Tooth And Nail Part 24

While it is uploading, she writes an email to her contacts at the CDC and USAMRIID, cc'ing as many people in the virology community that she can think of, summarizing her findings and stating that she has a pure sample of the Mad Dog strain. She tells them that she and her colleagues are close to producing a formula for a vaccine but a mob has entered the building's lobby, locking them in, and they require rescue. Then she clicks SEND.

It is a simple plan, but she believes it will work. By now, the world outside must know that the Mad Dog strain is the real threat. The Centers for Disease Control will want a pure sample. She has a sample, as long as the power does not fail for good and spoil it. In particular, they will want a vaccine, which is why she lied and said they were close to producing one.

So now all she has to do is wait for the government to come and rescue her. A simple plan.

Unless her contacts are all dead.

Unless there is no CDC or USAMRIID anymore.

Unless somebody else has already done the research she is offering. Her stomach growls. Petrova opens a drawer in her desk and pulls out her purse. Rooting around inside, she produces a box of orange-flavored Tic Tacs, pours what is left into her palm, and rapidly devours them. She does the same with a pack of gum, gnawing the flavor out of it and then swallowing it whole.

There are no emails from Christopher in her in-box.

She tries the Guardian website, but there are no stories. The website is up and running, but no stories have been posted since yesterday. What could this mean?

Other news sites carry stories of riots, some with video showing Mad Dogs chasing down screaming people, dragging them to the ground and mauling them. The stories are few in number and poorly written. Other sites, such as YouTube, have either crashed or been shut down. The social networking sites are flooded with frantic pleas for help.

She cannot give up hope that her family is alive, but after several minutes, she stops her search for hard news as she is getting nowhere and only wasting time at this point. She wants to return to the Security Command Center as soon as possible, as that is where she left the flashlights. She can live without food, even water, for days, but the idea of being trapped here without light is horrifying.

If things are as bad outside as she thinks they are, the power will eventually go out.

She just has to somehow incapacitate or get past Jackson. And, if it is not too much trouble, stop by the employee lounge long enough to pick up some food out of the machine that Hardy broke open, so she does not starve to death.

She listens for a moment. Jackson has stopped pacing. The corridor is quiet.

Petrova slowly rises from her chair and tip-toes to the door. Still nothing. She gets down on the floor and tries to look under the door. Slowly rising to her feet, she gingerly places her ear against the wood to listen.

From inches away, she can hear a sudden loud, guttural snarling. "Oh," she whispers, backing away.

She wishes that she had planned further than sending email to CDC and USAMRIID.

But she has an idea.

You are stronger than us, she thinks, but we are smarter than you. Going back to her computer, she brings up a letter and sets it to print a hundred copies. Within moments, the printer begins churning out pieces of paper.

For several moments, she stares at this mundane routine with something like longing, then tip-toes back to the door, holding the fire extinguisher and golf club. Putting the club down, almost without thinking, she abruptly jerks open the door and steps aside.

Jackson roars into the room, races to the desk and knocks the printer onto the floor, where it lands with a loud crash.

Petrova stands there stupidly for several moments, unable to believe her plan worked. She jumps outside and slams the door before Jackson throws himself at it, pounding and clawing and kicking and yelping in a mindless fury.

She backs away from the door, panting.

Dr. Lucas is standing almost next to her, blinking without his gla.s.ses, sniffing the air.

He begins to growl.

Petrova left the golf club inside the office. She aims the fire extinguisher and sprays him with a jet of white foam pressurized with nitrogen, hoping to blind him.

The scientist coughs and sputters for a moment, pawing at his stinging eyes and yelping, then goes berserk, waving his arms wildly around his head and biting at his hands and forearms, flinging foam in all directions. Petrova can only watch in amazement as his teeth rip cloth and tear away pieces of flesh, soaking his face and arms with blood.

More than four thousand pounds per square inch.

Backing up step by step, she finally turns and runs, leaving Lucas to howl and tear at his clothes and flesh in his blind rage. By the time she returns to the Security Commander Center, she is shaking so hard that she can barely open the door.

