Contagion (51 page)

     “Ketamine is all I’ve got,” Richard said. “I can get it because it’s not a scheduled drug. I use it with the animals.”

     “I don’t want to hear about any of that,” Terese said. “Is it possible just to give him enough to make him dopey?”

     “I don’t know for sure,” Richard said. “But I’ll try.”

     “How do you give it?” Terese asked.

     “Injection,” Richard said. “But it’s short-acting, so we might have to do it several times.”

     “Let’s give it a try,” Terese said.

     Jack found himself perspiring heavily when Terese and Richard reappeared from the living room. Jack didn’t know if it was from a fever or from the worry engendered by the conversation he’d just overheard. He did not like the idea of being an unwilling experimental subject with a potent anesthetic agent.

     Richard went to a cabinet and got out a handful of syringes. From another cabinet he got the drug, which came in a glass vial with a rubber top. He then stopped to figure out a dose.

     “What do you think he weighs?” Richard asked Terese as if Jack were an uncomprehending animal.

     “I’d guess about one-eighty, give or take five pounds,” Terese said.

     Richard did some simple calculations, then filled one of the syringes.

     As he came at Jack, Jack had to fight off a panic attack. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t. Richard injected the ketamine into his right upper arm. Jack winced. It burned like crazy.

     “Let’s see what that does,” Richard said, stepping away. He discarded the used syringe. “While we wait I’ll go get my car.”

     Terese nodded. Richard got his ski parka and pulled it on. At the door he told Terese he’d be back in ten minutes.

     “So, this is a sibling operation,” Jack commented when he and Terese were alone.

     “Don’t remind me,” Terese said, shaking her head. She began to pace as Richard had earlier.

     The first effect Jack experienced from the ketamine was a ringing in his ears. Then his image of Terese began to do strange things. Jack blinked and shook his head. It was as if a cloud of heavy air were settling over him, and he was outside of himself watching it happen. Then he saw Terese at the end of a long tunnel. Suddenly her face expanded to an enormous size. She was speaking but the sound echoed interminably. Her words were incomprehensible.

     The next thing Jack was aware of was that he was walking. But it was a strange, uncoordinated walk, since he had no idea where the various parts of his body were. He had to look down to see his feet sweep out of the periphery of his vision and then plant themselves. When he tried to look where he was going he saw a fragmented image of brightly colored shapes and straight lines that were constantly moving.

     He felt mild nausea, but when he shook himself it passed. He blinked and the colored shapes came together and merged into a large shiny object. A hand came into his field of vision and it touched the object. That was when Jack realized it was his hand and the object was a car.

     Other elements of his immediate environment became recognizable.

     There were lights and a building. Then he realized that there were people on either side of him holding him up. They were speaking but their voices had a deep, mechanical sound as if they were synthesized.

     Jack felt himself falling, but he couldn’t stop himself. It seemed as if he fell for several minutes before landing on a hard surface. Then he could only see dark shapes. He was lying on a carpeted surface with something firm jutting into his stomach. When he tried to move he found that his wrists were restrained.

     Time passed. Jack had no idea how long. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours. But at last he’d regained orientation, and he was no longer hallucinating. He realized that he was on the floor of the backseat of a moving car, and his hands were handcuffed to the undercarriage of the front passenger seat. Presumably they were on their way to the Catskills.

     To relieve the discomfort of the driveshaft pressing against his stomach, Jack drew his knees underneath him to assume a crouched-over position. It was far from ideal but better than it had been. But his discomfort was from more than his cramped posture. The flu symptoms were much worse, and combined with a hangover from the ketamine, he felt about as bad as he’d ever felt.

     Several violent sneezes caused Terese to look over the back of the seat.

     “Good God!” she exclaimed.

     “Where are we?” Jack asked. His voice was hoarse, and the effort of speaking caused him to cough repeatedly. He was having a problem with his nose running, but with his hands secured he couldn’t do anything about it.

     “I think you better just shut up or you’ll choke to death,” Richard said.

