sympathy worries.”

“Of course. That’s just Seth.” Jack hugged her again, wishing he had mastered the art of picking up a woman and spinning her around like they did in cheesy romantic comedies. “This is great! I can’t believe it. We’re going to have to get a bigger place and all kinds of stuff for the baby…”

“Jack,” laughing gently, Catherine touched his cheek. “We still have quite some time before we have to worry about any of that.”

“Well, we’re definitely going out to dinner now. And you can eat whatever you want, so don’t give me that diet crap.” Already opening his cell phone, Jack had started to pace around the kitchen table. “Hey, Seth. Yeah, she told me. Isn’t it great? What do you mean, poor kid? Better than you would, buddy!”

Catherine couldn’t help laughing as she listened to the conversation, filling in Seth’s words as Jack supplied his end. He looked over at her and shook his head, then disappeared into the hallway.

That had been the easy part, she thought as she absently touched her abdomen. It wouldn’t be long before she started expanding. Every woman in her family seemed to get enormous when they were pregnant and she was pretty sure she would be the same. Still, it wasn’t the idea of morning sickness or the inevitable expenses that had been bothering Catherine most of the day.

She, like the majority of the other survivors, had been vaccinated against the ReGenera virus almost immediately after it was reformulated. And like the others, her titers had remained high enough to indicate that she was able to fight off the disease should she become exposed. The fetus that slept, blissfully unaware that ReGenera had ever existed, in her womb was a different story. How much of her immunity would be passed on to her child, if any? The antibodies in her blood would protect her, certainly, but would they protect from birth? Would the baby need her own ReGenera prophylaxis series? And how much of a chance was there that any of the lingering side effects of the vaccine might be visited on them both?

“I swear to God, that boy is just not right sometimes.” Tucking his cell phone into his pocket as he came back into the kitchen, Jack wound his arms around Catherine’s waist. “How I’ve been friends with him this long is beyond me.”

“Let me guess, you started pestering him about marrying Mara again.”

“Pestering is such a strong word.” He kissed her softly, then cocked his head at her. “Something wrong?”

“Oh, no. Just thinking.”

Aftereffects - August

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 06:49:23 GMT

“Wow, it’s really bright outside today!” Squinting against the glare of the sun against the glass, Casey pulled back the bedroom curtains. It had been unseasonably cool all through the summer, leading some of the locals to believe that they would see snow before the mosquitoes even had time to lay eggs. However, it seemed like the weather was taking its revenge at last, just in time for school to begin. “We should go to the park or something while it’s this pretty.”

“Naw. Should buy you clothes while we got the chance.” The sentence was deliberately spoken, every word planned out before it saw air, and Casey turned to see Eric trying his best to maneuver himself into the wheelchair with one arm.

“Will you stop that? You’re going to hurt yourself.” More than just a note of disapproval in her voice, the girl hurried to the side of the bed and locked the wheels of the chair before it could roll away. “I don’t care what you think, you’re not strong enough to do that yet.”

“That’s my Angel,” he said, his words running together as if he had been drinking. “Never thought I’d see the day when you’d be takin’ care’a your Daddy.”

The vaccine hadn’t done as much harm as Reynolds had feared, though it seemed that the intravenous release of the virus had been mostly to blame. Much of Eric’s nervous system had been severely damaged, leaving him with the partial use of his left arm and almost no short term memory.

It had been the antibodies from his exposure, however, that proved most beneficial. It seemed that Eric Hendricks was possessed of an unusually strong immune response, which was more than likely responsible for the fact that he was never fully affected by the virus. Although he was left weakened and mostly paralyzed by the attack on his system, the deactivated copies of ReGenera that the tests found in his blood had been isolated and reproduced many times over for use as a serum to combat the early stages of infection in others. Eric, however, remembered very little of any of this. In fact, he remembered almost nothing of his time with the other survivors. Casey wasn’t sure this was such a bad thing.

“You know I don’t mind, Dad.” Some days he was able to remember that Casey wasn’t actually his daughter, but since he couldn’t quite remember who she was or why she was there with him, she had started to encourage the illusion. He had lost quite a bit of weight since becoming dependent on the wheelchair, so it wasn’t much of a chore to move him. “You’re just so stubborn sometimes.”

Even now Casey wasn’t sure why she had volunteered so quickly to take care of Eric. Perhaps it was the fact that she had pushed so hard for the group to take him along, so she felt somewhat responsible for his condition. More likely, she thought as she pushed Eric’s wheelchair down the hall to the kitchen, it was because they were both in the same boat. Their families were gone now, destroyed by the virus that had also incapacitated him, leaving them both alone. For Casey, who had loved her father dearly, and Eric, who would have given his life to save his daughter, the pieces fit naturally.

“What would you like to drink?” She placed a bowl of oatmeal on the table in front of him along with a spoon and a napkin, then turned and opened the refrigerator. “We’re almost out of milk, but there should be enough for you to have a glass.”

“Orange juice’d be better,” he said, picking up the spoon carefully and setting it into the still steaming oatmeal. Although it did make him feel like he had accomplished something when he was able to eat all of his cereal by himself, he was hoping that one of these days he could move on to something less mushy. “We got any orange juice?”

“That we do have,” answered Casey, holding up the carton cheerfully. She poured it into a bright red toddler’s cup that had a snap-on lid and a hole for a straw, remembering too late that it was the one that didn’t quite fit tightly. “Be careful with this one,” she said as she put it into his hand and watched him slowly lift it to his mouth.

“Thanks.” Eric was quiet as he took a long, noisy drink of the juice, then set the cup gingerly on the edge of the table. “We should go to the store at least. We should get some food for dinner.”

“Maybe we can go out later, if it stays sunny.” Casey picked up her own bowl of oatmeal and set it across the table from him, noticing just before she sat down that her glass of milk was still sitting on the counter. As she got back up, she bumped the underside of the table with her hip, sending the plastic cup on the corner falling toward Eric. “Aw, dammit!” She was more annoyed with the fact that she was going to have to help him change into dry clothes than her clumsiness. In his current state, getting clothes on and off him was an ordeal she didn’t enjoy repeating too many times a day.

Then, driven by a reflex that some part of his body remembered, Eric’s hand moved out and caught the cup before its top could pop off. For a long moment, he stared at the object as if he wasn’t sure what he was doing with it, then looked up at Casey for reassurance. All she could do was stare at his right hand, which for the past three months had been completely lifeless despite Reynolds’ continued neuromuscular testing.

“How did you do that?”

“I dunno. Maybe…maybe it means I’m getting back to my old self again.” The smile on his face was one of such hope that Casey forced herself to return it with a bob of her head as he tested his new strength by turning the cup right side up and setting it on the table. Another, more plausible theory was forming in her head though. She would have to call Catherine as soon as Eric was out of earshot.

He’s healing. The parts of his brain that were damaged are rebuilding themselves. Just like them. But it’s happening so slowly. Does that mean there’s hope?

Maybe the deactivated ReGenera virus in the vaccine hadn’t been quite as harmless as the doctors had thought. If that was the case, though…how much longer would it be until it started to affect him like it had the others?

Aftereffects - July

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 06:02:26 GMT

Mara was in the laundry room when he came in, completely focused on getting something out of the very bottom of the washing machine. Seth didn’t know how to explain it, but the combination of jeans, scrub top and bare feet made her more beautiful than he had ever seen her. As quietly as he could, he crept up and put his arms around her. Still easily startled at times, Mara stiffened for just a moment before relaxing back against his chest.

“Hi, sweetheart. How was work?” Instead of answering, Mara turned in his arms and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shirt. Seth felt his heart breaking for her. “Who was it today?”

“A little girl and her mother.” Her fingernails dug into his skin slightly as she clutched the thin fabric, losing the fight against tears once again. “I just don’t know how much longer I can take this, Seth.”

“It won’t be too much longer,” he said reassuringly as he pulled her over to the couch and tossed his keys onto the table. Mara curled up in a ball on his lap, her head resting against his chest while she picked at a thread on the pocket of his jeans. “If you think about how long it took for the cures to some of these other diseases to be discovered, then we’re actually doing pretty damn well.” There was no answer from his girlfriend, who seemed to be more focused on unraveling his pants.

Despite his continued objections to using humans as test subjects, the clinic had become the site of the first quiet administrations of Reynolds’ experimental ReGenera serum. In fact, the first batch out of the small lab he had set up on the Wisconsin side of the lake had worked quite well for some of the patients who were showing the early stages of infection. For many others, however, giving them large doses of saline would have been just as effective.

The serum had been reworked at least twice already and even though the current formulation seemed to be much more stable, Reynolds had continued working on it, trying to perfect tiny flaws in the coding and looking for a better carrier. Even now though, there were patients who had been exposed to the mutated strain of the virus (recently given the official name RG896:B) whose symptoms worsened even after administration of the serum at twice the dose.

“We go through these periods,” she murmured, abandoning the thread and putting her arms around Seth’s neck. “Days where there are no problems. This time it was almost a whole week. No reactions to the virus, no rejections of the serum or low titers…and then it’s like they come out of nowhere.”

“You said before that Reynolds makes sure they all realize that they might need more treatment, or that the treatment might not even work. But there aren’t any other options. They might as well try.”

“I think I’m losing my ability to rationalize this.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t do it anymore.” Ever since the first two nurses who worked with Mara refused to perform any more of the euthanasia, it had fallen to her to entirely take over the job. Though he spent a lot of his time trying to convince her to resign and let someone else worry about it, he didn’t begrudge her a few crying spells. In fact, he admired her greatly for being able to do her job without completely falling apart, as he was sure he would have done under similar circumstances. Just looking at some of the survivors made him so sad that he had decided to stick with assisting in rebuilding the damaged buildings and factories instead.

“Everyone else has already quit. If I quit too, then they’ll probably legalize using the patients for target practice or something.” It seemed that she was already bouncing back, which wasn’t unusual for Mara. Seth had come to understand that it was a part of how she handled tense situations. “I never realized how similar Texas and Wisconsin are in some ways.”

“Only one relies more on hunting than drinking.”

“I’d try to figure out which one, but it could take all night.” Mara glanced up at the clock. “And I’d hate to be the one to have to try and explain to Catherine that we were late to the rehearsal dinner because you presented me with one of the great riddles of the universe.” With that, she got up from the couch and went back into the laundry room to get the basket.

“Still can’t believe it’s tomorrow.” Seth went into the bedroom, sighing as he removed Peanut from the top of the small fish tank that Mara kept in the corner. “You know what she’ll do if she catches you up there.”

“Am I going to have to lock her in the bathroom again?” Narrowing her eyes at the cat, Mara put the full basket of clothes on the bed as Peanut wound herself through her ankles. “No use buttering me up, cat.”

“See, I told you she’d love you,” grinned Seth as he scooped up the cat and rubbed her stomach gently. “All she needed was a little time to get used to you.” Peanut purred noisily as Mara scratched under her chin lightly before starting to separate the laundry. “Now she just adores her new Mommy.” He set the cat on the floor and put his arms around Mara with a smile. “Just as much as I do.”

“I love you too, goofball.” Standing on her tiptoes, Mara kissed him while the orange cat stared at them from her place by the door.

I knew I should have peed in her suitcase when I had the chance.

Aftereffects - June

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 09:53:43 GMT

Although there were eight sets of numbers on each of the papers that fell into the printer’s tray, when Reynolds took the topmost off the pile the only column he wanted to see was the one at the far end. Though he was too engrossed in his reading to see, the entire lab came to a halt around him. When he breathed a sigh of relief, the tension in the air all but disappeared.

Without waiting to see what the rest of the papers looked like, he picked up the phone and hit the first number on speed dial, drumming his fingers impatiently on the edge of the desk as he waited for someone to pick up on the other end.

