The Plague Years (Book 1): Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here (10 page)

“Tom, I find your candor refreshing,” said Clinton

“Chad,” said Clinton kindly. “We still have to let this man chat with your son, however I think we can now do it civilly and get him home in time for supper.”

May 9
th
, Monday, 7:55 pm PDT

It had taken rather longer than Clinton had said, but they did take Connor’s statement, then they had to go bring in Amy and get things corroborated. Chad walked into the house and saw Mary. She ran to his arms.

“Is Connor OK?” she asked. “I got just the one call from you and then …”

Connor walked into the room in an orange prison jump suit.

“What happened to you?” said a stunned Mary.

“Honey, it’s OK,” said Chad. “Connor was exposed to the same thing you were and they took his clothes and disinfected him, but he is fine.”

“And you, you’re in your gym clothes! Did you …”

“I was exposed briefly and they did the same to me. Luckily, I had my gym bag at the office. You remember Clinton Taylor?”

“The attorney we met at the Christmas Party? He was a nice old gentleman.”

“He was wearing a $1,200 Armani suit and they sent him home in paper clothes.”

“But what …”

“It’s a bit complex Mary but …”

“I have time!” said Mary.

“OK, first off, I am proud of our son,” said Chad patting Connor on the shoulder. “Some kids his age would have panicked or gotten belligerent, he tried to stop the fight, walked away, and then only applied enough force to keep it under control. Sensei Norman would be proud.”

“Who was fighting?” asked Mary as she calmed down.

“Jerry Kirkland,” said Connor. “He was trying to get at Amy through me.”

“Little Amy Howeland from across the street?”

“Mom,” said Connor with exasperation, “she is taller than you are!”

“The Howeland’s are good folks,” said Mary, “but Christi Howeland didn’t like the new boy Amy was going out with.”

“That was Jerry, I didn’t like him either but …”

“Christi keeps saying that you and Amy should go out. You have known each other for years.”

“Mother! That would be like kissing my sister,” said Connor rolling his eyes.

“Ewwww,” said Fiona from the kitchen, “I’d rather kiss a toad.”

“If I could bring myself to kiss you, I would be kissing a toad,” said Connor loudly, grateful for the diversion.

“Time out you two,” said Chad. “The upshot of this is Connor is suspended from school for the next three days as school policy is that anyone in a fight is suspended.”

“That’s not right,” said Mary getting her Irish up. “Connor was doing the right thing and …”

“Mary,” said Chad raising his hand to forestall further discussion, “I agree with you and under normal circumstance, I would go to battle with you, but, with your permission, I think we ought to go with it.”

“Why?”

“This is three cases locally in less than a week. Schools are the next big vector. I suspect, and in fact, I will recommend that schools be closed until this passes, not that they have listened to me much lately. It will take a couple of days and I suspect Connor will be safer here helping Dave than he would be at school.”

“But Fiona?” asked Mary.

“We should take her out of school as well. I hadn’t thought about this because stuff was just coming so fast. We also need to be careful when we are out in public too.”

Chad looked over at Fiona who had now come in from the kitchen and was listening to the conversation.

“Young lady,” he continued, “can you and your brother not tear down the house while your mother and I are at work?”

“I won’t be at work,” said Mary quietly. “I’ve been laid off.”

“What happened?”

“Heather and I showed up like usual, but Mike, the business manager met us at the door. He said the whole catering side of the business has been shut down by the health department and so has the tasting room. He said they were only going to run the wine making side until everything was bottled and then that was going to shut down too.

“He was nice about it; they gave us three weeks’ pay in cash. He wished it was more but even that stretched things. We also got whatever we wanted out of the open tasting room cases and the big freezers at work. Everyone from the tasting room staff left with a couple of mixed cases of wine. Heather and I made sure everyone, even the part timers, got all the food they wanted. Then I borrowed Dave’s truck and we hauled the rest home. I bought a freezer at an outrageous price at Costco. It was an upright, I wanted a chest but anyway, it’s in the garage and we have a bunch more food. I hope I did OK?”

“More than OK honey, that was a stroke of genius. I am proud of you too.”

“I guess I am a stay at home mom for a while.”

“I am relieved,” said Chad. “I’ve been in love with you for most of my adult life and would be devastated if anything happened to you. I also know how you mother all the folks that work for you. You would have stayed there and kept the place until the last dog was hung to make sure they had a paycheck and a place to work. This is better.”

Mary hugged Chad and was about to kiss him when …

“Ewwww, PDA!” said Fiona.

“Young lady, I don’t seem to recall telling you to stop putting the dishes away,” said Mary with her ‘mom’ face firmly in place.

May 9
th
, Monday, 11:25 pm PDT

Chad was out on the back deck playing the blues. Mary and Fiona were in bed and probably asleep. Connor was watching a bad movie in the rec room trying to put the day behind him. Dave was sitting on the other side of the deck listening. The two had talked out the day until there was nothing left to talk about. When Chad started to play, Dave cracked a beer and listened to the music. It seemed to sooth his soul.

“What are you going to do about Macklin?” asked Dave once the music has stopped.

“Not much I can do,” said Chad as he put the guitar away. “Clinton said he would ride him as hard as he could. He is one tough old codger so I suspect they will joust for a while. I can only hope he gets recalled to Washington or something.”

“You say the word and all that will be left of him is a bad smell,” said Dave quietly.

“That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. Times are changing. Bastards like him have lost sight of what is important and only want to pad their Teflon coated butt shield. He gets in the way of you protecting Mary and the kids and he is gone.”

