False Prey: A Wildfire Novella (Wildfire Saga)

by Marcus Richardson

  He was about to turn when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He looked closer into the gloom. Just below the lower hinge on the open bathroom door appeared to be a bright, shiny object wedged between the door and the wall. Danny quickly took another look around the parking lot to make sure no cops had come back, then ripped down one of the yellow crime scene tapes and ducked inside.

  He stepped over as much blood as he could and made his way quickly to the back of the room. Kneeling at the bathroom door, he saw that the object he’d spotted was Thomas’ cell phone. He remembered its cracked screen.

  Trying to push aside thoughts of all the crimes he was committing, he reached a finger under the hinge and tipped the phone into his hand. He quickly stuffed it in his pocket and carefully backtracked out of the room and returned to his car.

  Once safely in the driver’s seat, he tried to calm his breathing and slow his heart rate. He peered out the windows and checked his mirrors, trying to scan the parking lot as innocently as possible. He simply could not shake the feeling that he was being watched.

  He looked on with calm detachment as the EMTs emerged from the motel carrying the owner on a stretcher. They quickly and efficiently loaded the man into the back of the ambulance and waved at Danny. In a matter of seconds the ambulance sped off with sirens blaring, heading back towards town.

  As he watched the ambulance disappear around the bend, Danny pulled out Thomas’ cell phone and turned it on. The cracked screen glowed as it came to life. Thomas had apparently tried to call a number before he had dropped the phone. The number was still displayed on the patiently waiting screen. It was a speed dial entry, and not a number that he recognized. The area code was wrong for Brikston, that much he knew.

  Danny rubbed his chin as he leaned an elbow on the door to the car. “Who the hell were you trying to call, Thomas?” Danny made a mental note to look up Cincinnati’s area code. Maybe he was trying to call his wife one last time? He could well imagine the scene: the door about to break open, the angry mob outside.

  Danny figured his own last thought would probably be to call Nikki… He looked down again at the cell phone realized that the phone had three bars of signal strength. He fished out his own phone and examined its screen. The no service light blinked angrily.

  “What the hell kind of phone is this?”

  Curiosity got the better of him, and he pressed the call button. The phone beeped and the screen went black as the phone began to dial the number. Danny held the phone up to his ear and listened. There was a series of soft clicks and before Danny could speak, the line went dead. Danny looked at the phone. The cracked screen glowed again, awaiting the next command. Frustrated, he shook his head and tossed the phone into the passenger seat. “Whatever…”

  He lit another cigarette, put the car in drive, and decided to head back to his own room at the Holiday Inn by the interstate on the north side of town. He needed a shower, he needed food, and he needed to decompress. He also needed to figure out what the hell he was going to do about this potentially explosive story. Things were shifting rapidly.

  At first, he had thought it would be a straightforward piece on the self-quarantine in Brikston. But as he turned onto Main Street and headed north, he began to realize that the flu was only going to be the backdrop of his article. How the flu, despite all of the preparations the town had made, still managed to get inside and spread paled compared to a cop involved in the murder of an innocent man.

  He noticed in a detached sort of way that his was the only car on the street. There were no people walking around on the sidewalks. There were no open shops. For all intents and purposes, Brikston was a ghost town. The urge to speed up intensified with each passing minute. He wanted to reach the safety of his hotel room. This place was getting creepy.

  It was also getting infected, he realized. He wondered idly if the motel owner was indeed dying. A nagging little doubt popped up in the back of his mind, questioning whether Thomas was actually telling him the truth or not. If he really had been a spy, wouldn’t there be a lot more infected people by now? Or perhaps, the motel owner was just the first person to be exposed?

  Jesus. If Thomas really was a spy and somehow got the owner sick…that means I’ve been exposed, too…

  Movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to glance in his mirror. Far back in the distance was a squad car. Danny’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He took the first left he could and drove down the street where a stop sign halted his progress. He checked up and down the cross street. Still no pedestrian traffic, no cars on the road. The only thing moving was a piece of trash gently drifting down the street on the breeze. He waited, his car idling at the stop sign.

