“What’s going on?” he asked, trying to mask his growing sense of alarm. Try as he might to avoid it, his gaze kept drifting to the interior of the minivan, on the two kids sleeping in their car seats. He wondered what he would see if he drew in for a closer look, whether he’d see blood smeared across their lips like fingerpaint.
The woman and the younger man, both of whom somehow appeared flushed and pale at the same time, bright red cheeks against a backdrop of gray skin, looked at their companion, deferring to the eldest member of the group. He was in his fifties, heavy-set with a graying beard.
“Some kinda accident,” the man said. He leaned in close to Adam, conspiratorially, and added: “I got a real mess here. Whole family’s sick with something or the other, trying to get them to the hospital up in Shallotte.”
Adam ran his fingers through his hair, thinking about Ethan DeSilva, about the empty beach, wondering if this time, the human race had run out of luck. He felt like he was living the beginning of a bad dystopian movie. He’d first felt it on the morning of the September 11 attacks, when a rumor had spread through the hospital that New York City had been nuked. He was busy with a difficult C-section and didn’t get the full story until later that morning. He’d been almost relieved to discover that only a few thousand had died, as opposed to a few million, a relief he still felt guilty about more than a decade later. He’d felt it in 2008, when Lehman Brothers went down, and then Bear Stearns, one after another, and the global economy had teetered on the brink of failure and he was ready to walk down to the bank and withdraw every bit he had in cash before it went up in smoke.
“Yeah,” Adam said, not knowing what else to say.
“Yeah,” the man said with a disturbing hint of resignation in his voice. “My daughter and son-in-law are both sick too. I started running a fever a couple hours ago.”
“Excuse me for a minute.”
Adam went back to his truck to check on Ethan, out of answers, out of ideas, nearly out of his mind. The boy was slumped over in his seat, unresponsive, the seatbelt straining under Ethan’s dead weight. Adam pressed two fingers against the boy’s wrist, checking for the radial pulse. It was there, but thready at best.
“Have you seen anything on the news?” Adam asked when he returned to talk to the man.
“You haven’t seen the news? All kinds of crazy shit. Hell, I heard one story saying all the New York Yankees had gotten sick and died. Then another story said their charter plane went down after an engine failure.”
Adam stared at the man, slack-jawed.
“You’re telling me this thing is everywhere?”
The man didn’t respond.
Adam hadn’t watched television or picked up a newspaper since he’d arrived here nearly a week ago. He pictured this thing burning through city after city, state after state, leaving graveyards in its wake. He remembered a bit of history about the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, how that strain of influenza had spread around the world in less than a month, in an era when commercial air travel was virtually nonexistent and even automobiles were still considered a luxury item. He shuddered to think how quickly something this virulent could spread across the nation, across the globe, in this day and age. It could kill thousands of people in the blink of an eye. The idea of this kind of outbreak on a large scale threatened to turn his guts to liquid.
While Adam processed this new bit of information, his news source began coughing. It was a protracted affair, yet another incident that again left Adam feeling as helpless as he had ever felt in his life. The cough brought the man to his knees, and Adam stepped forward and placed a hand on his back. The man was baking with fever, a hellish heat that Adam was becoming far too familiar with. As the spell eased up, the man turned to the side to pat his mouth with a handkerchief. Adam appreciated the man’s discretion, but there was no hiding what was happening.
Taking the hand Adam offered him, the man struggled back to his feet, one at a time.
#
A storm was rolling in from the west as Adam made his way back to the cottage, having given up on the hospital. A purplish ridge of clouds was easing in, almost like a shroud over the area. Adam turned on his wipers as the fat drops of rain began spattering the salt-crusted windshield; he was briefly soothed by the familiar wip-woop-wip-woop of the wiper blades slicing across the glass. As the wind freshened, the skies opened up, forcing Adam to let up on the accelerator. He switched on the headlights, but they did little good against the volume of rain unleashed in the monsoon. Within seconds, his visibility had dropped to zero, and so he carefully edged over to the side of the road, more up on the sidewalk than not, and stopped in front of an undeveloped expanse of marsh.
As he braked, Ethan’s failing body listed toward him, close enough that he could smell a perverse combination of Old Spice and sickness emanating from the boy. Panic surged through him like electrical spikes. More cracks were forming in his box now. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take before it ruptured, like the bulkheads on Titanic after its kiss from the iceberg, before the fear got big enough to pull him under. He found himself swallowing frequently, his hands brushing against glands, on high alert for the slightest sign of infection.
Then the seizure hit. Ethan flopped around the passenger seat, his shell of a body spraying blood across the seats, the dashboard, the windshield, as if the pathogen was intent on perpetuating itself in every way possible. He wrapped his arms around the boy and held him close. The seizure was massive, powerful, a magnitude that Adam had never experienced before. It was like a bolt of lightning had dropped from the heavens and struck the boy. Adam held on for the entire duration of the seizure, refusing to let the boy die alone, tears streaming down his cheeks.
When it was over, Adam shifted back into his seat, his arms and neck splattered with blood, as if he’d just finished slaughtering a hog. Ethan was dead. Tears ran silently down Adam’s cheeks, the byproduct of a hot stew of anger and fear and sadness fermenting inside him. It was like he was being made to relive that terrible day with Patient A over and over again, on a much bigger stage, the only constant being his total and complete incompetence, his inability to do one single, solitary thing to help these people.
This was off the charts, the kind of thing discussed hypothetically, maybe joked about in the CDC cafeteria. An invisible tidal wave, wiping the cities clean of life, leaving graveyard after graveyard in its viral wake until it burned itself out.
He dug his smartphone out of his pocket and tried accessing the mobile Internet application. As he waited, he noticed the squall was easing up. He checked the screen again, but it remained blank, the page still trying to load. He shifted back into gear and nosed his way back out onto Ocean Boulevard. Water had ponded in the typical lower-lying spots, and he slalomed around those dark, brooding puddles.
Back at the house, he set Ethan’s body next to his father’s and covered them with a tarp. Then he retreated to his bedroom with a bottle of scotch and a heavy glass tumbler, his initials etched on the side, and, for reasons he couldn’t explain, locked the door behind him. A check of his watch told him it was quarter until six, almost time for the news. While he waited, he conducted another systems check. No fever, no sore throat, no nasal congestion, no unusual skin rashes or lesions, and most welcome, no swollen glands.
He started to dial his office but then remembered that it was after business hours.
He dialed Joe McCann’s cell phone number.
No answer.
He dialed his friend Mark Zalewski’s number.
No answer.
He dialed his old girlfriend Stephanie Hartman’s number.
No answer.
He scrolled through his contacts and paused on Rachel’s number for five full minutes before he could muster the courage to call her.
He dialed Rachel’s number.
No answer.
He put away his phone.
INTERLUDE
Bulk E-Mail Sent to 3.2 Million Unique E-Mail A
ddresses
From: [email protected]
Date: August 9, 20XX
To: Unidentified Recipients
Subject: MEDUSA VACCINE
DON’T BE A VICTIM!
MEDUSA IS A DEADLY DISEASE SWEEPING THE WORLD.
BUT YOU CAN KEEP YOUR FAMILY SAFE
100 EZ –SWALLOW TABLETS OF ANTIVIRAL FOR $29.95
DOUBLE MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Briggs!”
Freddie turned his head toward the voice, coming from the brightly lit corridor, deep in the cinderblock bowels of the Smyrna City Jail. He’d been lying on his back on the thin bedroll, staring at the ceiling, marking time since he’d been arrested three days ago. It had been a Friday afternoon, too late for a bond hearing, and since it was a malicious wounding charge, they wouldn’t let him out on his own recognizance. Due to his celebrity, the sheriff had assigned Freddie to an isolation cell, the one in which they stuck the potential suicides, rather than risk a cafeteria riot over the fact that Freddie had played for the Patriots instead of retiring with dignity as a Falcon. The cell had been sanitized of anything an inmate could use to harm himself. No sheets, no metal bed frame. Just bars, concrete, and time.
After coming to, he’d quietly followed the arresting officers (three of them!) out to the police cruiser waiting in the parking lot of the Duckling, the memory of his little bar brawl with Randy Ferguson still fresh in his mind. He shook his head when the officers asked him if he was going to give them any trouble. They all knew who he was, of course, and they appeared terrified, although he wasn’t sure if that was because of his celebrity or because they were worried he might try to eat them. No, he hadn’t given them any trouble; in fact, he hadn’t uttered a word since the last dumb-shit thing he’d said to Ferguson before they’d done their dance. Instead, he kept asking himself the same question, over and over, wondering why he’d let that loser push his buttons the way he had.
He hadn’t come up with an answer, and now, with the bond hearing done, it was time to go home and face his family. His heart began pounding, harder and harder as the footsteps drew closer, and he felt a little silly, like a little boy afraid of being punished. He took quick stock of his cell. It was a small cell, about eight-by-eight square, steeped in a pungent stew of urine and sweat and body odor. Pathetic as these environs were, and as happy as he was to be taking his leave of them, they had given him some time to think. About football, about Susan, about the future, about the next step. First, there was going to be hell to pay at home. In a strange bit of irony, nothing drove Susan bat-shit crazier than Freddie’s temper. Fine, he thought. It was time to grow up. Time to be a man.
“Briggs?” the man said when he arrived. He was black, tall and thin, his posture and demeanor suggesting a stint in the military. “I’m Captain Allen Freeman. You’ll be due in court on August 22 on a charge of disorderly conduct, drunk in public, and malicious wounding.”
Richie Matas, Freddie’s agent, trailed just behind. Matas looked pale, his thin face drawn tight, like a robe on a cold morning. This struck Briggs as odd. Matas represented a number of athletes, and this was not his first time bailing one of them out of jail. Part of the job description, he’d once commented to Freddie. Freddie stood silently, frozen by embarrassment. It wasn’t the first night he’d ever spent in the clink, but it hadn’t happened since his freshman year at LSU. Susan had always warned him he’d end up there again if he wasn’t careful.
“I owe you one, Richie,” Freddie said.
“Listen, Freddie,” Matas said. “We need to get you home. Something’s wrong with Susan. I drove over this morning to pick her up to come get you, and the girls said she was really sick.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Freddie asked.
Matas was walking quickly, almost jogging up the corridor to the booking area, where Freddie would be able to retrieve his personal belongings. The deputy processed Briggs out of the jail as quickly as he could, which, for Freddie, wasn’t nearly quick enough. He and Matas raced back to the car and set out for the Briggs home, in a ritzy development on the north side of Smyrna.
They rode in silence, Richie unwilling or unable to relay any information other than that Susan hadn’t looked good. Freddie had tried calling the house, but no one answered. About five miles out, Freddie’s cell phone, which was still in his hand after he’d retrieved it from the jail inventory, began ringing.
“Dad?” a tiny voice said.
“Sweetie, it’s Daddy, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Mom,” Caroline said. Her words were choked with phlegm, as if she’d been crying.
He pinned the phone against his shoulder and tapped Matas on the right shoulder.
“Hurry up,” Freddie said. “Something’s wrong.”
He put the phone back to his ear and took a deep breath, hoping he could stay calm, for the sake of his hysterical daughter. “What is it, sweetie?”
“She lay down on the couch for a bit, said she was too tired to get upstairs,” Caroline said, her voice cracking. “Then she started coughing, and there’s blood everywhere.” Now each of Heather’s words was punctuated with a sobbing heave.
“Caroline, listen to me very carefully. Stay with her,” Freddie said. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
Freddie killed the line and called 911. Strangely, it took three tries to get through.
The line clicked open, and Freddie started to speak when he was interrupted by a recorded message.
