Brushfire Plague Read online

  He remembered the promise he’d made to his wife. He tightened his jaw and rubbed his face firmly with his hand from chin to forehead. He rose resolutely, turned off the shower, and went to get dressed.

  ******

  He stood silently, Jake leaning into him and clutching his pant leg, as Calvin and Dranko lowered Elena’s body into the ground. He wore a black suit, a black tie, and a wrinkled white shirt underneath. He hadn’t had time to iron it.

  Clustered around him were their friends who either had already been sick and recovered, like Lily, or those who knew they had already been exposed, like himself and Jake. Lily Stott stood directly across from him, her translucent white hair picking up what little light there was. Her eyes often shifted color between brown and green. Today, they shone like light emeralds. Lily was the “Grand Kentucky Dame” of their neighborhood, in her eighties, feisty, sarcastic, and with a wit still so sharp it could score diamonds.

  Next to her stood Peter Garcia, barely seventeen, and just orphaned by the loss of both parents. Cooper was impressed with his strength to be here, attending a funeral. He was of medium height and had chestnut colored hair on the longish side, covering his ears and dropping below his eyes on most days. Today, he had slicked it all back and tucked it behind his ears. He stood stoop shouldered, looking firmly at the ground. Lily had one arm around him, rubbing his back in comfort.

  To his immediate right, Calvin was as immobile as a block of granite. He was heavyset, just an inch or two shorter than Cooper, but his shaved head accentuated the difference. It was a perfect, rounded shape and he fondly referred to it “as the black pearl” when he wanted a cheap laugh. Calvin Little was a gregarious man, well known throughout the neighborhood, and enjoyed gaining the attention of those around him. He stared blankly forward, green eyes unique to a black man.

  Mark Moretti was next to Calvin; he managed a local appliance store. He was shifting his weight back and forth on the balls of his feet. He was square-faced, with a prominent Roman nose, and was biting the lower part of his lip. His thin, brown hair was in full retreat and what remained he had gathered meticulously and parted to the left.

  To Cooper’s immediate left was Lisa, the nurse. Her open, round face was full of compassion and her eyes reached out to him in sympathy. She wore a solid black cotton dress and had already deployed a black handkerchief to her glistening, dark eyes. Next to Lisa was Dranko, dressed in an awkward fitting brown suit. Probably the only one he owns and likely fitted over a decade ago.

  Cooper gave a look skyward and noticed the crow on the wire, a black spot framed starkly against the gray sky. It gazed down at them. Silent.

  He cleared his throat, “I want to thank you all for being here.”

  All eyes turned towards him. “With what’s going on, it means a lot that you’re here. I know Elena appreciates it, too.” He glanced upwards again and nodded.

  “Today we put the remains of Elena, my wife, Jake’s mother, to rest. She was a good woman. A kind woman. I loved her from the moment I saw her. She had a spirit that was alive with life. Sometimes that spirit would get angry and then, well then you wanted to be across the county line.” At that, everyone laughed together.

  His voice turned serious again, “But mostly, that spirit filled my life up, and then made it overflow. She always used to say,” he choked up and paused, “that she was the pepper to my sauce. She always laughed when she said that. I think it meant more in either Romanian or Spanish, I never asked her. I would just laugh, too.” Those around him joined him in soft laughter and smiles. He paused to refocus.

  “She was also a good mother. Jake is a fine boy.” He turned his head downward to Jake, who looked back up at him, his eyes wet and his nose running. “Elena made that happen. She loved you so much, son.” Tears ran down Cooper’s face. Jake buried his face into Cooper’s side, sobbing.

  Cooper turned back toward his friends, “So, in her memory, I make two promises. One, I will do everything I can to protect my son so that she can live onward in him. I will raise him the best I can without her. Two, our home will become a living testament to her spirit, filled with her spirit and her generosity.” He took a step back.

