Outbreak by Robin Cook. Part four

Alone, the futuristic lab was even more intimidating than Marissa remembered. It took all her courage to proceed, knowing in addition that she was breaking rules when she was already on probation. Every second, she feared that someone would discover her.

With sweaty palms, she grasped the releasing wheel on the airtight door to the dressing rooms and tried to turn it. The wheel would not budge. Finally, using all her strength, she got it to turn. The seal broke with a hiss and the door swung outward. She climbed through, hearing the door close behind her with an ominous thud.

She felt her ears pop as she scrambled into a set of scrub clothes. The second door opened more easily, but the fewer problems she encountered, the more she worried about the real risks she was taking.

Locating a small plastic isolation suit among the twenty or so hanging in the chamber, Marissa found it much harder to get into without Tad’s help. She was sweaty by the time she zipped it closed.

At the switch panel, she only turned on the lights for the main lab; the rest were unnecessary. She had no intention of visiting the animal area. Then, carrying her air hose, she crossed the disinfecting chamber and climbed through the final airtight door into the main part of the lab.

Her first order of business was to hook up to an appropriately positioned manifold and let the fresh air balloon out her suit and clear her mask. She welcomed the hissing sound. Without it the silence had been oppressive. Orienting herself in relation to all the high-tech hardware, she spotted the freezer. She was already sorry that she’d not turned on all the lights. The shadows at the far end of the lab created a sinister backdrop for the deadly viruses, heightening Marissa’s fear.

Swinging her legs wide to accommodate the inflated and bulky isolation suit, Marissa started for the freezer, again marveling that with all the other “high-tech,” up-to-the-minute equipment, they had settled for an ordinary household appliance. Its existence in the maximum containment lab was as unlikely as an old adding machine at a computer convention.

Just short of the freezer, Marissa paused, eyeing the insulated bolted door to the left. After learning the viruses were not stored behind it, she had wondered just what it did protect. Nervously, she reached out and drew the bolt. A cloud of vapor rushed out as she opened the door and stepped inside. For a moment she felt as if she had stepped into a freezing cloud. Then the heavy door swung back against her air hose, plunging her into darkness.

When her eyes adjusted, she spotted what she hoped was a light switch and turned it on. Overhead lights flicked on, barely revealing a thermometer next to the switch. Bending over she was able to make out that it registered minus fifty-one degrees centigrade.

“My God!” exclaimed Marissa, understanding the source of the vapor: as soon as the air at room temperature met such cold, the humidity it contained sublimated to ice.

Turning around and facing the dense fog, Marissa moved deeper into the room, fanning the air with her arms. Almost immediately a ghastly image caught her eye. She screamed, the sound echoing horribly within her suit. At first she thought she was seeing ghosts. Then she realized that, still more horrible, she was facing a row of frozen, nude corpses, only partially visible through the swirling mist. At first she thought they were standing on their own in a row, but it turned out they were hung like cadavers for an anatomy course- caliper-like devices thrust into the ear canals. As she came closer, Marissa recognized the first body. For a moment she thought she was going to pass out: it was the Indian doctor whom Marissa had seen in Phoenix, his face frozen into an agonized death mask.

There were at least a half-dozen bodies. Marissa didn’t count. To the right, she saw the carcasses of monkeys and rats, frozen in equally grotesque positions. Although Marissa could understand that such freezing was probably necessary for the viral study of gross specimens, she had been totally unprepared for the sight. No wonder Tad had discouraged her from entering.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *