“Stay to the right, Bobby, so we can get a clear shot,” said Sampson. “Don’t want to shoot you in the back. Not after we made it this far.”
“That wouldn’t be a great start to my day now would it,” said Bobby as he kept his gun pointed at Miller and walked even slower. The leaves on the ground made the slightest crunching noise under his shoes with each step. There was no escaping the sounds of nature when man interfered.
“This is crazy,” said Troy. “We should just shoot him anyway.”
“If he’s not one of them, then that would be murder,” said Sampson as he took better aim at Miller’s body. “You don’t want to murder anyone do you?”
Troy looked at Sampson, “Haven’t we been murdering people for the past two days?”
“That doesn’t count.”
Bobby inched closer to Miller’s body that seemed to lay lifeless on the ground. He stepped closer and closer until he was only an arm’s length away from Miller. The breath coming from Bobby’s mouth was so heavy and warm it seemed like little clouds of smoke coming from his lungs and out into the coolness of the autumn morning. He leaned down and reached his arm out slowly to touch Miller’s neck for a pulse. His heart raced hard and his breathing seemed to be playing catch up. He held his other hand tight around the pistol in his hand.
Sampson and Troy watched with much anticipation and felt that it was taking too long for Bobby to figure out if Miller is dead or alive. They were both ready to shoot either way.
Bobby’s fingers nearly touched the side of Miller’s neck. He could feel the warmness of the old man’s body on the tips of his fingers, as he is now only an inch away from finding a pulse.
“Holy Jesus,” screamed Miller as he jumped up from the ground.
Bobby fell back on his ass and let out a scream of his own. Miller reached out and grabbed Bobby’s ankle and looked him in the eye. Bobby felt his heart stop and he couldn’t let out a breath that was stuck somewhere between his lungs and the tip of his tongue.
“Oh shit,” said Troy. He aimed for Miller’s head and jerked the trigger. He hit Miller’s shoulder instead. Miller let go of Bobby’s ankle and fell back on the ground. He screamed in pain. Bobby bicycled his feet, pushing himself away from Miller. If his heart beats any faster it will explode and sound like Troy’s gun firing. He managed to get to his feet by jabbing his fists into the damp grass to push himself up. Bobby ran to the bus and leaned against it with his gun pointed at Miller.
Miller let out several painful weeps as he rocked side to side on his back. He grasped his hand around his shoulder to stop the bleeding. He slowly sat up using his other hand and looked at Bobby. Miller looked up into the bus and saw Troy pointing his gun at him. “You shot me you dumb son of a bitch,” said Miller as he reached over to grab the beer can that lay on its side. He put the can to his lips and found that it was empty. “You made me spill my beer you little shit.”
Troy yelled from the bus, “I’m sorry Mr. Miller. We thought you were one of them.”
Bobby reached out to help Miller up, but Miller pushed his hand away. “I’ll show you one of them boy. I’ll show you what I did to that son of a bitch that tried to eat me. Gave him a taste of his own medicine.” He staggered toward the bus pointing at Sampson. “It was one of your boys. One of those damn city G-men. Come down here and try to take my farm away from me. Tried to fucking bite my damn neck. Just like the blood sucking sons of bitches you G-men are.” He grabbed his shirt and pulled it away from his chest. “You see this? That’s what’s left of that son of a bitch after I blew his head off with my shotgun. Blew his ass all the way back to the city.”
Sampson raised his gun at Miller and pointed it at him through the window. “If you don’t shut up already, I’ll put a bullet in your mouth. We’re all in this together now. Those damn things have been trying to eat all of us. We lost Carl and Jeffrey on the way back up here to try and save your ass.”
Miller rubbed his shoulder. The bleeding had stopped. “Trooper Carl?” asked Miller. Sampson nodded. “Well, he was a son of a bitch anyway,” said Miller. “Can’t say much about his nephew though. He seemed a little on the fruity side if you know what I mean.”
“That would explain a lot,” said Troy. He looked to Sampson and shrugged his shoulders. Sampson looked at him and rolled his eyes. “What? What did I say?”
“That’s enough,” said Bobby. He tucked his gun into his belt and walked over to Miller. He helped Miller steady himself enough to walk to the bus. They leaned against the side just below the windows where Sampson and Troy leaned out. “We think we may be able to put a stop to this mess, but you need to calm down and let us do our work. We have to finish the tests the agents were conducting on your farm before we can find a cure to whatever it is that caused all of this to happen in the first place. Can you do that?” Bobby looked at Miller for a moment and waited for his answer. Miller seemed to be taking extra time to process the concept of conducting tests and something about a cure. It must be the amount of alcohol he’s consumed in the past two days that’s sloshing around in his system.
“I suppose,” said Miller. “I’ll be in my house drinking. If you boys want a beer there’s some on the porch in that cooler. I ain’t got no more ice. The power’s been out since yesterday. You’ll have to drink it hot. Beer is beer. Hot or cold, it’s all wet.” He pushed himself away from the bus and walked toward the house. “Keep it down will you. It’s too early. You’re disturbing my cattle.”
