Chapter Six: Basest Of Instincts
To: The Attention of Doctor Gregory Burke, Head of the Infectious Diseases Ward
Reporting Physician: Melissa Cartwright
Date: September 10, 1998
Doctor Burke,
I am writing this report to inform of you of a case that will no doubt pass across your desk soon. Today, just after 1:00PM the ER received a patient by the name of Vincenzo Gorotti, his details are contained in the file attached to this report.
Mr. Gorotti came in complaining of a severe skin rash and nausea. Upon my examination of the patient I found the entirety of his abdomen and chest to be covered in wide blotches of red hives ranging from six to ten inches in diameter. Furthermore, Mr. Gorotti was running a fever nearly fifteen degrees above the norm yet, remarkably, remained lucid enough for conversation. (I have attached photos of the hives to this report for your consideration.)
When asked how long he had been experiencing these symptoms, Mr. Gorotti informed me that he had noticed the hives two days ago but had dismissed them as "nothing big" at first. He claimed the nausea and fever had onset only yesterday. The presence of the hives coupled with such a high temperature led me to suspect a tropical illness, even a parasite, but when I inquired as to the patient's profession and recent travels he would tell me only that he worked "for the city" and had not left the country in nearly three years.
I made the decision to place Mr. Gorotti in observation for the evening and put him on an IV drip of general antibiotics and administered a topical ointment as he complained that the hives were maddeningly itchy. That night at roughly 7:00PM the patient was placed on morphine as his nurse discovered him scratching a bloody swath across his stomach, screaming that his skin was on fire. The patient was then administered a sedative and slept through the night.
I checked in on Mr. Gorotti this morning at roughly 8:00AM and found that his fever had risen ever so slightly, no more than a degree but the effect it seemed to have on the patient was profound. Mr. Gorotti was still responsive but far less articulate, capable of only answering the most basic questions in one or two word answers. During my visit with him he informed me several times that he was thirsty and itchy. I do not doubt either claim as he was sweating enough for three men and the hives, now as hard and flaky as a lizard's scales, also covered his arms and legs. Despite his complaints, Mr. Gorotti was not taken by any fits of scratching as he had been the night before. He proved exceptionally lethargic, barely able to even sit up straight. Noticing the dreamy, glassy look in the patient's eyes I ordered his morphine drip reduced, fearful of the effects it might be having on his mental capacity given his current state.
I apologize for the longwinded tone of this report but I believe it is important for you to be aware of the background to better understand the events that transpired later that afternoon. Just after 12:00PM the ER received two more patients: a man named Rick Larson and his wife, Tanya. Both patients were experiencing symptoms identical to those of Mr. Gorotti though to a lesser degree. The patches of hives covering Mrs. Larson's abdomen were only two to four inches in diameter and those of her husband were even smaller. Both complained of queasiness and were running fevers but only three to four degrees above the norm - nothing compared to that suffered by Mr. Gorotti.
I made an interesting discovery when questioning both patients about their recent comings and goings. As it turns out Rick Larson is also a city worker - he is one of a crew that regularly performs repairs, maintenance and upgrades to the Raccoon sewer system. Vincenzo Gorotti is his supervisor.
When I informed Mr. Larson of the fact that his boss was laying in a bed only a couple floors up he had only nodded but seemed highly unnerved by the news. Almost without thinking he had turned to his wife and said, "So that's why he took the last few days off sick." Curious, I asked Mr. Larson how many others were part of his team and he told me three: Bryce Rosh, Todd Mickelson, and Brenden Gordon.
I transfered Mr. Larson and his wife into the care of Doctor Tan and phoned hospitals and walk-in clinics in the surrounding area with the names. The South Street Walk-In had been visited by Todd Mickelson earlier in the day, they had taken one look at him before demanding that he get himself over to Raccoon General immediately. Raccoon General had yet to see Mr. Mickelson but they did have Bryce Rosh in their care. I spoke to the physician responsible for his case who informed me that Mr. Rosh was suffering from a rash similar to the one afflicting his co-workers but was not experiencing any nausea or rise in temperature. I called the home of Mr. Gordon but did not get an answer.
It is now 10:00PM and at the time of this report Mr, Gorotti has fallen into a coma, Tanya Larson is constantly screaming and tearing at patches of hives that cover nearly half her body and her husband is running a fever nearly ten degrees too high. It is my belief that the connection between these men is too strong to be ignored. Whether this illness was contracted as a result of the men's working conditions or some other cause, yet to be brought to light, the fact remains that with the infection of Tanya Larson it has proven itself to be contagious. As such it is my recommendation that until the root of this disease can be located the ER here at Saint Jude's and Raccoon General should be placed under immediate and on-going quarantine.
I will keep you apprised of the situation as it develops.
Sincerely,
Melissa Cartwright
Supervising Physician, Saint Jude's Hospital
With a heavy hand, Sarah reached up and scrubbed at her eyes furiously. It was barely past noon yet her exhaustion ran bone deep. This must be what marathon runners feel like. She rubbed at leg muscles that seemed to have transformed to a cross between rubber and Jell-o. Remembering the harrowing dash from the steps of Saint Jude's to the MRRU made the young physician shake her head. All right, maybe that description isn't totally apt. I doubt any marathon runners have to haul ass away from a horde of the living dead intent on having them for breakfast. How many people would tune in to ESPN to see that, I wonder?
Sensing eyes hovering over her shoulder, Sarah whirled and threw an icy glare into the face of Tommy Chan. The photographer failed to notice at first, engrossed as he was in the effort of squinting down at the open file folder in her lap. When Sarah snapped the manilla folder closed the greasy little weasel jumped and flashed her a guilty smile.
"What's that thing say anyway?" Tommy's tone was conversation; her stare was murder.
