Panacea

by Brad Murray

  Knowing that the immediate threat had been averted, Jimmy blinked and took in his surroundings. The scene was madness; chaos on a grandiose scale. Everywhere he looked, bodies were in motion - running, convulsing, falling, screaming. Terrible, otherworldly cries echoed of absolute desperation. It was hell’s symphony, with the Devil himself as the conductor.

  Jimmy’s instinct was to run. He had to escape, knowing it would be just a matter of time before one of the many deranged freaks got ahold of him. Canvassing the scene, looking for a way out, he shot a yearning glance at his crippled white pickup truck lying upside down near the ditch. He would have given anything at that moment to have her upright and running again. Jimmy moved from vehicle to vehicle, but those behind the pickup truck were blocked by wreckage. None of them would be of use. He turned to the opposite side of the interstate. Cars and trucks snarled together in search of their own getaway, but in the pandemonium, the mad push to escape had only made things worse. It was reminiscent of a European soccer riot, where those in the back had crushed those in the front to the point where nobody could move. The driver of a tractor trailer, who had either panicked or been taken victim by the outbreak was pushing a small Honda Civic off the road, shoving it onto its side. The Civic rolled onto its top and crushed a convulsing man lying in the median.

  Jimmy rubbed his palms together, trying to calm his mind. And then it hit him - the ambulance. He sprinted over to the passenger window, not even realizing the throbbing pain that was in his ankle just minutes before had all but vanished. He peered through the window and his heart leapt. La’Roi had left the keys in the ignition. The ambulance was his ticket out. Jimmy turned and started towards the driver’s side but out of nowhere was sent sprawling by a thick forearm. The fencepost of an arm clotheslined him, nearly crushing his windpipe, sending him feet-over-head. Jimmy was on his back, seeing stars and gasping for air for the second time in less than two minutes.

  A shadow stood over him, blocking out the sun. Droplets of sweat from the shadow’s brow splattered on the pavement next to Jimmy’s ear like mini water bombs. The shadow was panting, gasping like a winded dog. It raised its arm high, holding something long and cylindrical in the air. Jimmy spun onto his side, desperately trying to fill his burning lungs with oxygen. As he moved, the sunlight illuminated the side of the shadow’s face, revealing the same patrolman who moments before had tried to shoot him.

  He realized the object the patrolman held in the air was a police baton, and that he was intent on crushing Jimmy’s skull with it. His eyes remained dead; completely devoid of human emotion. The baton whooshed through the air as the deathblow crashed towards its mark. Jimmy had anticipated his move. He wheeled onto his back and kicked the toe of his right boot directly into the patrolman’s crotch. He buckled, made a strange animal-like cry, and tumbled over into the front bumper of the ambulance.

  Relieved, Jimmy jumped up; heart pounding, lungs burning, adrenaline pumping. The patrolman curled up on his side, eyes rolled back in his head. Jimmy noticed blood streaking from the corner of the patrolman’s eye and recalled La’Roi’s description earlier about the animals on the road. He made a wide berth around the front of the ambulance, steering clear of the patrolman and away from his seemingly personal vendetta. He glanced at the surreal scene on the interstate. A gun blasted somewhere in the middle of the chaos, this time from what sounded like a shotgun. Jimmy looked down again at the patrolman, who was in a heap, moaning. As Jimmy reached for the ambulance door handle, the patrolman lurched forward, as if struck by a bolt of electricity. He reached his hand frantically toward Jimmy and made eye contact; despair poured from him, and the patrolman seemed human again.

  Blood now oozed from both eyes and the patrolman’s teeth had transformed from coffee-stained white to crimson red. A stream of blood spilled over his bottom lip and oozed slowly to the pavement. The patrolman gurgled and choked, spewing dots of blood over the concrete and onto Jimmy’s shoe. His eyes rolled in back of his head when he began to violently shudder and shake. The convulsions were so ferocious that two of his fingers cracked loudly as his hand slammed to the pavement. He emitted a strange high-pitched moan; a wail that seemed to come from deep within his soul. As quickly as the spasms began, they ended. His head plopped with a thud against the pavement. His breathing halted.

