Rise of the Plague (Book 0): The Sickness (Monte's Story)

by Jeannie Rae

  Haley pierces my flesh inside the wound with the needle and injects the fluid. I’m surprised to find that I can’t even feel the shot.

  “They’re coming,” Haley says breathlessly. “Get up. Let’s go.”

  “I can’t,” I say, feeling weaker than ever. There is no way I can drive that dirt bike again.

  “Get up!” Haley yells grabbing my hands and dragging me across the pavement toward a white SUV. “At least get in here, so they won’t get you!”

  I use the last ounces of energy and life force I have to stand and climb into the backseat of the empty SUV and hide behind the tinted windows.

  I look out the back window as my eyelids become heavier and heavier. Haley mounts the bike with her backpack on, and tries to start the bike, but has no luck. She tries kick starting the bike twice more, before she is overrun by a group of four with the sickness. As Haley disappears beneath the sickened ones, I find that my time has come and can remain awake no longer.

  WAKE UP

  My eyes lethargically creep open—it’s tough breathe. I am so hot. The blistering temperature leaves me feeling breathless, as if the oxygen has been sucked out of the world. I tug at my clothes and see I have on a lightweight hoodie and jeans. I’m trying to focus and remember how I got here.

  Examining my surroundings, I recognize that I’m in a car—no an SUV. An expensive SUV. Where am I? Leather seats, electric windows, GPS system, this SUV is awesome, but stifling. I sit up, a little too quickly as a brief surge of dizziness sweeps over me. Looking out the windows, I’m thrust back into reality. Dozens of sick people shuffle along the street and sidewalks. They are everywhere. Some of them are roaming around, while others run after what few normal people remain in the street.

  Cars are backed up in a tight gridlock and garbage blankets the ground. I look out the back window, remembering Haley. I don’t see her, but I see her backpack on the ground a few feet from the dirt bike. I try to fight back the tears, but it’s a futile effort, as my bottom lip quivers uncontrollably.

  I tried to do something righteous, before the sickness got the best of me, but it was a waste. It’s like I’m cursed. Haley was the only civilized person that I’ve met today. She was going to help people. She helped me. And she died for it.

  I look down at my wrist and pull back my sleeve. The fiery pain is gone, leaving my wrist and arm feeling nearly painless. Maybe Haley gave me a pain killer. I feel surprised when I peek at the bite. It’s scabbed over and the redness surrounding the wound has all but gone away. Come to think of it, my whole body feels…better. I have that sensation, like I’ve had a fever that has just been broken, like I’m waking from a cloud of confusion and soreness.

  Maybe it was one of those anti…what are those medicines that fight an infection called again? Either way, I’m feeling so much healthier. In checking out the SUV, I find it picked over, and there aren’t any keys in the ignition. Climbing into the back, I sit on a knee and eye the dirt bike through the back window. I wonder if I should chance it. There are so many with the sickness out there, that I won’t have time to keep trying to kick start it if it gives me trouble.

  Suddenly a bloody hand slaps against the back window, I flinch backward, drawing in a sharp gasp. The hand slowly slides down the window, leaving behind a bloody reminder of its presence. As I cautiously lean forward, I look downward for the body that owns the hand. A pale, chapped face pops up to eye level with me. It’s Haley. Her once sun kissed skin is now drained of all color, her veins have all rose to the surface of her skin and look extraordinarily dark, and the whites of her eyes are now black—just like all the others. She curls back her lips in a snarl, revealing blackened gums as she presses her face to the back window. Backing away from the window, I climb back over the seat and duck down. As fear pulses through me, the only thing I can think to do, is hide and hope that she didn’t see me through the tinted back window.

  IN HIDING

  From my hiding place, on the backseat floorboard of the SUV, I can hear Haley roaring. She emits a merciless sounding call, beckoning the other sickened in the area. I gently poke my head up, looking in her direction. As though she can see me through the tinted window, Haley slams her fist into the glass. She strikes it again.

