Dead Earth: The Green Dawn (5 page)

Fiona handed him a pair of surgical gloves.
He saw that she wore a pair herself.

“We’re not the kind of people who stand
around and watch. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

He swallowed. “I’m marrying one tough broad,”
he said.

“You bet your ass. Now open your trunk.” She
turned to the dozen or so people who were still milling around.
“Taylor, Red. Get over here.”

Two middle-aged men shuffled over to
Fiona.

Jubal dug the blankets out of the trunk. “We
carrying her to the drug store?”

“And do what? Take her off the street and lay
her on linoleum? Uh-uh. Put her on those blankets and put her in
your car. We’ll take her to my house.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She tossed him the box of surgical gloves and
walked back to Rite-Aid.

“Here,” he said. He handed the box to Taylor
and Red.

“Jubal, I got a bad back,” Red said.

“And she looks mighty bad,” Taylor said.

“Put on the gloves,” Jubal Slate said, “or as
God is my witness, I’ll shoot your dicks off.” To press home his
point, he rested his hand on his holster.

The two men slipped on the thin gloves in
record time.

“The rest of you people, go about your
business.”

They stared back at him; some with tears
rolling down their cheeks.

“Are we all going to die, Jubal?” Billy said,
barely able to get the words out through his constricted
throat.

“What? No! We aren’t going to die. People get
sick all the time, sometimes lots of them all at once. That doesn’t
mean they’re going to die. Or that you’re going to get sick. Or you
other people here.”

I just handed that boy a fine line of major
bullshit; I’m going to Hell now, for sure.

“Now everybody just...go about your business
while we take care of this sick woman.”

No one moved.

Red and Taylor, standing next to the cruiser,
held the woman stretched out between them. Red had her arms and
Taylor had her legs. They looked at Jubal pleadingly for help with
the door.

“C’mon! Let’s go.” Jubal clapped his hands at
the milling people, who finally walked away with many a backward
glance at Jubal and the sick woman. Some of them looked extremely
upset; some looked stunned.

“Jubal,” Red said, wincing.

Jubal sighed. “What is it?”

“One of this lady’s pimples popped all over
my rubber glove.”

“Christ, hold on while I open the back door
and lay the blankets out, then you guys can set her in the
cruiser.”

With looks of disgust on their faces, the two
men hurriedly positioned the woman in the back seat so that she sat
straight up. Then Red and Taylor backed way—fast, holding their
hands away from their bodies.

After being released, the woman toppled over
onto the seat.

“Okay, you two sissies. Go ahead and take a
breath now.”

“Are we finished here, Jubal?” Taylor whined.
“My wife is waiting for me at home, and I’d sure like to get these
contaminated gloves off.”

“Yeah, you two get out of here.”

They both walked off at a brisk pace yet
slowly enough so it didn’t appear they were running away.

Jubal slammed the back door of the cruiser as
Fiona came out of the Rite-Aid.

“All closed up?”

“Yes,” she said, jingling her keys in the
front door lock. “Meet me back at my place?”

“See you there.”

Jubal got into his cruiser and took off
toward Fiona’s house—soon to be his own, too, after the wedding.
She lived in a small tangle of a neighborhood on the south side of
Serenity. Many of the town’s older citizens lived there, too—Pops
Perez for example—and Fiona liked to visit and help them when they
needed it. They all loved Fiona and were always cooking dinners for
her—and Jubal, too, when he was visiting.

Jubal wrinkled his nose. What in God’s name
was that smell—like something had died? It had to be the woman in
the back seat. Maybe, in her delirious state, she’d shit herself.
Jubal hoped she hadn’t gotten any on the seat, then chastised
himself for being so selfish.

The woman moaned as if to let Jubal know she
was still kicking.

Man, he’d smelled better aromas on road-kill
duty, which he had to perform on the town’s back roads.

Jubal rolled down the windows of the car. Too
bad if it
was
two hundred degrees outside; he couldn’t stand
much more of that god-awful smell.

Then the woman’s words came back to haunt
him...

Dead army.

