A Thousand Nights with You - 17. Amazing Grace

Once it gets darker, Grey ordered us to put out the fire and retreat into the truck. Tristan argued about the cold but Grey said the fire could be seen from miles away at night. We have no idea how things are like out here, we were stuck in the city and cut off from all communications with the world outside for months.

It was frigging miserable to sleep in total darkness, freezing cold and in the middle of nowhere. All you can hear are the crickets, the sound of our breathing and the clattering teeth. We took turns to keep watch, and by that it means sitting close to the edge of the truck and listen out for any noises. No one can see in the dark anyway, not even the infected. But they can smell us.

I couldn’t sleep, not even when I’m sandwiched between Mark and my brother, all warm and toasty. I had a full bladder and it was keeping me awake. When I was staying in Africa, the latrine (yes latrine and not toilet), is about 50 yards away from the house. I was too scared to go alone and Tristan would always tease me about it. I struggled for like a minute, deciding whether I should wake my brother up to accompany me to pee. Considering the circumstances, with the infected lurking around and all he can hardly laugh at my request. But I decided not to give him any teasing fodder that he will probably milk for the rest of my life. Or worse, he might tell Mark and amped up my dork factor by so many notches that would make the Jurassic dorks from Big Bang Theory seems cool by comparison. My dilemma was solved when I jumped at Peter snoring, which sounded like an infected groaning. I crawled slowly to the edge of the truck, trying not to trample on anyone on my way out.

“Who’s there?” Grace whispers in the dark. Of course, someone had to keep watch and thank God it was Grace. I might not have to go alone after all.

“It’s me. I need to pee.” I said softly. It was a plea, not a statement. Surely she could understand that even a man needs some security while doing his business in the dark? I mean girls goes to the toilets together all the time, just to gossip and socialize. My ramblings weren’t quite coherent but I hoped that I have appealed to her motherly instincts. There is absolutely nothing I should be ashamed about. That’s what I keep telling myself. Until I hear Grace chuckling.

“I have diapers in the medical supply stash if you want.” She snickered.

“It’s not funny.” I said in a deflated tone.

“All right, I’ll come with you. But we have to get further away from the truck. The infected can smell your pee.”

We risked a little flash light when we get down the truck. It would be tragic to survive rabid cannibals just to die from falling down from a truck. When she said further down, she really means so. We had to climb down a few rocks just so that the wind won’t carry my scent. She held on to me while I peed so that I won’t slip and fall. It makes me feel like a toddler being potty trained for the first time.

“Are you always this motherly? I don’t mean motherly-motherly. I mean, you are like Simba-motherly.” I said.

“Simba is a lion, not a lioness.”

“Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“I thought boys don’t talk when they pee.” She said.

“It’s gay to chat at the urinal. But since you’re a woman, and I’m… well.” I was about to say gay, but suddenly feel conscious about announcing my newly minted gaydom to the whole world, or what’s left of it.

“Well, women talk in the washrooms all the time.” She said.

“Exactly, that’s what I told my brother too.” I laughed. “He thinks it’s weird to be friendly with another dude with your dick out and everything. So what do women talk about when they are doing their… erm… stuff?”

“Well, men, gossip, the latest sale, and more men I guess.”

“Really? I thought you are a gun-totting GI Jane or something. That sounds like what my mom would talk about with her friends.” I quipped.

Grace laughed softly in the dark. I can almost see her shaking her head when she said, “I was a doctor and a virologist working for the government, not a – what did you call it? – ‘a gun-totting GI Jane’.”

“Oh. I thought you were one when you said you met Grey in Iraq.” I asked. When Tristan said she was an experienced combat medic for the runs, I imagined her old job was one of those soldiers carrying wounded soldiers around in a stretcher. Tristan calls them ‘bad-ass male nurses’. Grace does seem more… graceful than the usual soldiers come to think of it. She was more poised, if not sullen.

“Yes, we met six years ago in Iraq. Craig and I were part of the research team sent to study the HRN0 outbreak in one of the remote villages. Greyson was one of the few survivors. They thought they finally found proof of Saddam’s WMD. God damn those politicians and bureaucrats.” She heaves a long heavy sigh, speaking impatiently like she doesn’t want to talk about her past. But I didn’t realize that only later.

