His mind went immediately to Nate.
Nate lost his father, his mother, and daughter in a freak natural disaster. The type that decades earlier had been called rare, yet, when it happened with Nate, they were commonplace.
A limnic eruption occurred in the small town where Nate’s family lived.
An eruption that wasn’t volcanic. They happened when CO2 erupted from deep in a lake causing a toxic cloud that killed everyone and anything alive instantly.
Finch thought of that. There was a small lake in Fort Collins, but was it big enough to cause that much death?
Nate’s family lived in a town of three thousand. Fort Collins was bigger, much bigger.
It had to be something like that.
Unless it was an illness. A virus perhaps that swept through town.
Something like that would be worldwide and, hopefully, Rey and Nate could find answers.
As he looked upon the huge number of bodies, he wondered if Earth was just doomed to die. Even though they went as far as one hundred and seventy-five years into the future, was it truly done?
Had nature decided mankind wasn’t worth having and was doing everything possible to rid the planet of the human disease, much like the body fought infection.
There were no answers at the stadium, nor were there any answers when Finch visited the areas where they’d burned bodies in huge pits.
Nothing remained in those pits.
The fires had burned so hot and with so much intensity, the ground was charred.
Blackened like charcoal.
It was depressing to think of that large loss of life.
The only consolation Finch found was knowing somehow, someway, the people of Fort Collins died fast. They suffered less than the rest of the world that was crushed in earthquakes, burned by volcanoes, or had starved to death.
Still, in the back of his mind he needed to know why. He couldn’t accept that they all just died, that someone or some organization just collected bodies.
The answers were there.
They just had to find them.
<><><><>
“How do a hundred thousand people die all at once?” Rey spoke her thoughts out loud as she walked with Nate.
“They could have died over the course of weeks, too.”
“But how?”
“Illness, chemical accident maybe,” he said. “Attack.”
“Is there a bomb that could do this?”
“Yeah, a thermobaric bomb, but there’s still going to be damage,” he said. “Thermobarics suck all the air out with a highly intense bomb, but it leaves tops of buildings charred.”
“It’s just strange, like watching a movie. It’s not real because it’s not affecting us.”
“What if it could?” Nate paused in his walking. “What if whatever killed these people is still around?”
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
They walked across the small parking lot to the urgent care. “This,” he said, “should give us answers as to what it isn’t. Or even what it is.”
Like most business the windows were gone, and they climbed through the busted doorway.
“Okay, so…” Rey looked around. “Either they had the most diligent staff or nothing happened. I’ve seen more chaos first day of shingles vaccines.”
Nate chuckled at her and walked behind the check-in counter.
“I’ll head to the back,” Rey told him.
Other than the typical ‘things grew over time’ look, it was evident the waiting room of the urgent care had been left impeccable. Nothing was out of order.
She turned on her flashlight and walked down the hall toward the examining rooms. The doors were open and each room that she passed looked the same. Nothing was out of order at all. “Anything?” she called out.
“No paper trail,” Nate replied. “They must have done everything on the computer.”
There were three doors in that hallway that weren’t wide open: the men’s room, the ladies’ room, and another room labelled ‘diagnostics.’
Rey figured it had to be the imaging room for X-rays, but she didn’t see that telltale radiation warning symbol.
She turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly, shining her light inside.
There were no windows and the room acted like a tomb; it had been completely sealed off and perfectly preserved. There were no plants or other growth in view. Even the floor felt smooth.
From what she could see there were no large X-ray machines. There was a counter with what looked like lab equipment on top. A rack with test tubes sat next to the sink.
She kicked the stopper on the door to hold it open and walked to the counter.
There were three tubes in the rack; the substance inside looked like dust and she lifted one, shining the light on it to see a date.
It fell in the same time frame as the bread.
Useless, she thought. They needed to go to the hospital and look there. Obviously, no one had gone to the urgent care for whatever ailed the population into death.
Rey inched down, shining her light around the room. There was absolutely nothing significant there. When she took a step to turn, her foot caught it. The tip of her shoe connected with the hard object and she heard it move across the floor and hit something.
What was it?
Bringing her flashlight beam down, she slowly moved it across the floor and when the light hit the object, Rey, so startled, screamed.
She backed up, spun around, and bolted, screaming again when she slammed into Nate.
“What is it? What happened? What’s wrong?”
“There…” Rey caught her breath. “Sorry, it scared me.”
“What?”
“There’s a head.”
“A head?”
“A head,” Rey said. “It was on the floor, I kicked it by accident.”
“That would be impossible.”
“See for yourself.” Rey pointed, then grabbed onto his arm, pulling him in.
Both of their flashlights gave sufficient lighting and without the element of surprise, Rey got a better look at it.
It definitely wasn’t a human head.
Nate crouched down, then lifted it. “It’s heavy. Let’s take this out front so we can see it in the light.”