  After a moment’s silence, others stepped forward to say a few words about Elena. They were all kind words, the kind most people reserved until someone was no longer able to hear them. But, Cooper’s mind had drifted off. When he looked up at the sky again, the crow was gone. He hadn’t cawed once during the funeral. Cooper nodded once to the empty space in appreciation.

  When everyone had finished, Cooper dumped a shovel of dirt on his wife’s covered body. The soil, as dark as midnight, looked incongruous lying on the floral-patterned blanket that covered her. He was about to hand the shovel to Dranko, when Jake’s hand shot out and stopped him, his grip surprisingly strong. His face was set firmly, tight-lipped and dry-eyed. He took the shovel from him, scooped up the cold, dark earth, and threw it across his mother’s body. He then gave it to Dranko and turned to go back inside their house. Cooper walked with him, following in astonishment.

  ******

  Cooper and Jake sat in contemplative silence at their kitchen table, Cooper drinking coffee and Jake a glass of water. When Dranko came in almost an hour later, he found them in the same state of torpor.

  The sound of him closing the door was a catalyst. Cooper shook his head back and forth, rousting the cobwebs from it.

  “OK, it is time to get organized. This thing might go on awhile and we’ve already seen far too much chaos for my taste.”

  Jake nodded in agreement. Cooper continued, “First, let’s get changed. Then, you can help me inventory all of our useful supplies—food, water, tools, sources of light, ways to cook if the electricity dies, weapons, heck, I’ll just make a list while you’re changing. After that, we can see what we might need to try and go find.”

  Jake left to go to his room and change. Cooper rose to do the same, but Dranko put his hand on his shoulder to stop him.

  “It is all getting worse. Much worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve seen it with your own eyes, brother. But, what I’ve heard will chill you to the bone. Some estimates are that half of our population has, or will come down with this thing. Most of those will die. I’ve heard about the full weight of our medical resources being deployed to try and research a cure. But, I know it’s moving too fast for that to matter much.

  Cooper interrupted out of frustration, “So, yes. This is all depressing, what’s your point?”

  Dranko resumed, “My point is, it’s not just the plague we have to worry about. We probably are immune or we’d have it by now. It’s the violence all over the place that matters. Think about it, you’ve been involved in two shootings the last two times you’ve left your home. You almost had another on your front lawn. It’s breaking down. You saw the funeral home too. You’ve not seen the police or other emergency services, have you? It’s coming apart at the seams.”

  Cooper met him with a steely gaze, “Where are you going with this?”

  “We need to leave the city.” Seeing Cooper’s quick reaction, he added, “At least for a little while. We can come back when things settle down.”

  “How dare you!” he hissed. “Her body is barely in the ground and you want me to leave her? Leave my home? No way.”

  “But, brother, it’s quickly becoming unsafe here.”

  “You always assume the worst is going to happen. Hell, we can organize burial crews to help bury anyone who isn’t. We can get organized and take care of what needs to be taken care of. We don’t need to run.”

  Dranko threw up his hands, “I’m not talking about running. I’m talking about relocating, just temporarily.”

  “No, I won’t do it. Jake’s been through enough already. I don’t want to take him from the only home he’s ever known. With your plan, we could come back and find this place burned down or ransacked. Besides, I can’t leave Elena behind.”

&nb
sp; Dranko caught him squarely in the eye and gripped his shoulders, “Elena’s dead, brother. Dead.”

  Cooper shoved him so hard that Dranko banged into the wall with a loud thud, and a picture frame crashed to the ground breaking. “You think I don’t know that? You think I’m denying reality? Damn you. It’s not that at all. I meant what I said out there. Her spirit resides here. I can see her all around me. There is a memory in every corner of this home.” He turned to the bookshelf behind him and grabbed the nearest object.

  “Here, you see this?” He held up an old-fashioned pepper grinder made of wood and adorned with a coat of arms made of metal, “We bought this at an antique store. I told her it was silly. Of course we never used the damn thing. Not once! But, she wanted it. Since that day, I’ve made a hundred jokes about her stupid pepper grinder she just had to have.” He turned to grab something else off the shelf, setting the grinder back on the shelf.

