She saw Mary’s mouth form an astonished O. They drew alongside the vines, and with the shadows between the rows, it turned black as pitch not three feet from them. There was no movement there now. Tara shuddered, a sudden chill shaking her.
She turned left at the next side street and headed back toward her house, trying to talk herself out of what she’d seen. Mary followed, asking the same question over and over, but Tara didn’t answer. She just wanted to get away. As soon as they got out of range, Mary quizzed her one more time, and this time she answered.
“Why did you think it was Meyers?”
“I don’t know. Something in the way he stood there, the way he moved—that thick neck; the same height and stance—just some indefinable thing.”
“It couldn’t be, Tara. He’s long gone.”
“I know. I guess it could’ve been Brenner, the owner. I’m looking forward to meeting him now. I’m assuming he’s a big guy, at least he is from what I just saw if that was him.”
The women pedaled home, and Mary said goodbye at Tara’s back yard. Mary must have seen she was even more disturbed than earlier, and tried to reassure her.
“Don’t worry yet, Tara. Clyde’s a tough old bird. We’ll check on him first thing in the morning. And Melanie’s class is at six, remember. She may have an answer on how to treat him.”
“I pray you’re right.” Tara hoped the old man rested tonight; sleep was one of the body’s best defenses, a natural method of healing and recuperating. Maybe the fibers are just some weird fluke, maybe they mean nothing. She tried to rationalize they weren’t what killed the bodies in the graveyard. But that was pretty hard to do. Somehow, they looked like Guinea pigs to her. Tara’s guts were twisting and the pain from her Crohn’s was flaring. Too much stress again.
She took a deep breath, opened the back door and willed herself to face Lee. She had to tell him what she’d seen. Tomorrow was a new day, and Melanie was smart. She’d treated thousands of patients over her career. A bit of hope began to bloom in Tara. Maybe Melanie will know what’s wrong with Clyde. She pushed the stitched-up body parts from her mind, able to handle only one horror at a time.
~
Tara perched crookedly on her bike seat waiting for Mary again, one foot on the ground holding herself up. Mary wobbled closer, an apprehensive look on her face as she pulled alongside. The bike thing is really giving her problems. At another time, Mary’s ongoing struggle would have been comical, but ever since they’d checked on Clyde earlier that morning, Tara had been upset. All she could think of was the old man’s misery, how he drifted in and out of delirium. Sometime during the night, Clyde had been incontinent, too weak to make it to the bathroom. His shame at this during his lucid moments hurt Tara’s heart, and she had tried her best to reassure her old friend that it was nothing.
She and Mary cleaned him up and found a stash of adult diapers to help with the problem. Clyde’s fever had subsided a bit, but most of his sores were now fully formed and open, oozing a clear liquid. Several clearly contained dark and light fibers coiled within. Clyde’s eyes had widened at the sight of Tara and Mary with masks over their noses and mouths, but they reassured him it was only a precaution.
“As soon as class is over, I want to check on him again,” Tara told her as they left. Mary agreed and they rode the back way down the country road to the camp.
At the bluff overlooking the river, the women left their bikes in the field. The path was too steep to ride down, and they knew the bicycles would be safe there. Just as a precaution, they laid them down in the waist-high weeds, rendering them nearly invisible. It wasn’t fear of things being stolen any longer as much as fear of survivors helping themselves to whatever they thought had been abandoned by previous owners.
They descended the hill toward the camp, walking the plateau that ran along the river beside the Kmart building, on around to the front doors. Tara felt slightly more relieved since Clyde seemed more lucid. Maybe he would be okay.
Inside, the main entrance there were several long tables set up, lined with boxes, bags, jars and containers. These were the food-swap items for the evening.
Tara and Mary headed over immediately to see what they could trade for. Mary removed the large Hen of the Woods mushroom she’d decided to swap, and Tara pulled out her fresh hosta shoots wrapped in tinfoil, and a big container of daylily tubers. She had a small rectangle Tupperware full of flour held in reserve in her knapsack.
