Pestilence Rising

by Lea Ryan

  Chapter 5

   

  “Hunter!”

  I fell awake in the front seat of the truck, feverish, delirious, heart pounding. Outside was dark.

  “Where am I?”

  A crash from behind sent the cab lurching forward. The seat belt strained against me and my aching shoulder. Headlights from the truck on our bumper cast swinging shadows on the roof and the dash.

  “They caught up to us.” She said.

  I saw double and nearly vomited. Celeste swerved around a corner, then overcompensated the other direction. She corrected just in time to keep us from careening through a guardrail that blurred in the night. She wasn't experienced enough to handle the chase.

  The headlights receded only to fly forward again as the Center SUV rammed into us. The rear window cracked.

  A gun fired, a pop barely audible over the roar of the engine and the rain pouring on the roof.

  “They're shooting at us.”

  I remembered the idea I had earlier, that there might be a gun stashed in the back. I unbuckled my seat belt.

  “What are you doing? You must sit down right now.” She reached for my leg as I squeezed between the front seats, over the center console. Her hand released me, and she screamed as she swerved to miss an oncoming van in the other lane. I slammed into the back door on my left.

  “Ow. Trust me. I know what I'm doing.”

  Two muzzle flashes from the passenger side of the truck behind us revealed a white suit - Gideon. There was no sound of bullet striking metal, no breaking of glass. We had two possibilities. Either his aim was off or he wasn't targeting the upper part of the truck. He was aiming for the tires.

  Our truck dipped down a steep hill, bouncing me. I felt under the seat for a weapon case. Two more shots.

  “Please come back.” Her voice arced with terror.

  Another hill, another bounce. The tires dipped off the side of the road, flinging gravel up the side of the truck.

  We're going to crash. This idea passed through my mind in a coherent, sensible manner.

  Gideon's next bullet found its mark, and the interior of our truck dissolved into chaos, the crunch of metal, the shattering of glass, and a sensation of flying. Then came cold rain, not against a window, but on my skin and a smell like that of burning rubber.

  “Hunter, wake up.” Llewyn's voice coaxed me into consciousness.

  I put my hand on my head, into a gash swollen with blood desperately trying to clot. The gunshot wound on my arm felt like a paper cut compared to the fresh injuries. My head, my face, a couple of ribs screamed distress signals at my brain. I felt broken all over. How was I alive?

  “Run.” Llewyn prodded me.

  “Can't.”

  I promised myself I wouldn’t fight going to the hospital. I didn't care about police reports anymore. They could arrest me all they wanted if it meant medical professionals would stitch all the wounds closed. Some pain meds too, morphine, that sounded fantastic.

  I had landed in a ditch. On the road several feet above me, steam or smoke or both rose from the truck from which I was ejected. Favoring my good arm, I pushed myself up from the water and the mud. I stood, fell back to my knees and stood again.

  The embankment leading back up to the road may as well have been a mountain. Climbing it took all the strength I had left. The grass was wet, and I slipped every other step.

  Llewyn said, “Run. No one on the road can help you.”

  I saw crumpled metal first. The truck we had been driving was on its side, a front tire spinning in the air. Fluid sprayed from a broken hose. My backpack was on the ground, dirty, covered in shards of glass. I picked it up.

  “Feraste cov neshtee.” Celeste seethed from somewhere nearby.

  I went around the truck.

  “You cannot help her. She'll take you prisoner.” Llewyn warned me.

  Celeste faced two Center thugs with her fists raised in front of her. Her would-be adversaries were hesitating. At first, I thought it was because of the beatings she'd been handing out left and right, but then I noticed that something about her was off. I couldn't figure out what until her head lolled to the side. Shining, silver angel blood coated the side of her face beneath a dent in her skull.

  “You must leave now.” Llewyn again. “You will die.”

  A second SUV was positioned just behind ours. That truck had carried Gideon and Nigel, which meant they were around, assuming they survived the crash. Their vehicle was almost as damaged as ours, fluid leaking onto pavement.

  Llewyn of the glass spoke again, “She is no angel, and she cannot protect you. If you want to see your brother again, you must leave her behind. She won't let you be with us.”

  Celeste had taken the stars from me; I remembered. She yanked me back to the darkness.

  “She's jealous of how special you are.”

  The enforcer on Celeste's left decided to take a swing. She kicked him away and laughed.

  “Run into the field behind you. Escape while you can.”

