H7N9 Penitence

by Mark Campbell

  Teddy glanced up at the prices displayed on the wall and chuckled to himself. The last time he purchased coffee, the price hadn’t come anywhere close to what they were charging.

  He heard something moving outside and his thoughts turned towards the shrouded figure he had seen standing on the side of the road.

  Teddy glanced over his shoulder, but it was getting darker outside and he couldn’t see a thing through the shadows.

  He was exposed and injured, and his time inside told him that this was a dangerous combination.

  He limped around the checkout and sat down behind the counter on the dirty laminated floor.

  As soon as he sat down, his swollen ankle started to throb.

  Hissing with pain, Teddy slid his boot off and rolled down his sock to look at his ankle. Blood seeped through the cracked skin; every vein on his foot stood out and traced a pulsing pattern of red against his purple, discolored flesh.

  “Great,” he muttered. “Just fucking great.”

  He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

  Just outside of the Starbucks, glass shards started crunching under someone’s feet.

  Teddy opened his eyes, balled his fists, and kept quiet.

  Maybe they’ll go away, he thought.

  No such luck; a flashlight turned on.

  The light’s beam ran across the interior of the store.

  Teddy’s heart raced and he held his breath.

  Footsteps approached the counter and then stopped.

  “Mister… I know that you’re back there,” a man said in a soft-spoken voice. “I don’t want to make this any more difficult, so why don’t you come on out and talk with me, okay?”

  Teddy didn’t respond.

  “Seriously… Just stand up.”

  “I don’t know who you are, but just leave me alone.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” the man said.

  The man walked around the counter and pointed the flashlight at his face.

  Teddy squinted and held his hand up to block the light.

  The man was in his early thirties and was wearing dirty jeans and a black t-shirt. His pale skin was badly sunburnt and his dirty blonde hair had receded halfway up his scalp. A pair of scratched spectacles sat askew on his bulbous nose.

  Teddy’s eyes were drawn to the black handgun the man was clutching in his boney hand.

  The man turned off the flashlight, whistled, and crouched down to stare at Teddy’s ankle.

  “Jeez, mister, you sure hurt yourself pretty badly,” the man said as he adjusted his glasses. “That accident you had up on the freeway looked nasty, so I guess you’re lucky to be walking at all.”

  Teddy narrowed his eyes and stared up at the man.

  “What do you want?” Teddy asked.

  The man blinked and stood back up. He kept the pistol pointed at Teddy and put the flashlight in his back pocket.

  “I honestly don’t want much. I just want you to come outside and talk.”

  “Fuck off,” Teddy said.

  The man frowned and scratched the back of his neck.

  “Yeah… I’m really sorry, mister,” the man said. “It wasn’t a request.”

  A burly hairy arm reached over the counter and grabbed Teddy’s neck.

  Teddy was pulled over the top of the counter and slammed on the floor.

  Teddy landed on his back and gasped for breath as he stared up at his attacker.

  A heavyset white man wearing khaki overalls glared down at Teddy and kept his meaty hand around his throat. Scars covered his pale face and his bushy brown beard came down to the middle of his chest.

  Teddy reached up and struggled to break the man’s grip–

  The man slapped his hands away and punched Teddy in the face three times.

  Dazed, Teddy felt blood pour out of his fractured nose. His eyes started to swell as he struggled to maintain consciousness.

  “Take him out front,” the man with the glasses said calmly.

  The bearded man grabbed Teddy’s collar and pulled his limp body across the café’s floor like a ragdoll. Tables and chairs were knocked aside as the barrel-chest brute pushed his way through with Teddy in tow.

  Shards of broken glass cut into Teddy’s skin as he slid along the floor. Mugs and plates shattered all around him. He closed his eyes and weakly tried to cover his bloodied face.

  The bearded man reached down, flipped Teddy onto his stomach, and placed his boot in the center of his back to hold him down. He snatched Teddy’s hair and held his head up.