It had been a little over two months since they had stood in almost the exact same spot with their weapons drawn against the first recipient of the ReGenera vaccine, and things were slowly beginning to return to normal. After the broadcasts over the emergency radio channels had resumed and begun to inform people about what was happening, it wasn’t long before they were able to start rebuilding the channels of communication.

Those who had gone into hiding as soon as the trouble began or had stayed away from the larger cities hadn’t been exposed to the mutated version, and it was with them that Reynolds and the team of scientists from the Radisson began their efforts to contain the virus.

Much like the series of prophylactic vaccinations given to people who might be exposed to rabies, the ReGenera vaccination was administered in a series. One large dose for two weeks, followed by a week’s break, then a third, smaller dose afterwards. This was coupled with large doses of retroviral medications, and some people even added herbal medications and homeopathics to the mix just to be certain. A month later, the recipients of the prophylaxis had returned to the clinic to have their blood drawn to check their titers – the amount of antibodies their system had produced to combat the virus, should they be exposed. Since he wasn’t entirely sure how high a titer a person needed to combat the ReGenera virus, he had used the ideal rabies titer as a guide.

“Marx here.”

“Catherine. I’ve got some of our titer results back.” He looked down at the piece of paper clutched in his hand, the first hint of a smile playing across his face. “You’ll be pleased, I think.”

“Are we still using the rhabdoviral titers as our guide?” On her end of the line, he could hear the sound of a chair squeaking and papers being pushed aside. Catherine wasn’t the type to just take his word without seeing the results for herself.

“Yes. Along with the preliminary results from the mice.”

“Do we have a clear picture of how many are going to have to be revaccinated?” A door opened, followed by the hollow sound of heels on concrete. “Or at what dose we’ll have to readminister?”

“Very few, thankfully. Even with those whose titers are below the average, they still aren’t so low that I would consider restarting the series at full strength. There are…” Reynolds was suddenly cut off by a clicking sound from the line, and he pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the caller ID. “Are you on your way down here?”

“I should be there in just a moment.”

“All right, I’ll see you then.” He switched lines before Catherine had fully departed the conversation, wanting to spread the news even further. “Good news, Mara.”

“Good. I could certainly use some.” Since they had reopened the clinic, Mara had been working almost around the clock caring for the various and sundry people who had been affected in one way or another by the ReGenera virus. Between vaccinations, drawing blood for the titers and the day-to-day business of injuries sustained before and after the main incident, more and more people were panicking over the usual summer colds, thinking them to be a new strain of the virus. Unable to give them a definite answer, Mara was running out of anti-virals almost as quickly as she was running out of patience. “But I called to ask about the meds.”

“We’re doing what we can,” Reynolds said, leaning on the desk. “Just start giving those who have lighter symptoms lower doses and see if you can stretch what you’ve got. I’ll see what we can dig up.” He paused. “The titers are good.”

“That’s great,” Mara said wearily as a small child screeched in the background. “So the vaccine works. What about the serum?”

“Now that we’re certain the vaccine is going to be effective we can devote all our time to the serum.” He had been anticipating this question from her, since she had been better than most of the nurses and doctors they were able to scrounge up about asking it over and over. “It’s just a matter of testing it on the mice now.”

“I’ve got plenty of test subjects for you,” she said, lowering her voice so the patients who were almost certainly in the room with her wouldn’t hear. “We…I had to sleep five more today.”

The words never failed to chill Reynolds. Despite their efforts, some of the survivors who had gotten the vaccine had begun developing the symptoms of ReGenera toxicity, which led Reynolds to believe they had been sub clinical, but still infected. With no way to stop the progression of the virus, there had been no alternative but to begin quietly euthanizing the patients with overdoses of barbiturates, then destroying the bodies before the infection could spread. Somehow, Mara managed to remember every one of their names.

“We can’t test it on the patients,” Reynolds answered, shifting his gaze as Catherine walked into the testing area. “Not until we know what the effects will be.”

“The effects? They start showing symptoms and my team has no other option than to put them to sleep like animals before they turn into ReGenerants. What exactly do they have to lose, Reynolds?” The now-familiar voice was strained from fighting back tears in front of the patients, and Reynolds let his finger hover over the receiver.

“Why don’t you ask Eric?”

He hung up before she could reply.

Memory Remains

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 09:59:10 GMT

There must be some sort of rule that all hospitals have to keep their emergency room at roughly the same temperature as a meat locker, Eric thought as he sat back on the bed at the hospital. And that the blankets can’t have a higher thread count than the toilet paper.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Hendricks?” A short, stout nurse with brassy red hair poked her head around the edge of the curtain that separated the treatment room from the hall, and Eric noticed that her fingernails were decorated with red and blue star decals.

“Like I’ve been eaten by a wolf and shit off a cliff. Where’s my daughter?” He tried to sit up and was rewarded with another round of the dizziness that had convinced him to lie back on the bed in the first place.

“The pediatrician is just double checking to make sure that she doesn’t have any injuries that we didn’t catch the first time.” She came all the way into the room to check the drip rate on the fluids that were attached to the crook of his arm, and he thought about asking her for another blanket. “Angel was very lucky.”

“I know. I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t been there.” They must be running fucking ice water into my veins. It’s like this room is getting colder every minute. Before he could open his mouth to ask the nurse about that blanket, the curtain was ripped back and a small girl came bounding into his room.

“DADDY!” Grinning brightly and bearing no indication of the day’s trauma other than a Snoopy bandage on her upper arm, Angel launched herself onto the bed and hugged Eric tightly.

“Hello, my Angel.” The wounds on his arm and shoulder were deep, but the relief he felt at seeing his daughter’s smile overshadowed the pain somehow and he hugged her tightly. “How are you feeling?”

“I hadda got a shot.” Her round face slid into a pout as she pointed to the plastic strip that clashed crazily with her sundress. “They said so.”

“They were right,” Eric said seriously, looking up as his wife pulled the curtain closed behind her. She looked as if she was going to try and make Angel get down and he shook his head. “Daddy has to get some shots too.”

“Why?”

“Because that dog was sick, sweetheart. And if we didn’t get the shots, he might have made us sick, too.”

“He was bad sick.” Angel put her head on her father’s chest and stared at the catheter in his arm. He hoped she couldn’t feel how cold he was. “Wasn’t you scared, Daddy?”

“Yes. I was very scared.” Gently, he stroked the back of her head. One of her firecracker barrettes was gone, lost in the running or the fighting. Eric closed his eyes, suddenly struck by another wave of dizziness. “Scared that something might happen to my best girl.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

When he opened his eyes again he was still in the hospital, only now he was standing beside the bed instead of lying on it. For a moment he was confused, looking around the room and trying to figure out why he was there, but a moment later it was explained when the nurse held a small, brightly wrapped bundle toward him.

“Here’s your little girl, Mr. Hendricks. She’s a beauty.” It wasn’t an exaggeration. There had been a problem with Jenny’s uterus, so the little girl’s delivery by caesarian section had prevented any of the usual redness or strangely shaped head issues that seemed to plague newborns. Even if she had been purple with one eye, he still would have thought she was amazing, though.

Does it have to be this cold in here? It can’t be good for the babies to have the temperature this low. Maybe I should talk to the nurse. What if she catches a cold?

“Bring her down here so I can see her.” His wife, now the mother of his child, was heavily sedated but clear headed enough to hold the baby while they finished repairing her incisions, and Eric reluctantly handed her over. “She really is beautiful.”

“I think so. Angela is a perfect name for her.” Rubbing his arms, Eric looked around. “Jesus. Is it freezing in here to you too?”

“Sweetheart, I can’t feel anything below my chest.” Jenny tugged at the tiny knit cap they had fitted on the baby. “I am a little sad that we won’t be able to have any others, though.”

“I have a feeling I’m going to have enough on my hands taking care of the two of you,” he said, running a finger over the baby’s arm. It’s so small. How can she be so small? “At least if she’s anything like the rest of your family.”

“No. She’s going to be a little angel.”

“That’s what we should call her for short. Angel.” Eric reached out to touch her again and a storm of static passed over his eyes. Everything blurred for a moment as the room began to spin and he caught himself on the side of the bed. Jenny didn’t seem to notice. “Our…Angel.”

“Do you want to hold her again?”

“No…I…” Clutching his head with his icy hands, Eric staggered toward the door. None of the doctors or nurses in the operating room seemed to see his distress. “I don’t think…it’d be safe.”

“Of course it is, Daddy.”

Even through the buzzing that was starting to muffle the sounds in the room, he knew Angela’s voice. Forcing his head upward, he braced himself against the doorframe and squinted at her until his vision cleared.

She was smiling broadly, not like the last time he saw her, a little girl with one foot in preteen territory who had been begging him to get another hole in her ear for a month. His head cleared as she came toward him, warmth spreading through him as she put her arms around his chest. Feeling himself dangerously close to tears, Eric embraced his daughter.

“Can you ever forgive me, my Angel?”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” Her face was buried against his shirt, but his daughter’s voice was as clear as if she had been speaking right into his ear. “You saved me, Daddy.” There was no stopping the tears now, and he felt them falling into her hair as the darkness at the edges of the room crept closer. The chill was gone from the air, though, and all was finally quiet.

“I love you, my precious Angel.”

“I love you too, Daddy.”

21:45

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:39:44 GMT

It felt like hours had passed since she had first sat down with the files, and Catherine’s eyes were finally starting to burn. She slipped her reading glasses off the end of her nose and set them on top of the folder she had just closed. If nothing else, Reynolds was certainly thorough. For all her earlier criticism, it seemed that he had dedicated himself to making sure that he left nothing to chance in these results. Even if she kept reading for another couple of hours she was sure she would only find more of the same.

“Well?” Seeing that she had come to a stopping point, Reynolds approached from the opposite side of the room. The rest of the group still refused to fully accept his presence, a fact made plain by the blood that had pooled beneath the skin on the bridge of his nose, but when they saw him going toward Catherine they all stopped what they were doing to pay attention.

“Your research is sound. Do you actually have any of the vaccine prepared for testing on human patients?”

“I do. And I followed the exact same procedure that I’ve detailed in the research, only with the human component rather than the rodent. The genetics aren’t all that different, of course, but the fact remains that there is a significant risk with the first injection.” Reynolds knew the others could hear him and turned to face them. “That’s why I want to be the first subject.”

“No.” Shaking her head slowly, Catherine stood up. “Even if the risk was minimal, I couldn’t in good conscience let you do it. If it works, we’ll need your knowledge to start producing it for the other survivors. And if it doesn’t…”

“…we’ll need you to rework it so we can keep trying.” Jack finished, putting his hand on Catherine’s arm. “As much as the thought of your continued company thrills me, you’re the one with the brain.”

“Dr. Marx should be more than capable of resuming work, if it proves necessary. There was a reason I wanted her on my team, and it wasn’t because she made great coffee.”

“Her coffee is terrible, but that’s not the point.” Seth made his way over to the desk with Mara holding fast to his hand. “I’m sure there’s stuff you haven’t written down. Stuff only you’d know about ReGenera and about your tests.”

“We’re not gonna let you relieve your guilt by playing Russian Roulette with the vaccine,” added Mara. “Until we get this settled one way or another, you’re not allowed to die.”

“Then who exactly are we going to test the vaccine on? Some random person off the street?” Reynolds was starting to get irritated. He had spent the better part of a day talking himself into personally testing the vaccine and once again he was being vetoed. “I don’t think we’re going to engender much confidence in the rest of the survivors that way. Besides, it has to be someone that we are almost certain hasn’t been infected with either strain of the virus.”

“I’ll do it.”

The others had been so focused on their conversation that Eric, who was standing by the empty water cooler looking at the bulletin board, had been all but forgotten. They turned to look at him, half expecting another of his sarcastic remarks to follow the offer, but none was forthcoming.

“Eric…” Mara cast around desperately for a reason to talk him out of it, but could only come up with the sliver of information he had inadvertently divulged while they were eating. He had a daughter, maybe even a wife and other children, but she was not with him. If he had a family, they were most probably dead. Eric didn’t wait for her to say anything else.

