IGMS Issue 10 Page 8

  A week after finding the body, Michael, Stevie, and I are sitting out on the porch, sharing a six pack of Coke we stole from the "off limits reserves" section of the cellar. Stevie is still moping about Chase's disappearance, so I'm sitting next to him on the porch, showing him pictures of frog guts I took through my microscope. Michael sits on a chair behind us, reading a book on germ warfare. He's now decided that the virus outbreak is a military experiment gone awry, and that the army has vaccines in storage, but it's afraid to expose the mistake. I let him ramble on, but when he starts distracting Stevie, I've had enough.

  "It's not germ warfare," I snap. "It's a mutation of Marburg. If you'd study biology instead of socialism, you'd know that the military wouldn't use retroviruses because they infect too slowly and mutate too quickly."

  I brace for Michael to get upset with me and start a real fight, but he doesn't. Instead, he closes his book, sits quietly for a minute, and then says, "You know, Rach, you're a lot more sophisticated than you let on."

  I'm not sure what to make of that, so I say nothing and let him think I'm still pissed. (And I suppose I am.) He leans forward and watches me explain the frog pictures to Stevie.

  A few minutes later, Michael puts his hand tentatively on my shoulder and asks, "So why do you like microscopes so much?"

  It's a question I've been waiting for, I guess. "Why? I'll show you."

  I dash up the stairs to my room, leaving Stevie and Michael staring after me, and grab my battery scope, an eyedropper, a slide, and a cover slip. I clamber back down, cradling the scope, and bang through the screen door with my forearm. Michael jumps up and follows, and Stevie runs behind.

  I lead them around the house to the stream, then follow it downhill to the pond where my father gives me shooting lessons.

  The pond is about fifty meters across, surrounded by marshy grass at its mouth and spruce forest to the south. A carpet of algae coats the rim, leaving a kidney bean of exposed water in the middle. When we arrive, it's already late afternoon, and the sun's reflection is spread over the water, annoying the family of ducks in the center.

  I place my scope on the dry grass away from the pond, then take off my sneakers and my jeans. Stevie giggles.

  "Scram," I say, pointing at the forest. He gives me a betrayed, puppy-eyed look, then wanders off into the trees. "And stay away from the fence!" I call after him.

  Once Stevie is gone, I wade into the pond until the water is up to my thighs. I fill the eyedropper with murky liquid then trudge back to the shore, to my scope.

  I place a single drop onto the slide, cover it, and clip it to the stage. I focus and push the scope over to Michael. He peels his eyes away from my panties and looks through the eyepiece. "What do you see?" I ask.

  "Lots of squiggly things swimming around."

  "The long green strands are algae, and the squiggly things are two types of protozoa, a water bear, and I think some bacteria. You could spend your entire life studying that single drop of pond water. Do you understand now?"

  Michael sits up, looks out over the pond, then back at me. "If you did that, Rach, you'd never see that mother duck teach her children how to swim, or see the sun's reflection on the water."

  I snort so hard I almost spew snot out of my nose. "So profound, college boy," I say, and we start making out.

  A few minutes later, I hear Stevie screaming my name.

  I push Michael away and run into the woods, barefoot, toward Stevie's screams. Michael follows behind.

  Stevie has found Chase.

  He's holding the dog's front paws, trying to drag him across the ground. "He's hurt, Rachel! Help him!"

  The dog is more than hurt. His eyes are open and fixed, and his shriveled tongue hangs over his lower teeth like wet cardboard. Dried blood cakes his mouth, nose, ears, and anus, and has flaked onto Stevie's hands. Biting flies are everywhere, buzzing around the dead dog and Stevie, finding their way to my exposed legs and feet.

  We spend very little time in Vermont in the winter, even though our fort is not far from ski country. The property gets too cold. There's an icy wind that blows in from Canada, over Sable Mountain, even before the snow arrives. Standing here, seeing my brother holding his dog's paws, I feel like that wind has reached through our fence, clawed my chest, and squeezed. For a moment, I'm frozen.

  I hear Michael stammer behind me. "Rachel . . . Is the dog . . . is that . . .?"

