The Last Dog on Earth Read Online Free PDF

kick him out of their lives— not Harold Marks, not his ex-wife, no one. He was all alone. He could play with Jasmine whenever he felt like it, and wear his pajamas all day long (he was wearing a pair of flannel pj's right now, in fact), and tie his gray hair back in a ponytail—and never, ever,
ever
have to worry about getting along with other people.
    He clicked open the e-mail.
    We're looking for your research paper on prion diseases. we've been notified that there's been a small outbreak of an unidentified illness among dogs in Redmont, a town in the southern part of the state. it seems to mimic symptoms of both mad cow disease and rabies, very much the way you described in your paper. do you have a copy on file? we can't find it here. if you have it, send it.
    Westerly stopped breathing.
    In an instant he forgot his annoyance at being disturbed or even being asked to do Harold a favor.
    Prion diseases.
    Westerly hadn't thought about prion diseases in a long, long time. But if Harold was correct in his suspicions, then a “small outbreak” would be nothing of the sort. It might appear to be small at first, but it wouldn't take long for a few cases to develop into something far more dangerous. Something along the lines of a full-scale epidemic.
    Prions were tiny, tiny strands of protein. Generally they were harmless, but every now and then a prion would become misshapen, malformed. The term in the scientific community was
misfolded.
Westerly had always likened these misfolded prions to bad seeds.Once they found their way inside an animal and planted themselves there, the entire animal turned rotten. Prion diseases weren't like other diseases, which were caused by bacteria or viruses—like the flu, for instance. Misfolded prions couldn't be stopped. Worst of all, misfolded prions were found in food—meat, milk, cheese—almost every kind of food that came from animals.
    The good news (if any news could really be considered “good”) was that prion diseases weren't directly contagious from one species to another. Mad cow disease, for instance, almost certainly could only be caught by healthy cows from affected ones. But even so,
that
particular epidemic caused near panic in England when scientists discovered that humans could contract a related disease by eating the meat of affected cows. Before mad cow disease was brought under control, people were concerned that the entire population of cows in England would have to be destroyed.
    Back at the university, Westerly had tried to prove to Harold how dangerous prion diseases could be. He'd even written a paper on the subject—the very same paper Harold now wanted, in fact. But Harold had never been enthusiastic about it. No prion disease had ever occurred on a large scale in the United States. Humans mostly got it from eating spoiled beef in underdeveloped countries. There was a tribe in New Guinea that had gotten a prion disease called kuru from cannibalism. “There just aren't that many cannibals here in America,” Harold used to joke.
    Westerly had never found that joke funny.
    Then Harold would get serious. “It's not where the grant money is, Craig,” he'd say. “Prion diseases are not going to put this university on the map.”
    “Unless one hits here and we're not prepared for it,” Westerlywould reply. And Harold would wave his hand and call Westerly Old Gloom-and-Doom.
    “I warned him, Jasmine,” Westerly said. “Didn't I?”
    Jasmine was asleep. Lucky for her.
    Westerly leaned back in the chair. He knew he shouldn't panic. After all, Harold was a lousy scientist; he could have misread the data—but if dogs had already died, then the odds were extremely high that they'd caught the disease from infected dog food.
    Westerly's eyes flashed to the lab counter on the other side of the room. He drummed his fingers on the desk, staring at the shadowy array of test tubes, osmotic filters, microscopes, and centrifuges. He could test Jasmine's food right now.