Brushfire Plague Read online

  ******

  Later that night, he shut the door wearily in a budget motel room. This one looked like every other; a King-sized bed covered in a low-quality beige bedspread and darker brown blankets. The faded smell of stale cigarette smoke belied the fact that this was a “non-smoking” room. I wonder what they did with the $200 cleaning fee. Cooper knew they had not received their money’s worth. Or, maybe the manager just pocketed it. Down the hall, he could hear the harsh racket of the ice machine and the playful banter of children as a family checked in a few doors down.

  He kicked his black leather shoes off, put the suitcase onto the stand, and the briefcase onto the particle board desk. The hastily consumed dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes sat heavily on his stomach.

  He picked up the remote and turned on the TV. Absentmindedly he flipped through the channels. Sporting events. Infomercials. Crime dramas. Nothing caught his eye. It made him think of a line from a Springsteen song, “Fifty-seven channels and nothing on.” But, now he probably had over a hundred. Then, something did catch his eye.

  A beautiful woman was alive with passion debating a very well-dressed man on some talk show. The host sat between them. What drew his attention was the intense look on the woman’s face, the electricity in her voice, and the sweeping gesticulations she made with her hands. She looked like a restless animal and the seat was her cage that she wanted to be free of. This all caught his attention before he heard anything she was saying. The host interrupted her.

  “So, Ms. Wheeler, tell us what the biggest threat of global warming is?”

  She tossed her head in disdain, deep black hair cascading over her shoulders, “What isn’t at threat is the true question. Agriculture, water supplies, increasing spread of disease vectors…”

  A loud “harrumph” from the other guest broke her flow, “Come now. Here we go again, more liberal hysteria. Next, Ms. Wheeler will tell us that Santa Claus will be killed off because some warming of the polar ice caps!” The small audience roared with laughter at that.

  The woman, Ms. Wheeler, fumed, “I can assure you, Mister Lupacs, that your grandchildren won’t be laughing when they are sent off to fight a war over water or food supplies!” She infused the word “Mister” with an ample helping of mockery.

  The alarm on his cell phone went off just then. Time to call home. He turned off the TV and grabbed his cell phone.

  He speed-dialed home. When he was on the road, this was his favorite part of the day. The soft voice of his wife on the other end, telling him all the mundane details of her day. The rapid-fire, excited voice of Jake recounting the stories from the latest book he was reading or exhibitions of athletic prowess at school. Cooper soaked it all in. Given his own turbulent childhood, Cooper knew he had it good on the home front. This was something he was thankful for. He would relay a few episodes from his day to keep the conversation going. His real interest lay in keeping them both talking. After thirty minutes and a round of “I love you”, Cooper hung up the phone and turned back to the empty motel room. He grabbed a book on wilderness medicine that he was reading for their summer’s upcoming backpacking trips and settled in for the night.

  ******

  The next morning, he was out the door and at the local diner by six-thirty. The waitress, Louisa, was a portly woman with long dark hair, deep complexion, and one of those friendly faces that just made you smile every time you saw it. Cooper knew her from previous trips out to Redmond. Her father had been a migrant worker from Mexico and her mother hailed from the nearby Warm Springs Reservation. She brought him coffee without asking how he liked it. She knew; black and hot. She slid a copy of the morning newspaper over to him with her other hand.

  “Good morning, hombre,” she smiled.

  “Morning, Lou,” he said easing into a barstool at the counter. “How are the chickens doing this morning?”

  “Well enough to keep us fat and our veins filled with cholesterol.”

  “Excellent,” he smiled back, “I’ll take the Sicilian Omelet with a double helping of wheat toast then,” he said as he completed a variation of a constant theme of banter they had going for the past five years. He laughed to himself at the pretense of the “Sicilian Omelet” which was simply a Denver omelet dressed up in mozzarella instead of cheddar. But, he’d be damned if it didn’t taste just right. Cooper made it out to Redmond about every month or two, so he could make sure the hardware store here and in the four surrounding towns were stocked up and serviced well. By tonight, he would have finished those calls and made his way north, up toward Baker City.

  The blaring newspaper headline quickly wiped the smile from his face.

  Seattle Churchgoers Under Quarantine, 5 Dead

  With furrowed eyebrow, Cooper read the article intently. The dozen hospitalized yesterday had swelled to a hundred. Five were dead with a score more reported as seriously ill. The medical authorities were running a suite of tests and had no firm answer as to what it was. “It is clearly a fast-moving, contagious pathogen with a very short incubation period and a very high lethality rate,” Dr. David Zhao was quoted. “That could be helpful as it may help us prevent further infection,” as he tried to inject a note of optimism. The rest of the members of the congregation had been quarantined by Monday evening.

  Louisa saw him intently reading, “Probably just another swine flu or bird flu, or maybe a lizard flu scare this time,” she laughed heartily at her own joke.

  Cooper could only muster a lame smile, “I hope you’re right. Five out of twelve dead is pretty bad, though,” Cooper said as he shook his head slowly. He took a long pull of the reassuringly hot coffee.