"Let me check," she replied, opening the sheaf of papers for a moment and pretending to scan a few lines. "Oh yeah, here it is. It says that if Tommy Chan doesn't stop staring over Sarah's shoulder like the nosy rat he is then he's going to catch her elbow right between his pathetic, shriveled family jewels."
"Hey, just asking was all. You don't need to be such a bitch." Tommy stalked away grumpily and would have been the picture of righteous indignation if not for the hand that moved surreptitiously towards his balls.
Flipping the first page of the report over, Sarah glanced at the attached photographs with only a passing eye. The rash was nothing she hadn't already seen a hundred times before in the Saint Jude's emergency room or her numerous RS wards. Inevitably, the patches of crusty red sores would putrefy and gradually fade from an angry shade of crimson to dull blotches of gray, brown or yellow. The change in color was always an indicator that the host was descending into the latter stages of the Raccoon virus and the coma that served as the disease's crescendo, before the climactic and horrific awakening, would be soon to follow. Though it was tremendously insensitive, Sarah had come to think of the patches of hives as "rot spots".
Clipped beneath the photographs of Vincenzo Gorotti's midsection was a series of medical charts - one for each of the patient's mentioned in Doctor Cartwright's report. Sarah scanned each document quickly but carefully, searching for any trends or similarities among the infected aside from the fact that they had chosen to work knee deep in the piss and shit of their fellow residents. Mentally, the virologist had her fingers crossed as she read line after line of chicken scratch, praying for that one "A-ha!" moment where she found the connection that would kick wide the door to figuring out what made the RS virus tick.
Come on, baby, show me something I can use. Sarah willed the answer to jump off the page and slap her in the face as the medical histories of Vincenzo Gorotti, Bryce Rosh, Todd Mickelson, Brenden Gordon, Rick and Tanya Larsongrew crumpled between her frequently flipping fingers. I know you're in there, her brows knit together so tightly a line of pain lanced across her forehead as her eyes mined for the golden answer that would reveal a way out of this nightmare but came away with only a load of useless dirt. Come on, you bastard. I know you're in there, just show me where.
"Gorotti had an ulcer and was on nitrates for a genetic heart disease...Rosh suffered from acute asthma...Brenden Gordon had arthritis in both knees..." Sarah muttered the details of each file to herself, an old habit from university that helped her focus, organize her thoughts. Now, it only served to frustrate her further. As she spoke each man's ailments aloud it seemed to reinforce just how random and erratic the information was. "Christ! You'd think something Burke keeps locked in his top drawer would have something...oh, I don't know...useful in it! There's nothing in this pile of crap I can learn anything from!"
With a flustered snarl, Sarah slammed the thick file folder down onto the bench beside her and perilously close to the outstretched leg of Harold Hargreaves. Jumping in his seat, the Umbrella security guard looked up from the pistol he had been checking for the third time in fifteen minutes and flashed the young doctor a glare reserved for the legally insane.
"You don't deal very well with not getting your own way, do you, doc?" He asked with an eyebrow quirked.
"You don't even know the half of it." Homer grumbled from the driver's seat, his knuckles turning white on the wheel as his steered through a curtain of rain and whatever debris the population of Raccoon City had paved their streets with in recent days.
"Shut up, up there!" She snapped back. "I'm still pissed at you, Homes or did you forget that? You don't even want to know where I think you should stick your opinions about me right now."
"Some place dark and unpleasant to the nose, I'm sure," her partner replied then went back to focusing on navigating the obstacle course that passed for the city's roads. Despite the police blockades surrounding Raccoon's every entrance and exit, many had still attempted to flee the confines of the city only to be caught up in the chaos of the riots. As a result, the streets were now littered with abandoned vehicles...and the bodies of their owners.
None of the corpses Sarah had seen since escaping the hospital belonged to the infected at least none that had already become symptomatic. There were too many of them grouped so closely together, for one thing. For another from what she could make out through the windows of the MRRU the dead that clogged the roads had been killed as a result of gunshots, stab wounds and crude but effective blunt-force trauma. Whether the crowds had finally turned on each other or the police had arrived to break up a group of demonstrators only to have serious differences arise in a hurry, none of the dead here could be blamed on the virus.
"It's simple algebra," Homer had commented after they noticed the first of the bodies splayed across the middle of the road, "if fear is the value of anger and madness is the value of violence then desperation plus fear equals madness." No one had found that to be particularly clever at the time.
The syndrome might not have killed any of these poor bastards directly but that doesn't mean it wasn't the cause, Sarah thought, glancing out the window. The sight of so much blood being washed through the streets made her skin crawl. The virus isn't just taking lives, it's gnawing away at every last root of this city's sanity...and there's not a damn thing I can do to stop it, apparently.
Sighing, Sarah scooped up the folder she had lifted from Burke's office and began to leaf through the pages again. An annoying little voice in the back of her skull scolded her for a fool.
Don't you realize there's nothing in there? It chided as she turned page after page of case history and patient details. None of the doctor's here had a clue about how RS operated or how to shut it down. Not even Burke, as much as he liked to pretend otherwise. Don't you get that?
Sure, I do, Sarah spat back at her internal nagger, but in case you haven't noticed I don't have a whole lot else to go on. So shut up, brain, and help me solve this already. Doctor Waxer giggled suddenly, drawing a curious - and slightly frightened stare from Tommy.
"What's so funny?" He demanded.
"Nothing," Sarah said without looking up. "I'm just arguing with my own brain, that's all."
"You're nuts," Tommy said with wide eyes, looking to Hargreaves for support. "She's nuts, right? It's not just me that's noticed that, is it?"
Hargreaves grunted a reply but said nothing and that suited Sarah's patience just fine. Setting aside the case files of each patient along with their photographs, Sarah uncovered yet another report designated for the attention of Gregory Burke.