  My body remains motionless as I watch her repeatedly pound the glass. About seven or eight others have now joined Haley, surrounding the back end of the vehicle. The lady I met is gone and this…creature, in her place, is a monster. She tilts her head back snarling and wailing, while raining down a barrage of hammer-fists to the glass.

  The strength of this relatively small woman is impossible. After another powerful blow, the glass begins to crackle. She proceeds with more blows as the glass collapses inward. Small chunks, the size of half-dollars fall onto the back carpeting of the SUV. About a half dozen more people with the sickness are making their way over to Haley, as if she’s discovered hidden treasure. The group of almost fifteen now, begins thrusting their fists at the rear, side windows and clawing at the broken out crater caused by Haley. A basketball sized hole has now been formed in the back window. Haley whips her head in the opening and starts to climb in. The others gather tightly around her at the rear of the vehicle pulling at the fractured glass.

  I am so thankful for these tinted windows. I don’t think that the rest of the crowd can see me through the glass. It seems like they are following Haley’s lead, gathering toward the back of the vehicle.

  Haley snakes in head first. Then her hands and arms slide through the opening. The hole in the glass is not quite large enough for her arms to fit through, but she forces them, causing the window shards to rip open the skin on her upper arms. Her dark blood explodes out of her torn flesh and streams from the splintered, broken window. It flows down her arms onto the floor of the SUV, like a faucet of blood.

  Realizing that I have to move—to do something if I want to survive this, I climb over the center console into the front seat. Right now, I really regret ending my friendship with Denny Crocket last year. I could have picked up some of his bad habits and learned how to hot wire this SUV. But he did get busted by the cops—so never mind. The dirt bike is my only option. I have to try to get to it. I’m scared though. That’s how they got Haley and there

  is no way I can out run them if the bike won’t start. I could try for the shotgun I dropped in the street, but from here, I can’t see it. Plus, there aren’t enough shells in it to taken down all these people with the sickness. Yup, the bike is the only way.

  I quietly open the driver door and inch it open, while keeping my eyes on the ever growing crater in the window. I leap from the seat, sprinting around the front of the vehicle and darting toward the dirt bike. I steal a glimpse back at the SUV.

  Those morons are still trying to get in through the window. Lifting the bike, I crank the kick starter, channeling all my fear into my foot’s thrust. It started! As I roll on the throttle, a woman with the sickness runs full speed toward me. I feel the woman’s fingernails tug on my hoodie. Her grasp is loose and slips off the fabric as the bike whisks me away.

  I weave through broken down and stalled traffic, noticing that nearly every soul within eyeshot has the sickness. Am I the only one left? For how far—just in my town or state—or the whole world? Purses and backpacks are discarded in the street, even a diaper bag sits alone, left behind in the gutter as receipts and papers drift in the warm summer breeze. The people with the sickness move about the streets cluttered with empty cars like cockroaches raiding a kitchen cabinet.

  I can see the highway that leads out of town from here, but it looks like it’s blocked with concrete road barriers—like the ones used for highway roadwork. The only way in or out of town by land is on the highway. This coastal town is shaped like a witch’s boot and up toward the top of the boot, is a bottleneck that is scarcely wide enough for the highway, with the ocean on either side. I know I can get to the roadblock on this dirt bike, but why aren’t there lines of people trying to leave? As
I get closer, I can see that there are people moving around behind the road block. Oh thank God, real—regular people!

  I’m almost there, three blocks to go. I speed up and hear a long beep from a loud speaker.

  “Turn around and return to your home,” the voice commands.

  That’s not going to happen. Only one block to go. With a steady speed, I head toward roadblock. It only takes seconds for me to reach the barricade and slide the dirt bike to a stop.

  I see about ten men behind roadblock that are dressed in camo, must be some branch of the Armed Forces. As I look to these men, they all have their weapons lifted and aimed at me.

