Redaction: Extinction Level Event (Part I)

by Andrews, Linda

  Sunnie could die.

  Everyone could die.

  She stepped into the hall and ran into a wall of muscle. David. With her nose buried in his chest, she recognized his scent immediately.

  “You okay, Doc?”

  “Come with me.” She blinked away her tears, set her hands on his chest and pushed him backwards.

  He resisted for a moment before retreating against the wall.

  “What about my water?” Sunnie’s question dissolved into a coughing fit.

  Mavis stopped. Crap. She’d forgotten about the water.

  “The Corpsman is a little delayed but he’s bringing some cherry punch.” David’s shoulder brushed hers as he stepped into Sunnie’s room. “It has electrolytes so it should help with the thirst.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mavis rubbed her forehead. God, she was such a horrible caregiver. First Jack, now David had to step in for the littlest things.

  He reached into his pocket, tugged out a bottle of cough syrup and plastic fork. “This should allow you to get some rest.”

  She threw up her hands in defeat. How could she compete with a man who carried cough syrup in his pocket? “You were probably a Saint Bernard in a previous life.”

  “I’m good at the small stuff.” He cupped her elbow and escorted her down the hall. Light cut a square on the wall. “And that will allow you to do what you do best, concentrate on the big picture. It’s called teamwork, Doc.”

  “Sorry.” She flinched. Bitching and guilt were just two of her superpowers.

  “No problem.” He tugged her hair. “You’ve solved the mystery, haven’t you?”

  She slapped her head and gathered her hair in a ponytail over her shoulder. “How did you know?”

  “You’re glowing.” He tickled her neck.

  “I’m sweating.” She shrugged and increased her pace. “My fever’s high and my brain is trying to keep cool while I fight the infection.”

  “I thought you only sweated when the fever broke.” He matched his steps with hers.

  They turned the corner. Her great room blazed with lights. Shadows swayed against the floor.

  A growl rumbled low in her throat. She was not in the mood for company. “Lots of people think that. Doesn’t make it true. Who’s here?”

  “Your faithful minions.” He released her and paused, increasing the distance between them. “Some of the men are sick again.”

  “Yes, they would be.” Mavis nodded but kept her gaze on the white-tiled floor until her eyes adjusted to the bright lights. Stepping out of the short hallway, she glanced around the great room.

  In the kitchen, General Lister coughed into the crook of his arm. The Commander of Luke Air Force Base sucked ice from the red plastic cup in his hand.

  By the arcadia door, two other men and one woman, each with a shiny caduceus pinned to their lapels, glared at the tablet in her hand.

  Mavis cleared her throat. “Gentlemen and lady. Before you begin your questions, I wish to know how many of you have flea bites.”

  All of them raised their hands.

  She took a steadying breath. Of course all of them would have bites. They were out on the lines with the fleas and rats. Fortunately, not all were sick. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to see them.”

  The Marine and airman commanders exchanged glances.

  David shifted to stand beside her. “I only have one.” He tugged the shirt from his waistband. Pink skin ate at the edges of the brown scab.

  Pink and brown. A normal bite. Mavis raised her hand before curling her fingers and forcing her hand down to her side. No touching. “And you’re not sick, correct?”

  “Nope.”

  “Now see here.” The male doctor on the right broke away from the medical trio. His black hair stood in spikes on his head. “We know what bug bites look like.”

  Mavis ignored him. Doctors and their egos. “General, you’re sick. May I see your bites?”

  “Will it help get a handle on this damn disease?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  Lister shrugged out of his jacket then rolled up his sleeve. His forearm was covered with bites. Most were the expected brown and pink. A few were red and black. “I’ve been treating them with the ointment like you said.”

  Mavis crooked her finger at the doctors. “Please examine his arm.”

  The males glanced at it before frowning at her.

  The woman medical officer took a moment longer before nodding. “The pink and brown are from an uninfected bite whereas the red ulcers are from fleas carrying the Plague bacteria. Both respond to the triple antibiotic ointment.”

