Resurrection America

by Jeff Gunhus

  Rick got the door open and reached for the nearest man. As he touched him, the man keeled over, lying out on the floor.

  “Are they dead?” Cassie asked from outside the cell.

  Rick felt the man’s neck. His skin was cool to the touch, but there was a throbbing pulse there. He looked at the others and saw their chests rise and fall.

  “No, they’re just unconscious.”

  “They were pretty rowdy,” Cassie said. “I wanted to knock them out myself. Maybe they just sedated them.”

  “No,” Rick said a little too fast. “Something’s wrong here. I know it.” The cell walls suddenly felt too close to him, the space too confining. He pulled at his collar even though it was already loose, trying to get some air.

  “You might be right,” Cassie said carefully. “But let’s follow the facts and not get ahead of ourselves.”

  He wanted to blow up at her. Tell her not to condescend to him, that he knew what he knew, which was that goddamn Jihadis were crawling around his town. They were after him. They were after everyone. But he held his tongue.

  Even with the rising panic gripping his chest, he had the presence of mind to go to the second holding cell and check on that. Empty. He thought through his and Cassie’s position and the odds stacked against them. There weren’t a lot of scenarios where they survived the next few hours. But if they were to survive, there was a high likelihood they’d end up occupying the remaining cell. He opened the door and went inside for a second. If they were captured, he wanted to at least have a fighting chance.

  “What are you doing?” Cassie asked.

  Rick came back out and closed the cell door behind him. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

  “And go where?” Cassie said. “We need a plan.”

  “We have to confront Keefer.”

  “Wait, if we’re right about all of this, then we can’t just go lodge a complaint,” Cassie said. “We need more evidence. We need to enlist more help.”

  “Don’t you get it? There’s no time,” Rick said, striding through the office toward the front door.

  “Wait. Give me a second and let me think, all right?” Cassie said.

  Rick put his finger to his lips. There was a sound coming from the side door that led into the alley. Muffled voices. Cassie froze in place.

  There were men outside, two or three of them. Rick recognized the easy cadence of guys standing around and bullshitting. There was some soft laughter and then a comeback that he heard clearly. “Yeah, it was your mom.” The voices laughed again.

  Cassie stayed near the front of the room as he crept toward the side door, realizing as he got closer that it was open an inch. Just enough to let him take a peek outside without being noticed.

  He leaned his head toward the crack in the door, moving side-to-side to maximize his field of vision.

  There were three soldiers in the alley. All Rick could see at first were the backs of two of them and the leg of the third. He adjusted a little and got a better look at the third one as he reached out and handed something to one of his buddies.

  A cigarette.

  The soldier took it. Rick watched as the man brought it up to his opened face mask and took a drag. They all moved just enough so Rick could see their faces.

  All of them had their face plates up. And all of them had dark, Middle Eastern complexions and short beards.

  Jihadis. And they weren’t concerned about the air. About the virus.

  A sudden vertigo made Rick feel like the floor was dropping beneath his feet, like he was in an elevator. His stomach rose up and he tasted bile in the back of his mouth. He realized he wasn’t breathing.

  The virus wasn’t real.

  It was just a way to control them.

  The weapon was the vaccine. Measured to be time-released so it would take effect all at once.

  Dahlia and Charlie didn’t have green wristbands the last time he saw them. He had to get to them before they got the injection.

  He backed up from the door toward Cassie behind him, hearing his own rapid breathing in his head. As he did, the century-old wood floor creaked under his feet louder than he’d ever heard it before.

  He froze.

  The voices stopped.

  A few long seconds passed. He and Cassie stared at each other, waiting.

  Then he heard a voice, now modulated by a helmet speaker, say, “Inside. Go check it out.”

  “Go, Cassie. Run,” Rick said, pushing her to the door.

  Cassie flung open the door and ran out. Rick followed behind, pulling his gun and keeping it hidden inside his jacket.

  They didn’t get far.

