The Scourge

by R. Tilden Smith

  “It’s not a joke Miss Rose. I heard it over the radio myself.”

  “Really?” Rose said, her voice shaking a little. “They said that over the emergency channel?”

  “Well no, not exactly. Jack Arnold said that when the president pardoned all the illegals he opened the floodgates and the jihadists had easy access into America. They were able to truck the bomb parts over the Mexican border and build the warhead in a secret bunker in El Paso. They—”

  Rose held up her hand.

  “Ray, you should know better than to believe anything reported by that terrible AR-15 talk radio show. All they do is spout racist, misogynistic drivel all night long. I can’t believe they are even on the air at a time like this.”

  “No disrespect Miss Rose, but I have to disagree with you. I mean, they may sensationalize the news a little bit but that’s just because we citizens have been lulled to sleep by the mainstream media. All Joe and Suzanne are trying to do is wake people up. President Kinsdale and the democrats have weakened our country to the point where we can no longer defend ourselves. And now the Muslims have figured out a way to come over here and finish us off.”

  “Ray, you don’t really believe all that do you?”

  “Yes ma’am I do, and I’m not the only one. Almost to the man, the fellas in the garage are ready to get out there and fight back.”

  “My goodness!” Rose said, fighting back tears. “Have you all gone crazy! While you sit around listening to that stupid talk show and making up silly nicknames for each other, Jack is out there, maybe hurt. Can’t you guys be serious for one minute and come up with a real plan for getting Jack back instead of playing soldier?”

  “This is no joke!” Ray said, waving his arms in frustration, “You’re not the only person worried about people Miss Rose, we all got family and loved ones we’re worried about. We all would love to figure out a way to get out there and help everybody, especially our own families, but Sam and the management bean counters say we gotta stay holed up here until it’s safe to go outside. The question is Miss Rose, safe from what? What is it that the mayor, governor, and Homeland Security are not telling us, huh? What’s so horrible out there that they won’t let us go out and bring the grid back online? You may think that the AR-15 is a stupid talk show but right now they’re the only ones talking. I’m sorry for getting heated with you Miss Rose, I mean no disrespect, but until I know otherwise I’m going with the info I got. That was a bomb that went off over the city and it released something into the air, maybe radiation, maybe some kind of poison. Whatever it is, people are dying from it.”

  Dying. The word made Rose’s knees buckle. Jack could be out there dying. “Ray, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I know you’re worried about your family. I’m worried too. Worried sick. But Sam says the mayor has ordered a city-wide curfew. No one is allowed to be outside.”

  “Yeah, I know. The government has made that piece of information loud and clear. But we don’t have to sit here like good little sheep, waiting for the wolves to come bite our asses.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “A small group of us are going to sneak outta here and go take a look around. We figure two or three of us won’t be missed.”

  “But I thought you said there was radiation or some sort of poisonous gas cloud lingering out there?” Rose hoped her words didn’t sound as skeptical to Ray as they did to her.

  “We figured since we are not dead or insane that we must be upwind of the cloud. We’ll take one of the company rice burners, they’re quiet and we can use the two-way to stay in touch with the depot in case there’s serious trouble.”

  “You can’t use the radio! Sam will be monitoring from the dispatch office. He’s bound to hear your communication. If he finds out you’re outside they’ll be hell to pay.”

  “That’s where you come in Miss Rose. We need you to be in the dispatch office to cover for us.”

  Rose felt duped. They knew I would go along with this stupid plan because of Jack, she thought. I should tell them to go straight to hell. But she knew she wouldn’t. She wanted to find Jack and she didn’t have a whole lot of confidence that Sam would be able to convince the police to go look for him. “How am I supposed to do that?” she said, “If you’re caught out there how am I supposed to help you?”

  “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll do the talking on my end. I’m new and the guys don’t normally let me handle the radio so Sam probably won’t recognize my voice. I’ll radio in pretending to be one of the police patrols sent to look for Jack.”

  “The police operate on a different channel than we do.”

  “I’ll say that I was told to switch to the Tex-Can channel so the Tex-Can dispatcher can assist me in locating Jack. Easy as pie.”

  “Ok, that might work. But you’ll have to have a police call sign.”