“Let’s do this before it gets any later.”

* * *

“I’m going to inject the solution intravenously,” Reynolds said, his voice catching slightly in his throat as he tied the tourniquet around Eric’s arm. “It’s not the usual way vaccinations are delivered, but the results will be quicker. Good or bad.” The scent of alcohol was strong as the doctor swabbed his arm and picked up the syringe. It was about halfway full of a thin, straw-colored liquid and Eric found himself struck by the absurdity of it. Something like this should be red. Maybe blue, but definitely a primary color. “Are you…you’re sure about this?”

“Just get it over with.” Reynolds had obviously mistaken his distraction for hesitation, and Eric tried to smile. “I mean, I’ll sign the waiver if you want. But if I fall dead off your needle, your ass’ll be the first I take a bite out of when I get back up.”

“That seems fair,” laughed Reynolds, uncapping the needle. He wondered if he would have been this calm if they had let him sit in Eric’s place. “Unfortunate, but fair.”

“Unfortunate for you, maybe.”

“For both of us, I’m afraid. I really don’t have much of an ass.” The words that passed between them were too soft for the others to hear, and somehow that was as it should have been. Eric didn’t flinch as the needle pierced his vein and the contents of the syringe entered his bloodstream, but he did wince slightly when the tourniquet was removed. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I know all you docs are sadists anyway.”

“Not really. If I was a real sadist, I would have made the vaccine a giant suppository.” Reynolds stepped back through the semi-circle that the other five had formed and picked up one of the small caliber rifles from the table. Before he joined the firing squad, however, he extended a hand to Eric. “You’re a good man.”

The smile that accompanied the grip was one that the members of the unwilling group had never seen from the officer, yet it seemed more natural on his face than any of the scowls that had been directed their way. “Not hardly. Maybe this’ll make up for some it, though.” A tremor worked its way up his arm suddenly and Eric frowned as six weapons were immediately trained on his head. “Guess it really does work pretty quick.”

The only sound in the lab was that of the remaining mice scrabbling around in their luxurious bedding. No one breathed.

The survivors waited.

Possibilities

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 06:15:12 GMT

“Benjamin, could you get me a glass of lemonade?”

“It’s Paulie, Mom. And you can’t have anything with that much acid in it, remember?” Reynolds spoke gently to his mother, trying his best not to let his irritation show as he took the plastic cup from the table beside her bed and went toward the door. “I’ll get you some water.”

In the kitchen, his sister Joy was sitting at the kitchen table holding her head in her hands and a cigarette between her fingers. Reynolds took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and cracked it open, getting her attention. She lifted her head, revealing eyes rimmed with red.

“How is she?”

“Worse. She’s calling me Benjamin all the time now.” He poured half of the water into the cup, then set it onto the counter and fished a bottle of aspirin out of his pocket. He had been taking them in larger quantities this week, especially now that his mother had started calling him by his long-deceased father’s name. Deciding that six just wasn’t enough anymore, he shook out eight and downed them with the rest of the water.

“At least she calls you something. When I go in there, she just screams.” Shaking her head, she let out a shuddering sigh. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I really don’t.”

“I’ll take care of her this week if you want,” Reynolds said, sitting next to his sister and putting an arm around her shoulders. “You and Kevin go do something with the kids.” Joy looked up at him.

“You had her all last week, hon. I couldn’t do that to you again.”

“I don’t mind. Besides, if I’m watching her I don’t have to sit at work and feel so goddamn useless all the time.” The cigarette was looking very tempting, so he relieved her of it and took a drag. “I’m almost there, Joy. I’m so close, but it seems like right now all I’m finding are dead ends.”

“She doesn’t have much longer.”

“I know. And God help me, I’m torn between wanting her to go and wishing she would hang on long enough for me to be able to help her.”

“No one can help her, Paulie.”

The words gnawed at the back of Reynolds’ mind as he waited for the last set of CT scans to dry in the printer. He was almost itching with anticipation now. All of the data was finally coming together. On the screen, the scans showed the undeniable evidence that the large sections of the mouse brains that had been destroyed by Alzheimer’s disease were, in fact, repairing themselves. Even though he could see it, he needed to have the hard copies in his hand to truly believe it.

Images of his mother, not as the frightened shell she had been when he last saw her, but as the vibrant woman she had been for most of his life had been filling his mind most of the morning. Even though Lillian Reynolds had been dead for more than five years, he still mourned her every day.

Now, though, he was about to make sure that no one else’s mother would ever have to go through what she did. No other sons and daughters would have to watch the woman who had been the center of their universe slowly shrink into herself, losing everything that made her who she was, dying by inches instead of miles. Maybe he hadn’t been able to save his own mother, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t save others.

The timer on the radiograph printer dinged, and he retrieved the still-warm films from the tray so he could hold them up to the light. Beautiful. They were simply beautiful. Reynolds tore his gaze away from them to check the clock.

Jesus, is it already three in the morning? He looked down at his watch, just to make sure that the wall clock hadn’t run out of batteries. To his dismay, the numbers matched perfectly. Guess this will have to wait for morning.

It seemed so unfair. A breakthrough like this deserved to be heard right now, not to have to wait another five hours until those slackers at the board were able to drag themselves up to the building, he thought as he slipped the films into their protective sleeve and tucked them into the top drawer of his desk before picking up his keys and turning off the light. He supposed he really should get some sleep, though. If he was going to make the big presentation tomorrow, he’d want to look as good as possible.

As he drove home, he thought he could almost hear his mother’s voice whispering in his ear, like she had when he came home from college to visit. She thought he was asleep, but he always heard her. Every word.

“I love you, Paulie. I’m so proud of you.”

I love you too, Mom.

17:30

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 12:26:47 GMT

With the addition of Catherine to their number it had been impossible to fit any more passengers into the station wagon, so they left the rest of the hotel survivors with a small number of MREs and an assurance that they would return soon. There was very little talking between the passengers as the sun crept lower, and before long they were completely silent.

Eric was sharing the front seat with Reynolds again, though this time he had been the first to doze off. The others had followed suit one by one, with the exception of Casey, who was watching the lights come on in the windows as they passed. The scatterings of life were growing more infrequent as they drove further from Detroit, but the ones that were there gave her hope.

“Do you really think we’ll be able to save them?” The question was directed at the only other member of the group still awake, and Reynolds looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Any of them?”

“If they haven’t been exposed, yes.” He turned his eyes away from her and tried to concentrate on the road ahead. Though some of the streetlights were coming on already, it seemed that the majority of them had either gone out or had been broken. “I don’t know what we could do for them if they’re already infected.”

“Because you aren’t as close to that serum thing as you thought you were.” Casey finished the thought for him, leaning her forehead against the glass. “How will we know if they’ve been infected? Or exposed? How do we know that we haven’t been infected?”

“The airborne strain seems to be more virulent. It attacks and replicates a lot faster than the original, and kills within days as opposed to the weeks or months it took the originally modified strain. The fact that we haven’t died yet is our proof.” Even as he spoke, Reynolds wondered how much of this was true and how much of it he just wanted Casey, and thereby himself, to believe.

“There’s no in-between? No chance for a…a…” Still staring intently out at the passing world, Casey tried her best to wrench words from the darkness. “A missing link, I guess? Another strain?”

“We…I can’t be sure.” A bitter laugh shot past his lips before he could contain it. “That’s the trouble with viruses. With any kind of life, no matter how small or how many safeguards we think we can build into it with our…our arrogance. We can never really be sure.” His eyes returned to the mirror, this time finding Catherine asleep with her head on Jack’s shoulder. “No matter what the PR guys say.”

“Yeah,” Casey said softly, rubbing a hand across her eyes. “But it was their job to make sure that everybody believed that everything was going to be all right.” She met his reflected gaze, her words cutting through bone. “It was your job to make sure everything really was.”

He hadn’t asked any of them why they were there, how they came to be fighting for their lives in a ravaged motel or where their families had fallen. No matter what role he had played, what form he had taken in their individual nightmares, he knew that he had been the one to break, to tear, and to bleed them into the shapes they had become. Jack’s punch had only cemented it. Now, unable to face his part in this girl’s horror, Reynolds looked away.

“I’m not selling fairy tales anymore.”

They moved deeper into the stretches of darkness between the metroplex and suburbs, where neither could ignore the haphazard movement of the bushes or the animal growlings and moans that accompanied it. Reynolds tightened his grip on the wheel. Exhausted though she was, Casey couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes. The others were lucky they were already asleep.

“It was never meant to be this way.”

“Is anything?”

“I wanted to do something good. Something that would help people. Make their lives better, and more worthwhile.”

“Maybe you still can.”

Saving Face

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:32:14 GMT

“Your age is a part of who you are…showing it doesn’t have to be.” The soothing voice that spoke over the promotional video was almost hypnotic, playing in an endless loop as Reynolds sat in the outer office of the GenTech CEO. Despite the fact that he had come up with a large part of the copy for the damn thing, the only purpose it was currently serving was to send chills up his spine every time the woman began to extol the virtues of ReGenera. “A breakthrough in anti-aging technology…”

Trying to block out the words now, Reynolds stared down at the thick manila envelope that was balanced on his knees. Not since he had been stationed in a similarly uncomfortable chair outside the principal’s office in elementary school had he felt this nervous about a meeting, though he wasn’t sure why. Cooper would want to know about this, if only for the reason that it could have a detrimental effect on GenTech’s stock.

“Dr. Reynolds?” The secretary’s voice broke through the combination of his thoughts and the sultry-voiced woman on the video, and Reynolds stood up. “Mr. Cooper will see you now.”

“Thanks, Patty.” It wouldn’t occur to him until later that Patty, who had always been friendly to him in the past, didn’t look him in the eye as she motioned to the door. At that moment, however, Reynolds was more focused on getting into the office.

“Good morning, Jim,” he said, before he had even fully entered the room. James Cooper was sitting behind his desk with an impassive look on his face, his manicured fingers tented over the leather blotter. “I’m glad you got my email.”

“Email?” A slight frown creased the man’s brow, sending a fresh wave of ice through Reynolds’ veins. “I don’t recall getting any email from you. In any case, that’s not the reason you’re here. I asked Patty to bring you in here today to discuss the unauthorized research you have been conducting.”

“Unauthorized?” Reynolds gripped the manila folder tighter. “No, the only research I’ve been doing is with the ReGenera virus. And, unless I’ve been grossly misinformed, that is the reason I’m employed here.”

“Correct. But you’re supposed to be working on the next generation of ReGenera, Reynolds. Improving it. Making it more cost effective and easier to mass produce, not fiddling around with those damned rodents, trying to nitpick a perfect product to death.” With every word he spoke, Cooper’s hand was coming closer to a thin blue folder on the corner of his desk. Suddenly, Reynolds was absolutely certain that he did not want to know what was in that folder.

“Nitpicking, sir? No, I…I…” The corner of the folder was under the CEO’s finger now, and he was drawing it toward the center of the desk as Reynolds fumbled for the words he had been carefully preparing all morning. “I’m simply trying to work out the bugs. Trying to find out what side effects need to be addressed before the next generation can be created.”

“There are independent labs to worry about the side effects,” Cooper said, waving aside the words impatiently. “And so far there have been no problems reported by any of our thousands of consumers. Thousands, Reynolds.”

“Sir, that’s not what…”

“Let me make this perfectly clear.” Neatly clipping off the end of Reynolds’ reply, Cooper opened the folder and took out a single piece of cream colored paper. “GenTech is extremely grateful for all the work you’ve done for us. However, we feel that it might be more advantageous for everyone involved for someone else to take over your position with the company.”

“You’re firing me.”

“Now, how would it look if we fired the public face of ReGenera? We’re simply dissolving our partnership in order for you to pursue other avenues of research, which was a mutual decision on the part of yourself and the company.” Withdrawing a pen from the drawer of his desk, Cooper pushed it across to Reynolds with the typed letter. “At least, that’s what this states. Now, if you’d be so good as to sign it for us…”

“And what if I refuse?”

