R. Ruggiero - Brushfire Plague

“Thanks neighbor. I saw how you were eyeing the thing. You used to be on the force, right?”

“Retired, after forty-two years. I used to carry one just like it. Some street punk lifted it about twenty years ago. Hell, I probably have a few boxes of shells for it some where’s.”

“Well, it’s yours. Thanks for your help.”

“Anytime, neighbor.” Inspecting the revolver, he ambled back across the street, shuffling his feet the way old men do when the thought of a fall and broken bones scares them as bad as a Friday night without a woman did when they were younger.

Good man. Solid. Seen action, too. Maybe long ago, but your body never forgets.

Turning back towards Dranko, “We need to remember, he’s been on the business end of bad guys in the past.” Dranko merely grunted in affirmation.

The night passed in fits. Cooper stood watch over both Elena, still feverish and restless in her bed, and Jake, who was sprawled at the foot of his mother’s bed, collapsed in exhaustion. Cooper watched, tormented, as his son’s sleep became fitful, limbs thrashing, and his voice whimpering. Cooper could only guess at the nightmares gripping his son. He reached out to comfort him, but bit down sharply on his lip to prevent himself from waking him. He knew from his own hard won experience that sleep, even when punctuated by terror, was better than no sleep at all.

He patted his wife’s brow with a damp rag, a fool’s errand to quench the sticky hot fire burning within. He helped her sip water whenever he could rouse her to do so. Her lips were now dry, raw and chapped, sure signs of dehydration. Her face looked like a desert, barren. Almost lifeless. She hadn’t eaten and it was impossible to get enough water into her. Lisa had promised to return in the morning and get her onto an IV.

Cooper slept off and on, in ten or twenty minute snatches. Casting a long, dark sinister shadow, his black synthetic-stocked Remington 12-gauge shotgun lay propped against the wall, within arm’s length. He had gathered it, and a box of shells, from his gun safe. After today’s events, Cooper was taking no chances. I’m glad I have the home defense model with the extra two-shell capacity. He had loaded it with 00 Buckshot; each shell holding nine large pellets that would devastate anyone they hit. He remembered reading how getting hit with a shell of Buckshot was like getting shot with nine rounds from a submachine gun. His pistol remained on his hip, holstered.

In the early morning, while it was still dark out, after inserting the IV attached to a bag of saline solution, Lisa pulled him aside. She looked like death warmed over, hair ragged and oily, face streaked with worry lines, and dark shadows firmly set beneath her eyes. He knew she’d barely rested since this had all started. Even so, she had enough compassion left to remember to put her hand on his shoulder as she whispered.

“Prepare yourself.” Her words hit him like a two by four across the temple. In disbelief, he craned his neck to look her in the eye. “Get ready, Cooper. I’ve seen enough of this thing by now. People either recover quickly, within no more than forty-eight hours, or…” She paused, the fatigue and emotion getting the best of her and tears welling up.

“Or, what?” he demanded, his face tightening.

“They don’t.” She wiped her eyes, each in turn, with her left hand. “I’m sorry,” she muttered as she escaped the room.

Anger flashed hard across his face. He crashed his balled up fists into his legs with a furious and stifled “No!” He did not want to wake Jake, who still slept soundly just a few feet away. Damn this! This isn’t supposed to be happening! She can’t die. She’s the best one at raising our boy. I can’t do it alone. For the next half hour Cooper paced the room in frantic circles. Praying for God’s help and cursing Him for allowing this to be happening in the first place.

He kept a sharp watch on his wife and his son. The contrast could not have been more startling. On the bed lay his wife, barely moving now. Her breath came in labored, shallow heaves that required far more effort than they seemed to yield in benefit. Her color was draining away fast. Elena had always had such a firm, warm glow to her skin. Now, it seemed to waver before his eyes, emitting a weak sallow cast. This morning was the first time he smelled it too. The odor was a mix of three day old sweat, phlegm, and bits of stale food. It did not assault or offend Cooper; it merely was a dull reminder that something was very wrong in his world. And, it was something he could do nothing about. As he sat watching, his mind drifted to another time when his efforts had been useless in staying the hand of Fate.

Cooper ambled into the prison visitation room, like he had done so many times before. The cold from the concrete floor seeped into his body, despite the double layer of wool socks he had donned that morning. His body shook for a moment from the chill. As he slumped into the plastic chair, he looked up to see his father on the opposite side of the glass partition. The visage that greeted him was shocking.

It had only been three months since he last visited his father. From the way he looked, it may well have been a decade. He had watched in grim worry over the last three years how his father had aged since being sent to prison. What he saw today was vastly different. It was decay.

His father’s eyes wore puffed, dark circles underneath. The sparkle had left them. Worse, they drooped. Stark white stubble had overtaken what had been an ongoing war between salt and pepper on his face. His face was stretched thin, gaunt. His shoulders humped forward, a demoralizing contrast to his always-proud posture of confidence.

Trance-like his father’s arm loped to the phone on the side of the dim gray wall and wrenched the receiver from its cradle. He lazily brought it to his ear. Cooper retrieved the phone that lay on his side of the glass and cement cubicle.

“Morning, son,” his father mumbled. The voice didn’t belong to his father. It was weak, gruff, and hard to understand. His father’s had been a booming baritone that was clear and resounding. His father’s voice was one that people would sit up and listen to when he spoke; even those who disagreed with his words.

“Good morning, Papa. How are you?” As soon as the words left his mouth, Cooper regretted them. He felt as if he’d just asked a man who lay sick in a hospital bed how his health was doing.

A corner of his father’s mouth cocked upward and bloodshot eyes rose from looking down and stared deep into his son’s eyes, “I’m beat, son. Pure and simple. They got me.” Tears piled down his father’s face.

Hearing his father say words that confirmed his appearance was too much. The emotion he had held back since seeing his battered father sprung forth. His eyes overflowed and he tried to wipe them away with the sleeve of his cotton twill shirt. He couldn’t look at his father.

“Look up at me, boy,” his father commanded. Cooper wiped his sleeve furtively across his brow and meekly looked up.

“You’re gonna have to be a man now, you hear me? I won’t last in this forsaken place until I can see you again.”

“No, Papa! It can’t be!” Cooper shouted shrilly into the phone, his eyes pleading with his father.

His father looked down for a moment and then back up, “I wish it wasn’t true, but I won’t lie to you, son. My spirit is broken and my body nearly so.”

Cooper moaned miserably as his father continued, “I hope I taught you a bit about what it means to be a man. Did I?” Cooper nodded slowly, straightening up.

“Good, that makes me feel a little better. You’re going to have to be strong for your mother, OK? I won’t worry about her knowing you’ll take care of her, alright?”