A few people had already gathered inside, and Tara noticed Mr. and Mrs. Heinrich, an elderly couple who lived on a small farm on the outskirts of town. They were nice people whom she had met at the very first teaching class. Mr. Heinrich was knowledgeable in agriculture and had given a lot of good advice to them all. The older couple walked over and Tara greeted them.
“Hello, Norma! Hi, Chester!”
The old man smiled and stuck his hand out and Tara shook it, and then hugged the small woman. Mary followed suit, and turned back to the food table to check out the items up for grab.
“I’m glad to see you both. I hope you’re as well as you look,” Tara said. She glanced around and leaned in to whisper to Norma. “I brought some flour to trade tonight. I know you mentioned you’d like some.”
The woman’s face lit up. “Ooh, that’s good. I thought you might want to trade for my chicken legs. I put up quite a few of them last year, and I know you’re short on meat.”
Excited at hearing this, Tara immediately pulled the container of flour out and handed it over to Norma. The woman pointed toward the table of items. Two quart mason jars full of chicken meat sat there glistening in chicken-y goodness. Tara now wished she’d brought more to trade with.
“Will you trust me for another batch of flour next time I see you and let me take both jars? I’d really like to have those. We haven’t had chicken for a long time.” Tara’s stomach was already growling.
Norma nodded kindly. “Yes, Tara, go ahead. You’d better grab them before anyone else gets dibs on them first.”
Tara moved quickly back to the long table and pulled the jars of chicken toward her. “Wait till Lee sees these,” she told Mary. Tara carefully placed them in her knapsack, which sagged under the weight.
“I’ll bring her some flour, Tara, if we can split the meat,” Mary told her. Tara already planned to share the chicken with Mary’s family anyway, so she agreed. They mostly took communal meals together, it was just easier with more people to help forage and gather food.
People were trickling into the Kmart now, a few civilians from around their area who had survived, as well as some of the camp workers whose shifts were finished. Tara knew some of them; Bethany, a young woman in her twenties with dark hair and glasses who wore a consistently shocked expression but never said much; Craig, a former body builder type turned camp guard; the Heinrich’s; and another youngish couple whose names escaped Tara, but the woman’s bright red hair was only a shade darker than her husband’s. All in all, about twenty-five people attended the classes Melanie had recently begun. Many more camp workers took turns coming every other week, trading shifts to be able to go.
Julie and Luke strolled over, and Tara hugged each of them and brought up the pregnancy news. “I never got to formally congratulate you guys back at the house. I’m glad we have something good to look forward to.” The young couple was beaming, and it did Tara’s heart good to see it. Their joyful faces pushed away Clyde’s illness and that awful fear that hadn’t really left her since she’d found the graves. The terrible feeling it generated was still there, but somehow the thought of a new baby and other more positive things helped keep her anxiety manageable. The young couple wandered off, hand in hand, looking over the food table with their new friend, Bethany.
“Well la-de-da. Look, Tara,” Mary whispered. The kid, Jake, from Old Town Winery walked in through the front doors struggling to carry a large box.
“Good. I’m going to invite him over to the house to eat, Mary. We may get to use those stairs
yet.” She laughed and put her little finger to the corner of her mouth in her best Doctor Evil imitation.
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner,” Mary recited wryly, obviously assuming the newly acquired home-canned chicken would be put to good use on Jake.
The women mingled and traded hellos among the survivors who had gathered, keeping one eye on the food table to see what each person contributed. A bag of black walnuts, a good source of protein in their current heavily-vegetarian diet, made Tara’s mouth water. She hoped to trade the hosta shoots and daylily tubers for them. They watched Jake set the big box on the food table. It was a case of wine. Survivors crowded around, each offering their own meager food stores in trade for a bottle of temporary alcohol oblivion. Julie and Luke lined up with the rest. Jake made the transactions, and within five minutes, the case was gone. She saw Julie happily cradling her bottle like a newborn baby. Tara caught Jake’s eye as he turned to face them, and with a slight smile he headed their way.
“Hi, ladies, I’m glad to see you here.” Jake looked at his shoes, seemingly embarrassed. “I want to apologize for our first meeting. I think I came off a little strong.”
