Chapter 2 – Chap 2

The word quarantine likely sounds all too familiar in the day and age we live in. I’m sure many of likely assume you know everything there is to know about it.

But you’re wrong.

The word takes on an entirely different meaning when you are trapped in the middle of nowhere with a corpse that is beginning to reanimate.

Less than six hours after we had discovered that the mummy from the Andes might still have living tissue within in, our administrators locked us down and said we needed to await further instructions. And above all else, not leave.

Easier said then done. News of the way the body had reacted to Doctor Howlett traveled fast amid our group, and even though now the corpse appeared once again dormant… none of us dared go into the same room as it. Besides that, panic was spreading amid the crewmen and even the seasoned scientists. None of us had ever seen anything quite like this.

“We need to know what we’re dealing with,” dad insisted that same evening as we met in the mess hall.

“It’s a demon, a force from beyond our world!” Norman said and his men made murmurs of agreement. It wouldn’t be long before they staged a coup to leave, I realized.

“Perhaps it’s possible that the microscopic infectious cells have somehow mutated the body and taken hold of it, allowing for a new life form to control the deceased body?” I suggested ignoring their superstitious banter. If we could find a way to prove that the threat was earthly, perhaps more panic could be averted.

Or so I thought.

But people hardly ever listen to reason when they are facing a crisis, and this situation was hardly any different.

For the moment though, my fathers insistence that we remain on the opposite side of the building and focus on the dig seemed to have placated their fears. At least they could stay busy in the icy caverns nelow.

Once they had finished their evening meal, unable to sleep; the crewmen traveled to the depths of the mountain again while Dominic called me aside to examine the photographs he had managed to take of the mummy.

I had thought I had been able to memorize the details of the nightmarish disease that covered the body, but his pictures had somehow captured them in even more stunning detail.

With his camera’s focused lens he could zoom in on the deep wounds, allowing for me to see another dangerous discovery. Fungus, likely the source of the microscopic infection; was slowly growing out of the thousands of holes that covered the corpse.

“I’ve seen spores like this before. Deep in the Amazon, dangerous mind controlling fungi that can control insects to spread their bodies across wide areas of undergrowth. I’m almost positive that this is the same thing,” dad said when he examined the photos. I could sense a wavering doubt in his voice. Was he worried that our journey here might end the same way as mom’s?

“No… not quite the same thing. But some ancient variant. A dormant gigavirus that we have unintentionally woke up,” he admitted as he stared toward the sealed off room. Every once in a while we could hear the strange labored breathing of the reanimated corpse.

I wondered if it was the fungus, pushing more spores out of the body and causing the lungs to fill up. It was almost impossible to ignore such a ominous sound, but dad insisted that we keep away.

I wish I had listened.

The turning point came when I went to check on Manuel. Another of the crewmen, Jarvis; had been sitting with him using cold towels to keep his fever down. But it was clear that he was not doing very well. His body was visibly shaking and his breathing was labored as though something had infected his lungs. I called for Doctor Howlett to come examine him and see what his condition was.

But the doctor was hardly in any condition to assist either. After waiting for thirty minutes for him to arrive I went to the physicians room and found him passed out, sweating profusely and collapsed on the floor. A look at his arm told me why.

The part of his arm where the corpse had slashed at him was now inflamed, swelling and a deep purplish red. Something was infecting him and causing extreme pain to the poor man. I ran to get some water and quickly revived him, trying to examine the wounds and see how severe it was. How had it spread so quickly?

Howlett opened his eyes, and I could see the pain deep in his soul. He was scared but he tried to hide it from me.

“I just got lightheaded,” he insisted as I helped him up. I was careful to not place any extra pressure on his swollen arm.

“Why didn’t you report this when you first saw the symptoms?” I chided him. I decided it was pointless to try and pretend the situation was anything but severe. “We need to treat this immediately,” I told him.

“And do what? Amputation? It won’t matter. The virus is spreading fast. It’s in my blood Angie,” he shouted. That same fear he had tried to hide was easily resurfacing.

“If we do nothing it will kill you.”

“Better me than all of us,” he snapped back.

I shook my head deciding not to bother with a debate.

“You may think you are being self sacrificing, but Manuel is already sick. His lungs are full of some kind of mutation from the original spores I think, but I need your help to do a full exam,” I said as we left his small bunker.

Howlett nodded, gesturing for me to guide him to where Manuel was resting.

As we began the exam, Howlett apologized that we didn’t have the proper equipment to give the man some kind of sedative.

“Angelia, tie him down,” he instructed pointing to some clothes nearby that I could fashion as rope.

“Are you serious? He can hardly stand.”

“Once I begin it’s likely he will fight,” Howlett told me. I went ahead and got the clothes, tearing them and placing them in Manuel’s mouth first in case he began to scream.

“The only way that I’m going to be able to get a proper sample would be to cut to his lung,” the doctor explained as he gathered his surgical tools. His hands were shaking. I was about to second guess myself and tell him to wait, when he made the first slice against Manuel’s rib cage.

As predicted, the crewman screamed. I did my best to hold him down and told Norman to do the same. He had been standing and watching the entire process without a word.

