Black Fever_A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

by Mark Gillespie

  “You guys aren’t making much sense right now,” Layla said. “Were you in a plane crash or something? Bump your heads?”

  “No crash,” Cody said. “But yeah we were in a plane today. The Black Widow brought us back.”

  Harry shook his head. “The Black Widow doesn’t bring planes back. She crashes them.”

  “We know,” Cody said. “Doesn’t change the fact that we’re still alive.”

  Nick swallowed hard.

  “We tried to get away,” he said. “It was always going to be a long shot and sure enough, she caught up with us. We ended up back at the airport where we started. Then we went outside and these things – ghosts or something – shot out of the ground. Hundreds of them. Killed the other passengers in seconds, drove them mad with the Fever and well...”

  “Sliders,” Harry said. “Yeah that’s a nasty way to go.”

  Cody pressed a hand up against the gunshot wound on his side. He felt nothing.

  “Maybe that’s why I healed so fast,” he said. “When we skipped forward, something must have happened.”

  “Like what?” Nick said.

  Cody shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me man,” he said. “If I ever read up on the effects of time travel on gunshot wounds I’ll let you know.”

  Harry smiled at the five survivors. “Sounds like you’ve had quite the adventure,” he said. “Must be quite a jolt to the system, knowing that you’ve missed six months of your life.”

  At last, Nick lowered his rifle.

  “What do you know about the Black Storm?” he said, looking at Harry and Layla. There was a desperate look in his eye. “What the hell’s going on down here? What did we miss?”

  “I know some things,” Harry said. “The Black Storm isn’t a freak of nature like some people wanted to believe. And it’s not a North Korean or Russian military weapon that leaked a shitload of chemicals into out brains and caused a mass hallucination. It’s not ghosts either.”

  “So what is it?” Cody said.

  Harry dropped the cigarette on the road and stamped it out.

  “Technology,” he said. “Plain and simple. That and otherworldly.”

  “Otherworldly?” Nick said. “You mean…?”

  Before Nick could say anything else, Harry looked over at Rachel and smiled.

  “Cute kid,” he said, looking at Cody. “Looks like you. She’s yours?”

  “Yeah,” Cody said. “She’s mine.”

  Harry nodded, a thoughtful expression lighting up his leathery face.

  “You know,” he said. “Before the storm, if anybody had come up to me and started talking about time travel I would have called them crazy. I’d have turned around and walked away before they started drooling all over me. But nothing surprises me anymore. So I hope you’ll extend the same courtesy to me and won’t think me crazy when I use words like otherworldly.”

  Cody shrugged.

  “I can accept otherworldly,” he said. “I can even accept the fact that we skipped time when the Black Widow took us back to the airport. It’s weird but I guess I can live with it. But there’s still one thing I don’t understand. One thing that’s really bugging me. Why? Why did the Black Widow bring us back? Why us?”

  Harry and Layla looked at one another. Cody couldn’t decipher the meaning on their faces.

  “Might be we can help you with that,” Harry said, turning back to Cody. “All those big questions you got swirling around in your brain – we might have the answers.”

  Harry stole a quick glance at Rachel. Then he pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards the growling van at his back.

  “Why don’t you all come back downtown?” he said. “Get yourselves under a roof. Eat some food. We’ll talk – what do you say?”

  Chapter Seven

  Cody and the others were driven downtown in the back of the Ford Transit. There were no lights or windows. They sat in darkness.

  The engine hummed and its gentle rattle was soothing.

  Cody was sitting on the hard floor next to Rachel. Although he couldn’t see her face, he held her hand. They talked little throughout the journey. Everyone was grateful for a little quiet time, so it seemed. It was a chance to catch their breath.

  It wasn’t a long trip. When the van slowed to a stop, Cody heard Harry and Layla getting out at the front. There was a brief muffled exchange of words with a third voice – a gruff male voice.

  Footsteps approached the back of the van.

