The Plague Runner

by Burgy, P. J.

  “They get so worried every time.” Annie poured the contents of the can into a pan and set it over the flame. The scent of beef stew began to fill the kitchen. She turned around, hand on the counter, and scanned Kara with her dark brown eyes. “But it’s paranoia, pure paranoia. Little bugs get in now and then, as they do. We’re all in here, right next to each other, and bugs spread fast if you don’t contain them. But, the fear in their eyes, Kara. The contempt. These people are our friends, our neighbors, but the fear makes them stupid. Laura had to correct them.”

  “Dr. Kern is an amazing woman,” Kara stated.

  “She is.” Annie looked to the kitchen floor. “Our little fort bug was just a scare. After Sarah and Hollie are done their quarantine, they’ll be looked at sideways for a few weeks, but everything will go back to normal. Jim was sick, so was I. All of us, actually. Except Lena. She’s the only one who didn’t catch it.”

  Kara nodded. “Lucky kid.”

  “Lucky. Yeah. She’s always been the hardy one, you know. I don’t think she’s been sick a day in her life.” Annie turned to stir the stew on the stove. “She took good care of us.”

  “Glad I could get those antibiotics to you.”

  “Actually, the antibiotics weren’t for us. The Hensons were sick. Their child will probably die. They're pariahs now. Only Laura goes in and out, to bring them food, water, medicine. There was talk of burning their house down, but Jim put a stop to that. Still, I've heard people whispering...”

  Kara sat up, frowning. “Wait, and Ash is letting this happen?”

  “Ash can’t do anything about it. He can manage resources, plan construction, but he can’t make people think. They hear someone sneeze and they panic. One cough and you’re asked by the guards to go see Dr. Kern. They treat it like the Black Fever. Like the plague,” Annie muttered.

  “Dammit. I’m going to give Ash-”

  “No. Don’t.” Annie stirred the stew again. She left the wooden spoon in the pan, took a bowl down from an open cabinet and set it on the counter. Kara heard the fire go silent. “I told you. He can’t do anything about it.”

  “He could talk some sense to them.”

  “He tried. He did. I swear to you, he did.” Annie filled the bowl with stew, turned, and placed the bowl in front of Kara, setting it on top of the plate. She took a step back, grabbed the back of another chair at the table, and had a seat. “With the Black Fever, it happens so fast, no one questions it. You’re infected with the plague, and within hours you’re showing symptoms. The dogs are on you. You smell like death. It’s in the eyes first, you know. You can see it in their eyes. They understand the plague, they know what it does. But, little bugs, the flu, a cold. For some reason, those scare fort folk worse. It can’t be any different in Blue Lagoon.”

  “It isn’t like that, no.” Kara shook her head. “We quarantine but not like that.”

  “Then maybe Jim and I should consider moving.” Annie attempted a soft laugh.

  Kara began to eat, her expression thoughtful as Annie sat across from her and smiled. It didn’t take her long to finish and Kara handed her plate back to Annie, who stood and went to the sink to wash it out. The water had to come from the bucket, and Annie grabbed a rag.

  “I should get going. I don’t want to lose a lot of time,” Kara said.

  “With your legs, you’ll make it.” Annie went to Kara, who stood up to meet her. The two women hugged again and Kara went to the door, Annie following after her.

  Just then, Lena and Ramona were entering, and Kara gave each a hug as well.

  “Are you leaving?” Lena asked.

  Kara smiled at the girl. “Yeah, gotta go. But I’ll come back. You know that.”

  “Safe travels, Kara.” Annie hugged her one last time.

  “Kara!” Ramona stamped her foot.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t forget your apples!” The little girl crossed her arms.

  Kara had to grin. “Okay, okay. We’ll see how many I can fit in my bag.”

  Outside of the house, the girls waved goodbye to her.

  Kara walked to the front gate, passing by the dogs as they lounged about in the grass near their kennels, her backpack heavy on her shoulders.

