Of Starlight and Plague

by Beth Hersant

  “What if they shoot her like that Durand guy?” Dempsey asked as they left the house.

  “We have to risk it. It’s either that or shoot her ourselves. At least this way there’s some hope.”

  Chapter Eight

  Postcards From Over the Edge

  “I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions.”

  Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

  “Everything hurts now and nothing makes sense.”

  Carrie Fisher, Postcards From the Edge

  Cáscara. “All right,” Edwin Caldwell was saying. “I think it’s clear that this virus is not the result of biowarfare.” He scrolled through the report he’d received from colleagues in Bangor, Maine. It contained details of Rachel’s death and also copies of the research proposal Pickman submitted to Harvard.

  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Sheriff Manolito murmured. “Whether he was working on a weapon or a cure, the result is the same.”

  “True.” Caldwell closed his laptop and thought for a minute. “That’s all we know about Aaron Pickman, but what about his assistant, Montgomery?”

  “I can sum him up in three words.”

  “Yes?”

  “Booze, broads and blow.”

  “Charming. But there’s got to be more to him than that. He obviously knew what was going on at the lab and would have known what alterations Pickman made to the virus.” An idea struck him. “Can I see his personal effects?”

  Manolito brought out the boxes. There, among the ghastly assortment of Hawaiian shirts and a general collection of juvenile tat, they found the journal.

  New Orleans. Tammany was packing her bags when the knock came at the door. She opened it cautiously to find Daniel Wade standing there.

  “I’m here for the interview!” he beamed at her.

  “Oh crap.” The mambo glanced nervously up the street and ushered him quickly inside.

  “I’m sorry, did I get the time wrong?”

  “No, no. I forgot all about it — it’s been so chaotic here.”

  “What is all this?” Daniel gestured to the suitcases and boxes.

  Ignoring the question she asked, “When are you leaving New Orleans?”

  “Tomorrow, why?”

  “Go tonight. Now, if you can.”

  “What? Why?”

  Tammany sat him down at a kitchen table stacked with crates of food and voodoo supplies. She told him everything about Otis and the dreams and Geraldine, but in the midst of her narrative she stopped. She could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t believe her.

  “You’re not buying this, are you?”

  “It is far-fetched.”

  The mambo nodded. He believed in her faith, the way you believe in the existence of, say, Mount Everest despite the fact you’ve never seen it with your own eyes. He believed that Voodoo exists in its own right. But he was not a believer. His academic interest in the faith was respectful and tolerant but also steeped in its own sense of analytical superiority. He indulged Tammany’s belief in mystic dreams and improbable truths in the same way you’d humor a child’s belief in Santa Claus. At any other time, Tammany thought, it wouldn’t matter. But now it could be his undoing. She decided to take one more shot.

  “Well, Mr. Wade, it was lovely meeting you.” She rose; he took the hint and stood too. “I wonder if you might humor an old woman and carry this to protect you on your travels?”

  She handed him the gris gris — the charm she’d prepared for him.

  “Thank you.”

  “Sew it into your clothes or keep it in your right pocket. To recharge it, soak it in whiskey every Friday.”

  “Ok.” And there it was — the disbelief again.

  “Be well, sweetheart.” She kissed him on the cheek and showed him out.

  As he walked back to the bus stop, he looked thoughtfully at the red flannel bag tied with twine and decorated with a blue bead. He teased the bag open and peered inside, but couldn’t make out the contents. And so he emptied them into his hand. It was quite a collection: ashes, a tiny bone, a few hairs (although he didn’t know what or who they were from) and a small piece of a snake shed. There was a toadstool top and some white powder that smelled of camphor. He shook his head and carefully returned the ingredients to the bag. He liked the old woman for her honesty and kindness. He was determined to represent her faith on its own terms, giving it all of the respect it deserved. But he simply could not buy into it. This pouch was important to him because it represented Tammany’s friendship and was an excellent artifact that would no doubt give him inspiration while he wrote. However, it had no more power to protect him than the Odor-Eaters in his shoes. At the bus stop, he popped the bag into his briefcase and thought no more of it.

  “St. Michael, Archangel, defend us. Be our protection against the wickedness of those who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.” She only had time to recite this truncated version of Pope Leo XIII’s prayer and then it was time to say goodbye. The first boats were loaded with the friends and neighbors she was able to convince to go to Honey Island.

  “Mom, just get on the boat, please.” Dempsey felt like he was going crazy. He needed to get his wife and children away, but to leave his mother…

  “Sweetheart, you know I can’t. I have a responsibility to the people here that I can’t run away from. With us all living on top of each other, we could give another fifty people refuge at the swamp. The minute I get my fifty, I’ll be on the boat. I promise.”

  “But…”

  “Your responsibility is to the family you’ve made. Now get `em outta here. I love you, son.”

  The sight of her boy crying on the deck of that boat almost broke her. She nodded her thanks to Nola as the woman hugged him tight. Then Tammany walked resolutely away.

