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Order this writing in the collection book Revealing All Your Dirty Little Secrets available for only $1995 |
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This appears in a pre-2010 issue
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Kali to the Nth
Ken Dean
Gjord Olaf’s Swedish background had left him very family oriented. It was everything to him. Growing up in a small, close-knit village surrounded by mountains and nature was idyllic. He was blessed with a love for people and community. This closeness and love he also enjoyed with his American wife Maureen and son Gottfrid.
That had all been blown to bits now. The funeral for his ten year old son, Gottfrid, was about two hours ago. And the funeral for his American wife, Maureen, was held ten days ago.
Maureen had been called up two months ago as a Marine reservist to go to Iraq. During a routine convoy, a roadside explosive device had killed her instantly. Poor Gottfrid had been kidnapped five days ago on the way home from school and killed by a sexual predator that lived in the area; closer to the school than the law should have allowed.
Gjord had come to America from Sweden to study biochemistry at the University of Chicago and eventually obtained a PhD. in the field. He was considered the top dog in his area of expertise and was doing secret governmental research work on advanced viral strains and mutations at a facility the US government maintained near the University. During his studies he had met Maureen, married and had a son. She had done a tour of duty as a Marine before she met Gjord and joined the MARFORRES as a reservist afterwards.
The first funeral had devastated Gottfrid and himself. And Gottfrid’s death had pushed Gjord to the breaking point. He was blasted into the real world where mans inhumanity to man was all too apparent. Gjord’s family in from Sweden and Maureen’s from here in Chicago had tried to console him, but after the second funeral he had taken off to a hotel where he couldn’t be found. He just wanted to be alone. There was too much grief; it felt like his mind was being stretched apart like taffy. He sat in the hotel room; crying, rubbing his face, tugging at his hair. His mind was starting to turn the agonizing grief into anger. It was too much to bear. Someone had to take the blame for this agonizing life change, the pure hell he was going through. Screw it; everyone was to blame! Every human on the planet was evil, and he would make them pay. The white-hot anger was turning into a vengeful snake that would reach out and pierce everyone with its destructive venom. Gjord had reached the point where he still felt sane, but in actuality; he had gone quite mad.
He called the research institute and said he would be on sabbatical for several months after the deaths of his family. They didn’t make a fuss; someone else could carry on the research in his absence.
Maureen’s and his own family would probably keep looking for him or turn him in as a missing person, so he decided to rent a house on the outskirts of Chicago. The home was already furnished so he wouldn’t have to bother. As long as there was a full sized basement; that was fine with him. He had plenty of resources with his savings, the life insurance they had on Maureen, etc. All of this he took out of bank accounts and closed them. Using cash until he acquired some fake ID wouldn’t leave any traces.
He had to pay a shady character a large sum of money for a set of fake identification papers, licenses, etc. for what he needed to do. If he bought the kind of equipment he needed for his task as himself, it might be flagged and traced. Shady was a disgusting character to say the least. He just had that look: greasy, smelly, evil. He had to meet him at his low-rent apartment, if that’s what you’d call it. More like a rat hole. It had a bad stench of unwashed things, cat smell gone bad, stale beer and cigarettes, etc. After exchanging cash for the fake identification, he faked some questions on its use. Gjord maneuvered behind Shady and managed to bash in the back of his skull with a heavy ashtray he picked up from a table. He bent down and checked his pulse for a few minutes to make sure he was dead. A secret is a secret only if one person knows it. He needed to stay anonymous. Shady had put the wad of cash in his pocket while still living which had kept any blood from getting on it. Gjord took it out of Shady’s pocket and put in his own.
Gjord went about buying all types of bio-engineering equipment and placing it in the large basement of the rented house. He was ready to begin his project that he always knew was possible but was something that sane Gjord wouldn’t have imagined doing. But he had already crossed the line to crazy madman, throwing ethics and morality to the wind, so that anything was possible for him now.
He started to work on his grim project, only sleeping when he had to and having food delivered to the house when he was hungry. Driven was the word to use for Gjord. He had to make sure that they all paid for killing his family.
The task was almost done; just experimentation left to perform. Along with insuring lethality, he had to make sure the antidote worked so that he would be protected. A makeshift isolation room had to be fashioned for the experimentation. Group trials were the best way to go. Several antidotes were made that might cover the range of the virus. Then a group of homeless winos and junkies, whom he had lured back to his house with the promise of a drink, fix or cash, were inoculated at gunpoint. They were then put in the isolation area and infected. Gjord was amazed; he got it on his first try. The virus had the desired result on all the subjects except for one that lived past five days. And that was well past the lethal time frame. He had to kill the surviving derelict though; couldn’t let her live to tell tales of what was going on in his makeshift laboratory.
Gjord could now inoculate himself and have no fear of his own lethal creation. Once inoculated, he was free to take apart the isolation area and dispose of the bodies. He buried them in the part of the basement that had a dirt floor. He sprinkled the bodies liberally using a mixture of a viral/chemical dust of his own design before covering them with dirt. This would eliminate any biological decomposition or smell that would normally occur. He didn’t want any snooping neighbors smelling death before he could implement his plan.