To: The Attention Of Doctor Gregory Burke, Head of the Infectious Diseases Ward
Reporting Physician: Jonathan Tan
Date: September 13, 1998
Doctor Burke,
Please forgive the lateness of this update. Since Doctor Cartwright was infected it has been extremely chaotic here in Ward One. Since I have received no communication from you since the time of Melissa's infection I can only assume that you have been bogged down with troubles of your own.
The influx of cases tied to the illness we are now referring to as Raccoon Syndrome has been only a part of the problem. Due to Doctor Cartwright's quick descent into the comatose stages of the virus it has been exceptionally difficult for me to uncover the bulk of the data she has managed to gather on the syndrome thus far. What notes I have found have provided me with virtually no information that could lead to potential containment or treatment solutions.
I am afraid that I honestly have very little to report in the way of new information. As you are already aware, on the 11th of September while checking in on Vincenzo Gorotti, the first reported case of RS, Doctor Cartwright was attacked when Mr. Gorotti woke unexpectedly from his coma. Two nurses and two orderlies were also assaulted by Mr. Gorotti who, in a demented state, proceeded to bite and claw anyone who came too close. In the end it took four men to restrain him.
Though her injuries appeared superficial, within two hours Doctor Cartwright became symptomatic, exhibiting a high fever and breaking out in hives. By the sixth hour, Doctor Cartwright had grown despondent and unresponsive. By hour nine she had slipped into a coma. I am saddened to report that she awoke later that night in much the same state as Mr. Gorotti and bit her orderly.
Due to the seeming inevitability of these attacks once patients have recovered - and I use the term as loosely as possible - from the comatose phase of the virus, I have made it standard protocol that once any RS patients have entered this stage of the virus they are to be bound to their beds.
I am pleased to report that this safety measure has proven successful in preventing the spread of the infection as Mrs. Tanya Larson and the two nurses that were attacked have all since come out of comas themselves and are exhibiting behavior that can be described as manic. They thrash and wail, gnash their teeth and seem completely incapable of any form of rationality or communication.
I know this may sound extreme but it is my recommendation that hospital security be armed from now on as there have been reports among the staff of RS patients managing to break their restraints. If this is not possible then it must be stressed to all staff the importance of maintaining their distance when dealing with any violent RS patient. A single scratch seems to be enough to cause infection and if we have learned nothing else from the situation with Doctor Cartwright it is that retrovirals are wholly ineffective.
As far as treatment options go our efforts at finding a remedy to the disease have been met with defeat after defeat. My staff has tried everything from traditional antibiotics to experimental drugs yet to be approved by the FDA and none have proven capable of even slowing down the progression of RS. At this rate I'm almost ready to begin employing homeopathic medicine.
We would stand a better chance of manufacturing an antigen if we could understand the functionality of the syndrome but the test results are confounding our lab technicians to say the least: blood samples from living hosts that are already coagulated, ocular fluid literally rotting, and levels of testosterone in males and females shooting clean off the charts. The unnatural - and unbelievable - levels of hormones could explain the hosts aggressive behavior but as for the other results...they simply make no sense. They would indicate that our patients are already dead.
One observation I have noted is that while the primary target of the disease is no doubt the central nervous system, the transition from infection to violent dementia appears to occur faster in females. This may indicate a genetic component to RS wherein the female chromosomes better foster the growth of the virus. Further testing will be needed to confirm this finding, however, and our technicians are spread thin as it is. I have appealed to other hospitals in an effort to pool resources but have found their physicians to be as confounded as ours.
Until such time as a vaccine can be found I am left with no other option but to reinforce Doctor Cartwright's earlier assertion that Saint Jude's be quarantined. This virus is unlike anything the medical community has ever seen and it's capacity for transfer and devastation is unimaginable. All measures to contain Raccoon Syndrome must be taken. I will continue to keep you informed of any updates as they arise.
Yours,
Jonathan Tan
Supervising Physician, Saint Jude's Hospital
Shuffling through the rest of the folder, Sarah looked for any more situation reports but found only mish-mash of patient photographs, medical histories and graphs depicting the results of blood work and pulmonary tests. Blowing out an explosive breath, the frustrated virologist resisted the urge to tear out lock after lock of blonde hair and instead moved meticulously through the medical charts.
"I could scream," Sarah complained to her companions as the MRRU rumbled through streets littered with dropped loot and far worse. "There's nothing here - no similarities or differences that would tell me why the virus progresses through hosts at such dramatically different rates as it does. I've got a wealth of information here but it might as well all be in fucking pennies! I could tell you which victim was impotent and which chain smoked but not why they became symptomatic at different times."
Dropping the rest of the folder onto the floor, Sarah flipped between the reports from Cartwright and Tan, comparing them with the case files of each RS patient. Her fingers shuffled through the files with such violence that she nearly tore one sheet in half.
"Look at this," she muttered, not caring if anyone was listening to her anymore or not. "Gorotti was sick for nearly a week before he...he...went all...zombie on everybody but Tanya Larson was symptomatic for only two days before she exhibited the psychosis and Doctor Cartwright was infected for less than twenty-four hours before she went through the coma stage. If Tan's theory about it affected females differently from males then how the hell does he explain that..."
Her rant ended abruptly as her eye caught on a detail previously overlooked. Sarah held the medical charts of Gorotti, Larson and Cartwright out in a fan. At the top of each file name, height and weight were denoted. She blinked, once, twice, three times as the gears began to clatter away in her head. The virologist read and re-read each line twice.
A-ha!
"You done yet?" Hargreaves grumbled from his seat. The sight of him examining his handgun for a fourth time made Sarah want to smack the man.
He looks like a little boy playing with his dick, she flashed him a lethal scowl, trying to figure out what it's for and why it feels so good when he touches it.
"Be quiet," she snapped. "I think I've got something. Gorotti was just under three-hundred pounds so he was a beast and a half. Tanya Larson was close to one-fifty but only five feet tall - so a little on the chunky side but Doctor Cartwright...she was just a wisp of a thing, five-seven and only one hundred pounds. "
"So what?" Tommy asked. "You're babbling again."
