Elixr Plague (Episode 6): Refugees

by Richardson, Marcus

Ward flipped off the radio, and its repeating message. He turned on the sirens and lights. “I’ve heard enough,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise outside. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

  Seneca needed no further convincing. He dropped the hammer, and the ambulance surged forward. “Everyone keep an eye out for zekes. I don’t want any surprises.”

  “It sounds like the further we get from Chicago, the safer we’ll be,” Kendra mused.

  “Yeah,” Jo added, “but at some point, we’ll be closer to Milwaukee.”

  “Yeah, but it’s nowhere near as big—or hopefully as bad—as Chicago,” Ward countered, not looking over his shoulder, but focusing on the road before them.

  “She makes a good point—I don’t think we’re going to be safe for a long time,” Seneca said. “Best we can hope for is a castle or something. Martin’s got a pretty sweet setup in the U.P.,” he added.

  “Who’s Martin? Your employer? Wait a minute...” Kendra said. Seneca looked at her in the mirror and watched her frown, a little crease appearing between her eyes.

  “Yeah,” Seneca replied. “Desmond Martin.”

  “Oh, shit—the guy who started all this mess?” blurted Jo. “Oh, my God...we’re gonna die.”

  “He didn’t cause this shit,” Seneca said, “terrorists did, when they modified the...whatever the hell they made the medicine out of. I don’t understand it, and I don’t care, either—he’s throwing a boatload of money at me and my friends to track down the bastards that did this and make ‘em pay.”

  “Awww, we’re friends?” cooed Ward, still scanning the roads.

  “You really think money will solve this?” demanded Jo, her dark eyes flashing in the mirror.

  “He never said shit about money,” Sam interjected. “These guys are out for blood, lady.”

  The ambulance was quiet—except for the wailing sirens—for a long time after that. They rolled through Algonquin, Crystal Lake, and McHenry without incident, seeing only a few other cars on the road—who quickly got out of the way of the ambulance when the drivers spotted the flashing lights. Once north of the picturesque little town of McHenry, they screamed down long stretches of mostly deserted highway, heading for the Wisconsin border.

  “Damn I could go for a burger right about now...” Ward said sadly, eying a Wendy’s as they flew past.

  “Oh,” Kendra said, rummaging around in her trash bag. “Ive got some tuna and crackers...”

  “Mighty kind of you,” Ward said, taking the food with a genuine smile. “Thanks. Got any hot sauce in that wonder bag of yours?”

  “Uh...” Kendra looked down. “No. Sorry.”

  “Ah, that’s alright. Thanks anyway.”

  After the cabin had been fumigated with the smell of canned tuna, and Ward’s hunger satiated for the moment, they all opened packs of food—Seneca had another protein bar and some water from his canteen—and ate in companionable silence while the empty miles ticked by.

  “Where the hell is everyone?” asked Sam eventually, as they roared past the border weigh station—deserted of course—and crossed into Wisconsin.

  By the time they made it to the sleepy little town of Mukwonago, Wisconsin, everyone in the ambulance stared out the windows with glassy eyes and aching backs. Driving through so many deserted towns and empty roads after surviving thirty-six hours in zombie-infested St. Charles had put them all on edge. The obscene reversal was supremely ironic and Seneca's eyes. Ward, as ever, was ready with a witty or sarcastic comment, or even an off-color joke at the drop of a hat, but even he had become sullen and morose.

  "Oh look, we’re in Mukwonago. Another deserted town…” Ward muttered, staring at shuttered windows and empty sidewalks. “What a surprise.”

  "What do you think should happen?" Kendra asked. "I mean, when the people that are inside start turning…if it's spreading as fast as it is…"

  "You think the whole country is going down?" asked Seneca, his eyes fixed on the road. The light was fading—it would be night soon, and he desperately wanted to get off the road. He’d had Ward shut off the damn lights a while back, but still felt like there was an enormous target on their backs.

