Sealed In

by Druga, Jacqueline

All she kept saying was ‘Oh my God.’ It got to the point that she moved closer to the stage and then just sat down. Emma was proud and awestruck. She wanted to scream ‘again’ and ‘more’ when he finished. But he wouldn’t have heard her through the screams and cheers.

  Everyone that knew Andy hadn’t a clue that he sung like a pro.

  She swore at that moment that any crush she had on Andy magnified, because she just saw a new side.

  He didn’t need to deck Del physically, because he knocked him out in another way.

  When Andy walked toward Emma, she threw her arms around him and shrieked, “That was unbelievable. Holy shit.”

  “Son,” Stew extended a hand. “Who would have known?”

  “Th … thanks.” Andy nodded. “I … know the DJ from H…Hartworth.”

  “Will you sing again, please?” Emma asked. “Please, I’ll sign you up.”

  “M .. ma … maybe.” He then pointed to the pool table.

  Del never bothered them the rest of the night, never said a word about Andy’s singing or approached them.

  But that wasn’t the end of the night even, though they left the bar just before midnight.

  Andy asked her if she wanted to hang out a bit, and he would make them some food.

  When he said, “I saw yours, now you can see mine,” Emma thought the wrong way. She had no idea he was talking about houses, until after she told him. “I like you and all, Andy, but there’s just some things a girl has to do to herself to be playing-the-field ready. Plus, I’m not wearing bedroom-friendly underwear.”

  He laughed, like he always did. Andy always laughed, but somehow Emma wasn’t seeing a smiling man who didn’t know better; she saw a different man who just knew how to take things in stride.

  When Andy extended the invitation to Emma, he was hoping he wasn’t being too forward. In fact, he worried about that after she made the bedroom-friendly underwear comment. But he conveyed that it was just to hang out. After all, the night felt different. A part of him didn’t feel like a creep anymore for having such a crush on her, considering she liked him, too.

  Andy had been to Emma’s home a thousand times. He worked for her father and he’d go to Emma’s under the guise that he was fixing things, when actually he was helping her with something in ‘the hole’.

  Andy saw no problem with her Yellowstone obsession; it was based in both reality and science. Andy’s only concern was that if they were so close, the ventilation pipe could be buried beneath rubble and ash.

  Andy fixed that and was impressed with his creation. The ventilation pipe retracted, and the top that ‘popped’ open was actually close to a drill bit used to drill for oil and pipes, a smaller version. Emma only needed to retract the pipe until the debris had fallen and then drill it to the surface. If nothing was there, she only had to raise the pipe a little bit, but if need be, the pipe extended close to seven feet above the ground. Andy’s idea.

  Emma had never been to his place. She was at his house when he lived with his parents, but when they died, Andy sold the house and got the apartment above Bonnie’s Diner.

  It was a great deal for Andy, because Bonnie always sent up leftover daily specials from the day instead of throwing them out.

  In fact, he had some beef stew, and his plan was to make some biscuits and have some stew while watching a movie.

  He wasn’t thinking about being physical; he was just happy to spend time with Emma. And it was still early.

  Emma’s comment of ‘oh, wow, this is so cute’, when she walked in, made Andy smile.

  Andy wouldn’t call his apartment ‘cute’, more so basic, small, clean, and plain. The entrance led into the living room which had a dinette area and an open kitchen defined by a counter.

  Andy could see Emma in his living room as he pulled items from the fridge.

  “Dr . … Drink?” he asked.

  “Um, yes, please, anything you have will work.” Emma stared at the tall, wall-length bookshelf. “This is amazing, you must like books.”

  Andy handed her a beer. “Yes.”

  Her fingers trailed across the spines. “None of these are fiction. They’re all ….” She stopped. “Wait a second.” She pulled a hard back, coffee-table-style book from the shelf. “Bog World, by Andrew Jenkins?” She spun to Andy. “Is that you?”

