Redaction: Extinction Level Event (Part I) (27 page)

Beer Gut clutched his shirt pocket. “Why? Are you going to take it? Deprive me of my fair share of rations if I don’t?”

A few in the audience rolled their eyes, gathered their belongings and strolled away.

God, he’d love to take it from the bastard then feed his teeth to him. “Sir, my men have a very long day ahead of them and there are many other good folks waiting for their rations. Now, hand me your card.”

Beer Gut tugged it out of his breast pocket and slapped the paper book into David’s hand.

“Thank you.” Ignoring the tingling in his hand, he opened the book to the first page and noted the name. Dirk Benedict. No doubt a relation of that famous American traitor. “You signed for three washable face masks on October fifth.”

“Well.” Beer Gut huffed. “Those are all gone now.”

David held the book out to him. “Then we’ll make a note and send out an extra one with your rations, next week. Anyone else need replacement masks?”

No one raised their hand.

“But that’s not fair. I should have three.” Beer Gut flicked his ration card. “Three is my fair share.”

“You had your share, sir. Now, you’re taking someone else’s.” David stepped around the man and surveyed the rest of the crowd. “As for the rest of you, find and clean your masks. Wear them if you’d feel more comfortable doing so and tune in to the emergency broadcast station, they’ll alert you if you should be wearing the masks.”

Beer Gut’s eyes narrowed to slits. “And the truck, Referman? If we don’t have anything to fear, how come you’re driving around the meat wagon?” He wagged a sausage thick finger at David. “And don’t bother lying. We’ve all heard the scanner. We know that DB’s are dead bodies.”

The dispersing crowd halted and turned back toward him and his unit. Once again ringmaster, Beer Gut preened under the attention.

David bit the inside of his jaw. If only his gun was in his hand... “As I’m sure you’ve heard on the scanner, our Marines had a hostile encounter with some gangbangers.”

The crowd shifted, their eyes darting nervously from side to side.

Good, they had remembered the bogeyman walked among them. “There were twenty fatalities. And unfortunately, this morning the bodies of two innocent bystanders who got caught in the crossfire were discovered as well. Since SAWs, tanks and flame throwers make quite a mess of flesh and bone, the authorities have asked us for help. Any more questions?”

David eyed the audience. They bought it. Hell, who wouldn’t? It might very well be true.

With one last glare, Beer Gut wheeled away his wagon full of goods.

Ray jumped to the ground and began folding the table. “Half of us have bites, Sergeant Major. Even more of the civilians do. You think the black scabs indicate the plague?”

“Don’t know, but you know what to look for. Everyone concerned should check with the medic when we get back to base, keep the bites covered and treat them with antibiotic cream. Anyone sick?”

“Not that we can see.” Ray tossed the table into the bed. “We telling them?”

David glanced at the retreating civilians. “Hell no! You saw how they reacted to the masks.”

Ray rocked back on his heels. Hope and fear wrestled across his lean face. “Was the fresh meat really just collateral damage?”

“That’s what we’re telling everyone at every stop.” God help them if panic sets in. David dug his MRE package out of his pocket, fished out the goodie pack, and popped out a piece of gum.

“So you don’t know if...”

“No.” Peppermint exploded across David’s tongue. “I’ll click the radio five times, if it is a positive.”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.” Ray swung up into the truck bed. By the time he sat down, the M-4 was across his lap and his finger near the trigger.

David jogged back to the refrigerated truck and climbed into the cab before all three trucks moved out.

***

“It’s déjà vu, all over again.” The cab shook as Robertson drew up next to the curb. Around them squatted mid-twentieth century homes with broken windowpanes, off-hinge doors, peeling paint and dirt lawns. In the front yard of one, Old Glory flew from a pristine white flag pole while bags of garbage lapped at her base—a metaphor for the more rampant rot. “And I don’t mean that in a good way.”

David knew the place. Old Man Taylor’s house. Their distribution point for a neighborhood, lean on people yet high in crime. In their efforts to get the rations out faster, he might just have gotten the man killed. Sighing, he donned his face mask, jumped from the cab then trudged across the street. He hoped he was wrong.

A local law enforcement official got out of the squad car, brass shield flashing on the LEO’s navy uniform and his hand on his pistol.

