Panacea

by Brad Murray

  After checking and double checking each person that had exited, there was one name remaining on the manifest. She was puzzled, wondering if she had simply overlooked him.

  “I’m missing Dr. Minkowski,” she said to the line of people. “Was Dr. Minkowski not on board?”

  A chorus of apathetic “no’s” and head shaking confirmed that she had not missed him at all; Dr. Minkowski had not boarded the plane. It was an odd occurrence for anyone to have missed the plane, but “odd” wouldn’t be the correct word to describe Minkowski’s missing it. Something was wrong.

  She whipped out her cellphone and rapidly punched in the number. Her pulse quickened; this was a first.

  “Yes, hello Mr. Brumeux,” she said nervously. “Field Agent Jordan from the Outpost. I – I had Dr. Minkowski on the manifest for this morning’s arrival. But he wasn’t on the plane, sir. I’ve asked the other passengers and they said he never boarded.”

  After a long silence Brumeux muttered, almost to himself, “And so it begins.”

  6

  Today - May 29, 2011

  Jimmy wiped the sweat beads off his forehead and eyed the helicopter still drifting about on the horizon above the interstate, its blades thumping softly. A very faint pinkish cloud lingered in the air; remnants of the pesticide the crop duster had dropped earlier. He didn’t give it much thought; his mind preoccupied by the lunatic on the motorcycle who started this whole mess, and the fact his pickup truck was laying upside-down, battered and crippled. Furthermore, he kept thinking about the animals. He shuddered when recalling their screams - how human they had seemed in their sheer terror. He wanted the hell out of this place. But he was stuck. Jimmy ripped open another plastic water bottle and chucked the lid in frustration against the inside wall of the ambulance. Sitting on the back bumper provided shade from the scorching summer sun, but it didn’t do anything to alleviate the aggravation. He cursed under his breath, irritated by the feeling of helplessness; stuck in the middle of Hicksville, Missouri with no ability to get to St. Louis or Dr. Minkowski anytime soon.

  Minkowski.

  There was something distinctly troubling in his voice during their hastened conversation a few minutes earlier. Though the reception was spotty, Jimmy was certain he heard four words very clearly.

  “You are in danger.”

  Those four words coupled with Minkowski’s tone gave him pause for concern. Perhaps Minkowski misinterpreted his description of the accident. After all, there was a lot of cutting in and out, and it would be easy to misconstrue something. Minkowski had probably jumped to misguided conclusions. Jimmy yearned to call him and clarify, to pass along the message that he was okay and that he would find his way to St. Louis, but repeated checks of his phone showed no reception. When La’Roi came back, he would ask to check his phone again – maybe La’Roi would have reception now.

  As Jimmy sat thinking of just how the hell he was going to get to St. Louis, a vision of his father flashed in his head. “Let it go, son. Let it go.” Much to Jimmy’s chagrin, visions of his father often appeared in moments when he was searching for answers. This one was a memory of his father looking just as he did on that winter day so long ago; the last day Jimmy saw him before he split like a coward and left his family to fend for themselves. He sometimes imagined the worthless bastard living it up on a beach somewhere; sipping on some tropical punch-flavored concoction with his new wife and kids. Or, perhaps, living in some fancy cabin in the mountains, teaching his new son how to tie a fishing lure and giving him life lessons; a father’s job that he never bothered to complete with Jimmy and Cooper. Jimmy had grown to resent his father. No, much worse than that. He hated him. As a child, he had long blamed himself for his father’s departure. If only he hadn’t touched that shotgun like he’d been told. If only he hadn’t blasted the truck his father had worked so hard on. Over time, his guilt and his shame lessened and he came to the realization that there had to be other reasons. So, for a period of time he blamed his brother. And after that he blamed his mother. Finally, Jimmy came to understand the fault lay totally and completely with his father. His pathetic selfishness had nearly ruined everyone’s lives.

  He clenched his jaw in anger and concentrated on making the images of his father disappear from his mind’s eye. Off to his right, he overheard the conversation of two patrolmen who were standing near the ditch.

  “Where’s Hogan? And what about Kolbeck? They should have had the traffic diverted into the other lanes by now.”

