by Lee Deadkeys
Angel shuddered and clutched the blanket tighter to her. “I laugh and that’s when I see you, waving. I wave back. And then he’s there, materializing from the fog. He’s about to pass by when the rabbit says something to him and he jerks to a stop. He turns and says something back to the rabbit and Jacob says ‘somethings wrong’.”
Angel closed her eyes, squeezing them tight, “That night, the night he was killed, he reached for his gun, Jess, when the guy pulled the knife, Jacob reached for his gun. Did you know that?”
Jess shook her head because no words would come.
“He did. He reached for a gun he didn’t have because of me. I think about it and wonder if he cursed and damned me when he felt the knife killing him… did he hate me then, in that moment… like you hate me now… like I hate myself….”
Jess sat up, breathing in until her lungs burned and then slowly exhaling. She took Angel’s hand and held it, “Look, Angel, sister, we’ve got to stop doing this to ourselves, stop punishing ourselves, punishing each other. We are still here, we’re alive. Jacob is gone and it’s nobody’s fault but the guy who… you know what? Fuck that guy, okay, just fuck him. We can’t let him do this to us, not now. We’re stronger than that.”
Angel pushed the blanket off and looked at the ceiling. “Jess, you don’t know what it’s like to be afraid all the time.”
“Yes, I do,” Jess said as she absently wiped away the tears. “I’m afraid right now. No, that’s the wrong word. Bug-fucking-terrified… yeah, that’s what I feel.”
Angel’s eyes slid over to Jess’s, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “You? BFT? I don’t believe it.”
Jess nodded enthusiastically. “It’s true. I boosted some Depends from the hospital, I’ve shit myself like five times just sitting here.”
Angel laughed and Jess dried her tears with the end of the blanket. They sat quietly for a few moments, each in their own head. Jess left her side and returned with a bottle of water, unscrewed the cap and helped her drink.
“We will get through this, Angel, I promise. You are my family and, you know, I love you.” Angel smiled and Jess was relieved to see that it was the one she remembered. “Sorry I slapped you. You want to take a crack at me?”
Angel weakly punched her on the arm. “You know what they say, you only sock the ones you love.”
Jess laughed and stood. “If that’s true, I can’t wait to show my dad how much I love him….” The sound of screeching tires killed the rest as Jess ran to the window.
* * *
Mason cut the wheel of Mr. Broaden’s Jeep Cherokee hard to the right as it roared backward out of the carport. The front bumper caught a tacky garden gnome by its red pointed hat, decapitating it.
A wire-thin man of about fifty in a tattered robe lunged for the side door of the vehicle, hooked an arm through the open window and was instantly jerked off his feet. The old man’s gnarled fingers fought to hold on to the window frame as he was dragged beside the Cherokee.
Sam hit the button for the window as Mason slowed the vehicle and threw it into Drive; the old man’s fingers thankfully lost their grip and he fell away, out of sight.
Mason gunned the engine and roared up the street, making desperate stay back motions with his hand as they approached the front window of his house. He risked a glance out the side window at Jess, praying to God that she hadn’t decided to come outside.
His heart nearly broke. Jess stood at the window, hands splayed flat against the glass, face twisted in anguished concern.
“Look out!” Sam yelled from the back seat. Mason’s head swiveled forward, his foot still on the gas and saw that the road ahead was gone. Not gone but blocked, devoured by a huge dark green wall, a wall that was moving slowly toward them.
“Brake!” Frank yelled, both hands braced against the dashboard. Mason stomped the brake and the Cherokee slide sideways before bumping to a halt against the curb. The huge Armored Personal Carrier swung neatly around the rear of the Cherokee, rumbled past and ground to a stop directly in front of Mason’s house.
The back of the APC lowered and a group of National Guardsmen hustled down the ramp, filing out on either side of the vehicle and taking up positions near the front.
The infected people shambled up the street, undaunted. Sam was yelling something about the Calvary showing up, but his words were quickly lost as the Guardsmen began to fire upon the infected. After a surprisingly brief amount of time, it was over and silence took the place of weapons fire.