David rested his hands on his M-4, his finger dancing on the edge of trigger. Behind him, the refrigeration unit hummed. The cop’s eyes widened. That’s right. My gun is bigger than yours.

Too bad the LEO was eying the mask not the rifle. “Thought you boys would be used to the smell of bodies by now.”

“We are.” Robertson sauntered toward them, processing kits in both hands. “We’re just not used to the smell of po-po.” Despite his mask, David saw his nose wrinkle. “Don’t you pansy-asses usually hightail it at the sight of a body?”

David bit the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. The private rebounded faster than a rubber ball moving at light speed. “What do you have?”

“Two bodies.” LEO whipped a container out of his pocket and liberally smeared the Vicks under his nose. The skin glistened in the morning light. “Elderly male in the back yard. Elderly female down the street.” He pointed to a black lump against the chain link fence.

“ID? Time of Death?”

LEO wiped his finger on his pants leaving a dark streak on the fabric. “Completely hands off. I was told to leave it to the Refermen, er, the professionals.”

David grunted. He hated pissing contests with men who had little dicks, especially with so much at stake. “Cause of death?”

“Isn’t that what you boys figure out?”

“Donut break is over, LEO.” Robertson dropped the cases on the ground and placed his fists on his hips. “Why don’t you do your job instead of expecting the army to do it for you.”

“Look GI Jane—”

“Enough!” David barked and both men jumped. The drill instructor voice had its uses. “Do the corpses show signs of infection?”

“Infection?” Color fled LEO’s face as he held his hands over his nose and mouth. He stepped back toward his cruiser.

“Yes. IN-FECT-SHUN.” Robertson dragged the word out.

Green tinged LEO’s face. “You mean the Redaction is back?”

Christ! David raked his hand through his crew cut. He hoped LEO didn’t puke on his scene. “Private.” Robertson passed him a flyer. David shoved it at the cop. “Read this and pass it around.”

LEO snatched it up and held it at arm’s length. His eyes got wider the further down the page they traveled. “Shit! Plague? Here?”

“Yes, carried by fleas on the rats.” David gestured to a family of large brown rats that munched on garbage while watching them.

Robertson crossed his arms and deepened the pitch of his voice. “Have you been bitten?”

“I’ve been sitting in this flea hole for three hours.” LEO began scratching his arms, thighs, neck and torso. “Of course, I’ve been bitten.”

Robertson fished out a single dose of antibiotic cream and a few Band-Aids from his pocket. “Use this to cover them up.”

“And this will cure it?”

Robertson knocked over one of the cases and opened it. Removing one bunny suit, he handed it to David then kept the next one for himself. “Can’t hurt.”

“Uh, about the bodies.” Using his teeth, LEO ripped open the cream. “I don’t know if they were infected or not, but it’s unlikely to be their COD. From what’s left of them, and there’s not much the rats haven’t eaten, they took a heavy beating, especially the old woman.”

“Did you find their rations?”

“None.”

Damn. The food had gotten them killed. David hoped the scumbags were in the group that attacked the Marines last night. “Who called it in?”

“Marines.” LEO squirted the cream on two red welts. “They went hunting their attackers last night and stumbled across these two.”

Fear had loosened the man’s tongue. Too bad he couldn’t be cooperative under normal circumstances, but then again, this was the new normal. David shook out his bunny suit and stepped into the legs. “Do you know if they’ve been moved?”

“Medic on duty checked for vitals.” LEO’s hands shook as he strapped on the Band-Aids. “I’ve got to go.” He dashed to his cruiser without waiting for approval.

After zipping up his suit, David accepted a roll of duct tape from Robertson. “We process it as a crime scene.”

Robertson wound the tape around his boots and pant legs, sealing him in. “You want to bag and tag the garbage?”

“No, that would be useless evidence.” David sealed his wrists. “But if we’re lucky, they fought back and there’s trace evidence under their nails.”

“If this is the old man and the old woman from yesterday, what happened to the kids that usually accompanied them?”

There’d been two teenagers the last time, a boy and a girl. There’d been another kid. Older, almost an adult, watching over a younger brother and sister. But he hadn’t been seen for weeks. So many had been lost.

“Good question.” David dropped the duct tape into the case. “We’ll poke around after we’re done with these two.”

