Victor Methos - Plague

“Whoa, whoa, dude, look I just-”

Robert raised his weapon, pointed at Richie’s throat. He took a step forward and Richie screamed.

“You sound like a girl. At least try to have some dignity when you die.”

“I’ll give the money back,” he said frantically, taking a few steps back and realizing he’d pinned himself against the garbage bins. “I’ll give all of it back.”

“No, no, not enough. What else you got?”

“My girl, yo, my girl is hot yo. I’ll let you fuck her, man. I’ll let you do it.”

“Sex doesn’t interest me. You’re running out of time.”

“Um,” he said, panicked, “ah, um, I can find the dude that has the box.”

Robert stood frozen, he didn’t move and didn’t speak for what seemed like a long time. Then he lowered the pistol by his side. “Now you’ve got my attention. How do you plan to find him?”

“I got his license plate. Just in case I needed it.”

“If he had any brains it was a rental or a fake plate.”

“No, there was two cars. One of ‘em was parked where they thought I couldn’t see it. I got the plate to that too and they were Hawaii plates.”

Robert smiled. “Richie, you are impressing me more and more every second. Where’s the number?”

“First you gotta promise not to kill me.”

“If I’m the type of person that can kill you, I probably won’t have any problem breaking a promise, but okay, I’ll play along. I promise I will not kill you if you give me the plate number.”

Richie pulled out his phone. He held it in front of him and Robert took it, noticing that Richie’s hands were shaking. Robert memorized the number and letter sequence and then handed the phone back to Richie.

“You’ve been very helpful, Richie. You’re free to go.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Robert turned and began walking away down the sidewalk. He heard footsteps fading in the distance behind him.

Robert stopped, and closed his eyes. He listened intensely to the footfalls. They were far apart; Richie was taking long strides. He wasn’t zig-zagging and he hadn’t run down the alley. He was running directly behind Robert in the opposite direction.

Robert spun, his weapon up, and fired three shots. Two hit their mark and Richie collapsed onto the pavement. If he would’ve zigged and zagged, Robert may not have been able to hit him.

“Maybe you weren’t as smart as I thought,” Robert said aloud, putting his weapon away. He began walking back to his hotel, humming to himself.

Samantha awoke and, for a single, terrifying moment, didn’t know where she was. The hotel room suddenly didn’t look familiar. She had been back in Atlanta only a moment ago, taking care of her mother’s funeral arrangements, staring down into the casket at the face of the woman who had raised her. The face appeared as a mask, like it had been painted on. The spirit that had animated it was no longer there and it was no more different, or beautiful, than a table or a chair.

It took a few moments but the events of the previous weeks flooded back into her mind as she watched the sunlight streaming through the windows of her room. She rose and walked to them, looking down on the streets below.

The first thing that struck her was the growth of the vegetation. Lawns were unmowed and hedges untrimmed. Ralph was right: nature was slowly and steadily taking back what was hers.

She took a quick shower and then filled a few buckets she had gotten from a hardware store with water. It was uncertain how long utilities would remain on since maintenance crews were growing slimmer and slimmer.

She went out to her bike and checked her gas gauge; about half a tank left. She decided to walk instead. The gas stations had all been closed as well. Not because of orders, but because no gas shipments were coming in and they had ran out of reserves within a week. She didn’t know when she would need her bike and it wasn’t worth the gas to save the mile and a half walk from the hotel.

There were no clouds today and the sun broiled the city as heat waves bounced off the cement and cooked the streets.

The city appeared like a Hollywood movie set. Without people to animate it there was just cement, steel, and wood. The wind rustled through the streets and bits of trash flew with it. She hadn’t noticed it before but the level of trash was increasing every day despite people not being out as much. She couldn’t walk more than a couple of feet without some debris on the sidewalk in front of her. Even a week ago, she had been impressed with how clean Honolulu was compared to other American cities.

There was some commotion behind her. She glanced around to see three young men walking in her direction but on the opposite side of the street. They were dressed in normal clothing; they weren’t military. Since the majority of the police force was either ill or had quit their jobs so as not to become ill, military were the only ones that were out in public.

Sam faced forward again and continued walking. She had tried to call her mother last night but the nurse had let it go to voicemail. Caring for someone full time was exhausting, both mentally and physically. Sam didn’t fault her for sometimes turning the phone off and taking a nap. As long as her mother’s needs were looked after, she didn’t expect her nurse to be superhuman.

The voices she had heard were closer now and she looked behind her again. The men had crossed over to her side of the street. They were now staring at her and walking at a quick pace. The absence of police presence came barreling at her. Wilson’s theory that police simply being in an area would keep crime in check worked for a while, until the mass quitting began. Police officers with families of their own feared infection and so they quit rather than follow orders. There were, as far as she could tell, about fifty police officers left in the entire island of a hundred and thirty-seven square miles, and they were quitting at the pace of about five per day.

She glanced behind her again. The men were closer, their eyes locked on her. She looked forward, pretending not to notice, but her heart was beating as if someone were pounding on her chest. She looked back again. They were closing the distance. She wondered for just a moment if this wasn’t all in her head until she saw the knife strapped to the hip of one of the men.

There was an intersection up ahead. As soon as she could, she turned left around a building, and broke into a sprint. She got nearly a quarter of a block up before she heard shouting behind her and saw the men turning the corner and running after her.

Sam saw a convenience store up ahead and tried the doors: they were locked. She thought about going around back but the men were catching up to her now. They were close enough that she could distinguish their shouting.

“Where you running, bitch!”

She ran back to the sidewalk and was in a full sprint, the purse banging against her with each stride. She took her keys and her cell phone out and threw the purse on the ground. A few cars were lined up on the side of the road and she looked in them in hopes that someone had left their keys, but they hadn’t.

She could just see a shopping mall up ahead and she ran for it, leaving the sidewalk to run on pavement. Her breathing was labored now, her legs burning like they were dipped in acid. She sprinted as hard as she could, hoping she wouldn’t hit a rock or a crack and fly face-first into the pavement.

She got to the parking lot and fell to the ground. She began crawling under the cars. Her knees and elbows quickly scraped and bled but she didn’t stop until she heard the footfalls that surrounded her.

“Where the fuck did she go?” one of them said.