Mark Justice - The Green Dawn

“Fine, Damon. She’s really coming along.”

Damon closed his eyes and rested his head against a pillow. If he recognized the lie, he didn’t show it. Perhaps he was even grateful for it. It wasn’t long before he began snoring again.

Jubal decided to let the sheriff rest. Maybe the old dog was strong enough to whip this thing. If anyone could do it, Damon could. After all, Jubal felt?ne. He would?gure this mess out on his own. He had no choice, really.

“Let’s go check on my ma,” he whispered to Fiona.

Growths covered his mother’s face like bumps on a blackberry. She?oated in and out of consciousness and was barely coherent. Each wheezing breath was like another painful needle in Jubal’s heart. This woman, his best friend really-whom he had loved all his life-was dying.

Jubal turned away, unable to look any longer, hiding his?owing tears from his?ancee.

Fiona stepped up behind him and laid her hand gently on his shuddering back.

“We have to get help for her, Jubal.”

Jubal sniffed hard and nodded his head. “Let’s get her into the car. We’re going to save her, Fee.”

“Sure we are, babe,” Fiona said.

They soon had Jubal’s mother in the back seat of the police cruiser…

Just like Renee.

…and were on their way out of town, heading north towards Carlsbad. The sky to the east showed a lighter darkness. Soon it would be dawn.

“She’s such a good woman, Fee. She’s always been a best friend to me.”

“I know, Jubal. We’ll do whatever we can.”

Jubal pressed down on the accelerator. He glanced at the gauge and saw he was going nearly 100 miles per hour. He’d have activated his siren if he thought it would do any good, but state highway 285 heading north was barren.

“This is damn spooky,” Jubal said.

“What?”

“The highway. It’s still early, but there should be at least some semis on the road.”

“There’s plenty of oncoming traf?c.”

“Yeah, weird.”

Some of the people in the oncoming cars waved their arms out their windows, but Jubal was moving too fast to understand what they wanted. He was in too much of a damned hurry to care.

“Why complain? The less traf?c heading north, the faster we get help for your mother.”

Jubal glanced into the back seat. His mother didn’t appear to be moving, but it was hard to tell anything driving this fast.

“Keep your eyes on the road, please, Mr. Deputy Sheriff,” Fiona said. “I’ll check on her for you.”

Jubal drove while Fiona leaned over the back seat. Soon she was sitting back down and fastening her seat belt.

“Her breathing’s erratic and she’s sleeping.”

Or unconscious. Or about to die.

Jubal slapped his palm against the steering wheel. Fiona shot him a worried glance, but he ignored it. His only concern right now was for his mother, and if Carlsbad told him there was no room at the hospital, by God, he’d make some fucking room. He wished there was a medical facility closer to Serenity, but all they had was Doc Mitchell, and apparently he was next to useless in this situation.

In the distance, something was happening on the highway.

Fiona gasped.

Jubal glanced at her. She had her hand over her mouth and was looking out her side window. At the green light of dawn.

Soon enough, they found out what the obstruction was in the road.

Traf?c. Cars at a complete standstill. Several people walked around on the highway, which indicated to Jubal that this long line of cars wasn’t going to move anytime soon.

Up about a hundred yards, alongside the highway, was a large silver tent that looked like a prop from a science?ction movie.

Then Jubal noticed the armed soldiers in HAZMAT gear. Some stood at attention while others herded citizens back into their vehicles at gunpoint. Several more stood around the silver tent.

Far ahead, the vehicles were being rerouted over to the southbound lanes. That explained the southbound-only traf?c on the way up here.

A gunshot cracked. Jubal?inched. Fiona squealed. Jubal could not see where the shot came from.

“Stay here with Ma. I’ll be right back.”

As Jubal slammed the car door shut, two armed soldiers approached him. He could not see their faces behind their protective masks, but the weapons were menacing enough.

“Get back in your vehicle, of?cer. All vehicles are restricted beyond this point.”

Jubal was afraid they were going to say that. He stood his ground.

“But I have to get up to Carlsbad on of?cial police business.”

“You have no jurisdiction here, sir. Please turn your vehicle around and go back. It’s for your own good.”

Jubal felt his face?ush and knew if he had a mirror with which to see his re?ection, it would be beet red. He pointed back at the cruiser.

“We have a deathly ill woman in that car that needs to get to the hospital now, or she’ll die. Do you hear me, soldier?”

The soldiers turned their heads toward each other as if conversing in a silent language.

“If you’d just clear a path…” Jubal said.

“We are going to have to take a look at this sick person,” one of the soldiers said.

Jubal stepped aside, hoping the soldiers would see his mother’s condition and let them through. He walked behind them as they circled the car. As he passed Fiona’s window, he noticed she pulled up her shirt collar.

One soldier swung the back door open while the other stood away.

“You see,” Jubal said, “She’s…”

“We have a corpse here. Everyone stand back while we remove it from the car.”

The soldier farthest from the door approached to help his partner. Jubal stepped in front of him, risking harm and not caring one fucking bit, and bent to his mother. He placed two?ngers against her neck, momentarily unconcerned about the damned blisters or boils or whatever they were on her neck.

His mother was dead.

A heavy hand landed on Jubal’s shoulder. “Move away from the car, of?cer. We must quarantine the body.”

Quarantine?

Jubal stood in shock as the two soldiers walked past him, carrying his mother between them towards the silver tent at the side of the highway. Fiona stared at him through the window with tears running down her cheeks.

Jubal sprinted after the two soldiers, who still hadn’t reached the quarantine tent yet.

Three other soldiers, who had been policing the nearby area, saw him and ran over, blocking his path.

“I want to see my mother,” Jubal said, hand falling instinctively to his Glock.

Three barrels lifted, pointing straight at him.

“Throw that gun down, of?cer, or we will shoot to kill. This is not a threat; it’s a fact.”

Jubal reluctantly drew his Glock with two?ngers and?ung it toward the soldiers. One of them swooped his hand down, scooped it up and stuck it in his belt.

From the direction of the quarantine tent, a shot rang out.

Jubal lunged at the men blocking him, attempting to break their line, but they expertly grabbed his arms and pulled him to the ground.

“No! They shot her. They shot my mother! Let…me…go!”

The three men held Jubal on the ground while he continued to struggle. One planted his knee in Jubal’s chest, cutting off his breath.

Jubal looked up into the soldiers’ blank helmeted faces, looking for sympathy or mercy, but all he saw was his own re?ection. A man in agony and despair.

“Mister,” said a soldier. “You have two choices: go back home or die.”

Jubal stopped struggling.

Suddenly Fiona was there. “Please, leave him alone. We’ll go back. Just let him up.”

The soldier who had his knee on Jubal’s chest rose. “You better hope so, ma’am. We don’t have time to fuck around here.”