Unrest (14 page)

            
 
Morris Beckel ended his long trek through the woods on foot at the edge of the I-95 highway. He had several close encounters with the undead and a few with wild animals. He had gotten away from them all with his Bushwacker Bowie knife in its sheath at his side. He expected an empty road, but there were two cars parked on the opposite shoulder, the one in front still on. It didn’t look as if there were any inhabitants.               He wiped the sweat from his brow, sliding his tongue across his parched lips, the rolls of fat shifting beneath his flannel as he waddled quickly toward the running vehicle. Beckel got in, shutting the door slowly behind him, and shifted into Drive. He bore down on the accelerator.

              Xinga shifted in the backseat, unsure if she was still dreaming. She wiped her eyes, and sat up.

              “What?” she said, in a kind of fugue. Then she saw the man. “Hey! Hey! What are you doing?!”

              Morris saw her in the rearview mirror. “Holy shit!” He hadn’t thought anyone was in the car. It was always wise to check the back seat, especially in these times. He was lucky it wasn’t one of those undead fucks. “I didn’t know I had company! Sorry but I need the vehicle.”

              “Let me out!” Xinga screamed. She looked through the back windshield and saw her friends in the distance, emerging from the woods. She pressed her face and her hands, palms out stretched, against the glass and yelled, “HELP!”

              “Aww, now why’d you have to go and do that?” Morris said. He looked in the rearview. “That your

friends back there?”

              “Yes! Please, just let me go! You can take the vehicle if you want, but leave me with my friends.”

              Morris Beckel seemed to consider it for a moment, and spoke slowly, measuredly. “Mmm, sounds like an interesting proposition, but a pretty little Philly like you? I might have uses for you,” he said, languidly licking his chops once more.  

***

              “I’m getting hungry,” Jomo said.

              “Me too,” Lupe agreed. There was a rest stop off one of the exits up ahead. “We’ll stop there and rummage through the bag.”

              “Maybe we’ll find food there as well,” Jomo said.

              “There’ll be vending machines at least. Sadly though, I’m all out of change.”

              Jomo smiled.

              “Right,” she said. “There’s probably no one there and we can probably just break into them.”

              “Bingo!”

              “Don’t be a smartass Stud Man.”

              They entered the plaza, parking in one of the slanted spots. Trucks sat there passenger-less like prehistoric behemoths from some bygone time. They arrived at the small area with wooden benches and a small booth with visitor information, but no food, either in the booth, or the vending machines. The four previously lit dispensers of all things snacks had their front ends shattered, the doors had been pried open and the racks emptied of their contents. Someone had beaten them to it. The same went for the Coke machine and the Pepsi machine. At least the water fountain still worked.

              They sat down at one of the benches opening

the garbage bag, feeling dejected. Jomo opened one of the cans of tuna and tipped its contents slowly toward his mouth. Lupe opted for a granola bar, dipping it into the jar of peanut butter. When they were done eating they went back to the water fountain and drank greedily.

              “There has to be more people,” Jomo said as they walked back toward the car. “They can’t all have gone or turned. Not this soon.”

              “One would think,” Lupe said. “Whatever this thing is, it took a hold quickly.”

              “To Virginia then?” Jomo asked.

              Lupe nodded, “To Virginia.”

***

              Once the truth of what happened hit and broke their temporary paralysis they ran for Kamara’s car. Kamara had the key this time and she leapt into the car, with Ian beside her and Marina and Samir riding in the back. Gunning the engine they flew in pursuit of the man who had taken their car and Xinga. He was already just a dot in the distance, having accelerated rapidly before they had even exited the woods.

              “We have to get her,” Marina said, “We have to get Xinga back!”

              “I know,” Kamara said. Marina had taken a shine to the girl. They all had. She was the little sister of the group, who they all wanted to take care of and look out for, and she was gone from their sight, unprotected. “We will.”

              “Can’t this thing go any faster?!” Ian said.               She was already practically hitting the floor-boards. Kamara shouted back at him, “It tops out

at 100! I’m already doing 90!” The car was protesting with several lurches and a tiny shriek that sounded as if it wanted to develop into something more seriously terrified.

              “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Ian said. “I just, I don’t want us to lose someone else.”

              “None of us do,” Samir assured him.  

              Kamara topped out and was still trying to push the car further. It felt as if it were going faster, like maybe she’d reached 120, and it sounded as if the gears were being thrown around in a mixer and being ground together into a vehicular smoothie. Still the car and Xinga were no where in sight.

              “What if they parked somewhere and went off the road into the woods to hide?” Marina suggested.

              “We’d never know if they did,” Samir said, “Or where.” The situation seemed more and more desperate the longer they went without the car in their sights. “Kamara, you keep looking straight ahead, everyone else look to your side of the road. Maybe we’ll spot them.”

              It was a pretty big maybe, but they had to try everything they could. 

***

              “What are you going to do with me?” Xinga said.

              Morris grinned, watching her in the rearview.               “What won’t I do with you?” he said.

              Xinga remembered her Sai, lying on the carpeted floor of the backseat where she’d set them down as she rested. She crouched down and picked one up, bringing it to bear on his neck, but Morris had caught the sudden move and had already unsheathed his hunting knife.

              Xinga pressed the tip of the Sai into the side of his neck, and said “Pull over.”

