Two guards spotted Moe coming and stepped forward to challenge him, so he raised his badge to show his privileged access. The guards nodded and let him pass.
An eerie silence lay over the camp except for a desert wind that blew the loose tent material in snaps. Soft voices and low coughs emanated from the structures, and soldiers gathered in clusters and whispered to each other. Moe found it more appealing than the screams of the wounded from the first two days of camp, though he sensed an underlying danger.
He checked in some nearby tents, asking soldiers if they’d seen Doctors Reemer and Denentdeel. The guards shook their heads, stating they hadn’t seen the women in over an hour.
With a glance out at the triage lights, he wondered if he should drive out there first and gather Rex and the boys to him, but his rising concern for Brandi and Sage urged him to keep searching.
And he wanted to see if something more nefarious was at work.
Moe remembered the first wounded had been placed on the southwest side of the camp, and he made his way in that direction. He wasn’t a doctor, but infected people would stand out. From his own experience, he could expect patches of mold on people’s skin and dark speckles on their lips and around their nostrils.
He cursed that he’d left his respirator inside his truck back at the house. If his fears were unfounded, he’d have nothing to worry about. But if the infection had set into the population with no one noticing, the chances of the camp falling into disarray loomed large.
Hurrying along, Moe moved west around the mobile surgery rooms and lab area to enter a part of camp he’d not visited before. The first rushed-up tents stood unshielded against the rising desert wind. Some stakes had come loose, leaving the tents to shake loose and wavy.
Camp residents had changed their surroundings to suit their needs. A community shower lay sectioned off in the center, and portable toilets lined the outskirts. Campfires smoldered in the late evening, and the sharp scent of burning wood flavored with cooking meat drifted beneath his nose.
Moe stood with his hands on his hips, peering around at what appeared to be a peaceful camp. His fear settled, and he wondered if he’d exaggerated his concern.
Had Sage gone home? Was Brandi in her own tent? In all the days they’d worked together, he hadn’t bothered to ask where they stayed, because he hadn’t considered it any of his business.
“You should have asked.” Moe frowned at himself.
He stepped aside and nodded as a woman staggered past a campfire toward him, hunched down in a lightweight jacket. She didn’t acknowledge him, so he focused his attention back on finding his friends.
A rough sneeze caught Moe’s attention, and he looked around to discern who’d done it. The woman who’d passed him continued to stagger, fifteen yards away and walking worse than before. She suddenly stopped, leaned forward, and covered her face as a chest-wracking cough jarred her body.
Her condition wasn’t surprising. Many in camp were recovering from accidents that left them weak or shaky-legged, and there weren’t enough nurses in camp to wheel everyone around in wheelchairs. He’d witnessed many wounded fending for themselves, though he helped whenever he could.
With a curious expression, Moe followed the wandering woman through camp. She made it fifteen more yards before she teetered to the right. He almost lunged to help her, but his brain shouted a warning. He remembered the black patches on his skin back in Barstow and the way the fungus had clung to his truck.
The woman stopped and coughed, her chest and shoulders clenched so tight it seemed like she might break in half. If she had the fungus in her lungs, she’d be sick and highly contagious. How easily could she pass it to another person? How many people had she passed it to already?
Moe’s fear gave way, and he reached out to take the woman’s elbow, intending to help her return to her tent. After that, he’d warn the first doctor or nurse he found. The authorities needed to hear what happened at Window Rock and what might be happening in Chinle. They needed to understand the danger they faced.
A soldier stepped from the darkness, holding a camp lantern which cast his face in a pale glow. He glanced at Moe and his access badge. “What’s wrong with her? Can I help with something?”
“I need to see...I need...” The woman’s voice sounded like she’d swallowed a handful of sand. “I need to see a doctor.”
A series of slight coughs started in her shoulders and worked their way forward to her chest. She hugged herself tightly as the coughs grew louder until her body shook with convulsions, driving her to her knees.