  “No problem. We’ll be car fifty-four.”

  Rose couldn’t help but grin. “Really, car fifty-four? As in car fifty-four, where are you?”

  “Yeah, my dad used to watch that old show on cable all the time.”

  Rose wanted to smile at the cheeky reference but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was too worried. “What are you guys going to do when you get outside?”

  “We’ll head to Jack’s last stop and look for the cherry picker. If he left the strobes on it should be easy to spot. If he’s not in the truck I doubt he wandered too far away from it. If we don’t find him we’ll head toward Terp’s house. He says he’s got some provisions we could use. Shouldn’t take us more than a couple of hours. We should be back before first light.”

  Rose frowned at the thought of Richard “Terp” O’Brien going along on this little excursion.

  “Why you taking Terp—I mean Richard—with you? If Jack needs help or you run into some trouble, won’t Richard be a liability?”

  “Terp will be fine Miss Rose. It’ll be me, Spuds, and Terp, so Terp won’t have to do anything except ride shotgun. Besides, his place is close and, like I said, he says he’s got some supplies we can use.”

  Rose wasn’t convinced.

  “Ray, I know you know that Richard is a functioning alcoholic. I wouldn’t put too much stock into anything that man says mainly because most of it is distorted by alcohol. The man is as lovable as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve but is prone to consume anything that would numb his brain. The joke around here is that Richard would drink turpentine if he thought it would get him drunk. That’s how he got the nickname. I’m willing to bet that the provisions he’s referring to consist mostly of liquor.”

  Ray, paced back and forth in the hallway, looking a little frustrated. Suddenly, he stopped and stared at her, anger brewing on his face. “Look Rose, Terp’s a good guy. He’s willing to risk his job and whatever’s out there to go look for Jack. Yeah, the man’s got some issues, but I don’t see D.B. sticking his neck out to help. And if the shit hits the fan the way I think it will, then we’re going to need guys like Terp. In my book, a guy like Terp is more valuable than a bean counter like D.B.”

  “Ok, ok, but you promise to go look for Jack first and if he’s hurt you get him to a hospital before you go off playing soldier with Terp.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I promise that’s exactly what we’ll do. That’s the plan.”

  “Ok, then go back to the garage and wait 10 minutes so I can get situated in the dispatch office.”

  “Ok.”

  Ray flashed Rose a closed-lipped smile. “Miss Rose, don’t worry, everything is going to be ok.”

  “I sure hope so Ray.” She turned to head down the hall and then stopped and tugged on Ray’s sleeve. “You be careful out there ok? I don’t believe it’s as bad as you say but you still have to watch yourself. A blackout brings out all the crazies. Looters and thugs have a field day in the dark.”

  “Don’t worry Miss Rose, I know how to handle my business.”

  They parted company. Rose headed for the dispatch office. As she passed by the breakroom, sh
e poked her head in the door. Most of the stranded were congregated there, milling about, drinking stale coffee, and trading rumors. Sam wasn’t in there. Damn it, he’s probably still in the dispatch office, she thought. She weaved her way through the grid-like like corridors of the 1960’s era building, trying to come up with a legitimate excuse for going back on-shift. She still hadn’t come up with anything when she turned the corner and opened the door to room 420, the word DISPATCH stenciled neatly on the door. Sam was there, hunched over the mic, the hot room causing sweat to bead on his brow and stain the armpits of his shirt.

  “Yes, yes,” Sam spoke into the pedestal microphone, practically enveloping it with his lips, “his name is Sergeant Oscar Brahman. He works in the tenth precinct. My name is Sam Millsap. I am a site manager for Tex-Can Energy. I need to speak with Sergeant Brahman. It’s an urgent matter. Can you please contact him and let him know I need to speak with him?”

  “No can do sir,” a voice crackled from the radio’s speaker, ”we are on high alert. Only essential police communications are allowed. You’ll have to get off this channel sir.”

  “Shit!” Sam said, spittle and sweat peppering the mic and the table it sat upon as he jerked his head back and spun around in the chair. He looked a little startled when he saw Rose standing in the doorway.

  “Good thing you had let go of the talk button before you cussed,” Rose said, nonchalantly plucking two tissues from the kleenex box on the desk, “they may have had to send somebody up here to arrest you.”

