Pandemic (The Extinction Files Book 1)

by A. G. Riddle

  He expected Orville to remain in the truck, or more likely, pony up at the nearest bar and drink until Desmond found him. Instead, he followed Desmond inside. They looked like the Beverly Hillbillies as they wandered the pristine aisles in their coveralls and dirty Carhartt coats, their tan faces and massive hands marking them as anything but computer geeks. Most of the clerks, who were young guys with glasses, glanced away and avoided them.

  At the counter, Desmond described what he wanted in a computer and told them how much he had to spend.

  “You’re short.”

  “By how much?”

  “Two hundred and fifty by the time you pay tax.”

  Desmond told the clerk that he could get the same specs from a number of places advertising in Computer Shopper. That set the guy off. He went on a tirade about the low quality of the computers they sold, compared small details, and insisted that having local service was worth something.

  When the worked-up man finally finished, Desmond said, “Well, what do you suggest?”

  “Drop the optional stuff. Modem. Downgrade the graphics card. Smaller monitor.”

  Before Desmond could speak, Orville stepped forward, pulled three one-hundred-dollar bills from his pocket, and slapped them on the counter. “Forget it. Build it just like he said.”

  The man raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  “You heard me. Do it. We’re in a hurry.”

  Orville wanted to put the two boxes on the back of the truck, but Desmond wouldn’t hear of it. Between the cold and the wind, it was far too risky. So they placed the computer in between them in the cab, forming a barrier Desmond spoke over on the way back.

  “Thanks.”

  His uncle grunted.

  “I needed the modem to get on the internet.”

  “I know why you needed it.”

  “I’ll be able to—”

  “You don’t need to explain. Buying that computer’s the smartest thing you’ve done in a while.”

  Desmond had no idea what to say to that.

  “I thought you were going to buy a truck with the money,” Orville said.

  Desmond had considered it. “I needed the computer more.”

  The machine and the internet access it granted were to Desmond at seventeen what the library had been to him at six: access to another world of seemingly endless knowledge. The web fed his mind and inspired his curiosity. It always led to more questions, more places to explore.

  Every time he heard the noise of the Texas Instruments 28.8 modem, he came to life like never before.

  In IRC chat rooms, he met like-minded people. Many were in San Francisco, Seattle, and New York, but plenty were in small towns across America, just like him. Most were young people in their basements or bedrooms typing away at night.

  He downloaded several programming languages: C++, Python, Java, and Perl. He created a GeoCities page and began learning HTML and Javascript. He loved the logic of computer programming—it was a sharp contrast to the chaos and unpredictability of people on the rigs. Every day was a new puzzle to solve.

  That summer, he busted three of his ribs on an offshore rig. He was home alone, recuperating, when two cars came barreling down the dirt driveway: a shiny Mercedes-Benz followed by a beat-up Ford pickup with two hunting rifles hanging in the back window.

  Two men exited the Benz, both in suits. They were clean-shaven, their short hair combed to the side, and they were sweating like pigs. Desmond didn’t know either of them. He did know the lanky man who stepped out of the truck and sauntered toward the run-down house like he owned the place. His name was Dale Epply. He was another roughneck, possibly the only man Desmond knew who was meaner than Orville.

  The suits introduced themselves, said they were from the West Texas Energy Corporation, and asked if they could come inside. Desmond forgot their names as soon as he heard them. He already knew what this was about.

  Inside, they sat down, took him up on his offer for some iced tea and water, and with words that sounded very practiced, told Desmond that his uncle had died in an accident on a rig in the gulf. They waited for his reaction.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Desmond said.

  His eyes were dry. He couldn’t wait for them to leave.

  One of the suits pushed an envelope across the chipped coffee table. The man was wearing a tie. Desmond assumed he was a lawyer. What he said next confirmed it.

  “Your uncle, like all WTE contractors, signed a contract…”

  Desmond couldn’t focus on the words. He heard only clips and phrases. Binding arbitration was part of the contract. Attorneys might contact Desmond about suing the company for wrongful death, but they were just opportunists and would be wasting his time. There was a standard death benefit, which was generous, they said, and, conveniently, it was contained in the envelope.

