Of Sudden Origin - Part 4 The Crucible

by Harwood, C. Chase

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thank you to my B-Readers, Mom, Leslie, Jane, and many others who don’t necessarily seek out genre fiction for the beach. Having the opinions of people who aren’t beholden to the genre helps make the work that much stronger. Richard Pine at Inkwell, gets a shout out for timeless and thoughtful advice that has helped make me a better writer.

  I am most especially grateful to my editors, Chance, Peter, Robert and Tony. Your insight is invaluable. You keep me from looking the fool.

  Of Sudden Origin - Part 4 The Crucible

  Copyright © 2014 Christopher Harwood / Fate & Fortune Press

  cchaseharwood.com

  mail@cchaseharwood.com

  3627 Buena Park Drive

  Studio City, CA 91604

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Broken Fever

  A week had passed. Nikki and Jon lay in their tent enjoying the moonlit leafy shadows that moved gently across the ceiling. They were blissfully unaware of the bombing campaign, which had begun far to the south. Instead, they were exhausted from another marathon round of sexual gymnastics. They held hands as their bodies cooled down, their heartbeats returning to normal.

  Nikki said, “I think it’s the roof.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I want a different roof.”

  “Are we being cryptic or is this a new guessing game?”

  She turned on her side to face him. “I can’t keep doing this.”

  “This? You mean us?”

  “No, not us. The roof. It’s too close. I want a different roof.” She regarded the tent. “These things have always made me feel claustrophobic.”

  Jon listened to the loons serenade the night air, then said, “You want to build a lean-to? A log cabin?”

  “I want to live in a house or at least an apartment. I want to be able to go to the grocery store, stream a movie, see a play. Would you believe that I’ve never been to a play? Go to the gym, buy clothes – you know, live life as we knew it – or at least the way I want to know it. How I planned it after my discharge.”

  “Okay. I can understand that.”

  “I want a real roof over my head. I don’t want to hide out on some island in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of religious whackos and the constant threat of some crazed cannibal floating ashore, ready to tear my throat out.”

  “I hear you.”

  “I want to make love in a real bed or in the kitchen or the back yard for that matter.”

  Jon nodded with some enthusiasm.

  “I’ve just spent three years of my life in Central Asian and African wars. It was a shit-storm over there almost as bad as this. I come home with the hope of a normal life and instead get to watch the worst calamity ever to befall man. I’m tired, Jon. I’m tired of fighting.”

  Jon was at a loss for words. His instinct was to offer solutions. He’d read a book once that said that women, when they downloaded like this, were just looking for comfort and acknowledgement, not fixes. But his man-brain couldn’t help itself. “Hon, from what we’ve heard, Canada is no picnic right now either. Housing is a premium with multiple families sharing one house or apartment, petty crime, food shortages – I doubt there’s very many plays. I know what you want, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist right now. Add to that the millions of those Things between here and there and we’ve pretty much found paradise right where you’re lying.”

  “Are you always so realistically negative?”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s our reality, Hon.”

  Nikki let out a poof of air and a sigh. “You’re making me sleepy. And don’t call me Hon. You sound like a diner waitress.”

  “Okay. So let’s go to sleep - Honey.”

  “You’re making me sleepy is an expression, knucklehead. It means I don’t want to hear what you’ve got to say.”

  “I was just pointing out that we’ve got it pretty good – considering…”

  “You’re right. But next time I bring it up, I expect you to fantasize about it with me. If I can’t have it, at least I can pretend we’re heading that way.”

  “Okay. You wanna talk about a delicious steak dinner at my favorite Atlanta restaurant?”

  “No. Talking about food just makes me depressed. I like the log cabin idea though. We’ll need to borrow a saw or two.”

  “Sure. How hard can it be?”

  “Kiss me. I’m going to sleep.”

  Jon gave her a deep kiss, which she returned, and they cuddled up for the night. Loons continued to sing out across the dark lake, backed up by crickets and frogs - all of them offering up a call to mate.

  “Listen to all of that,” whispered Jon.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Life goes on.”

  “Always has. Goodnight, Jon.”

  “Goodnight, Nikki.”

  Jerry Halverstrom was a very sick boy. The nine year old, who didn’t listen to the curse-riddled advice of Teddy Costas, had continued to drink from the pool that the Tree Swallows were nesting over. His mother fretted over him and Nurse Hannah grew concerned as the boy’s fever rose to death-defying heights. Aspirin had no effect and they had no ice-water to lay him in. It was decided that they would carry him down to the lake and place his raging hot body in the cool water there.

  His parents sat in the water with him, cradling their boy on their laps, cooling his face and lips with a damp rag. It seemed to have a positive effect and the adults visibly relaxed as the boy’s raving nonsensical statements abated. The brightness of the full moon shimmered across a lake, alive with night songs and the adults let their heads bow, sleepiness mixed with the lapping of the water calming them all after such a fright.

