by Hart Johnson
Matt's first impulse was sabotage. Terrorism. He'd seen some headlines. This flu was killing people. But how could it kill this many soldiers? With no survivors to come do what someone should do when their colleagues died—call family, have bodies carted away, eliminate the damn confidential files?
Part of him wanted to be that person, the one who made the call and cleaned it all up. But he was too spooked. This seemed targeted, feasibly still contagious. Spending time here might be a death sentence and the last thing he wanted was to be another name on the list of deceased.
He bolted. He'd never be proud of it, but who knew what germs lingered? He regretted it later, not just from an honor perspective, but also from a security standpoint. He should have destroyed records from the secret files, contacted next-of-kin, and burned his colleagues, but his sense of self-preservation was stronger than that. He'd seen a few names of people with unknown status that he might be able to track down from the 'missing' list and knew of another mercenary team called The Kraken—former Navy Seals, for the most part. He would check in with them before making any rash decisions. Information was always the first line of defense.
As he sped out of the parking lot, Matt found a radio station with news, instead of listening to the CDs he usually preferred. The flu was everywhere. He heard death rates around the thirty percent mark, which was a lot better than what he'd just seen, but still worse than any flu he'd ever known of. Was it even possible that was what this was?
The first buddy he tried, one who lived locally, didn't answer and the fortress he lived in was too much for Matt to bypass, so he backtracked to Panama City. He stopped at a Walgreen’s to buy latex gloves and face masks before he tried the second, fearing the worst. He and Dwayne Paxton had served their time in the Army together and remained friends for the ten years since. If Pax didn't answer, he knew where to find his parents and ex-wife, so he'd track him down one way or another.
The house was locked up. Since the ex was geographically closer and, as he understood it, not hostile, he decided to try there first.
“I was just going out there,” she said. “He was supposed to take Trevor this weekend.”
Pam was a pretty thing. Matt had been best man at their tiny wedding a decade ago, but she looked better with some age behind her—a few more curves and a lot more confidence. Didn't hurt that she seemed lower maintenance with her hair in an casual band instead of the big overwhelming 'do he remembered. Less make-up, too, though she still had taken an effort.
“Might wanna brace yourself,” Matt said.
She narrowed her eyes and Matt could see she assumed this was about a woman or a wild party. “Not like that. Worse.”
“Well, spit it out.” Her southern accent was the Florida 'only shows up with emotion' version. He wished he didn't find it hot. The timing was bad.
“Most of our unit in Pensacola has been wiped out. Dead.”
“Not you, though?”
Matt shook his head. “Haven't seen anybody in a month. I've been prepping for a mission that just fell through yesterday—meeting some guys in South America to get something done.” Even that was more detail than he normally would have given.
“So are you in danger, too?”
“I don't know. I need Pax–Dwayne–to find out. He was on the list of people they didn't know about at command.”
“He has leave until January. Spent all summer cleaning up some mess in Afghanistan. Trevor's been out there several times, spending time with his daddy. Dwayne swore he was here for months.”
“Well, let's go see, then,” Matt said.
Pam settled Trevor in at a neighbor's, with a friend and a lineup of video games. Then they drove to Dwayne's place in two cars, Pam with the key.
The place seemed more ominous now that Matt knew he'd be able to get inside. Finding dead colleagues was one thing. A dead friend would be another.
His feet felt like lead as they climbed to the porch. He took the keys from Pam to open the door and was greeted with a smell several times worse than headquarters had been. It wasn't unusually hot, but Matt guessed the time since Pax died was longer than what he'd found at headquarters.
“You don't need to come in for this,” he told Pam. She'd stood back for safety reasons because he'd suggested the place was booby-trapped, but short an explosion, she wasn't having any of it.
“Yes, I do. I was married to him for six years. He's the father of my son. I owe it to Trevor.”
Matt thrust the face mask he'd grabbed from his Jeep at her. “Cover your mouth. This may be that flu.”
“Flu? You're kidding, right? Wipe out an entire company?”
“Better than sixty men.”
“And you think it was the flu?” The disdain in her voice was clear, but Matt didn't back down.
“I don't know what it is, but if I let you and Trevor be exposed, whether it's an illness, a poison, or a bio-hazard, Pax is going to haunt me. Cover your mouth or I'm not letting you in.”
“You fucking asshole! I brought the key!”
Matt sighed. “And I thank you. For Trevor? Come on. Work with me.”
She rolled her eyes but went to her car and grabbed a bandanna to tie around her mouth, scowling as he adjusted it to make sure she was really covered.
Matt put the face mask on and the two of them ventured inside together. Pax was in the bathtub, head propped against the corner. Matt thought maybe he'd been trying to cool a fever because a thermometer was out on the counter. Whatever the case, he'd never managed. Matt picked it up, hoping to see what it had last read, but didn't believe it could have reached 106—that had to be faulty.
He pulled a latex glove from his pocket and used it to push down the lever in the tub. No reason to let the poor sucker bloat any more. Pam looked like she might be sick; she’d gone green at the gills. “Pam, I can take care of this.”
