The Scourge (Book 1): Unprepared

by Abrahams, Tom

  CHAPTER 14

  OCTOBER 2, 2032

  SCOURGE +/- 0 DAYS

  LAKE MARY, FLORIDA

  Mike rolled down the Jeep’s driver-side window and tried to lean out through the opening. His seatbelt stopped him short. He cursed and unsnapped the buckle.

  “Nice move,” said Brice with a weak laugh.

  “I thought you were asleep,” said Mike. He stole a glance at his friend before trying again.

  Brice’s eyes were closed. “Nah,” he said. “Trying. But can’t. Head hurts too much.”

  Mike tried again. The Jeep was in park. There was no point in having it in gear. They weren’t going anywhere. Traffic hadn’t moved in ten minutes. There was a gust of warm wind that blew into his face. He looked up and saw clouds building in the sky. They were dark clouds, purple with rain.

  The flashing lights up ahead told him where the stoppage was. From his new vantage point, he saw three sheriff’s patrol vehicles. Although he couldn’t tell if any of them belonged to the deputy who helped them earlier, there was a good chance.

  He also saw a crowd of people standing in between the lanes of traffic. They were far enough back that the cars involved in the holdup were visible, but they were close enough to block his view of anyone who was directly involved in whatever it was that had traffic at a standstill.

  “I’m going to take a look,” said Mike.

  Brice didn’t open his eyes. His head was resting against the front passenger window, his seatbelt was strapped, and his bare feet were resting on the hard dash. “At what?”

  “At whatever’s going on,” said Mike. “I’ll be back in a minute. You good?”

  Brice nodded. He folded his arms across his chest and sank a little lower into the seat. The seatbelt strap touched his chin. He didn’t move it.

  Mike hopped from the Jeep and shut the door behind him. When he did, the driver in front of him stared at him through the side-view mirror as Mike passed him. Another blast of wind hit his face and blew dust into his eyes. He squinted, his eyes watering, and knuckled the debris from his face. The wind was cooler than before. A front was heading toward them.

  As he walked, a myriad of sounds moved with him. There was the mix of talk radio and music coming from the traffic around him. Some of it was loud. Some of it was muffled. There were crying children. There were frustrated adults talking loudly through Bluetooth connections. The occasional person held a phone to his or her ear. Everyone was exasperated. For some reason it was more oppressive than the sensation he’d experienced walking to the station from the clinic. It was worse than the stop-and-go drive to pick up Brice. There was palpable tension. It was like a pot ready to boil.

  He approached the outer fringes of the gathered crowd and caught the attention of a woman standing on her tiptoes in flip-flops. She was wearing denim shorts, a tank top, and a Florida Gators ball cap on her head. Her short blondish hair poked out from underneath it.

  “Hey,” he said. “What’s going on? Any clue?”

  She lowered her heels onto her flip-flops and half-turned to look at him. She was biting her lower lip. “I don’t know,” she said, her blue eyes wide. “Somebody said something about road rage. It’s hard for me to see.”

  “Road rage?”

  She nodded and turned back. The young woman pushed herself back onto her tiptoes.

  Mike considered maneuvering his way through the crowd but remembered Brice, whose efforts to push past people didn’t go well. Taking a cue from the woman, he stood on his tiptoes to get a better vantage point.

  The first dusting of rain hit his cheeks. It felt like a spritz from a spray bottle. The rain was cool and stopped as quickly as it began. He wiped his cheeks and ran his damp hand through his hair.

  Now he saw the three patrol cars and an ambulance. Two of the deputies were talking to people and taking notes. The third wasn’t visible. Neither were the paramedics or EMTs who’d arrived in the ambulance.

  “Hey,” Mike said, nudging a taller man standing next to the Florida Gator in flip-flops. “Is it road rage? Was someone hurt?”

  The taller man, who stood with his chin up and his arms folded across his chest, nodded. He didn’t look at Mike when he spoke. “Yeah, somebody got hurt. Baseball bat, I think. Or a tennis racket. I’ve heard both.”

