Alexander Death (The Paranormals, Book 3) (5 page)

Dr. Heather Reynard of the Center for Disease Control stood in the morgue of the Medical University of South Carolina and looked at the bodies that had been collected from the residential street in downtown Charleston. There were just over two dozen of them, every age, every condition.

Also in the room were the dean of the medical school as well as the county medical examiner Cordell Nolan, who had returned the bodies with the help of local police, and two morgue assistants who had witnessed the bodies' departure from the morgue. She wasn't sure what to make of their story.

“So,” Heather said, “He comes through this door. He opens the drawers. And then...could you review the next part again?” She looked at the two morgue assistants, one an older black man named Corinthius, the other a twenty-four-year-old kid with dark green hair, whose name was Steve.

“And then that's where it gets fucked up,” Steve said. “He starts bringing them back to life. Bam, bam, bam, one after the other they sit up, and he sicks them on us like a pack of wild dogs—”

“Not like a pack of dogs,” Corinthius interrupted. “More like a pack of turtles. They were slow, dragging their feet, but they were coming for us. He could make them attack.”

“And how exactly did he bring them back?”

“Hell if I know,” Steve said.

“I meant, what exactly did you see him do?” Heather asked.

“He touched 'em,” Corinthius said. “That's all. He touched each of them one time. Then he did kind of a funny wave with his hand—” Corinthius raised his own hand, “And then they got up and walked toward us. That's when we ran the hell out of here.”

“It's not my job to deal with zombies,” the green-haired kid whined. “They're supposed to be fully dead when they get here, and then stay that way. I ought to get hazard pay or overtime or something.”

“Kid's got a point,” Corinthius said, with a glance at the dean. “Ought to at least get some extra vacation time.”

“We'll see,” the dean said.

“Every one of 'em was dead last time I saw 'em,” the county medical examiner said. “Got more injuries now than they did before. All post-mortem, of course. Mostly cuts and scrapes.”

“That's all he did?” Heather asked. “He just laid his hands on them, and then he could animate them?”

“You gotta believe us,” Steve said.

“I do believe you,” Heather said. “I've reviewed the hospital's security footage. I saw them walk. I just can't begin to figure out how.”

“Sure would be easy if we could write it off as some kind of frat prank,” the medical examiner said. “College kids horsing around.”

“Easy, but not true,” Heather said.

“Hell, I've worked in government for years,” the medical examiner said. “Nobody gives a possum's ass hair about the truth. Everybody wants what's easy.”

“Not me,” Heather said. “I want to know who this guy is, how he got these corpses walking, and why. What did he accomplish? Did he give any clue about his motivation?”

“Only the Devil knows the Devil's true intentions,” Corinthius said. The county medical examniner nodded along with him, but the dean gave a small, derisive snort.

“He did say something about destroying the world, didn't he?” Steve asked.

“That's not what he said,” Corinthius replied.

“He did! I remember! 'Death and destruction to the world.' Something like that.”

“He said, 'I am Death, destroyer of worlds,'” Corinthius said.

“What does that mean?” Steve asked.

“It's from Hindu mythology,” Heather said. “But the quote comes from Robert Oppenheimer. He said that when he detonated the first atomic bomb. He was talking about himself. 'I am become Death.'”

“Sounds like the Devil to me,” Corinthius said.

“Hell yeah it does,” Steve said. “I don't believe in God, but I'm starting to believe in Satan.”

“If we could step back from the theology a moment,” the dean said. “It's clear that, at bottom, this will turn out to be some sort of hoax. The bodies must have been manipulated in some way. Like puppets. They must have been rigged.”

“If he rigged them, it was too fast to see,” Corinthius said. “All he did was brush his hand over each one.”

“Then perhaps they were rigged before he arrived,” the dean said.

“Nobody was in or out of here last night,” Cornelius said. “We keep a visitor's log.”

“Then perhaps they had inside help for their prank. From someone young and immature, with access to the morgue.” The dean gave Steve a hard look, and the green-haired boy scowled back at him.

“I didn't do nothing, man!” Steve said.

“I would say it bears further investigating,” the dean said.

“They didn't show any sign of rigging when we found 'em,” the medical examiner said. “No cables, no ropes, nothing. If you're saying somebody slipped in here, rigged up them corpses with some kind of high-tech remote control, ran 'em through the streets, and stripped all signs of the rigging before any police showed up—well, damn, that's pretty thorough.”

“It's also the only logical explanation,” the dean said.

“For which there is absolutely no evidence,” Heather said.

“What do you expect me to say?” the dean snapped at Heather. “You want me to believe their crazy story about zombies and...and necromancy?”

“We should take their observations for what they are,” Heather said. “These men saw what they saw. We may not have an explanation yet, but any explanation needs to be based on evidence. Not on conjecture.”

“Conjecture? Have you never heard of a working hypothesis?” the dean asked.

“That would need to be based on some kind of evidence, too,” Heather said. “This looks supernatural on the surface, but don't be so eager to dismiss the supernatural that you rush into the first plausible idea. If we're going to be scientific, we must be comfortable letting the unknown remain unknown until we learn something concrete.”

The dean sighed. “At least this happened in the middle of a riot. I won't even need to put out a press release explaining things.”

“But we have to figure out what really happened,” Heather said. She looked above the autopsy table, where the overhead lighting fixtures had been ripped away. “We found them with the metal bars from the lighting mounts. And brooms, mops and other blunt objects. Each one also carried a full-size cadaver pouch. What do you suppose those were for?”

“Maybe they were like to-go bags,” Steve said. “So someone could pack them up and ship them.”

“That's stupid,” the dean said.