“Ah.” The paper slipped back an inch. “That would be most unfortunate. As much as it would pain us, we might be forced to disclose certain facts to potential employers. Such as misuse of company resources, disappearance of funds earmarked for research…” The smile on his face told Reynolds that there were levels to which he would stoop that he wasn’t about to be caught on video disclosing, and he motioned to the paper again. “Or you could sign this and we could all save face.”

Reynolds picked up the paper and scanned it. The letter was short and to the point, describing the compensation he would receive and benefits he would retain as the original creator of ReGenera while outlining the privileges that were being taken away without room for negotiation. In reality, it was just a convoluted way of saying that he was a fool for ever having believed any of GenTech’s promises.

With no other options before him, Reynolds picked up the pen as the ReGenera tagline continued to play softly in the outer office.

ReGenera…your possibilities are endless.

14:00

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:03:13 GMT

“So what’s the plan now?” Catherine sat at the end of the table that was still pushed up against the door for protection, looking at Eric, who seemed to be the one in charge. Mara was making her way around the conference room, handing out one of the sealed MREs Seth had found to each of the handful of survivors.

“Do you have a preference? We have several kinds.”

“Anything is fine. Thank you.” The intern accepted the brown plastic package and opened it without hesitation. For the first day and a half after they had locked themselves into the conference room, the group had slowly expanded to include not just the original ReGenera panel members, but several hotel employees and guests that had been deemed safe. They had gone out in groups of two or three in search of food, bringing back bottled water and whatever they could scavenge from the vending machines, since the kitchen was on the bottom floor and harder to access safely.

“Did everyone get something?” Mara scanned the room to make sure that no one had been left out. “There are plenty left, so if you’re still hungry when you finish, please make sure you ask for more.” She carried the still-bulging backpack over to where the others were sitting, except for Casey, who was helping to feed a small child while her mother worked on her own meal. “Everyone’s okay, I think. Just tired.”

“The mutation of the virus makes things more complicated,” Reynolds said as Mara sat down beside Seth and put her head on his shoulder. “But that makes the research I’ve been doing so much more important.”

“Was that why you had the mouse with you?” Even from her place by the wall with the little girl, Casey was still paying attention.

“Exactly. That particular mouse had been exposed to the ReGenera virus at a level over 100 times the normal concentration. However, despite his exposure to both the original and mutated strains, he is completely asymptomatic and had been for at least a month.” He paused a moment to let the others consider this before continuing. “And I think I’m close enough to a serum that can help the others.”

“How?” Catherine sat up straight. “How did you do it?”

“For lack of a better word, I came up with a vaccine. Almost exactly the same as ReGenera itself, but without the ability to destroy cells. It’s hard to explain, I’m sure no one but Dr. Marx would fully grasp what I’m talking about, but I believe that by using this vaccine along with massive doses of anti-viral drugs, we could stop the spread of the virus before more damage is done.”

There was a long silence as the small group looked at one another. Mara shook her head slowly. “But what about the others? The ones that are already infected?”

“As yet, I don’t have a solution. Like I said, I’m working on something that might be able to help them, but only if the waste product hasn’t completely degraded their system. If they’ve already been…ReGenerated…there’s nothing we can do for them.” Reynolds cleared his throat. “Also, I haven’t tested the vaccine on humans yet. The only data I have is with the mice. I wasn’t expecting…” His voice trailed away as he looked at the people in the room, huddled along the walls like refugees and clinging to one another as if each moment together could be their last. “…anything like this.”

“What are we talking about here?” Eric asked, folding his arms over his chest. “Risk-wise with this vaccine, I mean. Death? Infection?”

“Both. The first two or three batches of mice either died instantly or changed within ten minutes, but that was quite some time back. I’ve been successful with enough groups that I was willing to start human testing as soon as I could get approval. I was hoping that it would be sooner rather than later with the results I was bringing.” Closing his eyes, Reynolds ran a hand through his hair, which Mara noticed had already become thinner than when she saw him on television.

The only sounds in the conference room were the soft crunchings and rustlings of the pre-packaged food being consumed. Seth leaned his head on Mara’s as she pulled at a corner of her fingernail, and Jack put an arm around Catherine’s shoulders. With the exception of the people who were eating, they were all still wearing masks.

“Let me see the data,” Catherine finally said, her voice betraying no emotion whatsoever. “Let me, and what’s left of my team here, look over it and see what you’ve come up with. If it’s sound, then…” She rubbed her forehead. “Then we’ll talk about what we can do next.” Nods and murmurs of agreement went around the room as the survivors took in this new information. Reynolds stood up.

“As soon as they finish eating, we’ll fit as many people as we can into the station wagon and go back to my lab. We may not get there until after dark, so we’ll have to be careful. But as long as we can get enough fuel and stay ahead of them, we should be fine once we get there.” He didn’t mention anything about needing a test subject if they were going to go forward. He didn’t want to have to mention it at all.

“Just don’t be too shocked by the lab,” Seth said, trying his best to lighten the situation. “It looks like a low budget horror movie set.” The others, including Reynolds, laughed weakly, and he broke away from the group to get a bottle of water.

As he walked toward the back of the room, something shining near the baseboard caught his eye. He bent over to pick it up, then felt a cold chill race down his spine as he recognized the fancy “R” design he had come up with for the gold lapel pins. This one was useless now that it had lost its backing, and he chuckled at the irony. Funny how that worked.

Catherine

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 05:38:16 GMT

All things considered, Catherine was pretty sure that the first round of discussion about ReGenera had gone well. Her hosts had felt otherwise, discouraged by the sight of at least four or five of the gold lapel pins on the opposing team that clearly said that they weren’t only proponents of the drug, they were also being treated with it. She wasn’t too concerned. After seeing her data, even they had looked a little uncomfortable, which she took as a victory.

“Don’t worry,” she told one of the interns who had come with her from the university calmly as she slid her keycard into the door of her room. “They were looking jumpy already, and they haven’t even seen the second half of the presentation.”

“It just feels like we’re outnumbered in there, Dr. Marx. They all had their arms folded. Did you see that? That means they weren’t even receptive to suggestion. My teacher said that in Psyche 101.”

“Yes, well, there hasn’t been a boardroom made that could withstand some of my fiancé’s patented PowerPoint slide magic. Look, why don’t you meet me back here in twenty minutes and we’ll all go grab some lunch. Refresh, recharge, and regroup to start again in two hours.” The young man nodded enthusiastically, and she watched him scurry off toward his room with a sigh. She couldn’t remember being so young that she believed everything her professors said. That couldn’t be a good sign.

Catherine tossed her papers onto the desk and executed an excellent three point shot with her empty water bottle before unclipping her hair and rubbing the back of her head. The intern was worrying for nothing, she thought as she picked up the hotel phone again and poked at the receiver. There was still only that annoying rapid dial tone that you heard when the lines were down, and she flipped open her cell phone. Still plenty of bars. That was good. She was just about to send Jack another quick text message when she heard something that sounded like a scream from outside on the pavement. The message forgotten for the moment, she hurried to the window to see what was going on.

A car had swerved off the road and hit a light post, the speed at which it had hit the pole wrapping the front end almost completely around it. There was someone staggering toward the car, and for a brief moment Catherine thought that maybe this was one of the occupants who had somehow been thrown free. Something was strange about the way the person was walking, though, and it only took a few moments for her to realize that there was something very wrong with the whole situation as the staggering person punched out the driver’s side window and proceeded to pull the driver through it and attempt to tear off her face.

“Holy shit!” Not knowing exactly what she was going to do but knowing she had to do something, Catherine ran for the door. She had barely made it into the hall when she saw one of the women from the meeting fall face first onto the floor. “Holy shit.” The scene on the street fled from her mind as she knelt beside the woman, checking for a pulse. As she touched the woman, a hand flew up and grabbed at the sleeve of her shirt.

“Cold,” the woman moaned, her voice sounding strained. “So…so cold…” She was still holding Catherine’s shirt when she started to seizure, and the delicate fabric of the shirt tore loudly as the women moved in opposite directions.

“Hold on,” Catherine said, looking around for a first aid kit or defibrillator in the hallway. She wasn’t a medical doctor, but she’d taken CPR classes and was fairly certain that she was about to have to use them. Before she could locate anything, though, the woman’s spasms stopped abruptly and she fell to the floor, motionless. Catherine checked once more for a pulse, but this time there was nothing. Shaking her head, she stood up and headed for the elevator. When she got downstairs, she would have to notify someone. She just hoped that someone had managed to break up whatever was going on down in the street.

It didn’t take long for those hopes to be dashed. By the time she made it out of the hotel, it seemed that all hell had broken loose in the streets of Detroit. She couldn’t quite comprehend what she was seeing, but she knew that it involved something burning, wrecked cars and an obscene amount of blood.

Deciding that she was probably better off back in her room with everything piled against the door, Catherine turned and ran back into the hotel. The hotel manager was coming toward her with a horrified look on his face and a ring of keys clutched in his sweaty hand.

“What’s going on out there?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not good. Lock the doors and don’t let anyone in. I…uh…” Catherine realized that had no idea what she was going to do. “I’m going to go upstairs and…” Her words were interrupted as something smashed against the front window, sending long cracks from floor to ceiling. The manager recoiled, then stepped backwards when he saw the large fan of blood that was smeared across the glass. It wasn’t far enough backwards, however, to keep the arm that smashed through the weakened window from grabbing him and pulling him partially through it.

Trying to block out the high-pitched shrieking that somehow seemed incongruous to the image of the rather sedate manager she had met just hours ago, Catherine ducked into the stairwell before his screaming turned to a series of weak, gurgling protests. She made it back to her floor in record time to find the intern and several other scientists from her group in the hall around the dead woman.

“What’s going on? Who’s screaming?”

“I don’t know,” Catherine said, trying to remain calm. “But something very, very wrong is happening and we should get somewhere safe right now.” She looked behind her. “The conference room has those thick, soundproof doors. We’ll get in there and push the table against the door. Grab everyone else from our group and make sure we don’t leave anyone.”

As the others fanned out to gather the rest of the scientists that had spoken at the meeting earlier, something caught Catherine’s attention and she turned to the dead woman who was still laying in the exact same place. She frowned. For a second it had looked like her leg was moving. That was crazy, though. She was most certainly dead, Catherine was sure of that. And although she felt bad leaving her lying on the carpet, there really wasn’t much else she could do with her.

After all, it’s not like she’s going to get up and walk away.

15:45

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 04:17:37 GMT

From the moment they drove into downtown Detroit, the entire group in the car had fallen silent, unable to speak for fear of turning the nightmare into reality. Although they hadn’t been expecting the city to be going about business as usual, they also hadn’t expected it to be quite this bad.

In contrast to the deserted feel of the small towns they had passed through on their way, Detroit looked like it had been very nearly destroyed. Most of the shop fronts had been smashed, and the contents that hadn’t been stolen spilled from the broken windows into the streets like entrails. Less fortunate were the burned-out shells of restaurants and office buildings, inside which could be seen the charred skeletal remains of what could have just as easily been normal humans as ReGenerants.

Reynolds was the first to break the silence as he maneuvered the car around the still-smoldering wreck of a Jeep that was laying upside down in the middle of the room. Casey could see a woman’s arm sticking out of the windshield, and she turned away, suddenly nauseous.

“The…ah…the Radisson is up ahead. We’ll pull into the parking garage and get as close to the door as we possibly can.” There was no answer from the other occupants of the car, and Seth looked at Jack worriedly. He hadn’t spoken at all since they passed the Detroit city limits, focusing instead on opening and closing his cell phone, which had long since gone dead.