  "I mean, it's definitely possible,” Kendra continued. “If the government is panicking and ordering everybody to stay inside…and we all know what happened in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles—it's been all over the news.”

  “That's not even taking into account what's happened around the world,” Jo added. “No one's heard from anyone in London for over a week!"

  "Longer than that…" muttered Ward. "But that's their problem. We’re fixing to be the problem for somebody else."

  “Hooah,” Seneca replied.

  “Has anybody stopped to think if one of us is infected yet?" Sam blurted.

  Seneca's eyes shifted in the mirror to find Sam, slumped against the rear wall, packed in next to the two garbage bags and all the paramedic supplies. "Well…" he began.

  "There's not much point in worrying about that, man," Ward replied, scanning the empty sidewalks. "What's going to happen is going to happen, right? I mean, if you're sick, and we don't know it yet, you could end up dying in the middle of the night and eating our faces before morning. Anybody feel sick right now?"

  “Jesus, dude,” Seneca said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel as he maneuvered around an abandoned car in the middle of the road.

  “N-n-no," Kendra stuttered.

  Jo shook her head, eyes wide, and loose black hair swirling around her face. "Don't look at me, I don't feel all that bad, just tired and cramped back here in this funky little seat…"

  "All right then," Ward said shifting in the front passenger seat. "I think we've all been plenty exposed to whatever it is these assholes are carrying," Seneca said, trying to cut through the melancholy permeating the cabin. “If anybody should be sick, it's me and Ward. We've been covered in blood and zombie guts for the past 36 hours."

  "I think if anyone was going to get sick, you're right—it would be you," Kendra said quietly. "But I also don't think you're going to get sick. This syndrome…this Elixr stuff, whatever it is—it has an incredibly fast incubation period. The news said that some people came down with flulike symptoms within hours of receiving the inoculation, while others took days. So there's a whole range. But with the amount of exposure that you two have had, if you're not turning into one of those things by now, I think you're in the clear."

  "That's great for them, but what about us?" Jo asked. "You saw what happened to those people back in the pub. That guy in the kitchen—all he did was get bit…not even as bad as some of the others…and he…" Jo turned away and looked out the window.

  "Yeah," Sam said softly, his voice barely audible over the rumbling of the diesel engine and the humming of tires on the road. "I seen how that goes. Ain’t pretty."

  Seneca pulled his cell phone out of a thigh pocket on his cargo pants and thumbed to the map screen. "Well, now that we've got that happy little discussion out of the way, I got some good news."

  "Wait, wait, don't tell me—" Ward said, putting a hand to his forehead and closing his eyes. "You son of a bitch." Ward lowered his hand and glared at Seneca. "You saved 15% or more on your car insurance and you didn't tell me!" He punched Seneca in the shoulder.

  Seneca grunted but joined the others in laughing. It felt good to release some of the tension. "No, that's not what I was gonna say, dumbass,” he growled in mock irritation. "I was gonna say once we get through town here…it looks like just past this high school here on the left, there's only a couple more roads and then we turn into Plum’s neighborhood."

  Ward was quiet for a moment “You mean over there?" he asked, pointing out the corner of the windshield. Seneca glanced down at the phone in his hand. "Yeah, about that direction. Why?"

  "Oh nothing, it's just where that big plume of smoke is coming from. That's all."

  Everyone fell silent until they rumbled through the north side of the deserted
little town. On a curious note, as they passed the last intersection by the high school, Seneca glanced down the crossroad and noticed what looked like a rudimentary barricade near the high school. A large tractor, what could've been a combine, and several trucks blocked the road. A group of men milled about, armed with long guns. Seneca blinked and then they were through the intersection and moving on to Plum’s neighborhood.

  That was strange…only damn place we found since St. Charles with anybody walking around, and they've got a barricade out. The hell is going on in this place?

  Seneca didn't have time to worry whether what he just seen had anything to do at all with Plum not making contact with him since Traviers’ phone call. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind, than they pulled up to Plum’s neighborhood.

