by B. C. CHASE
Bodies.
There were hundreds of bodies in the water, some face up. By their clothes, he could tell they were largely women, passengers and crew. The tell-tale fins of sharks were circling, their gray noses appearing to chomp at flesh. Birds were diving into the water or landing on them, pecking, tearing.
He followed the trail of corpses up to the ship and saw the source. Crewmen were wheeling loads of bodies in outsized laundry carts to the edge. They tossed them by their hands and feet onto a pile, where two pairs of crewmen were dumping the corpses overboard. Gruesomely, blood was seeping from the bodies and had stained the teak deck.
Suddenly frantic by the sight, Doctor Ming-Zhen searched the bodies individually for his wife’s or daughter’s clothes. His eyes darted from one to the next, one near-miss to another. Some of the ones far away could have been them, but he couldn’t tell.
As he gradually succumbed to the fact that it was highly unlikely he would spot his wife’s or daughter’s bodies, a disquieting question began to provoke him: Why the blood? This was a disease, not violence. Either there was a symptom of this plague that he had not witnessed, or something very disconcerting was happening. What were they doing to the bodies before they sent them out for disposal?
A voice suddenly echoed over the plaza, swearing, “What are you doing? Those are our wives and children!”
Doctor Ming-Zhen looked across at the other balconies. There were people there, mostly men, staring in horror at the scene. One of them was leaning far over, raising a fist.
Suddenly, there was a loud knock at the door. He spun around to rush inside. He peered out the peephole and saw a masked member of the crew. The man said, “Hello. Do not open your door. Is anyone inside?”
“Yes,” Doctor Ming-Zhen replied.
“Do you have any dead inside with you?”
“No,” Doctor Ming-Zhen said. “But I am looking for my wife and daughter. Can you—”
“We must purge the ship of the dead. Do you have any dead inside?” the man said.
“No, but could you tell me—” Doctor Ming-Zhen said, but stopped because the crewman was gone.
He heard some sounds like a concert and fireworks coming from the sliding glass door, so he went back out onto the balcony to investigate. He couldn’t believe the ship would be producing entertainment at a time like this. Once outside, the sounds were clearly distant, not from the ship. Another cruise liner, perhaps?
He continued to watch the constant stream of corpses being brought out and dumped unceremoniously into the sea. The ship had slowed dramatically, leaving very little wake at all.
He assumed that the waste furnaces were inadequate to deal with the problem, so the crew was faced with the dreadful choice of letting decomposing cadavers pile up, or disposing of them in the quickest means possible. They were dumping about five bodies every minute. That was 300 bodies an hour.
The sounds of some ferocious conflict began to echo up from below in the ship. A rebellion staged by some of the confined passengers, he suspected.
He suddenly noticed a light in the distant ocean, flashing. The cruise liner where the sounds of entertainment were, he assumed.
Why wasn’t the captain calling for aide?
From that light, another light rose above the sea, then grew closer and closer. Finally, he could make out the dark outline of a large helicopter. The outline diverged, and became two, then three, then four helicopters, rapidly approaching the ship. Doctor Ming-Zhen was impressed with their size when they reached the ship and hovered in four different positions high above it, fore, midship, and aft. They bore United States insignia. They lowered until he could see only one from his vantage point, and the one he could see dropped a cable with an armed soldier onto the deck. Five more soldiers followed and assembled to receive a large black case. Two of them carried the case by handles on either end through a sliding glass door into a restaurant and out of view. The others followed.
Doctor Ming-Zhen was relieved. Finally government was here to restore order and take control of the situation. He hoped that at least one of the other helicopters had medical staff. But that thought gave him pause. Something about these soldiers wasn’t right. An idea was itching him and he just couldn’t put his finger on it. The soldiers. Something medical.
What was he missing?
It was like having someone’s name on the tip of his tongue but being unable to say it.
After no more than thirty minutes, the soldiers reappeared, now carrying stainless steel tank-shaped objects. The helicopter lowered a basket into which they loaded the tanks, and, after those had been safely secured inside the copter, the soldiers themselves were raised up. With that, the helicopter veered up and away, accompanied by the other three.
Their black forms were slipping into the obscurity of distance, now heading for a different light than the one whence they came, when there was suddenly a blinding flash of white light followed by an ear-splitting blast. Glass everywhere shattered and the railing powerfully shook in his hands as a shock wave passed through the ship. He stepped back, feeling the vibration under his feet. The ship began to dramatically roll and he had to grab the railing to avoid falling back into the cabin. An immense fireball was rolling into the air from midship, rays of light casting blazing heat and ghostly shadows onto the decks below. The ship rolled back the other way, pressing him against the rail, before settling horizontally while embers and debris rained down. There was a brief moment of expectant calm before a thunderous din began to roar from midship.
He entered the cabin through the now-shattered glass doors and stood there for a moment assessing the situation. He suddenly felt dizzy before realizing that the floor was almost indiscernibly beginning to list, the balcony lowering and the door to the hallway raising. A continuous rumble rattled the art and mirrors on the walls.