  One, two, three, four…

  The seconds ticked by as he listened to the rumble of his own engine. He stared at the mirror. Just as he was about to chalk it up to nervousness, the squad car turned the corner behind him and slowly approached. Danny turned to the right and moved down the street. He came to the next intersection and turned right again, onto the parallel street heading back toward Main Street itself. At the next stop sign he paused again. He watched the mirror, waiting for the squad car to turn, and willing it to go straight.

  The police car turned, then paused at the end of the street and stopped. This time they apparently decided not to drive away immediately. He waited. The squad car waited. Danny shifted his foot from the brake pedal to the gas pedal and turned left this time. As he turned the corner, he glanced back down the street and saw the squad car begin to move.

  Shit.

  CHAPTER 10

  Danny leaned back in the comfortable chair in his hotel room and hit the enter key. His article was done. Or, he figured, it was finished as well as possible under the circumstances. He clicked save, then attached the article to an email and hovered over the send button. A quick glance at his computer screen showed that he wasn’t getting a 4G signal—not even wifi. It would be useless to click send.

  He stood up and stretched. He’d been sitting at the computer for far too long this time. Standing with his hands on his hips he pondered how he was even going to get his story out. Ever since he lost cell coverage two days ago, he’d been dying to talk to someone. Anyone.

  He shook his head to clear his thoughts. It didn’t matter now—from the limited conversation he’d had with the hotel staff, it appeared no one wanted to talk to him.

  In effect, the entire town was cut off from the outside world unless one still had access to a landline. He could easily have gone down to the front desk and begged to borrow theirs, but his computer was too modern… It had no way to connect to the Internet using a modem for God’s sake. He looked around the hotel room. Hell, the hotel probably didn’t even have a modem anyway. That was ancient technology. He moved over to the window and sighed.

  Peeling back a corner of the curtain, he peered out into the darkness of the parking lot. He noticed there were only a few cars left now. A week ago, the parking lot had been about half full. The quarantine had been in its infancy. The town leaders were becoming more draconian in their measures to protect the citizens of Brikston: flu mask regulations, banning public gatherings, shutting down schools, churches, and bars. The list grew daily. And so did the number of sick people seeking help at the hospital from what snippets of conversation he had been able to overhear in the hotel lobby.

  Danny glanced down at the small coffee table next to his bed. A hastily printed flier lay there proclaiming the new city ordinances against public gatherings and warning people to wear flu masks under penalty of law. He shook his head. The same tactics were tried 10 years ago, he remembered. It didn’t work then, and he didn’t expect it to work now. The only thing that had happened was that the locals were generally too frightened to leave their homes. Only those bold—or stupid—enough to risk infection were out on the streets at all anymore.

  Danny had been basically a hermit for the past two days, trapped in his hotel room. His eyes shif
ted across the parking lot to the police cruiser that faced his room’s window. He could see the glowing end of a cigarette inside the car. He couldn’t tell in the darkness if it was Perkins or McCuller, but he knew someone had been watching him since the day Sang had been killed.

  He could never approach them for comment, they always backed off. He couldn’t get anyone in the town to talk to him. He figured the word had gotten out—it always does in a small town—that he had been with the motel owner when the poor man had died. As a result, he was a pariah. Everyone assumed that he was infected.

  Danny coughed and shook his head. Fools. He was no more infected—another cough interrupted his train of thought. He absently told himself he needed to stop smoking. Moving away from the window he cracked open his last Coke. The soothing carbonation in the sweet drink calmed his throat and put a stop to his coughing. He glanced at the takeout menus stacked neatly on top of the television set. It hit him then that he hadn’t eaten anything all day. A quick check of his watch showed that it was nearly 9 o’clock at night. He felt his armpits go quickly damp.

