Jenny Plague-Bringer(76)

As Juliana was the only female in the room, she drew repeated looks from the S.S. men eating their early lunch. It made her uncomfortable, so she hurried through her beef stew and chunk of bread, then returned to her room.

In the afternoon, she found herself standing alone in one of the big concrete laboratory rooms, facing a row of six cages, holding six live goats that stared at her with their creepy eyes. A video camera whirred, recording her on fat spools of film. The room had a high ceiling, like an airplane hangar. Dr. Wichtmann and several younger scientists observed her from sealed glass windows far above her.

“To your right,” Dr. Wichtmann said to Juliana, his voice crackling over an electronic speaker. She looked at the row of cages and approached the one on the far right. She’d had a sick feeling in her stomach since the moment she’d walked into the room and seen the animals in their narrow cages.

“What do you want me to do?” Juliana asked, though she was afraid she knew. She was just stalling.

“Touch the first one,” the doctor told her.

“It will get sick.”

“That’s what we want.”

Juliana frowned as she stepped toward the first cage. The goat stepped toward her and made a bleating sound.

“Go ahead,” Dr. Wichtmann ordered. “We have a tight schedule.”

Juliana forced herself to move closer to the goat, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch it.

“Don’t make me do this,” Juliana said, looking up at the fat doctor in the window. “There must be something else we can use...like snakes or lizards. Or spiders, I can kill spiders.”

“Those are no good for us,” Wichtmann said. “You must do this if you ever want to gain control of your power. Is that not your stated purpose in being here?”

I’ll just touch it for a second, she told herself. It will heal from that.

Juliana tried to ignore her feelings as she reached through the cage bars and brushed her fingers lightly across the goat’s back. The animal squealed and twisted away from her as bloody blisters erupted along its spine. The goat turned in circles inside the cage, kicking its hooves against the walls. The other goats began echoing its fearful bleats.

“Very good.” Dr. Wichtmann was looking through binoculars, as were two other scientists, for a close-up of the goat. She realized that all these men were frightened of her, and that was why none of them were down here with her.

“The second stall,” Dr. Wichtmann called out. “Now, you are holding onto the goat for ten seconds. I will time.”

“Ten seconds could kill an animal that small.” Juliana looked at the second goat, who was shaking and trying to escape, alarmed by the cries of the first goat. “Can’t we at least use animals that are already sick or dying?”

“Other illnesses would only confuse the data,” Dr. Wichtmann insisted. “We must be certain they begin in good health. Now, ten seconds. Now!” All of the faces stared down at her coldly, making her feel she had no choice.

Juliana forced herself to walk toward the second goat, who squealed and backed away from her, but it didn’t have very far to travel inside the cage. She steeled herself, then reached inside and wrapped her fingers around its hind leg, the farthest she could get from any of the poor animal’s vital organs. That would give it a better chance of surviving, she thought.

It shrieked as the dark blisters spread up its leg and across its torso. The skin of its face bubbled and burst, blood trickling down across its small, wooly chest. It slammed its head repeatedly into the wooden wall beside it, leaving smears of blood thick with lumps of rotten flesh. Its lower lip rotted away, revealing its lower teeth as they sank into the black, mushy remains of its lower jaw, like stones sinking into a swamp.

“Time!” Dr. Wichtmann called. Juliana immediately released the goat, and it collapsed on its hindquarters. The leg she’d held had broken apart like a rotten sponge, and now the three-legged goat flailed helplessly on the ground, squealing in agony.

“I’m sorry!” Juliana whispered to the thrashing goat. “I wish I could take it back. I wish I could...Sebastian!” she screamed up to Dr. Wichtmann. “Sebastian needs to heal this animal. Where is he?”

“Nein,” Dr. Wichtmann replied.

“Please!” Juliana called.

“We must study the disease to understand it,” Dr. Wichtmann told her. “This is necessary.”

Juliana tried not to cry at the sound of the wailing, plague-ravaged goat. While she’d never been sick from any disease, she now had to fight her desire to throw up in front of everyone. She needed this test to end. She wished she’d never agreed to it.