False Prey: A Wildfire Novella (Wildfire Saga) (7 page)

“Keisha.
 
She was sixteen.
 
Just starting life, you know?
 
By now she’d probably be in grad school or married or something…”
 
Danny felt the old familiar ache return to his chest.
 
It happened every time he thought about his daughter.

Sang was silent, but those dark eyes watched Danny.
 
Danny continued.
 
“It was just after they shut down all the schools and had banned public gatherings—they’ll probably do that now, too.
 
Back then, it was too little, too late, I guess.
 
We were all at home, healthy and safe, while the rest of the world went up in flames.
 
We had enough food for a few weeks or so and figured we had it made—all we had to do was stay inside and stay away from people till it burned itself out.”

“What happened?” asked Sang quietly.

“I couldn’t resist it—it was the biggest story in recent memory.
 
Well, I was editor-in-chief at the
Tribune
.
 
Top of the world.
 
I ran a tight ship.
 
And we were missing out on the biggest story since…maybe since we walked on the Moon.”
 
He shrugged.
 
“I tried to run the paper from home, teleconferencing, phone calls, that sort of thing.
 
Eventually the only way to get the job done was to get to the office.
 
I told myself I’d only need to go to the office just one time.
 
You know—bring in the staff willing to come and get everyone on the same page?”
 
He sighed.
 
“My wife, Nikki, begged me not to go.”

“Did you?”

“Yes,” said Danny.
 
He took another drag and exhaled, hoping the pain would leave his soul like the smoke that drifted out the window.
 
It didn’t work.
 
“One of my people had caught it, but we didn’t know at the time.
 
He gave it to the rest of us.
 
Including me.
 
I gave it to my family.
 
Within a few days, my little girl, Keisha, was dead and my wife and I were about to follow her.”

“What happened?”

Danny flicked the stub of his cigarette out the window and watched it spin lazily in the air as it tumbled to the ground and went out in the dirt.
 
“We almost died.
 
But Nikki got better. Then I did.
 
She never forgave me for bringing that virus into our house.”
 
He sighed, which brought on a coughing fit.
 

Sang’s eyes flew open.
 
Danny held up a hand.
 
“Not what you think,” he wheezed.
 
“I’ve got early-onset COPD.
 
Been smoking these cancer-sticks my whole life.”
 
He chuckled, a hollow sound.
 
“I survived the Blue Flu—the docs said that was a miracle in itself—most smokers who caught it simply couldn’t fight it off and died.
 
Nikki left me one month after we buried Keisha.
 
She never talked to me again.”
 
He cleared his throat.
 
“But we’re not here to talk about me.
 
I want to know more about you.
 
Let’s start at the beginning.
 
You had car trouble right?
 
What happened?”

Sang shifted to a new position and sighed.
 
“It’s my own fault I’m here.
 
I was fiddling with the radio in the car, trying to find a station that didn’t have the damn emergency broadcast on—I was desperate to hear something other than how many people were getting sick out west and how fast it was moving across the country.”
 
He tried to shrug.
 
“I hit a piece of junk in the road, metal or something—I don’t know, I never really saw it.
 
Whatever it was, it ripped open my two front tires and almost gave the car a C-section.”

Danny whistled.
 
“The gas tank?”
 
The ache was starting to go away.
 

“Oh yeah,” said Sang with a shake of his head.
 
“I limped into town on vapors—that was last Wednesday—but my car left an oil slick all the way back to the interstate.
 
First thing Mr. Moore said when I got out was to get away from the car because he thought the damn thing was going to explode.
 
I guess I was lucky it didn’t.”
 

Danny grunted.
 
“Some luck.
 
The car didn’t explode, but look at you now.”

“And so here I am, stuck here in this little town in the middle of nowhere, only a few hours from home.”

“So when did your trouble start?
 
Did Mr. Moore—”

“Oh no, he didn’t do anything.
 
He was very nice, kept telling me how lucky I was my car hadn’t exploded.
 
Made me think I needed to buy a lottery ticket, you know?
 
He took his time showing me what was wrong with the car and when I told him to just fix it all and gave him the company credit card, he nearly fell over himself.
 
He complained that business had pretty much died off because people weren’t traveling as much, you know what I mean?
 
He treated me like a prince—set me up in the Holiday Inn just north of town by the interstate, got someone to drive me there with all my things.
 
Got me a bus pass and promised to let me know as soon as it was ready.
 
I told him I’d give him an extra hundred dollars if he got it done by the end of the week.”

“How long did it take before the trouble started?”

Sang sighed again.
 
“Three days.
 
Three days of sitting around my hotel room—” he laughed, “—it’s a lot nicer than this one, by the way.”

“Hey,” said Danny, hand over his chest in mock-offense.
 
“Only the best for my sources.”

Sang laughed again.
 
It was good to hear someone laugh.
 
“Anyway, I moped around, sent a few texts to my wife when the signals went through, and just listened to all the bad news.
 
Finally I had enough and had to get out and walk around.
 
That was Sunday. Today’s Tuesday, right?
 
God, a week ago I was sitting in the conference room at the Boone Center.
 
You ever been there?”

“Nope, I’m a Rutgers man.”

“Nice place.
 
They got all this wood trim—I think it was mahogany or something.
 
Anyway, the place looked like it was right out of Colonial Williamsburg or something.
 
Real swanky.”

Danny nodded and said, “So, that was six days ago…”

Sang rested his head against the wall as he sat on the lumpy bed.
 