"So," Sarah said, flipping to the other files now, not deeming the paparazzo worthy of a glare, "Doctor Tan thought there was a genetic factor linked to the disease. He pointed out that the virus affects women differently from men, that the pace of its progression was accelerated in female hosts but he never bothered to mention that RS was still affecting some women different from other women."
"You think that has something to do with how much they weigh?" Hargreaves sounded skeptical. "I'm no doc, doc but what does any of that have to do with genetics?"
"I'm not talking about genetics," Sarah replied, comparing the charts of Bryce Rosh and Rick Larson together. "I'm talking about metabolism."
"Come again?" Chan asked, fiddling with his camera strap.
"Everything you put into your bodies needs to be metabolized. It needs to get processed," Homer answered from the driver's seat, seeming to catch on to his partner's thinking. "Sometimes viruses work the same way. The faster your metabolism, the faster the virus goes to work."
"Women typically have quicker metabolisms than men," Sarah continued, "that's why we're generally more attractive and radiant than the male half of the species. That's not a universal fact but if Tan was only looking at the bigger picture I can see how he might have assumed that the difference lay purely in our genes."
"You really think that's what happened?" Hargreaves asked, holstering his weapon.
"It would sure as hell explain all the discrepancies I'm seeing here in onset times and the progression of symptoms. For example," she began, holding up a pair of charts, "Bryce Rosh had nearly eighty pounds on Rick Larson and was only suffering from an outbreak of hives when Rick was already running a fever and going through waves of nausea. More weight could equal a slower metabolic rate which would explain the slower manifestation of symptoms."
Though it was only a theory - and a rather thin one at that, no pun intended - but Sarah could already feel her mind running away with the idea. She had never been able to get a grasp on how the pieces fit together in the puzzle that was the Raccoon virus...until now.Her heart fluttered between her ribs as the tiniest flame of hope began to burn.
I can't believe I never saw this before, Sarah's eyes darted across the lines of each medical file, looking for any other factor's in the victims' histories that could have influenced their metabolic rates. I never would have even thought of it if I hadn't flown off the handle like that and started comparing weight classes for God's sake. I guess the devil really is in the details.
"You're theory has a few holes, Sarah," Homer commented, swerving left and right abruptly as heavy thumps sounded on all side of the MRRU. Sarah didn't bother to look out the window, knew the noise came from the infected that had stumbled into the middle of the road pounding at the CDC vehicle as it sped past. She suppressed a shudder as the creatures banged against the reinforced steel walls, imaging pale, peeling hands reaching out in a vain effort to halt their momentum and see what tasty treasures lay inside the metal giant. "For one thing, metabolism can be a genetic factor - that's why there's often such a large divide between the metabolic rates of males and females. Doctor Tan might not have been too far off after all."
"You're splitting hairs now," Sarah said, her brows pinching together. For someone who's supposed to be retired you're still always trying to teach. "Your genes don't influence how quickly the virus has its way with you,your metabolism does. At least, I think it does. I never said it was written in stone but it's more than we've had to go on for nearly two weeks."
"Wait a sec," Hargreaves said, raising a hand to draw the young virologist's attention. "You said the disease should effect skinny people faster, right? Because they have quicker metabolisms? Well, that might explain Doc Breese changing in just a couple minutes after he took a face full of puke but what about Muller? He was built like a brick house and he turned just as fast after he got bit."
Sarah stared at the security guard for a moment, chewing her bottom lip before an idea occurred to her. "Your friend, Muller, how badly was he hurt?"
"Thought he was dead at first," Hargreaves grunted, dropping his gaze to his bootlaces. "Breese ripped his throat out as far as I could see. Poor son of a bitch should have bled to death in a few seconds." He let out a short sigh. "Too bad he wasn't that lucky."
"I think I might have an answer to that as well. Just because metabolism is a factor, doesn't mean it's the only factor. A virus is still a virus so even while your body is trying to metabolize it, you're immune system has recognized it as a foreign invader and is busy trying to fight it off - hence the high fever, nausea, etcetera.
"The first patients we saw - those who hadn't been infected by others - always managed to last a day or two, probably depending on their individual metabolisms, before slipping into a coma and waking up a few hours later looking for someone to snack on. On the other hand people who had been infected by contact with a carrier never lasted more than twenty-four hours before going comatose. We had never seen a case where a host was infected just before or after death though."
"What's your point?" Hargreaves asked with a quirked eyebrow.
"My point is that the human body is basically an organic computer right? Think of the immune system like the body's anti-virus software. Turn off the power - stop the heart - and the systems start to shut down. We don't know much about RS but we do know it's one of the most virulent pathogens on Earth so put it up against an immune system that's been compromised by a massive power failure like, you know, death and it's going to be allowed to do its job a hell of a lot faster. We'd be talking about a transformation that usually takes hours taking minutes - or less."
Hargreaves was silent a moment before he fixed Sarah with a grim expression. "Now you're really scaring me, doc."
"Why the difference in times between people who had been bitten and those that hadn't though?" Tommy asked from his roost near one of the side windows. The freelancer had his camera pressed to the glance, his finger hammering the shutter. Sarah didn't even want to know what sight of horror the photographer had captured in his viewfinder.
Documenting the nightmare, huh, Tommy? You're even more of a leech than I first thought.
"The mouth is filled with bacteria for breaking down food," Homer offered, "pour that into an open wound that's already infected with a virus like RS and you're asking for trouble. Maybe the bacteria and the virus culture compliment one another somehow, help speed the work the disease needs to do before it can attack the host's brain. That was the working theory most of us had, Sarah felt differently though."
Harold and Tommy fixed the researcher with intrigued glances, Tommy even going so far as to lower his camera. Brushing hair out of her eyes, Sarah nodded.