  "Okay guys, this is it, everybody get ready," he ordered, his voice dropping into operator mode. All the fun and games were over—it was time to get back to work.

  Ward ejected the magazine on his rifle, checked the rounds, and slammed it home, and pulled back the charging bolt. "Locked and cocked, brother."

  Seneca looked in the mirror and saw Sam examine the pistol in his hands, his brows knotted.

  "I never used one of these things before…"

  Ward scoffed. "That might've been something to tell us, I don't know…anytime in the last two hours?"

  “Here, let me see it," Kendra said, reaching her hand out. "What?" she asked, when Seneca's eyes focused on her in the mirror. "My dad's a Civil War…was…hell, I don't even know if he's alive or not. Anyway he's a Civil War re-enactor," she said, taking the pistol. She aimed at the roof, kept her finger outside the trigger guard, and yanked the slide back examining the chamber. She thumbed a switch and ejected the magazine, examined the magazine, then slammed it home. She made sure the safety was on and handed it back Sam. "You got six shots left, safety’s on."

  "How do I turn the safety off?" Sam asked.

  "There's a little switch right there," she said, pointing at the weapon.

  "Can you show me how to do that?" Jo asked.

  "Sure, I grew up around firearms." She shrugged at the confused looks sent her way. ”Everyone in my family is somewhat of a history buff. Dad taught me how to shoot black powder muskets when I was a teenager." She looked out the window as they passed shuttered homes, winding up the hill into the neighborhood. Several had had windows shuttered with plywood, hastily attached to the sides of the structures. "This is going to get as bad as I think it is, and everything's going to fall apart…without electricity there's gonna be no more factories to make ammunition or more weapons or…more anything, really. We might all be learning how to make our own gunpowder before long."

  Ward looked over his shoulder and winked. "Might be asking you for lessons on how to fire a musket."

  Seneca rolled his eyes. "Stay on target, soldier," he growled. "I don't like the looks of this neighborhood."

  Jo snorted. “You oughtta come see where I live…"

  "Don't look so bad to me," Sam said, peering out the window.

  Sam wasn't wrong. On the face of it, the neighborhood looked upper-middle-class. The houses weren't exactly cookie-cutter, but they weren't McMansions either. Each one looked vaguely like a two-story colonial…though there were a handful of Tudor designs sprinkled in the neighborhood. They were larger than most houses, and each had their own sizable yard which provided a decent amount of space between the houses.

  Seneca estimated on average the residents of the neighborhood had about 30 yards between houses. It was certainly picturesque, as they drove up the winding road to the crest of the hill. From the map, the main road came off Wisconsin 83 and curved around the base of the hill, then went right to the crest, bisecting it lengthwise east to west.

  The main drive then went down the other side of the hill and crossed a side street before connecting to another neighborhood with even bigger houses. But Plum’s neighborhood had a small street that curled around the back of the hill, too. The houses at the crest of the hill were the biggest and fanciest, but they also had the least amount of space, trees, and privacy.

  Plum’s place was on the north face of the hill, his yard like the other big ones, but it backed up against a swath of dense trees. As they grew closer to the operator’s house, Seneca spotted cornfields through the bare trees lining Plum’s yard. A small flock of wild turkeys picked through the weeds and leaves at the edge of the yard.

  "He certainly picked a pretty spot up here. Privacy, space around his place, Thanksgiving dinner out back…”

  “That smoke isn’t a coming from his house, but something around here is on fire,” Ward said, nodding out his window. "Looks like it's the fancy pants neighborhood on the other side of this one. Somebody's burnin’ some shit over there, that's for sure.”

  Kendra wrinkled her nose. “The smell burns…"

  "I don't even want to think about what kind of chemicals are in the air right now," Jo said, watching the smoke out her window.

  Seneca pulled the ambulance to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road, killing conversation with their momentum. "I'd be more worried about other things out there than what's in the air."