  Andy nodded. He didn’t think for a second that Emma would look at the names of the books he had.

  “You wrote a book?”

  Andy held up his hand.

  “Five?” Emma gasped. “Are they all about … what the hell is a Bog person?” She flipped through the book. “Oh my God. They’re like mummies.”

  Andy pursed his lips and swallowed and, like singing, he recited the words he had spoken to himself out loud. “They are a form of mummy. Naturally mummified. They are found mainly in Ireland and have quite the story. Most died violent deaths, unlike the Ice Age mummies.” He reached for another book and handed it to her.

  Emma didn’t take it. She just stared. “I’m sorry … you .. you didn’t stutter.”

  “Not … w…. when I ….s …s…talk about things I n …know.”

  “Holy cow.” Emma flipped open the book. “You’re an anthropologist? What the heck? Why are you being the town handyman and stable guy when you have a degree in Anthropology and … you write books?”

  “I d … d… did for years. Museum. Went … went abroad. It’s too d … d… difficult.”

  “I’m pissed at you, Andy.” She looked at the shelf and pulled down another book. “All these years and I asked you what you went to school for and you said digging and studying dead people.”

  Andy actually told her more than that, but he never used the word anthropology, because it was too difficult to say. “Sorry.”

  “Here I thought you went to school to be a mortician and grave digger and didn’t have it in you to embalm … Jesus.” She shook her head. “You need to tell people this. You deserve much more credit than people give you.”

  “N … nah. I … like when p …p …people think I’m d -dumb. I lis … listen to th … th … them and n … n… know they are the ones who are dumb.”

  “Did you sell a million copies?”

  Andy laughed; he wanted to tell her he was lucky he sold a hundred and barely made his small advance back on the Bog People book. “No.”

  She spun quickly to him. “I want to buy one. Where can I get one?” Emma asked excitedly.

  Andy held up his finger and walked to a closet. He reached to the stop shelf and pulled down a box, carrying it to her and dropping it at her feet.

  “Oh, wow,” Emma said. “Look how many. I’ll buy them all, thank you.”

  “W … What? No.” Andy laughed. “No.”

  “Please. This will be my Christmas present to everyone. I was gonna go to Wal-Mart and have a portrait taken in a bad sweater and give it out, but this is much better and cooler.”

  Andy shook his head.

  “Think about it?”

  “I …th … th … think about it.”

  “Cool.” She quickly kissed him on the cheek and took a book from the box. “This is so awesome. I am so proud of you, Andy. I am. You write books and sing like you should be on a talent TV show. Plus, on top of all this, you’re this really great guy.” She embraced the book like it was a treasure. “The worst mistake you made was showing me this.”

  “I … d-didn’t show. You … you .. . found it.”

  “I did. I did.” Emma nodded with a smile. “And I’m telling everyone.”

  Andy exhaled with a shake of his head, and then looked back when the timer went off on the stove. He walked to the kitchen, leaving Emma in the living room.

  “Seriously, Andy, this is just the beginning.”

  Andy looked at her from the kitchen.

  “Just the beginning.”

  And it was. The beginning of a turn in their friendship and the beginning of a new life for Andy. He just didn’t know it yet.

  FLASH
FORWARD

  Ground Zero – 3

  December 23rd

  Hartworth, Montana

  Nature had frozen Vivian Morris, and she barely decomposed. She was one of three bodies Edward’s team had retrieved from the fire station. There was a whole town outside his lab, a whole town that was dead, and the three bodies were just the start. Before they did accountability, called for reserve units, and collected bodies, Edward had to find answers.

  Something vicious had wiped out the town of Hartworth.

  He believed it wouldn’t take long to find out what it was.

  But the temperatures were cold, and he had to wait until Vivian thawed some.

  He knew she had been dead only for a few days. The circumstances of the town told him that, not the frozen body.

