by Paul Seiple
“Forgive me for thinking you were lost, Dr. Root. You’re not wearing a hazmat suit. That stupid choice could be a reason people think you’re losing your mind.”
A smirk stretched across Mack’s face shifting the red hair of his beard in a subtle wave. “Touché,” Mack pulled his glasses down the bridge of his nose. “Officer Brennan. But, I’d stand a better chance of catching a cold from you guys than picking up something from that girl.”
Another cop spoke up. “Screw the hazmat suit. Get a suit of armor. Did you see what happened here yesterday?” He tried to come across as comedic, but his words hiccupped from jitters.
“I think I’ll take my chances,” Mack said.
Brennan stepped to the side and motioned for Mack to pass. “Knock if you need us.”
“If she lets you,” the nervous cop said.
The innocence of the girl’s face caused Mack to freeze in his steps. She was barely seventeen. Calling her five-feet tall was pushing it, even if she stood on her tiptoes. She sat on the bed with four pillows propped behind her sipping Coke through a pink straw that dangled from the can. When Tabitha Giles noticed Mack she muted the soap opera she was watching with a quickness that hinted at shame.
“If you’re here to take more blood, you’re shit out of luck,” she said. “You see, I’m a vampire and I’ve been cooped up in this bed for god knows how long. I’m about three quarts low.” She took another sip of soda. “On the plus side, this Coke’s pretty good.”
Mack smiled. “I’m not here for blood.” He pulled up a chair beside the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“A little bloated, Doc. I’m afraid the time of month is coming, and I’ve already expressed to you my concern for my blood shortage. Can I please get the hell out of here so I can go bite someone’s neck?”
“Tabitha, is it?”
“Call me Tabby.”
“Well, Tabby, we’ll talk about getting you out of here in a little while, tell me what happened at work when everyone got sick.”
Tabby sat the Coke can on a nightstand next to two more empty cans and several potato chip bags. “I was working the dreaded afternoon. I say dreaded because I cannot stand Brittany. She’s such a bitch. Anyway, Brittany was on register. I was working the drink bar. A couple of the morning people were hanging around because it was Harry’s birthday. Christina, the manager, another bitch by the way, had picked up cupcakes. We had a little party when the afternoon rush died down. I guess the cupcakes made people sick. Wouldn’t surprise me if Christina laced them evil.” Tabby picked up the soda and sipped again.
“So, nothing out of the ordinary with the cupcakes?”
“Tasted OK to me. I mean, they were chocolate. You can’t really fu… I mean you can’t really mess that up. I only took a bite. Chocolate tends to turn my face into The Hills Have Eyes.”
Mack tilted his head, not bothering to hide the confusion.
“Acne? Zits on my face? Hills have eyes?” Tabby exhaled in frustration before sitting the soda back on the table. She slapped the bed, startling Mack. “Sorry, yeah, there was this other thing. This weird guy asked could he have a cupcake. Can you believe the nerve? Never seen the guy before, he comes into our place and asks for a free cupcake.”
“Did he take one?”
“Yeah, stuck his grubby fingers right in the box.”
“But all twelve cupcakes were accounted for?”
“Baker’s dozen, duh!”
“What did this guy look like?”
“I don’t know. I guess he kinda looked like Joey from Friends. Believe it or not, I’m more of a Ross kinda girl. But yeah, I guess he looked like Joey.”
“Height, weight, color?”
“About five-three in heels, unless you’re blind, you can see I’m blonde, I’m not telling my weight…” Tabby smiled. “Oh you meant the cupcake creepazoid?”
Mack sighed and nodded.
“I don’t know, maybe five-ten or so. Average weight. I doubt he had a six-pack, but he wasn’t fat either. Dark brown hair.”
Mack stood up. “Thanks a bunch, Tabby. You’ve been a tremendous help.”
“Wait, Doc, what about me getting out of here so I can go suck some blood?”
Mack smiled. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting you out knowing you’re just going to bite someone.”