  Dranko stopped him, “I get it. I get it.”

  “No, you don’t. You can’t. It’s the same for my son. Her body might be dead, but we can stay connected to her by staying here. I won’t take him away from that. Life ain’t just about sucking air, this is what makes it all worth living for,” he waved his hands indicating the house about them.

  Dranko was silent for a moment, then upraised his hands, “OK, brother. I hear you. But, I have to warn you. I’m leaving. Tomorrow. I want you to come with me, but I can’t force you. I won’t wait any longer, either.” He turned and walked out. Cooper could hear his steady footfalls pounding the walkway all the way to the street. He listened to them fading away while rubbing his forehead with both hands in frustration.

  He turned to go upstairs to change and decided he needed a shower as well.

  Chapter 10

  By mid-afternoon, he and Jake had completed their inventory of the house and what they had on hand. He estimated that they had enough food to last almost three months, half that if the electricity went out and the freezer failed. Just one more advantage to being frugal and buying in bulk. His first calculations were off because he figured things based upon a three person household. It pained him to erase those numbers and recalculate them based upon only two people.

  His weapons included his Smith and Wesson pistol, an old revolver his father had given him, a Remington pump-action shotgun, a .22 caliber rifle, and a heavy caliber bolt action hunting rifle. He had some extra ammunition for all the weapons, except for the revolver. Given what he’d seen so far, Cooper kicked himself for not buying a military-style rifle with a higher capacity magazine that Dranko had recommended to him so many times. He had been shooting with Dranko many times using a couple of his. He’d always enjoyed shooting them, as they reminded him of his days in the Army. However, he had never bought one as some bill or another had always come up.

  They had a good supply of toiletries, first aid supplies, flashlights, and over the counter medicines.

  “What we’re short on,” he told Jake as they sat at the table surveying their list, “is water and more medical supplies in case one of us gets hurt.”

  “Water?” asked Jake.

  “Yes, water. With so many people sick, it’s possible the water supply could get interrupted. We need to store some here at the house, just in case.”

  “We could fill up the bathtub?” he suggested helpfully.

  “Great idea son. I also think we will buy some large garbage cans and fill those up with water too. Oh, and I just remembered something else!” he remarked in surprise.

  “What’s that?”

  “We need some good, solid hand tools. Most of what I have are all power tools. We need a good saw, hammer, and some other tools, if the electricity goes out. Let’s just do one trip to the hardware store. If we grab a couple more deluxe first aid kits, that would give us the additional medical supplies we need and everything else is there, too.”

  Twenty minutes later, they were in the GMC pickup heading towards the hardware store on Division Street. Cooper had not wanted to bring Jake along; it had become very dangerous on the streets. But, the look of terror that lit up his face when he’d suggested leaving him behind with Lisa convinced Cooper it was too soon after his mother’s death.

  Dranko had refused to answer his door when Cooper had knocked. Must still be irate with me. As a compromise, Mark Moretti was riding shotgun. Cooper did not want to venture anywhere without someone to back him up. Mark had been unarmed when he’d shown up at their house, so Cooper had given him the .38 special revolver. It only had six cartridges in the cylinder and no ammunition to reload. Cooper also knew the rounds were so old there was some question of whether they’d even fire. Mark had been shooting a few times in his life and Cooper reacquainted him quickly with the basics. Mark sat silently in the passenger seat, gazing out the window, and cradling the revolver in his lap. Cooper had a bad feeling about this trip. I’m taking Jake when I know I shouldn’t and my wingman is inexperienced and carrying an old, unsure weapon. But, he knew he hadn’t had any other options. As a compromise, he had forced Jake to ride along curled up on the floor.

