Day Zero
Chapter 24

Day 93:

Strader stood behind Fabiana in the animal lab, the last batch of mice had died. “They simply showed symptoms of rabies. That’s it, none of the zombie like behaviors that humans have” Fabiana replied.

“Does that mean” Strader couldn’t get himself to say the words that he knew Fabiana was about to say to him.

“It means that none of the snakes were a factor” Fabiana replied sadly.

Strader did the same mental count he did in his head for the past eight days. Riley was bit eight days ago today. Within the next forty eight hours the kid would change into a monster, they hadn’t found a cure. They didn’t have anything to work with. Yumi even contacted the other teams. But none of them can safely get to the Middle East or a zoo in order to collect specimens. Strader thought. “What are the other labs doing?” he demanded Fabiana.

“Running similar tests, but there haven’t been many positive results…there have been a few reports of the mice staying alive longer than normal- but they all either die of rabies or the snake venom” Fabiana replied.

“What about this crazy scorpion idea?”

“The other centers are testing that, since we don’t have access to scorpions and we just killed off our last batch of rats” Fabiana replied.

“Shit!” Strader cried out.

Fabiana remained silent. “We were all wondering if you would tell Riley?” she asked. Strader looked at her for a moment, why me? He mentally screamed “He seems to accept you as a father figure. Benjamin says that he just can’t handle it” she explained.

Strader sighed and looked down at his hands that were gripping the black counter of the animal research lab tightly. His knuckles were white. “Yeah” he managed to say with some difficulty.

Fabiana opened her mouth to speak but closed it a few seconds later.

She has no idea what to say. Neither do I.

Instead Fabiana shyly came up and gave him a hug. Strader accepted the motion and hugged the younger girl back. They both stood together and shook as they cried, both of them had grown attached to Riley and the thought of losing him was too much to bear. He released Fabiana and watched as she turned away and began to busy herself by removing the dead rats and one by one placing them in the bio hazard container.

Would they do that to Riley? Put him in a biohazard container and incinerate it somewhere shipped off somewhere to be incinerated with all the other pathological parts that hospitals have he thought.

Strader walked out the door a lump in his throat as he walked towards the North side of the hospital where Riley would be sitting in isolation.

“Riley I have some bad news” Strader said.

“What is it?” Riley asked.

’The final batch of rats didn’t work” Strader managed to blurt out.

Riley dropped the phone he was holding and Strader instantly knew how it felt to be a doctor telling a patient that there was no cure. Although Riley had already known that he was going to die in less than forty eight hours.

“So that means that-“

“The snakes and rats didn’t work” Strader said softly.

“What now?” Riley finally managed to say.

“Abigail and Dr. Suber are examining your white blood cells while Benjamin is working with your red blood cells and doing a tag-team with James switching between observing you and research. Yumi, Helen, and Dr. Suber have been talking to health centers and the remaining research teams. You are a bit of a puzzle to say the least” Strader replied.

“What’s Mama Oilida doing?”

Strader gave out a sarcastic laugh “She has been reading her tarot cards and brewing some type of potion I am pretty sure”

Riley smiled despite himself. “So I only have a day and a half left.” Riley asked.

Strader sighed, unsure what else to say.