He had engineered his own lethal virus to look like an innocent white powder. This way it could be kept in any prescription medicine gelatin capsule that you were able to open.
It was much easier to transport in this manner; easier to disseminate into water supplies or open air also. The virus was dormant in this form. As soon as it encounters moisture, it activates. (Water, saliva, mucus membranes, oils on human skin, etc.) If only one particle of the powder were to touch human skin or be inhaled, the virus would activate. Human skin was no barrier to it either; it would replicate rapidly and burrow through the pores. It attacked the central nervous system much like nerve gas, then paralyzed and death occurred in about thirty seconds. Upon death, it would then cause the diaphragm muscle to spasm violently. This expelled even more of the virus from the lungs into the atmosphere, causing it to be spread amongst humans at an ever accelerating rate. Reaction time of the authorities to the virus wouldn’t be fast enough to stop its spread. Even if a select few were smart enough to find a cure, it wouldn’t be in time to save anyone. But Gjord was smart; he had made sure that the virus was resistant to any kind of cure save the one he tailor made for it. Only fire would kill it. And it would spread faster than anyone’s idea to use fire to burn the corpses.
This had all been in-house engineering to start with. Now Gjord had to begin the really dirty work. He called a major airline, used his fake ID and booked flights to several major cities on all the continents. The North and South Pole research communities would be another question. They would probably die off from lack of delivered supplies once there was no one to bring them. He would use several pharmacy prescriptions with gelatin capsules emptied out and refilled with the virus powder. Airport security and customs shouldn’t make a fuss over a man’s medicine. A capsule or two per city should be enough to start the spread. Then he would be off on an airliner before the outbreak became too pronounced. He didn’t want to paint himself into a corner.
He made stops in several major cities; London, Moscow. Peking, Sydney, New Delhi, Jerusalem, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Berlin, etc. Then back across Fairbanks, Seattle, Los Angeles, and finally his chosen Chicago. In each city he found the local water supply and threw in a capsule, plus he would find a high building downtown and try to get on the roof or failing that, find a window to open. Crushing or opening a capsule would release the powder into the wind to be blown about the unsuspecting population.
In Chicago all it took was throwing a capsule into Lake Michigan. By the time the gelatin dissolved and the virus multiplied it numbered in the billions. That was before it was taken into the intakes of the water purification plants. The water cleansing process didn’t phase the virus at all, just gave it more time to multiply. He then talked his way onto the roof of a relatively tall office building in Naperville. Far enough east of downtown Chicago for the wind to spread the powder in a easterly direction.
The spread of swift death was following him around the globe. He watched the newscasts from some of the major cities or would listen to shortwave broadcasts and chuckle with glee as each one in turn would eventually go silent. America was last to go. The government put up a vain struggle to combat the swiftly spreading death, but to no avail. The reaction time was far too slow to even begin to think about producing a vaccine.
Gjord was sure there were a select few, especially in the government, that would take refuge in airtight, underground bunkers. But they would have to stay there. To venture into the open air meant sure death.
He had taken up residence in the Hancock tower on the lakes edge where the view was the best. Signs of chaos could be seen in every direction for a while. Occasionally he would hear sirens, or if he opened the window, even some screaming. Fires were burning in parts of the city, but these were out of desperation. Hopefully none of the fires reached his home here on the edge of Lake Michigan. They burnt out before reaching downtown. The smell of death was everywhere, but this too eventually faded.
Gjord had gathered enough non-perishable food items and water containers into a nearby floor in the Hancock. Probably enough to last him for years. If it came to it, he could always hunt for food. All the animals were still alive; his virus had been fashioned for humans only.
Using binoculars and a telescope, he could see the encroachment of animal life back into the city. He had raided a military compound a while back for weapons to protect himself against any wild animals that might think he looked a little too tasty while venturing outside. Usually he carried a full-auto Glock all the time. If he went outdoors he added to that a mini AK-47 and a riot shotgun. There was always the possibility that there would be survivors of the virus. That was just natural selection, and he needed to be prepared for it.
It had been six months now. It was a bright sunny day on the roof of the Hancock. The only things he could smell now were fresh air occasionally punctuated with some animal odors drifting about on the wind. He had his bottle of water beside him out of his supply of thousands from downstairs. Of course there wasn’t any power now. He was getting healthy climbing stairs. Reclining on his lounge chair, he kept tuning to all the major cities around the world on his battery powered shortwave. He had doing this for at while, listening for signs of life. Nothing but dry static, as far as the ear could hear. This was his world now, he thought, chuckling to himself. All the evil was gone. Everyone had paid for his family with their own.
Gjord couldn’t help himself. He jumped up and did a victory dance of his own design, occasionally letting loose with a burst from his AK or auto Glock into the air. His ears eventually stopped ringing from all the gunfire. He thought he heard something else on the very edge of his hearing. A very faint ripping noise, as if air were being torn apart.
Gjord looked skyward and was amazed to see five sets of jet contrails abreast high up in the sunny sky, heading westward, with a glint of bright sunlight off shiny metal.