“Ma’am, let me help you.” The soldier stepped forward and went to one knee, placing his lantern on the ground. He reached for her when she lurched forward with a gut-wrenching cough.
“Argh!” The soldier jerked back, his face spattered with dark droplets. A glob of black and pink mucus hung from his upper lip. The soldier reached up to touch the stuff, smearing it even more. “What’s this?” He held his hand out and sniffed it with a disgusted sneer. “Is she sick? Am I infected?”
“Hey, soldier.” Moe held his hand out to steady the woman, even as he spoke to the man. Every instinct in his body screamed not to touch either of them. “You’ll be okay, buddy. Let’s find a nurse and get you cleaned up.”
Something in Moe’s demeanor must have tipped the soldier off, because his eyes flashed wide with fear, and he stood and backed away.
“She infected me, man,” the soldier said, making more smears as he tried to wipe the mucus away. “I heard rumors people might be sick from the poisonous clouds, but I didn’t believe it.”
“Easy, buddy.” Moe got to his feet and tried to calm the soldier down. “We just need a nurse, and we’ll get you cleaned up and—”
“A nurse? So, you mean I am infected? Am I going to get sick?”
“That’s not—”
The woman groaned and pitched forward onto her face. Moe looked back and forth between the woman and the soldier, caught between checking on her and keeping the soldier calm.
“Get this stuff off.” The soldier slapped at his face, his eyes growing wider and his voice rising with panic. “Get it off!”
He held up his hand to the lantern light and pulled his fingers apart. The elastic goo stretched but didn’t break. And when he tried wiping it off with his other hand, it spread across both sets of fingers and stuck to his palms.
“Agh!” The soldier barked a fearful cry and spun away, smacking into another soldier who came to check on the ruckus.
The new soldier stepped back with an annoyed expression. “Hey, watch it, Riley!”
The one named Riley bounced off the new soldier and hustled away, leaving his lantern behind as he called out for help.
“What’s going on here?” The soldier’s eyes moved between Moe and the woman lying face down on the ground. His rifle hung from his shoulder, and his hand rested on the barrel as if to swing it into a firing position.
“Just a little misunderstanding,” Moe said with a calming smile. “This woman is very sick and needs help. That’s all.”
The woman raised up and vomited onto the sunbaked dirt. The soldier lowered his lantern to reveal a puddle of thick black fluid with pieces of pink resting inside. Moe turned away and held his stomach to keep his energy bars and water down. Then he turned to gaze across the camp with narrowed eyes as shouts of alarm rang out.
“Is it contagious?”
“Stay away from me!”
“Stay away or I’ll shoot!”
Chapter 16
Moe Tsosie, Chinle, Arizona
Moe knelt next to the woman, placed his hand on her arm and hip, and rolled her over. He leaned over her with his left arm up to protect his face in case she coughed. In the half light, the woman stared up at the sky with unblinking eyes, and her chest remained still.
He picked up the soldier’s forgotten lantern and held it over her face, his stomach dropping to his feet. Like John Wolf’s sister, the woman had speckles of
black mold on her lips and peppered around her nostrils, only her growths were twice as thick and sprouted soft fuzz. Stiff fungus stalks stuck out from her nose and ears like something out of a science fiction movie, and black mold dots floated in the whites of her eyes.
He leaned closer and narrowed his eyes at the woman’s face. In the mysterious light, Moe saw a puff of black dust drift up from the fuzzy nodules. He fell backwards with a start as a group of soldiers ran by with their rifles at the ready.
He stood and followed them for fifty yards, eyes narrowed as the sick feeling in his belly deepened.
The lead soldier held up his lantern as they picked their way through the southwest part of the camp, pointing at tents whenever someone coughed inside. Once they identified an infected tent, a second soldier approached and sprayed a black X on it.
Moe had noticed people coughing before, though now the coughing seemed to come from everywhere. Dozens of people hacked and struggled to breathe inside their tents, and the soldiers marked them like the plague.