"My idea was a little more...radical," she admitted.
"To say the very least," Homer replied.
"I got the idea the first time I saw the test results for when we tried to kill it with various antibiotic cultures," she began. "The virus didn't simply neutralize or eradicate the compounds we pitted against it - it assimilated them. The little bastard seemed to realize it was under attack, figured out what it was then adapted itself so that it was able to absorb a formerly harmful influence."
"Woah, woah," Tommy chuckled nervously. "Are you trying to tell me this thing is smart? It can learn? You really are crazy if you expect me to believe that."
"You're right," Sarah fired back without missing a step. "What was I thinking?" She slapped herself dramatically across the forehead as if leveled by a sudden revelation. "Of course the two-bit, dumpster-diving paparazzi wanna-be knows more about infectious diseases than the lead CDC appointed researcher with a major in virology! How could I be so stupid?"
Chan stared at the woman for a moment with his mouth gaping. Finally he put his lips together and kept them that way, contenting himself with playing with his camera lens. Scoffing briefly, Sarah went on.
"Yes, I think it's learning or at least has the capacity to learn. That's why I believe it began as an airborne virus but was unable to survive in that form long enough to wreak any true havoc - it's why we saw so few cases initially that didn't involve carrier-to-carrier contact as the means of infection.
I think that once it found hosts it was able to bond too then it changed itself - the same way it does when attacked with drugs - and became even more virulent, able to spread much more quickly through physical transfer. That's why it gears itself to taking over its victim's brains. Once it's in there it floods the system with hormones, making the infected more aggressive and violent until finally the brain is overloaded and short-circuits leaving only the most basic instincts still intact."
"Like what?" Hargreaves wondered aloud.
"The need to feed would probably be the best example."
"Oh. Right."
"A microscopic entity that binds itself to a host and uses the faculties of that host to spread sounds a lot like a parasite to me, Sarah," Homer commented, jerking the MRRU suddenly to the left before shifting back into the right lane. "Problem is, parasites don't start out as airborne viral strains. That's why you had some trouble giving that theory wings."
"It's more than any of you were able to come up with," Sarah glared daggers into the back of Homer's balding head. "Maybe you should try coming up with a solution for once instead of looking for more problems, Homes."
"Still doesn't explain where the sucker came from," Hargreaves muttered. "Why here and nowhere else? What makes Raccoon City so special?"
"The first five reported cases were all linked to one another." Sarah said. "Four of the five where men who worked on the same maintenance detail for the city's sewer system and the fifth was the wife of one of the workers. That can't just be a simple coincidence."
"So, it started in the sewers?" Tommy barked a laugh that grated on Sarah's nerves worse than fingernails on a chalkboard ever could have. "What? Someone flushed a biological weapon down the toilet and those sorry fuckers just happened to be down there at the time?"
"No, that's not what I'm saying...I'd expect a piece of vermin like you to be more familiar with the inner workings of a sewer too," Sarah hissed. "I don't know how this virus originated - God only knows what kinds of diseases you can contract wandering around down there. RS could have began as some as of yet undiscovered spore on a wall, who knows.
"All I'm saying is that those five men were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever they did come down with is so small that you need a microscope to see it but, know this buddy, it's a hell of a lot more clever than either you or me."
Sarah ran the names of the infected quintet through her mind: Vincenzo Gorotti, Bryce Rosh, Rick Larson, Todd Mickelson, Brenden Gordon. The name's of the men - either dead by now or worse - became a mantra, droning on in the background of her thoughts like a recorder stuck on repeat. Briefly, she wondered what they would have thought if they could have realized that their illness' would provide the spark for one of the most devastating outbreaks in American history.
Not that there'd be a whole slew of reactions to learning that you're just the tip to an iceberg of a lethal, never seen before epidemic, Sarah decided leafing through the pilfered files for any further insights. I'm pretty sure you either just keep staring off into space or start looking around for the tallest building you can fling yourself off of.
"Hey!" Homer yelled into the back. "I think we're here!"
Setting aside Burke's file folder, Sarah moved from her seat towards the front cab of the MRRU where she peered over her partner's shoulder. Several feet in front of the vehicle's headlights, the blood-stained, body-clogged asphalt came to an abrupt end. Police cruisers, damp sandbags and concrete blockades sealed off the path ahead. Squinting through the drizzle and fog, Sarah was able to make out figures moving behind the barricades. Figures that did not shamble or stagger haphazardly left an right but moved into positions along the barrier with a deliberate, calculated focus.
"Thank God," she whispered. "This must be the southern blockade."
With the hospital overrun and the streets counting down their self-destruct sequence, Sarah had told Homer to make for the closest R.P.D. roadblock. Figuring that the best place to be in a city overflowing with maniacs was surrounded by the men and women with the most guns, it had seemed like a perfect plan - after all there were more police blockades than police stations in Raccoon City these days. Encircled by the boys and girls in blue, Sarah could gather her thoughts and put together as coherent a situation report as possible for Barnes back at HQ. If the arrogant little prick of a director was smart he would listen to everything she had to tell him and then send in a full hot suite to begin screening and evacuating survivors. The military would probably be needed as well to provide security for the CDC team or assist with the screening process itself.
Let's not forget the clean-up either. Someone's going to need to take care of the infected still within the city limits...and then there's the possibility that those things might have gotten through the police's shield. That thought had a finger of dread tickling the inside of Doctor Waxer's belly. Wouldn't that be fun? Dozens of those...those creatures escaping into the surrounding areas where nobody has any idea of how to treat or contain RS. Granted, it's not like we did a bang up job in either area.
Nothing irked Sarah more than failure. If she scored poorly on a test, she would feel sick to her stomach for days. If one of her experiments produced unexpected results, it was all she could do to keep from tearing her hair out. Yet her failure here in Raccoon had left her simply numb, so great and overwhelming was its extent.
