Pestilence Rising

by Lea Ryan

  * * *

  I'm in the farmhouse, golden lamplight pushing back the night. Quiet. Crickets outside. The windows are open, the front door intact. A muscle-bound, buzz cut-wearing ape of a man in camouflage kicks in the front door. His arms are covered in tattoos. The dark creeps onto the foyer at his heels. Three other men, dressed like him, follow. They find Michael in the kitchen, grab him by his arm before he can react to their presence. Sarah calls my brother's name from upstairs.

  He says to them, “I told Llewyn I’m not interested.”

  Buzz-cut doesn't take no for an answer. He holds my brother by the back of his hair to seethe into his face, “Come quietly or we’ll shoot your girlfriend in the stomach.”

  Despite his torment of me, Michael was never a fighter. He never had violence of this level inflicted on him. He's too stunned to resist, and they drag him from the house as Sarah watches.

  I awoke on my stomach on the sofa, a breeze from the window blowing across my back, bringing with it sprinkles of rain. A headache just above my eyes pounded. I did a quick assessment. Was I hurting other than the headache? The gunshot wound emitted a simmering pain, as did my various newer injuries from the car accident.

  The only fresh discomfort came from my wrists. I pulled them up to take a look. Deep cuts crossed preexisting scratches from the car accident the night before.

  I ran through the last events I remembered. The porch. Gideon. Celeste. Michael. I almost fell in my urgency to get to my feet. The floor lifted and settled, and I steadied my balance on the arm of the sofa. Dots of light and dark swam before my eyes.

  “Celeste?” I felt drunk with the effort I had to put into making myself heard. I got hold of my voice and tried again, “Celeste?” What would I do if they killed her?

  No. I wouldn't have been there if she was dead. I would've woken up at the Center, in a cell. I rubbed my sore wrists. They must have bound me with zip ties. That was usually step two of the tranquilizer routine. Dart then hog-tie with plastic, like a wild animal. It was a demeaning position to be in.

  I also realized how demeaning the term 'anomaly' really was. They instituted the designation as a kind of removal from the human race. Who the hell did Center management think they were? These thoughts were out of place in that situation. Maybe my brain had been waiting for some real down time to get the bits and pieces of logic in order.

  The tear gas was completely gone. I was thankful for that as I reached the foyer and peered out the door into the rainy day. The air smelled fresh and clean, the way it should. The SUV I lusted after earlier waited on the lawn for me to drive it away.

  There came a rhythmic thump sound from the kitchen - three times, slowly. Thump, thump, thump. It paused for a couple of seconds. Then again, thump, thump, thump.

  They would have come in to search for Celeste. I scanned the foyer for something that could be used as a weapon. Celeste had a gun that was almost empty when we hid under the front window. I tossed it aside because it only had one bullet. I made a quick trip back to the living room and was rewarded with a loaded pistol.

  The thumping resumed.

  I entered the kitchen and discovered Gideon tied to a chair with his hands behind him. Her back to me, Celeste sat across the table from him, eating one of the biggest sandwiches I'd ever seen. She had changed her clothes to a flowing tank top with flowers printed all over it and a pair of jeans. I walked up and yanked the tag off the back of the shirt. She had cut a v-shaped hole to make room for her wings. They had sprouted fresh bones and joints, their construction more complete.  

  “My other clothes were ruined.”

  Gideon glared at me. I smiled at the sight of the bruises on his face and the blood stains on the front of the white suit. His guns and phone were just out of his reach on the table.

  “You're a dead man, Tomlinson.” He had never called me by my last name before. Rage colored his face scarlet.

  Another round of thumping came from a broom closet next to the refrigerator.

  “Nigel?” I guessed.

  Celeste nodded, “I locked him in there. How are you feeling?”

  “I could be worse.” I went to the refrigerator and pulled out a sandwich of my own.

  “You were unconscious for a couple of hours. They will come looking for their men.”

  “I'm kind of surprised they aren't here already. What's up with that, Gideon?” I sat near him but on the table rather than in a chair. I liked that arrangement, me looking down on him for once.

  “The operation wasn't sanctioned by Center leadership. They're preoccupied with a bigger threat.”

  I took a seat in the chair next to him, “Interesting. What would that be?”

  “Fuck off. I'm not telling you a thing, traitor.”

  “Traitor? You attacked me in my apartment.”

  “Because you were harboring the most powerful anomaly we've ever seen.”

  “She's an angel, not an anomaly.”

  “Still buying into that fairy tale?”

