Pocket Apocalypse
Page 26
He blinked and unfolded his arms, looking nonplussed for the first time. “We copied most of them from your grandfather. He was kind enough to give us access to his books while he was here.”
“With all due respect, sir, our understanding of lycanthropy has evolved in the last fifty years—much like the virus itself.” No one laughed. Not quite no one: I heard a snort of amusement from the table Shelby shared with her mother and sisters, and glanced over to see Raina, hand over her mouth, shaking her head.
That was somewhat encouraging. I turned back to Riley Tanner, addressing him as much as I was the rest of the room, and said, “We have contacts at the CDC and within the World Health Organization, therianthropes who have gone into the biological sciences to learn more about themselves and the dangers their people face. They’ve done extensive research into the disease, and they’ve confirmed something we suspected but didn’t know when my grandfather came through here: like rabies, lycanthropy-w is a spillover disease. It’s cross-infectious in all known mammals. It can survive in the absence of human or therianthrope hosts, because it goes into dogs, into sheep, even into rabbits or housecats. Whatever can be exposed can be infected.”
Riley’s face grew stony. “We already knew that: Shelby told us. Does that mean all those things can turn into wolves?”
“Only the ones that are big enough. Most will still begin to transform, and die in the process—they need a certain body mass to successfully make the transition from one species to another—but when you factor in the fact that scavengers, most of which are large enough to survive the transformation, can be infected from eating the bodies of animals that have died in the transformation process, you’re looking at ecological devastation.”
Riley stared at me. Finally, he asked, “My daughter says that we can trust you, but is there any proof of this, apart from what a bunch of nonhuman science wonks told you?”
“I’ve seen the histology reports. I’ve seen the field reports. And yes, I’ve seen the reality of their work. An individual infected with lycanthropy-w got into a stable and bit several horses before he was taken down. The people who dealt with that incident were monster hunters, not cryptozoologists, in it for the thrill and the possibility of a payout down the road. They told one of the local breeding stations about their kill. They didn’t mention the horses.”
It had been my first encounter with lycanthropy-w outside of a book. Books were safe, for the most part. They didn’t try to kill you. Even the scariest books didn’t leave you with years of nightmares, and a bone-deep desire never to go anywhere near another lycanthrope.
Yet here I was. I shook myself out of the memory, and turned away from Riley, facing the room as I said, “Five horses were bitten. One became infected. That horse transformed for the first time twenty-eight days after the original werewolf was killed. There was no one on-site. The family who owned the farm had no reason to be on guard. They didn’t know werewolves were real; they thought something had escaped from a local zoo or traveling circus and made a mess on their property, only to be recovered by its handlers. Examination of their personal effects after the fact made it clear that they were looking for the farm or zoo in question. They were planning to bring charges.”
Four people had lived in that house: a young couple and their two children, ages nine and five. None of them had survived the night. That may have been a blessing. All four had been bitten several times before the horse ripped their throats open. Infection wouldn’t have been a guarantee, but it had been likely. Each bite increased the likelihood of infection, since each additional fluid transfer was a whole new roll of the dice. No werewolf was a thinking creature while fully transformed—species of origin didn’t matter—but there was something especially brutal about attacks initiated by werewolves that had never been sapient to begin with. It’s like werewolves that were originally intelligent retain just enough self-control to make a difference.
Not enough of a difference.
Everyone was staring at me. I realized with a sickening lurch that I had been standing there for almost a minute, lost in my recollection of that terrible, long ago scene. The younger of the two children had been virtually in pieces. What was left of the body had been recognizable only through the process of elimination: we’d already found everyone else who was likely to have been inside.
I shook my head to clear the cobwebs away. It failed to dislodge the memory. Now that it had been summoned from the dark place where I usually kept it confined, it was intending to make me recall every drop of blood and every tattered piece of flesh. “The, ah, remains of the homeowners and their children were so thoroughly mangled that we initially thought that one of them had been infected during the earlier outbreak. Werewolves will begin to experience transformation seizures after roughly twenty-eight days, but may not be capable of full transformation for as much as six months. Those that are . . . we can’t tell what species a fully transformed werewolf was before it was infected. We only confirmed that the horse had been responsible for their deaths after a full autopsy, which showed that the werewolf had still possessed partially herbivorous dentition.” Molars didn’t transform as thoroughly as canines and incisors. No one knew why.
It was easy from there, easy to turn things clinical and abstract: to become, for just a few minutes, the dispassionate scientist that so many people took me for when we first met. I didn’t like giving in to that side of myself, because I could see the warning signs written on the walls of my soul, the ones that said that if I gave in too many times, I would find that the friendly, reasonably compassionate persona I presented to the world was no longer dominant. It would be so easy to not care about the people around me.
It would hurt less when they died.
When I stopped speaking, the room was even quieter than it had been before. Some of the people barely seemed to be breathing. They just stared at me, faces tight with worry, eyes narrow with the need to calculate the wisdom of stepping forward to defend the country they loved. Looking at them, I estimated that we’d lose maybe one in five. They would plead some duty that couldn’t be avoided, and they would go home. That was a good thing, oddly enough. It would mean that even if the rest of us died trying to fix this, there would still be people standing, ready to keep the banner of the Thirty-Six Society flying.
Gabrielle broke the silence. She stood, pushing her chair back with a loud scraping sound, and declared, “I’ve never let anything on this continent push me around—except for my baby sister, so don’t even say it, Raina—and I’m sure as hell not going to start now. You’ve told us how bad this shit is. Pretty sure we already knew it was bad. Now how about you tell us how to get rid of it?”
