The Agora Virus (Book 2): Anxiety

by Jack Hunt

  “But I…” Mitch spluttered.

  Butch leaned into him and whispered into his ear. “Some punishment is only understood when it happens to those that we love. You took something that I value, so now I’m going to take something of value of yours. But don’t worry, I’ll return it in the morning.”

  “No. No, this is…”

  Before he could spit the words out, Dusty slammed him in the gut with the butt of his rifle. Mitch coughed hard and fell to his knees. Karla tried to move to his side but was hauled back by Joey.

  “Take her back to the house.”

  The next few minutes were filled with screams as Joey dragged her out of there and Mitch attempted to stop them. Butch motioned to Dusty and Bret to take him outside and keep him quiet.

  The rest of the islanders in the hall looked on in horror. A couple got up to protest but as soon as a weapon was flashed they sat back down. Butch knew the others wanted to say something but none of them had the guts to speak up out of fear of something far worse happening to them.

  The fact was he wasn’t going to lay a hand on Karla, and neither would any of his brothers or cousins. They weren’t rapists but a person in his position needed to know how to work a room. It was all about appearances. If he did nothing, the others would have stepped out of line and then he would have people turning against him.

  No, that wasn’t happening. He was at the helm of this ship and he’d take them all down with him before he handed over the reins.

  “Now, where was I?” And just like that he moved back into what he was about to say without skipping a beat. “It’s come to my attention that a rogue group of men are killing people over on the mainland to get what they want. Of course, this is very disturbing.”

  “How different is that from what you’re doing?”

  “Geesh, do I really have to rehash this again? We are sharing what we have here on the island. We haven’t taken anything that won’t be fairly distributed back to you. In return you get to avoid all the shit that is going on over on the mainland. And, in the event those assholes try to come over here, we will protect you. That’s right. We will protect you. Am I making myself clear?”

  He eyed the man called Landon Forester with a look of mistrust. He’d been one of the few that had kicked up a fuss when they began doing the rounds on the island. He and his wife, Sandra, were two he was going to have to keep close tabs on. He couldn’t have anyone rocking the boat. Couldn’t these people understand what he was trying to do here? Someone had to govern this island, ensure the safety of those on it, and make sure that no one took advantage of anyone else. If that meant he looked like the bad guy, well he was more than willing to wear that badge.

  “So we are going to need a lot more cooperation around here.”

  “Like?” Landon asked.

  “Like taking shifts and watching out for any strangers on the island. If anyone shows up at your home, you are to let us know right away.”

  “Shifts?” Landon asked again in a defiant tone.

  This guy is starting to piss me off, Butch thought as he moved a little closer to see if it would intimidate him. As a large man, he’d had little trouble with people arguing with him. Those who tried to push their luck were swiftly given a backhand, even if they didn’t deserve it. The key was to strike first and not give them a chance to get to the point where they thought they could take him. But by the looks of Landon, that wasn’t going to be required. Landon edged back in his seat and he got this, oh shit, perhaps I shouldn’t have said that look on his face.

  “Yes. Everyone is going to take a turn in patrolling the island, day and night. There is a lot of land to cover.”

  “And are you going to give us ATV’s?”

  “If you have them you can use them otherwise God’s given you two legs.”

  Butch continued to walk the full length of the building. He pushed his chest out with a sense of pride. There was something to be said for governing people on eleven acres of land. It was like his own tiny state, and he got to make the rules. He imagined that many of the people in the country detested this new strain of virus that was sweeping the land but not him. It was giving him the world that he had always wanted. One in which the playing field was leveled. One in which he got to use all the survival skills he had learned and taught over the years. And ultimately it gave him the opportunity to have men respect and fear him. That kind of shit couldn’t be bought. Honestly, he didn’t care whether people feared him or respected him but they would all come to thank him.

  He turned his back for a moment and then twisted around. “Oh, and another thing, you will all go on runs with us to collect more items from the mainland.”

  “Will you be sharing?” Landon said with a smirk on his face.

  “Have you been beyond this island?”

  “Not since this kicked off.”

  “Then you don’t know what it’s like out there. We do. And if you want to survive the coming winter, and maybe even the following year, you will do what is asked of you.”

  “Asked?” someone else piped up. “We’re being asked. That’s the first I’ve heard.”

  A few agreed and grumbled.

  Perhaps Landon’s attitude was beginning to rub off on the others. He hadn’t thought about that. Maybe getting them all together was a bad idea. It allowed for a mob mindset to form. Landon sat back in his seat and folded his arms. Was that an unspoken form of communication? A giant fuck you? Was he sending a message to him that he wasn’t going to do jack squat? Oh, he was going to have words with him before this night was out.

  Butch was about to discuss another concern when the doors swung open and Palmer and Jackson pushed forward two men, one white and one black, into the midst of them.

  “And who do we have here?” Butch said with a smile on his face.

  SIXTEEN

  Sal glanced at his wristwatch, then stared through the night vision binoculars. The St. Lawrence River was lit up by a luminescent green. He scanned the horizon looking for any sign of him. A few distant lights twinkled. Survivors, he thought.

