Linda Andrews - Extinction Level Event

That was an order. “Yes, Sir.”

With his breakfast in one hand and the computer tucked under his arm, he strode across the empty tent and out the vestibule’s double doors. He stopped on the cracked cement just outside. The camp was gone. Bare patches in the grass marked where tents had once stood. Supply trucks lined the road leading to the tank guarding the gate. Gray smoke drifted like a foul fog, pooling in the divots.

“Kind of miss the old gal.” Private Robertson crossed his arms and stared across the empty field. The tattoo of a naked woman danced on his bicep.

David used his teeth to free the fork from its plastic shroud. “How come you’re not with the others?”

“Someone had to chauffeur the gimp around.” The private jerked his head to the Humvee at the front of the line of parked vehicles.

“You sure you didn’t stay behind so you could play with the Marine Corps computer?” David spat the thin plastic covering onto the ground then walked toward the Humvee. Marines lounged on the folded up tents stowed in the back of the trucks. A few of his men guarded the ranges and serving stations.

Robertson shook his head. “You know, Big D, no one sunbaths naked anymore.”

Christ, the visuals were that good? The Marines always got the fun stuff.

The private opened the door before crossing to the driver’s side.

David set the hot meal on his lap then cut it open and chased a pea around the makeshift bowl. “Any problems?”

“Yeah, but not like you’d think.” After starting the engine, Robertson shifted into gear and aimed the Humvee toward the exit.

Damn, get forty winks and he’d missed all the fun. Not that he didn’t know the President was going to speak. Spearing a piece of chicken and a dumpling blob, David waited a moment for it to cool down. “What did the President say?”

Robertson waved at the Marine motioning them forward with his SAW. “He spoke about a limited outbreak of plague and the continuing problem of the Ash Pneumonia. Then before he could fuck up any more shit, he collapsed.”

“The President collapsed?” David squeezed his eyes closed for a moment. Who wasn’t sick?

“Yeah. Coughed a lot, showed everyone the broken blood vessels in his eyes and then keeled over.” Robertson turned right onto the street. A news van pulled along the curb in front of the camp. “He’s not dead, but the word is it’s just a matter of time.”

The door to the van opened and the cameraman spilled out, aiming at the trucks. God only knew what the vultures wanted to misreport this time.

David stirred his food. Should he force down the rest? His stomach wasn’t trying to roust the current occupants, but that might change. He scooped up a carrot and tucked it into his mouth. He couldn’t do anything to help the politicos in Washington. “Anyone else come down sick?”

“The whole fucking world is coughing and shivering.” Robertson braked as they approached the freeway. “Last I heard, the Secretary of Education is about to be sworn in as temporary President. After that, I forget the order of succession but I think it’s the President’s dog.”

David drank the rest of his meal then dumped the plastic into the garbage bucket. It just didn’t seem real. Even through the Redaction, the government had kept pointing the finger of blame, kept going, kept being there. And now… He swallowed the lump in his throat. “And our men? Is anyone in our unit sick?”

“Nope.” Robertson eased onto the interstate on ramp. “No one can figure out why.”

“Thank God.” Although the why might be relevant. David shrugged it off. Maybe he should call Mavis? Check on her and Sunnie. God, the morphine had turned him into a pansy. The next time he saw her he was going to state his objectives and see how she reacted.

If this really was the end of the world, there was no point in wasting time.

And it certainly looked like the apocalypse. The road before them was empty. The same could not be said for North-bound traffic. Cars were bumper to bumper. Unfortunately, many in the queue had their doors open. Some were empty. Too many owners coughed as they trundled their belongings while wide-eyed children shuffled behind.

Here and there, a motorcycle weaved through the mass. Half a mile up the road, a truck pushed a Honda into a Toyota as it worked its way toward the shoulder. Sick people coughed in the packed bed.

“Poor bastards. They ran out of gas before they could get out of town.”

Poor bastards? They were going to make it nearly impossible for him and his men to evacuate the city. Of course, he hadn’t told anyone about the nuclear power plant ticking toward melt down. Towers of black smoke infiltrated the space between the skyscrapers of downtown Phoenix. “What’s burning?”

“The city. Thanks to the President’s announcement the good citizens are burning their trash, which then catches the houses on fire, which then catches their neighbor’s house on fire. Repeat until said neighborhood is charred rubble.

That sounded familiar. He cracked the window and strained his ears. No sirens. “How many units have responded?”

“None, Big D. There’s only five firemen in the state not sick and even if they could show up, most of the city doesn’t have any water on account of there being no one able to run the treatment plants.”

Shit. Shit. Shit! David shook his fist out, ignored the pain in the other. Did the nuclear facility’s cooling rods depend on city water? He licked his dry lips. “Any word on Mavis?”

Robertson gripped the steering wheel. “The Doc has a sore throat and a cough, plus a mild fever. She’s on antibiotics since the General had to fork over the last of the antivirals to our cowardly leaders.”

Thumbing his cell, David bounced his head against the headrest. He should call her? And say what? I want you. What would that accomplish? If Mavis had the influenza she was going to die and there wasn’t a damn thing he or his desires could do to stop it.

Mavis popped the lozenge in her mouth—the third in an hour. She’d have the trots if she kept this up, but she’d pay that price to douse the fire in her throat. Standing on her front porch, she watched Marines, Soldiers and Airmen unload their sick comrades from the trucks in the smoky haze.

All of them coughed.

All of them were infected.

It just didn’t make sense. She was missing something, something important. How could so many of them become infected in so short a period of time? She could see it if someone had pneumonic plague. One cough or sneeze would infect a tent full of men, but this…?

She compressed the cough drop wrapper into a tight ball.

And she still hadn’t found Patient Zero.

The infection had practically sprung up everywhere at once.

What had she overlooked? She coughed into a handkerchief as Captain Doom-and-Gloom lumbered up to her.

With his black hair and blue eyes, he’d be nice looking if he weren’t such a sourpuss. The creases on his Air Force ACUs were tucked in just so and his hat firmly on his head as he strode over to her. He ran his thumb over the bridge of his nose, no doubt checking to see if his mask was still in place. “We’ve got an unknown subject with what appears to be farm animals approaching from the west. What are your orders, Ma’am?”

Mavis blinked. Farm animals? Farm animals. Doh! The fresh milk her neighbors had talked about.

“Let them into the park.” She raised the handheld computer and indicated the green zone bisecting her neighborhood. “Post guards near the drainage ditches. I don’t want any coyotes munching on our livestock.”

Above the mask, Captain Doom-and-Gloom’s eyes narrowed so much they practically disappeared. “It would be better for my men to set up the tents in that area, Ma’am. Keep the sick away from the healthy.”