If it was true, then he had been hunting the wrong species. In many ways, he wasn’t surprised. This new revelation fit what he knew about the Ancient One. Why hide in rodents when he could disguise himself in something even smaller, something even more insidious? Dr. Reischtal thought about the Black Plague, and how all the holy men had blamed rats, when in reality it was the lowly flea that had spread the devastation.
He spoke without looking at the tech. “Please tell me a sample of . . . these organisms has been obtained.”
“Yes, sir. Identified as Cimex lectularius, the common bedbug.”
“And was the virus present?”
The tech was silent for a moment. Dr. Reischtal could tell that the tech knew damn well, just as he did, that bedbugs had never been found to transmit any significant virus, unlike say, mosquitoes with malaria or even the West Nile virus. The bedbug was a nuisance; that was all.
Until now.
The tech finally took a breath and nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said in a small voice. “It appears that these bedbugs are carrying and transmitting the virus.”
Dr. Reischtal allowed nothing to show on his face. “Very well,” he said. He pulled out his phone and called Sergeant Reaves. “I want a flame thrower team up on the fourth floor immediately. Everything within Room 417 is to be burned. I want this room erased, do you understand?”
Sergeant Reaves understood.
Dr. Reischtal said, “Every single last patient is now under quarantine. No one is to enter an infected room unless fully protected by a fully enclosed hazmat suit. Contact pest management. I want every common area in this entire building sterilized. Highest priority.” He hung up and turned to the tech. “This information is to be kept confidential until if and when I decide to report this to the proper authorities. Right now, I want anyone who has touched him, anyone who sat next to him, anyone that was in the same room as this man, isolated. Starting with you.”
CHAPTER 39
4:21 PM
August 13
Mr. Ullman finally forced Roger to lock Daisy up in their animal hospitality suite. Apparently, a lot of celebrities like to be seen travelling with their pets, but have no interest in actually taking care of the damn things. The Fin was equipped to accommodate dogs, cats, birds, lizards, pretty much anything smaller than a horse. Roger left her in a crate in a quiet room on the third floor, buried back by the washing machines.
They went back up to the fifth floor to Mr. Ullman’s office. He kept his keys in a small safe under his desk. He spoke quickly; he was due back upstairs to finish giving his statement. “If you think the storage facility has anything to do with this, then have at it, by all means. Investigate to your heart’s content. Just promise me that you can kill these things once and for all.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I shall expect this key back by the end of the day. If I do not see some results by then, please inform your employer that I will be speaking to the competition first thing in the morning.”
Mr. Ullman ushered Roger out of his office and locked the door behind them. Mr. Ullman headed for the elevators, while Roger went down the stairs, following a hand-drawn map. Mr. Ullman thought it would be for the best if Roger did not take the elevators; there was a chance he might run into a guest or police officer. So he took the service stairwell down until he hit the basement. He worked his way through the kitchens to another service door, which led to another stairwell, dropping another four floors.
He descended the stairs all the way to the bottom. He had to unlock the door, and found himself in a narrow utility hallway. The floor was metal grillwork, and Roger could see that the pavement was wet under the walkway. His footsteps made a hollow, banging noise as he strode down the hallway. He continually had to duck under exposed pipes in the ceiling. He whistled; they must have had a hell of a time moving all the furniture down here.
The door wasn’t quite at the end where the hallway dead-ended in a spiderweb of pipes, but it was close. He fingered the key and checked the padlock. Still locked. A thin layer of dust covered the lock and the door handle. Mr. Ullman was right: no one had opened this door in months.
Roger twisted the key and the lock popped open with a click that sounded unnaturally loud in the confined hallway. He thought he heard a high, urgent squeaking on the other side of the metal door, shrugged it off. It was just water or something in all the pipes. He slipped the lock out of the hole, pocketed the keys, and grasped the cool door handle.
He felt very alone for a moment and felt acutely aware of Daisy’s absence. It gave his chest a quick ache. He promised himself that as soon as he confirmed that the furniture was still secure and sealed, he would take Daisy out to their favorite burger joint, where they let her sit with him out on the back patio. He decided he might just throw caution to the wind and order at least two beers tonight. Heck, maybe three. After the day he’d had, he felt like he certainly deserved it.
He twisted the handle.
The door popped open, showering Roger with debris, the air suddenly full of cotton snow, scraps of fabric, and slivers of wood. It poured over and around him like a soft avalanche. An awful, foul odor followed, and in its own way, was almost more powerful than the shredded wreckage. He instinctively breathed through his open mouth; it was as if a tornado had ripped through a furniture store, grinding and chopping everything and throwing all of it against the door.
He took a step backward, out of the mess, and picked some wiry fluff out of his hair. Much of it was somehow wet, and clung to him. He realized that the moisture was actually rat urine. A dead rat slid out of the stuffing near his feet. He still hadn’t figured out that he had just disrupted a gigantic rat nest until he found a baby rat clinging to his tie.
The thing was smaller than a spark plug and neon red. It looked like some kind of crazy Japanese soft candy. He brushed it away with a gag of disgust, then saw another one clinging to his arm. He could hear it squeal in terror. The cry echoed around him, and he realized that the wreckage was full of baby rats. The shrill squeaks filled the hallway. He swatted them away, stumbling back. He stepped on something that felt like a rotten plum, and when he pulled his foot away, he saw that he had just crushed one of the babies.
An adult rat, a giant covered in coarse black fur, squirmed out of the nest and hissed at him.
His nerve broke completely and with a hoarse shout, he turned and lurched back towards the stairs. His pounding footsteps sent vibrations deep into the foundation of the building, and that, combined with the screaming babies, attracted the rats. They erupted out of the open doorway in a cascade of densely muscled bodies, sharp claws, oversize teeth, and naked, segmented tails.
Roger heard something, and risked a look behind him.
The rats swarmed up the hallway with a speed that sent ice-cold panic shooting through his veins. He cried out and tried to run faster. His only chance was to make it through the doorway and somehow shut the door behind him. There. He could see the door now, and forced himself to not think about the horde that filled the hallway, a cyclone of teeth and claws and rage that roared and snapped at his heels.
He slammed into the door, hands slapping at the handle.
It was locked.
“Oh, Jesus,” he whimpered, digging into his pocket for the keys. He refused to turn to see how close the rats were as his fingers closed over the keys. His hand shook as he jammed the key into the handle. The first key was the wrong one. He fumbled with the next key and they slipped out of his sweating fingers and fell through the metal grille.