  Her reasoning was sound. Too bad it was flawed. “Have any of you swabbed the bites?”

  “No point to it,” The spiky haired doctor sneered. “USAMRIID is two months behind in processing.”

  “Three months.” The woman shrugged. “I sent five samples on the plane that has been providing your jump drives.”

  Mavis smiled. At last something had gone her way. Rubbing her hands together, she crossed to the dining room table and set her thumbs on the biometric lock of her laptop. “Give me your sample numbers.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” The woman tugged the computer tablet from Spiky Hair’s hand and focused on the screen.

  Lister cleared his throat and began to roll down his sleeve. “How does this explain what is going on?”

  Spiky Hair snapped his fingers. “You’re going to check the bug’s resistance. That would explain why the antibiotics aren’t working and our people are getting sick again.”

  “We don’t have the time.” Mavis opened her laptop. The screen blinked to life. She clicked on the US AMRIID link. She entered her password and waited for clearance. The female doctor slipped the tablet along the table until it stopped next to Mavis’s hand. She typed in the case numbers. “If I’m right, those relapsing will be dead within thirty-six hours.”

  “Dead!” Lister shouted. “What the hell works that fast?”

  “Inhalation anthrax.” Mavis’s announcement blanketed the room with silence. Using her clearance, she requested the eight-hour presumptive anthrax test and the longer confirmatory one on the five samples. After opting for a phone call with the results, she closed the window and brought up Homeland Security’s website.

  Lister sank onto the back of the sofa. “Every soldier has been vaccinated against Anthrax.”

  “Not everyone has had the six shot series or the yearly booster.” Mavis slipped through the security portal and brought up the bioterrorism monitoring stations located throughout the valley. “The National Guard usually only receives the first couple of shots while on active duty.”

  She met David’s gaze. He must have had the entire series not to get sick. Please let him have had all the shots.

  He shrugged. “I was regular military before I joined the Reserves. I’ve had the full series plus my annual boosters.”

  The Air Force commander stepped forward. “I’ve had all my shots and I’m still sick.”

  Lister raised his hand while coughing. “The same.”

  “The vaccine has never been tested against Inhalation Anthrax in real life, only in a laboratory, in a controlled environment.” Mavis clung to the theory. A few anomalies would not destroy a perfectly good working hypothesis. “It would explain why the soldiers recovered.”

  The female doctor reclaimed her tablet computer. Her fingers flew over the screen. “The first victim had three shots. The second had the whole series. Ditto with the third. And the fourth.”

  “Skip to the deaths.” Mavis pushed her laptop until the screen was face-up. She tapped the air monitoring station closest to Luke Air Force Base.

  “No vaccine for fatality number one. Or two.” She cleared her throat. “Two for victim three.”

  Numbers popped up on Mavis’s laptop. She enlarged the detail under Anthrax for the last month. Monday and Tuesday recorded spikes in the thousands. The numbers had been slowly dropping since. But t
hey were still high enough to kill every man, woman and child in the Valley of the Sun. Maybe the rest of the state as well.

  “Son of a bitch!” Lister clutched his head. “Why didn’t anyone tell us?”

  “We still have cattle around the valley. So a few hits aren’t that unusual.” Mavis clicked on the asterisk by yesterday’s reading. “They thought the high readings were a malfunction and took it out of service until it could be repaired.”

  Lister raked a hand down his face. “Cattle did this?”

  “I think this is the real Ash Pneumonia.” Mavis closed out the screen. She had enough proof to go to Miles. “Monday brought the cold front down from the North. That jet stream passed over the fires in China and brought it here.”

  “Monday was the day the public gathering ban was lifted,” David whispered. “And the civilians have never had any shots.”

  Every serviceman and woman focused on Mavis. She felt the ball of ice in her chest. “I’ve had my shots. Sunnie…hasn’t.”

  “We’ll take care of her.” David stroked the back of her hand. “She’ll get better.”

  Lister rubbed his jaw. “Was it a deliberate attack from China?”