  Jimmy stood in a haze, unable to take his eyes off the bloodied heap lying dead in front of him. But something inside his mind – his inner voice – screamed at him to snap to. He jumped into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition. It fired right up; the sweet sound of the engine purring was music to his ears. He locked the doors and instantly felt relieved. The cab of the ambulance provided a sense of security, shelter from the madness outside.

  “What in the hell is happening?!” Jimmy whispered to himself.

  He shifted the ambulance into reverse, consciously avoiding running over the patrolman. He gazed out through the cracked windshield at the mayhem, still unable to comprehend, and wondered if he was already infected. If so, would he soon start to feel the effects? Would this mystery bug perform its hostile takeover of his brain before he even knew it? Perhaps it was already too late; maybe this thing - or whatever it was was already winning its battle deep inside his body, and soon it would be Jimmy bashing his own head into the dashboard.

  The ambulance whirled around and roared eastward. Traffic in the eastbound lanes was non-existent, the wreckage having formed a blockade behind him. Traffic in the westbound lanes was thick, a line of cars backed up as far ahead as he could see. Jimmy thought of La’Roi still lying in the back of the ambulance and hoped that the oxygen mask he had placed on his face would somehow sustain him until he found help. But in Jimmy’s gut he was resigned to the fact that whenever he did find help, it would be too late. La’Roi would be dead lying in a pool of blood dripping from his mouth and eyes. Just like the patrolman. Just like the animals.

  The sign ahead closed to within reading distance. Four miles ahead was the exit for Parsons, Missouri. Though Jimmy had lived in Missouri his entire life, Parsons was not a name he recognized. It certainly wasn’t a thriving metropolis, but was it big enough to offer the kind of medical help he needed? Almost as quickly as the question entered his mind, it was answered. Jimmy noticed a large white sticker adhered to the dashboard above the glove box.

  “Parsons EMS – Ambulance,” read the circular logo emblazoned in bright red and blue lettering.

  La’Roi was a Parsons’ paramedic, and if Parsons had ambulances, it had at least have a small medical center, maybe even a hospital.

  “There’d be doctors there who could help La’Roi,” thought Jimmy.

  And help was just a few short minutes away.

  The ambulance roared to the top of a steep rise. Jimmy noticed that traffic on both sides was non-existent – not another vehicle in sight. Perhaps there were troopers on just the other side of the hill, diverting traffic around the accident scene, he thought. As the ambulance cleared the summit, a congregation of black vehicles were conjoined together about a half-mile ahead at the bottom. They stretched from one side of the eastbound lanes to the other. Jimmy could see movement, tiny black dots of people, interspersed about black trucks and cars. Another wave of relief washed over him. The vehicles ahead might be law enforcement, government agents - people who understood what the hell was happening. They would have answers, and maybe even a cure for whatever was transpiring a few miles behind him. They were probably securing a perimeter; taking control of the situation. Everything would be over soon.

  Just as the calming thoughts began to slow the pace of his heartbeat, a thunderous blast whooshed over the ambulance, rattling the windows and shaking Jimmy to his core. An ominous shadow blotted out the sun as the object passed quickly over. Jimmy instinctively ducked and covered his head with one arm, cursing loudly as it passed. He struggled to keep an eye on the road as he looked to the sky. The whirling blades of the black helicopter churned threateningly as it flew directly
over the ambulance, in a linear path over the interstate.

  He approached the assemblage of black vehicles. None had any markings. There were no Highway Patrol cars, no county sheriff, no governmental insignia anywhere. About a dozen men, dressed in matching black t-shirts and black military pants stood in formation, each a few paces from the next. They faced toward the oncoming ambulance, feet apart, knees slightly bent, jaws clenched. As Jimmy slowed, the black helicopter rotated so that it faced the oncoming ambulance, and hovered like a watchdog fifty yards or so beyond the blockade. With the opaque eyes of a dozen men and the helicopter facing him, the pit of his stomach soured.

  Something didn’t feel right.

  Jimmy came to a complete stop about ten feet from the line of men and quickly scanned his surroundings instinctively looking for an exit. If he had to make a quick escape, there would be no plowing directly through the blockade of cars. The ambulance simply wouldn’t make it. One possibility would be to kick the ambulance into reverse, whip a one-eighty, and head back the other way. But reverse was the direction to hell. If he must, Jimmy would go around the blockade, through the ditch on the right, or through the deep grassy median between the two lanes. It would be a helluva rough ride, but if pressed into action, Jimmy resolved to do it. The ambulance idled. The men stood firm in formation, prepared for any action that might come their way. The helicopter remained hovering in the distance.