“With all due respect, sir, our understanding of lycanthropy has evolved in the last fifty years—much like the virus itself.” No one laughed. Not quite no one: I heard a snort of amusement from the table Shelby shared with her mother and sisters, and glanced over to see Raina, hand over her mouth, shaking her head.
That was somewhat encouraging. I turned back to Riley Tanner, addressing him as much as I was the rest of the room, and said, “We have contacts at the CDC and within the World Health Organization, therianthropes who have gone into the biological sciences to learn more about themselves and the dangers their people face. They’ve done extensive research into the disease, and they’ve confirmed something we suspected but didn’t know when my grandfather came through here: like rabies, lycanthropy-w is a spillover disease. It’s cross-infectious in all known mammals. It can survive in the absence of human or therianthrope hosts, because it goes into dogs, into sheep, even into rabbits or housecats. Whatever can be exposed can be infected.”
Riley’s face grew stony. “We already knew that: Shelby told us. Does that mean all those things can turn into wolves?”
“Only the ones that are big enough. Most will still begin to transform, and die in the process—they need a certain body mass to successfully make the transition from one species to another—but when you factor in the fact that scavengers, most of which are large enough to survive the transformation, can be infected from eating the bodies of animals that have died in the transformation process, you’re looking at ecological devastation.”
Riley stared at me. Finally, he asked, “My daughter says that we can trust you, but is there any proof of this, apart from what a bunch of nonhuman science wonks told you?”
“I’ve seen the histology reports. I’ve seen the field reports. And yes, I’ve seen the reality of their work. An individual infected with lycanthropy-w got into a stable and bit several horses before he was taken down. The people who dealt with that incident were monster hunters, not cryptozoologists, in it for the thrill and the possibility of a payout down the road. They told one of the local breeding stations about their kill. They didn’t mention the horses.”
It had been my first encounter with lycanthropy-w outside of a book. Books were safe, for the most part. They didn’t try to kill you. Even the scariest books didn’t leave you with years of nightmares, and a bone-deep desire never to go anywhere near another lycanthrope.
Yet here I was. I shook myself out of the memory, and turned away from Riley, facing the room as I said, “Five horses were bitten. One became infected. That horse transformed for the first time twenty-eight days after the original werewolf was killed. There was no one on-site. The family who owned the farm had no reason to be on guard. They didn’t know werewolves were real; they thought something had escaped from a local zoo or traveling circus and made a mess on their property, only to be recovered by its handlers. Examination of their personal effects after the fact made it clear that they were looking for the farm or zoo in question. They were planning to bring charges.”
Four people had lived in that house: a young couple and their two children, ages nine and five. None of them had survived the night. That may have been a blessing. All four had been bitten several times before the horse ripped their throats open. Infection wouldn’t have been a guarantee, but it had been likely. Each bite increased the likelihood of infection, since each additional fluid transfer was a whole new roll of the dice. No werewolf was a thinking creature while fully transformed—species of origin didn’t matter—but there was something especially brutal about attacks initiated by werewolves that had never been sapient to begin with. It’s like werewolves that were originally intelligent retain just enough self-control to make a difference.
Not enough of a difference.
Everyone was staring at me. I realized with a sickening lurch that I had been standing there for almost a minute, lost in my recollection of that terrible, long ago scene. The younger of the two children had been virtually in pieces. What was left of the body had been recognizable only through the process of elimination: we’d already found everyone else who was likely to have been inside.
I shook my head to clear the cobwebs away. It failed to dislodge the memory. Now that it had been summoned from the dark place where I usually kept it confined, it was intending to make me recall every drop of blood and every tattered piece of flesh. “The, ah, remains of the homeowners and their children were so thoroughly mangled that we initially thought that one of them had been infected during the earlier outbreak. Werewolves will begin to experience transformation seizures after roughly twenty-eight days, but may not be capable of full transformation for as much as six months. Those that are . . . we can’t tell what species a fully transformed werewolf was before it was infected. We only confirmed that the horse had been responsible for their deaths after a full autopsy, which showed that the werewolf had still possessed partially herbivorous dentition.” Molars didn’t transform as thoroughly as canines and incisors. No one knew why.
It was easy from there, easy to turn things clinical and abstract: to become, for just a few minutes, the dispassionate scientist that so many people took me for when we first met. I didn’t like giving in to that side of myself, because I could see the warning signs written on the walls of my soul, the ones that said that if I gave in too many times, I would find that the friendly, reasonably compassionate persona I presented to the world was no longer dominant. It would be so easy to not care about the people around me.
It would hurt less when they died.
When I stopped speaking, the room was even quieter than it had been before. Some of the people barely seemed to be breathing. They just stared at me, faces tight with worry, eyes narrow with the need to calculate the wisdom of stepping forward to defend the country they loved. Looking at them, I estimated that we’d lose maybe one in five. They would plead some duty that couldn’t be avoided, and they would go home. That was a good thing, oddly enough. It would mean that even if the rest of us died trying to fix this, there would still be people standing, ready to keep the banner of the Thirty-Six Society flying.
Gabrielle broke the silence. She stood, pushing her chair back with a loud scraping sound, and declared, “I’ve never let anything on this continent push me around—except for my baby sister, so don’t even say it, Raina—and I’m sure as hell not going to start now. You’ve told us how bad this shit is. Pretty sure we already knew it was bad. Now how about you tell us how to get rid of it?”
