“What happened to your dog, Jake?”
“I’d had her for years, she was slowing down a little, but was so loving and faithful, the poor old girl. She just disappeared one day, not long after the red death started.”
“How sad,” Tara could see it still upset the boy.
“I looked everywhere for her. I just missed that big, brown and white face so bad.”
“I seem to remember seeing a big brown dog around the winery when it was first being built,” Mary recalled.
Suddenly as Tara watched Mary’s face, Mary’s eyes grew large and she stared back at Tara, as though something just dawned on her.
What? Tara wondered, puzzled. Suddenly, she remembered the brown and white dog fur attached to the putrefying body in the graveyard. She laid her fork down, instantly sick at her stomach. Should we tell him? Jake noticed their silence along with the looks on their faces and asked what was wrong.
“Jake, we may know what happened to your dog, Caramel.” It was time to tell him the whole story, everything they knew. Tara, Mary and Lee began to describe the way this entire nightmare had begun, the graves, the sores and fibers, everything. Jake’s expression grew horrified, his face turning pale. When they’d finished, he sat staring at his plate. “Caramel,” he whispered. Tara saw him gather himself, trying to speak.
“I need to talk to you guys about something too,” he finally spat out. “I didn’t know how to bring it up.”
Tara had been wondering how to introduce the Morgan and Brenner subject later on, after dinner. She certainly hadn’t expected anything to come up like this. But it was a good thing, now that it happened.
“Anything, Jake. Now you know all we know. We had to trust you first.”
The look on his young earnest face stopped Tara in her tracks. Something even worse is wrong.
“I don’t quite know how to put this, but I already thought something weird was going on at the winery.”
“How so?” asked Lee.
Tara and Mary sat holding their breath, barely daring to believe Jake might have answers.
Jake held up his wine glass, turning it back and forth in the lantern light. “This wine, the wine that I brought tonight, wasn’t my first choice.” Everyone waited expectantly.
“Okay,” Tara said.
“I had another bottle picked out, a different type. And my boss came in just then and took it from me. He said those bottles were special grapes. He redirected me to another stack of wine, and told me to always use those bottles for my personal consumption.”
Tara stared at him, trying to understand what he meant and Jake continued.
“He told me they were special GMO grapes. He called them ‘the last for the last’.” Jake swallowed and it made a click in the still room.
“I think there’s something wrong with that wine.”
Tara shot a glance at Mary, then Lee. The weight of dread rose into her chest as visions of Julie drinking a glass at the party flashed in her mind. Then the bottle in Clyde’s basement came next. Clyde drank it, Julie drank it. She thought for a moment. Mary and I didn’t. But Lee drank it too.
Jake read her thoughts. “Lee and I drank the bottle I brought to dinner last time. From the stack I’m allowed to have.” He raised his glass again. “The same stuff we’re drinking tonight. They need me, so they wouldn’t give me the bad wine.” He sighed. “I’d heard rumors of a new disease. So it’s really true then.”
Tara began describing Morgellons Syndrome in detail; the suffering poor Clyde had gone through and now Mary’s daughter dealing with the same thing. The table grew quiet again. Jake was clearly astonished by all the revelations, and any small doubts Tara had about his loyalty disappeared at that moment.
“Brenner has rented trucks from the camp in a deal to deliver thousands of bottles from Old Town Winery and his other winery up north. They’re going to military bases and outposts all over the region starting this weekend.”
“My God. Could this be, Lee? Could he somehow poison the wine?”
“Not poison, Tara. They’re GMO grapes.” Jake told her. “I asked Morgan a little about them after Brenner told me. They’re genetically engineered with an agrobacterium. Somehow I think it’s connected to this new disease. They’re trying to kill what’s left of the world.”
Chapter 14
The five of them sat staring at Jake, trying to digest the idea that someone might actually want to destroy the small percentage of people left who had survived Ebola. It was almost incomprehensible. Scenes flashed at lightning speed through Tara’s head as she examined all that had happened, realizing that anyone who disdained human life enough to experiment with animal-human grafting would be capable of anything.