     Terese turned to Richard: “Is this coughing and sneezing from the shot you gave him?”

     “How the hell do I know? It’s not as if I’ve ever given ketamine to a person before.”

     “Well, it’s not so far-fetched to imagine you might have an idea,” Terese snapped. “You use it on those poor animals.”

     “I resent that,” Richard said indignantly. “You know I treat those animals like my pets. That’s why I have the ketamine in the first place.”

     Jack sensed that the anxiety that Terese and Richard had evidenced earlier about his presence had metamorphosed into irritation. From the way they were speaking it seemed to be mostly directed at each other.

     After a brief silence, Richard spoke up. “You know, this whole thing was your idea, not mine,” he said.

     “Oh no!” Terese voiced. “I’m not about to let you get away with that misconception. You were the one who suggested causing AmeriCare trouble with nosocomial infection. It never would have even crossed my mind.”

     “I only suggested it after you complained so bitterly about AmeriCare gobbling up National Health’s market share despite your stupid ad campaign,” Richard said. “You begged me to help.”

     “I wanted some ideas,” Terese said. “Something to use with the ads.”

     “Hell you did!” Richard said. “You don’t go to a grocery store and ask for hardware. I don’t know squat about advertising. You knew my field was microbiology. You knew what I’d suggest. It was what you were hoping.”

     “I never thought about it until you mentioned it,” Terese countered.

     “Besides, all you suggested was that you could arrange some bad press by nuisance infections. I thought you meant colds, or diarrhea, or the flu.”

     “I did use the flu,” Richard said.

     “Yes, you used the flu,” Terese said. “But was it regular flu? No, it was some weird stuff that has everybody all up in arms, including Doctor Detective in the backseat. I thought you were going to use common illnesses, not the plague, for chrissake. Or those other ones. I can’t even remember their names.”

     “You didn’t complain when the press jumped all over the outbreaks and the market share trend rapidly reversed,” Richard said. “You were happy.”

     “I was appalled,” Terese said. “And scared. I just didn’t say it.”

     “You’re full of crap!” Richard said heatedly. “I talked with you the day after the plague broke out. You didn’t mention it once. It even hurt my feelings since it took some effort on my part.”

     “I was afraid to say anything about it,” Terese said. “I didn’t want to associate myself with it in any way. But as bad as it was, I thought that was it. I didn’t know you were planning on more.”

     “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Richard said.

     Jack became aware they were slowing down. He lifted his head as high as his handcuffed hands would allow. The glare of artificial light penetrated the car. They’d been driving in darkness for some time.

     Suddenly there were bright lights, and they’d come to a complete stop under an overhang. When Jack heard the driver’s side window going down, he realized they were at a tollbooth. He started to yell for help, but his voice was weak and raspy.

     Richard reacted swiftly by reaching around and smacking Jack with a hard object. The blow impacted on Jack’s head. He collapsed onto the floor.

     “Don’t hit him so hard,” Terese said. “You don’t want blood on the inside of the car.”

     “I thought shutting him up was more important,” Richard said. He threw a handful of coins into the bin of the automatic gate.

     Jack’s headache was now worse from the blow. He closed his eyes. He tried to find the most comfortable position, but there weren’t many choices. Mercifully, he finally fell into a troubled sleep despite being thrown from side to side. After the toll they were driving on a winding and twisting road.

     The next thing Jack knew, they were stopped again. Carefully he raised his head. Again there were lights outside of the car.

     “Don’t even think about it,” Richard said. He had the revolver in his hand.

     “Where are we?” Jack asked groggily.

     “At an all-night convenience store,” Richard said. “Terese wanted to get some basics.”

     Terese came back to the car with a bag of groceries.

     “Did he stir?” she asked, as she climbed in.

     “Yeah, he’s awake,” Richard said.

     “Did he try to yell again?”

     Nope, Richard said. “He didn’t dare.”

     They drove for another hour. Terese and Richard intermittently continued to bicker about whose fault the whole mess was. Neither was willing to give in.

