Rant: The Oral History of Buster Casey

10–Werewolves

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D. (Epidemiologist): Among the oldest superstitions practiced by ancient cultures was the warning to never drink from a pool frequented by wolves. Nor did our ancestors scavenge from any game animal—say, a deer or an elk—which had been felled by a pack of wolves. Either of these transgressions—or simply being bitten by a wolf—it is believed would transform one into a legendary half-human, half-canine monster, bloodthirsty and savage: a werewolf.

In the same manner that Old Testament prohibitions against eating pork and shellfish no doubt saved ancients from a miserable death by trichinosis or salmonella, these early wolf superstitions warned them away from any trace of saliva most likely to carry the Lyssavirus, a genus of morphologically similar, negative-stranded RNA viruses historically infecting mammal reservoirs worldwide.

Denise Gardner (Real Estate Agent): I can still see Margot stomping out the door to meet her friends. All of them dressed up in black lace and fishnet stockings, like every night was Halloween.

The little creature would be hanging on her sweater like a furry accessory. A brooch. Those horrible little claws of it, clutching the wool of her black sweater, or some nights Margot would pin up her hair and let the bat nest on top, or swing alongside her face like a single earring. All her goth friends wanted them…Leathery little vermin—I mean the bats, not Margot's friends. Bats made the perfect creepy little pet for a vampire teen. All her friends had them. Shame on us, but we didn't know any better. Pet shops couldn't sell them right next to the puppies and kitties if they weren't safe. That's what Sean, my husband, said.

Sean Gardner (Contractor): Our daughter's name was Margot, but her little vampire friends called her "Monster." She named the bat "Little Monster," then she shortened it to just "Monty."

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: Prior to the Casey epidemic, the largest outbreak in modern times had been due to an oversight in import protocol. Under the Foreign Quarantine Regulations (42 CFR 71.54), it is illegal to sell bats as pets within the United States. Imported bats are restricted to accredited zoos and research institutions. However, in this one-time incident, a procedural error allowed a shipment of several thousand Egyptian tomb bats (Rousettus aegypiacus) to enter the country in 1994 for sale through pet stores.

Sean Gardner: We bought Margot the bat as a Christmas present. Correction: She bought the bat. Her mother and I paid her back. It cost three hundred dollars, from Egypt or some godforsaken place. The food cost another arm and a leg. Bat Chow or Bat Meal. Some ridiculous crap. Her mother wouldn't go near it.

That Little Monty smelled awful.

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: Of the total humans infected each year, only 20 percent report being bitten or scratched by an animal. A typical case, from March 1995, involves a four-year-old girl in Washington State in whose bedroom a bat was discovered. Because the child reported no contact with the animal, no prophylactic treatment was initiated. Subsequently, both the child and the bat were found to be infected.

Among groundhogs, the disease spreads when one animal simply enters a den previously occupied by a sick animal.

Because the virus is transmitted primarily through saliva, something as minor as a cough or a sneeze can infect those in the immediate vicinity. Certainly within an elevator or an airliner cabin. Mechanically speaking, contracting rabies is as easy as catching a cold. But with a cold you immediately begin to present symptoms.

Denise Gardner: Her teachers complained that Margot acted antsy. They said she seemed fidgety. Distracted. Anxious, sometimes. She was our problem child. All her little goth friends acted the exact same way, always surly and impolite. Just awful. It never even dawned on us. Finally, when Margot brought home a D in her World Civics course, her primary-care pediatrician wrote her a prescription for Ritalin.

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: Upon contracting the virus, the typical subject will experience a tingling sensation at the site of the exposure, the bite or scratch. If the infection occurs via mucous membrane, that initial site will become hypersensitive. In the event of transmission through oral-genital contact, as appears to be the case with the Rant serotype, the hallmark tingling sensation affecting the genital and perigenital region is reported to be not altogether unpleasant. This pleasurable condition might account for the epidemic's rapid, almost lightning, transmission rate through the population.

Sean Gardner: The symptoms are brooding and antisocial behavior, isolation alternating with fits of hostile aggression. If the CDC treated every teenager that showed those symptoms…well, no government has that much money.

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: Beyond the incubation period, also known as the «eclipse» period, of six to ninety days, the virus replicates in localized tissue adjacent to the infection site. Retrograde axoplasmic flow moves the virus rapidly throughout the central nervous system. It infects neuronal cells of the brain stem, medulla, hippocampus, Purkinje cells, and cerebellum—invading, replicating, and budding within each cell—and in the process causing degeneration of the spinal cord, brain, and axons, and demyelination of the white matter of the brain.

As the viral load increases, the most enervated body tissues are subject to a greater degree, particularly the salivary glands. In the first stage of symptoms, the prodromal phase, the subject may suffer fever, nausea, headache, fatigue, and a lack of appetite.

Sean Gardner: Frankly, the way kids behave these days, who could blame us for not suspecting? Especially the way they dance.