  The drive home, however, gave her more than enough to distract her from sad goodbyes. New Orleans was in turmoil. Police and ambulance sirens blared constantly and the streets were crowded. Two black men had died in police custody in quick succession — one involving the shooting of an unarmed man. Fearing a repeat of the Stephon Clark and Terence Crutcher killings, people had taken to the streets to protest. Tammany moaned aloud as she piloted her little Chevrolet toward home. More people in the street would only mean more people infected.

  Suddenly she tugged on the wheel and pulled the car up to the curb. Rolling down her window she shouted, “George! Hey George!”

  The old homeless man turned and smiled broadly at her. “Hey! How are you?”

  “I need to talk to you! Get in!”

  He paused and looked at her uncertainly. Sleeping on a park bench and bathing only occasionally didn’t earn you many lifts from people and he was a bit taken aback to be offered one now.

  “Will you stop gawking at me and get in?”

  George noticed for the first time just how tired and stressed the mambo looked. He obeyed. “Tam, what’s going on?”

  “Oh do I have a story to tell you.”

  George didn’t take much convincing. A life on the streets had provided him with a front row seat to the changes that were taking place in the city.

  “I’ll talk to the others — a lot of them, I think, will come.”

  “How many, George? I need numbers.”

  He sat for a moment and started ticking off names on his fingers. “Eighteen including myself.”

  “Wonderful. Make sure everyone knows where we’re meeting and get `em there on time.”

  Tammany spent the rest of the evening calling everyone she could think of. Friends and clients varied in their responses. Some were prepared to take Tam at her word. Some had seen things that supported her story. And some thanked her politely and said they’d
be in touch. The mambo did not argue with them — she did not have the time it would take to change all those minds. By the time she went to bed, she had managed to convince thirty-one to come with her. Including herself and the eighteen George would gather, she had gotten her fifty.

  As she lay in the darkness listening to the sirens, she remembered Marron’s words: “Do you understand, woman, that freedom costs?” And he’d brandished his stump at her just in case she was under the illusion that the price would be low.

  So the question remained: what would she be required to pay?

  The following morning Daniel Wade slept in and just managed to get himself organized to make the 11:00 check out required by his hotel. He would have an early lunch and then head off to the airport. Hence by 11:45 he was dining al fresco with a bottle of beer in his hand and a calzone on the way. He looked at the label on the bottle and an ugly multi-colored skull grinned back at him. The waitress had assured him that this beer, The Ghost in the Machine, was the top-rated Louisiana brew and a local favorite. He sipped it experimentally. It was nice: biscuity with hints of pepper and citrus and pine — a very civilized way to start the day.

  It was at that moment that life, with its endless taste for irony, interrupted these thoughts. Someone screamed. Daniel dropped his beer which sloshed liberally over his trousers. He hardly noticed because a man had tackled a woman literally right in front of him.

  “What the fuck?” he hissed, as he rose and grabbed hold of the attacker.

  The man, middle-aged and wearing an expensive suit, turned on him then, snapping his teeth in Daniel’s face. As the two men grappled, they lost balance and fell to the ground. The businessman landed on top of Wade and knocked the wind out of him. As Daniel gasped for breath, some of the foamy drool that hung from his assailant’s lips hit him in the face, in the eyes, in the mouth. It took every ounce of strength in his younger, fitter body to keep those teeth from sinking into his flesh. And then suddenly, the man was being hauled off him as two police officers intervened.

  Daniel hopped up and made a beeline back to his table where he used every spare napkin and half a bottle of Pure Hand Sanitizer Gel to wash his face. He had a terrible taste in his mouth and looked for his beer. The bottle lay on its side on the ground, the skull grinning up at him, while The Ghost in the Machine drained away.

  Cáscara. The island of Cáscara had fallen. The number of infected swelled, overwhelming the hospital in a scene right out of the 2008 remake of Day of the Dead. Across the island the scales had tipped with the sick outnumbering the well by four to one. The CDC was pulling out and as his team drove in convoy to their extraction point, Dr. Caldwell typed feverishly. The SUV jerked along, swerving and breaking to avoid the infected who were crowded in the streets. Edwin had a difficult time holding on to his laptop, let alone getting anything coherent down in the email he was sending to his boss. His vehicle slowed to avoid an infected child. Three screeching men threw themselves at the car, cracking two windows and bowing Caldwell’s door inward. Janine screamed for their driver to move and the car lurched forward, swiping the child and sending her flying onto the sidewalk.

  Three SUVs departed from Carite, but only two made it to the extraction point — the abandoned runway at Pickman’s lab where a helicopter would evacuate them to the USS Gerald R. Ford. While he waited for the chopper, Caldwell continued to type:

  Attached to this email you will find a document with all of the details of Pickman’s research. While it does not provide a cure for the disease, it will refine your understanding of the virus.

  With a queasy lurch of his stomach, Caldwell realized that he was typing this message as if he was about to die. He pushed that thought aside and continued…

  I believe that the quickest route to bringing the infection under control is not in establishing a cure, but in the development of a vaccine. We know that the standard PEP injections for rabies are ineffective against the new strain. However …

  A shrill, inhuman screech echoed through the forest nearby. Janine was on the radio urging the helicopter on.