“Just great. What a shitty year. First, I get chickenpox and have to be quarantined. And now, this phantom virus, that I do not have. I’m not contagious. I was kidding about biting someone, you know that, right?”
Mack froze mid-stride as he reached for the door. Without turning back, he said, “How long has it been since you had chickenpox?”
“A couple of weeks.”
“I’ll see if I can get you out of here.” Mack opened the door and tried to ignore the cops, but one spoke.
“Glad to see you make it out. Good thing this didn’t turn into a Patient 5 incident.”
“Harry,” Mack said, reaching for his cellular telephone.
“Come again?”
“Patient 5. His name was Harry.” Mack shifted his attention to Bert on the phone. “Check to see if the victims have been sick recently.”
“I’m sure that’s already been checked out,” Bert said.
“Check again with their family physicians and family to see if any of them were sick within the last month. And get this girl out of the hospital and into a safe house.”
“Mack, that’s going to be impossible, no one will let her out of containment,” Bert said.
“She’s not like the others. There’s no way of knowing if the bite she took contained the pathogen. Plus, she is recovering from chickenpox. Her body was already in fight mode. She’s lucky, and she isn’t a threat. She’s just a girl with a penchant for horror movies. Get her out of here before Halloween.”
Seven
Rebecca Callahan
San Diego, California
Laura Foley sipped black coffee and watched the sun shove its way through the morning clouds. Waves broke against the shore with a gentleness that announced the day would be pretty damn good.
For years, Laura wasn’t sure there would ever be another good day, even when the weather begged to differ. It took a long time to erase the past she never dreamed of losing. She emptied the remnants of her coffee in the sink, washed the mug out, and placed it in the perfectly stacked dishwasher. She smiled. In a weird way, the dishwasher was a metaphor for her life. Things finally fit together in unison. Everything changed when she met Dean Levine. The sleepless nights ended. The tears dried up. Dean couldn’t replace her past. He did better than that; he made her forget about it.
Laura turned on the television. She sat down on the sofa, tucked her feet under her butt like she always had. That’s one of the few things that hadn’t changed from her previous life. She grabbed the remote, flipped through the channels, and stopped at a documentary called Tragedy at the Cliff: The Rebecca Aaron Story. She laughed. The cackling grew louder to the point she feared she would wake Lillie. The laughter abruptly stopped and Laura listened to interview with Tom Maxwell, Rebecca’s co-star on Headline.
“I always hated that asshole,” Laura said. “He’s the poster boy of small dick syndrome.”
A few years ago, seeing the documentary would have sent Laura into a head-on collision with her emotions. But, the truth was Rebecca Aaron was dead. Laura finally accepted that. When Dean came along, there was no room for error. She couldn’t laugh with Lillie about the good times they used to have with Michael. Dean could never find out Laura and Lillie were Rebecca and Michelle Callahan. And the way Dean’s kiss numbed the pain, Laura was OK with that.
Michelle was a different story. She never answered to the name Lillie. She forced her mother to call her Chelle. It’s the only name she would respond to. The defiance started right after the move to San Diego when Michelle learned she would never see her father again. From an early age, there was no hiding that Michelle Callahan was Rebecca’s daughter. Th
e acerbic tone of her voice when she argued broccoli really wasn’t that good for her made Rebecca warm inside. That’s when the Callahans were the textbook happy family. Long before Norman Wallace came calling for his granddaughter. Nowadays, every slamming door, every broken object, every curse word made Rebecca worry that Michelle had a bit of Norman in her as well. And a bit of Norman could cause a lot of pain to the world. Rebecca tried to brush off those thoughts by attributing Michelle’s behavior to losing her father, hating her stepfather, and being a teenager. It made reasonable sense. Michelle was kicked out of three schools and tested for learning disabilities. She shocked everyone — but Rebecca — by registering an I.Q. of 153. Rebecca knew the truth. She knew her daughter wasn’t challenged. Michelle was hurt and mad as hell. Rebecca turned off the television as the credits to the documentary rolled over a photo of Michael, Rebecca, and Michelle at the red carpet opening of Headline.