“Thank you for calling the City of Smyrna’s Emergency Operations Center. All of our dispatchers are busy assisting other citizens. Please stay on the line, and your call will be taken in the order it was received.”
“What the fuck is this shit?” Freddie bellowed, as the message began to replay.
“What?” Matas asked.
Freddie pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed the speakerphone button.
“-on the line, and your call will be taken in the order it was received.”
It began to replay again.
“What the hell?” Matas said.
“Put on hold by 911?” Freddie said, looking over at Matas.
Matas shrugged and pushed down on the gas, determined to get them back to the Briggs house as fast as possible. As they hurtled north around Smyrna, they heard the message twice more in its entirety and most of a third time before a dispatcher came on the line.
“911, what is your emergency?” a gruff voice barked at him.
He told the dispatcher what he knew.
“I’ll dispatch an EMS crew, sir, but you should be aware we’ve had an unusually high call volume this morning.”
Freddie tried to say something, but the words weren’t there. He looked over at Matas, his hands spread apart, unsure of what to do.
“Just send the fucking ambulance!” Matas barked into the phone.
“Thanks,” Freddie said, hanging up.
“Fuck it,” Matas said. “If the ambulance isn’t there, we’ll take her ourselves.”
Freddie nodded, the panic rising, filling him like a balloon and making it difficult to breathe. Richie Matas, God bless him, pushed down the gas pedal of his rented Audi as far as it would go, determined to make the ten-minute drive home in three. The jail was in the southern part of Smyrna, in a beaten-down industrial area about as far as one could get from the northern suburbs where Freddie and Susan had made their home and still be in Smyrna. Freddie and Susan had bought the six-thousand-square-foot home about a year into his career, after they’d gotten used to the idea of having millions of dollars in the bank, gotten used to the idea of not ever having to worry about money again.
Freddie and Susan had both come up poor, and they’d never forgotten the pain of growing up in Smyrna’s trailer parks, which was where they’d first met more than a dozen years earlier. They were scrupulous savers. Freddie loved teasing her for clipping coupons on Sunday mornings, which she said she did to keep her mind off the ga
me, worried sick as she was of watching him end up paralyzed or worse. The house was their sole extravagance. They wanted a place that would be home forever, where they would raise their girls, twelve-year-old Caroline, and Heather, a month shy of her eighth birthday. They wanted a place where they could grow old with the neighbors, where they could take refuge, a sanctuary away from the madness accompanying life as an NFL superstar.
A few minutes later, the turn-off into Freddie’s subdivision came into view. As Matas slowed to turn onto the private drive feeding into the subdivision, Freddie heard the ambulance screaming toward him.
“Quick, get up to the guardhouse,” he said to Matas.
A moment later, the ambulance appeared in his rearview mirror, screaming its frantic howl. The guard waved them through, and the ambulance rumbled down the wide avenue, now less than a mile from its destination. Matas fell in behind the ambulance, close enough to cross that line from tailgating to drafting, fully flaunting the admonition that he should “Keep Back 500 Feet.”
They covered the mile in about forty-five seconds. The ambulance slowed briefly, dipping right into the Briggs’ semi-circular driveway, and then came to a halting stop at its midpoint. Matas lagged behind a couple car lengths and met the crew at the ambulance’s back door. Two paramedics, a young woman with close-cut blonde hair and a tall heavy-set black guy, got to work unloading their gear. Freddie recognized the man as a teacher at Caroline’s school. Mr. Rowe or something like that. He must have been a part-time EMT. Both were wearing powder-blue surgical masks. A handful of neighbors milled about, gathered in small clumps, whispering, pointing.
“Please hurry,” Freddie croaked as he met the paramedics.
They ignored him as they unloaded the stretcher and their gear from the back of the truck. As he passed the open doors of the ambulance bay, Freddie realized with horror that four other people were in the back, looking flushed, looking very sick. He put them out of his mind and led them inside. As he made his way down the corridor, he heard Susan coughing, a deep, guttural, hacking cough. He’d never heard anything like it in his life.
The Immune Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 7