The Alt Apocalypse (Book 4): Affliction

by Abrahams, Tom

  The men kept talking, their voices moving away from the fence now. They were arguing over who had to be the bearer of bad news.

  “He’s gonna rail on us,” said one of them. “Doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Three infecteds are loose in a clean zone. It’s bad.”

  “We don’t know they’re sick,” said the other. “With the way they moved, how they outran us, I doubt they’re sick. No way they have TBE. Especially the new version.”

  The men kept talking until their voices faded. Dub still didn’t move. He thought about the last thing they’d said.

  Especially the new version. What new version? Is the disease changing?

  Gritting his teeth against the almost unbearable pain in his hip, he slowly rolled onto his back. He exhaled as the sharp pings of heat popped in and around his outer thigh and his hip.

  Dub cursed again. He wanted Keri. He wanted to be in his bunk, under the blankets, a tablet on his lap and a streaming movie on the display as she snuggled onto his shoulder.

  The tears began again. They streaked the sides of his cheeks. His chest heaved and he fought the urge to sob. It was silent emotion though. He was quiet. The world was quiet. It was a world of which he no longer wanted any part.

  Then he heard Keri’s voice in his head, telling him not to give up, not to give in, and not to forget how strong he was.

  It was as if she were there, whispering in his ear. He closed his eyes and pictured her. He saw her as she’d been, not as she was now. He pushed the image of her dead body from his mind and forced himself to see her alive and vibrant, running across campus or cheering him on during an intramural basketball game. He saw her smile. He saw her laugh.

  It was enough for the moment to pull him from the depths of self-pity. He sniffed back the tears and focused on the task at hand. He needed to find his friends, and they needed to get to Gem’s house and out of the line of fire. He believed that, if given another chance, the yellow-suited Humvee patrol would shoot to kill. There would be no further warnings. Nor warnings of warnings.

  He drew his hand to his hip and held it above his body, hesitant to touch it. Then he did. Dub gently put his fingers to his pelvic bone and pressed, applying increasing pressure to various spots along the joint. The deep throb, which matched his accelerated heartbeat, wasn’t affected by the pressure. That was a good sign. Maybe he hadn’t fractured anything.

  He tried controlling his breathing. He drew in deeply through his nostrils, pulling the cool, dry air into his lungs, and exhaled through his mouth, blowing the air out evenly, deliberately.

  It helped. The throbbing slowed. The sharp pain he’d experienced was dulling. After several minutes he tried gathering his courage.

  “All right, Dub,” he said aloud. “You can do this. If you can pass Stats 10, you can get to your feet.”

  Dub started to roll over when a voice from behind him made him freeze.

  “You had trouble with Stats 10?” came a voice from behind him. It was a whisper, but loud enough to carry above the breeze.

  He glanced back to see Gem standing next to him. She had her hands on her hips, her shadow backlit by distant ambient light.

  “You are definitely a north campus major,” she said and reached down to help him up. “Liberal arts all the way.”

  “Sheeesh,” said Dub, not responding directly to her dig. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Is that what I smell?” she asked. She chuckled and suppressed a cough.

  Dub rolled his eyes in mid-wince as he attempted to pull himself to his feet. “You have no sense of comic timing.”

  He was standing on both feet but hesitant to put weight on his injured hip. He eyed Gem for a moment then glanced over her shoulder. “Where’s Barker?” he whispered. “Those guys are still out there.”

  “He’s fine. He’s a block from here near Agoura Road. There’s no checkpoint there. I think we’ll be home free.”

  Dub scanned the bare earth around them. They were on a narrow strip of undeveloped land that ran between the neighborhood and a utility easement. He shook his head in disbelief. “How did you—”

  “C’mon,” Gem said, gravel in her voice, “we gotta keep moving. Like you said, there are guys still out there.”

  She eased around to his side and ordered him to drape his arm over her shoulder. She stood on his bad side and acted as an extra leg. He could move, but a dull ache made it uncomfortable at best.