Tara shook his hand, and this time, Mary did too, his apology apparently breaking the ice that had formed after their first meeting.
“That’s okay, Jake. We understood you were just doing your job.”
“I was, but I could’ve been a little nicer about it.”
Tara noticed Mary’s stern expression had definitely softened. “I thought we were gonna have to fight you there for a minute,” she said gruffly. The young man laughed and visibly relaxed. It was just as Tara suspected; he was a bit gung-ho about his responsibilities, but an okay kid underneath it all.
“I’m glad to see you, Jake. I want to invite you to dinner soon, like this coming Sunday?” Tara patted her knapsack, which was so heavy her shoulder was starting to hurt. “Chicken,” she added.
“That sounds awesome!” Jake smiled. He pointed at the now-empty case of wine. “I’m here tonight in an official capacity actually—Mr. Brenner finally wants to throw that party he was talking about. It’s Saturday night at eight. We’re probably the only winery preparing to operate in the state right now, maybe even the country. So it’s time to start marketing the business. We’ve been providing the camp with cases the past few weeks—nothing better for your health than a little vino!”
“That’s great!” Tara glanced around at the happy smiles of people literally hugging their bottles of wine. “And if the demand here is any indication, I’d say the winery is going to do well!”
“We’re readying to ship product now, Mr. Brenner is lining up available delivery
systems.”
“Fabulous. Can we bring anything to the party?”
“Only if you want to, otherwise he’s just planning on having wine and cheese.”
Cheese! Tara’s stomach growled at the thought. They hadn’t tasted cheese in almost a year. Mary looked at her, eyebrows raised.
Cheese. The magic word.
The fresh jars of peanut butter from the disinfected house sprang immediately to Tara’s mind. “I’ll bring my ghetto peanut butter fudge, everyone might enjoy that.”
Jake said he’d see them later, and moved among the crowd, inviting one and all to the wine and cheese party. It obviously excited the others as much as it had them, because the buzz of conversation filled the cavernous room. A party brought back memories of the old days, and everyone longed to be as close to that sort of nostalgia as they could. It was a good feeling.
Just then Melanie walked in, but not at the front entrance—she came through the side door, from the barracks out back. Tara had just a moment to think it odd. All eyes fastened on the plump, dark-haired, middle-aged nurse who had saved most of them—the very sight of her instilled hope in them all.
Melanie held both hands up, palms out, and with a grim expression, locked eyes one at a time with nearly everyone in the room. Seeing Melanie’s demeanor, panic rose in Tara’s throat as she waited for her to speak.
“Everybody please put your masks on.”
Chapter 6
The room reacted with stunned silence. The pause stretched out and then people began digging into pockets, purses, and backpacks for their masks. The table against the wall also held a large box full, and a few folks moved quickly to get one. The more stringent sanitation rules had fallen by the wayside since the worst of the Ebola virus had died down in the population, but everyone still knew the drill.
Tara pulled hers from her pocket, her eyes never leaving Melanie. What is it, what’s happened?
Melanie looked pale and unsure of herself. This was as anathema to her usual self- confidence as a bikini at a white tie gala, and it scared Tara badly. Melanie seemed to immediately assess the reaction her announcement had made and the level of fear it provoked. She gathered her composure to fix things.
“Don’t panic. A few new cases of Ebola have arrived, that’s all, and I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
Tara watched Melanie deliver the line, but something didn’t ring true. The rest of the room broke out in a relieved buzz of conversation, but Tara moved to Melanie’s side hoping to discover the true story –what was really going on. Mary and Julie also casually sidled up, having caught the same vibe as Tara. They all knew Melanie too well to ignore her odd demeanor, so totally out of character for the usually unflappable nurse.
Tara drew Melanie aside as the rest of the room adjusted their masks and mingled. In a whisper, she cut the small talk and zeroed in. “What is it, Melanie? Because we have some stuff to tell you too. We discovered something buried on the bluff above the river. And our friend Clyde has suddenly come down with a strange illness.”