  “Thanks,” Mike said.

  A man standing a few feet in front of them turned around and nodded. He’d overheard their brief conversation. “It was a golf club.” He stood with his chin resting in his hand, his arms resting on a protruding belly that stretched the cotton fabric of a yellow golf shirt.

  “Really?” asked the tall man.

  “A golf club?” asked the Florida Gator.

  “Yeah,” said the belly man. “One guy cut another off. They were stopped anyhow. The guy who got cut off got out of his car and grabbed his club.”

  “He beat the living daylights out of the other car,” a woman with red hair interjected. “And then hit the driver a couple of times.”

  Another person, closer to the middle of the crowd, spoke up. “It was a woman with the golf club, not a man. She’s the one who lost it.”

  That started the low rumble of disparate conversations competing with one another, and Mike couldn’t make out one theory from the next. They all rolled together into an unintelligible mélange that a sustained gust of wind drowned out. This time the wind was cold. Goose bumps freckled Mike’s skin and he shuddered involuntarily. This wasn’t good. The information was no better than the marginally accurate news in his social media feeds, he was stuck here, and the weather was turning.

  Frustrated, Mike backed away from the crowd and crossed behind a Ford F-150 pickup truck. As he passed behind it, he noticed a sticker that read ASTEROID 2032. It was styled like a political advertisement. They were only one month from the presidential election. Mike had forgotten about it with everything else happening.

  Would there even be an election? How would that work? He wondered if the current government would postpone voting, if the president would declare a national emergency, if Congress would go along with suspending civil liberties. The political ramifications of what was happening were endless. They were mind-numbing. Mike considered that an asteroid colliding with Earth might be the best of all possible outcomes.

  He sighed and edged around the truck, wishing he hadn’t noticed the attempt at political humor. There was less of a crowd on this side of the boulevard, and he was able to get much closer to the flashing lights up ahead.

  As he approached, he saw Deputy Maryland standing off to the side of the road. He was talking into his shoulder-clipped radio. Mike found a spot in the crowd where he could make eye contact with Maryland and waved at him.

  The deputy didn’t notice him at first, and when he did, he ignored him. Mike persisted, to the annoyance of those around him. Then Mike saw recognition on Maryland’s face and the deputy moved in his direction.

  When he reached the front of the crowd, he motioned toward Mike and told the others to let him through. Those ahead of Mike begrudgingly obliged, and he moved toward the front. When he got there, he saw a band of yellow caution tape stretched across the road. One end of it, closest to him, was knotted around the side-view mirror of a sheriff’s patrol car.

  The palms planted next to the sidewalks that ran along the edges of the boulevard rustled. The long, wide fronds waved lazily in the now steady wind.

  Maryland fended off questions from the others in the crowd by telling them to be patient and that their questions were above his pay grade. Then he put his hand on Mike’s shoulder, lifted the tape with his other hand, and guided Mike away.

  To his left, Mike saw the heart of the scene in his peripheral vision. There was definitely someone lying on the road. There were people hunched over him or her, and there was a flurry of activity. He didn’t look straight at the scene, though, and kept his focus on Maryland. Perhaps sensing Mike’s curiosity, Deputy Maryland turned Mike away from the action and held his
attention.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “Your friend okay?”

  “My what?” asked Mike. He was so focused on the situation unfolding to his left he didn’t follow Maryland’s question.

  “Your friend?” Maryland said incredulously. “The one with the head injury?”

  Mike shook his head with sudden recognition, shaking loose the cobwebs. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “He’ll be okay.”

  Maryland’s radio chirped and a modulated male voice blared through the speaker, “They’re saying you’re going to need to clear a space. They can’t land without a big LZ. Need to hurry. Weather is turning.”

  Maryland pushed the button on the side of the radio and replied, “Ten-four. We’ll take care of it. ETA on the chopper?”

  “Five minutes.”

  “Are they landing a helicopter here?” asked Mike. “In this weather?”