  “You're still denying it? Look at her.”

  Celeste smirked and spread her recovering wings wide for him to see.

  “She's a freak of nature, just like the rest of you.”

  “Let's get back to this bigger threat you mentioned. Does it, by chance, have anything to do with people sporting tattoos of foreign writing?”

  That got his attention. He sat up straighter in his chair to ask, “How do you know about that?”

  “A woman named Llewyn helped me escape from you at the motel. She called the phone I had turned off.”

  Gideon clenched his jaw, saying nothing. He wasn't going to give me any more info without coercion. I stifled the urge to punch him and opted instead to save my knuckles. I had a new trick to show him.

  “Do you remember my classification?”

  “Yes.” He shifted uneasily.

  “I didn't ravage your men earlier because I was afraid if I let the sickness out, it would spread too far and hurt the family down the street. I can show you the skill I picked up, now that we’re so very close to each other. Just before you got here, I used it to help someone die, at her request.”

  “Guess we can add murderer to your rap sheet.”

  Anger sparked within me. Suddenly, the information I sought became less important than the fun I would have hurting Gideon. I glanced over at Celeste who must have sensed my intent. She observed me warily. I wondered if she would stop me if I started to go too far.

  “I guess you can. I was able to concentrate my ravage on one person because I had physical contact. So with you here, I don't need to worry about hurting anyone else.” I locked eyes with my Center supervisor, “I want to know everything you do about Llewyn and the men working for her. You have ten seconds to start talking.”

  Nigel shouted, “He'll die before he tells you!” The door received a kick, “Release us or you will face execution.”

  “Shut up or you're next.” I said.

  Celeste spoke up, “Violence without provocation is unacceptable. Without valid reason, you're no better than them.”

  “I just need to get some answers, then we'll be on our way.”

  “Have you ever wondered why we chose you to work for us?” Gideon asked. “Of all the anomalies we've rounded up over the years, you were one of only a handful that demonstrated the traits we used to identify potential employees: a lack of compassion for fellow anomalies, a potential for violence and a wide streak of cowardice. You touch me while I’m tied to a chair, you prove us right on two of three counts.”

  “Stop trying to change the subject.” I stood behind him with my hands near the sides of his head. “Who is Llewyn?”

  No response.

  I touched my fingers to his temples. The sickness flowed through me into him. His shoulders slumped and his head flopped to the side.

  Celeste looked horrified, “I don't like what you're doing.” She left the room with tears in her eyes.

  Gideon made a strangled, ch
oking sound. I released him, and he panted like a dog and drooled on the table.

  “Fuuuuckyu.” He struggled through wheezing to get the slurred words out.

  I went around to the side of the table to get a look at him. Blackness infested his skin. His face sagged, mouth drooping open.

  My breath caught in my throat. I had only ravaged him for seconds. The effect of my anger was so potent I had almost killed him.

  “Happy?” He laughed drunkenly.

  Nigel threw his weight into the closet door. Celeste reappeared at my side.

  “I should stop him.” She started toward the door, but I put out my arm.

  “Let him come out. He won’t go far without his boss.”

  A couple more kicks, and Nigel was free. He ran to Gideon's side to tilt his partner's face up for inspection.

  “I always told him you were a bad idea.” He pointed at me, “This is why we lock up people like you.”

  “Tell me what I want to know, and I'll leave.”

  “No!” Gideon protested, but then did a face-plant on the table. He was unconscious.

  Nigel sighed, “Llewyn is a high priestess of a cult in Damascus, Oklahoma. The members are all healers and ravagers who live in a compound at the edge of a nature preserve.”

  She took Michael there to be with them, an unwilling addition to the family.

  Nigel went on, “We believe she's forming an army. For what purpose, we don't yet know. We stepped up our apprehension of anomalies, in part, to keep them from her.”

  “What has the Center done to stop her?”

  “We can't get close. She has a team of fighters she calls 'guardians'. They're as strong as our men, but most of them are ravagers. They have a distinct advantage. Short of blowing the place to smithereens, we can do nothing.”

  “And you can't do that because you'll draw attention to your shady asses. The world will find out you've been kidnapping people.”

  “Not kidnapping. You should understand that by now. Imagine a bunch of you running amuck in the general populace. Imagine this,” he motioned to Gideon, “on a grand scale.”

  I hated to admit that he had a point. How many innocent lives could be lost to a psychotic ravager? I could probably wipe out a couple city blocks if I really lost control.

