Miguel and Jesus stared in horror at Jackson.
He finally had an audience, so he continued, warming to his subject but maintaining his distance from the room. “Yeah, it’s mine. The ointment is called CJ180d, Part B.” He shrugged, regretfully. “It’s not a fancy name, but the virus and its Cure are elegant. Brash in parts, but their evolutionary components are mind-boggling.” He studied his brothers, then waved his hand. “Well, mind-boggling for you. I created it, which wasn’t that difficult, let me tell you.”
Jackson considered his brothers for another second and turned to leave.
Miguel’s voice stopped him mid-step. “But… why?”
All of the reasons crowded in on themselves, but Jackson took a deep breath. “Don’t worry about it, Miguel. The next few hours are going to be the last peaceful ones you have. I want you to enjoy them.” He patted the wall and strode toward the stairs. He would need to leave the last two jars on the counter. No way would Miguel and Jesus share with anyone else.
Jackson tapped Cornelia on the shoulder. “Hey, I brought the Cure ointment. It’s on the counter here. Share with whoever you want. There’s two jars, should be enough for fifteen people. Jesus and Miguel have theirs upstairs. They’re sleeping it off.” In a little bit they wouldn’t be able to speak coherently, even though the pain would start soon after.
As he left the house, Jackson reconsidered Miguel’s question.
Why indeed. Well, Miguel, why not?
Chapter 10
Margie
Hands pounded on the door of the lifeboat as it lowered. A thud and then what sounded like footsteps crossed over the top as if the person searched for a way in. The boat lurched when it hit the water and the thudding stopped followed by a scratching and bump against the hull.
The boat nudged against the larger ship, the solid crunch sounded like it would hurt more if it hit too many times.
Margie rushed to the driver’s seat, following the instructions that were laid out in the employee handbook. Simple cards sat by the steering wheel with careful step-by-step directions.
Flipping switches and pushing buttons, she at least felt like she was partially productive. Finally, something she touched released the plastic cover from the top and rain sluiced down on them with a shocking chill.
Seattle rain storms were anything but tropical. There was a bitter edge to the rain as it coursed through the open top Margie had inadvertently opened. “Leave it to me to find the only convertible lifeboat in the fleet of cruise ships.” She mumbled, turning the wheel and pointing the boat in the direction from whence they’d come.
Whence. Now there was a word that aged her.
David whimpered. Her big, strong husband made a sound like a small child in pain. She couldn’t focus on that right then. They didn’t have very long to be in the cold, but the short amount they would be exposed wouldn’t help anyone fighting off the sickness.
She looked over her shoulder, taking in the fear on the children’s faces and the stalwart determination on the mother’s. If anyone would pull through what was happening, it would be that woman. Margie offered a soft smile at her when their eyes met, nodding to pass on some understanding.
The woman nodded back, tightening her arms around her children and brusquely rubbing their arms. “We’ll be out of this cold soon, guys. Just hang in there.”
Choppy waves pushed at the boats attempts to make it toward the shore. Water splashed from each bump they hit and startled them with the fresh surge of cold. There was no relief as the rain pelted from above, salt water splashed from the front and over the sides, and the wind bit at any exposed skin. If it weren’t for the movement forward, Margie would be tempted to turn back and go back to her cabin.
Clouds overhead hid the real time of day and Margie felt like she’d been fighting for her freedom for days. In reality, it couldn’t have been more than an hour or so.
Reaching the dock didn’t take long, but figuring out a way to get up onto the pier would be harder to do than just visualizing where they were going and getting there.
Margie called over the wind and the waves rocking against the boat. “We’re going to have to climb out of here. It looks like there’s a ladder, but it doesn’t come all the way down.” In fact, the wooden ladder fell short about four feet above. Margie wiped the rain off her face and set her jaw.
Maybe she was crazy to think she could get a dying man off a cruise ship in the middle of the apocalypse. Of course, she was crazy. There were a lot of crazy people who did amazing things. Margie had to believe she just crazy enough to warrant that distinction. She could do cra-mazing and when she got home, she’d tell Cady all about it while they tucked David into a warm bed.
But how did she get them off the boat, off the water, out of the storm, and somewhere covered? She wasn’t worried about upping the resale value of the boat. She just wanted to get them all onto land.
A concrete truck ramp led into the water on the other side of the docks with nothing around it that was the right height for them to disembark at.
Thinking outside of the box was the only way they were going to survive the situation. Margie nodded tightly to herself. She didn’t need anyone’s permission. She was getting them out of there.
She spun the wheel again, pulling the throttle to get more speed. Over her shoulder, she shouted as loud as she could, “Hold onto something besides each other.” She pointed at the seatbelts. “Put those on. They’ll at least anchor you.”
She glanced at David who had fallen to the floor. There wasn’t enough time to get him in a belt. As soon as she let go of the wheel, the boat would do its own thing, but she’d be able to grab her husband to make sure he didn’t fly too far out of the boat, if at all.
Steering in a wide arc around the dock, she lined it up with the ramp which curved forty feet in from the water’s edge. Margie took a deep breath and refused to look back again. If she did, she might balk at what she had to do.