It took all of our efforts to keep Manuel from getting free as Doctor Howlett continued to scrape away part of his body. Then as he opened up a pocket to get to the king, a sudden burst of those same strange chemicals spouted from his body and hit Howlett.

The doctor instantly began to choke. He fell back and dropped his surgical tools, grabbing at his throat as he fell. I stood away, too frightened to know for sure what the spores were doing to him.

A moment later the doctor stopped breathing and he was gone.

I had forgotten all about Manuel. He reared up, hitting me in my side as he began to act like a wild animal.

Grabbing at the knife, he sliced it through the air; manically defending himself.

“Don’t touch me, do you hear me?” he snarled as he backed out of the room.

“Manuel! You aren’t well. We are just trying to help,” Norman insisted.

“I’m getting the fuck out of here and none of you are stopping me,” Manuel answered, clutching his chest to keep the wound from causing him to lose more blood. He stumbled out of the room and Norman instinctively tried to follow but I held him back.

“He can’t go far. Even if he left this place think of where we are,” I told him.

I moved over to Doctor Howlett’s body, checking to see what damage the spores had done. Already I could see that the strange virus had begun to make his flesh rot and decay at a rapid rate. His smell was gone too. Like he had never even been alive. But I could still hear labored breathing beneath his chest. It made me shudder to think that he might still be suffocating.

“Contact my father. We need to move him to the same room as the mummy,” I told Norman. The crew man was at a loss for words, still shaken by the last few moments. I was doing my best to keep my composure, but I didn’t want anyone to see it. This was a nightmare but I pulled it together and snapped at the foreman to listen to me. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

I told dad everything about the situation with Manuel first. Needless to say he was furious.

“He can’t leave. What are you thinking Angelia? What if that virus is airborne?” he snarled.

Quickly he checked what limited security access we had and sighed in relief.

“None of the exits have been activated. He is here somewhere. Perhaps hoping to recover before he escapes,” he said.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t even think,” I admitted.

He got Dominic and Norman to arrange Howlett’s body alongside the mummy as he gave me different orders.

“Find him and get him here. If he is dying from the same thing these men have we need to find out why Manuel isn’t being affected the same way. It may be a key to our survival,” he explained.

Then he passed me a small pistol. “In case he is hostile, don’t hesitate to protect yourself,” dad told me.

Given the way that the crewman had just attacked us, I wisely took it and began to search the facility.

Mentally I was doing my best to figure out where Manuel might go, given how small the building was there weren’t a lot of viable options. Then again i knew his goal was to get outside, so maybe I needed to start looking in parts of the facility that were not fully functional.

I arrived at one of the older hatches that had once led to the observatory and noticed bloody shoe prints, confirming he had come this way.

Then I turned on my smartphone to look through the gloomy stairwell, calling out to him.

I didn’t expect a response. The abandoned observatory was like a tomb, one of the first places to fall apart thanks to the cave in years ago. As I carefully stepped over the rubble and pushed through to the outer mountainside, I thought about how these same stones were likely the ones that had killed my mother.

We had no way of knowing where her team had met their demise, I thought as I called to Manuel again.

A gentle summer rain was misting across the mountains as I carefully followed the ridge up to the next segment of the ruined observatory. There was little else to do but for him to try and scale down.

I saw him carefully moving amid the rocks, keeping the surgical knife close to his chest as he tried to find a clear path.

“You need to stop before you get hurt,” I shouted to him. His wild eyes shot back and me and he shouted some obscenity in his native tongue as he started to run. Somehow I had expected that response, his fight or flight had kicked in.

I broke into a run as well, my heart rapidly pumping as I thought of dad’s warning. The nearest village was over forty miles away but who knew if any indigenous tribes were out in the jungle below? Manuel couldn’t be allowed to leave.

Desperately I jumped down to the next part of the stairs, the old metal creaking and swaying as I shouted to Manuel. He wasn’t listening. But it wasn’t just because of me. Something was drowning me out from above.

Both of us paused in surprise to hear the noise as it grew louder. At first panic set in as I thought it was an avalanche. Then I saw a swarm of dark helicopters pushing their way out of the clouds.

It did not make me feel more at ease as I got a closer look at the men and women that were operating the machines. This was military.

And all of them were armed to the teeth. I saw AK-47s, grenades, and knives the size of my arm as the helicopters got closer. One of the men took out a sniper rifle and my heart sank.

A long stream of red pierced the dreary air as they locked on to Manuel. I don’t remember if I screamed. I know I wanted to.

In the midst of the noise and the rain, they fired and the bullet split his face apart. Blood splattered out of his forehead as he jerked back for a second like a puppet and then crumpled to the ground.

A moment later long ropes descended to the ground and the soldiers began to shimmey down to where I stood.i was trembling, aghast at the sudden callous regard for the man they had killed. Had they been aware he was infected? Or did they just want to make sure none of us could get out of here?

My unspoken question was given an answer a moment later as one of the officers that had decorated ranks on his uniform stepped forward and pointed a rifle at the body again.

“This facility is now under our jurisdiction. Put your hands over your head and get down on the ground.”