by Ellis, Tara
Not wasting any time on celebrating, James headed straight for the office door on the far side of the chamber. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the coded keypad was glowing with a soft, blue light. It took three tries, but he finally got it open. Inside, James discovered a simple blue folder sitting in the middle of the desk. Thankful that whoever left the list hadn’t stayed in the office to greet him, he snatched it up. He had no idea why it was so important, given what was going on in the rest of the world, but James was a soldier, and following orders was what he did.
After mustering back at the warehouse, Campbell was more than happy to lead his men away from Mount Weather. As they approached the woman next to her car, he stopped and knelt next to her. According to her license, her name was Sarah. James removed a small sheet he’d taken from the underground hospital and gently covered her with it. The six Marines stared silently at the sheet, a small gesture of humanity in a situation where it was easy to lose it.
James stood. “I’m sorry, Sarah.”
Chapter 2
DANNY
North of Idaho Falls, Idaho
“You need to keep still.” Danny attempted to keep the growing frustration out of her voice, and failed miserably.
Tom raised his eyebrows. “My nose itched.”
Grunting with disdain, Danny tried to place yet another Steri-Strip across the cut above Tom’s right eye. She’d been treating him for over two days and he didn’t make a very good patient. The bullet wound in his shoulder was healing nicely, and there wasn’t anything she could do about the concussion, other than watch for signs of it getting worse. The wound over his eye, from where he was hit with the gun, was the worst of it and it was pretty nasty when she first cleaned it out. “I think the infection is finally clearing up, but it’s going to leave a scar.”
Tom shrugged before standing and then stuck his cowboy hat back on his head. “Thanks, but I’m not too concerned about scars right now.”
Danny looked up at him and hesitated a moment before stepping back out his way. There was something about the man’s eyes that always gave her pause. She didn’t know if it was because of his rugged handsomeness, or the fact that she’d been awoken by nightmares about him for the past two nights. She couldn’t get past seeing him as the crazed killer who attacked her the first time they met.
Tom gave an awkward smile and then went to get their horses ready to ride, after having stopped for a lunch break. Danny watched him walk away, irritated by her inability to read him. She was normally very good at first impressions, and typically had someone pegged in minutes. She wasn’t sure how much the concussion had to do with it, but he was a quiet man who didn’t say much. When he did speak, it was clear that he expected you to listen. Danny didn’t know if she was put off by or attracted to that, which only added to her unease around him.
“You know, he’s already apologized at least half a dozen times,” Sam said, stepping up next to her.
Danny realized she was still staring at Tom, and abruptly turned away and busied herself with packing up the first aid supplies. “You don’t really think I still blame him?” she accused. “I would have done the same thing.”
“Right.” Sam hefted the pack from the table and waited until Danny looked at him. “But that doesn’t change what happened and how close the two of you came to killing each other. Maybe an honest conversation about it would go a long way towards…easing some of the tension.”
The two men became quick friends over the past three days, and had an easy way of communicating with each other, although they never said much. Between Grace’s continued infatuation with Ethan and Sam’s new BFF, Danny was struggling with feeling left out. It was ridiculous, and she knew it, but it didn’t change how she felt. Their worlds were reduced to basic survival, without much room for anything else, and she cherished both Sam and Grace.
Without anything else to distract herself with, Danny let out a pent-up breath and decided to give Sam what he wanted: honesty. “You want the truth, Sam? The past two nights I’ve woken in a sweat after dreaming about being attacked and staring into the eyes of a savage killer. His eyes,” she hissed, pointing to where Tom stood, and then pressed her fingers against the scabbed-over scrape and the bruise on her cheek. “It isn’t about understanding or forgiving, or liking or disliking. It’s just going to take time for me to process this. I’ll get over it, but you also need to realize that I saw up close what he’s capable of, and I can’t unsee that.”
Sam frowned before reaching out to put a comforting hand on her arm. “I know, Danny. It’s just that…I think he’s a good man. He’s been through so much and is still struggling with a lot of lingering symptoms. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have someone like him around.”
Danny knew exactly what Sam meant. In the past two days of their journey, they’d encountered more than a couple of groups of questionable travelers. With three of the four of them armed, and a pack of five horses, it made them a formidable crew. And Tom wasn’t just a large man. He also had a dangerous air about him that made others give them all a wider berth.
She nodded without replying and went to gather her things. They’d taken a longer-than-usual lunch break after getting a very early start that morning. They’d made it around Idaho Falls late the night before, and had wanted to get as far away from the city as possible before it got too light out. Conditions in and near the city continued to deteriorate and random camps and clusters of people were developing farther out.
Danny thought back to one of her and Sam’s earlier conversations about society falling apart after seventy-two hours of darkness, and she choked back a ragged laugh. It was such an inadequate statement, in light of what they’d experienced and were continuing to see evolve. Her only concern now was to make it to Mercy.
Sam and Tom studied the map for more than an hour the previous night and determined they had around two hundred and seventy miles to go, give or take twenty. That worked out to six or seven more days in the saddle, so to speak. It was ten days since the event, so if Danny wanted to put a positive spin on it, they were more than halfway through their journey.
