The Brain Eaters

Chapter 22

Baldwin Edge took Corey into an office that was furnished in a manner designed to make it look comfortable, yet somehow it missed the mark. The tweedy sofa, the relaxing prints on the walls, the antique hat rack with the mirror, the flowers on the low table, all seemed too artfully arranged. Even more out of place than the furnishings was the thin, bony man seated behind the desk. There were no soft edges to him. He did not belong at all.

“Hello,” he said without getting up. “I am Dr. Frederich Kitzmiller.” He had just the trace of an accent.

Corey approached the desk. “Corey Macklin, Milwaukee Herald.”

“Yes, I know,” Kitzmiller said.

The man from the Department of Health stood uncomfortably behind Corey’s shoulder.

“I don’t think there is any need for you to stay, Mr. Edge,” said Kitzmiller.

“I should know about any action that is decided upon,” he said uncertainly.

“I will see that you are informed.”

“Yes, well, there are other things I should be attending to.” Baldwin Edge made an awkward exit, closing the office door behind him.

“I dislike dealing with government people,” Kitzmiller said, “but it seems unavoidable, no matter what field one is in. I suppose you have your own problems with the government, Mr. Macklin.”

“Some. Your friend Mr. Edge, for one.”

“How so?”

“He wanted to censor my stories.”

“indeed? When did he make this suggestion?”

“Just now, before he brought me here. He prettied up the language, but that’s what he wanted.”

“And what was your response?”

“I told him to forget it.”

Kitzmiller removed his glasses, breathed on the lenses, polished them, and laid them down on the desk. “I did not authorize Mr. Edge to conduct any discussion. He was to bring you directly to me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Corey said. “I’m here now.”

“So you are. Shall we get to the point, then, Mr. Macklin? I assume the reason for your visit is to talk about your, ah, brain eaters.”

“I’d rather you wouldn’t call them my brain eaters, but that is why I’m here.”

Kitzmiller watched him impassively. The blue eyes were bright and cold.

“I have evidence that they originated right here at Biotron,” Corey continued.

“What kind of evidence?”

“Eyewitness reports.”

“How does it happen that I have not seen Biotron mentioned in your stories?”

“It’s not the kind of a thing we would print without authentication. I wanted to talk to you first. Get your side of the story. You do have a side?”

Kitzmiller studied him across the desk, the blue eyes like chips of ice. “May I talk to you off the record?”

“Sorry, but I can’t accept that. If you won’t talk to me for publication, I’ll go to other sources, but I won’t make any promises.”

“I see. Well, then, what is it you want to know?”

Corey pulled a wad of copy paper and a pencil from his jacket pocket. “To begin with, were these parasites, the ones that have been attacking people’s brains, developed here at Biotron?”

“Yes.”

Corey blinked, surprised by the sudden directness of the answer.

“But not, I hasten to add, deliberately,” Kitzmiller continued. “They were an accident. An unfortunate result of our research on a pesticide project. One we called in-house TCH-nine.”

Corey made rapid notes in his personal shorthand. “When was this project begun, doctor?”

“A little more than a year ago.”

“Is this TCH-nine still in production?”

“No. It was never used. The entire project was abandoned as soon as the potential dangers were recognized.”

“When was that?”

“Approximately two months ago.”

“And what was done with the stuff that had already been produced?”

Kitzmiller regarded Corey shrewdly. “Apparently, you have already heard that story.”

“I’d like to hear it from you.”

“The existing TCH-nine, which was no more than two liters in a pressurized canister, was scheduled for disposal in the usual way prescribed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Unfortunately, there was … an accident.”

“What happened?”

“The canister of TCH-nine, which was marked for disposal, was switched with another that contained purple dye being used for a dispersal test.”

Corey stopped writing and looked at him. “An accident, doctor? Switching a deadly substance for a harmless one? Don’t you have controls to prevent something like that?”

“We have always had an adequate control system.”

“Really?”

“Mr. Macklin, are you here for an interview or a debate?”

“Sometimes there is a fine line separating the two,” Corey said. “I’m not trying to get on your case, Dr. Kitzmiller, but people are going to want to know how the brain eaters got turned loose and who was responsible. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that it was an accident.”

“So do I,” Kitzmiller said.

It took Corey a beat to react. “Would you explain that?”

“My theory is not a popular one.”

“Nothing about the brain eaters is popular.”

“Your newspaper will probably put me down as an alarmist.”