  Mavis shrugged. That was the million-dollar question. But too many had died to make this into a grudge match. “I don’t know. But I think they burned their cities to stop the spread of Anthrax, not the influenza. Our outbreak is probably an accident.”

  David cleared his throat. “If they burned the bug, why is it here?”

  “Anthrax spores are extremely hardy.” Mavis checked the clock on the corner of her desktop. Five-twenty-nine A.M. Seven-twenty-nine on the East coast. Miles should be up. She activated the video-conference link. “Ask the British. A hundred years ago they played with biological warfare on one of their islands. After the exercises ended, they tried to cleanse the island with fire, formaldehyde, you name it, they tried it. The bug lives on. I believe they still have standing orders to shoot anyone who dares step onto the island.”

  Spiky Hair plucked the tablet from his associate’s hand. “According to the CDC, Anthrax can incubate for up to forty-five days before symptoms emerge. The healthy could actually be infected.”

  Mavis sank into her seat. And since the ash would continue to drop out of the atmosphere for years, the disease would keep hammering at the planet until everything and everyone on it was dead or dying.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  David followed General Lister onto Mavis’s front porch. “Sir, if I may have a word.”

  The Marine adjusted his hat on his salt and pepper hair while staring across the cul-de-sac. “I’m getting some chow before heading out. Walk with me.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Catching the security door before it slammed, David eased it back in to the jamb. While Mavis kept trying unsuccessfully to raise the Surgeon General, Colonel Williams from Luke Air Force Base had disappeared along with the three medical officers. Mavis’s announcement about the Anthrax had just made seizing all the nearby stores of Cipro a priority.

  Across the street, army locksmiths opened the doors of Mavis’s neighbors. An old man gestured north, before pointing to the handheld tablet of the Lieutenant accompanying him. The old man looked familiar. Was he on one of the delivery routes?

  “Sergeant Major?” General Lister thumped his open palm against the leg of his uniform.

  David jogged down the walk to join the Marine on the driveway. “Sorry, Sir.”

  “Damnedest thing.” Lister tugged a pair of sunglasses from his pocket. “Anthrax attack on our soil. Leave it to the Doc to pick that up. But given her background, I suppose it’s natural she’d identify it first.”

  Her background in the Weapons of Mass Destruction program. He shuddered to think what her husband had to protect her from during those deployments to hostile countries. Made this outbreak seem like a day at the beach; a beach with minefields and an enemy laying down suppression fire.

  David nodded to the soldiers they passed as he and the general headed out of the cul-de-sac. Gray smoke drifted in clumps down the street. Everywhere people coughed. Most weren’t in uniform.

  A woman in a short skirt limped in one red pump. A grungy teenager’s untied shoelaces slapped the blacktop. Two small children clutched each other’s hands. An old man wore a dress shirt, tie and boxers. An older woman hobbled with her walker, the blue curlers shivered in her hair. Behind them staggered an elderly man in a suit with knifepoint creases in his pants. A barefoot preteen in a pink rock star tee shirt and black jeans trailed him. A chubby toddler in nothing but a diaper slept in a soot-stained soldier’s arms.

  Even with the medicine, only three of them had a chance at survival. Three. How did God decide? David avoided their gaze and focused on the signpost. He couldn’t think about it or all day long he’d be counting to seven.

  Lister paused at the corner. “I don’t believe this outbreak is an accident Sergeant-Major. Not for one minute. This was a premeditated attack.”

  A truck lumbered by. The pearly morning light shone on the ghostly faces staring back at them. Vacant eyed, faces bleached by ash and a hacking cough. More temporary survivors.

  Lister turned right, angling deeper into the neighborhood. “Mention that to the Doc before you leave for your rounds. You are still leaving, aren’t you Sergeant Major? Those supply lines will be the only thing giving us a shot at survival.”

  “Yes, Sir.” David followed him off the sidewalk and onto the street. The smell of bread and cinnamon laced the smoky air.