  Maryland planted his hands on his hips and scanned his surroundings. He sucked in a big breath of air that puffed his chest, held the breath before exhaling, and answered Mike without looking at him. “Look, I don’t have time to talk. Is there something urgent? More urgent than clearing a landing zone for an air ambulance?”

  Maryland eyed him when he finished asking his question. They both knew the answer.

  “No,” Mike said. “I was just—”

  “Okay then,” said Maryland. “You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem. Can you help me clear out some of these people? I need them back.”

  Mike glanced over his shoulder, noticing the bloody scene to his left. He shrugged at Maryland. He didn’t like the idea of telling strangers what to do. That was the definition of inviting conflict.

  “You think they’ll listen to me?” he asked. “I’m not law enforce—”

  “Solution or problem, buddy,” Maryland cut in. “What’s it going to be?”

  “Solution,” said Mike before he could think about it. He immediately regretted it, but knew he couldn’t change his answer.

  “Good,” said Maryland. “You take the people on this side of the road. I’ll get the other. Tell them it’s for their own safety, and the faster they do it, the faster we get them out of here and on their way.”

  Maryland started moving toward the westbound lanes. He stopped at his patrol car and reached inside. When he reappeared, he had a megaphone. “Sorry, I only have one.”

  “What happened?” asked Mike.

  “We’re only issued one,” said Maryland. “And not all of us get them.”

  Mike pointed to the unconscious man on the ground. “No, what happened to him.”

  “Road rage,” said Maryland. “People are losing it, buddy. Things are getting bad fast. So do me a favor, help me clear this road as fast as we can.”

  Mike took a couple of steps backward, spun around, and bellied up to the yellow tape, which read CRIME SCENE in big black letters, which repeated between diagonal black lines. There was a light, steady drizzle. The occasional thick drop slapped against his head or neck. Mike looked up at the thickening clouds. They were rain-laden and dark gray. There was barely any sky visible.

  He held up his hands, trying to get the attention of the people closest to him. A few of them actually stopped talking and looked at him. On the other side of the road, Maryland’s voice blared through the loudspeaker.

  “Attention,” Mike said, not sure how to begin. “We need everybody to move back to your cars. They’re trying to land a helicopter.”

  A man at the front challenged him immediately. “Who are you?”

  Mike answered the man by addressing everyone with the same loud voice. “My name is Mike Crenshaw. Deputy Maryland asked me to help him spread the word. Everybody please go back to your cars.”

  “Why don’t you have to go?” asked the challenger. “Why do you get to stay?”

  The man was bald except for a thin band of buzzed hair that wrapped around the back of his head and above his ears. His scalp was sunburned, as were his swollen cheeks. He wore a Parrot Head T-shirt and stained khaki shorts that fell below his knees.

  Others around him nodded their agreement. Mike’s pulse sped up. He was sweating under his arms and behind his ears. “I do have to go,” he said. “Once y’all move, I’m moving too. The faster we get into our cars, the faster we’ll get out of here. But they can’t land the helicopter until we move.”

  Behind Mike, the ambulance beeped as it backed up. One deputy was moving his car to the side of the road.

  Some of the crowd, which was already thinner on his side of the street, began to disperse. Scowling, the sunburned challenger stood in place with his arms across his chest.

  Emboldened by the acquiescence of some of the crowd, Mike pressed against the yellow tape, straining it. He waved his hands above his head. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s all move to our cars. The faster we do this, the faster we get out of here. The slower we move, the longer we’re stuck.”

  “I’m staying here until you go to your car,” said Parrot Head. “You’re not telling me what to do. What makes you so special?”

  Mike tried ignoring the man and avoided eye contact with him as he urged others to comply. Most did. There were only a few stragglers left. They crowded around the instigator, who stood against the tape on the other side of it. He was inches from Mike, trying to intimidate him.

  To his left, Mike heard the echo of Maryland’s megaphone. In the distance, the chop of helicopter blades cut through the air. His stomach twisted and the nausea returned. An uncomfortable spark of electricity radiated through his body. It was the nervous energy associated with conflict. Mike wanted to puke all over Parrot Head. He figured, based on the shirt, it wouldn’t be the first time for the jerk.