  They hobbled in silence until they met up with Barker. He was sitting against a tree behind some low shrubs, hidden from sight adjacent to Agoura Road. North of them, a military convoy rumbled past on the highway. Agoura was dark and quiet. There was no traffic, and the checkpoints were well behind them.

  Barker smiled at Dub when he saw him. “You made it. I didn’t know if you would.”

  His voice was still measured, slow and this side of slurred. Dub had no doubt his friend had a concussion.

  Dub squatted and sat down, carefully positioning himself to minimize the pain in his hip. He leaned against the tree next to Barker and made room for Gem to sit. She squeezed into a spot and crossed her legs.

  “I think we’re only a mile from my house,” she said. “It could be less. I know both of you losers are hurt. But we’ve got to move. We can be safe and sound inside a half hour if we go now.”

  “What’s with the attitude?” asked Barker. “You’re kinda snippy.”

  Gem licked her lips and frowned. “No attitude. But I’m the only one not hurt. I need to have the energy for all three of us. Believe me, Barker, I feel like crap. My chest is killing me, my head hurts, and I’m out of breath. But we have got to get home.”

  The roommates agreed and used the tree to get back to their feet. Gem walked between them, guiding them along the edge of the road. They were far enough from the thoroughfare to hide in the shadows as they moved.

  As she cajoled and encouraged the men, Gem explained that when Dub had distracted the men in the Humvee, she had led Barker around the other side of the house and back to the street. Nobody was looking in that direction. She’d hustled Barker to the safe spot under the tree and behind the shrubs; then she went back for Dub.

  “I thought they’d gotten you,” she said, “but I couldn’t abandon you. That wouldn’t be cool. So I crept back around and heard voices. Some dude in the house was yelling at the soldiers. He was telling them how horrible they were. They weren’t having it.”

  “I heard the man too,” said Dub, limping along far more slowly than he’d have liked. “And his daughter.”

  “Yeah,” said Gem. “Well, while they were arguing, I scooted back to the front of the house and listened to the men in the Humvee. After a couple of minutes, I heard the radio. They’d lost you. Couldn’t find you.”

  “I jumped the fence,” said Dub.

  Gem coughed and glanced over at him incredulously. “I know. I found you there?”

  “Right,” said Dub, focusing again on each alternating painful step. “How did you find me there?”

  “It was a guess, and it wasn’t the first place I looked,” said Gem. “I waited for them to pull out of the driveway. When the Humvee was gone, I checked the backyards of both neighboring houses. You weren’t in either one. I decided to check behind the houses. I figured that was the only place you could have gone.”

  Dub tried to calculate how long that must have taken her. It felt to him like she’d appeared only minutes after he’d jumped the fence. It couldn’t have been that quick. He limped a couple more steps, unable to rationalize it. “How long did that take you?”

  Gem wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I don’t know. Maybe a half hour. Perhaps less.”

  Dub nodded. None of them spoke for nearly the entirety of the last half mile. It wasn’t until they’d turned onto a tree-lined street with wide yards and stylish custom homes that Gem spoke.

  “All right, this is it. My house is a block up on the right.”

  The street was interm
ittently dark and lit with the soft yellow light of overhead lamps. They were spaced far enough apart that they didn’t fully illuminate the winding road that appeared so narrow two cars couldn’t pass in opposite directions.

  Some of the homes were dark. Dub couldn’t make out anything about them other than vague, large shapes and the pale, milky reflection of the returned moonlight on their slate or tile roofs.

  Other houses were awash with the warm, welcoming glow of landscaping lighting that fanned upward from the yards in front of the homes’ facades. They were unremarkable, aside from their size, except for something Dub noticed at their entries.

  On all of them he could see, there were large red letters and numbers spray-painted onto the doors. Most of them looked like Xs with the numbers next to them. He wasn’t the only one who noticed them.

  “What are those?” asked Gem. “On the doors?”