“Six years? I thought the virus only came out last year!” I gasped, my curiosity aroused.

“It was only made public last year.” She corrected me like I’m on a science quiz.

I zipped up my pants and Grace helped me to climb back up. On our way back, I bugged her more about her old life. I got intrigued by how much she knew about the virus. How did she meet Grey? Was he dorky when he was younger? At first she sounds irritated, but somehow I’d imagined her smiling in the dark. In the end, I pestered her until she budged. We perched on a nearby rock, hugging my knees, shivering away as she tells me her story.

The first outbreak she saw was in a remote village in Iraq that technically doesn’t exist six years ago. The residents called it something almost unpronounceable even to the local guides that were escorting them. It was in an old Mesopotamian language which roughly translates to ‘necropolis’ or something. The farms, houses and even the trees, according to the guide were centuries old. He was a translator, but more like a tour guide to the inspection team of civilian experts, supposedly to ‘investigate’ new evidences of Saddam’s WMD’s research. They were heading to the North-eastern part of Iraq known as Kurdistan. It sounds like a country, but it isn’t. It is not even a province, just where the Kurdish people live. I never heard of the place, neither did Grace. Most of them are college Professors and none took the claim seriously. To them, it was a paid holiday with a fat pay cheque for a pointless report telling the military exactly what they wanted to hear. It’s like, yes it could be biological weapons but there is no conclusive evidence and therefore more research funding is needed to blah blah blah… That was in her own words.

The military base was quiet when they arrived. It was a busy night for the doctors and Craig was the chief medical officer who was supposed to receive them. He came in flustered and dishevelled, apologizing for being late and for this utter waste of time. Everyone laughed except for him. He said he had better things to do, as there were more soldiers coming in with torn limbs and bullet holes. In short, Craig wasn’t happy to see them at all. As far as Grace is concerned, she agreed with him on this. So she didn’t take their abrasive first meeting personally.

She was tired and her back and feet were aching from the 9 hours ride. It was a bumpy journey and a military truck isn’t exactly like a limousine. There were a few times she dozed off, only to be awaken by distant gun shots. So as soon as she arrived, she was on her way out to smoke a cigarette and get a cup of coffee. That was when someone came and rounded up everyone - some in their pyjamas, getting ready to sleep. Mind you, she said, that those were old college professors, leading experts on the field, not GIs or marines who take kindly to orders. The messenger doesn’t even speak good English, with this thick accent that no one really quite understood.

It was their first night and many of them just wanted to sleep. Some complained why they weren’t put up in a proper hotel. Grace grumbled like everyone else, but she didn’t mind sleeping in an army base, it actually feels safer. But field inspection wasn’t due to start until the next morning. Their contract terms were based on office hours and many of the scientists aren’t from the military. They had to be independent otherwise their reports would seem biased. Grace said the look on those professor’s face and seeing them being dragged out in their PJs are quite worth the trip alone. Some were esteemed academics whom she respected, so none of them give a shit to a cryptic telegraph saying to ‘send in the experts’ from a Colonel-fucking-Walter, who again? They laughed when one of the snobbier academic ask the messenger to tell Colonel Whatever that it was way after official working hours. Most of them knew what they were paid for. They are not there to actually examine evidences for engineered viruses. They were there simply to put up a convincing enough report to suggest the possibility of a research program for biological warfare. It was less than what the military had hoped for, but none of them will stake their professional reputation regardless of how much they were being paid. One of the big names in bio-engineering, a thin man with a bulging belly even joked that they could put up the report now and head out for a drink. Then Craig came along and said that he was being asked to come because there was a medical emergency. That piqued her curiosity because the army has their own field doctors to treat wounded soldiers, they don’t need experts to actually see things on the ground. So she decided to join them, wanting to see what this ‘live evidence’ was all about. Besides, seeing it for real would make her report a lot more credible.