  “I wish they would,” Sam said, dejected, “at least I’d know they were listening.”

  “No luck persuading them to look for Jack?”

  “You heard them. They’re on high alert. Apparently they have more important things to do than save human lives.”

  Sam’s heart melted as soon as he saw the look of desolation on Rose’s face. He jumped off of the chair and rushed over to her.

  “Rose, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sure Jack is fine.”

  “No Sam, it’s ok. I know what you meant. I just feel so helpless. I feel like I should be doing something, anything to help find him, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Sam said. He gently placed his hands on her shoulders. God, I want to hug her so bad right now, he thought.

  Rose patted the back of his left hand with her right and gently lifted his hand off of her shoulder. “Sam, would you mind if I stayed here and monitored the radio?”

  “Rose, you don’t have to do that. You’ve been on-shift for a straight twelve hours already. Obviously Maggie can’t get in to start her shift but I don’t mind hanging out in here. You need to go and get some rest. No telling when we’re all going to be allowed to go home.”

  “If you don’t mind I would rather wait things out in here. I’m sure you have other important stuff you can be doing and I feel so useless everywhere else. This—waving her hand past the bank of radio transceivers—is all I know how to do. Right now, I really need something to keep my mind occupied.”

  “Yeah, ok sure. I don’t see any harm in it. Although there isn’t much of anything going on over the radio, which is really strange. You would think that with that big of a blast and the power being out that the police, fire, and rescue channels would be heavy with traffic. But it’s almost dead silence. Eerie, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Rose said, plopping down in the chair Sam had recently vacated, “that is strange.”

  “Well,” Sam said into the dead air left by Rose’s clipped sentence, “I guess I’ll leave you to it then. I’ll be listening on the scanner in my office so just say the word and I’ll come running.”

  “Ok. Thanks Sam.”

  “You’re welcome Rose.”

  Sam backed toward the door and then executed his patented twisting maneuver to fling his bulk through the doorway without slamming into the doorframe. Rose waited a few seconds to be sure he had left and then used the tissue to vigorously scrub Sam’s bodily fluids off the mic and table. She depressed the mic’s talk button.

  “This is Rose O’Donnell, third shift dispatcher for Tex-Can Energy. Good evening to the best power grid maintenance crews in the state of Texas.”

  Rose released the button and sighed. The sign on she has uttered for every one of her thirty years on the job sounded hollow to her now. But she hoped it was routine enough for Sam to ignore. If Ray was listening now he’d know that she was in position and ready to help. She pressed the talk button once more.

  “Truck two-seven, come back.” She released the button, waited, and then pressed it again. “Jack, if you’re out there, please answer.”

  Release. Wait. Press.

  “Jack honey, if you can hear my voice, hang in there. We’re coming to get you.”

  17

  Jill felt feverish, her skin tingled from the sauna-like heat that hugged her like a blanket. She took a lungful of air and let it out slowly. Her breath burned hot over her tongue. Where am I? she thought. She opened her eyes but saw nothing but more darkness. The last thing she remembered was stepping out of her hot tub and looking up at the night sky at an unusually bright light. That was some kind of light. I wonder what it was? Her wet hair was plastered against her neck and her head hurt something awful. It was a dull, painful throb that radiated outward from the base of her skull. Suddenly, a new thought occurred to her. Victoria was with me too.

  “Victoria,” she said out loud, “where are you honey?” There was no response. Her voice sounded alien to her ears, hoarse and raspy. She took a deep breath. The air around her was thick and heavy, full of familiar but strange odors. The world around her was pitch black. How can it be so dark? she wondered. She wasn’t on the rooftop of her townhouse, she knew that for sure. This place felt closed in, like a large room. Why do I feel know this place? Her memory flickered and then blazed to life as the realization hit her—Muskogee. Muskogee, Oklahoma. Colonel Dan’s Used Auto Sales. The private office of Colonel Dan Witherspoon. Ok, I'm definitely dreaming because I can't possibly be at Colonel Dan’s. But why does it feel so real?