With Michelle being kicked out of school, Rebecca twisted the negative into a positive and viewed it as an opportunity to have more quality time with her daughter. She started homeschooling Michelle. Each day, Michelle withdrew more and more, but Rebecca fought the frustration and kept trying to get through to her daughter.
The clock chimed at 9am. Rebecca took a deep breath and put on a smile. It was time to begin the laboring routine of getting Michelle out of bed.
“Rise and shine, Chelle. We need to go over this math before I forget the answers I memorized.”
No response. But that wasn’t unusual. Michelle never answered Rebecca’s pleas. She only responded after the third knock on her bedroom door. By that point she knew her mother wasn’t going away.
“Come on, Chelle. Do we have to do this every morning?” Rebecca knocked on the door. “You know I’m not going anywhere, and I’m coming in after the third knock.” She knocked again. “So, surprise me this time. Open up.”
Silenced mocked Rebecca’s begging.
Rebecca tapped the door with two knuckles and turned the knob. “Fine. I was going to go easy today, but you’re getting a qui….”
Fear caused the words to hang in Rebecca’s throat. Michelle wasn’t in the room, and the bed was made. Michelle never made the bed without a fight.
“Chelle? You OK? You in the bathroom?” Rebecca opened the bathroom door. Empty. Cleaned out. Michelle’s toothpaste was gone. All of her toiletries were gone.
Michelle was gone.
Eight
Michelle Callahan
Somewhere in the Midwest
“Excuse me, young lady, is this seat taken?”
The deep voice startled Michelle from her nap. Her eyes opened wide, and she flung her body against the window of the Greyhound bus.
“Whoa, there, darling, just trying to take a seat, not your soul.” The older man laughed, but it turned into a cackling cough. “Thirty years of smokes will do this to you. You don’t smoke, do you?”
Michelle pushed her body deeper, trying to squeeze between the seat and the side of the bus.
“I’ll take that as a no. Shame too, I was gonna see if I could bum one from you.” The man looked behind him at the empty seats. “Would ya look at that? A seat just opened up behind you. I’ll leave you to your beauty rest. Not that you need any.”
The tension in Michelle’s body eased, only to seize up again when the seat shook as the man sat down behind her. Running away was new to Michelle, even though it was all she thought about. This plan was years in the making. Michelle developed a toughness she felt surrounded her with a shield of immortality. All it took was the words of a stranger to crack it. Michelle doubted her decision. But she couldn’t turn back now. She couldn’t spend another minute living the life forced upon her. Not a day went by she didn’t think about her father, Michael. And with every hour that passed she hated him more for abandoning her. She had to create a new life, and she would do it on her terms. Michelle needed to toughen up. Show no signs of weakness.
“So, little lady, where are you coming from?” The man asked after situating into the seat behind her.
“My name’s not little lady. It’s Michelle. And I’m from San Diego.”
“I used to live in San Diego. Sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Man, did that job suck.” The man cackled again. “Get it? Vacuum cleaner? Suck?”
“I get it. It just wasn’t funny,” Michelle said.
“Teenagers. Anyway, my name’s Cagney.” He coughed. “This world isn’t a safe place for a young lady to travel by herself.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Cagney rose to his feet and took the seat next to Michelle. This time her body tensed, but she put on a stone face and didn’t move.
“Where ya headed?” he asked.
“None of your business.”
“Fair enough. What are you running from?”
“I’m not running from anything.”
Cagney chuckled, triggering a coughing spell. His face turned red. He gasped for breath.
“You OK?” Michelle asked.
Cagney nodded, catching his breath. “If you don’t listen to anything else I tell you today, heed the advice about smoking.” He cleared his throat. “You say you’re not running from anything, the pain in your eyes tells me different.”