“Right,” said Sampson under his breath. Bobby and Troy looked at Miller and shook their head in confusion. The old man really has lost his marbles.
Miller staggered back into his house and left the three men outside to tend to their work of figuring out which vaccine would be the cure to the madness. They’re not sure where to start or if they even have the right equipment to finish the job. There are so many possibilities of what could have gone wrong, and if it was an act of God, well, then they are just screwed, because you can’t change what God wants. Sampson wondered to himself if it is worth trying to find a cure for a disease of this magnitude. Nearly everyone between Miller’s farm and Nashville had either changed into a crazy cannibal or died trying to defend themselves from the crazies. He thought about the possibilities of anyone surviving this travesty. He has no doubts that the rest of the nation is in the same boat as they are, but he wondered if the entire world had experienced what they had over the past two days. Nearly everybody eats meat, but what about those societies that don’t consume cow meat? What if it is just centralized to the United States as an act of terrorism? It would have to have been a long drawn out process with an extreme amount of planning for something to be carried out of this size. There would be no way a terrorist group could get away with something on this level, he thought, unless they had help from the inside. With the way things are going in the government these days and the half ass running of the country, anyone could be responsible for this mess. Sampson sat down on the seat in the bus. His knees pressed against the seat in front of him.
Troy looked at Sampson and wondered what thoughts were going through his mind. Troy started having thoughts of his own. Thoughts that he tried to block out ever since the plane crash Nashville. Shooting Miller in the shoulder gave his thoughts a chance to break through the mental barrier he had built to block them earlier. He started to breath heavily as the first thought of nearly having killed a regular person began to haunt his mind. Then more thoughts crept their way through the cracks and began to run circles around in his head like cars on a racetrack. With each pass came a new thought and they were more terrifying as they swept around and around. He had killed several people over the past few days, but he knew he didn’t shoot anyone that didn’t deserve it. Or had they deserved it? It wasn’t their fault they had changed into something bizarre and brutal. It could have happened to any or even all of them. He knew that he had killed several of the crazy people, but he kept telling himself they were different and they had to
be put down. Put down like a sick animal that had turned rabid. They were no longer innocent. They were no longer human. It reminded him of fighting an enemy that wanted nothing more than for you and your people to be dead. No real agenda, just dead. He had seen it in the war in Iraq. More memories came. More memories—
“Troy,” said Bobby as he shook Troy’s shoulder. “You still with us?”
Troy shook his head to clear his mind. “Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking.” He looked at Sampson and Bobby. “So what’s the plan?”
“Alright,” said Sampson. He looked at Troy. “I want you to start by going into Miller’s house and making sure he doesn’t bleed to death of that shoulder shot you gave him. I’m sure you’ve got some medical training from being in the Army.”
“I do,” said Troy.
“Bobby and I are going to use the bus to jump start that white van over there.” Sampson pointed to a white van that sat near the fence with the rear doors open and a couple of tables set up next to it with equipment laid across them. “I’m sure the battery is dead after running that equipment without starting the engine every couple of hours. After Troy tends to Mr. Miller, I’m going to need both of you to help collect blood samples from all the cows we can out there in the field. We’ll be testing for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.”
“What is that,” asked Troy with a dumbfounded expression on his face.
“It’s mad cow disease,” said Bobby.
“That’s right,” said Sampson. “We’ll be testing the blood samples on that equipment. With enough luck and enough time we’ll be able to tell which strand it is.”
“I thought there was only one mad cow disease,” said Bobby.
“No. There are several. Most we don’t even speak about because they are so terrible it would case nationwide panic if anyone found out what would happen if it spread.”
“I take it that this is one of those strands,” said Troy.
“No shit,” said Bobby.
“There are different types of vaccines that we can use that are available in the hospitals and pharmacies,” said Sampson. “Once we know which to use, we’ll get out ass out of here and start finding vaccines. We’ll inject whoever we come across whether they have it or not.”
“You make it sound so simple,” said Bobby.
“It really is if you think about it,” said Sampson. “The hard part will be collecting the blood samples. We’ll have to wear the protective gear that is in the back of that other van so we don’t get infected ourselves. If that happens we can kiss this whole plan, along with our ass, goodbye.”
#
By the time noon had rolled around, Miller was sitting on his front porch drinking a warm beer with his good hand. His other had been placed into a makeshift sling by Troy and his shoulder had stopped bleeding completely. It had been a rather cool morning, but the humidity around noon was making the men sweat what seemed like gallons of water inside their protective suits. Bobby collected the last of the samples and brought them over to Sampson who sat inside the back of the van typing on a laptop.
Troy took a beer break and sat on the steps in front of Miller while Bobby watched Sampson conduct the testing. Sampson had been through nearly thirty different strands that were marked as SECRET on the computer screen. There were only four vials of blood left and they had still not found the strand or a cow that actually could give the needed results to link it to the BSE.
“I’ve got it,” yelled Sampson as he finished up the last test of the last vile. He sweated more than the others in his suit knowing that he had only one more chance to find the strand. “This is the strand.”