  A few guards waved her over and she waved back, only walking over to them when she realized they were about to block her way at the exit.

  She sighed, opened her backpack, showing off the contents. Apples. A load of them. Water bottles and rations had been shoved to the side to make room for all the fruit she had stuffed into the bag. She was allowed to pass and the gate was opened.

  The sun wasn’t very high yet, marking the time as well before noon. If she ran hard, she would make it back to Blue Lagoon before evening.

  Chapter Two

  The run back would have to be along a different course, so the terrain would be rougher and the trip longer. This, Kara had planned for. She knew the path she was going to take, every backyard and every park, as she had planned it well in advance, even before embarking out to Pleasant Tree. You always needed a return path to be longer, less sensible in direction, more chaotic and unpredictable. You always had to have escape routes, for both trips, but even more so on the return run.

  If you had been seen heading to a fort, you would be expected to come back. A runner didn’t stay for more than a day or so, not unless they were there on anything other than business. She could have stayed longer, absolutely she could have, but that wasn’t in her nature. Her nature was to run, and she hit the road outside of Pleasant Tree in a full jog.

  She passed the massive, burning pyre of Infected, smelling the stink. The guards there in their facemasks, their eyes shielded by black plastic and their noses protected by a breather, turned to watch her and then returned to their task of digging holes nearby. One of them used hooks to drag the scorched bodies out of the pile, pulling the corpses down into deep pits a few feet away. She preferred not to look and kept running.

  In the daylight, they looked red and meaty, veins visible under the raw skin. Their mouths hung open, black drool dried to their jaws along with the old, crusted blood and muck. Dead or alive, their eyes were completely bloodshot with pupils so huge that you couldn’t see a trace of their eye color. Just black pits. Big, round, black pits surrounded by bright red. Lost eyes. Wild eyes. Dead eyes.

  And the smell..

  You could smell them when they were near. Dogs caught a whiff of the Infected well before any person could, and when the dogs went crazy, you knew they were close. She was about two hundred feet from the burning pyre of dead Infected before she could breathe easier.

  The road leading away from Pleasant Tree was a straight shot, the abandoned and crumbling buildings she passed along the way a terrible hiding spot. The rusted out, ruined cars would offer no refuge either. The sky was bright, the sun pleasant, but there were clouds gathering in the distance and Kara saw that they were dark and billowing. She wondered if they would be rain clouds or if a storm was coming. It didn’t matter really, save for the annoyance of getting soaked or risking getting struck by lightning if she were out in a field, or too close to a tree.

  It had happened before, just once. A close call, death brushing her shoulder from the skies above. Those clouds were still far off and might scatter into the blue well before reaching her though, and she kept along the road until she found herself approaching a small neighborhood. She had a choice to make. She could run through the neighborhood, run through the field and park beside it, or, take the long way and make a sharp and direct turn toward the woods nearby. She chose the woods.

  There was a worn sign many feet away, toppled over onto the ground. Grass had grown up around the asphalt surrounding it, but the words ‘Stoga State Park’ could still be made out on the front. The entrance to the park had long been overgrown, but Kara always looked for the fallen sign as a marker, even when she knew exactly where she was going.

  Twenty minutes into the forest, running between the trees and hoppin
g over roots, Kara saw a hanging banner made from torn white fabric, most likely a bedsheet, with a red handprint painted on it. It had been fastened between two trees, swaying limply. The sight of it spurred her on faster.

  She slowed to a stop and looked around. Kara held her breath and listened. Only the sounds of the forest, quiet and murmuring, reached her ears. She heard the breeze rustle in the leaves above her. The weight of her machete at her side was a comfort. Taking a few more steps forward, Kara was able to see a bit further down and saw what had to be tents. She could see them between the trees, far away and darkly colored. If she hadn’t been sure, her suspicions were confirmed when she saw one rustle.