  … with the information contained in Pickman’s notes, it should be possible to develop a vaccine specifically engineered to fend off the New Rabies.

  The question left in Caldwell’s mind was one of logistics. The incubation period was so short, would they be able to manufacture and distribute a vaccine in time to stem the tide?

  He could hear the chop of helicopter blades as help approached, but the infected were emerging from the trees now. Dr. Edwin Caldwell had just enough time to click on the paper airplane icon and send the email. Then Abran Manolito plowed into him with enough force to send the old doctor toppling backward onto the cracked pavement. Somewhere beneath three of the infected, Janine was screaming. The rest of his team were dying around him — or worse, surviving to become one of them. As Manolito bit into him again and again, Edwin opened his mouth to scream and … nothing. It was precisely like one of those dreams where you try to cry out but can’t make a sound. Sobs wracked his body and stole his voice. Half-blinded by a spray of his own blood, Caldwell’s last view of the world was of a gaping mouth full of teeth.

  New Orleans. The night of the final exodus arrived and Tammany stared in amazement at the number of people gathered at the dock. Word had spread rapidly and, when the mambo did a final head count, she realized that nearly three times the expected number had shown up. They were families mostly, just desperate to get their kids out of harm’s way. From the haunted looks on many faces, they had seen for themselves what the new illness could do.

  She and Amos stared at each other for a long moment.

  “How can we leave any of them behind?” she asked.

  “Tammany, where are we going to put them?” He turned to look at his vessel — a large, flat-bottomed boat that would sink under the weight of all those people.

  “I don’t know, but we’d better think of something. I —”

  At that moment a scream sliced through the twilight and everyone froze. A group of infected, drawn by the crowd, converged on the dock. It was actually happening — the nightmare scenario of a mass attack, that essence of zombie fiction, made bloody and real. And the crowd surged forward as people jumped onto every boat moored there. As trembling hands floundered with dock lines, they were overrun.

  Tammany grabbed a nearby child and handed the shrieking toddler to Amos. She picked up another and another and soon people were shoving their children into her hands and her back groaned as she lifted each of them onto the boat. As the enraged screams of the infected rose around her, every instinct told her to hop aboard NOW. She managed to keep herself calm by counting each child she handed over. Ten, eleven, twelve. The fighting was nearer now and Tammany grabbed a teenage boy by the scruff of his neck and shoved him toward the boat. A pregnant woman came and Tammany held her hand to help her step into the craft. Then more children … twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three. She looked around and there was George carrying one child over his shoulder with another under his arm. She stepped aside so he could hand them across. The fighting had reached the boat now and something slammed into her back hard, driving the old woman onto her hands and knees. From this new vantage point, she could see a young mother, crouched beside a nearby bench, clutching an infant to her.

  “Hey!” Tammany called. “Come on!” And she reached her hand out to the girl.

  That is when it happened. A foam-slicked face darted forward and buried its teeth in her arm. Tammany screamed. A man who was running for the boat tripped over her attacker who fell sideways, taking a chunk of Tam’s flesh with him. The world swam in front of her eyes as pain shot through her. It took her breath away. But there was no time to stop.

  “Come on,” she gasped and reached again for the baby.

  The mother handed the child over just before a woman in a police uniform fell on top of her and went for her throat. Tammany, her left
arm next to useless, almost dropped the baby. She pressed the infant to her, struggled to her feet and ran. The boat was pulling away.

  “Amos!” she screamed.

  But Amos was piloting the craft away. It was his son Leonard, the boy she’d helped sober up, who stepped up to the port side and yelled, “Go on! I’ll catch him!”

  With a scream of agony, Tammany tossed the child. It took an unbelievably long time for that tiny body to arc through the air. The mambo held her breath, her muscles pretzeling in on themselves with the tension. And then the bundle was in Leonard’s hands and Tammany exhaled.

  “Fifty-nine,” she smiled.

  Sirens blared nearby and with the arrival of police (new, uninfected victims), Tam was able to slip through the crowd and make it back to her car.

  She was doomed; that was clear. But she was not finished yet. There was still something she needed to do.

  New York. He made his flight — just. By the time he gave his statement and details to the police, it had been a mad dash to the Louis Armstrong International Airport. Just as they were making the final boarding call for his Delta flight to JFK, Daniel Wade hopped onto the plane. Shaken and upset by the attack — and unable to get rid of the awful taste in his mouth — he ordered three of those little bottles of vodka and drank them straight. The alcohol calmed him, masked the taste and made his lips feel tingly — a sensation he always found pleasant. He opened his laptop. As always, work would be the best distraction.

  He needed to type up his notes. It was a real shame that he didn’t get that interview with Tammany, but he had spoken to other mambos and houngans and had a lot of material to organize. The plan now was to delve into the thriving Voodoo culture in New York City and then compare and contrast it to what he’d seen in New Orleans. It would be good, he thought, especially if he could give his descriptions the intensity and immediacy that had made his first book a success. With this in mind, he typed furiously for the duration of the three-hour flight.