  While he waited on her to thaw, he learned who she was. She was wearing a paper wrist band, handmade and stapled together. It had her name and age. Someone took care to make sure that when the bodies were discovered, so were their identities.

  But Vivian’s purse was next to her; in it was her bi-fold. The thirty-seven-year-old woman appeared to have two children and a husband. There was a dated wallet-sized photo of her and her family.

  It wasn’t taken long ago. Her children were young.

  Edward thought of his own children, and sadness hit him. He had to dismiss it quickly, for the time being, anyway.

  Vivian was beautiful in the picture, nothing like the decimated corpse before him. She was, like the other bodies, black.

  It reminded him of pictures of Bog People he saw, completely black, mouths open, screaming in pain, frozen in the last moment of death.

  It appeared as if she were missing a lot of her skin, like a burn victim. But she wasn’t burnt. Her body was so dark it masked any hypostasis that could be present.

  As she became workable, he lifted her eyelids. The sclera and gums were black, as well; there was no pink on her body.

  Edward hated even the thought of cutting her open, but he had to.

  Taking a blood sample from her was difficult; he chalked it up to the blood still being cold. He was able to retrieve some, enough to view in a microscope, but it, like Vivian, was black.

  He began audibly speaking his autopsy. “Not much epithelia remains on the body …” He sliced into her forearm, lifting a section of skin. He choked on a gag when he lifted and everything underneath pulled like a gluey dark substance.

  But that wasn’t the worst. That was when Edward cut into her torso, needing only to make a single lateral incision across her abdomen to know he was dealing with something new.

  Edward had to stop, just for a little bit, a moment to catch his bearings after seeing her internal organs.

  It was frightening. In all his years, he had never encountered anything like it.

  Whatever struck Hartworth hit fast and to an unusual extent, so fast that they told no one and the town was wiped out.

  Someone in town knew what it was. Someone in town knew it was coming enough to set up an aid station.

  Time frame.

  It was December 23rd. The last call out of the town was a single call placed on December 20th. Before that, nothing for two days. Vivian more than likely died on December 21st.

  Was the last call for help, to say good bye?

  With the lack of communication out of Hartworth between the 18th and 20th, that told Edward the town was sick and dying,

  Everything was normal, phone communications, bank transactions, all normal until the 18th.

  The first ones probably started getting sick on December 17th.

  To set up an aid station took knowledge that it was coming and of an incubation period to perch a guard on every access road, a fast incubation.

  Why did they keep it a secret?

  Allowing a one- to two-day incubation period, combined with the fact that someone had knowledge of the bug, Edward pinpointed his ground zero day.

  The day it all started. But what? Was it released? Was there an accidental experiment?

  Edward would solve this mystery. He was bound and determined to find out what happened out of the ordinary in Hartworth, Montana, on December 16th.

  Chapter Five

  Hartworth, Montana

  December 16th

  “Thank you, Vivian, thank you so much.” Roman was excited and rightfully so. Everything was falling into place, and Vivian Morris was the final piece he needed to put it together. Three employees other than him worked for his father. Vivian was the only person available to cover for him.

  Enthusiastically he sent a text to Heather, his fingers fumbling and making spelling errors. He couldn’t help it. They both wanted to see the concert in Billings but couldn’t afford tickets when they went on sale. When they had the money, the concert was sold out, all 22,000 seats. The concert was huge, three bands. So when he won those tickets from the radio station, Roman was through the roof. He had tried six times a day, day and night, for a week to win them. Problem was, he had just won them, and the concert was tonight.

  He needed his shift covered for the evening and for the next morning, because he and Heather would stay overnight in Billings, and Vivian Morris pulled through.

  Heather’s mom would watch the baby, another dilemma solved.

  His father was fine … sort of … with him going, he just had to make sure all the work was done and ready for the morning.

  Roman set down his phone, grabbed a tablet, and started making a list. The clinic door opened and he looked down to his watch as he stood behind the reception window.