  I snap alive. "Stevie, let go of Chase's paws."

  "He's hurt!"

  "Drop him now!" Stevie abruptly lets go. "Now walk towards me, slowly, and do not touch your face."

  And of course, the first thing Stevie does is touch his face.

  I run over to him, grab his wrist, and pull him behind me. Michael follows, keeping his distance.

  We run back to the house, me half dragging, half carrying Stevie into the porch shower. I strip both of us and scrub him under scalding water, the dog's dried blood liquefying and turning crimson as it circles the drain. The steam burns my eyes and turns our skin pink. Stevie whimpers, but he's too scared to protest.

  Once we've finished and dressed, I take Stevie to his room and tell my father everything that happened. He listens quietly, never interrupting or rebuking me. When I finish, he nods once and walks over to the virus crates, the ones we dragged up from the cellar on our first night in Vermont.

  Later, I see him unpacking gloves and shower bleach and unrolling his biohazard suit.

  Stevie has a light fever, but I don't think it's the virus. It's only been two days since the incident with the dog, and he doesn't have any other symptoms. Also, I touched Chase's blood at least as much as Stevie did, and I feel fine. I doubt it can be passed from dogs to humans, assuming that's what actually killed Chase.

  Nevertheless, my father has quarantined Stevie in his bedroom.

  I try to email Dr. L to confirm my analysis, but my email bounces back. I try Stu, with the same result. Our dish is fine, so there must be something wrong with the Boston servers. I search the internet for info, but most of the news websites are shut down, or showing two-day old pages.

  I finally find some updated blogs. They claim the virus is now running rampant in major U.S. cities, especially Boston. Rumors of mutations, faster transmission. Power is out almost everywhere. Basic services like trash collection and public transport are breaking down because people aren't going to work.

  Mass General claims to have cured several people, but the bloggers don't buy it. Some say it's a lie, that these people were never infected in the first place. Others say it was rich people who could buy special treatment not available to the proletariat. I'm not sure what to believe. I wish I could reach Dr. L.

  The Deckers have moved back into the barn. I try to talk to Michael, but he won't come out. He won't even come to the door.

  I think Stevie is getting worse. My father won't let me near his bedroom, but he goes in and out three times a day, dressed in his biohazard suit. This afternoon, I see him carrying a sealed plastic bag with gauze in it, and the gauze is bloody.

  While my father is taking a bleach shower, I dig the plastic bag out from the trash and extract a drop of Stevie's blood. I stare at it under the scope. There are too many white cells, and the erythrocytes are bloated, some ruptured. I extract a drop of my own blood for comparison. I have extra white cells, too, but everything else looks normal.

  The Deckers have left. They took a bunch of supplies from our cellar and drove away in their Lexus in the middle of the night.

  I delete the pictures of Michael's chest hair from my hard drive.

  I see my father leaving Stevie's room, carrying even more bloody gauze, and I confront him in the hallway.

  "I think Stevie has the virus," I say. "He needs help."

  I can hear my father breathing slowly through the biohazard mask. He turns toward me. His face is sweaty under the mask, and his shoulders are slumped, but his mouth is still set in that line, his jaw still thrust forward. "Be smart, Rachel," he
says. "I need you now." He takes the bloody gauze down the stairs.

  I stare at Stevie's closed door. I find myself thinking about all those stupid pictures of hairs on my hard drive. My father's grays, with the thinning cuticles, my mother's dyed blonds, Michael's pointy transparents. Stu's. Dr. L's. And Stevie's.

  I open the door.

  Stevie is lying on his bed, propped up by pillows. He's pale and sweaty, his thick brown hair pasted to his forehead. There's a spot of blood under his nose. He smiles and says my name. The room smells like day-old vomit.

  I grab a pair of gloves from the dresser, put them on, and pick up Stevie, hoisting his head above my shoulder. He wraps his arms around my back and squeezes. I leave the bedroom door open behind me.

  My father is standing at the bottom of the stairs. The gauze bag is gone, and his suit drips with bleach water. His filter mask is raised over his head. When he sees us, he freezes.

  "Take him back, Rachel," he says, his voice still low and even.