“Look,” Casey said, her voice so soft it was almost a whisper. “There are other survivors here.” Mara followed her gaze to the upper windows of some of the loft apartments and office buildings that had escaped the worst of the damage. Faces, haggard and lifeless, peered through windows and curtains at the slow-moving vehicle as if it was the first they had ever seen, and Casey raised a hand to wave at them.

“It’s a bigger city,” replied Mara just as softly. “There were probably survivors back home too, but we just see more of them here. I wonder if they’ve been in there the whole time.” She wasn’t surprised to see that no one returned Casey’s gesture.

“I wish we could help them.”

“We couldn’t help all of them.” Seth touched Mara’s arm gently, directing her attention to the building that was rapidly approaching. Despite the fact that most of the windows had been blown out on the bottom floors and a car was lodged in the side of the wall, the Radisson looked as if it had escaped the brunt of the damage. “There.”

Silence filled the cab again as Reynolds pulled through the rear entrance into the parking garage, bringing the car so close to the sliding glass door that it looked like they might have to crawl out the windows. Apparently the electric eye that controlled the doors had been disabled as well, as the doors remained closed.

“We’ll have to pull it open,” Eric said, opening the passenger door and squeezing into the small space that was between the car and door. Reynolds joined him and they proceeded to try to wrench the doors open from both sides while the others put on their masks and loaded their newly acquired weapons. Jack was the only one who hadn’t moved, and Seth leaned forward.

“Jack. Put on your mask. We’re gonna go find Catherine.”

“What’s the use?” Turning the depleted cell phone over in his hands again, Jack shook his head. “You saw what it looked like out there. Do you really think we’re going to find her alive?”

“We’ve come too far not to try,” Mara said, putting a hand on his shoulder. Her voice was somewhat muffled by the mask, but her words were sincere. “Let’s not keep her waiting any longer.”

“Got it,” Eric shouted, pulling one of the doors open just wide enough for Reynolds to get between them and push from the middle. “These things are heavy, kids, let’s not jack around!”

“Come on.” Casey slid out of the car first, her rifle in hand, and Jack resignedly pulled the strap of the mask around the back of his head and followed her. Seth and Mara weren’t far behind, and the small group squeezed through the doors quickly.

The lobby of the Radisson was every bit as deserted as the streets outside, though it seemed to have suffered much less damage than the office lobby at the motel. This was not to say it hadn’t seen its share of the battle, however, and Reynolds’ words echoed in her head as she noticed that here, too, the furniture had been turned over and destroyed.

There’s only one way an animal can react in a situation like that. They attack.

Rather than chancing the elevator, they took the stairs to the third floor and cautiously made their way down the hallway. There was no damage to the walls or doors up here, which made it all the eerier after everything else they had seen.

“Which room was she in?” Eric looked up and down the hall at the rows of identical doors, and Jack frowned slightly, trying to remember. He was exhausted, and it showed.

“354, I think.”

By way of a response, Eric found Room 354 and began to pound furiously on the door. “Hey! Catherine Marx! Are you in there? We’re looking for Catherine MARX!” There was no answer, but Mara and Seth began to follow suit, banging on other doors.

“Catherine Marx! We are looking for Catherine Marx, or any other survivors!” Mara started at one end of the hall, shouting as loud as her gas mask would allow, while Seth went to the opposite end and Casey headed around the corner to the adjoining hallway with Reynolds while Eric continued to work on the doors alongside 354.

Jack stood back, surprised and deeply touched at their reaction. Not just Seth, who he had known for years, but Mara, Eric, Casey and Reynolds as well. These were people he just met, who he had only known for a matter of days, and here they were going to bat for him while he edged closer to a nervous breakdown. He looked at the cell phone, which was still in his hand, opened it one last time to look at the blank screen, then dropped it on the carpet and went to help Eric.

“Hey, Jack!” Casey’s cheerful voice called out from around the corner, and everyone stopped what they were doing to look as she fairly bounded out of the doorway, pulling an auburn-haired woman behind her. The woman, wearing a pair of torn black slacks and a dirty silk blouse, looked exhausted and scared but there was no mistaking the eyes that peered over the top of the surgical mask.

“Jack…” She hurried toward him, falling into his arms as if she had been saving all her strength for this one moment. Jack held her tightly, praying that this wasn’t another dream. “I knew you’d make it.”

“You did?”

“Of course.” Catherine’s mouth was covered by the mask, but it was obvious that she was grinning. “If I could do it, there was no way you wouldn’t.”

Reynolds and Catherine

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:44:31 GMT

While the others were discussing the details of salary and benefits with the GenTech human resources rep, the woman in the burgundy suit looked at the slender lavender folder with a slightly raised eyebrow, then back at Reynolds. He smiled encouragingly in her direction, then found himself becoming more unsettled as she stood up and walked over to him.

“Dr. Reynolds.”

“That would be me. And you are Dr. Marx, am I correct?”

“Yes. Catherine Marx.” She extended a hand to him, tucking the folder under her arm smoothly. “I have a couple of questions for you that your lovely overview didn’t quite cover.”

“Feel free to ask them,” Reynolds said, motioning for her to follow him into the hallway. “I wouldn’t want anyone here to take the job without being fully comfortable with what we’re doing here. You worked for the viral research lab at Alcor, if I remember your CV properly.”

“Also correct. Which is why I feel justified in asking this.” They had barely stepped into the hallway when Catherine turned to face him, her eyes locking onto his. “What exactly do you plan to do with this product?”

“Right to the point, I see.”

“I find it saves time.”

“Dr. Marx, let me be frank. I feel that ReGenera has great potential to help even patients in the most advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease regain function in the areas of their brains that have been destroyed. That’s why I developed it in the first place.”

“Then why is it being marketed like some sort of cosmetic treatment?”

“GenTech feels that introducing it to the elective market beforehand will give us a chance to earn the needed funding…”

“I see.” Catherine cut him off abruptly. She took the folder out from under her arm and held it out to him. “I’m sorry Dr. Reynolds, but I’m not interested in entering the cosmetic drug industry.”

“To be perfectly honest with you, neither am I. However, if I can continue my research through the funding GenTech will provide, then I don’t see any real problem with starting out by touting its cosmetic benefits.” Catherine looked like she was going to say something, but he held up a hand. “Wait.” Ducking back into the office, Reynolds opened his briefcase and pulled out a thick manila folder, then returned to the hall where Catherine was looking impatient. “Here.”

“What is this?” She flipped through the folder, which was filled with monographs and charts. “Your research results?”

“Yes. Condensed slightly, but I brought them along in case any of the candidates wanted a more in depth look at what we would be working on. Any of the candidates I was particularly interested in, that is.” Reynolds watched as she thumbed through the papers quickly.

“Dr. Reynolds...”

“You’ll be here the rest of the afternoon. Please take that with you and read it over lunch before you make any decisions. There’s more than just the cosmetic monograph in that file, a large portion of my original research is in there as well.”

“Original research?”

“Yes. GenTech seems to have felt it necessary to make a few adjustments to the formulation before it can be offered to the ‘outpatient market,’ if you will. You and the others would most likely be working with the strain of ReGenera that is closer to my original design for ultimate release to the terminal and palliative care markets.” He realized that he was speaking rather quickly, but Catherine was already looking like she was about to refuse again.

“What I’m seeing in here that disturbs me is that while you have a great deal of data on your original strain, as you put it, there is little to no discussion of the long-term effects of ReGenera on the test subjects.” Closing the folder, she looked up at him. “And yet your representatives speak as if they will be ready to release it for use to dermatologists just as soon as the FDA approves it.”

“I admit that the company is trying to move things along a little more quickly than I would prefer,” Reynolds said, taking both the presentation folder and the manila folder back from Catherine. “But unless they have made some major changes to the virus that I don’t know about, I can’t see that the results would differ too greatly from my original research.”

“Then perhaps you’d better find out more about what changes they plan to make before you let them get it out on the market,” Catherine said, shaking her head. “Unless you plan on being their scapegoat when the lawsuits start. Companies like GenTech are rarely loyal, even to their top scientists. Good day, Dr. Reynolds.”

As he watched her walk down the hall, Reynolds looked down at the manila folder in his hand. Somehow, without even trying, the woman had managed to bring up every one of his fears about taking ReGenera public so quickly. The old, familiar knot was forming in the pit of his stomach as he walked back into the conference room and tucked his research back into his briefcase.

Not one of the other scientists had asked to see it.

Starting Monday, he was going to expand his research to include the new strain whether GenTech liked it or not. Surely everything would be fine.

11:00

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 05:45:46 GMT

“I don’t like dill pickles,” Casey said, pulling them off her microwave hamburger. “Daddy used to put sweet relish on our burgers, and I guess I just got spoiled.”

“My girl’d eat anything.” Almost draining his bottle of water in a single gulp, Eric washed down his first sandwich and moved on to the second. “Maybe it’s because she hadn’t made it to the teenager phase yet.” This was the first any of them had heard of their surly companion having a family of any sort, and Mara was just trying to decide whether or not to ask him about his daughter when Jack pushed aside his lunch.

“This is just fascinating,” he said, standing up from the table abruptly and almost upsetting Casey’s open can of soda. “But we still have to get to Detroit. If ReGenera is airborne now, then it’s even more important that we get there and find her.” The others looked at one another, avoiding his eyes as best they could. With everything they had learned in the last few days, even Seth was becoming less and less optimistic about what they would find in Detroit.

“Jack,” he began, looking to Mara for support. She shook her head, at a loss for the first time. “Even if our truck hadn’t been overturned by ReGenerants, I’m starting to think that if she’s anywhere as intelligent as you’ve told me, Catherine is going to have gotten the hell out of there.”

“We still have to try,” Jack said stubbornly. “Otherwise all of this will have been for nothing. I know Catherine. She’s not going to try to find us, she’s going to stay where she is and try and help other survivors. We can find a car somewhere, but we can’t just give up.” His voice had taken on a somewhat pleading tone that Seth didn’t like. As long as he had known him, Jack had never been a man to beg.

Reynolds, who had been eating the sandwich Mara gave him at a desk across the room (she had deemed him worthy of food but not of eating with the rest of the group), cleared his throat. “You know, I was going to Detroit anyway. And I would love to get my hands on some more of the scientists at that meeting if any are still alive. With things being the way they are, I may not have to do as much convincing as I originally thought.” His suggestion was greeted by a warehouse full of silence.

“As much as I’d like to hit you with something for putting us all in this position,” Mara said, fishing another chip from the bag, “You do seem to be our best option if we’re moving forward.”

“We’re going to need more than just a car, though,” Eric said, wiping his mouth. “I’m not going into a city full of things that are probably breathing this shit into the air without some kind of protection.”

“I have plenty of gas masks,” Reynolds supplied eagerly. “Once we saw the data from the mice, I started making sure my team wore them anytime we interacted with them. It’s unlikely that we could contract anything from the test mice, but the virus has mutated once already and I didn’t want to take any chances.”

“So our lungs are protected. What about weapons? I don’t suppose you have a stockpile of guns and other implements of destruction around here.”

“No luck there, sorry.” A thoughtful look came over Reynolds’ face as he pushed his chair away from the desk and went over to a large box in the corner. “There is a GigaMart around here though. They sell guns, if I remember correctly.”

“I know they do in Texas,” said Mara brightly.

“They sell them at drug stores in Texas,” Seth said, rolling his eyes as he dodged the kick that he already knew was coming his way. “Right next to the fishing lures.”

“Excuse me? I know I saw at least fifteen gas stations advertising Live Bait on the way from Green Bay, buddy.” She turned to Reynolds, who was still rummaging through the box. “Can you think of anything else we’re going to need?”

“I’d say you’re pretty well covered.” The bottom of the box seemed to be eluding him, but he continued to dig. “Where the hell did I leave that thing?”

“What are you looking for?”

“This.” Looking relieved, Reynolds held up a black that looked vaguely like a squared off gun with yellow stripes on the end. “The only thing that could really be used as a weapon in here, unless you can swing a microscope.” Eric recognized it immediately.