  Staging explosives next to the curb, demolition teams from all branches of the service as well as a handful of firemen poured over electronic maps. A paper-thin silver solar charger provided the computers with electricity despite the weak sunlight.

  He had to get one of those. Their handheld was nearly out of juice. “We’re planning to depart at zero-nine hundred. We’ll need a solar cell for our GPS.”

  “Hell, Sergeant Major, why didn’t you say so? See the Gunny at the supply tent.” He gestured to a Marine standing in front of a truck. He glanced from the laptop he balanced in one hand to the trio of doctors standing before him. Tacked on the canvas, a thin sheet of silver rippled in the breeze behind him.

  “Thank you, Sir.” David veered away from the general, heading for the gunnery sergeant.

  “One more thing, Dawson.”

  David stopped and turned about. Although politely worded, he recognized an order when he heard it. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Make sure you pick up food for the Doc.” Lister pointed to the double line of servicemen heading into the next cul-de-sac. “We’re all counting on you to give her something to live for if her niece is one of the seven fatalities.”

  Son of a bitch. Mavis didn’t need anyone even thinking Sunnie might not make it.

  And he didn’t want to even consider that Mavis wouldn’t make it.

  Lister cocked an eyebrow and waited for an answer.

  “Yes, Sir.” David saluted. He didn’t really have a choice. None of them did. Inside Mavis’s big brain, she’d already worked out how they were going to survive an anthrax plague and nuclear holocaust. She had the answers that none of them had probably even thought of questions to.

  She was also more fragile than any of them knew, more affected by the loss of her husband and son than she let on. And now, everyone in the valley pinned their hopes and dreams on her. Even if they didn’t know it, Mavis did. In unguarded moments, he’d seen her shoulders bow, heard her tired sighs and watched the doubts creep into her eyes.

  He’d be there to shoulder the burden.

  She just had to let him in.

  Given the way she’d shut him out with Sunnie, sneaking in under her defenses might be impossible.

  ***

  “Damn, Big D.” Robertson intercepted David before he reached the corner of Mavis’s cul-de-sac. A few of the civilian women snapped out of their shock to watch the brawny man strut. Pulling down his mask, the private grinned then winked at them. �
�I thought you had a big helping of flapjacks and fake eggs, but now you went back for more.”

  Clutching the disposable forks in his hand, David balanced a plate of scrambled eggs and toast and a small bowl of oatmeal. “These are for the Doc and Sunnie.”

  “Heard the Doc’s niece was sick.” Robertson fell into step beside David. “Is she as fine as the rumors say?”

  Rolling his eyes, David stepped off the curb. “She’s sick, Private. Sick.”

  As for rumors, he should probably track the gossipers down and shoot the next person who started up. Mavis didn’t need the grief.

  Robertson shrugged. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this Big D, but there’re a lot of soldiers and not too many hotties. Thought since you know the Doc, I might have an in while the rest of the goobers drool on the sidelines.”

  David ground his teeth together. Had he ever been that young, stupid and horny? Probably. He was a soldier. “That’s a dick in your pants, Private, not a moral compass. You lead; it follows. Not the other way around.”

  “I know that, Big D.” Robertson stuffed his hands in his pocket. “I just wanted a peek. After seeing a woman with bed head, well, anything else is bound to be an improvement.”

  David stopped on Mavis’s porch. “Let me explain this in small words even you can understand. Sunnie is an Ivy league school and you’re a junior college, if you’re lucky.”

  “She’s got that much class, huh?” Robertson opened the security door.

  “And then some.”

  Robertson rested his hand on the handle of Mavis’s front door. “Thanks Big D. She sounds perfect for me.”

  The private had the brains of cinderblock. “You going to open that door?”

  “Yes, Sergeant Major. But I thought you should know, we’ve checked the Marine’s nifty Doo-dad.” Robertson pulled the handheld out of his pocket. “We’ve got survivors heading north. Lots of them. Could be Wheelchair Henry and the kid, Manny, leading the bunch.”

  He flashed the screen at him.