“We’ll see.”

“Very well.” Kitzmiller sat more erect in his chair. “In the week prior to the exchange of the canisters, we had visitors.”

“Here at Biotron?”

“That is correct. It was a tour arranged by our State Department.” He mouthed the words as though they left a bad taste. “The visitors represented themselves as a delegation of agricultural specialists from the Soviet Union.”

“So?”

“Russians.”

“Yes, I understand. You said, ‘Represented themselves.’ Don’t you think they were authentic agricultural experts?”

“I know they were not.” He ticked off the names on his fingers. “One of them was Viktor Raslov, a high official in the Communist party. Another was Anton Kuryakin, a biochemist of considerable accomplishment in his own country. The other two I am certain were assigned by the KGB to ensure the loyalty of the others. They had the look.”

“The State Department didn’t know this?”

“Of course they knew. However, given the current political climate, they deemed it wise to pretend they believed the Russian’s transparent masquerade. This month we are friends.”

Corey stared at him. “Let me see if I understand this. Are you suggesting that these Russians who toured your plant are somehow guilty of unleashing the brain eaters?”

Kitzmiller gave a little snort of disgust. “I was sure you would react this way. The liberal press has turned a justifiable fear of the Russians into a joke. Russkies. Commies. These are the words of the liberal press. People who know the true nature of the Soviet Union and the men who rule there do not use cuddly nicknames for them.”

“I’m sorry, but you took me by surprise. Is it your position, doctor, that the Russians, whoever they are, during their visit to your plant, managed to switch the brain-eaters canister with the harmless one? That presumes an awful lot of knowledge for the Russians of your activities here and your procedures. It also presumes an incredible lack of security on your part.”

“That is not what I mean at all,” said Kitzmiller. “Although it is not unlikely that they had the knowledge of what we are doing, our security was at least adequate for keeping an eye on them while they are on our premises.”

“How, then, are they to blame?”

“Someone here is working for them. Their inspection tour was an opportunity to give the order for switching the canisters.”

“A spy in Biotron?” Corey tried unsuccessfully to keep the disbelief out of his voice. Kitzmiller did not seem to notice.

“Such a thing is not unheard of. Facilities with much tighter security than ours have been infiltrated. You must remember the case of TRW out in California.”

Corey made rapid notes. “Have you any idea who the spy is?”

“I am sorry to say that I have not. We had a suspect, but he does not seem likely now.”

“Who was that?”

“Rather an obvious candidate — the man who had the responsibility for disposal of the TCH-nine canister. We interrogated him at some length; however, I do not think he has the intelligence the Russians require of their people.”

“What’s his name?”

Kitzmiller hesitated a moment. “Are you going to print this?”

“Not unless it’s critical to the story.”

“I suppose it can do no harm to tell you now. He has been under surveillance since the accident. His name is Edward Gault.”

Corey wrote the name on the wad of copy paper. “There’s nobody else you suspect?”

“Our investigation was just getting under way. Unfortunately, because of this business” — he waved a hand to indicate the empty plant — “we had to suspend it.”

“Yeah, that’s unfortunate,” Corey said dryly.

He looked up from his notes and followed Kitzmiller’s glance over to the hat rack. There was something not right about it. The reflection in the glass was a shade too dark. He started to say something about it but was interrupted by the sound of running feet outside the office.

The door opened without a knock, and a young security guard stepped into the room.

“Excuse me, Dr. Kitzmiller, but there’s some trouble at the gate. I think maybe you’d better get out of the plant.”

“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

“Some people are trying to break in.”

Corey got out of his chair and started for the door. The guard stepped into his path. He looked at Dr. Kitzmiller.

“It’s all right,” Kitzmiller said. “Mr. Macklin is with the press. He would like to see what is happening. So would I, for that matter.”

He came around his desk, and he and Corey walked swiftly with the young guard through the lobby and out to the executive parking area. A distraught-looking Baldwin Edge hurried out of the office he was using and joined them.

Across the asphalt at the fence, the older guard was standing inside the locked gate as a dozen or so people clamored to get through. The people outside screamed and gabbled incoherently. Their faces were twisted into mindless masks of agony, their eyes wide and rolling, their mouths agape. The facial skin of many of them had begun to blister and pop in the deadly telltale of the brain eaters.

Corey stared in disbelief. “My God, who are they?”

“I recognize some of them,” Kitzmiller said. “They are people who work here.”