  "He needs a hospital. He needs Mass General." I take a few tentative steps down the stairs, then stop.

  My father's right arm is in full twitch, the rubbery gloves of his suit making squeaking noises as his fingers curl into a fist.

  And then I realize. His arm doesn't twitch, it shakes. He's shaking like an old man.

  I adjust Stevie's bulk on my shoulder and walk down the stairs, straight toward him.

  My father's eyes dart from me to Stevie then back to me. He scrambles out of the way, raising his mask back over his face.

  I grab the Land Rover keys from the door ring and walk across the porch. My father follows behind, but at a distance.

  "No one in Boston can help him, Rachel. Don't be a fool! Take him back and go shower!" He's shouting now.

  I put Stevie in the passenger seat and circle around to the driver's door.

  "I'm trying to protect you, Rachel! That's all I've ever done! Don't you see?"

  "You can't," I say. "You never could." I get into the car, close the door.

  My father calls my name once more, his voice quiet again. He's leaning against the porch screen now, his eyes still, his mouth set in the familiar line. I turn the key and roll down the window.

  "The nine millimeter is in the glove compartment," he says. "Do you remember how to use it?"

  I nod. "I'll bring him back," I say. "I promise."

  Before my father can speak again, I power up the window and back down the driveway.

  We pass only a dozen cars on the way to Boston. Mostly minivans and SUVs, stuffed with families, possessions, heading north or west. The tollbooths are deserted. Stevie sits quietly next to me, sometimes asking where we're going, squeezing my hand during coughing fits.

  I take the Cambridge exit and cross the Charles. The River Street Bridge, normally a morass of merging, honking Boston drivers, is empty, and the traffic lights are dark.

  As I head down Memorial Drive, past the red brick Harvard and MIT dorms, Stevie coughs once and starts gushing blood from his nose. I pull over and squeeze his nose shut with the bottom of my shirt, rubbing his shoulder, telling him to breathe. Outside, I see students staring at us, framed in their dorm windows like aristocrats in British oil paintings. Some wear surgical masks. None come down to help.

  When Stevie's bleeding stops, I drive the last two miles to Mass General, running the dead lights, and pull up to the ER.

  Based on all the blogs, I expect the hospital to look like a refugee camp, with sick people lined up outside, shouting for help, doctors and nurses racing around with clipboards. But I see no one. One ambulance is parked on the sidewalk, its rear door flung open, but nothing inside. Two more are parked in the waiting zone, their windows broken. I can see a few lights on in the hospital's upper floors, but otherwise, the building is dark.

  I park at the end of the ER lane, directly in front of the entrance, and tell Stevie to wait for me in the jeep while I go find doctors. He nods, still squeezing his nose, and watches me go.

  I've been to Mass General once before, to see my mother the day the Storrow Tunnel caved. It's got a wide lobby with hallways branching off to the hospital's wings, and an imposing metal reception desk that blocks access to the treatment rooms beyond. That day, it was a beehive.

  Today, it's empty. The reception desk is silent, abandoned. The floor is strewn with piles bloody gauze, crumpled paper, broken glass. And the doorways to the treatment wings are thrown wide, revealing dark, empty corridors beyond. Tunnels.

  "Hello?" I call. The walls swallow the sound.

  According to the blogs, Mass General was treating virus patients two days ago. Where are they?

  I race through the lobby, jumping over trash, and down the dark corridor, until I reach a closed, latched double door. I push through.

  Inside are bodies. They line the white hallway, propped up against both walls, sitting in pools of dried blood and vomit. A few are covered with sheets, but most sit exposed, packed tightly against each other so they don't fall. Their mouths are open and their eyes are wide. They stare at me, screaming.

  The smell hits and I drop to my knees and puke. I sit there, my eyes closed, one hand braced against the floor. I want to turn back, drive Stevie back to Vermont, carry him to his room, but I can't. I stifle the nausea and continue on, past the wall of bodies, deeper inside.

  I burst into offices, exam rooms, searching for someone alive, anyone. In a supply room, I find two nurses and a doctor sprawled awkwardly on the floor. They have gunshot wounds in their chests. The supply cabinets are open and raided.