  She smirked, “I think it’s all about selling newspapers and TV time. Dios mio! This morning the TV was talking about Seattle and a group of disembarked cruise goers’ in Florida who were coming down sick too,” she turned to put an order on the turnstile for the grill cook. Turning back toward him, “Of course, no one knows if it’s related or just another case of food poisoning on a cruise ship, but I could tell the anchorman was just hoping that they were related somehow. He was nearly salivating. Ratings pigs, that’s all they are.”

  Cooper put his coffee cup down, “Florida, huh? Well, it was probably some bad shrimp or some cook who didn’t wash his hands.”

  “Hey now, watch that buddy! Us cooks mind our hygiene,” bellowed Buck Floy, the line cook from behind the sizzling grill. “Except when we don’t like the customer’s attitude,” he smirked. Cooper couldn’t help but laugh when he proceeded to mock spitting into Cooper’s cooking omelet. Buck was physically an impressive man, over six feet tall and two hundred pounds of solid muscle. He had been a professional boxer for a short time and unlike most aging athletes, he maintained his conditioning. Blonde wisps of hair dangled down from underneath the mandatory chef’s hat and his dark green eyes shined with alertness.

  “No offense meant, Buck, none at all. You know me; I always save my offending for after I’ve been served my food.”

  Buck gave him a false glare, shoveled the omelet and hash browns onto a plate, and rang the bell, “Order up!”

  Cooper ate quickly. He had a forty-five minute drive to his next stop and liked to call on David Kirby at eight, when he opened. The three egg omelet was delicious. Cooper remembered the first time he’d ordered the Sicilian, about three years ago. He remembered marveling at how good it was and castigating himself for never having thrown some mozzarella on an omelet before. Cooper devoured the two slices of bacon, fat dripping hot off the side. Farm fresh and local. He never understood fellow business travelers on the road who would go to some chain restaurant when a local diner was available. Nothing beat the quality of local food that hadn’t been shipped halfway across the country. The hash browns, like usual, were just so-so, Buck’s method a little too mushy for Cooper’s taste. The sign over the grill proclaiming, “The Best Hash This Side of Idaho” kept Cooper from ever asking for a crispier helping. Cooper downed a second cup of coffee and got up
to pay his bill, leaving the newspaper behind for the next customer. He glanced at Buck, who was frantically preparing a slew of orders that had just come in, and stepped over to the register.

  “Well, Lou, time for me to run,” as he put his money on the counter.

  “OK, darling. We’ll see you the next time through. I promise to buy lots of hardware and tools I don’t need next payday just so we can get you out here sooner.” Her warm smile made the food taste even better.

  He waved goodbye to Buck, who dipped his head in recognition, but quickly returned to the busy grill in front of him.

  “Thanks. You do that! Jake keeps telling me he needs a new bike,” he retorted.

  It was the last time he would ever see her.

  ******

  A half hour into his drive, he was lost in thought. The sedan glided down the highway, too smoothly for his taste. He knew the car was the right one for his work and the amount of miles he put on. But, he missed his 1973 GMC pickup badly. He preferred the way its bumping and bucking forced you to pay attention to the task of driving and staying on the road. Yet, more fun off the road! The radio hummed in the background. Earlier, he had heard the local news and farm reports. Then, he’d switched over to a national news channel. Cooper was a man who liked to stay abreast of the news. From his father, he had ingrained the duty of citizenship like few Americans did nowadays. He couldn’t have counted for you the number of times his father had told him of the “blood spilled by our forefathers” so that we could have the freedom to read what we chose. He had considered it a betrayal of their sacrifice to not read and stay involved in the political lifeblood of the country. Yeah, the old man was one who belonged to an earlier era. I guess I do too.

  A light rain started to fall and Cooper flipped the wipers on; the steady click-snick-click rhythm adding to the monotony. Within minutes, the smell of fresh rain and slick asphalt filled the car and Cooper breathed it in, welcoming the change. He loved the smell of rain, which was reason enough for him to tolerate the long Northwest winters and the omnipresent dull gray.

  The news announcer’s voice from the radio slapped him across the face and brought him abruptly back to attention.

  “And, in a story we have been following closely since yesterday, there are more alarming reports coming out about the illness first reported in Seattle, Washington. As the toll rises, authorities remain unable to identify the pathogen responsible. Most likely, they say, it is a new virus, but they cannot substantiate that as of yet. So far, there are twenty-three dead in Seattle with another hundred hospitalized and over four hundred members of St. Andrews under quarantine. There are additional reports that several dozen others in Seattle have fallen ill with similar symptoms and are seeking medical attention. In Florida, Royal Caribbean has issued an emphatic statement that the vacationers were not infected by anything related to the ship’s operation. As you may recall, there are reports of hundreds of cruise goers from cities across the country falling ill from that trip. In New York City, we have received initial reports of hospitalizations, but no deaths, that appear related. The Centers for Disease Control has dispatched staff to all of the affected cities to directly assess the situation and assist in the investigation. In some good news related to this breaking story, many of those initially hospitalized in Seattle have recovered fully and are returning to their homes.