On the screen, the beautiful blonde is holding up a sign that says, YOU MADE ME DO THIS. Next to her, several worried-looking men are forcing the other National Guardsman, his arms still tied behind his back, to his knees.

Petrova watches, transfixed by this new drama.

Throwing the sign down, the blonde marches to one of the Lyssa victims lying on the floor, a young girl, and rubs her hand all over the girl's face until her hand is slick with mucus. She holds the hand high over her head, showing it to the camera.

"Oh," says Petrova. "No, no, no. Please do not do that."

As she marches back, her mouth moving soundlessly, the soldier's eyes go wide and he begins to struggle struggling wildly against his captors, who can barely hold him.

The blonde smears the snot over his face and lips, then begins scribbling on the piece of poster board, which she holds high for Petrova to see: ONLY YOU CAN SAVE HIM.

"We do not have a vaccine, you stupid b.i.t.c.h!" Petrova screams, throwing the fire extinguisher against the wall. "Stop killing people!"

The rage boils up inside her, comes pouring out. She races to the security system's graphical interface and begins studying it.

"You want to come inside," she mutters in disgust, her accent thickening. "This is what you want. We shall see."

She clicks an icon on her screen, which turns from red to green.

On the screen, the crowd of people appear startled, then burst into cheers, laughing and hugging and pointing at something that is happening off screen. The blonde looks down at the soldier, who stares at the floor. Alone among the cheering mob, they are weeping.

The people are pointing at the elevator lobby. They have won against the stubborn scientists who have been h.o.a.rding a vaccine.

The elevators are coming down.

Chapter 10.

You know, my dad. . . .

Mooney sits on the floor next to his sleeping bag in the cla.s.sroom that First Squad has claimed as a sleeping area, airing his feet and cleaning his carbine. After a lot of firing, a good cleaning is necessary. He wants his weapon functional-not ready for parade-so he is field stripping and cleaning it fast. Around him, some of the other boys are doing the same, getting ready for action. The room stinks of sweaty socks and cleaning solvent.

Wyatt swaggers in carrying a plastic garbage bag with his left hand. Behind him, Mooney sees one of the boys from Second Squad mopping the floor out in the hallway, whistling while he works. Everybody is dying, the world is ending, but the Army likes things clean, Mooney tells himself. It will be a nice, neat, orderly Armageddon. The last man alive, please turn out the lights.

"Booty," says Wyatt, spilling the bag's contents onto the floor in front of Mooney-a small mountain of half-melted candy bars, cartons of juice, warm cans of soda, and pancaked Twinkies, cupcakes and donuts.

The boys whistle, eyeing the loot enviously.

"What do you think, Mooney?" Wyatt says, offering one of his lopsided grins that make his large brown Army gla.s.ses-the type the boys call BCGs, or birth control gla.s.ses, since there's no way in h.e.l.l of getting laid while wearing them-appear crooked on his face.

Mooney studies his comrade for a few moments while he swabs his gun barrel with a cleaning rod and patch. He is starting to feel like he has adopted Private Joel Wyatt, although he is not sure why, since he basically can barely stand the screwball soldier at this point. Or maybe Wyatt has adopted him, and he is not strong enough to resist: Joel Wyatt can be like a force of nature. In any case, when you feel like you are going to die soon, you tend to start feeling pretty forgiving about things. All the irritating stuff stops being real and no longer matters. Just ask Billy Chen about how much he sweated the small stuff before he ate a bullet.

"Where'd you get all that, Joel?" says Ratliff.

"I jacked the rich kids' lockers," Wyatt says, beaming, sifting through the candy with his hands. He adds hastily, "It's not like they're coming back."

Ratliff starts to laugh, but it fades quickly.

"You keep touching other people's stuff and you're going to get sick, Joel," Mooney says, then reconsiders. "OK. Screw it. Give me that Mars bar."

"What's the magic word?"

"Now," Mooney says, glowering.

Wyatt grins again, his cheeks bulging with chocolate, and hands him the candy bar.