  They were walking more slowly now, paying more attention to their surroundings than the path ahead. Dub glanced at her, noting the worry in her face, and then at the door on the house to their right. “I’m pretty sure it means that these houses have already been checked. I saw these after a storm in Houston. There was a lot of flooding, some tornado damage.”

  He motioned toward the door with his hand as they passed it and wiggled his finger as if tracing the marks. He sighed as he spoke, trying to ignore the throb of pain in his hip and lower back. “Rescuers would mark the houses as they checked them. Mark them with Xs. Then they’d write the number of people in the house so they wouldn’t go back and recheck the same places again or waste another crew’s time. The numbers of people, I think, were to help account for anyone who might be missing.”

  They passed another two houses. Gem whimpered, breaking the relative silence.

  Dub stopped walking. So did Barker. He’d been quiet until now. He took hold of Gem’s arms and faced her. His features were difficult to make out in the dim light, but Dub saw he was squinting, trying to focus on his girlfriend’s face.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Her chest heaved. Her breathing hitched on the edge of hyperventilation. Each word came with a gulp of air. Her jocular attitude since taking charge had vaporized. She was now the one in pain.

  “I…don’t…know.” She sobbed, her voice raspy. “It’s just…it doesn’t seem real. And now…in my neighborhood. It…it…I just…” She gestured toward the houses on both sides of the street and then grabbed her head with her hands. Barker looked at Dub as if for help, and then pulled Gem toward him. He embraced her, bent over to put his mouth next to her ear, and comforted her with soft words Dub couldn’t hear.

  Dub stood there awkwardly for a moment and hobbled backward, giving himself some space. He took a couple of steps closer to the house on their side of the street. There was a crushed granite pathway that led from the sidewalk to the front door. He moved onto the path, listening to the crunch of the rocks underneath his feet.

  He surveyed the house. It was dark aside from the landscape lighting. Either everyone was asleep or nobody was home. He turned around and scanned the opposite side of the street. All of the houses were dark. None of them had any lights on inside. None of them. It wasn’t late enough in the night for everyone to be asleep.

  The street had been evacuated. The numbers weren’t necessarily survivors. They were the numbers of those taken away from their homes either voluntarily or by force. They were in a clean zone so far as they knew, but what did that really mean?

  They would have to be careful here. They couldn’t relax. They couldn’t assume that because they’d made it inside Gem’s home, they’d be good to go in perpetuity. That was something they’d have to discuss.

  He looked back at his friends still locked in their embrace. They were his people now. Until the threat had passed, whenever that was, this was his world.

  ***

  The soft leather was cool underneath his skin. He pushed a button on the side and the lounger reclined. Dub settled into the plush seat and ran his hands through his damp hair. “Thanks, Gem. The shower was awesome. And the peanut butter sandwich was even better.”

  Gem worked her hair into a ponytail, braiding it as she worked toward the end. She magically flipped a rubber band from her wrist onto the strands of hair and tied off the ponytail.

  “It’s vegan,” she said with a wry grin, “just like Oreos.”

  She hadn’t eaten anything. She’d told them she wasn’t hungry. When Dub had tried to force a sandwich on her, she’d declined forcefully until he’d given up.

  Barker shifted in his seat, eliciting a squeaking sound from the leather. He was on the other side of Gem. The three of them were in the media room on the second floor of the home. There were no windows and the door was closed.

  “That wasn’t me,” Barker said. “It was the seat. I swear.”

  Gem giggled. Although her eyes were still red from her earlier emotional outburst, she was smiling now. All of them were smiling. They’d all showered, eaten, and changed clothes, Dub and Barker borrowing from Gem’s father’s closet, and they were now in the safest room in the house.

  Once they’d entered the house through a back door with a key hidden behind the outdoor kitchen grill, they’d maintained a low profile. At Dub’s suggestion, they’d left off the lights and the air-conditioning. They’d raided the kitchen and washed up in the dark. Now, in the cave of a media room, they could turn on lights and watch television.