  Instead he swallowed hard and took another step closer to the sunburned rebel. Mike was thinner but taller than the man. His hands were at his sides. He balled them into fists and narrowed his eyes, affecting the strongest posture he could muster. His head was pounding.

  “Look,” Mike said, “I don’t care what you do. But if you don’t get back in your car right now, that deputy over there is going to come over here and arrest you. Then you’re not going anywhere.”

  The man looked over one shoulder and then the other. He laughed condescendingly as he coaxed chuckles from his defiant cohorts.

  “Arrest me?” he said. “For what?”

  “I’ll tell him you assaulted me,” said Mike. “I’ll tell him you pulled a gun and made a terroristic threat. Then I’ll tell him you said Deputy Maryland could go—”

  The man’s face reddened even more. His jaw set. Rain trickled from his bald head to his brow and then his cheeks. His eyes searched Mike to see if he was bluffing. Mike held his gaze.

  “Deputy!” he shouted off in the direction of the westbound lanes where Maryland was still working the crowd. “I need—”

  Parrot Head backed away from the tape, waving his hands in surrender. His wet shirt stuck to his skin, making the cotton almost translucent. “Don’t do that, man,” he said. “Don’t be that way. I’m going. All right? I’m going.”

  The man and the remaining crowd headed back to their vehicles. Mike stood alone at the tape. He exhaled and the adrenaline left his body. He wanted to sit down in the middle of the road and regain his strength. Parrot Head disappeared behind a Nissan SUV and Mike stepped toward Deputy Maryland.

  As he walked, his eyes fell to the medics helping the bleeding man lying on a backboard on the road. His eyes were closed, his mouth open. A large flesh-colored collar wrapped his neck. One medic was holding up a plastic bag filled with a clear liquid. A line ran from the bag and into the victim’s arm. Mike’s attention was so focused on the drama he didn’t notice Maryland standing in front of him, the megaphone at his side. The helicopter was closer, visible through the curtain of rain. Its blades whooped through the air, is engine whirred. It looked like it was fighting the weather. Winds and rain weren’t good for helicopters.

  “You good over there?” M
aryland asked above the din. “You clear out the crowd?”

  Mike turned from the tableau and nodded to the deputy. He gave him a thumbs-up to accentuate his success. “Yeah. All good.”

  Maryland smiled broadly. “Thanks, buddy. Now get back to your car. And be careful, it’s crazy out there. Every man for himself.”

  Every man for himself. It sounded trite, but Mike imagined it was probably accurate. If he’d learned anything in the few short hours since finding out how bad the plague was becoming, it was that people thought only of themselves. They resorted to the basest instincts. It was survival of the fittest.

  Mike wondered how fit he was. If the Scourge didn’t do him in, might other survivors more fit than he? He pushed the thought from his head and hurried back to the Jeep as the blast of air from the landing helicopter swept across his back.

  CHAPTER 15

  OCTOBER 2, 2032

  SCOURGE +/- 0 DAYS

  LAKE MARY, FLORIDA

  Miriam hunched forward between the two front seats in Amir’s car, a blast of cool air hitting her face as she pointed at a spot in the sky beyond the windshield and the wipers sweeping across the glass in a hypnotic rhythm. “Is that a helicopter?” she asked. “In this weather?”

  It was obvious it was a helicopter. She wasn’t sure why she’d asked the question.

  Amir followed her finger toward the dark shape cutting its way through the sky. It was incredibly low and looked as if it might land on the exit ramp. “Yes, it’s a medical helicopter. There must be an accident up ahead. An emergency.”

  Miriam sat back and sighed. She’d been in the Uber for what felt like an eternity. The ride was going to be expensive, not that Amir was complaining. He was more than happy to keep driving her around while getting paid for it.

  It had taken them several hours to get to Ashley’s apartment near Markham Woods Road, only to find she wasn’t there. They’d been sitting in traffic for more than ninety minutes on Lake Mary Boulevard heading west, waiting to cross over I-4 and reach Ashley’s job.