Mooney takes a bite and chews slowly. An instant later, he is wolfing the rest of it down, gnawing rapidly until his jaw muscles protest from the sudden overload. Now here is something to live for. Nothing ever tasted so good in his life. He reaches and grabs a carton of apple juice, spears it with the straw, and sucks it down in several long gulps. The sugar rings his brain like a bell.

"That's my stuff!" Wyatt whines as Ratliff comes over and grabs a pack of cupcakes.

"There's plenty for everybody," Mooney says.

"That's what your mom. . . ." Finnegan says, his voice trailing off.

n.o.body laughs. Instead, the boys stare off into some point in s.p.a.ce and the atmosphere begins to fill with despair, like a fast-acting poison. Mooney can't stand it anymore.

"Everybody come and get a candy bar," he says. "Joel's buying." The boys swipe at his pile, almost picking it clean. "Thanks, Joel!" they tell him.

"Yeah, thanks a lot," Wyatt tells Mooney.

"We have appointed you our new morale officer," Mooney says.

"Why? Didn't everybody find the LT's speech uplifting? *Good day, uh, gentlemen, I'm the LT. Blah, blah, blah, uh, the world's ending, and you're still in the Army.'"

The boys laugh, chewing on their candy.

"You didn't happen to find any beer in the lockers, did you, Joel?" says Finnegan.

"Or a couple of joints, maybe?" Carrillo wants to know, laughing.

"How about valium?" says Ratliff.

"Southern Comfort?"

"Codeine?"

"Heroin?"

They sound like they are horsing around, but Mooney can tell they are dead serious. They have recently learned that the road of duty now leads face first into a brick wall, presenting a choice that Billy Chen refused to continue making and that they are still trying to avoid. They are not sure what they now owe, and to whom. They do not want anything to do with Lieutenant Bowman's total war, but they see no way out of the Army and no way home and besides, home may not even be there anymore.

A few hours of escape would be welcome.

"I had a teacher who kept a quart of whiskey in his drawer," Finnegan says. "We'd sneak in during lunch period and take a few sips, and replace it with water."

"I can't believe a year and half ago I was graduating from high school," says Carrillo, eyeing the student desks stacked against the far wall. "Man, I've seen a lot of s.h.i.t."

"Eighteen going on forty-five," Ratliff says, and Mooney smiles, nodding.

"Man, I would kill for an ice cold bottle of Bud," Finnegan says.

"Screw Bud," says Ratliff. "Heineken's the best."

"I only drink the good stuff," Carrillo boasts. "Guinness on tap."

"Carrillo likes to eat his beers."

"The domestics are just yellow water, you guys. You're drinking carbonated urine."

"I like Bud."

"What about Corona?"

"Hey, man, what's the difference between a half and half and a black and tan? I could never figure that out."

Rollins finishes his Hershey's chocolate bar, sighs and stares at the wrapper wistfully. "I just thought of something," he says. "If things are as bad as LT says, I wonder if they're making more of these chocolate bars or if this is all there is for a while."

"Or movies," says Finnegan. "Live concerts. Football games. Hustler."

"PlayStation," says Wyatt. "Sports Ill.u.s.trated's swimsuit issue."

"Hot chicks, dope, rock and roll, and beer," says Ratliff.

"My old man won't like that," Corporal Eckhardt says across the room, scrubbing his carbine's firing pin and bolt a.s.sembly with a toothbrush and solvent to get rid of carbon residue. "He can really put it away. He can down two six-packs a night, pa.s.s out and then wake up the next day and go to work."

"Sounds like a swell guy," says Wyatt, snorting.

"My old man's a psycho. If anybody can survive this thing, he will."

"My dad's an accountant," says Finnegan. "He hates violence. He almost had a heart attack when I joined the Army and he found out they were sending me to Iraq."

"My dad's got a bas.e.m.e.nt full of guns," says Carrillo. "He loves his AK47 more than he loves my mom. He's a real jerk. Jerks like him always make it."

"Kind of shows you what kind of world is going to pop out the other side of this giant a.s.shole," Mooney says.

"Yeah, all the p.u.s.s.ies will be dead," says Eckhardt.

"And all the psychos will be running the place," Mooney says. "Think about it."