by Tom Abrahams
Another person in a lab coat appeared on the screen. “We are working diligently to find the common denominator amongst the immune. But so far, nothing. As the bacteria continues to change its makeup and new strains materialize, that effort becomes more difficult.”
Video of sick people fills the screen and the anchor begins speaking again. “Hospitals, clinics, even funeral homes are overwhelmed and cannot handle the incredible numbers of people who are dying. Some cities have turned to burning bodies at landfills rather than let them accumulate at morgues.”
The visual on the screen cuts to an aerial shot of a massive fire burning on top of what looks like a large hill. The camera zooms in to reveal the hill is a pile of bodies, smoldering and burning in the flames and heat. It then switches to a split screen of various cities in various states of collapse: a mob scene at a shopping center, masked gangs tossing rocks into the storefront of a big box store, a riot-gear-clad police force fending off protestors. “But maybe more troubling than the deaths of so many people is the collapse of local governments and lack of first responders,” said the anchor.
“Idiots,” Marcus mumbled to himself. “Why in the world would you put yourself in a densely populated area when a single cough could kill you?” The more he watched, the less he judged. The people were desperate. They were panicking. They weren’t prepared.
He looked over at his wife and took a deep breath. Preparation hadn’t saved her. It hadn’t saved their son. He was no better off than the desperate idiots roaming the streets, looking for food, water, and medicine. Marcus wiped Sylvia’s forehead with the damp washcloth and turned back to the screen.
The anchor looked down at some notes on the desk. “Joining me now is Professor Chris Blayney of Georgetown University. He is an expert in public policy and crisis management. Professor, it seems the infrastructure in so many large cities around the world has collapsed rapidly. Why?”
The professor was wearing a surgical mask. His voice was somewhat muffled. “The catabolic collapse of society is poorly understood. Whereas one complex civilization may survive a sudden or prolonged shift in its economic or social model, another may implode almost instantaneously. There is the well-known Tainter theory. It was proposed some fifty years ago and suggests that complex societies break down when increasing complexity, or stresses, fail to continue benefitting the population.”
“Can you dumb it down for us, Professor Blayney?” the anchor said off camera.
“Okay.” The professor adjusted the mask on his face. “There are some key things which keep order. If they don’t exist, society collapses. And it can happen quickly. Those things are resources, capital, waste, and production. They create a chain that binds a society together. If any one of them, or all of them, weaken or disappear, the chain breaks. Society breaks.”
“What happens next,” the anchor posed, “for those who survive?”
The professor blinked and then looked straight into the camera. “That’s grim,” he said. “Other entities, groups, or individuals seek to fill the void. They forcibly seek to reestablish the chain.”
“Anarchy?” The anchor appeared on the screen beside the professor.
“Or worse,” said the professor. “We’ll likely find areas that fall under rogue rule. It’s happened in destabilized places all over the—”
Marcus turned off the television. He didn’t need to hear any more. He’d been in those destabilized places. He’d seen the chaos. Marcus Battle knew what was coming and he didn’t need a genius professor at Georgetown to tell him about it.
The world, as he knew it, was over. It would devolve into a place where the worst in people was revealed and the worst of people took control.
He resolved he would not become a part of that world. When Sylvia died, and he knew from the cadence of her breathing it would be only hours before that happened, he would isolate himself. No television. No Internet. No connection to hell. He couldn’t do it again.
His fifty acres was his. He’d build his own world within the fences. He’d stay home.
CHAPTER 18
OCTOBER 14, 2037, 7:40 AM
SCOURGE + 5 YEARS
TEXAS HIGHWAY 36
CROSS PLAINS, TEXAS
His posse was at the intersection of Highways 36 and 206 in Cross Plains. A long ago abandoned Dairy Queen sat on the northeast corner. The faded sign still advertised burgers and ice cream.
“You ever have a Blizzard?” Queho asked a grunt riding alongside his right. He nodded toward the sign.
The grunt shrugged, a confused look on his face. “I guess so.”
