Brushfire Plague: Reckoning Read online

  Brushfire Plague: Reckoning

  by

  R.P. Ruggiero

  Your Survival Library

  www.PrepperPress.com

  Brushfire Plague: Reckoning

  Copyright © 2013 by R.P. Ruggiero

  All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Prepper Press Trade Paperback Edition: November 2013

  Prepper Press is a division of Kennebec Publishing, LLC

  --To my wife of twenty years. You believed in me before I did. For that, I am forever grateful. And, together we have a family that is worth surviving for.

  Acknowledgements:

  First, I wish to thank the many readers of Brushfire Plague that reviewed the book or contacted me directly. Your positive support is always an encouragement that cannot be underestimated.

  My family deserves my eternal gratitude as well. I already work in a field that is demanding and intense, so the additional time to write is another sacrifice they make for me to pursue my dreams. Their support is immeasurable and it fills my heart with gratitude.

  Many thanks to Prepper Press for supporting my work and providing the professional editing from Sarah Cairns. She has improved Brushfire Plague: Reckoning, as she did with the original!

  Finally, to my readers, I offer these words that inspire me.

  “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

  -Robert A. Heinlein

  This is a work of fiction. Characters and events are products of the author’s imagination, and no relationship to any living person is implied. The locations, facilities, and geographical references are set in a fictional environment.

  About the Author:

  R.P. Ruggiero lives in Colorado with his wife and two sons. He spends as much time as he can in the outdoors and strives to live by Robert Heinlein's credo that, "Specialization is for insects." When he is not outdoors, writing, or learning a new skill, he works coordinating people to achieve their common goals. He brings his two decades of experience in group dynamics--particularly when people are under stress--to good use in writing The Brushfire Plague series.

  Contact the author at [email protected] with your comments about the novels, visit www.brushfireplague.com, “like” the Brushfire Plague Facebook page, or follow him on Twitter @rpruggiero.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter One

  Startled, Cooper Adams shuddered awake and bolted upright in bed. His rifle was in his hand without a thought. His heart thundered in his chest, revving up for action as adrenaline raced into his veins. Alert eyes darted about, scanning for danger. His ears fixated on any noises coming from outside or inside his home. They told him nothing was amiss and he emitted a long exhale. He relaxed his nearly six-foot frame, put the rifle against the wall, and laid back into the bed. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, deliberately slowing his breath and collecting his thoughts. He couldn’t tell if some random noise had woken him or if it had been another fitful dream.

  Next to him, his eleven-year old son, Jake, lay sound asleep. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, while his eyes moved rapidly about, underneath closed eyelids. Dreaming. I can only hope for sweet ones. A chill ran down his spine as he thought about his son’s encounter with the Brushfire Plague. The fever had broken just last night. Without thinking, Cooper put the back of his hand to his son’s forehead for reassurance and smiled in relief.

  His gaze drifted back to the white, monotonous ceiling. For a moment, Cooper wistfully thought the last twenty-four hours could have been a dream, but the distant crackle of gunfire belied the thought. The fact that his son, instead of his wife, slept next to him burned it out of him. The plague had merely scared his son, but it had taken his wife, Elena. It had only been two weeks since she breathed her last breath, but the world was already so different that his life with her was steadily turning into a dream-like memory. Now, he realized what had jolted him awake. He had been dreaming of Elena and was terrified that he could not recall her eye color. If the world had somersaulted in just two weeks, it had added a barrel roll in the last twenty-four hours when Cooper learned that the calamitous Brushfire Plague was a deliberate act of men and not some dreadful accident of nature. A deliberate act that will end up slaying one billion people. Ethan Mitchell, a zealous CEO of a biotech company, had argued that his actions served the greater good by saving mankind from the civilization-destroying effects of climate change and a ravaged planet. Cooper’s mind still whirled at the facts and arguments made by the man who had released the Brushfire Plague across the planet. Luckily, Mitchell’s brain thought about these things no more. Cooper had made sure of that. He gritted his teeth at the thought. A pained, wry smile crept onto his face, as he thought of Mitchell’s body, cold now, lying in the man’s mansion.

  A billion dead. The thought staggered Cooper and his breath caught in his throat. Unlike anyone else, Cooper had had the satisfaction of putting a bullet into the brain of the main progenitor of this horrendous act. He did not doubt that Mitchell deserved death for what he had done, but revenge had not lightened his heart nor dulled his pain. He also uniquely carried the burden of having told the world the truth of what he’d learned, with consequences still unknown. The magnitude of those possibilities gnawed at him like a lazy rat nibbling rope.

  Cooper was also perplexed by his feelings toward the woman, Julianne Wheeler, who had assisted Mitchell in all that he had done. He wanted to hate her and failed to understand why he didn’t. He desperately hoped it was simply the lingering effects of the deep, primal, connection he’d felt toward her when they had met. He could not deny the instant connection. He remembered an oft-quoted line; the heart wants what it wants. However, this instant connection happened before he knew anything about her role in the conspiracy to unleash mass death on humanity. So far, this knowledge had done little to sever the bond. While his brain warred with his heart to make it so; the heart kept winning.