              He brought the Bowie knife up with his left hand and kept steering with his right. It pointed right underneath her bottom eyelid. “Don’t play with those things; you’ll take an eye out.” Morris laughed, and then turned more serious. “Drop it, now. You so much as draw blood I swear you’ll lose one of those pretty eyes.”

              She fell into the back seat, her sudden courage deflated. He ended up pulling over after all, taking a turn off into what appeared to be some sort of State Park trail. He couldn’t very well have her surprise him with one of those things. He opened the back door, pointing the long knife at her.

              “Get out, and bring whatever weapons you have out with you and drop them in the dirt here.”

              The dirt was really hard packed golden sand. She took the Sai out. She considered hiding one of them for a moment, but he would check her and check the back seat before he went anywhere with her. She dropped both on the dusty ground. 

              “Good,” he said. “You have the keys to the trunk?”

              Again, she considered saying no, but he would check her. If only she’d given them back to Samir, but she’d been driving and did indeed still have them on her. She nodded.

              He held out his free hand and she placed the keys in it. Was he planning on putting her in the trunk?

              “Move over there where I can watch you without worrying about you springing up on me.”

              She moved to the side of the car where he motioned her. He opened the trunk and laughed. It was filled with supplies, including rope, duct tape, scissors, and lighters, not to mention a hammer and a drill. “This is too fucking good to be true!”  

              Xinga did not like the smile that spread over his face. She didn’t like it at all.

***

              “Maybe we should be heading to D.C.,” Jomo theorized.

              “Right,” Lupe agreed, “Because if anyone saved their own asses it would be the politicians. They’ll know something. They’re probably holed up in some bunker right now.”

              “I imagine so, if they survived the first attacks.”

              “Who do you think shut down all broadcasts, cut off the signals to the cell towers?”

              “Indeed. But we still have to pass through Virginia first. I suppose we’ll see soon enough how far this plague reaches,” Jomo said.

              Lupe shivered at the use of the word
plague
. But she supposed that was exactly what this was. They continued through North Carolina, stopping once to gas up the car. Three quarters of the way through the pump went dry. “Crap,” she said.

              This was a dingy old forgotten town, though they all appeared to be going that route, and it was the only gas pump at the station. They would have to travel a little further to get more gas at one of the big name stations. She was amazed that her bank card still worked, figuring all the banks would have been shut down, but she was glad as she had no idea how to siphon fuel out of a tank without paying. She had to wonder who was collecting. There was no convenience store at this station either, which was practically a given with nearly every place that supplied gas nowadays. They needed to find more food and supplies as well.

              “Out of gas,” Lupe said as she got back in the car, and they drove off.

              “How much gas do we have?”

              “¾ tank.”

              “The next stop is about 25 miles,” Jomo said. “We should be fine. I saw an Exxon sign.”

              “We’ve been far from fine for some time now,” Lupe commented.

              He placed his hand over hers on the steering wheel. “We’re going to be fine. We’re going to make it,” Jomo said. He didn’t just mean to the gas pumps.

              “How can you be so sure?”

              “Because we have to.”

***

TWO MONTHS AND THREE WEEKS EARLIER

FBI LABORATORY, DEPT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, MARINE CORPS BASE

QUANTICO, VIRGINIA

              The serum had the same effect on the horse. It got better for a time, and then it worked its way through the good cells and tore the horse down from the inside, little by little, eating away at its brain, making it violently ill.

              Then the General came back with his troops. Though Dr. Fielding had a team of scientists now working with him around the clock to create a deadlier dose of the serum, it still wasn’t fast enough. It still wasn’t strong enough.

              “I think you’re wasting our time,” General Beaumont said. “I think you’re still trying to save the world.”

              “No,” Fielding shook. “It’s not true. I’ve been doing exactly as you said.” The truth was he was having the other scientists do the dirty work while he tried to improve its capacity to heal.

              “We have orders,” the General said.

              “Sir?” one of the troops asked.

              “Shoot to kill.”

              “But sir, they’re civilians.”

              “They’re dissenters.”

              “No please, they’re doing what you asked. If you’re going to shoot anyone, shoot me!” Fielding said.

              “Kill all of them, except for Dr. Fielding here. Let him learn the price of betrayal.”

              There were a dozen soldiers and the General. Three of them followed through with that order and began blasting through the scientists with their semi-automatics. Blood flew as they were mowed down, staining white lab coats red. The other soldiers turned on the General and his three loyalists, shooting them down in turn.

              Dr. Fielding stood in the middle of the carnage, shivering and crying.

              “Sir, we’re sorry sir,” said the private that had questioned the General. “We need to get you out of here.”

              Theodore Fielding only nodded. He had the blood of the murdered on him.

              “What General Beaumont did was wrong. I don’t care if it came down from the president himself. It’s our duty to protect you. It’s our duty to dissent when the commander in chief threatens the lives of innocents. We’re sorry it came to this. We never thought he’d take it this far.”

              “Thank you son.”

              The private put his arm around the doctor, steadying him, helping him out the door.

              “Wait, the formula!” Fielding said. The troops let him gather up all the vials and beakers of the liquid. He didn’t need this to get in the wrong hands
again
.

              The soldier led him by the waist, now that his hands were full. The other troops took some of the glass containers from him. “I’m Private Wilkes. It’s a pleasure to meet you sir.”