Jake picked up the bottle of wine to refill his glass then offered it to Lee. Tara gave Lee a look, and he pushed his glass away, declining. They all sat that way for a few minutes, saying little. Tara finally forced herself up to get the strawberries and shortcake, and she knew it was truly delicious, but it tasted like cardboard in her mouth. The others consumed it quickly, but quietly, the spirit of the evening decimated by Jake’s new information.
Just as they were scraping the last from their bowls, someone else knocked on the front door.
“Who could that be?” Tara got up to answer it and was surprised to see Luke standing there.
“Julie wants to see the house,” Luke said, shrugging as though he couldn’t quite believe it himself. Mary heard her son-in-law’s voice and appeared behind Tara.
“Oh Luke, she’s sick! She can’t go over there in her condition.”
“She says she feels a lot better, and insists she wants to. I think she needs something to look forward to.” Tara could tell Luke wanted to take her there. Maybe it might be good for her, at least for her emotional health.
Luke stepped inside and greeted Lee and Jake. “I’ll help get her there,” Jake offered. He had brought the winery’s diesel delivery van. He stared directly at Tara. “I want to go anyway. I need to see the graveyard.” Tara cringed, thinking about what lay buried there, and how Jake would react if in fact it was his dog, Caramel. Besides, in this warm weather, she knew the bodies would be even more decayed. She glanced at Lee and he shrugged, looking stoic.
Tara sighed and nodded. “We’ve got a couple hours until dusk, let’s do this now.”
Mary and Luke followed Jake out front to get Julie into the van while Tara cleared away the food. Lee told her he would finish up, and she kissed him goodbye. She found the others across the street gently lifting Julie in through the back. Little Ben climbed up front on Mary’s lap. Julie’s face was unmasked, and for a moment Tara panicked. Mary turned and caught sight of Tara’s expression.
“It’s not contagious, Tara, or we’d all have it by now. That’s what makes Jake’s story ring so true.”
She’s right. It really is in the wine. I can hardly believe it, but it’s true.
Tara noticed how much better Julie looked. The sores on the girl’s sunburned face were crusting over, less an angry red. This is fantastic, just like with Clyde, the treatment is working.
“Tara, I’m getting better. I’m healing!” Julie said proudly, her voice still weak but her enthusiasm obviously strong. “I can’t believe it’s from the wine,” she added softly.
“I’m so glad, Julie, I just knew this could work. Clyde would have healed too, if only…” Tara drifted off, not wanting to think about the method of his death.
Jake steered the van slowly down Clyde’s alley, cruising past Bethany and Craig’s house a few doors down. Julie tried to sit up so she could see her friends’ home, but Tara, on the floor beside her and Luke, told the young woman to rest, she could view it from Clyde’s backyard. “I’m going to have to stop calling it Clyde’s house, it’s yours now!” The big smile this brought to Julie’s face made Tara’s heart hurt. “By the way, Mary and I didn’t get around to cleaning your basement yet,” she smiled. “But I think that’s a moot point now.” No conta
gion meant no need to sterilize further. Although Tara immediately wanted to get rid of the half-empty wine bottle down there that had sickened Clyde.
Jake parked and jumped out, sliding open the van’s side door a moment later. Luke and Jake helped Julie out, supporting her on each side so she needn’t use much strength.
Julie craned her head around to see Bethany’s home down the alley. To Tara, her obvious interest signaled she was back among the living. After witnessing Clyde’s end, Tara knew Julie had believed she would die.
They helped Julie into her new kitchen, and her eyes shone with tears. “Take me to the sofa, please,” she asked. Luke sat her down and gently lifted her legs onto the couch so she could recline. “I love it,” Julie announced. Ben immediately began to run from room to room, happy as only a six year old turned loose in a new space can be.
Tara noticed the smile on Julie’s face disappear. Concerned, she leaned over. “Are you okay?”