  I grab a fresh scrub and surgical mask from an unopened closet and run back through the lobby, out the entrance, and to the car.

  Stevie looks up at me when I return. "No doctors?" he asks.

  "No, they've all gone home."

  "Can we go home?"

  "We'll try Longwood," I say. "Maybe Beth Israel or Children's is open."

  They aren't. Beth Israel is dark, the lobby glass shattered. Children's looks open, but there's a hand-written sign in front that says "no virus patients," and two guys with shotguns guard the entrance. Twenty meters from the guards, a man and a young girl lie entwined on the ground.

  I reach for the nine millimeter in the glove compartment, thinking about forcing my way in, when I see Stevie staring at the dead girl. I close the glove box and drive away.

  I can think of only one other place to go, one other person to turn to.

  I wind my way through Brookline, up Comm Ave, to the BU life science labs. A dozen cars are parked by the side entrance, arranged in tight, concentric circles. Making them harder to steal, I suppose. I see Dr. L's in the middle, giving me hope.

  I pull up next to the circle and change into the fresh hospital scrub and mask, leaving my bloody shirt and gloves in the car. I tell Stevie to wait for me.

  "Why? Where are you going?"

  "To find Dr. L." He rests his head back against the seat and closes his eyes.

  There's a barricade blocking the bio corridor. A jumbled pile of desks and file cabinets, stacked halfway to the ceiling, leaving an aisle through the middle. Two large fans point outward; both are on. I hear clinking glassware and the whir of a generator from the lab beyond.

  "Hello?" I call.

  A man pulls aside one of the fans and steps through the barricade. He's filthy. Scruffy and unshaven, with oily brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. His eyes are red and his face gaunt, making his nose look thin and long.

  It's Dr. Lefebvre.

  He points an old pistol at me, holding it with two hands as if it were cold and heavy.

  "You can't come in here!" he barks. "Go back outside."

  I take a few steps toward him and he raises the gun, pointing it vaguely over my shoulder. His hands shake. "Lady, please. I can't let you in. I don't want to hurt you."

  I remember that I'm wearing a surgical mask. I slide it down below my chin.

  Dr. L lowers the gun slowly. "Rachel? Is that you?"

&n
bsp; I nod. He drops the gun onto the barricade and rushes toward me, stopping abruptly a few feet away. "Are you sick?"

  I shake my head.

  He pulls a square flashlight out of his pocket. I recognize it as the UV lamp we use to look at gels. "Close your eyes," he says.

  I feel warmth as he sweeps the black light over my face and neck. "The first sign of infection is a sub-dermal rash. It shows up in UV hours after exposure." He pauses, finishing his sweep. "You're clean."

  I open my eyes and he kisses me on both cheeks, French style. He's never done that before.

  "Come inside," he says. "I'll introduce you."

  Dr. L leads me through the barricade and into his lab. I barely recognize it. The student desks have been removed, replaced with extra lab benches. A gene sequencer sits on top of the lecture desk, and several other machines I don't recognize line the rear wall. Everything is plugged into a gasoline generator whirring in the back of the room, its exhaust hose sticking out an open window.

  Five adults are scattered around the room. A fat middle-aged guy and a Chinese woman stand in front of the gene sequencer, their goggles pushed over their foreheads; two young women in jeans -- probably grad students -- are at Michael's lab bench, running gels; and a thin, white-haired man sits in the back, staring at a computer screen. The grad students glance up from their gels when we enter, but say nothing.

  "These are some colleagues from around town," whispers Dr. L. "The older man in back was my thesis advisor."

  "The Nobel guy? From MIT?"

  Dr. L nods. "They moved here last week, after the mobs raided the hospitals and med schools. We figure no one will search for medicines in an undergrad bio lab."

  Medicines! I grab his elbow. "Have you done it? Have you got the cure?"

  The fat guy by the gene sequencer snorts. Dr. L shakes his head. "No, Rachel. Our antibody isn't binding. It shows promise, but we're still a long way from any kind of treatment."

  I slump against doorframe and turn my face away from Dr. L. I feel sobs coming and bite down on my lower lip. My arm wants to shake but I won't let it.