H10N1

by M. R. Cornelius

Rick’s face lost the rigid lines of anger. His eyes showed no pain or sadness, his lips were still. She didn’t kid herself that perhaps he understood how hard she had tried, that he might absolve her of the guilt. He had merely learned how to block his emotions, just like she had.

  But one thing she understood now—he hated her and he hated the CDC.

  Why should he be different from anyone else? All over the world, people united against the CDC, the World Health Organization, any medical entity that had tried to arrest this current pandemic and failed. Cell phone towers shorted out from overload. Tweets spewed rumors 140 characters at a time. Blogs spread hysteria faster than the virus itself. In the end, the Internet crashed. According to one of the techs at the hospital, the problem was routers. They directed the flow of information traffic to the right address or destination, and they diverted data when a connection broke. But there was so much information traveling along the superhighway that the routers couldn’t redirect the data fast enough. Traffic backed up into jams so big that data was just electronically discarded.

  It wasn’t overload that killed television. It was simply a lack of manpower. As cameramen, floor crews, and even on-air personalities succumbed to the virus, stations cut back on broadcast time, and eventually just faded to black. Underground radio stations grew popular, with anarchists spewing hate, like that shock jock in New York who incited the riot in Central Park. And the clown in Geneva who told listeners on his shortwave radio that he was going to the World Health Organization headquarters and set himself on fire. He became an instant cult hero. For what?

  Rick drove on autopilot, going through the motions of zigzagging around the few cars on the highway. Sooner or later, Taeya believed, he would put her out. Hopefully, near a car with keys.

  He passed a sign for the Skyline Parkway, and it seemed to snap him out of his preoccupation with the tragedy. He hit the brakes and backed up. She actually unbuckled her belt so he wouldn’t have to order her out of the van.

  To her amazement, he turned onto the Parkway and kept on driving. A big brown road sign welcomed them to Shenandoah National Park. They were immersed in forest almost immediately. And she couldn’t help noticing there were absolutely no other cars on the scenic two-lane road. Was Rick going to put her out in the wilderness?

  She reached for the map book he’d reviewed with Lily, and looked up Virginia. The Skyline Parkway wove down the state, linking up with the Blue Ridge Parkway in Waynesboro. She followed the line on the map to the southern border and had to flip to North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Parkway went all the way to Asheville.

  Taeya hated to admit that Rick’s plan was brilliant. The military had limited resources, so if they decided to pursue him to recover their van, they would probably concentrate on major highways. Who would think of searching a scenic parkway along the top of a mountain range?

  She wanted to compliment Rick on his strategy, but he was busy compartmentalizing his grief into manageable sections. She remembered how much effort that took.

  When Randall was killed, she learned how to divide and conquer all those feelings. Rage was simple enough. She let it out whenever she felt frustration. She snapped at co-workers, she turned a deaf ear to patients who whined too much, she beat herself up for letting Randall get into that van. She even delivered elaborate tirades to his ghost for his stupidity. After a while, she just got weary from the rage and it went away.

  Loneliness wasn’t that difficult either. Before Randall came into her life, she’d always been on her own.

  But the pain, the memories—those were the toughest. They’d come at you from out of nowhere. She’d be standing in line to buy a bagel, and suddenly Randall would pop up, complaining that people didn’t wash their hands before they handled food. Or she’d see a silver-haired man up ahead, and catch herself walking faster, trying to catch up.

  Memories hurt the most, and they were the hardest to contain. It took determination to tuck them deep down, and vigilance to keep them there. Rick’s memories had gotten loose, and he was fighting a terrific battle to get them back in their cages. She left him to his task.

  They’d been riding along in silence when Taeya saw an old stone tunnel through what was called Mary’s Rock. Rick pulled up to the opening and stopped. The clearance marker read twelve feet, eight inches.

  “How high is the van?” she asked.

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Twelve feet, four inches.”

