Countdown: A Newsflesh Novella Read Online Free
Author: Mira Grant
wakefulness. It was patient; it had all the time in the world.
* * *
Amanda Amberlee is survived by her mother, Suzanne Amberlee. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to the Colorado Cancer Research Center…
June 15, 2014: Reston, Virginia
“Alex?”
The lights were off in the main lab, leaving it in claustrophobic darkness. Most of the staff had long since gone home for the night. That made sense; it had been past eleven when John Kellis pulled into the parking lot, and the only car parked in front of the building was his husband’s familiar bottle-green Ford. He hadn’t bothered to call before coming over. Maybe some men strayed to bars or strip clubs. Not Alex. When Alex went running to his other lover, he was always running to the lab.
John paused before pushing open the door leading into the inner office. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Alex further when he was already so delicate. “Sweetheart? Are you in here?”
There was still no answer. John’s heart started beating a little faster, spurred on by fear. The pressure had been immense since the break-in. Years of research gone; millions of dollars in private funding lost; and perhaps worst of all, Alex’s sense of certainty that the world would somehow start playing fair, shattered. John wasn’t sure that Alex could recover from that, and if Alex couldn’t recover, then John didn’t think he could recover, either.
This lab had been their life for so long. Vacations had been planned around ongoing research; even the question of whether or not to have a baby had been put off, again and again, by the demands of Alex’s work. They had both believed it was worth it for so long. Was one act of ecoterrorism going to change all that?
John was suddenly very afraid that it was.
“I’m back here, John,” said Alex’s voice. It was soft, dull…dead. Heart still hammering, John turned his walk into a half jog, rounding the corner to find himself looking at the glass window onto the former hot room. Alex was standing in front of it, just like he had so many times before, but his shoulders were stooped. He looked defeated.
“Alex, you have to stop doing this to yourself.” John’s heartbeat slowed as he saw that his husband was unharmed. He walked the rest of the distance between them, stopping behind Alex and sliding his arms around the other man’s shoulders. “Come on. Come home with me.”
“I can’t.” Alex indicated the window. “Look.”
The hot room had been resealed after the break-in; maybe they couldn’t stop their home-brewed pathogens from getting out, but they could stop anything new from getting in. The rhesus monkeys and guinea pigs were back in their cages. Some were eating, some were sleeping; others were just going about their business, oblivious to the humans watching over them.
“I don’t understand.” John squinted, frowning at the glass. “What am I supposed to be seeing? They all look perfectly normal.”
“I’ve bathed them in every cold sample I could find, along with half a dozen flus and an airborne form of syphilis. One of the guinea pigs died, but the necropsy didn’t show any sign that it was either an infection or the cure that killed it. Sometimes guinea pigs just die.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand the problem. What’s wrong with your lab animals being healthy?”
Alexander Kellis pulled away from his husband, expression anguished as he turned to face him. “I can’t tell which ones have caught the cure and which haven’t. It’s undetectable in a living subject. After the break-in, we’re probably infected, too. And I don’t know what it will do in a human host . We weren’t ready.” He started to cry, looking very young and very old at the same time. “I may have just killed us all.”
“Oh, honey, no.” John gathered him close, making soothing noises…but his eyes were on the animals behind the glass. The perfectly healthy,
* * *
Amanda Amberlee is survived by her mother, Suzanne Amberlee. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to the Colorado Cancer Research Center…
June 15, 2014: Reston, Virginia
“Alex?”
The lights were off in the main lab, leaving it in claustrophobic darkness. Most of the staff had long since gone home for the night. That made sense; it had been past eleven when John Kellis pulled into the parking lot, and the only car parked in front of the building was his husband’s familiar bottle-green Ford. He hadn’t bothered to call before coming over. Maybe some men strayed to bars or strip clubs. Not Alex. When Alex went running to his other lover, he was always running to the lab.
John paused before pushing open the door leading into the inner office. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Alex further when he was already so delicate. “Sweetheart? Are you in here?”
There was still no answer. John’s heart started beating a little faster, spurred on by fear. The pressure had been immense since the break-in. Years of research gone; millions of dollars in private funding lost; and perhaps worst of all, Alex’s sense of certainty that the world would somehow start playing fair, shattered. John wasn’t sure that Alex could recover from that, and if Alex couldn’t recover, then John didn’t think he could recover, either.
This lab had been their life for so long. Vacations had been planned around ongoing research; even the question of whether or not to have a baby had been put off, again and again, by the demands of Alex’s work. They had both believed it was worth it for so long. Was one act of ecoterrorism going to change all that?
John was suddenly very afraid that it was.
“I’m back here, John,” said Alex’s voice. It was soft, dull…dead. Heart still hammering, John turned his walk into a half jog, rounding the corner to find himself looking at the glass window onto the former hot room. Alex was standing in front of it, just like he had so many times before, but his shoulders were stooped. He looked defeated.
“Alex, you have to stop doing this to yourself.” John’s heartbeat slowed as he saw that his husband was unharmed. He walked the rest of the distance between them, stopping behind Alex and sliding his arms around the other man’s shoulders. “Come on. Come home with me.”
“I can’t.” Alex indicated the window. “Look.”
The hot room had been resealed after the break-in; maybe they couldn’t stop their home-brewed pathogens from getting out, but they could stop anything new from getting in. The rhesus monkeys and guinea pigs were back in their cages. Some were eating, some were sleeping; others were just going about their business, oblivious to the humans watching over them.
“I don’t understand.” John squinted, frowning at the glass. “What am I supposed to be seeing? They all look perfectly normal.”
“I’ve bathed them in every cold sample I could find, along with half a dozen flus and an airborne form of syphilis. One of the guinea pigs died, but the necropsy didn’t show any sign that it was either an infection or the cure that killed it. Sometimes guinea pigs just die.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand the problem. What’s wrong with your lab animals being healthy?”
Alexander Kellis pulled away from his husband, expression anguished as he turned to face him. “I can’t tell which ones have caught the cure and which haven’t. It’s undetectable in a living subject. After the break-in, we’re probably infected, too. And I don’t know what it will do in a human host . We weren’t ready.” He started to cry, looking very young and very old at the same time. “I may have just killed us all.”
“Oh, honey, no.” John gathered him close, making soothing noises…but his eyes were on the animals behind the glass. The perfectly healthy,
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