by Mark Justice
“You’ve got that warm and fuzzy look again, Jube. You’re not going to say something sappy, are you?”
“Your ass looks great in those jeans.”
“You can’t see my ass.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You have a superior posterior.”
She rolled her eyes. “I think I would rather hear the sappy stuff.”
“For a town where everybody’s sick, you’d think this place would be hopping.”
“It has been all week,” Fiona said. “Until today.”
“Maybe they’re all getting better.”
“Have you seen anybody who’s better?”
“Good point.” Jubal picked up a package of cough drops from a rack by the counter. He thought of Dooley and his nasty hack.
“Speaking of that, how’s your mom?”
Jubal sighed. He sat down next to her in one of the customer chairs and leaned his head against the counter.
“Is she worse?”
Jubal nodded. “Damon, too.” He pointed at the shelves full of bottles behind the counter. “Ma wants to know if you have any miracle drugs back there.”
She sat next to him, taking one of his hands in hers. “I wish. This is one nasty bug. I had an alert this morning from the state department of health. This is the worst outbreak of…whatever it is…in thirty years.”
“So I guess that’s a no.”
Fiona smiled at him, and Jubal suddenly found it hard to concentrate.
“Make sure she stays hydrated. Give her something for the fever. Get her to eat a little.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, babe. That’s all I can do.”
“As long as she’s feeling good by the wedding,” Jubal said. “So she’s got four weeks to whip this thing.”
He expected her to laugh. Instead she muttered a sleepy “Mmm-hmm.”
“Am I keeping you up? It’s getting to be a specialty of mine.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Hey.” He used his free hand to gently shake her shoulder. “You’re not getting sick, right?”
Fiona sat up and rubbed her eyes. “I’m?ne. I just didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Hell, I hope you’re not getting this shit…”
“No, no. It was…bad dreams.”
Jubal didn’t think he had heard Fiona mention having nightmares before; she always seemed so upbeat and happy that he?gured her dreams consisted of?owers and bunnies.
“Want to tell me about them?”
Jubal didn’t like the way her complexion suddenly paled.
“It was so strange…yet so realistic. Whenever I’d wake up,?guring it was okay to drift back to sleep, I’d have the same exact dream again. That’s never happened before-ever. Finally I just gave up and got out of bed around four AM.”
Fiona’s grip tightened on Jubal’s hand.
“So,” Jubal said. “Do you want to tell me about it? My ma always says if you tell someone your nightmares, they’ll go away.”
“It was so weird. In the dream…the air all around is smoky. ”
“Smoky?”
She nodded. “And yellow.”
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
“…Nothing…go on.”
“In the distance,?gures move toward me across a barren plain. For the most part, they appear to be people, but they are people who seem to have problems walking; they sort of…shamble and shuf?e forward.”
The skin on Jubal’s neck tingled.
“Maybe you’re dreaming about all the sick people in town.”
“No…this is different. Anyway, among these people are stranger shapes, inhuman shapes. There are only a few, but they are nothing like I’ve ever seen before, even in my wildest imaginings. I guess they’re…monsters.”
Jubal chuckled. Maybe this dream wasn’t so prophetic after all. Monsters?
He stopped laughing when he saw the hurt in Fiona’s eyes.
“It was very realistic, Jubal Slate.”
Jubal felt like a heel.
“I’m sorry. Really. Go on.”
“The most terrifying part of the dream-the part that always scared me awake-had to do with the?gure that walked out in front of this group. Like, he was the leader or something.”
Damn, there went Jubal’s hairs again, standing at attention. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t some little kid who was frightened by ghost stories.
The silence in the store seemed ominous now. Some part of Jubal wished Fiona would stop, but he said nothing to her.
“This guy was taller than the others, except for maybe one or two of the monsters. And as he moved closer, I could see he was dressed in red,?owing robes. And in his hand, he held some sort of weird walking staff, or something.”
Jubal watched the clear tan skin on Fiona’s arm suddenly break out in goose pimples.
“His head…well, he had a large helmet on his head that was disproportionate to his body. It was like one of those Aztec masks. And as he drew closer, I saw that he moved in an odd manner; it wasn’t noticeable at?rst compared to the way the others staggered and shambled about.”
“Then what happens?”
“Then he raises his staff above his head and makes some sort of shrieking sound, but I think it’s some sort of freaky language…”
“Then?”
“Its voice is so horrible that I wake up.”
Jubal put his arm around Fiona and patted her far shoulder. She laid her head on his shoulder.
“Damn, that’s some wild dreaming you’re doing there, Fee. It’s bad enough you had the nightmare once, but to have it all night long-maybe you are getting this?u or virus or whatever the hell it is.”
There was a jingle and a bang and then someone was running down the aisle of the store straight toward them.
Jubal recognized Billy Owens, a local teenager.
“Jubal! There’s something going on outside.”
Jubal bolted out of his chair and ran, nearly knocking Billy over in the process.
Down the street, at the western edge of town, a trail of dust plumed. A car. Judging from the sound it made: it was a solar. And it was moving fast into town.
Too fast.