Denise Gardner: Sean blamed her moods on that music they listen to.

Sean Gardner: Well, my wife said it was the video games.

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: Beyond the prodromal phase, the sensory-excitation phase is characterized by hypersalivation, muscle twitches, insomnia, extreme aggression, and a compulsion to bite or chew.

Once incubation of the disease is complete and the subject exhibits suspect behaviors, there is no treatment. The third and final stage of the disease is paralysis and coma. Subsequent autopsy will reveal antigens when rabies antibodies are applied to samples of brain tissue and examined under a fluorescence microscope.

Denise Gardner: During the worst of it, Sylvia Leonard calls. She's the mother of Dean Leonard, one of Margot's little goth pals. Well, anyway, Sylvia phones and says, hi ho, Dean's pet bat has just croaked. The little fuzzball's been curled up in Dean's underwear drawer, and today it reeks to high heaven. Dead. And Sylvia wants to know: Did Margot's bat get sick? Sylvia wants to know: Did we save the sales receipt, and can she use our receipt to try and get a refund for her dead bat?

We pull the shoe box out from under Margot's bed, and the stink could knock you over. We don't even open the lid. Sean, my husband, Sean just totes the box into the backyard and buries Little Monty with every other gerbil and hamster and kitten and goldfish and lizard, parakeet, guinea pig, mouse, and rabbit that Margot ever begged and pleaded to have. You'd swear, our backyard is paved with dead animals.

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: The word itself comes from the Sanskrit word, used three thousand years before the birth of Christ, rabhas, which means "to do violence." By the nineteenth century, the virus was prevalent in all parts of the world, especially Europe. There, people who feared they'd become infected would usually commit suicide.

Those infected, or even rumored to be infected, were often murdered by their peers, out of fear. Or sympathy.

Historically, the virus has moved through a series of mammal reservoirs. In the 1700s, the disease was carried predominantly by red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), and gained a foothold in the New World when these animals were imported for British-style fox hunts. During the 1800s, the striped skunk(Mephitis mephitis) was so likely to be hydrophobic that the popular slang term for skunks of that period was "Phobey Cats." After the 1960s, the common raccoon (Procyon lotor) became the species most likely to be infected. To a lesser degree, the coyote (Canis latrans) is responsible for an average of fifty infections annually. Insectivorous bats, an average of 750 infections annually.

Before the advent of the Rant serotype of the Lyssavirus, no more than a hundred thousand people died of rabies each year, primarily in tropical or subtropical regions. Despite an annual expenditure of one billion dollars to contain the disease, and a century of vaccinations and public awareness, the infection rate among animals reached a historical peakin 1993.

Due to the epidemic attributed to Buster Casey, human beings are currently the largest mammal reservoir of the rabies virus.

Sean Gardner: As I understand it, you have two types of rabies. There's your «dumb» type, where you never go insane and bite anyone. You only curl up in a ball under your bed and die. And there's the normal kind of rabies, the «furious» type, which 80 percent of folks get. Where you slobber and swear and flail around, smashing everything in your bedroom, including your Dolls of the World collection, and calling your father a "dirty, shit-eating, motherfucking, dickless dickhead…" Well, that's what kind of rabies our Margot had.

Denise Gardner: Shame on us, but I think we started to mourn Margot the day she turned thirteen and first dyed her hair black.

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: One can argue that all early prohibitions to bestiality were intended to prevent the Lyssavirus, or any disease, from jumping to human beings.

Ancient cultures also warned that bastard offspring of a priest would become werewolves. As would any children produced by incest.

Denise Gardner: Shame on me, but when I first suspected, when I had my first inkling that Margot might have rabies, I wrote it off as playacting. Watching Margot and her clique of goth friends, they made such a point to be rude and outlandish. It seemed too much, as if their fondest dream was to have rabies. Well, like I said, shame on me.

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: Once the virus begins replicating and is transported along sensory and motor nerves, the infected subject can remain asymptomatic for months, despite shedding virus and infecting additional subjects. That scenario appears to be the case with the alleged superspreader, Buster Casey.

No, epidemiologists no longer use the term "Patient Zero." Any individual responsible for ten or more infections, we now refer to as a "superspreader." What "Typhoid Mary" Mallon was to typhoid, what Gaetan Dugas was to AIDS, and Liu Jian-lun was to SARS, Buster Casey would become for rabies.

Sean Gardner: Our Margot, you know what happened. So many of her friends died that we held a group service. Not just Dean Leonard. Except it's different when you bury a goth child. Yes, it's still heartbreaking, only it doesn't look as bad. Actually, our Margot looked better—well, healthier—than she did before she got sick. The viewing, with all of them dressed up and so somber, it looked like her junior prom. But no one was dancing. Or smiling. Or laughing. Everyone gloomy and dressed in black…

Okay, it looked exactly like her junior prom.