  In other news, China has demanded a high level meeting with US officials to discuss, ‘the future of relations between the two nations’…”

  Cooper’s mind drifted back toward the road. I hope this turns out to be just another flu-pandemic scare. We’ve had a spate of them the last few years. If it is one, it’s moving fast. That should mean it will end faster, right? Poor families. Maybe the kids have all recovered at least. They usually mention it when any children die. Since the day Jake was born, any news of others’ dying—especially children—affected him deeply.

  He shook his head to shed the morose thoughts and his fingers punched a button to bring him some music instead. AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” came screaming through the car’s speakers. He smiled, needing the distraction, turned up the volume, and allowed the screeching guitar to drown out the news’ alarms.

  “Living easy, lovin’ free. A seasoned drinker on a one way ride…”

  Chapter 2

  Later that night, Cooper’s world was thrown into disarray.

  “Hello?” Elena answered the phone, her voice deeper than normal.

  “Hi, honey. What’s the matter, you don’t sound so good?”

  “I just have a little sniffle. Just a sore throat and my nose is stuffed up a bit,” she replied.

  Cooper’s eyes sharpened their focus on the wall facing west toward home, despite the fact that he was in a dimly lit motel room a few hundred miles away. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m OK. I’m sure I will be better by morning. Crazy Eddie was taken to the hospital this morning though. Maryann called an ambulance and everything. Said he went from being normal to having a fever of a hundred and six within six hours.” Crazy Eddie lived across the street from them, in a red barn-styled home. He’d earned the nickname in his youth for how he rode on the motor cross circuit, but everyone still called him that. Truth be told, he enjoyed the nickname, especially now that it contrasted sharply with his comfortable job as an insurance salesman.

  “Really? Are you sure you’re OK? Do you have a temperature?”

  “No. Not the slightest. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  Cooper breathed a shallow sigh of relief, but his brow remained tight. “How’s Jake doing?”

  “He’s OK, nothing going on with him. I’m sure it’s just a late flu bug hitting. How was your day? Did that floozy Lou try to get you to sleep with her again,” she asked, reviving a long-running joke between the two of them that started when Cooper had returned from his first trip to Redmond five years ago telling her about this wonderful waitress he had met and how friendly she’d been.

  Cooper smiled, “Nah, we just did our business in the stockroom a few times. She doesn’t have to ask anymore, you know that.”

  “I see. Well, I’ll have to punish you for that when you get home, baby,” she cooed. Damn, my wife has the sexiest voice around.

  He turned his voice down an octave, “You do that. I dare you.”

  At that, she laughed. Then, she began coughing.

  Later that night, she called again. Sicker. And Cooper had raced for home.

  ******

  Minutes after he had fled the motel, the night bore down oppressively upon Cooper as he sped down the lonely highway. Scant moonlight pierced the heavy cloud cover. Save for the two-halogen headlights, Cooper felt like the dark would have swallowed him up—two tons of steel, glass, and plastic—without a hiccup or a moment’s warning. He kept the window cracked and welcomed the sharp sting of the cold night air whipping past his left cheek. He smelled wet juniper from the scattered trees littering the eastern Oregon semi-arid flatlands. His hands gripped the steering wheel with anxious tension. His eyes glared down the distant road as if they could grab the road like grappling hooks and pull the car faster down the asphalt.

  His mind raced through a jumble of thoughts and emotions. Despite the frequent denials, he could not shake the apprehension that Elena had this flu that seemed to be erupting across the nation. When he had first jumped into the car, he had quickly turned the radio on, seeking distraction from his troubled mind. That had been a colossal mistake.

  First, like a sledgehammer blow to the stomach, the announcer was recounting in detail a flurry of flu-like hospitalizations throughout Oregon, including his hometown of Portland. Thankfully, no deaths had been reported yet in Oregon, but the death count in Seattle had surpassed a hundred. Already, this flu was moving faster than any Cooper had ever heard of.

  Next, he called Dranko, a good friend who lived a few doors down.

  After just one ring, an alert voice answered, “Yeah?”

  “Dranko, it
’s me, Cooper. You up?” he asked in surprise.

  “Of course, brother. Haven’t you heard the news? I’ve been on the Net and the Ham for the past eighteen hours. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I’m seeing and hearing. Worse than the news. Didjya here they are calling it the Brushfire Plague?”

  “The Brushfire Plague? No, I hadn’t heard that yet. So, it’s moving fast?”

  “Fast would be an understatement. This thing is moving quicker than anything anyone has ever seen. Faster and deadlier. I told you something was coming and I think this is it.” Cooper heard the excitement in his voice. For years, Dranko had lived on the outskirts of the ‘tinfoil hat’ crowd, always alert for the next conspiracy to bring down civilization—or sometimes just America. The heady tone grated on him.

  “Damnit Dranko, let’s hold the ‘I told you so’ celebrations for next week. Elena’s sick, I need you to go check on her. I’m stuck two-three hours out at least, coming back from north of Redmond.”

  There was a short pause and a deep sigh on the other line, “I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard. A few other neighbors got it yesterday, but Elena seemed fine when I saw her. I’m on my way. I’ll check in and call you back in a few.”