The Brain Eaters

Chapter 20

Corey awoke at dawn. It was a habit from his army days that he had never been able to break. He reached down sleepily to scratch an itch and discovered he was naked. He usually slept in the bottom half of a pair of pajamas.

He frowned, still half-asleep, trying to remember what had been different when he had gone to bed the night before that would cause him to forget the pajamas. A second later he discovered he was not alone.

She lay on her side, facing away from him. The caramel-blonde hair lay in a soft tangle across the pillow. Corey lay his hand on the smooth curve between the woman’s rib cage and hip, and with a relieved smile he remembered who she was and why they were in bed together naked.

Dena stirred in her sleep and moved closer to him. He put an arm around her, letting his hand rest on her breast. The nipple stirred under his fingers. He nuzzled the back of her neck, inhaling the floral scent of her hair, mingled now with the tang of her sweat.

He drifted off again into a pleasant semisleep, always aware of the woman’s body next to him. Increasingly aware.

About seven o’clock Dena rolled over. With her face an inch away from his, she said, “Did you bring a gun to bed, or are you just glad to see me?”

For the next hour Corey showed her just how glad he was to see her.

For breakfast he scrambled eggs with what was left of the onions chopped into them. Dena found a jar of instant coffee in the rear of the refrigerator, and they ate together comfortably, making small jokes and smiling a lot.

With her second cup of coffee, Dena lit a cigarette.

“Do you know, this is my first one since yesterday afternoon? How about that?”

“You trying to quit?”

“Cut down, anyway. You don’t smoke?”

“I used to. Tried a pipe for a while, but I couldn’t keep the thing lit. Kept losing them.”

“You’re better off if you don’t,” Dena said.

“I’ve got other vices.”

“So I’ve observed.”

They sat silently for a minute, drinking their coffee, Dena smoking. Finally, Corey spoke.

“It’s been nice, but I guess we’d better reenter the real world.”

She nodded, watching him.

He got up, kissed her once, and went into the living room where he turned on the radio.

“Corey?”

He turned and saw that she had come out and was standing behind him. He straightened up and faced her.

“Last night was good,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”

“It just occurred to me that it might not happen again.”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Because of what’s going on outside. Because of the brain eaters. Because we might lose this fight.”

He stepped toward her and took her in his arms. “We might win, too.”

“Do you think so?”

“Hell, think any other way and you’re finished. What’s more, I don’t intend to lose you.”

“Do you mean that?”

“You’re damn right I mean it.” He kissed her hard and long, and she believed then that he really did mean it.

He turned on the radio, and the news hit them like a bucket of cold water.

Unrest was growing as people across the country continued to suffer attacks by the brain eaters. However, the number of reported cases was down from a high on Friday. This was interpreted as a hopeful sign, but Corey remembered Doc Ingersoll’s graph with the projected line that climbed steadily up and away.

There were disturbances in the cities ranging from a gay people’s protest march in West Hollywood to a full-fledged riot in Detroit. There was looting in the Bronx and vandalism in Atlanta. A sociologist in Boston suggested that the brain eaters were just an excuse for release of tensions. There were always people ready to pounce on any excuse for rioting or looting.

A conference of mayors had been hastily called to discuss evacuation of the cities. The trouble was that there was no safe place to go. Rural and suburban areas were as hard hit as the population centers.

One area where the brain eaters had not yet struck was the prisons. To protect their isolation, inmates demonstrated against the admission of any new convicts. They even demanded a moratorium on visitors. The result was a greater glut than ever in the courts and dangerous overcrowding in county and municipal jails where the new criminals were held awaiting transfer.

Prisons were not the only places where newcomers were unwelcome. Everywhere strangers were met with hostility. The feeling was that anything as foul as the brain-eating parasites had to be brought in by the other guys. However, as more people saw their own friends, neighbors, and family members stricken, it became harder to deny the terrible truth — anyone could be a carrier. The national paranoia continued to grow.

When the stories on the all-news station started to repeat, Corey snapped off the radio.

“How long will it take us to get up to Biotron?” he asked.

“Three hours, more or less, depending on the traffic.”

“It’s nine now. We’d better get going.”