  Next to him, Jake stirred. His eyes fluttered and opened. He saw his father and smiled. Cooper curled his arm underneath his son’s head and pulled him closer.

  “Mornin’, boy.”

  “Good morning, dad.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Tirrrr-ed,” he yawned with a gaping maw. “I feel really tired, dad. But, I do feel better. For a while, I thought I was gonna catch on fire!”

  “Yeah, you had the fever bad. But, it’s passed now. Lisa says you’re going to recover,” Cooper said, sharing the report he’d received last night from the woman who was their friend, neighbor, and nurse.

  Jake smiled incredulously, eyes twinkling and moistening, “I’m not going to die…like mom.” His words were caught between question and statement by the force of wonder.

  Cooper pulled his son into an embrace, “No, you’re not going to die like your sweet, sweet mother.” His own heart swelled with a torrent of love for his son and his dead wife; sorrow for the lat
ter and unbridled newfound hope for the former. They held each other for a long time. Finally, curiosity grabbed ahold of Jake.

  “So, what happened last night?”

  Cooper burst out laughing so loudly it echoed off the walls of Jake’s bedroom. When he finally caught his breath, he blurted out, “What didn’t happen would be a better question, son!”

  Jake grimaced in annoyance and returned with mockery in his voice, “Alright then…what didn’t happen last night!”

  Cooper tussled his son’s hair. As he did so, levity fled the room like animals fleeing a wildfire. Cooper breathed deeply and looked his son squarely in the eye. “I learned last night that this Plague wasn’t an accident, son. It was started by some stupid, stupid…and misguided men.”

  Jake’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Tears welled up in his eyes. His breath came in fitful gasps. His lips quivered. “You mean…they…someone killed mama on purpose,” he wailed between pain-wracked sobs.

  Cooper pulled his son in close once more, allowing him to bury his head into his chest. He rocked him back and forth in a vain attempt to comfort him. He breathed more and then said, “Yes, son, they did.” His stark words of confirmation sent Jake into another round of deep sobs. Like any father, his son’s pain cut him to the core. His fists clenched and his jaw grinded his teeth as rage against Ethan Mitchell surged once more. Then, listening to his son’s sobbing, it hit him.

  With one billion dead, almost every single person on earth is going to feel this newfound confusion, pain, and fury when they learn this wasn’t some malevolent act of Nature…but a calculated act of Man. A man who lived in America. In Portland, Oregon. It slowly dawned on him that a grief-fed rage would consume the world just as the Brushfire Plague was receding.

  The realization stunned him. His stomach turned and saliva filled his mouth. He fought back against the presage to vomit. How did I miss that? Cooper knew the answer before the question had finished flashing through his mind. The truth blinded me to everything else. His fists became tight balls and his nails dug into his palms. He grimaced, trying to steel himself to the decision he’d made just hours before. His heart and mind roiled in a tug of war over right and wrong and what he had done.

  “Damn the consequences, the world deserves to know the truth,” he shouted defiantly, his voice thundering across the walls.

  “What?” Jake asked and only then did Cooper realize he had yelled what he’d been thinking.

  “Nothing, son. Nothing,” Cooper responded laconically, his eyes downcast.

  Jake continued, “Why? Why’d they do it?”

  Cooper’s unwavering penchant to the truth led him to do his best to relay the thinking that had driven Ethan Mitchell to his deadly act of destruction, “You’ve heard of global warming, right, son?”

  Jake’s eyebrows raised in confusion, “Yeah. What has that got to do with anything?”

  “Well, this guy, Ethan Mitchell, believed that we weren’t going to deal with it and that it would have eventually wiped out civilization.”

  “What?” Jake mouthed in disbelief.

  “I can’t fully explain it. But, he believed that, left unchecked, global warming would have heated the planet so much that agriculture would have become near impossible, weather would have become extreme, sea levels would have risen so much that it would have put many major cities underwater. In short, civilization would have ended. So, he thought it was a better idea to intentionally kill hundreds of millions now to prevent this.”

  Jake shook his head in disbelief, “But…but, that’s wrong.” Cooper watched as his son struggled to understand. “How could he decide something like that all on his own?”

  “That’s exactly what I told him.” Cooper weighed his next words carefully. Then, he decided to go forward. “That’s exactly what I told him, right before I killed him.” His words trailed off.

  Jake looked up at Cooper, his eyes wide open in shock, and “You killed him?”

  “Yes, I killed him. What he did was wrong. So wrong, that he deserved to die,” Cooper’s words rolled off his tongue, slowly, deliberately.