He couldn’t get that phrase out of his head
no matter how hard he tried; it worried his thoughts like a dog at
a tasty bone. Maybe he was wrong, but he could have sworn that’s
what the woman had said back there at the car wash: dead army. He
wondered again what she had meant. Had she seen US soldiers die of
this strange sickness, or from some other type of terrible
accident? God, he hoped not.

And then there was the drunken ambulance
dispatcher, who had told him everyone for hundreds of miles around
was a victim of the sickness, too.

It was a goddamn epidemic.

Jubal wiped sweat from his brow with his
stained shirtsleeve.

As the deputy drove his car through town
toward his fiancée’s, the blazing sun began to descend along its
arc.

He wondered what color the sunset would be
this evening.

Much later, back at his mother’s house, Jubal
slowly swung the front door open, stepped inside and closed it.

His mother snored on the couch in the same
spot he’d left her earlier this afternoon. The Navajo comforter was
still pulled up to her neck.

He wanted to turn on the wall-TV and flip
channels to see if there were any updates on the situation, but the
remote control was gripped tightly in his mother’s hand, and he did
not want to wake her. He would have to use the TV on his bedroom
computer.

The room dimmed as night fell.

He stretched, lifting his arms; his back
popped. He rotated his head on his stiff neck. For a man of 22
years, he felt three times as old; the day’s events had taken a lot
out of him, with his trip to Fiona’s being the last straw. He’d had
to carry that sick woman all by himself into his fiancée’s house,
exploding boils, road-kill stench and all.

He still wished Fiona hadn’t asked for the
woman to be brought there. What if Fiona caught the illness? He
didn’t know what he’d do if something bad happened to her, and
right before their planned wedding day. But that was just the way
his sweetie was: a caring, nurturing type.

“Festus?”

Man, she must really be out of it.

“It’s me, Ma. Jubal.”

Silence.

“Ma?”

His mother began snoring again. Jubal decided
to leave her there. She looked comfortable enough, if a little more
thin and pale...

Gray?

It was difficult to see in the dim light
leaking through the curtains from the porch lamp outside. And so he
couldn’t be
absolutely
certain of his mother’s
complexion.

He had wanted to check on his mother, then go
back to Fiona’s. But seeing her like this, he just couldn’t leave
her alone. What if she called out in the night and he wasn’t there
to answer?

Jubal went to the kitchen and microwaved some
chicken soup for himself.

It took him no time at all to slurp the hot
soup and noodles from the mug; he was starving.

When he had finished, he set the mug and spoon
in the sink, grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge and walked to
his bedroom.

He turned on the light, sat down at the small
desk near his bed and punched up his computer’s TV link, but all he
got was a blue screen. He messed with it some more, but he wasn’t
the world’s top computer genius, and no matter what he tried, he
could not get a picture.

“Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.”

He covered his face with his hands, resting
his elbows on the desk. The day’s events began to run across the
screen of his mind’s eye. But it was too much; he just couldn’t
take anymore right now. He closed out his computer, stretched and
yawned.

“Maybe things will be better tomorrow.”

Fat chance, bud. And you’re talking to
yourself again.

His comfortable form-fit bed beckoned with
soft pillows.

Taking a pull from the beer bottle, Jubal
rose from the desk and went to his bed. He set the beer on his
nightstand, pulled off his boots and sank back against the
pillows.

He had intended to turn on his bedside
sat-radio and listen to some news or music because he felt too
upset to sleep. But as it turned out, he wasn’t. The stress of the
day had been too much for him. He managed to clap his lights out
before falling into a heavy slumber.

Jubal Slate fell asleep atop his bedcovers,
fully clothed.

They weren’t human. Some of the silhouettes
were too tall and oddly shaped, and by the way they stumbled
forward, he knew they were dead. Dead and hungry...

The chirp of the cell phone woke him from the
dream. At first, he couldn’t find it. When he finally realized it was
still in his pocket, the call had ended. He checked the display and
saw Fiona’s number. Fully awake now thanks to a nice dose of
adrenaline, he hit the redial button.

“Jubal?” She didn’t sound sleepy and he
suspected she’d been up with the woman. He glanced at the
clock.

