by Poe, S. B.
“Mom, mom, come in here quick” Scott called from his room, surprising Kate that he was up this early.
She went to Scott’s room and he had a feed from BBC on his main screen. The scroll said “Marionette arrives in Spain” and the images were unbelievable. It was a feed from a traffic camera and it wasn’t showing traffic. It was showing hundreds of people just ambling around in the middle of an intersection that should be filled with cars and buses. The cars and buses were there but the cars had their doors open and the buses were empty. Every person in the images was ambling the same way she had in at least a dozen other feeds Scott had shown her throughout the previous evening.
“Scott, this can’t be real. It just can’t be” said Kate
“Mom, I am connected to the whole gaming world. These folks tend to not spend too much time giving out personal information because they don’t want to get doxxed if they pissed the wrong guy off. I am seeing folks putting pictures, phone numbers and addresses all over the place begging for help. And then they just go dark. This is bad.”
“Ok, I’ll call your father, go wake up Josh.”
“Josh left about an hour ago”
“What?”
“Yeah he said he was gonna get a head start and just meet Bill there”
“Shit”
Her phone lit up in her hand.
Her 5:00 a.m. alarm.
“Shit shit double shit” Kate said out loud, thinking it wasn’t, as she turned off her alarm.
She called Josh.
“Josh, where are you?” Kate asked
“I just pulled up to the lake house and I am gonna sit here and wait for Bill.”
“No, you are going to come home right now”
“Excuse me?”
“Josh, I want you home right now. This Marie Antoinette virus has me very worried and”
“Wait wait wait, the Marie Antoinette virus? Do you mean the Marionette virus?”
“I don’t give a damn what it’s called, I want you to come home.”
“Mom I just got here”
“Now, home”
“Yes, mama” Josh surrendered on the phone. But he figured he was at the lake, he had snuck a six-pack of beer and dammit he was going to walk down to the water and drink a beer. Five A.M. is still five o’clock. Mom would just have to wait a few minutes more.
Kate called JW.
“Good morning honey, what time you heading home?” Kate asked. Surprised at how quickly JW answered the phone.
“About that” JW responded a bit sheepishly.
“About what?” Kate asked. Relieved to hear his voice as though she just needed to make some kind of connection with him, which reminded her again of just how nervous she was.
“Well, genius here managed to fall asleep and let the truck battery run down. It’s no big deal, I will just walk back out to the main road and flag someone down to give me a jump” JW was making it up as he went now but he was hoping she didn’t notice. She noticed.
“Really, John, you are going to flag someone down and say, Hey my truck is broke down back here in these woods and I need you to let me get in your car and ride with you back into these woods off the road where nobody can see you so you can help with my truck. Really? That doesn’t sound axe murdery at all. Now tell me what happened and what we need to do.”
“The battery is dead. That’s it. I left the key on but I don’t want you to come get me. Just send Josh.”
“Josh isn’t here, he went to the lake, but I called him and he should be on his way home now.”
“Well call him back and tell him to come get me. He’s halfway here already if he is at Bill McFarland’s place.”
“Why can’t you call him”?
“I think I may need to start conserving my phone battery.”
Kate hung up the phone with Josh, slightly angry that he had not already left the lake but glad he was still up that way so he could go get JW.
She turned to the big bay window and looked out into the front yard. The Alabama sky was that gray October color that usually meant football championships and pumpkin patches.
“Please, bring my boys home.” Kate said to no one in particular.
Bridger Preston walked into the local affiliate in Nashville at 4:30 for his satellite spot about the latest arms deal between Israel and the UK, which really wasn’t that big of a deal but someone decided to give it 3 minutes. He was still amazed that he worked in a news business that prided itself on being 24 hr. news but never seemed to manage to give any story more than 3 minutes. If you have 24hrs you should be able to devote some time to serious discussion and not just sound bite journalism. But what the hell did he know. He was just an analyst, paid to analyze things. He didn’t want to steer to far out of his lane.
As he entered the control room the first thing he noticed was the quiet. Admittedly it was 5 in the morning but usually there were still folks shuffling around and talking. This morning everybody was just watching the feeds coming on the banks of televisions in the back. BBC, CNN, FOX, Al Jazeera and his network all carrying, in one form or another, stories about the Marionette virus. A scene from a street camera in Spain, a dusty road somewhere in East Africa and other odd scenes, streamed across the back wall. The one that caught Bridger’s attention was the same one that had drawn the control room from their duties. In larger than normal type across the bottom of feed from Spain,
“FIRST CASE OF MARIONETTE VIRUS CONFIRMED IN NYC.
WHITE HOUSE TO MAKE STATEMENT SOON”
Bridger read it again. And again. His mind was working through all the ramifications. He had spent his life trying to explain to people what the outcomes of any particular decision could mean in the long run. By working through the ramifications you could reasonably predict different scenarios playing out. If you could see all the outcomes that put you ahead of the game, if you can see all the outcomes, reduce it down to one and be right? Well that’s why they pay Bridger Preston the big bucks.