  An owl called out a questioning hoot, waking Mrs. Halverstrom from the subconscious stroking of her son’s fevered head. “Perhaps it’s enough time in the water,” she whispered.

  The child’s shivers and moans had subsided and he seemed to rest in peace for the first time in many hours.

  Hannah and Mr. Halverstrom stood up and helped the mother with her boy. As the three adults stopped to look down at him, the boy’s eyes flashed open and he stared from one concerned face to the other.

  His mouth split into a gaping grin and his mother smiled back, but with a question on her brow. Her boy had never smiled like that. It was somehow… Fiendish looking.

  Nurse Hannah’s head cocked as she sought understanding in the boy’s abrupt transformation, and then her eyes met his and her blood ran cold. Her legs locked in place as though the earth itself had grabbed her ankles and her bowels opened up, sending a cascade of filth down her legs.

  “Good Lord, woman! What’s gotten into you?” barked Mr. H
alverstrom.

  “Jerry?” questioned Mrs. Halverstrom. And that’s when her son bit her. She gasped and tried to pull away, but the boy had a lock on the meat of her upper arm and she screamed as her husband tried to pull the boy off. Nurse Hannah joined too and suddenly all three were rapidly bitten as the child, now a Fiend, tried to feast on them all. The father, in excruciating pain, fell to the ground as the eighty-pound beast bit off part of his ear and then latched onto his cheek. Without even thinking about it, the man took hold of a river rock and began to pound the boy’s skull.

  The mother screamed at the murdering of her son and fell upon her husband, clawing at his hands as he continued to beat his nine-year-old’s head to a pulp.

  Nurse Hannah pulled the distraught woman back and received a scratch to the face for her efforts.

  The boy lay face down on the rock and pebble-strewn shore, his head caved in, blood and brains seeping out into the water. The mother sat in horror at the sight and the father regained his wits, sitting up, aghast at what he’d done.

  The nurse, blood coursing down her face and dripping down her bitten arm, just stared at the nightmare before her and then she cried. The realization of her plight washed over her like a wet blanket of dread. She was a dead woman, doomed to become a monster. Her chance for salvation was over. She would become one of Them, the un-saveable, spawn of Lucifer.

  The father put two and two together pretty fast as well. He looked at his son and wife and then at the distraught nurse. He said to his wife, “They mustn’t know. Our boy was not a minion of the devil. They mustn’t know.” With that, he picked the rock back up and smashed it across Nurse Hannah’s skull. The woman stood stunned for a moment and then sank to her knees. Mr. Halverstrom followed with another blow, and his wife flinched at the dull wet cracking sound of shattering living bone. One more thwack finished the deed and the nurse’s worries were over forever.

  More rocks were displaced around the bodies of Nurse Hannah and the dead boy, further evidence of a struggle. The shocked parents washed their wounds and talked of the bear that had swum ashore, surprising them all as they had tried to reduce their son’s fever. The hungry beast had attacked them voraciously before the father had scared it off with a thumb jammed into the eye. The congregation would be none the wiser and the legacy of their son, an angel now with Jesus, would be intact.

  The parents were quickly convinced of their lie and in moments it had become their truth. A bear had done this. They would go back and report the incident and get on with grieving for their son.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Boiling Point

  The night before Jerry Halverstrom had his infected head caved in by his now very infected father, the Halverstrom family had been at KP duty – it was their turn to help prepare the night’s communal meal. Jerry, who at that point was suffering from a severe runny nose, a sore throat and the beginnings of a fever, was placed in front of the soup pot and told to stir. The boy found that sipping from the pot as he stirred helped sooth his throat. The soup was set on simmer to keep it from overcooking, and so through the simple act of non-sanitary meal preparation, the FND-z bacterium was introduced to that night’s soup du jour – beef barley. The mega-shot of nutrients and just the right amount of heat sent the nasty germs into a fit of reproduction. Billions of dividing cells settled into a microscopic feeding frenzy. Nearly the entire congregation enjoyed the soup that night.

  As a neighborly gesture and a chance for the congregation to once again offer them salvation, it had been decided that Jon and Nikki should be invited to the burial. Deciding that it would make relations with the neighbors worse to ignore a little boy’s memorial, Jon and Nikki agreed to come. So on the morning of the funeral, they had coffee, grabbed their guns and trundled off toward the main camp to enjoy some better food at what was supposed to be a prayer breakfast before the ceremony.

  About six hundred yards from the settlement they came upon Ham Unger digging the second of two graves by himself while Ben Watson, the militia leader, approached hauling the canvas wrapped bodies of Nurse Hannah and Jerry Halverstrom on a makeshift cart. Watson was assisted by Teddy Costas who put the weight of his eleven-year-old body behind one of the wheels.

  Jon called out, “Morning, there. Where’s the rest of your help? No procession?”

