Origins of the Outbreak (3 page)

The Phone Jockey, 9:28 p.m.

The alarm on Tristan's phone roused him from the nap that he took before work.  He slapped groggily at it and the stupid phone slid between his mattress and the wall.

“Dang it,” the boy muttered as he dug his hand down to try and grasp it as the alarm signal continued its muffled echo from under the bed.  He finally grasped it and slid his finger across the touch screen to turn it off.

“Ugh...” he groaned as he wiped the drool from the side of his face.  He was still exhausted.  He'd played basketball all afternoon with several
of his friends who still hung around town without a job after graduation and needed a quick shower before work.

He was one of the lucky ones who
’d been able to find a job in town that allowed him to still spend time with his friends and brought in enough money that he could save some of it to eventually move out of his parents' house and live on his own like an adult.  Tristan's friends didn't understand why it was so important for him to get his own place; most of them were content to stay at home and had no real plans to go anywhere.  But the news that Julie gave him last month changed everything and his sense of responsibility was in overdrive.

Tristan and Julie were on the short track to being parents themselves.  By her best guess, she was about three months along and neither of them had told their parents yet.  She was still in high school for a few more weeks and they'd decided to wait until after she graduated to tell anyone.  They figured that it was easier that way
; they'd get one hurdle out of the way before putting another one in its place.

He adjusted himself so that the mini-boner he had from sleeping wouldn't be apparent if his little sister happened to run into him before he made it to the bathroom
.  He slipped into the hallway outside of his room and tiptoed down the hallway.  His parents had bought their home right after high school and had lived in it ever since. Heck, they even paid it off a few years ago.  They had a big party the weekend after they made their final payment and that's when Tristan met his future wife.

He hadn't told her that yet, of course, but they'd dated for over three years and were going to have a child together, so it only made sense to him that he should do the right thing
and ask her to marry him.  He and Julie had taken the gamble of premarital sex and now it was up to them to raise their child in a loving, stable home.  He'd been raised as a good Christian boy and knew that his parents would expect him to make that decision as well, even if he had let his carnal desires get the better of him.

The shower did an amazing job revitalizing him so he could get ready for work. 
Actually, “get ready” was a relative term; he worked in a magazine subscription call center and could wear his normal, everyday street clothes to work.  All he had to do was run a comb through his hair, brush his teeth and put on some deodorant and he was good to go for the night.

“Tristan!” his mom yelled from downstairs.

He opened the bathroom door slightly.  “Yeah, what is it mom?” he called back.

“I made you a snack before work. 
Chicken nuggets.  Come down and eat something before you go sit at the office for twelve hours.”

“Ok
ay. I'm almost ready, Mom.  Be right there.”

Tristan wrapped a towel tightly around
himself and stepped out of the bathroom.  Right into his nosy kid sister Gertie.  “Hey, what gives?” he asked.

“I heard you talking to Julie earlier, Tristan,” she sneered.  She'd mastered that look early in life and he'd had to deal with it for the last t
welve years.

“Yeah, okay.  So what?” he replied cautiously. 
Where was she going with this?
he wondered as his mind raced to what she could have possibly heard during his pre-nap phone conversation.

“Why are you talking about m
aking a hospital appointment?”

Crap
.  “Because, I'm getting older and as
men
get older, they have to see the doctor regularly. Sheesh, why is everything a conspiracy to you?”

“You know what I think?” she asked and then continued before he had the opportunity to say anything, “I think
that you and Julie are having
S-E-X
. I've heard your bed squeaking when she's over here. And now, I think that you caught AIDS and have to go to the doctor to get it fixed.”

Stupid kid
. “Julie and I aren't having sex, Gertie; that goes against the teachings of the Church. You probably just heard us moving around when she was studying for the SAT. It's so boring.” That part was true. He helped Julie study for the college entrance exam with flash cards and his legs went to sleep all the time from sitting too long. She didn't take the test as a Junior because she went through a phase where she wanted to join the Peace Corps after high school and move to Guatemala to help the population, but now she decided that she wanted to become a school counselor.  So she had to take the SAT as a Senior and he’d viewed it as his responsibility to help her get the best possible score, even if it stank.

“Pastor Allan says that people who have sex before marriage go to Hell,” G
ertie stated. “You better not be having sex, Tristan Michael!”

“Aw, come on!
Leave me alone and let me get dressed for work,” he replied as he shoved past her towards his room.

“Fine, I'll just ask Julie t
he next time she's over here!”

He whirled around towards his troublesome sister.
“Don't you go upsetting her, do you hear me? She can't get stressed out. It’s… It's almost time for finals and she hasn't gotten an acceptance letter from any of the schools that she applied to yet. Please, just don't stress her out, okay?”

Her eyes narrowed and he could tell that she wanted to say something, but she thought better of it and went into her room instead.
“Always nice talking to you,” he said loudly to her door.

Geez, that was close…
I thought that we'd been quiet
, he moaned internally.  It took him less than two seconds to decide that after work today, he'd get some of his dad's WD-40 and spray it on all of his bed springs to help silence the noise of their lovemaking.

When he went downstairs, his mom sat at the kitchen table beside a plate of chicken nuggets with barbecue sauce and a glass of ginger ale.
“Here you go, honey. I know that you use up all of your energy playing basketball and you don't have time to get any proper food.”

