Jenny Plague-Bringer

Chapter Eight



Dr. Heather Reynard worked late in her office. It would cost more with the babysitter, but budget committees needed their reports. Life in academia wasn’t exactly the pastoral, leisurely life she’d imagined when she’d left the Centers for Disease Control, but there was a lot less flying into war-torn regions to live in a tent surrounded by the sick and the starving. Everything had its trade-offs.

She emailed the report to her department head, then stood and stretched, ready to jump into Atlanta traffic for the slow ride home. She’d been extremely fortunate to get a post at Emory University, not far from her home in the Virginia Highlands, even if it was only a part-time associate professorship. Her commute ranged from three minutes to half an hour, depending on the time of day and the never-ending road construction.

She glanced out the window and smiled at the sight of a boy and a girl next to each other on the grassy lawn below. Studying their biology texts while thinking about each other’s personal biology.

The door to her office opened. A man in a black suit entered without knocking, and despite the smile on his face, something about him chilled Heather. He was in his late forties or early fifties, his dark hair graying and cropped close and neat, military-style. His dark green eyes seemed to glow with a wicked mirth.

“Dr. Heather Reynard.” He looked over her crowded bookshelves and saw her Newton’s Cradle, each ball painted a bright pattern of purples, red, oranges, and greens. They were meant to represent different icosahedral viruses, like influenza and rotavirus. A gift from Dr. Schwartzman, her former boss at the CDC, on her last day there after resigning.

Her visitor raised the ball at one end and released it, letting the row of them clack back and forth.

“I’m sorry, can I help you?” Heather remained where she was, standing behind her desk.

“I believe so.” He advanced into her office, his smile as warm as winter in Siberia. “We need to talk, Dr. Reynard.”

“You know, I have an appointment right now, actually,” Heather said. “So maybe you can call our receptionist tomorrow, set up a time for a meeting.”

“Appointment?” The man held up what looked like a Blackberry phone. “No, I don’t see anything here. You made a note to pick up eggs and milk, don’t forget that.”

“You hacked my phone?” Heather glanced at the bottom desk drawer, which held her purse. “Who are you?”

“I’m the man you’ve been waiting for.”

“Excuse me?”

“Surely you’ve been expecting someone to come along, one day or another. There are a few too many loose ends, aren’t there, Dr. Reynard?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Heather reached for her drawer. She wanted access to both her phone and her pepper spray. “I really have to get going.”

“Fallen Oak,” he said. “Over two hundred dead. Extreme symptoms of biological illness, but with no known source, no known vector. No virus or bacterium ever isolated. All evidence incinerated. On your recommendation, Dr. Reynard.”

“I’m not free to discuss specific cases or investigations,” Heather replied. “You’ll have to contact the CDC public information office.”

“Don’t be absurd. I’ve already read all your reports, patchy and inconclusive as they are.”

“And who are you, again?”

“Why don’t we sit down?” he asked.

“Why don’t I call campus security?” she replied.

He smirked. He was jaw was squarish, his lips bloodless and thin. He almost had a case of missing mouth syndrome, until he bared his teeth in a smile.

“Here.” He showed her a laminated badge with the seal of the Department of Defense—a golden eagle clutching arrows and an American flag shield—and his own photograph. According to the badge, his name was Ward Kilpatrick, and he was a lieutenant general.

“Then you should know that the details of Fallen Oak have been classified by the Department of Homeland Security. You’ll have to speak with them.” Heather pulled her purse over her shoulder and stepped around her desk. Ward stood between her and the door, blocking her way with the help of Heather’s own bookshelves, boxes, and clutter. “If you’ll excuse me,” Heather added.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Reynard. You won’t be leaving yet.” Behind him, in the hallway, two more men emerged from either side of her door. They were much younger, dressed in dark suits and sunglasses, clearly his assistants, or his muscle. “Close the door, Buchanan. We’re having a private conversation.”

One of the men shut Heather’s door without saying a word. They would remain outside, but clearly, Heather wouldn’t get far if she tried to leave. Her heart pounded in her ears. She was trapped.