  Cody secured his grip on the handle of the pistol. He was almost certain that Nick, sitting directly across from him, would be ready with the AR-15 just in case there was a trap waiting for them outside.

  When the door opened, they saw Harry standing on the street, a fresh cigarette dangling from his lips. The glowing ember of the white stick in his mouth was the only light in the city.

  “Hope it wasn’t too bumpy?” Harry said. “Damn potholes everywhere these days. We drive slow as a rule but they still have a way of sneaking up on you.”

  “Can we get out now?” Crazy Diamond asked. “My butt is killing me.”

  “Sure thing,” Harry said. He stood aside, gesturing for them to step outside. “Stretch your legs folks. We’re at the base. As soon as you’re out, my man Donnie here is going to drive the van to another location.”

  “Another location?” Cody said, getting to his feet. He reached a hand down and helped Rachel up. In turn, she grabbed Bootsy by the arm and scooped the teddy bear off the floor of the van.

  Harry nodded. “Another rule of ours,” he said. “We never keep ourselves too close to the transportation, not if we can help it. We park the vans on the street with all the other dead cars – a lot of those lying around the city. Nobody pays any attention to them.”

  Cody jumped onto the street. His stiff legs wobbled on something that felt like cobblestones. He helped Rachel out the van. As he did so, Cody saw the dim outline of a row of storefronts in the distance. It looked like a gang of haunted houses all bunched up close together, waiting patiently to swallow up the next passerby.

  He wouldn’t be going anywhere near that.

  Once Rachel was safely out the van, Cody turned his attention to the building they’d parked outside – the Resistance base. It was too dark to see much of anything. Upon first glance, Cody noticed a familiar hump shape located at the tip of the isolated structure. It took a few more seconds but at last, he finally realized where they were. In the dark, the outline of San Antonio’s most famous building did indeed look like, as someone had once described it, the headboard of a massive bedstead.

  “You’re kidding me,” Cody said. He couldn’t help but smile. “Are you for real Harry?”

  “Sure am,” Harry said.

  Richards walked up beside Cody. He took a long look at the Resistance base. “My eyes aren’t so good in the dark,” he said. “But is that…?”

  “Yep,” Cody said.

  “Welcome to Base Seven,” Harry said, nodding towards the building. “Or the Alamo as it’s otherwise known. C’mon, let’s get off the street.”

  Harry and Layla led their guests inside. As they walked in, the van’s engine sputtered into life behind them. Donnie drove it away, taking it into hiding.

  As they walked to the door, Cody glanced beyond the old wall, towards the modern buildings on the city horizon. Dead places. It would take the sunlight to fully expose the damage that had been inflicted on San Antonio. If the blackout was good for one thing, it was for blocking out the horrific aftermath of what had happened there.

  Walking into the Alamo was like walking into an old, empty church. Cody knew enough to know that the Alamo had started out that way – as a Spanish mission, the San Antonio de Valero.

  He looked around in quiet awe.

  It was like stepping back in time, like walking inside an old candlelit church in Europe. Stone walls, cool air, and pale light were abundant in the main room. It was a large hall with a number of carved benches lining the edges of the interior
. About fifteen to twenty people were sitting on the benches as they walked in – a mixture of men and women, mostly between the ages of twenty and forty years old. There were a few children there and a couple of elderly members. They were all dressed in ragged clothes that had seen better days – withered shirts, torn pants and tattered shoes.

  The people inside the hall were eating as the guests were led into the hall. Breakfast, lunch or dinner – who could tell anymore? Their heads were down as they shoveled food into their mouths with a sense of urgency, like they hadn’t eaten in days.

  Harry pointed a finger to those gathered on the stone benches.

  “That right there is the last stand of mankind,” he said, loud enough so that everyone could hear him. “Isn’t it a pitiful sight?”

  “Go fuck yourself Harry,” one of the older women said, speaking through a mouthful of food. She fixed a contemptuous look at the newcomers. Then with a snort of disgust, she lowered her head and went back to her meal.

  “Love you too Maggie,” Harry said, tipping his cap to the woman.