Queho sat higher in the saddle, straightening his back. “Either you have or you haven’t. I mean, boy, if you had a Blizzard, you’d know it.”
The grunt nodded. “I had it before.”
Queho’s eyes widened. “What flavor?”
The grunt pulled his collar up around his neck. “Butterfinger.”
“Yeah.” Queho nodded, a smile spreading across his face. “Butterfinger. Good one. I liked that one. I always got the candy stuck between my teeth. Same with the Heath Bar.” He picked at his teeth with his finger. “Not worth the effort.”
The grunt kept pace with Queho. The caravan was traveling more like an amorphous pack. The town’s wide streets accommodated the disorganization as the posse clopped along. Queho was so preoccupied with Dairy Queen, he didn’t notice.
“I always got the chocolate chip cookie dough,” Queho said, licking his lips. “Oh, that was good. And remember? They’d hold it upside down?” He held out his hand to pantomime a Dairy Queen clerk holding a cup of ice cream upside down. “That way you knew how thick they made it.”
The predawn chill was giving way to the sun. There was a fog blooming on the road ahead leading south and east toward Rising Star. Off to the left were the remnants of a used-car lot. The sign, which read Bi-Rite, was crumpled and rusted on its ends. It hung crooked on a mangled chain-link fence. An overhead power line drooped low to the ground, the large pole on the corner sitting in the ground at forty-five degrees. Queho pulled a canteen from his saddlebag and popped it open with his thumb. He took a long swig and pointed the canteen toward the dealership. The lot was cracked, empty of cars, and overgrown.
“I miss cars too,” he said, adjusting his club foot in the stirrup iron. “I’ve only been in a car once since the Scourge. It was like floating on air.”
The grunt’s eyes stayed on the portable reader board as they passed it. It was missing all but a few letters. “You been in a car since the Scourge?”
“Just the once,” Queho said. “Leather seats. Nice air-conditioning. I opened the vent all the way and cranked the AC to max.” He closed his eyes and lifted his chin, imagining the cool breeze.
“I ain’t been in one since…I can’t remember, really,” said the grunt. He grabbed the horn of his saddle and adjusted his lower back against the cantle. “I can’t remember what it was like to have a lot of stuff before the Scourge.”
Queho opened his eyes and turned to the grunt. “Like what?”
“Electricity.”
“We got electricity,” corrected Queho.
The grunt shook his head. “I mean, like, real electricity. What we got comes and goes. You never know when it’s gonna be there. One second the lights are on, the next they’re off.”
“That’s true.”
“I miss the TV,” said the grunt. “Streaming video. Binge-watching shows. I miss that. New music. When’s the last time you heard a new song? I can’t remember.”
Queho nodded and looked out into the fog. The blanket was thickening on the horizon and it was rolling closer to them as they moved east and slightly south along the highway.
The grunt snapped his fingers. “I also miss pizza delivery. If I got hungry after a bender, I could call and get a pizza delivered.”
Queho wasn’t listening to the young grunt. His attention was up ahead. It was increasingly difficult to see as the fog billowed. The sun hadn�
�t yet heated up the air enough for it to dissipate. It felt as if they were swimming in the opaque mist. He and the grunt were at the front of the pack. Queho looked over his shoulder. He could only see three others.
“You miss pizza?” asked the grunt.
Queho slowed his horse and eased back toward the rest of the pack. As he did, more of them emerged from the haze: six, seven, eight, nine. He could see all of the posse now. They were plodding along in the relative silence of the early morning, only the rhythmic clop of the shoed hooves on the asphalt giving away their numbers.
The grunt appeared beside Queho. He seemed oblivious to the lack of visibility.
“I liked anchovies,” he said. “I think it was the salt. It always—”
Crack!
The familiar loud clap of a rifle shot ripped through the fog, slugging the young grunt in the center of his forehead, whipping his neck. His body fell back and then lurched to the side before he fell from his perch. His right foot was stuck in his stirrup as his horse leapt forward, its ears flat back against its head and it squealed with fear.
