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  PLAGUE

  A Medical Thriller by

  VICTOR METHOS

  Copyright 2012 Victor Methos

  Kindle Edition

  License Statement

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy.

  Please note that this is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All events in this work are purely from the imagination of the author and are not intended to signify, represent, or reenact any event in actual fact.

  BY VICTOR METHOS

  Jon Stanton Thrillers

  The White Angel Murder

  Walk in Darkness

  Sin City Homicide

  Arsonist

  Thrillers

  Plague (A Medical Thriller)

  Murder Corporation (A Crime Thriller)

  Creature-Feature Novels

  The Extinct

  Savage: A Novel of Madness

  Sea Creature

  Science Fiction

  Clone Hunter

  Star Dreamer: The Early Science Fiction of Victor Methos

  Humor

  Earl Lindquist: Accountant and Zombie Killer

  Philosophical Fiction

  Existentialism and Death on a Paris Afternoon

  To contact the author, learn about his latest adventures, get tips on starting your own adventures, or learn about upcoming releases, please visit the author’s blog at http://methosreview.blogspot.com/

  There are maladies we must not seek to cure because they alone protect us from others that are more serious.

  -Marcel Proust

  Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.

  -Gore Vidal

  CHAPTER 1

  It began with a cough.

  Michael Pettrioli sat on a large stone near the Amazon River, sipping warm water out of a plastic bottle. The river churned its brownish contents into white foam and though he was only a few feet away from his adventure guide, who was convincing a local tribesman that they were not here to steal their women, he couldn’t hear anything but the river.

  It’d been two days since he’d felt feverish and last night he’d been up at least half a dozen times either vomiting or with diarrhea. For several days before, he was unable to sleep from the blanket of insects that would attack him at night as he lay in a hammock a couple feet off the ground. Even with nets and repellent he seemed helpless to fight them. They ranged from harmless pests to life-threatening monsters. There was one type of biting fly that sought the fleshy part of the lip and injected her eggs there. One person in the group had already become a host and the guide had said they’d need to wait until the eggs are larger and cut them out with a hot scalpel.

  The adventure guide, a tall Australian man by the name of Clifford, finished speaking with the local villager and then came over and leaned down in front of Michael. He placed his hand on his head and then his neck.

  “You don’t look so hot, mate. Feeling warm.”

  “Just a little fever,” Michael said. “It’s nothin’.”

  “Well, isn’t nothing out here nothing. I think I need to send you back to the village to see a doc.”

  “No way. I blew ten Gs for this trip and I ain’t goin’ back to spend the next week in some filthy hospital bed. I’m fine, seriously. I think I caught a stomach bug or somethin’. I’m sure I’ll be cool in another day or two.”

  Clifford shrugged and stood up. “If you say so. Stay hydrated best you can. If we’re moving too fast, you let me know.”

  “Thanks.”

  It wasn’t long until Clifford gave the word that it was time to move out. They had at least a six-hour trek ahead of them before nightfall and much of the terrain they needed to cover was either dense vegetation that needed to be cut through or muddy ground that would come up to their ankles. It was tough going for the most experienced of guides and Michael knew for an amateur like him, feeling like he did, it was going to be hell.

  But this wasn’t the first time he’d experienced hell.

  He grabbed his backpack and followed the group of seven into the dense jungle canopy. They didn’t speak or laugh or crack jokes as they did the first few days. Everyone was dehydrated and tired, a few of them sick, most of them hungry, and none of them having a good time.

  Michael kept his eyes on the ground, watching his feet as he pushed one foot and then the other in front of him. That was how he had climbed Everest and how he crossed half the continent of Africa. One step at a time. But this was much harder. With each step he felt his strength leaving him and his mind turning to mush. He couldn’t think clearly and after about an hour his vision began to blur.

  He kept this to himself. The girl in front of him was ten feet away and he kept his eyes on her boots, a magnet to draw him forward. But as his vision grew worse, so did his nausea. He felt bile in his throat and tried to swallow it down but could only do so much before it burst out of his mouth.

  Considering there was nothing in his stomach but crackers and water, hardly anything came up. But it was so violent that it brought him to his knees. He felt the soft, wet dirt underneath him, against his skin. It felt welcoming, much more so than the humid air and the insects burrowing into him. He collapsed onto his back, certain he would just take a quick nap and then catch up to the group.

  When Michael awoke he was in a hospital bed, staring up at dirty ceiling. He glanced next to him and saw a nurse wiping a needle that she had just removed from the arm of the patient in the bed next to him. She then placed it in a bottle, withdrawing fluid before sticking it into his arm. Michael looked away and saw Clifford sitting in a chair by the bed.

  “Where are we?” Michael said, his voice raspy.

  “Hospital in Iquitos. How ya feeling?”

  “Like I got hit by a truck. You drive me back here?”

  “Came in by plane.”

