Dead Earth: The Green Dawn

by Mark Justice

  “We’re not the kind of people who stand around and watch. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

  He swallowed. “I’m marrying one tough broad,” he said.

  “You bet your ass. Now open your trunk.” She turned to the dozen or so people who were still milling around. “Taylor, Red. Get over here.”

  Two middle-aged men shuffled over to Fiona.

  Jubal dug the blankets out of the trunk. “We carrying her to the drug store?”

  “And do what? Take her off the street and lay her on linoleum? Uh-uh. Put her on those blankets and put her in your car. We’ll take her to my house.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  She tossed him the box of surgical gloves and walked back to Rite-Aid.

  “Here,” he said. He handed the box to Taylor and Red.

  “Jubal, I got a bad back,” Red said.

  “And she looks mighty bad,” Taylor said.

  “Put on the gloves,” Jubal Slate said, “or as God is my witness, I’ll shoot your dicks off.” To press home his point, he rested his hand on his holster.

  The two men slipped on the thin gloves in record time.

  “The rest of you people, go about your business.”

  They stared back at him; some with tears rolling down their cheeks.

  “Are we all going to die, Jubal?” Billy said, barely able to get the words out through his constricted throat.

  “What? No! We aren’t going to die. People get sick all the time, sometimes lots of them all at once. That doesn’t mean they’re going to die. Or that you’re going to get sick. Or you other people here.”

  I just handed that boy a fine line of major bullshit; I’m going to Hell now, for sure.

  “Now everybody just...go about your business while we take care of this sick woman.”

  No one moved.

  Red and Taylor, standing next to the cruiser, held the woman stretched out between them. Red had her arms and Taylor had her legs. They looked at Jubal pleadingly for help with the door.

  “C’mon! Let’s go.” Jubal clapped his hands at the milling people, who finally walked away with many a backward glance at Jubal and the sick woman. Some of them looked extremely upset; some looked stunned.

  “Jubal,” Red said, wincing.

  Jubal sighed. “What is it?”

  “One of this lady’s pimples popped all over my rubber glove.”

  “Christ, hold on while I open the back door and lay the blankets out, then you guys can set her in the cruiser.”

  With looks of disgust on their faces, the two men hurriedly positioned the woman in the back seat so that she sat straight up. Then Red and Taylor backed way—fast, holding their hands away from their bodies.

  After being released, the woman toppled over onto the seat.

  “Okay, you two sissies. Go ahead and take a breath now.”

  “Are we finished here, Jubal?” Taylor whined. “My wife is waiting for me at home, and I’d sure like to get these contaminated gloves off.”

  “Yeah, you two get out of here.”

  They both walked off at a brisk pace yet slowly enough so it didn’t appear they were running away.

  Jubal slammed the back door of the cruiser as Fiona came out of the Rite-Aid.

  “All closed up?”

  “Yes,” she said, jingling her keys in the front door lock. “Meet me back at my place?”

  “See you there.”

  Jubal got into his cruiser and took off toward Fiona’s house—soon to be his own, too, after the wedding. She lived in a small tangle of a neighborhood on the south side of Serenity. Many of the town’s older citizens lived there, too—Pops Perez for example—and Fiona liked to visit and help them when they needed it. They all loved Fiona and were always cooking dinners for her—and Jubal, too, when he was visiting.

  Jubal wrinkled his nose. What in God’s name was that smell—like something had died? It had to be the woman in the back seat. Maybe, in her delirious state, she’d shit herself. Jubal hoped she hadn’t gotten any on the seat, then chastised himself for being so selfish.

  The woman moaned as if to let Jubal know she was still kicking.

  Man, he’d smelled better aromas on road-kill duty, which he had to perform on the town’s back roads.

  Jubal rolled down the windows of the car. Too bad if it was two hundred degrees outside; he couldn’t stand much more of that god-awful smell.

  Then the woman’s words came back to haunt him...

  Dead army.