It was hell of a time getting to that place. She remembered vomiting half of the three hour ride bouncing on the bumpy dirt roads. Since the place didn’t exist, it wasn’t on any maps or GPS. The army rover was lost several times and they had to stop at a few villages to ask for directions from the locals who kept peddling their livestock, stale vegetables and (can I believe it?) daughters, all for a reasonable price. Craig was impatient, and so were everyone else by the time they found the small cluster of mud-brick huts. This better be worth her time, she remembered thinking to herself. When she arrived, she wanted to turn back immediately.

There were nine of them, some GIs and mostly villagers, all writhing in pain, strapped to a shabby looking cot. Only two soldiers are guarding the door to the courtyard, Grey was amongst them. They were in the home of the village chief. No one else would keep them. The walls and floors are hard, cold cement. The air was freezing, just like now, but heavy and damp as well. Craig asked who was taking care of them. No one understood what he said. Their translator was apparently too terrified to repeat what the village chief had said. Grace found it strange that the patients were locked from the outside like prisoners. The villagers look terrified, wary eyes and speaking in hushed tones. Even though many gathered around the entrance, none of them would go inside. She didn’t know why they bothered to whisper since none of them could understand them. Even the translator seems to struggle with their dialect. At least, that’s what he claims at that time. For every ten words the village chief said, the translator only gave one.

She was the first to examine the patient who was delirious from a fever so hot that no one can possibly survive. He was shaking violently, like how you would imagine an exorcism would be. The boy was hardly coherent. He was a young GI like Tristan and a friend of Grey. He cried when she moved his limbs, and she saw a bite mark on his ankles. It wasn’t an animal bite. The strangest thing, she said, was that the wound itself wasn’t infected. No swelling, oozing pus or angry redness, which was unusual because the antibodies would have reacted to the presence of a virus. Grey said they became like that after they were bitten yesterday. Did he clean their wounds? She asked him. No one did.

Craig thought it was a waste of time as this is clearly a case of normal rabies. It is not unknown for animals to pass it to human, even if it is rare. They sat down outside the courtyard and Craig asked Grey to tell him what had happened. He said that his platoon was on a regular patrol when they were approached by the villagers a few days ago. They peddled some metal canister which they claimed to have found from the abandoned industrial site. Normally, they would give a reward to the locals who found undetonated mines, bullets, empty shells, things of that sort and so they thought the GIs would be interested. That was when they had found ‘her’ locked up and screaming. At first they thought it was some domestic abuse or forced marriage kind of thing. It wasn’t uncommon for that part of the country and the soldiers were given strict orders not to intervene with the locals’ customs and affairs. But that changed when one of them went rampage and bite one of the GIs.

Grace called the eleven year old girl, ‘patient zero’. She was locked inside an abandoned house in a mile away from the village, gagged and bound with thick hemp ropes locked inside a dog cage. Her skin is completely torn off from rope burns. But instead of blood, Grace saw black little scabs on her exposed flesh. A ear was missing from her grey mottled skin and she struggles like an animal. Grey held her back when she approaches. The translator warned her not to get close because she was ‘possessed’ by a demon. Didn’t he say he can’t understand their dialect? But anyway, Grace shrugged them off and reached for her mask and gloves. None of the experts dared to go near to examine. The little girl was so violent that the cage rattled and threatened to topple over.

Craig used one of those tranquilizer guns that vets used for large cats. But none of them worked even when he administered very close to a lethal dose. So Grace called for help to hold her down. Initially, none of them came, cowering in the doorway like a mouse. Even Grey. He was barely nineteen back then, and it was only with a direct order from Craig that he budged. Another equally big villager knelt beside Grace. Grey held the girl’s feet and the other pressed down her hands. She tried to take a blood sample but only drew out viscous, black ooze. The little girl struggled so violently that she heard her tiny right arm snap. Jagged ends of her bones stabbed through her flesh. The girl didn’t cry or seem to feel any pain, and that sent the oxen villager bolting for the door. Grey was too shocked to move, trembling like a shell shocked soldier. None of the other soldiers came to help. Even Craig was petrified, he had seen all kinds of combat injuries, and probably survived through a few close brushes with death. He is not inexperienced like Grey, but yet they are scared of a tiny little girl. Grace thought she saw the Devil himself and she had never believed in religion. She remembers wetting her pants and everything happened in a flash as the girl twists towards their direction. Her arm, or what remains of it was free. It was a horrifying sight, flesh and muscle tore from the stump, dangling by the hemp rope that is still tied to her left wrist. She dragged her body across the floor. She didn’t remember much, except that Grey told her that she dragged him out by his collar like a lioness grabbing her cubs.

