5-Diseased Minds

Diseased Minds 

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was a long building with sea blue windows overlooking a traffic circle. Inside, behind numerous locked and sealed doors twelve year old Danny Fulbright lay on a table rimmed with fluid gutters. The skin of his arms was the normal color of a young man, but the flesh around his nose was purple and black. His teeth had begun to fall out. His hair was gone from the house fire and he had suffered second degree burns on his legs.

There was but the faintest of vital signs, but they were there. On a computer screen the cell division inside his skull was displayed in real time. The brain eating amoeba was taking a new form and growing larger by the hour. Doctor Stephen Jorne was concerned at the rate of mutation and had called for a meeting with the Armies Chief of Biological Agents, as per protocol. They sat now in an office above the surgical theatre looking down on the staff in full bio-suits working on the boy. The only known course of treatment for the brain-eating parasite was total fluid transfusion along with massive antibiotic treatments; there was no clear cure or drug that killed the parasite outright. The problem here was mutation. Little Danny’s bug had become airborne. When he sneezed the mucus was thick with the amoeba. The were no longer microscopic either but the size of housefly larva.

“Doctor Jorn, what is this disease all about? “

The doctor turned his Ipod to the Colonel and played a short video from fifteen years ago that talked about the Naegleria fowleri. It had been one of a dozen or so known fresh water amoebas that entered through the nose and consumed the brains of the host while they were still living. Danny had black fluid streaming from his left nostril that was nothing more than the consumed product of his skull contents, and the waste of the parasite. The fluid teemed with the amoeba and the nurses had to occasionally capture one making its way down the leg of the table he lay on with a pair of tweezers.

Doctor Jorn produced a cigar from his lapel and fired it, in casual disregard of all regulations.

“ These are homemade from plant I grow. One hundred percent natural. Would you like one?”

The Colonel shook his head no.

“ Okay. “ He lit the cigar and blew the smoke defiantly directly at the camera in the corner mounted on the wall. The Colonels eyes hardened. Laws were laws and the doctor was breaking one.

“ This, “ Doctor Jorn said, “ is one badass little mother. “

 He gestured at the live computer screen. The had placed a small camera up the patients nose and another through the scalp. The camera under the skin was magnified and showed blood cells and the intruder. The one inserted into his nostril showed the growing mass that was beginning to envelope the cranium.

As they watched the feed from the scalp, a parasitic cell, dark in color, moved towards one of the last batch of healthy blood red colored cells. When it got near it divided and the two cells enveloped the healthy cell and within seconds it faded to black and began to divide and seek other cells. Food, no doubt.

“ As far as we can tell it was a garden variety Naegleria fowleri. They are parasites that live in fresh water. The victims usually get them in their bodies when they get fluid in their nose from the lakes or streams they are swimming in. It is 99% fatal and resists all but the most aggressive treatments. This kid? Something changed and this thing mutated. We think it might have something to do with the house fire. He had soot and smoke inhalation injuries. The parents had been treating him at home…you guessed it, they couldn’t afford a hospital. “

The Colonel grunted and said quietly, “ Too bad, the hospital would have killed the host by now. “

“ Maybe, “ the doctor said. “ But that didn’t happen. What happened here is that little Danny went home and somewhere along the line there was a fire in the house and as far as we can tell that changed the cellular nature of the parasite. It began to grow larger in size. It can transmute from mucus to a crawling form now. It is super aggressive and now instead of having to go for a swim in a stagnant pond to catch her she comes to you, airborne in a sneeze. “

The color had drained from the Colonels face.

“ Oh man, “ he said. “ What is the impact? “

“ Well, he was from a small burg in Florida. Black Diamond. Population eleven hundred give or take. South West part. This was about two weeks ago…” the Colonel interrupted him; “ about? “ he asked.

“Yes. August fifth or sixth. The boy’s mother got it and she died within forty eight hours. Within seventy two hours seven eighths of the burgs population up and moved out.”

“Oh great, “the Colonel said. “ No doubt hacking and coughing the whole way. “

“Probably, “ the doctor replied, distracted. “ That is until they died. All of the victims exposed died within seventy two hours, except for little Danny here. “ He tapped the screen, watching the cell division. “ Little Danny doesn’t seem to be interested in dying. “

He offered the Colonel the cigar again. This time he accepted.

“Except for one thing. “

The Colonel blew smoke from his mouth and sucked it up his nose. “Go on. “

The doctor tapped on the screen. “His little heart stopped beating two days ago. His brain, on the other hand, won’t quit. “

The Colonel was a professional soldier. His mind worked in one way; analyzing threats. He asked, “Doesn’t the brain need blood to live? “

Jorn laughed, a little too hard.

“That, Colonel was the way it worked forever. Something changed when this parasite was cooked at the right temperature; it changed. Now it seems to be eating the boy alive. “

The colonel stood up and shook his hand. He stuffed the cigar into a soda can on the desk and gathered his clipboard and phone.

“Keep me posted. “

“Oh, I will. “ The doctor replied quickly. He coughed, covering his mouth with a clenched fist. He handed him a paper. “This is a list of the people that were known to be in the town that were still alive forty eight hours ago. “ The Colonel took the sheet of paper and folded it. It slipped onto the clipboard. His eyes were naturally hard but also now afraid.

“Colonel, you lock that burg down. Do you hear me?”

“ Yes sir, “ he said. “ I heard you. Rodger that. “

They closed the door and turned off the lights. In the glow of the computer screen, had someone been there to see it, something emerged from the ashtray with the doctors still burning cigar. It moved in millimeters from the tip of the cigar and across the table, a shiny black maggot leaving a thin film of blood, to disappear underneath the computers keyboard.