  Teddy cried out in pain and squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to move, but the bearded man’s boot kept him firmly pinned against the floor.

  “Now mister, I’m really sorry about all that, but I really need you to cooperate,” the man in glasses said. He crouched down next to Teddy’s head, reached over, and patted Teddy’s cheek. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

  “Fuck you!” Teddy yelled as blood oozed down his chin. He kept his eyes squeezed shut.

  The bearded man grunted and pulled harder on his hair.

  Teddy screamed and opened his bloodshot eyes.

  In the distance he saw the truck burning on the freeway interchange ramp.

  The man adjusted his glasses, smiled, and pointed at the truck with his pistol.

  “Life is ironic, isn’t it? That accident would’ve killed most people, yet you managed to survive,” he said. He chuckled and stared at Teddy’s face. “Yet, despite overcoming those circumstances, here we are, talking.”

  “If you have a point, make it already,” Teddy grumbled through clenched teeth.

  The man chuckled again.

  “My point is that everything in life happens for a reason. My friend and I were looking for supplies when he happened to see your little accident. When we saw you limping away, my friend here wanted to kill you outright,” the man said as he gestured up at the bearded man.

  The bearded man simply grunted and stared down at Teddy as he held his head up.

  “I, on the other hand, wanted a chance to ask you a question first,” the man with glasses said as he stared wistfully off into the distance. He turned back towards Teddy and pulled a folded up photograph out of his front pocket and held it in front of Teddy’s face. “Do you recognize this girl?”

  The faded photograph showed a young teenage girl wearing a yellow dress. She was standing next to a lanky teenage boy in a tux. They were standing underneath a banner that read ‘Rolling Rock High School Homecoming’.

  Teddy stared at the picture, but didn’t respond.

  “This was taken about a year ago, but she looks about the same,” the man said with a soft chuckle. He turned the picture around and stared at it with watery eyes as he reached up and scratched his stubbly chin with the barrel of his pistol. “She has eyes just like her mother. Her name is Emily. Ring any bells?”

  “No,” Teddy said.

  The man put the picture away.

  “I didn’t think so. I imagine that after a while all of the faces tend to blend together,” he said. “You see, a couple of weeks ago, when things started to get really bad in our neighborhood, she took off with her mother to the Red Cross shelter they sat up at the very same high school. Given the riots and everything, I thought it was a good idea. We packed what little we could and headed out one morning at dawn.” He shook his head. “Hell, the newsman said it was safe there, what did I know?”

  Teddy simply stared at the man and kept quiet.

  “It was safe there,” the man continued, “at least for a little while. Eventually, somehow, the Harlem Flu made its way inside the high school… My wife woke up coughing and gasping for breath. I was scared shitless, I tell you, mister. I tried to find some help, but during the night the nurses and soldiers disappeared.” He gazed down at the ground. “All I heard was coughing that morning.” He frowned. “Nearly everybody was sick… Emily wasn’t though. I guess she took after her old man.”

  “You should’ve
left,” Teddy interrupted.

  “I tried,” the man said flatly. “Lots of us tried.” He paused and stared down at Teddy. “The goddamn doors were locked tight… Not only locked, but chained shut. Once word spread that we were trapped, panic started to set in fast. Eventually, I and some others found a way out through one of the side-doors that the people who locked us inside must have missed. My wife was too sick to move though… And Emily? Well… She couldn’t leave her mom behind.” Tears started to stream down his crusty cheeks. “I didn’t want to leave my wife behind, honest, but what choice did I have? I saw what that virus did and things inside were getting worse, not better. Everyone who could still walk, sick or not, started to run out of the school. I didn’t know what else to do. I grabbed my little girl and pulled her halfway across the high school towards the exit, but then she broke away… She broke away and ran back towards the auditorium to be with her dying mother.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you expect me to–”

  “I chased after her,” the man interrupted. “But outside, I guess those soldiers who chained the doors shut didn’t like all of those sick people running free. I heard something big crash against the front of the high school, but then all I heard was gunfire… I hid in an old classroom while those barbarians mowed down everything that moved. I listened as you and your people shot and killed my wife, my daughter, and who knows how many other countless innocent lives, but I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. I was powerless… I hid like a fucking coward.” He wiped away his tears and pointed the handgun at Teddy’s forehead. “Well mister… I’m not hiding anymore and I’m sure as hell not powerless.”

