There’s a noise, but it dies down quickly. Mitchell peeks through the tapestry. Suddenly, the mosque horns start blurting out a song. It’s different than the call to prayer, although just as hypnotic and peaceful. People start heading to the stadium. It takes twenty minutes or so for the dusty streets to clear while Markus paces in the dirt of the shack. Of course, not everyone goes to the stadium. There are still pockets of people here and there and a few European cars driving around. But the majority of people have gone off.
Mitchell pokes his head out of the doorway again. He shushes Markus then waves for him to follow. He runs, half crouched. Markus’s heart seems to stop.
The setting sun turns the sky bright orange and pink. The temperature is cool. He sees everything, every God-given detail of every wall, street, tree, and car. He blinks as his eyes start to water. The first stop is next to a similar shack. It’s empty. The two slowly move from shack to mud hut to house to housing complex until they are out of the slums.
They run through an ancient Medinine neighborhood. The mud huts aren’t square. They’re small dome shapes built right next to and on top of one another. Some of the hut stacks are three stories tall. Narrow stairs snake up and over doorways leading to different huts and down into the alleyways. If Markus wasn’t scared for his life, he would want to explore, take a photo. Not this trip.
They turn a corner, still in the ancient neighborhood with the small dome-like huts. These huts are even nicer than the last ones as he feels cobblestone roads under his feet. Plants in pots sit adjacent to doorsteps, and lampposts jut out of the top huts. It’s such a contrasting view from the modern world. The ancient vista is ruined by an ugly western-style apartment building on the horizon.
Mitchell stops at a shopping plaza in one of the nicer parts of Medinine. The square is paved with sandy pavers, and around the center are newer brick shops and wagons and vegetable vendors, too. Colorful tapestries are draped over the plastic bins and wood crates. Underneath are oranges as bright as the sun, dates, and pomegranates.
Ornamental light poles surround the square. In the middle is a rather curious piece of artwork: a rusted pail that pours water into another much smaller pail and then into two even smaller pails. At the bottom is one word inscribed on a plaque. Mitchell translates, “Rebirth.”
They run around to the shadow of the large pail where there is another plaque that reads, From the heavens came the sword. Markus reflects on the sign for a moment. It’s strange to him that both the Bible and the Quran preached the end of the world. The Quran says, Allah will wash the Earth clean of all the sinners or nonbelievers and restart a new society of love and peace. A road of destruction will be torn across the world, preparing for the coming of the twelfth Imam who will cleanse the world in totality. In Markus’s faith there will be four horsemen. They will arrive and begin the cleansing wars in very much the same way.
Mitchell takes off toward the mosque.
Markus is so tired. He doesn’t know how he’s been able to run for so long. God must be working miracles on his cardiovascular system.
Finally, they make it to the Ali Ben Abid Mosque. Its tan brick tower rises majestically into the sky over eight stories tall in a classic octagonal shape. Ornamental arches decorate the lower portion of the tower and small windows are on each level leading to the bottom. At the eighth floor there is a walkway that circles the tower like a lighthouse. At its apex, the tower is topped with a pointed roof and four loudspeakers.
Mitchell tells Markus to wait by a small, gray, ten-year-old Kia and runs toward the mosque’s side entrance until he is out of sight. A moment later he pokes his head around the corner and waves. Mitchell stands at the back door, holding a gadget up to the lock. He’s trying to break in using the codes he’d spoken of. At his feet are three guards dead or out cold. They were armed with big machine guns, so Markus is glad they aren’t moving. Their uniforms are black, with green berets, thick waist belts filled with bullets, grenades, and who knows what else. Mitchell strips some gear from them and takes a machine gun.
Finally, the door pops open. They slip inside and close it after Mitchell pulls the soldiers inside and rolls them out of the way. The room is dark. Mitchell disappears into shadows. Markus’s adrenaline peaks. All he can hear is the beating of his heart. He shuts his eyes and prays. Oh, God, why have I chosen to take such a path? I should be at home with my parishioners and my wife, spreading Your Word, not decoding history’s obscurities.