“Dave, sometimes you scare me.”

“You have no idea what it’s like inside brother.”

May 11
th
, Tuesday, 9:42am PDT

Chris Vaughn was in Amber’s room, reading Roosevelt’s biography. Amber was a good listener and when he paused, she asked thoughtful and insightful questions. He had thought reading would have been a chore, not that he minded because it was something better to do than watch the paint peel in his apartment, but this was delightful; like a long conversation about an interesting subject.

Chris had brought Starbucks coffee and chocolate muffins because his mom had once said that the fastest way to a woman’s heart included liberal applications of chocolate. As much as he still clung to the idea that he was a confirmed bachelor, he still really wanted Amber to like him. They had just finished a chapter when there was a knock on the door.

“I hope we are not intruding,” said Dr. Jurgen, “but we have been contracted by the US government to monitor the spread of AH10N3 and we would like to ask Deputy Hoskins a few questions if she wouldn’t mind.”

“Not at all,” said Amber.

Three men in suits filed into the room. One of them was Chad Strickland. Normally, he sat in his office and built mathematical models of things but he couldn’t settle down after yesterday. That is why, when Dr. Jurgen suggested he come with him to chat with some of the folks with recent experience with AH10N3, he jumped at it.

“I’ll wait outside then,” said Chris not wanting to get sucked into yet another interrogation session. He started to leave.

“Excuse me,” said Chad, “aren’t you the highway patrol officer that came to Kamiakin High last month for career day?”

“That was me,” said Chris as recognition dawned. “And you were the computer guy from Bechtel.”

“Close, statistics geek,” said Chris as they shook hands.

“I also caught you on TV Sunday. Nice t-shirt.”

“Doesn’t anyone watch baseball anymore?”

“I was, they broke into the Mariner’s game with a news flash.”

“If you two are quite done with the reunion,” said Dr. Jurgen pointedly, “I have a few questions for Deputy Hoskins.”

“Sorry sir for going off topic but Sergeant  ah …” said Chad as he fumbled for the name.

“Vaughn, Chris Vaughn.”

“Thanks, Sergeant Vaughn here was also with Deputy Hoskins as I remember from the report. He might also have some insight that we could use.”

“Very well,” said Dr. Jurgen. “Have a seat young man and we will begin. We are trying to characterize the physical and mental capabilities of the sufferers of the disease AH10N3. What stands out in your memory concerning the two sufferers you dealt with?”

“Pain didn’t seem to register with them much,” said Amber. “I tased the male suspect six times and he didn’t go down or even twitch. When he attacked us, it took three rounds of .40 and four shotgun blasts at close range before he went down.” 

“Did he speak?” asked Dr. Jurgen. “Was he coherent?”

“He did speak and the sentences were coherent, but the subject was way out there,” said Chris. “He was saying he was evil and wanting to die and all.”

“He was pretty badly injured I remember,” said Amber. Her eyes had that thousand yard stare that said she was reliving it all over again. “This was creepy but it looked like he had been bit numerous times. He didn’t bleed much though, and he could run really fast. He came up a pretty steep hill like nobody’s business.”

“What did you notice about the female AH10N3 sufferer,” asked Jurgen.

“If anything, she was able to ignore the pain more,” said Chris. Amber was getting pale and he wanted to spare her this. “She jumped from an overpass which is like twenty feet high and hit the ground in front of us. She had a compound fracture of the left upper leg, the femur, I could see the bone, and she still attacked us. She was strong as hell too; Amber couldn’t dislodge her from biting her leg. It took a similar amount of gun fire to stop her.”

“Did she say anything?” asked Dr. Jurgen.

“Just at the end, right before she died,” said Amber quietly. “She said she was sorry.”

There were more questions about wounds, blood loss, what they were wearing. Amber started to sob at the end when it got to the part about describing the young couple’s history.

“I am sorry, Deputy, Sergeant,” said Dr. Jurgen as they got up to leave. “I can only imagine how hard it was to relive this but we need information. Your candor has been very helpful.”

Chris grabbed Chad’s arm as he got up to leave.

“Can we talk a bit outside?” asked Chris. His eyes were serious and his grip firm.

“Ah, sure,” said Chad.

After they had left the room, Dr. Jurgen said, “Terry and I will be waiting in the car, be mindful of your NDA.

“Look,” said Chris when they were alone, “I don’t want to get you in trouble, but I need to know. Is Amber going to get it?”

“Um, get what?”

“The disease, the CDC whatever you said, the ones the newsies are calling ‘The Zombie Plague’.”

“Look Sergeant I am not a medical doctor …”

“Look, call me Chris, and the medical folk won’t tell us anything. I need to know.”

Chad looked at Chris, he was very earnest.

“She someone special?” asked Chad.

“Maybe, at least on my side.”

“Ok, I’ll give you the straight stuff from the little I know. The most effective way to transmit this disease is through exchange of bodily fluids.”

“Like a bite.”

“Yeah, but even then, it’s not a hundred percent certain. Bites are less effective than sexual intercourse or a blood transfusion. Besides, they got her into the hospital right away and they disinfected the wound three ways from Sunday. The Docs are pumping her full of everything they can think of to nip this in the bud.”

“What do you think her chances are?”

“Look, I am just a stats guy, I don’t …”

“Ok, do stats then, what are the odds.”

Chad looked at Chris for a hard minute.

“No better than fifty-fifty. But this isn’t a ‘Zombie Plague’. Every one of those people infected is still alive right up to the time they really do die and they don’t come back. Where there is life, there is hope. Maybe the medical folks will find a cure.”