“The black what?”
“The virus that’s been hitting people in this nursing home. The slugs, they told me—” Gabriel caught himself sounding like a lunatic and quickly redirected. “Some acquaintances of mine, I mean. They convinced me to research it, and I truly think that I can find a cure.”
After a long pause, Melanie said, “Yes, I heard you guys are having a flu outbreak. It’s going around, I guess. The kids just got over the flu a few weeks ago.”
Gabriel repressed the urge to groan. “It’s not a flu, Melanie. I know how this works. Trust me. The government has the infected patients secretly quarantined here. They’re doing a massive cover-up. They made all of the staff sign these agreements to pretend that this is just a flu, but it isn’t. It’s an entirely new virus, and they’re trying to make sure this new disease doesn’t—”
“Dad? It’s okay. Don’t get worked up. That’s really interesting. Wow.”
She thought he was crazy. His own daughter, the one human being he loved the most in the world, didn’t believe him. A tear ran down his cheek, and he wiped it before it fell onto his desk.
He stared down at his microscope, feeling as if he were the blood on the glass slide, inspected and dissected before the eyes of impassionate observers. “I’m serious, Melanie. This isn’t my Alzheimer’s speaking. It’s all true.”
“Oh yeah, I believe you,” she said. She’d never been good at lying. “But hey—”
“I’m not crazy, Melanie.”
“I know.” She sighed. “Hey, Dad, I have to go. I love you, okay? I love, love, love you. Take care.”
Before she hung up, Gabriel heard her choke back a tearful sob, the wallowing pain of an adult child left orphaned by the illness of her parent. Gabriel put down the phone and stared into the window at the reflection of a withered, decrepit old man that was supposedly him. He swallowed his tears and went back to work.
Chapter 18:
Ørsted
Autumn 1974
Isla Vista, California, was Santa Barbara’s student-filled backyard. The incorporated community of thousands of college kids had shockingly little legal enforcement and a nonstop array of parties.
Yvonne gripped the leather steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her nerves were so jittery that her foot kept slipping off the gas. She parked several blocks away from the party-going streets.
The air was hot and sticky. Like any other Friday, the streets were crowded with young people drinking enough alcohol to fill an entire ocean. Marijuana smoke trailed though the air as if a pot bomb had gone off. Thousands of bodies pushed against each other like cattle, many of them half-naked. On a different day, Yvonne might have thought that looked like a good time. Though she had dropped her old drug habits, she still was happy to enjoy a good drink. But searching through the screaming, laughing, inebriated people, she could only sigh with exasperation. Where the hell are you, Gabriel?
Chris, the curly-haired guy who claimed to be Gabriel’s friend—Gabriel said he had only one true friend, some old Catholic priest she hadn’t met—had supplied her with an address when she’d called him to ask if he knew where Gabriel was.
She felt terrible. She should’ve never yelled at Gabriel and then stormed off that way, without even a kiss goodbye, but she’d just been so angry. She’d gotten so frustrated by his self-contained introspection, so fed up with his passive reactions to everything. So she’d provoked him. She’d pushed his buttons by asking him more personal questions than he was comfortable answering. And he’d responded with nothing but a blank stare.
Yvonne walked through the streets, trying to keep her eyes open and her head clear. The entire block was like a drunken Disneyland. Every house was hosting a party. The air was filled with a cacophony of music, conversations, screams, and laughter. Around every corner were legions of drunken, chatty people, many of whom recognized her. She flashed everyone a forced smile and kept walking, pushing deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.
“Yeah!”
“Whoooohooo, Yvonne Lumina! Hippy dreadlock girl, baby, are you lookin’ hot tonight or what?”
“Drink it! Drink it! Drink it!”
“Hey, does anyone know where my keys went? Shit.”
“Isla Vistaaaah, baby!”
Finally, Yvonne arrived at Bobby Price’s address. To get to his second-story apartment, she had to climb a winding staircase blocked by multiple couples making out all the way from the bottom step to the top one. She pushed her way up, found his apartment, and opened the door. Marijuana and tobacco smoke wafted through the entryway.
She stepped inside the apartment, which was lit only a fraction brighter than Plato’s cave. Hundreds of sweaty people were crammed into the tiny living room, dancing and writhing around each other like snakes. The beat of the pop music rattled the walls.
Yvonne searched through the crowd, terrified she’d find Gabriel’s hands wrapped around another girl’s waist. She knew Gabriel would never cheat on her, but the partying atmosphere had sent her paranoia through the roof.
Shoving her way through the dancing couples, she felt a hand grab her ass and squeeze, but by the time she flipped her head around, the assailant had disappeared. Where are you, Gabriel?
Then, she saw him. “Gabriel!”
He didn’t look in her direction, probably because he couldn’t hear her over the music. Still, Yvonne felt relief wash over her.
Gabriel appeared to be writing numbers on the wall while entertaining a group of frat boys with some sort of long speech that she couldn’t hear. Of course Gabriel was the type of nerd who’d come to a college party and start lecturing drunk kids on math. Yvonne laughed, wondering what she’d been so worried about.
But when Gabriel stepped away from the wall, she saw that the numbers didn’t make up any complicated formula or equation. It looked like simple arithmetic. She realized he was counting shots—thirteen of them—and he’d probably pre-gamed before coming there in the first place. She stepped closer as the rest of the party dimmed away into an opaque fog of lights, loud noises, and fast movements.
She raised her hand. “Gabriel! I’m here!”
Her boyfriend—the brilliant man she loved, the future savior—was handed an insanely long beer funnel. Tiny clumps of white powder were stuck to the edges of his nostrils. As she tried to push forward and yank the funnel from his hands, she tripped over someone’s foot. She fell to the floor, her teeth slamming down on her lip. Blood pooled in her mouth and ran down her chin. By the time she got to her feet, Gabriel had swallowed the entire funnel, more quickly than she’d ever seen a person swallow one before. He raised his arms in the air and let out a whoop.
Yvonne couldn’t take it anymore. She’d tried to be understanding, but she was sick of Gabriel turning to alcohol whenever anything went wrong in his life. She shot him one last angry look. He glanced over and saw her, and his grey eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Yvonne walked away without looking back.
“Yvonne!” Gabriel called.
She kept going, through the door, down the stairs, and out onto the street. Her heart thumped loudly, pushing her onward, as sweat dripped down her back. She wanted to get away. She couldn’t speak to him.
“Yvonne, I’m here!”
She looked over her shoulder. Gabriel was drunkenly stumbling toward her. He looked like an utter fool. He fell to the ground.
She broke into a run. Her feet ached, but she kept going. She had to get back to her car, home to her apartment, or the beach, or somewhere where her teary eyes could release the tight ball of emotion clenched up in her chest.
The crowded portion of Isla Vista disappeared behind her. She spotted her car, but she had to slow to a walk to catch her breath. Panting, she looked back.
Gabriel had caught up to her, and he was also panting. His hands were covered in blood, gravel, and dirt. His eyes looked as vulnerable as wet laundry hung up in a tornado. “Yvonne…”
“What?”
He looked worried, then a hint of a smile appeared on his face. He moved forward hesitantly. “Hi,” he whispered.
She shook her head. “Don’t talk to me.”
“Why? That’s… why not?”
“Honestly, Gabriel? I love you. You. But that thing I saw there in the apartment building—”
Gabriel crossed his arms. “That isn’t me.”