  Standing in the street in front of the sheriff’s station was Colonel Keefer.

  “Everything all right, Rick?” Keefer said. “You don’t look so good.”

  The three soldiers burst out from the door behind him and Rick noticed the flare of anger pass over Keefer’s face. He heard one of the soldiers mumble, “Oh shit.”

  Rick pulled the gun from under his jacket and pointed it at Keefer’s head, marching right at him.

  Keefer’s guard raised their guns.

  “No!” Keefer shouted, raising his hand to call his men off.

  Rick wondered if the order was given so as not to have a bloodbath right on the street, or if Keefer had done the quick calculation that he might get taken out in the cross fire. He really didn’t give a damn which it was.

  Rick held the gun up to Keefer’s head.

  “You’ve got some explaining to do, you son of a bitch.”

  29

  Rick could only imagine what a spectacle it looked like to the hundreds of people who could see him as he marched Keefer to the stage, surrounded by armed men pointing their machine guns at his head. For those who couldn’t see, word got around fast and the sound of two thousand questioning voices rose around him.

  “Why don’t we do this in private?” Keefer said over his shoulder.

  Rick eyed the clock on the stage: thirty-five minutes. “No time. Besides, I think everyone here will be interested in what you have to say.”

  Bertie ran up to them, blocked at the last second from reaching them by one of Keefer’s guards. “Rick, what the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry, Bertie,” he said. “You’re going to want to hear this.”

  “We’re wasting valuable time,” Keefer said.

  “Then let’s get to work. Up on the stage.”

  Keefer obliged, helped along by a violent poke in the ribs with Rick’s gun. Bertie and Cassie followed them up the steps. The voices in the square rose at first and then quieted quickly. As if the situation they were in wasn’t stressful enough, a wave of fear crashed over the crowd as people saw the sheriff holding, at gunpoint, the man who’d assured them they would be home the next day for dinner. Rick grabbed the microphone and tapped it.

  Nothing.

  He was about to threaten Keefer, so he’d get one of his men to turn on the PA system, when he saw the colonel was already pointing at the soldier at the soundboard. Seconds later, the speakers squealed on.

  “Everyone. Can I get you all to quiet down for a minute?” Rick said. “Please. So everyone can hear.”

  Surprisingly, the square went still. Fear was a great motivator for crowd control.

  “For those of you who aren’t from here, I’m Sheriff Rick Johnson from right here in Resurrection. I’m sorry …” He paused, realizing he didn’t have a plan of where to start. He couldn’t see them out in the crowd, but he pictured Charlie and Dahlia. He imagined how scared they were going to be once they heard what he had to say. Even so, the people in the square deserved to hear the truth. They deserved that chance to fight back.

  “I’m sorry, but things are not what they seem,” Rick said. “As bad as things seem, I’ve come to believe that they’re worse. Much worse.”

  The silence didn’t hold. Agitated voices rose throughout the square. Rick held up his hands for quiet.


  “Don’t do this, Rick,” Keefer said. “I don’t know what you think is going on, but you’re wrong.”

  Rick ignored him. Instead he pointed to the snipers lining the rooftops. “These men are not US military. They are Jihadis.” His voice cracked as he shouted into the mic. “There is no virus in the air. It’s a Jihadi plan to control us so they can inject us. We’re the lambs walking right into the slaughterhouse. This is a terrorist attack right here in the homeland.”

  He’d expected an uprising at the revelation. At least an outpouring of questions, demands for answers.

  But people just stood there, staring blankly at him.

  “What’s wrong with you all?” he said. “Don’t you see?” He turned to Bertie, expected to see the horror of the situation registered on her face. Instead, her eyes welled with tears as she shook her head.

  “You don’t believe me?” Rick shouted. “Think about it for a second. All this gear was staged up at the mine in case something like this happened, right? That’s at least a twenty-minute drive, even if you’re flying down the road. As a best case scenario, they left the mine twenty minutes after the virus supposedly got out. So why blare all the sirens? Why roll in here like they did? Just to create panic. No other reason.”

