The soldier thrashed about the tub. Nassif slinked back, helpless. He hadn’t seen anything like it.
The major grabbed him. Scared shitless himself.
“Help him!” he screamed.
“I can’t, we have no medicine!”
Nassif rubbed his hair. Frustrated, he walked back from the jerking soldier. His comrades held on, scared eyes seeking the major’s. Finally, Nassif pointed at an adjoining room that the soldiers had kept the crew from exploring. “Lock him in there!”
“Why?” the major yelled in his face.
“So we can observe him. I have to observe him!”
The major staggered over to the tub. He barked orders in Spanish. The ailing soldier's eyes were turning up, the whites streaked with tiny red capillaries as the soldiers bundled him and dragged him into the room.
They threw him in and shut the door, just before he sprang towards the door, barging into it with superhuman strength. He was becoming rabid, teeth-baring, eyes like a wild animal.
His comrades watched him jump at the hard glass.
The crew and soldier watched in dismay as the lad hunkered down behind the glass.
“You ever watched a zombie film?”
Dazed, Olivia crouched in a corner. Peter joined her, but she hardly was aware of the others. It was all like a dream, the events of the past few minutes. And the soldiers coming and going about, her crew members huddled in the middle of the room. It was like watching a movie. In slow motion.
“Huh?”
“I saw one last summer,” Peter went on. “Zombieland. I was visiting friends in Alberta. It was shitty, a burlesque parody of the other classic zombie films. Nothing like this—”
“Is he gonna make it?” Olivia asked suddenly.
“Don’t even know what he’s got yet.”
Nicolai strolled over with his flask of vodka. He drank from it and gave it to Peter who pushed it away. Olivia took the flask and drank. The hotness traced fire down her throat.
Frank Miller’s parka was torn in the arm. His hair was wet from the tub episode. He looked lost. He glanced briefly at the carcass of the rocket on the platform.
He looked at Olivia.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I guess.”
His tired eyes appeared to take stock of the mess. At the mad soldier behind the glass.
“We should wrap this up,” Miller said. “We've had enough.”
“You think the major would let us go now?” Olivia asked.
“Not very likely,” Peter said. He looked at the glass. “Not when we have that guy trying to kill himself.”
The sick soldier had begun another outburst against the glass. He looked paler and madder. He hit the glass with a bone-creaking bang. He was now bleeding from the places on his face where he’d banged his skull on the glass.
Those watching shivered in terror.
Still in shock from how events had quickly switched from a lively exploration to a freak show, and yet trying to ignore the fact that this could be a major outbreak, Olivia took pictures of the sick soldier. She made notes, and got dragged out of the rocket room by Peter.
They had to settle down and decide what to do.
Miller once again appealed to the major about leaving but he insisted on getting such others from his superior.
“Can you get on the phone then?” Frank Miller said. “We really have to wrap up and leave.”
The major walked away scratching a red spot on his forearm. Miller had seen another soldier scratching his face. But he wouldn’t make the connection. Olivia Newton would.
Olivia distracted herself again by taking photos. She followed the crew around, she followed the soldiers, questioned anyone who would give answers. Mostly, her camera was attached to her face.
She was back in the rocket room, having questioned almost all the soldiers except the major himself, who had been grumpy lately.
Grumpy was what they all did, yes.
Yet. There was something. Olivia’s mouth opened in dawning realization. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, her skin crawled as she brought her camera down from her face. At first, what she saw through the lens was normal, until she looked at it with her own eyes.
Five of the soldiers had a case of the itches.
Five all at once. Her first urge was to flee immediately. But that would definitely draw attention. Then she took more photos. This time she made sure to capture all five in one shot.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“I think there is an outbreak here, Peter.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Shush, keep it down!” Olivia gripped his hand tighter. “I have seen it. A red patch on their bodies. They scratch it. I saw five soldiers with the same symptoms. It couldn’t be a coincidence now, could it?”
Miller and Victor Borodin were making plans for a possible breakout in the event that things get out of hand with the sick soldier, or the crew gets detained for longer than necessary. The two men conferred with each other. Nicolai was already putting his boxes together and it seems the crew may have to make a run for it soon.
“We have to let others know,” Peter hissed.
“Yes, but what are we gonna tell them? Besides, the major may shoot us all, thinking we are all carrying whatever disease this thing is.”
Peter shivered. Since they arrived at the facility, everyone had changed in some way. The billionaire had lost his perfect gentleman touch, his trimmed beard now bushy. Peter’s face was gaunt, his eyes haunted.
Olivia had caught her own reflection in the glass as she left the rocket room. She hadn’t recognized the terrified face that looked back at her. She had quickly checked in a corner, felt around her body for any unusual lesions, bruises, or patches. She had even felt around her breasts for lumps. You never know with these things.
“Come on, we have to warn the others.”
Peter pulled her up.
A solemn quiet descended on the group.
Olivia looked at Nicolai and thought ruefully that now was a good time to sing a dirge. The Russian, however, was preoccupied with the present predicament, as was everyone.
Frank Miller brushed his hair with his hands. He looked tired and haggard. Olivia’s stomach rumbled. They hadn’t eaten for most of the day.
“We have to go on now as though the soldiers are all infected—” Miller was saying.
“If only I could get in the laboratory,” said Anabia Nassif, “maybe I could find an antidote or make one.”
“Could you make one in the short time?” Olivia asked him.
The man looked straight at her. “We will never know if I never even try.”
They were in their sleeping quarters. The only sound was the scream of the bedsprings. Olivia wished for even a drop of whiskey. A game of chess with her cat Smokey. And the feel of her sofa with the sound of the street coming up to her room. She missed her life as it was.
Frank Miller paced the middle of the room. He bit his lower lip in deep thinking. Liam Murphy said maybe they could just wait for night, “then take their guns — the soldiers’, that is — and run. Their transport must be somewhere around.”
“And risk running into another ambush?” Ted Cooper countered. “No thanks, genius.”
“Then why don’t you come up with a smarter idea, Ted, since you seem to know everything.”
Miller called for calm. “Let's not make it harder on ourselves than it already is. Whoever the major takes orders from is coming. We wait for them and see where we go from there.”