“Maybe it was a little too soon to go out,” she whispered. Luke was instantly by her side, asking if there was anything he could get for her. “A glass of water,” she breathed.
“The water is beside the sink. I had just brought it from the river the night Clyde—Tara stopped. Anyway, it needs to be boiled. Clyde’s little burner is there too.”
Mary went in to help him.
“Actually, Julie, the house is set up and ready to move in,” Tara continued.
“I’d like to stay tonight then,” she said, “since we’re already here, I’d rather not make the trip back. I’m exhausted.” Tara understood. No time like the present, and Luke was there to help her.
Mary protested a little, but even she understood this was good for Julie. Mary kissed Ben goodbye after chasing him down, while Tara and Jake congratulated Julie and Luke.
All three left by the back door and Tara dreaded what was coming. She had simply blocked out the memories of the boy with animal parts sewed onto him, refusing to allow her thoughts to go in that direction each time they veered there. Now there was no avoiding it.
Jake parked the van down the road a little way, as Tara thought it safer to walk a distance so no one would see them drive up. They reached the field and the path that led back toward the forest. Jake scrambled over the deadfall easily, while Tara and he helped Mary down. Jake’s face shone with purpose and just a hint of something else. Fear maybe. Tara wished he didn’t have to see this. Perhaps it was his dog, but God knew it solved nothing to witness the poor thing’s terrible end.
Tara led the way to the mound with the young boy’s body. Mary and Jake watched as she took out her small trowel again, and began scraping at the area where the dog’s leg was attached to the child. A much stronger smell of putrefaction than before hit them full in the face, and Tara almost gagged. Jake put a hand over his mouth and nose, and Mary stepped back.
Tara gently exposed first the brown and white fur, then carefully scraped away the dirt to reveal the black line of sutures connecting it to the small child’s torso.
“That’s her. That’s Caramel,” Jake choked out. The sores on the child’s abdomen were darker now, as was his skin, which was sloughing off in spots. Tara scraped a little more soil away and maggots boiled up to the surface, spilling out onto the ground. Jake began to retch, running a short distance to throw up on the forest floor. Tara, one hand over her mouth, quickly recovered the abomination and hastily retreated, taking big gulps of fresh air. She’d held her breath as long as she could while at the grave.
Jake, still hunched over with his hands on his knees, looked up at Tara. He shook his head. “Dammit. There goes that delicious dinner.” He wiped the cold sweat off his forehead. “I can’t believe what I just saw. I know you told me, but I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe Brenner or Morgan could do something like that.”
“It could be Meyers for all we know,” Mary added. They made their way slowly back out of the forest.
“We had set a surveillance watch for tonight; Mary and I, with Craig and Bethany taking one slot, and the Collins’s taking another. I just realized Melanie will be arriving back at her office. I say all of us on duty for tonight’s watch go see her instead, and insist on opening the last barracks tomorrow night. We can ask everyone to get word to the Heinrich’s and Jenny, and to everyone else in our group. We can meet there tomorrow evening and get it done,” Tara told them.
Mary thought that was a great idea and so did Jake. “The watch shift meets at Craig’s at dusk, so it’s almost time.”
They drove back to Craig and Bethany’s house, and the Collins’s bikes were already in the front yard. Mary decided to run down and tell Julie and Luke what they were planning. “I’ll be right back,” Mary said, heading to Clyde’s old house.
Jake sat at the wheel of the van for a moment after Tara got out, still seemingly sick from what he’d seen in the graveyard. “I’ve got to return the van before they miss it, Tara. But I’ll be back over to the camp on my bike.” Jake drove off, and Tara went inside to tell Craig and Bethany the plan.
~
Tara was nervous as they all gathered up front in the former Kmart parking lot waiting for Melanie to arrive. It was the safest place to be out of sight of the barracks, just in case they were being watched from there. Tara didn’t want to chance being seen, especially now that they’d decided it was almost time to act. Tomorrow night, we are going to find out for sure what’s in there.