  Jake absorbed the words even more slowly and a long silence hung in the air. His eyes searched his father’s face for understanding or meaning. “How do you feel now?”

  “Empty,” he said flatly. He paused, drawing a deep breath. He continued with tired words. “It had to be done. He deserved it. It wasn’t his right to decide the fate of so many. But, it isn’t bringing your mother—or anyone else—back.”

  Jake simply nodded, with vague understanding. “Well, I’m glad he’s dead.” His son spat on the ground, acting the grown-up. Cooper did not like the snarl that latched onto his face when he did so.

  “There’s something else you need to know. It’s more important than any of this.” Jake nodded once more, sitting up straighter, readying himself for what was to come.

  “Last night, I told the world what I learned, too. I told the world everything. And, I very much fear the consequences. “

  Jake interrupted him, “What consequences? The truth is always the right thing. You’ve taught me that.” His last words were laced with the certain truth of childhood.

  Cooper nodded slowly, “That’s right. The truth is always right. But, I’ve also taught you that the truth isn’t always easy. And, this truth is probably the most difficult of all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it, Jake. Think of how sad and angry it made you to realize that your mother didn’t just die—but that she was killed by this terrible act. The whole world is going to get very, very angry. Our country already teeters on the edge. There’s already been so much chaos and violence. I fear there will be much more.”

  Jake’s eyes slowly morphed from being clouded with confusion to the clarity of understanding. His voice trammeled, “Then, why’d you do it?”

  Cooper’s eyes wrinkled and his lips curled into a skeptical smile, “Son, I’m not sure I had much choice.” Cooper paused and rubbed the stubble on his chin, “But, I guess I did have some choice. At the end, I have faith that we will get through all of this…even knowing the truth. It might be painful and likely worse in the short-term, but the world must...it must know the truth. What we do with it is our choice. I couldn’t deny the world that choice. Otherwise, I’d be just as bad as Ethan Mitchell. You understand?”

  Jake’s mind sorted through his father’s words, “I think so. I think so, dad. I just hope it doesn’t get too much worse. It’s already been very, very bad.”

  Cooper began to nod in agreement, but a furious pounding on his front door caused his heart to race once again and his mind to doubt his son’s hope would be proven true.

  **********

  As Cooper neared the door, there was no mistaking the familiar timbre of his friend, Paul Dranko’s, voice yelling from the other side, “Cooper, it’s me, Dranko. Open up, brother, open up!”

  Cooper yanked the door open and burst out laughing as he caught Dranko in mid-yell, his mouth twisted half-open, “With an adorable face like that, I can see why you’ve always had trouble with the ladies, my friend.”

  Dranko scowled and brushed past him, “Screw you. I had problems with the ladies because no one wanted to believe our precious civilization would ever hit a bump in the road…until now, of course.” Cooper knew this was true. Since he had known Dranko, the man had been consumed with all manners of theorizing and preparing for the myriad ways that civilization might collapse. For Cooper, it had been an endearing idiosyncrasy. He could only imagine the problems it had caused Dranko in the pre-Brushfire Plague dating world, however. Now? Well, now Cooper understood very well that Dranko’s preparations had saved his life and those of many around him.

  Cooper turned to follow his friend inside, closing the door behind him, “Just look on the bright side…” Dranko’s cocked eyebrow interrupted him, but Cooper bludgeoned onward, waving his hand, “Yes, I know! For a dyed in the wool pessimist like you, looking on the
bright side is damn near impossible. But! Try it out. Just imagine how all of the beautiful women whom you dated over the years are, right now, wishing they had stayed with that crazy bastard who was preparing for the end of the world!”

  Dranko returned Cooper’s beaming smile with a deepening grimace, “Like I said, screw you. You’re an ass. Are you ready to get down to what I came to talk about or do you want to discuss my romantic life’s prospects in the post-Plague world?”

  “Fine, fine,” Cooper said, turning serious. “What have you got for me?”

  “First, how’s Jake doing?”

  “Fantastic. Still a little weak, but he’s looking good.”

  Dranko clasped his hands together in excitement, “That’s great news. Great news, brother!”

  “Don’t I know it? We got lucky. Very lucky he caught it as the strain was deliberately mutating itself to a weaker form,” Cooper answered.

  Dranko nodded. “That’s good. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. You ready?”

  Cooper nodded in return, “Yeah. Shoot. I figured you had something bad from how you were banging on my door.”

  “Well, the world has been on fire with the news you dropped on them. Half the world seems to be calling what you’ve said the biggest hoax since H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.”

  Anger at being called untruthful, even by strangers, flashed across Cooper’s face, “And, what are the other half saying?”

  “The good news is that they believe what you’ve put out there.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “They are really pissed off about it.” He paused, his eyes squinting, “And, I mean pissed off on a Biblical scale.”

  Cooper’s eyes dropped to the floor, “Yeah, I was thinking about that very thing as I told Jake about what I’d learned and what I had done.”