“Hey, soldier!” Moe called out, catching up to the soldiers as they called out and marked tents. He pushed through to grab the lead soldier’s shoulder. He saw the name on his uniform.
“Captain Moss!”
“What?” Captain Moss spun. When he saw Moe wasn’t military, Moss tried to shove him out of the way. “Out of my way—”
Moe’s stout body absorbed the shove, and he lowered his shoulder and shoved back, sending the captain sprawling to the ground. The soldiers raised their weapons, fingers resting on triggers, but Moe kept his piercing gaze on the captain.
“What are you marking them for?” He pointed to one of the black Xs.
Captain Moss got to his feet, reigning in his anger with military discipline. With a glance down at Moe’s badge, he nodded and gave a calmer explanation. “I don’t know what they’re marking them for. They just told me to mark them, so that’s what I’m doing. It must be part of the emergency quarantine protocol.”
“What does that mean?” Moe pressed.
“I don’t know. None of us do.” Captain Moss waited for him to push the issue, but Moe nodded and backed away.
The captain gestured for his soldiers to lower their weapons, then he stepped toward Moe with a gesture. “Look, man. The doctors will be through soon. Maybe ask them if you can help.”
“I appreciate that, Captain.”
The soldier leveled a stern gaze at him. “Just don’t get in our way again. You got that?”
“Loud and clear, Captain.” Moe held up his hands in a gesture of compliance. “Carry on.”
“Thanks,” the captain responded with mock appreciation before he gestured for his soldiers to resume marking tents.
Moe sighed and stood straight with his hands resting on his hips. He worried about the soldiers’ intentions, but he remained reluctant to venture further into the tent sea with its lurking infection. He hated to imagine how high the infection rate had gone since the refugees had poured into camp.
More groups of soldiers filtered into the southwest portion of camp, marked by their lanterns and flashlights. They moved from tent to tent, marking them as they pushed through the increasingly curious crowd. People followed the soldiers, hurling questions at them. Feet ran everywhere, and shouts rang out through the camp.
Moe shook his head and edged toward the medical facility, staying well out of trouble as the incursion into the infected zone continued. He cursed himself for not bringing his air filtration mask from his truck, though he hadn’t expected it to be so bad.
As a group of soldiers marked one tent, a man stepped outside and demanded to know what the soldiers were doing. In the middle of his argument, the man turned to the side and coughed, and the captain shoved him hard back inside his tent.
A bystander saw the exchange and shoved another soldier, and when the soldier turned to address them, someone grabbed at his gun. The jostling continued as Moe looked around for help.
In the process, he spotted another group of soldiers moving through the crowd fifty yards distant. Their electric lanterns revealed a handful of doctors and nurses trailing behind them.
“Sage and Brandi.” He pushed past some onlookers and made his way toward the doctors’ group. They stood fifty yards away, but they might as well have been across the universe.
He spotted Brandi’s yellow hair reflected in the soldiers’ lantern light. Sage stood next to her pointing into the infected area.
Moe broke into a run. “Sage! Brandi!”
Sage heard her name, and she raised up and peered in his direction. He side-stepped behind a tent, losing sight of them for a moment before finding them again on the other side. The doctors spotted him, and a faint smile touched Sage’s lips.
She waved and called out. “Moe!”
The din of a raising nightmare woke up the camp, and Moe dodged soldiers rushing by, listening to their shouted orders as they fought infected refugees. He heard the tone of their voices and knew things would get messy if the refugees pushed back.
As if on cue, a gunshot exploded followed by a burst of rifle rounds and screams that pulled Moe’s attention to the right. He watched a dozen soldiers fall back as a surge of refugees pushed forward. Many of the refugees staggered, half sick and mad with confusion.
The retreating soldiers met some advancing troops, and together they took up firing positions in front of a large tent. People ran everywhere, crossing Moe’s path and running into each other. He danced and side-stepped to avoid contact and then raised his lantern to see spots of fungus growing around peoples’ noses and mouths.
