The Virulent Chronicles Box Set

by Shelbi Wescott

  “They’ll get it cleared away soon,” Neil said to Niko. “They’re good about getting people navigated around accidents. Hang tight. Okay, buddy?”

  Niko stood up and popped his head into the front seat. He licked the side of the doctor’s face and nuzzled up against his temporary guardian’s unshaven face. Dr. Gregory ran his hand over the dog’s fur and stared into his big brown eyes. He’d have never been able to take the life of this dog, he realized. He felt shame for feeling so grateful for Shirley’s death. Maybe Niko was the last dog left on earth.

  “You’re a miracle,” Neil laughed. “You’re like my own little miracle. Maybe you can spend the rest of your days with me?” Neil said. “We don’t have to tell Mr. Finch anything…I think this is destiny, Niko. You believe in destiny?”

  A police car siren called out in the distance. Neil turned back on The Rolling Stones and rested his head against the leather headrest. He hoped maybe he could sneak in a little nap while he waited for the accident to clear. Maybe he’d be lucky to have the dream where the dogs talk. Maybe Niko would be in this one and he’d have a shriveled old-man voice, and he’d walk over on his achy joints and say, “Thank you, Dr. Gregory. That bitch was going to murder me. God got to her first.” Then Neil would bend down and give the dog a tender hug.

  “You’re so very welcome, Niko. I’ve always been more fond of dogs than people anyway.”

  Neil smiled as he imagined it.

  MAXINE’S DAY – Portland, Oregon

  It was impossible to sleep with a to-do list that kept growing by the minute. This was the fourth time she’d woken up and bolted upright, armed with a new item to add to her ever-expanding catalogue of things to arrange in the morning. At precisely 2:45 am, she’d gone downstairs and counted the passports again—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—wrapped them with a rubber band, and placed them back in the outside pocket of her laptop bag. Then she wrote a Post-it note for herself: Passports in front pocket. She wouldn’t forget. The Post-it was the failsafe against forgetting—writing it down insured against the last-minute scrambling.

  There had been one trip where Ethan, nine at the time and daring them for independence, had asked to hold his own passport during the car ride to the airport. When they discovered at the ticket counter that he had left it in the car, well, that was the end of that. Maxine was not some micromanaging fiend who refused her children the opportunities to be self-reliant. She was the CEO of her household, and her employees were often inconsiderate assholes who made her life harder. If a child wanted to bake a cake without assistance, go right ahead. Jump from a tree in the backyard without anyone’s hand to hold? Whatever. She was stone. But a trip from Portland to the Seychelles? That was forty-three hours, two layovers, customs, and changing airlines. Maxine would not abide a crisis in the middle of a trip of that magnitude, and so, she would be in charge. She’d orchestrate the details down to the socks her children wore, what books they brought, and how often they were allowed to roll their eyes. Twice. They could roll their eyes twice.

  “You need to sleep,” Scott mumbled to her when she returned to bed after a quick walk around the house. Lucy’s phone, confiscated after a quick bout of illegal texting, was returned to her bedside table, and she replaced the covers on her youngest child’s bed. She poked her head in to see if the twins were snoring, and then ended her rounds with Ethan. He was twenty now. Not a child anymore. Still though, when he slept, he looked exactly the same as he did when he was a baby. She didn’t feel old enough to have an adult child, and yet, it happened so fast. In that regard, she was grateful for spreading out her children’s ages and enduring each stage in cycles—one adult, one preschooler, and four others in between.

  “Sleep. Ha,” Maxine replied mirthlessly. “Easy for you to say… you won’t be there for the first leg.”

  “I’m sorry,” Scott said. He moved his body closer to the middle of their king bed and outstretched his hand until he found his wife’s shoulder. He gave it a squeeze. “Last-minute work stuff, but—”

  “So, they send you on a trip to congratulate you for a job well done… and make you work the day you leave.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Scott said. He yawned.

  “It’s actually exactly that simple. Either they appreciate you and your time, or they don’t.”

  “They do. But the work is still the work, and it must be done.”

  “The work is still the work.”

  “You know the saying… if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.”