Troy dropped his beer on the steps and ran to the van. Miller seemed unfazed by the great news. Drinking his beer had become more important that anything over the past few days. Bobby and Troy jumped in the back of the van with Sampson and looked at the computer screen. They were confused at the results on the screen. The numbers and letters looked all jumbled together like something a first grader would have done trying to write a research paper on the effects of global warming.
“This is the vaccine.” Sampson jumped up smiling, knowing that he had just found a cure to the madness that had spread across the country and quite possible the entire world. The cure coming from a small town in southern Kentucky of all places, by three unlikely heroes that barely made it from Nashville to forty miles north to find the cure. Sampson had not been this happy until the divorce from his second wife became final. They were all shocked and surprised that they became the ones to figure out what the cause is and how to treat it.
“I don’t believe it,” said Troy. “You did it. Hot damn.” The three men jumped up and down in the back of the van, each of them hitting their head at least once on the roof. They knew at that point that everything would be okay before too long. After the excitement had calmed down, they devised their next plan to raid the hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies to obtain as much of the vaccine as they could. They would inject everyone they came across that had been infected and all those that were still alive that weren’t sick.
“How do we get close enough to inject them without being bitten?” asked Bobby.
“We’ll use the tranquilizer guns that are stored in the other van,” said Sampson.
They all agreed that would be the best way. They celebrated the results of the testing with a warm beer on Miller’s porch. It would be a quick celebration of defeating the first half of the madness. They drank their beers quick and told Miller they would return with a vaccine for him sometime before nightfall. Sampson grabbed the laptop while Bobby and Troy grabbed the tranquilizer guns. The hopped in the school bus and closed the door. The little sign reading STOP retracted against the side of the bus. Bobby started the engine and they drove away down the gravel road as Miller held his beer up high to toast the three men for their efforts. He lowered it quickly as he thought about Troy shooting him.
“You can kiss my ass boy. Here’s to the rest of you.” Miller smiled as the taillights of the bus faded in the distance.
#
Sampson, Troy, and Bobby raided all the pharmacies and the hospitals they could within a thirty-mile radius by the end of the day. They had cured several people along the way and convinced them to join the fight of taking control of mankind again. Now that Troy and Bobby had enough supplies stashed in the bus it was time to leave Sampson to handle the East, while they would head west. Bobby kept thinking about Nikki and Eddie and wanted nothing more than to get back home to them as fast as possible. As much as he hated doing so, he and Troy were compelled to stop along the way at various places to spread the word. He knew he had to be selfless in the situation. He’s keeping his hopes high that Nikki and Eddie will be okay and that even if one or both are affected, he’ll be able to cure them and they’ll be able to live their lives in peace once again.
“Well,” said Sampson. “It’s been nice knowing you fellows.”
“Same to you Sampson,” said Bobby. “Good luck out there and be careful.”
“You two do the same,” said Sampson. They shook hands. “And one more thing.”
“What’s that?” asked Bobby.
“Do a full story on all this government cover up shit with the different strands. If the people knew they may have had a better chance.”
“You got it,” said Bobby as he let go of Sampson’s hand. They left each other for the final time. After nearly two days of being hunted by murderous goons in search of the answer for putting an end to the mayhem, the three men parted ways. Bobby and Troy loaded into the bus and closed the door, looking at Sampson as they pulled away. It would be a long and treacherous journey home, but with hope and faith, they would make it back in one piece.
HOME
Nikki’s struggle to keep Eddie quiet in the closet had nearly brought out the worst in her. She had feared over the past two days that she would accidently take her own son’s life. The only thing she feared more than that would be taking his life purposefull
y. He tested every nerve that she has in her body and the strain of dealing with his restlessness was breaking her body down to the point beyond repair. The night before had been a complete nightmare, something of the sorts out of a 1970s horror movie. It’s been four days since she’s had to barricade herself in the house with Eddie terrorizing her from within and the blood thirsty crazies trying to break in every once in awhile when they would smell the fresh blood that would occasionally drip from the wound on Nikki’s arm. She wondered aimlessly about the house trying to make sense of everything and why she had to suffer so much more than anyone else.
She had occasionally checked on Eddie throughout the night to make sure he was still alive. She dared to not open the closet door and she didn’t want to wake him and start the bloodthirsty whines and fits he would throw from inside the closet. She did her best to lean as close to the door as possible without making a sound so she could hear his breathing from the inside and know that he is still alive. At one point around three in the morning she thought that Eddie had died in the closet. She became so terrified that she pulled the chair away from the door and just before she opened it Eddie started banging on the door and screaming. He had sounded as though he were speaking some devilish language that would come from the mouth of someone during an exorcism. She had felt relieved that she had not opened the door in fear of what Eddie would do to her and she felt a sense of relief that he had not died in the closet. She hated herself for thinking about what people would think of a woman leaving her only son in the closet to die. There would be no form of child abuse more tragic she imagined.
Nikki reached down and grabbed her aching arm. The blood had clotted and her arm had finally stopped bleeding during the night. The blood soaked bandages clearly needed changing, but the only thing left would be a ripped piece of t-shirt or a kitchen towel. She had been keeping the bandages changed regularly so that Eddie wouldn’t get a smell of the blood and start off into another one of his “vampire” type fits.
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