A caravan of white camp vans, headlights blazing, pulled into the far end of the parking lot and lined up near the plywood covered glass doors. The Collins’s bright red hair nearly glowed in the lights as Melanie stepped out of the passenger side of the first van.
She was startled to see Tara and her group of friends step out of the shadows. Tara greeted her, but wasted no words. As the other guards, nurses, and camp workers entered the building, Tara cut the small talk.
“Melanie, it’s time. We’ve uncovered a lot since you’ve been gone this week.” Tara began explaining how she had found the broken riding crop and the mysterious gate cut into the fence, with Mary adding the information Jake had given them, plus how they had been on continuous watch with no sign of anything unusual. The others jumped in when either woman left anything out, adding their own speculations. By now, the tale that had started as a short story was a War and Peace-sized novel, and it took a while to recount.
Melanie listened quietly until Tara finally finished with “and so we’ve decided we need to see inside that barracks, and we’re going in tomorrow night.”
Melanie sighed. “I’ve gone to each commissioned officer I could find on my rounds in Ohio. Every one of them was interested in this story, but no one felt they had the authority to open the barracks. Apparently their commanding officer, a colonel, is the only one that can give the order. And no one seems to know when they might see or hear from him again. So as far as I’m concerned, do it, break in tomorrow night. But please—you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Excellent. I think we are finally going to get to the bottom of this,” Tara breathed.
She suddenly noticed Mel’s sick expression as the woman wiped her forehead with one hand.
“The winery sent us nearly three hundred bottles of wine. I’ve been giving Morgellons to my poor patients,” Melanie said.
“Thank God we don’t drink,” Dave Collins whispered, and his wife nodded.
“We heard about them renting the vans this weekend to deliver wine to all the bases and outposts in the region. Thank God we found out in time. We can stop it here and now,” Tara said. “But first we have to find them, maybe catch them in the act. We have enough of us to act once we see what’s in the barracks.”
“If you would loan us a few more guards, Melanie, I feel we can safely handle anything thrown at us.” Craig told her. “I plan to go straight from the last barracks to the winery to make arrests if need be. And I’m hoping we can secure Meyers in the same trap,” Craig said. “The element of surprise is everything. That�
��s why we’ve kept it between just us few.”
“I understand. I’ll assign a couple guards to meet you here in front tomorrow night, but I’ll let you fill them in when they arrive. Less chance anything will get back to the bad guys.”
“They honestly don’t suspect anything, at least not from what I’ve seen,” Jake told her. He looked down at his boots, crestfallen. “Of course, I guess that’s not saying much. They probably killed my dog and I didn’t even know.”
“Never apologize for thinking the best of others, Jake,” Tara told him, jumping to his defense. He smiled at her, grateful.
Melanie was curious about Julie’s condition, and Tara explained the treatment regime so far. Then it was time to wrap things up.
“Okay, it’s all set then. Let’s leave here a few at a time to stay as invisible as possible. See you all tomorrow night at dusk, here in the parking lot. It should go without saying—bring your guns. And if anyone can spread the word to Norma and Chester, I think they’d be glad to be in the loop, even if they don’t want to participate in the raid.”
“I can head that way tomorrow,” Jake said. “They don’t really know me, so I’ll introduce myself.” Tara nodded and said goodbye to everyone. Craig and Bethany headed around the side of the building to the path up the hill. Tara wanted to give them enough time to get home before she followed.
They stood talking with Melanie, filling her in on Julie’s progress, Tyler’s condition since Tara had given him the antibiotic tea, and the amounts of honey and ingredients they would need to treat the new cases of Morgellons Syndrome.
Twenty minutes passed after Craig left, and Tara decided it should be okay for them to leave too. Jake had to retrieve his bike in the weeds along with Tara and Mary’s. They said goodbye to Melanie, and Tara led Jake and Mary back along the river quietly. It was full dark with no moon tonight, and many shadows to conceal their progress. As they started up the path, Tara glanced over to the last barracks, imagining what they would have to do tomorrow night.
Red Death (Book 2): Survivors Page 15