He dunked a nugget in the sauce and crammed it in his mouth.
“Thank you!” he replied
after
he had a mouthful of food.

His mother grimaced slightly, “Well, you're welcome.
Honey, I heard you and Gertrude talking…  Is everything alright?”

Oh man
. “Yeah, of course. You know how annoying kid sisters can be.”

“Okay, well you know that you can tell me anything.
Even if I have to keep it from your father, you can always tell me whatever is on your mind.”

Tristan's father was a cop.
He'd joined the force back in the days when they would take officers without college degrees and he'd been a police officer in Belton for over twenty-five years. Even as sleepy as the little town was, that long as a cop tended to make a person rough around the edges and his father was widely known to have a major temper. When you coupled that with his absolute views on what was right and wrong, he made for a pretty imposing father-figure to a skinny guy like Tristan who was more into comic books and Legos as a kid than sports. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he was terrified of his father.

“Nope, nothing's wrong, Mom.
Promise.” He shoved two whole nuggets in his mouth and chewed, happy for the diversion which allowed him to think.

The older woman stared intently at him for a moment and then said, “Okay.
Enjoy your nuggets, son. I'm gonna go watch my show.” She stood up and kissed him on the top of his head before going into the living room.

He finished the chicken nuggets and downed the rest of the soda before grabbing his car keys and heading out the door.
“Bye, Mom. Love you,” he called over his shoulder. He closed the door before she had a chance to respond.

On the way to work he called Julie, “Hey, babe.
  How are you holdin' up?”

“
Better now that you called. There's some really strange stuff going on at the university. Has your dad called you guys about why all the police cars are at the school?
” She lived across the little river from the University of Mary Magdalene and the kids were always doing dumb stuff, especially this close to the end of the semester, so it didn't particularly stand out in his mind as anything strange.

“Are you kidding?
We barely talk. He might have called Mom while I was asleep, but I don't know.”

“
Tristan, promise me that if our baby is a boy, you won't have the same type of relationship with him that you do with your dad.
”

“What 'relationship'?
We barely speak.  I –”

“
Oh my God, Tristan! Did you hear that?  Someone just screamed like they were being raped or something outside my window.  My parents aren't home… That was really weird, I'm scared, babe
.”

He glanced at the clock on his dashboard.
He could pick her up and run her back to his house if she was
that
nervous. He'd read online that the first trimester was one of the more dangerous times for miscarriages due to stress and outside influences so it was imperative to him to keep her level of stress as low as possible. “Do you want me to pick you up and take you to my house? I've still gotta go to work, but you can stay the night there if you want.”

She thought for a moment
and then said, “
Yeah. Something isn't right over here. I really don't like it. Would you mind? I don't wanna make you late for work, though
.”

He put his blinker on and exited the highway.
“Of course I don't mind. I’ve got time and I wouldn't have offered if I didn't mean it.”

“
Oh, thank God. That scream really freaked me out. First all those police cars, now that. Thank you, babe.”

“No worries
. I'm about two miles from your house, so I'll be there in just a few.”

His car turned into Julie's neighborhood and the headlights illuminated her home.
The Gonzalez' house sat directly in front of a “T” intersection so they had blackout blinds on their front windows to help block out the light from the constant stream of cars that came into their neighborhood. Tristan noticed immediately that one side of the curtains in the dining room was open and Julie stood in the window watching.
Dang, she must be really scared.

He hadn't
even shut off the engine when his girlfriend bumped into the passenger side of his car. “That was quick,” he muttered.  Her blonde hair was plastered against the side of her face like she’d been sweating heavily and he waved to here, but something wasn't right…  Then a second girl hit his car as well, this one had short black hair and her face was hidden in shadow. He opened his car door and stepped out. “Hey, babe. What gives?”

The blonde's face snapped up towards him and her features became defined in the
watery light of the street light overhead. It wasn't Julie, but the girl was built just like his girl. Her face was covered in something shiny and red.  “What's –”

The two girls scrambled towards him
and he swore that one of them
growled
at him.  “Hey, what the hell?”

“Tristan!”
Julie screamed from the front door of her house. “Get in here!”

He wasn't some punk that would let two girls scare him, but maybe Julie was right.
Maybe they were druggies looking for a fix or something. He walked briskly towards the front door of the house and called over his shoulder, “Get outta here you two. Nobody wants your kind in this neighborhood.”

Julie practically yanked him off his feet through the door and slammed it shut behind him.
Almost instantly, two loud thuds impacted against the door and his girlfriend's hands shook violently as she twisted the deadbolt home.

“Who
… Who are those people?” Tristan asked as he stared at the door, which continued to shudder under the impacts from the girls outside.

“I don't know.
Oh God, what do they want?” Julie wailed.

He peeked through the side windows and saw the two women throwing their entire bodies into the door.
They didn't even attempt to use the handle; it's like they were trying to use brute strength to break down the door or something.

“They must be high as a kite,” he said.
“It's pretty dark out, but I think the blonde one has blood all over her.”

“Why don't you call your dad,” Julie suggested.
“Maybe he can come over and get rid of them.”