  The nightmares of that long ago night were carved into her soul like a third degree burn. I worked so hard to overcome the trauma, to suppress those memories, she thought, It took me a long, long time to feel normal again, to feel anything at all. I cannot relive that nightmare, not after all these years. As if to confirm her fears, a pinpoint of light appeared in front of her. It grew brighter until the curtain of darkness that surrounded her was peeled back to reveal the memory she had hoped would never resurface. The source of the light was an antique bankers lamp. It sat like a gold plated leprechaun on the corner of a large wooden desk. Its light cast a green tint against her pale, damp skin. She glanced down and was surprised to see her forty-seven year old body. The nightmare had changed. She wasn’t a naive and innocent seventeen year old beauty pageant hopeful anymore. She was...her. And something else was different.

  She was naked.

  I’m naked! Dear God, why am I naked? She was slumped in an old leather wingback chair. The chair’s leather had cracked and split, the torn edges bit into the skin of her thighs and buttocks. A terrified whine escaped her lips when she spied the cigar. No, dear God, no! she thought. The cigar lie on the desk, half its length buried in a clear glass ashtray. Smoke curled from its burnt embers and rose into the darkness. The other half of the cigar was slick with the spit of its owner. He’s here, she told herself. On the opposite side of the desk was another wingback chair. Its back faced her, but she knew he was sitting there. His presence was obvious. She would never forget the smell of him—the smell of Councilman ‘Colonel’ Daniel Witherspoon.

  This is not right! He’s dead! Dead and buried! Councilman Witherspoon, or ‘Colonel Dan’ as he liked to be called, was the sleaziest, most depraved excuse for a man the state of Oklahoma had ever produced. His company happened to be the main sponsor of the Pushmataha County local Miss Oklahoma Outstanding Teen pageant, and he was its most prominent judge. Colonel Dan smel
t of armpit sweat, cheap cologne, and stale cigars. He always smelled that way. The rumor was he preferred the smell of day old armpit funk to that of a freshly washed body. It turned him on. During his rape trial Jill discovered, like all psychotic serial rapists, that Colonel Dan had to have a memento of his conquests. The musty odor of a young girl’s fear and shame was his trophy.

  Forget about how he smells Jilly, her momma had told her, Treat Colonel Dan nice and you might get to go to exotic places and see the world. You want to go to exotic places don’t you Jilly?

  Truth was, momma was right. The girls who Colonel Dan took a liking to tended to do real well in the pageants. Some even punched their ticket all the way to Miss America. But they all carried the trauma of Colonel Dan’s advances. Jill wasn’t stupid, she had heard the stories about what happens to girls who find themselves alone with Colonel Dan. Jill’s momma knew it too, but they were both too desperate to pay attention to the warning signs. Jill wanted to get out of Pushmataha county and the little prison the town of Rattan, Oklahoma had become for her so bad that she violated her golden rule: Never take her momma’s advice when she’d been drinking. That fateful day she let momma talk her into the private meeting with Colonel Dan.

  Just be nice to him and flirt a little bit, her momma said, what’s the harm in it?

  That night, she learned there was great harm in it. It was a mistake that cost her innocence, and for a time, much of her sanity. But he’s dead now, she thought, trying to calm the panic rising within her. The state of Oklahoma pumped him full of poison for the crimes he committed against us girls. I was there, I watched him die. His death was the catalyst she needed to climb out of the depths of a ten year depression. Ten years of reliving the nightmare of that night. So why am I reliving a thirty year old nightmare now? And why does it feel so real? Jill didn’t understand what was happening to her, why the nightmare of her youth had returned, or why it was so different this time. But she was not going to let it play out. She was not going to sit back and be tortured by a memory. She reached across her body and pinched her forearm. She flinched. The pain was real, yet the scene did not waver, and she did not wake up from the nightmare. “You will not hurt me again!” she screamed at the chair across the desk, “I will not let you hurt me again!” She stood up. A wave of nausea overcame her and she suddenly felt faint. She tried to push the chair away, to give herself room to run. But the chair was too heavy and instead of moving away from the desk as she intended, she stumbled forward, her hands landing palms down on the desk to break her fall. His chair spun around faster than Jill could think, and before she could move, he had stood up and slammed his hands over hers, pinning her to the desk.