BITTERNEST - CHAPTER 1

Bitternest, June 19. A veil of darkness shrouded the city, announcing the beginning of another turbulent night. The unnatural fog was settling in, as it always did, from dusk till dawn. The scorching heat made way for the chill of the evening. Detectives Terry Graves and Miguel Vallejo were on their way to a crime scene when they received a call about a jumper on Fascination Street.

"Since when do we have to answer jumper calls? We're Homicide, for God's sake," Vallejo said.

"Since more than half the precinct are on sick leave or dead. We're not going to be able to keep this up forever. We've been doing eighteen-hour shifts for two weeks now," Lieutenant Detective Terry Graves said.

He was referring to the avian influenza that was sweeping North America. His wife, Tracie Graves, had been one of the casualties of this relentless pandemic. She'd been gardening that fateful afternoon when she began coughing uncontrollably. She'd been rushed to the hospital and had passed away seventy-two hours later. She was only twenty-eight.

"Detectives Graves and Vallejo here," Vallejo spoke in the two-way radio. "This guy'll just have to jump, or someone else'll have to take care of it; we're on our way to a crime scene."

The first reported case on North American shores took place on May 8. The potent virus hit New Orleans, Louisiana. Its first victim: a farmer who'd been in contact with a wild fowl that carried the H5N1 avian flu virus. The fear of human-to-human transmission of the disease had become a reality when his wife and two sons had also contracted it. Failure by local doctors to diagnose the virus had resulted in mayhem. Not having been quarantined, the H5N1 virus-carrying family had been in contact with nurses, friends, and relatives. From that point on, the spread of the highly infective H5N1 took less than two weeks to hit the French Quarter and rapidly multiplied its victims tenfold. Two weeks later, authorities confirmed an outbreak of over one hundred people across Louisiana.

Up until now, avian influenza had been confirmed in thirty-seven nations and on three continents. It was known to have spread across western Asia into Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. On record, before spreading to America, of the one hundred and thirty people infected, sixty-five had died. That meant a death rate of 50 percent. Studies demonstrated that if it were to hit America, the casualties would be over 60 percent of those infected.

Graves's wife had been one of the projected 60 percent. Since then, he'd seen many others suffer the loss of loved ones. The fact that Bitternest was close by, west of New Orleans, hadn't helped either; Louisiana was one of the first states to become infected. In the weeks that followed the initial outbreak, the same crisis occurred nationwide. In less than four weeks, H5N1 became a plague and hit almost every city and town in America.

"You know what puzzles me?" Graves asked.

"What?"

"Don't you find it odd that the avian influenza seems to have hit a wall in Bitternest? I mean, it's been propagating in Canada, Europe, and Asia with no sign of slowing down. Since the first infection, more than two thirds of the people who got the virus were killed."

"I know; I read in the paper that there have been about one hundred and twenty million deaths to date. It's sick," Vallejo said, shaking his head.

"But in Bitternest, the death rate is much lower; less than a third of those infected with H5N1 actually die," Graves said.

"What are you getting at?"

"The other day I was on the phone with Stephen Trask, my scientist friend, and he said that all the experts in the field are at a loss."

"Does Trask have a clue how come we're holding up better here?"

"Not really, but it gets better; he told me that some of the people infected recovered really fast and appeared, in some cases, to be in greater health than they were before. He and his team performed a bunch of tests on volunteers, and they all proved inconclusive. They don't have an explanation for their recovery," Graves said as he stopped at a red light.

"I don't know what I find more disconcerting--this or all the people that are going missing. I mean, in the last two weeks alone, over twenty people have disappeared," Vallejo said.

"What's even more alarming is that over a dozen are children. We don't even have a lead--no kidnapping notes, no ransoms. It's as if they vanished into thin air. I can't help but wonder if there's a connection with the flu bug," Graves said as he pulled over to Acacia Avenue. They parked behind the patrol car that first arrived on the scene.

"I know what you're saying; the idea that so many people go missing when a lot of others miraculously overcome the H5N1 virus can't be just a coincidence," Vallejo agreed as he unfastened his seat belt.

They were right in the middle of the junkie neighborhood: people on welfare, homeless people in the back alleys, and rejects of the system in their windows. They got out of the car. It's a good thing we're plainclothes dicks, Graves thought to himself. They both knew they weren't welcome here.

Graves looked up above at the decrepit, six-floor building. They walked in. The first door past the entrance hall had a broken window. Graves put his hand through one of the shattered windowpanes and unlocked it. Vallejo peeked in the entrance to see if he could find one of the cops who called it in. No sign of the boys in blue.