  I turned. The field was a vast lake under rain.

  If I have to confine you, I will. Were those the words of someone on my side?

  “You will make it but only if you go now.”

  I looked back to Celeste as she landed a devastating right hook to the jaw of the second enforcer. Did I really trust this girl I didn't even know? She seemed real enough but still, I had doubts.

  I slid down the embankment to my ditch. Llewyn's stars appeared on the surface of the flood, a spinning mass of golden flecks. They laughed, a pure, tinkling sound and sped off.

  “Wait.” I kept my voice low, so no one on the road would hear me.

  I followed them into knee-deep water over uneven ground, aware that a drop-off into murky depths might lie somewhere ahead, beneath the smooth surface. I didn't care enough to let that possibility stop me. I wouldn't lose the stars again.

  “Hunter!” Celeste called my name, her voice eerily mournful. Remorse for abandoning her tugged at my conscience, but I needed to press on. I had no choice, really. I couldn't travel with someone I didn't trust, especially with the stakes so high.

  I put the backpack strap over my good shoulder and a hand over the bullet hole that bled a fresh stream down my arm. Several yards out, disorientation came back with a vengeance, like my drunkest night amplified a hundred times over. That coupled with the effort required to wade through the water, I wouldn't make it to the other side before I passed out.

  I kept myself awake by remembering what it was like to drown, the air close yet unobtainable.

  It happened when Michael was twelve and I was ten. At that age, I knew that when Michael acknowledged my existence, his intentions were never good. He lured me to the river by telling me he'd seen a giant snapping turtle, then when we arrived, he dragged me into the water.

  “I'll bring you right back.” His hands gripped the front of my shirt with a strength that told me he wouldn't let go if I asked him to.

  We stood in the middle of the river. The water was up to my chest. He was taller than me, more athletic than I was, just overall a heartier stock. Panic had all but stolen my voice.

  I made another attempt to squirm away. He held on, a strange look in his eyes, not vicious but very intense, just the same. He was going to do this whether I wanted him to or not.

  “Stop being a pussy. It'll only take a few minutes, then you can go back to doing whatever losers like you do.”

  “Please don't.” My last feeble appeal before he shoved me below the water.

  I thrashed in his grip, sunshine and air just inches from me. I kicked his legs. He didn't react. I couldn’t tell if this was because my kicks were too weak or he was just that intent on drowning me.

  His face was a blur beyond the ripples, leaves and sky above him. I saw myself traveling there, to play among the stars, far and away from my family. No one would hate me there.

  I held my breath as long as I could, which didn't turn out to be long. I s
topped fighting when I felt control slip away.

  Please work. I thought. I didn't want to die. Darkness coiled around me.

  Then I was on the river bank, expelling water for what seemed like forever. Lunch came with it, stomach sympathizing with lungs, and my head throbbed.

  “I told ya it would work.” Michael slapped me on the back twice, and left me there.

  Once the retching subsided, I wiped the snot and spit, river water and vomit from my face and rolled onto my back. The sun warmed me and the soaked clothes clinging to my body. Dad was going to kick my ass into next Thursday for ruining my shoes. Michael would find my punishment hysterical. He always did when he got me into trouble. But I had the sun, and I didn't die.

  No sun warmed the dark field. Behind me, shadows rushed in the light of a fire on the elevated highway. I reminded myself that Celeste could take care of herself. Too bad I couldn't say the same about me.

  I tripped in the water several times, more often the farther I progressed. Each step became more laborious. Each stumble brought new levels of frustration and pain and fear that bacteria would find its way into the multitude of gashes and scrapes. Even if I lived to see the opposite side of the field, I would contract the infection to end all infections.

  The stars had vanished after they led me into the water and shot off into the darkness. Where were they, I wondered, and my wild dogs that had seemed so loyal? Where were they when I needed a rescue? Where was the woman who told me to run - my Llewyn of the glass?

  I shouted into the sky, “I did what you wanted. Where the fuck are you?”

  Illumination appeared on the ground in the distance. It was far, but it gave me hope in the form of a target to strive for. I picked myself up and made for it with new fervency. I wouldn't die this day either, not in the water, not alone in the dark and bleeding.

  I made progress and a building emerged from the night, a store with a neon sign in the window. I arrived at an embankment that was shorter than the one I had descended on the other side of that wet hell. I fell onto my stomach on grass and nearly kissed the ground. I pushed myself back up, limped to the road.

