Contagion On The World

by J. B. Beatty

  She sounds scary so I do. She brandishes the plastic fork like a weapon and starts scooping the beans into her mouth. “You’re not the only one who’s hungry,” I say.

  “Fuck off,” she whispers. “I’m the patient.”

  I look to Justin but he shrugs and returns to his food. “We need a plan,” I whisper to him. “What’s our plan?”

  Justin says, “Don’t know when the full moon is, so we don’t know how much time we have.”

  “Then we should get out of here as soon as we can, now that she’s fine.”

  Carrie growls. “I wouldn’t say I’m fine. I’ve got a headache like a freakin’ horse kicked me in the face.”

  “That’s funny, because you look like…” I start.

  She shoots me a withering glare and I wilt.

  “We still have to get out of here,” I say after an appropriate pause. “If we had some sort of prybar thing, we could get the floorboards up. There’s a crawlspace underneath this shed. We could get out that way, and head into the woods.”

  “Get out of bed,” Justin whispers to Carrie. She slowly does so, and reaches for the wall to get some stability. Then she watches him cautiously as he starts messing with the cot. Eventually he pulls out one of the metal side supports, and the cot folds in on itself.

  “Great,” Carrie says. “No bed now.”

  Justin hands the rod to me. It’s not exactly cast iron, but at least it’s not cheap aluminum. I go to the back of the shed and stick it into the biggest crack between the boards. It takes some pushing and pulling, but eventually a nail gives and the end of the board can be pulled up. I do so, and we have our first opening.

  After that, the second board comes up easily, without even using the rod. I bend the exposed nails and lay both boards back down. “We have a way out now,” I whisper to Justin. He takes the rod back and kneels down to reassemble the cot.

  I follow him. “Maybe we can go in a few hours, once everyone’s asleep?”

  He looks to the door, as if he heard a noise. Then he says to me, “She's not ready to travel. She could use another day to recoup.”

  The door clatters and swings open. It's another guard, one I haven't noticed before. He's older than the others, with prominent white sideburns. “I need your dishes,” he says.

  We look up at him blankly. Carrie, who is supposed to be unconscious, is leaning against the wall biting her lip. Justin, who is supposed to be tending to her, is instead trying to reassemble the cot. I'm the only one who is quick to respond. I say, “Um... the dishes?”

  His eyes widen as he looks from the cot to Carrie. “What the...?”

  Justin's arm shoots out like lightning, grabs the man's shirt front, and thrusts him to the floor. The man tries to shout, but Justin has the rod against his throat. He presses hard and I hear a snap. The old man thrashes, the contrast growing between his reddening face and his white sideburns. He gasps. He grabs at his chest. His face grows pale and takes on a bluish tinge. By then he has stopped moving.

  “Sorry,” mutters Justin. He leans back and pulls the rod away from the man's throat.

  I look to make sure the door is closed. Carrie still leans against the wall, expressionless.

  Justin runs his fingers through his hair. “That changes things.”

  “Ya think?” I say.

  “We need to leave ASAP,” says Justin.

  Carrie clears her throat and says, “I'm in no shape to go running through the woods in the night.”

  “We need to take one of their trucks,” I say.

  “Can you hotwire one?” asks Justin.

  “I can't say I've mastered that enough to try it in the dark.”

  “Then you need to find some keys.”

  I sigh, and then check Sideburns' pockets. “Nope.”

  “Well?” says Carrie. “I need a ride.”

  “There's a key rack in the main house. I saw it when they were trying out devil names on me,” I say. “There were a bunch of keys on it, but who knows if they are any of the ones we need.”

  “You're elected,” says Justin. “It's dark. They're expecting a guy to walk out of here with dirty plates. You have to be him.”

  Sideburns is wearing a thick flannel jacket of sorts. I start taking it off him. He came in unarmed, which must mean there is at least one guard outside with a gun. “Can I have the rod?” I say, slipping the flannel jacket on. It’s plenty roomy.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  I stand, holding the plates with the rod stuck under my arm. My collarbone stings but I think I can manage. “If you hear anything bad, you've got to get her out through the hole in the floor and take off into the woods. Leave me behind.”