Crack!
Another shot was followed by a short moan and the sound of a man falling to the dirt. Horses squealed and reared.
Crack!
“My arm!” one of the men called. “Son of a—”
Crack!
The man cried out and fell silent. His body hit the ground with a thud masked by the sound of squealing horses. By now the cacophony of squeals and roars was almost deafening as they bolted from their rough formation.
Queho held his reins tight and tried to control his horse. He struggled against its fear and it shook its head wildly. The horse bucked and strained against the reins, galloping north of the highway and into the weed-laden dirt and mud.
Other horses moved in the same direction, kicking up a spray of mud from the previous night’s heavy rain. The splatter blinded Queho as his horse raced north. The further away from the highway they traveled, the denser the fog.
He dug his spurred heels into the horse’s sides and pulled back on the reins as hard as he could, coaxing the spooked animal to calm down as they crossed a cracked and pitted street adjacent to a grouping of trailer homes and sheds.
“Whoa!” he ordered and the horse stopped. It shook its head and snorted. Queho looked around. He could hear the snorts and blows of other horses, but he couldn’t see much more than ten feet in any direction.
Queho’s heart was pounding, his mind racing. In the years since the Scourge, nobody had ambushed them. Nobody was bold enough or stupid enough to try it.
Queho dismounted and tied his horse to the remains of a rotting wooden fence. He pulled a Browning shotgun he’d tucked underneath the saddle’s billet straps and fender.
He guessed he was a good quarter mile from the highway. He’d be better off walking back and hiding amongst the buildings or waist-high weeds. He’d present a lower profile the attackers wouldn’t expect.
He marched through the weeds south toward the highway and came across two grunts. He told them to dismount, grab their rifles, and join him on foot. They obeyed without question.
“Who you think it is?” one of them asked Queho as they stomped through a water-filled gulley intersecting their path.
“Hell if I know,” said Queho. “But they got three of us already. That leaves seven. Keep your heads on swivels. Don’t let nobody get behind us.”
“But they hit us from the front,” the other grunt commented.
Queho stopped and grabbed the grunt by his collar. The brim of his hat bent against the man’s forehead as he pulled him close. “Don’t. Let. Them. Get. Behind. Us,” he growled. That’s your job now, grunt. You got it?”
The grunt nodded and stumbled back when Queho released his grip.
Queho grabbed the crown of his hat and adjusted it on his head. He wiped some mud from his cheeks and then grabbed the Browning with both hands. “Let’s go. When we get close to the highway, turn left and head east. We need to use the grass for cover. We don’t know how many of them there are.”
It never crossed Queho’s mind the attackers were, in fact, one man. And that man was the killer he knew as Mad Max.
***
OCTOBER 14, 2037, 7:47 AM
SCOURGE + 5 YEARS
TEXAS HIGHWAY 36
CROSS PLAINS, TEXAS
Battle adjusted the night-vision goggles on his head. Sweat made them uncomfortable around his eyes, but the heat signature they provided was invaluable.
He’d considered using the rifle scope on Inspector, but the intensifying fog made it useless. He’d managed to fire a couple of accurate shots off the shoulder without his eyes on the sight. That third shot had drifted on him, and Battle had to waste a second bullet on a single man. He blamed it on the fog and the rationalization that the Browning he’d nicknamed Lloyd wasn’t as accurate as the semiautomatic Inspector.
It didn’t matter. As best he could tell, he’d tagged three of them. He guessed there were a half dozen left. Though he’d tried to count them before opening fire, they were clustered such that the signatures blended.
Battle pushed himself from the roadside culvert in which he’d set up shop and walked back ten yards to the Appaloosa named Aces, the paint, and his guest Salomon Pico.
He set the Browning on the saddle and, still holding the rifle, hoisted himself into the seat.
“Same rule applies, Salomon,” Battle reminded him. “You so much as eke out a fart and I’m putting a bullet in you. Got it?”
