Jeff Carlson: Plague Zone

It was true that the machine plague had done some good. Pests like mosquitoes and ticks were practically extinct. Even the common cold seemed to have been wiped out because there hadn’t been enough people left to sustain it.

The flip side of this one benefit was that some of the long-isolated survivors were Typhoid Marys who’d developed immunities to their own nasty strains of spotted fever or herpes or a seeping black nail fungus called finger rot. Some of them had also harbored lice or fleas all this time, both of which were making a comeback. As the population mingled again, they made each other sick. Cam had heard of a measles outbreak in Wyoming, and people said most of the Idaho panhandle was under quarantine for some kind of dysentery that was killing babies.

So far, it was only insects that had been a problem in Jef ferson. The fire ants had migrated up from Texas last year, while the desert locusts were thought to have spread out of the Middle East with the Russian invasion.

They lived almost like astronauts, locking away every speck of food in airtight containers such as ammunition boxes and Tupperware. Their urine, excrement, and garbage all needed to be canned until they brought it to the greenhouses, where they sun-baked their waste into safe, rich fertilizer. It was a difficult way to live. Maybe it was pointless. Cam worried that the ants might surge through someone’s home, burying them in tiny, stinging bodies — and suddenly the images in his head became very personal. What if a colony erupted over Allison and their newborn child?

He finished reloading the flamethrower, then slung its tanks onto his back and looked at his wife, who’d lifted two more five-gallon cans herself. That was the extent of the gasoline in the village, except whatever was in the tanks of their few jeeps and trucks. Thirty gallons if we’re lucky, he thought, reaching for her. “Let me carry those.”

“I got it.”

“You can’t help us with the ants.”

“I’m going to tell you how much gasoline you can use,” Allison said, “and you’re going to listen.”

“We need to make sure we burn them all.”

“Tomorrow we’ll drive out to the highway and look for more fuel, but we need to be able to get there, Cam. So we save most of what we have.”

If we leave any part of the colony alive, they’ll tunnel somewhere else in a frenzy, he thought. The image of her disappearing beneath the ants… It won’t happen, he told himself, feeling anxious and grim, and yet those same emotions were bound up in the tenderness he felt for Allison and their baby. He would die to protect them, which is why he yelled at her. “Give me the cans, Ally! There’s plenty of fuel in the trucks. We’ll probably siphon some of that, too.”

“Goddammit,” she said.

Then several people hurried toward them in the night. In addition to their flashlights, everyone carried ski goggles, masks, and canteens. Greg Estey wore another flamethrower and the rest of the group bristled with crowbars and shovels, ready to dig open the colony. One of them was Ruth.

Cam and Allison hesitated, trying to shift gears from their private argument to assuming command of the group. “You guys ready?” Cam asked, looking only at Ruth, as Allison said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m so sorry about Eric,” Ruth said.

She was careful to keep her distance, but Cam would have recognized her silhouette even if he hadn’t memorized her voice. Ruth’s curly brown hair was longer than it had been during their run from California, and he knew her long nose and the slender lines of her shoulders and neck all too well. They had been lovers briefly. Ruth had also been the ring-leader in their conspiracy to end the war, using the threat of a new plague against the United States as well as the invaders.

Ruth Goldman was the last of the top nanotech researchers in America. She was the reason why Cam and Allison had invested themselves in Jefferson, making what had been a shantytown into a more permanent outpost.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Allison said again. “You can’t be on the smoke team.”

“Eric was my friend, too,” Ruth said.

“We can’t put you at risk,” Allison said, but the undercurrent of mistrust between the two women was achingly clear. Allison protected Ruth, accepting Cam’s friend for her own reasons, but the awkwardness of their triangle had never faded. If anything, Allison’s pregnancy heightened that tension, introducing a new kind of jealousy to their dynamic.

Ruth was thirteen years older than Cam. He thought the age difference was partly why things hadn’t worked out between them. It was also part of the allure. Ruth had not been shy at all with her body or his.

The two women were similar in many ways, not physically, but in character. Like all of the best survivors, they were both active, tough, and smart, and yet Ruth’s maturity gave her an edge over the younger woman. She could usually anticipate what Allison would do and say. On the other hand, that self-possession also worked against Ruth. She’d kept her heart from Cam, wanting time to understand her feelings, whereas Allison hadn’t hesitated.

Cam and Ruth had never fully consummated their interest in each other. Allison thought otherwise, because Cam had lied to his wife by implying it was over and done with. The truth was that he and Ruth were unfinished business.

“Ally’s right,” Cam said, emphasizing his wife’s nickname as he pointed for Ruth to leave. “You can’t help us.”

“I knew Eric better than you.” There was a dangerous tone in Ruth’s voice. She backed it up by stepping closer to them.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Cam said, but he regretted his honesty. That was the wrong thing to say, he thought. “Go. You’re not on the team.”

“Fuck you,” Ruth said. “I’m staying.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Allison said, and Greg Estey nodded with obvious relief.

“Yeah, let’s get started.” Greg gestured at his flamethrower and said, “This gun’s full, Cam. You want to drain some of it off?”

“Absolutely. We’ll soak the ground as deep as we can.”

“How big is the colony?” another man asked.

“Twenty feet across, maybe more,” Cam said.

Ruth scowled at them, clenching her hands on her shovel. Cam thought she might throw it down, but Ruth wasn’t given to melodrama. “Fine,” she said, thrusting the shovel into another woman’s hands.

Cam watched her walk away.

In the darkness, Greenhouse 3 continued to burn weakly. Some of the framework was exposed now, smoldering in the melted plastic. Cam knew they would be crazy to bring gasoline into the fire, but the longer they waited, the farther the ants might burrow from the heat. Okay, you’re off the team, too, he thought at Allison, preparing for another argument.

He got lucky. One of their scouts ran out of the night, a sixteen-year-old boy with an assault rifle. “Wait!” the boy said. “Hey!”

Tony Dominguez was the youngest person in the village except for three infants. He was also one of Allison’s most ardent supporters. The boy had a crush on her about the size of the moon, for which Cam forgave him. For one thing, he approved of Tony’s taste in women. The poor kid didn’t have anyone his own age to lust after in Jefferson and his mom never let him join their trips to Morristown, probably because she was afraid he’d stay there. With a population of twelve hundred people, Morristown was practically a city. It was also a religious enclave and worked like a shield for Jefferson, deterring most travelers even as it provided a welcome source of crops and wealth in the area.

“Someone’s coming!” Tony said. “I heard someone in the fences on my side!”