Chapter 12
As the truck pulls away, the four of us are just sick about what has happened. Poor Cole. Dane and Monti finish cleaning up the area and make sure that the charred remains of the dingoes are completely buried and disposed of, just as Cole would have done. They come back to the car and put the protective clothing into a large air tight container. Once we get our bearings, we start driving back into Darwin, toward the lab.
We arrive at the lab at 7:30 p.m. and go straight to the showers located in the decontamination chamber for a bath and change of clothes before we go to the conference room. The clothes that Dane, Cole, and Monti had on will be burned in the incinerator downstairs because they could be infected. Everyone decides to
meet in the conference room at 8:30 p.m. to discuss everything that has happened.
Geoff walks in the conference rooms and says, “Thank you all for coming here. I’m afraid I have some bad news. I checked Cole’s blood and he has been infected. We requested an autopsy be done tonight on the dingo we brought back. Let’s get a good look at what we are dealing with. Trevor, do you have the information on the four people from the lab?”
“Yes. I got their addresses and contacted the authorities about 12 hours ago. They have Sevi and Evan in custody, and will be transporting them here later on this evening. The authorities said that when they found them, they were both sitting in their apartments staring into space. They both surrendered to the authorities without incident. The police said that when they questioned Sevi about the incident at the lab, he had no idea how he ended up in his apartment with blood all over his clothes.
The authorities sent a list of names to all of the airports. Stolz was momentarily detained at the airport by security, but he beat up the guards and left the airport, and no one knows where he is at the moment. Marci is still missing and no one seems to know where she is either. She didn’t return to her house after the lab incident,” Trevor reports.
“Well, at least that is progress. Let me know when the two guys get here and put them in quarantine. Marcus, post guards outside of their rooms, and if they try to leave or get violent, tell the guards to bring them down. Don’t kill them, just incapacitate them,” Geoff says.
Nicola stands and reports that she ran a test on the liquid that the parasites were soaking in. This chemical has an adverse effect on the brain--specifically the part of the brain that controls behavior and rational thought. That could have been what made the doctors at the facility so aggressive that night. But luckily, that chemical’s side effect is temporary, for humans that is. She had no idea what kind of effect that chemical has on dingoes. Since they are sometimes aggressive anyway, it may affect their behavior differently.
Geoff says, “That would explain their behavior. Good work! Trevor, will you establish a time line for me? Nicola, please work with my team to isolate the parasite, and then start trying to kill it. Does anyone have any questions?”
No one has any questions, so Geoff tells everyone to get back to work. Everyone knows it is late, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Finding an antidote is paramount. Derrick, Dane, Monti, and I stayed behind to talk to Geoff for a minute.
“Listen, Geoff,” Dane says, “we want to head back out in the morning and finish killing the infected dingoes. Do you have another CDC member you want us to take with us?”
“No, Dane, I don’t. Do you feel comfortable handling this without an extra body?”
“No worries, Geoff. We got this!”
“Thanks, Dane, I appreciate it very much,” Geoff says as he pats Dane on the shoulder.
So we’re on our own. We shook Geoff’s hand and told him we would be back tomorrow night with a status report. We left the lab about 10:00 p.m. and went back to Dane’s house.
Day 15
Derrick and I are up really early, and head into the kitchen to make a pot
of coffee and some breakfast for Dane and Monti. Dane comes in about 30 minutes later, dressed and ready to go.
“I better go wake up Monti,” Dane says as he stands up from the table.
“No need, mate. I’m up,” Monti says as he enters the kitchen.
Dane appears to be a little down this morning. He is really upset about Cole and feels responsible for what happened, but it wasn’t his fault. He looks up at us and says, “I don’t want what happened yesterday to happen again with one of you guys, so we are going to wear stronger, tear resistant, protective gear. Kobi, you and Derrick are going to wear it too. Let’s not take any chances. Before we go hunting today, I want us to go back to the outdoor store and buy some more commercial grade bleach and a few more tranquilizer guns with scopes for long range accuracy. There is no reason for us to get that close to the dingoes. I also called Geoff this morning and requested that he give us four biohazard suits from the lab--suits that are stronger and tear proof. We will pick them up on the way out.”
“We’d better get moving then. We have a lot to do today,” Derrick states. We gather up the maps and the GPS and head toward Darwin. The store opens at 9:00 a.m. We are in and out of the store in an hour. A quick stop at the lab to get the suits, and we are on our way. I pull out the GPS and check the location of the dingoes. The closest one to us is east of here about 25 kilometers near the Black Jungle, Lambells Lagoon area.
“That’s just off the Arnhem Highway. I know where that is,” Monti says. “I have some relatives who live just north of the Black Jungle Reserve. My cousin, Tuka, lives out there on the edge of the swamp. May I see the GPS for a sec please? I would like to see exactly where the dingo is. He is right here on the
southern edge of the swamp close to Tuka’s house.”