They didn’t have a lot of time to get out of the chilly Seattle weather, made worse by wind chill.
“Hang on!” She screamed, pushing the throttle as far forward as it would go. Keeping the wheel straight, she leaned down and pulled David toward her, grunting with the effort. His leg caught on the orange and yellow bag and Margie hoped it was enough to keep the bag from ejecting from the boat.
The rumble from the engine got louder as the water got shallower. Margie clenched her mouth shut and squinted through the rain. The impact had to be hard and fast, like a car accident.
Grinding as the boat slammed into the concrete ramp made Margie catch her breath. The children screamed. The boat pushed further up, carried forward by the momentum they’d gotten by going full tilt on the gas.
Instead of crashing, the boat ground to a halt, the engine roaring loudly into the air. The odd sensation of being stationary on land threw Margie off for a moment. Reaching up, she turned the motor off, panting from the exertion of just thinking how bad it was going to be.
“Let’s not wait for it to change its mind.” Margie stood, motioning toward the mother and the children. A chart on the wall laid out how to get the inflatable slide to inflate and Margie pushed more buttons. In seconds a large, bright orange slide burst forth from the door.
Grabbing the mother’s hand, Margie blinked the water from her eyes. “Are you going to be okay?”
The woman nodded, gratitude rich in her gaze. “Yes, we have family nearby. Thank you, thank you.” She and her children rode down together on the slide, disappearing from view.
Margie turned to David. She reached down, shaking his shoulder. “David, I know you’re tired and you don’t feel good, but I need you to get up, please, walk.”
He worked his eyes open, moving his mouth. “I can do it, Margie.” He struggled to move, lifting one limb at a time and rolling to his stomach to scoot backwards toward the exit. He groaned, falling down the plastic slide with a moan.
Margie grabbed the bag and turned towar
d the slide. Following David wouldn’t be hard. Finding them protection from the storm was going to be harder since they had to go up the steep ramp. David would never make it and Margie couldn’t carry him.
The slide down was fast and she jumped to her feet, feeling her age for the first time in a while. She didn’t remember the last time her hips hurt or her head pounded with a headache. If David could power through Stage IV cancer, then she could certainly get through a little discomfort to get him to safety.
The bag banged against her hip as she trotted to his side. He’d come to a stop against a boulder just a few feet from the cold water. Maybe the cold had numbed his pain because he seemed more lucid than he’d been the last few days.
Taking a look around, Margie had no idea how they were going to get out of there. Maybe David could make it, but she didn’t see him surviving it.
She dropped the bag, leaning over and bracing her hands on her knees. What was she doing? A fifty-five year old woman had no business dragging her invalid husband all over the countryside when she had no idea what she was going to –
In her frantic scan of the boatyard, Margie spied a small Volkswagen Bug from the early seventies. The yellow paint was chipped and the front fenders looked to have more than their fair share of rust, but the way it was parked, Margie would bet someone meant to return to it and drive it home.
Would there be a spare key? Or was it locked? If nothing else, they could at least sit inside out of the intense sting of the rain.
“Come on, David. We can make it to that car. We can do it.” She pulled on his arm, throwing it over her shoulder and yanking him forward. The wind bit and snapped at her neck and anywhere the water had soaked through her clothing.
David plodded along, eating up the twenty yards or so with painstaking deliberateness. He dragged his feet, the sound grating as it broke up the sound of water lapping at the ramp and wind blowing across their faces.
At the Bug, she leaned him against the passenger side and took a deep breath. Reaching for the handle, she stopped. There was no handle. It was missing. She looked around, and then across to the driver’s side. The lock was in the up position.
“Stay here. I’ll get the door.” She watched David as if he were going to fall any second while she rushed around the front of the car. She pulled the door open, the squeak as it swung open indicative of more than just rust on the fenders. Pushing open the passenger seat, she called David inside. He turned, slow as molasses and sank into the bucket seat, pulling the door shut behind him.
Margie stuffed the bag into the back seat and closed her door. She froze for a moment, reveling at the lack of water and wind jaggedly clawing at her vision and face.
“Get comfortable. I’ll see if I can find keys or something.” If she didn’t, Margie was comfortable saying she didn’t mind dying right there. She was tired and wasn’t sure how much further she could go.
Taking a deep breath as the interior’s cooler temperature started seeping through her clothes, Margie placed her hands on her knees and looked around the car. Keys.
Reaching under the seat, she patted around, feeling for anything that could pass as keys. Nope. The glove compartment fell under her search next, revealing a .22 pistol and a box of bullets beside it but not keys.
Odd. A gun in a glove box in the liberal side of Washington State. Margie wasn’t sure it was there legally, to be honest. She closed the door, uninterested for the immediate future.
Visor? There was no way someone would put their keys in the visor. The cliché of it struck her at the same time that she reached up to pull the visor down. A single key plopped down to her lap.
She closed her eyes in gratitude. She didn’t care right then what else happened. She would be able to get away from that dark, angry ocean and the scene of the ship sitting in the harbor with countless people on board, waiting to die. Looking past the ships hulking mass, Margie’s jaw slackened. The shapes of five more cruise ships sitting in the water could be seen in the distance. How many people on the ships alone were stuck there?