Michelle turned away from Cagney and stared out the window.
“If you’re set on tackling this world, shutting people out only slams your back harder against the wall…or bus window.”
Michelle scrunched her nose and looked at Cagney. “I don’t even know you. I just met you. For all I know you could be a creeper.”
“I’m not talking about me, child. I’m talking about the people worrying about you in San Diego.”
“You don’t know anything about my life. And how do you know the people in San Diego didn’t put me on this bus to go visit my grandparents? Huh?”
“Your eyes. You can cement your face with hardness, but eyes never lie.”
Cagney leaned towards Michelle. She backed away.
“Your eyes speak of pain and hatred. Two things that can destroy even the strongest man.”
“Who are you?” Michelle asked.
“I’m just a retired vacuum cleaner salesman who has seen the best…and the worst this world can throw at you. You’re young. Don’t take a path that leads to misery. A year of misery feels like ten.”
Michelle gazed out the window again. She spoke barely above a whisper. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. My dad left me when I was six. I had to move across the country. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my friends, my Uncle Reid and Aunt Barbara. Nothing. My mom just ripped me out of my world…and then she married a douchebag.”
“So, you’re going to find your father?”
Michelle laughed. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. I just want to go back to the life that made me happy.”
“The streets are no place for a teenage girl. I’m afraid you’ll find out what once made you happy now brings you sadness. Things change.”
“I’m willing to take that chance.”
Cagney nodded.
“That’s it? You’re not going to try to stop me? Tell the bus driver I’m a runaway?”
“Nope. That’s not my place. I’ve warned you of the dangers. You make your own decisions. But just know you’re hurting the people you leave behind and hoping to return to a life that no longer recognizes you. I don’t like those odds.”
The bus slowed to a crawl and then stopped at a truck stop parking lot.
“Well, this is my stop,” Cagney said, grabbing the seat in front of him, pulling himself to his feet. “It’s been a pleasure.”
“There’s nothing here,” Michelle said, staring at the empty lot.
“I’m sure I’ll meet another lost soul I can try to save. I just hope this one isn’t as stubborn as you Miss Michelle.” Cagney walked away. He stopped and turned back to Michelle. “I’ll leave you with this — what lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what
lies inside of you.” He pointed at Michelle. “Those wise words are courtesy of Ralph Waldo Emerson.”
Michelle smiled. “I never thought I’d meet a vacuum cleaner salesman who quotes Emerson.”
Cagney winked and walked away. He tapped the bus driver on his shoulder and turned back to Michelle one last time. “Be safe in your travels.”
As the bus drove away, Michelle watched Cagney step into a phone booth next to the restrooms. “If he comes out as Superman….” She laughed and lowered herself in the seat to return to her nap.
Nine
Norman Wallace
Charlotte, North Carolina
Norman cloaked himself in a group of businessmen shuffling down Tryon Street. No disguise. No sunglasses. He perfected the art of becoming invisible in public. An hour earlier he phoned the man calling himself The Plague Vendor and requested they meet at this quaint wine bar in Uptown.
Norman stood across the street from The Corkscrew scoping the scene for this new prophet of doom. Norman had rules. A long list of them and if anyone failed to meet his standards, he had little use for them other than being pawns in his game. One rule was being on time. His Rolex read 5:15. The Vendor was fifteen minutes late. It didn’t matter much; Norman had already decided that The Vendor would be a pawn. Ending the world wasn’t important. Being able to write the ending to his story was all Wallace cared about. Killing Reid Hoffman and then James Beamer was integral, but the happy ending would be finding Michelle and convincing her to carry on his legacy. Norman didn’t think it would be hard. He saw darkness in her eyes seven years ago in that abandoned church. She was older now, just about the age Norman was when he got the “urge.” The Vendor and his penchant for the apocalypse served only one purpose — a distraction.
Shortly before 5:30, a man, dressed head to toe in black, appeared in front of The Corkscrew and paced back and forth a few times before entering the bar.