  Desmond ripped it open. The check was for ten thousand dollars.

  The two men watched him nervously. Dale looked bored. Desmond was pretty sure he knew why the man was there.

  “Make it twenty-five thousand and you’ll never hear from me.”

  The lawyer cut his eyes at the other man, who said, “I’m authorized to pay up to twenty thousand total.”

  “That’s a deal,” Desmond said flatly.

  Dale smirked.

  The oil executive drew a checkbook from the inside pocket of his suit, folded the alligator skin cover back, and wrote out a second check for ten thousand dollars.

  The lawyer shuffled papers in his briefcase and presented Desmond with two copies of a four-page agreement.

  “This explicitly waives your right to further litigation…”

  Desmond signed them before the man could finish speaking.

  The lawyer collected them from the table and took out an envelope.

  “We’ve sent your uncle’s body to the Seven Bridges Funeral Home in Noble. Due to the nature of his injuries, he’s already been cremated. We will, of course, cover the expense.”

  The lawyer waited. When Desmond said nothing, the lawyer opened the envelope.

  “Your uncle, like all contractors, was required to file a will with us. We’ll read that now.”

  He squinted at the page. Through the glare of the sun through the window, Desmond could tell there was only one line.

  The sweating man in the suit cleared his throat.

  “The last will and testament of Orville Hughes is as follows: To my nephew, Desmond Barlow Hughes, I leave everything. 39-21-8.”

  From the recliner, Dale let out a laugh. “Well, least we know Orville was sober when he wrote it.”

  All eyes went to him.

  Dale shrugged. “He was a man of few words when he wasn’t drinking.”

  No one responded.

  The oil executive again expressed his condolences, this time without the forced sincerity. They were in a hurry to leave now. They were out the door within seconds.

  Dale told them he wanted to stay, “in case Desmond needs anything,” as if they were anything more than work acquaintances. When the oil men had left, Dale and Desmond sat across from each other in the shabby living room, Dale chatting about nothing in particular, seeming unbothered by Desmond’s silence. He was working up to something. Or working up the courage to do what he’d come here to do.

  “The thing is, Des, your uncle owed me some money.”

  “That right?”

  Desmond had never seen his uncle borrow a dollar—or get up from a card table with a debt to his name.

  “Sure did.”

  Desmond could see the outline of a small revolver in Dale’s pants pocket. A .38 caliber snub-nose if he had to guess.

  “Tell you what,” Desmond said. “We’ll head to the bank, I’ll cash these checks, and we’ll settle up.”

  Dale thought about it a moment. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Why don’t you go ahead and sign the back of ’em checks right now.”

  His eyes bored holes into Desmond.

  Slowly, the teenager turned t
he checks over and signed them.

  “Old Orville wasn’t much for banks, was ’e? Didn’t trust ’em.”

  Desmond’s eyes settled on the lever-action .30-30 leaned up against the door. Orville kept it there in case a deer wandered near the house. Dale saw him glance at it, tried to act like he hadn’t, tried to make his tone casual.

  “Heck of a will he left. Them numbers at the end—sounded like a combination to a safe to me. That what you think, Des?”

  Desmond’s mind raced. He needed to get out of this living room. He said nothing.

  “Yeah, that’s ’zactly what it is. Let’s see if that combination works. I’ll take what’s owed me, and I’ll be off.”

  He stood quickly, shuffled over next to the rifle. “Where’s the safe, Des?”

  Desmond didn’t make eye contact. “Under his bed.”

  Dale smiled. “Nah, doubt that. Orville’s too smart for that. Somebody robbing you is bound to search the house. Twister could get it too. Bad fire might burn it, melt the lock.”

  He stuck his hand in his pocket, the one with the gun.

  “Where is it? I ain’t gonna ask again.”

  “Shed out back.”