  “They’re working on it,” said the shorter of the patrolmen. “Trucks should be here any minute to remove the debris.”

  “Good,” remarked the taller patrolman. “Keep on it. Did you ID the guy on the motorcycle?”

  “Yeah, Hogan and I pulled his D.L. Big fella. Took both of us to lift him up to get to his wallet. First class weirdo too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was wearing some sort of strange communication system on his wrist. Some sort of new age walkie-talkie near as I can tell. And he had small oxygen tanks sewn into the back of his jacket that fed into his helmet.”

  “Oxygen tanks?” asked the taller patrolman. “Old guy, huh? What’s an old man on oxygen doing riding a bike out on the interstate?”

  “No Major, he wasn’t old. Let me see here,” said the patrolman as he looked down at the recovered driver’s license. “Born in ‘65. Makes him 46. He’s younger than me. Oh, I almost forgot. Does ‘Ordo Tenebris’ mean anything to you, Major?”

  “Not offhand. Why?”

  “There’s a tag on the inside of his helmet saying that – just wondering what it means.”

  “You got me - who knows, maybe some fancy-dance foreign helmet designer or something.”

  “I don’t think so,” the patrolman said, holding up a small card for the Major to see. “We pulled this card out of his wallet. It also says ‘Ordo Tenebris’ with ‘beati pacifici’ handwritten underneath. What do you make of it?”

  The Major studied the card intently and after a few seconds, “No idea – must be some damn foreigner. Figures. What’s the guy’s name?”

  At that moment a shrill scream filled the air. The two highway patrolmen and Jimmy jumped at the sound and quickly found its source. Lying on his back in front of the Red Explorer was the man in the Missouri Tigers sweatshirt. His legs and arms sprawled wretchedly towards the sky, his entire body heaving in agony. La’Roi was already hunched over the man and was aided by a woman and a patrolman who were trying in vain to keep him pinned to the ground. The Major, the patrolman, and Jimmy rushed to their sides. The man’s glasses were still affixed to his nose but both lenses were shattered and the frame was bent at a forty-five degree angle. His nose was broken, cocked awkwardly to the left. His chin was dripping blood, and his forehead was gashed so badly a curtain of skin hung from the wound. A river of blood covered the man’s face and oozed into both ears and onto the concrete beneath him. He was screaming so loudly it seemed as if his voice box would shatter. With four men holding the writhing man down, La’Roi reached into his medical box and pulled out a syringe and injected its contents into the man’s shoulder. Seconds later, to the relief of everyone, the man’s screams subsided as the sedative took effect and he passed out.

  “What the hell is wrong with him?” asked the Major.

  “I was doing follow up checks on everyone. I stopped to ask how he was feeling,” said La’Roi, huffing and puffing. “He mumbled something about ‘it’s over’ and a bunch of other jibberish I couldn’t understand. Then he ran around in circles doing some kind of weird war chant and eventually started bashin’ his face into the hood of the car. Over and over and over.”

  La’Roi rubbed his forehead, confused. He wiped off the sweat that was building with his forearm. “A couple of us of tackled him to keep him from hurting himself and he started screaming. Then you showed up.”

  Everyone stood in silence, trying to contemplate what would make a man do such a thing.

  �
��Lunatic if you ask me,” said the patrolman.

  “I don’t know…” said La’Roi, deep in thought, a puzzled expression on his face. La’Roi made eye contact with Jimmy. “Help me get him loaded up. We’ll take him in my ambulance.”

  Jimmy and La’Roi walked back to the ambulance to grab a stretcher.

  “What do you make of it?” asked Jimmy.

  “I don’t know yet. I can’t help but think about the animals I saw on the way here. Then the woman when we arrived on scene. And now this guy. All of them acting batshit crazy. Can’t be coincidence.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” replied Jimmy.

  La’Roi rubbed his temples, lost his balance, but caught himself against the ambulance door. Jimmy put his hand on La’Roi’s shoulder to steady him. “You alright man?”

  “Yeah, just too much heat I think.”

  “Sit down and cool off. I’ll grab you some water.”

  “Yeah…thanks.”

