R. Ruggiero - Brushfire Plague

Calvin sat back in surprise as the faintest smile escaped to his lips, “I’ll admit that was easy. But, I don’t want you to step aside.”

Cooper grinned, “Well, I guess this will be another of our disagreements. I don’t have a choice.”

His eyebrows drew together, “What’s going on?”

“Jake’s sick.”

Calvin’s face stiffened and he clenched his hands, “I’m so sorry to hear that. Oh my Lord, Cooper. I am sorry.”

Cooper waved both his emotions and Calvin off with a flurry of his left hand, “Don’t worry about it. It will be OK, you hear me? It will be OK.” He spoke with the fury that only those trying to convince themselves can muster.

“Sure, alright, Cooper,” Calvin said nodding in quick agreement. “I’ll take things in hand. But, I tell you this—as soon as everything is OK, I want you back. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it. I want you as Captain of our Guard. I’ll handle civilian matters, while you handle security.” His sincerity threw Cooper off.

With a confused look on his face, he responded, “Alright, you have yourself a deal.”

The two men shook hands and Cooper gave Calvin a few points of advice regarding their defenses. He promised to be as available as he could in the coming days. He informed him of the neighborhood survey teams that were going out today and they agreed to meet at Calvin’s house at five o’clock to debrief those teams together.

Cooper was in the middle of looking in on Jake, when another knock on the door interrupted him. He kissed him on the forehead, which was already warm, and told his son to rest and do whatever Lisa or Angela told him. Cooper bounded to the door, restless to get moving.

It was Dranko at the door, carrying two shoulder bags. Cooper let him in, asking, “What do you have there?”

“The groceries,” he responded with a chuckle. He went to the couch and unzipped the two bags, “You need good food to stay healthy, right?” The bags revealed a few handguns and plenty of extra magazines filled with ammunition.

Cooper grinned, “And sometimes you need more good food to keep you healthy while travelling, eh?”

“Exactly.”

“You never cease to surprise me.”

Dranko grew a frown, “Well, I wish I’d liked guns even more or had more money. The list of what I wish we had is a mile long. An Uzi, for example would be…”

Cooper clapped his shoulder, “There you go again, thinking about what we don’t have. Think about what you did bring to our table.”

Dranko laughed, “You’re right. You’d be going out there with a spitwad shooter if it wasn’t for me!”

“Not quite,” Cooper said, tapping his sidearm.

He kept his pistol in the concealed carry holster, but added a few magazine pouches to his belt. He now carried a total of five magazines, one in the gun and four on the belt. After he donned a dun-colored windbreaker, there was no evidence that he was wearing body armor or carrying a pistol.

Cooper patted the body armor reassuringly, “I am glad you had an extra set.”

Dranko nodded, “Hell, best couple hundred bucks I ever spent. It’s priceless now! I knew some others at the gun range who’d buy gun after gun after gun, but would never think to get armor. I bet they regret that now.”

“I know I regret not getting some of the things you’d recommended,” Cooper responded.

“Don’t worry, I still think you’re perfect!” Dranko mocked.

Dranko was kitted up with a .45 pistol in a shoulder holster, extra magazines, another pistol holstered on his hip, and body armor. He wore a leather coat that flared out just below the hips. Finally, he had a lightweight .38 revolver strapped to his ankle. “My bail out gun, if everything else fails me,” Dranko stated.

“Where are we going first?” he asked Cooper.

“Julianne Wheeler’s house. I have to return this,” he responded, holding up an auto insurance notice.

“You sly devil,” Dranko said, feigning astonishment.

“I wish I could claim to have been so forward-thinking. I just got lucky. I found it lying near where she had put her belongings. It must have fallen out when she ran off. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than smart.”

“That’s a good thing, because you don’t ever meet the latter,” Dranko retorted.

Cooper didn’t miss a beat, “That’s why I travel with such genius friends. Can you get the door, Mr. Einstein.” His mocking tone forced the smile off of Dranko’s face.

The two men piled into Cooper’s pickup. Cooper brought his shotgun and extra shells along. He let Dranko drive, giving him the address. While they drove, Cooper filled him on the little he knew, so far, of Admonitus and the chilling warning from the man just before he was killed.

“So, what’re we looking for?” Dranko asked.

“Information. Anything at all that can help Jake, and everyone else.”

As they wended their way through several miles of the city’s streets, the various neighborhoods were a kaleidoscope of a society grappling with the plague’s effect. They passed areas that looked almost normal, except the dramatic reduction in both vehicle and foot traffic. A mile to the north, they encountered a neighborhood with a hastily erected defensive system, similar to their own.

As they drove, startling images burned themselves into Cooper’s mind. A charred rocking horse was pitching back and forth in the street without a rider. He wondered where its owner was. The front door to the closest house was smashed open. Curtains from a large picture window that had been broken fluttered forlornly outside the home, wafting against the home’s walls. Dolls lay scattered about the lawn. Cooper’s heart sank.

Further on, they passed a shot-up blue Dodge minivan. It was littered with hundreds of bullet holes from stem to stern. Every shard of glass had been ripped out of the windows’ frames. The ground sparkled around it, disconcertingly beautiful. Peering in, Cooper saw no bodies. Instead, thick bloodstains covered all three rows of seats. The side doors all lay ajar and blood trails moved away from the van before disappearing a few feet further into the street. Did they transfer the dead into another car?

Then, they came upon a bizarre spectacle. A stand had been cobbled together from mismatched wood lengths. A sign over it, painted in black, “Lemonade! It’s cured hundreds in Australia!” Three heavily armed, dirty, men stood around it. Two clutched shotguns while a third wielded an AK-47. Sitting behind the stand, a blond child, Jake’s age, sat ready to serve. She was clean, wearing a pressed white dress, with her hair done up in bows. The contrast struck Cooper as comical. Down below, also in black, “$100 per glass!” They didn’t stop to ask.

Just beyond that, they drove past several streets where almost every other house had been burned to the ground. The detritus of ruined households was strewn about the street and lawns: clothing, broken furniture, smashed dishes, and…dead bodies. The dead has been that way for more than a day and the flies flew thick around them. After a few pensive moments of observation, the shotgun clasped firmly, Cooper saw that the men had been killed execution style. There were bullet wounds to the head, from close range. Worse, the women’s bodies were in various stages of undress, clothing torn, and usually bloody. He grimaced in disgust when he saw how young some of them were.

“I guess we know why the other neighborhood has their barricades up,” Dranko said, shaking his head.

“Yeah. I wonder who did this. I’m guessing amateurs riled up on drugs or drink. A professional gang would be focused on getting money and goods right now; not random stuff like this,” Cooper conjectured in response.