  He couldn’t get that phrase out of his head no matter how hard he tried; it worried his thoughts like a dog at a tasty bone. Maybe he was wrong, but he could have sworn that’s what the woman had said back there at the car wash: dead army. He wondered again what she had meant. Had she seen US soldiers die of this strange sickness, or from some other type of terrible accident? God, he hoped not.

  And then there was the drunken ambulance dispatcher, who had told him everyone for hundreds of miles around was a victim of the sickness, too.

  It was a goddamn epidemic.

  Jubal wiped sweat from his brow with his stained shirtsleeve.

  As the deputy drove his car through town toward his fiancée’s, the blazing sun began to descend along its arc.

  He wondered what color the sunset would be this evening.

  Much later, back at his mother’s house, Jubal slowly swung the front door open, stepped inside and closed it.

  His mother snored on the couch in the same spot he’d left her earlier this afternoon. The Navajo comforter was still pulled up to her neck.

  He wanted to turn on the wall-TV and flip channels to see if there were any updates on the situation, but the remote control was gripped tightly in his mother’s hand, and he did not want to wake her. He would have to use the TV on his bedroom computer.

  The room dimmed as night fell.

  He stretched, lifting his arms; his back popped. He rotated his head on his stiff neck. For a man of 22 years, he felt three times as old; the day’s events had taken a lot out of him, with his trip to Fiona’s being the last straw. He’d had to carry that sick woman all by himself into his fiancée’s house, exploding boils, road-kill stench and all.

  He still wished Fiona hadn’t asked for the woman to be brought there. What if Fiona caught the illness? He didn’t know what he’d do if something bad happened to her, and right before their planned wedding day. But that was just the way his sweetie was: a caring, nurturing type.

  “Festus?”

  Man, she must really be out of it.

  “It’s me, Ma. Jubal.”

  Silence.

  “Ma?”

  His mother began snoring again. Jubal decided to leave her there. She looked comfortable enough, if a little more thin and pale...

  Gray?

  It was difficult to see in the dim light leaking through the curtains from the porch lamp outside. And so he couldn’t be absolutely certain of his mother’s complexion.

  He had wanted to check on his mother, then go back to Fiona’s. But seeing her like this, he just couldn’t leave her alone. What if she called out in the night and he wasn’t there to answer?

  Jubal went to the kitchen and microwaved some chicken soup for himself.

  It took him no time at all to slurp the hot soup and noodles from the mug; he was starving.

  When he had finished, he set the mug and spoon in the sink, grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge and walked to his bedroom.

  He turned on the light, sat down at the small desk near his bed and punched up his computer’s TV link, but all he got was a blue screen. He messed with it some more, but he wasn’t the world’s top computer genius, and no matter what he tried, he could not get a picture.

  “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.”

  He covered his face with his hands, resting his elbows on the desk. The day’s events began to run across the screen of his mind’s eye. But it was too much; he just couldn’t take anymore right now.
He closed out his computer, stretched and yawned.

  “Maybe things will be better tomorrow.”

  Fat chance, bud. And you’re talking to yourself again.

  His comfortable form-fit bed beckoned with soft pillows.

  Taking a pull from the beer bottle, Jubal rose from the desk and went to his bed. He set the beer on his nightstand, pulled off his boots and sank back against the pillows.

  He had intended to turn on his bedside sat-radio and listen to some news or music because he felt too upset to sleep. But as it turned out, he wasn’t. The stress of the day had been too much for him. He managed to clap his lights out before falling into a heavy slumber.

  Jubal Slate fell asleep atop his bedcovers, fully clothed.

  September 2, 2048

  They weren’t human. Some of the silhouettes were too tall and oddly shaped, and by the way they stumbled forward, he knew they were dead. Dead and hungry...

  The chirp of the cell phone woke him from the dream. At first, he couldn’t find it. When he finally realized it was still in his pocket, the call had ended. He checked the display and saw Fiona’s number. Fully awake now thanks to a nice dose of adrenaline, he hit the redial button.