Pico cracked his neck and complained again about the garments Battle was making him wear. He shifted in the saddle.
“Got it?” Battle asked again.
“Got it,” Pico said softly. “You’ve got a death wish. You know that, right? Even if you make it past this posse, you’re not gonna survive Abilene.”
Battle adjusted the depth of field on the goggles. He looked west into the fog and chuckled. “Death wish? That’s laughable.”
“I ain’t kidding,” Pico said barely above a whisper, wriggling his wrists against the bungee that bound them to the saddle horn. “You’re gonna die. I’m gonna die. This is pointless.”
Battle turned around, the leather creaking as he twisted to look at Pico. “Salomon Pico, you are far dumber than I gave you credit for.”
“How’s that?” Pico grunted.
“You tell me a single thing in this barren, evil-infested world that isn’t pointless.”
Pico shrugged, snorted through his damaged nose, and spat a blood-soaked loogie to the ground.
Battle turned back around to face the road ahead of them. “That’s what I thought.”
The sun peaked higher in the sky and the fog was lifting, albeit incrementally. Visibility was still nonexistent beyond fifteen feet. The horses had scattered on both sides of the highway, though Battle had no concept for how far off the road they might have galloped.
He tapped his heels into Aces’s ribs and clucked his tongue against his teeth. The horse responded with a neigh and started west. Battle figured the posse didn’t have thermal scopes or goggles. From what little he’d seen, they traveled like Spartans: a couple of weapons, rations, water, nothing else.
Aces clopped along the highway until Battle guided him to its edge. Pulling the paint with Pico aboard, they moved silently off the edge of the shoulder. The rustle of the high weeds was far quieter than the clink of shoes on the asphalt.
Battle forged ahead in the fog and neared a narrow concrete driveway that connected to the highway. It was shrouded by a cluster of bald cypress that had wrecked the drive. Their root knees kicked their way through the concrete, making the short path look as if it had suffered earthquake damage.
Battle turned onto the driveway and looped Aces’s lead around the narrow trunk of a young tree. He looked over to Pico and held his finger up to his lips. Pico nodded.
With Lloyd in his hands and McDunnough in a holster strapped to his thigh, Battle left the horses and the grunt hidd
en amongst the trees. He walked north toward an aboveground pool and its neighboring house. Neither was in good shape.
He wasn’t waiting for the posse to come to him. He was hunting them. He was a good fifty yards from the tree cluster when he changed his mind. He couldn’t be sure which side of the highway was occupied and couldn’t take the risk of choosing the wrong direction.
He certainly didn’t want to get sandwiched between the half dozen men he imagined were coming for him once they regrouped.
Battle jogged through the mist back to the horses, the goggles bouncing against his eyes. He slowed as he approached the trees. Pico was sitting as he’d left him, tied up and quiet.
“Change of plans,” he said to Pico. He took the bungees and loosened them from the saddle horn before helping Pico dismount. “I’m gonna tie you to the tree.”
He looped the bungee around the young cypress, pulling it tight to remove its slack. He knotted it on the side opposite Pico. “Too tight?”
“Yes,” Pico complained. He was sitting with his back against the tree, his legs bound in front of him. “I can barely feel my hands.”
Battle rounded the tree and smiled at Pico. “Good,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
“I’m uncomfortable,” Pico whined.
“It’s for your own protection,” Battle answered. “I need you alive. I told you that.”
“Alive until you kill me.”
“Pretty much.”
Battle untied the paint from Aces and led it out onto the highway. He adjusted his goggles, made sure he had a good grip on the Browning, and slapped the horse on its hindquarters. It snorted and took off, trotting west along the highway.
He waited about ten seconds and then started jogging behind the horse, running at a pace to keep his distance. His footsteps were masked by the clop of the iron shoes on the asphalt. It reminded him of running patrol on foot behind a Humvee.
Controlling his breathing, he listened intently and, with the help of his goggles, scanned both sides of Highway 36. The horse kept its slow trot west, staying on the asphalt as if it knew the plan.