Margie cautiously placed the key in the ignition and turned. The engine spluttered then fought turning over, but after a few cajoling taps on the gas and clutch, the motor roared to life.
“Here we go, David. Let’s go get the motorhome.” She honestly didn’t mind taking the Bug all the way home and just abandoning the R.V. at that point. But judging by David’s pallor and the bright red drops of blood he continuously coughed up, he needed a warm place to rest for the night.
She didn’t know anywhere else but the storage unit and their motorhome that would work.
Getting David comfortably ensconced inside the motorhome would ultimately lead to her main goal of getting back to Cady’s. She could deal with a mental breakdown once they were there and safe.
Unless David died before then.
Chapter 11
Cady
Expecting the virus to make her sick in less than twenty-four hours wasn’t realistic, but Cady wouldn’t deny the sense of relief she had when she woke up the next morning and felt normal. A little nervous, but that was to be expected.
Just because she was fine, didn’t mean she wasn’t carrying or infected. All it meant was she had another day to teach Bailey.
Her list was long – make a fire to cook with in the stove, how to maintain coals without burning up the wood, how to turn on the generator in the garage to muffle the sound of the engine from the road and how not to die from the exhaust it gave off, how to utilize the transfer switch, how to open a soup can with a spoon, and how to reload ammunition with her Hornady reloader. The list was endless. There wasn’t enough time.
Avoiding the topic at breakfast, Cady nodded toward the kitchen. “Can you clean up the kitchen and the table, while I finish the garbage sorting? Unless you want to do the garbage?” She cast an innocent glance toward Bailey as she offered.
Bailey didn’t balk, evidence she’d rather not touch the garbage.
Things would be a whole lot easier, if Cady’s mom were there. Margie had been pragmatic about stuff. True, she’d probably get the disease and die, too, alongside Cady – doubling Bailey’s pain – but at least Cady would get to see her and Dad again.
Cady stood from the table and set her Taurus on the counter. She patted the top of the weapon and nodded toward the back bathroom. “I’ll be right back. Can you not move this? I saw you eyeballing it.”
Bailey finally laughed, moving the syrup to the cabinet. “Yes, I want to have another one on my hip, like this one.” She lifted her sweatshirt and showed the gun Cady had given her snugged into a holster.
Cady nodded, grateful her teenager had at least listened to having it by her. Even one that wasn’t loaded was a good way to bluff someone. “Good girl.”
Unable to hold it any longer, Cady went to the restroom. She relieved herself, straightened her clothing and the she went straight out to the garage through the mudroom door.
She grabbed her gloves off the shelf by one of her standing freezers. The garbage wouldn’t sort itself and she didn’t want to see what the dumpsters were like. Most likely they were overflowing, if people were even getting their garbage there. Even so, the bank of heavy containers wasn’t getting emptied and they would be overflowing by now. That image was something Cady would rather not think about because it brought the mental image of why people couldn’t take care of their garbage or do their jobs.
They were too sick to do anything.
Out by the stacks of bags, Cady opened each one in turn and sorted, working her way through the collection. She slid her hand across the spot where Kent’s spittle had landed and didn’t know it.
Standing back, she wiped her face and placed her hands on her hips. She heaved a sigh of accomplishment and glanced up when a slight movement around the front bend in the drive caught her gaze.
Narrowing her eyes, she waited for the movement to repeat itself. It’d been white, but not like a deer’s rear end.
Cady stepped back, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end and her breathing rate picking up. Something was skewed and she couldn’t place her finger on it. Had the winds shifted?
She stared intently at the spot until she felt her eyes were crossing. Another long moment passed and then she blinked. Maybe it had been the snow she’d caught through the trees and only thought it was movement because she’d –
No. There it was again, a lurching in the island of the loop of her drive, coming up the path that went through the center. That was no deer.
Kent, dressed in his dirty pajamas and his wife’s white robe thrown over the top, jerked and lurched as he struggled to walk forward. He looked as if his knees wanted to buckle backward and his ankles bent weakly under his weight. He stepped on the sides of his feet as his knees pointed outward. A flashing silver line moved in his hand as he stopped and stared at the center tree. He thrust the silver thing at the tree, his hand held at an odd angle. Muttering, he seemed unaware of a black line of tar-like substance coming from his mouth and nose.
Cady reached for her gun. Panic growing as she patted along her hip and the small of her back for her missing gun. She’d forgotten to grab it, leaving it on the counter in the kitchen. What was she thinking? She’d admonished Bailey not to be without it and she’d done it. Cady had gone outside without her gun.
She knew better. She could try to run inside before he saw her, but as she moved slowly, she kicked a stray soup can.
The jangle from it rolling on the cracked concrete seemed overly loud and Cady closed her eyes for just a moment. Opening them, she met Kent’s gaze with her own as he stopped his jagged movements long enough to stare her way with a glazed expression.
The garage doors were separated by a man door and all of them faced east, still out of line of sight from the north – the direction Kent came from.
Bailey opened the middle door soundlessly, stopping when she saw the fear on Cady’s face.
180 Days and Counting... Series Box Set books 1 - 3 Page 30