Rey nodded, waited for Nate to walk by her, and then she followed him down the hall into the reception area.
It was a head and partial neck and it balanced well when Nate set it on the counter. It reminded Rey of a mannequin head in a weird way.
The neck and back were smooth and white; it looked plastic, but when Rey touched it, it was a harder material. It gave her the creeps and she pulled back her hand.
The face was that of a male, the coloring was slightly darker and more of a shade of gray. The mouth was closed, as were the eyes. And just like a mannequin it was expressionless with vague human features.
“What do you think it is?” Rey asked.
“Nothing,” Nate replied. He tapped on it. “It’s heavy but sounds hollow.”
“What is it doing here?”
“I think someone just had a weird sense of humor. It reminds me of those new mannequins they used that weren’t male or female, nondescript, you know.”
“Yeah. Scared the hell out of me when I saw it.”
“I bet.” Nate exhaled. “Well, there’s nothing here. Did you find anything else in the back?”
“No. It’s empty. The blood tubes I found were the same as the bread date.”
“So no answers here. We’ll move on.”
“What about him?” Rey pointed to the head.
“Leave it. I don’t think the others would find it very funny. Let’s check the vet clinic. Maybe something is there.”
Rey doubted it, but it was worth a shot. She looked forward to checking out the market which was on the next block.
Chalking the urgent care up to a loss, she and Nate left the clinic to try elsewhere.
<><><><>
Another exercise bracelet? Tucker saw the edge of it sticking out of the ground. He didn’t understand why he spotted it so easily. But there it was.
Using his fingers, he dug around it and lifted the object into his grip. “Hey, guys, I found another one.” He dusted it off and put it in the small bag he carried strapped across his chest.
“Why are you making such a big deal about those?” Sam asked.
“Because it’s the fourth one. Second today. Don’t you guys find it odd?”
Finch shook his head. “Not at all. People were wearing them for decades when we left. They just aren’t biodegradable. That’s why you’re finding them.”
“Maybe. And maybe Fort Collins was a big fitness place. Who knew?” Tucker shrugged.
They were combing through the block before the school—a mix of houses and small businesses—trying to find information about what had occurred.
After the bodies at the stadium and the charred pits, they found nothing else. No answers that were any different. Nothing new.
It was clear that a lot of the businesses had either closed down, or whatever happened occurred at night when they were closed.
It was obvious, at least to Tucker, that sooner or later they would have to admit defeat and hope that he was right about that farm.
The answers could lie with the people there, if they were still alive.
Tucker was sure they were; from the imaging the farm looked too well maintained.
Then again, the images were deceiving. He’d seen nothing on them that looked like a giant body bag or burned body pit circles.
“Let’s finish this up,” Finch said. “Wrap if for the day, call Rey and Nate back to camp.”
Tucker nodded his agreement.
There were three stores right before them. A video game store, beauty salon, and convenience store.
“Why don’t we each take one,” Tucker suggested. “I’ll take the convenience store.”
The decision to check the convenience store wasn’t random to Tucker. He saw something about it that seemed off.
Finch and Sam seemed to have the attitude that Tucker was looking into things too much or making a fuss out of nothing, but that store…there was something about it.
The gas pumps were nearly gone. Only a bit of one remained. In the small lot of the convenience store, mixed in with all the foliage were products. Canned goods and bottles were scattered about.
The front window was broken, like every other one. The building was overgrown with vines, but there was a huge black mark on the brick above where the big front window was.
As soon as Tucker stepped in the store, he knew something had occurred there.
The shelves had been knocked over, the merchandise that hadn’t broken down from time was everywhere, and things looked burnt. Not completely, almost like a flash fire that extinguished as fast as it started.
He scuffled items away with his foot as he made his way to the back and that was when he saw the back wall.
There was a huge hole that was black around the edges.
Clearly something had exploded. It took a second for Tucker to realize the wall didn’t seem right.
When he looked inside, he realized it had been put up over the cooler doors.
Another fake wall?
Why?
Tucker stepped through.
What was up with his friend?
Sam couldn’t explain Tucker’s sudden change of behavior to Finch, nor did he understand it himself.
While he hadn’t known Tucker that long, what he did know from being around him and reading about him, was that Tucker was a carefree guy.
He was always upbeat and positive. Yet, the past twenty-four hours had shown a very serious side to Tucker.
He examined everything closely, finding everything he picked up to be of importance and part of the puzzle.
Sam understood the infatuation with the exercise bracelets. Even he didn’t get why so many were laying around. But the comb and the small metal pipe Tucker had picked up were insignificant. Tiny items he shoved in that bag he carried.
He watched Tucker go into the convenience store. He knew the look on Tucker’s face, he’d seen something or thought he did.
Sam gave it a minute before he went into the beauty salon.
He didn’t expect to find any information there. After all, why would he?
Strangely, only half the front window was busted, leaving half the jagged window in the frame. Sam used the door; the glass was broken and he was able to reach inside to unlock the latch.