“At least it's a thought,” Heather said. “But the bodies were abandoned, with no sign of the...” Heather wanted to say
zombie master
, but stopped herself. “The perpetrator. Either they served his purpose, or he changed his plans.”

“It was one hell of a riot in the streets last night,” Corinthius said. “Seems to me he wanted to push his way through the crowd. Beat his way, if he had to.”

Heather nodded, thinking this over. “And what about the body bags?”

Nobody had any ideas to offer.

“Can we arrive at any consensus?” the dean asked. “At least for the public? There may be inquiries.”

“Spin isn't my department,” Heather said. “I find facts. It's up to other people distort them for political reasons.”

“Very funny,” the dean said.

“Man, are you gonna cover this up?” Steve asked. “You can't cover this up!”

“Calm down, Steve,” Corinthius said.

“I think we've heard enough from the morgue assistants,” the dean said. “Let's leave them to tidy up down here. Shall we go to my office?” He looked at Heather and the medical examiner.

“Oh, damn, it's a conspiracy!” Steve said. “Corinthius, can you believe—”

“I can believe you better head over to maintenance and get us some new brooms and mops,” Corinthius said.

“But, they can't, I mean—”

“Kid, we don't get paid enough to worry about this shit.” Corinthius said. “So don't.”

The dean glared at Steve. “Do you want to keep your job or not?”

Steve looked between them, outraged. Then he stalked out of the room.

“We were going to your office?” Heather asked.

The dean looked at Corinthius and pointed to the door where Steve had left. “Keep an eye on him. Keep his mouth shut.”

“I'll keep an eye on him,” Corinthius said. “But if I knew how to make him shut his mouth, I'd have done that months ago.”

The dean frowned and led Heather and the medical examiner out of the morgue.

As they rode the elevator towards the dean's office, the cell phone at Heather's belt crackled. She had it in “walkie-talkie” mode to stay in touch with other investigators.

“Dr. Reynard?” the voice on her phone said. It was Schwartzman, director of Public Health Surveillance. Her boss.

She grabbed the phone. “I'm here.”

“You'll want to come by the emergency room,” Schwartzman said. “There are patients with symptoms of Fallen Oak syndrome.”

Heather's heart beat faster. “Are you sure?”

“You're the expert.”

“There aren't any experts. Are the bodies being quarantined?”

“No bodies. These are live cases.”

Heather nearly dropped the phone. The mysterious Fallen Oak syndrome had killed over two hundred people in the town of Fallen Oak, South Carolina. Intensive study of the bodies had revealed no vector of any kind—no virus, bacterium or fungus—despite the horrific symptoms, including boils, tumors, pustules, rapid necrosis of the soft tissue.

Only one person was known to have symptoms of the disease without dying. That was Jenny Morton, an eighteen-year-old girl from Fallen Oak. Heather had identified Jenny as a possible immune carrier of the disease, with the help of Fallen Oak residents, particularly another teenager named Darcy Metcalf who had provided some anecdotal as well as photographic evidence of Jenny exhibiting the symptoms.

Heather had tested Jenny's blood and hair but found nothing at all. She'd never had a chance to examine patients who were both alive and showing symptoms.

“I'll be down there right away.” Heather punched the button for the next floor, and the elevator stopped.

“What's Fallen Oak syndrome?” the county medical examiner asked.

“It's a federal issue,” Heather said.

“If there's some new disease running around my city, I'd say that's pretty damn local,” he said.

“I can't say anything.” The doors opened and Heather stepped off the elevator. The medical examiner followed her.

“I want to speak to your superior,” he said.

“Convenient,” Heather told him. She pressed the “down” button, since they'd already passed the floor where the emergency room was located. “He's waiting for me.”

“Does the CDC usually fly in to investigate riots?” he asked.

“No.”

“So why are so many of y'all around today?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Heather told him.

He squinted at her and rubbed his chin. “You got to tell me if there's some kind of epidemic coming.”

“I don't believe there is.” Another elevator arrived and opened, and Heather stepped inside. He followed her.

“Then why are you here?” he asked.

“I was sent here,” Heather said. “That's really all I can say. You'll have to speak to Dr. Schwartzman if you want any information.”

“That doesn't sound like a good arrangement to me.”

Heather shrugged. The White House, worried about the upcoming election, had gone to great lengths to cover up the outbreak in Fallen Oak. She didn't want to risk getting in trouble.

They met Schwartzman at the emergency room. He introduced Heather to the administrator in charge of the ER, a very tall black woman with a stern look on her face—likely she didn't appreciate the CDC camping out in her hospital.

“You have to share some information,” the medical examiner said to Schwartzman. “If there's an issue the local health authorities need to know about—”

“I'll be happy to answer your questions in a moment,” Schwartzman said. “Let me just get Dr. Reynard started.”

“I want to see this syndrome you're talking about,” the medical examiner said.

Schwartzman sighed. “I don't believe your authority extends to the living. Wait here.”

The medical examiner scowled, but he didn't follow as Schwartzman led Heather to a room sliced into small sections by green curtains.

“I had them moved together,” Schwartzman said. “You get to work. I'll try to pacify our country doctor before he forces me to make a big federal case out of this mess.”

Heather took a deep breath and stepped through the first curtain.

A girl with thick, dirty blond dreadlocks occupied the bed. Her hands were swathed in bandaging.

“Hi there...” Heather looked at the chart. “Allison. I'm Dr. Reynard. How are you feeling?”

“Radiance,” the girl said.

“Excuse me?”

“I told them, I go by Radiance. That's my true name.”

“Okay...Radiance.” Heather strapped on a pair of latex gloves. “I just need to look at your hands.”