Mason realized he was still breathing hard, as if he’d been running up the street instead of driving, and tried to calm himself.
“I think we should stow our guns out of sight. I’d hate to make it this far just to get shot by one of them,” Frank said, indicating the soldiers.
Sam frowned. “Stow ‘em? Why would we do that? It’s the National Guard, the good guys.”
Frank tucked his 1911 into his holster and pulled his shirt over it. “Trust me, Sam. This looks like Martial Law to me, a state of emergency. It’d probably behoove us to disarm completely, but for right now I’d say just keep them out of sight. Quickly now, here they come. And for God’s sake, no sudden moves.”
Four of the soldiers approached the Cherokee, rifles raised and at the ready. Mason watched them carefully, suddenly feeling like a bug caught in a jar.
Two of the soldiers fanned out to the passenger side while the man closest to him told him to keep his hands on the wheel and not to move. The two on the passenger’s side did a quick peek into the vehicle and said, clear, in unison.
“Step out of the vehicle, sir. Turn and face the vehicle and place your hands on top,” the soldier said.
Mason did as he was told. He heard movement, the other soldier approached and he realized they were probably about to check him for weapons. Fury replaced his initial anxiety and he spoke in a clear, firm voice.
“Do not touch me. I am going to turn around now.”
“Sir, stay where you are. Do not move. You are going to be searched for weapons and secured. Then we will take you to a secure location and answer your questions.”
Mason’s hands were slick against the Cherokee and he was trembling slightly. “Don’t touch me, do you hear? Don’t anyone touch me and don’t come any closer. I’m going to slowly turn around.” He began to turn, hands up in what he hoped was a nonthreatening posture. He sensed a current of tension flash through the soldiers and forced himself to face them.
“Sir, stay where you are! Do not turn!”
Mason ignored him. When he’d completed his turn, the soldier was pointing the rifle at his chest. They were agitated, itchy and scared; it was a disaster in the making.
“Lower your weapon,” Mason said. “Are you in charge?” Mason noticed a slight turn of the soldier’s head. He wasn’t in charge.
A man with more stripes on his collar exited the APC and the strain loosened in the young soldier.
“At ease,” the senior soldier said as he approached them. West was written on his nametape and he appeared to be in his mid-thirties. Mason realized this could still go either way.
“Why don’t you let my men secure the situation so we can all relax?” Sergeant West said. He had a similar rifle slung low across his midriff, his right hand resting on the rifle’s pistol grip.
“I’ll relax when your men stop pointing their weapons at me and my group,” Mason said, hands still held at chest level. “As for searching us, well you can just put that right out of your head.”
He studied the soldier, silently praying that the man was reasonable and not going to make an example out of him. West raised an eyebrow in a, we’ll-just-see-about-that expression and Mason felt his blood chill. He knew if it came down to them verses the soldiers, the soldiers would surely emerge victorious.
West shook his head slightly. “Ryerson, go police up those bodies and round up any stragglers.”
Ryerson looked confused, asking “Sarge?”
; West nodded to the younger soldier, “It’s fine, go on now.”
Ryerson gathered the other soldiers toward the bodies in the street.
Mason lowered his hands, relaxing some as West fished out a crumpled pack of Marlboro’s from a side pocket of his BDU bottoms. He offered the pack to Mason after lighting one for himself, but Mason shook his head.
“We have a couple women in the house over there. This is Frank Walker. He’s one of the women’s father. Do you mind if he goes to the house and lets them know everything is okay?” Mason asked as West leaned against the rear of the APC.
“If I did have a problem with it, would it matter?” West said with a strange smile.
Mason pretended to think about it and then said, “No, not really.”
West motioned with his hand as if to say, go right ahead then.
Mason nodded to Frank and he cautiously exited the vehicle and walked slowly to the house, giving West a nod as he passed.
“Can you tell us what’s going on, Sergeant? Is it terrorists, have we been attacked?”
