Victor Methos - Pestilence

Sam stood silently for a long time as Duncan leaned close to the screen, observing the boy.

“This is monstrous,” she said.

The general nodded. “It’s… a trade-off. That’s for sure. And no patchouli-smelling hippie was more against it than I was. But I have to follow orders.”

“And what happens if someone tries to leave the state?” Duncan asked.

“They’ll be arrested.”

“Really?” Sam said. “A bunch of young soldiers are going to risk infection of the worst disease we’ve ever seen to stop a person from leaving? They’re going to shoot them, Clyde.”

“Only if they don’t lie down and do what they’re told. This is the American military, not the Visigoths.”

“How did this happen?” Duncan finally asked.

“Someone from your little island in the Pacific got to the mainland. Three of them actually. Two of them died. One was alive for twenty-seven hours before she was…” He looked from one to the other. “Before she was eliminated. In those twenty-seven hours, she infected one other person, which led to this. Luckily, all of the original patients went immediately to the hospital as they’d heard about the symptoms, so we got them quarantined early.”

She glanced at the boy on the screen. His eyes were halfway open as he slipped in and out of consciousness. “There is no way this agent was contained.”

“Why not?”

“I saw it destroy Hawaii in less than three days. It’s so contagious, just breathing the same air as an infected person could cause inhalation of the virus. I’ve never seen that. Not even with Ebola.”

Olsen glanced at them both. “We’ve been developing something that could help us. It’s almost ready for use, we think.”

“What is it?” Duncan said.

“A vaccine.”

Katherine Helmond sat in the driver’s seat of her Audi at a red light and glanced at the other cars around her. One was full of twenty-something boys, who smiled at her and motioned for her to roll down the window. She turned and faced forward.

“Roll it down,” Ian said.

“Why?”

“They’ve enough balls to flirt with someone with another man in the car. Let’s see what they say.”

“I don’t want to.”

Ian reached across her, leaning his arm against her chest, and his touch sent an icy chill down her spine as the window slowly withdrew into the door.

“Hey,” one of the boys shouted, “why don’t you come hop in with us?”

“Go ahead,” Ian said.

“What d’ya mean?”

“Go get in with them.”

She glanced at the men, and they were staring awkwardly at her, like adolescent boys who had never seen a girl before. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m telling you to get into the car with them. Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

She glanced from him to the car and back.

“Better hurry before the light turns,” he said.

She hesitated only a moment before opening the door and stepping out. The boy who had been speaking cheered, and his two friends were laughing. She glanced back at Ian, who was grinning calmly.

She ran over and jumped into the backseat. As the car pulled away, the boy in the passenger seat flipped Ian off and said, “What’s up, nerd.”

Katherine glanced back at her Audi. The car wasn’t moving, and Ian was still sitting in the passenger seat. She turned forward, and the boy in the passenger turned around and said, “What’s your name, sugar?”

“Don’t slow down,” she said. “Keep going.”

“We’re heading to a party down in West Hol’. You down?”

She scanned behind her. The Audi wasn’t there.

Katherine saw only the headlights as they veered out of a side street, barreling toward the car she was in. She barely got out a scream before the Audi impacted against the sedan and sent it spinning into the intersection. Another car came from the other lane, blaring its horn as it tried to swerve, and clipped the sedan. The boy in the passenger seat flew out the window, his legs twisting unnaturally as his body squeezed through the small opening.

When the motion had stopped, her head hurt from hitting the roof. The boy next to her lay on top of her, unconscious, his head dribbling blood down over his face. She pushed him off, feeling pain in her wrists as she did so. The driver was groaning, and the flesh on the side of his head was exposed, spraying blood.

Her door opened and she stepped out, dizzy and with blood in her eyes. Someone grabbed her wrist, but she was too disoriented to scream. Only vague images filled her line of sight. Two people were shouting, and the spit from a silenced pistol followed, and then silence. She was forced into the driver’s seat of an unfamiliar car, and someone sat next to her.

“You okay?” Ian asked.

“No.”

“Let me drive.”

She switched seats, still unsure where she was and what she was doing. Only motion and unclear pictures and colors were in her world, and she laid her head back and went to sleep.

When she woke, Katherine was in a hospital bed. The sheets were rough against her sensitive skin, and the lighting was too bright. She closed her eyes tightly, then rolled to the side and reopened them. A chubby nurse with blond hair was checking her IV.

“Where am I?”

The nurse smiled at her and came to the side of her bed. “You’re in Good Samaritan. How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts.”

She adjusted something and pressed a button. “That should help. Do you remember what happened?”

“I remember a car hitting us… not much else. Somebody in the seat next to me.”

“It was probably your brother. He left for a bit but said he would be back.”

“My brother?”

Images flooded her mind. She remembered a woman’s neck breaking, someone shot to death at his door… and a man who laughed at all of it.

“You have to call the police,” she said, panic rising in her voice. “I was kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped by who, dear?”

“That man who said he was my brother. He kidnapped me. He was the one that caused the car wreck. Please, you have to call the police.” She grabbed the nurse’s hand. “Please. Please!”

“Okay, sweetheart. Okay, calm down. I’ll call them, okay? You just sit tight. Okay? Can you do that for me?”

“Don’t leave me alone,” she said, nearly bursting into tears.

“Sweetheart, there’s twenty people right outside this room. He’s not going to do anything. We’re going to take you down for your MRI in a minute anyway.”

“Please don’t leave.”

“Okay, hold on. Hold on.” The nurse lifted the pager strapped to her shoulder. “Amanda, you there?”

Howie drove so slowly, he wouldn’t have been surprised if someone jogged past him. The streets were empty. The trucks and Humvees were using just the highways. But the choppers were always overhead, like vultures scavenging for a meal. Whenever lights flickered in the sky, he would pull to the curb and duck across the seats until the lights moved on.

Howie grew discouraged, knowing that Malibu was forty-two miles away and that the only way to get there was the Pacific Coast Highway. How was he going to dodge choppers on the PCH?

As he drove, he observed the empty houses, and a creeping feeling of melancholy and dread overtook him. It had taken so little to tear apart his entire world. The government had just decided to act, and he would never be the same. The most frightening part was imagining how far the government was going with this. Was the entire state shut down? Had they closed the whole country?

A chopper angled overhead, and he pulled into a driveway, parked, and turned off the car. The chopper banked left, sending the light down around him and flooding the car before disappearing over the tops of the trees. He didn’t move for a long time. As he sat back up, he realized getting to Malibu like this was impossible. At this rate, he would need at least a day, and he certainly didn’t want to be driving during daylight.