Sarah Waxer, virologist, biologist and hot shot rookie brainiac had been sent in to Raccoon City to solve a puzzle only to discover that she lacked the tools to fit any of the pieces together in time. Her goal had been to manufacture an anti-virus or at least develop a proper containment scheme. She had been unsuccessful in both endeavors - now the only cure was a bullet through the skull and the city's quarantine was fast eroding as the officers manning the barriers succumbed to the disease themselves.
Not exactly a great first impression to leave with the CDC brass, Sarah thought as Homer drew closer to the blockade, and the people fortunate enough to make it out of this horror show will definitely have a good chuckle at the lashing I'll take from the press when I get back home for debriefing but fuck them all. I didn't start this mess but I was supposed to clean it up and boy, oh boy, did I ever screw the pooch there. Well, the hell with it, I'll take my lumps, I'll take the heat but first I'm going to have to live long enough to see that day so priority number one is getting our asses out of here.
"They'll take us in right?" Tommy asked, pushing up uncomfortably close to her.
"Of course they will," Sarah scoffed. "They're cops, right? Serve and protect. That's what they're paid to do so stop worrying -"
Flashes of gunfire stood out against the gray day like bursts of silvery light. Sarah ducked and cringed as she heard the bullets whiz and crack past the windows of the MRRU. Tires squealed and the van fishtailed wildly left and right as Homer took both feet off the gas to slam down on the brakes.
"What the hell was that about?" Tommy whined from where he lay on the floor with both hands clamped over his head. "Are they out of their fucking minds?"
"Warning shots," Hargreaves replied grimly. "At least, I hope those were only meant to be warning shots. I guess we'll find out in a minute anyway." Sarah noticed the security guard had his pistol out again but the grip he held on it now was no longer nervous and idle.
Slowly, Sarah found the courage to raise her head above the dashboard. Five men were racing towards them from the ramshackle barricade. Each was draped in heavy black body armor and cradled a wicked looking submachine gun in his gloved hands. With weapons raised, the five skid to an unexpected halt about ten feet from where the MRRU had come to rest at a nearly ninety-degree angle, arranging themselves in a staggered line with one of their number standing prominently at the front. Through the vehicles reinforced glass windows, Sarah was just able to make out the lead man's shouting.
"Turn around now!" He roared, the MRRU's thick windows and walls doing nothing to disguise the barely restrained madness in his voice. "No one is permitted outside of the city! Turn around now, goddamn it!"
"Some hospitality," Hargreaves grumbled.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sarah demanded of her partner as he reached for the gear shift with one hand while holding the other high and open in a placating gesture to the officers outside.
"Following orders." He said nonchalantly, sliding the stick into reverse.
"Whose orders?"
"The ones given to me by the mob of men sticking guns in our faces." He paused to give the younger woman a sharp glare. "You might have been in charge of this case, Sarah, but as far as I'm concerned this is a democracy now. I'm not about to get shot just so we can hold to your plan. We're going to have to find another spot to hold up and call the CDC from."
"You're such an old man, Homer," Sarah sighed and unclipped her ID badge from her breast pocket. Without another look at her partner she stepped over Tommy Chan, threw the side door open and hopped out into the rain.
"Sarah -!" Homer cried but the rest was cut off as she slammed the door with a satisfying crunch.
Straightening her hair and smoothing her lab coat as best she could, Sarah moved around the front of the van with her hands held high and palm facing outwards. Dangling between her fingers was the laminated piece of plastic that named her as a special consultant from the Center For Disease Control, she hoped that would be enough to keep the jittery cops from plugging her when she came into view. Though she told herself this was nothing compared to what she had already been through today, Sarah was powerless to stop a tremor from crawling up her spine at the sight of so many firearms pointed her way.
Son of a bitch, she shivered as the officers leveled their weapons with her frame and tried to convince herself that it was only a chill from the rain. They could shred me before I had a chance to even blink.
"Don't shoot!" She yelled, doing her best to sound rational and in control. "My name is Sarah Waxer! I'm a doctor with the CDC. I was sent in to assist with the Raccoon Syndrome outbreak. Here's my ID if you don't believe me."
"I don't give a shit who you are," the apparent commander bellowed. "You could be the First Lady for all it matters to me. No one is leaving the city."
Well, at least we're off to a good start. Why was I worried?
"I understand that, officer." Sarah answered evenly, her upraised arms beginning to ache. "I'm not asking you to let us out. There are others with me - another doctor and two survivors from Saint Jude's hospital - I just need a safe place to contact my headquarters from. I need to get in touch with my director. He'll be able to send in more help once he receives my report - more doctors, more security, maybe even evac transport for any healthy survivors."
"You want us to take you in then?" The man sounded incredulous, his black balaclava hiding all but a pair of icy, wild blue eyes. "I'm not running a refugee shelter here, lady. Get lost and get lost fast."
"Please, there's only four of us. We have medical supplies and -"
"Yeah, there's only four of you now but if I take you in then what? Then maybe four more show up and I have to take them in too...and then four more and then ten more and then twenty more. If you're looking for shelter then go to fucking Precinct 24. The mayor designated that as the emergency relief center in case something like this happened. There's nothing I can do for you."
"We don't have time for that!" Sarah cried, frustrated and helpless she could feel the sting of unwanted tears burning in the back of her throat. "We're almost out of gas as it is...and driving through the streets is like navigating a death maze. Please, I'm begging you here, I only need an hour or two."
"How many times do I have to tell you?" The officer spat, his tone - like his aim - unwavering. "I'm not taking anybody in. You could all be infected with this shit as far as I know."
"None of us are infected!" Sarah screeched and was grateful for the rain in her face. It hid the water leaking from her eyes. "I know more about the virus than anyone right now so, please, you have to trust me. No one with me has been bitten or scratched."