West surprised him by laughing. “No, it’s not terrorists, unless they did it to themselves, too. I mean, they are a pretty stupid lot but as far as we know, this has affected every country, every continent across the globe.”
Mason dropped his head. “How? What is it?” West shrugged, “Some scientists at the CDC are trying to figure that out. They’re studying a few captives, you know, the ones that are infected, trying to find out what this stuff is. One egghead said that the closest thing we have to this on Earth is called the Gordian Worm.”
“What the hell is a Gordian Worm?” Mason asked.
West shrugged. “I’d tell you to Google it but that obviously isn’t an option with whatever this damn field of static is.”
“Yeah, about that….”
“Again, I don’t have any answers for you. They’ve tracked the source to those cubes. You’ve seen the cubes, right?”
Mason nodded, “Unfortunately.”
“Right, so they know the cubes are emanating some sort of a pulse distortion, but as you probably figured out, the cubes are impervious to destruction and therefore the distortion cannot be neutralized.”
“So, in a nutshell….” Sam began.
West shrugged, “We have no communications, can’t move them and can’t destroy them; so, in a nutshell, we’re screwed.”
Mason shook his head, it seemed impossible. “Where are the police? What’s being done about this?”
West fixed him with a glare that made Mason take a step back. “Oh, you mean the Cavalry. Where is the Cavalry? We’re it, son.” West flicked the cigarette into the street. “Most of the men I had yesterday are dead, shot by me or one of my men after becoming infected. Same goes for the cops, only it was worse for the cops. Same goes for all First Responders. They went in, tried to do their job and ended up turning on each other. The ones that were left, the non-infected, were forced to shoot them like dogs, that or risk being attacked and turned themselves.”
Mason shook his head slowly; it was too much to process, even after what he and the others had seen. Through it all he’d held out hope that this hadn’t spread far, that it was isolated and above all, that someone somewhere was in charge and working toward restoring order. This bit of information was staggering in its hopelessness.
“What is it, the infection I mean? It isn’t like anything I’ve ever heard of. Ever.”
Sergeant West stared off into the distance, his voice flat. “No one seems to know yet, but I’ve seen things… things I’ll never forget.”
Mason waited for him to go on, a coldness twisting in his gut. After a moment, West continued.
“There’s something in them, something terrible.”
Mason nodded slowly, his voice trance-like. “You mean the green smoke stuff.”
West stiffened, “That’s not all of it. There’s something in the smoke… something twitchy with life.”
Mason shuddered, remembering the people in the alley.
Neither spoke for a while, each cueing up his own nightmarish visual. West startled him when he spoke.
“Stay away from the recently dead. The infection can’t survive long in a dead body and appears to need another host soon after. One of the guys at the CDC developed an acid spray we use on the bodies we’ve dispatched. Seems to work, too, but as you can probably guess, it’s irreversible. No coming back after being reduced to a pile of sludge.”
“Or, you know, being dispatched,” Mason said.
West grunted and continued. “My unit went on alert right after the first few containers showed up. Shortly after that, they opened and we all but lost communication with Command. Now our orders come by relay courier, it’s a slow process, to say the least.”
Mason nodded, he could imagine. “Why did your men point guns at us, threaten to take us into custody? I would think it was obvious we weren’t infected, unless you’ve seen them driving.”
West grunted. “Our orders are to police up all uninfected survivors and take them to a refugee station a few miles away. There is food, water, and medical attention available.”
“But all those that enter are to be disarmed, right?”
West spread his hands out in front of him, “Of course. Can’t have armed civilians running around a FEMA camp. It would be chaos.”
“Yeah, because when the government is the only ones with guns, you know you can stop worrying.” Mason slumped against the Cherokee, he was suddenly very tired. “What are we going to do, Sergeant? I’m not taking my group to some FEMA camp and handing over our only defense. I just… this whole thing is hard to grasp, hard to believe how screwed up everything is.”
West motioned around them. “This situation is well and truly fucked. Officially, my orders are to take you back to the refugee center. And if I’d come across your group on day one, we’d have had a different conversation. Unofficially,” West lowered his voice, “I’d tell you to hole up somewhere outside of town. Get some supplies together and bug the hell out.”