  Teddy’s face flushed as he stared down the barrel of the pistol.

  “I had nothing to do with that!” Teddy shouted.

  The man simply smiled and stared coldly at him with his finger on the trigger.

  “I believe you,” the man said. “But the fact is: I know you have blood on your hands just by the uniform you’re wearing. I know what you soldiers did at all of the Red Cross shelters, hospitals, and communes at the churches when things got out of hand.” He gestured up at the bearded man. “My friend here was part of the group that got executed when the military decided to ‘pull out’ of the university.”

  “I had to hide underneath my brother’s corpse and play dead while you bastards laughed, joked, and picked pockets,” the bearded man said in a husky voice. He pulled harder on Teddy’s hair.

  Teddy ignored the pain and stared up at the man holding the gun.

  “I wasn’t involved in–”

  “I know,” the man said calmly. “But the fact of the matter is, the world will be a better place without you in it. Killing you won’t make things right, but it’ll help. In fact–”

  A shot rang out.

  The bearded man jerked to the side as a bullet struck his throat. He gurgled, let go of Teddy’s hair, and collapsed to the ground as he choked on his own blood.

  The man with the gun gasped and spun towards the shooter–

  Two bullets struck the man in the chest. He fired a shot wildly in the air and fell back. He let out a few raspy breaths and then lay motionless.

  Teddy quickly scrambled back onto his feet and stared at the approaching figure.

  The person was enshrouded by a burlap tarp and wore it like a hooded robe. One hand held a smoking pistol and the other held a lead pipe.

  Teddy realized it was the same person that he had seen pushing the shopping cart and staring up at him from the feeder road.

  “I don’t know who you are, but thank you,” Teddy said as he tried to see the person’s face.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” the woman said.

  She swung the pipe in the air and struck Teddy across the forehead.

  Teddy’s world went dark.

  CHAPTER 16

  Groaning, Teddy slowly opened his eyes and looked around.

  He found himself lying on his back on a twin-sized bed with a wrought iron headboard. The mattress was firm, but it was the most comfortable thing he had laid on in a very long time. His boots had been taken off and his injured ankle had been wrapped in gauze.

  Teddy raised his left hand and touched his bandaged forehead.

  “What the fuck…” he mumbled.

  His right arm was awkwardly positioned above his head, but when he tried to move it, he discovered that his hand had been handcuffed to the headboard. He tugged and shook the bedrail, but it didn’t move and the iron cuffs started to cut into his skin.

  Teddy raised his head and looked around the room.

  The small bedroom that he was in smelled like lavender soap. The walls were painted a tepid shade of off-white and a dusty white ceiling fan hung motionless from the ceiling. Four taper candles burned on top of an old dresser dominating the wall that faced him.

  Teddy ignored the pain of the handcuffs pinching his skin as he pulled frantically at the headboard.

  The bedroom door opened and a woman entered holding a battery-powered LED lantern.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” she warned. “You’ll reopen your stiches.”

  Teddy stopped and looked at her.

  Her shoulder-length brown hair was neat, but oily, and her face was badly sunburnt. She was fairly tall, thin, and wore dark blue cargo pants with a black t-shirt. A holstered pistol hung off her right thigh and an old gas mask was slung on the opposite hip. Her blue eyes peered up at him as she held the lantern up at eye level.

  “What the fuck do you want, lady?” Teddy asked as he squirmed against his restraints.

  “Gratitude would be nice,” she said with a shrug. “Considering I saved your life and all.”

  Teddy rattled the handcuffs.

  “Saved me?! I’m your prisoner!” he shouted.