They rushed outside, locking the door behind them. The scientists were pale with fear and the soldiers were wrought with shame. Craig’s voice cracked when he asked how the girl became like this. No one answered. The girl was pounding against the thin wooden door. Every time she did that, they jumped. Colours drained from their faces. Craig shouted and threatened to jail the translator. That’s when he started talking.

A young woman came forward, probably the girl’s mother. They thought so because her eyes were swollen like she had been crying for days. The young girl was playing in an old industrial estate that was abandoned for more than twenty years. Was it a military establishment? Was it a nuclear plant? Did she see any military trucks around that place? The women had no answers. She said that the girl came back crying, claiming that a mushroom man ‘touched’ her. Her father thought she had lost her honour and went to hunt down the culprit, demanding a suitable dowry for compensation. But he never came back.

Grace was still shivering but she remembers Craig reaching for his cell phone and called Dr Dilaram on a video conference. He was a close aide to the General and his associate from the Baghdad University. She remembers hearing pleasantries, some polite mentions about their latest publication. She even remembers some rude jokes about the Kurdish peasants. The tone was warm and light until Craig told him why they were asked to go there. He described the symptoms, the bites and everything. His face went white and his smile is dead instantly.

He asked Craig to show him the wounds, and they went back to the courtyard and waved his phone camera over the patients. He asked to see the wounds closer so Craig brought the phone closer. He cuts off the phone immediately.

A few minutes later, Walters calls Craig, giving him orders to detain everyone in the village. Gather those who had contact with the infection, make sure no one leaves the village. Those who are sick, tie them up. If they are in a coma, lock them up in a room. The villagers are scared but they didn’t know what was going on. So the translator was made to issue the order. It was a nightmare, even though there were barely a hundred inside the village. Within an hour, a full company came in several UH-60 helicopters. The men were in full hazmat suits, taking out all the infected people in stretchers but bound and gagged. The girl came out in a body bag while the villagers were all rounded up for examination. Everyone was made to strip naked which was terribly offensive to the locals. Some were made to do so at gun point and those who had resisted were knocked out and stripped for inspection. Grace was still recovering from the shock to protest. She never spoke about it to anyone, except for Grey whom she met a few years later when he came home from his deployment.

Grey said the village was totally gone after that. He was never sent on that patrol again but he heard it from the other platoons. It was as if the place never existed. It never did, officially. All the experts and soldiers who went were quarantined for three weeks and Grey was court marshalled on some stupid charges. Walters saved him from that one so that’s why he was pretty loyal to him until… she said I know what happened next. As for Grace, they offered her a military contract. No, correction – they threatened her to sign on a military contract or she will never work in this field again. The panel didn’t have to put up that WMD report anymore. There is a more dangerous lie they need to keep. And to be honest, she didn’t really care. The money was good, she kept thinking. That was how she lived with herself for the past few years.

Grace stirs from the rock. Her voice quivers as if the horror only happened yesterday. I was stunned by her story. Everyone thought the virus only happened recently in India.

“It was only made public when it reached India. Things were so chaotic in Iraq that it’s easy to cover things up there. They could threaten and bribe the few of us. But the outbreak in India was impossible. People were snapping pictures and videos and uploading them everywhere on the internet.” She said.

“I can’t believe this. How can you keep such a thing from the people?” I snapped. Mom and Dad isn’t like the other parents who didn’t take the outbreak for granted, we lived in Africa and had seen more than our share of pandemics – SARs, Ebola, HIV, MERs - to take this one seriously. It was all they could talk about for the last few months, whether we had our vaccines, nagging at Tristan to stay away from wild animals. If they had knew, we could have done something, stayed in Africa, built a tree top home, and they would still be alive.