  “Jubal?” She didn’t sound sleepy and he suspected she’d been up with the woman. He glanced at the clock.

  2:30 a.m.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “How fast can you get over here?”

  He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. He could use another few hours of sleep.

  “Do I have time for a shower?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “On my way.”

  He used the bathroom and washed his face. Next, he checked on his mother. He wasn’t surprised to find her still sleeping. As much as he wanted to wake her up, turn on the lights, maybe fix her some toast and turn on another Gunsmoke episode, he didn’t disturb her. He tried to tell himself that it was simply because she needed her rest. But he knew that wasn’t true.

  He was afraid he would see blisters on her face, and he didn’t think he could handle that right now. He closed his eyes. He had never been particularly religious, but now he said a silent prayer, asking for his life to return to its boring normalcy.

  Jubal slipped out of the house as quietly as possible.

  The stench of the sick woman still lingered in the cruiser, so he had to drive with the windows down again, but it was a typical cool desert night; the breeze felt good after the scorching hot day.

  When he pulled into Fiona’s driveway, he saw lights on throughout the house. It would soon be his house, as well. He had already moved some of his clothes and personal belongings in, and Fiona had allowed him to set up a woodworking space in the garage. She had asked him if he needed space for any hobbies. He hated to admit he didn’t have a hobby, so he decided he was a woodworker. The birdhouse he started back in February still sat on the bench, covered with dust. Fiona never mentioned his lack of progress and he knew she never would. It was just another reason he loved her.

  Since she was expecting him, Jubal didn’t knock.

  He smelled the sick woman before he crossed the threshold.

  He had carried her to the couch in the front room. Fiona had suggested the bed in the guest room, but Jubal didn’t think he could carry the woman that far and still hold his breath. And if he didn’t hold his breath, he thought he would have thrown up.

  Kind of like right now.

  Fiona met him in the foyer and hugged him tightly. The stench of the sick woman was in her hair and on her clothes. She was still wearing the clothes she had on yesterday, as he was his.

  “Jesus,” he said. “How can you stand it?”

  She sighed against his chest. “You get used to it, I guess.” She sounded very tired.

  “Is she dead?” Jubal was already running through the options in his head. If she had died, Jubal had decided he was going to wrap her in blankets, put her in his trunk, take her to the edge of town and burn her. Fiona wouldn’t like it, but he would insist.

  “Not yet. But it won’t be much longer.”

  Jubal nodded and tried to breathe through his mouth. “You wanted me to be here when she passed?”

  “No. I wanted you to hear her story so you wouldn’t think I was crazy.”

  She led him into the front room and he saw how quickly the woman had deteriorated. Her swollen face was gray, bloated and wet from the fluid that had leaked from the boils and blisters. Her lips were as cracked as if she had wandered for days in the desert.

  Maybe she had, if his suspicions about where she had come from were right.

  Her chest rose and fell only two or three times in a minute. When her eyes fluttered open, he could see that the whites were now yellow shot through with streaks of red.

  “Renee,” Fiona said, “are you still with me?”

  The woman moaned.

  “Renee?” Jubal said.

  “She told me her name is Renee Spencer. She worked for the government. In Nevada.”

  Jubal felt the room spin. Everything he feared was coming to pass.

  “It wasn’t a weapons program,” Fiona continued. She was speaking to Jubal but she was watching Renee Spencer. “It was something called—”

  “Magellan.” The voice was ragged and full of phlegm and sounded as if it came from a thousand feet below the earth. Her tongue was as cracked and cratered as the surface of the moon. As she spoke, a tiny stream of blood ran down from each corner of her mouth. “Project Magellan.”

  “What was it?” Jubal said.

  “It was weapons development...at least at first...that’s what I heard.”

  “You’re a scientist?”