The lights flick on. The entire room is a vault, with metal walls and not a single window. It’s about the size of Markus’s living room back home. Every corner of every wall is filled with papers, notes, and diagrams. He walks to the most colorful diagram. The writing is in Arabic, but he recognizes a detailed map of Western Europe during the Middle Ages. He thinks back to his history lessons. Was this the time of the Black Plague? The next wall has a map of Caesarea and the opposite has a map of Tunis and Medinine. On the last wall is a map of the world dated 1918 with red marks all over it.
Mitchell reads the paper from over Markus’s shoulder, scaring the Holy Ghost out of him. “Influenza outbreak in 1918 killed more than forty million people. More fatalities than WWI.”
“You don’t say,” Markus mumbles. Both of them move to the map on the opposite wall. “What does this say?”
Mitchell interprets. “A dysentery plague in Tunis in 1943 and here in Medinine in 1985.”
“King Louis died of dysentery,” Markus says, recognizing the pattern.
“Yeah, so there are a few cases of dysentery. The bug’s been in the historical record since the beginning.” Mitchell moves to another wall. He reads, “1818. Dysentery again. This time it was in Chicago.”
“When did King Louis die?” Markus asks.
“1270,” he answers.
Other sites of dysentery are highlighted on the world map and cluster around the sub-tropical latitudes. The final poster is an illustration of a constellation and orbital pattern circling the solar system. Mitchell studies the diagram.
“Looks like these guys think there’s a connection between meteor showers and viral outbreaks on Earth. But the dates don’t line up. If dysentery came from a meteor shower there would be a regular orbital pattern. The outbreaks would happen on a predictable schedule.”
“Meteors can carry viruses?” Markus asks. “Doesn’t it get too hot burning through the atmosphere?”
“Somebody should tell these guys that.” Mitchell reads some more. “Here we go. There’s a centurial orbit plotted here that intersects with the asteroid belt. They think the resulting collisions pushed some of these infected meteors to Earth. Weird.”
Mitchell moves to the large safe in the far corner and takes out his gadget. Markus continues to look around until Mitchell returns carrying something large. The Stone of Allah.
“You got it!”
Mitchell snickers like a boy. They admire the black and gold lace cloth that covers it. “This is the million-dollar secret.” He pulls off the cloth slowly.
The stone looks like a diamond. The edges aren’t precisely cut, but they are smooth like polished stone. There are lots of little cracks throughout the clear stone and a fungus-like growth in the center.
Markus admires it, but won’t touch it. “This is the stone that killed John the Mighty, might have adorned the Holy Crown of Jesus Christ, and maybe even killed King Louis IX and countless others.”
“And it has been a secret for six hundred years,” Mitchell adds. He rewraps the stone in the cloth. “We have to go now, Father.”
“I’m not a Father. Just a preacher.”
“Whatever you say.” He stuffs the stone in his backpack. “They’ll want to test this and see if it really is a killer stone from God.”
Markus is inspired at that moment and he rips down the papers on the wall and collects them. He notices a red envelope on the desk and takes that too and runs to Mitchell. He smiles and nods. A look of childish mischief crosses Mitchell’s f
ace as he grabs Markus’s hand. “When we leave this room, you cover your eyes and barely peek at your feet. We’re gonna run as fast as we can. Got it?”
Markus prays instead of arguing. Something bad is about to happen. Mitchell flings the door open and runs. They run right into a group of very angry Tunisian army men. He covers his eyes and looks at his feet, just as Mitchell had ordered.
Chapter 1.25
Isabella
Shopping for Bombs
Get in, get shit, get out. Sounds simple, but it’s not. Puppets are like Energizer Bunnies, they keep going and going. It’s close to noon and a hot bitch of a day. Humidity levels are through the roof from the rain last night. Isabella can’t complain too much, that little rowboat was more torturous than this. Hell, she’d rather have her nails ripped off than have to spend one more night in that glorified canoe surrounded by a million rotting, bloated corpses. No, she’s gotta have perspective.