  Dale stepped forward, snatched the will from the coffee table.

  “Show me.”

  He opened the door and stood with his back to the rifle, blocking Des from reaching it. The setting sun flooded into the shabby old farmhouse.

  Desmond marched past Dale, onto the porch, and down the few steps. The grass was cut short. Brown dirt patches littered the ground like a coat that had been sewn back together countless times.

  The shed was a hundred feet away. It stood there, placid in the fall wind, its oak walls and rusted tin roof silently waiting for an event that would change Desmond’s life forever. The building had been just big enough for a tractor in the sixties. Now it held the broken-down Studebaker truck and a John Deere riding lawnmower Orville had made Desmond cut the grass with.

  “How’d he die, Dale?” Desmond walked quickly, trying to put distance between them.

  Dale quickened his pace to keep up. “Blowout.”

  It was a lie. Desmond could tell by the way he said the word, knew the man would never tell him the truth.

  At the door, Desmond paused, acting like he expected the other man to open it.

  Behind him, he saw that Dale now held his right arm behind his back. His pocket was empty.

  “Open it,” Dale said, nodding to the door.

  Desmond flipped the latch and pulled at the door, which caught on the grass around it. He slipped inside quickly.

  Startled, Dale rushed forward, through the breach.

  Desmond’s eyes didn’t have a chance to adjust, but it didn’t matter; he knew what he needed and exactly where it was.

  In the darkness, his hand reached from memory, gripped the spare lawnmower blade hanging above the workbench, careful not to let the sharp side dig into his fingers. He swung it without even sighting his target.

  It connected with deadly precision, cutting into Dale’s neck. Blood painted the wall like oil gushing from an uncapped well. Dale’s right arm fell limp at his side. The .38 revolver fell to the ground.

  Dale reached for Desmond’s throat with his left hand, grasped it, his fingers digging in. Desmond released his grip on the blade, put his shoulder into the man, and drove him out of the shack, into the light. Blood shot out of Dale’s neck and onto the grass like weed killer being sprayed on the side of a highway.

  Dale’s grip loosened. Desmond pushed him to the ground, stepped on his left hand. Within seconds, the color drained from the older man, the squirting blood slowed to a pour, then a trickle. He gurgled some words Desmond couldn’t make out, then his eyes went still and glassy.

  Desmond stood, stared at Dale Epply’s dead body, lying there like a cowboy at the crossroads of a dusty western town—a gunslinger who’d been outdrawn.

  What have I done?

  The wind whipped Desmond’s blond hair into his face. Blood dripped from the fingers of his right hand where he had held the lawnmower blade too tight. He had killed a man. In self-defense, but nevertheless, he had taken a life. It had happened so fast.

  Desmond expected to feel remorse, but instead he felt nothing. I did what I had to. But he knew that his life was about to get more complicated.

  The lawful thing was to call the sheriff’s office and tell them what had happened. He figured they would believe his story: Dale probably had a rap sheet longer than the Missouri River. But Desmond’s record wasn’t clean, either; he’d been arrested in three states, mostly drunken brawls Orville had pulled him into. And Dale might have friends at the sheriff’s office—or folks who might put pressure on the case. Desmond had nobody.

  Calling the sheriff meant uncertainty, possibly being trapped in this place, maybe for a long time.

  Inside the house, he washed his hands and got his uncle’s truck keys. He backed the truck up, returned to the shed, and gathered what he needed: a tarp (which they used when the roof was leaking and they were too drunk to fix it), a shovel, a tank of gas they had used for the lawnmower, a bottle of Clorox bleach, and several unpainted oak planks they used to patch up the house.

  He laid the tarp out next to Dale and took Orville’s single-page will from the dead man’s pocket. Desmond had seen men die on the rigs, knew how long it would take rigor mortis to set in. His body would be like a spaghetti noodle for a while. For that reason, he laid several oak planks next to the man, then rolled the man and the planks together into the tarp. With the stability of the boards, he hoisted the roll up, set the end on the tailgate, and pushed it onto the bed.