  She laughed. The laugh turned into a cough, which sprayed blood down her front and onto the blanket. Jubal and Fiona took a step back. When she could breathe again, she seemed to have more energy. She said, “I’m Army. Systems Analyst. I was assigned to Groom Lake Proving Grounds to assist on the project. They were trying to develop something called a quantum bomb.”

  Oh, that sounded promising.

  “What was it?” Fiona said.

  Renee shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what happened?” Jubal felt the first flares of panic in the back of his mind.

  “I know what happened,” she said. “I just don’t know what a fucking quantum bomb is. It doesn’t matter. They couldn’t make it work.”

  The woman closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. She didn’t speak.

  “It’s okay,” Fiona said. “She does this sometimes.”

  Jubal rocked back and forth on his toes. He wanted to grab her and shake her awake, to demand answers, to find someone to blame. But he stood there with his fists clenched at his sides.

  “Renee?” Fiona said. “Are you still with us?”

  The yellow and red eyes opened again. She stared at Jubal for at least a full minute. “You’ve seen them, haven’t you?” she said. “The dead army.”

  “What? No—”

  “Yes. In your dreams. Just like her.” She nodded to Fiona.

  His dreams? Two nights ago he had dreamed, but he didn’t remember much. Something about a figure in red, maybe. And this morning, hadn’t there been a dark group of figures marching across the desert, like—

  A dead army.

  He looked at Fiona.

  She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  Jubal shook his head. Two or three people dreaming the same thing wasn’t possible. He didn’t believe it.

  “Forget about my dreams,” he said. “What’s the dead army?”

  “First I have to tell you about the lab,” Renee said. “About the work.” Her face glistened in the low-wattage light from the lamp on the end table. As he stared at her, Jubal could see blisters swell and burst, leaking yellow fluid. She didn’t seem to notice. He wondered if she even felt it at this stage of her illness.

  “Do you know anything about string theory?” Her voice had lost a little volume. He had t
o strain to hear.

  “I thought you weren’t a scientist,” he said.

  She tried to smile, which caused further cracking of the skin on her lips. Blood oozed out from the new wounds.

  “I’m not. But I’m not a dummy, either. A lot of the folks at the lab talked. And I listened.”

  “String theory has something to do with gravity and black holes, right?” Fiona said.

  “You’re teacher’s pet today,” Renee Spencer said. “It does, indeed, concern black holes and gravity and quantum physics. Imagine a guitar string stretched across all of space and time, connecting everything there is. Now imagine playing different notes on that string, accessing different times and different universes.”

  “That’s string theory?” Jubal said.

  “Hell, no. I’ve barely given you the outline of the outline. I don’t understand all of it myself. And I don’t think I have a lot of time left to explain it, do I? No, don’t bother to answer. I can see it in your eyes. I can feel it, too. So let’s get to the point.

  “When the scientists at Project Magellan tried to build their little quantum bomb, I think they were trying to develop something that would explode over an enemy force and just send them...somewhere else. They couldn’t get it right, though. But one failure leads to another discovery, and they found a way to build a gate.”

  “What kind of gate?” Jubal said.

  Renee coughed up blood, runny with pus. Fiona wiped Renee’s lip with a tissue. The coughing grew worse, becoming a hack that Jubal thought would never stop. But finally it did.

  “Renee?” Jubal said.

  “I don’t know what kind of gate, but it sure wasn’t made of white pickets.” She laughed weakly at her own joke, then coughed some more. The woman breathed shallowly, her eyes fluttering.

  “I...in the control room when...it happened.”

  Renee swallowed repeatedly. Discolored drool ran from her lip. A boil on her neck burst, the liquid running onto a bath towel that Fiona had placed beneath the woman’s head.

  “Explosion. Yellow...smoke. Or mist.”

  Jubal and Fiona waited expectantly.

  “Screams. Terrible screams,” Renee said, gulping her words. She continued, her voice growing fainter as she spoke. “I ran to my car. I ran faster than I’ve ever run in my life. There were more explosions, terrible ones, but I got out of there. Then...”