Tim Curran - Biohazard

The stink was unbelievable.

“Fever,” Janie said. “They have the Fever.”

Everyone backed away.

The family crawled towards us with squishing sounds, but nobody fired. Last thing we wanted was to be blasting blood and fluids into the air. Lot of the germs that had mutated with the fallout were airborne pathogens. These days, it was all collectively known as the Fever: a lethal zoo of what military biohazard specialists call “hot agents.” And unfortunately, at this zoo, the cages were wide open and all the creeping beasties were in the air, the water, you name it.

I jogged away and the others followed. Next to the Children, there was nothing scarier than bodies hot with plague.

I ran across the street kicking my way through drifted sand, around a rusting furniture truck, and my luck almost ran out right there. A dog was waiting for me, a big one, in a pool of moonlight. Looked like it might have been a shepherd once, but it was hard to say. Its hide was patchy, threadbare, grotesque pink tumors and open sores rising like bread dough. A dark sap dripped from them.

I went down on my ass to avoid colliding with it.

I crawled away and then the others were with me. The beast was making a low mewling in its throat. Its fur, what there was of it, was sticky and spiky with discharges from its open wounds. It had only one eye, the other consumed in a pulsing pink growth that had burst out of its skull. The entire body was flabby and loose.

It opened its jaws and growled, slime dripping.

“Well, come on then,” I told it.

And it did.

It tensed itself to leap and as it vaulted up I fired twice, dropping it to the pavement. One round punched through its chest and the other smashed its head open, cleaving it apart almost perfectly. It lay there, mewling and jerking around, its head waving from side to side on a snaking trunk of a neck that almost looked boneless. Blood spattered the walks.

We got out of there.

I could hear more dogs howling in the distance. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I knew I’d recognize it when I saw it. And then there it was: an Army/Navy store. The door was open, a down of leaves and sand having blown in.

We went inside, clicking on flashlights.

Displays were tipped over, a case of war medals smashed…but other than that, the store was relatively unscathed and that was a real rarity these days. All of which made me think that South Bend must have been hit pretty hard by disease.

“Carl? Get that door shut. Lock it and prop something against it to keep it closed,” I said. “Help him out, Texas.”

“I suppose somebody’s has to.”

I turned away from them. “Janie, let’s find a place for us to spend the night. Dawn won’t be for six hours yet.”

Everyone did what they were told and the long night began.

Good thing was, save for the barking of dogs and the occasional sound of rats running in the streets, nothing at all happened. We found a storeroom in the back and crashed there for the night, sleeping in shifts.

And so the night passed.

When daylight finally came, sweeping the night terrors back into their holes, it turned out that the Army/Navy store was a real windfall. We found another locked storeroom in the basement and it was just full of goodies…once we popped the door with a crowbar. Cartons of military MREs and freeze-dried hiking food, cases of bottled water and packets of water purification tablets. Sleeping bags and flashlights, waterproof raingear and parkas and blankets and first aid equipment. Upstairs there was camo clothing in every size, some of it American and some of it British DPM.

While Janie and I took inventory, Texas Slim and Carl went out hunting a new vehicle. They bickered their way out the door, trying to decide whose mother had entertained more bikers in a single night. I was glad to get rid of them. That shit went on almost constantly, the nipping and arguing and insulting. It was what they did and they enjoyed it, but it got old after awhile.

“There’s a ton of stuff here, Nash,” Janie said, standing amongst heaps of blankets and clothing and green metal boxes.

“We’ll just take what we need.”

That was an unwritten rule these days. No sense being a glutton, no sense being a hog, just take what you needed and leave the rest for some other unfortunate soul. I believed in this completely. I knew others did, too. There were always plenty who didn’t, of course, but I truly believed that karma would sort their asses out in the end.

“What do you think the chances are they’ll get us a decent ride?”

Janie laughed. “Pretty good if they don’t kill each other first.”

“Ah, they’re pretty tight, I think. They just express their feelings for one another in a strange way.”

“Let’s go to the storeroom, Nash. I want to show you something.”

I followed her downstairs and when we were in there, she locked the door.

“What do you want to show me?”

“What do you think?” she said, something blazing just behind her eyes. “You’ve been thinking the same thing I have so quit playing innocent.”

The heat that burned inside her spread out and consumed me. She was beautiful…but still the image of my wife came to me unbidden and dominating as it often did. Shelly. Dear God, Shelly. I remembered the mole on her thigh and the way she laughed and the little notes she would stick inside my lunch pail and the way her hand felt in mine and how she had looked the day we were married and how lucky, how blessed, I had felt knowing that she was mine. And then I saw her, as I would always see her, dying in my arms that night from cholera, nothing but bones wrapped in yellow skin, her chest trembling with each shallow gasp of air, and my own voice saying again and again, this is Shelly, this is my wife, this is how I bleed.

But that was gone.

It was faded with age.

Janie looked at me and something crossed her eyes like a shadow and then was gone and I was with her, losing myself in her.

She came right up to me and grabbed my hands and put them up her shirt and on her breasts. They were hot to the touch. I could feel her heart pounding with a steady delicious rhythm. I kissed her with my lips and then with my tongue and that’s how it started. Later, thinking about it with a warm satisfaction, I thought I actually melted into her. It sounds like something from a cheap paperback romance, but that’s how it was. It was no gentle seduction, there was nothing subtle or soft about any of it…just a union born of absolute need, trembling fingers working buttons and zippers and then I was on top of her and inside her, pumping, and she was breathing hot and heavy in my ear. Moaning. Begging me never to stop. I think I told her I loved her. When we came, we both cried out. It didn’t last long, but what there was of it was completely molten.

Later, still wrapped together in a twine of hot flesh and cooling sweat, she balanced herself on one elbow and said, “You think about your wife a lot, don’t you?”

“I guess.”

“But you never speak of her.”

“No.”

“Why not, Nash? Don’t you think it would be better if you did?”

I pulled away, pain breaking loose inside me. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

Janie didn’t push it, it wasn’t in her to do so. She lay next to me, her skin golden and her limbs long. “Do you trust me, Nash?”

“I think you’re the only one I do trust.” I meant it.

“I want you to tell me about your wife. Not now. But some day. When you do that, when you share it with me and trust me with it, I know I’ll trust you, too.”

The idea that maybe she didn’t trust me, not completely, hurt. I knew the others were with me because they thought I could keep them safe. It was not devotion, really, it was need and maybe it was even fear. Fear of what I could do and what I would call up on the next night of the full moon. That made me somehow omnipotent in their eyes. They respected the power, feared how I wielded it.