He stepped inside. It was weather worn and most of the suspended ceiling tiles had fallen down. They lay across the floor and receptionist counter, wires and an old pipe dangling down.
It was one of those budget cut shops. Pictures of people with various hairstyles graced the walls.
The weather hadn’t been kind to them, some were faded, some hung sideways and broken.
Sam didn’t put much stock into finding anything.
He was about to turn around when he thought about the reception desk. It was completely covered in ceiling tile, and with a swipe of his arm he cleared it.
When the tiles fell to the floor, so did the black appointment book. Finally, a paper trail, he thought. Every other place they went there were very few paper trails.
He lifted the appointment book and placed it on the now cleared desk.
Starting at the back, he flipped through until he found a page with writing. Appointments were logged in by hand, most names were faded, but still readable. The dates stayed consistent with the dates Rey gave.
It was sometime at the end of May that everything had happened.
Looking at the book was the first clue that whatever happened, happened over a short span of time.
The last day with writing had two appointments, the day before six, and for a week before that it was minimal. As he went back farther, he saw the time slots were full, until he arrived in early April.
That was it.
That was when Sam saw his biggest clue yet. Of all the places they were, homes, businesses, it took a little beauty shop to give him some answers.
April fourth.
No appointments.
Just a squiggly line across the time slots and the words “Closed, vaccine day.”
Sam’s mouth moved slowly as he sputtered the words out loud. “It was a plague.” He swiped up the book and raced outside. “Finch! Tucker!”
Finch emerged from the video store. “What is it?”
“Look.” Sam showed him the book. “They closed the shop for vaccines. And over six weeks, the appointments trickled down to nothing.”
“So it was a sickness they were trying to beat,” Finch said.
“It might be.” Sam looked up when he saw Tucker approach. His friend looked pale and out of sorts. “Tuck, did you find something?”
“Um, yeah.” Tucker patted his bag. “I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s a whole situation.”
“What is it?” Finch asked.
Tucker pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Not sure. What about you guys?”
Sam held up the book showing him. “Looks like it was a plague or virus.”
“Really? Wouldn’t there have been like medical stuff set up?” Tucker asked.
“Apparently not,” Sam said. “But this doesn’t confirm anything, it just lets us know they were fighting something biological. Look, see for yourself what I’m talking about.” Sam flipped open the book.
“I’ll look at it back at camp,” Tucker replied. “Commander, can you radio Rey and Nate. We should head back.”
“Sure thing,” Finch replied.
Behaving preoccupied and odd, Tucker didn’t wait, he just turned and walked away. It was then that Sam saw the bag Tucker carried over his shoulder. It was bulging out a lot more than before he went into that store.
Sam knew Tucker had found something, and with the way he was acting, Sam was willing to be
t that whatever Tucker found was more significant than the comb or pipe he had previously picked up.
He’d find out when they got back to camp.
TWENTY-ONE
“As much as I want to say that’s what it was,” Nate stated, “I can’t see it anywhere in this town.”
Sam nodded. “But, clearly, whatever it was happened over a short period of time. From April fourth until May twenty-fifth, appointments dwindled. Before that, this shop was always booked.”
Nate shook his head. “From what I have seen. It just doesn’t add up. In this shop…everywhere.”
Finch stood next to Tucker by the inside table, while Rey, Nate, and Sam sat down. “Not disagreeing with you,” Finch said, “but explain why you think that.”
“Okay so a plague or virus,” Nate explained. “Over a hundred thousand people in six weeks dead. From what we have seen, there were no quarantine zones, no cordons. No emergency camps. We didn’t get to the hospital, but there was no indication at all at the urgent care that anything happened. No body bags or garbage cans piling up on the roads. If things shut down, so do essential services.”
“Someone came in,” Finch said, “and cleaned this up. The event happened here.”
“So why no quarantine?” Nate said. “They let everyone die? That many people aren’t all gonna choose to stay in their homes. They’d overflow the hospitals; emergency hospitals would have to be set up.”
Sam said, “We haven’t even checked a quarter of this town. We don’t know that they aren’t out there.”
“Plus, it’s more than that,” Rey added. “I’m not saying people didn’t get sick and die, but something big was happening. We hit one grocery store and it wasn’t the same. Not at all. The shelves were still stocked but…they weren’t organized by product, they were organized by street.”
“Boxes,” Nate added. “Addresses on them, like one big food bank.”
“And the checkout lines were removed. No cash registers,” Rey said.
“Okay, I’m playing devil’s advocate here,” said Finch. “This is after all of us left. How do we know that’s just not the way things were in this future?”
“It wasn’t that far after us, Finch. Not so much that we got rid of grocery workers,” Nate said.
“Why not?” Finch asked. “They got rid of mail carriers after us. If I remember correctly, there were a lot of self-service checkouts in our day. Half, at least.”
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