“Very funny,” the dean said.
“Man, are you gonna cover this up?” Steve asked. “You can't cover this up!”
“Calm down, Steve,” Corinthius said.
“I think we've heard enough from the morgue assistants,” the dean said. “Let's leave them to tidy up down here. Shall we go to my office?” He looked at Heather and the medical examiner.
“Oh, damn, it's a conspiracy!” Steve said. “Corinthius, can you believe—”
“I can believe you better head over to maintenance and get us some new brooms and mops,” Corinthius said.
“But, they can't, I mean—”
“Kid, we don't get paid enough to worry about this shit.” Corinthius said. “So don't.”
The dean glared at Steve. “Do you want to keep your job or not?”
Steve looked between them, outraged. Then he stalked out of the room.
“We were going to your office?” Heather asked.
The dean looked at Corinthius and pointed to the door where Steve had left. “Keep an eye on him. Keep his mouth shut.”
“I'll keep an eye on him,” Corinthius said. “But if I knew how to make him shut his mouth, I'd have done that months ago.”
The dean frowned and led Heather and the medical examiner out of the morgue.
As they rode the elevator towards the dean's office, the cell phone at Heather's belt crackled. She had it in “walkie-talkie” mode to stay in touch with other investigators.
“Dr. Reynard?” the voice on her phone said. It was Schwartzman, director of Public Health Surveillance. Her boss.
She grabbed the phone. “I'm here.”
“You'll want to come by the emergency room,” Schwartzman said. “There are patients with symptoms of Fallen Oak syndrome.”
Heather's heart beat faster. “Are you sure?”
“You're the expert.”
“There aren't any experts. Are the bodies being quarantined?”
“No bodies. These are live cases.”
Heather nearly dropped the phone. The mysterious Fallen Oak syndrome had killed over two hundred people in the town of Fallen Oak, South Carolina. Intensive study of the bodies had revealed no vector of any kind—no virus, bacterium or fungus—despite the horrific symptoms, including boils, tumors, pustules, rapid necrosis of the soft tissue.
Only one person was known to have symptoms of the disease without dying. That was Jenny Morton, an eighteen-year-old girl from Fallen Oak. Heather had identified Jenny as a possible immune carrier of the disease, with the help of Fallen Oak residents, particularly another teenager named Darcy Metcalf who had provided some anecdotal as well as photographic evidence of Jenny exhibiting the symptoms.
Heather had tested Jenny's blood and hair but found nothing at all. She'd never had a chance to examine patients who were both alive and showing symptoms.
“I'll be down there right away.” Heather punched the button for the next floor, and the elevator stopped.
“What's Fallen Oak syndrome?” the county medical examiner asked.
“It's a federal issue,” Heather said.
“If there's some new disease running around my city, I'd say that's pretty damn local,” he said.
“I can't say anything.” The doors opened and Heather stepped off the elevator. The medical examiner followed her.
“I want to speak to your superior,” he said.
“Convenient,” Heather told him. She pressed the “down” button, since they'd already passed the floor where the emergency room was located. “He's waiting for me.”
“Does the CDC usually fly in to investigate riots?” he asked.
“No.”
“So why are so many of y'all around today?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Heather told him.
He squinted at her and rubbed his chin. “You got to tell me if there's some kind of epidemic coming.”
“I don't believe there is.” Another elevator arrived and opened, and Heather stepped inside. He followed her.
“Then why are you here?” he asked.
“I was sent here,” Heather said. “That's really all I can say. You'll have to speak to Dr. Schwartzman if you want any information.”
“That doesn't sound like a good arrangement to me.”
Heather shrugged. The White House, worried about the upcoming election, had gone to great lengths to cover up the outbreak in Fallen Oak. She didn't want to risk getting in trouble.
They met Schwartzman at the emergency room. He introduced Heather to the administrator in charge of the ER, a very tall black woman with a stern look on her face—likely she didn't appreciate the CDC camping out in her hospital.
“You have to share some information,” the medical examiner said to Schwartzman. “If there's an issue the local health authorities need to know about—”