  Simultaneously, Carrie says, “Okay,” and Justin says, “We’re not going…”

  He looks at her and finishes: …to leave you.”

  “Leave me,” I insist. “Worst-case scenario, we all meet back at the bunker.”

  Carrie squints. “That is not the worst-case scenario… Be careful.”

  I push the door open and slowly step out, trying to look in every direction at once. At first, I see no one. I slowly walk across the yard toward the main house. I hear the sounds of the night. In the distance, a faint human voice. It is not until I step onto the porch that I notice the man with a gun standing against the wall.

  “What are you bringing those in here for?” he says.

  I try to make my voice sound old by breathing out as I speak: “You’ve got to see this.”

  He steps forward.

  I reach toward the doorknob. “No, in here,” I say. “We need a brighter light.”

  The door is unlocked. The key rack is right in front of me. I set the plate down on a small table in the entryway. He follows me in as I make like I am trying to find a light switch.

  “Here,” he says, reaching past me. I grab his arm in my right hand, and palm his head with my good arm, slamming his forehead into the wall. He crumples and drops to the floor. I nearly fall as well, with fireworks of pain going off in my head. I grab his rifle but not before it clatters against the floor.

  I come up slowly, listening for movement, aiming the gun at shadows. No one seems to be in the living room.

  Then, a slash of heat across my back. I throw myself forward to escape it. My attacker falls at my feet. A knife is dropped. I lash out with my foot, kicking the head several times. When movement stops, I get up, once again pointing my gun at wherever I think the next move is coming from. I back up against the doorway, and quickly flick the light on. Two old women stare back at me from the hallway. I look down and see that it is the Teacher who slashed at me with the knife. She is blinking, woozy—as if she’s just been kicked in the head.

  I pick up the knife, and since the rifle has a strap, I place it over my shoulder. I give the Teacher a nudge with my foot. “Get up,” I say.

  “Back to hell, demon!” she says.

  I kick her hard in the ribs and she gags and chokes.

  “Now. Get up.” I watch her friends. I listen but so far I hear no activity outside.

  As the Teacher rises in painful slow motion, I start taking keys off the rack and putting them in my pocket. I take all of them. Then I grab the Teacher from behind, twisting one of her arms hard behind her. I place the knife at her throat. It feels sharp, sharp enough to have put my back on fire.

  I say to the other women, “Just stay there, and don’t make a sound, and she will live. But if you yell, she dies a very painful death.”

  I pull the door open and swing her around so that she can shield me if anyone shoots. I step onto the porch. No one. I force her down the steps. She says, “I will gladly sacrifice my life so that you receive Father God’s judgement.”

  “Sweet,” I whisper into her ear. “Because I’m going to carve your heart out of your chest and make your followers eat it.” She shudders.

  I honestly don’t know where that came from. Of course, I’ve seen a lot of movies, plus my parents let me spend too much time
alone in my room with my computer. That could account for the violent talk. It certainly accounts for my unrealistic taste in women.

  We make it across the yard without incident. “Justin, it’s me,” I say to the closed door. The light inside goes out and the door opens. I see Justin’s relieved face.

  A sharp voice rings out from behind me: “Freeze and get your hands up!”

  I turn around swiftly and make myself small behind the Teacher. In the middle of the yard stands one of the guards with a rifle pointed at us.

  “Shoot!” yells the Teacher. “Sacrifice me to bring down Satan!”

  He doesn’t shoot.

  I tilt my head to the side and quietly say, “Justin, take the rifle from my shoulder.”

  He grabs it and slides the strap off my extended arm. The Teacher shouts, “This is Pseuestes and he must die! Fire your weapon.”

  “Justin,” I say. “Can you please shoot him?”

  Way too close to my ears, the gun blasts and the man looks down at his belly where a spot of darkness appears. He touches it, drops his rifle, and falls into a shadow. My head rings.