  “Yeah… Sorry about that,” she said. “Considering the state of the world, I didn’t exactly feel comfortable letting a soldier run loose in my home. On the other hand, it didn’t feel right letting those assholes outside rip you to pieces. Consider the cuffs a compromise between compassion and naivety.”

  “And the pipe against my head?”

  “A more painful compromise.” She paused. “If it’s any consolation, I hurt my shoulder lugging your big ass upstairs so we’re almost even I guess.”

  Teddy scoffed.

  “Lady, we’re nowhere close to being even.”

  “Hey, your stupidity isn’t my fault; nobody told you to get into a car accident,” she said. “Why were you driving so fast on the interstate anyway? Did you expect the roads to suddenly be clear from here all the way to Phoenix? I thought you army types were supposed to be tactical.”

  Teddy didn’t answer.

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter. You’re just lucky I saw you.”

  “Oh yeah, I really hit the fucking lottery,” Teddy said sarcastically.

  “Since I’m one of the last few people here who hasn’t lost their mind, you did,” she said with a grin. “But I don’t have a giant check for you. Just some food.”

  Teddy cocked an eyebrow and watched her.

  The woman sat the lantern down on the dresser and stepped back out into the hallway to grab something.

  “So what’s your plan?” Teddy asked. “Where do we go from here?”

  She returned carrying a tray with a bowl of soup and a chunk of moldy bread.

  “Honestly I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” she said as she sat the tray down on the nightstand next to the bed. “That’s the problem with trying to do the right thing, you know? You don’t always think things through.”

  Teddy watched her; she wouldn’t even make eye contact with him.

  “Pipe aside, I appreciate all of this, I do,” Teddy said, “But I really need to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Humor me and pretend it does.”

  “The stadium,” Teddy said with a sigh.

  The woman laughed.

  Teddy frowned.

  �
��Something funny?” Teddy asked.

  “Actually, yeah,” she said. “We were headed there ourselves.”

  “We?”

  She looked flustered and shook her head.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said as she pushed the bowl of soup closer towards Teddy. “All I know is that you’re not going anywhere for a few days until that ankle gets better.”

  Teddy reached a hand out towards the nightstand–

  The woman stepped back and placed a hand on the butt of her pistol.

  “Easy,” Teddy said as he grabbed the glass of water. “It’s not like I’m going to kill the one person who can take these fucking cuffs off of me.”

  The woman relaxed and watched him cautiously.

  “Yeah, well I’ve seen men do desperate, stupid things lately,” she said. She pointed towards his bandaged head. “And be careful with your stitches. If you break them, you’re out of luck. I’m not a doctor but I did all I could do with a dollar store sewing kit, some watered down rubbing alcohol, a basic knowledge of sewing I gained when I was a little girl, and some antiseptic ointment questionably close to the expiration date. I couldn’t do much for the ankle swelling since ice is rarer than gold these days.”

  Teddy ignored her and drank greedily; water dribbled down the corners of his mouth onto the pillow.

  The woman stood back and stared.

  Teddy sat the glass down and reached for the bowl.

  “You know, it’d be a lot easier to eat if I could use both hands and sit up,” he said as he rattled his cuffed right hand.

  “Yeah, I’m sure it would be,” she said mockingly. “Just like I’m sure it’d make it easier for you to slit my throat while I sleep.”

  Teddy frowned and awkwardly sipped from the bowl. He sat the bowl down and looked at her.

  “What is this exactly?” he asked.

  “Chicken soup, or at least that’s what the can said. It’s not gourmet but canned goods are getting harder and harder to come by.”

  “No, not the soup,” Teddy said with aggravation. “I meant this. Why nurture me back to health? If you’re planning to torture me for information, I’m afraid I won’t be much help.”

  The woman laughed.

  “You busted me!” she teased. “I’ve brought you up here to my torture chamber to feed you some soup and bread right before attaching some jumper cables to your nipples! You military types are cynical.”