  She knew the clearance was for the top of the arched tunnel; the sides were lower. Could Rick squeeze through the middle? Probably not. She shot a glance in her rearview mirror to see where he could back up.

  “We’re not turning around,” he snapped.

  As he eased closer to the tunnel entrance, Taeya held her breath, waiting to hear the crunch when the van hit the rock arch. Rick rolled down his window, then opened his door and made a point of sticking a gun in his belt before stepping onto the open windowsill to get a closer look.

  After he climbed back down, he disappeared along the side of the van. Taeya decided not to push the surgical mask. Instead, she crawled over to the driver’s seat to see what he was doing. He was at the back wheel, taking off the air valve cap. He was going to let some air out of the tires. She fought the temptation to ask how far they could drive with under-inflated tires.

  When he came back to the door, his top lip curled away from his teeth so she hopped back into the passenger seat. He turned on a small monitor in the dash console and called up the schematics for the van’s tire pressure. Then he was gone again.

  Skittering from wheel to wheel, he’d let out some air, then stand back to see if the van was low enough. Now why couldn’t he just ask her to help?

  Once Rick was satisfied that he had clearance, he drove slowly into tunnel. At one point Taeya heard the AC unit on the roof scrape along the tunnel ceiling, but it didn’t sound like it got knocked off. At the far side of the tunnel, he hopped out.

  She felt like a kid tagging along. When he turned on her, she drew up short, then showed him the gun in her waistband. What was he going to do? Order her to stay in the van?

  Rick blew a lot of hot air, but she didn’t imagine he could fill four tires. The next thing she knew, he was crawling under the van. He came back out with an air hose.

  She couldn’t help laughing. “Are you kidding? They put an air tank under there?”

  Rick snarled back, “They’ve made a lot of modifications since your old man got whacked.”

  Now why did he have to be so malicious? Sure, he’d lost a wife; she’d lost a husband. For the rest of their lives, they’d both be encountering people with a story to tell. Rick needed to learn some tact.

  “Why didn’t you just leave me back there with Bobby Ray and Lily?” she asked.

  “I’ve been asking myself that same question.”

  She thought about reminding him that he’d given away her transportation, but another thought niggled in the back of her mind. Why hadn’t he left her?

  She could have ridden with Bobby Ray and Lily to Cape Charles and gotten a job on staff.

  More significantly, she wondered why she hadn’t thought of that particular alternative. Maybe because the idea of subsisting in one of FEMAs canvas tents or temporary trailers didn’t hold the allure of the accommodations in Arizona. If she got that far.

  She chased away her doubts with a flip of her hand. “Well, that’s water under the bridge. So why don’t you fill me in on your schedule so I understand what the rush is all about.”

  He turned and cocked an eyebrow at her. “I’m expected at the D.C. Center at eight a.m. But the last couple weeks, I’ve been showing up late, so they won’t start worrying until maybe eight-thirty or nine. D.C will call New York to see what time I left. But Roger won’t know. So they’ll dick around, maybe think about rewinding the videotape. That could take until noon, if I’m lucky.”

  “But then they’ll see both of us getting into the van and know what’s goin
g on.”

  For almost sixty seconds, he’d been civil. She knew it couldn’t last. Just like clockwork, his demeanor turned nasty again. “I was supposed to be on the parkway by six, but with all your bullshit finding a car, and then stopping to play Mother Teresa—”

  “Hey, you wanted to help them as much as I did.”

  “—I’ve only got about a two and a half hour lead.”

  It took a second for Taeya to follow his train of thought. “Because they’ll come looking for you.”

  “Yeah, right. I’m such a valuable employee.”

  “I mean the van.”

  “The brilliant doctor has figured it out.”

  “But the last place they would look is on the Blue Ridge Parkway.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  “And you disabled the tracking device.”

  He threw a hand in the air. “Jesus, no wonder you make the big bucks.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Rick expected Sanchez to make some snarky comeback, but she heaved out of her seat and went to the back of the van. He could hear her rustling around, but she had her back to him, so he couldn’t see what she was doing.

