THE ENOCH PLAGUE
∞
MATTHEW WILLIAM
2016
1
The county-appointed constable sat alone in her office. As it turned out, folks who lived forever didn’t commit much crime and as a result there wasn’t much to do. Even the crow attacks had stopped quite suddenly. So it was another calm evening at the end of an especially calm week. Often people would thank her for the peace and quiet, but she was always quick to point out that it was only people respecting each other the way they should. All she was was the last resort.
She considered taking the jeep out for a ride to check up on the outer farms. It made the women feel safe to see her drive past, gave them a sense of security.
A car pulled up outside her office. It was Paige Palmer’s car, the head operator for all the farms in the county. She had lost her girl to a crow attack the week previous. Something like that happens to you, you can’t ever be the same. What was she doing out here this time of night? Hers was one of the outer farms.
The bell above the door rang as Paige entered the office.
“You’ve got time, Theresa?” she asked.
“I always do.”
“The Cartwright girl got away.”
“No,” the constable gasped.
Paige nodded with her eyes closed.
“How?” the constable asked. The men of the city had sent half a precinct out after her. They had requested the constable not get involved.
“The police chief let her go.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was. I had to pry the information out of Mary just now. She didn’t want me to tell you.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” the constable said. “Where’s the girl now?”
“They saw her leaving the city. That’s all we know so far.”
“Must be somewhere in the wilderness then,” the constable said. This was a ledger in bright red that needed to be balanced. The girl had gotten away with a death and justice needed to be paid.
“You’ll put your tracking skills to work?” Paige asked.
The constable went to the gun locker and began to load her bag. Her deputy would have to watch over things for a few days.
“You’re going to make things right, Theresa?” Paige asked, her tone almost hopeful.
“That depends what you mean.”
“You’re going to kill her.”
“You know I won’t do that,” the constable said.
Paige rolled her eyes. “Why not?”
“She’s earned an execution through the proper channels, not at my hands.”
“What’s the difference honestly?” Paige groaned.
The constable stopped her packing and stared at the woman. “Everything.”
“You of all people can go around it.”
“No I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s all that separates us from them.”
“Who?”
“The men.”
“I’m so tired of… You know the rumors about her?”
“There’s lots of rumors about lots of people,” the constable said.
“Well, in her case they’re all true,” Paige said. “The Enoch Pill doesn’t work on her and she’s dying. I spoke with Dr. Fuentes myself.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“She’s only got 50, 60 years left,” Paige said. “Keeping her alive is only delaying the inevitable.”
The constable looked the woman square in the eyes. “It’s not my decision to make.”
Paige sighed. “Bring her back here then. We’ll execute her in the town square.”
“Legally,” the constable said. “That’s the only way.”
The file on Kizzy Cartwright was already sitting on the desk. It was no coincidence. The Palmer girl was the first death case the country had seen in years and Kizzy was at fault. Her family had owned a beach house back before the plague, out in the wilderness near Sandy Hook. The constable would start the search there.
“I guess I’ll get back to work then,” Paige said as she went and opened the door. She paused there on the doorstep of the office and squinted out at the setting sun. She turned back and looked the constable in the eye. “Let me know when you get her and bring her back here. If you don’t right this wrong, then I will.”
∞
Kizzy Cartwright stared out the window at the changing leaves in the abandoned town of Mountain Top. This was her new home. She had decided autumn would be her new favorite season. Even though the summer was dying, it was going out in style.
Diego sat by the burning fireplace. “No, I don’t work with people,” he said and glanced at his watch. “Time is officially up, but I’ll let you get one more.”
Kizzy smiled. She decided that she would remember this as a small, happy memory, added to the scrapbook she kept in her mind of the many moments since Diego had come. They weren’t perfect, and they weren’t blissful and they weren’t even without some trouble, but they were good enough.
Five mutant crows sat in the trees outside. Kizzy could sense them, but ignored it.
“Oh geez, I don’t know,” she said. “Are you a fisherman?”
“Nope,” announced Diego. “I win.”
“I always get the feeling that you change who you are halfway through the game.”
“You have that low of an opinion of me?”
“No, that’s why I let it slide.”
Diego smiled and reached down for his backpack. “I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?”
Diego nodded. “Let’s see what’s on the TV.”
What was he doing? Kizzy thought. There was no power here, there never had been.
Diego approached the television and from his backpack he took out a mechanical toy monkey with cymbals and set it on top of the box.
He twisted the knob on its back and the toy came to life, slamming its cymbals together and dancing from one foot to the other. Diego smiled as he sat down on the recliner next to Kizzy’s and admired his creation. The monkey continued its dance, inching backwards in the process.
“Get it?” he asked. “It’s on the TV.”
Kizzy nodded as she took a bite from an apple.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I kind of hate it,” she said, thoughtfully.
“What? It’s fun.”
“Fun’s not the word I’d use.”