For less than a moment, something softened in the man's eyes and Sarah prayed that he was about to change his mind about them but then that steel curtain came crashing down over his gaze again and her heart sank. Suspicion was a useful tool to a police officer, after all, and this one seemed loathe to part with it. It had kept him alive for too long.
"So what?" He countered. "I've heard of people just coming down with it out of the blue. Hell, I knew guys in the department that got it that way."
"That was before!" Sarah roared, throwing her arms down in disgusted aggravation. "That was when it was still airborne! It's not anymore. I swear! Please, we don't have anywhere left to go."
"Sergeant Holt!" One of the other SWAT troopers called a sudden warning and the sergeant's gaze shifted to something behind Sarah.
"Get back!" He shouted abruptly, shifting into a defensive stance. "Tell them all to get back now!"
Glancing over her shoulder, Sarah was perturbed to see the cause of the officer's panic walking uncertainly towards them. Homer waddled slowly, hands held halfway to his shoulders, fingers trembling violently. He was tailed closely by Tommy Chan and Hargreaves, the wannabe photojournalist pushed forward eagerly, clicking away with his camera while the man beside him moved with the calculated grace of a trained hunter. The contrast between the pair was so stark Sarah could have laughed had she been anywhere else.
"What the hell do you all think you're doing?" Sarah demanded, helpless anger turning to powerful irritation at the sight of the three men. "I didn't ask you to come with me."
"You didn't tell us to stay put either," Hargreaves told her, his handgun held loosely in his right hand as he studied the SWAT team ahead, his eyes seeming to judge and weigh each man for strengths and weaknesses.
So help me God, if he tries something here. Sarah scowled openly at the security guard, trying to will him telepathically to put his damn gun away already. There were a plethora of ways to get killed in Raccoon City without having to add being gunned down by the police to the list. If you get us killed here, I'll rip your balls off. That's a promise.
"Drop that weapon!" Holt roared at the Umbrella guard, drawing a bead on the other man's face. "Put it down or I'll give you an extra eye right between the other two."
Hargreaves seemed to consider the other man's proposition for a moment. Sarah was screaming at the man in her head, threatening death and dismemberment at her hands, shrieking at the fool to stop thinking with his dick already and show some brains. He must have heard her because, after another second's consideration he slid the pistol back into its holster at his hip.
"All of you, get out of here now." Holt growled.
"Sergeant, we don't have anywhere else to go," Sarah hated to plead more than she hated to cry, for both brought with them that horribly helpless sensation of drowning. "I'm a doctor with the CDC, you need to believe me when I tell you that no one here is infected -"
"Oh, I need to believe that do I?" Holt fired back, thrusting the barrel of his weapon towards Sarah's tightly pursed lips. "Because I've never been lied to before, huh? If you think I'm going to take your word on anything then you must believe I was born yesterday too, lady. Don't you think I've seen a thing or two in this hellhole?"
"Hey! Hey!" One of the men behind the SWAT commander shouted. "Put that fucking camera away!"
Startled by the man's seemingly bottomless capacity for stupid behavior, Sarah turned to find Tommy snapping pictures of the grisly scene behind the small troop of police officers. A breach had been attempted at the barricade and many of the participants had proven unsuccessful. Bodies riddled with gunshot and other, cruder wounds formed a gruesome carpet across the first line of sandbags. Even now police officers trudged through the rain, dragging away the dead. There was a heavy chorus of groans and Sarah watched as a half dozen men pushed a bloodstained old Chevy into a ditch by the side of the road. The wreck had so many holes in its frame it could have doubled as a metallic piece of Swiss.
So much for ramming our way through, Sarah thought, defeat and exhaustion hanging heavy on her shoulders as, with a final grunt and sigh, the officers managed to roll the clunking blue beast into the crevasse.
"Jesus, Tommy!" She snapped. "Have some respect would you? Put that thing down already, you freaking moron!"
"What?" The reporter asked, lowering his camera but not possessing enough integrity to look ashamed. "It's in plain sight. There's no law that says I can't take a picture of something that's just sitting right out in the open."
"We're still picking some of our friends out of that pile of fucking animals," Holt snarled, "so if I say you can't take pictures of it then you can't. Now, I'm done talking with you - all of you - I'm not taking any of you in. Save your own asses - no one's helping us save ours. Get lost or get shot. Make your choice fast though because when I'm wet I get cranky and when I get cranky I run out of patience real fast."
Mouth gaping, tears and rain touching her tongue with a salty caress, Sarah stifled the impulse to protest one last time. There was something in Sergeant Holt's eyes, something cold and so dangerously close to insanity that it erased any doubts she might have harbored about the seriousness of his threat. Whatever the man had seen, whatever he had been forced to do, it had left him with nothing more than a thread of sensibility to cling to. Horrors witnessed and performed had wiped the sergeant clean of a sense of duty, absolved him of his oath to protect and serve.
Sarah had visited regions of the world where disease ran rampant and the threat of horrific death lay just around the corner. She well knew the impact such living conditions took on their inhabitants. Fear often broke people long before the illness' that terrified them had any chance too. Some were reduced to catatonic, blubbering wrecks, given over wholly to their despair while others, who had hedged their bets and determined that it was better to get it over and done with sooner and by their own volition rather than later when the choice was taken from them, killed themselves. Then there were the few who, like Sergeant Holt, found themselves teetering on the brink of a savage madness, a descent into the deepest darkness where only the basest of instincts existed - survival.
Murder, theft, anarchy, destruction - all were just tools of survival. When presented with dire circumstances mankind would do whatever it took to survive and the cost could be lamented later, as a luxury of the living. As the epidemic swallowed Raccoon City whole and the citizens took to tearing apart the fabric of their society, Sarah had not been surprised in the least. It was only human nature after all.