  Seconds passed without any sign of movement.

  Jimmy drummed the steering wheel with his fingers impatiently. Time was wasting and with it, La’Roi’s chances. Jimmy exhaled, and collected himself. He had to talk to them. He would tell them what was going on and that he had to get La’Roi to the hospital.

  Finally, one of the men in the formation moved. The man’s neck was thick, his prominent jawline square. He moved like he meant business - each step had purpose. His arms bulged, the black shirt he wore strained to contain the barrel chest within. This was a guy you wanted on your side, and not somebody any sober man would mess with. Military training for sure – he definitely knew how to handle himself. The man with the barrel chest approached the driver’s side window and motioned sternly to roll it down. Jimmy pressed the button.

  “James Porter,” said the man firmly. It was more of a statement than it was a question.

  “What?” said Jimmy, stunned. “How did you know my name?”

  Barrel Chest turned and signalled. Jimmy searched the rest of the men, trying to determine who he was signaling. But they stood fixed, unwavering in their formation. The helicopter lowered to the ground. The whirring of the blades became less and less intense. The glint of the sun from somewhere near the rear of the blockade caught Jimmy’s eye – a door opening.

  He squinted through the gleam of reflected car windows and was able to make out a dark form – a man who wearing black. The heat rising from the asphalt and radiating from the black cars refracted the light beams in strange ways and made the outline of the man appear as if it were swirling.

  A hat – the man wore a hat.

  As the figure moved closer, Jimmy began to make out details. He was older - much older than Barrel Chest, as evidenced by his slow, measured gait. He moved carefully, somewhat gingerly. His back had a slight hunch, and though he used a cane, he sauntered smoothly forward. The man was wearing a suit. A three-piece suit topped off with sunglasses and a black fedora. Jimmy watched, transfixed, as the debonair elderly gentleman glided towards him. The old man reminded Jimmy of someone. The way he moved - the hat, the suit, the cane. He was…familiar. The rolodex of Jimmy’s mind flipped to that day in high school.

  It was the day Hen Pecker had humiliated him in front of everyone, and the day he stood up for himself and told her - not so delicately - where she could go. Most memorably, it was the day he encountered the strange elderly man with the milkly white eye who was dressed to the nines. But what stuck out to Jimmy the most about that day, even more so than the eye, was the man’s peculiar persona; how he seemed so enamored with Jimmy and how he spoke in riddles.

  What was it he said to me that day? wondered Jimmy.

  The old man approached the driver’s side window, his wispy white hair peaking from under the fedora, flipping in the breeze. Gentle wafts of his aftershave danced in the air, the pleasant fragrance subtly hinting sophistication and confidence. He paused while he studied Jimmy’s face in an expression of rapt wonderment. He grinned, his cheeks pulling his neatly trimmed mustache up at the corners.

  “Mister Porter, so wonderful to speak with you again. Such a monumental day.”

  “Do I know you?” asked Jimmy.

  “Well - I most certainly know you,” the man beamed. “Where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Benoit Brumeux.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “All will be explained to you in due time, James. But let me just start by saying that I have been waiting for this moment since the day you were born.”

  Jimmy gave Brumeux a look of disbelief. “Since I was born? I don’t understand…”

  “Actually James, we met briefly several years ago,” said Brumeux. He removed his sunglasses with a brown, spot-covered hand and placed them in his suit pocket. At the sight of the scarred, milky-white eye, the strange conversation of that day returned.

  “What’s past is prologue,” breathed Jimmy.

  Brumeux’s expression brightened.

  “Ah yes. Excellent!” He lifted his arms into the air victoriously. “You remembered!”

  11

  April 23, 1945

  “You remembered!” exclaimed the boy.

