Living Proof

by Peter J Thompson

  “Turn your vehicle around and return to your homes. You are under quarantine.”

  Facing him in the roadway was an old rusted RV. It belched smoke as it came to a stop. A grizzled old man jumped out from the driver’s side, thin and wiry with long white hair and a full beard. His eyes were wild with fear.

  “What in hell is goin’ on? You got to let me through here. My Mary’s sick. I need to get her to the hospital!” he shouted.

  Tanner stood still and spoke calmly.

  “I’m sorry, sir. But that’s not possible. We’ve been alerted by the county health department that there’s been an outbreak of encephalitis. We can’t allow this disease to spread. It’s highly contagious. This valley is under full quarantine. We do have medical personnel on the way though, sir. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  The old man sniffled and wiped his nose. “This ain’t right. This is a free country. I want to get out of here. You can’t keep us inside.”

  “Yes, sir, we can. This is a public emergency and we’re charged with maintaining the public health. Do yourself a favor, sir. Just turn that truck around and head on back home. We've got the situation under control.” Rev’s deep voice resonated with confidence and authority.

  The old man sneezed and doubled over in pain. After a few seconds, he straightened up, but he was wheezing.

  “Mary’s in a bad way. And I’m not doin’ so well myself. People are talking about some chemical spill—or some kind a bug or something. I don’t know what this is, but something’s going on.”

  “You can’t keep people from talking, sir. Now please turn around and return to your home. It’s for your own good.”

  It took some more convincing, but the man finally left. But he wouldn’t be the last. People had been trying to get through all day. Tanner had been in the desert three days now. The first day, they’d come in the late afternoon, waiting until night to set their positions. By morning, the roadblock was up, soldiers were placed in the hilly area around the perimeter of the development, and the quarantine was in place. His orders were clear: under no circumstances was anyone allowed outside of the valley.

  The first day of the roadblock, it started out slow. The first car didn’t come by until mid-morning. After it was turned back, the word spread and it seemed that everyone inside had to come by to take a look at what was going on. They grumbled about being turned back – some yelled and cursed the government and the army. They’d been coming back ever since, but there was no real trouble at first.

  The trouble came that evening. A caravan of vehicles—eleven old cars, trucks, and RV’s—approached the roadblock. An old red pickup truck was in front. It stormed up and screeched to a stop just feet before hitting the barricade. The others pulled to a stop right behind him. A big man with greasy black hair and a wild beard jumped out of the lead truck clutching a shotgun. Men clambered out of the other vehicles, everyone with some kind of weapon in their hands. One man had a long-barreled hunting rifle, but most of the men had simpler weapons: there were baseball bats, farm implements, and one man held a pair of kung fu numchucks.

  Tanner’s men were in position above and behind the barricade.

  “Don’t do anything unless I give you the signal,” Tanner told them as he took out his .45 and moved in to confront the mob. “I’m sorry, people. But you have to turn around and return to your homes. I can’t let you out.”

  The big man with the beard pumped the shotgun and pointed it at Tanner.

  “We’re going through and you can’t stop us.”

  Tanner could see the sweat rolling off the man’s face. There was a rash on his skin, light bumps that covered most of his exposed flesh. He wheezed as he talked. Tanner spread his legs and stood his ground.

  “Just back on down now. Our orders are that no one leaves until a release is signed off by the medical authorities. The medivacs should be here any time now.”

  “Well, where are they? You’ve been promising them all day and we haven’t seen anyone.” The man sneezed and wiped his nose on his forearm.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to be patient a little longer –”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit, boy! This is a free country. We demand that you let us through.” Someone in the crowd shouted encouragement.

  Tanner bristled. His adrenaline surged, but he had to stay calm. The other squatters were moving forward. He let his deep voice rumble.

  “Get back in your cars and turn around now. This is your final warning – ”

  The bearded guy cut in, yelling, “NO—You listen to me. You back down! You got ‘til the count of ten to back down or we’re gonna ride right over your body.” He raised the shotgun, leveling it at Tanner. “One… two…”

  All he had to do was give the order and his men would open fire, Tanner thought. It would be no match. But he was in the line of fire, not the safest place to be. And the big question—would his men shoot? They were good men and well trained, but would they shoot? Could they fire on American citizens? These weren’t enemies who spoke another language. These weren’t enemies who had been demonized and made subhuman. Could his men fire on people who weren’t all that different from themselves? He didn’t want to risk it. Tanner was nearly close enough to reach out and touch the barrel of the gun.

  “Three… four…ah…” The man raised his forearm as he stifled a sneeze.

  Tanner stepped forward, amazingly fast for such a large man. With his left hand, he shoved down on the shotgun, misdirecting the aim. With his right hand, in one smooth motion, he brought his gun up, swung it against the bearded man’s temple, and squeezed off a shot. It sounded like thunder as it echoed against the canyon walls. The big man dropped to the road, a look of shock in his lifeless eyes, a small red flower of blood blossoming above his ear.

  Tanner swung the gun around to the crowd.

  “Who’s next?” he yelled.

  It happened so fast that no one had moved. He stepped over the body and advanced toward the crowd. “Get back in your cars and turn around. NOW!”