  A few minutes later, the aroma of food filled the van. Damn, what he wouldn’t do for a nice plate of beef stew. When he was fixing that meatloaf for Mountain Boy and his first cousin, he’d been tempted to help himself to a bite.

  Sanchez dicked around in the back for a couple more minutes before she came back with a hot plate of something. Rick waited for her to sit down and eat it right in front of him. She held the plate right under his nose to torture him. His stomach growled.

  “You’ve been driving all night,” she said. “You’re starving. Why don’t you at least let me drive while you eat? Then if you think I can be trusted, maybe you can get a couple hours’ sleep.”

  He didn’t need her help driving. He had this trip planned for a single driver and that’s what he was going to do.

  Her hip cocked out to the side like women do when they’re pissed. “Don’t you ever get tired of being Mr. Macho?”

  Two hands gripped his stomach and wrung it tight. That was exactly what Michelle called him. Mr. Macho. He was getting waterboarded with all these memories.

  His energy just seemed to drain away. And Sanchez made it worse by waving that hot food in front of him again.

  “Fine.” He pulled over and let her drive. But he never took his eyes off the road while he tore into that meatloaf.

  After a couple miles, the Doc settled in. “This isn’t much different from a med-evac truck,” she said. “A little tricky on the curves, but hey, no traffic.”

  Fighting the urge to lick the last of the gravy off the tray, he set it on the floor and opened the bottle of water she’d given him. His eyelids drooped, and he kept slugging water to stay awake. At one point his head jerked and he knew he’d dozed off. Hopefully, the Doc hadn’t noticed.

  He woke with a start again, completely disoriented because his seat had been reclined all the way back. Wiping drool with one hand, he fumbled at the seat lever with the other. According to his watch, he’d been asleep for over two hours. Sanchez looked over and smiled.

  “Have you seen any choppers?” he growled.

  “No.”

  “Were you looking?”

  “Every chance I got,” she said dryly.

  He dug into a small compartment for the National Park Services map of the parkway. “Where are we?”

  “I saw a sign a little ways back for James River.”

  Unfolding the map, he started at the top and trailed down. Damn, she’d gone a pretty good distance. “So we’ve got another two hundred fifty miles. What’s your speed?”

  “Sometimes I can get up to fifty-five, but usually more like forty-five.”

  He checked his watch. Five hours. They were almost on target for his designated stop and it would still be light out. It didn’t seem possible.

  “So, you hungry?” Rick asked.

  “I dined on some meatloaf a couple hours ago. Remember?”

  No, he didn’t.

  “Oh, what?” she cracked. “I’m not allowed to eat before your royal highness?”

  Why did she always have a burr up her butt? He rolled out of his seat and went in search of a granola bar and more water.

  As soon as he was back in his seat, she started jabbering about seeing deer grazing along the side of the road. And how she’d love to check out some of the trails along the route. Then she was off on some story about camping in Yosemite when she was a kid. Her mom and dad and brother had hiked a trail that zigzagged down the face of a cliff.

  “And did you all sit around the campfire at night, hold hands, and sing Kumbayah?”

  Her head tilted to the side. “Now what brought that on?”

  “Let me tell you about the only road trip I ever took with my family. My grandmother died and left an old beat-up Buick LeSabre to my dad, but he had to go get it. So he loaded up four kids and my mom and dragged us all to Cincinnati. We didn’t have any money, so we all slept in the car at a rest stop. My mom made bologna sandwiches from this huge pack she toted in a cooler. The whole way there, my mom and dad screamed at each other. We didn’t play games or sing songs. We all just sat like little statues in the back seat, hoping my dad wouldn’t turn around and whap one of us in the head.

  “When we got to Cincinnati, my dad knocked on the front door, demanded the keys, told his stepfather to fuck himself. Then we turned around and drove back to Utica.”

  “Wow.”