  That was all the motivation she needed to make a right turn and head off in the opposite direction. It would be through a thicker part of the forest. Ten minutes in, Kara paused to check the compass in her backpack. The compass and the sun would be her guides for the rest of the journey here.

  Having to deal with the loss of time was a small grievance compared to the alternative. Kara had to remind herself of that several times as she checked the compass, stopping every now and then to check her direction. She did her best to stay in the better lit areas of the forest, where the sun still filtered down, and avoided the areas with a lot of outcroppings and open cave mouths.

  She came across the old mine shaft, the boards that had once blocked the entrance torn down and rotting. From where she stood, looking down from a vantage point high above the gully of the mine, Kara could see the vague shape of the tracks hidden in the grass along the ground, disappearing as they led into the cave. There were no banners of the Red Brethren here. A chill ran up her spine. No, there would be no tents or temporary holds out this way. In fact, the occupants of the tents she had seen far, far back would be moving before evening. Kara tore herself away, not wanting to linger too long. Daylight was burning.

  An hour later, she broke out of the forest along a strip of beaten road, sneakers quiet on the asphalt and grass. She followed this road for a good, long time until she saw the first of the abandoned houses in the town that had once stood near the state park. The houses would be few and far between, half demolished with roofs caved in and windows smashed. She was tempted to stop in and look around the pharmacy as she ran past it, but she sensed that it would be a waste of time. Most of these stores had been picked clean long ago. The same for the fishing and hunting shop on the corner. She would find nothing but toppled shelves and broken glass.

  It was on the outskirts of the town where she took a break. She sat on some broken concrete next to a demolished brick building to have some water and eat an apple. As she looked out over the coming terrain, she heard a rumble in the distance. The dark clouds she had seen as she left Pleasant Tree had caught up with her quickly, and were spreading across the sky toward her, reaching out like a hand, fingers stretched and ready to grab her. The rain was visible in misty sheets, the thunder calling out in warning.

  She dropped the apple core, finished with her sip of water and capped the bottle. She packed up, fixed the straps of her backpack, and took off once more toward home, her pace quickened by the storm behind her. She wouldn’t reach Blue Lagoon before the rain reached her, but she would get as far as she could in that time.

  The Infected wouldn’t come out during a daytime storm; that was just a myth. As long as the sun was up, even if it were behind clouds as dark as shadow, it had the power to keep them in hiding. Renshen had explained it to her once, when she was little, and she remembered it as she ran along the dirt path behind the skeletons of derelict houses. For the same reason the Infected shrieked and ran away from the purple UV lamps, they stayed hidden even when the sun wasn’t visible. That power, that special light, made it through the clouds and burned their skin. It kept them huddled in the dark places, waiting for sunset.

  The skies grew dark above her, and the rain swept around Kara. She had been caught at the crossroads between two possible paths. To the left, the housing circles of many weaving and winding little roads, the homes all connected and linked in crescents. It was a development, one of the larger ones in the surrounding area, and she hadn’t spent much time investigating the houses. There was a shortcut if she took off through the neighborhood. She could get to another nice, long path through both woods and fields. The other way was more open, with fewer trees or houses to hide behind. Kara opted for the neighborhood and ran toward it.

  Lightning struck somewhere close by and the resulting thunder nearly deafened her. Then, the hail began to fall, the wind picking up. She realized then with great aggravation that she would have to take cover, her run paused.

  Finding that cover, however, would not be easy.

  Being pelted by hail and scoured by wind, she jogged through the neighborhood, looking at the various houses and judging them by their states of disarray. Some were completely uninhabitable and others seemed rather sturdy for being left alone for so long. She imagined the darkness within them and what could be lurking there, and so passed by any house with an open door or completely smashed windows.

  She was surprised to see a particularly nice house on her left, a huge tree out in the front yard being the first thing to catch her attention. This house was well intact, the windows broken but visibly boarded up from the inside. The front door was closed, the glass outer door smashed to just a frame and some bars, but she could plainly see the symbol of the blue triangle with the heart drawn inside. It had been spray painted on the stucco wall next to the door, protected by the overhang above the porch.