Mason nodded and ran a hand over his face. “What about you, Sergeant? What are you going to do?”
West looked at the ground before meeting Mason’s eyes again, his finger ticking against the trigger guard. “Like I said, I have orders,” he chuckled bitterly, “so I’ll stick it out for as long as any kind of command structure exists.” He shrugged. “After that, who knows?”
Mason nodded. “One of the women with us is injured….” Sergeant West tensed, his eyes wary. Mason held up his hand. “No, not infected. She had a baby, stillborn, and is still suffering from complications. She’s not doing well and this, uh, situation, isn’t helping.”
West relaxed. “I see. That’s a bit out of our medic’s capabilities, but I can personally guarantee her safe passage to the FEMA camp. They have good doctors there. They can see that she gets proper medical attention.”
Mason thought about it. He decided not to mention Jess’s injury before talking it over with her and Frank. His concerns were probably unfounded, but he didn’t like what he’d seen flash across Sergeant West’s face at the mere mention of a wounded party. It seemed unwise to bring it up, especially when the injury was caused by an infected.
“I’ll talk to my group and see what they want to do. How much time do we have before you move out?”
West looked at his watch, “Damn, I keep forgetting these things don’t work for shit anymore. I’ll guesstimate thirty, forty minutes, tops. We have a lot more area to cover.”
“One more thing,” Mason said. “I hate to ask, but we could use a few medical supplies, antibiotics and such if you can spare any. We’ve taken a bit of a beating the last few days, mostly cuts and scrapes, but better to nip it in the bud now.”
“Sure thing,” West said. “See the medic and he’ll give you whatever you need.”
Mason nodded his thanks and walked to his house.
Back at the house, Mason relayed West’s offer to the group.
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Jess shook her head, “I don’t like it.”
“I know, I don’t either, but we need to really think about this,” Mason said after he had filled them in on his conversation with Sergeant West. Frank stood beside his daughter, his expression conflicted.
“Just because I can see some reason to it doesn’t mean I have to like it. I just don’t like the idea of splitting up the group. How will we meet up again?” Jess said, shaking her head.
Mason shrugged, “If anyone has a better idea, I’d love to hear it. The Sergeant said we need to get out of town and I think he’s right. We need to decide on a destination, get supplied up and worry about bringing the group together once things have leveled off.”
“That’s assuming things ever will level off again,” Sam said through a mouth full of crackers.
“Way to stay positive,” Jess said, taking the sleeve of crackers from his hand. Sam rolled his eyes and turned his back on her to rummage through Mason’s sparse pantry.
“Don’t start, you two,” Mason said. “Any thoughts on where we go?”
Frank had been quiet while they talked, his mind worrying their options. “The cabin,” he said finally.
Jess snapped her fingers. “Yes, the cabin! Dad, you’re a genius, why didn’t I think of that?”
Mason scowled at them for a moment. “You mean your granddad’s fishing cabin? I thought you said he was a crazy old hermit, and that the place was ‘little more than a shack with as many rats scurrying in the walls as in his head?’”
Jess shook her head. “That’s what Dad said about him and the cabin. We got along great until Dad stopped taking us out there.”
Frank lowered his head. “He was crazy. Always talking about the end of the world, how the socialists had taken over America and the next great depression that would turn us into a third world country. I didn’t want you kids around that, he was dangerous and unpredictable, one of those survivalist types who sit around cleaning guns all day and talking to themselves….”
Laughter from the living room caused them all to turn. Angel was propped up on an elbow. She looked very pale, the circles under her eyes dark by contrast. “So, that’s where Jessica gets it from,” she said, looking at Frank. “I think you should all go there. Leave me a map and I’ll get there after I’ve regained my strength. I’ll be leaving with that Sergeant, so there is no more need to discuss it.” Angel smiled at Jess. “If Mason will let me borrow a pair of sweats or shorts, would you help me change into something clean?”