  Rick lashed out. “And don’t give me a bunch of crap about how sorry you are. The only reason I’m telling you this is so you’ll realize that not everybody’s life has been peaches and cream, okay?”

  He watched Sanchez shut down like his sisters used to do whenever their father was around. Muscles in the face relaxed to show no expression, the eyes blank and focused far away. Why had his old man been so bitter? It wasn’t like he’d lost his wife and a beautiful baby boy. Maybe he was mad because he did have a family holding him down. One thing was certain. His dad lived his whole life as an angry son-of-a-bitch. Is that what Rick would end up doing?

  No doubt the Doc was calculating how many miles to Asheville, where she could find her own car and get as far away from him as possible.

  Rick drove the last couple hours, stopping for the night at a large tunnel in an area called Little Switzerland. Driving all the way through to the far side, he parked where he could see out but it would be difficult for a chopper to see in. He had no idea how long the Army would search, or how wide a grid they would set. Or even if they had the manpower to try. But he’d be damned if he’d get caught now, after all the bullshit he’d been through.

  Sanchez hadn’t said a word all afternoon, just stared out her window at the passing scenery. As soon as Rick turned off the van, she grabbed her gun and opened the door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  She barked like some grunt in the military, “To take a walk, SIR!”

  Then she slammed the door.

  Swell. He slung the M-16 over his shoulder and hopped out.

  The woman was off like a shot and Rick had to trot to catch up with her. He expected her to tell him to buzz off but she never broke stride.

  He had to admit it felt good. His muscles were tight, his back ached. She picked up the pace, swinging her arms, rotating at the waist.

  The road curved ahead. “Let’s not get too far from the van, okay?” he said.

  No reply. But when she got halfway into the curve she circled back. At a stand of trees, she stopped. “I need to make a detour here.”

  “What?”

  He got the head-tilt that was becoming familiar.

  “Oh, okay.”

  He was getting the call, too. Probably that meatloaf at lunch. “I’ll meet you back at the van.”

  He took off to find his own grove of trees. The van’s portable toilet didn’t offer much privacy. Not with two pa
ssengers.

  Once Sanchez climbed back on board, Rick rummaged through cases for two packs of beef stew. There was an awkward moment when they met in the middle of the van. He wanted to get up front to close the shutters. She said she wanted a bottle of water. They kind of danced around each other, leaning away to keep from getting close.

  The steel shutters for the windshield clanged and Sanchez jumped. Then she wandered up front to watch the smaller shutters enclose the side windows.

  “Nice.”

  He refrained from pointing out that her old man would probably still be alive if his mobile unit had had shutters like these.

  “Yeah,” he said. “This baby even has covers for the wheel wells. Keeps the riff-raff from tampering while you sleep.” Rick demonstrated by turning the switch that lowered the wheel shutters. One of them made a whining noise as it dropped. Crap. Now he’d have to check that in the morning.

  After she finished eating, Sanchez picked up the park service map. “So, are you taking the parkway to the end, or just to Asheville?”

  “Asheville. I want to start heading west on Interstate 40.”

  Rick tossed his empty plate in a small chute behind the passenger seat, then unlatched the cot on the right side of the van and folded it down. A mesh pouch held a pillow and blanket. He turned on an overhead light like they have on airplanes, just to demonstrate it for Sanchez.

  While communing with nature back in his grove of trees, Rick had decided that maybe he was a shit. Did he really think Sanchez was personally responsible for Richie’s death? He’d been trying to punish her like he thought she did, ever since she’d climbed into the van.

  The weird thing was, when she brought all those memories crashing down on him, he was glad to see Richie again. Like running into a long-lost friend you haven’t seen in ages. Maybe people were right—talking about a loss helped. But it was kind of like ripping a band-aid off your leg. You know it’s going to hurt like hell.

  Sanchez opened her own cot across from him and sat Indian-style with the map book in her lap. Maybe it was time to cut her some slack.