“That’s a hell of a powerful Taser,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “How did you manage to come by one of those?”

“One of my assistants was mugged earlier this year and he couldn’t bring himself to buy a gun. I’m not sure where he got this thing from, but he was dragging it around for a couple of months before he left it here.” Reynolds turned it over in his hands. “Not even really sure how it works. And while I’m sure it couldn’t actually kill a ReGenerant, the electrical charge could probably knock them down long enough to get past.”

“We’ll take it along,” Eric said, holding out a hand. “Or I’ll take it. The last thing we need is for one of you to discharge it into yourselves.” Reynolds looked more than happy to hand it over.

“If we’re gonna make it to the GigaMart and Detroit before dark, we’d better get going now,” Mara said, glancing at her watch. “Where are those gas masks?”

“Over in the storeroom. I’ll show you.” The rest of the group followed Mara in the direction of the hallway that Reynolds was motioning, with Jack bringing up the rear. As he passed, Reynolds tried his best to act casual. “So, Catherine is your wife?”

“Fiancée.”

“Ah. Does she work with the CDC or the FDA?”

“Neither. She works with BioEthic, but she was hired as an independent consultant since she’s been involved with engineered virus strains before.” Jack thought he saw a strange look pass over Reynolds’ face. “What?”

“It’s nothing.” Turning his attention to the end of the hall, the doctor pushed past Jack to direct the others to the storeroom. “Last door on the left. There should be a box on the second shelf.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at Reynolds’ back. Yeah, sure. Nothing.

Lab Rats

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 06:45:15 GMT

It’s never a good sign when your assistants meet you in the parking lot. When the news they bring is so bad that it can’t wait until you’re inside with a cup of coffee, that is when it is truly time to panic. As he pulled the key out of the ignition, Reynolds went through every possible scenario in his mind, hoping to brace himself for whatever Peter was about to tell him. With results like those he had just been showing the GenTech higher-ups, he couldn’t imagine it would be good.

“Dr. Reynolds?”

“Good morning, Peter.” He closed the door and started toward the building, where the younger man was almost dancing from foot to foot.

“How was your meeting, sir?”

Oh, dear God, Reynolds though, gripping the handle of his briefcase. He’s trying to soften the blow. “Just say it, Peter. What happened?”

“Well, first, we found out why the mice are dying. It’s a waste product produced by the virus, and it’s causing something that looks suspiciously like PSE. But…there’s something else going on now, too.” Peter paused, looking as if he was trying to figure out how to phrase what was on his mind. “It’s…well, it’s just plain…”

“Bad?”

“Fucked up, sir.” They walked down the main hall, completely bypassing Reynolds’ office and heading into the test animal room. Cages upon cages of rats and mice were lined neatly on the sterile metal racks, filling the room with the familiar, mousy aroma of pine shavings and urine. Several cages had been pulled from the group and were sitting in the middle of a large table alongside a scale and some trash bags.

Reynolds looked into one of the cages, where four large mice were walking rather unsteadily around the perimeter. One of them ran headfirst into the plastic, leaving a pinkish smear on the corner before turning and moving in the opposite direction. All four of them had the same staggering gait, and he looked up at Peter.

“Is this a different manifestation of the encephalopathy?” The other rodents had exhibited signs of dizziness and nausea in the beginning stages of their decline, no doubt caused by whatever waste product his team had found. But this was different. This almost looked like head trauma. “Or did something happen to these rats?”

“Something happened, all right. They’re dead.” Peter’s words didn’t seem to be making any sense. How could the mice be dead if they were still walking around? Maybe, he thought, Peter meant there was no cure.

“What, like they say in prison? ‘Dead Mouse Walking?’”

“No, sir. Actually…dead.” Somewhat hesitantly, Peter picked up a thick rubber glove and opened the top of the cage. Almost instantly, the demeanor of the mice changed. They went from wandering dazedly around their habitat to attacking the gloved hand of the scientist as if it was trying to kill them. Thankfully, the glove was thick and the tiny teeth couldn’t penetrate its layers.

“They look pretty damned alive to me,” Reynolds said as Peter picked up one of the mice by the tiny scruff of its neck so that it couldn’t bite him.

“They have no heartbeat.” There was a stethoscope nearby with a miniature bell specifically made for examining small creatures and premature babies, and Reynolds fit the ends into his ears. The mouse immediately set about trying to attack him. Peter kept a firm hold on the creature as Reynolds confirmed that his information was true.

There was, indeed, nothing even resembling a heartbeat in the tiny animal. Moreover, there were no lung sounds on either side and no gut or abdominal sounds either. Somehow, every aspect of the mouse’s system had ceased to function and yet the damned thing was still alive and trying to bite him.

“How did you find this out?”

“Last night before we left, there were another fifty or sixty dead. I knew you would probably want to necropsy them yourself with the new developments, so we put them in a bag and set them aside. When we came in this morning, the bag was on the floor and these…things…were wandering around.” He scratched the back of his head nervously with his free hand. “I swear to God they were dead last night. We confirmed every one of them.”

“I believe you.” Reynolds motioned for him to put the mouse back in its cage as he hung up the stethoscope, but Peter shook his head.

“There’s something else, though. A lot of them got…stomped on when they tried to attack us, but we caught a few for testing.” He reached over and picked up a large pair of shears that they used for cutting wire, then dropped the mouse onto the table. Unprovoked, it immediately resumed its aimless wandering as Peter slipped the blades of the shears under its tail. Before Reynolds could even ask what he was doing, he snipped the mouse’s tail off at the base and it fell to the table.

The mouse never flinched. It continued walking toward the edge of the table and Peter dumped it back into the box with the others. Only a single drop of blood on the stub of its tail gave the slightest evidence that anything had happened to it. The tail itself lay on the table, moving back and forth lazily as if it didn’t even realize it had been detached from its host.

“Dear God.”

“Sir?”

“Get me a camera. They wouldn’t listen before, but they’ll damn sure listen to me now.”

10:20

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 04:01:15 GMT

“I suppose you could call it a sort of side effect,” Reynolds said, looking around the two card tables and assorted folding chairs that served as a conference room in his makeshift lab. Jack was sitting as far away from the doctor as possible, which Mara had insisted upon if they were going to keep the situation from degrading into another scuffle.

“No, Reynolds, side effects are nausea and dry mouth. These are zombies.” It was obvious that it was taking a lot of effort for her not to raise her voice at him, and her pointed refusal to refer to him as ‘Doctor’ was an error he thought it best to overlook. She looked like she was about to say something else too, but Seth cut her off.

“Why are they dying? I mean, we already pretty much know why they come back to life, but what’s making them die in the first place?”

“That’s a little more complicated. Apparently when the virus replicates itself, it produces a waste product that is very similar in structure to ammonia, which passes into the bloodstream. When enough of the waste product gets into the system, it overloads the liver’s ability to detoxify the blood and produces a syndrome similar to portal-systemic encephalopathy.”

“What’s that?” Casey turned to Mara, slightly confused. Reynolds couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed that she wasn’t asking him, but he decided that this wasn’t the time to pull rank.

“It’s what happens when there’s a defect in the liver that keeps it from taking all the garbage out of the blood. Ammonia gets re-routed into the brain and makes the patient really sick.” Mara glanced over at Reynolds, who was looking somewhat surprised at her answer. “Don’t let the boots fool you. I’m a nurse.”

“What happens to them?” Ignoring the waves of tension that were bouncing around the room, Casey looked between Reynolds and Mara. “Does the ammonia in their brains make them die?”

“Eventually.” Taking the conversation back, Reynolds picked up a sheaf of papers and flipped through them. “It starts out with nausea, vomiting, dizziness and headaches, which get progressively worse. Finally, as the system becomes more toxic, it shuts down the organs and causes cardiac arrest. It’s the same with ReGenera, only a bit faster because of the rate at which the virus replicates.”

“And you didn’t think this was significant?” Jack spoke up from the other end of the room, dripping venom with each word. “Just let the doctors deal with it when their patients start dropping off in droves. Can’t let anything stand in the way of getting rid of those unsightly crow’s feet, can we?”

“Of course I thought it was significant,” snapped Reynolds, losing his patience with the man who had punched him. “But the virus I engineered didn’t create this waste product. The only mice that died in my original experiments died of Alzheimer’s disease, because the virus didn’t work on them. When they modified it for use as a cosmetic treatment, they changed some things. I never intended it to be used like this.”

“But you still let them,” Mara said, narrowing her eyes. “I saw you on television, hawking that stuff like it was the best thing since bottled water. You can’t tell me that you had nothing to do with it.”

“ReGenera had the potential to make more money as a cosmetic than a medical treatment. GenTech promised me that in exchange for letting them market it as they saw fit and helping them promote it, I could continue my research and possibly find a medical distributor for it later. I’m not proud of it, but I agreed.”

“I’m sure the money didn’t hurt, either,” Jack mumbled, looking away.

“How could something like this get onto the market?” Seth gave his friend a warning look. “I mean, don’t they make sure you’ve fully tested it before they approve it for use in people?”

“You’d be shocked how fast the FDA gives approval to certain drugs,” Reynolds said, a hint of bitterness in his voice. “Especially the ones that can make them money. I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that a lot of the people who do the approving also are some of the people who do the investing. As long as they can see some sort of results, they don’t mind overlooking the rest. Why do you think so many drugs are recalled later?

“I continued testing on the mice even after it was approved and shipped out to the clinics because I wasn’t convinced that we were seeing the full cycle. Some people feel that long term effects aren’t important in terminally ill patients, but I do. That’s when I started testing the finished product on the mice and seeing the deaths. But because we did the necropsies so soon after they died, the brain had already been removed and destroyed. There was no evidence of the ReGeneration yet.”

“How did you find out?”

“Purely by accident. And I can assure you that as soon as I realized what this meant for the thousands of people who were being treated with ReGenera, I went straight to the board and demanded they stop production until we could find out what might happen to the patients who had already received it. I thought we could maybe treat them with anti-viral drugs, dialysis… ” Reynolds held out a hand, motioning grandly around the warehouse. “As you can see, they didn’t take the news very well.”

“They fired you?” For the first time since they had arrived, Mara actually looked around at the warehouse. There were rows of file cabinets along the back wall and catwalk, tables covered with glass tubes and bottles, and long baker’s racks containing numerous plastic rodent habitats that were lined with what looked like light green confetti. All of a sudden, the light came on. “You’re still doing research.”

“There’s still one thing I don’t quite get,” Casey said, her eyes focused on something far in the distance. “Why are they so violent? Are they really just trying to spread the virus?”

“It is the imperative of a virus to replicate,” answered Reynolds, shaking his head. “Once the resources of the host body are exhausted, it would have to find a way to infect others. But that’s not quite the case here. When the brain reactivates itself, for lack of a better term, it’s like a clean slate. No memories, none of the social rules that are instilled in us from birth. I think what’s happening to these…zombies…”

“We’ve been calling them ReGenerants,” Mara interjected.

“All right. When these ReGenerants start functioning again, they have basically regressed to the level of an animal. A very scared, very sick animal with something inside it telling it that it has to keep going when all it wants to do is lay down and die. There’s only one way an animal can react in a situation like that.

“They attack.”

Mutation

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:31:50 GMT

Reynolds stood over the carbon dioxide chamber, watching the mice stumble wildly into the glass, smearing it with foamy pink saliva as they began to asphyxiate. He couldn’t believe that they were still trying to bite one another while they were dying, yet there they were. It would have been so much easier to just kill them outright, but he couldn’t take the chance. The chamber would have to do until they were at least dead enough to throw into the incinerator. Even then, he wasn’t sure he’d be taking off his mask anytime soon.

A young man with tousled red hair and circles under his eyes pushed open the door and looked around. The lower half of his face was covered by a thick rubber gas mask as well. Reynolds nodded.

“How many are there now?”