Before Jubal could even leave the sidewalk, the car whizzed by down Main Street. Jubal watched it shriek into a sharp turn and pull into an abandoned car wash.
A thwooping sound, unnoticed until now, grew louder as a black helicopter?ew low above him, rattling his shirt and sending his hair into disarray. As it cleared town, it barely missed smashing into the billboard atop the auto shop across the street.
“What’s going on?” Billy said from behind him.
He looked back at Billy. Fiona and some other townspeople gathered on the sidewalk around him, watching the sky and the abandoned car wash.
Just as Jubal was about to respond, the solar car pulled out of the car wash and sped back down the street in the direction it had come from, racing past them at full speed.
Jubal started round his car to give chase.
Fiona called out, “Look!”
Someone was crawling, hand over hand, out of the car wash.
Jubal jogged down the sidewalk toward the crawler. The others followed close behind.
The person stopped moving. As Jubal approached, he saw something that made him halt in his tracks. He turned around toward the trailing crowd.
“Okay, everybody. Don’t move any closer; I want you to stay back. This is of?cial police business.”
Everyone stopped, some nearly running into the person in front of them. They all looked at him with blank faces. Some nodded their heads in response to his instructions. Others tried to look around him at the person on the ground.
“I mean it, now,” Jubal said, then turned away.
The Wet ’N’ Dry wash had been abandoned for a decade. Once the Amoco down the street had set up its own drive-through car wash, business had dwindled. Dry weeds surrounded it now and graf?ti covered its graying cement walls.<
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“Oh, my god.”
The woman on the ground had rolled onto her back. She whimpered through dry, parted lips. Her exposed skin-face and hands-was as gray as the car wash’s cement walls and covered with large, ugly blisters. She was so dis?gured, her face a swelling mass, that the only way Jubal knew it was a woman was from the large breasts beneath her buttoned shirt. As he watched, one of the blisters on her cheek popped-he could hear it pop-and yellowish pus splattered across the woman’s face.
“Jesus,” said someone from behind Jubal’s right shoulder. It was Fiona.
“I thought I told you…”
The woman on the ground mumbled something.
“What’d she say?” Fiona asked.
Jubal leaned his head closer.
“Dead army…” she hissed, then passed out.
Dead army?
Was it some sort of military accident that had caused this woman’s terrible dis?gurement?
But then, everything clicked into place and Jubal did not like the result: this woman, whoever she was, obviously had an extreme case of the sickness that was spreading throughout Serenity. He hoped to God his logic was inaccurate and that it was something else entirely-anything else.
Jubal felt faint.
“We have to get this woman over to the hospital in Carlsbad. Right away,” Fiona said.
Snapping out of his spiral of despair, Jubal said, “Okay, but get the hell away from her, Fiona. Now!”
Fiona looked shocked for a second at Jubal’s harsh outburst, but then moved away from the unconscious woman.
Jubal ran past the retreating Fiona, toward his patrol car. As he passed the small group of gawking townspeople, he shouted, “Stay away from that woman, godammit!”
He swung the car door open and plopped into the driver’s seat, banging his head on the roof of the car in the process.
“Fuck.”
Rubbing the pain in his forehead with one hand, he called up the state police on the radio beneath the dash. After several failed attempts, during what seemed like the longest minutes of his life, he?nally got someone. It wasn’t Dooley; the voice told him Dooley had gone home sick. Jubal explained the situation to the dispatcher.
“I’m sorry, deputy, but we’re short-handed beyond belief. Everyone seems to have the?u lately…”
“Well, what can you do for me? This woman doesn’t have long.”
“I’ll try patching you through to an ambulance service.”
Jubal stared out the windshield as the dispatcher put him through. The townspeople of Serenity stood about, staring at the woman on the ground. With gratitude, Jubal noticed that at least they were staying well away from the sick woman. He felt awful for having abandoned her there on the ground by herself, and wished there was some way he could help her. But he had to think of the people who were still healthy, too.
His radio crackled.
“Man, if you’re looking for ambulance service, you are fucked, buddy!”
Jubal punched the button.
“Who the hell is this?”
“Red-E Rescue Ambulance. And who in the name of the sweet baby Jesus might I be speaking at?” The young man, whoever he was, sounded drunk.
“This is the Mescalero County Sheriff’s Department. We got a real sick lady in Serenity and we need a transport now.”
The ambulance service dispatcher cackled. Jubal clenched his teeth so hard his jaws made a popping sound.
“What’s so goddamn funny?”
“Well, I’ll explain it to you, of?cer-”
“Deputy.”
“-so listen careful like, so I only have to talk to you once. See, even if I could get there, we would be faced with a whopper of a dilemma, which is to say, where the fuck would I fuckin’ take her?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I’m sayin’ is that there’s no room at the inn. The hospital at Carlsbad is full up. More than full. They’ve pitched tents on the lawn and they’re stackin’ ’em and rackin’ ’em. Now ain’t that some crazy shit? And the punch line to this particular joke is this: There ain’t nothin’ the docs can do. I haul ’em in so somebody in a white coat and a mask over their face can stand by with his thumb up the ol’ poop chute and watch ’em. It’s some ugly stuff, too. It starts out like the?u with a fever and maybe a cough. Then the circus really comes to town. The skin turns gray and they develop blisters on their faces.”