  There was a pause, a long moment when it could have gone either way. Then the people backed away and got in their cars. Their engines raced as they maneuvered to turn around and started to drive back toward the development. As they were leaving, someone yelled out the window.

  “We’ll be back.”

  Tanner watched the dust rise up as they receded. Then he turned back to his men on the ridge. The closest to him was a young corporal named Conway. He looked pale and shaken.

  “Get the body and the damn truck out of the road. Burn ‘em both.”

  Tanner walked beyond the barricade to the back of his troop’s position. He sat down, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. How could they put me in that position? He’d proved himself before. He’d done what had to be done, he always had. He was purple slash after all, part of the inner circle. He was supposed to be in the know, but lately, they’d frozen him out.

  They put him into this assignment without telling him what was really going on. It was Durmo, the maggot. Durmo had called him back to the base, away from the rabbit hunt. It was supposed to be a drill – the orders didn’t change until after he’d arrived and gotten his men in position. Even then he wasn’t given the true story. Now he knew this wasn’t a drill. For some reason, they were using live toxin. There was no mistaking the symptoms.

  This was the first major assignment where he was in full command. Tanner had joined the army midway through his second year of college. He was in school on a football scholarship, but a hamstring injury cut his season short. Not having the games to look forward to, he began to drift. He started skipping classes. He backed off on his training and spent his time partying. It was fun for a while, but he quickly got bored. He craved excitement. Football was great, game days anyway, on the field, running and hitting; it was pure power. The rest of the time was a drag. Inevitably, he’d been put on academic probation. The coach gave him a month to get his grades
up and show his commitment to the team. Otherwise, he’d lose his scholarship. Tanner didn’t wait. Instead, he joined the army as an enlisted man. There he showed promise and found the discipline that he needed.

  And it was there that he met the colonel and his life changed. It was at the colonel’s recommendation that he went to officer’s training school, and he’d been with the colonel ever since. Tanner believed in the colonel, he was a man of vision. He saw the big picture. If he was doing something there was a reason for it.

  Tanner was ready to do whatever he had to. He’d do the dirty work, it was the end result that counted. But this assignment still steamed him. They had no right to treat him like this, like some field hand, out of the loop and in the line of fire. He was going to have to have a talk with Durmo when they got back. It was a mystery what the colonel saw in the creep.

  Someone cleared their throat, disturbing his thoughts. “Excuse me, sir. The men have been talking.” It was Corporal Conway. He was thin and pale.

  Tanner looked up. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Well, um, there’s a lot of talk. If those people have something, some kind of disease, and it’s contagious … that means we could get it too …”

  “No, no, man, that’s not how it works. They should have briefed us on that before we left, but you remember those shots you got the other week?”

  “Yeah, sure. The vaccination?”

  “Right. That’s what this is. No matter what happens to those people, nothing’s going to happen to you. We’ve all been through it, tested and approved. There’s no way that we can get that shit.”

  Conway seemed to relax. “So we’re okay?”

  “Yeah, you’re gonna’ be fine. Let’s go on back to the roadblock. I’ll have a quick meeting to dispel these rumors. And we got to get ready. Those derelicts will be coming back soon.”

  But they didn’t. They waited through the night and into the next day, but no one came back. Tanner checked with his positions around the perimeter. There was no activity there either. A radioman was in place to monitor and jam any outbound communication. But this was quiet too.

  It was near twilight when he took a patrol down to investigate. In the orange glow of the setting sun, the land seemed surreal, like a Martian landscape. At the entrance to the valley, Tanner stopped his Humvee, turned off the engine, and scanned the horizon. There were clusters of vehicles, old trailers, and some shacks that seemed to be made of plywood and corrugated tin. But there was no movement. It was quiet. The only sound the whistle of the wind.

  “Let’s check it out.” They started up again and moved forward.

  The first thing they came to was an ancient, pastel blue house trailer. It was propped up on concrete blocks and set on a cement pad. The shades on the windows were down. Tanner took out his pistol and used the butt end to rap on the door. “Anyone home?” he called.

  There was no answer.

  He tried again. Still no response. He tried the door, but it was locked. He turned back to his men in the Humvee. “Cover me. I’m going in.”

  Tanner leaned down in a crouch, then shot forward, sending his shoulder into the door. The door broke off at the hinges and fell inward. His momentum carried him inside. The smell hit him right away: ripe, fetid—the smell of rotting meat. He covered his nose with his arm and fought the urge to gag. Quickly, he glanced around. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, but he already knew what was there. And he knew where it was before he saw it. The flies pointed the direction. The body was draped halfway on and halfway off a ratty old couch. The skin was covered with oozing black boils.

  Tanner backed away as fast as he could. He nearly fell as he rushed out of the trailer, gasping for air. Outside, he knelt in the dust and retched as his men hung back, uncomfortably. When he’d recovered, he wiped his mouth on his arm, took a deep cleansing breath, and gave the order.

  “Burn it down.”

