Pulse (6 page)

"There's something in her stomach. I saw it before I fainted." She glanced at the hallway, then to Sam. Her eyes were distant.

A chill ran down his spine. She wasn't lying. Whatever she thought she saw, she believed it. "How's this? I'll go check on her. We'll get her in the car and drive to a hospital. We don't leave until they let us in, okay?"

Barely a nod, but it was a yes. She insisted she went with him, despite his protests.

Sam and Lindsey went to their daughter's room. As he set his hand on the doorknob he heard her first wail.

“Mommy?”

Sam looked at his wife. Their little girl’s voice was ragged, yet…taunting.

“Daddy?”

As Sam opened the door and saw the first of the white, squirming creatures on the floor, he regretted not having that last drink.

It took five trips to haul everything up to the apartment. By the end of it their hands were bright red with indents from where the heavy bags pressed. They'd all broken out into a sweat and were breathless. Chelsea tripped on the stairs and banged up her knee. Dom's biceps and shoulders throbbed.

But their haul was immense and it was grins all around. They had enough food to last them another three months with moderate rations. Some of it required more cooking and effort, but it was doable. Brian tore open some licorice and they took a sugar break before their next move.

"I guess we should organize this into the spare room, right?" Chelsea ate her candy slowly. Her pouty lips were stained red. "It's important not to let things get disorderly during a survival scenario."

"You been watching Doomsday Preppers?" Brian asked.

She laughed. "You guessed it. Most of my survival knowledge comes from that show."

"It's a good show."

Brian and Chelsea shared a brief moment of camaraderie, giving Dom a flicker of hope.

They heard pounding and shouting from the hallway. Luggage rolling against the floor.
Everyone sat a little taller, alert, listening. Then it was silent. Dom shrugged.

"Maybe after we organize everything we should write down an inventory?" Chelsea rubbed at her knees, staring pensively out the window. "That way we can go by numbers instead of just guessing how much stuff we have."

"I second that," Brian added. "We should fortify the apartment, too."

"Should we try to ally with neighbors? And how much ammo do we have?"

"Come on you guys. Things got a little weird today but we shouldn't overreact." Dom knew he was being a killjoy but someone had to bring them down to earth. "Isn't that something survivalists value? Not overreacting and exacerbating?"

The looks Brian and Chelsea gave him shut him up. He was about to get irritated but the two laughed. "We're just screwing around. But the inventory thing is a good idea," Chelsea said.

After their break they started arranging their supplies in the spare room. Dom wished they had shelves to make things look neater and be more accessible, but he wasn't about to go to the store again. Some of the can piles reached as high as his waist.

It made him think of his mom. He hadn’t called her to make sure she was okay. He hadn’t thought it was necessary, what with being so far away from the infection. They never had a close relationship, but if there was any time it was now. He made a note to give her a call that night, after they were settled.

They moved food that was expired, or ready to expire, to the kitchen so they could eat it first. The rest of their food that was ready to eat, like soup, chili, and precooked dinners, went into one quarter of the room. Veggies and broths went into their own corner, then meats and miscellaneous next to them. Dry goods had a section on their own. They gutted the linen closet—that's what Chelsea called it—and put all the medical supplies in it.

It was Chelsea's idea to keep the food organized like a grocery store so when they went to make food, the goods would be easy to find. That led to Dom and Brian voting her official Apocalypse Cook, a title which she gladly accepted since she liked cooking anyway.

Brian managed to refrain from making jokes about a woman in the kitchen. Things were shaping up.

"Plus, I doubt you guys could cook anything worth eating," she joked. "I'd rather not risk it."

It took a few hours but eventually they had a well-organized inventory of supplies. It was satisfying to see it all, and Dom knew his mom would be proud.

He insisted they pack bug-out bags for each of them to keep at the door just in case. Another thing his mom taught him long before TV became obsessed with it. Enough food and water for two days, plus other necessary supplies. The hard reality was that, if they ever needed to bug-out, the weight of the packs would slow them down. None of them were accustomed to carrying much weight for a long duration of time. Dom hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

By the time they were done they were ravenous. Chelsea wanted to use up what few fresh ingredients they had in the fridge to make a stew and cheese bread. The apartment smelled amazing and for a moment life was ordinary. Brian was zoned out on the TV and barely posed a threat as a third wheel. Chelsea's hips swayed as she stirred something on the stove, and Dom was happy to be there.

Then the shouting started. They all held their breath listening. Someone, a woman, was sobbing.

"Please Brett, please don't shoot me!"

Dom was at the door in a heartbeat. Through the peephole he saw his neighbor
s, Brett and Sadie, and their toddler son outside their apartment door. Sadie was hunched over, back against the wall, clutching a bleeding nose. Her son was standing in shock, unsure of what to do. Tears streamed down his round cheeks.

"You thought you'd just leave?"

"It's dangerous here, there are fights and I…I just wanted to protect Jon."

Dom spotted the revolver in Brett's hand. He'd called the police for domestic violence before. Brett hit Sadie on more than a few occasions. They were separated, but when he got drunk he'd come and beat on them. Sadie's cousin would come and take the son for weeks on end.

"Don't get involved," came Brian's voice in a whisper.

Dom hadn't even realized his hand was on the doorknob.

"It'll work itself out," Brian said. “It usually does.”

From the kitchen, Chelsea's face was white. She and her mother were physically abused by her father up until the second they walked out. Whenever they saw the slightest sign of domestic violence, C
helsea clammed up or got angry and was the good Samaritan some people could only dream of being.