The stores are full of shit that they need and no one around to stop her from taking it. Well, except for the puppets, but she’s got them covered.
Isabella leads Markus and Josh down the path away from the kiddy dock to the nearest road.
Tanis, Hana, and Ian have taken off in the other direction.
Her mission is to find a market and stock up on food and water, lots of it. She passes a grove of trees and bushes then follow a ramp that connects to Cross Bay Boulevard. It’s pretty quiet. No puppets yet.
They’re moving fast and steady, faster than she would have moved in Iraq and in training because she know her enemies aren’t sniping or pointing rocket-propelled grenade launchers. It’s hard to move with this much speed when years of training tells her to stay low and to go easy and be watchful. She looks at every window, every gap, every car. She has her Beater and her M-16A. Josh has his small electric chainsaw, oddly enough not killed by the EMP, and Markus has his bat. They’re ready for a fight, although avoiding one is priority. To clarify, she wouldn’t mind beating down a few hundred puppets, but she’s tired and sore. She needs to get this mission done, and then go crash for a day or two at a minimum.
It doesn’t take long for her to see the first puppet pop up. Then more pop up everywhere. She wants to bash all their little heads in, but runs past them instead. They bug her like those whitehead zits that beg to be popped.
She passes a small strip mall. There’re a tile shop, a tuxedo shop, a Mexican restaurant, a deli, and a bait shop. Across the street is a fancy, bimbo hot spot where chicks could probably get a martini on the rocks garnished with a roofie for only thirty bucks. Isabella keeps going. There is a pizza joint down the road and a wave-runner shop. It sure would be nice to nab a wave-runner, but because of the EMP they’re just paperweights now.
“7-Eleven!” Josh spits out from behind her.
“Let’s try to find real food first,” Markus replies. “We’ll come back to it if we need to.”
Down the way Isabella sees a Duane Reade drug and grocery store. Perfect. They stop across the street from the front door, which faces a small parking lot. There are too many puppets. A group of fifteen stand by the entrance, lingering. It’s like they are waiting for the door to open so they can get their energy drink or some prints off their USB sticks or a pack of smokes. Isabella watches them for a moment. They mill around looking for something to attack, but there is a lack of food. What will they do when everything is eaten and assimilated? Will they drop to the ground and rot away? The Earth will retake this entire area in only a few years, so will they all die and absorb into the soil to be rekindled to feed the next civilization that comes around? For now, Isabella can’t let them win. They can’t take everything. She’s still here, and Eden is out there. That’s something.
“Let’s circle around to the back,” Isabella says and takes off. They slip behind a toppled delivery truck and a sedan with a smashed front windshield and bolt to the back door. She drops her Beater and shoots five rounds in the back door’s lock. It disengages. Josh helps her pry the door open; the three slip inside.
The store is already ransacked. Still, there might be shit they can use. Isabella closes the back door and crams a doorstopper under it.
“I’m looking for medicine,” Markus says. “Whatever is left, by the grace of God.”
“Good. Josh, you get water, as much as you can fit in a shopping cart. Pile it high,” Isabella orders. “I’ll get food.” She makes a pit stop at the bandage aisle. Her injuries are healing, but if she doesn’t get fresh wrappings on them she’ll end up dead. She’s not about to go out because of an infection. In the isle, she re-bandages her ankle and the cuts on her arms and ribs. Then she sticks extra bandages and antiseptic in her cart.
After playing nurse, she finds some canned soup, tuna, chicken, and some sweet beans. At the end of the isle is a dozen kinds beef jerky. She takes them all with a smile. Around the corner is more food so she pushes her cart down the aisle, clearing the shelves with a sweep of her arm.
She passes by a bin of discount DVDs and her eyes linger. It isn’t the shitty movies she’s staring at, but she’s entranced by the luxury of sitting on a couch and watching a movie. As tough as Isabella is, she still had it good in this country. Everyone did. She’d spent some time in the Middle East. Those that had never crossed the border or flown overseas didn’t know what the rest of the world was like. There was too much talk about poverty by the political pricks and the media talking boobs. There was so little poverty here, real poverty. Americans were just poor in their hearts. Maybe it’s because everyone had it too good, spoiled.