“I left my car in the Herald parking lot.”

“Leave it there. We can take mine.”

“And my bag is at the Beddie-Bye Motel.”

He grinned at her. “Cute name.”

“Yeah, isn’t it. I’m starting to think of it as my home away from home.”

“We’ll stop on the way and pick up your things.”

As soon as they were outside, they could sense the tension that hung over the city. Traffic was sporadic, with a sudden jam at an intersection one minute, empty streets the next. Pedestrians were few. People moved in small clusters, as though staying close to friends could protect them.

Many small businesses were closed and shuttered. Corey tried three gas stations before he found one open. The surly young attendant seemed reluctant to stand too close as Corey proffered his credit card.

“Cash only,” the boy said.

“Since when?”

“Since now. Who knows if anybody’s gonna be around to pay their credit-card bills?”

Corey started to argue but thought better of it when he saw the young man scratching at a rash under his chin. He paid for the gas and got quickly back into the car with Dena. They headed north on Highway 41.

The traffic out of Milwaukee was neither heavier nor lighter than normal, but the flow was uneven, tentative. There was a nervous, uncertain feel to it. The faces of the people in the other cars were set in tense lines. They gripped their steering wheels as though holding on to sanity.

Corey kept the car radio on but soon turned the volume down. The voices of the newscasters droned on gravely about the brain eaters. There were continuing new outbreaks and wild speculation on where they came from and how they could be banished. It soon became clear that nobody knew anything. Or if somebody did, he was not talking. It gave Corey a perverse sense of relief to know that the story still belonged to him.

They skirted the city of Appleton and headed northwest on a narrower state highway.

“What are the chances of Kitzmiller’s being at the plant when we get there?” Corey asked.

“Chances of his being there are excellent,” Dena said. “I’ve never known him to be anywhere else. He has living quarters in the biochem lab building. The chances of his seeing us are something else again. I told you about the brush I got last time I tried to talk to him.”

“One way or another, we’ll run him down,” Corey said.

“My hero.”

Dena gave his arm a playful squeeze. He grinned at her and drove on.

The chain link gate at the main entrance to the Biotron plant was closed and locked. A guard in the company’s tan uniform stood beside it, a heavy-caliber revolver prominently holstered at his side.

The guard walked up to the window on the driver’s side when they drove up to the gate. Corey rolled down the window. Dena leaned across him to show her ID badge.

“I’m Dr. Falkner,” she said. “We’d like to go inside to talk to Dr. Kitzmiller.”

“Sorry, miss … uh, doctor, but the plant’s closed. Nobody gets in.”

“I’m a reporter,” Corey said, fumbling for his credentials.

“Reporters included,” said the guard.

“He’s Corey Macklin,” Dena put in. “He’s been doing the story on the brain eaters. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

The eyes of the guard ran coldly over Corey. “I’ve heard of you, but my orders were — ”

Dena cut him off. “Is Dr. Kitzmiller inside?” Her tone snapped with authority.

“He, uh, well, I …”

“Call him. Tell him Dena Falkner is here with the man who’s writing about the brain eaters. Now, please.”

“I suppose I could do that.” The guard was still hesitant.

“Thank you.” Dena sat back and folded her arms in an attitude that said the matter was settled.

The guard edged off to the wooden building beside the gate. They could see him using the telephone inside while he kept his eyes on them. After several minutes he laid the receiver down without hanging up and came back to the car.

“I can let one of you go in,” he said, “but not both.”

“No deal,” Corey told him. “We’re together.”

Dena touched his arm. “You go in, Corey. I have nothing new to say to Dr. K.”

“What’ll you do, wait out here?”

“If I can borrow your car, I want to pick up some things at my place. It’s just a few minutes from here.”

Corey frowned. “Be careful, will you?”

“It’s my own house. What could happen to me?”

“I don’t know. Just watch yourself, okay?”

She looked at him for a moment, then smiled. “Okay.”

He got out of the car, and Dena came around and got in behind the wheel. He reached in through the window and squeezed her hand, then walked toward the wooden building where the guard was again talking on the phone.

“There’ll be someone out to take you inside,” the guard said.