  HANDS UP

  The military forces have their weapons drawn at me. I’m not sure if they’ll give me a chance or shoot me dead right here. Out of the corner of my eye, I see bodies piled up into a mound, fifty yards down the street. I only hope those bodies had the sickness when they were alive and were not normal people trying to leave.

  Whatever it was that Haley gave me, it cured me. I don’t have the sickness. Maybe that’s how she was going to help lots of people—with the cure for the sickness. She gave me the medicine in time to stop it. But I think it will be better not to mention that to these guys, they may not believe me. I can hardly believe it myself.

  “Can you help me, please?” I call out, laying the dirt bike down and raising my hands into the air.

  The men look back and forth between one another, exchanging looks and head nods.

  “Have you been bitten?” One asks.

  “No,” I lie. “Is that how the sickness works?”

  “The sickness? It’s an outbreak of disease and yes that’s how it’s spread,” he responds in a short, authoritative tone.

  “What happened, I mean, how did it start?”

  “Nobody knows yet. Personally, I think it’s a terrorist attack. Not sure if it’s foreign or domestic though. But mark my words, it’s an attack. How old are you?” He asks, furrowing his brow.

  “Sixteen.”

  “Huh, everyone else you got is dead, right?” He says with a twinge of sympathy.

  I nod my head, as a sharp pain in my gut makes me feel as though I’ve been stabbed. I don’t know if it was the pinch of humanity that I saw on the soldier’s face or if it was all hitting home for me—that I have nobody. I feel the tears welling up in my eyes, as I realize that I have the freedom that I’ve been wanting for so long. But my newfound freedom came at a terrible price. Not only will I never see my dirt-bag dad again, but my mom and kid brother too. And it’s not like I won’t see them because I moved away, leaving a chance to reunite with them someday—no—they are just gone.

  “Come on in Hun, but you have to go through decontamination first.”

  I walk past the barricade, leaving the dirt bike behind as I fear what may come next. Decontamination sounds like they will definitely discover the bite on my wrist and my body would soon join the pile of discarded carcasses on the roadside. My heart hammers, as my mind tries to quickly figure out what to do or say next. A female guard with short blonde hair approaches with a gruff expression.

  “Come with me miss,” she says in a monotone voice.

  A few yards from the barricade, we approach a thick, plastic tent—like structure with what looks like a carwash sprayer on the side. The woman picks up the sprayer and kicks over a clear, plastic tub to me.

  “You are going to need to disrobe. Put all of your clothes—shoes and all in the tub.”

  This is it. She will discover that I’ve been bitten and I will be executed right here, naked and in this plastic tent, virtually all alone.

  DISPLACED

  After the coldest shower of my life, I’m standing in a line where meals are being served from brown-paper sacks. A temporary spot, on the side of the highway is set up by the Red Cross. A line of eight, red and white canopies are situated for refugees to clean up and eat. There is a little grass beside the asphalt, before the ground cliffs off to the ocean on either side of the highway.

  I had been so scared to take off my sweater before the shower—that I nearly turned back toward the barricade. The female guard at the decontamination area took a peek at my wrist and had hastily asked me about it.

  I had lied again, telling her that I fell off my dirt bike, but she kept shouting out commands like, “turn around” and “wash with soap,” that I soon realized, she didn’t care. After all, it’s all scabbed up now, no redness. It looks like it happened days ago. I wish Haley could have made it, whatever that medicine was…it worked. The female guard had slapped a wristband on me, that included my name and the date and time I went through decontamination. Then she sprayed my clothes with an earwax smelling spray and gave them back to me to get

  dressed.

  I take a seat on the ground, eating a ham and plastic cheese sandwich from within the sack lunch provided at the food canopy. I don’t care that it tastes like crap. I am so hungry that it feels my stomach might begin devouring my organs on its own. I’m all alone on the grass beneath another canopy. I notice that most of the people aren’t bothering to stick around. They’re loading onto school busses parked on the highway. I think that I should probably get a move on too. Where am I going to go? I don’t have family nearby. Closest relative I have is two states over and is an aunt whose face I couldn’t spot if she sat down next to me.