  Rick saw the first looks of doubt on the faces nearest the stage. Eyes were turning to Keefer to judge his reaction to the claims.

  “And then there’s the injections. Most of you have already gotten one. Think about what happened. It wasn’t like your usual shot, right? Someone checked the time first, then selected a vial based on that. Then, did you notice what happened next? Everyone in the tent got the injection at exactly the same time. Has anyone ever seen anything like that before?”

  “That’s right,” a man in the front row called out. “That’s what happened. A bunch of us were talking about how weird that was.”

  Rick pointed to the man. “Exactly. But not just weird. There’s a purpose. Whatever they gave us, it’s on a time release.” He pointed to the clock, just as it clicked under thirty minutes. “That’s not the countdown to when the virus becomes deadly, it’s when whatever they injected us with does.”

  This time the crowd got loud, a mix of anger and fear. Keefer held out his hand for the microphone but Rick pulled it away from him. Angry shouts came from the crowd.

  “Let him speak.”

  “I want to hear what he says.”

  Rick handed the mic over to Keefer, but kept his gun trained on him. He knew he could be taken out at any second by one of the rooftop snipers. He just wanted to make sure that he took Keefer out with him if that happened.

  Keefer held up his hands and the crowd quieted. “First, I want to apologize for this added stress to an already challenging situation. Those of you farther back in the crowd should know that the sheriff has a gun to me, otherwise we would not have let him worry everyone like this.” Keefer paused then continued. “But, unfortunately, there is some truth to what the sheriff said.”

  The crowd erupted and Rick felt a wave of relief mixed with paranoia. Keefer’s reaction had been too casual up to this point, too assured. Even with the evidence he had, Rick had to admit there were some doubts, especially seeing the crowd’s reaction to what he’d shared with them so far. Hearing Keefer admit it made Rick feel validated. But the fact that the colonel had no fear of being uncovered wasn’t good.

  Keefer held up his hands for quiet. “He’s correct that the way we entered town was unnecessary and caused a panic. It could have been handled better by myself and my team.” The crowd settled and Rick felt his stomach churn at how reasonable and calm Keefer sounded. “We’re human and we make mistakes under pressure. And there is no greater pressure than knowing if we don’t do our jobs right today, everyone in this town could die.” He let that set in. “And that if we’re too soft and we let someone escape the containment area, every American in our great country could die.”

  “I saw the crescent and star painted over on the AAV,” Rick shouted at the mic. He pointed in the direction of the armored vehicle. “If you’re over in that corner, you can see it.”

  Heads in the crowd turned that direction, but looked back at Keefer as he spoke again, impatience in his voice.

  “That’s correct,” he said. “These vehicles and many of the men here were recently used in war games, training for our men heading to Tora Bora in Afghanistan. The AAVs had the insignia on their side at one point. Many of the men here participated, growing their beards out to play the part.”

  Rick felt the eyes of the crowd shift to him. “You don’t believe that, do you?” He turned to Cassie standing behind him by Bertie. She met his eyes, but he saw the doubt there. “I just saw,” he pointed to Cassie, “we just saw some of your men with their face masks open, smoking cigarettes in the alley. They didn’t seem too concerned about your virus.”

  Keefer looked at Cassie for confirmation, but she shook her head. Rick realized she hadn’t seen them in the alley. By the time they ran after them, they had their masks back down.

  Keefer was also looking at Cassie’s blank reaction. “Ms. Baker, did you see my men with their masks up? Taking … what did you say, Sheriff? A smoke break?”

  Cassie hesitated and for a second Rick thought she might come to his rescue and say that she had seen them. But she shook her head no.

  A groan passed through the crowd.

  “Get off the stage, Sheriff!” someone yelled.

  Then the boos started. But, surprisingly, it was Keefer who put an end to them.

  “Please, please,” he said, calling for order. “Sheriff Johnson is only trying to look out for you. Trying to do his job.”