     Finally they turned off the paved road and bounced along a rutted gravel drive. Jack winced as his tender body thumped against the floor and the driveshaft hump.

     Eventually they made a sharp turn to the left and came to a stop.

     Richard switched off the motor. Both he and Terese then got out.

     Jack was left in the car by himself. Lifting his head as high as he could, he was only able to see a swatch of night sky. It was very dark.

     Getting his legs under him, Jack tried to see if he could possibly rip the handcuffs from beneath the seat. But it wasn’t possible. The handcuffs had been looped around a stout piece of steel.

     Collapsing back down, he resigned himself to waiting. It was half an hour before they came back for him. When they did they opened both doors on the passenger side.

     Terese unlocked one side of the handcuffs.

     “Out of the car!” Richard commanded. He held his gun aimed at Jack’s head.

     Jack did as he was told. Terese then quickly stepped forward and recuffed Jack’s free hand.

     “In the house!” Richard said.

     Jack started walking on wobbly legs through the wet grass. It was much colder than in the city, and he could see his breath. Ahead a white farmhouse loomed in the darkness. There were lights in the windows facing a balustraded porch. Jack could make out smoke and a few sparks issuing from the chimney.

     As they reached the porch, Jack glanced around. To the left he could see the dark outline of a barn. Beyond that was a field. Then there were mountains. There were no distant lights; it was an isolated, private hideaway.

     “Come on!” Richard said, poking Jack in the ribs with the barrel of the gun. Inside.

     The interior was decorated as a comfortable weekend/summer house with an English country flair. There were matching calico couches facing each other in front of a massive fieldstone chimney. In the fireplace was a roaring, freshly kindled fire. An oriental rug covered most of the wide-board floor.

     Through a large arch was a country kitchen with a center table and ladder-back chairs. Beyond the table was a Franklin stove. Against the far wall was a large 1920s’ style porcelain kitchen sink.

     Richard marched Jack into the kitchen and motioned for him to get down on the rag rug in front of the sink. Sensing he was about to be shackled to the plumbing, Jack asked to use the rest room.

     The request brought on a new argument between brother and sister.

     Terese wanted Richard to go into the bathroom with Jack, but Richard flatly refused. He told Terese she could do it, but she thought it was Richard’s role. Finally they agreed to let Jack go in by himself, since the guest bathroom had only one tiny window, one that was too small for Jack to climb through.

     Left to himself, Jack got out the rimantadine and took one of the tablets. He’d been discouraged that the drug had not prevented his infection, but he did think it was slowing the flu’s course. No doubt his symptoms would be far worse if he weren’t taking it.

     When Jack came out of the bathroom, Richard took him back to the kitchen, and as Jack had anticipated, locked the handcuffs around the kitchen drainpipe. While Terese and Richard retired to the couches in front of the fire, Jack eyed the plumbing with the intent of escaping. The problem was that the pipes were old-fashioned. They weren’t PVC or even copper. They were brass and cast iron. Jack tried putting pressure on them, but they didn’t budge.

     Resigned for the moment, Jack assumed the most comfortable position. It was lying on his back on the rag rug. He listened to Terese and Richard, who for the moment had gotten past their attempts to blame each other for the present catastrophe. They were now being more rational. They knew they had to make some decisions.

     Jack’s position on his back made his nasal discharge run down the back of his throat. His coughing jags returned, as did a round of violent sneezes.

     When he finally got himself under control he found himself looking up into Terese’s and Richard’s faces.

     “We have to know how you found out about Frazer Labs,” Richard said, gun once again in hand.

     Jack feared that if they found out he was the only person who knew about Frazer Labs, they’d probably kill him then and there. “It was easy,” Jack said.

     “Give us an idea how easy,” Terese said.

     “I just called up National Biologicals and asked if anyone had recently ordered plague bacteria. They told me Frazer Labs had.”

     Terese reacted as if she’d been slapped. Angrily she turned to Richard.

     “Don’t tell me you ordered the stuff,” she said with disbelief. “I thought you had all these bugs in your so-called collection.”