“Shouldn't we call... I don't know. Whoever?” She was working hard not to cry.
“You can try.” It was probably better if she had something to do.
She dialed and the two of them went outside and stood as she waited half an hour, her grief turning to anger, and then she was cut off.
“What the fuck!” she shouted.
“With the number of bodies I've seen today, they have to be swamped. Keep trying. This will give me some time to make sure there isn't anything people shouldn't see, but if you reach somebody, call me. If not, I'll handle it.”
“What about a burial?”
“Keep trying. Let his parents know. They can try, too. But Pam?” he said. “I'm starting to doubt anybody has time.”
“Then what do we do?”
“This is his land, right? And I'm sure he left it to Trevor. You keep trying, but if you don't get through, I'll find a pretty spot. I'll call you when it's time to say a few words—if you haven't gotten a hold of anybody by tomorrow night—sooner is better. I'll make sure the body is secure so Trevor isn't exposed to whatever this is—bomb the house so any contaminants are gone.”
“You'd do that?”
Matt touched her chin with his thumb. “Who was the best man at your wedding?”
“It didn't last long.”
“It's who he was. Wasn't your fault and he never thought it was. I promise I won't take anything out of here but work stuff, but I gotta get rid of that.”
They'd reached her car and she pulled the bandanna down. Sandy curls escaped her ponytail and she hugged him. “Thank you, Matt. You're a good man.”
“No. Never as good as Pax. But I cared. I can do this for him.”
And that wasn't a lie. There was no good reason to tell Pam he had a dozen other things to check out while he was there. Or that he had nowhere else to go. He'd planned to be out of the country for the next six months and had let his lease expire. This would work as a home base, at least for the next week or so.
Matt used a blanket to leverage Pax out of the bathtub, then wrapped him in that, followed by a plastic tarp sealed with duct tap
e. Finally, he put a nicer sheet around him—less tacky than the plastic, even if it wasn't a proper coffin. Finally, he set off a bug bomb in the house, just the store-bought variety, but the strong version—no living thing inside for four hours. It was probably overkill—bleach would do it. But he figured nothing would remain alive inside, including whatever bio-hazard this might be. Because that's what this had to be. Something like Anthrax would have thrown up warnings that would allow it to be contained and there would have been a lot of noise about it—emails and texts to avoid the facility until it was clear. This had to be natural—perhaps spread in an unnatural way—but there was exposure, then an incubation period that had made it so no one knew until they were sick.
While the bug bomb was blasting, Matt went for more normal supplies: food, and some basic hardware. He would do a thorough search; Pax probably had most of the stuff he would need, but who knew how long it would take him to find it? And at the moment, efficiency mattered. Something had killed almost his whole unit and he had to learn what because it was possible he might not be safe, either.
The hardware store he went to was beginning to look picked over—another sign things were bad everywhere—but Matt managed to get all the things he needed. Once he was supplied, he called Pam to see if she'd had any luck reaching a coroner or some other official.
“They won't call me back, but the hospital says to just contain him. It will be a while.”
“Is that what you want to do? Wait?” he asked.
“Not if there's a choice. It doesn't seem fair.”
“Then I'll take care of things, like I said.”
“Thank you.”
He found a nice spot that looked like it wasn't too prone to erosion, nor to getting overgrown and lost in the quick-growing vegetation. He started digging. The sooner the body was buried, the better. Though he had Pam and Trevor to think about. They'd want to say their good-byes.
And before they came out, Matt wanted to have the things he'd need to take with him out of the way. No use getting Pam into a tizzy with questions. He debated making contact with his brother. He'd left Teddy a satellite phone when he was arranging for his mission. His colleagues were mostly reliable, but it never hurt to have a back-up plan. Not that Teddy himself was much of a back-up. Poor kid took the world too seriously and couldn't quite handle it. That, or he'd gotten their mother's need to escape into a bottle now and then. But the kid did have a nose for digging up the truth, and some useful connections besides. As back-up went, those weren't terrible assets. But Matt wasn't ready for that yet. Better to check on his own resources first and find out what was what.
When the grave was about half dug, Matt figured it had been long enough since the bug bomb had been set off to go inside and open up. Then, by the time he was finished with the grave, it would be clear for breathing and he could get to work.
He opened all the windows, dragged the body out near the grave site, and turned the house fan on. It was finally starting to cool off outside, so the AC wasn't necessary and fresh air would be better than recirculating that bug stuff and the dead-buddy smell, anyway.
Three hours later Matt was freshly showered. He invited Pam and Trevor out the next night for a sunset burial, figuring twenty-four hours gave him enough time to sort the rest of the noticeable things. He'd open some drawers and make sure nothing critical was mixed in with pictures, but Pam wouldn't be quizzing him on ordinary paperwork, provided he turned over any titles or documents pertaining to Trevor as soon as he ran across them. He had a little time. He wasn't sure how little, but at least a few days. He'd know more when he checked out the Kraken headquarters back in Tallahassee. That would tell him if this was his unit or mercenaries more broadly. Maybe he'd even drive on to Camp Blanding, an Army training and military reserve base that was the closest official compound he knew of. If this—whatever-it-was—was directed at all fighting units, that would tell him a lot about what his next steps should be.