“Are you serious. Does your cousin have a phone?” I ask
“No, unfortunately, he does not. I am not sure if he is home right now. Usually, he hunts this time of year and is gone for months. I would like to check on him though, just to make sure.”
“Absolutely! After we kill this dingo, we’ll swing by the house and check,” Dane says.
We are within two kilometers of the dingo dot and are exiting off the Arnhem Highway headed north. Dane and Monti start looking.
“One kilometer.” I say.
Derrick slows down a little and Dane spots the dingo. “There it is! He is eating something and appears to be alone.”
We approach with extreme caution. Dane and Monti are both going to fire a tranquilizer into the dingo since he is alone. We stop at 100 meters.
“With these new scopes, we don’t need to get any closer. Let’s just stand up through the sun roof and shoot,” Dane says as he stands up.
Both Dane and Monti stand up and point their guns toward the dingo. I hear zoom, zoom as a dart exits the barrel and whizzes past my ear. Easy shot--both darts are on target, in the back left buttock of the dingo. They sit back down and are getting ready to exit the car when suddenly, without warning, there is another dingo coming at us from the opposite direction. He is coming fast. I don’t say a word. I grab another tranquilizer gun, stand up, and shoot. I see the dart enter his right shoulder and it startles the dingo. He starts grabbing the dart with his teeth trying to pull it out of his shoulder, but eventually succumbs to the drug.
“I got him! I got him,” I screamed. Unbelievable! I’m pretty sure that was a lucky shot, but I don’t care, I’ll take it. We are all hollering and ‘woohooing’; it was an awesome feeling.
“Wow, that was unexpected,” Dane remarks as he sits back down.
Monti replies, “Yeah, just a little bit.”
Both Monti and Dane are looking at me with their mouths open in disbelief.
“Good shot, girl,” Derrick says patting me on the shoulder. “Kobi, the dingo slayer.”
“Thanks!” I say with a little smirk on my face.
We decide to sit in the car for a few more minutes, just to make sure there aren’t any more dingoes waiting to pounce on us. Lesson learned
today. We need to make sure that the area is totally clear before we exit the car. Most importantly, we should probably have someone searching and scanning while the rest of us are out of the car.
“Alright, I think the coast is clear, Monti. Let’s go clean up the mess,” Dane says. “Derrick, will you keep an eye out for us, please. Here is a gun.”
Clean up and disposal is the same as it was before. The dingo was eating a small kangaroo, so it will need to be disposed of as well.
Three more dingoes to go. Maybe if they are close we can get them all today. Before we leave the area, we are going to swing by Taku’s place and check on him. Monti says he lives just up the road on the right. We pull up in front of this run-down shack and see a body lying in front yard. It is Taku. Monti jumps out of the car and runs over to the body.
“Don’t touch the body, mate!” Dane screams from the car as Monti slowly
approaches the body.
It could be a dingo attack and he needs to be protected. Monti puts on a suit and gloves and returns to Taku. He rolls him over and lifts the head and shoulders and places him in his lap.
“Taku, Taku? “Monti screams. There is no response. Derrick, Dane, and I don our protective gear, jump out of the car, and run over to Monti. Taku isn’t moving at all. Monti feels for a pulse and smiles.
“There is a pulse,” he says, “Help me get him inside.”
As we lift Taku, we notice that he is lying in a puddle of blood. I look at Dane and back at the blood and we both know, without saying anything, what has happened.
“Be very careful not to touch his blood,” Dane says.
We put Taku on the kitchen table and Dane runs back to the car to get the bleach. He needs to pour bleach over the blood in the front yard because it could be infected.
Dane returns to the kitchen and Monti starts talking to Taku.
“Taku, Taku, wake up man.”
He slaps his face and shakes him, yelling his name. I see Taku’s eyes open and he whispers in a very weak voice, “Cousin, cousin, what are you doing here?”
“Hey, man. What happened? Do you remember?” Monti asks.
There is a tightening of Taku’s eyelids, and his nose wrinkles. He is in a lot of pain, but manages to speak.
“I was inside making a sandwich and heard something in the back yard. It knocked over my rubbish can, so I went to see what it was. When I opened up the back door, I saw a couple of dingoes digging in my garbage. I yelled at them, trying to scare them off, but it didn’t work. They came running toward me so I slammed the door.”
Taku coughs and groans, and it’s obvious that he is in a lot of pain. He continues with the story. “Then I heard yelping, looked out of the window and saw the two dingoes running away. Something scared them enough to make them run away. I went to the front door and opened it to see what had scared them and saw another dingo just standing there, snarling. I grabbed for my gun and before I could get the gun on my shoulder, the dingo attacked me. The dingo jumped through the screen door to get to me. I know it took a chunk out of my back because it hurts real bad. Then it dragged me out into the yard and bit me over and over. I thought it was going to kill me, but suddenly he stopped and ran off.”
“Easy man, stop talking. Let me look at you and see how bad it is.” Monti says.