  “Fair enough. We're going to pay a visit to the cult. I’ll share what I find out. I want you to call the Center and tell them what I'm doing, so they'll back off. I don't want any more chases. No more bullets flying at me.”

  Nigel seemed conflicted about the deal, but he agreed, “I'll see what I can do.” He knelt behind Gideon to loosen the rope.

  “I want the truck you arrived in, too.”

  He scowled.

  “You have the van and the SUV we drove. It's not like you don't have a ride.”

  He muttered profanely as he fished the keys from his pocket and tossed them to me.

  I changed upstairs and packed some of my brother's clothes. We were still about the same size, except he was a little taller. I passed over a bunch of suits and preppy attire for a hoodie, some t-shirts and jeans. I helped myself to the phone on his dresser. He probably wouldn't mind me using it as part of the effort to rescue him.

  I picked up a framed picture of him and Sarah at a formal social function. It must have been taken when she was healthier because her hair was full, her coloring healthy. I repressed a pang of jealousy. I never had a girlfriend like that.

  “Report what you find at the compound to me.” Nigel handed me his phone number on a slip of paper. “I'll have a better chance of keeping management calm if I give them updates.”

  “Got it.” I descended the stairs to the lawn, “Thanks, Nige. I guess you aren't useless after all.”

  “I recommend you avoid screwing up.”

  The truck handled the flooded end of the driveway like it was a puddle. Since the rain had started, the girls at the house down the way were relegated to playing on the front porch. They waved as we passed, and I waved back, happy to see that they remained unaffected. Llewyn had given me a kind of gift by telling me how to control the ravage.

  I searched the GPS for a list of previously programmed destinations and was rewarded with the nature preserve location. Then, we were off, back down the country road toward the highway.

  Celeste gazed out the window, looking forlorn. I let her sulk for a while before I finally asked what was wrong.

  “He said he chose you because you were violent. What did he mean?”

  I had hoped she didn't pay attention to that part of the conversation.

  “I was almost nineteen when Gideon found me. My dad kicked me out all of ten seconds after I graduated high school. I guess he considered his parental obligation fulfilled. Really, I'm lucky we made it that far without killing each other. I lived on the streets. There's this area of town, called the District, with galleries and fancy restaurants and shops. I hung out there a lot and started sleeping under a bridge.”

  Like a troll, I remembered telling someone jokingly. The situation was only supposed to be temporary, but it dragged on for a couple of months. Dinnertime was especially tough, when the aroma of grilled steak drifted over and all I had to eat was what I could salvage from the dumpsters.

  “I got drunk and into a fight with some of my fellow bridge-dwellers. They stole leftovers given to me by a woman I met on the street. I don't make a habit of picking fights, but they pushed me over the edge. Do you know what it’s like to be so hungry that the worth of a person’s well-being becomes less than that of eating?

  I came really close to killing one guy, the ringleader, almost took out some bystanders, too. Gideon and his crew showed up and hauled me in. I resented him, but removing me from that environment saved lives.”

  She said nothing and went back to staring out the window at the passing landscape. I wondered what she thought about during the course of that ride, highways and bridges, the only sounds the rain, the windshield wipers and the occasional direction from the car's GPS. She was given that mission to learn how to relate to humans, and she was assigned to me, a bad guy by angel standards, surely.

  The downpour lightened as we exited onto a county highway leading to winding roads, hills and forests. Dusk deepened the gray. We passed the sign for the nature preserve on our right. Beyond a low, wire fence, a snow-white crane stood in a meadow of densely packed weeds and wildflowers swaying in the breeze.

  “How do you plan to approach them?” Celeste finally looked at me.

  “I thought we'd be lucky just to get here. What do you think I should do?”

  “Not what you did to Gideon.”

  “Okay, okay. I know that wasn't cool. I'm not what he said I am. Do you believe him?”

  “All humans have the capacity to do terrible things. None of you seem to know your strength.”

  “Maybe if we make friendly, I can figure out what's going on with Michael. The Center wants information, anyway. I vote we come in peace.”

  The GPS voice stated that we had arrived at our destination at a dirt road leading back into the trees. A fence marked the boundary of the nature preserve. To our left, the wilds continued to reign as if that boundary didn't exist at all.

  We crossed a bridge leading over a creek, and then we hit a patch of swampy ground that rocked the truck. The trees broke, and we came to a tall fence. The iron gate opened without us having to request entry.

  The tower at the front of the compound rose like a tall, sandstone sentinel, the architecture a blend of modern church and pueblo. We drove onto wet blacktop and up to the entrance where the man who had abducted my brother stood.