  Dub’s hip ached, but the sharp pain had dulled. He was convinced it was a deep bruise. Barker was still a beat slow. He’d taken Tylenol and popped a couple of melatonin. He was hoping to fall asleep while the others absorbed the latest news.

  Gem wiped her mouth with the paper towel in her hand, aimed the remote at the screen, and flipped to Dub’s recommended station. It was the same one whose app he’d been using to keep up to date. His jaw dropped when the large screen glowed into focus.

  The newscaster, a woman he recognized but whose name he didn’t remember, was reading the news from behind a surgical mask. Her voice was muffled but intelligible. A graphic over her shoulder displayed the smiling face of Lane Turner.

  “…was the leader of our newsroom,” said the woman. Her eyes glistened and it was obvious she’d been crying. “He came to the Southland from Florida, where he’d worked for several years covering hurricanes, criminal trials, and other high-profile assignments.”

  “Did that dude die?” asked Gem.

  “I think so,” said Dub, not taking his eyes from the screen. “I can’t believe it.”

  “…dedicated newsman,” said the anchor, “who put his job first. Lane was a friend to all of us and never let a story get in the way of his dedication to teamwork. He shared sources, cell phone numbers, and story ideas with anyone who asked. Competitive but kind, he was a rarity in our field.”

  “He went fast,” Barker remarked. “Didn’t you just see him on your app, like, yesterday?”

  Dub nodded.

  “Lane was hospitalized late last night. He’d developed a cough and fever. Our managers pulled him from his duties and sent him to an emergency clinic.”

  “I didn’t think there were any clinics,” said Barker. “How does that dude get into a clinic?”

  “He’s Lane Turner,” said Dub.

  “He was Lane Turner,” Gem corrected.

  The anchor kept talking as video of Turner reporting replaced her image on the screen. “His symptoms worsened rapidly, and within the last ten minutes, our friend, colleague, and leader Lane Turner succumbed to the illness we’ve come to know as TBE. Lane Turner was just thirty-seven years old.”

  The happiness of their survival, the refreshing cleanse of their bathing and nourishment, was zapped. The three sat silently. Dub was stunned by how fast the disease had taken a man who’d been so healthy twenty-four hours earlier.

  The anchor wiped her eyes and moved to the next story. “Now we’d like to bring back Dr. Mateo Negro with the Centers for Disease C
ontrol in Atlanta. Dr. Negro, thanks for joining us again. We know how busy you are working on a solution for this horrible affliction.”

  He was appearing via satellite, according to a small graphic at the top right of the screen “Thank you for having me,” said the doctor, who appeared in a split image next to the anchor. “I’m happy to answer questions about our work.”

  The doctor was dressed in a lab coat. Dark, swollen circles under his bloodshot eyes said more about him than his forced smile. Patches of salt-and-pepper stubble dotted his jawline. His hair was combed but not coiffed.

  “Our colleague, Lane Turner, just died from TBE within the hour,” said the anchor. “He appeared to be fine yesterday. Is this disease progressing?”

  “Yes,” Negro replied. “Its cellular composition is incredibly aggressive. As soon as we figure out what we’re up against, the disease shifts. It takes on new characteristics that defy conventional biochemical rules.”

  “How so?”

  “The speed with which it’s mutating is unprecedented. Also, its infection rate is unlike anything we’ve seen. Lastly, it appears the incubation period is stretching.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the anchor. She adjusted the mask and pinched it at the bridge of her nose.

  “It appears that the incubation period is longer than we initially concluded. That means people, such as your unfortunate colleague, could be sick for as long as sixteen or seventeen days without knowing they’ve contracted the illness. Then the symptoms appear rapidly. Depending on which strain of TBE a patient contracts, he or she could survive the illness, worsen over the course of several days, or succumb within hours.”

  “Strain? There’s more than one type of TBE?”

  “Yes,” the doctor replied with an emphatic nod.

  Dub exchanged looks with Barker and Gem. He wondered if the expression on his face was as wrinkled with concern as theirs.