  Jimmy climbed into the back of the ambulance and rummaged through assorted medical equipment and piles of medical binders that had fallen onto the floor. Eventually he found a lone remaining bottle of water. La’Roi sat on the bumper with his head in his hands, rubbing his temples. Jimmy screwed off the top and handed the bottle to the paramedic, who took it in one hand, holding it to his forehead.

  “Let it go. Chickenshit,” said La’Roi angrily.

  “What? What did you say?”

  La’Roi’s right hand rubbed his forehead with the bottle, while with the left he was throwing short, jerky punches at an invisible opponent.

  “You did it to me, didn’t you?” said La’Roi, a demented expression filling his face. “You and goddamn Monique. Say it again, you little sonofabitch!”

  La’Roi rose up off the bumper, rage in his eyes. Jimmy backed away slowly.

  “What are you talking about man?” said Jimmy.

  “Let it go!”

  Horrified, Jimmy’s mind flashed to the description La’Roi had given of the Missouri Tiger man; the strange, involuntary movement, and the nonsensical rambling. Whatever was happening on this stretch of Missouri interstate was now clearly happening to La’Roi. Jimmy reached out and put his hand on La’Roi’s shoulder, hoping to calm him down. It seemed to work; La’Roi stopped the babbling and his breathing slowed. Jimmy calmed as well and thought of running to get help. He would retrieve the Major and La’Roi’s overweight paramedic partner. As Jimmy released La’Roi’s shoulder to step out of the ambulance, La’Roi shot out at him like a bolt of lightning. His hand locked around Jimmy’s throat and slammed him against the wall of the ambulance. Every ounce of breath knocked from his lungs, Jimmy groaned in pain as he was then slammed against a metal shelf. La’Roi thrust his shoulder and his full weight into Jimmy’s sternum, body-slamming him against the floor. The world turned purple as La’Roi’s vice-grip-like grasp on Jimmy’s throat cut off the oxygen supply to his brain. La’Roi’s eyes rolled crazily. Drool trickled out of his mouth and oozed onto Jimmy’s cheek.

  As he lay there fighting for his life, the black and white vision of his father appeared to him once again. “You wanna take a shot Bud? Go on, give it a shot,” said his father, smiling back at him approvingly in his heavy winter coat.

  Jimmy scrambled to find something – anything – he could use as a weapon. The only thing within reach was a small plastic container on the floor at his right side. He could barely concentrate, barely breath, his life being choked out of him with each passing second. Flailing, he knocked the container over, spilling out a dozen needles. Purple was fading to black, and Jimmy could feel each pulsating heartbeat straining through La’Roi’s fingers. His thoughts flashed to Cooper and then to his mother – how on earth would someone ever explain to her that her son had been choked to death by a deranged paramedic in the back of an ambulance on the middle of the interstate? Jimmy pinched one of the needles between his middle and index fingers and pulled it closer. He re-gripped the needle and jammed it into La’Roi’s shoulder. La’Roi recoiled and squealed in pain. Jimmy punched him in the windpipe with the limited amount of strength he had remaining. La’Roi released his grip and grabbed his throat with both hands, gasping for air. He flopped over onto his side and began convulsing.

  Jimmy’s lungs burned and his neck ached, his wind and vision slowly returning. As he rose to his knees, La’Roi flailed uncontrollably, kicking and punching wildly. La’Roi began to moan – a low, haunting moan that seemed to emanate from somewhere deep inside and echoed off the ambulance walls. Jimmy found an oxygen mask and tried to place it on the paramedic’s face. But the task was impossible; La’Roi thrashed and flailed like a landed trout. Jimmy grabbed La’Roi by the shirt, pulling his head a couple of inches off the ground. He reared back and punched La’Roi in the face, knocking him out. Jimmy turned the valve on the oxygen tank and secured the mask around the paramedic’s nose and mouth. He stumbled out of the back doors, still trying to regain his faculties. He had to find La’Roi’s partner. The other paramedic would know what to do.