  Loss of appetite. Coughing. Exposure to someone infected. High stress. Smoker. The symptoms flew through his mind. As most people who had survived the great pandemic, he had learned the symptoms of the Blue Flu and had memorized them. Many, many times in the intervening years since that great sickness swept across the land, Danny and millions of other survivors had become temporary hypochondriacs with every sniffle.

  Danny clenched his fists. “You’re not sick, dammit.”

  Danny walked back to the window and peeled back a corner of the blinds again. There were only three television stations still broadcasting and they were only repeating the current government warnings—stay indoors, stock up, avoid contact, stay calm.

  Bullshit.

  With some level of rising alarm, Danny noticed that there were now three squad cars in the parking lot. Headlights in the distance proclaimed more vehicles on the way. Danny could feel the sweat spread from his armpits to his back. A single trickle went down between his shoulder blades and made him shiver. Something was up and he didn’t like the looks of it. Cops got out of a couple of the squad cars. An unmarked car pulled up and four men got out. They didn’t look like cops.

  The men gathered around the police officers and they all began talking. Danny couldn’t tell what they were saying but he could tell that they were pretty agitated. More than one shot angry glances towards the hotel. One man pointed a finger up at Danny’s room. Others looked. The group began to move towards the hotel.

  “Oh shit,” Danny said to himself. He coughed again. When he tried to turn and walk away, he found that he was continuing to cough so hard that he had to put his elbows on his knees to stabilize himself. His chest burned. Sweat exploded on his forehead as he panicked. This was no smoker’s cough.

  Loss of appetite, uncontrollable coughing, sweating, fever… The symptoms of the Blue Flu rolled through his head again. He staggered to his feet bracing himself on the TV to support his weight. He suddenly felt lightheaded. At last he was able to catch his breath. He sank down into his chair and stared at the blinking cursor on his computer screen. Still no signal strength.

  He knew what was coming next. He glanced at the door. The deadbolt and security chain were in place. It would take them more than a few seconds to bust in. If only he had some way of communicating with the outside world, he could at least get his story out. He began coughing again, feeling the fire burn its way through his chest.

  Scorched lung. That’s what the Judge Klein had called it. He knew the Blue Flu—H7N9—had many names, but now Danny realized how right the old man had been. Every breath he tried to take felt like his lungs had exploded into flames. His eyes watered with the pain. He doubled over again in his seat, seeking relief from the coughing spasm. At last, his body relaxed enough that he could take a few short breaths.

  Someone was pounding on the door. He had no idea how long they had been there or how long he’d been coughing. He glanced up at his computer screen again. Still no signal. When he closed his eyes, he could feel the burning on his eyelids. He definitely had a fever. Sudden onset of symptoms—it was yet another indicator.

  A muffled shout echoed through the door. More pounding. The thunder of his heartbeat in his own ears made it impossible to tell what they were saying. Danny looked back at the computer. If only there was a way… His gaze drifted toward Thomas’ cell phone. He noticed the USB port on the side of the phone. As fast as he could, he scrambled to his feet and staggered to the laptop case on his bed. He rummaged around inside the case looking for a USB cord while trying to stifle a new round of coughing.

  He finally found the cord and settled back in his chair with a sigh of temporary relief. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on steady, slow, breathing. As the urge to cough subsided, he opened his eyes again and despite his shaking hands, was able to connect the USB cord between the phone and his computer.

  Danny ignored the angry shouts and the intensified pounding on the hotel room door. He struggled to look through the cracked glass of the phone and find the settings that would allow him to use Thomas’ phone as a wireless hotspot. Something slammed into the door and a picture frame on the wall fell to the floor and shattered.

  At last he found the correct setting. The little phone chirped obediently, and the screen displayed HotSpot Host Mode. Danny watched the indication light on his laptop change from no signal to two bars. He had a solid connection.