“Over two hundred.” Then, anticipating the doctor’s next question, he shook his head. “No direct contact between populations.”

“Unbelievable.” There was a cold, hard knot in the pit of Reynolds’ stomach, but he kept his eyes on the C02 tank, where one of the mice seemed to have started to seizure. Its ink drop eyes looked as if they might pop free of their sockets as its muscles tightened again, yet it still hung fast to the neck of its motionless brother. He couldn’t make himself look away.

“That’s not all, Dr. Reynolds.”

“There’s more?” He had heard the hesitance in the younger scientist’s voice when he first spoke but was hoping it was just a reaction to the fate of the mice in the chamber. It looked like he was to have no such luck.

“It’s happening faster.” The words hung in the air like a death sentence, and Reynolds closed his eyes. “The mice with the mutated strain are changing faster than those infected with the original.”

“Thank you, Peter. I’ll be finished in a moment.” The door closed again as Peter went out into the hall to enter this new data, leaving Reynolds alone to stare the slowly dying mice.

It started out simply enough. The infected mice would bite other mice, which would become infected and bite the other mice and so forth until everyone in their section of the population was infected. With no one else to victimize, they soon began to use all their energy in attempts to get out of the cage and find others to whom they could spread it. Quite a few of them had been killed in the process.

Then, just about a week or two ago, the mice in the cages around the infected population had begun to die without warning. All of their test subjects were housed in AALAS approved cages with plastic sides and wire grille lids that kept their food out of their bedding, lined up on metal baker’s racks scavenged from a local market, but there was no way for the populations to mix.

Peter had been the one to first suggest that the virus might have mutated to allow airborne infection. At first, Reynolds had denied that such a thing could even happen, but he had allowed the younger man to set up several small, controlled experiments anyway. And when the data came back, he had been forced to admit that it was true. With nowhere else to go and nothing else to infect, the ReGenera virus had found a way to break free of its engineered constraints. It was in the air.

The implications were staggering. Even if it was transmitted simply through contact with bodily fluids, like biting, a hundred victims could easily beget three hundred just by attacking two people. From what he had seen, though, it was highly unlikely for them to stop at two if they got the chance. And now, if it was airborne…

Visions of elevators, office buildings and shopping malls with their recycled air exchange systems flew through his head and Reynolds swayed on his feet. Hundreds of people. Thousands of people potentially affected by something as simple as breathing. A dose of nerve gas into the subway was nothing compared to this.

The last of the mice fell over in the tank, and Reynolds picked up a double thickness black trash bag as he turned off the carbon dioxide. Stuffing the tiny bodies into the bag as quickly as possible, he tied the ends into a knot before adjusting his mask and heading into the hallway. Peter was standing next to the bank of filing cabinets in the old warehouse that Reynolds had converted into a laboratory, trying to find one of the folders that had been hurriedly thrown into the drawers during the hasty move.

“Everything okay, boss?”

“Just superb.” He walked past Peter, who somehow looked older today. It was almost as if he had aged twenty years in the last two weeks, a feeling Reynolds was understanding more and more. “By the way, Peter?”

“Yes, sir?”

“It’s completely up to you of course, but if I were you…” Something in the bottom of the bag was shifting, and Reynolds quickened his step toward the incinerator. “I’d…ah…I’d start wearing my mask outside of work.”

Reynolds

Sat, 11 Mar 2006 05:46:45 GMT

The public face of ReGenera was having an ethical dilemma. For at least half an hour now he had been sitting very still in the driver’s seat of his beat up station wagon, watching a steady stream of the living dead make their way up the street. Normally (if there was anything about this situation that you could call normal) if one of them had caught sight of him in the car, they would have made a beeline for it immediately. Now, even though he was certain that at least five of them had seen him, they were ignoring him in favor of something else.

“What it could be is beyond me though,” he said to no one in particular. An enormous white mouse in a Kritter Karrier opened one eye, looked up at him, then rolled over and went about its sleeping. “You are very little help, you know.” The mouse yawned, by way of a response. “If you weren’t so important, I’d throw you out to the…uh, the zombies. I guess.” He decided to attribute the mouse’s lack of enthusiasm to the fact that his words were probably distorted by the gas mask that covered his mouth.

Since his very quiet removal from his lucrative position as head scientist at GenTech, Dr. Paul Reynolds had been getting progressively further out of touch with reality. It hadn’t stopped him from doing research, though. And the pages of results that he was coming up with were making him a lot less confident about letting ReGenera stay on the market.

Which was why he had been in the station wagon to begin with.

Right after he pulled the last mouse out of the C02 chamber (and summarily tossed it into the incinerator before it could start moving again), he had gathered his papers, put them in his briefcase and was about to head to Detroit in the hopes that he wasn’t too late to give them his revised opinion of ReGenera. As much as he hated to admit that he was wrong, this was much more important than pride.

He hadn’t counted on the zombies.

It was true that he had been the one who had thought up the idea for ReGenera, even coming up with that cunning little idea to give everyone who had been treated those little gold lapel pins as a subtle advertising scheme, but it hadn’t originally been his intent to market it as a cosmetic drug.

“The root of all evil, I believe they call it,” he commented to the mouse, who had decided that he wasn’t going to stop talking anytime soon and was now rummaging through a pile of finely shredded money for some of the food blocks it had hidden away. Soon after he had realized the implications of the lab results, he had started running at least a thousand dollars a day through the cross-cut shredder and using it for rodent bedding. The mice didn’t much like the smell of it, but it was soft and easy to burrow into, so they made do. “Also known as the world’s most expensive mouse nest.”

When he was a kid, Reynolds had dreamed of finding a cure for cancer. Unlike some childhood dreams, though, his had persisted through college, medical school and numerous failed experiments until he was sure that he had found the answer. Not exactly the cure for cancer, but something almost as good.

What he had discovered was a drug that had the potential to reverse the effects of both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases by reconstructing the parts of the brain that were destroyed from the ground up. He had watched his mother slowly lose her memory, then control of her bodily functions and finally her life, all of them claimed one at a time by Alzheimer’s over the agonizing span of ten years. If his research succeeded, he would be sparing millions of people that same pain, not to mention sparing their families the expense and torture as well. How could something like that possibly be a bad thing? When he had presented it to the board at GenTech, he been almost certain that his mother would have been proud of him.

“Probably a little too late to say it was a bad idea,” Reynolds said to the mouse as he watched another group of zombies amble their way toward the group, as if they were homing in on something.

He was still thinking about how things could have gone so horribly wrong when he heard the shooting. Reynolds wondered for a moment if it was possible for one or two of them to have figured out how to use weapons, but he didn’t have long to wonder about it before other, different shots rang out. The ethical dilemma kicked in right about then, and he wondered whether he should go try to help. Even though he had no weapons. And no idea what was going on. Nevertheless, there were people over there. Normal people, who were probably going to need some help. When the shots began to come further and further apart, his mind was made up.

“Paul Reynolds, agent of the great Deus ex Machina,” he said, flooring the accelerator and causing the mouse to fly backwards into the plastic wall with a surprised squeak. “Sorry, little guy. I’ll get some fresh fifties for you when we get back to the lab.” He sped down the street, not bothering to swerve around the wandering dead as they stepped into his path. After all, it wasn’t like they couldn’t just get back up.

Reynolds was really glad his mother couldn’t see him now.

8:57

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:14:01 GMT

Almost half an hour after Eric had fired the first shot at the ReGenerants in the parking lot, it seemed like there was still no end in sight. As easy as it would have been to blame it on the less than stellar shooting skills of some of the members of the group, the truth was obvious. There were just too many of them.

“Where are they all coming from?” Casey, who had pulled herself together quickly, was shaking the last of a box of shells into her hand as she peered out the peephole in the door. “I swear I’ve shot that same guy three times.”

“They’re all starting to look alike to me too,” Mara said, straightening up and throwing her rifle to the floor in disgust. “Dammit! That’s it for my ammo.”

“We should have brought all of it. I never should have agreed to leave any in the truck.” In their hurry to get the food and water into the hotel rooms before it got too dark, the group had made the decision to only unload some of the guns and ammunition. Eric had started kicking himself the minute he looked out the window and saw the wreck of their vehicle.

“We never thought there would be this many,” said Jack, taking aim at a female ReGenerant that was stumbling toward the main building. Before this, he had never really held a gun and was having trouble getting off shots anywhere near as accurate as the girls. He didn’t think it was really fair to compare himself to Eric, who had obviously had training, so he left him out of it.

“Where are they all coming from?” Seth repeated Casey’s earlier question as he pulled the trigger of his own gun and heard only the click of the hammer on an empty chamber. “There weren’t this many of them before. They seem to just be coming out of the woodwork.”

“My guess would be that it’s some sort of swarm reaction.” Finally pulling the trigger, Jack was disappointed to see that his shot had gone low, catching the woman in the stomach. While this was enough to slow her down for a moment, it wasn’t the effect he had been going for. “I was afraid of this when we were at the trailer park. It seems like as soon as we start attacking their group, they not only retaliate, but others in the area come to their assistance.”

“I think you’re giving these things way too much credit,” Eric said, tossing aside his shotgun and picking up one of the handguns. “You actually trying to tell me that they’re helping each other?”

“No. That would require a level of brain function that these things don’t have.” Jack looked up from his gun, relieved that he could stop trying to shoot for a minute. Seth was almost as bad as he was, but not quite. It was embarrassing, really. “I think it’s more along the lines of instinct. Or the reaction of viral cells to the body’s immune system.”

“Normal viral cells don’t swarm, Jack.” Mara was rummaging through her bag in the hopes that she might find one or two more bullets, so she didn’t see the look he gave her over his glasses.

“What exactly about this virus has been normal?”

“Dammit!” Throwing her bag aside, Mara began to massage her temples so hard that it made her see stars. “Nothing. We’ve got nothing.” Abandoning his empty weapon, Seth went over to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “I can’t believe we were so stupid!” She gave her bag a vicious kick, as if it had caused the whole thing, and Seth hugged her tightly.

“That’s not helping anything.”

“Mine’s empty too,” Casey said softly, shaking her head. “I think we’re all empty, and they’re still coming out of the woods.” She looked over at Eric, who had already dropped the first handgun and was halfway through one clip on the second. “Or just about empty, anyway.”

“What are we going to do now?” Seth’s question was directed mainly at Eric and Jack, who were concentrating on keeping the faster ReGenerants away from the windows. “We can’t do this much longer.”

“All of you get into one of the other rooms,” Eric said, his voice grim. “Pull the food and water into the bathroom and stack it in the tub, then get in the bathroom and close the door.” He reached over and took the gun from Jack’s hands, much to the other man’s relief. “I’ll have more luck with this than you, I think, and we can’t afford to waste any more bullets anyways.”

“Be my guest.”

“As soon as I fire the last shell, I’ll join you guys in there. If they break in through the windows, we can at least shut ourselves in the bathroom for a while. They may be strong, but they can’t figure out locks yet. Maybe if we stay quiet and low long enough, they’ll go away.” The tone of his voice clearly said that this idea was a long shot, but it was all they had. Mara reacted quickly.

“Right. Everybody grab something and we’ll head into the furthest room. Hiding out has worked for us before, there’s no reason why it can’t work this time.” She forced herself not to think about the fact that there were a whole lot fewer ReGenerants before, or that they also hadn’t been swarming like this before.

“We’ll get the water,” Jack said, grabbing Seth’s shirt sleeve. “I think each of us can probably carry two cases.”

“Yeah, the MREs are much…” Whatever Seth had been about to say was clipped neatly off by something that sounded suspiciously like a rapidly approaching vehicle, and he frowned. “What the hell?”

“I’ll be damned,” Eric said, standing up suddenly. “That’s the only other car I’ve seen in two days.” Before the others could join him at the window, he suddenly began to back away, almost falling over the chair he had been using. “And it’s coming right at us. Get out of the way!”