  They sloshed the trailer with gasoline and set it ablaze with a long burst from a flame-thrower. The blast of heat singed the hair on Tanner’s arms. He called back to the encampment and ordered the rest of the company down, leaving only a small group to guard the entrance. They went through the development checking each vehicle and structure. It was the same scene throughout.

  “Burn it all,” Tanner ordered. “I don’t want anything left but melted metal.”

  By nightfall, the valley was ablaze with dozens of fires. Tanner moved up to the top of a ridge and sat by himself, watching it all burn. As the fires exhausted their fuel and burned down to embers, they blinked like fireflies in the warm desert air. When the last fire burned out, the only light was from a thousand stars in the sky above. Tanner sat alone. He felt like he was the last man alive on the earth.

  19

  Running down the road, the gravel crunching beneath his feet, his legs moving like pistons, his breath exploding in rhythmic bursts, Ramon truly was free. It was early evening, but the sun was still on the way down. The air was cool and comfortable, perfect running weather. The sweat on his skin dried quickly, leaving a film of salt. As he ran, he’d pick something in the distance—a billboard, sign or building—and use it as a goal to run to. Once he was past it, he’d pick a new goal and aim for that.

  It had become a routine in the two weeks since they’d been with Philip. Each evening, he would slip out of the house, run out of the subdivision, and down to the main road where he’d run on the shoulder. He’d never run regularly before. Starting out was hard. He felt the pain in his lungs after just a few blocks. But he kept going and soon he ran through the pain. After that, he could run for miles. Ramon saw a billboard a couple of hundred yards ahead advertising Castrol Motor oil. Cas-trol-oil, Cas-trol-oil, Cas-trol-oil. He repeated the phrase in his mind like a mantra, fitting it into the rhythm of his breath.

  It felt good to be outside and moving. It made sense to stay inside, but it felt like a jail cell. The roommates, Jelly and Frank, were always there, hanging around, drinking and fighting. They reminded Ramon of people he’d known in prison, slow and stupid, but dangerous just the same. They weren’t causing him trouble. They didn’t know who he was and they didn’t seem to care. Still, he had to be on guard whenever he was around them. It was draining.

  Being outside was chancy, but if he stayed inside, he’d go crazy. It was worth the risk. He knew they were still hunting him, but they didn’t seem close. How could they be? There was nothing that pointed in this direction.

  And the pressure was off in other ways too. He and Lena weren’t in the news anymore. With no recent sightings, the coverage died down. The most recent article was a sidebar in Newsworld the week before. Written by Allen Edwards, it related Lena’s phone call to him. It didn’t give specifics but implied that she was paranoid and unstable, obsessed with conspiracies. But that was the worst of it. New stories had captured center stage and he and Lena were old news. So Ramon felt safe outside.

  It was a relief having someplace to hide, at least for a time. They couldn’t stay here forever, but for now, it was a godsend. And it looked like they were making progress. Philip went to work every day and put time into unlocking the secrets on the computer tape; and Lena was on the home computer constantly, trying to find information that would help their cause. If they found proof, someone would have to listen to them.

  Ramon passed the Castrol Oil billboard. Two cars zoomed by going in the opposite direction. Commuters making their way home. The last car had its lights on. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be running back in the dark. He scanned ahead, looking for his next target. There was another billboard a few hundred yards ahead. This one was old and faded from the weather. It showed the image of a distinguished-looking silver-haired man pictured against a wooded backdrop. The slogan read, Protect our environment –Vote Randall Morgan.

  Morgan. That name was familiar. Where was it from? Then he remembered. He’d seen the man on TV while in his jail cell—the day he was supposed to be executed. Involuntarily, he s
huddered. By all rights, he should have been dead. He tried to put the thought out of his mind as he set his sights on the billboard. This would be the turn-around point. That would make it about three miles out and another three back home. Then a hot shower and time to relax. Ran-dall-Mor-gan, Ran-dall-Mor-gan. He fit the name into his rhythm and kept his pace steady.

  In the two weeks that they had been there, Lena spent most of her time in Philip’s room working on the computer. With his help, she gained access to archives and databases she never knew existed. The pieces of the puzzle were coming together. Her research was starting to bear fruit, and she’d never been so scared.

  The central question—what was going on at the installation? From the beginning, they assumed the Installation was dealing with some kind of biological warfare agent. And they were using Ramon and the others as human guinea pigs to develop a vaccine.

  Lena started with a key word search for biological warfare. She scanned through the hits, not sure where to go next. To get some broad background, she picked a site on the history of germ warfare. It was surprising how far back it went. The Romans dumped dead animals into their enemy’s water supply in order to spread disease In the Middle Ages, attackers spread the plague by catapulting diseased bodies over castle or city walls. In the French and Indian Wars, the British decimated the Indian population by handing out smallpox infected blankets as “peace offerings.”

  Over the course of the first week, Lena read everything she could on biological warfare, or BW, as it was referred to. By treaty, it was an international crime, yet every major international power had some form of program. Including the United States. There were scholarly papers filed by think tanks that stated the best ways to wage, and win, a germ war. For something that was so taboo and unthinkable, it was discussed in an amazingly matter-of-fact way. Terms like “acceptable losses” and “maximum kill rates” were routinely used as simply part of the vocabulary.