Linda Andrews - Extinction Level Event

Breathing deeply through her nose, she fought the tightness banding her chest. Getting sick sucked. Her toast popped up. She eyed the black edges. Good thing she liked it well-done.

“Who was on the phone?” Sunnie slid a paper plate across the kitchen island.

Mavis slapped it to a stop, before it plopped to the floor. With both of them being sick, water being unreliable and God knows what falling from the sky, they were back to minimizing the infection by burning their dishes. At least, while their paper plates, cup and plasticware lasted.

Fortunately, she’d stocked up for Jack’s wake.

Tears stung her eyes and pricked her nose. She wished he were here, helping her through this. Two always made things so much easier to bear. She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment. Instead of Jack’s face, Sergeant Major Dawson beamed at her. Her heart did another funny dance. Maybe she should get it checked. Cipro had some nasty side effects.

“Aunt Mavis?”

She shook off thoughts of the soldier. “Yeah, um.” Picking up her plate, she tossed the cooling toast onto the surface. “Did you want something?”

Sunnie tilted her head. Fever still flushed her cheeks. “There’s someone at the door.”

“Oh. Okay.” Had the doorbell rang? She burped and tasted the bitter medicine. Antibiotics and an empty stomach never agreed with her. “Do you think you could make me a glass of lemonade?”

Setting her plate on the counter, she snatched up a piece of dry toast and stuck a corner in her mouth. Black and dark brown flakes rained down on the cartoon dog on her tee shirt. Brushing them off, she adjusted the edges of her robe and shambled to the door.

Sunnie crept into the kitchen. “You’re not going to answer the door in your pjs, are you?”

This from a girl who shopped in them and had gone to university classes in them? Apparently, forty-two was much too old for it to be cute. Frankly, ten was much too old for it to be cute. But changing required energy she didn’t have or wish to expend. “Yes, I’m going to answer the door in my pajamas. Because the only other option is to strip down and answer it naked.”

Her niece gasped in outrage. Kids today. Mavis chuckled. Besides, the robe covered her pretty well. Tightening the belt, she allowed her mind to plot out the day’s strategy. So much to do today, even if they weren’t bugging out. She had to tell the soldiers of the governor’s lunacy. Go to work sick. Such rampant stupidity.

Taking another bite of toast, she opened the door and stared through the black mesh of the security door.

“Doctor Spanner.” General Lister ran his hand through his buzz cut. His toe tapped out his annoyance. “You’re not going to believe the idiocy coming down the horn.”

After retracting the deadbolt, she pushed down on the handle and opened the door. “Let me guess, you’ve been ordered to return to work or risk being shot.”

Lister shook his square head while thumping his hat against his palm. Pulling the screen all the way open, he marched into the foyer. “Got to you too?”

“Oh, I was accused of kidnapping you and your men.” Mavis stuffed the last corner of toast in her mouth and chewed. The dry bread absorbed what little moisture she had left.

“She wants my sick men out on the line, battling the fire.” He caught the security door before it slammed shut. “They’re having a hard enough time breathing already. They don’t need to inhale smoke.”

Mavis nodded and rushed toward her red cup of instant lemonade. God, who knew toast was so akin to cement. Forcing her mouth open, she downed half the pink liquid. The sourness barely registered, but the water flooded her mouth and emulsified the pap, washing it safely down. “I’m just glad she didn’t rake me over the coals for ordering an evacuation of the city.”

Swirling her cup, she watched the chunks of drink mix roll along the bottom.

“I wish we had evacuated then I would have an excuse not to answer her calls.” Lister secured the security door then shut the house one.

Mavis glanced at him over the rim of her cup. In her peripheral vision, she watched Sunnie return to the couch. Once more, her moose slippers kept a plastic eye on her from their perch on the sofa arm.

“Of course it must be worse for you.” Lister clasped his hands behind his back. “I can only imagine the fallout from predicting the end of the world, then it not happening.”

She shrugged and drained her cup, sucking in her jaws as the sweetness flooded her mouth. With everyone recovering, her career was over that was for sure. Unlike the religious zealots, folks that cried wolf only to find the flock relatively unperturbed didn’t last long in science. Still…

“I’d rather have my niece recovering and sleep in my nice warm bed then the my sims’ alternative—having to hightail it to Rim Country before the power plant melted down.”

“You’re a cool one, Doc.” Lister plucked one of the red cups off the stack on the counter. “Do you mind?”

“Be my guest.” Propping a hip against the counter, she pushed the container of instant lemonade at him, and then offered him her cup. “I could use a refill myself.”

He twisted the cap off the two-liter bottle and filled both cups. “Thing is, Doc. I can’t quite wrap my head around this being over.” He opened the instant lemonade and poured some into each container. “I mean seventy percent casualties are a lot different than everyone recovering.”

His brow furrowed as he glanced left then right. Leaning right, he grabbed the spoon off the counter.

Mavis opened her mouth to object. Sunnie had no doubt licked the spoon, spreading her germs on it before setting it on the counter.

He dunked it into the cups and stirred.

Her teeth clicked together. Too late now. Not that she would get sick again, but the general seemed healthy. What would it take for people to learn not to presume anything left out was clean?

“So what do you think, Doc?” He licked the plastic spoon then set it in the sink.

She thought that if he didn’t get sick then the man had an immune system worth studying. Clearing her throat, she stared down at the sludge on the bottom of her cup. That much sugar was going to make her teeth hurt. “I think… I think that we’re very lucky if everyone is recovering.”

“Exactly.” Lister threw back his head and chugged his drink. Not a drop leaked out the corner of his mouth. Smacking his lips, he placed his cup on the kitchen island. “Even the most effective of the antivirals didn’t work in two days. Four, yes, but not two. And my men didn’t even have antivirals, so what gives?”

Mavis glanced at her niece’s feet twitching in time to a Depeche Mode music video playing on a retro station. Sunnie had been on antibiotics for a suspected plague infection. Yet, she too had gotten better in two days. “We’re missing something.”

“Yeah.” Lister added more water to his cup. Raising his eyebrows, he pointed the nearly empty bottle at her. “My balls are drawn up real tight, which means the shit hasn’t yet hit the fan.”

Holding her cup close, she shuffled to the dining room table and plunked down. Information nagged at the fringes of her thought. What could it be? After clearing her fingerprints on the biometrics, she opened her laptop. The black map of the United States stared back at her.

“So do we pull up stakes and redeploy?” Lister pulled out the chair opposite her and straddled it.

“No. No, don’t do that.” Mavis switched to the CDC database. Everyone had been so trapped in the Redaction paradigm; they may have missed something important—a clue to the real nature of the beast.

“Good.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I’ll keep this as our base. At least, most of the neighborhoods around here haven’t caught fire yet.”