  As he rounded the ambulance massaging his bruised throat, the scene he encountered was straight out of a nightmare. The woman who had helped hold down Missouri Tiger Man earlier was now crawling across the median. She yelped to the sky like some sort of rabid dog and pulled out her own hair, a handful at a time. The patrolman danced around on the road ritualistically, like an Indian warrior. He jumped back and forth next to the Major’s head, who was writhing around hysterically on the ground. The patrolman sang in an alien language and shot his pistol into the air. Dozens of other people who, until that point, had been stunned at the whole spectacle, bolted in every direction, nearly all of them screaming at the top of their lungs. One woman, wearing a sharp grey business suit, howled and took off on a full sprint, diving headlong into the driver’s side window of a black Lexus. The glass shattered on impact and the woman hung half-in, half-out of the car, her feet convulsing every few seconds.

  Jimmy stood in stunned silence. Near his old pickup truck, Yosemite Sam held his arms in the air, as if giving a “touchdown” signal while he skipped in a circle. The patrolman pulled his pistol from its holster and fired at Sam, hitting him square in the back of the head and dropping him on the spot. The patrolman fired another shot into the stomach of the Major and then began squeezing off rounds at any moving object that had the misfortune of entering his field of vision. A couple of the cars that were moving slowly on the opposite side of the interstate were next, sending their drivers into a frenzy. A white Yukon plowed into the back of a blue Honda Accord, causing it to veer sideways and block both lanes. A furious young woman in the Accord got out of her vehicle, oblivious to the gunshots and the chaos occurring on the opposite side of the interstate. Jimmy watched in horror as the patrolman took aim at the woman.

  “Hey!” Jimmy waved his arms frantically, hoping to distract the patrolman. “Hey! Over here!”

  The patrolman turned robotically to Jimmy, his lifeless stone-like eyes narrowing on his newly acquired target. Jimmy’s heart skipped. His instinct to save the woman had put himself in harm’s way. He looked around and realized was standing in the open, with no cover, and no way to avoid the bullet that would soon be ending his life. It was the second time in two days he’d stared down the barrel of a gun.

  7

  Yesterday - May 28, 2011

  Jimmy gazed into the weapon, entranced. The glint of the revolver’s silver metal flashed in his eyes, a stark contrast to the barrel’s circular black void. He grabbed the Jack Daniel’s bottle from his mother’s coffee table and emptied the final swig down his throat. Just a year-and-a-half earlier, he and Cooper had cracked open that bottle, taking turns doing shots in celebration of his brother’s eighteenth birthday until they passed out – Cooper on the sofa and Jimmy in the middle of the living room floor. Cooper had signed up for the Army that day, making good on his vow to join up the day he turned eighteen.

  “I wish I could go with you,” Jimmy had said,
tipping back his head and dumping the shot glass’ contents down his throat.

  “No you don’t,” said Cooper. “It’s not for you. I’ve known that since we were kids. Besides, I’m a big boy now, Jimbo. I don’t need my big brother looking over my shoulder tryin’ to protect me anymore.”

  “I tried to get in,” protested Jimmy. “But the Army wouldn’t take me, remember?”

  “Dude, relax! I’m cool with it. Like I said, I can take care of myself.” Cooper twisted off the bottle cap and filled both shot glasses. “I know after Dad left you felt like you needed to be the man of the house. And you were. But its time for you to do something for yourself. You don’t need to take care of me or Mom anymore.”

  Cooper took his shot glass in one hand and passed the other to Jimmy.

  “What if something happens to you?” said Jimmy. “I won’t be able to live with myself. I’ll feel like I should have been there.”

  “Nothing’s gonna happen. Stop thinking like that. It’s bad mojo. Now, are we gonna drink this shot or am I gonna have to listen to you piss and moan all night?”

  Cooper smiled. Jimmy relented. The pair slammed the whiskey down their throats and banged their glasses on the coffee table in unison.

  “Better get used to my pissing and moaning,” Jimmy grinned. “I am my brother’s keeper. Always will be. Someone has to look out for your dumb ass.”

  When Emma returned home from her night shift she was none too impressed at the sight of her “drunken idiot” sons. Bright and early the next morning, she served as the boys’ personal alarm clock by clanging pots and pans together until their “whiskey smelling asses” were out the door and on their way to class – Jimmy at the local university and Cooper his senior year of high school.