  “I live that saying.”

  “Well then.” He turned and sighed. Maxine could tell by his breathing that he was still awake.

  “Why are you still up?”

  Scott sighed again and shifted, but he stayed quiet. Then, after a long ten seconds, he turned back to her in the bed and cupped her chin his hand. She hoped that this was just a fleeting display of affection and not a solicitation for more than she could give him. In four hours, a company car would pick them up and take them to the airport—that was barely enough time to sleep, pack up all the last-minute items, dress and feed her children, and hurry them out the door.

  “What?” she asked when he didn’t remove his hand right away. She thought she heard him sniffing in the darkness. “Are you crying?” She took his hand off her chin and lifted herself on her elbows.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, his voice soft, dewy.

  “Oh, God.” She rolled her eyes and plopped back down on the bed. “I thought you were having some sort of midlife crisis… crying in the middle of the night before we leave you behind to go on this trip. Seriously, after six kids, if you leave me for another woman…”

  “Furthest thing from my mind,” he replied. “I just… I love you. I really love you and the kids.”

  “Keep your sappiness out of my busyness.”

  “I even love it when you’re my no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners wife.”

  “I’m always a no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners wife.”

  “And I love it.”

  Maxine reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. Scott blinked in the sudden brightness, shifting to look at her. His nose was red and his eyes were marred by dark circles. Had he looked this tired when he got home? Maxine wondered. Maybe he was coming down with an illness or maybe the Elektos Corporation was working him too hard. She wondered if she’d made him go in for an annual checkup yet and went through a list of medical ailments that could afflict middle-aged, overworked men. If he became suddenly weepy after years of stoicism, that had to be a sign of a brain tumor.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, and she reached over and felt his forehead.

  He gently guided her hand away from his face. “I feel fine. I’m not sick.”

  “You look sick.” She paused. Her mind went to the news tonight—the dying dogs, the widespread panic. She wished that she could devote proper time to really contemplate the magnitude of that revelation, but this trip was all-consuming, and she didn’t have that time.

  “I’m not sick,” Scott replied.

  “This thing. With the dogs.”

  Scott paused, and his face betrayed nothing. “Yes?”

  “Your expert opinion?”

  “Are you asking for it?”

  She nodded.

  “My expert opinion is that… there is probably a biological influence at work. A phenomenon.”

  “Not an attack.”

  Scott sighed and cleared his throat. “We aren’t in danger,” he said, but his voice cracked.

  “Shit,” Maxine mumbled. She stared at him. “I know you hate it when I swear… but shit, Scott. I’m asking you as a woman who has been married to you for twenty years… I’m asking you—”

  “I only meant that I don’t believe based on the evidence the news has chosen to supply that we are in any kind of danger. Our trip is secure…”

  “I’m not worried about the trip, Scott.”

  He raised an eyeb
row.

  “I’m a little worried about the trip. But I’m mostly worried about the health and safety of our children.”

  “I’m not. If something was going to hurt us, it would have. Right? We’re fine, Maxine. We are fine. Look at me.” She looked at him. “Trust me.”

  “I think you should sneak over to the Aguilar’s house and unbury that dog of theirs. Do some tests. You have three hours. That’s enough time, right?”

  “That’s positively not enough time to unbury a dog, take it to a lab, perform a series of tests assessing what killed it and whether or not the same poison would affect humans, and then rebury it before anyone notices.”

  “I didn’t say anything about reburying it.”

  “Maxine—”

  “It was just a thought,” she said, perturbed. She wanted to believe that if she were in charge of an infectious disease lab, she’d be able to accomplish the task. Maxine believed she could do almost anything better than the people who were actually paid to do it. She assigned only a few jobs to the professionals: surgeons and pilots. Everything else was fair game. “How hard could it be? Extract some blood, look at the blood, and see what killed it.”

  “I’ll provide the microscope… I have a spare in the garage office. If you want to go dig up the Aguilar’s family dog, I’ll be waiting with it ready and willing to assist you.”

  She hit him playfully in the arm. “You promise… that we’re fine?”