Bridger thought about the strange conversation from the previous evening. JW Toles. Damn he hadn't talked to JW in a year or two and except for getting a Christmas card last week he hadn’t thought about him in a few months. He was thinking about him now. JW had been a good soldier and Bridger respected him. When he first got to JW’s unit JW had only been there about six months, which made him the next newest guy. Bridger’s arrival got the FNG label off of JW and for that reason alone JW was always kind of grateful for Bridger’s arrival: their friendship came later.
Bridger kept playing it through his head. If JW Toles had come out from his little world to contact him, there was something to be concerned about. JW was not the kind of guy to just pick up the phone and call for a chat about some virus in Madagascar. He was beginning to wonder how JW always seemed to have his “spidey-senses” tuned to just the right thing. When they were in the big ashtray JW had always seemed to sense which buildings to pay more attention to than others. It seemed Madagascar had been the right “building”.
He decided he needed more information, so for now he was just like everybody else who was waking up on the east coast of the US, watching the TV and wondering what the hell was happening?
JW decided to walk back to the gate so he could meet Josh. He figured by the time he walked the half-mile back he wouldn’t have to wait very long. He grabbed his backpack without thinking and slung it over his shoulders. As soon as it was on his back he realized he would be coming right back when Josh got here but something told him just to carry it with him, it would be good exercise. He shut the door of the truck and started walking. He got about ten feet from the truck and turned back to grab his rifle. He just couldn’t bring himself to leave it unattended in his truck, even in the middle of nowhere. It was habit. Loaded down with his backpack and rifle carried in his right hand, JW had a brief moment and laughed. He did his best to ignore the fact that the thing that screwed with his head the most was how much he missed doing the shit that screwed his head up.
> He started down the road. He was wearing a pair of GI issue pants that he had bought on his last visit to the VA Commissary, with a pair of long johns underneath. He had on two long sleeve t-shirts and a fleece camo top with a frogtog jacket. All of his clothes had that slept in feel and nothing really felt like it was on right. He stopped. He dropped his pack and laid his rifle across it. He unbuttoned his pants and retucked his shirts in so nothing was all bunched up. He got everything buttoned back up and slung his pack back on. As he turned he thought he saw someone walk across the road around the next corner. He did a double take and didn't see anything.
“Probably just another deer.” He thought, as he unconsciously chambered a round into the rifle.
He started down the road again. A little more comfortable and a lot more alert. He walked to the point where he thought he had seen something (someone?) and stopped. He didn’t see any sign of anything and no obvious tracks in the road. He looked at the honeysuckle growing just off the road and decided it had just been a deer standing here feeding. He had about another quarter mile to go and decided to stop and call Josh.
He pulled up Josh in his contacts and hit send. No service. It was spotty all along this road. He kept walking.
Josh was about three miles from the turn off to the bridge road. He called it the bridge road. His dad and brother called it the creek road. But they were wrong. He was rounding a bend when he saw the truck on the side of the road. He slowed down. As he passed he noticed the passenger door was open but nobody was in the truck and nobody was standing by the truck. As a matter of fact he didn’t see anybody, anywhere. Both sides of the road give way to fields that run to the woods 100 yards away, so he could see a pretty good area. No one. Odd
He rounded the bend and started down the last stretch of paved road. His turn was about 2 miles down. Even though he would probably get fussed at for using his phone while driving, he called his dad.
JW could see the gate and was halfway hoping to see Josh waiting but he knew it shouldn’t be too long. His pocket vibrated.
“Dad, I’ll be there in about five minutes,” Josh said.
“Can I assume you pulled over and put the vehicle in park to make this phone call?” JW said in his most “sound like a father” voice.
“Nope, bye” Josh said and the line went dead.
JW smiled. He and Josh had a strange relationship. They both grew into who they were together. JW was trying to piece a life together from a bunch of fragments when Josh came along. They bonded over things that had been therapy for JW, fishing, hunting and just being outdoors. They had been as much comrades as father and son when Josh was young and they had fun. As Josh got older, JW kind of withdrew from him. Josh had rebelled a little in middle school as kids in middle school do and JW wasn’t quite sure how to handle it so he didn’t. He watched Kate step up and help guide Josh through those years. Ever since then there had been this strange space between them. They still had fun and laughed but it had changed. JW couldn’t quite figure it out. As he was thinking about this he saw Josh coming down the road to the creek. He walked up to the gate and unlocked it. Just as he did two very low, very fast and very loud military aircraft raced over his head. JW instinctively ducked to his knees and looked up. Josh heard the roar and slammed on the brakes because that’s what teenagers do when they panic. The rear of the SUV decided this was the perfect moment to see what was going on up front.
JW watched as Josh lost control and spun completely around in the middle of the road looking straight back where had he just traveled. He stopped, put the SUV in park and opened the door.