  Richards walked ahead of the group. He was looking up, studying every intricate aspect of the Alamo’s interior design as if he was taking photographs with his mind.

  “It’s quite fitting isn’t it?” he said, looking back at Harry. “The last stand of humankind hiding out in the Alamo.”

  “Today we’re hiding out in the Alamo,” Harry said. “We move around a lot – that’s the nature of the game. We’ve got a lot of places that we call home but for some reason we always end up coming back here, at least for a while. I guess it’s good for moral.”

  “I’m sure it does,” Richards said.

  “So which one are you?” Cody said, looking at Harry. “Davy Crockett? Jim Bowie?”

  Harry smiled. “What’s your name son? You never did tell me back there.”

  “Cody.

  “Where do I know you from Cody?” Harry said, tilting his head. “Your face looks familiar.”

  Layla walked over from one of the tables, a plate of food balancing in one hand. With the other hand, she pointed a fork at Cody.

  “He’s that washed up actor,” Layla said. “You know the one. He’s the stutter kid from The Forever Boys.” She looked at Cody with a gleeful expression. “Didn’t you go on to become a famous tabloid junkie or something like that? Man, you sure blew it.”

  Some of the other Resistance crew looked up from their dinner plates. Cody felt their eyes linger on his face. Although he’d been in that situation before, he was certain that none of these people were about to come over and ask him for an autograph.

  At least he hoped not.

  “The Forever Boys,” Harry said, his eyes lighting up. “Good movie. Shame what happened to you after that, real shame. You had talent son.”

  Nick stepped forward. “I was an actor too,” he said.

  Layla looked at Nick with a blank expression. With a wry smile, she poked her fork around the pile of food on her plate.

  “Oh yeah?” she said. “Don’t recognize your face big guy. Sorry.”

  Nick shook his head in disgust and turned away.

  Harry looked at Richards.

  “You want to know why we’re really here?” he said. “The Alamo is just another building. It’s a broken down church and if you don’t know the history, it doesn’t look like much from the outside. It’s inconspicuous. It’s also still standing and the roof is intact - that makes any building around these parts appealing.”

  Harry pointed to a vacant stone bench in the corner.

  “Sit down and we’ll talk,” he said. “You must be hungry, right?”

  Nick glanced over at the food table. He pulled a face.

  “What’s on the menu?” he said. “Anything good?”

  “Lots of stuff,” Harry said. “And it’s all good. Doesn’t taste as bad as it looks either, I swear. We got tinned food – lots of tinned food. We got oatmeal and dried fruit. We can get you hot drinks – coffee, tea, hot chocolate. And we got plenty of water, straight from San Antonio Springs – the source of life. We boil it, we even got water purification tablets. You don’t want to get sick these days, you know what I mean?”

  Richards pulled gently at the tip of his white beard. “Remarkable,” he said. “You’ve adapted well to these circumstances.”

  “We’re alive,” Harry said in a matter of fact voice. “Planet Earth is still spinning. It’s not like the soil has been poisoned. There’s no radiation out there. Food grows if you plant it, just as if sunlight was still there. The animals are thriving – you’ll see more of them than ever before. The Black Storm – it came for us. People. Once you figure that out, it all makes sense. Sort of.”

  Harry led them over to a long wooden table covered in pots and a small pile of plates. With a large spoon, he scooped something out of a steaming pot, something white and lumpy that looked like oatmeal. He dumped it unceremoniously onto a plate and then reached a hand into a smaller bowl and sprinkled some blueberries on top of the oatmeal.

  Harry pointed towards the pot of oatmeal and some other bowls, containing salad, crackers, and assorted fruit dishes.

  “Help yourselves,” he said. “I recommend the oatmeal and blueberries. Keeps you full for a long time. Wish I’d known about this stuff before you know? All that fried greasy crap that most people eat – I used to live off that. Bad fuel. That ain’t no use when you need to run all the time.”