Chelsea’s past aside, Dom wasn't going to let this go. He'd called before, but this time was serious. Brett never had a gun before. It could affect them, too.

He opened the door. Three faces turned and gaped at him.

"Listen 408, you don't have nothing to see here. Now get," Brett said.

Dom shook his head. "I think you need to go. Sadie?"

Sadie had the same look on her face
she always did when Dom tried to step in before. She was grateful, but afraid to speak up for herself or agree. Usually she wavered in a limbo state waiting for one of them to make the next move.

"You need to go, Brett
."

But this time was different.

"Bitch, I'm not going anywhere! You fu—"

The distinct sound of a shell being chambered into a shotgun cut his profanity short. Dom turned to see Chelsea standing behind him with a shotgun, aimed straight for Brett's head. Brett began raising the gun in his hand when Chelsea took a step forward.

"Put down the gun." Her voice was steady. "Sadie, take it. Brett, you get out of here. If I see you again, you're dead."

He did as she said. His face was bright red, veins bulging in his forehead and neck. Before he started down the stairs he shot Sadie a menacing glare. But once he was gone everyone's shoulders loosened and a tangible sensation of relief washed over them.

"Thank you," Sadie said, getting to her feet and taking her son by the hand. "I tried to leave earlier with Jon, get away you know? Then he showed up as I was going to my cousin’s house and dragged us back up here."

Chelsea
set the shotgun against the doorframe. "It's fine. Don't let him tell you who's boss." She picked up the handgun Brett left and handed it to her. "
You're
the boss now, got it?"

Vigorous nodding. "I'm the boss."

They exchanged goodbyes and shut the door. This was a side of Chelsea Dom hadn't seen before, but it was reassuring. Maybe a bit scary, but it made him love her even more.

"I'll finish up dinner. Five minutes then we'll eat."

The guys nodded, and just like that the incident was over. Like the Wal-Mart and dead cashier, it was another scene to add to the growing bank of memories they all wanted to forget.

"What am I looking at? Ascaris or something?
Ascaris Ascaris
Ascaris
"

Barry, his primary lab guru, nodded and shrugged at the same time. It was an odd gesture that didn’t confirm or deny. "Looks like working in an office hasn't dulled your senses, but not quite. It's a parasitic nematode, so you’re right there. At first I thought it was a roundworm, but it’s actually of the genus Anisakis. The difference is that Ascaris lives in the intestines, whereas Anisakis can exist not only on the
outside
of organs, but in muscle and under the skin.”

Adam racked his brain, looking back to a seminar he attended on parasitic infections for anything he could remember on Anisakis. “If I recall correctly, it sounds like a scary parasite but it can’t live in the host for very long. Neither can its larvae.”

“Mhm, all true. But, although this looks like, and preliminary tests showed similar genetics to, it isn’t Anisakis,” Barry said.

“Thanks for the fun lecture
, but why am I looking at it? You know highest priority is identifying the virus in the North Dakota patients.”

“That
is
why you’re looking at it. This is it. I’m calling it
Anisakis Nova
.”

The name made it sound
impressive, but at the end of the day it just meant ‘new Anisakis’ which didn’t mean much. Barry had a way of fancying things up. That thought was fleeting compared to the reality of what he just said. They were finding parasites in the bodies. Not a virus, but parasites.

Adam shifted, getting a better look through the microscope. The worm-like figure wiggled. He magnified it further and noted the jagged teeth of its perfectly round mouth. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself, which was why the following question was out of hope more than anything else. “So this one victim happened to have a parasite and the virus. People eat raw or improperly handled fish all the time. Hell, no one should even
be
eating sushi in North Dakota.”

He seemed to sense what Adam was going for. “Sorry, buddy. We’ve found Anisakis Nova in every sample sent so far. Some are in larvae stage, some bigger. But they’re there.”

Adam caved. "Prelim tests showed similar genetics, but what?"

"But there's sequencing in here that is way too co
mplicated for a simple parasite, and definitely not related to Anisakis.” Barry spread pages of analysis on the desk in front of them, but Adam couldn’t take his eyes off the parasite. “Here’s the deal: we left it in a dish of human blood to see how it would react. Did a before and after analysis on the blood. It's using whatever host materials it has to synthesize a chemical compound that causes a response similar to encephalitis."

"Encephalitis?" Adam repeated.

“Acute inflammation of the brain.”

He rolled his eyes but couldn’t help but grin in good nature. “I know what it is, Barry.”

“Just keeping you in check, big man,” he said, returning the smile. He leaned back in his chair. "You're looking at fever, confusion, and headaches early on. Once it gets worse, a whole onslaught of physical and neurological problems. Hallucinations are common. Seizures, tremors. Memory loss, I think."

"You said it uses host materials. Does that mean it isn't synthesizing now?"

Barry nodded. "Right. As soon as you put it in the blood of a mammal it starts production. And
fast
. When removed from a source of sustenance it simply stops production and keeps on living."

"How long can it last on its own like this?"

"This one has been without a host since we extracted it from one of the hospital bodies."

Adam felt his blood go cold. "It can live on a slide for a week?"

"So far. It doesn't seem to show any signs of decay."

It was a hyper aggressive parasite that was essentially foreign to his team, made people kill each other, and could live outside of any food source for a week. How was that possible?

“God, what a nightmare,” Adam groaned. He gestured to the chemical analysis. “Those for me?”