  “The rest of you,” I announce to faces I can’t see, “she will die and you will die unless you just stay put and mind your business. We don’t want any trouble. We’re not devils. We just want to get out of here.”

  Keeping the Teacher as a shield, we start to move toward the truck that we rode in—it’s parked in a lean-to that is concealed with cut tree branches.

  “You’ve got the keys?” asks Justin.

  “I must. I took every key I found. They’re in my pockets. You’ll have to sort through them.”

  The old lady starts chanting then, more speaking-in-tongues bullshit. Then she clearly utters, “The Lord is my strength and my shield.”

  Carrie says, “Will you please shut up? The Lord likes us better.” She turns to Justin and says, “Give me the gun.” She takes it and covers our rear flank. Justin takes a handful of keys and starts trying them in the pickup ignition. The ones that don’t work, he drops on the seat next to him. I stand next to the open door, the Teacher in front of me, and now she has started sobbing, grabbing at her neck. I might have slipped and cut her throat a little, but not in a bad way.

  Carrie says to Justin, “Any luck?”

  I can imagine his expression when he shoots back, “If I have luck, you’ll hear it.” At that very moment, the engine turns over.

  “Luck. Get in,” he says.

  I jump in and drag the Teacher to the middle with me, taking care to use my good arm. Carrie takes the passenger seat and points her rifle out the window. I put the knife at the Teacher’s throat again. We back out, and then Justin makes a U-turn in the yard, hitting a bump—probably that guy he shot.

  He stops there and yells, “One of you people needs to bring out our stuff. All of it. The bikes, the trailers, our medicine. We also want you to bring your guns and ammo. We will leave the guns at the end of the driveway so you can still defend yourselves. But right now, I need you to bring all that out and put it in the back of the pickup.”

  A long silence follows. “I don’t like this,” says Carrie.

  “We’re sitting ducks here,” I say.

  “Give it a second,” says Justin.

  Then Carrie shrieks out her window: “If you don’t do what he says pronto, we’re going to start cutting off her fingers. Don’t doubt us. We have finger-cutting experience!”

  She grabs the Teacher’s hand and brings up her knife in front of the window. The Teacher lets loose a scream.

  The door of the main house opens. A woman steps out, holding several rifles as if she were carrying firewood. A man comes out from one of the outbuildings, wheeling a bike. Inside the cab, the Teacher is whimpering and muttering random noises.

  “Give me one of those,” says Justin, and he steps out of the truck to take a rifle. He supervises the loading process. “The trailers—all of our supplies. We had rifles too. Where are they?” Eventually, it’s all loaded. They don’t seem very defiant. Instead, it’s more of an exhausted vibe we’re getting. Justin gets back into the truck, guns the engine, and we roll down the driveway at a swift clip.

  Behind us, a gunshot. We look at each other. No one hit.

  “What was that all about?” I say to the Teacher.

  “That’s a finger. Knife time,” says Carrie.

  “Hold on a minute,” says Justin.

  When we hit the highway, we spray gravel as we turn south. The Teacher moans, “You said you would leave the weapons at the end of the driveway!”

  “Did I now?” says Justin angrily. “I think I also figured part of the deal was that no one would shoot at us.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “I really don’t know,” he says. “What does the Bible say?”

  The Teacher stammers: “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”

  “Convenient,” says Justin. ‘But we’re not going with Biblical law in this truck.”

  “Sharia?” offers Carrie.

  “That neither,” he says. “I think since we are possibly the final defenders of the American flag, we should put it up for a vote. First we need some proposals. Carrie? What do you think we should do with the woman who wanted to burn us at the stake?”

  “Kill her. I’d really prefer to make it long and drawn out so she can savor the entire process, but I need to get home and have a shower and a nap, so let’s make it snappy.”

  The Teacher moans.

  “Arvy?” says Justin.

  “Um, I guess I’d have a tough time with the thought of just executing her. It’s kind of cold-blooded. But if we just let her go scot-free, she’s going to go back and have her people do the same sort of horrible things to the next travelers they run into.”