“Dr. Reynard,” he said. “Because of your years of federal service, I’m going to level with you. I’m currently the director of a defense intelligence agency whose name you would not recognize, nor could you find it in any official budget or organization chart. We have been here since the earliest days of the Cold War, watching, studying...Our focus is on identifying threats and opportunities that lie outside the typical military paradigms. Homeland Security? To us, they’re just the courtesy officer tooling around your local mall in a golf cart.”

“They have all the information,” Heather said. She was scared, but she made an effort to look calm. She didn’t want him to see her tremble.

“Why did you resign from the CDC?”

“I was tired of being away from my family all the time.”

“Oh, yes.” Ward took a framed family picture from her desk. “Liam. And little Tricia, five years old. She was dying of leukemia, wasn’t she? Until, one day, she wasn’t.”

“She’s in remission.”

“Oh, no. We’ve reviewed her records. She’s cured. Like she never had it at all.”

“No one’s ever really ‘cured’ from cancer. There’s always the possibility—”

“Nobody except your daughter and several other children on the same ward, at the same time,” he said. “Miraculous, isn’t it?”

“We’re very grateful for her improvement—”

Ward smashed the family picture on the corner of her desk, and Heather jumped as fragments of glass sprayed everywhere. He threw the broken frame on the floor.

“Don’t give me that,” he growled. His green eyes burned bright. “The probability is off the charts. What happened at the hospital that night?”

“It must have been God,” Heather said. “That’s what everybody tells me.”

“God.” Ward smirked at her. “I don’t believe in God, Dr. Reynard. But I believe in the devil. I believe he’s in all of us, that he is us...” He stalked closer to her, and Heather backed up until she bumped against her desk. His voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned in close, his breath hot and sour on her cheek. “Tell me, Heather. What is the source of Fallen Oak syndrome? Why did you want every victim, and every inch of that old mansion, incinerated?”

“The pox,” she said. “It had to be stopped. It could have become an epidemic overnight. Virulent. Contagious. Airborne.”

“No,” he said, stepping even closer, until she could see nothing in the world but his face. “I want the whole story.”

“Get back,” Heather whispered. She eased her hand toward her purse. Three-star general or not, he was going to get eyeballs full of pepper spray if he didn’t step out of her personal space.

He grabbed her head in both hands and stared into her eyes. Heather’s hand dove inside her purse, but then she felt like she was twisting and falling, suddenly lost in her own memories. She could feel him penetrating deep inside her brain, and she had no way of stopping it.

She flashed through her initial epidemiological investigation of Fallen Oak, the interviews with Darcy Metcalf and other locals, the tissue samples....Then she saw the true source of the outbreak, a small, sad-looking girl named Jennifer Morton....Not an immune carrier, as it turned out, because there was no biological vector. Combined with the zombies caught on video in a Charleston morgue, Heather was reluctantly realizing that the situation had to be supernatural, contrary to all her own beliefs....

...and then Seth Barrett, healing Tricia’s leukemia. And then Heather standing by the blazing ruin of Barrett House, promising to help Jenny and Seth, to report them dead and strongly recommend that everything be incinerated...And the next day, Heather watching from a truck as men in biohazard suits loaded corpse after corpse into an incinerator truck. The demolition of the burned-out old mansion, the earth scorched with flamethrowers.

“Jennifer Morton,” Ward said. “And she’s still alive. Where?”

Heather gasped as the man stabbed deep into her brain, scouring it for information that wasn’t there.

“Where?” he shouted again, shaking her. “Where?”

“I don’t know!” Heather screamed.

Ward released her and stepped back as Heather sank to the floor, weeping uncontrollably. Her brain felt like someone had torn through it with a claw hammer. Her head would ring and ache for days.

“Thank you, Dr. Reynard,” he said, adjusting his tie. “I suppose that was as helpful as you could be. Should you get the urge to tell anyone about my small, unimportant visit, I’ll remind you that you falsified your reports on this matter and helped a mass murderer escape. We’ll be monitoring your communications to ensure you remember to keep quiet. A little added service from me.” He winked as he opened the door. “Have a pleasant evening, Dr. Reynard.”

Heather remained sitting on the floor while she watched him leave, her skin crawling with horror. She barely understood what had just happened, but she felt painfully violated.

When he walked out into the hall, Heather crawled across the carpet, slammed the door, and turned the lock. She leaned against the door and tried to get herself together. It was a long time before she felt safe leaving her office and walking to the parking deck.