“Well, that was fun” he said, seeing his father hustling across the bridge towards him.
“You, ok?”
“Yeah, just a little shaky. What happened to you?” Josh said making a motion towards his own forehead.
JW reached up mirroring Josh’s motion and touched the spot on his head that hurt. He had almost forgot about it.
“Oh, I just bumped it gathering wood. No biggie” JW said.
“Well, ok, let’s get the truck” Josh said starting to get back in his SUV
“I think I am just gonna leave it here. We can come back and get it in a day or two. You can just bring me up here when you come back up to the lake and we can get it then.” JW said without really knowing why.
“I locked the gate already. Let’s go home”
Josh, not even trying to figure out his Dad’s logic anymore, just shut the door and started the engine. JW loaded his pack and rifle into the back seat and climbed into the passenger side.
“Maybe we can grab a bite on the way home,” JW said and they started back down the dirt road again.
Kate stood staring at the pantry. It was pretty well stocked. Her and JW had struggled when they first got married. They would scrape together 75 cents to go buy a roll of toilet paper when things got really tight. They had worked hard through JW’s problems but it was a full time effort. JW had held several jobs since they got married but he never held any job more than a few years. Most jobs no more than a few months, and one famously for about an hour and a half. It created a lot of uncertainty about the future when you’re buying toilet paper by the roll. JW finally got some help from the VA and had settled into a good job checking gas lines for the state. He spent most of the time monitoring data from his computer but occasionally he would have to go and ride the gas lines to check them. He enjoyed that part enough. It didn’t pay great but he got a check from the VA too and with Kate’s income things had stabilized. After being that broke, their combined income now felt like winning the lottery. They had enough money to pay all the bills on the first of the month. They could keep the pantry stocked and go out to eat occasionally. That was the wish list they made twenty-five years ago when they used to lay in their bed and listen to the couple in the apartment above them beat their head against the headboard.
As she looked in the pantry she made a meal plan in her head. She decided to make chili for supper. She had the beans and the tomatoes and knew she had the sausage and beef in the freezer. She had crackers but not oyster crackers. JW really liked oyster crackers and Kate wished she had some to make up for being a nervous Nellie asking him to come home. She needed oyster crackers.
“Scott, come with me to the store, I need to get something”
“What do you need?” Scott called from his room
“I need you to come out here and go with me to the store, now”
Scott reluctantly emerged from his room.
“Can I drive?”
“Grab the keys” Kate said.
She didn’t know if letting Scott drive was a great idea but she was trying to hide her underlying nervousness and letting him drive would be completely normal since he was about a month away from graduating from a learner’s permit to his drivers license.
They pulled out of the garage in Kate’s big SUV. All her friends had these midsized SUV’s that can’t decide if they are an all purpose vehicle or a station wagon. Kate liked the height of her full size SUV, she felt like she could see everything. Actually it was a real pain in the ass to see anything that wasn’t right in front of you but Kate had all the lane warning and parking features you could pack onto it. Kate will be the first on the block to buy a self-driving full size SUV. She tells JW that it would be like having an on demand chauffeur that drives you wherever you want to go, whenever you want to get there. Think about it, you could get in your big old SUV tell Jeeves to head to Dallas, go to sleep in the back and wake up in Dallas. How freaking cool would that be? JW says it would take Jeeves about two weeks to figure out he doesn’t need these useless fleshy bags of water around and it would be sayonara. JW doesn’t get it.
The grocery store was only about a two miles from their house, as the crow flies, but it took about ten minutes to get there navigating through their neighborhood. The neighborhood had one entrance. It wasn’t gated but it had a security camera that monitored who came in and out so if something happen
ed they had a good chance of finding a vehicle that was out of place. The Toles lived on a cul-de-sac at the back of the neighborhood. Their backyard was against an area of woods that ran almost five miles deep before it reached railroad tracks and just beyond, the river. Construction of the neighborhood had stopped during the last recession. The original plans supposedly had the neighborhood extending deeper but they ran out of money. JW and Kate had bought the last house in the neighborhood for a steal. Truly. They paid a fourth of what the market value was prior to the crash. They were lucky. They had been getting their finances straight just before the crash and since they didn’t own anything, the crash was more of a news event for them. Kate was a teacher and JW was ‘flexible’. JW used his VA loan and they bought themselves a house. Kate made it a home.
As they reached the neighborhood entrance they noticed a sheriff’s deputy parked beside the road. It wasn’t unusual to see them there because they would watch for people running the stop sign at the four-way stop at the entrance. The crossroad had once been the main road between north of the river and south of the river about fifty years ago. The town had grown and the route was moved east with a highway that crossed the river on the big beautiful six-lane bridge. The route at Kate’s neighborhood was now mostly local traffic. If you go straight you end up at the new highway. Turn left and you head down to the river and the old bridge and beautiful little elementary school where Kate teaches fourth grade. Turn right and go about a mile and on your left is Magix. Known around the Toles house as simply the store. They turned right.