He walked to the closet and retrieved a life jacket. After buckling it on, he collected two more, for his wife and daughter.
In case they were still alive.
Then he flung open the door to the brightly illuminated hallway.
An incredibly loud blast caused the floor to shake and had Donte reach for a chair back to stop himself from falling. Some of the others in the theater were sent sprawling to the floor, including his mother. “Momma!” he shouted, rushing to her side. As he and Bao helped her up, she touched her forehead where she was bleeding a little.
The passengers stood in disorientation while a thunderous rumble began to shake the theater, the stage lights trembling. Exclamations of alarm filled the air, the terror palpable. The ship slowly rolled to one side before rebounding in the other like a gigantic cradle.
“What now?” Donte’s mother said. “Sounds like the ship exploded. If we’re going to sink, they had better,” she shouted, “OPEN THESE DOORS AND LET US THE HECK OUT OF HERE! I’m not gonna be trapped down here like no Titanic!”
“Actually, I think this would be more like the Lusitania,” Donte said.
“What?” his mother replied incredulously. “Seriously? I’m glad you do good in school but now is not the time.”
A mob was starting to form at the doors. Panic was setting in.
Hsin-chu Province, Taiwan
The hair of Gary's neck bristled. The red dot of the targeting laser was right between Stacy's eyes. He only had a second to act.
He jumped on her, slamming her down toward the slope to the left. They tumbled down the ridge, their bodies bruised by stones and stumps along the way. The cracks of the weapons echoed behind them. When they reached the bottom, he pulled Stacy to her feet and dragged her up a valley, following a waterless creek bed. They ran as fast as they could, stung by the branches of the bushes and trees. He stooped to pick up a sharp stone as he ran. To the left was a blanket of large, thick ferns. He shoved her into them, whispering, "Hide!" Then he disappeared into the darkness of the bushes.
From his hiding spot among the ferns, Gary could see the soldiers as they crept along the cre
ek bed. There were five of them, and they were alert to every sound, their black-eyed faces looking chiseled; so chiseled they almost looked like skulls. One of them knelt down to examine the tracks in the mud. It gazed directly at Stacy's position. Gary threw his stone with all his might, striking it squarely in the temple so it toppled to the ground. Like lightning, he burst from the bushes, a large sharp stick in his hand. He shoved the stick into the eye socket of the nearest soldier, sending it toppling backward to the ground. Jamming the stick again into its head with all his weight, he grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger, firing on the other three. They collapsed one by one. For good measure, he fired on the soldier whose head was crushed by the rock and then killed the one whose gun he had stolen. Suddenly, a sixth soldier emerged from the trees. Gary tried to fire, but the gun clicked. Empty. He drew a strapped knife from the dead soldier's leg and rushed upon the approaching one, stabbing it in the neck before it had a second to react.
After a moment's pause, he stood fully, his chest heaving, and dropped the knife. Stacy gingerly stepped out of the ferns. As if startled, he swung around to face her, his eyes fierce and frightening.
She said, “Sweetie?”
He blinked, closed his eyes for a moment, still breathing heavily. “There is something very strange about those soldiers, don't you think?”
“I'm was thinking there’s something strange about you. I mean I know we haven’t been around each other a lot the last few years, but when did you turn into Rambo?”
“My family is in peril. That's enough to make anyone Rambo,” he smiled cheekily.
Gary and Stacy walked silently for miles until they came to the edge of the forest where terraced rice paddies stepped down to a small village. Beyond was the curving coastline. They could still see the huge billowing blaze in the mountains far down to the left, and it seemed to have grown. On a small island out in the sea, a huge inferno blazed furiously and enormous storm clouds swirled out, producing constant lightning and a steady thunder rolling. And then there was the same streak of smoke. Beginning to wade through the rice, he said, “I think Qiōnglín must be this way.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because the mountains are in the center of the island. So if the coast is on this side and the mountains are that way and I think that is east, then we are heading west.”
“How far is it, do you think, to Qiōnglín?”
“I don't know. A ways.”
“Where is it?”
“On the west coast.”
“And where are we, exactly?”
“I don't know, I just said I think we're going the right direction."
Stacy stopped walking through the paddy. "So we're just walking along without a clue where we're going?"
"No. We know where we're going."
"Shouldn't we go into this village and ask for directions?"
Gary swung around, "Ask for directions? We don't need directions."
"We don't know where we are, we don't know where we're going, and we don't know how to get there. I think we need directions."
"No. Let me correct you, dear. We don't need to know where we are, we know we're going to Qiōnglín, and we know that to get there we must go west."
"I'm going to get directions."
"How?"
"I'm going to go to that village and ask: that's how."
"I don't need help, Stacy."
"I didn't say you did. But I do. I'm cold, I'm wet, and I'm tired. I'm not going to wander around the mountains until we find Qiōnglín!"
"It's much too risky."
"Oh, please."
"Do you know Chinese?"
"No," Stacy said, marching through the rice and sliding down a mud step.
"Then how do you plan to ask for directions?"
"Motions."
