Jacqueline Druga - Omnicide

“A fungus.” Ada nodded. “How much do you know about how it affects humans?”

“Not much. We barely started our research when the drop happened. I know it infects three ways. Skin, lungs, ingestion.”

“Like anthrax,” Ada said, “and I’m betting, like anthrax, it’s a death sentence if you ingest it.”

Art lowered his head and looked at her through the tops of his eyes. “It’s a death sentence if the spores attach to you.”

“Nonsense.” Ada shook her head.

“Once it’s in the blood stream…”

“How long does it take to get into the blood stream from the skin?”

“I… I don’t know,” Art stuttered.

“Find out.”

“It’s not that easy,” Art said.

“Yes, it is, find someone with the rash.”

“The spores die off at twenty-four hours, so does the person, it happens rather fast.”

“You’re telling me,” Ada said, “that a person gets a rash from this and is dead in twenty-four hours?”

“Yes.”

Ada scoffed.

Eb spoke gently, “Ada, why are you having a hard time believing this?”

“Because I know how his stuff works. I was a nurse for many years. I also know nature very well and this is impossible.”

“That’s because,” Lena interjected, “this isn’t all nature. He made this or manipulated it so it’s also man made.”

“We came, Ada,” Cass said, “to let you know and we’re checking to see if anyone left town, or was outside of Griffin, after eleven in the morning yesterday.”

“I wasn’t,” Ada replied. “None of us were.”

“Brian was,” Cass said solemnly. “Patty and Mrs. Sanders.”

Ada looked at Cass curiously.

“Brian and Patty are dead. Kit is checking Mrs. Sanders,” Cass said.

“Oh, honey I’m sorry.” Ada then looked at Art. “Did you bring stuff to work on this?”

“I did.”

“Can’t you get a sample from Brian?” Ada asked. “Work with that.”

“I can. But the spores are probably dead by now—they can only spread while they’re alive,” Art explained.

“Does that reset the clock?” Ada asked.

Art nodded. “Yes, so Griffin won’t be risk free until everyone who has it has passed and the spores are inactive on any surface they happened to be upon. Griffin didn’t get hit with the agent, so any fungus or spores were brought in by outside sources or were passed on by an infected person.”

“And I take it you’re doing contact tracing?” Ada asked.

“The town doctor and I, along with the police force, are,” Art replied.

“It should be easy,” Cass spoke hopefully. “I mean, Brian stayed home and we checked the two places he was. They were clean. Mrs. Sanders had the rash cream delivered, she never left the house, and the pharmacy man just put it on her porch. So we think we have this.”

Ada shook her head. “You’re forgetting about Patty. Brian’s wife does nails. Her shop was open until seven last night. Lord knows how many hands she touched.”

“Shit,” Cass said.

“Will you…” Lena nervously spoke. “Will you excuse me. I’m going to use the land line and try John again. If that doesn’t work I will try every number in my phone. This can’t be everywhere. It can’t be in the big cities. It just sounds so impossible. We would have heard. Excuse me.” She hurried out of the room.

Eb exhaled with a slight whistle as he sat down. “Obviously it hasn’t sunk in she’s in Griffin, and we run two days behind with the news.” He shifted his eyes to Cass. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

Art faced her. “Cass, can you take me to this nail shop? Maybe we can go inside and look at the appointment book. See who all came to see her and go from there.”

“And do what? Quarantine and try to help them?” Ada asked.

“Yes,” Art said, impassioned. “That’s the plan, and look for others and quarantine them.”

“How about this?” Ada suggested. “You need to get a good twenty-four hours for these spores to lose effectiveness. Meaning, you need to cut them off from a host. Instead of searching for anyone who has a rash, why don’t you just tell everyone they can’t leave where they are, at this moment, for twenty-four hours. If they’re at the store, give them a chance to go home, but home they stay for twenty-four hours. After that, no one has contact with anyone else, it’s done. And since that shit was dropped yesterday. It’s done everywhere else.”

“Threat over?” Cass asked Art.

“Go into a lockdown, yeah. Yeah, it couldn’t hurt.”

“All well and fine,” Eb said, “you wanna say we’re safe. What then? You’re saying the rest of the world or almost all the world is dead? Are we sure? I mean, we’re Griffin, we’re cut off. We wouldn’t know one way or another. No cable, no news, no internet, no cells. How did we know? We may be the isolated case.”

“That’s easy,” Kat, who had been quiet, spoke up. “We wait the twenty-four hours and we go find out.”

Out of the mind and mouth of the youth came a logical suggestion. Go out and see. The thing was, Cass wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Because to her, those in Griffin were what mattered and if the buck stopped at Griffin, it wasn’t going to be all that different to her.

For as long as Kit could remember the position of mayor of Griffin was always held by a Wilson. Mark being the latest Wilson to carry that honor. All of them were homegrown and had Griffin’s best interest at heart. Although, there really wasn’t much ‘politically’ that needed to be done, nor was there ever a crisis… until that moment.

Kit hated to do it, he hated to call Mark, but he had to. There was a chance Mark wouldn’t believe it, and Kit would have to take him to Brian’s to show him the body, but Mark was calm and rational, only asking, “Are we sure it’s everywhere?”

“No.” That’s all Kit could say. He was curious himself. He went on the computer, typed in a news site, and allowed the page to load.

When he left to meet Mark at Mrs. Sanders’ home, it had barely made it to three percent loaded.

Kit went in alone, while Mark stayed outside. He wore a face mask and gloves, and carried a pocket black light.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But when Mrs. Sanders didn’t open the door, Kit went in.

It was the same feel; the smell was a little worse, but like Brian and Patty, Mrs. Sanders had passed. She bore the bleeding rash on her face and legs. Only difference between her and Brian was that she had died in her reclining chair, feet propped up, a can of soda next to her. Brian had been on the floor, looking as if he’d tried desperately to crawl for help.

He ran the black light over her. He jumped nearly a foot in the air when the ringing telephone broke the silence.

He looked to his left and to the older phone.

It rang and rang.

Finally, Kit walked over and answered it. He would just say Mrs. Sanders wasn’t available. That wasn’t lying. “Hello, Sanders Residence, Officer Modine, Griffin PD speaking.”

“Oh, Kit,” Cass said. “I’m glad I caught you.”

“Cass… Cass, what are you doing calling Mrs. Sanders’ house?”

“I can’t reach your cell phone. I’ve been trying for fifteen minutes to reach you there. No one answered.”

“She’s not gonna answer, Cass. Is there an emergency?”

“No, but we have an idea and we need to talk to you immediately.”

Kit reluctantly agreed to listen but only for a minute, then he hung up and left the house.

Mark was outside waiting. He leaned against the squad car. Not his own which was parked directly in front of the police car. He was average in height, but thicker, or as Cass called him ‘jolly’ with a bald head, still sporting the grandpa hair on the sides.