Victor Methos - Pestilence

“Where are the Rangers?” she asked.

“I called Clyde and had them reassigned. You’re clear for a few hours until they send some others.”

Sam was silent a moment. “Thanks,” she finally said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Find a coffee for me, will ya?” She didn’t want one, but she knew it might occupy his mind long enough for her to get the blood. Entering the room, she shut the door behind her, then tore off the tape on the floor that was holding down the canopy.

Slipping underneath, she came up next to her sister and placed her hand on her shoulder. Jane gave her a weak smile and placed her hand over the glove.

Sam swabbed her sister’s left bicep with a cotton swab and alcohol.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

“You still remember, huh?” Jane said.

Samantha thought back to a doctor’s office they had been in when she was twelve and Jane eight. The doctor needed to give her vaccinations, and Jane sprinted out of the room and ran into the parking lot. Their father had to chase her and bring her back. Holding her down, they finally got the injection in by telling her to close her eyes, and Jane passed out.

“What do you do when they have to give you an IV?” Sam asked.

“They’ve never had to. I avoid the damn things as much as possible.”

Sam withdrew a vial of the black-red blood, and it splashed up as it filled the tube. She capped and sealed it, then ducked under the canopy and went over to a sink. She washed both the bag and the vial of blood with water and then the sodium hypochlorite. She placed the vial in the bag and threw the syringe into a biohazard trash bin.

“I’ll be right back,” Sam said.

No showers were set up for decontamination, so Sam had to use the one in the room. When she finished washing the suit, she stepped out and went to the supply closet to get dressed.

The hematology department was on a different floor, and she carefully carried the plastic container in both hands as she went to the elevators. A custodian was on there with her, and he was humming to himself. It seemed so out of place for the moment that Sam couldn’t help but watch him. He smiled at her as he stepped off onto his floor.

Hematology was empty up front. Sam walked behind the front desk and toward the back. Sitting at a table with various vials, tubes, and microscopes set up in front of him was a man with orange hair and a goatee. He was writing on a notepad, and Sam walked in and placed the plastic bag down on the table.

“You need to test this,” she said. “For an unknown pathogen resembling smallpox.”

The man was confused for a second, and then his eyes widened. “Holy shit, you brought that here like that?”

“Test it now, please. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“There’s different kinds of smallpox virion, and most are morphologically indistinguishable from the others. I can’t tell you what I’d be looking at.”

“You have to do negative staining. Do you have an electron microscope here?”

“Well, yeah, but I would need some sort of scab or skin sample from an infected patient to do it.”

“You have two people infected upstairs. I’ll get you the skin sample. You just get everything ready.”

As she was walking out, the doctor said, “Hey, who the hell are you anyway?”

“I’m with the CDC… and I’m that patient’s sister.”

After speeding away in the jeep, Howie was going so fast that he nearly lost control and tipped over on a sharp turn. He slowed down and noticed the sky. No choppers. He glanced to his daughter in the passenger seat and saw that her hand was on his knee.

“You okay?” he said.

“Yeah. Mike looked after me.”

Howie glimpsed in the rearview. “Thanks,” he said.

“No problem.”

After driving in silence for a few more minutes, Howie realized he was hungry. An Italian place called Cosimo’s was up near the intersection, and he pulled around back and parked in the handicap section.

“I don’t think they’ll mind,” he said, looking at his daughter.

“What’re we doing here?” Mike said.

“You guys hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Let’s go. I’ll whip something up.”

The restaurant was open. They walked in through the front door, and Jessica went to turn on the lights, but Howie told her not to. They would have to eat in the dark.

“See if you can find some candles, though,” he said.

Walking to the kitchen, Howie saw food still out on the tables. A dish of gelato had melted and was soaking the tablecloth. Everyone had gotten out of there in a hurry.

Mike came with him as Jessica lagged behind. The lights in the kitchen as well as the grill and oven were still on. He turned them off and went to the fridge on the other side of the room. Taking out some beef, pasta, and vegetables, he then found the olive oil and cooked macaroni with sauce.

Mike stood in the corner and chewed on some bread with butter. “Where we heading?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking out of the state. See if whatever’s happening here is happening there, too.”

“I heard all the highways are closed. How you planning on getting out?”

“We got a jeep. We’ll fill her up and try the desert.”

“You want to risk driving through the desert on one tank of gas?”

“I don’t know what to do, Mike. I’ve never been in this situation before. If you got a better idea, by all means, share.”

Mike took another bite of the bread. “I was in Iraq.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“No, you wouldn’t. We had taken this small town, called Karim. The insurgents, that’s what we were forced to call them, they had taken the town, and we got it back. It took four days. Two days of no sleep. Some o’ the guys took amphetamines to stay awake, and it did things to their minds. No sleep and drugs aren’t the best solution to anything, but we were young. So we take the town. And we decide we don’t know who’s with them and who’s with us, so we impose a curfew and patrol the streets. Anyone suspected of working with the insurgents was rounded up, and we turned this mosque into like a camp for them.

“At first, the people were happy. They hated the insurgents more than we did. One guy told me they were all Arabians, and what the fuck did he care about Arabians. But after a while, we started acting… different. I don’t know what it is or why it happens, but once you got power over someone, you start treating ’em different. Like they ain’t even human. A lot of horrible things started happenin’, especially with the women.”

He swallowed and placed the bread down on the counter. His eyes were lost, staring into nothing as he spoke, and Howie didn’t interrupt him.

“So after a little bit, the people started fighting us. They thought they’d just exchanged one conquering army for another. And that’s when the suicide bombings started. We took an entire village that loved us and made it so they would rather blow themselves up than live with us. That’s what happens. That’s what’ll happen here, and lots of people are going to get killed.”

Howie didn’t say anything for a while as he coated a pan in olive oil, and then he turned to the stove and fired it up. He didn’t know what to say, so he cooked instead, and Mike went to another fridge down a hallway.

Howie watched Mike go to a metal door with a lock on it, and he searched for something to break it open with. After finding a hammer and other tools in a box, he slammed the hammer into the lock until it clinked to the ground. The fridge was a walk-in and he found some beer and brought out six bottles, placing them on the counter. He popped open the first one and took a long drink.