They'd been called in because of suspicions that the apartment's tenant was dead and rotting in apartment 614. An anonymous caller had reported that there hadn't been an answer for days and that the tenant's mail had been piling up in the mailbox. The stench that came through the walls stung the eyes. The landlord was nowhere to be found, so Graves and Vallejo had to find a way into the apartment. They knew from experience that when they were summoned to this neck of the woods, the bodies they found were rarely dead of natural causes.

"Where are those cops? I swear, if they messed up the crime scene," Vallejo muttered.

The elevator was out of order, so they took the stairs. As they kept going up, the building's state of dilapidation and squalor combined with the growing putrid smell were invading their senses from all sides. Vallejo noticed he could taste the stench in his mouth. Graves held the stairwell's railing, but found his hand to be so greasy when he retrieved it that he opted to continue without holding on. Out of breath, they made it to the top floor.

"It's the one at the end of the hall," Vallejo whispered.

"Isn't it always? The door's ajar. Watch it, Miguel," Graves murmured, drawing his Browning 9mm pistol. He motioned to Vallejo to be quiet and tiptoed, skirting the wall leading to the slightly opened door. Once there, he counted to three, spun, and kicked the door open.

"Oh, Jesus!" Graves exclaimed. They both covered their noses; the place reeked. Graves and Vallejo took a few steps into the vestibule and into the living room. The dimly lit room was devoid of furniture. The sole source of light came from a dangling lightbulb in the middle of the room. The formerly white walls were now yellowish due to cigarette smoke. The shades were drawn, and a window had been left opened.

A large plastic sheet in the far end of the room caught Graves's eye.

"I think I've identified the source of the stench," he said as he walked over to a large heap covered by a blue sheet of plastic.

Graves lifted the sheet. Immediately, Vallejo took three steps back, covering his nose and mouth. Graves grimaced and pulled the sheet away. Beneath it was a pile of neatly stacked corpses, most of them women, all naked. There must've been a dozen of them. Rigor mortis had come and gone; the arms of the victims could bend, so they had to have been dead for at least two days.

"God, what the hell happened here? Where are those damn cops? Doesn't anybody respect procedure anymore?" Vallejo said, furious.

Graves walked over to the bedroom. It was empty save for another blue sheet covering another pile of recently deceased. As Graves pulled the sheet away, lying on top of the pile were the two cops who'd called in the crime scene, still in uniform.

"You better come and have a look at this."

Vallejo ran over to the bedroom.

"Holy shit! Who do you think did this? The Disciples or the Scavengers?" Vallejo asked.

"I'm not sure. The two cops might have been bait for the anonymous tip; it could be a trap. We have to be careful and make sure we secure the area. I don't want any more dead bodies in here."

Graves phoned the station for a team of crime scene investigators.

He leaned over the corpse of one of the officers. They'd both been gunned down, cowardly, from behind. He took a look at some of the other bodies; there were no apparent entry or exit wounds. They were pale, and their skin appeared dry and brittle. They looked as though they'd been dead for weeks, already in a state of advanced decay.

"Looks like we've got a cop killer on our hands," Vallejo said, examining the body closer.

"That's not what mystifies me right now. Take a look at that woman's neck--two puncture wounds."

Vallejo took a closer look. "Madre de Dios! Tell me this isn't what it looks like."

"There has to be some kind of explanation for this. They all have the marks," Graves said. "Let's see if the ones in the living room have them, too." Graves and Vallejo turned around and headed for the front room.

"It's the same with these ones. I've heard stories, but this goes beyond understanding," Vallejo said.

"Stories about vampires? If you stop to listen, you'll hear the weirdest shit about Bitternest. If we were to believe everything they've been feeding us since we were kids--stories of the Rattling Man, for instance--we'd believe the devil himself has a throne here in this city," Graves said, holstering his pistol.

"Come on, you must believe some of them, Terry. I mean, we've encountered some pretty bizarre stuff over the years, stuff that couldn't be explained," Vallejo went on. "You know, with everything that's going on right now--the flu, the gang wars, this situation--suddenly it doesn't seem so far-fetched to believe vampires could've done this."

"Yeah, well you'll have to forgive me if I find it a little difficult to swallow."

Gunshots rang, and the window exploded in an amalgam of glass shards. They both ducked, kissing the floor. More shots were fired. A rain of debris covered their backs.

End Chapter 1