  “The syringes,” Rick said, hating the feeling of grasping for a hard edge only to have everything he touched crumble. “Try explaining that away.”

  Keefer held up his hand and the crowd quieted. “I will explain as simply as I can. But I’m no doctor.” He made a show of taking a deep breath, like something weighed heavily on him. “There is enough vaccine and the vaccine works,” he started. “But it’s also very unstable. From the time it leaves the controlled lab environment, it starts to … I’m afraid to use this word because it’s not exactly right … but it starts to degrade.”

  A murmur passed through the crowd.

  “Not really degrade as much as just change. The vaccine sixty minutes out of the lab is different than the same vaccine fifty minutes out of the lab.”

  Rick felt his panic rise as he looked across a field of faces nodding along with Keefer’s explanation. It wasn’t so much that he was convincing as it was that they wanted to believe him.

  Keefer continued, “I know this is all very complicated, but we have to match the vaccine batch exactly with the time out of the lab. And it’s all keyed off the same countdown clock.” He pointed to the digital read-out hitting twenty-five minutes, and then turned to Rick although he was playing to the crowd. “Now, if I’ve answered all your questions, can I suggest we get back to work?”

  Rick grabbed the mic back and pressed the gun into Keefer’s side. He knew what he knew, and then there was what his instinct told him. “How about I inject you with the vaccine? Would that be all right with you?”

  Keefer scowled at him. “Sheriff, I’ve been more than patient with you. Maybe more patient than I should have been. I understand from your friend the mayor that you’ve had severe episodes of post-traumatic stress disorder before.”

  “That’s not what this is,” Rick shouted, spit flying from his mouth.

  “That you used to see Jihadis in every dark shadow, lurking behind every bush.”

  “It’s been a long time since … since I …” his voice faded as he looked at Bertie. She had one hand over her mouth and she shook her head, her eyes bright with tears.

  “It’s all right. I know what it’s like,” Keefer said. “I know the things you’ve seen. I know, for example, what happened to you in Istanbul.”

  The word felt like a punch to the stom
ach. A ringing flared in his ears. Inside the ringing sound he heard screaming. His own screaming from years ago. He put his free hand up to his ears, trying to block the sound. He fought to get his emotions back under control.

  “Stop trying to make this about me,” Rick said. “Tell these people the truth.”

  “The truth? Should we talk about the truth, Sheriff?” Keefer asked. “Okay, let’s talk about the truth. You weren’t surprised when we showed up today, were you?”

  “What? Of course I was,” he said, turning back to Keefer.

  “Was today the first time we’ve met?”

  Rick didn’t respond.

  “I said, was this the first time we met?”

  Rick shook his head. “No.”

  A murmur rose from the crowd.

  “We met at the mine yesterday,” Keefer said. “Where you agreed to keep the activity up there secret from the people in the town.”

  “Only until––”

  “I even put ten thousand dollars in your hand for you to keep quiet.”

  “I didn’t take the money,” Rick said, but his voice was drowned out by the boos from the crowd. He felt both Cassie’s and Bertie’s eyes boring into the back of his head. He’d lied right to both of their faces about the mine.

  “And your deputy took the money too,” Keefer said. “Can you deny that?”

  Rick’s throat was dry. He’d been caught in a trap, and he realized everything up to this point had been designed to discredit him if it proved necessary. It didn’t change the fact that these were terrorists in his town. Jihadis on his soil. Even if he was the only one who believed it, he damn sure wasn’t going to let Keefer get away with it. As the crowd turned against him, he wondered if his only option was to take Keefer out, knowing that pulling the trigger was as good as committing suicide. It wouldn’t stop the operation, but it was better than getting thrown in his own jail cell and letting Keefer get away with it.

  A soldier walked up to the side of the stage carrying a bulky black phone with a thick antenna sticking up in the air. He held it up toward Keefer, who nodded.

  “Sheriff, we’re running out of time here, but this is a phone call I think you should hear.”