  “Man,” he said, turning his face up to the ceiling, “don’t remember that plane ride. How long it take?”

  “’Bout twenty minutes.”

  “You don’t have to sit here with me, Cliff. You need to go with the group.”

  “Nah, I ain’t never left a fella behind yet. Group’s good. I got someone to cover for me. I just wanted to make sure you’re feeling right as rain before I go on my way.”

  Michael took a deep breath. “Ten grand down the crapper.”

  “Well, we’ll give you a discount next time. Cheer up and get better. There are more adventures yet for a young bloke like you.”

  The nurse jabbed a needle in his arm again and Michael flinched. “Ouch. What is that?”

  “Chloroquine. They think you got yourself a bad case’a malaria.”

  “Shit,” he said, shaking his head, “can she at least get a new needle?”

  “Don’t work that way here.” Clifford rose to his feet. “Well, I leave you in good hands. I got some things to do in town and I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow before I head out.”

  “Thanks. Sorry about all this.”

  Clifford put his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “No worries.”

  Ten minutes after Clifford had left, the nurse gave Michael a shot of morphine. That feeling he knew. He drifted off into his memories, remembering playing with his grandfather in the garden by his house. He was smiling and relaxed when he felt a wet sensation on his chin and chest. He looked down to see blac
k blood spreading in a large pool. Lazily, he brought his hand up to his mouth and came away with dark ooze on his hand. It was coming out of his mouth, nose, and eyes and he was choking.

  He tried to scream and it came out a gurgling wet mess. He began coughing violently, spatters of the black liquid flying over the hospital room. The nurse was shouting something and a doctor came in. They held him down as he thrashed violently, the pain rising from his stomach to his throat and out of his mouth. The morphine didn’t touch it.

  He gurgled one final scream before he lay back on the bed, his lungs filled with blood, and life began to leave him.

  CHAPTER 2

  Dr. Jose Cabero sat in his office on the second floor of the Health Administration Building in Lima and wondered why he had been sent a file about a death from over 629 miles away. This was something the locals should have dealt with. He sighed as he opened the folder, looked at the photo of the patient, and saw his nationality: American. That was the reason. The death of an American in a high tourist locale had to be addressed immediately. Americans were prone to panic and tourism was the lifeblood of many of the small villages. Without the guided tours and photo safaris and sightseers, many would starve.

  He read the autopsy report of the treating physician, Dr. Alvarez, and reread the cause of death: DEATH BY MISADVENTURE. It was a way of saying they had no idea how he died without saying it officially.

  Cabero looked at the autopsy photos and saw the young man covered in a thick, black liquid. It appeared like blood from a liver wound. He had seen many abdominal gunshot-wound victims with similar-looking blood. But underneath the skin was a thick, purple coloring giving him the appearance of being charred in a fire. That, he had not seen before. At the end of the file was a note from Dr. Alvarez: “Call me right away.”

  Cabero picked up the phone and dialed the number to the Hermana de la Misericordia Clinic. A nurse picked up and he asked for Alvarez. He got on the phone. “I’ve been waiting two days.”

  “Sorry,” Cabero said. “Busy.”

  “Did you read the file?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “You didn’t read the file, did you?”

  “I just told you I did.”

  “I want to send a sample of his blood and have it tested with you. We don’t have the laboratories for it here.”

  “Fine. Send whatever you like.”

  “Have I done something to upset you, Jose?”

  “I’m sick of these tourists coming here with dreams of finding lost cities and ending up dead. Then it’s my mess to clean and I get yelled at by every bureaucrat who sees tourism drying up. I’m just sick of the whole thing.”

  “Sick of it or not this American is going to cause problems. We have over ten tours a day with each person paying thousands of dollars.”

  “I know,” Cabero said dismissively. “Send the blood. I’ll have someone look at it. What are we looking for?”

  “Unknown pathogen.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Clifford Lane finished the tour near the Jutai River and thanked the five remaining guests, taking a moment to answer questions and exchange emails. A few of them told him they’d like to stay in touch and talk about another tour next year.

  When he was done he gathered up his supplies, rolling his tent and strapping it to his backpack, which lay on the ground. He went to stand on the edge of the river and dialed a number on his cell phone. There was still no reception. He turned the phone off and heaved the backpack on before taking a deep breath and starting the two-mile hike to the village and the Jeep that awaited him. From there, it was on to a plane headed for Brazil for a few days of relaxation before going back home to Honolulu.

  As he trekked through the vegetation he felt an enormous amount of sweat pouring down his forehead. It made his shirt cling to his back and he had to stop every few minutes and guzzle down as much water as he could. His legs began to feel weak from the dehydration and he stopped underneath a large capirona tree and lay down, putting his arm over his face to shield it from the sun that was beating down through the canopy. He felt hot and faint and remembered that he hadn’t eaten since this morning. He pulled out a granola bar and some jerky and ate them slowly with a bottle of water. Waiting another few minutes, he felt better, rose, and began to walk.