There was a mad scramble for the bathroom, which they assumed would be the safest place if the person in the car was about to drive through the wall, but they hadn’t even made it inside when the vehicle turned sharply and pulled up alongside the door, knocking over several of the closest ReGenerants in the process. Through the window, they could see a man in a button down shirt and tie motioning frantically for them to come with him. At least, that’s what it looked like he wanted. It was impossible to tell for sure, since the entire lower half of his face was covered with a bulky, military style gas mask. Without hesitation, Mara grabbed her bag off the floor and slung it over her shoulder as she headed for the door.

“What have we got to lose?”

ReGenerant

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 07:04:02 GMT

At some point, though it felt like it must have been a long time ago, there had been a name. Now it was buried along with everything else in what was left of his mind. Memory had been the first to go, his childhood traumas evaporating into nothingness, followed quickly by college, marriage, fatherhood. He could no longer remember where he had been or what he was doing a month ago, or even a week ago. The longer he walked, the less he remembered. It seemed like the information was falling away piece by piece, disappearing and being replaced by…what?

Emptiness. White noise. The neurological equivalent of television static projected on the back of his eyes in an endless loop while his body continued to pull him along whatever path it had determined for them.

Just moving around seemed hard enough, though. Every part of his body felt stiff, as if he hadn’t used it in a long time, but the more he made himself move the easier it seemed to get. Much like his memory, however, the stiffness and occasional aching of his limbs was also fading away. It had started with his extremities; toes and fingers first, followed by the rest of his hands and feet. Whatever was happening to him wasn’t painful at all, just…strange. It was almost like his body was disconnecting from itself.

Early morning was the best time for him, though. Snippets of memory came to him from within the static more frequently then, and the odd sensation of losing more and more of his body was forgotten as he tried to capture some of his past for a moment. The only thing he could remember now was the last day before his memory had started to go, and he held firmly to this as long as he possibly could.

He had gone to work as usual, though he couldn’t quite remember where that had been. Somewhere he had been required to wear a long white coat, apparently, and gloves. Thick, rubber gloves. Pieces of the memory were missing now, while still others seemed to have been blurred over. Something on a silver table that looked like a woman’s body, with his gloved hands reaching toward it. Things went dark again then, though whether it was his fading memory or something else was uncertain.

While he tried to remember, he kept walking down the deserted street. Just ahead he could see a building and, coming toward it from all directions, were others like himself. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but he knew it just the same. Though it was tempting to try and ask the others if they had any answers, he had already tried it once and given up when he couldn’t remember how to put the words together or how to make his mouth form them properly.

Sitting in the parking lot outside the building was a large vehicle, the name of which eluded him. It wasn’t important, but there was something about the object itself that drew him and the others toward it. The closer he got, the more aware he became of a smell coming from the vehicle. He lifted his head in a manner that was decidedly canine and inhaled. Around him, others were doing the same.

At the same time his memory began to fail, other senses had started to sharpen, as if they were trying to compensate for the loss. Where before he had needed fairly strong prescription lenses to read and drive, now he was able to see details and colors that he never would have believed existed. And as for the smells…

Even if his mind had been intact, he wouldn’t have been able to describe it. However, something about it was lighting up hidden areas in his head. He needed it. Needed it so badly that it was like an ache in his bones, sending thin trails of saliva spilling over his lips and down his chin. Whatever was giving off that smell was inside the vehicle. They had to get into the vehicle.

He joined the others as they surrounded the truck, hands running over the metal feverishly as they searched for a way to get in, to find the owner of the smell and devour it before it could fade with the rest of their memories. When they could find no immediate way to get into the Suburban, their curiosity turned to frustration. The hands and fingers that had been searching before were now clawing, digging, pounding as hard as they could, trying to force their way inside. Something about the clear part of the door drew him and without even really knowing why, he reached up and touched it once before punching his fist through it.

The plastic coated safety glass didn’t shatter as readily as normal glass, but it was still sharp enough to slice into his arm, leaving wounds deep enough to part muscle and reveal the bones of his wrist. Strangely enough, there was no pain. But as he withdrew his arm from the window, something unusual did happen.

He remembered his name.

The words were gone almost as soon as they came to him, and the sudden realization of what he had lost brought forth an unparalleled rage in Sam Jarvis. Ignoring the blood oozing from his wrist, he grabbed the handle of the door and wrenched it off the frame with an animalistic howl. The other ReGenerants answered back with voices of their own, then proceeded to help him tear the vehicle apart.

The memories would never come to him again.

8:30

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 06:13:01 GMT

The first thing that Seth was aware of as he slowly swam toward consciousness was that something was laying on his chest. Wondering how Peanut had managed to get the bedroom door open again, he opened his eyes and was just about to shoo the cat away when he remembered that Peanut did not have long brown hair.

Mara was still sleeping quite soundly, her cheek pressed against his bare chest in almost the exact position she had fallen asleep the night before, and he couldn’t help but smile at the look on her face. For once she was completely peaceful, at ease and absolutely beautiful.

Rolling onto his side, he put an arm around her so that they would still be as close as possible to one another and Mara shifted a little, opening her eyes slowly. As soon as she realized where she was, a smile spread across her face and she slipped her arms around his neck.

“Good morning,” she said, almost shyly. “I guess this means you kind of like me too, huh?”

“Maybe just a little.” Grinning, Seth kissed her again. “I will expect some kind of compensation for those pajama pants, though. I’ve already lost a car in this ordeal and I’m near the edge.”

“Goofball.” Mara rolled over and looked at the small travel clock that was on the nightstand. “Eight? Were we not sleeping in today?” She turned back to him and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, wait a minute…you men are just insatiable.”

“Huh?” Genuinely perplexed, Seth shook his head and reached for his glasses. “I didn’t know it was so early.” Mara was still giving him a look, and he sighed. “No, that is not why I woke up. I think something must have…”

A crashing noise from outside the building cut off whatever he had been about to say, and someone began to scream nearby. Recognizing it immediately as Casey’s voice, Mara leapt out of the bed and pulled on her t-shirt while Seth went to the window.

“Oh, holy shit.”

“What is it?” She was hopping on one foot, trying to pull on her shorts, and Seth pulled back the curtain just enough so she could see what was going on outside. “You have got to be kidding me.” In the next room, Casey was still screaming and Eric’s voice had been added to the mix. Tearing her eyes away from the window, Mara unlocked the door and crossed into her room, where the girl was laying facedown on the bed sobbing. Jack was standing by the window, his face completely pale, and Eric was attempting to comfort Casey and load his shotgun at the same time.

“Where the Hell did they all come from?” Jack’s voice was strained as he clutched the drapes, unable to look away. Mara sat on the bed next to Casey and gathered the crying teenager into her arms as Seth came into the room, smoothing down his hair. He joined Jack at the window without a word.

No less than thirty ReGenerants had surrounded the Suburban that they had taken from Casey’s parents’ house, and while it may have posed a formidable obstacle for them when it was fully functioning, it was no longer in any shape to take them the rest of the way to Detroit. The windows had been smashed by hands trying to find a way into the vehicle before they had given up and simply begun ripping the body of the truck apart. This, apparently, was after they had turned it onto its side.

“They’re so strong,” Seth said, shaking his head. “How the hell are they this strong?”

“I don’t think that it’s so much that they’re that much stronger than normal,” Eric interjected, pulling a chair over to the window. “Thirty people together could probably push over an SUV easily.”

“Could thirty people together also tear the doors off a large vehicle?” There was a silence as Eric ran his hands along the edges of the windowsill, which had at some point in time been painted shut.

“Doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s happened and there’s nothing we can do about it. The only thing we can do right now is try our best to get rid of as many of them as we can and find another mode of transportation. Unless we’re giving up on the idea of making it to Detroit?” There was no answer, and he nodded. “Right.”

“Okay, then, what’s the plan here?” Mara was still trying to comfort Casey, but wasn’t about to be left out of the conversation. “I just want to be clear on this.”

“The plan is simple. Take out as many of the bastards as we can.” Unable to find a way to open the window, Eric used the barrel of the gun to knock a small hole in the glass big enough to fire out of. “We’ll knock ‘em down with simple headshots, and once we’ve got all of them down we can head outside and finish off any we need to.”

“You really think we can kill all of them?”

“Right now I don’t see any other option, do you?” Before Mara could answer, he took aim at one of the ReGenerants and fired. The creature’s head exploded in spectacular fashion, causing several of the ones in its vicinity to turn in its direction as it hit the ground. They poked at it cautiously, giving Eric time to reload while the rest of the group looked on. Seth, surprisingly, was the first one to speak.

“Guess we should get our guns.”

Breaking News II

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 07:32:19 GMT

“Closer to home, it seems that the local emergency room is seeing a record number of patients this evening.” The anchorman’s face was devoid of most of its usual cheer as he straightened the papers in front of him on the desk. “Maria Munoz is live on location at St. Anne’s Hospital with the full story.”

“Thank you, Richard. Here at St. Anne’s, doctors are looking into the reason for the sudden influx of trauma patients with little success.” The olive-skinned reporter motioned to the waiting room of the hospital emergency room, which was packed with men, women and children of all ages. Some were sitting on the brightly colored waiting room chairs, but many more were either standing or sitting along the walls. “The majority of these patients came in less than an hour ago, and almost all of them are telling the same strange story.”

“A woman came out of nowhere,” said a young man who was holding a towel over his forearm. The small towel had obviously been white at one point, but all that was left of its original color was a tiny corner where the blood hadn’t had a chance to soak through. “She grabbed me and I thought she was going to ask for directions or something, but her eyes were…weird looking. When I tried to pull away from her, she bit me. I had to hit her with my backpack to get her off me.”

“Other patients are reporting similar incidents,” Munoz said as the camera switched back to her. “The common thread between all these cases, however, is that the victims were bitten after their initial contact with their attackers.” She walked past two more benches full of patients and pushed open what appeared to be an office door. Inside, a doctor was examining a woman who was lying on a gurney. “Doctor, are all these people here for the same reason?”

“Not all of them, Maria,” he said, pulling his stethoscope out of his ears and giving the woman in the bed an encouraging smile. The cameraman was careful to keep her face out of the shot, as per the agreement, but still took in the IV fluid bags and catheter that were hooked to her arms. “Some patients, like this one here, have come in for what we refer to as our ‘usual’ after-hours maladies.”

“Such as?”

“Fever, dizziness, trouble breathing…the sort of thing that simply can’t wait until the morning when the family doctor arrives. However, we are seeing a significantly greater amount of trauma victims this evening and have yet to come up with a satisfying explanation as to why this is happening.” The doctor walked with Maria down another hallway and motioned to a triage area where nurses were working three at a time to try and sort all the patients into treatment areas.

“No explanation at all, doctor?”

“Not a satisfying one by any means. The closest thing I can come up with is…” His words were cut off by a static-filled voice over the intercom that piped up in conjunction with a flashing blue light over one of the treatment rooms.

“Code blue,” the voice said, its message clear despite the staticky distortion. “Code blue, ER 12.”

“Excuse me.” There were already several nurses and another doctor hurrying down the hall toward the room, pushing a large red cart with a defibrillator balanced precariously on top. Another nurse followed behind, her mouth pressed almost flush with a black walkie-talkie, and the reporter’s microphone picked up a snippet of conversation from two interns who happened to be standing nearby watching the scene.

“…damn. That’s number five tonight.”

“Have you ever heard of an ER having five codes in a row?”

“Not any ER I’ve ever been in.”

“What’s going on here?”

“As you can see,” Maria said, stepping away from the two interns, “Doctors have no explanation for this strange epidemic of trauma, for lack of a better description. Between attempts to figure out what is happening with these new patients and their usual steady business of emergency cases, it looks like it’s going to be a busy night here in the emergency room at St. Anne’s.” The camera lingered on the closed door of the treatment room, over which the blue light had abruptly stopped flashing.

“For Detroit’s Action News, I’m Maria Munoz.”