  His eyes aglow, they reflected the nine lit candles sitting atop the cake. At his right side stood Martha, his seven year old sister. She cheered and jumped and clapped joyfully, her curly brown locks bouncing with her, along for the ride. It had been awhile since Martha had anything to clap about. Across the table his mother, Ava, forced a smile. Her anxiety shown through on her face, though she tried hard to conceal it. His father, Josef, shook out the match and watched as the smoke coiled towards the ceiling of the family’s quarters. Josef removed his sharp grey military cap and sat it on the table a safe distance away from the cake, eliminating any risk of the white icing marring its immaculate surface. The glint of a metal eagle, its wings spread wide, was displayed prominently at its center. There was no mistaking the mark of the SS.

  “Of course we remembered, my son,” said Josef. “How could we forget? You’ve reminded us nearly every day this week.” He smiled and gave the boy a wink.

  His father’s dark gray SS uniform was more than impressive to young Viktor Schwarz. Just the mere appearance of it was intoxicating. From the lightning bolts on the lapel, to the striking red, black, and white swastika armband worn around the left bicep, Viktor was spellbound by the power it possessed. It screamed authority and command; supremacy. Viktor daydreamed often of one day sporting the uniform, of donning the silver and black iron cross pinned at the center of the neckline, of proudly displaying the skull-and-crossbones that would peer out ominously from its perch on his cap just beneath the SS eagle. Most of all, he fantasized about the respect that came along with it. The same respect his father held as Obersturmbannführer, Commander of Haasburg concentration camp.

  “Hurry and blow out your candles, Viktor,” said his mother. “Your father has important work to attend to.” She fidgeted, twisting her wedding ring around her finger.

  “Nonsense, Ava. It’s Viktor’s birthday. Everything else can wait.”

  Viktor grinned. He drew a breath as deeply as his lungs would allow and blew as hard as he could. The last of the nine candles extinguished just as the final remnant of air exited his lips. Josef and Martha laughed and cheered while Ava gave a half-hearted smile.

  “Magnificent Viktor!” applauded his father. “You have the lungs of a champion swimmer, just like your father!” The comment made Viktor blush; there was nothing he wanted more than to be like his father.

&n
bsp; Josef looked up and blinked at Hans Wicker, who stood idly across the room. He came sharply to attention, awaiting the Commander’s orders.

  “Untersturmführer Wicker, would you please retrieve the item we discussed earlier?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Wicker swiftly exited through the threshold, his long slender frame clearing the room in only a few strides. He was young and ambitious; silent and calculating. He had transferred to Haasburg in the fall of ’44 from a smaller prison camp in northern Germany, and was a quick study of Schwarz and of Haasburg. The brutal reputation that had preceded him was wholly understated. Schwarz had digested Wicker’s file prior to his transfer and noted how he had quickly climbed the ranks by both impressing his superiors and having a prominent last name - being the son of a high-ranking official in Hitler’s Ministry of Finance. Though he had a family of his own - a young wife and two children at home in Berlin - he never mentioned them in conversation.

  His dedication to the Reich was unquestioned, but it was his particularly cruel methods for dealing with the “rats” that set him apart. The “rats,” as he referred to them, were the prisoners. Most of them were Jews. There were also political prisoners, Communists, accused homosexuals, and other undesirables in the camp. When new prisoners would arrive, Wicker’s hallmark was to pick a random “rat” from the group and pistol whip him to make an impression on the new residents. More often than not, the beatings were so severe they resulted in death. In one particular incident, Wicker pulled a prisoner off a railcar, ripping him away from his young children. He bashed in the back of the man’s head with the butt of his Walther pistol. As the man lay unconscious, face down in the snow, Wicker knelt over him and put his knee into his back. He lifted the prisoner’s head and smashed his face into the frozen ground over a dozen times until his features were unrecognizable; a bloody pulp. The man’s son had screamed and wailed in agony until the daughter, who was the older of the two children, jumped on Wicker’s back in her grief-stricken madness. He sent her frail, malnourished body sprawling head-over-heels into the snow, her tattered, thin clothing not nearly enough to protect her from the cold. In a rage, he pulled her up by her shoulder length brown hair, reared back and smashed his fist into her temple, sending her tiny spectacles spinning into the air. The blow knocked her out instantly. Wicker laughed and let loose of his grip, dropping her limp body into the snow. He calmly stooped over the little girl, his Walther drawn, and fired a single shot. He kicked the corpse for good measure; recompense for the girl’s inanity. She was no more than twelve years old, the report had said.