  Clifford climbed aboard the 747 bound for Rio de Janeiro and collapsed into his seat. It seemed he couldn’t get the sweat to stop pouring out of him no matter how much water he drank. The fever had increased to the point that he couldn’t sleep and the previous night, which he’d spent in a hotel, he’d lain in bed with an icepack on his head, rubbing furiously at a rash that was developing on his chest.

  He reached up and turned on the air conditioning, pointing the fan over his face. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and his eyeballs felt hot against his lids. He debated just getting a sooner flight back home to Honolulu where his girlfriend, a nurse, could get him in to a good doctor at a good hospital right away.

  “You doin’ okay, buddy?” the guy next to him asked.

  “Fine,” he said without opening his eyes.

  Clifford felt vomit rising in his throat. It came in waves, up and down his esophagus. He unbuckled his belt to go to the bathroom and the motion exhausted him.

  “Holy shit!”

  Clifford opened his eyes. The man next to him was staring at him liked he’d fallen out of the sky. He was about to ask what was wrong when he noticed the backs of his hands. They were turning a deep black just underneath the skin. Drops of blood fell on them from his nose. The blood was bright red, almost comically red; he’d never seen a red quite that color. He stood up to run to the bathroom when the man next to him screamed. Clifford looked down and saw the blood that had dripped over the man’s face.

  “Sorry,” he said to no one as he stumbled out into the aisle. He leaned on the seats and pulled himself forward though his legs were not responding. It was like they were moving in slow motion; heavy, weighed down by something he couldn’t see.

  Clifford reached for the doorknob of the bathroom as people on the plane were alerting the stewardess. He grabbed the doorknob, felt its warmth in his palm, and then the world went black as he fell forward into the door.

  CHAPTER 4

  Dr. Samantha Bower looked up from her textbook and at the clock on the wall of the cafeteria at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. It was nearly one in the morning and her back was beginning to ache from an old soccer injury she’d incurred in high school. The fact that she had gone skydiving earlier that morning and landed hard on a steeply inclined hill didn’t help the old injury.

  She stretched from side to side and checked her iPhone. Her boss, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases within the CDC, had decided to take a three-week European vacation. The task of finishing the report on a rare strand of influenza infections in Mongolia—that the deputy director of Infectious Diseases wanted right away for no reason at all—fell on her shoulders. It’d been ten days of eight hours in her actual work, fielding calls, drafting research memos, and filing reports, and then eight hours on her own time, fielding calls, drafting research memos, and filing reports.

  She decided she’d had enough for today and stood up, picking up her book, Kann’s DNA Virus Replication, and headed out the doors to the parking lot. It was warm and the moon was up in the dark sky. The lighting over the lot was dim, as many of the bulbs were out. Few things in the building were maintained well but no one that worked there seemed to mind. As the director had said in a recent speech, they were at the forefront of medicine and microbiology. Using theories to predict outcomes in real-life scenarios. It was, as far as she could tell, the most exciting place for a physician or microbiologist to work, though few of her colleagues from medical school would think so.

  She hopped onto Interstate 75 and headed home in her silver Jeep Grand Cherokee. She rolled down the wind
ows and let the air flow over her face and through the car, rustling some papers in the back. Atlanta at this time of night was no place for her to be out but she had never been afraid. Her father had warned her that Atlanta had more car-jackings per capita than any other major American city. But she saw instances, like car-jackings, as statistical probabilities not real threats. By driving at night she had increased her probability of being car-jacked but the chance was still so remote that she wasn’t worried. Then again, lightning had to strike somewhere.

  It took her thirty-five minutes to reach her brownstone in a quiet suburb just near Sandy Springs. She parked in the driveway, too tired to open the garage, and set the alarm to her car before deactivating the alarm to her house.

  The house was cool and the air conditioner clicked off as she entered. It was decorated modestly with little extravagance other than a few photographs and paintings related to music, a career as a violinist being her first choice since she was a child. Sam kicked off her shoes, set her alarm, and crawled into bed without brushing her teeth or changing.

  Sam awoke at ten in the morning. It was Saturday and the sun was streaming through the windows, lighting up the open spaces in her home. She considered calling her sister Jane in San Francisco and then decided to shower first.

  After showering and changing into denim shorts and a black Calvin Klein shirt, she turned on her iPhone and grabbed a protein shake out of the fridge. She stepped outside and wondered whether she should take a quick walk around the park that was located a few minutes up the block.

  Jane didn’t answer and Sam left a message asking her to give her a call back when she got up. Three houses down was a small bungalow with an American flag up over the porch, a carving up on the door of marines putting up the flag at Iwo Jima. Sam took out a key and unlocked the door before entering.