  Cody and the others helped themselves to a bowl of oatmeal. When everyone had something to eat, they followed Harry over to the vacant bench and tucked into the food. Nobody spoke while they ate. The food was warm and it felt good going down into their bellies. Cody didn’t realize how hungry he was until he started shoveling it in. It felt like he was filling a deep hole.

  When he was done eating, Cody drank several glasses of water. He made sure that Rachel did likewise.

  Harry waited till everyone was done eating before sliding another Marlboro in between his lips. He lit up and as he blew out the first cloud of smoke, he leaned his back against the wall and sighed.

  “Oatmeal is nice,” he said. “But a man still needs a wicked vice or two.”

  He looked at the others and smiled before taking another drag.

  Cody looked at Harry.

  “What can you tell us?” he said.

  Harry exhaled and wafted the smoke trail out of the others’ path. He looked at Cody and nodded.

  “There was an encounter,” he said. “A few months ago maybe. It let us know more about what we’re up against.”

  Richards leaned forwards, shifting onto the edge of the bench. His expression was one of deep concentration.

  “What sort of encounter?” he said.

  Harry looked at the old man. He lowered his voice.

  “Something came down here,” he said.

  Cody felt a shudder run down his spine. “Something?” he said. “What sort of something?”

  Harry hesitated. “It was…”

  Layla called over from one of the other benches where she was sitting down and eating. “Let Dani tell the story Dad,” she said. “She’s the one who saw it.”

  Harry looked relieved by his daughter’s suggestion. His eyes lit up.

  “Yeah that’s a good idea,” he said. “You’ll want to hear this one first hand.”

  Layla placed her plate on the floor and stood up.

  “Dani,” she said, calling over to one of the benches on the opposite side of the hall. “Hey Dani. Come here a second.”

  A young girl of about sixteen or seventeen got to her feet. She waved at Layla and walked over to her. With her long blonde hair and blue eyes, Cody thought the girl was a good indicator of what Rachel would look like when she reached her mid-teens.

  Layla and Dani had a brief, muted conversation.

  With a slightly anxious look, Dani walked over to where Cody and the others were sitting down. Harry scooted over, making room for her on the bench beside him. She sat down and
pulled the collar of her green army style jacket up, as if her neck had caught a sudden chill.

  “This is Dani,” Harry said, pointing a thumb at the girl. “She’s one of our best scavengers. Brings a lot of good stuff back.” Harry pointed to his green Hawaiian style shirt and smiled. “She brought me this.”

  The girl looked at the newcomers. Her eyes lingered on Rachel.

  Rachel was pressed up tight at Cody’s side. Cody looked at his daughter and noticed her staring back at Dani; it was like they were having a first-to-blink contest. There was a frown on Rachel’s face – a frown that Cody couldn’t quite understand.

  “Tell ’em what you saw,” Harry said, giving Dani a gentle nudge on the arm.

  Dani looked shyly around.

  “Go on girl,” Harry said. “You think it sounds ridiculous? These people are time travelers, didn’t you know that? They took a plane ride that lasted six months today. They ain’t calling anyone crazy.”

  Dani took a deep breath.

  “I saw a spaceship,” she said.

  Up until that point, Nick’s back had been pressed up against the wall. The AR-15 was at his side, the barrel pointing at the roof. When Dani spoke, he jerked forward in his seat. His eyebrows stood up.

  “Did you just say…?”

  “Spaceship,” Dani said. She said it louder this time. “Here in San Antonio.”

  “An unidentified flying object,” Harry said. “Does that sound better? Is that a little less Star Wars for you big guy?” He dropped his half-smoked cigarette onto the floor and stamped it out. Then he rubbed his wrinkled hands together, like he was starting to feel the cold.

  “I know what I saw,” Dani said.

  “She knows enough about fighter jets, helicopters, that kind of thing,” Harry said. “Whatever this thing was that landed, it wasn’t one of Uncle Sam’s.”

  “For real?” Nick said, looking unconvinced. “I’m a pilot and at some point or another in my life I’ve flown pretty much everything that there is to fly.”