“Well, you just don’t have good taste.”
Suddenly, the monkey reached the TV’s edge and fell backwards behind the set. Still it bashed its cymbals in the gap between the box and the wall.
“Whoops,” Diego said.
“Oh, we have to save it,” Kizzy said, getting up.
“Kizzy, you realize it’s not a real monkey right?”
“What? It’s not?” she asked sarcastically.
“Nope.”
“Don’t you feel bad for the thing?” Kizzy asked, pulling it out from the gap and setting it back on top of the TV.
“It’s a toy, it doesn’t have feelings.”
“Yes it does,” said Kizzy, jokingly. “In its own way.”
“Only what you imagine for it.”
“No, it’s a living creature,” Kizzy said, patting the monkey on the head. “And he was sad.”
Past the monkey, out the window and in the distance, Kizzy noticed a figure standing on the roof of a nearby house. Her heart began to race. Her fingers went numb. They were supposed to be alone here and hidden, isolated from the rest of the world. They hadn’t seen another living person in 30 days. They were as secluded as secluded go
t and yet someone was standing up there on the roof.
“What is it?” Diego asked, leaning up in his chair. He must have noticed her skin go white.
“Someone’s there,” she said in a hushed tone.
“Where?”
“Up there.” She pointed in the distance to the roof.
He gazed out the window. “They’re watching us.”
“No one’s supposed to know where we are,” Kizzy said.
The real truth was, no one was supposed to know where she was. She was the freak, the one who needed protection, the last person on earth who could have children. Perhaps that made her the normal one, but she had lost track of how to view it. Whatever the case, Diego was only an innocent bystander in the science experiment that the world had become. No one cared if he was hidden or not.
“Close the curtains,” Diego said.
Kizzy scurried around the small house covering every window.
“Do you think he saw us?” Diego asked.
Kizzy rolled her eyes as she stared at the burning fire in the fireplace. “They definitely see the smoke coming from the chimney.”
Diego smacked his forehead. “What should we do?”
“I don’t want to leave,” Kizzy said. “Especially if I don’t have to.”
“Wait a second,” Diego said, standing up straight. “How do we know it’s not Josephine?”
Kizzy looked over at the small two-way radio that sat on the kitchen table. Diego had brought it out here with him from the city, given to him by Josephine. “Because she would have called first.”
“What do you suggest then?”
“Maybe it’s just some wanderer,” said Kizzy, knowing deep down it wasn’t just some wanderer. No one wandered nowadays. People needed to be connected to the city, connected to the Enoch Pill, the only source of life. The person on that roof had come out here with purpose. But what that purpose was, Kizzy had no idea.
They snuck out the back door, stayed low, and walked around the outside of the house, through the fence, and through the tall grass to an opening where they could see the other houses. Whoever was up on top of the roof was now gone. Kizzy was quiet and scanned the area trying to detect any color or movement.
“He’s probably coming towards us,” Diego said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
They walked closer, hopped a fence, and went through a meadow until they came to the front yard of the house.
“Hello?” Kizzy called out at the top of her lungs.
She could feel Diego tense up beside her.
“What are you doing?” he hissed
A woman came walking around the side of the house. Kizzy froze, but shook away the feeling.
“Hello?” she said in a strained, trying-her-best-to-be-friendly voice. “I’m Kizzy, this is my friend Diego.”
The woman continued to walk towards them. There was no expression on her face, her only movement was her stride.
“Can we help you?” Kizzy asked. “Are you lost?”
The woman just continued her march as she was alone in the world.
Kizzy stood up. She was going to meet the woman head-on.
“What are you doing here?” Kizzy snapped as she approached the woman.
But the woman didn’t stop and walked straight into Kizzy. Except, there was no clash of bodies. The woman seemed to dissolve in mid-air. Kizzy turned. The woman was now behind her and continued on through a fence. It was a hologram.
Of all the strange things. Kizzy turned her attention back to Diego only to see him held at gunpoint, a shotgun in the real woman’s hands.
“Get out of here,” the woman said, pushing Diego with the barrel of the gun.
Kizzy took Diego by the arm and began to walk, quick and smooth, back towards their house.
“Not that way,” the woman announced behind them. “You can leave your things where they are.”
They couldn’t leave their things, Kizzy thought. That would mean certain death out here in the wilderness. Camping equipment they had found, blankets, fishing poles, food, all of it was essential. Most important of all was the two-way radio from Josephine. Kizzy had to know if she was needed back in the city. If the cure hadn’t worked she would be the last hope for humankind.
In an instant Kizzy took off in a mad dash through the grass towards their home.
There was a thunderous shotgun blast.
“She’s insane!” Diego screamed.
Kizzy sprinted into the house and grabbed her backpack and the two-way radio. She stood there on her tippy-toes trying to decide what else was important.