  “He should have been back by now.”

  “Perhaps they ran into some difficulty locating Red,” Jameson said while lighting up a cigarette.

  “There can’t be more than twenty houses on that island, and only one Gardner Street. How difficult could it be?”

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do. Without that boat, we are stranded.”

  It was just after eight-thirty at night. Frank had made it clear that he was going to get them safely to Red’s and then return. He didn’t anticipate being any longer than a few hours. While Sal didn’t think it was cause for alarm, as there could have been any number of reasons why he was delayed, he was also a realist and nervous after their run-in with the Guthries.

  “This was a dumb idea,” Sal said. “I should have gone with him.”

  “A voice of reason?”

  “Exactly.”

  “He’s a grown ass man for God’s sake, Sal. I think he can handle this.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  Jameson scoffed. “You’ve spent so much time with him you have Stockholm syndrome.”

  “What on earth are you on about?”

  “Gloria says you and him are like two peas in a pod. She’s tempted to call you the Odd Couple.”

  He grumbled as he continued gazing through the binoculars like a father looking for his prodigal son. The reality was, there was an element of truth in that. He had never worked so closely with a client. Initially it had started like any other business relationship. He hit the clock at the start of their sessions and was out the door one minute after. It wasn’t like he hadn’t dealt with others who had the same kind of OCD but something about Frank intrigued him. Slowly, over time it became like a personal challenge and morphed into almost an obsession to see him cured of his phobia. Then of course there was the time they spent on the road heading to Queens. They had formed a bond that could only be forged throu
gh traumatic experiences. He didn’t see him like a son, as he wasn’t much older than him. More like a brother. The brother he never had. Of course, he would never tell Gloria that. She would have climbed the walls and probably told him to go and move in with him. He ground his teeth.

  If he was honest, in some ways Frank had helped him perhaps more than he had helped Frank. Up until he had met Frank, he had taken a very placid approach to life. The comment about Gloria wearing the pants wasn’t far from the truth. In his entire marriage, he had never spoken back to her. Not that he didn’t want to, but it just wasn’t something he was used to seeing.

  Sal’s father hadn’t been a psychiatrist. He was a blue-collar worker who had worked for the railroad. He worked long hours and when he was home, he generally didn’t like to be disturbed. His mother would bring him his supper while he watched TV and Sal was lucky if he managed to get a word out of him. When the last freight service ended in 1972, his father lost his job and after that he struggled to get work and spiraled down into deep depression. He was never the same man after that. It was as if his entire identity was wrapped up in his career.

  Though he suffered in silence, he never once took it out on Sal’s mother. Not once did he raise his voice and there was something about that Sal admired. Others might have said he needed to grow a pair but he didn’t think his father was lacking in confidence. He simply showed a great deal of respect for his mother. In many ways, his observations of his father were what led him to want to understand people. It could be said it drove him into his current line of work as a psychiatrist.

  Yeah, it was from those early days he had formed his ideas about how he was to speak to women. Don’t talk back. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t rock the boat. And though it made for a peaceful life, he always felt as though he had repressed a small part of himself. Frank however was a different kettle of fish. He spoke up for himself, raised his voice, and rocked the boat, perhaps to his own detriment. Though Frank might have said it cost him his marriage, Sal didn’t think that was the case. It took two to tango and his conversations with Kate led him to believe that she had a few issues of her own.

  Sal cast a glance back towards the cottage. The light was on in the kitchen and he could see Gloria puttering around. Though he had only raised his voice a few times over the past year, he had to wonder if the problems in his marriage had stemmed from her wanting him to take more of a lead. To speak out. To stand up. To give her some grain to rub up against. Iron refines iron, his old college teacher would tell him.

  Had he been iron to her? He couldn’t say he had. His approach had always been to take a back seat, whereas Frank took the bull by the horns.

  Jameson snapped his fingers in front of Sal’s face. “Sal. You there, buddy?”

  “What?” Sal drifted out of his daze-like state.

  “I thought I lost you there for a moment.”

  “Sorry, just thinking about the past.”

  “Don’t we all,” Jameson said, tossing the remainder of his smoked cigarette. Golden embers glowed for a second until it hit the water. “Look, I think we should probably head in. He’ll be back. There’s nothing we can do right now.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  He hesitated before following him into the house.

  Gabriel’s eyes drifted over the rabble squeezed into the small hall. His heart was pounding. From the moment he saw the AK47s the men were carrying, he had begun to have second thoughts about agreeing to do this. After reaching the shore, they hid their rifles nearby and headed towards the nearest house. Frank told them that he would be watching and that if anything went wrong, he would do his utmost to get them out of it. Though it was comforting to know, words meant very little now. What chance did he stand against them?

  A thick bearded man, roughly the same height as Gabriel but much larger in width, approached them while the others stood back and manned the doors.

  “And who might you be?”

  “Gabriel, and this is Tyrell, a friend of mine.”