He just hoped they hadn’t joined the animals that kept adding to the body count.

Or had become their next victims.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Standing in the shade of the mesquite tree in her front yard, Mavis blew the steam off her mug. Her taste buds turned the rich coffee and hazelnut flavor to sour fear and bitter guilt. These were her neighbors—her friends for more than twenty years. How could she go out there and pretend that everything would be alright? That the future brought prosperity and health?

That death wasn’t in the very air they breathed?

She inhaled. She hadn’t worn her mask, hadn’t thought about the Rattling Death’s return in hours. She’d just been relieved to be... normal for a while.

And her selfishness could get them all killed.

“Are you alright, dear?” Nani Colombe crunched across the gravel and mesquite pods. With lines streaking her cinnamon-colored face, she reminded Mavis of an ancient apple-head doll—worn, leathery skin, and always wearing a smile, if not her false teeth. They clacked together now; denture adhesive hadn’t been a priority.

“The first years are always the hardest. Getting out of bed, eating, even breathing.” Nani set her hand over her flaccid chest. Veins popped under the loose flesh. “That emptiness of losing both your husband and son within a month of each other can never be filled.”

Mavis sucked on her bottom lip and tried to breathe despite the bands constricting her chest. Jack and Joseph. Her family. Gone. She shook her head to clear the thoughts.

“And then to have the dying time on top of it.” Nani rubbed Mavis’s shoulder. Her black eyes lost focus as if she looked back in time, comparing the eight people in the street to the forty there used to be.

So many vanished in the dying time—such a benign name for the carnage. Yet wasn’t worse to come? One in a thousand would survive. And if her simulations were correct, Nani would be among the first to go. The statistic wore her friend’s name. Medical dependence tagged the eighty-year old’s face. Tears closed Mavis’s throat and stung her eyes. “Oh, God!”

“Here, now.” Nani’s arm crept around Mavis upper back. “Let’s join the others. It’s not good to dwell alone in the house of grief. You begin to talk to yourself and smell.”

Walking toward the others, Mavis smiled and swiped at an escaped tear. “Are you saying I stink, Nani?”

“Who me?” Nani’s teeth clacked before she sucked them back in her mouth.

Ducking under a low branch, Mavis sniffed herself. She detected soap and powder fresh deodorant under the smoke. For a while there, the old woman had her going. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”

“It’s nice to see you smile again.” Nani patted her again. “You should practice it at least once a day. You’d be surprised what it will do to kick the dickens out of the mopes.”

“I’ll remember that.” Turning her head, Mavis kissed Nani’s hair and inhaled the scent of smoke, sunshine and shampoo. She wouldn’t let the Rattling Death’s return get her, get any of them. There must be a way to warn them and she’d find it. What was the point in having a genius IQ if you couldn’t help those you loved?

“Oh.” Nani touched the spot before sniffing and swiping at her eyes. “Now who’s causing trouble?”

Red flames flickered over the last of the yard scraps burning in the center of the street. Two clumps of three people chatted and gestured while Mr. Quartermain and his grandson, Justin, separated the recyclables—plastics, glass and cans. Always cans. Their rations came in ten-pound cans and sacks. The sacks had many uses thanks to Nani’s nimble fingers. The rest, they lugged to the recycling center a mile up the road for disposal. It had taken fewer and fewer trips as the influenza had worn on.

Where it used to take six of them two days of trips, now, one person could do it alone, in one trip.

“There she is!” Mr. Quartermain tossed an empty conditioner bottle into the half-f twenty-gallon tote. His spine creaked as he straightened. “I’d thought you’d fallen into the coffee pot and we’d have to fish you out.”

Dressed in a clean, red Superman tee shirt, Justin stacked the bin of cans on the one containing the plastic. “Can we go home now?”

She ignored his stink eye. The kid had been right to fear the Rattling Death’s return.

Mr. Quartermain shook his head. “In a bit, Justin. Don’t you want to enjoy the company of others?”

“No.” The boy thrust out his peach-fuzz covered chin. “I’d rather be home. You should be at home too, Grandpa. The smoke isn’t good for your COPD.”

Red surged into Mr. Quartermain’s cheeks. “Those eucalyptus branches that Nani Colombe has us burn are helping open up my airways just fine.” He coughed into a red and white handkerchief.