  Ben stopped pushing. “Seems a flu has hit pretty much the whole congregation. Had to skip the breakfast, some cold vittles is all if you’re hungry.”

  Nikki put her hand in front of Jon and they both stopped. “Flu? What kind of flu?”

  “You know, headache, sore throat, fever, the works.”

  “How can you be sure it’s the flu?”

  “I guess we can’t, but it’s not that demon virus.”

  Jon asked, “How do you know that?”

  “Cause the only folks around here that have been near any demons is you two, and you seem pretty fine. Nikki, you came down with a little something, but you’re okay now, right? There’s still other diseases in this world.”

  Jon said, “Who else is healthy?”

  Ham stuck his head out of the grave. “My wife Kelly and Katherine, the reverend’s assistant. They’re both tending to the sick. The two babies seem fine.”

  “That’s it?” Nikki asked.

  Teddy said, “My dad and my sister are okay. Lots of folks weren’t making sense though. Some couldn’t speak right at all. My dad kept us inside all day yesterday”.

  “What do you mean they couldn’t speak right?”

  “Fever talk,” said Teddy. “Jerry Halverstrom had the same kind of thing before his parents took him to the water to cool him down.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Ben. “Don’t talk out of turn. There’s adults speaking here.”

  “I do too know it. Their house is next to ours. I could hear Jerry calling out, not making sense. It woke us all up. I saw it when Nurse Hannah came out with Jerry’s mom and dad and helped carry him.”

  Nikki turned to Ben. “We were told that the boy and the nurse died from a bear mauling.”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “Have you looked at the bodies?”

  Ben glanced at the wheelbarrow, “Yup. Pretty nasty.” The bodies were wrapped in old canvas in lieu of coffins. It wasn’t a fancy way to send off the departed, but it made sense given the thin resources of the community.

  “Besides moving them on that cart, did you handle the bodies? Get near any blood?”

  “Nope. Lukei did that. She washed them and wrapped them as well as she could.”

  Jon asked, “So where’s Lukei?”

  “Sick like the rest of them.”

  Suddenly, the air crackled with a shrill scream of a woman in terror, sending solitary birds flapping haphazardly into the morning sky.

  Ham launched himself out of the grave. “That’s Kelly!” He ran as fast as he could back toward the camp.

  “Ham, wait!” yelled Nikki. “Shit.” She looked at Teddy. “Stay put. And if anyone comes running back this way, including us, you run away until they’ve verbally convinced you that they aren’t sick or bitten.”

  Several human howls echoed through the woods. Jon, unconsciously felt the Smith & Wesson holstered to his hip.

  “Jesus wept!” cried Ben. He picked up his shotgun and the three of them ran off.

  Teddy found himself trembling with uncontrollable shaking. The primal, uncontrollable part of his nervous system remembered running from the Fiends - hearing his mother being torn to bits. It took all he had to move his legs and climb into the shallower of the two graves. His eyes stared over the dirt mound back toward camp and then they rested on the bodies lying in the wheelbarrow. As tunnel vision overtook him, his sight blurred with welled-up tears.

  Ham intercepted Kelly as she was running through brambles, her skin immune to the reach and scratch of branches and twigs. Blood poured down her face where her right cheek had been and she screamed at being held f
ast by a husband unrecognized. Ham yelled in her face to make her stop and look at him. Her huge eyes filled up with recognition, but her face remained rigid with terror. She could only point back the way she came and then scream again at the sight of Jon, Nikki and Ben running toward them.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay!” Ham attempted to sooth.

  The three others stopped in their tracks at the sight of the poor woman.

  “Oh no.” said Ben. “Oh my Lord no.”

  Her speech was thick and slurred from her wound, but Kelly blurted out, “The wrevren bhit meee. He khilled Khathlerine. Others. Khilling. Khilling the bhabiess. Coming.” Then she stopped and felt her own face, the jagged edges flapped about under her fingertips and she burst into tears.

  Ben turned to Jon and Nikki. “What do we do?”

  Jon said, “Ham, your wife is infected. You have to step away from her.”

  “What?” asked the young new husband. Kelly appeared even more stricken and looked back and forth between them.

  “I’m sorry. There’s nothing you can do for her. You have to carefully clean that blood off or you will get infected too. Her breath is not contagious yet, but when the fever is done it will be.”

  “What? No!” Hamm's eyes scanned all over his bride as though she had become strange to him.

  Nikki tugged on Jon’s sleeve and said, “Jon, we should go. There isn’t time for this.”

  Kelly’s tears came in earnest and she fell to her knees in fear and agony, her young husband holding her tight.

  Nikki grabbed Jon’s arm, pulling him away from the scene. “Listen. We know how it ends. We have to go, now! Ben, you can follow us or go your own way. Your community is either dead or infected.”

  Jon said, “We have to go back and get the boy.”

  The crack of breaking twigs, thundering feet and deranged human voices echoed through the forest. Fiends were coming. They had to run.