Now everyone is poor. The survivors were thrust into the dark ages, by something so small, so powerful, and so indiscriminate.
The wheels of her cart roll over dried blood and bump over a magazine promising a better sex life and a six pack. She passes a cooler filled with tubs of liquid ice cream and popsicle sticks floating in colored water.
When She’s done her rounds and her cart is overstuffed with food, she meets Markus and Josh at the back door. Josh has duck-taped potholders to his upper and lower arms, has a novelty Giants helmet on his head, and a cookie sheet strapped to each thigh. He still has his white medical mask on, too. It makes Isabella laugh, but she doesn’t say a word. Whatever keeps your heart tickin’.
Isabella opens the back door thinking they would be able to make a run for it, but the back door is a doorway to hell. There are more than twenty puppets and hundreds more approaching. They push to get in. One of them gets its hand into the crack so Isabella slams the door repeatedly until the hand comes off.
It comes off way too easily. There’s no reaction on the puppet’s face.
“What do we do?” Josh shrieks. “I mean, what the fuck do we do! We can’t push past them! We’re stuck here. Stuck!”
Isabella smacks Josh across the helmet. He shuts his trap and takes the thing off, realizing that it doesn’t protect his head from anything but respect. He’s telling her with his eyes that the smack wasn’t completely necessary. Isabella tells him with his eyes that it was.
“We do need a plan,” Markus says.
“Don’t you have the Almighty on your side? Where are His answers?” Isabella snaps. She’s getting pissed. “How the hell are they following us? They can’t see us. Their eyes are just white root things. Can they hear us?”
“God only knows,” Markus says.
“Be back.” Isabella runs to the front door where there are wall-to-wall puppets looking to get in as if this was Black Friday. She wishes she was in that Bradley fighting vehicle unloading that cannon. That would do some good.
Isabella notices, however, they aren’t as crowded at the front door as they are at the back door. “Markus! Josh!” The two run up to her expecting to see something terrible. “Look, they’re following us. They’re gathering at the back door because that’s where we went. Maybe if we get them to come to the front door we can make a break for it when the herd at the back thins out.”
The three bang on the fro
nt doors, which are two sliding glass doors surrounded by thick windows. Too thick to be broken, she hopes. After ten minutes they have a decent crowd foaming at the possibility of tearing them apart.
“Do it,” Isabella yells and then runs. She gets to the back door and cracks it. There’s still a nice group back there. “Shit, they have memories.” She slams the door shut, turns, and round-houses an energy drink display off the counter of the pharmacy checkout.
“That plan sucked. We wasted thirty-five minutes,” Josh whines.
“You come up with something, Doof,” Isabella shouts, wanting to smack him again.
“They seem to dislike fire. Maybe we can start one,” Markus mentions.
“That’s actually a good thought, pops.” Isabella looks around. “Big hot fire is what we need.” Josh runs ahead yelling, “Camping, aisle nine!”
Isabella goes to the liquor aisle with her own idea. They both meet at the back door. She has bottles of hard booze, and Josh has gas canisters. She twists open the booze bottles and stuff rags into their necks. Twenty-two bottles total. Markus grabs an empty cart and nests the bottles side by side. Josh puts the fist-sized camping gas canisters on top.
Isabella lights the tops of the bottles. They burn slowly. “This better work,” she mumbles. “Or I’m using one of you as my distraction.”
Markus opens the door, and the three push the cart out. The cart collides with the crowd. They slowly move the puppets back. Markus is able to leaving the door open just a crack. He crams the doorstopper under the bottom and runs behind an aisle where Josh had ducked. Isabella aims at the gas canister through the crack.
“Cover your ears!” She takes the safety off the M-16A and breathes. “Big fire, please,” she whispers.
The puppets keep their distance from the flaming cart. They stare at it like they’re stoned and it looks pretty.
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