“Yeah…six days later and my life has gone completely to shit.”

Danny lit up another cigarette.
 
He looked at the smoldering roll of paper and tobacco in his fingers.
 
He knew he should slow down, but something told him not to worry.
 
The drug store had been pretty much wiped out of smokes.
 
He had checked.
 
He bought a discount brand—even though he hated the taste—just to have something when his regular stash ran out.
 
He did not want to be going cold turkey in the middle of all this flu business.
 

This is it—last one till dinner
, he told himself sternly.
 
He was so focused on the cigarette, he hadn’t noticed Sang was still talking.

“—bus to take me into town.
 
I figured I may as well walk around and see what there was to do in Brikston, since I was going to be stuck here for a few more days until all the parts arrived.
 
Mr. Moore said his deliveries were getting all…what did he call it?
 
Oh yeah, ‘
cattywompus
’.”
 
Sang laughed.
 
“Freakin’ hillbilly.
 
You know how it is with these people.”

“What do you mean?” asked Danny.

“Well,” said Sang, looking like he was surprised Danny hadn’t caught on yet.
 
“You know…because you’re black.
 
I mean…right?”

Danny looked at Sang.
 
“I’ve been here for about two weeks now and haven’t noticed anyone treating me any different.
 
Plenty of black folk here in town.”
 
He wrote in his notes:
who’s more racist, them or him?

“Okay, forget I mentioned it,” said Sang, looking back up at the ceiling, clearly embarrassed.
 
“I guess it’s just me they don’t like.”
 
He sighed.
 
“Anyway, I was just window shopping—mostly looking for something I could get the kids, you know?
 
Just killing time.
 
Then I notice a cop car parked across the street.
 
The same cop that…hit me.
 
Back at the church.”

Danny nodded.
 
“Officer Perkins.”

Sang shrugged.
 
“I don’t know his name—the one without the flu mask.
 
Sadistic son of a bitch.”
 
Sang rubbed his injured arm and frowned.
 
Eventually he spoke again: “Anyway, for the next couple hours, those cops were following me around town, always right there behind me, just watching.
 
Then I see that cop roll down his window and call over a guy walking down the street.
 
It was weird, you know?
 
‘Cause I’d seen that guy twice just that morning.
 
He’s the one they called Mosby.
 
I saw him at the coffee shop and coming out of the computer store.
 
Anyway, him and that cop had a long talk.”

“So you’re just standing there in the street watching them?” asked Danny.

“No, I was looking at their reflection in the window of that electronics store on Main Street…what’s it called,
A+ Computing
or something?
 
Anyway, right after the cop talks to this guy he just stares at me for a long time.
 
The cop eventually left, so I just forgot about it.”
 
Sang sighed and stared at the ceiling as he spoke.
 
“The next thing I know, there’s a group of people watching me across the street.
 
Men, women, a few teenagers.
 
But that Mosby guy is gone.
 
That’s when I started to get creeped out, you know?
 
Then someone shouts that I was the one who’d gotten his wife sick.
 
I turned around and was like,
what?
”

Danny checked his notebook.
 
“Let’s see, today is Tuesday…so that was last Saturday, right?”
 
Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “Yeah, I guess that’d be right around when the first people started getting sick in town, according to the nurse I talked to at the hospital.”

Sang nodded.
 
“Right—they were starting to blame me.
 
Because all Asians look the same—so I must be from North Korea, you know?” his mouth twisted into an ironically, then turned into a frown.
 
“No one bothered to ask.”
 
He looked at Danny.
 
“For the record, I was born in Ohio.
 
I went to OU—Buckeyes all the way, baby.”
 
A smile played across his lips for a brief flash, then vanished.
 
“My parents came from the Philippines, but I’ve never been to Korea—either one.
 
I’ve never even been to Canada, man.”

Danny nodded and wrote that down, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
 
He looked up, pen hovering over the notebook.
 
“Your wife?”

“She’s from California.”
 
He smiled, a dream-like expression.
 
His eyes were focused on something far, far away from the dingy hotel room.
 
“Emalee.”
 
Sang blinked and seemed to see Danny for the first time.
 
He nodded.
 
“Her grandparents are from China.”

Danny shook his head in disgust.
 
“The race angle is a bit over-played these days, but in this case I think it’ll be a good hook,” he said around his cigarette.
 

“What?”

“Oh just my inner-editor talking out loud.
 
Never mind.
 
So, this little group of locals—they started shouting at you…?”

Sang sat up painfully and put his back against the wobbly headboard on his bed.
 
“Yeah,” he sighed.
 
“Before I knew it, there was a crowd there.
 
Mostly men, but a few women and even some kids—looked like high-schoolers.
 
Everyone started talking and shouting at once—I couldn’t talk loud enough for them to hear me.
 
I gave up and tried to move on but a couple big guys kept stepping in front of me.”

“Did they attack you?”

“No,” said Sang.
 
He looked at his hands.
 
“They were almost afraid to get too close to me.
 
It’s like they thought I was infected or something.
 
But they didn’t want me to leave.
 
Finally I just kept walking and they stepped aside rather than let me walk right into them.
 
But they followed me.”

“The big guys?”

“The whole crowd.
 
Shouting at me, yelling insults—blaming me for some guy’s wife getting sick.
 
I had no idea what that was about.
 
I never even talked really to anyone outside of the hotel and the repair shop.”
 
He looked at Danny.
 
“You get anything to eat while you were out?”