  'Winston's Rx' read the large sign overhead. A drugstore! They had first aid items, pain medication, perhaps an antidote to my Red 72 withdrawal problem.

  The front door slid open. I was bathed in harsh fluorescent light that threatened to destroy the balance I’d regained by being on solid ground. No longer able to handle the weight of anything but my own body, I dropped my backpack.

  The sparkling tile floor leading into the aisles twisted away from me to ramp into rows of gray shelving. I heard every sound with intensity that pounded against my head. Water dripping from me onto the floor, the compressor in the drink cooler next to the register, a radio stashed out of sight, playing a Bob Dylan song.

  “Is anyone here?”

  Heat washed over me. Water on my skin warmed. My brain burned.

  “Is anyone here? Winston?”

  I checked my pocket to see if I still had my wallet. Victory! Like everything else on my person, it was sopping wet all the way to the center. That was okay because a wet debit card was still a debit card.

  Then my tired mind clicked, and I remembered that I could call for an ambulance. Why settle for drugstore ibuprofen if I could get the good stuff? I pulled my phone out of my pocket and water ran out between the seams in the case. It was dead. I found a land line phone behind the cashier counter. I lifted the handset to my ear. No dial tone.

  “Drugstore ibuprofen it is.”

  I went to a nearby drink cooler for a bottle of water, but it was empty. I bypassed a rack of greeting cards for the aisles. The first row of shelves was as barren as the drink cooler. I moved to the next row; the situation was the same. People had cleaned out the store because of the flood. Aisle after aisle, empty. My heart sank. I wouldn't even get some lame-ass over the counter painkillers. No cold medicine, no peroxide or bandages. I couldn't even get a multivitamin.

  Llewyn spoke, “Take heart. There is medicine on the final shelf.”

  I went to the far wall. The only thing there was a crumpled box of motion sickness pills in a shadow.

  “Motion sickness? I could've used something a bit stronger.”

  Llewyn said nothing.

  “Winston, I will gladly pay you for the entire box of pills that probably won't do anything for me.”

  I sat on the floor and ripped the box open with my teeth. The blister pack released the pills with little argument. I swallowed two of them with the same skill level I used with my Center meds, no water.

  I slumped with my back against the shelves to rest. It was such an odd oasis, the drugstore on the other side of the lake. I wished someone were there with me. I could have used some sympathy, some companionship. I would’ve accepted any form of consideration from my fellow man. I wouldn’t have felt so isolated, then.

  I peeled the wet shirt off to wring it out on the floor. I'd already tracked water in. Why not add some more to the mess?

  I got up to check the big cooler at the back for a drink. How ironic. Water, water, everywhere, yet not a drop to drink. When I reached the end of the cooler without any luck, I decided that I should have wrung the shirt out into my mouth. I had the bright idea to check the stockroom. The door at the back of the store was locked.

  I sat on the floor once again, this time lying with my head on the wadded up, wet shirt. I had to admit, I did feel better. The nausea and temperature fluctuation tapered off. Calm settled over me. There was still plenty of pain, but it was dulling under a different breed of sense inhibition. This removal from the harsh reality of the situation was engineered by human hands to provide relief.

  Before long, I was no longer in Winston's drugstore. I was at a ranch house on the upper east side of Chicago on a summer day. The Pontiac was broken again and my dad, a rugged, wiry man who worked at a tire factory, had his head under the heavy hood. He cursed as he ran his hand through his shining black hair. Grease stained his white undershirt and the front of his work pants, residue from leaning over the engine, scooting under the car, and wiping his hands off.

  I hid in the bushes like I always did when he worked on the cars. I loved to watch him. They were magical machines - cars - and their repairs required a fair amount of patience - patience that was shortened significantly if I ran around him on the driveway. So, I hid in the shrub under our kitchen window with a matchbox car in my hand, thumb spinning the plastic wheels, thinking someday I would have a car of my own. I might need to know this stuff.

  That scene faded into another as I dreamed. I was back in the field with coyotes and the stars, no Celeste. The sky overhead was clear and filled with a galaxy that shifted with the wind.

  “Llewyn?”

  I figured she must be there. They were her children, weren't they? I wasn't sure where this idea came from, but I held onto it as the stars began to fall into the field around me. Like a meteor shower in which every light in the sky shot to the Earth, they rained from the heavens, and the coyotes around me howled.