  “Hey, Mr. Rudolph, you’re a little early.” Roman said.

  “I know. I know. The wife had to shop,” the older gentleman said as he hung up his coat. “I’ll wait.”

  “No problem. Relax.” Roman had all the charts pulled for the day. He grabbed Mr. Rudolph’s chart, tucked it under his arm as he walked to the back, placed the chart in the basket of exam room one, and headed to his father’s office.

  “Dad,” Roman knocked on the door and opened it. The room was empty. “Where the heck did he go?” The clinic wasn’t that big. He headed back down the hall. That was when he noticed the basement door was ajar. He opened it slightly and called down the steps. “Dad? You down here?”

  “Yes, Roman, I am.”

  He took a few steps downward. “What are you doing down here again?”

  “The temperature has dropped,” Val replied. “I am just checking my storage things. I will be moving them after the holiday.”

  “Really?” Roman reached the bottom of the stairs and his father stood before a closed trunk. “I thought you said this was just all old junk.”

  Val nodded.

  “Why are you worried?” Roman asked.

  “Because it is junk that has been with me for years. Just because I called it junk does not mean I want it to be ruined.”

  “Ah, okay. Mr. Rudolph is here.”

  “Fine. Thank you. Please leave.”

  Roman cocked back some at the harsh dictate of his father. After a shrug, he walked up the stairs. He looked back as he reached the top and closed the door.

  Odd. He found his father’s behavior odd. It was the third time in a week his father had gone down to the basement to check on those items.

  For something so worthless, his father was acting as if he held a priceless secret down there. But to Roman, it couldn’t be all that important if it was just stuck in a basement.

  <><><><>

  Lincoln, Montana

  Like he did every morning, Stew perched himself in his favorite booth at Bonnie’s diner. He was already on his second cup of coffee after dropping Richie off at school. He called Heather and asked her to join him, and she said she’d be right down. That was forty minutes earlier. Stew would wait.

  His work was done for the day, having started before dawn.

  He adored his granddaughter. He loved Richie, but Heather always held that special spot with him.

  He watched her walk in, brush
the snowflakes from her head; she wasn’t wearing a heavy coat and that irritated Stew.

  “Sorry for taking so long, Pap.”

  “Where’s your coat?” he asked. “You’re gonna get sick.”

  “I’m fine.” She waved him off. “It’s not that cold. Just snowy. Did you hear me?”

  “I don’t pay attention when you or your mother are late. That’s who I was with.”

  “She wasn’t in the hole, was she?”

  “Nope. Not … you know ... yet.”

  Stew grumbled.

  “She did say seismic activity was up for Yellowstone. It’s based in reality.”

  “I agree,” Stew said, “but not reality in her lifetime. Is she gonna watch the baby?”

  “Oh, yeah, that isn’t the problem. The problem came when I asked.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I made the mistake of saying Roman’s father offered.”

  Stew exhaled. “Why would you do that? You know she hates him.”

  “I know. I still think Mom’s the reason he took the job in Hartworth.”

  “Well, she picketed the man’s home, for Christ’s sake. Even I called the cops on her.”

  Heather laughed and looked up when Bonnie approached. “Morning, Bonnie.”

  “Hey, Heather, does doc still have evening hours tonight?”

  “Late hours, till six. What’s up? You sick?” Heather asked.

  “No.” Bonnie poured her a coffee. “My knee is overdue for a shot of cortisone. Was hoping to squeeze in sometime after four.”

  “Hold on,” Heather pulled out her phone and her fingers flew as she punched in letters.

  “Couldn’t you call?” Stew asked.

  “Easier this way. Val hates when the phone rings.” Heather’s phone beeped and she looked. “Five thirty good?” she asked Bonnie.

  “Perfect, thank you. Extra order of bacon on me.” She winked and walked off.

  “I didn’t order.” Heather said to Stew.

  “It’s breakfast, you don’t need to.”