  She trotted over to the house and found refuge from the hail as she reached the closed front door.

  There was a law, and though some would find no reason to follow that law, many others did and the punishment for breaking that law was death. It was a visible death, public, the corpse of the lawbreaker pulled up onto a high pole as an example, a warning to others. Even among the bandits and gangs, it was sacred. When the sun went down, they were no longer gang members, or thieves, or looters. When the sun went down, if they weren’t within the walls of a fort, they became survivors, and needed a place to hide. Any place.

  The symbol of the blue triangle with the heart inside.

  A safe house.

  She traced the symbol with her fingertips. She had never noticed it here, in this neighborhood, and wondered how many times she had passed it by. Perhaps it was newly established. Maybe she had just never looked that closely on her run, since she hardly ever took this route. Whichever the case, she opened the outer door and found the hollow metal front door to be unlocked. She went inside.

  She was greeted by immediate darkness and took out her flashlight. Pushing in the first round, rubber button selected the red lens and the room was bathed in the somber light, the shadows growing long behind furniture.

  She saw that the house was furnished but disheveled. There was a couch, no cushions, no blankets. A coffee table. Trash on the floor. The carpet was worn and threadbare in many spots. There was an empty cabinet in the living room and a smashed flat screen television on the floor. She took a look around, aiming her flashlight at the corners of the room, before she shut and locked the front door behind her.

  She didn’t hear anything save for the thunder, hail, and rain outside, the wind raking against the outside of the house. There was a leak in the roof, water damage on the ceiling above her evident in large patches. The sound of the structure creaking gave her a jolt but she was able to keep her pulse steady as she took a few more steps inside. The red light gave every ordinary thing she aimed it at an ominous glow, the short range requiring her to get close to investigate.

  To her left, carpeted steps went upstairs to a second floor. To her right, the room with the couch and coffee table. Kara chose to go right first, through the living room, shining her flashlight around as she explored. To be safe, she pressed the second button and a purple UV light shone across the walls of the room. White splotches on the floor indicated old blood and she switched back to the
red light.

  Her left hand went for her machete and unlatched the sheath. Machete in one hand, flashlight in the other, she turned left from the living room to enter a dining room. There was a big wooden table, the chairs overturned. A china cabinet with sparkling glasses reflected her flashlight and little points of red light danced across the walls around her. She trained her flashlight under the dining room table, crouching down to have a look. Nothing there.

  Another left and Kara was in the kitchen. The cabinets were all closed, the oven shut, the refrigerator silent and sleeping. The floor was hardwood, scuffed, and she walked softly, knowing that wooden floors had a tendency to groan under one’s weight. There were plates on top of the kitchen island along with rags and napkins. The windows had been boarded up here as well, even the small window above the sink. She threw the spotlight across the next left, which was just a loop leading to the front door.

  The next closed door on her left was a powder room, the toilet long dried out. She continued onward and turned to the steps leading up. Her heart was pounding in her chest at this point, her throat so dry that she longed to stop for a drink of water. Outside, the storm pounded on the roof, and thunder shook the bones of the house.

  The windows upstairs had not been boarded, and when the lightning ran across the sky, she saw the flashing on the walls of the hall. She made her way up the steps, slowly at first, testing the strength of her footing, dreading the sound of creaking wood. Though it appeared darker from the bottom of the steps, the fact that the windows weren’t boarded up allowed for more light to enter the rooms on the second floor, and it was actually a bit brighter despite the storm outside. She kept her machete in hand all the same, flashlight moving across the wall at the top of the steps.

  She reached the second floor and saw that she could go left or right. To the right, an open door and what she assumed to be a bedroom. To the left, a short hallway with three doors. She went left first, and saw that the first door to her right was a larger bathroom with a shower. The shower wouldn’t work, of course, and the room was a complete mess, but it was empty.