  The streets were less deserted than yesterday. However, he soon wished they were. What he saw were frantic people, on the verge of panic. A crashed red Pontiac Grand Am lay where it had slammed into a telephone pole. Cooper reflexively reached down to cover Jake’s eyes when he saw the young driver slumped over the steering wheel, dried blood covering his face, dead. What the hell is going on with emergency services? Are any of them functioning? Cars were driving recklessly, barely obeying the lanes and flow of traffic.

  “Mark, keep a good eye out. I don’t like the looks of this.” Mark nodded.

  They drove on, slowly and carefully. Further down Division, they encountered a pile-up blocking the entire left lane of traffic. A silver Honda Civic had rear-ended a black Hummer H2 and was wedge halfway underneath it, lifting the Hummer off of its back two wheels. Cooper had no doubt that whoever was in that Civic lay crushed, dead. A brown Dodge minivan had then rear-ended the Civic collapsing most of the trunk into the backseat. He didn’t see anyone in the H2 or the minivan, but several doors lay flung open, either by the passengers or those who had passed by.

  Cooper slowed down to negotiate his way around the wreckage. Suddenly, a contorted, feverish face appeared in his window, grabbing a hold of his side view mirror.

  “They got medicine. They got a cure. Down near the waterfront! Please take me there!”

  He looked at the woman, only inches from his face, luckily shielded by the window. Her red hair was matted to her head, covered in sweat and filth. Her face glistened with tiny beads of sweat. Her mouth was a chasm of dirty, misaligned, and broken teeth. Her eyes were a faded blue but had the faraway look that always takes hold of the crazy or the delirious. Cooper didn’t have time to find out which, although he suspected the latter.

  With his right hand, he flashed the pistol out of its holster and stuck it against the window, pointing right at the woman’s face and shouted through the glass, “We’re not headed that way. Get off my pickup!”

  Through her mental fog, the woman slowly took in what had just happened. Suddenly, she let go of his car and stood in the middle of the road, giving him the double bird with both hands. He gunned the motor in response to quickly create some separation.

  Mark was breathing hard in the passenger seat, while Jake stared ahead. “Do you think it’s true? What she said,” Mark asked.

  Cooper burst out laughing. “Mark, I should put you and Dranko in a room together. You, the Optimist. Him, the Cynic. Put you two in a room and see what emerges! No, I don’t believe a word of it. She was a lunatic or she was delirious with fever.”

  Jake stirred, “I know.”

  “Know what?”

  “What would emerge from that room.”

  Cooper cocked an eyebrow, “Oh yeah, what then?”

  “You would, Dad.”

  Cooper and Mark laughed heartily at that.

  “I hope you’re rig
ht about that one, son.”

  When they pulled up next to the curb, in front of the hardware store, what they saw made their hearts sink into their stomachs.

  ******

  A handful of random tools lay scattered about the lawn, with an overturned red wheelbarrow squarely blocking the walkway to the front door.

  Cooper exhaled, “Oh my God!”

  Larry Nevins, the owner of the store was on the ground, partially concealed by the wheelbarrow and a hydrangea bush. His foppish white hair was streaked with red, with blood covering his face, and running downward and staining his white and blue-striped Western-style long sleeved shirt. He wasn’t moving.

  Cooper barked orders without thinking, “Mark, cover me. Larry is down, by the wheelbarrow. Jake, lie down on the floor and don’t get up until we tell you to.”

  With that, he was out of the pickup, pistol in hand, moving sideways so he could survey the store and get a better view of Larry before closing in. Through the hardware store bank of windows, he didn’t detect any movement. A fluorescent light was flickering on and off toward the far left side of the store. All of the windows were intact, and the entrance door was shut.

  “Keep an eye on those windows and the door. If you see anything move, anything at all, give a shout, but don’t fire,” he called out to Mark. He realized that from this range, with a revolver he wasn’t used to, Mark was more likely to hit him than any adversary. He just needed him to be the proverbial eyes in the back of his head.