“Grow up kid. I didn’t really have a choice. No one needs the whole world to panic. We need to buy time to find to find a cure.” She said.

“Buy time?” I croaked, eyes still wet from the outrage.

“For years, outbreaks had been contained with surgical strikes. That’s why you see the police are carrying bigger guns than before. Except they weren’t the police, they were actually the army. In some countries, entire counties disappear, like the ‘ethnic cleansing’ you heard in Ukraine and southern China. It fooled everyone because that’s what people would believe them to do. They would rather claim that they kill their own people than to admit that they had an infection problem. At least the world believes they are still in control.”

I thought about all that spike in murders, serial killers, riots in different states for the past few months and I suddenly realized they weren’t what they were reported to be.

“So the outbreak here didn’t start at the airport?” I asked.

“We lost control at the airport. They were simply too many of them by that time. We don’t know how, but the virus came to our shores long ago. My guess is that when it spreads to China, those harvested organs from executed prisoners were floating on the black market everywhere. So if a rich patient who can’t afford to wait for a kidney transplant, what does he do? Mind you, we are talking HRN0 back then, when it took days, if not weeks for the infected to show symptoms. That gives us time to do contract tracing, make people disappear and spin up a story to tell their families. By the time it evolved to HRN7, people turns within hours. That’s when it got out of control. Craig and I were flown over to Ground Zero, which was where I met you. At first, we were sent there because there was a new strain of the virus that turns people within minutes. But by the time we realized it was a lost cause, Walters had other plans-”

“THERE HE IS!” Tristan shouted when he flashed the light at us. We shield our eyes from the sudden burst of light. I turn to look at my brother and saw him and Mark running towards our direction. Mark came up first and hugged me.

“Thank God, we were so worried.” He said. Tristan caught out with him shortly after but didn’t look as happy.

“Jesus Christ! Where the FUCK did you go?” He flared.

I was stunned for a moment. Tristan never raised his voice at me before. We had our fights, calling each other names, but nothing could not be resolved by a wrestling match or tickle torture which usually ends up in me crying for Mom to save me. My brother was truly pissed.

“I’m sorry Tris-”

“That was irresponsible! Do you know how scared I was?” His voice cracked and his eyes were wet.

“Hey chill it, young man. This cub is safe with me here.” Her commanding tone puts my brother in his place. He didn’t expect to be told off by her. I felt bad. I didn’t think he would worry. Grace softened a little and told him it was her fault since she insisted that I don’t pee near the truck. We chatted and lost track of time.

“You better tell Grey and the rest.” Mark said. I know he is trying to send my brother away to let him cool off. Before he left, I hugged him and apologized again. This time, he calmed down a little, putting an arm gently on my back and rests his head on my shoulders for a moment.

When he left, Mark flashed his light at my face like a criminal, giving me an accusing look. He knocked my head, not so gently.

“Ouch.” I whined.

“You deserved that, idiot.” He said with a pursed lip and a suppressed smile, to which I stuck out my tongue.

“We better get back or Grey is going to give me the music as well. I’m supposed to be keeping watch.” Grace shakes her head and rubbed her hands.

“Wait, you still hasn’t told me what Colonel Walter’s plans were.” I said eagerly, and then realized that I sound like a kid begging for a bed time story, and right in front of Mark. It was pretty lame, but I didn’t care.

“I don’t really know,” she shrugs, “except that it wasn’t about the cure anymore. I overheard him saying something to his aides when they were trying to convince the President to abort Operation Tidal Wave since they had potentially found the ‘solution’. For a long time, people had been telling him to evacuate. We had trucks, and we still had food at that time, but he won’t budge.”

I was surprised that Grace is sceptical about the cure. She had been researching on this with Craig and other experts, certainly someone who is resistant to the virus could mean she has the antibodies to fight them. That could lead to a cure isn’t it? Then Mark interrupted my thoughts.

He said, “I heard Dad mentioned that name before. He was arguing over the phone, saying something about ‘human shields’. I thought he was talking about some Tsunami aid relief mission. But he closed the door as soon as he realized I was home at that time.”