  “I’m the most paranoid man you know. If I say we’re fine, you have to believe me.”

  He turned his head, his dark circles even more evident. Maxine leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek. They lingered there, barely touching.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I believe you,” she answered. Then she spun and turned off the light, put her head on her pillow, and thought about her clipboard downstairs—it was hanging up next to her home phone, and it held her morning’s to-do list. Like people counted sheep, Maxine counted chores, and soon, she drifted off to the sounds of Scott’s shallow breathing.

  “Up, up, up,” Maxine called to her twin boys—Monroe and Malcolm. Harper was up without an alarm. She bounced into her parent’s bed at six and was able to see Scott off to work. But all of her other children had reached the age where sleep won over all.

  “But it’s not time,” Monroe complained.

  “I’m still sleeping,” Malcolm added.

  Maxine didn’t have time to coddle. She would not rouse them with soft renditions of wake-up songs involving the word sunshine. They had breakfast to eat, teeth to brush, toothbrushes to pack (why didn’t she just pack spares and leave the original pair? A brilliant idea wasted), and carry-ons to assess. Who picked the Seychelles anyway? And for such an epically long trip? Two full weeks. She felt like she was packing up her entire wardrobe.

  “No, up. Come on. Up. Up.”

  “Wake up Lucy first. You never wake her up first.”

  “She has harder homework,” Maxine replied. “When you start working on pre-calculus, I’ll wake you up last, too.”

  “Everyone will be out of the house by then,” Monroe noted.

  Maxine smirked. “God willing, dear child.”

  She left them to get up and walked over to her middle son Galen’s room. He was already warding her off by pulling the covers over his head when she entered.

  “Don’t make me get the bucket of water,” Maxine called. She sat down on the edge of his bed and tried to pry the covers away from his hands.

  “You wouldn’t,” Galen grumbled. “I don’t have a durable mattress protector. You’d never.”

  “Today isn’t just another day… You aren’t sleeping here for two weeks. It’ll air dry in the sun.”

  “You’d purposefully dump water on me and risk damaging a perfectly good household item? Who are you and what have you done with my mother?” Galen asked. He peeked out of the covers, his brown hair a tangled mess. He hadn’t worn a shirt to bed, and Maxine couldn’t help but notice that overnight her little boy had turned into a bona-fide teenager. She wasn’t ready for that. He was her middle. He was still supposed to be a kid.

  “Your mother is already vacationing in the Seychelles, and she left this wrecked woman to make sure you get on the airplane. She takes no prisoners. Water is the least of her concerns. Don’t test me… I will march myself into that bathroom and follow through on my threats.”

  “Ugh, you’re worse than usual.”

  “I have a printed schedule,” Maxine whispered. She looked down at her watch—she was one of the few people she knew who still wore a watch—and realized that Wake up Galen was running a few minutes ahead of schedule. She sighed. “You have two minutes. Will you be up in two minutes?”

  “Maybe,” Galen teased.

  “I’m going to get Lucy, and I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll be up,” Galen said.

  “Pancakes in ten,” Maxine said. Batter premade the night before, griddle warming, and syrup already on the counter.

  She turned and left Galen’s room, starting upstairs to Lucy. It was late for Lucy—by now, the girl would already be up and ready for her day, taking an ungodly amount of time in the shower, fighting with her brothers, picking at a Pop-Tart and pretending it had nutritional value. Besides, she had placed Lucy’s phone back on the nightstand and not followed through with a confiscation like promised. The girl should be thanking her for second chances and not whining about the early wake-up call.

  Maxine waltzed into Lucy’s room and sat down on the foot of her bed. She took the covers and pulled them off, exposing her daughter’s body to the cold house. What was the point in having the heat on in the spring before a vacation?

  “I need your carry-on bag and your monogrammed tote in the hall in twenty minutes. Hair brushed, breakfast eaten, and schoolwork packed. Limo arrives in an hour to take us to the airport, and I will not be delayed. Lucy Larkspur King, I swear to the Lord Almighty that I will leave you behind. Do you hear me? I let you sleep in beyond all reason. Now get your bony ass out of this bed and into gear. Come child. Chop, chop.”