  “Then what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. I wish there were some kind of jail we could drop her off at…”

  Carrie groans in frustration. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  “I guess I’m the swing vote,” sighs Justin. “I need to think on this for a few more miles.”

  “Hurry up,” says Carrie. “It’s really too crowded in here.”

  We cruise through the night. At first we try headlights off to reduce our chances of being detected by anything in the air, but it is simply too dark to go any faster than 15-20 mph. Justin says, “Screw it,” and the lights pop back on. We’re cruising at 45mph.

  We see humans cross the road ahead, at a run. “How many?” asks Carrie.

  “At least three,” says Justin calmly. “I think they have the virus.” He accelerates and we pass by that spot on the dark road without incident. The trees grow thick on both sides.

  The Teacher erupts again in more gibberish, her pitch rising in panicked tones.

  “Dammit to hell!” shouts Justin. He’s using his angry voice. We don’t get to hear that too often. The truck squeals to a stop. “Throw her out.”

  The Teacher starts squirming and fighting to get out of my grip.

  Carrie opens the door and steps out, clutching her rifle. “I’m just going to end it,” she says firmly.

  “No,” Justin says, taking his voice up another notch. “Just throw her out. Maybe she’ll run into the three we just saw. Maybe she can test the power of prayer on them.”

  I wrestle her out of the truck. Carrie steps back and scans the darkness with her rifle ready. I let the Teacher go. Immediately she turns around and tries to claw her way past me back into the truck. I throw my arms up in self-defense, but before I can even react properly, Carrie swings her rifle and whacks the Teacher in the face. She drops to her knees, cradling her head.

  “Get in,” says Justin. We don’t hesitate.

  A few miles later, Carrie casually says, “So Justin, I always had assumed that you were religious.”

  He’s silent for at least another mile. Then he slowly says, “Yeah,” and it almost sounds more like a questio
n than an affirmation.

  “Nothing,” she says almost apologetically. “I was just a little surprised that you sounded somewhat cynical on the power of prayer.”

  I wonder that she would even bring this up. Carrie’s probably the reigning poster child for cynicism in what’s left of our civilization. She’s just not the sort of person I would expect to defend the power of prayer. Then again, she was a bartender: used to making conversation… or just needling people.

  Probably a dozen miles pass in silence and I realize I might fall asleep soon. I try to figure out how long it’s been since we left the bunker and I can’t even sort that out. Too many numbers. Then Justin talks.

  “My mother, she would say, ‘The Devil can cite scripture.’ And that’s all she would say when she ran into some hateful person at church. She wouldn’t say what they said or what they did or anything else about them. She’d just say, ‘The Devil can cite scripture.’ And if I asked her for details, she’d just say, ‘It’s not for me to judge.’ That’s all, go home, conversation over. She would not speak ill of another person, not beyond that.

  “And the funny thing, I always had assumed that line came from the Bible. Sounds like it, doesn’t it? But no. It don’t come from the Bible at all. Shakespeare… William Shakespeare wrote that… I gotta admit it sounds Biblical to me.

  “William Mother Fucking Shakespeare.”

  46→ANY LITTLE COMMON ORDINARY MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

  Alow fuel gauge sends us off the highway in search of more. None of us are happy. We just want to be safe in the bunker already. We see a sign that says, “Hoxeyville 2 Miles.”

  Gas station, we hope. But when we get there, there’s not even a town, seriously. Woods. Scattered houses. A small lumbering operation. Christmas tree plantations. A hand-painted sign that says, “Repent Sinners and Abortion Seekers and find the Lord’s Mercy!” On the same plot of land is another sign: “Eva’s Salon & Web Design.”

  “Oh good,” says Carrie. “Between these split ends and my horribly designed blog page, my sinful abortion urges have been driving me crazy.”

  “No time,” says Justin lightly. It’s the first he’s spoken in a while. I think. I was asleep for somewhere between a couple and a whole lot of minutes.