Shotgun pellets exploded through the wall. Kizzy dove to the floor, dust falling around her like snowflakes. The woman was coming closer. Kizzy needed a distraction. Suddenly, the monkey fell from its perch on the TV.
Steps approached outside on the porch. The woman was at the front door.
Kizzy twisted the key on the monkey’s back and the toy stirred to life, smashing its cymbals together. She tossed it into the bedroom and closed the door.
With the distraction in place she crawled to the back door and silently slipped out. Once out of sight she got up and bolted only to crash into Diego. He nearly jumped out of his skin.
“What are…”
Kizzy covered his mouth.
They could hear the woman entering the house, her footsteps creaking on the old wooden floor.
This was their only chance.
They sprinted to Diego’s motorcycle that sat in a nearby garage and hopped on. With a kick he started it up and drove as fast as possible out of the town and into the woods. They road for hours.
2
Kizzy kicked the door open on the top floor of an old mill. It was pitch black and dusty inside. Diego entered quickly, flashlight in hand and shining all around. The coast was clear. Then, in a complete reversal of enthusiasm, slow and tired, he stumbled to the window, collapsed onto the sill and stared out at the town below. Without any discussion he had decided it was his turn to keep watch.
“You don’t have to do that,” Kizzy said.
“You know I do,” he said.
“You don’t think she could have followed us here?”
“She found us in the last place and the place before that and the place before that. So I think, yes, she could have followed us here.”
“But we took precautions.”
“That’s what we thought last time.”
Kizzy groaned and set her bag down in the corner and laid on it to sleep, but she just kept tossing and turning. She had become a hunted animal. What did that woman want? What made her follow them from town to town? Sometimes confronting them, sometimes just showing herself in the distance. It was almost as if she was trying to kill them by exhausting them to death.
Diego kept on staring out the window.
“What if she finds us here?” he asked from the darkness. He must have sensed Kizzy was still awake.
“Maybe she won’t.”
“But what if she does?”
Kizzy stared out the window at the star-filled sky. The moon hung over the town like God’s thumbnail. “Then we’ll find another place.”
“We’ll run out of places,” Diego said, half to himself.
“If we go any farther we lose signal on the radio,” Kizzy said.
“I know.”
“Do you think this has something to do with what happened on Sandy Hook?” Kizzy asked.
In the silence she could somehow sense Diego’s face grow red. He was quiet for a moment.
“Please don’t bring that up again,” he said finally.
“Shouldn’t we talk about it at some point?” Kizzy asked.
“Try and get some sleep.”
It was the middle of the night when Kizzy awoke, alone and cold in a strange, dark place she didn’t recognize. For some reason her friend Laura came to mind. She had died in Kizzy’s arms, pecked to death by a flock of crows. A wave of guilt flowed over Kizzy. Laura’s life re
mained a debt unpaid. And the elation of getting off scot-free had created an umbrella of guilt within her.
Kizzy glanced over at the two-way radio that sat in a pouch in Diego’s bag. The receiver calmly blinked red. In the pitch-black room it was as bright as a flashlight. The blinking was a reminder that they were still within range. They had to stay within range. That’s how Kizzy was paying for it.
Kizzy gave a deep sigh and got up to stretch.
She stared out the window at the abandoned town, washed in silver by the moon. Grass and weeds were overtaking this place inch by inch. Kizzy had no idea what the name of the town was, but maybe it was better that way. If she didn’t know, maybe the town would exist a little less.
Diego was fast asleep with his face against the window. His neck would hurt like hell if he stayed like that all night. Kizzy grabbed him by the arm, swung it over her shoulder and helped him over to the bed she had made for herself. He must have been exhausted, since he stayed more or less asleep through the entire process. These past few weeks were killing him. Kizzy had to do something.
She kept watch the rest of the night. Dozing off here and there, but seeing nothing. Maybe the woman had finally lost their trail.
When the sun rose she left Diego sleeping and went down to town with a plan.
With a shopping list in her head she went into an auto-part shop, a hardware store and a home security office.
There was an old, ironwork lamppost sitting at the end of the main street, right on the edge of the town. Holding an extension cord she climbed to the top of the calcified metal and set a motion detector aimed down at the street. If anyone came this way an alarm back in the mill would sound and they could make their escape. Maybe she and Diego could actually get a good night’s sleep for once.
Next, Kizzy set up a windmill atop a nearby building. A simple generator connected to a car battery provided the electricity for the motion detector. Everything appeared to be in order. She stood back and admired her handiwork. As she watched she noticed the cables fizzle every few seconds as the wind turbine rotated. Kizzy put on a pair of gloves and tinkered with the wiring. Sparks exploded in her face and she feel backwards on her ass. The windmill’s blades caught fire and twirled round and round like a firecracker. The grease in the turbine ignited and began to smoke. Finally, the propeller popped off and the whole thing sat there like a burnt out, smoking ghost.
The Enoch Plague (The Enoch Pill Book 2) Page 1