The wave of chaos flowed toward Sage and her group, moving faster than Moe could. The soldiers had formed a defensive barrier around the doctors and nurses, their backs against a tent as a throng pressed toward them from the south.
Moe kept north of the fray, using his short but powerful frame to knock people aside. When he drew within ten yards of the group, a fight broke out off to the right, and a surge of refugees swept toward the soldiers.
Three raised their weapons and fired shots into the air, while the captain directed the entire group to retreat. As he approached, one of the soldiers swept the barrel of her weapon around. Moe stopped, grabbed the badge hanging around his neck, and held it up for her.
Sage dropped her hand on the woman’s shoulder and said something into her ear. The soldier nodded and lowered her weapon, allowing him to slip inside their protective barrier.
“Moe.” Sage wrapped one arm around his shoulders and gave him a brief hug, and they remained locked as they retreated back to the north side of camp. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“Window Rock is on lockdown for different reasons, but they’re infected, too,” Moe said. “I don’t think the authorities realize how bad it is.”
Sage nodded and shouted over the din. “The symptoms don’t show right away!”
“And these people have been stewing for days,” he added, although he didn’t want to lay the blame on Sage or the camp doctors, though his next words were true whether by negligence or lack of resources. “They allowed the symptoms to grow unchecked. Now it looks like we’ve got a pandemic on our hands.”
Sage looked away, wounded by the implications of his words. Then her eyes raised, filled with concern. “John Wolf?”
When he didn’t reply, Sage’s expression fell.
“Soldiers shot him when we were at Window Rock. His son, Klah—”
“You saw the infection at Window Rock?
“John Wolf’s sister.” Moe nodded as they retreated, tapping his fingers near his chin. “Black specks of mold.”
“I can’t believe we missed it,” Sage said as the soldiers forced them back.
“Let’s focus on getting out of here.”
By that time, the group of refugees had grown to fifty, with a dozen of them cursing at the soldiers as they staggered and coughed. Someone picked up a rock and threw it. Moe grabbed Sage and pulled her to the side a
s the stone flew by, striking a soldier behind him.
“We need to get to Colonel Humphreys,” Brandi said, her hand resting on Sage’s arm to stay close.
He flashed a hard look at the doctor. “You do that, and we’ll warn Rex and the boys. Then we’re getting out of here, and you’d best come, too. You’re more than welcome—”
A refugee grabbed the barrel of a soldier’s gun, trying to yank it out of his hands. The soldier jerked the rifle back and squeezed the trigger, sending a burst of three rounds through the refugee in a spray of blood.
A handful of refugees charged into the soldiers behind Moe. He held onto Sage as they spun within the current. Two people fought with the soldier who’d let Moe into the circle. She struggled to get control of her weapon from a man whose lips drew back in a frightful grimace.
He reached over the soldier’s shoulder and punched the man in the chest, knocking him back and dragging the soldier with him.
“Shoot him,” Moe shouted. “Shoot—”
The woman fired her weapon and blew the man backwards. As if some internal safety mechanism had broken in her, the soldier shoved Moe back and fell to one knee, spraying bullets into the crowd at close range. Other soldiers fired, and Moe cowered back as the first wave of refugees fell like puppets with cut strings.
Another wave of refugees surged behind the first, slamming into the line of soldiers.
The female soldier fell. He grabbed her by the shoulder and drew her backwards even as a refugee stripped her weapon away and turned it on her. Moe grabbed Sage and shoved her to the ground as bullets ripped through the soldier and painted the dirt with blood.
He scrambled to his feet, grabbing Sage and throwing her ahead of him. Sage staggered forward but remained upright, turning to clutch arms with Dr. Reemer.
Moe punched at an onrushing refugee, dropping him on the spot. His instincts streaked like fire through his brain, and his body launched into overdrive as he shoved, punched, and kicked to keep the refugees off of them.
Spore Series | Book 3 | Fight Page 10
