Chapter 31
31
If someone had told Ani she’d be treating a six-foot-two bodyguard behind a pizza pub in the middle of Denali National Park two weeks ago, she would have laughed her ass off.
Then she would have panicked.
She was a general practice pediatrician who worked at a clinic located on a lovely tree-lined block in downtown Barlow, Indiana. Her patients were little ones with ear infections and stomach aches and chicken pox. Very occasionally, a child would turn out to have something more serious, in which case she referred them to someone more specialized than her.
This situation was completely different. She didn’t even have her medical bag with her. No thermometer, no antibiotics, no stethoscope.
But Gil needed her, so she had to call on inner resources she hoped existed deep inside her.
She explained the situation—avoiding specifics—to Dave Donohue, the owner of the pizza pub, a burly, kind-hearted man in his fifties. He allowed her to use the restaurant’s first-aid kit and offered to pick up anything else she needed during his next supply run. She made friends with the kitchen staff, who let her make chicken soup and kitchari when they weren’t busy. It warmed her heart to see Gil devour the rice and lentil dish that her grandmother had always made for her when she was sick.
After three days, she started to hope she had a grip on this virus. Gil slept a lot, his body using all its energy to battle the intruder. His fever came and went. He followed her orders without protest—drink this water. Sip this green tea. Tell me your headache pain level.
But then things took a turn.
He started talking out loud using nonsense words—it sounded like gibberish to her. “Road to the underground. Last summer to fly like an ant. Fire ant. Fire ants.” Staring hard at her, repeating it over and over, as if it was urgent that she understand.
Stroke?
She asked him to smile, saw no one-sidedness, just that same heartstopping smile that hit her in the solar plexus every time. His face wasn’t numb. When he followed her instructions to lift his arms to the sides, they came up with equal strength.
He was in peak physical condition and showing no other symptoms of stroke, so she felt comfortable ruling that out. She didn’t want to call nine-one-one because that would mean exposing other people to the virus, and themselves to their potential pursuers. But if she had to, she would.
In the next moment, he asked for more water in a perfectly understandable manner, with no confusion whatsoever.
Maybe he was just rambling from the fever, his head still in whatever dream he’d been experiencing. As she relaxed, she remembered the bizarre way Victor had been talking in the airport, and the strange notes he’d written. Was the same thing happening to Gil? Were hallucinations a symptom of the omegavirus after all?
With any virus, the only way to understand the symptoms was to watch its effects on people. Until you had a large sample of patients, it was hard to know how it behaved.
She needed more information. She needed to go online. This virus was unfamiliar, but it was part of a family of viruses. Knowing more about the class of viruses as a whole might give her some clarity about this one.
The next time Gil settled into a deep sleep, she chased down Donohue, the busy owner, and asked if she could use his computer.
Settled into his office, surrounded by filing cabinets and stacks of empty pizza boxes, she looked online for whatever information she could find on the omegavirus family. There wasn’t much, since it was such a rare virus.
Relieving, but unhelpful.
Time to try a different approach. She did a search for “zombie virus,” which, after much searching, led her to a scientific forum for medical researchers who were working with zombie viruses. After much thought, she created an anonymous account using an email address she hadn’t used since high school.
Her time was up at that point, so she headed back to the room, where Gil was tossing and muttering to himself. Donohue had added a pulse oximeter to his last supply delivery, so she was able to confirm that Gil’s oxygen level was still good, although his pulse was a little fast.
During her next session on Donohue’s computer, she went straight back to that forum.
At first she lurked and scanned threads related to sub-Arctic viruses. They were just like other viruses, members of familiar families like the poxviruses, herpesviruses and so forth. Since they were viruses, their vaccines had to be specifically targeted to the particular microbe. There was no such thing as a broad spectrum antiviral.
So until this new omegavirus could be studied—which presumably the CDC and others were already doing—there would be no medical treatment for it. Only the symptoms could be treated, which she was doing.
A mention of green tea in one of the threads caught her eye. She’d been giving Gil green tea based on a memory from medical school, although she didn’t prescribe it for her young patients. The catechins in green tea could be effective in slowing the replication of a virus in the bloodstream. This thread went further—basil extracts had also been shown to have similar effects. The restaurant used basil on their pizzas—maybe she could buy enough to make a pesto to pour down Gil’s throat. Botanicals could be great, but getting enough of their bioactive constituents into your system could be challenging.
She sighed. Green tea and basil didn’t exactly make her feel well-armed. If only she knew what plants Victor was looking into. Did Nyx know? Would he tell them if he did?