  The man observed them, looking them up and down and studying them as if trying to determine what to do.

  He sniffed hard. “Where you from?”

  They had already agreed that they would say Watertown; any mention of Queens might have struck a chord with Butch and given him a reason to doubt their story.

  “Watertown. Things have got real bad down there and so we were hoping to get away from the chaos.”

  “And you chose my island?”

  Tyrell looked around at the people. “Seemed as good as any other.”

  “But you chose mine?” he said.

  Gabriel nodded. With every second that passed he was hoping that Tyrell didn’t start waffling. Frank had told him to leave the talking to Gabriel, something to which he took offense.

  They both nodded. “We’re not looking for any trouble, just a warm bed for the night, perhaps a hot meal until we can decide where to go next.”

  “So you are moving on?”

  “We haven’t exactly decided,” Tyrell said.

  “I’m Butch by the way, Butch Guthrie.” He extended his hand and Gabriel noted how hard he squeezed when he shook it. There was a look of superiority in his eyes as if he was trying to intimidate or make it clear who was in charge.

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “You were in Clayton for a while?”

  “A few hours until we could find a boat.”

  “A boat? Where is it?” He turned to one of the two men who had brought them in.

  They shrugged. “They just walked up on us.”

  Butch breathed in deeply, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked back to the makeshift pulpit on a step further down before returning.

  “Look, if it’s a bother we can leave,” Gabriel said. He didn’t like the awkward silence or the way Butch was staring at his men. It seemed as if they were trying to determine their fate. His eyes darted to the window and the darkness beyond. Was Frank watching? Did he have Butch in his crosshairs?

  “No. No, you are guests. Please, take a seat. We were just wrapping up here.”

  They took a seat close to a couple but clearly by the looks Butch’s men were giving them, they didn’t trust them one bit.

  Butch returned to his spot and continued discussing the needs of the island and how everyone would have an opportunity to serve. The guy made it sound like he was king and it was an honor to be his bitch.

  Frank lurked in the darkness with his rifle on the ready. He had contemplated the idea of taking out Butch from a distance. It would have been so easy. Waiting for him to emerge and then having Gabriel distract him while he lined up Butch’s fat head in his sight. One shot and the others would just disperse like cowards.

  But as much as he had churned it over in his mind, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He wasn’t a murderer. He’d killed people before but that was war, it was justified at least in his eyes. He was serving his country.

  He couldn’t justify killing a man who had simply stolen what he had. Sure he had slapped Gloria, but hell, there were tons of people who wanted to give her a slap. She had a way of getting under anyone’s skin. Not that he would have done it. He abhorred violence against women but she certainly knew how to press people’s buttons.

  No, he had told them to get in, find out what they could, and leave the island at the first chance they got, or the first sign of trouble.

  After watching them go into the hall and lingering a while in the shadows, he had decided to take advantage of the time he had and check out the Guthries’ residence. Initially the idea was to have the two guys do it but with him on the island it just made sense to use them as a distraction. He figured not all of the Guthrie family would be at the hall but at least he might be able to figure out where the supplies were.

  Frank moved from his position. It was pitch-dark and without the use of his flashlight, and no streetlights on the island, he had to use the natural light from the moon and his memory of previous vis
its to the island as a means of making his way to Guthrie’s property.

  As he was trudging along, he decided to make use of the time to call Kate. He hadn’t spoken to her in several days. Every time he tried to get through he either got a busy line or her voicemail, which was full. As he pulled his phone out, the charge was weak but not as bad as the signal. It kept flittering between two bars and one, and then none. Great, he thought.

  But that wasn’t the only thing that caught his attention. He’d received four text messages from Sal. Then it dawned on him that he had told him he would be returning by eight. It was nine-fifteen now. He checked the messages and shot him back an update.

  He hadn’t taken but a few steps before another one came back.

  Damn it, Frank. Now how the hell do we get off this island and help you, if you get into trouble?

  He had a point. But what Sal didn’t realize was that he had got Wyatt’s blood on him and he wasn’t sure whether he was infected or not. Did he tell him? Sal knew Wyatt, it was the right thing to do, yet on the other hand he didn’t want to cause panic, especially for Ella. Nothing could be worse than to be stranded on an island with no means of escape and discovering your parent had possibly, maybe, contracted the Agora virus.

  Another text message came in from Sal and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to dance around the issue. Sal knew him better than that.

  I can’t come back for twenty-four hours. Please don’t tell Ella.

  That was all he said. All he needed to say, Sal would understand. Wouldn’t he?

  No further messages from him was either a good sign or it meant that Sal had switched into psychiatrist mode and was about to give him a mini-lecture on remaining calm via text message.

  Then one finally came in.

  Understood. Stay safe.

  That was it. He had dodged the bullet. At least he thought he had. Continuing to trudge through the brambles and dense undergrowth he picked up the pace and broke into a jog. Anyone who had lived in Clayton all their life had at some point visited Grindstone Island. Though it was the fourth biggest of the Thousand Islands, it didn’t take long to navigate it.