“Thanks.” Corey watched Dena drive off up the road in his car. He tried to rid himself of the uneasy feeling that he should not have let her go.

The man who came out to get Corey was tall and slim with a 1950s Ivy League cut to his suit and his hair. He put out his hand and gave Corey a brief, dry grip.

“I’m Baldwin Edge. Department of Health and Human Services.”

The guard relocked the gate behind the two men, and they walked through the executive parking area toward the main building.

“Are you connected with the company?” Corey asked.

“No. That is, not officially. I was sent out here the end of last week when the plant was ordered closed. I’ve been reading your stories.”

They walked into the deserted lobby, past the glassed reception area where no receptionist waited. Their footsteps echoed in the empty building.

“They’ve given me an office here to use temporarily.” Edge indicated an open door. “If you’d care to come in and have a seat …”

Corey looked into the empty office. “It was Dr. Kitzmiller I wanted to talk to.”

“Yes, but if you don’t mind, there are a couple of things I’d like to discuss first.”

Corey shrugged and preceded the Department of Health man into the office. He dropped into a chair and waited while Edge took his place behind the desk.

“You’ve become rather famous in the past week.”

“My moment in the sun,” Corey said, wishing the man would get to the point.

“And you have certainly made these, uh, brain eaters famous.”

“I think they could have been just as big without me.”

“Perhaps. But the fact is, people look to you for authoritative news on these parasites.”

“Rather than to, say, the Department of Health?” Corey suggested.

Edge gave him a chilly smile. “That has been a matter of concern to some of my colleagues.”

“I’m glad to hear that your colleagues are getting concerned. I talked to one of them more than a week ago about the strange series of deaths. His opinion, as I remember, was that the whole thing was a case of mass hysteria.”

“Yes, I know about the incident,” said Baldwin Edge. “Unfortunate. The man has since been reassigned to other duties.”

“So you people are now ready to admit that the brain eaters really exist?”

“It seems we have no choice.”

“So it seems,” Corey agreed. “What can I do for you?”

“Actually, it’s the other way around. I’m here to offer you our assistance.”

“You’re about a week too late.”

Edge’s manner chilled. “I’ve already apologized for that.”

“Save it.”

“I don’t have to point out the effect your stories have had on the general population.”

“No,” Corey said, “you don’t.”

“In our department we have specialists on the use of the media in relation to mass psychology. When improperly used, the results can be devastating.”

“I don’t see where you’re taking this,” Corey said.

Baldwin Edge continued as though Corey had not spoken. “For instance, the publication of news about herpes probably did more than any single thing to reverse the so-called sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies.”

“Then the media’s got a lot to answer for.”

“In the same manner, just as homosexuals were gaining a measure of public acceptance, reports of the AIDS breakout gave people a legitimate reason to be antigay without losing their liberal credentials.”

“Mr. Edge, this is all interesting as hell, but I’ve got work to do.”

“In any disease story certain words can trigger a panic reaction in the public. Words like epidemic. And plague. In your case, the unfortunate coinage brain eaters is a glaring example. People reading the stories picture tiny creatures literally eating out their brains.”

“Then they’ve got a pretty accurate picture.”

“Mr. Macklin, I don’t seem to be making my point with you. What I’m saying is that if you continue to write your stories in such alarmist tones, you could be responsible for a national panic that will dwarf anything in our history. I am not in any way suggesting that your work be censored, merely that one of our media people work with you to minimize the fright quotient of your prose.”

Corey let several long beats go by before he answered.

“Okay, Mr. Edge, your point is made. You want me to submit my stuff to you before it goes to print. Not to censor it, of course, but to — what was your phrase? — minimize the fright quotient.”

“Essentially, that’s it.”

“Well, you can kiss my essential ass.”

All of Baldwin Edge’s Ivy League aplomb fell away like a broken shell. His face turned dark; his hands balled into fists. Corey had a wild happy moment when he thought the man was going to swing at him. However, Edge brought himself under control, breathing hard.

“Now you can take me to Dr. Kitzmiller,” Corey said. “He is here, I suppose.”

“He’s here,” said Edge through clenched teeth.

Without further conversation, he rose and marched out of the office. Corey followed, feeling good.