2:30 a.m.

“What’s wrong?”

“How fast can you get over here?”

He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. He
could use another few hours of sleep.

“Do I have time for a shower?”

“No.”

He sighed. “On my way.”

He used the bathroom and washed his face.
Next, he checked on his mother. He wasn’t surprised to find her
still sleeping. As much as he wanted to wake her up, turn on the
lights, maybe fix her some toast and turn on another
Gunsmoke
episode, he didn’t disturb her. He tried to tell himself that it
was simply because she needed her rest. But he knew that wasn’t
true.

He was afraid he would see blisters on her
face, and he didn’t think he could handle that right now. He closed
his eyes. He had never been particularly religious, but now he
said a silent prayer, asking for his life to return to its boring
normalcy.

Jubal slipped out of the house as quietly as
possible.

The stench of the sick woman still lingered
in the cruiser, so he had to drive with the windows down again, but
it was a typical cool desert night; the breeze felt good after the
scorching hot day.

When he pulled into Fiona’s driveway, he saw
lights on throughout the house. It would soon be his house, as
well. He had already moved some of his clothes and personal
belongings in, and Fiona had allowed him to set up a woodworking
space in the garage. She had asked him if he needed space for any
hobbies. He hated to admit he didn’t have a hobby, so he decided he
was a woodworker. The birdhouse he started back in February still
sat on the bench, covered with dust. Fiona never mentioned his lack
of progress and he knew she never would. It was just another reason
he loved her.

Since she was expecting him, Jubal didn’t
knock.

He smelled the sick woman before he crossed
the threshold.

He had carried her to the couch in the front
room. Fiona had suggested the bed in the guest room, but Jubal
didn’t think he could carry the woman that far and still hold his
breath. And if he didn’t hold his breath, he thought he would have
thrown up.

Kind of like right now.

Fiona met him in the foyer and hugged him
tightly. The stench of the sick woman was in her hair and on her
clothes. She was still wearing the clothes she had on yesterday, as
he was his.

“Jesus,” he said. “How can you stand it?”

She sighed against his chest. “You get used
to it, I guess.” She sounded very tired.

“Is she dead?” Jubal was already running
through the options in his head. If she had died, Jubal had decided
he was going to wrap her in blankets, put her in his trunk, take
her to the edge of town and burn her. Fiona wouldn’t like it, but
he would insist.

“Not yet. But it won’t be much longer.”

Jubal nodded and tried to breathe through his
mouth. “You wanted me to be here when she passed?”

“No. I wanted you to hear her story so you
wouldn’t think I was crazy.”

She led him into the front room and he saw
how quickly the woman had deteriorated. Her swollen face was gray,
bloated and wet from the fluid that had leaked from the boils and
blisters. Her lips were as cracked as if she had wandered for days
in the desert.

Maybe she had, if his suspicions about where
she had come from were right.

Her chest rose and fell only two or three
times in a minute. When her eyes fluttered open, he could see that
the whites were now yellow shot through with streaks of red.

“Renee,” Fiona said, “are you still with
me?”

The woman moaned.

“Renee?” Jubal said.

“She told me her name is Renee Spencer. She
worked for the government. In Nevada.”

Jubal felt the room spin. Everything he
feared was coming to pass.

“It wasn’t a weapons program,” Fiona
continued. She was speaking to Jubal but she was watching Renee
Spencer. “It was something called—”

“Magellan.” The voice was ragged and full of
phlegm and sounded as if it came from a thousand feet below the
earth. Her tongue was as cracked and cratered as the surface of the
moon. As she spoke, a tiny stream of blood ran down from each
corner of her mouth. “Project Magellan.”

“What was it?” Jubal said.

“It
was
weapons development...at least
at first...that’s what I heard.”

“You’re a scientist?”

She laughed. The laugh turned into a cough,
which sprayed blood down her front and onto the blanket. Jubal and
Fiona took a step back. When she could breathe again, she seemed to
have more energy. She said, “I’m Army. Systems Analyst. I was
assigned to Groom Lake Proving Grounds to assist on the project.
They were trying to develop something called a quantum bomb.”