“Look at them,” said Baldwin Edge. “They’re like … wild animals!”

As he spoke, a car skidded to a stop at the gate, and two more wild-eyed men stumbled out to join the others. A pickup came. Another car. It collided with the pickup, but the occupants paid no attention as they spilled out and stumbled toward the gate. From both directions on the road others came staggering on foot. Across the field they came. Out of the small stand of beech trees across the road.

“What do they want?” said Edge. His voice quivered with emotion.

“Some instinct must have brought them here,” Kitzmiller said. “Obviously they are not in rational control of their behavior.”

The guard at the gate had his revolver in his hand, the barrel pointing to the sky. The younger guard unholstered his own weapon as he ran to join him.

There were now more than twenty of the crazed victims outside the gate, screeching and yammering. Their clawed fingers grasped the mesh; their ruined faces pressed against it. They put their combined weight against the gate and pushed. It began to buckle inward.

The older guard fired his pistol in the air. The report had no effect on the growing crowd outside. There were more than twenty of them now, pushing and jostling one another to get at the gate.

Baldwin Edge began making a strange sound. Corey looked at him and was surprised to see that the man was crying.

“We had better go out the back,” Kitzmiller said. “There is an exit there that will take us back toward the laboratories.”

Before they could move, the latch holding the steel gate shut snapped with a bang. The two guards fell back, brandishing their pistols as the wild, screaming people lurched in through the breech. One of them, a young woman, reached the older guard. Her fingers dug into his face. From where they stood, Corey and the other two men could see the blood spurt out over the woman’s hands as the guard screamed. His pistol clattered to the ground.

The younger guard fired. The woman dropped. The older guard stumbled away, both hands to his torn face. A man from the crowd hit him with a wild swing of his fist. The guard staggered sideways and fell. The younger guard fired again. The man who had hit the guard grabbed at his stomach.

Edge gave a little cry and started to run toward the gate. The younger guard was now firing at random into the writhing crowd.

“Stop it!” called Edge. “Stop! These people can’t help themselves. You’re killing them!”

The hammer of the guard’s revolver clicked on an empty chamber. Two of the men who pushed through the gate hit him, and he fell. They began kicking at his head and his stomach.

Baldwin Edge ran up to the fallen guard, gesturing and trying to talk to the people who were kicking at him. Then Edge, too, was knocked to the ground. His screams were cut off abruptly as a middle-aged man with the strength of madness crushed his throat.

“Can’t we do anything?” Corey said.

“Don’t be foolish,” Kitzmiller said. “Come.”

He took Corey’s arm and began to lead him back into the building. They stopped abruptly as they saw coming toward them through the lobby two men and a woman dressed in the white smocks of laboratory technicians. They reached out toward Corey and the doctor. They were close enough for Corey to see their faces erupting in bloody sores.

As Corey and the doctor turned back, they saw the knot of people from the gate leave the fallen ones and start toward them.

“Here is your story, Mr. Macklin,” Kitzmiller said in a tone of lifeless irony. “Unfortunately, it looks as though you may not have the opportunity to write it.”

The sound of a revving automobile engine made Corey look beyond the crowd of babbling victims to a black Buick that turned off the road and was picking up speed as it headed for the broken gate.

“More of them coming,” Kitzmiller said.

“No,” Corey said. “That’s my car.”

He could clearly see Dena at the wheel, her mouth compressed into a grim line, her eyes intent on the scene before her. The Cutlass hit what was left of the gate, shattering a headlight and carrying the twisted chain link segment completely off its hinges. Dena swerved to avoid the stumbling people, letting the shattered gate fall away from the car as she did so.

She skirted the milling crowd and slammed the car to a stop in the parking area in front of the entrance where Corey and Kitzmiller stood. Corey yanked open the door on the passenger side and shoved Kitzmiller into the car. He started to climb in himself but was pulled back by something clutching at his jacket. He turned and saw the crazed, blistered face of one of the lab technicians. The man had a fistful of Corey’s jacket. In his other hand was a broken glass laboratory flask. As the jagged edge of glass was thrust toward his face, Corey shrugged out of his coat, leaped into the car, and slammed the door. The flask shattered against the safety glass of the side window.

Dena tramped on the accelerator and spun the car back around toward the gate. Corey saw her wince as they bumped over something yielding that lay on the asphalt. Dena set her jaw and drove on, picking up speed. They roared back out through the gate and onto the road, heading away from the shrieking crowd that was spilling into Biotron.