  He scooped the blood-soaked dirt and grass into a five-gallon-bucket and capped it. With a handsaw, he cut away the blood-soaked portions of the shed’s planks, stuffed them in a sack, and tossed them on the back of the truck too. He stripped off his bloody clothes and tucked them inside the tarp.

  Naked save for his underwear, he returned to the house, washed up, put on a fresh set of clothes, and gathered his belongings, which barely filled the passenger side of the truck. The computer tower sat on the floorboard; the fifteen-inch CRT monitor lay facedown on the seat; and a bag with three changes of clothes buttressed the computer, making sure it didn’t move. He put the .30-30 lever-action behind the seat.

  He then went to Orville’s bedroom; he knew his uncle kept a pistol by his bed, an old Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. But when he opened the drawer on the bedside table, he stopped, surprised by what he saw. The pistol was there, but there was also something else: a slightly rumpled photograph. In it, an oil well towered behind a young boy of maybe eight—Desmond. Orville stood beside him. They were covered in dirt and oil. Neither smiled.

  Without a thought, Desmond reached down, took the photo, and placed it in his pocket. Then he quickly drew it back out, as if it had burned him. He didn’t want to wrinkle it.

  He returned to the truck and placed the photo in the glovebox and the pistol under the front seat—where it would be easier to reach.

  Inside the shed, he popped the hood on the Studebaker and started taking the tools out. A few minutes later, he moved a straight pipe wrench, revealing some of the safe. He dug more quickly then, soon revealing the entire face of it. Had Orville welded the thing to the truck? He probably had, making it impossible for a robber to make off with it without a tow truck. Smart.

  Desmond spun the safe’s dial to the three numbers in the will and turned the handle. When it opened, Desmond was stunned. He had never seen so much money in all his life. Stacks of green bills, bound in ten-thousand-dollar bundles, sat there like a mirage. Desmond reached out, held one as if making sure it was real. The safe also held the deed to the house, the truck, and a set of US Army dog tags with Orville’s name. Beneath those items lay a sealed envelope with a single word, written in rugged block letters: Desmond.

  He stuffed the dog tags in his pocket and ripped the envelope open. It was a letter to him, writte
n by Orville, dated a year ago. Unable to resist, he read the first line. He wanted to go on, to stand there and read it all, but he felt he should wait until he had time to process it. At the moment, all he could think about was getting rid of Dale’s body and getting out of town.

  He put the deeds and letter in the truck’s glovebox and returned with a sack for the money. To his astonishment, he counted out thirty-two of the ten-thousand-dollar stacks.

  Inside the truck, he pulled away from the home he had arrived at thirteen years before, after the tragic bushfire that had killed his family. He wasn’t leaving healed, but he was changed.

  He drove west on Slaughterville Road, turned off ten minutes later, and stopped at a gate to an abandoned ranch. He undid the wire holding it closed, pulled the truck through, and shut it behind him. He drove through a field, far away from the road and out of sight.

  He dug a pit next. He was drenched with sweat by the time he finished.

  He tossed Dale’s body in, along with his clothes and the bloody boards. He doused them with gasoline from the tank, waited for the sun to slip past the horizon, and tossed a match in.

  The smell of burning human flesh sickened him, reminded him of the elementary school where he had stayed with all those people burned by the bushfire. He thought of Charlotte as he walked away from the blaze, then he thought of Agnes, and finally Orville. The man had been mean as a snake. A hard man. But he was all the family Desmond had. Now he was gone.

  With the fire burning in the pit a few feet away, Desmond took out the envelope and read Orville’s letter.

  Desmond,

  Take the money. Don’t be careless with it. Respect it, invest it, and take care of it, and it will take care of you. I’ve been saving it my whole life. After you came to live with me, I got a little more serious about not spending every last cent I earned. The rest is the proceeds from your family’s ranch in Australia, which I have preserved in its entirety.

  I hope you leave and go far away from this place. There’s nothing here for a mind like yours.