The thought prompted Danny to eagerly shrug on her backpack, and she looked around for any sign of Ethan and Grace. They’d gone to refill the filtered water bottles and should have already been back. Danny held a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun as she searched the tree line. It was then that the wind shifted, and she smelled smoke.
They were in a sort of gulley, with the ground veering up into a sagebrush-covered hill to the east side of the road. It sloped down to a tree-covered creek bed to the west before also rising sharply into another rolling ridgeline, creating a wide ravine, with them in the middle. Before dipping down into the long stretch of more secluded roadway that morning, they’d spent several hours on a vast, open plain. Fires were a constant occurrence and concern, but had always been in the distance, glowing as orange ribbons at night and dark splotches during the day. The sky was often choked with smoke, first from the city fires and then from the continued plains and forest fires that kept burning. It was something they’d become used to and perhaps a bit too complacent about.
That morning, Danny had commented on how the one to the west of them looked closer but no one else was concerned. The winds were from the east at the time and they were traveling away from it, to the north. As a firefighter, Danny had a huge amount of respect for fires and a healthy dose of fear. She’d seen up close how it could become like a living, breathing beast that was both unpredictable and merciless.
“Ethan!” Danny yelled. She jogged over to Sam and Tom, who were also sniffing at the air. “Fire,” Danny barked, announcing the obvious. She climbed up into the saddle of her mount and then pulled at the reins harder than she should have. The horse threw its head in agitation, before moving in the direction Danny urged her. As they started down the hill toward the trees, Ethan burst through the foliage.
“Fire!” Ethan screamed, tripping over a rock and n
early falling. His face was red from what must have been a frantic sprint, and he was clearly winded. Grace barked and ran in a circle around the teen. He pointed desperately back toward the hills to the west and gulped in more smoky air. “I climbed up to look around and it’s there, Dad!”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked, not sounding too alarmed. “The nearest fire was miles away, last we saw it.”
Danny noticed white swirls beginning to waft over the hilltop. “The winds have shifted. Get on your horse!” she yelled at Ethan. While she had never gotten certified in wildfire firefighting, she’d had the training. Out on the open plains, and especially on steep hills, wind could push fires along at surprisingly fast speeds. “We need to run!”
No one argued and Tom led the way up the road at a fast gallop. In spite of their efforts, within minutes, the air around them continued to fill with smoke as the wind picked up and pushed it in their direction.
Danny coughed and her eyes began to water, making it even more difficult to see. After twenty minutes, the conditions were almost unbearable and she relied on her horse to follow the others in front of them.
“Grace!”
Danny was suddenly alongside Ethan, and it looked like he was trying to slow Tango, who wasn’t having any of it. The horse tossed his head and rolled his eyes as he whinnied in protest to the smoke.
“Ethan! We have to keep moving,” Danny urged, refusing to even consider that Grace was lost. She was a smart dog. She’d be okay.
Sam and Tom appeared then, looking like ghostly apparitions in the haze. Tom grabbed at Tango’s reins, yanking them out of Ethan’s grasp. Without a word, Tom expertly spun his horse around and took off without a word, leading Tango and Ethan away. They disappeared in seconds into the dense smoke.
“I’ll get her,” Sam yelled, before slapping Danny’s mare on the hindquarters.
“Sam!” Danny didn’t have a chance to stop him. He was already retreating back the way they’d come, calling for Grace.
Danny’s horse turned in a circle, unsure of which way to go. She clung to the saddle horn, tears of fear adding to the burn in her eyes. She couldn’t lose Sam and Grace. She just couldn’t. “Sam! Grace! Please…come back!” her voice cracked, burning from the smoke and projecting as barely more than a whisper.
They were gone, and in their place a red haze was beginning to tinge the smoke, like someone had opened the gates of hell and it was beckoning to her. Danny had no choice but to turn away from it and urge her horse in the other direction, where Tom and Ethan disappeared.
As Danny and her horse spurred into motion, she heard what might have been barking in the distance. It was the only thing that compelled her to hold on as they attempted to outrun the fire, heading for an uncertain fate.
Chapter 3
PATTY
Mercy City Hall, Montana
Patty was unable to hold back a shuddering sob as she reached up and erased the numbers 652 from the whiteboard with a shaking hand. Picking up the green marker, she gripped it like a knife, and then steadied it with her left hand while writing 640. Six hundred and forty people left alive in Mercy, and that was counting the family of three who had finally made it back home three days ago. A young family who had found themselves stranded in Helena during the flashpoint. A family known to Patty and many others, so there was no hesitation to allow them inside their protected community. It ending up causing the death of more than a dozen other people.
Patty turned to face the city council and committee members. They were all somber, and several of them had been personally impacted by the deaths. Some blamed her. It was particularly hard to meet their piercing stares, but she did. As the mayor, they were right that it had been her responsibility to keep them safe, and she failed.
“We never should have started letting people in,” Gary declared.
Patty squinted at the councilman. While they’d been getting along better lately, she had never stopped being wary of him. “It’s not that straightforward, and you know it.”