An initial scan of Pax's paperwork told him the guy still refused to carry any debt—he'd confessed to Matt several years back that it was because he wanted to stay off the grid, paranoid that Big Brother was following his every move. He had a singular vice of betting on boxing matches, but he did that in cash. And he'd been ordered to check in at Eagle Corp for his flu shot the week prior. The order was standard. Matt had gotten one, too, but he'd gotten a pass to skip it because he wasn't supposed to mix anything like that with his malaria shots. Besides, he was supposed to be out of the flu zone for six months anyway, eliminating his risk.
Matt found Pax's Blackberry and checked numbers and his calendar, both confirming plans to have Trevor for the weekend. There were a few sexy texts from a woman named Maria; the area code suggested she lived in Orlando and the conversation told him they hadn't seen each other in almost a month. The calendar didn't have plans to see her again, probably because of Trevor, but Matt would give her a call in a few days to let her know what had happened.
Pax's work contact, other than the flu shot, was even farther outside the time window—he was having the three months of downtime they got after being on a long mission. There was a meeting scheduled for early December to discuss his January deployment, but his only physical contact with anybody would have been when he went to headquarters for the shot.
The next night at sunset Pam and Trevor arrived, followed by Mrs. Paxton, Pax's mom. Matt would have to remember to call his buddy Dwayne, or his mother might get confused. Mr. Paxton was sick with the flu and couldn't come. Matt normally didn't give in to ritual, but it seemed important here. He could count the number of people he considered friends on one hand; three fingers would have done it before finding Pax's body. Now he was down to two.
They gathered around the grave site where Matt had put Dwayne's body into the hole and waited for the sun to turn the sky into an orange cranberry cocktail. Sending you off in a chick's drink, he thought. Maybe it would bode well for Pax being surrounded by ladies in the afterlife.
“You know... Dwayne saved my life once,” he began.
Mrs. Paxton turned on the waterworks and clutched Trevor's hand. The boy looked sad, but also concerned at his grandmother's action. Matt couldn't blame him. Old women and their grief could be needy. A heavy burden for a kid to carry.
“We were brothers,” he continued. “Neither of us was easy to live with, and I can't say we never traded black eyes.” Pam chuckled softly, which Matt appreciated. “But when I needed someone to have my back, Pax–Dwayne—was the best man I could have asked for.”
He glanced over to Pam and nodded. They'd talked about this and he figured she could get out a few words.
“I loved Dwayne,” she said. “Like Matt said, I couldn't live with him. He could be mean when he drank and he preferred to be off saving the world, but it didn't mean I didn't love him.”
Matt felt a guilty pang there. Mercenary work was about thrills and cash, not valor. But the mom and the kid didn't need to know that. Pam either. Let them keep their image.
“And I'll be forever grateful for the gift of my son,” she said. “He was a good man.”
Matt looked at Mrs. Paxton and then Trevor. He wondered if either of them would talk, but when they didn't, he held out the shovel. “Trevor? You want to toss the first dirt?”
The boy shook his head.
“You should do it,” Mrs. Paxton said to Matt.
Matt scooped up a bit of sandy soil and tossed it, then handed the shovel to Pam who did the same. Once they had, Trevor and Mrs. Paxton seemed to think the symbolism was okay and each tossed on their own scoop of dirt.
“I'm afraid I don't know many prayers,” Matt said. “Mrs. Paxton, do you have one you'd like to say?”
She said the Lord's Prayer. It was simple and Matt figured he maybe could have remembered it if he'd thought to try, but it was good to have Dwayne's mother end the ceremony. She brought him into the world. Let her send him out.
When it was over, Pam walked over to her former m
other-in-law and whispered something. Matt kept shoveling and didn't pay much attention. He just wanted to make sure the body was buried enough that none of the night predators would get to it.
The three of them waved and walked around to the front of the house, but Pam returned ten minutes later with a bottle of tequila, a shot glass and a Tupperware container with lemon wedges and a salt shaker.
He grinned. “Now there's a fitting send-off.”
“Alaine is taking Trevor for the night. This seems more like Dwayne to me, too.”
He dashed the shovel into the pile of remaining dirt and joined Pam for a shot. By the time he'd licked some salt and bit the lemon, she'd poured him a second.
“Gimme another twenty minutes and then we can polish that off,” he said.
“I won't be able to drive.”
“That a problem?” Matt said, only half-registering the double entendre of the question.
“Not for me.” She picked up the goods and went in the house.
Twenty minutes, several shots, and some life-affirming sex later, Matt wondered if he'd regret this. He liked Pam, but he didn't need someone being needy. He had stuff to do. In the morning he was sure he had misjudged it, but for different reasons. He woke up to her sitting on the side of the bed looking at him.
Shit. His honor had abandoned him somewhere mid-bottle. This was Pax's wife. Ex-wife. But still, a guy didn't do that to a brother. And here she was looking at him like she expected something.
“I want you to promise me something,” she said.
Uh oh. “What's that?”