Chuck Hogan by The Blood Artists (epub)

Author:The Blood Artists (epub)
Format: epub
Published: 2013-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

The Language of Disease

He thought of wide-open spaces. He thought of breezes across acres of pastel tulips and pictured himself in the branches of the oak tree that had cooled the house of his childhood in spring. He conjured up the robin's eggshell of a cloudless sky overhead and started his mother down the long path from their front door to the mailbox. He watched the cross-breeze toss hair around her face. Proudly he watched her hands feel for the mailbox. It was empty and she rested a moment before starting back. She turned so that the tulip breeze washed her hair from her face. She was beautiful and she was blind He dropped down from the tree branch and surprised her at the door with the mail in hand and then followed her inside for lunch.

"You wouldn't last one night in here."

Stephen's voice pulled Maryk back into the B4 lab. He was looking out the aquarium window into the larger subterranean basement of Building Seven. The door that led to the stairs that led above ground was six doors away.

Maryk detested his claustrophobia. He released his grip on the sill and his breathing came back under control. He could at least work through the early strains of a cascade.

He turned and found Stephen examining his withered W hands.

Stephen was vigilant for any evidence of further decay. "I must have nodded off," Stephen said. He was sitting up on the gurney. He had requested clothes instead of the hospital gown but all Maryk had for him were scrubs.

Maryk moved through the assembled lab equipment back to the B4 computer console. Everything had been networked through the central brain of the lab. Stephen had even agreed to Maryk's suggestion that Reilly and Boone be brought in as extra pairs of arms and legs.

Stephen's blood, saliva, urine, sputum, pleura, and skin samples sat in disposable flasks along the counter like a row of small plastic trophies. "We were talking about the virus," said Maryk. "How it is not acting the way a virus acts."

"Yes," said Stephen. "Not moving like a virus moves. Not burning as a virus burns. Where was the flint in Orangeburg? The spark at any of the earlier breaks?"

The language of disease was the language of poetry and the metaphor for viruses was fire. Plainville was smoldering in Stephen.

He sat on the gurney like a burn victim with darkly bruised patches of skin that looked singed. Ragged patches of hair hung off his flaking scalp. He looked weaker and more ill and yet continued to grow stronger despite medical evidence to the contrary. "Could it be something unusual in the environment?" he continued. "Common to all these places?"

Maryk said, "We've tested and retested many times. I'd like to think we didn't miss anything."

"In Africa, it was simple exposure and transmission."

"But here it doesn't die out with its victims," Maryk said. "We need to know why there aren't any footsteps between outbreaks."

"Because it's smart. This is a virus that somehow knows what's good for it.

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