Melanie stared at them, adjusted her own mask, then turned to survey the others in the room. “Hang on. I need to take you all out back and show you something.”
Melanie strode to the middle of the floor and clapped her hands twice. “Everybody proceed to the upstairs office where class was held last time. I’ll join you in a few minutes.” The crowd moved slowly down the aisle toward the narrow stairs, talking and laughing amongst themselves, appearing nearly anonymous behind their masks.
Melanie led the way to the side door of the enclosed compound. “Tell me what you found. And what are Clyde’s symptoms?” she asked this over one shoulder, walking fast with Tara, Mary, Julie and Luke following quietly. Tara and Mary told the story, relaying all that happened; finding the graves, the horribly mangled bodies with the insidious fibers coiled under the skin. Melanie listened, nodding occasionally, all the while leading them to a barracks partway down the long row. Tara explained how sick Clyde was, how the fibers had just developed in several of his sores.
They arrived at the wooden door to the locked barracks, and Melanie pulled a key from her pocket. She stopped, hand on the latch, and turned to look at Tara and the others.
“Secure your masks, don’t touch anything.”
Both puzzled and apprehensive, Tara and the others adjusted their mouth coverings and followed Melanie inside. A large room filled with many beds greeted their eyes, but only a few held patients. Melanie pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and walked over to a bed against the wall. Tara had a moment of fear as she realized they were in a contagious ward.
“Are these active Ebola patients?” she stage-whispered to Mary. Mary and Julie both nodded.
“Don’t touch anything,” Mary whispered back, repeating Melanie’s orders.
Tara stuck her hands in her pockets to be sure she followed this. Mary motioned them over and they gathered around the bed of a small woman in her mid-thirties. She appeared unconscious, or perhaps sedated. Her face was covered with red bumps. Melanie gently lifted the sheet covering the petite figure. Tara shrank back in horror at the running sores covering her midsection, between her bra and panties. Raised rivulets ran under her pale flesh, some ending in sores where red and blue fibers emerged. Her white skin clearly showed the
coils and strands that lay nearest the surface, the other ends terminating somewhere deep within her epidermis. It was horrifying.
Melanie re-covered the poor woman, and they slowly backed out of the room.
“Oh my Lord,” breathed Mary, “just like in the graves.” Tara wiped cold sweat from her forehead and Julie leaned against Luke. Melanie pulled off the gloves and tossed them in the barrel outside the door, then locked it behind them.
“I think three other cases showed up today. I sent them home to rest, to see what develops. I have no idea what this is.” She dug in her pocket. “Here, Tara, I can spare a little steroid cream for Clyde.” She handed a small white tube to Tara, who thanked her gratefully.
Julie stepped away from Luke. “Melanie, what were the rumors about the experiments down at the end of the row? I told Mom and Tara about the man who ran through the camp. What do you know?”
Melanie’s normally soft expression hardened, her brown eyes turning steely. “A few of us saw a doctor—not often, rarely in fact—more like a quick glimpse late at night of a figure in a white doctor’s coat. Sometimes it would be early in the morning as they were bringing the bodies out to burn.” Melanie paused, thinking, as they began to walk slowly back to the main building.
“He never seemed to come out during times when a great number of us were gathered. It became almost an urban legend after a while, a mysterious non-presence. Lots of speculation, but no one knew for sure. And no one could account for who he might be either. And believe me, after the man with the missing arm and sewn shut eyes, we paid attention. There were a handful of us who weren’t in Meyers’s pocket. We were the only good guys.”
Tara knew that at that time, Meyers had complete military control of the camp. It would’ve been hard to walk that fine line, balancing survival with being killed for knowing too much. But somehow Melanie did it. Her compassion became a convenient public face for the camp, and that’s why Meyers wanted her alive.
Melanie went on. “When the Marines came for Meyers, none of us could’ve picked this doctor out of a line-up. He was only spotted twice I think, after the time I saw him. No one knew what he looked like—just a shape in the dark in a white coat. He may not even have been a real doctor.”
Red Death (Book 2): Survivors Page 6