He rolls Taku over on his side and it is horrible. There is a large chunk of
his back missing and the skin is torn to shreds. It’s almost like the dingo was eating him alive. I feel sick to my stomach, but manage to speak.
“I wonder if that was the last dingo that charged us?”
Dane looks at me and says, “Maybe he heard the shots or heard his buddies yelping, and came to investigate.”
I lean in to Monti and give him a soft squeeze. “Monti, he has lost a lot of blood,” I whisper. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know if there is anything we can do. I don’t think he is strong enough to make it to hospital, and if it is parasite infected blood, we don’t want to risk infecting anyone else.”
Derrick motions for me to come over to where he is standing by the front door, just next to the kitchen. He whispers, “Look at the blood, Kobi. It is clotted just like the blood from the dingo and Carlos. He is infected and has lost a lot of blood. I don’t think he is going to make it. See all the clots in the blood. That happened fast.”
“I see it. Oh man, poor Taku.” I cry. “How did he get infected so fast, I wonder?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the dingo that bit him was infected by the alpha male and was loaded with the parasite. I don’t even know if that is possible. Maybe we should get a sample of his blood and bring it back to the lab. There’s a large pool of blood on the front porch.”
“Yeah, that would probably be a good idea. Dane, do you have anything we can collect a sample of Taku’s blood in? We should bring back a sample to Trevor.”
“I think so. Let me go look in the kit Geoff gave us. I thought I saw a small vial in there that we can use. I’ll be right back.”
Dane returns with the kit and takes out a vial and a wooden tongue depressor. He dons a pair of gloves and carefully collects a sample of Taku’s blood. The sample is sealed and placed back in the kit. He returns the kit to the car.
Derrick and I walk back into the kitchen only to find Taku dead. Monti appears to be a bit relieved because at least Taku is not in pain anymore. He pulls a sheet over Taku’s face and walks away from the table. Monti slowly walks into the living room and sits down on the couch. Dane enters the house and sees Taku’s body covered up, so he knows that Taku is dead.
Dane walks over to Monti and kneels down beside his friend. “Monti, I am so sorry about your cousin. I wish there was something I could say to take your pain away.”
“Thank you my friend, but he will soon become part of this land again. That gives me comfort.”
We know exactly what we have to do and it is not a pleasant thought. Taku has been infected, and we need to dispose of the body and burn the house down, since there is blood all over the porch and in the kitchen. This is not how the Aboriginal people usually dispose of their family members, but we have no other option in this case. Monti knows what has to be done, so he stands up and starts preparing his cousin’s body for disposal.
Monti and Dane put Taku on a plastic sheet, cover his body with bleach, and then roll him up. They decide to leave him on the kitchen table since the house will be burned anyway. We all walk back to the car, and Monti grabs the gasoline, and pours it all around the house. He pauses just for a second, strikes the match, and throws the match on the porch. The house starts to burn. At the car, we start to carefully remove the protective gear and place them in airtight containers to be decontaminated and recycled back at the lab. Monti drops to his knees and begins to wail. The house is completely engulfed in flames now and Monti is forced to back away from the house because the heat is so intense. He returns to the car, removes his protective gear, and gets in the back seat. I can’t imagine how Monti feels.
When we are at a safe distance, we stop and look back toward the house. Monti gets out of the car, watches for a few minutes, and says his goodbyes. What a terrible thing to have happen to a family member. He is taking it well and suggests we wait until the fire has burned out. We want to make sure everything has been disposed of properly before we leave, so we decide to wait for the fire to run its course. After the fire dies, we’ll go back and double check everything.
By the time we finish with Taku’s house, it’s around 4:00 p.m., and we need to go back to the lab and get new suits. So we decide to give Geoff a call and let him know what happened today. Geoff is sorry to hear about Taku and says he’ll talk to us when we get there.
When we arrive at the lab, Dane and Monti take the airtight containers right to the decontamination area and grab four clean biohazard suits. The dirty biohazard suits will be
cleaned and stored by the decontamination team. Derrick and I went into the conference room to wait for them. The CDC has set up a command post with phone lines and tons of computers. Geoff sees us and comes over.
“Hey guys, how’s it going? Where’s Monti?
“He and Dane are dropping off the suits and getting some clean ones for tomorrow,” Derrick replies.
Within a few minutes, Dane and Monti walk in. They both shake Geoff’s hand and Geoff says, “Monti, I am so sorry about your cousin. Is there anything I can do?”
“No Geoff, but thank you,” Monti answers.
“Hey Geoff,” Dane says, “here is the kit with the vial of Monti’s cousin’s blood. I thought Nicola and Trevor might want to have a look since his blood was infected so quickly. Every little piece may help with the big picture.”
“Thanks, Dane. I’ll get this to them straight away. So, how many dingoes do you have left to kill?”
“Three. We have three dingoes left, and I hope to get them all tomorrow before they kill someone else,” Dane replies with anger in his voice.
“Well, do you guys need anything else for tomorrow?” Geoff asks.
“No sir, we are good. We will check in with you tomorrow,” Dane replies.