  My mom and dad have a friend not too far from here that stayed at our house for about six months, two years ago. He works as a porter at the diner my mom where my mom works—well…worked. He might take me in for a little while and help me contact Aunt Charlotte. It’s a long shot, but what else can I do? My mom hasn’t talked to her side of the family in years. They had a falling out –as Mom called it. Probably over my dad. All I can remember about Aunt Charlotte is that she used to give me candy every time I saw her, which was only maybe four or five times that come to mind. I had to be six or seven the last time I saw her.

  “Excuse me, Miss,” An old woman offers a warm smile. “Are you displaced?”

  “Um, I don’t think so. I’m fine,” I say rolling my shoulders. “Everything is in the right place.”

  Why would she think my shoulder is out of place? I saw that in a movie one time when a guy could displace his shoulder, and then slam it into a wall to get it back into place.

  “I don’t mean dislocated, sweetheart. I mean, are you separated from your family?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Well sweetheart, the bus is right over there, when you are ready. It will take you to a place better equipped to find a relative or a social worker. I’ll see you there,” she says with a nod and walks toward a school bus with a gathering crowd of about ten people.

  I toss my paper sack in the trash can, after devouring every last crumb. As I think about whether or not to get on that bus, the woman told me about, I hear a commotion from behind me. The Army—or whatever military branch they are—stands with their guns raised. They’re all yelling at the same time, making it hard to understand any of them.

  I move closer to the decontamination tent to see who or what they are yelling at, and see a whole group of maybe fifteen people running full speed toward the barricade. They are screaming for help, as a group having twice as many chases them. The group behind them has the sickness.

  The guards at the concrete rails look on the verge of panic. One of them reaches for the bullhorn.

  “Return to you homes. Don’t come any closer or you will be shot!” He yells.

  Ignoring the warning, the normal people out front continue running straight for the rails, with the maniacs on their heels.

  I cup my hand over my mouth, in disbelief of what’s happening. The Army has to help them— they have to let these people in. The man with the bullhorn warns the oncoming group once more, this time his voice is harsh and furious.

  “Turn back now! Do not come any closer or you will be shot!”

  “Those people have no choice, if they don’t come this way, the
ones with the sickness will get them. You have to help them!” I yell at the soldier shouting commands.

  The man lowers the bullhorn, and looks at the men beside him and lets out a heavy sigh. He turns back to me and gives me an icy glare, but says nothing before returning his stare out on the approaching crowd.

  A soldier turns to the one with the bullhorn and says, “Sir if we wait for the civilians to reach the blockade, we won’t be able to stop the horde. There are too many and the civilians are blocking our shots.”

  “Fire,” he commands, setting the bullhorn on the concrete rail.

  I feel a jolt of shock rock my body. Did he really say that? To shoot at all those people?

  My eardrums are flooded by the repeating sound of gunshots tearing through the summertime morning. In only a matter of seconds, all of the people who had been approaching—are dead. The ones with the sickness and the ones who needed help lie motionless on the asphalt. Their bodies litter the street only twenty feet from the edge of the barricade. That could have been me. I sink to my knees, stunned —almost feeling temporarily removed from my body.

  “That’s it boys. We’re not bringing in any more civilians through decontamination. This is a full quarantine—nobody in or out. Those who do not yield our warning will be shot. Understood? Now let’s get these bodies to the pile,” he says.

  “Yes, sir,” the men on the front line shout.

  I rise to my feet in total disbelief. They can make that call on their own—to not let anyone else out of the city? What if they don’t have the sickness? I’m thinking that bus ride out of here is sounding more appealing by the minute.

  THE SCHOOL BUS

  There is no way that I am going to stay in this make-shift camp any longer than I have to. Soldiers slaughtering innocent people instead of helping—I want as far away from these guys as I can get.