  They weren’t quite at the crest of the hill proper, but were about two thirds up the slope. Seneca could see Plum’s house to the left, about two houses down. It was a tasteful Tudor design, two stories, with a three-car garage attached on the side. Thick pine trees ringed the property and shielded the back half of the house from the street. But that wasn't what he pointing at.

  There, in the middle of the road, stood a man in tattered clothing, staring down at the ground and weaving back and forth. He looked drunk.

  “Ah, fuck…” Ward muttered. "I was kinda hoping we wouldn’t have to deal with these assholes so soon."

  "Oh, my God…oh, my God," Jo chanted quietly.

  Kendra tried to hush her to no effect. "Come on, it's just one…hang in there."

  "That's right, ain’t like they can even get to us in this big bitch,” Sam said, tapping the window with his pistol

  “Easy there, Tiger,” Ward warned. "We don't know how many of these things there are—could be he's just early to the party."

  The sinking feeling in Seneca stomach only grew more intense with Ward’s ominous warning.

  Seneca gripped the wheel. “Everyone hang on, we’re going in.”

  4

  To Build a Better Castle

  Beacon Point Church of Christ

  Beacon Point, Michigan

  Alan Walsh looked out the kitchen window of his pastorate and stared at the figure resting on the grass behind the church, draped in a white sheet. The early morning sun cast a warm yellow glow on the world, washing away the cold blues and black shadows of night, but the red stains on the blanket grew more vivid by the moment. It had been a long night, sleeping on a simple pallet in the church—he’d given his bed in the pastorate to Mary Whitmore, as the oldest person in the church—and though his muscles ached, he had to admit he was doing better than Nate Bickels, whose wife had turned into a monster.

  It'd taken almost 20 minutes to calm the grieving man the night before, after he’d learned that his wife—the creature that used to be his wife?—had been gunned down behind the church. Three new people were now under the charge of Mary and her impromptu corps of nurses. The fact that two of the men that had been injured had been armed at the time hadn’t seemed to matter to Nate. He’d flown at them in a blind rage, punching, kicking, clawing, and hitting anything that got within range.

  In the end, they'd been forced to tie him up and throw him in a corner of the church. A few volunteers stayed with him through the night, while he’d sobbed over the destruction of his family in so violent and gory a manner. It had been a long, long night for everyone.

  Alan couldn't imagine the pain the man must be suffering with. First, he and his family had arrived at the church in Beacon Point as strangers, refugees seeking safe shelter in the Elixr storm. He must've known, even
then, that his wife had been infected and was not long for this world.

  The same knowledge had to be true of his children, which Alan imagined would have been even worse to consider. Never having married nor had children himself, Alan could only imagine the heart-rending pain that must've come with the knowledge that Nate’s children were just as sick as his wife.

  And then to watch his wife, the woman he'd sworn to live by and love for the rest of his days, slowly succumb to the man-made disease sweeping the world.

  Alan sighed. Now it was the dawn of a new day…and yet, the first thing he saw when he looked outside was the body that reminded him of the unearthly threat they all faced. Alan shook his head and turned away from the window. It was too early for such thoughts.

  He didn't know what was worse, helplessly watching one's children die, or watching your wife die—only to rise from the dead and kill one of those children outright. Alan rubbed his face. And then to find out that your wife had been gunned down without so much as anyone even attempting to help her.

  He hobbled away from the window and poured himself a cup of stale coffee. The one miracle in all this mess was that the little girl appeared to be pulling through. She was the first person that anyone had seen to come down with the sickness and recover. Poor kid was going to have a long adjustment..

  Alan took a sip and made a face. They all were going to have a long adjustment. He wondered if any of them would ever truly get over what had taken place in the past week, between Elixir spreading around the planet like wildfire, zombies...and all of it…

  Now more than ever, he realized it was a time for prayer. Again he felt the powerful sensation that he’d been placed in this position for just that. This was truly his calling: going to war as a chaplain in the Army had merely been training.

  He was in the opening stages of a new war, the war of souls, to defend all that was good in the world against the corruption and decay of death and damnation. He looked up to find Cade standing in the doorway, staring at him.