  The door shuddered in its frame as something heavy impacted the other side. He didn’t have much time. Another angry shout to open the door. Danny ignored it and clicked send. He sent a quick prayer heavenward that if he didn’t survive, maybe his story would. Most of all, he wanted Sang’s killers punished. He hoped someone would run with his story and send in people to take care of Brikston. Someone needed to see Thomas Sang got the justice he had been denied.

  His body was racked by another, more powerful coughing fit. He fell out of the chair coughing. He felt like he was drowning, he couldn’t get air into his lungs. When he did manage to swallow a mouthful of air, the burning sensation flared up again.

  “There you are, you son of a bitch!”

  Danny cracked open one of his eyes as he lay on the floor and saw Mosby burst into the room. He held a baseball bat. Behind him was Officer Perkins, still wearing the same smirk as before. Danny wrapped his arms around his shoulders to prevent himself from shivering. He noticed a few of the men were in what looked like Army camouflage.

  What are they doing here?

  Danny watched in silence as Mosby motioned for two of the larger men who accompanied him to move forward and grab Danny. He felt himself forcibly lifted to his unsteady feet. Strong hands gripped his arms and held him upright. He wondered idly if this is what Thomas felt before the end. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at his laptop screen. The progress bar displayed in the middle of the screen showed that his transmission was nearly complete. He only needed a few more seconds for the story of his career to make it into the email inboxes of dozens of high-powered editors. He guessed—he hoped—someone at the three surviving networks would be able to do something.

  Well, at least I might be able to infect Mosby…

  “Wipe that smile off your face you sonofabitch,” said Mosby. He pressed his face close to Danny. Close enough that Danny could smell the perspiration coming from the other man. Danny’s stomach rebelled inside him as he detected the odors of onion and sauerkraut on the man’s breath.

  That’s right, you just stay right in my face…I feel a cough coming…

  “Whatcha working on, chief?” rumbled Officer Perkins. The big cop lumbered in front of Danny’s vision and leaned down to peer at the computer monitor. Before the man could say or do anything, the laptop beeped dutifully.

  Email sent.

  The man’s face was dark with anger when he turned to stare at Danny. “How did you get a connection to the Internet? What th
e hell did you just send?”

  “Hey, he’s got a connection to the Internet!” a man relayed to the back of the group. A few more voices echoed the jealous sentiment.

  Mosby shoved Officer Perkins out of the way and got back in Danny’s face again. He grabbed the front of Danny’s sweaty shirt and tried to shake his shoulders, lifting his torso off the carpeted floor. “What were you doing in here?”

  Danny coughed in the man’s face in an uncontrollable spasm that suddenly erupted from his throat. He laughed weakly. Mosby screamed and let him go, wiping his face furiously. Officer Perkins kicked Danny in the gut—hard—and the other men stepped back.

  Danny rolled over on his side and clutched his stomach as his heart struggled for oxygen. His lungs were on fire again. He couldn’t breathe. He wondered if he had a broken rib now too.

  “Son…of…a…bitch!”

  Danny felt a new explosion of pain as someone’s foot collided with his lower back. Over and over again. Mosby grunted with effort as he kicked him mercilessly. Danny could do nothing but take it. Without warning, Danny threw up all over the floor, a disgusting mucous-filled bile.

  “Jesus, look at his fingers!” someone shouted. Danny tried to focus his eyes on his hands and ignore the commotion as more than one man struggled to get out of the room. Something was wrong with his hands. His fingertips were dark. The fingernails were so blue they were almost jet black.

  Cyanosis.

  It was setting in fast — faster than he thought possible. But it was the same thing that had killed the motel owner. He figured it would kill him in the end, too. The Blue Flu. Or at least, a version of it released by the Koreans. Once more he found himself wondering if Thomas had actually been a spy. He chuckled to himself triggering another fit of coughs. He could feel his lungs, still on fire, filling with something. Every time he took a breath it felt like he was breathing through a sponge.

  Won’t be long now, before I look like that other guy--laying on the floor, dying in a puddle of my own vomit. At least maybe I can take a few of these bastards with me, he thought.