  Lucy groaned.

  Maxine waited until she saw eyeballs, looking sidelong at her, and then she was off. Ethan walked down the hallway, and he saluted her. She stopped, put her hands on her hips, and narrowed her eyes.

  “You were next on my list,” she said with a smile.

  “I set my own alarm, Mom. I’m an adult.”

  “Are you?” she asked. “I still wash your clothes… make your meals…”

  “Just because I can do it doesn’t mean I don’t let you do it for me,” he replied. He winked, and she just wanted to kiss him. Just pull him in and snuggle him and kiss him like she used to when he was six. That was the hardest part of parenting her adults and almost-adults: she still wanted to praise their moments of cunning with a big smack on the forehead and a tickle. They, usually, didn’t approve when she tried.

  Ethan walked up, put his arms around Maxine, and drew her in for hug. She tried not to beam. Ethan, her affectionate kid; the one who loved kisses and hugs—she could always count on him.

  “Ten minutes?” she asked him, and he nodded. Then he slipped past her and down the hall to the bathroom.

  All kids up. Moving. Soon to be fed. Packed suitcases in the hallway. She’d check carry-ons next, homework, books, headphones and audio options on cell phones and iPads. Then she’d line up her children and have them sit on the couch in the family room and wait for their limo the airport without moving, breathing, or speaking.

  Turning on her heels, she began to walk back toward the center of the house. She could hear the twins yelling at each other with their ungodly loud voices, and she was set to reprimand them with time-outs or threaten the loss of a snorkeling session, but she saw Lucy stumble out of her bedroom, phone in hand, ashen.

  “Mom,” Lucy said, brandishing her phone like a weapon. “Have you heard about all of this? Now they say that someone poisoned our water. The water!
Mom, someone thinks that people are going to die from this! Like… actual humans now? Mom! This is serious.”

  Maxine put her hand on Lucy's phone and pushed it down toward the floor. She didn’t need to see the feed to know that things were crazy. “I already talked to your dad.” That was a white lie. She hadn’t talked to him since he left that morning, but their conversation from the night before was still fresh. “He says there's nothing to worry about. If we needed to worry, he’d know, Lucy.”

  “He's not here?” Lucy gripped her phone tighter. Maxine tried not to take offense to her daughter’s clear lack of confidence in her. It was undeniable that her eldest daughter was a Daddy’s girl and that his opinion reigned supreme, but Maxine wished that her daughter would trust her. She wouldn’t lead them astray.

  “He’s meeting us at the airport. Some meeting he couldn’t get out of.” Maxine made an attempt to scoot around Lucy, but the girl remained rooted, legs outstretched, hands across her chest. “Fifty minutes, Lucy. Fifty minutes.” Was that really all the time they had? She knew that in her outlined plan of the morning, an hour was plenty of time to rouse the kids, feed them, and dress them. The heavy lifting was done, and the last thing she needed was her six kids running around undoing her hard work. It was a lesson she’d learned the hard way: you need almost not enough time to leave compared to too much time.

  “I’m scared,” Lucy said in a whisper, and Maxine melted. She exhaled out her nose a small snort and processed the news from last night. God, could she be so blindly focused on the trip that she ignored the fear? Scott had told her there was nothing to be afraid of and that they were safe; she believed him. She leaned in and kissed Lucy on the forehead—her daughter’s skin was clammy and soft.

  “Look,” Maxine said, “maybe some sicko poisoned all the pets. And I hope they catch him, or her, and throw them into the far reaches of Hell… but when it comes to disasters, I trust your father. By the time we land in paradise, we won't be thinking about any of this fear mongering. I haven’t had a vacation in six years… six years! So, get.” Swatting Lucy’s backside playfully, she marched past her daughter. She refused to be derailed. She’d worry about the dogs on the plane. With her right hand, Maxine grabbed a suitcase as she walked past to save her a trip later. As she walked away, she heard Lucy’s door shut quietly and she realized too late that she should’ve taken away her cell phone as a preemptive strike against dilly-dallying. If any of her kids were going to make her late today, it would be Lucy.