Mark told Grace that his father was an army Major and apparently acquainted with the Colonel. He was surprised to hear that she was part of Craig’s research team for the cure.

“You think the Colonel is lying to the President? Like the whole WMD deal?” I asked.

“I think Walters and Craig are idiots who are desperate to believe their own spin.” She said.

“Hold on a second. Why did the Colonel do this to you when you were on the research team? That must be important to him right?” Mark said. He was referring to Grace being forced to prostitute herself like the other women. Surely she has better use for her brains than her… other assets.

“Well, I did tell them that they were idiots. To be fair, Craig is a trauma surgeon and a neurologist, not a virologist. So when I told them it wasn’t a virus and Elena probably isn’t resistant to it. They kind of shut me out completely.”

“Bullshit. Everyone knows the difference between a virus and bacteria?” I said. Then I saw Mark looks away and I suddenly feel a size-eleven foot down in my throat. Very charming, science geek. I cursed myself for being such a know-it-all. Grace sighs and explains to me like I’m a kid.

“It didn’t say it was bacteria. I thought it was a parasite.”

Now I am confused. Viruses are microbe parasites that attack our genes.

“Now young man, before you give me the same look as Craig, let me explain properly. HRN7 is a virus, they affect the neurological chemical balance that fries up the brain a hundred times stronger than methamphetamine does. But, it wasn’t the virus that turned them into cannibals. I believed it was the fungal parasites that did it.”

Her insights caught Mark’s attention as well. He sat down next to me as we listen to her explanation. “Grey told me what he heard from Craig’s observation of his wife. My theory is that the fungal spores carried the virus the same way as rats once carried the bubonic plague. When I saw the infected adapting to changes in the environment, like how they would hibernate and somehow sustain themselves for long periods without food and water, I realized that no virus would do that. Only a more complex parasitic organism would want and be able to keep their host ‘alive’. When I drew out black ooze instead of blood, I thought that might be how the parasites sustain the infected with some kind of blood substitute. I didn’t say Elena wasn’t resistant, I meant that it wasn’t the only explanation for her unusual symptoms.”

Both of us leaned in closer as she paused before saying, “I thought she might be simply infected without the parasite getting into her somehow.”

“Doesn’t that still mean she could be resistant or immune?” I asked.

“Yes. But it could also means that her body isn’t a habitable host. And guess what Grey told me he heard on Craig’s audio journal? Elena was on the army powder right on the spot where she was bitten. The powder also happens to be a potent fungicide to keep soldiers from getting jock rashes.” She said.

“Then why amputate people when they get bitten? Just treat the wound with the powder.” I said.

“I have no proof that it will work. Besides, you will end up like Elena, suffering a slow painful death addicted to tranquilizers. The parasite actually helps the brain to cope with the surge in neurotoxins. They form a symbiotic relationship. But anyway, Walters and Craig didn’t want to believe my crazy explanation. It makes everyone look like an idiot, including me who had believed that it was a virus too. We have been telling the President and the whole world that it was a virus and even developed a vaccine that didn’t work.” She said.

“That was dumb. I can’t believe they didn’t listen to you.” I said.

Grace looks at me tenderly, brushing my hair. She said to me, “I’m sorry that you had to grow up in such a short time. But you must understand that it’s easier to shoot a gun than to admit you are wrong. It’s harder for men, I guess, especially when you are old and important. Craig honestly believes the fungal infection was just opportunistic parasites like the lesions and other infections you would see on AIDs patients.”

The rest was sound asleep by the time we got back. It was only a few hours left to sunrise. Tristan took over the watch so I was left alone with Mark instead, I snuggled up close to my brother, lying on his lap and hoping that he would accept my little gesture for peace. I heard a long sigh and feel his hand resting gently on my shoulders. I thought about what Grace said and found it hard to believe that one day I will care more about being right than about people. In the darkness, I could hear Grace mutters a good night. I believe she had meant it for me. It felt sweet, coming from her. I still can’t believe she actually saved Grey’s ass. He’s like fucking Captain America or something. So that makes her some kind of She-hulk instead.

“Good night She-hulk.” That’s what I replied her.

I heard a snort, but I imagine a wide grin on her sleeping face.