He set down the Slinky and leaned forward. “Once the victim is in hibernation this disease cluster reorganizes the functioning matrix of the body. It somehow uses the fatal familial insomnia protein to wake the victim up again and keep them awake; but during the hibernation the parasite has closed off those areas of the body that have been severely injured-as with the gunshot wounds. Our walker gets up because the parasite has kept the motor cortex going as well as some of the cranial nerves-the ones governing balance, chewing, swallowing, and so on. However, most of the organs are in shutdown and the reduced blood and oxygen flow has caused irreparable brain damage to the higher functions such as cognition. The heart pumps only a little blood, and the lungs operate at an almost negligible level. Circulation is so significantly reduced that necrosis begins to occur in disused parts of the body. So, we have nearly a classic brain-dead, flesh-hungry, rotting zombie. It’s beautiful, man, absolutely freaking beautiful.”
The urge to hit him was getting tougher to control.
“Can they think at all? Are they problem-solving?”
He shrugged. “If the walker is capable of conscious thought, we haven’t seen evidence of it. But really, we don’t know what they can’t do, or what variations might emerge in a larger cross section of the population. Maybe that’s why they had the kids today-trying the pathogen on a new test group. Body chemistry is different in kids. But overall, these are brain-dead meat machines. They walk, growl, bite, and that’s it.”
I blew out my cheeks. “Can they feel pain?”
“Unknown. Certainly they don’t react to it. There’s not even a flinch mechanism that we’ve seen. Though at St. Michael’s we learned that they’ll recoil from fire. They appear to be oblivious to, or are capable of disregarding, other forms of pain and the threat of pain.”
“They die, though,” I said. “Brain and brain stem injuries seem to do the trick.”
“Right, and if I were you I’d stick with that. But whether they can be otherwise injured in the classic sense that’s complicated. Our walkers have a hyperactive wound-healing capacity. Not on the scale of Wolverine from X- Men who regenerates back to complete health, but more on the lines of car tires when they’re filled with a can of that sealant stuff. Wounds do seal, as we know, otherwise we’d bleed out from a paper cut. Proteins called fibrins and high-molecular-weight glycoprotein-containing fibronectins bond together to form a plug that traps proteins and particles and prevents further blood loss; and this plug establishes a structural support to seal the wound until collagen is deposited. Then some ‘migratory cells’ use this plug to stretch across the wound, during which platelets stick to this seal until it’s replaced with granulation tissue and then later with collagen. In the walkers this whole process is running at superspeed. Shoot one and the wound closes right away. If this were a natural mutation we’d consider it an evolutionary response to a highly dangerous environment; fast healing in the presence of the potential for frequent cuts. But this is designer stuff; and again, our Dr. Evil has a gold mine of a patent in his hands because that process alone might be a potential cure or treatment for hemophilia and other bleeding disorders. And the battlefield uses would be worth billions.” He leaned close. “And if you and your Rambo squad can take out the geniuses behind this then I’m going to swipe this shit and file the patents, and then I’ll buy Tahiti and retire.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” I sighed. “What about treatment, something to kill these prions? Can we give people something to amp up their immune systems?”
He shook his head. “The body’s immune system doesn’t react to prion diseases the way it does to other diseases; it doesn’t kick in and the disease spreads too rapidly with nothing to slow it down. Once it takes hold there is no treatment.”
“Terrific.”
“And killing a prion is incredibly difficult. In labs, where growth hormones are cultivated from extracted pituitary glands, solvents of various kinds have been used to purify the tissue; these solvents kill everything except the damn prions. Even formaldehyde won’t kill them, which really boggles me. Radiation treatment and bombardment with ultraviolet light doesn’t kill them. We-and by that I mean my fellow wizards in the scientific community as a whole-have tried virtually everything to kill TSEs including treating diseased brain tissues with all manner of chemicals including industrial detergent-and the prions simply won’t die. They don’t even die with the host organism. Bury a corpse with a prion disease and dig up the bones a century later and the prions are still there. They are, after all, simply proteins.”
“Is that all of it?” I asked.
“I could go on and on about the science-”
“I mean, are those all of the highlights? Is there anything else I have to know if I’m going to lead my team into that crab plant?”
Again Hu looked at Church and now the distant look was gone from Church’s eyes. He nodded to the doctor. “Well,” Hu said, “there’s the issue of infection.”
“Right, it’s transmitted through a bite. I saw enough of that firsthand about three hours ago. I saw those bastards biting kids.”
I looked to see how that hit Hu but there wasn’t a flicker of compassion on his face. He was too caught up in how cool he thought this all was. I wondered how he’d feel if he was in a locked room with a walker.
Hu gave me a devious grin. “It’s a bit worse than that. A whole lot worse, actually.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
The DMS Warehouse, Baltimore / Tuesday, June 30; 9:39 P.M.
“WHAT’S WORSE?”
We turned to see Grace Courtland entering the lab with Rudy right behind her. Rudy looked terrible. His face was the color of old milk, except for dark smudges under his eyes; his lips were a little wet and rubbery, and his eyes had the glassy and violated look of a victim of some dreadful crime.
“Jeez, Rude, are you okay-?” I said quietly as I moved to intercept him.
“Later, Joe. It’s been a hard day for everyone, but let’s talk later.”
Church got to his feet and joined the group. “Captain, your friend Dr. Sanchez has already been entertained by Dr. Hu. And I believe Major Courtland has shown him the St. Michael’s tapes.”
Rudy looked at the floor for a moment, then he took a deep breath and tried to master himself. I hadn’t yet seen those tapes, so having gotten my own tour of hell I could pretty well imagine what horrors were banging around in his head. It made me feel like a total shit for having gotten him dragged into this.
“You’re about to tell him about the rate of infection, Doctor?” Rudy asked in a voice that was steadier than I expected.
“Yep, but he’s your friend why don’t you break the news to him.”
Rudy nodded. He cleared his throat. “Joe I’m not sure which I think would be worse, a real case of supernatural zombies like out of the movies or what we have here.”
“Definitely what we have here,” Hu said. Courtland agreed, and even Church nodded.
“This is a lousy way to start a conversation,” I said. “I would have thought that zombies would pretty much be your worst-case scenario.”
Rudy grimaced and shook his head. “You understand what prions are, right? Okay, with any disease there is an incubation period, and for prion pathologies it’s typically very long, anywhere from several months to thirty years in humans.”
“I told him about the parasites,” Hu said.
Rudy nodded. “Prions, though extremely dangerous, are far from being short-term weapons and could at best represent a time-bomb effect. Whoever made this disease pioneered some new way to speed up the process of infection. Now it happens in minutes.”
“Seconds,” I corrected. “Like I said I saw it.”
Hu said, “We’re seeing all kinds of variations in terms of infection, time of death, and speed of reanimation. We’re only just beginning to build models to study it but we’re nowhere near understanding it. The pattern’s funky, and I’ll bet you my whole set of Evil Dead action figures that we’ve either got mutations or more than one strain. In either case we are seriously screwed.”
Rudy said, “I think we can safely say that when the carrier and victim are in an agitated state, as we had in the hospital and in Delaware today, then the process happens very fast. Adrenaline and ambient temperature both accelerate the process.”