The dispatcher made a soft sound and Jubal pictured the man shivering. Despite the heat, he felt like shivering himself. He glanced at the woman on the ground.
“What about other hospitals?” he said.
“I guess I didn’t make myself clear. Carlsbad is havin’ a good day, compared to the rest of the state. It’s the end of the world, Deputy Fife. I suggest you drink up.”
The whole state? Jubal felt his lunch go sour in his belly.
“What about El Paso?”
“My cousin Randy drives an ambulance down that way. Let me just say this: you are fucked up the old tail pipe, podna.”
Texas, too? But how could Jubal looked at the hills that comprised the walls of the valley that Serenity sat within. Could the same natural structure that had often protected the area from seriously bad weather have slowed the progress of whatever this was?
He wasn’t a geologist or pathologist. For all the good he was doing the town, he wasn’t even much of a law of?cer at the moment.
He noticed movement all round him. The crowd that had gathered to gawk at the sick woman had inched closer to his cruiser. Jubal realized that they could hear the radio, could hear what the drunken ambulance dispatcher had been saying. He pulled the cruiser’s door closed. Within seconds the interior of the vehicle turned into a furnace. The keys were deep in his pants pocket. He’d have to climb out again and stand up to reach them, so he let it go, hoping the conversation would be over soon.
“What am I supposed to do?” he said, painfully aware of the desperate note in his voice. “This woman has the symptoms you described, only ten times worse. And I’ve got a town of sick people getting sicker.”
For a few seconds, Jubal heard nothing but static. Then the voice of the dispatcher returned and he sounded sober. “Buddy, let me tell you a story. A year ago, there’s this kid graduating high school. Not a genius, but not a dummy, either, right? So he knows a guy who knows a guy who gets him a dispatching job at an ambulance company. This kid wants to do more, though, so the boss-who’s not a total asshole-gets the kid some EMT classes and he gets the kid licensed to drive the bus, so the kid can go on runs and make some extra cash. Now the kid is close to getting certi?ed. See, the kid could never get into medical school, but doing this-man, it’s like bein’ on the front lines, you know? And when he has his ticket, he’ll get a big bump in pay; the boss has already told him that. Good thing, too, ’cause this kid got his girl knocked up and he-he’s gonna be a dad. Only…only she’s not answerin’ her phone today and I’ve got such a terrible fuckin’ feelin’-”
The voice was replaced by static. Jubal couldn’t move. Even with sweat freely pouring into his eyes and down his sides, he sat there in the heat, holding the mic and waiting for the next words to come through the speaker. He thought about Fiona and their plans together.
“You still there?” the dispatcher said.
“Yeah, man.”
The unknown man sniffed. “I’m gonna take off. I’m the only one who showed up today and I’ve been stickin’ around like a fool, even though there’s nothing I can do.” He paused to take in a deep breath. “If you believe in God, pray. If you got any Indians left down there, get ’em to do a blessing. I got a real bad feeling that this won’t have a happy ending. Good luck to you. I got some things I gotta do.”
“Wait,” Jubal said. “You still there?”
The rattle of static was the only thing that he heard.
Jubal wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. It was a futile effort, since he was perspiring faster than he cou
ld clean it away.
He had a hand on the door handle, ready to step out, when the radio came to life.
“What is it, man? I really have to go.” The dispatcher now sounded very tired.
Jubal keyed the microphone. “Earlier you said ‘even if I could get there.’ What did you mean?”
The man sighed. “You been on the highway lately?”
“No.” Jubal had spent the past couple of days in town, not wanting to be too far from his mother or the of?ce. He hadn’t been on the county back roads.
“When you get a chance, you ought take a look. Head up toward Carlsbad, if you like. Now I’m sorry for your troubles and I’m sorry for the way I acted when I?rst talked to you. I was raised better than that. But I’ve been drinkin’ some. That’s not an excuse. I’m just tellin’ you how it is. I hope things work out for you, but I suspect they won’t.”
The voice was gone.
Jubal got out of the cruiser, thankful for the small breeze. The air smelled funny, though. It might have been his imagination, but the back of his throat burned and his sinuses felt raw. He thought about plague germs, manufactured in some secret government laboratory in Nevada, now drifting down to Serenity.
No. This was not the time for that kind of thinking.
“Blankets.”
It took Jubal a moment to realize that someone had spoken to him.
“Jubal, I need blankets.” Fiona was next to him. She looked calm but serious.
“Why do you need-”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but everybody saw you close the door, and I can see your face. I’ve known you a long time, Jubal Slate. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“Okay.” She ran a hand over her mouth. Jubal had seen her father make the same gesture many times. “Okay. You can tell me later. Right now I want the blankets in your trunk.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the sickest person I’ve ever seen and she’s laying on dusty blacktop while half the town-the half that isn’t sick-gets to stand around and watch. I have to do something.”
“Fiona, no. What she has, it’s catching.”
Fiona handed him a pair of surgical gloves. He saw that she wore a pair herself.
“We’re not the kind of people who stand around and watch. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”