She could read the war of emotions raging inside the officers skull with a single, sweeping gaze. He held his shoulders forward and tight against the stock of the submachine gun. His finger, barely touching the trigger of his weapon, sat still as a hunting hawking upon a branch. Lips, cracked and rough, were held pursed together in a thin colorless line and though water dripped from the brim of his helmet down into his eyes, Holt did not blink once.
Rigid as a bar of iron, was Holt, but just as brittle. Push too hard, bend too far and even iron would shatter as easily as glass. So too would a man's sanity. One more word, Sarah realized, and Sergeant Holt would take the plunge into the black waters of self-preservation. One more word from any of them and Holt would do the rest of his talking with the barrel of his weapon. Survivors could questions the rationality of their actions later; corpses could not.
"We're going," Sarah told the man and began to back away, signaling at her pathetic looking troop to do the same. Only when her sodden, defeated bunch had slunk back into the MRRU with their damp tails tucked firmly between their legs did Holt lower his weapon and order his men back to the barricade.
"That went well," Tommy commented from over Sarah's shoulder as she settled into the passenger seat.
"Keep talking asshole," she snapped. "I swear Tommy, I'm this close to tearing off your balls for a hood ornament." She held her thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart and squinted through the space in between. "You're the dipshit who decided it'd be a good idea to start taking pictures of a mound of dead bodies when the fucking cops were sticking guns in our faces!"
"Excuse me for trying to do something productive," Tommy snorted slipping back down onto one of the benches. "When we get out of here people are going to want to know what happened here and no one is going to believe shit like this went down without proof." He held up his camera. "I'll be the one with that proof."
"Make sure you get a t-shirt deal too then," Hargreaves grumbled. "You could print 'I went to Raccoon City and all I got was eaten alive,' on them. Humor like that's got to be worth at least ten bucks a pop right? Maybe more if you can get a good illustrator to draw a bloody hand -"
"If you two wouldn't mind shutting up for a moment but I think we have a bigger problem, now?" Homer admonished the pair in the back who flashed him sullen looks but managed to find the strength of character to keep their traps shut which did wonders for the pounding in Sarah's head. "Namely, where the hell do we go? If you're thinking of taking Holt's advice and heading for the police station I should probably tell you now that this lumbering hulk does not have enough gas to make it even half that distance."
"I'm a step ahead of you as always, Homes," Sarah said, doing her best to sound self-assure even as she scrubbed the last few galling tears from her eyes. "This baby can withstand anything short of a direct rocket strike so we're just going to have to find a place to lay low for a bit."
"Yeah? Then what?"
"I call Barnes and tell him to send in a full hot suite with military compliment. I'm going to tell him that he needs to kick his ass into fifth gear on this one. Sending in two analysts was a half assed attempt at getting this situation under control. He underestimated how bad things would get over here and how fast they would get that way. So he's going to have to make it up big time."
"Underestimated the situation or was trying to downplay it?" Homer asked. "Two CDC researchers is enough for the general public to feel like something's being done about the problem but not enough to cause them any panic about what's happening in their own backyard."
"I didn't realize you could be so political, Homes."
"Stick around, I'm full of surprises."
Hearing those words made her grin, as it was the old Homer, safe, reliable, and wise shining through again. Those words, so quick and with just a miniscule quirk of sarcasm attached did not belong to Homer the Teacher, who always second guessed her or Homer the Old Maid, who knew how to worry better than he knew how to walk. Just plain old Homer Shields, partner and friend.
Stick around, I'm full of surprises.
Then Sarah thought of Homer back at Saint Jude's just before their desperate flight from the hospital. The memory seemed so strange now it was nearly alien. His face normally timid and smooth had seemed monstrous, his chubby features contorted in a grimace of enraged frustration, his eyes narrowed to tiny, sharp points. What she remembered most vividly though was his finger: thrust at her chest, the nail a dagger point seeking her heart.
"You don't know!" Homer, who never raised his voice to her - to anyone! - had bellowed. His statement had been a roaring admonition, a professor striking a dense pupil with a yardstick to drive home their idiocy."It's just a theory, Sarah. You can't be sure because you're still too goddamn gr..." In the end, her friend had lacked the stomach to finish his verbal thrashing but she had gotten the point. The word he had been unable to finish still stuck in her mouth and it tasted so bitter she thought she could gag on it.
Green. I'm still too green. That's what he meant, what he wanted to say.
When Sarah had graduated from university when most others were still finishing off their applications, Homer had scooped her up in his arms and swung her around as if she were his own daughter, laughing as she squealed. He had thrown her in a headlock and mussed up her hair when she had shown him her acceptance letter from Director Barnes, offering her a research position with the CDC, then chuckled when she twisted his arm back behind his back in retribution and demanded that he say "Uncle". When her new found colleagues rejected her ideas out of hand, deeming her nothing more than an up-jumped child prodigy looking to get her name in a few medical journals, Homer had been the voice in her corner, speaking up and lending momentum to her theories when she was all but ready to chuck in the towel.
"It's just a theory, Sarah." Just another worthless idea from someone way out of their league. Something a little girl would come up with. Sarah's grin faded as she regarded the man in the seat next to her. My folks never believed in me, Barnes never believed in me...not really, anyway. Hell, half the time I think I never believed in me either. I guess you're just like everyone else then, Homes. I guess you're not different like I thought you were.
Of course you're not. That was just another theory of mine. Just another worthless idea. Something a little girl would come up with.
"Stick around," Homer had said, "I'm full of surprises."
This morning he had held her when she wept, bitter and broken and out of gas. This afternoon, he had turned on her, just as every other human being in her life had done. It wasn't self-pity to admit this, Sarah decided. It was pattern recognition.
"Stick around, I'm full of surprises."
Sarah leaned her head against the glass of the window and shut her eyes. Finding the strength suddenly sapped from her, she slipped away into the desolate reaches of silence.
No kidding.
Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. Once again a shorter chapter turned into a, well, not so short chapter. Expect another update within the next week or two. So stay tuned and, as always, please read and review!