She kept scanning the thread about catechins.
Someone with the handle PetriFied commented that green teas weren’t the only source of catechins, and reeled off a list of other plants.
She clicked on the profile of PetriFied and scanned through their comments. The account’s profile pic was a closeup shot of a microbe, and the location was listed as the Arctic. In other words, he or she was basically anonymous. All their posts were related to plants that had been shown to be effective in battling various viruses. So he or she must be some kind of plant scientist.
There was a thought—in the absence of an antibiotic, maybe she should roam the landscape and do some wildcrafting.
Of course she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t leave Gil alone that long. He’d be furious with her. In fact, even now he was probably waking up to check on her. It seemed crazy, since he was the sick one, but even in the depths of his fever he kept saying things like, Are you getting enough sleep? Lie down, I’ll stand guard for a while. Have you seen anyone suspicious come through?
Poor Gil. Clearly he didn’t like being incapacitated and dependent on someone else. It all went back to Lachlan, she knew. Lachlan needed a shield. Gil needed someone to devote himself to.
Someday, one extremely lucky woman would be that person for Gil. Ani could picture her—maybe a celebrity who couldn’t trust anyone except a protector like Gil. Or a high-level politician he met during one of his postings. Or maybe a genius like his brother. Whoever it was would be extraordinary— because Gil was.
Gil didn’t show much of what was going on underneath his watchful surface, but she’d seen enough to know it went deep. His loyalty went all the way to bedrock. Every time she got a glimpse of that core Gil-ness, she knew it wouldn’t take much for her to lose her heart to him.
It would have happened already, except that he’d been careful to warn her about how he operated. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. She respected Gil enough to accept that he wasn’t the “settling down” sort. His life didn’t lend itself to that, and he’d never been tempted.
She knew herself well enough to know that she was that kind of person. At some point, she’d be ready to try again, if she was lucky enough to find someone. This little moment-outside-of-time with Gil would pass, and she’d never do something like that again. It wasn’t her style. She wanted marriage, she wanted family.
But right now, more than anything, she wanted Gil to be okay.
On impulse, she sent PetriFied a private message. What plants might I find near Denali to fight an omegavirus?
She startled when she got an answer almost right away. What elevation? What omegavirus?
She didn’t want to identify the virus, and she didn’t know the elevation here. Nvm , she answered. I’ll try the basil.
Another answer popped up right away. What symptoms?
That should be safe, right? Headache, fever, light congestion, heavy sweating.
Any hallucinations? Disordered speech?
A sharp chill went through her. This was the first time anyone had brought up hallucinations in relation to the virus. Maybe she’d stumbled on someone who knew more than Dr. Christianson about the virus.
But was Gil experiencing hallucinations?
Maybe. He’d said something about “love” yesterday that seemed completely off the wall. And sometimes he seemed to be talking to the virus as if it was there in the room with them. He had demonstrated disordered speech, at least for a short spell.
Possibly , she answered. What do you know about this ?
I can’t say anything more in an online forum.
Well, that was helpful.
Another comment popped up. You said Denali. Where?
She snatched her hands away from the keyboard, ready to shut it down and end this convo before it got too close for comfort. But what if this PetriFied knew something that could help Gil?
Or what if someone was lurking in the forum in case someone came looking for answers?
Or what if she was now completely paranoid because of everything that had happened since that state trooper had landed?
Hello? I want to help. Can we meet?
If only she could ask Gil what she should do. But he hadn’t said a lucid word since this morning, when he’d sat straight up and said, “You need a break. Go get some coffee for yourself and add lots of cream and sugar.”
He remembered. Sweet man. But then he’d burrowed back into the blankets and started snoring again.
This was up to her. I need more information about you first.
I’m a researcher.
That didn’t seem like very much information.
I’m affiliated with a respected university and several nonprofit research institutes. I have no interest in anything other than learning more about zombie viruses. I know nothing about you except that you seem to need some help. I have something you can try. It might or might not help, but it won’t hurt. I can promise that much.
Oh God. Was this sketchy? The vagueness and lack of detail bothered her, but then again, she was operating in the same manner. She was just as anonymous as he was.
That would end if they met face-to-face.
But if she chose somewhere public, somewhere safe, somewhere she’d have backup…
I’m a couple hours away from the Carlo Creek pizza shop, she posted, lying slightly . I can meet you on the terrace.
The terrace was always crowded. She’d alert Donohue about her plan. And after they talked, she’d make sure PetriFied left first and never saw that she was staying right there on the premises.