“Patty’s right,” Sandy offered. “The Andersons are from Mercy. They belong here. We can’t prevent people from coming home. What about when my son and grandson get back?” she barked at Gary, turning on him. “Because I dare you to try and turn him away!”
If the situation hadn’t been so appalling, Patty might have grinned and taken some pleasure in watching Gary shrink away from Sandy Miller. She certainly wasn’t someone you wanted to challenge.
“Now, Sandy, no one is saying they wouldn’t want to let Tom in,” Ned Allen intervened. The former mayor had a way of calming the roughest waters and he could do it with just the tone of his voice. “I believe Patty and Dr. Olsen have already come up with a reasonable solution.”
Patty nodded thankfully at Ned and wished for about the hundredth time that he would take her up on her request to step into his old role. If not for her sense of duty and fulfilling the job she’d been elected to, Patty would gladly walk away from the overwhelming responsibility, especially after the past two days. “Melissa,” she directed to the doctor, who was seated on a chair at the back of the room. “Can you please fill everyone in on exactly what’s happened over the past seventy-two hours and how it’s being addressed?”
Melissa stood slowly, looking stiff and tired. Her eyes were hollow and her complexion was pale and splotchy. The doctor’s normally shiny brown hair was oily and pulled back into a bun. The fact that she came to the meeting wearing gloves caused everyone to give her a wide berth.
“I’m not sick, or contagious,” Melissa started, trying to dispel any fear. “I’ve set up a rigorous decontamination procedure and the bacteria isn’t airborne.”
“How do you know that?” Sheriff Waters asked, not looking convinced.
The doctor’s expression was grim. “Because if it were, we’d be dealing with an epidemic that would already be running rampant. It would have the potential to kill nearly all of us.”
Patty closed her eyes and groaned inwardly as the buzz of nervous conversation broke out. She knew this was going to be hard, but it could possibly be even worse than she’d thought it would be. “Please, everyone, we all need to listen to Dr. Olsen.”
Melissa smiled weakly at Patty and cleared her throat as the room quieted down. “Mr. and Mrs. Anderson arrived with their five-year-old daughter, Clara, three days ago. At the time they went through the checkpoint and were happily granted access to their home in Mercy, they didn’t report any illness. When I spoke with the two guards on duty that day, they remembered the little girl was being carried by her father and looked lethargic, but they all figured it was from the radiation.”
More murmuring erupted and Melissa clapped her hands, clearly frustrated with the short attention span of the other people in the room. Patty was worried about her friend. Melissa had been through more since the flashpoint than any of them, and had probably been awake for over forty-eight hours.
Once she had the majority of the room looking at her, Melissa began again. “Em woke me up at two a.m. the next morning, after having received all three members of the Anderson family at the school—I mean at the hospital.” The mention of Dr. Olsen’s assistant dispelled any more chatter. Em had been one of the first victims of the illness. “When the family first came in, Em thought it was radiation illness, but quickly realized it was something more virulent, either a virus or bacteria. When the little girl took a dramatic turn for the worse, she ran to get me. Since Em already thought it might be a contagion, we took the proper precautions at that point. Unfortunately, it was too late for some of the other patients in the hospital, and the bacteria was already passed on.”
“I don’t understand how it happened so fast,” Fire Chief Martinez pressed. “And how did it spread to so many other people if it isn’t airborne?”
Melissa raised her hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not going to pretend to have all of the answers. I have no way of knowing what it is we’re actually dealing with, but I feel fairly c
ertain, based on the extremely rapid incubation period of twelve to twenty-four hours, that it must be bacterial. It was likely spread by the other patients there that night using the same bathroom, or even touching the doorknobs. The bacteria is incredibly virulent and I’ve never seen anything like it. It appears to directly attack the intestines and their lining, causing the patient to literally hemorrhage fluids. If it isn’t cholera, then it’s something closely related.”
“May the good Lord have mercy on us,” Paul gasped, crossing himself and looking at his friend, Gary. Patty wasn’t sure how Paul knew anything about cholera, but she figured he’d watched a documentary at some point in his life.
“I thought cholera was eradicated!” Someone from the back of the room shouted the question.
Melissa shook her head. “There hasn’t been a documented case in the States since sometime in the early nineteen hundreds, but worldwide there were more than a million cases just last year. But like I said, it may be something similar. They stopped and camped with another family the day before they got to Mercy, and shared their water. It was supposed to have been boiled, but my guess is that was likely the source.
Either way, if Em and I had known right away what we were dealing with and had the appropriate medication and supplies to treat it, we could have prevented most of the deaths.”
“We’re probably lucky only half of them died,” Caleb offered.
“I don’t know if I would call any of this lucky,” Gary whined. “Can you at least prevent anyone else from dying since you know about it now?”
Melissa shifted uneasily from foot to foot and glanced over at Patty before answering. “If I had the proper supplies, I could, yes.” She crossed her arms over her chest then and let out a heavy sigh. “Unfortunately, we’ve used up all of our IV fluids, all of our anti-nausea meds, and most of our antibiotics. I’ll be lucky if I can treat a mild case of food poisoning, let alone a bacteria that kills in less than a day.”