"And what if they tell the police? I think we look pretty scary. I would call the police on us."
"You're just too proud to ask for directions."
"If directions were a necessity, I would have no compunction about asking. But we do not need directions."
"I'm asking, with or without you," she said as she stomped away.
"Fine. When the soldiers come after you, I'll be in Keeling rescuing our son!”
She stopped and turned around. She asked vulnerably, "Are you coming with me or not?"
He tilted his head, "Of course I'm coming. I have to look out for you no matter how stubborn you are."
"Then you should take off that jacket. It has blood stains on it."
"Ah. Good idea." He dropped the garment in the rice grass.
They did not need to ask directions to Qiōnglín when they made it to the village. From the signage, they could tell that they were already in Qiōnglín.
On a piece of paper in his pocket, Gary had the address of the pastor they were to meet, and they were able to locate the place relatively simply by pointing to it and asking people on the street.
The door to the concrete house opened, bathing Gary and Stacy in warm light. The man who answered was about five feet two inches tall, wearing a red and white striped polo shirt and jeans, and had the beginnings of a mustache of black hair. Resting on his broad nose was a pair of small, circular spectacles. He immediately smiled, saying "Gayee, Stacy? Come in—it cold outside!"
“Thank you!” Gary and Stacy exclaimed as they followed the man into the house.
“My name Chiang-gong,” the man said.
The room was sparsely furnished, but the man indicated a couch. As they sat down, two small children peered from around the doorway of a darkened room. A woman appeared from around a corner and shook hands with them. “Welcome! I Mei-Xing,” she said. Then she asked, "You want eat?"
Gary and Stacy nodded enthusiastically.
The woman stepped away to the kitchen and began preparing food. While she was doing so, Chiang-gong sat across from them and asked, "You need go Keelung? You son there, in trouble?"
Yes,” Gary replied.
Chiang-gong nodded, “We happy help.”
“Thank you,” Gary said.
Mei-Xing brought out water in two glasses. Gary and Stacy drank thirstily.
“You plane late, you take taxi?” Chiang-gong asked.
“No, our plane crashed,” Gary explained.
“Crash?” the man exclaimed. Then he nodded knowingly,
“Must be astroid.”
“Asteroid?”
“Astroid fall from sky! You not see fire?”
Gary exclaimed, “Yes, we landed near the fire. We didn't know what caused it.”
“Yes, yes! Asteroid fall everywhere. In China and Taiwan. Most explode in sky. Some crash land. People die. Some places suffer much destroy.”
After they ate a watery noodle soup and some seaweed-wrapped rice cakes, they cleaned themselves up in the bathroom. Mei-xing, showed them the children’s room where they would sleep the night.
Gary and Stacy lay in silence on the floor mats. Sleep eluded him. He impatiently wished they could have proceeded directly to Keelung to look for Jeffery, but their host thought it best to go in the morning, and Gary ultimately concluded it was best to follow the lead of the local. As the night dragged on, he was terrorized by intermittent visions and nightmares of Jeffery in a lab being probed and injected, his own hands slicing the child’s brain open as he was alive, screaming up at him.
In the morning, they had a breakfast of steamed bread and Chinese omelet with a soy shell. Then, Chiang-gong kissed his wife and children goodbye. He led Gary and Stacy out the door to a small, square, four-door vehicle painted bright turquoise. The man unlocked it and Gary opened a back door for Stacy. Then he walked around to sit in the front seat with the man, who started the engine. Mei-Xing and the kids had followed them out, and now she gazed at her husband in a parting farewell as he released the emergency brake and started out down the gravel road.
Highway
Stacy slept in the back as the car sped down the raised highway. Her hair
was pulled back in a ponytail, but strands fell across her cheek. Gary watched her sleep. Her wedding ring caught the light of the moon.
Gary looked out the window. To the right, the mountains were black against the horizon, fog forming at the bases, the edges of the slopes tipped with gray. The sky was just beginning to hint at the approach of dawn. Ahead was the silhouette of the seemingly endless cluster of concrete that comprised Taipei.
As they neared the city, the smog decreased visibility. The man asked, "How old your son?"
"Two."
“Mine six year and four year,” the man smiled. “What his name?”
“Jeffery.”
“They take him for genes?”
“Yes. I believe so.”
“You have plan to take him from Preseption Logic?”
Gary shook his head.
“We pray for you.”
“Thank you,” Gary said.
Apparently Chiang-gong could tell Gary wasn't totally comfortable with talking about prayer, and he said, “You have belief?”
“I go to church. Now and then.”
“But you not believe?”
“I cannot believe in a loving God when this world is so terrible. When you think about viruses that kill people in unimaginably horrible ways. A loving God and this world just don’t go together. A creator, perhaps, but loving God, definitely not.”
“Are you perfect?”
“Huh?”
“Are you perfect person?”
“Well probably not.”
“Then you don’t deserve a perfect one.”
“Maybe not, but nobody deserves to die because of a horrific disease like Ebola. If God created this world, he also created Ebola.”
“You not understand how evil we are. We are so evil we all should be punish and destroy forever.”